Pastor Allan Kircher
Shell Point Baptist Church
Jan 19th, 2014
Genesis 40:1-41:1
FORGOTTEN, BUT NOT FORSAKEN
Intro:
• Text finds Joseph/midst/great trial of faith.
• mistreated, misrepresented, falsely accused/imprisoned
• Midst of it all Joseph remained patient
• Kept his testimony intact.
• He did not see himself as a victim, but as a victor waiting for his liberty!
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Brief glimpse/Joseph’s life reveals/trials he/called upon to endure.
• treated unfairly by his own brothers/sold into slavery
• became a slave in a foreign land
• Falsely accused of attempted rape and imprisoned.
• Through it all, he refused to be a victim.
Writer Gen records/Gen. 39:21-23, “The Lord was with Joseph!”
• Truth alone made/prison bearable for Joseph.
• I want to join Joseph in his prison today.
• His experiences/needed lessons/people/Lord.
This passage finds Joseph:
• shut up, shut down/shut off, but still serving the Lord
• in a prison of pain and suffering
• enduring for the Lord
In that prison he was forgotten by many, but Joseph was not forsaken by the Lord.
• Path/life leads us into prison situations/time to time.
• We all face hardships and trials.
• That is the way of life, John 16:33.
Sometime we feel like/shut up, shut down/shut off too.
• We feel we are forgotten in that prison.
• Many times we are forgotten by those around us.
• man may forget us/prisons of life
• Lord never forgets
• He refuses to forsake us while we are there, Heb. 13:5.
Let’s join Joseph in the prison and glean the lessons that are revealed in these verses.
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I. v. 1-4 PRISON DUTIES
While Joseph waits/prison, he receives some company.
• Two men, former highly placed servants of Pharaoh
• Thrown into the prison with Joseph
• Pharaoh’s butler and his baker
Butler “cupbearer” and baker duties…..
• Taste the food/close to the rulers
• Privy to royal secrets/highly trusted.
• Ill. Nehemiah.
Apparently, there had been a problem with Pharaoh’s food and these men are in trouble.
• Cast out of their positions/locked up in prison.
• When these men get to prison
• Receive preferential treatment.
• Treated like the celebrities of our day.
• Have a servant assigned to minister to their needs.
• Joseph/handpicked/servant while they are there.
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Surface/seemed/just another assignment given to a slave/prison.
• reality/providence/sovereign God at work in Joseph’s life.
God/brought Joseph face to face/man God would later use to secure Joseph’s release from prison.
• Never discount the seemingly small twists/turns/life.
• Some people would have said
• “Oh well, just another job poor old Joseph take care of.”
What no one could see was how God would use this small matter in a great way down the road.
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The same is true in your life and mine.
• Never discount the small moves of life.
• “chance” encounter may just be the meeting of lifetime
What we see as an “accident” or as “coincidence” is really God at work in your life in a great way.
• God orders the minute details of our lives!
• There are no accidents with Him!
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II. v. 5-19 PRISON DREAMS
One morning Joseph checks on his charges/they are both sad.
• Tell him/dreamed dreams/can’t figure out/mean
• Joseph hears about them dreaming
• must have made his mind go back/own dreams, Gen. 37
• His dreams/looked as though they had been derailed
• Least delayed for the time being.
• Joseph encourages them, to tell him the dreams
• He knows the God Who can give them the interpretation.
Butler tells Joseph dream/favorable interpretation
Baker hears good interpretation/His interpretation is not so good
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• Put yourself in Joseph’s place today
• Given/dream from/Lord/going to rule someday
• His dream has yet to be fulfilled.
• In fact, from/appearances, Joseph’s dreams/been shattered.
• What does Joseph do?
Does he get angry and give up on the Lord? Does he say, “I’m finished with all this dreaming! Just leave me alone!”?
• Joseph finds himself/one/waiting rooms/life
• Does not lose grip/dreams or God Who gave them/him.
• Joseph/actively looking for ways to glorify God while he waits in that prison, v. 8.
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What a lesson for the redeemed today!
There are going/times:
• seems like God/forgotten all about you
• seems your dreams have been derailed too
• When you find yourself in one/waiting rooms of life.
What you do/waiting room/a lot to do Lord will do for you later.
Our duty/prisons of life/actively seek ways to glorify Him, 1 Cor. 10:31.
• Our circumstances might be bad, but our God is good
• Need to learn how to glorify Him when the sun is shining and when the rain is falling.
• Look for ways to point others to Him even though our own hearts are breaking!
If He/God/mountain, He/also God/valley, or He is God of neither.
He is God and we need to glorify Him as God in spite of what we face in life, 1 Thes. 5:16-18; Phil. 4:4.
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III. V. 6-7 PRISON DEMEANORS
• Joseph went about his duties
• he saw that these two fellows were sad
• I can understand their sadness, can’t you?
• They been removed/prestigious position/cast into prison.
• Only there because Pharaoh is mad at them.
• They are short timers! They will be getting out soon.
Joseph, on the other hand, is there to stay, as far as he is concerned.
• Yet, he is not sad.
• In fact, he is concerned about their attitude
• He reaches out to help them through their prison experience.
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What a lesson that is for us!
Isn’t it true:
• Most of us can see no further/our own need?
• when we are in a prison in our lives
We really don’t have time/worried about/needs/others because all we can think about is how bad we hurt?
o Most of us are pretty self-centered when it comes to dealing with our burdens and problems?
Did you know that an attitude like that is not what the Lord wants from His people?
He wants us:
o lose ourselves in the needs of others, Phil. 2:4
o look around for someone we can help, Gal. 6:1-2
o To be like Jesus Who willingly laid down His life so that others might get help!
That’s not easy, but it is biblical!
Fact is, when you/I get our eyes off self and all its pains, needs and problems, and set our heart about the business of helping someone else, we will find that our own load gets lighter!
Lord wants us to be a blessing, even when we are in the prison!
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There is another lesson here that we do not want to miss.
• Joseph may be in a prison. His dreams seem/shattered
• Seem that he is in that prison to stay.
• Joseph still had joy! That is an amazing example!
Most people/no problem being joyous when they have no burden.
Most folks/praise Lord/laugh/smile/joyful when their need is met.
Takes someone filled/genuine faith/praise/Lord when the bottom falls out of life.
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• Joseph is in prison, but he is happy. Why?
• He is serving the Lord and the Lord is blessing him.
• Blessing him in the prison! Absolutely!
• Look again at Gen. 39:21-23.
Anybody can praise/Lord/be filled with joy when everything is going their way.
• When the bills are paid/everyone is healthy
• there are no problems, it is easy to say
• “Hallelujah! Glory to God!”
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When you can:
• Praise the Lord and testify to His grace and goodness, even when your heart is broken, you are getting somewhere in your faith!
When you can:
• Shout and bless His name in spite of and in the midst of your pain and heartache, it glorifies Him!
• Most folks aren’t even good for a holy grunt anymore!
• Most of us are like the butler and the baker!
• We wear around a sad face and a gloomy countenance. What a poor advertisement we are of the living Lord.
• You say you are happy in Jesus and have joy in your heart? Then, how about notifying your face!
• It hasn’t got the memo!
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Give us more people like Job who could praise and worship the Lord in midst of extreme hardship, Job 1:20-21.
Give us more people like Abraham who went to offer up his son Isaac and called it worship, Gen. 22:5.
God give us more people who know that He is just as much God in the storm as He is in the sunny day!
Give us people who will worship/praise Him in spite of everything!
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IV. V. 20-41:1 PRISON DISAPPOINTMENTS
The dreams/butler/baker fulfilled just Joseph said they would.
• Butler/restored/office/baker/executed/Pharaoh
• Joseph had asked the butler to remember him
• But, we are told, the man “forgot him”
• Surely this must have broken Joseph’s heart.
I can imagine Joseph heading to his cell when the butler was released, thinking, “I’d better pack!
That man will tell Pharaoh about me and about this miscarriage of justice…
Every time the prison door opened….. But,butler “forgot him”.
• Days turned into weeks; weeks into months
• Months into two long years, Gen. 41:1.
• All the while Joseph is still in his prison, disappointed
• but waiting on God to move in his time.
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This prison disappointment served/teach Joseph two valuable lessons. Lessons we need to learn as well.
1. Never put confidence in man
• He tried to get help from human sources, but it failed.
• The fact is, there is no real help in man.
• Our only help comes from the Lord.
• He may use humans as His instruments, but behind the provision is the hand of the Almighty – Psa. 121:1-8!
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2. Joseph learned once again/God’s unseen hand moves us along a hidden pathway
• He would like to have been freed long before he was.
• But, it wasn’t God’s time!
• When the time came, Joseph was released and not a minute before.
• We need to learn this truth:
• Our God is seldom early, but He is never late!
• He always moves right on time!
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Conc: This is a bad place to leave our hero. He has done the right things every time he had a chance and still he suffers for “righteousness sake”.
• There he stands falsely accused, wrongly imprisoned
• Now, he is also forgotten.
• Joseph cannot see it
• But the wheels of providence are slowly advancing.
God is slowly but surely lining up everything in Joseph’s life just the way it needs to be.
Soon the plans and purposes of God will become crystal clear!
• The same is true in your life as well.
Some of you are looking at disappointments and discouragements and you do not know how to handle them.
• Best thing you can do is bring them to the Lord
• learn to leave them in His capable hand
• Ask Him for the joy and grace you need to survive in the prisons of life.
• There is help for you in the Lord!
You might feel forgotten, but I hope you know that you will never be forsaken by Him!
