Joseph: Hope for Troubled Times (2)
Scott Bayles, pastor
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 5/25/2014
Yesterday we held a funeral luncheon here at the church for Coy Weller’s brother, who passed away earlier this week. I want to thank Jami and everyone who helped out with that. It’s such a blessing to have a church family that will come along next to you during difficult times. Funerals are never fun, but they remind us that loss is a part of life.
Suffering, struggle, and sadness are experiences that are hardwired into the world. It’s something we all go through at various times to varying degrees.
ILL. It reminds me of an Army Chaplain who had a sign on his door that said, “If you have troubles, come in and tell me all about them. If you don’t have troubles, come in and tell me how you do it.”
We all have troubles, don’t we? Bad days happen to everyone. In fact, they come more often than we think we deserve and often last much longer than we think we can stand.
ILL. Hopefully you haven’t had a day as bad as the man who went in for physical and got a call from the doctor a couple of days later. The Doctor said that he had bad and worse news. "Give me the bad," the man asked. "Your tests showed that you had 48 hours to live," replied the doctor. Stunned, the man said, "That’s the bad news!? That’s the worst thing I have ever heard! How can there be worse news that that?" The doctor paused for a moment then replied, "Well, I’ve been trying to call you for 2 days now.”
I guess it doesn’t get much worse than that. If there’s one guy in the Bible who knows what it’s like to go from bad to worse, it’s Joseph. Last Sunday we looked at the beginning of Joseph’s bad day. It all started with his dreaming, which led to his brother’s despising him enough to throw him in an empty cistern and leave him for dead. But deliverance came disguised as a parade of traveling merchants who bought Joseph and took him to Egypt to sell as a slave. Those traveling traders may have saved his life, but they cost him his freedom.
Joseph was herded like cattle onto an auction block. He was prodded, poked and pored over by would-be buyers. The Bible tells us, “When Joseph was taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelite traders, he was purchased by Potiphar, an Egyptian officer. Potiphar was captain of the guard for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt” (Genesis 39:1 NLT). So Joseph goes from the pasture to the pit to a possession—a slave in a foreign country. Can you imagine anything worse? He couldn’t speak the language. He didn’t know the culture or customs. And now he’s the property of a puffed up police officer with a huge house and a wife with too much time on her hands. This is where we might expect Joseph to take a turn for the worse—spiraling into depression, bitterness, or debauchery. Instead what we find is the prosperity of Joseph.
• THE PROSPERITY OF JOSEPH
Against incredible odds, Joseph was able to rise above his circumstances. The Bible describes it like this:
The Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master. Potiphar noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did. This pleased Potiphar, so he soon made Joseph his personal attendant. He put him in charge of his entire household and everything he owned. From the day Joseph was put in charge of his master’s household and property, the Lord began to bless Potiphar’s household for Joseph’s sake. All his household affairs ran smoothly, and his crops and livestock flourished. So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn’t worry about a thing—except what kind of food to eat! (Genesis 39:2-6 NLT)
In verse one, Joseph arrived in Egypt with nothing but the torn clothes on his back, but by the end of verse four, he’s running the whole show for the man who runs security for Pharaoh. You’ve heard the phrase, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Joseph not only made lemonade, he opened a juice-bar and made fortune selling lemon shakeups. How do we explain this uncanny ability to overcome adversity?
Simple: “The Lord was with Joseph…” (Genesis 39:2).
In case we missed it the first time, this chapter repeats those same words four times—twice in the beginning of the chapter and twice at the end. The Lord was with Joseph. You know what? He’s with you, too.
Maybe you’re experiencing your own version of Egypt. Maybe you’re wrestling with some kind of adversity, abandonment, or abuse. One of the reasons I think God allows bad things to happen is that they often make us more open to God. When you hit rock bottom and you’ve got no job, no money, no friends—what do you have left? God.
It doesn’t matter where you go or what you’re going through—God is there. The Bible says, “He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27). I want you to envision your schedule for the next week. Where will you find yourself? School? He resides in every classroom. The highway? He takes up both lanes. The family farm? His presence fills the fields. Wherever you go, whatever else happens, the Lord is with you. He can help you to triumph over your own tragedy.
The difference between Joseph and the majority of us is that Joseph knew the Lord was with him. There will be times when you don’t sense God’s presence, but he’s always there: “in him we live and move and exist,” the Bible says. Can you imagine living minute by minute in God’s presence?
ILL. Many years ago a man set out to do just that. His name was Frank Laughback and he was a busy man. Laubach authored several books, and traveled all over the world speaking on the topics of literacy and world peace. In a letter he sent to a friend he wrote: “Can we have contact with God all the time? All the time awake? Fall asleep in his arms and awake in his presence? I choose to make the rest of my life an experiment in answering this question.” He documented his experience in his journal, and several months into the experiment, he writes this: “This concentration upon God is strenuous, but everything else has ceased to be so. I think more clearly. I forget less frequently. Things which I did with a strain before I now do easily and with no effort whatsoever. I worry about nothing. I lose no sleep. I walk on air a good part of the time… nothing can go wrong except one thing, and that is that God might slip from my mind.”
Joseph didn’t have a magical touch that made everything he put his hand to turn to gold. He was simply living a God-intoxicated life. Joseph knew that the Lord was with him and he lived like it. That’s how he overcame adversity. That’s how he succeeded in everything he did. He’s with you too, you just have to live like it. That brings us to the purity of Joseph.
• THE PURITY OF JOSEPH
A side-effect of knowing God is with you and living in his presence is living a life of integrity and purity. That’s what Joseph did. Even though others used and abused him, Joseph maintained his integrity. It was put to the test.
The Bible says, “Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man, and Potiphar’s wife soon began to look at him lustfully. ‘Come and sleep with me,’ she demanded.” (Genesis 39:6-7 NLT).
“Day after day” (vs. 10), she flirted with him, hit on him, toyed with him, and attempted to seduce him. Joseph could have given in. Why not? After all, she was married to his master and isn’t a slave supposed to do whatever his owners demand? His nights were lonely. His family rejected him. His was far from home. Far from friends. Joseph could have rationalized a few fleeting moments in the arms of an attractive, willing lover.
That’s what we often do, isn’t it? Rationalize. We all face temptation. It may come when you’re in the pit. It might come when you’re in the palace. And many times, we rationalize. The internet provides pornography, a classmate provides a cheat sheet, the bar provides beer, the credit card provides comfort, and we provide the excuses: It won’t hurt anybody. No one will find out. Just one won’t hurt. I’ll just look, but I won’t touch. I deserve this. The Bible says, “For a harlot is a deep pit, and a seductress is a narrow well” (Proverbs 23:27 NKJV). You don’t get out of one pit, by climbing into another. You don’t fix a struggling marriage with an affair, you don’t improve your sex life with pornography, or fix a drug problem with more drugs, a drinking problem with more alcohol, or debt with more debt. Joseph understood that.
I want you to listen to his response: “Look, my master trusts me with everything in his entire household. No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God” (Genesis 39:8-9 NLT).
Even if no else ever found out, God would know. Joseph cared more about pleasing God than satisfying his own urges or those of his mistress. The Bible goes on to say, “He refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible” (Genesis 39:10 NLT). When she called, he didn’t answer. When she texted, he didn’t respond. When she entered the room, he exited it. He avoided her like the poison she was. That’s how you handle temptation; avoid it as much as possible.
The Bible says, “Do what is right as a sacrifice to the Lord and trust the Lord” (Psalm 4:5 NCV). That’s what Joseph did. Unfortunately, doing what’s right doesn’t guarantee a life free from suffering. That brings us to the punishment of Joseph.
• THE PUNISHMENT OF JOSEPH
There’s an old adage—No good deed goes unpunished. That’s a rather bleak view of the world, but in Joseph’s case it turned out to be true.
When Mrs. Potiphar couldn’t flirt her way into Joseph’s pants, she tried to force her way in. The Bible says “One day, however, no one else was around when he went in to do his work. She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, ‘Come on, sleep with me!’ Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house” (Genesis 39:11-12 NLT).
Scorned and rejected, her flirtation turned to fury. She was hurt and now she was going to hurt Joseph back. When she looked down at the cloak in her hands, a plan immediately formed. She screamed and soon all the servants came running. She said, “Look! My husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us! He came into my room to rape me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream, he ran outside and got away, but he left his cloak behind with me.” (Genesis 39:14-15 NLT).
She told the same story to her husband when he arrived home and Potiphar was furious. So he grabbed Joseph by the scruff of the neck and threw him into the royal prison. Joseph did the right thing. He deserved a metal; he got a cell. Joseph suffered for doing the right thing. Maybe you can identify.
The truth is—doing the right thing can be very unpopular at times.
ILL. I once heard the story of a railway gatekeeper who, one very cold night required every passenger to show his ticket before passing through to the train. With everyone standing in line, cold and uncomfortable, there was a lot of grumbling and complaining. As one of the passengers held out his ticket, he said, “You are a very unpopular man tonight.” The gatekeeper replied, “I only care to be popular with one man, and that is the superintendent.”
Likewise, Joseph only cared to be popular with one man, and that was God. We need to remember—especially when we’re down and out—that we don’t do the right thing because it’s easy or because it’s popular. We do it, because it’s right. Peter knew something about that when he wrote: “But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it” (1 Peter 3:14 NIV).
Joseph may have left his cloak behind, but he kept his character. Of course, the best part of this story is that this isn’t the end of the story. The Bible says, “But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love” (Genesis 39:21 NLT).
Conclusion:
Next Sunday, we’ll see what happens in prison. But in the meantime, I want to urge you to follow in Joseph’s footstep. No matter what you are going through, even if you’re walking through the valley of the shadow of death, the Lord is with you. Practice his presence. Practice purity and integrity, even when no one has shown you the same consideration. And don’t worry about being punished for doing the right thing, because in the end, God will reward you for it and his love if faithful.
Invitation:
Maybe you’ve been living like God isn’t around. Perhaps you’ve made some immoral choices and you need to get right with God. I want to invite you to do that today. He’s ready to forgive you with the same open arms that Joseph extended to his brothers. While we stand and sing, I want you to stand and pray. Here’s right here, just open your heart and talk to him as we sing.
