Title: Joseph-The Waiting Room
Date: 11/26/17
Place: BLCC
Text: Genesis 39-41
CT: The wait for God is worth it.
Dan McConchie, vice president of government affairs at Americans United for Life, was riding his motorcycle through a suburban intersection when a car came into his lane and pushed him into on-coming traffic. When he woke two weeks later in a Level 1 trauma center, he was a mess. Six broken ribs; deflated left lung, broken clavicle, broken shoulder blade, and five broken vertebrae. Worst of all, amidst all the broken bones, he had a spinal-cord injury that left him a paraplegic. The neurosurgeon told his wife that it would be a "miracle" if he'd ever walk again.
Eight years later Dan is still in a wheelchair.
"What I learned," Dan said, "is that this life isn't for our comfort. Instead, the purpose of this life is that we become conformed to the image of Christ. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen when everything is unicorns and rainbows. It instead happens when life is tough, when we are forced to rely upon God through prayer just to make it through the day. That is when he is most at work in our lives molding us into who he designed us to be."
"My prayers are different today than they were eight years ago. Back then, I looked at God like Santa Claus. I asked him to send nice things my way. Now, I have one prayer that I pray more than any other: 'Lord, may I be able to say at the end of today that I was faithful.'"
Van Morris, Mt. Washington, Kentucky; source; Dan McConchie,"Prayer and Faith in the Midst of Personal Tragedy," Washington Times (3-22-16)
God is there in all our times. We just may realize it more in the bad times. We need to open up and let God have control in all times, good or bad. Waiting on God is a good thing.
So here I sit in the waiting room. The receptionist took my name and recorded my insurance data.
She said, “Please have a seat. We will call you when the doctor is ready to see you.”
I look around. A mother holds a sleeping baby. A farmer looking fellow is looking at a hunting magazine. A lady with a newspaper looks at her watch, gives a big sigh, and continues the task of the hour: waiting.
The waiting room. Not the examination room. That is in the back. Not the consultation room. It is on the other side. Not the treatment room. Exams, consultations and treatments all come at a later time.
The job at hand is the name of the room: the waiting room. We in the waiting room understand our assignment: to wait.
We don’t treat each other. I don’t ask the nurse for a thermometer or a stethoscope. I don’t ask the farmer what medicines he is taking. That is not my job. That is the job of the nurse. My job here is to wait. So that is what I do.
Can’t really say I enjoy waiting. Times moves like frozen oil being poured in a tractor. The clock appears to not be moving at all. Life in slo-motion. We don’t like to wait. We are a get it going generation. We weave in and out of traffic trying to find the fastest lane. We fuss when our phone is slow or the computer fails to download something instantly. We drum our fingers while we wait for a honeybun to heat up in the microwave.
We say, “Come on. Hurry up. I got things to do and places to be”.
We want six pack abs in ten minutes and minute rice in 30 seconds. We don’t like to wait. Not on the doctor. Not on traffic. Not on pizza.
Not On God?
Take a moment and look around you. Do you realize where you are? This planet is God’s waiting room.
The young man over in the corner waiting to grow up and get away from his parents.
The young wife, waiting to get pregnant. They have been trying for so long.
The man sitting there, waiting for a call about a job. He has sent resumes to all kinds of places.
The older lady with the cane. A widow. Been waiting for someone to come by and stop her crying.
Waiting. Waiting on God to give, to heal, to help. Waiting on God to come. We dwell in the land between prayer offered and prayer answered. The land of waiting.
If anyone knew about what God’s waiting room looks like it would be Joseph. He spent a lot of time waiting on God. The problem with reading Joseph’s story for us is it takes less than an hour to read. This gives the impression that all of Joseph’s trials and struggles too took place one morning before lunch. We’d be wiser to space out our reading over a couple of decades to get a real feel of how long it took.
Look at genesis 37 where Joseph ends up in a cistern. Sit there in the hot sun waiting for them to get him out. You will get hot.
Recite the first verse of 39. Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt.
Repeat this for a couple of months. That is how long it would have taken for Joseph to walk the 750 miles to Egypt.
After he arrived he spent a day or days on the auction block.
Add to your time a decade, ten years, in Potiphar’s house, supervising the servants and doing the masters will. He learned all about being with the Egyptians.
Tick tock tick tock. Time goes slowly when you are in foreign territory and serving someone else’s dreams.
Then Mrs. Potiphar sets him up. We talked about that last week. He is put in prison.
And time stands still in prison.
Genesis 39.23, The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.
But Joseph did well while in prison. The cupbearer and the baker of the king were put under the care of Joseph. They both had dreams that disturbed them. So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. He said to him, “In my dream I saw a vine in front of me, and on the vine were three branches. As soon as it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters ripened into grapes. Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup and put the cup in his hand.”
“This is what it means,” Joseph said to him. “The three branches are three days. Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.”
Well the baker had a dream as well but his didn’t turn out as well. The baker would be impaled. The dreams came true. Pharaoh did reinstate the cupbearer but he also impaled the baker. Joseph had been correct on the interpretation of both dreams.
Genesis 40.14, The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.
Joseph had asked the cupbearer to put in a good word for him. “But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison.”
The cupbearer was very grateful and surely told Joseph he would be hearing from him in the very near future.
Can’t you imagine Joseph running back to his cell to get his things in order and collecting all his belongings? He wanted to be ready when the call from Pharaoh came. A day passed. Then two. Then a week…Six months. The cupbearer had forgotten about Joseph.
It was two years before Pharaoh was told about Joseph by the cupbearer.
Twenty four months.
One hundred and four weeks of more waiting for Joseph.
Seven hundred and ninety days of wondering.
Seventeen thousand five hundred and twenty hours of listening for God yet hearing nothing but silence.
Plenty of time to grow bitter and angry. Folks have given up on God for a lot less.
Not Joseph. On a day, two years later, that began like any other he heard a stirring at the dungeon entrance. Loud demanding voices hollered, “We are here for the Hebrew. Pharaoh wants the Hebrew”.
They escorted him to another room where attendants flocked around him. They removed his soiled clothing, washed his body and shaved his beard. They dressed him in a white rob and some new sandals. The guards then reappeared and walked into the throne room.
Here was Joseph eye to eye with Pharaoh for the first time. Was the wait over finally?
Pharaoh hadn’t slept well the night before. He had dreams that were troubling him. He asked Joseph if he could interpret his dreams. Joseph’s last two encounters hadn’t ended so well. Mrs. Potiphar lied about him and the cupbearer had forgotten about him. In both cases Joseph had mentioned God. Perhaps he should leave God out of it this time…
He didn’t. Instead he says in Genesis 41.16, “I cannot do it,” Joseph replied to Pharaoh, “but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.”
Joseph emerged from prison still bragging on God. Prison had not shook his faith.
And you? You aren’t in prison this morning but you may be infertile or inactive or in limbo or in between jobs or in search of health, help, a house, or a spouse. Are you in God’s waiting room? If you are there is something you need to know.
While you wait God works. John 5.17, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working”
God never stops. He takes no vacations. He rested on the seventh day but has worked for you ever since. Just because you are idle don’t think God is.
Joseph seemed to be done in Chapter 40. Our hero was at the bottom. The train was off the tracks. Joseph was in a stand still in prison. But while Joseph was waiting God was working. God placed the cupbearer into place under Joseph’s care. He stirred the sleep of Pharaoh with some crazy dreams. He had the counselors of Pharaoh so confused they could not do anything. And at just the right time God called Joseph to do his part.
God is working for you as well.
“Be still and know that I am God” Psalm 46.10.
That is the sign on God’s waiting room. You can be glad because God is good. You can be still because He is active. You can rest because He is busy.
Remember God’s word through Moses o the Israelites. Exodus 14.13-14, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
The Israelites saw the Red sea ahead of them and heard the Egyptian soldiers behind them thundering toward them. Death either way. Stand still? Are you kidding? But what they didn’t see was God’s hand at the bottom of the sea creating a path and His breath from heaven clearing a path for them. God was working for them.
God also worked for Mary, the mother of Jesus. The angel told her she would become pregnant. The announcement stirred a bunch of questions in her heart. How did she become pregnant? She had not known anyone. What would people think? What would her husband to be say? Yet God was working for her. He sent a message to Joseph her fiancé. God prompted Caesar to declare a census. God led the family to Bethlehem.
Romans 8.28, And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
To wait biblically speaking is not to assume the worst, worry, fret or make demands. Nor is waiting inactivity. Waiting is a sustained effort to stay focused on God through prayer and belief. To wait is to “rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Psalm 37.7.
Waiting is easier read than done. It doesn’t come easy for me. I am always in a hurry to get everything done. I am always under pressure to be on time. The problem is most of the time it is really not needed. I need to take a real Sabbath. To slow life down to a crawl for twenty-four hours. The Sabbath was created for frantic souls like me, people who need to be reminded that the world will not stop if you do.
Keith Maines shared this story. My wife's aunt Gladys has always had a little apple orchard at her home. But this year when we paid her a visit, I couldn't help but notice the huge harvest of apples. The branches hung heavy, and some were cracking with the weight of abundance. Never, in many years, had anyone seen such a harvest.
When I asked her why, she told me that last year there was a late frost in the spring, and all the buds froze. When that happens, Gladys said, an apple tree does a miraculous thing: It stores up its energy in thousands of small bumps, or nodules, called scions (pronounced "see-ons"). All that energy pulsates through that network of scions until the spring of the following year, and then, BAM! You have an exploding riot of buds, as an apple tree unleashes all that stored up energy.
Gladys' description made me think about our spiritual lives. Sometimes the harsh frosts of this life—cancer, divorce, bankruptcy, trauma, grief, depression—cause our hearts to freeze. But at the core of the Christian faith we also live with an incredible promise: in and through Christ, there will be an abundant harvest in our lives. God's power is pulsating under the gnarly bark of this world and even our bodies.
1 Peter 1.3-4, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,
In Christ, we are being formed into a small nodule of living hope. During certain seasons of our life we feel our hearts waiting, longing, and even aching for those frozen places to burst into life. Our living hope is that one day, all of this stored up glory will be unleashed in a joyful riot of splendor.
Keith Mannes, Highland Church, McBain, Michigan
God will eventually end our waiting and come through for us. The question we need to ask is this. What if you give up? Walk away and lose your faith?
Don’t. For heaven’s sake don’t give up. All of heaven is pulling for you. Above and around in every instant, God’s messengers are at work.
Keep waiting.
Isaiah 40.31, but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Fresh strength.
Renewed vigor.
Legs that do not grow weary. Delight yourself in God and he will bring rest to your soul.
You’ll get through this waiting room season just fine.
Take note. The doctor will step out of his office and take the seat next to yours and say, “Just thought I would keep you company while you are waiting”.
Not every physician will do that, but yours will. After all he is the Great Physician.
Won’t you come forward today? Be prepared for the end of waiting. Be baptized and have the Spirit of God in you.
Bibliography: Lucado, Max; You’ll Get Through This, Chapter 6, Thomas Nelson, Nashville TN, 2013
