It’s Time To Get Up—Joseph Got Up Part 2
7/28/2020 Genesis 39:1-10 Colossians 3:1-14
Last week, we looked at how Joseph’s family was really messed up. It was a home being torn apart by favoritism, privilege, anger, resentment and jealousy. Joseph had 11 other brothers. Joseph was his father’s favorite son, and he was the second youngest. One day His father Jacob had become worried about his ten sons who were missing and sent Joseph after them to make sure they were safe. Joseph went after them wearing his famous mutli-colored robe
On his way there, the brothers saw Joseph, and because of their bitterness and hatred, they decided to kill Joseph by throwing him into a pit. Joseph had no idea that his brothers wanted to kill him, and was shocked when they threw him into the pit. He begged and pleaded with them to get him out of the pit.
We ended last week’s message with his brothers seeing a caravan heading to Egypt. Judah came up with the idea, “Why kill our brother and get nothing for it. Why not sell him and make some money on the side. After all, he is our brother.” 9 of the brothers agree to this plan. For some reason, Reuben the oldest had gone somewhere and missed out on this scheme.
One of them no doubt yells, down. “we’re throwing a rope down to you, we’re going to get you out of there.”
They begin to help Joseph out of the pit. Joseph thinks this cruel joke they have played on him is over, little does he know just how bad things are about to get. He’s probably thinking, “when I get home and tell our father what you did, you’re really going to be in big trouble.”
His brothers dust him off, not to help him but to get a better deal from the slave traders. When Joseph realizes that he’s being sold as a slave, he begs and pleads for his life, but all his efforts fall on deaf ears. His hands are tied. He’s led away like an animal, having to walk many, many miles to Egypt.
I wonder how long did the brothers look at the caravan after they had sold him.
The oldest brother Rueben showed back up, thinking he would rescue Joseph out of the pit and give him back to his father. He’s shocked to learn what the other brothers had done. Now they have to get their lie straight to go back to their father. They take Joseph’s multi-colored coat. They rip it.
They slaughter a goat, a pour some blood over it. They take the robe to their father and say, “We found this. Examine this, and see whether or not if it is your son’s robe. Jacob cries out, “Oh my son Joseph has been torn apart by some wild animal.” Jacob tears his clothes, indicative of his grief.
For many days he mourns for his son whom he believes to be dead. His other children try to comfort him, but he refuses their comfort. This becomes the secret of Joseph’s 10 brothers. “We sold our brother as a slave.”
I wonder, was it Joseph they wanted to hurt because they were jealous of him or was it their father they really wanted to hurt because of his showing favoritism. When we do things in anger, more people get hurt than we intended.
Joseph is betrayed by those who knew him best. He’s betrayed by the very people whom he had gone looking for to make sure they were okay. You may know what’s its like to have been betrayed by someone very close to you.
Sometimes you don’t know whether you need to cry or just rage out in anger. Family betrayals happen all the time in all kinds of situations. We have sexual abuse taking place in our homes. We have family members stealing from us.
We discover those we trusted have been lying to us all along. What do you do with the anger and frustration left behind? Sometimes you even are tempted to blame yourself. “I should have seen this coming. I should have known what was going on.”
We have a Savior whose name is Jesus, who deals with betrayals all the time. There was a time when 12 men had agreed to stand by his side no matter what.’ 12 men that he loved, taught and ate with. But when he was finally arrested, he was arrested alone. When he was beaten, he was beaten alone. When he was nailed to the cross, he was nailed there alone.
There is something about our walk with God that is going to require a certain amount of suffering in it. During that time we will have to journey alone in order for God to use us in a powerful way. Anybody that was watching Joseph being led away to Egypt in chains would have thought, “that’s the last we will hear about that boy. It’s over for him.”
If anyone had of seen Jesus as Jesus stumbled and fell trying to carry his cross, and if they had seen him hanging on the cross with nails in his hands and a nail through his feet, they too would have said, “that’s the last we will hear about that boy. It’s over for him.”
I want you to know, our lives are not determined, by where we are today, but rather by what God plans for us tomorrow. You may be in the middle of a betrayal situation, but know that God is not going to leave you there, and that God is still with you.
Now think about this. Joseph had risked his life to go and find his brothers. Now as a slave, he’s probably, being beaten by people whose language he does not understand. His feet are blistering in the hot desert sand as he was walking to Africa.
The life of comfort with the multicolored coat, he once knew is gone. His chances of seeing his father and his little brother, the two people in the world he really loved are gone. They even believe he is dead. Egypt is in the opposite direction of where he wants to be going.
His own brothers had sold him to slavery. He was 17 years old and now alone in the world. Where was he to start in trying to forgive his brothers? Should he even want to forgive his brothers?
His brothers had set out to get revenge on Joseph for things Joseph had no real control over. It was not Joseph’s fault that his father Jacob loved Rachael more than he did the other 3 women. Joseph had no control over who his mother was. Joseph had not control over his father choosing to make him his favorite son.
You know we can be angry with and jealous of people for things they have no control over. Even worse, we can set out to get revenge on them, and the revenge we seek is way out of proportion to the wrong we have suffered.
Nothing Joseph had done or said to his brothers had merited this level of revenge of condemning him to slavery for the rest of his life. Most of his brothers were grown men and Joseph had just turned 17. Yet Joseph realized it was time for him to get up and stop feeling sorry for himself.
You and I have no control over a lot of things that are true about us. We had no control over when were born, where we were born, what race we were born or what sex we were born. We had no control over what decisions our grandparents and great grandparents made even though they affected our lives.
We are living in a world today, that wants to hold people responsible for decisions they had nothing to do with. Slavery, Jim crow, segregation and the like are a real part of our history. But dwelling on them, does very little to help us today. Trying to come up with a solution to rewrite the past is difficult because racism is not the only evil in our society. It is not the only sin in the Scriptures.
Should we come up with a situation in which men should pay back reparations to women whom men abandoned and left to raise their kids entirely on their own.
Should the money come from all men, whether they fathered a child or not. Sexism has put just as many women in poverty and is keeping them there today as racism is.
Do you really think eliminating racism is going to eliminate sexism or will men still seek to dominate women? Most women who are killed are not killed by strangers, but by angry boyfriends, lovers and husbands.
Our hope for a better world isn’t found in legislation dealing with simply one issue. Our hope is found in Jesus Christ who alone has the power to change the human heart.
The rush to pass or stall legislation isn’t due to a change in people’s hearts. It’s a jocking for who is going to win the November elections. Putting hope in a political party is a fruitless endeavor.
Joseph didn’t dwell on the wrongs of his brothers. He set his eyes to making a future for himself right in the midst of some bad circumstances. He figured out very quickly, if he was going to be a slave in Egypt, the sooner he learned Egyptian, the better off he was going to be.
We can complain about America as much as we want. But it would be better if we gained a vision for how we can make America work for us. We don’t need to burn down buildings.
Our vision should be to get an education, so that we either own the building or is the executive president of the company inside the building. If Joseph as a slave, knew he need an education in Egyptian Culture and language, why do we think we are going to get by without a similar strategy.
Just having a dream and a goal is not enough. We need to know who God is. Joseph’s family was messed up, but one thing Jacob did do right was to introduce his son to God.
Joseph did not go to Egypt completely alone. Verse 2 in Genesis chapter 39 tells us “The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered and lived in the house of his Egyptian master.”
Coming from a history of slaves does not have to be a handicap unless we want it to be. God can be at work in our lives regardless of what others think or say about us.
Sometimes a passage of Scripture can involve a number of years that we think happened instantly. Joseph most likely did not start out in Potipher’s house. You had to have had some polish about you before you began living in the house with a man that served on the President’s Cabinet.
This tells me that Joseph was a hard worker, at whatever task he was serving. But he kept improving his own personal qualities. He learned the language, he studied the culture, he was hungry for an opportunity. He knew how to treat people.
When an opening came in Potiphar’s house for a slave inside the house, Joseph’s name came up because he was prepared to go. Joseph is promoted to working and living in a very nice home.
But Joseph is still a slave. God has not set him free and God has not sent him home. There are some circumstances in our lives that we would like to get out of altogether, but God has another plan and we just have to wait.
Look at the silent role God was playing in Joseph’s life in verses 2-6 in Genesis
Genesis 39:2-6 (NIV2011)
2 The LORD was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master.
3 When his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned.
5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the LORD blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the LORD was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field.
6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.
God was touching people around Joseph, God was touching Joseph, and God was touching Joseph’s work on the job. Everything was now turning to gold.
We are tempted to believe, that Joseph simply showed up in Africa as a slave, and BAM, he became Potiphar’s executive assistant. No. Once Joseph arrives in Egypt, he spends 11 years as a slave before reaching this position and probably only a few of those years are actually in Potiphar’s house.
He’s gone from a 17 year old slave to 28 year old young man, but still a slave. All the money he is producing for Potipher is still Potipher’s money.
Yet he has God’s favor upon his life. The greatest door opener that we can have is the favor of God. It was when Potipher saw that the Lord was with Joseph, that the Lord blessed all that Joseph was doing, that he chose him as his attendant.
This gave Joseph a chance to learn even more about Egyptian culture among the high class of Egyptians. Potipher thinks that Joseph is in his house in order for him to get richer.
But God is actually preparing Joseph for a future that neither Potipher or Joseph could have imagined. We should always be learning what we can learn right where are, because its preparation for where God is taking us.
Having the favor of God on your life is one of the greatest gifts that you can have. Joseph is often seen as Christ type figure in the Old Testament. He is betrayed by those he loves. He is sold for pieces of silver. He is a servant to those around him.
When Jesus was twelve years old, it was written of him. Luke 2:52 (NIV2011) 52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
Notice it says Jesus grew in wisdom, stature and favor. It takes time for God to develop God’s will and purpose in our lives. Joseph has gone from the pit to a beautiful home, but what looks secure today isn’t necessarily guaranteed for tomorrow. He is now number 2 man in Potipher’s house. Everybody is saying, “Wow, look at Joseph.”
Be careful listening to the praise of others. God may not have you yet where He wants to place you. Don’t get too comfortable.
Jesus ran into a similar situation. He had fed a crowd of over 5,000 people a free buffet of fish and bread. The people were delighted. They just knew this was the one we have been waiting for.
This is the one who can supply our needs. That very day, Jesus had to run to a mountain and hide because he knew the people were intending to make him king by force.
The very next day, when Jesus did not give them what they wanted and they did not like what he said about the cost to follow him, the Scriptures says “they turned back and no longer followed him.”
In just a day, Jesus lost a large crowd that was following him. Joseph like Jesus had a group who could not help but admire him and what he had done. Joseph like Jesus is going to face a problem in which he will have to tell the truth and confront sin and temptation head on.
Like Jesus, his willingness to serve God faithfully, will have disastrous consequences for all the admiration, the comfortable life-style and the position of leadership he now holds.
Your life or my life can all suddenly change in just a day. Where is your hope grounded when all of a sudden you can no longer do what you enjoy most, or live where you have always lived, or have the kind of money you always had.
Where is your confidence when someone you love is suddenly taken away in death or you discover the thing you have worked so hard for does not give you the life and enjoyment you thought it would? Where do you turn when you just got some absolutely bad news?
I want you to know there is one foundation that is sure, there is one anchor on which we can rely, and there is one God who is here yesterday, today and forever. His name is Jesus.
When you come to him in repentance from the wrong you have done, you will find that he will grant God’s favor upon your life. He will walk with you through the unthinkable and the unimaginable, because there is nothing he has not seen and nowhere he has not been. He is the Eternal One you need for eternal life.
Next week we will see how being faithful God will get you a prison sentence.
