Genesis 39:20-23
Bibliography: (www.sermonillustrator.com: success)
Someone once asked Paul Harvey, the journalist and radio commentator, to reveal the secret of his success. “I get up when I fall down,” said Harvey.
John D. Rockefeller Jr. remarked, “The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well.”
Dan Crawford (1870-1926) spent most of his adult life serving as a missionary in Africa. When it was time to return home to Britain, Crawford described to one of the people he had been serving the kind of world he was about to return to. He told him about ships that ran under the water, on the water, and even those that flew above the water. He described English houses with all of their conveniences, such as running water and electric lights. Then Crawford waited for the old African to register his amazement. “Is that all, Mr. Crawford?” the aged man asked. “Yes, I think it is,” Crawford replied. Very slowly and very gravely, he said, “Well, Mr. Crawford, you know, that to be better off is not to be better.”
Mark Hatfield tells of touring Calcutta with Mother Teresa and visiting the so-called “House of Dying,” where sick children are cared for in their last days, and the dispensary, where the poor line up by the hundreds to receive medical attention. Watching Mother Teresa minister to these people, feeding and nursing those left by others to die, Hatfield was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the suffering she and her co-workers face daily. “How can you bear the load without being crushed by it?” he asked. Mother Teresa replied, “My dear Senator, I am not called to be successful, I am called to be faithful.”
A popular singer who recently went from rags to riches was quoted as saying, “I still don’t understand it. If you don’t have any time for yourself, any time to hunt or fish, that’s success.”
Joseph Stowell once said, ‘What is success? In my book, one ingredient of success is meaningful time with my children. As a friend of mine observed, “I have yet to hear of anyone who, on his deathbed, wished he’d spent more time at the office.”’
General Mark Clark was one of the great heroes of WWII. He led the Salerno invasion that Winston Churchill said was “the most daring amphibious operation we have launched, or which, I think, has ever been launched on a similar scale in war.” At the time Clark was promoted to Lt. General, he was the youngest man of that rank in the U.S. Army. He graduated from West Point in 1917. At the top of his class? Nope. He was 111th from the top in a class of 139! Even if you never earned a college degree, don’t worry, you’re in good company. Irving Berlin, for instance, only had two years of formal schooling. He never learned how to read music. When he composed his songs, he would hum the melody and a musical secretary would write down the notes. He became one of the greatest songwriters the country has ever known.
How do you measure success? When do you know that you’ve made it? By what basis do you determine if you are making progress or losing ground?
Our Bible story tonight tells us that the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. Yet something within us cries out, “Wait a minute! The man was in prison! His story is not a story of success. Its more like a story of failure.”
Let me tell you about Joseph’s “success” story.”
Joseph was his father’s favorite, and naturally, his brothers - he had 11 older & one younger - his brothers were extremely jealous of him. So much so, that they threw him in a pit while they determined how to end his life. In the end, they sold him into slavery instead, and lied to their father, telling him that Joseph had been eaten by a wild animal.
It wouldn’t be the first reason for disappearance we would assume in this country today, but it was a very common danger back then in that country.
Joseph found himself on the slave market in Egypt. Fortunately, he was purchased by a good man, who was a member of the Pharoh’s personal staff (the Pharoh was the king of Egypt), and who recognized potential in Joseph. Eventually, Joseph became the head of the household, and everything he did prospered. Until the time came that the mistress of the house became interested in Joseph. She sought to sleep with Joseph, but he replied, “My master trusts me. I am in charge of everything in his household. You are his wife. How could I do something so wrong? What you are wanting me to do is a sin. How could I do something so wrong?”
Rather than face the rejection, the mistress of the house accuses Joseph of attempted rape. In spite of how out of character it might seem for Joseph, he is presumed guilty rather than innocent, and he is imprisoned for attempted rape.
Our Bible story tells us that God was with Joseph in prison and granted favor to him there. This time is was the warden of the prison who recognized potential in Joseph, and places him in charge of other prisoners and the running of the prison, trusting him to do a good job, and be responsible with everything that was entrusted to him.
If we were to read on, we would see that the day would come when the king’s baker and cup bearer are imprisoned and Joseph becomes responsible for their care.
Joseph has a unique gift for interpreting dreams, and when each man has a dream, Joseph is able to tell them the meaning of them. The baker will be executed, but the cupbearer will be restored to the king’s side. To the cupbearer he says, “When all is well with you, please remember me. Petition Pharoh for me and help me to get out of prison. I was made a slave and taken from my home. I have been placed in prison, and have done nothing wrong.”
But the cupbearer forgot about Joseph. Joseph would remain in prison for two more years, before the king would have a dream that no one could interpret, and only then would the cupbearer remember Joseph.
How does our story measure success? The Bible tells us that God was with Joseph and made him successful in all that he did, and yet his life seems to be going the wrong direction. He descends from free man, favored and honored, to slave, to prisoner unjustly imprisoned, to forgotten and inconsequential.
How did Joseph measure success?
I picture Joseph in chains, being led away from his father and his home. His future must have been scary and uncertain.
I think of him being imprisoned, punished for his integrity. Now the future must appear bleak.
I imagine him one week, two weeks, after the cupbearer is restored to the king’s side. Certainly by then it would have been obvious he had been forgotten. What Joseph must have been thinking. How he must have felt. The future must have seemed utterly hopeless. How did he go on?
The Bible doesn’t give us any indication that Joseph wavered in his attitude or rested on his laurels. I’m sure he faced disappointment and depression, yet never is it indicated that Joseph blamed God, was angry with God for all that happened to him.
God was always first in his life, even in prison, even when it appeared he had been forgotten. He had no way of knowing how long it would be, if ever, that he would get out of prison. Yet Joseph, from all that we can see from our Bible story, remained faithful, diligent, and persistent in his relationship with God.
How do you measure your success?
Its only with hind sight that we can see how may lives were touched by Joseph.
Potiphar and all of his household were touched by Joseph’s life. The Bible tells us that everything Potiphar had was blessed because of Joseph. And although his witness was not brought to fruitation in our Bible story, Joseph was a witness to Potiphar’s wife, he maintained his integrity and made it clear that he remained faithful to God.
In prison Joseph remained true and trustworthy. Once again we are told that he was granted success in everything he did. The warden of the prison was affected by Joseph. He developed trust in Joseph and everything he did, putting him in charge of the whole prison.
Though Joseph could not have known, he would be in prison for a long time, so that at the right moment, he would be brought out of prison to interpret the king’s dream. And the king’s dream was an important one - 7 years of prosperity were coming to be followed by 7 years of famine. Furthermore, Joseph developed a plan to cope with the famine, to save Egypt from ruin, to make Pharoh prosperous and exalted.
His plan would also affect his family - the brothers who had sold him into slavery and his father whom he had been taken from.
In the end, reconciliation occurs, God is glorified, and through it all, Joseph remains faithful to God and true to his integrity.
But that is with hindsight. Those of us who find ourselves imprisoned today - by the economy shortfall, by broken relationships, by poor health, by lack of direction and guidance - we have no way of knowing - when will our imprisonment end?
The question is, can we persevere and come out on top on the other side? What does Joseph’s story say to us?
There are some important lessons for us.
First of all,
1. Bad things do happen to good people.
Ancient Jewish understanding was that if you do good, you get good. If you do bad, you get bad. There is no better illustration to refute this than Joseph’s story, and we can think of countless examples, even in our own lives, when this is not the case. Joseph was a good person. God granted him success in all that he did, yet his situation in worldly terms deteriorated repeatedly. There was no guarantee of a happy ending for Joseph’s story.
Related to this is a second lesson to be learned from Joseph:
2. Bad things are not God’s intention, but God allows interference to occur, even in the life of his followers. God does not seek puppets. God seeks people who will willingly enter into a relationship with him. Such self limitation on the part of God allows everyone to make choices and not everyone makes good choices all the time. We are sinners, and when we sin, it has a ripple affect.
Joseph was affected by the hate and jealousy of his brothers. He was affected by the lust of Potiphar’s wife. He was affected by the forgetfulness of the king’s cupbearer. Even though Joseph was true to God, persistently faithful, he was impacted by the sins of others.
3. Joseph’s success was ultimately God’s success, not Joseph’s success.
We cannot overlook the fact, that in each instance of sin and wrong doing, God took the sin and was able to transform it into good. By his faith and faithfulness, God worked through Joseph and touched lives, and they were ultimately changed for the better. Everyone who came in contact with Joseph - Potiphar, the prison warden, even Pharoh - were blessed through Joseph because God was with him and made everything he did successful.
The bottom line is, Joseph was successful by his example to others. Through him other lives were changed for the better and God was glorified.
Earlier I asked you how you measure success. Richard Morris suggests that there are 3 things we need to do in order to be successful. First, we must define our vision and keep it ever before us. In other words, we must keep the main thing the main thing. We must keep God ever before us and let the grace we receive through Jesus Christ continually determine the manner in which we will lead our lives.
Secondly, Richard Morris says we must have a positive attitude in every situation, in everything we do and with everyone we meet, beginning by having a positive attitude about ourselves. Joseph certainly had a positive attitude.
I was visiting with a father the other day who was telling me a story about the time his young son climbed into bed with him early one morning and ended up having an accident.
“I could have reacted negatively and been frustrated by having to start the day earlier than I wanted to in a way I didn’t intend to,” he said, “but I chose to thank God for giving him properly working kidneys instead.”
Have a positive attitude, and success is within your reach.
Third on Richard Morris’ list is obtaining proper training. John Wooden, the eminently successful basketball coach at UCLA during its dynasty years, was asked his secret in producing stellar teams. His answer: “We master the basics. We drill over and over again on the fundamentals.”
In the church we obtain proper training by attending church where worshipping God is a regular and intricate part of our life. We obtain proper training by reading the Bible, seeking answers to life’s questions, when we are a part of a Bible study with fellow Christians where we can strive to discover what that word means - Christian. We obtain proper training when we associate with Christian friends, when we support them on their journey with God and they support us. We obtain proper training - OJT (on the job training) - when we seek to serve others, just as Joseph willingly served and did his best to do his best in every opportunity to do so as a representative of God. We receive proper training when we pray, talking to God on a regular basis, seeking guidance for our life, working on the relationship we have with him.
With proper training, a positive attitude, and with the vision of who we are in Christ Jesus ever before us, we achieve success - but not the kind of success measured in more money, faster cars, bigger homes, bigger bank accounts, or more toys.
It is success measured in the way we live our lives as Christians, and the difference it makes regarding the welfare of others.
How do you measure success? The invitation in our story is this: For each one of us - for you and for I - to examine who we are before God. Are we on his team, giving it our all, being faithful followers of God in every situation we find ourselves in?
Henrietta Mears writes in her book,
Dream Big: The Henrietta Mears Story,
“Will is the whole man active. I cannot give up my will; I must exercise it. I must will to obey. When God gives a command or a vision of truth, it is never a question of what He will do, but what we will do. To be successful in God’s work is to fall in line with His will and to do it His way. All that is pleasing to Him is a success.”
How do you measure success? Is it fiscal? By bigger and better toys?
Or is it measured by how the welfare of others is impacted by what you say and do as a Christian, no matter what circumstance you find yourself in?
How do you measure success?
