OPEN: Years ago there was a TV show called The Honeymooners (does anyone remember it)? Art Carney played one of the characters on the show Ed Norton - a kind of happy go lucky, but fairly slow thinking worker in the sewer systems of the city. Ed Norton once summed up his philosophy of life with these words:
When the tides of life turn against you,
And the current upsets your boat,
Don’t waste those tears on what might have been,
Just lie on your back and float.
APPLY:
Today I want to introduce you a man who repeatedly who saw the tides of life turn against him. Whose boat was upset more than once. A man whose difficulties would have crippled the faith of a lesser man. BUT, he didn’t sink…. (pause…) and he didn’t even float. He overcame AND he rose above the waves of adversity. He overcame these difficulties because of his “philosophy of life” - a philosophy of life was nobler and wiser than that of Ed Norton.
THE STORY: Who was this man? His name was Joseph.
We’re introduced to Joseph when he is a mere 17 years old. He’s born (to put it mildly) into a dysfunctional family.
His mother (Rachel) is dead. His daddy (Jacob) is now an old man who hasn’t always been godly.
Jacob has had 2 wives and 2 concubines from which he has fathered 12 sons and an unknown number of daughters. And they’re all living – pretty much – under the same roof.
That would have been difficult enough for some families to handle, but things were a little more complicated for Joseph – his brothers don’t much like him. And I’m not sure I blame them much.
· There was the time Joseph had been out in the fields with his half brothers - the sons of his father’s concubines – Bilhah and Zilpah. Joseph apparently observed these boys doing something they shouldn’t have. And he told dad.
· Add to this, the fact that Joseph was his daddy’s favorite boy (because his mother Rachel was Jacob’s favorite wife) & this favoritism became painfully obvious when Jacob gave Joseph a fancy coat
ILLUS: Imagine taking one of your children out and buying them THE fanciest winter coat they’ve always wanted – but then you take your other kids to Good Will and buy them something off the rack. How do you think they’d feel?
Every time Joseph put it on, the coat reminded his brothers that they weren’t loved nearly as much as he was.
· AND THEN, to add insult to injury, it seems that even God favor Joseph over his brothers. God gave Joseph a couple of dreams. In the first dream he sees his brother’s sheaves of grain bowing to him. His brothers know what the dream means and they hate him for it. In the 2nd he envisions the Sun, Moon and 11 stars bowing down before him. Even his father rebukes him for that one.
Apparently, it was these dreams that finally caused his brothers’ anger to boil over. We’re told in Genesis 37:13, 18-19
(Jacob) said to Joseph, "As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them."
"Very well," he replied.
But (his brothers) saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. "Here comes THAT DREAMER!" they said to each other. "Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then WE’LL SEE WHAT COMES OF HIS DREAMS."
These dreams made Joseph’s brothers so angry they couldn’t hardly think straight. And, their hatred and jealousy was so strong that the 1st thing they wanted to kill him. But the oldest, Reuben, reasoned with them: "you don’t want to have his blood on your hands. Beat him up a little bit if you have to… but don’t kill him.
So, they took hold of Joseph, ripped off his hated coat and they threw him into a nearby cistern. And I suspect they intended to leave him there til he died.
Apparently they had not given up the idea of killing Joseph outright because Genesis 37:25-27 tells us:
As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.
Judah said to his brothers, "What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood."
Like I said, Joseph had a VERY dysfunctional family
For the next 13 years, Joseph spends his life in slavery & prison and at the end of that time he has two children while in Egypt:
o Genesis 41:51 Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh (God has made me forget) and said, "It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household."
o Genesis 41:52 The second son he named Ephraim (doubly fruitful) and said, "It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering."
In other words, Joseph didn’t just lay on his back and float through life. He felt pain, he suffered, and he knew grief and sorrow.
I. You would think that Joseph’s life would have made him bitter and resentful
Consider what it would have been like to be a young man who was… hated by your family, torn away from your father, carried away to an alien culture with no hope of ever returning. Could you blame him if he’d turned his back on everything he’d believed and just curled up somewhere and died?
(pause…) When faced with tragedies like these Ed Norton’s simple poem sounds like the mindless drivel that it is:
When the tides of life turn against you,
And the current upsets your boat,
Don’t waste those tears on what might have been,
Just lie on your back and float.
(pause…) Yeah sure!… like that’ll help.
II. But, if you remember the story of Joseph, you realize that tho’ Joseph suffered greatly, he was never defeated nor despondent
When he was sold into slavery, he became the BEST SLAVE he could possibly be and was eventually placed over all of his master’s household.
Then, when his master’s wife falsely accused him and he was thrown into prison, he became the BEST PRISONER he could possibly be, and was eventually made a trustee over the other prisoners.
He never gave up
He never surrendered
He always persevered
He always overcame
And it wasn’t because “he just laid on his back and floated…”
(pause…) Oh no, he didn’t lay on his back and float…
He knelt on his knees and prayed
He bowed before God and he trusted.
Now, like his brothers did – there are some who might say that Joseph was dreamer. Some might say that he was hopeless optimist who simply ignored his circumstances and mindlessly floated thru life “hoped” things would turn out alright. People have problems with that kind of optimism. It seems so trite and unreasonable. And rightly so…
ILLUS: It’s kind of like one cartoon I read that showed a smiling man walking out of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to the heal of his shoe - and the caption read: “Confidence is what you have before you understand the situation.”
That’s how worldly optimism looks to the world around us.
BUT, Joseph was not an worldly optimist
Joseph was a God driven realist.
He UNDERSTOOD his situation – because he understood God.
III. You see, God had given Joseph a dream,
God had given him a vision,
God had given him a promise of what his life was to become
AND no tragedy,
no difficulty,
no setback of life could rob him of that promise
One person once said: In this life pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional
Jesus said: "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble.
But then He gives the promise: But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33
God is a God of hope and promises:
Paul wrote: “…we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” Romans 5:3-5
James tells us to “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” (James 1:2-3)
“… in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
Notice Romans doesn’t say "all things are good…" or "all things are caused by God…" But what it does say is: no matter what happens in your life, whether it’s brought about by your own actions, or the actions of others, or by the plan of God… "ALL THINGS will work together for good because you love God and are called according to His purposes."
How can we withstand those difficulties and trials of life? Because we know God has a plan for our lives:
“…I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
Paul said as much in his letter to the Corinthians. Speaking of the difficulties he experienced in his ministry (hardships, dangers and imprisonments): “…our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” 2 Corinthians 4:17
We live in a real world
A world where we WILL EXPERIENCE troubles, and pain and suffering
We WILL HAVE failures and disappointments
We WILL KNOW heartache and loss
But in the midst of all this Paul writes:
Romans 8:31-39 If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all— how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.
Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died— more than that, who was raised to life— is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
CLOSE: Ed Norton’s philosophy was:
When the tides of life turn against you,
And the current upsets your boat,
Don’t waste those tears on what might have been,
Just lie on your back and float.
That reminded me of the time when the disciples were out on a restless sea, the waves threatening to overwhelm and sink their tiny boat. “…the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!"
He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"
While reading that passage one person who was going thru a dark time in their lives saw something there they had never seen before:
They wrote that it suddenly became obvious to them that
The same Jesus who calmed the restless waves of the sea
Could (with that same voice of love) calm the restless fears of their heart
SERMONS IN THE "TECHNICOLOR FAITH" SERIES
* Making The Most Of Every Opportunity
Genesis 40:1-41:14
* How to Succeed At Just About Anything
Genesis 39:1-39:23
* The Dreamer
Genesis 37:1-37:36
