If you have been reading your children’s Bible Story books you might have read the story about Joseph and the coat of many colors. Joseph was a favorite of his father Jacob and because of the favoritism his 10 older brothers despised him.
But to make matters worse, Joseph also had a miraculous ability to interpret dreams and one dream he interpreted concerned his brothers, all older, bowing down and serving him. Even today that wouldn’t sit well coming from your younger brother, but that was unheard of in that culture. The oldest male always received the greatest inheritance, not the youngest. Joseph would later have a younger brother Benjamin, but at this time in their lives Joseph is the youngest, the favorite, spoiled, and appears to gladly interpret his dreams. Maybe he liked the part where they would serve him someday and said so with a bit of an air about him.
Although you may know the story of the coat of many colors what you may not know is that one day, Jacob sends his favorite out to check on his brothers and his brothers decide to get rid of him. They want to kill him but Reuben intervenes along with the providence of God. They throw Joseph in a cistern and as they sit down to eat, contemplating what they should do with this brother of theirs, a caravan of Ishmaelites loaded with goods, on their way to Egypt happens by. So they decide to sell their brother Joseph to those in the caravan. What better way to get rid of him than by making a little money in the process!
When the caravan arrives in Egypt they in turn sell Joseph as a slave to a man named Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials and captain of the guard. Joseph becomes a slave in Egypt but because of his ability in administration and God’s providence, the Bible says that the Lord watched out over him.
Genesis 39:2-6
Joseph was a gifted young man, not only with the ability to interpret dreams but he had the ability to lead others and administrate a large household financially and relationally. But because Joseph was well built, handsome and talented, that was when his troubles begin.
Joseph has long been a model of integrity, self-control, and one who handles responsibility well. Listen to what happens.
Genesis 39:7-10
Even though for years we have considered Joseph a model of self-control, I was thinking about Joseph one night this week, and thought, maybe Joseph wasn’t as much tempted by Potiphar’s wife as he was scared of her. Maybe she was ugly. Maybe she was 400 pounds with greasy hair. Probably not, but I’m sure he was scared…but scared of the consequences more than he was of the woman. Maybe she was old, we know he was young. But this flirting situation one day goes beyond flirting.
Genesis 39:11-12
Maybe the reason he ran was a combination of both fear and weakness. Maybe he knew he was weak and so he ran. Maybe the way Joseph dealt with temptation is the way we should deal with temptation…maybe we should fear the temptation instead of finding ourselves excited and allured by the temptation. Maybe we should run because we can admit we are weak. Maybe we should fear the consequences of God a little more.
As we think about Joseph’s plight and how he dealt with temptation, lets learn some applicable lessons we can begin to practice in our life today and lets start the New Year out right by committing today to develop strategies in our life to confront the temptation we are bound to face in 2006.
There are 5 strategies we can use to confront temptation in our lives.
5 Strategies to Confront Temptation
1. First, Beware of when you are weak and of what makes you weak.
It helps if you can understand when you are more susceptible to temptation. Most of us are more susceptible to temptation when we are weak, down, overburdened, dejected, and rejected. For me, when I am tired I am much more apt to lose self-control. Know what makes you weak and learn to recognize it when it arrives.
Joseph was weak too…he was rejected by his family, burdened with slavery, and alone in a foreign land. I wonder if Joseph, because he was so alone and so dejected, enjoyed her attention and her compliments…and maybe in a house filled with servants, he placed himself in too vulnerable of a position. Maybe, like some Joseph enjoyed being strong…he found confidence in turning down her propositions until one day…he wasn’t strong…and when she grabbed him he felt a thrill of anticipation, a surge of excitement and he felt his strength drain from him and he knew he had to run and run fast.
If you find yourself in a flirtatious environment…like Joseph you need to run.
Joseph was weak…and we are weak too, but the Bible says, 1 Cor. 10:13
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
The problem that we have is that many of us run right by that way of escape. We realize we are too weak too late. God provides an escape. It might be a phone call to interrupt your thoughts, it might be someone coming to your home that calms your temper, it might be a trusted friend…but if you look you’ll discover a pattern that many times at the point of your sin God provides an escape and sometimes that escape is a thought that the Holy Spirit places in your mind….RUN!
You’re tired. You’re exhausted. You’re lonely and your children are wearing you out and you have spanked them a few too many times in a moment of exhaustion…and you realize how susceptible you are when you are tired.
You’re tired of being overlooked for the promotion or you felt you should have gotten a better Christmas bonus. You rationalize that the company owes it to you and you find yourself walking out with company products and you realize how weak you are to the temptation of stealing.
Temptation is so powerful because we fall to sin often before we realize how weak we are. It is a form of arrogance … “I can handle it!”
So your superlatives fly. Your critical spirit towards others is open and opinionated. You prefer lusting to fill the void as opposed to reading God’s Word. The screen, whether TV or computer, is filled with the images Potiphar’s wife was thinking of and that’s more comforting than praying or being with real people, in a real and healthy conversation. The truth is we are weak.
One preacher says, “Pray for the strong, because they are weak.” Joseph was strong but he was weak too and he was smart enough to realize it!
Now before we let our heads get too puffy and proud, temptation is not just about physical attraction. All of us have fought the battle of temptation and all of us have lost at one time or another. You and I both have been tempted and we have sinned. You should know the texts well by now for we have seen them often in our walk through Genesis.
Genesis 6:5
The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
Romans 3:23
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
So know what makes you weak and when you are weak. Another strategy to confront temptation is
2. Strengthen your relationship with the Lord
Notice that Joseph refused to fall to temptation because of his relationship with the Lord. God’s hand on Joseph’s life did not keep him from temptation, but it gave him the strength to deal with temptation. Joseph said to Potiphar’s wife;
Genesis 39:9
How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?
Joseph understood that God sees and he could not sin against God. When we travel through difficult times we might wonder where God is. We question, “Why is God doing this to me?”
We have learned in this journey through Genesis that most of the time, like Abraham when he had to send his first born son away, many things in our lives are our own fault. God doesn’t plague us with problems, often, we have problems because of our own choices. Joseph is in a foreign land, rejected by his family, a slave … and his Master’s wife is after him like a flea on a dog and how does Joseph react? “God why are you doing this to me?” “God this must be your will or I wouldn’t be tempted like this?” No, Joseph explains, “how can I sin against God?”
To strengthen your relationship with the Lord cannot be based on a warming affection, if it is, in Joseph’s case his present temptation would have become a warmer affection at that moment than his affection for God. No, to strengthen your relationship is to think about God, consider His greatness, contemplate his love, meditate on his power and fear him.
Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
Make no mistake about it, Joseph feared the Lord and he had wisdom to confront his temptation. Joseph walked with God before the temptation came.
Let’s say that I make a New Year’s resolution to enter a body building competition…and I wouldn’t…but pretend with me…if I were going to enter one…and my first competition was tomorrow, I would be in trouble. There would be people like you there who are the judges and you would laugh me off the stage like “what’s his name” from American Idol.
For me to enter a body building competition I would be years away. I would have to change my habits of eating, hit the gym hours everyday and even then I would not have a chance at placing in the competition because I cannot devote myself to hours of training everyday. I have other responsibilities, a family, a ministry, friends, and other interests. Even if I took steroids they wouldn’t help me.
We treat God like he is supposed to be a shot of steroids. We think when we face trouble that all of the sudden we will become this massive super Christian, confronting evil at every turn because God will empower us with his spiritual steroids. But that’s not the way it works.
Jesus taught us to pray; Matthew 6:9-13
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, [10] your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. [11] Give us today our daily bread. [12] Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. [13] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
He never meant for us to pray, “lead us not into temptation” at the moment of temptation. He taught us to pray daily that we would not find temptation desirable so that when temptation comes we would have the strength to say “no” to what tempts us. Maybe we have failed at taking temptation seriously enough and we have not strictly trained ourselves enough to face temptation.
Tomorrow you have a temptation competition….the devil’s helpers are the judges…you will get laughed off of the stage because like me in a body building competition you have not changed your eating habits, you have not trained daily. And like training for a body building competition we have other responsibilities, so we cannot give ourselves fully or hourly in training for the temptation challenge. If you are going to have victory over temptation you must develop in your life a daily regimen of training against temptation.
Everyday you need to eat of God’s Word. Store it up in your mind. Replay it in your heart.
Everyday you need to consider God’s character when you pray….honor him for his greatness and strength, admit you need him in your life, recognize that He is God and you are not.
Everyday you need to thank him for what He has provided. For some, it might not be much, but he has provided enough for you to get by.
When you thank him that helps you think of the third strategy to confront temptation.
3. Consider your responsibilities – in other words, think about someone besides yourself!
When you thank God for your family, your job, your church, you begin to realize that your responsibility to others is greater than you thought. Think about how your sin will affect those closest to you. Is this going to help your family, or hurt them?
When I take time to thank God for my wife, my sons and the wonderful ministry that I get to be a part of, I have a greater sense of responsibility to act in a godly manner. That’s what Joseph did to confront temptation. He listed his responsibilities.
Genesis 39:8-9
With me in charge, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. [9] No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife.
Joseph had developed a great sense of purpose in his life and a clear sense of responsibility. Maybe when we are on the verge of losing control, or falling to temptation, we need to consider our responsibilities too.
Let’s say you’re at work and you have had enough of your boss, you’re tired of the job and you are ready to tell them exactly what you think…but you remember your responsibilities at home and so you hold your tongue and refuse to allow unwholesome talk to come out of your mouth.
You’re lonely and you think that drink will provide an escape, but then you think about your responsibility to your neighbor…you know you have to drive home. Have you seen that recent commercial about drunk driving? The end of the commercial says, “buzzed driving is still drunk driving.” You are responsible for others.
Or let’s say you are in the habit of being selfish at home. You never do the dishes. You never help out around the house because that’s woman’s work. But one night you think about your responsibilities. You have a son and a daughter. You want your son to know how to love his future wife correctly and you want your daughter to be loved and served as if she is the queen she is…so you take off the selfishness and put on selflessness and start helping with some household chores because you are responsible for your children.
If you are going to be able to confront the variety of temptations that you face, one way is to begin considering the responsibilities you have, and those closest to you..
A fourth strategy is to…
4. Determine to stay away from tempting circumstances
Sometimes the tempting circumstance is a person…sometimes it is a place…sometimes the circumstance is not getting enough rest. You know how vulnerable you are when you are tired, but you keep staying up late, drinking coffee way too late in the day and you aren’t resting.
Joseph was in a difficult situation. He was head of the household, in charge of the daily concerns of a wealthy establishment. We don’t know if he had to be in the house everyday, but we do know the house would have been large enough that possibly he could have avoided certain circumstances. Joseph was caught in a precarious situation…maybe Potiphar’s wife had some authority over him and when she called for him he had to meet her daily needs. Even though I am sure he liked the attention and his ego was stroked when a woman took notice of him, it appears that this couldn’t be helped for Joseph. He tried to avoid her, but he did have to do his job. So he wound up in a bad spot.
We sometimes get in a bad situation and it is our own fault. We read the romance novels that create fantasies in our minds that can’t ever come true. We watch shows that promote selfish, ungodly living. We watch movies vicariously placing ourselves as the characters, dreaming of a different life. Instead of being realistic we live in a dream world. Joseph knew how to strategically handle temptation.
Genesis 39:10
And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.
Did you notice that last part? As much as was possible, he stayed away from her. Joseph had to be in the house…but we don’t always have to be in the house called temptation.
He refused to be alone with her because he understood temptation. Like us, we need to refuse to be around the activities that make us weak, even if we are lonely. Maybe you struggle with drunkenness and yet you found yourself at the New Year’s Eve party drunk again. Joseph would have refused to go to the New Year’s Eve party that served alcohol if alcohol was a weakness. We need to be aware of what makes us weak. We need to know ourselves well enough to know when we are vulnerable and then have the courage to face our loneliness, our emptiness by saying “no” to the things that tempt us even if we find ourselves alone.
When we think we’re strong, that’s when we’re weak.
But Genesis 39:11-18
One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. [12] She caught him by his cloak and said, "Come to bed with me!" But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. [13] When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, [14] she called her household servants. "Look," she said to them, "this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. [15] When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house." [16] She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. [17] Then she told him this story: "That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. [18] But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house."
Be careful, determine to not place yourself in tempting situations. Joseph was caught but he had the strength to run because he had been daily training his mind and had his heart in tune with God.
All men aren’t dogs and there are some women like Potiphar’s wife who can’t stand rejection…men who are rejected sometimes turn to physical abuse or work longer hours to retaliate against the rejection. Women who are rejected wallow in self-pity and sometimes, like Potiphar’s wife, spread a lie to counter the rejection.
But the truth is, even though Joseph would be thrown into prison because of doing what is right…he was still right in running.
Which brings us to the fifth strategy to develop…
5. Run
If all else fails, run. Leave the party, walk away from the joke, don’t listen to the gossip, avoid the person … run! Especially when it involves sexual temptation, RUN!
Joseph was strong enough to run away. Many consider running for the weak, but sometimes it is the strongest thing that you can do. I think that it takes a real man or a faithful woman to run from temptation. Joseph had the strength to get out. He knew what made him weak, so he ditched Potiphar’s wife not even considering the consequences. He didn’t worry about how it looked. He didn’t care about what others thought…he ran, fast.
There’s a scene in the movie Forrest Gump where kids are throwing rocks at Forrest. And at first he doesn’t know what to do. And then Jenny says, “Run, Forrest! Run!!!”
That advice applies to temptation. When the enemy is throwing things at you, and it’s more than you can bear, then turn around and run the other way. The Bible consistently gives us this advice.
1 Corinthians 6:18
Flee sexual immorality.
2 Timothy 2:22
Flee the evil desires of youth
1 Corinthians 10:14
Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.
1 Timothy 6:11
But you, man of God, flee from all this love of money.
The Bible says flee. Joseph says, “run.”
Our problem is that too often we want to know, “how bad can I be and still be good?” We want to know where the “sin” line is so that we can walk right next to it. We flirt with the line of temptation. We don’t intend to cross it, but we want to stay as close as we can. But when you get that close to the line, it is like a magnet that pulls you over the line.
The problem with temptation is how seductive it can be. It can capture your attention before you even realize it. During the height of the Cold War, a former FBI agent wrote a book about Soviet spies working in Washington, and how the KGB would solicit workers in the FBI and CIA and in the military to work for them. The KGB would never start by approaching an American and asking him or her to steal "top secret" documents. Instead, they would start with something simple, something that was in fact public information, like an office telephone directory. No big deal. It was something the American worker would justify because it was public information. But it would still be a thrill, and it would put some extra spending money in the American’s pocket. It would be enough to hook the American into doing it again. Next time it would be a file. Then it would be something confidential, then it would be something very secretive. But that would come later. At the beginning, it would be nothing more than a telephone directory. No big deal.
Can you live near the line without going over? No.
Maybe you have heard the story of the man who advertised for a coachman. Among those who came were two who seemed particularly bright. He took them aside and asked them how near they could drive to the edge of a precipice without falling over.
The first answered that he could go within half an inch and had frequently done so, just shaving the edge and feeling perfectly safe. He then asked the other the same question. "Well, sir," replied the man modestly, "I really cannot tell, because I have never allowed myself to venture near the edge of a precipice. I have always made it a rule to keep as far as possible from danger, and I have had my reward in knowing that my master and his family were kept from danger and harm."
The master had no difficulty in deciding between the two candidates. "You are the man for me," he said, "the other may be brilliant, but you are safe."
Don’t pride yourself in driving right next to the edge of the cliff. In stead, pride yourself in staying as far away as possible.
We tell our kids, “don’t even go near drugs.” “Stay as far away from alcohol as possible. Don’t even go to the party.”
To you I say the same thing. Run! You know where you are weak. You know what tempt you. Don’t go near temptation. Don’t think that you can flirt with temptation, because you will lose. Temptation has destroyed bigger men and women than you. It can take you out as well.
So lets start the New Year out right…begin again with a renewed energy to fight temptation strategically. You can win the battle
