Trinity Baptist Church July 9, 2006
Character on Display
From the Pit to the Palace
Genesis 41
If you’re a Christian, we know two things about what God has planned to happen in your life. Before you depart the planet, He has two key objectives for you:
One is your maturity. God is intent on -- and He is steadily engaged in -- growing and developing you. We try to wiggle and worm our way out of most of the methods He employs, but that is His clear objective. We’ve seen in our study of Joseph that character, faithfulness and integrity are central features in how He shapes and chisels on us. Our Father is out to make us like His Son, men and women whose hearts and character closely resemble Christ’s!
His second objective engages your usefulness to Him. A supernatural movement pervades human history. The culture doesn‘t know it, Christians not walking with God don‘t see it.
But God’s reality is this: Christ stepped into space and time and transformed everything forever. God is now working His will and His plan among the peoples of the Earth. And He seeks and employs useful people for that massive endeavor. Eternity will testify to God’s remarkable work both through His Son and through useful people.
Now -- we read a story like Joseph’s -- a gripping tale of how God grows one of his own, and then elevates Him to be Prime Minister of Egypt -- and we think -- “that’s never going to happen to me.” That attitude so misses the point. The issue is never the magnitude of God’s task, God’s issue is how useful is His woman or man in every place He plants us.
See, there’s not one of us here today, who is not positioned in a unique sphere of influence,
a key role -- a circle of impact, where we are to be God’s agent. The question is always our usefulness to God in that place. Usefulness to God, as we’ve already seen these weeks, always requires character development.
We’ve talked a bunch about character. We observed God growing him in affliction -- there was loneliness, separation -- servitude, false accusation, then finally, prison. Someone said Joseph makes a great illustration of Murphy’s Law: “If anything can go wrong it will!!”
Beyond all the rotten circumstances and the raunchy people, Joseph’s sat in God’s waiting room, forgotten and unknown in a prison, for upwards of 12 or 13 years. Suddenly, without warning, in chapter 41, he is elevated. Overnight, he has power, position and prestige placed in his hands.
We’ve seen that God develops people before He uses them. And that God not only builds character, He tests it. Joseph’s been through the fire: adversity, abuse, affliction, accusation; he stood strong during the tests of temptation and of waiting. Now comes another test: this time with the headiness of power and prosperity.
His character has shone through every test -- for good reason: over and over the text has said, God was with him; God never left him, and He never stopped working in his life while he was in the pits. And God won’t be far from Joseph’s heart and mind now that he’s in the palace. He responded well during the hard times -- He trusted God and He trusted in God’s character. The pattern will continue.
Let’s remember: God separated Joseph from a doting father, and brothers who hated him. They had plotted his murder, then decided instead to send him off to Egypt, compliments of some Midianite traders whose caravan passed nearby.
In Egypt, Joseph was sold as a slave to Potiphar. Even in slavery, Joseph displayed the character of a man who knew God’s promises and His presence; instead of grumbling and whining and growing, he worked hard and faithfully -- so much so that Potiphar decided this faithful young man should be elevated. He became the manager over Potiphar’s entire estate.
Potiphar’s wife liked Joseph too -- she repeatedly propositioned him. When he refused her again and again, she leveled charges of attempted rape against him. Her husband listened to his unfaithful wife and threw his faithful servant into Pharaoh’s dungeon. It was in that dungeon -- we saw, 2 weeks ago -- that God again gave Joseph the gift of His presence and His blessing; it was there that God dropped two of Pharaoh’s servants into Joseph’s care.
He took care of them and managed part of the prison, because, the chief jailer also recognized that Joseph’s character was unusual and good. So, once again, our man Joseph faithfully managed responsibility like he had under Potiphar.
Pharaoh’s two servants, the cupbearer and the baker, came and went. The baker went off to be executed. The cupbearer returned to serve in Pharaoh’s close presence. But, again, Joseph had to wait -- because the cupbearer, chapter 40, verse 23, records, forgot all about Joseph, the man who had given him God’s interpretation of his dream.
But there’s another dreamer in the story! The dreams started Joseph; then came the dreams of the servants. Now, it’s the ruler of all Egypt: chapter 41 reports Pharaoh had a dream, in two parts, and he’s disturbed. What’s worse, when he summons the wisest men of the land to give him some comforting answers and interpretation, none of them have a clue!
Chapter 41, verse 1: It happened at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh had a dream. (That’s two full years since Joseph helped the cupbearer with his dream and he was restored to serve in the court). Verses 2-7 describe the dreams that had the power to shake a Pharaoh.
There were cows, seven of them, which came up out of the Nile river. They were fat, healthy things and they grazed along the river bank. Then suddenly, seven gaunt, ugly cows came up out of the river and ate up the healthy ones. Weird! Then a second version of the dream.
This time it’s seven ears of grain. They too were plump and good. But then, just like before, seven thin, sun-scorched ears appeared, and these devoured the good, plump ones.
Pharaoh woke up. He was puzzled, he was troubled verse 8 says. He called all his magicians. The term doesn’t only mean sorcerers, it means they were well-read, knowledgeable people. They knew history, mathematics, philosophy and languages. But despite all their learning and Pharaoh re-counting his troubling dream, no one could tell the ruler what it all meant.
Verse 9: A voice comes from Pharaoh’s cupbearer. “Uhhh….your majesty. I uh ---
I would make mention today of my own offenses. You were angry with us, the baker and me, and you confined us in prison. One night, both of us had troubling dreams. And there in that prison was a young Hebrew man who was able to tell both of us the precise meaning of our dreams -- and both of the interpretations were precisely true -- you had the baker hanged, and I was restored, just as he said.”
The Pharaoh summoned Joseph immediately. He shaved and dressed appropriately. Very likely, not just to clean up, but to appear with a beard in the court would have been offensive to the Pharaoh. Joseph came before him.
We know the rest of the story. Joseph assures him, that not he, but God will give him the answers he’s seeking. Pharaoh recites his dream. Joseph immediately begins to describe for him the future which God is indicating through that dream, as well as what he should do about what God has said through this dream. And then unbelievably, Pharaoh immediately places Joseph over not only the famine relief project, but makes him the Prime Minister of Egypt.
We want to look at some of the detail from this point onward, but we shouldn’t miss the Truth behind the details of the account. First, we recognize that
1. God elevates Joseph in His time. (41:1-45)
Remember this is the dreaming son of Jacob, who had once pompously told his dreams to his father and brothers. The upshot of his dreams, you remember, was “I’m going to rule over all of you one day.”
The man standing before Pharaoh is a very different man than that young son of Jacob.
The Bible says that exaltation, elevation to higher places, is from God. God is the One, Scripture says, who puts kings into office, and takes others out.
God’s done some deep work in Joseph’s heart and mind and life in 13 years -- 13 years of
of affliction and waiting. He’s broken his heart. He’s drained his pride. Joseph has discovered that God’s presence and God’s nearness is what is so necessary. He’s had no one and nothing on which he could depend. So, he’s grown to trust His God. And by growing in that kind of faith, He has learned to be faithful to Him.
He’s been brought low. So what’s the result now in when God elevates him?
He’s confident in God alone.
He’s stopped trusting in himself. His pompous attitude didn’t survive God’s character development curriculum. That’s why pain and affliction are so often so necessary. I read you a quotation from an old commentator about Joseph: listen to it again: “An attempt at seduction, a diabolical plot; base ingratitude; the prison with all its attendant horrors. Yet his unimpeachable manliness, his faithfulness in doing the right, his loyalty to the God of his fathers brought this young man into the palace -- he became governor of the land of the Pharaohs“.
J. Oswald Sanders said, “Not every man can carry a full cup. Sudden elevation frequently leads to pride and a fall. The most exacting test of all to survive is prosperity.”
Joseph has learned not put his confidence in people, or possessions -- certainly not in material things or power. He’s found what every one of us need. Quietness and peace before God, in the pit and in the time of plenty. Francis Schaeffer said that quietness and peace before God are more important than any influence a position may seem to give.
Secondly, He remains faithful. We’ve witnessed his faithfulness more than once. For 13 years, because Joseph was faithful to God, he demonstrated faithfulness to others. He entered slavery in Potiphar’s house, and was so faithfully and diligent that he was given more responsibility. By the time he left, he had charge of all Potiphar owned.
It was no different in the prison. Joseph proved himself to be faithful and trustworthy. The text told us the jailer didn’t worry about a thing that was in Joseph’s charge. Jesus said, he who is faithful in the small things will also be faithful in the large things. He said, if you can’t be trusted in the things like money, who will trust you with true riches?
Joseph showed us what faithfulness looks like behind the scenes, when the job‘s small and dirty and no one‘s looking. And he’s developed into the kind of man who will show faithfulness in the place of great and wide influence.
He’s faithful at every level of responsibility. He won’t get into leadership in the court and turn into a leader like some of our 21st century corporate or even church leaders, who when they get position and responsibility and resources, suddenly begin to operate without accountability,
thinking, “the rules don‘t apply to them, anymore“.
Swindoll writes, “some of you are on the verge of promotion and don’t even know it. God doesn’t announce His appointments in advance“. You need to grow in Him in the smaller places. Learn to trust Him now. Jump in and engage and serve faithfully right where you are. Then, let Him build you into someone He can move to a greater place.
When God elevates him, 2. Joseph confidently assumes leadership. (41:46-49)
There are a number of responsibilities Pharaoh heaped on Joseph that day. There was control of the land. The ruler says, in verse 41, see, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.
He got financial authority. We read, He took off his signet ring and put it on Joseph’s finger. That’s like giving him the corporate platinum American Express card. That gave Joseph unlimited resources. It was the keys to the treasury and all the authority to use that wealth.
He suddenly got social standing. Took off his prison garb and was dressed in royal garments. Verse 42 says, he robed him with fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck.
He now has privilege. Pharaoh gave him a private chariot. That’s like a chauffeured limousine. He even had people who went ahead of him and commanded people to bow before him as he rode through their areas.
Joseph had political power. Pharaoh informs him that no one would make any decisions without Joseph’s permission.
And then, almost without a comma, the text tells us, Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt. He just started doing the job. Just like he’d announced, the land produced abundance for seven years. And so Joseph faithfully managed that abundance: he gathered up all it and began to store it. He built cities and granaries and stored and stored, grain, it says, like the sand of the sea.
Where do you find confidence, to assume responsibility in a proper way? It flows out of
knowing God well, knowing His promises and trusting His character.
And it comes from allowing God to build character into us -- however He chooses --
making us ready and useable to Him when the time comes. I’ve told you that even ancient secular historians describe the work Joseph did.
This man is a living lesson for us that God doesn’t divide the “secular” from the “sacred” like we do. Joseph is an able, strong, leading, managing administrator. That’s the kind of man and the sort of role God used to save His chosen people and to demonstrate to all of Egypt the greatness of the God of Heaven. The NT says, God delights in choosing the weak things of this world to shame the wise. He took a hated Hebrew, who’d been an imprisoned slaved and threw him into the court of Pharaoh. What do you think God could do with you, when you stop fighting His developing work in your life and you begin to grow and become wholly His?
Third, 3. Joseph remembers Who elevated him. (41:16, 25, 28, 32, 50-57)
Did you notice that as Joseph comes into Pharaoh’s presence he doesn’t whine about his mistreatment by Pharaoh’s “chief of the guard’ -- Potiphar?
Nor does he look over Pharaoh’s shoulder at that forgetful cupbearer and say, “You know, your majesty, I could have been serving you long ago if it hadn’t been for that man’s lousy memory!” Joseph has been in God’s waiting room; he’s been content to wait for God’s promise, and now apparently the time has come when God will move to change things. And he clearly knows that the One behind this move isn’t he himself, nor Pharaoh; it is the same God Who’s been with him every day for more than a decade.
Two pieces of evidence tell us Joseph knew that. The first is His testimony before Pharaoh
Look at how Joseph communicates in the presence of the fearsome lord of all of Egypt. In verse 15, Pharaoh says, I have heard it said about you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it! Verse 16. Joseph answered: it is not in me -- God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.
He doesn’t hesitate or stammer about the reality of this situation. God brought it about and God will complete what He’s about. Again, look at verse 25: Pharaoh’s dreams are one and the same; God has told to Pharaoh what He is about to do. Hear that? He boldly declares that
this pagan ruler fits into God’s plan and God is about to use him. The same thought is expressed again in verse 28: God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do. Finally in verse 32: he says, you had the dream twice. The repetition means something. He says, It means that the matter is determined by God and God will quickly bring it about. God, God, God, God, God.
All the way through the dialog with Pharaoh, Joseph references the Truth that he has long since come to believe. Life, and human affairs, and what we call nature; and listen, Pharaoh, countries and rulers too, all of these are in God’s hands. He’s the One who brings all this about.
The second piece of evidence that Joseph sees God’s hand behind his elevation is in
His testimony in naming his two sons
I love this part. The heart of this man comes pouring our when his two sons are born and he gives them names. Names in biblical times had a lot more meaning than what we give them. They often had to do with an event; in many cases in the Bible, the name a parent gave a child was a crystal clear testimony to God.
That’s what we have here. Just like God was the subject of Joseph’s sentences before Pharaoh, God is the subject and the verb here in the Hebrew form of these two sons’ names. In verse 50, before the famine, Joseph and his Egyptian wife were given two sons. The first one he named Manasseh. The name came from the Hebrew word that meant forget. Why? Because, Joseph said, God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household. That’s what the son’s name captured.
That doesn’t mean there he’s forgetting his family. He proclaims with this first son’s name
that God gave him the gift of forgetting the past -- of releasing his family from the pain and abuse he‘d suffered from them. God gave him forgetfulness.
Beyond that, the second son’s name is Ephraim. That word means fruitful. Beyond himself forgetting, God has not forgotten him. Through all the hurt and the pain, God has been kind to make him fruitful. Fruitful, in a foreign land and blessed, despite all the affliction.
Joseph plowed into his work with all his heart because he remembered who had placed him precisely there.
Steps I need to take
Let me ask you: can God use you, whenever and however He wants? Have you stopped struggling and plotting get avoid the hard lessons and learned to simply trust Him alone?
The Bible says that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth, to find the one whose heart is fully His. It says, to people like that, God will show Himself strong. It’s weakness and a broken heart through which God does His best work. Are you growing up in Him? Trusting Him alone? Pressing in to get to know Him?
The second question I have for you is: will you let Him use you? Scripture says, to whom much is given, much is expected. If you’re growing, God will delight to take you and use you: exactly with what He’s given you; your home, your money, your gifts; right where you are, there in your sphere of influence, with your resources. Never assume that the place has to change, the size of responsibility must be greater. Just be faithful. Engage. Let Him have you; let Him use you.
