When The World Isn’t Watching Series

We are continuing our From Dust to Life series in Genesis.

Today, we turn to Genesis 39, where we learn to live a life of integrity even when the world isn’t watching.

We live in an age of instant gratification—a world where desires can be fulfilled with a click, and moral boundaries are blurred by culture, media, social pressure and even our own deceptive hearts.

Temptation is everywhere:

? the lure of materialism,

? the pull of sexual immorality,

? the hunger for power, recognition, or comfort—often at the cost of integrity.

Technology bombards our minds with images and ideologies that dull our conscience and distort truth.

In such an environment, resisting temptation demands intentional dependence on God’s Word, God’s wisdom, and God’s strength.

But what happens when you are wrongfully accused?

When you do what is right—and still suffer for it?

Temptation then shifts forms: it becomes the temptation to stop walking in integrity, to vindicate yourself, to take matters into your own hands and give up on God’s faithfulness.

I recently read the testimony of a man wrongfully imprisoned for 38 years for a crime he did not commit. When the innocence of this man was finally proven through DNA evidence, he said:

“As God is my witness, it is said the truth shall make you free... I am not angry, I am not bitter. I am simply anxious to return to my loved ones and make the most of what is left of the existence I am granted in this world.”

What grace in the face of injustice.

That man’s story echoes Joseph’s in Genesis 39. If you have your Bible, let’s turn there:

Genesis 39:1-23

1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there. 2 And the LORD was with Joseph, so he became a successful man. And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. 3 Now his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD made all that he did prosper in his hand. 4 So Joseph found favor in his sight and became his personal servant; and he made him overseer over his house, and put him in charge of all that he owned. 5 It came about that from the time he made him overseer in his house and over all that he owned, the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph; so the LORD’S blessing was upon all that he owned, in the house and in the field. 6 So he left Joseph in charge of everything that he owned; and with him there he did not concern himself with anything except the food which he ate.

Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. 7 And it came about after these events that his master’s wife had her eyes on Joseph, and she said, “Sleep with me.” 8 But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put me in charge of all that he owns. 9 There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil, and sin against God?” 10 Though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he did not listen to her to lie beside her or be with her. 11 Now it happened one day that he went into the house to do his work, and none of the people of the household was there inside. 12 So she grabbed him by his garment, saying, “Sleep with me!” But he left his garment in her hand and fled, and went outside. 13 When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, 14 she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought in a Hebrew to us to make fun of us; he came in to me to sleep with me, and I screamed. 15 When he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled and went outside.” 16 So she left his garment beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she spoke to him with these words: “The Hebrew slave, whom you brought to us, came in to me to make fun of me; 18 but when I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled outside.”19 Now when his master heard the words of his wife which she spoke to him, saying, “This is what your slave did to me,” his anger burned. 20 So Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined; and he was there in the prison. 21 But the LORD was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the warden of the prison. 22 And the warden of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison; so that whatever was done there, he was responsible for it. 23 The warden of the prison did not supervise anything under Joseph’s authority, because the LORD was with him; and, the LORD made whatever he did prosper.