Time to Change

We have been talking for the last few weeks about a guy named Joseph.

Joseph was a descendant of Abraham and part of the family God promised to use to bless the world.

He was the favorite son of his father Jacob and had dreams when he was 17 that his whole family would serve him.

His brothers were jealous of him, so they sold him into slavery.

As we saw last week, God was still with Joseph and prospered him wherever he went.

He was sold as a slave in the house of an Egyptian official and rose to be the highest servant of the house.

His hopes were dashed when he was falsely accused of trying to assault the official’s wife and thrown in prison.

Even in prison, God was with him and blessed him to the point that the warden put all other prisoners under his charge.

As we pick up Joseph’s story today, we find him 28 or so years old, so eleven years since he had the dreams about his family.

Although he is still in a trusted position, Joseph is still in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

When I look at Joseph’s story, there is something that keeps coming up: time.

Maybe it is because I am impatient, but I expect I am not the only one here who feels that way. One of the realities that jumps out when I study these passages is just how long it all took.

I know we have talked about this several times already, but I want to spend our time focusing on this main reality: If we will let him, God can use time to change us, our circumstances, and the world around us.

I think we would all agree that those things are possible, but if we are honest, we wonder—Can this person actually change? What if that person is me—can I be different? My situation seems hopeless—is it even possible for God to do anything with this? Can God use someone like me to change the world?

As we walk through the accounts in Genesis 40-41, we are going to see traces of God’s hand in changing Joseph, his circumstances, and his world.

What God does in your life and mine may not be as dramatic as what God does in Joseph. He will probably not let any of us become Vice President of the United States or go from prison to the palace like Joseph did.

However, the principles are still the same—God can use time to change you, your circumstances, and your world.

We don’t have the explicit statements about God working like we saw last week. It isn’t hard to spot his hand working, though.

As we pick up in 40:1, we are going to see that first reality:

1) God can change people.

Let’s get a sense of what is going on. Start in verses 1-4.

First, let me correct something I said last week. I made a quick comment about the fact the cupbearer and baker were possibly thrown in prison because they ruined Pharaoh’s birthday. I had my order of events wrong; they are actually released on his birthday, not imprisoned.

We don’t know the reason why they were thrown in prison, but it may have been because Pharaoh got sick from something he ate or drank, which would have been the responsibility of these two servants.

In case you aren’t familiar with the roles, the cupbearer was the one in charge of the wine Pharaoh drank. He had to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. However, that role also made him an advisor to Pharaoh since he was one of the servants who served closest to the king.

We really don’t know what they did, but they did something that angered Pharaoh enough to throw them in prison, and we know they were there a while.

These aren’t your normal prisoners like a petty thief or something, so they get special treatment and Joseph gets assigned to take care of them while they are in prison.

Here’s where we begin to see that God has used time to change Joseph.

Remember back to when Joseph first had his dreams at 17 years old.

He tells his family the first dream, and his brothers hated him for it.

He tells them the second dream and they get even more mad about it.

At best, Joseph is naive and insensitive. At worst, he is proud and is bragging about his dreams.

Either way, he didn’t read the room well or show any sensitivity to his brothers.

However, God has used time to change Joseph.

Pick up in verses 5-7...

Let’s stop before the answer.

Young, inconsiderate Joseph is now recognizing that these men are sadder than usual!

He isn’t just concerned about himself; he is actually concerned about the other people around him.

Pick up verse 8...

They were sad because they had dreams but no interpreters.

Egyptians put a lot of stock in dreams, so Pharaoh’s court would have had people who thought they could interpret them.

Now that the cupbearer and baker weren’t around those guys, they had no one to tell them what their dreams meant.

Listen to Joseph’s response again in 8b. Here, we again see the humility that God has been developing in Joseph over time.

When we first met Joseph, we didn’t hear any mention of God.

However, we saw last week that he was concerned with honoring God instead of giving in to temptation.

This week, he humbly acknowledges that God is the one who can give interpretations. He will say something similar to Pharaoh.

He doesn’t claim to be able to interpret dreams on his own; instead, he gives credit where it is due.

This is a very different picture of Joseph than the young man we saw initially.

God has used time to change his character.

So, here’s a question for us: will you and I be willing to give time for God to change our character or the character of a person we love?

It’s been 11 years for Joseph.

I can’t promise you that the person you are praying for will get saved or that you will get to a point where you never struggle for sin, but we know that God can use time to change us.

For those who are followers of Jesus, that change is called “sanctification.” Most of the time, when people use that term, they are talking about the process of growing in holiness, or growing more to live like Jesus.

Sanctification isn’t a passive process where God simply works behind the scenes and one day you wake up holier than you were before.

It is true that God does transform the way we think and work in ways we don’t always see, but growing in sanctification means you and I will grow to recognize our need for God’s strength to help us to live out what he has created us to be and do.

That’s a process that takes our entire lives, so give God time to work.

It also takes time for a person to respond to the message of the gospel. There was a man named George Mueller who loved Jesus and spent his life following him in cool ways. If I remember correctly, one of the habit Mueller had was to pray for these five men he knew who needed to be saved.

One by one over something like a 30 year period, four of these men got saved.

The last man gave his heart to Christ at Mueller’s funeral.

Are you willing to pray that long, to work that long?

For Joseph, these 11 years were forming him into who he needed to be for his next assignment. They humbled him and taught him to be alert to others and not just himself.

Those changes in his heart set the stage for the next reality we see about giving God time:

2) God can change circumstances.

The cupbearer and baker were upset because no one could interpret their dreams.

Joseph told them that God could, so he asked them to share what they had dreamed.

Pick up in verses 9-11...

Now, Joseph responds with the interpretation in verses 12-15.

The cupbearer is going to be restored, and when he is, Joseph asks him to put in a good word with Pharaoh to get him out of jail as well.

You know what is interesting about the word translated “dungeon” here? It’s the same word for pit or cistern used of the pit the brothers threw Joseph into.

He had done nothing to deserve being throw into a pit or a prison, yet God directed both.

Since things went so well with the cupbearer, the baker speaks up. Pick up in verse 16-17.

Unfortunately, the interpretation isn’t as favorable for the baker. Read it in verses 18-19.

Joseph’s words come to pass. In three days, Pharaoh throws a party for his birthday, restores the cupbearer and executes the baker.

However, pick up the note in verse 23, and let’s keep reading into 41:1...

The cupbearer forgot Joseph for two more years.

Again, how incredibly painful must this have been for Joseph? When do you think he finally realized it wasn’t going to happen? A week? A month? Three months?

Some commentators say Joseph did the wrong thing in trying to get the cupbearer to get him out, but I don’t think so.

I think his words planted a seed that God took two more years to bring to maturity.

This time, it is Pharaoh himself who is having dreams. He has two dreams that are very similar. In the first, seven healthy cows are consumed by seven sickly cows. In the second, seven good looking heads of grain get consumed by thin and scorched heads of grain.

No one can interpret the dreams, and Pharaoh is distressed.

Suddenly, the cupbearer remembers the man he forgot.

He tells Pharaoh that this young Hebrew slave had been able to interpret his dream accurately when he was in prison.

Pick up in verse 14-16.

If there was ever a time to brag, this was it. Instead, Joseph humbly acknowledged that God was the source of the interpretations, not himself.

Pharaoh repeats his dream, and Joseph give him the interpretation.

These dreams both mean the same thing. God was sending seven years of abundance to Egypt, but they would be followed by seven years of famine.

Joseph didn’t stop with the interpretation; he went on to give a solution in verses 33-36.

He suggested Pharaoh set a wise and discerning man as the overseer over Egypt. That man would appoint regional overseers who would make sure the abundance was stored up for the times of famine and ration it when the famine hit.

Look at how Pharaoh responds (verse 37-42).

Joseph went from his prison garments to fine linen, apparently in a matter of hours.

Warren Wiersbe notes:

“For the third time in thirteen years, he gave up his garment, but this time he would gain the garment of a ruler.” (Warren Wiersbe)

How is that for a change of circumstances?

All that time of preparation was building to this.

Joseph endured disappointment after disappointment, and yet in a matter of moments, everything about his life changed.

Think about all that had to come together for this to happen:

His brothers had to sell him into slavery

His boss had to throw him into prison.

His warden had to put him in charge of the cupbearer

God had to give the cupbearer a dream that Joseph could interpret.

God had to have the cupbearer forget about him so Joseph was right where he needed to be when he needed to be there.

God had to give Pharaoh a dream and Joseph the skill not only to interpret it but also to have a workable solution.

God can pull all kinds of circumstances and situations together to accomplish his plan.

He used the wicked actions of unjust men to get Joseph to where he wanted to be.

Keep this in mind, though: what God was doing was not for Joseph’s benefit alone.

That’s where we see the third reality here:

3) God can use his people to change the world.

Have you ever thought about the position Joseph was in?

He was the second in command over a nation that was going to have to conserve food when things seemed really good and ration food when things got bad, neither of which anyone likes to do.

The lives of millions of people hung on the decisions he was making.

Sure; the job came with some incredible honor and perks.

But with that came a responsibility to leverage that position so others could live.

When God changes our circumstances, it isn’t just so we can be happy or healthy or wealthy.

Has God blessed you with physical strength? When is the last time you thought about how you could use that to help someone else?

Are you gifted academically? What could God want you to do with the knowledge or ability to learn and think that he has given you?

Do you have financial resources? How can God use those resources to help those struggling financially or support the work of those sharing the gospel around the world?

Are you extra outgoing or a great listener or is there something else you do exceptionally well? How can you do that for God’s glory?

I knew a man who was blessed with material resources and God gave him the freedom to build a custom home. He specifically had the living room made into a large area so his house could be a great place for his small group to meet to encourage each other and study God’s Word.

All of what God was doing through Joseph was to save lives, but it was even more than that.

There was a specific set of lives he was saving: the lives of Abraham’s descendants.

We will see that more next week.

That’s not the only time in the Bible we see God work over time, is it?

There is another person. He wasn’t a descendant of Joseph; he was a descendant of Judah.

God allowed Jesus to be mistreated and maligned for working miracles and teaching.

Eventually, the Jewish leaders became so jealous of Jesus that they put him to death.

Joseph’s arrogance may have contributed to him being thrown in the pit, but Jesus did nothing to deserve dying for us.

He was willing to take on death for us.

In time—three days to be exact—Jesus rose from the dead to show that the penalty had been paid and now any who will surrender their lives to Jesus can be saved.

God used those unjust circumstances to save the world.

Jesus’s death in our place saves us from our sin and gives us righteousness with God.

Coming into a relationship with God on the basis of what Jesus has done is what starts that process of sanctification that we know he will complete.

Regardless of how circumstances work out for us in this life, we know that because Jesus has been raised, we have eternal life now and will live with him forever.

So, give him time.

He can change a heart like he did Joseph’s.

He can change circumstances.

And he can use his people to change the world.