Patient Endurance

Introduction

I bought this t-shirt for myself earlier this year, because it’s pretty fitting for me.

I’ve been a huge fan of superheroes since I was a very young boy...

And even today, I have an extensive collection of comic books, mostly about superheroes.

Why? They are escapism, of course. Additionally, and more importantly, they typically focus on what really makes a hero: bravery; selfless sacrifice; a willingness to do the hard thing, not the easy thing; an idealized circumstance where complex problems have a solution (often involving punching a bad guy in the face!).

I’m sure a psychologist would have other things to say, but I’m not concerned about that today.

But, I’m well aware that superheroes with superpowers aren’t real. They are imaginary.

But that doesn’t keep us from having our favorites! (Here are mine…)

In the Bible, we have heroes that differ from these in many ways:

Biblical heroes don’t wear capes;

Biblical heroes don’t have superpowers;

Biblical heroes are real people;

Biblical heroes find the source of their power in the One True God, not superpowers.

For me, we’ve been looking at one of my favorite biblical heroes, Joseph. And we will continue looking at that hero this morning...

Body: Genesis 41:1-40

Context

When we last left Joseph God had enabled him to interpret the dreams of a cupbearer and baker to Pharaoh while in prison.

After the cupbearer hears his very positive interpretation, Joseph asks him to remember Joseph when he is back in the presence of Pharaoh.

And like a good friend, the cupbearer forgets Joseph almost immediately. And that’s where we find Joseph.

Verses 1-8

After two whole years...

That’s a long time to be in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. A long time to be forgotten by a person who he’d helped.

Think about it, he is 30 years old, he has been a slave or prisoner in Egypt for 12 or 13 years. He has had no contact with family and was constantly getting a raw deal in spite of his faithfulness.

But, I believe it was a time that God used to grow and develop Joseph’s faith, endurance, and dependence on God.

The Nile

The Nile River Valley is extremely fertile, and Egyptian wealth was tied primarily to this fact.

The entire Egyptian society depended on the Nile. So it’s not surprising that this dream was connected to the Nile.

You want to get Pharaoh’s attention, focus the dream on the Nile. So, God is speaking a language that Pharaoh can understand.

Pharaoh dreams…his spirit was troubled...

This should clearly be seen as God interceding on behalf of Joseph. God is giving these dreams to Pharaoh in order to save Joseph, and Israel down the road.

The magicians & wise men...

Typically their “interpretations” would set out to flatter the Pharaoh, as their position, wealth and even life might depend on it.

However, since Pharaoh is not the center of his dreams, they clearly were confused as to how they could spin these dreams into suggesting the glory of Pharaoh.

No doubt they had their opinions, but it is likely that Pharaoh wasn’t satisfied with their interpretations.

I believe this was likely God causing Pharaoh to be troubled and unsatisfied with their interpretations.

Verses 9-13

I remember my offenses today...

What took him so long? As I suggested last week, he probably went back to business as usual. Part of that was getting back to being self-focused, or in his case, Pharaoh focused.

Most people’s neutral is to focus on ourselves and the things that are immediately concerning to us. It takes attention and desire for us to focus on others…

Verses 14-24

Why the shave and change of clothes?

It would have been offensive for Joseph to enter into Pharaoh’s presence (who was considered a god by the Egyptian people) in prison garb.

And, the Egyptian men at the time shaved all their hair. So, Joseph needed to lose the beard and the hair on his head.

Verse 16 - Key Verse: “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.”

Five times in this chapter Joseph gives the glory to God.

Understand, from a worldly point-of-view, this would have been a perfect opportunity for Joseph to take credit.

And for all Joseph knew, once he interpreted Pharaoh’s dream, he’d be headed back to prison. So why not take a little glory for himself. Who would even know?

Joseph would know. See, his years in captivity had caused Joseph to learn to rely on God in every circumstance. Joseph had no need to lie, because he knew that God would take care of him.

Don’t lose sight of the fact that giving glory to God like this was extremely dangerous for Joseph.

The Egyptians were polytheists...

The Pharaoh was considered a god...

The God Joseph gave glory to is the One True God and there are no others. To suggest that the God of the Hebrews is the One True God had potential to end Joseph’s life.

Finally, it was important for Joseph to do this to distance himself with the magicians that Pharaoh was used. This was God’s work, not the work of tricksters, frauds and flatterers.

It is always a good time to give God the proper credit.

Verses 25-32

Joseph interprets the dream by pointing out that both dreams have the same point:

A severe famine is coming.

Famine was the great fear of the ancient world, because there was little one could do about it. Without divine intervention, such as this, it was impossible to predict and when it came they did not yet have the technology to do anything about it.

However, there will be seven years of plenty that precede the famine, so they have time to prepare.

It is significant that four times in this section Joseph points out that it is God who is doing this.

V. 25 - “God has revealed...”

V. 28 - “God has shown...”

V. 32 - “…fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about...”

It shows a number of things:

Joseph hasn’t lost his trust in God’s provision.

Joseph recognizes and acknowledges who is ultimately in control of all things (even pagan Egypt).

Pharaoh (likely a superstitious man) will believe that having a guy around who can talk to this powerful God is a good idea.

Verses 33-36

Joseph doesn’t stop at interpreting the dream, however, he also has a plan to share with Pharaoh.

This is utter confidence in God. Presuming to tell Pharaoh what he should do could be dangerous for a young Hebrew prisoner. However, Joseph knows who is in charge and trusts God’s provision for him.

Joseph plan is a savings plan really.

Keep back 1/5 of the crops during the seven years of plenty and store them away.

The brilliance of this plan is that not only will Egypt have enough during the famine, but others will come to Egypt for food, at which time Egypt can financially benefit through money and trade.

Plus, they likely jacked the prices up because there was no other place to go get the product.

Actually, I think this gives insight into why Joseph was so valuable to his father for leadership, to Potiphar, and the to prison guard:

Joseph had a leader’s mindset, one that would be forward thinking yet administratively minded.

However, more important than that was that Joseph trusted God and used his God-given strengths to bring about God’s will.

Verses 37-40

Joseph goes from the jailhouse to the penthouse…overnight!

Pharaoh not only likes this idea, but he recognizes that the Spirit of God is with Joseph.

How is this possible, since Pharaoh was an idol worshiper?

It is likely Pharaoh had no idea, nor respect for the Hebrew God. Basically, he is probably attributing this to his own false gods.

However, the reader should know that what Pharaoh is saying is truer than he realizes.

In various places in Scripture we see God empowering people with a special measure of His Spirit. This is always done to accomplish His purposes.

It is interesting that this is the first biblical mention of someone endowed with the Holy Spirit.

Throughout the OT, people endowed with the Holy Spirit would give them the ability to undertake a specific mission, to give them greater wisdom and knowledge, and the energy to fulfill the task at hand.

So, suddenly Joseph is not only let out of jail, but given a high position. In fact, the second highest position in the land.

Joseph is made “vizier” over all of Egypt. This role was to be the “grand steward of all Egypt,” meaning that all the activities of the state were now under his control.

Why such a huge promotion so quickly?

Because Pharaoh saw the power of Joseph’s God. Being a superstitious man in the first place, he do doubt wanted to get this God and Joseph on his side.

But don’t lose sight of the most important part:

Joseph only rose to this position because it was God’s way of saving Israel. This is not simply for Joseph’s own good.

This is important for us in this materialist society to wrap our minds around. God has a will for our lives that will ultimately bring about His plans. And His plans typically benefit others, not simply ourselves. More on that in a second.

So What?

Patient endurance pays off in the long-run when we are fulfilling God’s purposes.

Patient endurance

Joseph’s faithful patience and faithfulness to God are eventually rewarded far beyond what he could have imagined. But he had to endure a lot to get there!

Think about it: for the last 13 years Joseph endured a betrayal by his brothers, being sold into slavery, kidnapped into a foreign land, a slave in Potiphar’s house, the unwanted advances of Potiphar’s wife, unjustly convicted of attempting to force himself on Potiphar’s wife, and forgotten in prison for two years!

I think many of us, despite 13 years of faithful service, facing the continually raw deal that Joseph faced, might find ourselves getting pretty frustrated with God.

And yet, we don’t see that at all in Joseph. It’s why I used the term “hero” for him earlier. Joseph doesn’t have any superpowers. He wasn’t trained from a very young age to do incredible feats of strength or agility.

What makes him a hero is his trust in a God that was bigger than his circumstances.

What makes this even more exciting is that we can trust in this exact same God, who continues to be bigger than our circumstances.

The real reward

We might be tempted to think that Joseph’s patient endurance was paid off by being installed as the #2 man in all of Egypt.

Make no mistake about it, that’s pretty cool. And it would have come with great perks.

But that’s not the greatest reward.

Or, the incredible deliverance that Joseph experienced; a great reversal in twenty-four hours!

Joseph’s eyes were fixed on God, despite his circumstances. And, in time, God lifted him out of the pit.

Even that isn’t the greatest reward.

Neither should be under-estimated, both are incredible.

And both should remind us of what we have in Christ Jesus:

Jesus delivered sinners from the eternal pit and made us sons and daughters of the One True God!

He did this, not because of our merits (we have none that would suffice), but because of His great love and grace.

But the greatest reward is something that will come much later: Joseph is now in a position to save his people.

God has allowed everything to come into Joseph’s life to bring him to this position so he will be uniquely ready to save his people when the time comes.

See Joseph will come to understand that his greatest purpose is to fulfill God’s purposes for His people.

How do we know this?

Genesis 50:19–20 ESV

But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

I’ve been watching the Olympics whenever I have a few minutes. (I know a lot of people are not because of the disgusting open ceremony display. However, I blame the Olympic Committee, NBC and France for that, not the athletes. I watch for the athletes, not the foolish people running the Olympics.)

Anyway, because I don’t watch a ton of television, I typically am not privy to all the new commercials. But, watching the Olympics I’ve had my fill of the commercials!

One thing that stands out is the constant focus of most of the commercials is getting people to focus on themselves. Even the supposed Jesus Cares commercials is focused on a person’s feelings of self-worth.

I felt it was ironic, since we are looking at Joseph’s story, a story which focuses not simply on a person’s feelings of self-worth, but on a man…a hero…who finds his ultimate purpose in fulfilling God’s purposes for the benefit of others.

In truth, that’s a real hero, isn’t it?

As believers, we need to learn from Joseph’s example, because his example would be approved upon by the one we call Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ Himself!

If we are truly disciples of Christ Jesus, then we should seek to emulate Him as much as possible.

One of the greatest ways we can do this is by seeking to fulfill God’s purposes in our lives for the benefit of others.

So, how can you do that this week?