GENESIS 39 - Christian Luck

Introduction

So last week Jodee and I went down to put the horses in the barn for the night. Usually this process takes about ten minutes, but on this particular night the horses had other plans in mind. Jodee’s walker Gypsy and the girls’ pony Gimmick came racing into the barn and did not stop at the gate on the far side (which had inexplicably been left unlatched on this particular night… weird...). They shouldered their way through the gate and up into the back yard, and after a few minutes of snorting and cantering around the house headed off down the barn road and out of sight until all we could hear was the sound of their hooves fast-trotting down West Liberty Road in the dark sounding like two driverless Amish buggies clip-clopping into the distance. (Baxter, the Halflinger pony wasn’t interested in the festivities; choosing instead to stay in the barn and whinny incessantly...)

When we finally caught up with them in the neighbor’s pasture, we got a lead on Gypsy, but Gimmick kept dancing out of arm’s reach every time we got close. As Jodee, Caleb, Hannah, Selah and I were all standing around different parts of the dark, wet pasture with a heavy mist drizzling down on us trying to get hold of Gimmick’s halter, I sent out a text to all of us saying “The providence of God is wonderful, isn’t it?”

That comment did earn me some sarcastic responses and a few quizzical looks in the darkness. Because we Christians tend to use the word “providence” as a synonym for “good luck”— for instance, our neighbor Bonnie had her cows get out a week earlier, but just before they got away from her on the road, an oncoming car driven by other neighbors who keep cattle was able to stop them and get them back in the pasture. That we would call “providence”; when things work out. When the routine scan picks up the cancer you didn’t know about; when the steering goes out in your old truck as soon as you pull into your driveway, when the neighbor shows up just in time to keep your livestock from running a half mile down the road.

But if that is your idea of the providence of God, you don’t understand the whole picture. Because God’s providential control over the world isn’t just about the times when it all works out—God’s providence also governs when the cancer doesn’t get caught in time, when the steering fails on the highway and you plow head-on into a school bus, or when the gate got left unlatched that one time and let the horses run in the dark wet night for two hours.

If we limit our understanding of the providence of God to the “Oh what GOOD luck” events of life, then we will have no way of understanding the message of Genesis 39. This chapter is all about God’s governance of Joseph’s life. No less than five times in three verses we read that YHWH was with Joseph:

Genesis 39:2 LSB

And Yahweh was with Joseph, so he became a successful man. And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian.

Genesis 39:3 LSB

Now his master saw that Yahweh was with him and how Yahweh caused all that he did to succeed in his hand.

Genesis 39:5 LSB

Now it happened that from the time he appointed him overseer in his house and over all that he owned, Yahweh blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph; thus the blessing of Yahweh was upon all that he owned, in the house and in the field.

As we trace the life of Joseph through this chapter, we see the unmistakable hand of God providing for and seeing to Joseph in every twist and turn of his steps—good and bad, fair and foul. So what I want you to see here in this chapter from the life of Joseph is that

A believer finds lasting COMFORT in the PROVIDENCE of God

When we talk about God’s control over this world, we tend to speak of it in two different ways: We talk about the sovereignty of God, which refers to God’s authority to rule over and control all of the events of this world. Sovereignty refers to God’s reign over this world.

The providence of God refers to the way God rules over this world; it is the way that He “looks after” all things so that they fulfill His purposes. There are at least three facets of God’s providence that we can consider in Joseph’s story here in this chapter. The first facet of God’s providence that is a lasting comfort to us is that in His providence,

I. God KEEPS all things in EXISTENCE (Genesis 39:1-6a)

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In His providential governing of all things, God maintains the properties and existence of all things. The physical laws of the Universe are consistent—the Sun will always rise in the east, a compass needle will always point north, water will always run downhill, the Steelers will always choke in the playoffs…

Consider what chaos would exist if God did not keep things existing and maintain their consistent properties. There would be no way to navigate through this world. Consider Joseph’s arrival in Egypt:

Genesis 39:1 LSB

Now Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian official of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had brought him down there.

It seems odd to think in these terms because we never do, but how did the Ishmaelites know where to find Egypt? Because it was in the same place as it had been for centuries—because God Who created and established Egypt was pleased to continue its existence there!

A few verses later we find that YHWH had greatly blessed Potiphar’s household because of Joseph’s work for him:

Genesis 39:5 LSB

Now it happened that from the time he appointed him overseer in his house and over all that he owned, Yahweh blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph; thus the blessing of Yahweh was upon all that he owned, in the house and in the field.

When we first met Joseph he was working as the manager for his father’s household, prospering the flocks and herds and faithfully discharging his duties—Joseph knew how to make a house and field prosper! But why was Joseph able to use the same knowledge and skills to grow his master’s wealth in Egypt that he had used in Hebron for his father’s house? Because God has created and maintains the same properties of plants and crops and flocks and fields in all places!

And not only so, God providentially maintained Joseph’s skills and memories and personality day by day and year by year. Joseph was able to prosper Potiphar’s household because God was providentially keeping and maintaining the properties of everything in existence in order for it to be possible for Joseph to act in any meaningful way.

In His providential maintenance of the existence and properties of all things,

II. God ESTABLISHES our ability to make CHOICES (Genesis 39:6b-18)

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Imagine that you sat down at a table and were given a choice between three bowls of ice cream—you could have chocolate, vanilla or strawberry. Now, you could make a completely free and uncoerced choice between those flavors, right? Pick any one you want.

You can freely choose any flavor, but think about all of the things that you did not choose in this matter: You did not choose your taste buds, you did not choose the first experience with those flavors that influenced your preferences; you didn’t even control the circumstances that made those three flavors available to you instead of rum raisin, peanut butter swirl and cherry vanilla. All of those factors were providentially arranged by God. So what we see is taht all of our free and uncoerced choices have God’s providential presence at the foundation.

The same is true of the players in Joseph’s story; Potiphar’s wife was not suddenly manipulated or coerced into acting contrary to her nature; she freely chose her behavior toward Joseph, completely consistently with what kind of woman she was:

Genesis 39:7 LSB

And it happened after these events that his master’s wife set her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.”

Potiphar’s wife’s actions toward Joseph were consistent with the kind of woman she was; in the same way, Joseph’s reaction to her was completely consistent with the kind of man he was:

Genesis 39:8–9 LSB

But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has given all that he owns into my hand. “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?”

Consider the account we explored last week about Joseph’s brother Judah—how would he have responded to Mrs. Potiphar’s offer? Judah acted perfectly consistently according to his nature, and jumped enthusiastically into sin.

But here we see God’s providential work in Joseph’s life, that he did not succumb to those temptations. God was seeing to it that Joseph was innocent of the false accusations that were thrown at him:

Genesis 39:12–15 LSB

Then she seized him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” And he left his garment in her hand and fled and went outside. Now it happened, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, that she called to the men of her household and spoke to them, saying, “See, he has brought in a Hebrew to us to laugh at us; he came in to me to lie with me, and I screamed. “Now it happened that when he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled and went outside.”

God saw to it that Joseph did not sin in this affair; but the choices Joseph made not to sin were still his own choices. By His providential hand in all of the circumstances of Joseph’s arrival in Egypt and his life there, YHWH was cooperating with each of the players—the Ishmaelite traders, Potiphar, his wife, the other slaves in the household—each one of them freely acting according to their own God-given natures; God’s providential hand upholds every freely-chosen decision His creatures make.

The believer can find lasting comfort in the providence of God—He keeps all things in existence, He establishes our ability to make choices, and as our chapter concludes we find that as God does these things,

III. He DIRECTS all things to fulfill His PURPOSES (Genesis 39:19-23)

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When I was in grade school, I remember a book called “Oh What Good Luck, Oh What Bad Luck”. It was a series of statements that went, “Oh what bad luck—your airplane engine died. Oh what good luck—you have a parachute! Oh what bad luck—it didn’t open. Oh what good luck—you see a haystack. Oh what bad luck—the haystack has a pitchfork stuck in it. Oh what good luck—you miss the pitchfork. Oh what bad luck—you missed the haystack...” and so on.

When we talk about God’s providence, we tend to think only of the “Oh what good luck” side of the equation. But if we do that, then there are parts of Joseph’s story that we simply cannot reconcile with what we think we understand about God’s hand in the affairs of this world. We can look at the good things—God saw to it that Joseph prospered and became successful for Potiphar, and put His blessing on everything that Joseph did (v. 5).

But we also have to understand that God’s hand was just as present in the wicked things that happened to Joseph—being falsely accused by his master’s wife, being thrown into prison, being sold into slavery by his brothers in the first place. The truth is that nothing that takes place in our lives comes by chance, or comes to us apart from the providence of God.

The truth of the matter here in Joseph’s life was that even though the spiteful intention of Potiphar’s wife was to have Joseph executed for rebuffing her advances (the typical punishment for a slave who had done what she accused Joseph of doing), God providentially arranged for Potiphar to have Joseph thrown into prison instead:

Genesis 39:19–20 LSB

Now it happened that 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. So Joseph’s master took him and put him into the jail, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined; and he was there in the jail.

Even in the middle of this terrible miscarriage of justice, God’s providence was still at work. Joseph did not just go to any jail; he went to the jail where Pharoah’s prisoners were held! We are not told why Joseph wound up there—Moses doesn’t tell us that Potiphar pulled any strings, we don’t see any other reason why Joseph wasn’t just thrown into a regular hostage pit or torture chamber (both of which, again, would have been reasonable to expect for a slave who had done what Joseph was accused of doing). The only explanation for why Joseph wound up where he did was because God’s hand was at work!

Now, once again—we cannot help but read this story from the perspective of already knowing how it is all going to work out. We already know what is going to happen to Joseph, how he will eventually be released from prison and go on to play such an exalted role in Pharaoh’s court.

But don’t miss the fact that at this point in the story, Joseph has no idea of what is going on! Here’s what Joseph knows—his brothers hated him enough to seriously consider killing him; he lost his freedom and his liberty and his personhood when he became a slave; the master that he faithfully served with all his strength believed the slanderous accusations of his wife and had him thrown into prison. Joseph does not know why any of this has happened.

But Joseph also knows that YHWH was with him! Even here in prison, he saw God’s providence at work:

Genesis 39:21–23 LSB

But Yahweh was with Joseph and extended lovingkindness to him and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer. So the chief jailer gave into the hand of Joseph all the prisoners who were in the jail; so that whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. The chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph’s hand because Yahweh was with him; and whatever he did, Yahweh made to succeed.

God was not the source of the evil that befell Joseph, but God was utterly in control of every evil act that took place. And God at every turn was guiding and using and superintending everything that happened so that Joseph would find himself exactly where he needed to be so that God could use him to accomplish His purposes. Joseph could not possibly see what good could come from being thrown into jail; he could not imagine where the providence of God would take him next. But what he did have was the knowledge that, even in the darkest moments, God was with him and God’s purposes were going to come to pass.

Christian, there is lasting comfort for you when you rest in the promises of God. As Charles Spurgeon put it,

Christian! there is no sweeter pillow than providence; and when providence seemeth adverse, believe it still, lay it under thy head, for depend upon it there is comfort in its bosom. (Charles Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, Vol II, P. 145)

Consider the life of Joseph here in this chapter, Christian, for the sweet comfort that you have in the providence of God. As He was for Joseph, His providence means that

God is PRESENT in your WORST MOMENTS

When Joseph was bound and dragged off through hundreds of miles of desert by the Ishmaelite slave traders, God was with Him. When he was torn away from his home and his father’s love, God was with him. When he was thrown into prison on trumped-up charges and everyone believed the lies and no one believed him, God was with him.

Christian, depend on it—there is no hardship or trial that you walk through alone. There is no diagnosis that means God has abandoned you; there is no long, lonely road for you that He does not walk with you. When you suffer and are tempted to ask “Where is God in this?”, look at Genesis 39 and know that He is in the same place He was when Joseph was suffering at the hands of his unjust accusers—the same place He was when His own Son was unjustly accused and punished for crimes He did not commit: God is with His sons when they suffer!

And to be sure, a good deal of that suffering in this world comes from doing the right thing. This is another reminder from Joseph’s story here in this chapter—

Obedience to God does NOT GUARANTEE favor with MEN

Sometimes playing by the rules and working hard pays off. Sometimes telling the truth and being honest results in honor and success. The Scriptures are full of the promises of God to bless our obedience and fill our hands with good things when we diligently listen to God’s voice and obey His commandments— “blessed in the city, blessed in the field, blessed in the produce of the ground and the offspring of your body”, as Moses writes in Deuteronomy 28.

But in the providence of God, there are those times when telling the truth will make you lose your job. Having integrity and doing the right thing and standing on your obedience to God will get you ridiculed instead of rewarded, punished instead of praised. Sometimes doing the right thing will get you recognized and promoted, and sometimes saying no to an adulteress might get you thrown into jail.

There’s a story about an old farmer who used to ridicule his Christian neighbors for not working their farms on Sunday. He would make it a point to drive his tractor right past the open windows of their little country church every Sunday morning all summer long. At the end of the season when the harvest came in he made fun of their faithfulness by pointing out that his farm had produced better crops than all of theirs— “That God of yours sure is something; you’d think He’d give you good faithful church-goers better crops than some old atheist!” To which the pastor of the church replied, “Well Henry, God doesn’t settle all of His accounts in October!”

In the providence of God, obedience and faithfulness may not earn you rewards with the people around you, but as He works His purposes through your circumstances He is working out in your “momentary, light afflictions” an “eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (1 Corinthians 4:17). When you can’t understand why you are suffering; when you can’t see any purpose to your afflictions, the providence of God is your sure and steadfast promise that

You will NEVER suffer POINTLESSLY

In one of David’s psalms, he says this about God:

Psalm 56:8 LSB

You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?

Think about this—God takes every one of the tears that His children cry and puts them in a bottle and keeps a written record of them! Surely at least part of what David is getting at here is that, for God’s children, there is no such thing as a pointless tear! Every single tear you have ever cried, Christian, is accomplishing His eternal purposes for you and for the world.

People will sometimes say to me that they cannot believe in a God Who would allow suffering in the world, and that it is easier to believe that there is no God rather than a God Who can stop suffering but chooses not to. And I can understand how a thinking person can come to that conclusion.

But I find it far more horrific to believe that all of the suffering and pain and heartache that I go through in life is merely pointless—that none of it actually means anything. Sometimes you just get caught in the gears of the Universe and there’s nothing anyone can do about it and there’s no reason for it.

But the comfort you have in the providence of God, Christian, means that there is nothing that you will endure that will not have some eternal fruit for your everlasting Joy or God’s everlasting glory. When you awaken on that Day in His presence, you will find that the glory of God revealed in you and your unending joy in Him have both been watered and fed by the tears and groans of your pain and heartache and loss here in this life. God will be glorified and you will find joy in all of it as it has been ordered by His hand moment by moment.

Consider that you have been brought here this morning by that same providential hand of God—you have freely come here by your own genuine choice. And yet that free and genuine choice is undergirded and made possible by the fact that God has seen to every detail of your existence in such a way that you have come here today by His design. Throughout all your past, throughout all your joys and heartbreaks, throughout every triumph and every loss, He has been ordering your steps to this moment, here in His presence with His gathered people in worship.

What has he brought you here for? Has He brought you here to fill you with the encouragement that He is with you? That He will never leave you nor forsake you, that nothing will ever tear you away from His grasp? That you belong to Him through Jesus Christ, and there is no danger, toil or snare that can thwart His purposes for His glory and your joy? Take heart Christian, that YHWH is with you because you belong by faith to Christ!

Or has His providential hand brought you here so that you might have this assurance for yourself? The assurance that God is with you; that He has looked on you and promised to forgive your sin against Him, that He will give you a new heart and a new ability to love and obey and serve Him; that the lies and slander and hatred and rebellion against Him can be gone for good, and instead of His enemy you can be welcomed as His own child.

God’s Word says that “The wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Jesus Christ died under the wrath of God that was coming on you for your sin, taking all of the punishment that you deserve, so that you could live forever with Him. He has arranged your path to lead you here today; will you make this the day that you turn from your guilt and shame and receive the gift of salvation that He offers you today when you come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Hebrews 13:20–21 LSB

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus, equip you in every good thing to do His will, by doing in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

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