Joseph-The Prisoner

Prayer: Father in heaven, we thank you for the truth that you have given to us in your word. We bow our heads and our hearts before you and we ask that we would live according to it. That you would transform our minds and our hearts through your word. That we may show love to you and to one another in Jesus name, Amen.

This morning, we turn to Genesis 39 verses 20 through 23. Just to bring us up to speed, if you were not here last week, we are looking in our series on Joseph and last week we saw his confrontation with Potiphar's wife, how he fled, and yet she accused him of trying to attack her. And even though she was the instigator in all of these different things, she accused him of trying to sleep with her even though it was the other way around. And her husband, of course, sided with her and everyone else did also. And that's where we find out where we are in verse 20, Potiphar's response. Read Genesis 39:20-23.

We find Joseph once again in dire straits, wrongfully accused. This time, he’s sentenced to prison. And I find myself really wishing, and I know some of you really wish, the Bible would describe a little bit more information about what Joseph’s thoughts were going through his head. How did Joseph react to Potiphar? Did he try to defend himself?

You know, if the Bible did tell us more about how people reacted to things, to situations, then I wonder if we would shift our focus and attention from what God is doing in the story and put it too much on what Joseph is doing in the story? Would we maybe pattern ourselves too much after the individual, in this case, Joseph, or Daniel or David or whoever it might be, and not enough pattern after Christ himself?

Well, we do see how Joseph behaved, in chapter 40. Joseph came to terms with his situation. He recognized that he couldn't change his situation, no amount of arguing, no amount of lawyering up—I'm sure he had no possibility of getting a lawyer, even if it were possible—because he was a slave. There's nothing that he could say or do to change the circumstances he was in. He was stuck. And no amount of pleading, wishing, hoping, expecting, could change anything.

But we have the key to understanding Joseph's attitude. It’s right here. The Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love, and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison. You see, the Lord was with Joseph. We looked at that last week. The Lord was with Joseph. Joseph was in a relationship with the Lord, meaning that he spent time in prayer to God. He walked with the Lord. He meditated upon the words of the Lord that had been handed down to him from his father and his grandfather and so on and so forth, all the way back to Adam.

The Lord was with him, and the first thing that we notice is that the Lord, in this situation-from slave to prisoner, the Lord showed Joseph his steadfast love.

The Lord demonstrated his love for Joseph. He was with Joseph, his presence communicated steadfast love to Joseph along with the dreams that Joseph had been given. Joseph sensed God’s presence and trusted. He trusted that somehow, even in this, God’s plans would still come to be. So Joseph responded to this, with the truth that this, even this imprisonment was part of God’s plan.

That’s why Joseph responded the way he did to the keeper of the prison. He chose the make the best of a bad situation. The Lord gave him favour in the keeper's eyes. Joseph didn't have to beg, plead or do anything to make the guard look on him favourably because the Lord had brought it about.

So let's think of all this in our own lives. Let’s think about situations where we happen to be in, where we can't believe someone or something would act or do what they've done.

Think about a time when you thought you would get recognition for something, but you did not. Think about a time when your pastor treated you in a way he shouldn't have, or a member of council, a fellow volunteer, a church member, a close friend or a family member.

Think about those times and think about your response to them.

Did you demonstrate trust in the Lord who says, return no one evil for evil, but instead obey the scriptures? “Do not say, “I will repay evil”; wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you (Proverbs 20:22). "Repay no one evil for evil but give thought to do what is honourable in the sight of all" (Romans 12: 17). "See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone" (1 Thessalonians 5:15). Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling. But on the contrary, bless, for to this you recall that you may obtain a blessing" (1 Peter 3:9).

Here we see Joseph responding to the wickedness that had been done to him. He was innocent, he was trustworthy, he was full of integrity. He did everything he could to bless and to increase Potiphar's life. But Potiphar’s wife treated him horribly and lied and Potiphar believed her, and threw Joseph in prison.

But Joseph did not revile Potiphar and his wife. He responded with grace. And he responded with diligence to the new situation he was in.

Is that how you responded? Be honest with yourself, I know myself and I know the ways that I have sinned. And when I don't know the ways there are great people in my life who point them out to me. It's much easier for us, congregation, to do the natural thing, which is to get our backs up, to react. To put down the other person or put on them the same kind of hurt that we perceive they've caused us.

But as those passages in the scriptures teach us, that is no longer how we’re supposed to react, that is no longer how we're supposed to act. This is no longer the norm for those who are in Christ Jesus. We are made new in Christ. We've died with him. We are raised with him into new life. We don't fight our own battles. The Lord fights for us. The Lord brings justice. At the end of the day, when Joseph realized he could do nothing about his situation, he trusted the Lord to make the changes.

And the first thing the Lord did was encourage him, show him love and make him favourable in the new circumstances.

Have you ever done something like that? I'm going to share something with you that I did when I was between high school and college. I prayed to the Lord to give me patience. And I expected the Lord to just make me a patient person. But what the Lord did is, he put me in situations where I had to be patient—and I was not a patient person! I didn't want to have to learn how to be patient. I wanted the Lord to just, you know, have something fall from heaven, you know, a little bit of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. You know, patience, you know, it says, love, joy, peace, patience. I need patience, Lord, give me that bit of the fruit of the Spirit, so that I can be a patient person.

And in the situation that I was praying in to have patience, the Lord dragged it all out and I didn't get this miraculous sense of patience. And so I'm still learning. I think I've got maybe one percent more patience than I did when I first asked that prayer, whew that was over 20 years ago.

Ok, but that's how it goes when you ask the Lord to give you faith. He doesn't just all of a sudden, you know, open up his faith container and just scoop some out and flip it down on you from heaven, and it just kind of, oh, I've got faith now. You know, I can trust the Lord!

Rather, understand how the Lord works: in order to grow your faith, he puts you in situations where you have to trust him. Situations where you have to trust that he is going to deliver on his promises.

Joseph was in such a situation, he had the promise of God that his brothers would come and bow down before him, that his mother and his father would come before him as subjects to him, that he would hold their lives in his hand. And here he is in prison, and he must have wondered, “How is this going to happen?”

The Lord said, "trust me." And Joseph said, "Ok, I will."

As individual Christians, as a church, God is teaching us all these things, he's teaching us how to trust him, but the ways and means that God brings about are not the ways and means we are expecting.

When things were going well with Joseph, I'm sure he started thinking, "Oh, I can really see the Lord's plan now, I can see how this is coming up. See, I'm #1 in Potiphar’s household. Pretty soon Pharaoh's going to see me and he's like, 'Oh, there's a good slave. I want to have him in my household.'" And so, you know, maybe Joseph's going around getting to know Pharaoh's lieutenants getting to know some of the other people in Pharaoh's household, you know, angling his way, playing the politics, trying to make connections and saying, "Hey, I can do these things and maybe you can, you know, get me into the household."

Maybe, that's just conjecture on my part. Rather, based on the Bible’s description of Joseph, it is much, much more likely that he simply was faithful to his task to Potiphar. And that was all he had to do. He had to be a faithful, obedient, man of integrity, and by doing so, God would bring about the prophecy that he gave to him. But the situation, the reality that the Lord brought about was radically different than anything Joseph expected.

This morning, beloved in Jesus Christ, are you where you expected to be?

Has God taken you on a radically different path? Are you wondering what good God could possibly bring out of the situation you're in?

Have you found yourself wondering? How did I wind up here? If so, I'd like to read from numbers 21:4-9.

There are things that happen in history that tend to repeat themselves. And so let's look back in history in another group of God's people. Numbers 21, beginning verse four, they traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea to go around, Edom, but the people grew impatient on the way. They spoke against God and against Moses and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There's no bread, there's no water, and we detest this miserable food."

Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them, they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people, the Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole, anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake, he looked at the bronze snake and he lived.

The people who spoke against the Lord did so because they thought the Lord was taking too long in bringing them to the Promised Land. They were convinced in their own mind that Moses and the Lord were wrong and that if they were in charge, things would be better, things would be different, they would have been in the promised land already. They made their views known loudly, among other people. They complained. Their actions and their words were harsh, painful, and they were difficult to receive.

They caused division in God's people and they were like poisonous snakes among the people, and so to stop them, God sent venemous snakes who bit and killed the people, not just the angry people. The snakes didn't care, they just bit anyone. And finally, those who had been grumbling and complaining realized their sin and they confessed to Moses and to the Lord and God instructed Moses and he made a bronze serpent. And he put it on a pole, and whenever a snake bit someone, all they had to do is look up the serpent and be healed.

What I find extremely fascinating in this story is that God didn't just get rid of the snakes.

It's like when I prayed for patience, I thought I would just get patience. instead, the Lord put me in trying circumstances to learn patience.

We pray for faith, God doesn't just give us faith that we just blindly trust, no matter what, he puts us into situations where we have to trust to the Lord and people.

He didn't just get rid of the snakes, the snakes stayed there. When people got bit, then they had to look at the bronze snake in order to be healed. Maybe there's someone who's acting like a poisonous snake in your life. God won't necessarily get rid of them for you, but he will help you deal with them. Can anyone tell me what, John, three versus 14 and 15 says, I'm sure all of us can recite John three, verse 16, who can tell me what John 3:14 and 15 say?

"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert. So the Son of Man must be lifted up. That everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." If you've been bit by a poisonous person in your life, look to Jesus, if you know you're a poisonous person, you must repent, confess and look to Christ to be healed, confess to God and confess also to those you've sinned against. Then you will receive the Lord's blessing.

It is no coincidence that the very means by which we are saved is by looking to Jesus Christ in faith.

That very same means, looking to Jesus Christ, is also the means of living in Christ.

So often we look to Jesus for salvation, but then we try to do the rest on our own. We try to live out our lives in faithfulness on our own. We try to to to build up credit with the Lord. We try to do all these good things. We try to do all all these things and protect our places.

And that's for nothing because all that Christ is telling us is to look to him for the transformation we need in this life to make us more like him, more patient, more loving, more generous, more trusting, more caring, more encouraging.

We cannot be sure of Joseph's initial reaction to being in prison, but we can be sure of is this, that he trusted the Lord to sort things out.

In prison, he was diligent and attentive to his task. He served others, he put others ahead of himself. The Lord took care of him. The Lord raised him up in the eyes of the keeper of the prison. He did not have to raise himself up. The Lord placed Joseph exactly where he wanted him to be, and you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, are exactly where God wants you to be, right here.

Because where you are at in your life right now is where God wants you to be. He's using the situation you're in, the good people, the not so good people, the good things, at work at home, at play, at church, the good and the not so good people at work, at school, at home, at play, at church to demonstrate that he is with you. He's pouring out his steadfast love towards you, and he will give you favour in other people's sight.

The only thing that God requires of you right now, is faith. The only thing that God requires of you in this situation you're in right now is trust. You can't get rid of the snakes, you can't heal the hurt, you can't change the situation.

Unless, of course, you caused the situation. Maybe apologizing would help. But God handles the snakes, God heals hurts, God heals hearts, God changes situations, as we'll see in a few weeks, when Joseph's situation finally changes.

Look to God, trust him. For he is faithful and true, amen. Let us pray.

Lord, God and Heavenly Father. I confess to you that I have sinned against you in thought word and deed and. I have harboured anger and hurt in my heart towards others, even others in this beautiful congregation. I confess that I have said and done things in the past that were not reflective of the heart and life of Christ, that I've tried to do things on my own strength. And I have not acted as Christ who depended completely upon your Holy Spirit. So I pray that those that I have offended will receive from you the heart to forgive me.

I pray, Lord, that this would be a place where broken people can just be honest. I pray that we could just be a real congregation where we stop pretending that we have everything together. We just acknowledge, that you know, what, we're just carrying along and we're keeping our eye on Christ. We're keeping our focus on him or her trying to serve him and to get the Word out that he has given us. Perfect healing from every single poisonous bite from the evil one. We lift Jesus up. And people can look to him and receive total salvation, total forgiveness, total love and acceptance. It's in Jesus name, we pray, amen.