FAITHFUL WHEN FORGOTTEN

Introduction

-There was a story a few weeks ago in the news about a four-year-old child who was forgotten in a daycare center’s minivan in Rochester, New York. This poor girl was left in the vehicle for nine hours amid freezing temperatures. While she could have easily succumbed to hypothermia in New York’s frigid weather, by the grace of God the girl survived with no long-term detrimental effects. The driver of the van tried to cover it up, giving the girl some money to keep quiet and keep the incident secret. But after the girl got home she told her mom who then went to authorities.

-You hear stories like that, and your first reaction is that your blood is boiling in anger that someone could so easily forget someone under their care. Unfortunately, we’ve heard too many stories like this one with kids being left in vans or family vehicles because they were forgotten.

-And yet, for some people, this is picturesque or metaphorical for what they feel is going on in their lives—maybe for some of you with your lives. You feel forgotten. Forgotten by humanity and forgotten by God. And maybe because of these feelings of being forgotten, you have distanced yourself from people and God, and that might including mentally and/or physically checking-out when it comes to living for God or serving God, or pretty much anything in your spiritual walk.

-And yet, feelings don’t determine facts. Just because you feel forgotten doesn’t mean you have been forgotten. The Almighty, all-powerful, all-knowing God doesn’t forget His people. He sees you. He knows what you are going through. But you have to remember, that being a child of God does not exempt you from problems in life. You know God and His character and you trust that He is doing or allowing things in your life according to His purposes.

-So, we look in our passage, and we see a man who seems to have been forgotten. And that man is Joseph. You are familiar with his story, although we’ll unpack it a little more today. What we find in our passage is that Joseph, who was seemingly wasting away his life in prison and was seemingly forgotten by God and man, still faithfully used his gifts and talents to serve in God’s name for God’s glory.

-What I want you to take away from today is that even though our lives may not be what we had dreamed or hoped, and we may feel lonely and forgotten, but we still faithfully serve God as we are gifted in spite of our feelings about our life. My prayer is you will commit yourself to this.

Genesis 40:1–23 ESV

1 Some time after this, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker committed an offense against their lord the king of Egypt. 2 And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, 3 and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard appointed Joseph to be with them, and he attended them. They continued for some time in custody. 5 And one night they both dreamed—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison—each his own dream, and each dream with its own interpretation. 6 When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled. 7 So he asked Pharaoh’s officers who were with him in custody in his master’s house, “Why are your faces downcast today?” 8 They said to him, “We have had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them.” And Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell them to me.” 9 So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said to him, “In my dream there was a vine before me, 10 and on the vine there were three branches. As soon as it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and the clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup and placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand.” 12 Then Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days. 13 In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office, and you shall place Pharaoh’s cup in his hand as formerly, when you were his cupbearer. 14 Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house. 15 For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit.” 16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream: there were three cake baskets on my head, 17 and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating it out of the basket on my head.” 18 And Joseph answered and said, “This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days. 19 In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from you!—and hang you on a tree. And the birds will eat the flesh from you.” 20 On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. 22 But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23 Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.

-I want to touch on four lessons we find in this passage:

1) Serve God faithfully in spite of circumstances

-Consider, for a moment, all that Joseph went through. God gave him dreams of his future. His brothers couldn’t stand him before, and hated him even more after the dreams, so they sold him into slavery. He was put into service for Potiphar, and he seemed to prosper for a time, but then he was falsely accused of rape and put into prison.

-Joseph did nothing wrong, and yet he found himself separated from his family, made a slave, falsely accused, put into prison—not an ideal life. Unlike what some people think or teach, when you are God’s man or woman, that doesn’t mean you will live your best life now. Few of us will face adversity like Joseph. And yet, Joseph did not blame God and Joseph did not stop living for God just because he didn’t like his circumstances.

-When in Potiphar’s house, even though a slave, he served his master faithfully which was his way of serving God faithfully. He didn’t do his slave-job half-heartedly. He knew he was serving God. And when confronted with temptation, he said he could not sin against God in such a way. And then in prison he was given responsibilities that allowed him to serve God even in that capacity, and he did it.

-His circumstances did not determine his level of faithfulness of serving God. He didn’t murmur to himself like some of us might, saying, “Well if God is putting me through this or if God has forgotten about me, then forget this, I ain’t doing nothing.” Do you think with that kind of attitude, that Joseph would have been later lifted up to the position he was put in without having faithfully serving God in the difficult circumstances?

-Joni Eareckson Tada had a promising life ahead of her in every way. But a diving accident left her paralyzed from the shoulders down. While she did struggle with anger and depression like most would in her circumstances, she made the conscious choice to serve God faithfully, which has resulted in numerous ministries that has touched millions of lives.

-Joseph and Joni made the choice to serve God faithfully in spite of circumstances, and that choice is before us as well.

2) Serve God faithfully with the gifts He gives

-Joseph is in prison. God gives him grace in the eyes of the warden, and so Joseph is given a job inside the prison, serving and tending to the prisoners.

-Pharaoh, for some reason, gets mad at his butler/cupbearer and his chief baker and throws them in the same prison as Joseph. Joseph is put in charge of serving them. Again, by serving them he is serving God. But he is given a unique opportunity. Both the cupbearer and the baker have memorable dreams on the same night, and they can’t figure out the significance of it. They figure it can’t be coincidence that they both had similar dreams on the same night, so there must be something special about those dreams. The problem is that they are in prison and they don’t have access to anyone to help them figure out what they mean. In Egypt, people in Pharaoh’s sphere would have had access to all sorts of magicians and wise men who would purportedly be able to help with these things, but in prison they had access to no one.

-So, the passage notes that they are pretty downcast about it. They are stressed and frustrated and they let it show in their countenance. Along comes Joseph who has dealt with them on a daily basis for some time, so he notices that their attitudes are different than normal, so he asks, and they share the dreams. Dreams just happen to be Joseph’s speciality. We might say that dreams are his spiritual gift.

-Years earlier, before all the hardships, God gave Joseph two dreams, and Joseph (in the Spirit) understood the meanings of those dreams—God was going to put Joseph in a position where his family would end up bowing to his authority. Of course, maybe bragging on those dreams got him into some of the trouble he was currently in, but God gave the dreams and God gave Joseph the gift to interpret the dreams.

-Now God has given Joseph an opportunity to use the gifts that God gave him—yes, even in the midst of adverse circumstances he could use those gifts. For some reason we think that whatever gifts God has given us are only usable when our life is going good or when things settle down in our life or whatever. That’s not the way it works. God will give us opportunities to use our gifts at any time. We might call them divine appointments. Even when you have your own issues going on, God will give divine appointments for you to use your spiritual gifts.

-And here, Joseph has a divine appointment. It is not coincidence that these guys have these dreams and that Joseph is there to interpret the dreams. Joseph recognized this as the divine appointment it was. Joseph didn’t merely try to have small talk with them, listen to the dreams, and then just go about his day. Joseph knew that God could use him to interpret dreams, so he allowed himself to be used of God to serve these men.

-Notice, though, that Joseph did not take the credit for the gift he had. He quickly points out that it is God that interprets dreams—Joseph just happens to be the conduit through which that happens. So, the men tell their dreams, and Joseph interprets their dreams. For the cupbearer, it’s pretty good news. For the chief baker, not so much.

-Not once did Joseph have such a pity-party about his circumstances that he refused the gift that God gave him. Being in prison did not give him the excuse for not serving God by serving others. And you have a gift. And your life might be all sorts of topsy-turvy right now, but that does not excuse you from using the gift that God gave you. Your circumstances and your attitudes do not exempt you from serving God as He wired you.

-The apostle Peter said:

1 Peter 4:10 (ESV)

10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:

-Peter and Paul both talk about spiritual gifts, and not once do they ever give some sort of exemption from using it if you don’t like where your life is. There is no fine print about serving God through what He has given you. When God gives you an opportunity, you serve Him.

3) Serve God faithfully even if things don’t change

-So, Joseph gives the interpretations of the dreams. He knows that God has given those interpretations, he knows that everything is going to happen just like he said, so he uses this as an opportunity to maybe help himself out a little bit. (There’s nothing wrong with that.) Knowing the cupbearer will return to Pharaoh, he asks for a favor—to bring his name up before Pharaoh because he has been wronged in so many ways. The cupbearer is like, “sure, whatever.”

-Sure enough, the baker is killed, but the cupbearer goes back to work just like the interpretation of the dreams. And the cupbearer completely forgets about Joseph. He’s just happy to have his old life back. From the way it reads, I don’t think there is any malice or purposeful hurt meant here. In the excitement of being back to normal he just forgets about Joseph, even though Joseph did him a big favor.

-That’s not too unusual for people. Trish can tell me to do something, and I’ll say sure, of course. Not 2 minutes later I’ve already forgotten about it.

-So Joseph ended up spending several more years in prison. His circumstances did not change one bit. And yet Joseph remained faithful to God and continued to faithfully serve God.

-I guess because we Americans have this notion that hard work will earn certain wages that we put our service to God in that same scale. We might think that if I do serve God and if I do use my gift, then God in turn will give me my wages and things will get better in my life. We may not articulate it that way, but so many people live with that maybe in their subconscious. I serve God, He pays me back with a better life. Nowhere is that found in Scripture. Nowhere is that even implied. You serve God, and your circumstance might not change, but you serve God faithfully anyway because He is God.

-I spoke of Joni Eareckson Tada earlier. She made the choice of serving God faithfully in spite of being paralyzed. Some might think that since she has done so much great work for the Lord, surely God would have healed her by now. He has not, and to this day she has served faithfully. The accident that took her mobility happened in 1967. Here we are roughly 55 years later. Her circumstances have not changed in 55 years. And yet the gospel is still going out through her. Because she made the choice to serve God faithfully. At some point did she think God forgot about her? I would assume so. And yet she serves and she is able to see God work through her AND work through her circumstances.

-Your circumstances might never change in the way that you want. But, you know what? You serve God faithfully anyway because He is worthy and He has shown you the way...

4) Jesus is our example of faithful service

-We have to consider the One who served God faithfully who alone had been truly wronged on this earth.

-Here is Jesus, God the Son, who stepped out of the glories and riches of heaven to take on mortal, sinful, human flesh. He lived amongst a creation that did not recognize Him. He came to a nation and people that He had specially called out, and they did not receive Him.

-He lived a perfect life. He followed the law to the letter. He revealed God like nothing and no one else ever could since He was God. He taught the way of God. He pointed people to God.

-And yet He was rejected by men. He was misunderstood, even by His own family. He was harassed by mankind. He was beaten and bruised and eventually killed as a common criminal, even though He was the only one ever without sin.

-And yet Jesus served God by serving mankind in the greatest way possible—dying on the cross for the sins of humanity so that those who believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

-Jesus was put on a cross, seemingly forgotten by man and by God, and yet He willingly gave up His life so that He could save a remnant of people. Jesus didn’t refuse to serve just because of His adverse circumstances. Jesus didn’t refuse to serve because He felt He wasn’t getting the recognition He deserved. He gave His life as His service to God and man. As the gospels tell us:

Mark 10:45 (ESV)

45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Conclusion

-You might still be thinking: That’s fine for Joseph or Joni or Jesus, but my situation is different or unique. Not really. You might be having more of a pity party than them, but your circumstances are not unique among humanity. Many humans have gone through a whole lot more than you. Will you still serve God in spite of your feelings of being forgotten. Will you be found faithful?

-Christian, maybe you need to come to the altar and wrestle through all of that...

-But maybe you haven’t come to Christ yet, who suffered the things He suffered for you. Only through Him will there be any relief or recourse for what you are going through. Eternal life is only found in Him...