OUR BODIES

Joseph: the Stewardship of Ourselves

Genesis 39

Did you realize that you are living in a borrowed tabernacle? That’s right. The very body that you live in belongs to God.

However, we live as if the immaterial (spirit & soul) belongs to God and that the material (body) part of us belong to ourselves— but we are wrong.

I Corinthians 6:19-20: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” If you are bought with a great price, that means that you do not own it. You are its manager.

Sam Allberry noted: “If we make the soul the focus of our spiritual life and downgrade the body, we can argue that the body is spiritually irrelevant. God (we might assume) is only interested in the spiritual side of me; the body is of no concern to him.”

our body was made by the LORD Jesus

The Bible says in Psalm 139:14: “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Marvellous are thy works; And that my soul knoweth right well.”

our body was redeemed by the LORD Jesus

I Corinthians 6:20: “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

3. our bodies are useful to the LORD Jesus

Romans 12:1: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

4. our bodies will be resurrected and redeemed by the LORD Jesus

Romans 8:11: “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

To take the opposing view is called gnosticism: that material is evil and that immaterial is good, but that is flawed theology. God created a perfect material world, which is now corrupted by man’s sin.

To take the approach that our bodies mean nothing produces gross sins in the body. Paul’s rousing What!? to the Corinthians is evident of this: your body matters…it has been redeemed by blood!

Ray Ortlund noted this danger when he wrote, “The Christian gospel creates strong sexual integrity not by despising the body but by honoring the body.”

Commenting on I Corinthians 6:15: “Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.”

Ortlund then paraphrased, saying, “Shall I then take the sexuality of Christ and join his sexuality to a prostitute? Shall I take the eyes of Christ and the brain of Christ and make them members of pornography? Shall I take any member of my body, which Christ now claims as dear and precious to himself, as if my body were his very own body, because it is, and use my/his body for any sinful purpose at all? Never!”

Think, then, of the stewardship of our bodies.

Joseph’s Story:

the pride of his father and mother

his coat of many colors

the hatred of his brethren

selling him into slavery

his exaltation of Potiphar’s house

his excellent ministry

the alluring of Potiphar’s wife

his rejection of her advances

her treachery and his imprisonment

In other words, Joseph was the ultimate steward, and he realized that Potiphar owned one thing that did not belong to him— and that one thing was Potiphar’s wife.

Genesis 39:9: “There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”

Clearly, Joseph had a great grasp of stewardship, but he realized that there was one thing which he did not manage. Joseph had great control over his body, but before we notice his discipline of his body, we must notice that Joseph had disciple in other areas of his life.

Stewardship of His Attitude

Joseph maintained a great spirit throughout his life. Sure, he could not control his circumstances, but he could control his attitude.

Stewardship of His Anger

Later on when his “fortunes” changed, he had the chance to take out his anger of his siblings, but he forbear. Because he had maintenance of his attitude, he did not allow his anger to control his spirit or his body.

Stewardship of His Affections

What happens in Egypt stays in Egypt. No one will ever know. His father is not around. His brothers are not around. Potiphar is not around. Some might have thought that God was angry with them and that He Himself was not around. However, Joseph felt God’s presence everywhere he went.

Genesis 39:3: “And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand.”

Genesis 39:21: “But the Lord was with Joseph, and shewed him mercy, and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison.”

Genesis 39:23: “The keeper of the prison looked not to any thing that was under his hand; because the Lord was with him, and that which he did, the Lord made it to prosper.”

Joseph could control His desires because He recognized the presence of God was always with him. Notice how he says in Genesis 39:9: “There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”

The Lord knows…that’s what matters to Joseph. God sees when no one sees. God hears when no one hears. There is no escaping Him.

Hebrews 4:13: “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

MOTIVATION?

II Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”

Joseph was a good steward of his body, and because of that, he experienced the blessings of God upon His life in a million ways.