|
|
SOVEREIGN GRACE PRODUCESNEW DESIRES THAT LEAD TO NEW BEHAVIORSGenesis 39: 1-23INTRODUCTIONThursday night When we explain our emotions or behaviors by appealing to things that happened to us, we are giving the exact opposite explanation that God gives for our emotions and behaviors. The circumstances of our lives are the context within which we actively choose to respond emotionally and with actions. I feel as I feel because it is what I want to feel and I act as I act because it is what I want to do. This is what Jesus means when he says, “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good for out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” All that comes out of me, whether good or bad, comes as a result of what I love, what I trust in, what I hope for. The affections or desires that are within me are the cause of my emotions and actions. My emotions and actions are simply the indicators of what I hope for, what I believe I need and what I love. Let me use a silly illustration to make this point. When I stand in line at Woodman’s, the other people that I am standing near generally do not pay any attention to me, even as I pay little attention to them. They usually don’t ask me how I’m doing nor do I ask them how they are doing. We definitely do not engage in any sort of meaningful conversation. Often the people I stand in line with do not smile at me nor even acknowledge my existence. I am the same way. You know what, this doesn’t offend me. I’m not depressed by their ignoring me. I’m not angry that they ignore me. I’m indifferent to their indifference to me. However, if my wife refuses to look me in the eye or ask how my day went or smile at me—I am deeply hurt, saddened and maybe even angry. Why is this? It is because I love Jane. I want her approval, her affection. How she feels about me matters to me. I trust the promise that if she is happy with me I can be happy. My future happiness depends upon her continuing to love me. My emotions are the indicator lights on the dashboard of my life to reveal to me what I love, what I trust and in what I am hoping. What does all this have to do with the story of Joseph? If anyone ever had reasons for being angry, depressed, passive-aggressive, addicted to wine or sex it would be Joseph. If how a person feels and behaves is determined by the things that happen to him rather than by what we choose, then he should have been a basket case. He was raised in a home that is as dysfunctional as you could possibly imagine. He lived in the mother of all blended families. He had 10 half brothers and one half sister and three stepmothers. His mother died when he was a young teenager. He had a doting father and hostile siblings. He grew up in a violent, perverted environment. When you add to this dysfunctional home life the trauma of
his brother’s murderous hatred and his sale into the hands of
Ishmaelites to be sold as a slave in MAIN POINTGod’s grace always produces men and women of faith who…I. Work for the good of others, even his or her enemies (vv. 1-6) I want you to remember that the first people to read this story
were the people of Israel during the 40 years they wandered
in the desert in preparation for going into the land of Canaan
in fulfillment of all God’s promises. These men and women had
just left a life of slavery in How surprising is it to us to read the next statement. “The Lord was with Joseph and he prospered.” Joseph is a slave of his enemies and the Lord is with Joseph causing him to prosper. That sounds like an oxymoron to modern Christians. Modern Christians have been taught that when the Lord is with you, then you will live the abundant life. Bad things won’t happen to you when the Lord is with you. But the Bible is clear, God’s presence with a person or a church does not mean there will be no trouble, rather it means that God rules over the trouble and causes you to prosper in and through it. It is no oxymoron to say that my son Jared shattered his skull while skiing and now lies in a semi-comatose state in a nursing home and the Lord is with Jared, causing him to prosper. God is in the trouble and using the trouble for Jared’s good, our good and the good of others, just like in the case of Joseph. Notice that the effect of the Lord being with Joseph is that he serves his enemy in such a way that his enemy prospers. Joseph works so hard and so effectively for Potiphar that Potiphar’s wealth is increased and his life is less troublesome. This benefit that he enjoys from the labor of Joseph causes him to acknowledge that the Lord is with Joseph and that Joseph’s effective work is the result of the fact that Joseph belongs to Yahweh, the creator of the heavens and the earth. This effective and fruitful labor of Joseph that the Lord is enabling causes Potiphar to place him in charge of all his affairs. Joseph is made the manager of all of Potiphar’s businesses. He engages all his God given talents and abilities in the labor of benefiting his master, his enemy. Potiphar grows wealthy at the hands of Joseph, whom he has cruelly enslaved. Joseph is living what Jesus commanded in Matthew 5, “Let your light shine before men so that they may see your good deeds and so glorify your Father in heaven.” If there is one reason I hear over and over as to why people are angry or depressed or bitter and therefore unable to be joyful and kind to others it is because they have been cruelly treated. When people treat us bad, we believe we are entitled to at the very least protect ourselves from further pain. To suggest that we are to actually work for the good of those who have harmed us is contrary to all reason. Here is what we believe about serving our enemies: “Serving our enemies will only result in our being taken advantage of. If we are kind to those who harm us, who act as our enemy, then they will think they are right and we are wrong. I can stand the thought of their smugness. Who will meet my needs? Who will take care of me if I don’t? God doesn’t want me to be harmed like this. God doesn’t want evil people to prosper through my serving them.” Yet this is exactly the kind of life that God commands and that proves that people are experiencing his favor. Listen to these two statements from the New Testament: “Slaves, obey your masters with respect and fear and with sincerity of heart just as you would obey Christ… Serve wholeheartedly because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does whether slave or free.” “Love your enemies, do good to them and give to them without expecting anything in return. Then your reward will be great and you will be sons of the Most High.” If you believe that obeying Christ, being rewarded by Christ, being sons and daughters of the Most High God is the best thing that could happen to you, then you will gladly, diligently and effectively serve your enemy so that he prospers. When you do this, it is obvious that the Lord Jesus is a greater treasure than being treated well by others. However, if obeying Christ, being rewarded by Christ, being sons and daughters of the Most High God does not make you happy, then you will not serve your enemy, you will make him pay for what he has done to you. Joseph shows by his joyful and effective service that he believes the promises of God. The pleasure of God is what matters to him, not living as a free man. He works for the reward of God and so he is the agent of Potiphar’s blessed life. The end of verse five is the shocking statement, “The Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph.” Joseph isn’t blessed because of his faith. Potiphar is blessed through Joseph, because of Joseph’s faith. Joseph is still a slave and God makes the life of the enemy more prosperous through the diligent labor of Joseph. I want you to think of the last person to offend you in some way. Now I want you to imagine doing something for that person that you know will make that person happy. I want you this afternoon to do that thing for that person because you are convinced that to belong to Christ is better than making your enemy pay or at least keeping him from using you or gloating over you. God’s grace always produces men and women of faith who…Work for the good of others, even his or her enemies And who… II. Resist sin out of love for God and for others (vv. 7-18)This story of Potiphar’s lust filled wife and Joseph’s faithfulness to his master and to his God is almost unimaginable in our current context. Here are a number of reasons Joseph could have had for giving into the seduction of Potiphar’s wife. First, consider that he is around 22 years old and everyone knows that the sexual desire of 22-year-old men is virtually uncontrollable. Isn’t what this woman is doing the stuff of every adolescent boys’ dreams? Second, he is a slave. While the wife is not the master, she has more authority than he does and who is he to disobey an order of one who has more authority than he? It wasn’t his idea to have sex, it was her idea and she’s the boss or almost the boss. In addition, by refusing her advances he is exposing himself to harm because she is the wife of his master. He has no power and so why should he expose himself to further harm by refusing one who has power when he has none? Third, he is a slave. Why should he protect the man who has enslaved him? He has been treated cruelly, why not pay some of these arrogant people back by using this woman for his own gratification? Fourth, he is a slave in a foreign land, far from home, lonely, craving human attention. Why would it be wrong to enjoy such warmth when he is in such a pitiless place? God wouldn’t want him to suffer like this! Fifth, he is a slave in a pagan land and culture that is obsessed with sex. There are not many who would criticize him for giving in. I mean, everybody’s doing it, right? Finally, when she accosts him while no one else is around, who would know? There are an overwhelming number of reasons why it would seem reasonable for Joseph to give in to this woman’s entreaties. Who could blame Joseph for having sex with her? This story would be a perfect plot for a TV miniseries or a blockbuster movie except for one thing, Joseph doesn’t give in. For some reason he denies his natural desires and what would appear to be the most reasonable course of action to the vast majority of Americans and he turns her down. He doesn’t refuse her advances on just one occasion. Rather, every day, for a long period of time she tries to talk him into having sex with her, but he never gives in. Who can imagine all the seductive things she said to him and all the alluring ways she dressed and conducted herself around him? Yet he never succumbs to her provocations. He even tries to talk her out of her lust by appealing to her own sense of duty by reminding her that she is a married woman. In her final attempt to seduce him she empties the house of her servants and when he enters to do his work she pounces upon him and begins to disrobe him. Yet he resists even this physical embrace and flees out of the house. He does not try to talk with her. He simply flees. Then, while she lies and deceives in order to discredit him and punish him for refusing her lustful pleading he is silent. He does nothing during that entire day to defend himself from her accusations or to give his version of the story to Potiphar. Why does Joseph not give in? What is it that keeps him from doing what comes “natural” to healthy 22-year-old men? I want you to see the three reasons that Joseph gives for not committing adultery. I believe his reasons can be your reasons for not sinning sexually. In addition, his reasons also are reasons for avoiding all manner of sin. In the book of Proverbs, the seductive power of all sin is revealed by picturing it as an adulterous wife. There isn’t a person in here that is not subjected to this daily seduction. Every day the pleasures of sin are seductively paraded before our minds, enticing us to follow away from God. If you have any interest in avoiding sin, then you had better pay attention to what Joseph did. He gives his reasons in vv. 8-9. Before we look at each of his reasons in turn I want you to consider what his giving reasons tells us about fighting against sin. Every temptation to sin contains a reason for why you should give in to it. Even when it does not seem that there is any thought in the process, when sinning just seems automatic to you, even then there are reasons why you sin. We are not told all the reasons that Potiphar’s wife gave to Joseph as to why he ought to have sex with her, but you know that a woman as brazen as this was giving him reasons. Joseph knows that the way you fight sin is to have better reasons for not sinning. The way you stop sinning is by believing that holiness has greater promises than sin. It is to love the reasons for not sinning more than you love the reasons for sinning. It is to hope in the pleasures of purity more than you hope in the pleasures of impurity. The first reason that Joseph gives in verse 8 is that to have sex with her would be an abuse of the trust placed in him. His master has entrusted everything in the entire house into his care, how could he use that trust to benefit himself? Unlike the CEOs of Enron, WorldCom and other corporations who used the trust of investors and employees to enrich themselves, Joseph sees that when you are put in charge of other people’s property, you are obligated to act only in their best interest. The authority he has been given is for the purpose of benefiting Potiphar. Having sex with his wife does not benefit him, but instead uses the trust of Potiphar to steal from him. When a person trusts you with information about himself or herself, you have an obligation to not break that trust by sharing that information with others. When your parents leave you at home to watch your younger siblings you have an obligation to use their trust to serve your sibling and to not misuse your freedom from their watchfulness to indulge yourself. When your employer gives you a job and the tools to do your job you have an obligation to not violate that trust by stealing tools and time from him. Ultimately, all of us have been entrusted with the property of another. “What do you have that you did not receive?” How can I use the body God gave me, the time he has allotted to me on earth, the intelligence he has awarded me to sin against him? The second reason he gives in verse 9 is that it would be an offense against his master and against her. He sees that Potiphar and his wife belong to each other and he, as a single man, has a duty to protect that relationship. He holds marriage in honor and he holds Potiphar and his wife in honor. He desires good for them and not evil. He wants them to be happy in their marriage. He does not want to harm either of them and even though she is the one initiating this, he is trying to protect her from herself. He is seeking to love Potiphar as he loves himself. He knows that he would not want someone to have sex with his wife and so he is unwilling to treat someone else in a manner that he would not want to be treated. Single men and women when you are tempted to have sexual contact with another person, simply ask yourself if you would want someone thinking this way about your child or doing these things with your child. Joseph realizes that how he conducts himself has an impact on those around him. There is no such thing as a sin that only affects you and Joseph knows this. Every violation of God’s laws violates the stability and security of the community that I live in. There are no private sins, even when you are not caught. But the third and greatest reason for why he cannot do this
is because it would be a great sin against God. Joseph fears
God’s displeasure more than he fears living a life without sex,
more than he fears what Potiphar’s wife might
do to him. He loves pleasing God more than he loves
the pleasures of sex, more than he loves the idea of alleviating
some of the pain of his imprisonment through this liaison.
This is the only thing that will ever enable you to successfully
fight against your sin, when you are amazed that God loves you
and has made promises to you and is going to receive you into
his eternal kingdom. When this amazes you, thrills you, then
the power of sin will be broken in your life. When what God
promises to you is better to you than what sin promises then
you will successfully resist. The reason you do not resist
is because you believe that the pleasures of sin are greater
than the pleasure of being known and loved by God. When I was
impatient with God’s grace always produces men and women of faith who…Work for the good of others, even his or her enemies Resist sin out of love for God and for others And who… III. Do not blame God or others when suffering but continue to live by faith (vv. 19-23)When Joseph escapes her grasp and flees from the house half naked, Potiphar’s wife realizes that she is in trouble. She cannot imagine that Joseph will not tell what happened, especially when people ask him why he’s not wearing his shirt. So, in order to protect herself and to punish him for not gratifying her lusts, she immediately begins to scream for the servants she sent out of the house. The way in which she talks to the servants and then to her husband is some of the most cunning use of language you’ll ever see. When she describes Joseph’s attempted rape to the servants, she appeals to their racism by using a racial slur, calling Joseph a Hebrew. She identifies with them by saying that the Hebrew slave was “brought to us to make sport of us.” How do you think the other slaves felt about the 22-year-old Joseph, the new kid on the block, the Hebrew, being in charge of all Potiphar’s household? Do you think they might have some resentment towards him and towards Potiphar who put him in charge? “Potiphar brought this despised Hebrew to us to take away your jobs and to assault me.” Notice how deftly she arranges her story to fit the evidence. Joseph came to rape her, beginning to disrobe but she screamed and he ran away, leaving his shirt behind. Then, after prejudicing the servants against Joseph she waits all day with Joseph’s shirt beside her. She doesn’t want to disturb the crime scene but prepares her case like a good prosecuting attorney. Notice how she changes her language. She isn’t as blatant in saying that Potiphar brought Joseph to make sport of her but she does play on his guilt enough to cloud his judgment. The despicable Hebrew slave that you brought into our home tried to rape me. Potiphar burns with anger against Joseph and has him thrown into prison. Joseph’s good name has been ruined. He is all alone among people who despise him for his race and who now despise him for doing something he never did. Joseph is doing God’s will. Joseph is working for the good of his slave master. He resists sin to protect his master and to please God. The God whom he serves is the God who made the heavens and the earth; nothing is too hard for him. How could he let this happen? If there ever was a person who had a right to be angry with God, to doubt God, Joseph is that person. If being treated poorly is the cause of bitterness, depression, anger, inability to obey God, then Joseph should have been bitter, angry, focused upon himself, unable to serve God or others. But what do we see? Joseph goes to prison and serves the warden by serving the other prisoners. He works so hard and so well for the good of others that the prison flourishes and his cruel and callous master puts him in charge of the entire prison. Joseph doesn’t use his new position to escape but serves God and men in these circumstances. Joseph doesn’t blame God or people for his situation. He believes God’s promises. He believes that God loves him and that he has a great and glorious future awaiting him and so he lives in hope. He believes that the purpose of his life is to love God and to love people and so it doesn’t matter what is happening to him. No matter what the circumstances are, he can joyfully do the will of God. If the goal of your life is to live a pain free, pleasure filled life on planet earth, then when you experience pain or when you don’t get the pleasures you yearned for and hoped in, you will become angry and depressed. You will not love God or people. But if you are living for another world, if your hope lies in the promises of God, then you are able to live above your circumstances by continuing to love God and people. Again, the language of vv. 22-23 is almost unintelligible to most people. How can God be with a person and be kind to a person and that person be falsely imprisoned in a dungeon? How can the evidence of God’s presence with a person be that person is working so hard and so well that those who imprisoned him enjoy a better life? Imagine that you are in a horrible work situation. Your co-workers are foul-mouthed, back-biting and lazy. Your boss is unreasonable and petty. You’re the only person who is even half trying to do a good job and yet you get into trouble. A co-worker falsely accuses you and the boss believes the co-worker and you are put on probation. But you keep dong your work and because of what you do, your co-worker gets a pay raise and your mean boss gets promoted. What shows God’s favor towards you more, what reveals his kindness to you; you are able to love your co-workers and do your job so well that your mean boss gets a promotion and your wicked co-worker gets a pay raise or that one of those guys who hunt for executives calls you and tells you that the HR Dept. at IBM has heard about you and wants to make you a vice-president of the company? I tell you what, most of us would be furious if an unjust boss got a promotion or a co-worker got a raise because of our work. We would not ascribe that event to the favor of God. We would be praising God if we were given the job of our dreams, leaving behind our dysfunctional work environment. If you were in your small group and asked to share an evidence of God’s grace in your life you wouldn’t tell how your creepy boss got a promotion because of what you did. You would be eager to tell of the new job you were handed. We think exactly opposite of how God thinks. Verses 22-23 say that Joseph works in the dank, desperate prison and God causes the lives of prisoners and prison guards to improve. He doesn’t get Joseph out of prison. This is the sign of God’s presence in his life. You really can live by faith. It really is possible to joyfully love God and people even though you had a horrible childhood, even though you’re financially destitute, even though you have lousy job or spouse. God has graciously given us all we need to live a life of godliness in and through the person of Jesus Christ. What he has promised us is better than a pain free life on planet earth. Knowing that, loving that, hoping in that fact is the source of the motivation and ability to change your environment rather than being changed by it. God’s grace always produces men and women of faith who…Work for the good of others, even his or her enemies Resist sin out of love for God and for others Do not blame God or others but continue to live by faith ©
Copyright 2002 John Swanson. |