· He at least was naively, self-centered and unaware of the effect he had on other people
· He proudly told his brothers about his dreams
· He was oblivious to his brother’s feelings and their animosity towards him, for which he was at least a source of temptation.
· He may have even been a little soft, since his father likely didn’t give him the dirtier or hardest work to do.
· But Joseph’s sheltered, safe life took a sharp and unexpected turn when he least expected it.
· His jealous brothers hated him and when he showed up, having been sent by their father to check up on them, they stripped his coat off, threw him in a pit, and then sold him into slavery
· He was a slave in Potiphar’s house and just when he thought things were going well and he had worked his way up to the top, he was wrongly accused of a crime against Potiphar’s wife that he didn’t commit and thrown into jail.
· In jail, he worked his way up again and then was made the servant of prestigious criminals but then was left in jail and forgotten again.
· But through all of the testing, Joseph had grown and remarkably, he is still looking confidently to God for his future and his faith shines through adversity.
Main Idea: God’s servants may be tested, but God holds the future and He never fails or forgets them
· We can see from the life of Joseph is that:1. God’s servant is often tempered by testing
· Psalm 105:16-19 gives us a scriptural commentary on Joseph’s life. Speaking of God, it says,
Psalm 105:16-19 When He summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, 17He had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. 18 His feet were hurt with fetters; his neck was put in a collar of iron; 19 until what He had said came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him.
· Joseph’s feet were hurt with fetters and his neck was put in a collar of iron.
· This was a difficult life, even though he may have been unfettered to serve these men, he was confined in an unpleasant place nonetheless.
· At the same time, (in verse 4) we see that obviously God gave him great grace with Potiphar because Potiphar still trusted him and knew he was reliable enough to look after these important prisoners.
· But Joseph suffered unjustly too – all as part of God’s plan. As Psalm 105 tells us, “the word of the LORD tested him”
· God often applies heat to the life of His servants in order to make us strong. And God is a Master craftsman, who knows just the right amount of tempering that we need in order to make us pliable, more useful and strong for His purposes.
· Since every one of us is unique and God uses His servants for different purposes, different amounts of heat and pressure are required to make us able to serve the purpose He has for us.
· This heat comes in the form of testing and we are tested through various trials and suffering at times.
· Joseph was tempered by the heat of testing in Egypt. And it wasn’t easy for him.
· By the time we see him in Genesis 40, he had been tested for 11 years already.
· God was the one who had given Joseph the dreams that got him here in the first place though.
· It was because of the good place that God had for him, that he went through these various trails, because God knew exactly what would be required to make him the kind of man he would need to be in order to rule Egypt and have compassion on his brothers.
· Charles Spurgeon once said of Joseph’s life leading up to this point,
“…the quietude of that shepherd life was not the preparation for the fulfillment of his promised destiny. The education that would form the man who could withstand, firmly, the temptations of Egyptian life with its cities and civilization; the education that would form the ruler whose clear eye should judge between the good and the evil, and discern the course of safety in the hour of a nation's peril -- all this was not to be gained under the shadow of his father's tent; it must come through trial, and through trial arising from the very promise of God in which he believed”.- C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David
· As a shepherd, he wouldn’t have understood how the Egyptian culture worked or known how to interact with the noble class or how to observe and honor their customs – yet being a slave in Potiphar’s house prepared him for working in Pharaoh’s court.· In Potiphar’s house he learned hard work, he learned faithfulness and diplomacy. He learned how to manage the affairs of a large and wealthy household.
· In prison, he learned tact and how to deal with people from different backgrounds and cultures. I bet that even back then, they may have had gangs in prison and the guys with shaved heads and the quiet ones, weird guys and intimidating ones
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· He noticed that they were sad and he asked them “why are your faces downcast today?”
· Joseph obviously was not just an efficient and reliable man – he was a caring man as well.
· In our own lives, our trials, missteps and suffering trains us – it tempers us as well.
· When trials come , God uses them to make us into the person he wants us to be.
· There are at least three New Testament scriptures that make this point very clearly.
James 1:2-4 Count it all joy, my brothers,1 when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Romans 5:2-5 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Peter 1:6-7 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith - more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire - may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.· It was through testing that the genuineness of Joseph’s faith resulted in much praise and honor and glory to God.
· When we face trials like Joseph did, we can wrongly interpret the testing as God not loving us.· We can also wrongly interpret events as if God was not pouring out His grace through the trials.
· But it was very loving of God to shape Joseph in this way – because Joseph was made more Christlike through the testing of his faith.
· God was not punishing Joseph. He was pouring out His grace to bring about the best thing possible.
· All of the events of Joseph’s life (good and bad), happened to get him to the exact right place and the exact right time to learn what he needed to learn, and grow how he needed to grow, to interpret these dreams, and then wait until the right time when Pharaoh would need him.
· This was truly God’s love for Joseph and God’s grace for Joseph expressed.
· It is doubtful that Joseph could see this at the time though.
· Maybe we too are experiencing God’s love and grace in ways we can’t possibly imagine or see.
· This doesn’t minimize the very real suffering that many are going through and it doesn’t make light of pain at all.
· But it gives us hope in the midst of pain and suffering that we can trust God and that he loves us and will give us His grace in the midst of some pretty horrible things happening.
· If Joseph had not gone through what he did, the Israelites and countless millions of people would not see God’s grace and miraculous, saving redemption in the same light.
· Joseph probably didn’t understand even half of how God would use his life and trials to bring glory to God.
· In the midst of trials, Joseph was being shaped and his character was growing.
· And even though Joseph was unaware of it, God was already beginning to bring about the circumstances which would lead to his freedom and promotion, through giving both the dreams of these two men and their accurate interpretation.
· There is another thing that stands out in these verses and really is key to the entire passage.
· When the men answered Joseph’s question about why they were downcast, they said, "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."
· This line is crucial – there is a point here that we are meant to get and it is that
2. God’s servant finds his future in God
“When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled”.
· The prisoners were obviously visibly troubled. These were clearly dreams that shook these men up.
· The men probably understood that they had something to do with their future but they were distraught because they didn’t know what their future held
· Looking for a meaning to life and to try to figure out what the future holds apart from looking to God is hopeless and futile and yet, when we worry, we reveal that we are doing just that.
· Worry is failing to look to God and trust in God who holds the future.
· These men were worried because they didn’t know God who holds the future.
· But Joseph wasn’t just a sympathetic listener – he pointed them to God – their true source of hope.
· Joseph had been alone in a foreign land. He was betrayed by his own brothers; mistreated by his slave owner; wrongly accused and imprisoned. He likely had no other friend who believed and trusted in God. He was surrounded by a pagan culture in a pagan land. The situation could not be much more bleak for him.
· But, instead of becoming bitter, Joseph was still turning to God in hope and this reliance on God for the future lead to his rescue
· Joseph did not hesitate to express his faith in God and in God’s ability to give Joseph the interpretation
· Joseph knew that God holds all knowledge above and beyond even any imperial power.
· Joseph’s statement is key to this whole chapter and it reveals that the events of the future lay in God’s hand and His alone
· Joseph had great faith in God’s promises, because otherwise he would not have assumed that God held the interpretation to their future and he wouldn’t have told them that interpretations belong to God.
· He had confidence in God because he knew God and trusted in God’s character and ability
· Joseph had confidence in God because of His proven reputation and character
· He was confident that God could make things clear, that God could interpret their dreams too, even though his own mysterious promise was still yet to be played out and made clear.
· Mysteries belong to God and we can truly trust Him to solve them for us – because unlike Sherlock Holmes, He doesn’t have to figure them out and He doesn’t need any clues – He knows the first from the last.
· In Isaiah 46:10, God tells us, "I am God, and there is none like me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,"
· God declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times, he declares the things not yet done.
· Joseph knew that interpretations belong to God and this had major implications for him and it has major implications for us today as well.
· In verse 12, Joseph said to the cupbearer, "This is its interpretation”
· Joseph didn't hesitate to tell him the interpretation and the author doesn't detail that he heard from God but it is presupposed.
· But Joseph had an unshakable confidence in God
· Joseph was full of faith that it would indeed be well with the cupbearer, even before he was proven right. that he said in verse 14 “only remember me, when it is well with you”
· God understands even the most perplexing problems. The interpretation of all of life – not just dreams belongs to Him.
· Sometimes life doesn’t seem to make any sense to us – just when we think that things are going well, things can take another turn altogether and lead us down a road we never thought we would be on.
· But when life doesn’t make sense to us, we can trust in God.
· God knows the thoughts of men. God understands all things, even when we don’t.
· God holds our futures just like he held the futures of the cupbearer and the baker – God is over both the good and bad futures
· Doubtless, Joseph had probably prayed many times in the 11 years he has already been in prison for God to deliver him and return him to his home land. How could this not be a good prayer?!?
· There was no way for Joseph to see how God would use this imprisonment to rescue Joseph and yet Joseph still has faith in God and in the reliability of God’s revelation.
· Joseph must have clung to God’s promise and this is what sustained his faith through dark times.
· We too must cling to God’s promises in our dark times and not trust the circumstances or situations we find ourselves in as true and reliable predictors of our future.
· Instead of worrying about our future, we need to remind ourselves that the interpretation belongs to God, even when we can’t figure it out right now.
· In the latter part of these verses, we see a very human side of Joseph who just wanted relief from his suffering too.
· He wanted out. He was asking to be remembered so that he could be free from his enslavement and he clearly despised it because he refers to being in prison as being in a pit or a dungeon.
· At times, this is our own experience too. We are full of faith in one moment and yet, we do suffer and want deliverance and this is not a wrong desire, but it is not always answered in the way we think.
· The cupbearer who was probably wrongly accused, and so was released later, should have identified with Joseph’s wrongful imprisonment, but somehow, he inexcusably fails to mention Joseph
· Joseph delivered their futures to them as he was told by God.
· Both of Joseph's interpretations were very accurate and both came true, but he was forgotten by the cupbearer, even after it happened exactly as Joseph said it would.
· We are left in verse 23 with a cliff-hanger of sorts. It says, “Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him”.
· Joseph must have been disappointed to say the least.
· But if we want to understand the final point of this passage, we have to go back to the last few verses of chapter 39, which serves as a book-end to this account. It is meant to frame all of this chapter:
· Genesis 39:21 But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love.
· A few verses later in Genesis 39:23, it says “The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph's charge, because the LORD was with him. And whatever he did, the LORD made it succeed.”
· Although man had forgotten him; his brothers had forgotten and failed him, Potiphar had forsaken him in a sense and now the cupbearer had forgotten and failed him, God had not forgotten him.
3. God’s servant is not forgotten by God
· Despite being forgotten by men, we are not forgotten by God.· This chapter doesn’t gloss over the fact that Joseph was forgotten and that men failed him constantly from his teenage years until now.
· Scripture doesn’t make light of the fact that everyone else failed him and forgot him and Joseph really suffered as a result.
· But what we are meant to see is that in the midst of his not understanding, God was still with Him and had not failed or forgotten him.
· The cupbearer’s forgetting was likely not a mistake. He selfishly didn’t bother to remember and he was ungrateful to Joseph. The words here infer that the cupbearer ignored Joseph’s plight and his request.
· At the end of the story, Joseph is forgotten by men but not forgotten by God. And I believe that Joseph knew this too, because he trusted in God and His character and the fact that no matter what it seemed like, he had not been forgotten by God.
· The chapter ends with the closing of the prison doors on Joseph but his imprisonment was destined by God to open the doors to the palace for Joseph, although only in God’s good timing.
· We are not guaranteed an opening of palace doors in this life but our struggles in these “Shadowlands”, as CS Lewis once called earth, will one day open to a heavenly place and a mansion that Christ has already prepared for each and every one of God’s people.
· Joseph had shared his dreams with his brothers and was cast into a pit and sold into slavery. He was morally upright when lured by Potiphar’s wife and was thrown in prison for his purity. He cared for and helped a foreigner and was rewarded with being ignored in prison still and Joseph would continue to stay in prison for another 2 years.
· His greatest successes happened in the pit of life. He was not forgotten, even though he would be 30 years old before he was brought to a place of influence and used by God to deliver his people – his rescue and his future were certain.
· Just like Joseph’s destiny was secure, even though his path was unsure, our destiny is secure and we can trust in God even through our own unsure path.
· Joseph’s interpretation of the dreams revealed that God is over all the thoughts and destinies of men.
· When Joseph interpreted the prisoner’s dreams, he prophesied of their future and how God would resolve the issues they faced.
· Joseph was the means of God’s revelation to the Egyptians, just as the people of Israel would be the means of God’s revelation to all nations. But the most spectacular revelation-giver was not Joseph, it is Jesus Christ, who has revealed the Father to us.
· Jesus was betrayed by his own people. He was mistreated by His own creation. He was wrongly accused and imprisoned. He was deserted by all of His friends and His closest friend denied even knowing Him.
· Jesus endured such punishment with joy – despising the shame but looking forward to the redemption that He knew God would bring.
· Joseph’s life was put forward as an example to the Israelites of living life faithfully trusting in God, through physical and relational pain, suffering, hardship and neglect, trusting that God will bring His promised redemption.
· We can learn the same thing– knowing that God has already redeemed us and bought us out of slavery through Jesus. We are no longer in the pit, despite what suffering we will endure. (see Romans 6)
· Our future, our destiny is already secure and we belong to a King more powerful than even the most powerful rulers of the earth.
· We really can trust in God, to whom all interpretations belong.
God’s servants may be tested, but God holds the future and He never fails or forgets them
Potential Application questions:
1. What are some situations and circumstances that cause “heat” in your life? 2. How has God used testing in the past to help “temper” you, making you stronger, more pliable and useful for Him?
3. How does seeing how God worked in Joseph’s life through testing encourage you that He is at work in the midst of your testing?
4. How can we keep a God-centered perspective and trust God in the midst of our own “fetters and collars of iron”?
5. Read James 1:2-4, Romans 5:2-5 and 1 Peter 1:6-7. How can we apply these verses and see God’s grace, love and hope?
6. Is there anywhere we are proud and feel we deserve or must have certain treatment from God or demand a certain outcome to worship Him?
7. Circumstances can tempt us to feel resentment towards God. How do we speak His truth to ourselves and respond when we feel stuck in bitterness and resentment?
8. Is there anywhere you are worried about your future? What does this say about where we are looking – to God or something else?
9. How do we approach God? Are you aware of His reputation and proven character?
10. When the interpretation of life is unclear, do you go to God and have faith in Him to make things clear through His Word? How do we look to Him, to interpret life for you through His Word?
11. What does it look like to rely on and actively trust that God knows all things?
12. How can we pursue believing His promises like Joseph did, when we are tempted not to?
13. Where are we tempted to feel forgotten? How do we get out of this way of thinking and remind ourselves that God has not forgotten us?
14. How can we encourage each other to rest in and remember God’s promises in a spirit of gentleness and grace?
