Grace Kelly, the American actress, married into royalty when she became
the wife of Prince Rainier of Monaco. This became world wide news back in
1956 as an American girl became Princess Grace. But it was far from being a
rags to riches story, for Grace grew up in wealth and luxury. Her father was a
multimillionaire, and she made her own fortune of many millions in 11 films.
She just got a title that money could not buy, and a 200 room pink palace. It is
hard to imagine that she would have suffered a great deal had the prince never
noticed her.
But the story of Joseph is truly a rags to riches story, and one far more
important to the people of the world in that day. Joseph was less than a
nobody. He was a criminal locked away in prison. He was innocent, but never
the less a man of no power in that culture. The slave had more power than he
did, and more choice of self-determination. Apart from the grace and
providence of God Joseph was a peanut shell in Yankee Stadium, and that is
the level of notice he would have gotten in history from that point on. But God
gave him the ability to interpret dreams, and he impressed the Pharaoh. He
was instantly exalted to the highest level of power in the powerful nation of
Egypt.
He not only had instant power, but he had an instant marriage that made
him a part of the inner circle of the culture. Pharaoh gave him a wife named
Asenath who was a daughter of a priest. The priest were the power behind the
Pharaoh, and they usually controlled him. So here was a common criminal
who went from the prison to the palace in an hour, and from being of no
influence to being the number one man of influence in the country. Not a bad
afternoon for an ex-con. The only story in history more marvelous is the
raising of a crucified criminal to the right hand of God to reign forever.
The one thing that is conspicuous by its absence is resistance on the part of
Joseph. He did not hem and haw, and ask for one more night in the dungeon
to think it over and pray about it. He did not come up with the lame excuse of
Moses or Jeremiah. He did not say, "I'm not qualified for the job, or I'm not a
good communicator." Pharaoh made him an instant national authority. He
put his own ring on him, a royal robe, and a gold chain around his neck. Then
he made him an instant celebrity. He took him for a royal ride in his chariot,
and let the people of the land know who was in charge. Do you detect a peep
of resistance? Even when he is given a wife as a fringe benefit of the job, he
does not say, "No thanks, I'll get my own bride." He has been in prison for 3
years, and no doubt felt this was as good a time as any to give up the single life
and settle down. On a prisoner's salary it would have been tough to support a
girl like Aseneth, who was accustomed to luxury. But now he is the number
man in the land. He can afford a high class wife, and so he takes her and they
have a happy fruitful marriage.
In our culture you have to feel in love to get married. In the Bible world
you had to choose to love, and their marriages based on the will were superior
to ours based on the emotions. The will is more stable than the feelings.
Joseph, no doubt, developed feelings for Aseneth, but their relationship was
based on the will at first.
Joseph was one of those one in a billion type men who was able to please
everyone from his place of power. He pleased the Pharaoh, his wife, his
family, the people of Israel, the people of Egypt, and the people from all the
lands where the famine forced them to come to him for food. As far as the
record goes, Joseph had a 100% positive rating, and we want to look at some
of the reasons for this, and hopefully learn something to help us be more
pleasing to God and man as we labor for the Lord. The first thing we see is-
I. HE WAS A TERRIFIC SERVANT.
In verse 46 we read, "Joseph was 30 years old when he entered the service
of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and Joseph went out from Pharaoh's presence and
traveled throughout Egypt." Joseph went right to work on the biggest project
of government planning for the future that we have in the Bible. Joseph was
in charge of a project that would save millions of lives, and it would save the
people of God, and preserve the line to the Messiah. Joseph could not know
the full implication of all he is doing, but in a very real sense he is being a type
of Christ, for he is involved in saving the world.
The impressive thing about Joseph is the way he handles power. Power
corrupts, but once in a blue moon someone gets great power and does not
abuse it, but uses it as it was intended, and that is to be for the service of
others. Joseph did not set back and say, "Wow! What a plush position I
landed in. I'm just going to take advantage of this and use my power to build
my own fortune." Many, if not most, in his position would think this way, and
today they have their own Swiss bank account.
Joseph was the perfect politician, for he had a servants heart. He realized
that in the providence of God some people get power that others never do, but
the power is not meant for self-glory, but for service to those who are
powerless. Shakespeare said, "Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, not
light them for themselves." Torches are lit for others to see, that is why we are
the light of the world. We shine not for self, but for others. Joseph knew he
was where he was for the sake of others, and he worked like a madman to see
that the task was accomplished. For 7 years he organized the stock piling of
food, and for 7 more he organized the distribution of it to a hungry world.
There had to be long hours and foul-ups galore, and who knows how many
drudgeries? Verse 55 says that when people came to Pharaoh crying for food
he told them to go to Joseph and do what he would tell them. The king passed
the buck to Joseph completely. He just lived in luxury and gave the matter no
thought, for Joseph was out there in the trenches taking care of the battle.
When you consider the length of time involved and the massiveness of the
project, and the number of people affected, Joseph was certainly the hardest
working man in the Bible. It took a lot of hard work to save the world from
famine. But because Joseph was committed to do this work he became one of
history's greatest heroes. I did not realize it before I began to study his life
that he is given more space in the book of Genesis than any other person.
Abraham has 273 verses devoted to his life, but Joseph has 357 verses.
Wilbur Smith, the great Bible scholar, said that Joseph's life is the most fascinating in
all the Old Testament, and aside from the life of Jesus the most thrilling in all
the Bible if not in all the world of literature.
In spite of this, Joseph is greatly neglected, and there are very few
sermons available on this significant portion of the Word of God. I think the
problem is that it is difficult for pastors to deal with a man of God who is so
thoroughly at home in a pagan culture. He so adapts and adjusts that he is
one with this Egyptian culture. He marries into it; he labors as a leader in it,
and not once is there a word of criticism of it. This seems totally inconsistent
with so many other heroes of the Bible that Joseph is just ignored in
preaching. He seems to be a contradiction to masses of other sermons.
How can this be reconciled? By recognizing that Joseph was not a
reformer. He was not a prophet. He was a servant. The whole purpose of his
life was to be at the right place at the right time to be a servant to save his
people and many others from a great tragedy. He was not chosen to fight
idolatry, or to set his people straight in their theology or morality. He was
chosen to be a servant. The fact that one so prominent in God's Word is
greatly neglected in preaching reveals that Christians have a hard time
accepting the reality of God's revelation that God has far many more ideas of
what success is than we do. We have too limited an idea of what a successful
life is all about. From God's perspective there are successful lives all over the
place because they are providing a service for others.
Joseph was not successful because he married into a special family and got
power and fame. He was successful because he was willing to give his life to
provide a service that people needed. He did not preach any great sermon, or
knock over any of the many idols of Egypt. The list of what he never did was
very long, but what he did do is what God chose him to do. He was a terrific
servant. When he was a lowly slave he was a good servant, and when he was
on top of the social and political pile he was still a good servant. Joseph was
among the greatest in the kingdom of God because he was faithful as a
servant.
Charles Swindoll sent this poem to his people in his news letter. If you are
a super critical person, you can detect its weakness, but it also illustrates the
kind of success we see in the life of Joseph. How do you measure success?
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics,
And endure the betrayal of false friend;
To appreciate beauty:
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better,
Whether by a healthy child, a garden patch,
A redeemed social condition,
Or a job well done;
To know even one other life as breathed easier because you have lived,
This is to have succeeded.
The point is, we need to forget the stereotypes of what success is, and
recognize that God has made His people full of variety. We don't have to be
anyone else but who we are to be successful. All we have to be is people with a
spirit of the servant. We need to be ready and willing to do what God has for
us to do in meeting the needs of others. This is the law of love that covers both
the Old Testament and New Testament ideal. No one else in history was just
like Joseph, but everyone of us can be the right person in the right place at the
right time to provide the service necessary for the good of others. This is
being, not only Joseph like, but it is being Christ like, for Jesus, like Joseph,
did not fight any wars, destroy any idols, or write any best sellers. The essence
of his life was service. He provided the bread of heaven to save the soul while
Joseph provided the bread of earth to save the body. Jesus served the whole
world by providing a sacrifice for sin that all might escape the just judgment
of God and be reconciled to Him. The essence of His perfect life was service.
II. HE HAD A TREMENDOUS SPIRIT.
This is seen in his enthusiasm to get the job done that needed to be done,
and in his willingness to forgive his brothers for selling him into slavery. It is
seen in the way his spirit is manifested by the names he gave his two sons. His
first son was named Manasseh, which means to forget. Joseph said in verse
51, "God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household."
It is not always good to forget, and Joseph knew that too, for the last verse of
chapter 40 says, "The chief cup bearer, however, did not remember Joseph, he
forgot him." It is a pain to be forgotten, and even more so when being forgotten
costs you two more years in prison, which is what Joseph had to endure.
It can be a curse to forget and to be forgotten, but Joseph named his first
son "Forget," because he had developed a spirit of forgetfulness about his
troubled past. He got a raw deal from the start when he was sold into slavery
by his own brothers. Then he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. It
was also unfair and unjust. It was the type of things that leads to deep
resentments. People who hang on to memories of injustice and unfair breaks
do damage to their spirit, and they often end up as incurable pessimists. Many
Christians cannot forget the dirty deals they had to endure from parents,
bosses, or someone else that treated them like dirt. They become spiritually
handicapped because they cannot forget.
There was none of this for Joseph. He was able to forget all the tragic past
and get on with his life. This is what enabled him to forgive when he
confronted his brothers. They felt he would seek revenge for sure, but Joseph
had no thought of revenge. We often think that you have to forgive and forget,
but often it is the other way around. If you can forget, you will find it easy to
forgive. If the past no longer has you in its grip, you can enjoy the present
with letting a negative past ruin it. That is what forgetting is. You do not lose
you memory about what was, but you lose your bitter emotions about what
was. You have worked your way through it and the past no longer controls
your emotions. It took time and Joseph had to work at it, but he had the spirit
to succeed, for he knew that unforgiving spirit was harmful to his relationship
with God and man.
C. S. Lewis says that hell is a place where the virtue of forgetfulness does
not exist. People remember every sin, slight, cruel word, and hurtful act. Hell
is the burning of bitter resentment over every negative event and injustice ever
experienced. Have you ever remembered an encounter with someone and the
very memory of it gets to perspiring because you have such a vivid memory of
how angry it made you? That was a little taste of hell Lewis would say.
In heaven it is just the opposite. There is total forgetfulness of all the sin,
folly, and injustices of life. The Joseph spirit will reign and there will be no
bitterness or resentment at all. This does not mean there will be no memory of
this fallen world anymore than Joseph forgot how he was double crossed by his
own brothers. It just means that there will no longer be any power in memory to
inflict pain. The more we can forget the evils of the past now, the more we
taste now of the world to come. Joseph was tasting heaven, and that is why he
called his first son Manasseh-forget.
The second son was named Ephraim for fruitful, for Joseph says in verse
52, "It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering." His
father had 12 sons and he only had 2, and so he is not talking about
fruitfulness in the number of children, but fruitfulness in the blessings of his
labor. His work had been fruitful, for he had set up a supply of food that was
so enormous that he was prepared for a world famine. Here in the very land
where he suffered his worst humiliation and injustice he was now a fruitful
servant for preventing suffering for masses of people.
It would have been easy to blow the whole operation. Joseph was being
neglected by God, and he was cut off from his land and people. Then he had a
woman trying to seduce him, and would have been easy to say, "Why should I
be loyal to God? I am going to have an affair and kiss my loyalty to God's
law good-by." By this one act of sin Joseph could have cut himself out of the
plan of God. Many men of God have let sex rob them of the chance to be at
the right place at the right time to achieve His purpose. Joseph had the chance
to lose it all, and many have done just that, but he didn't do it. He remained
faithful to God's will, and God made him the most fruitful man of his day.
If anyone had a good reason to yield to temptation it was Joseph. Life had
been unfair to him. He was single and had no sexual outlet. He was a mere
slave, and this affair could put him in good standing with the wife of Potifer.
As a kept man he could have had a good life. By his refusal he risked
rejection, prison, and more injustice. But he chose to obey God even when it
seemed like the evidence would support disobedience as the best way to go.
The life of Joseph teaches us the folly of disobeying God when you feel you
have every right to do so because God does not seem to be caring about you.
The life of Joseph teaches that it is always right to do what is right, even when
it is more desirable and less costly to do what is wrong.
Because of this tremendous positive spirit of Joseph God made him one of
the most fruitful men that has ever lived. Joseph teaches us that wisdom
prepares for the future. Saving is a biblical economic principle that is a vital
truth for individuals, families, and whole nations. Christians who spend
everything they get when they get it live in denial. They reject the reality of a
fallen world and are not ready for tough times. It might seem strange that
God devotes so much space in the Bible to tell this story of Joseph saving the
world physically. But we need to face the reality that nobody can be saved
spiritually and come into the kingdom of God by faith in Christ if they do not
survive the physical crisis of life.
Do not minimize the role of physical salvation. Christians spend millions a
year to help people survive famine and every other life threatening crisis you
can imagine. Some of the people who do this are the Josephs in our world
today. They are saving people physically that they might have the hope of
being saved spiritually. It a labor for the Lord, and a labor we should all be
glad to be a part of, for God loves to save people in every way that people can
be saved. You could be the right person in the right place at the right time to
provide a service to someone that will impact their life for the kingdom of
God. We need to look for such opportunities, for they could very well be your
most valuable labor for the Lord.
