Worshipping your "self’s"
Virtues #4 - Self Control
by James Galbraith
Genesis 39:7-20
Bethel First Baptist Church - June 10, 2001
A society build up it’s language around what is important to it.
The Eskimos, I’ve been told, have many different words for snow.
They live with it constantly, they walk on it, build with it, hunt on it, and they need to be able to communicate what the snow is like, how deep it is, how fresh it is, and such.
So they have come up with many different ways to describe snow.
A society forms it’s language around what is important to it.
You may be asking why I mention this in a sermon about temperance, or to use a more "current" term, - self-control.
Well, when I looked in my dictionary to see if "self-control" means what I think it means, I found 247 different words that start with "self".
While some of them refer to mechanical or organic things, such as self-loading rifles or self-rising flour, the majority of these terms refer to something about one’s "self".
If you punishing yourself too often you are guilty of self-flagellation
and if you go to far in self -flagellation you can commit self-annihilation
If you draw attention away from yourself you are self-effacing
and if you think you are always right you are self-opinionated.
If you constantly make excuses for your behavior you are self-justifying,
if you see yourself in someone (or something), you have engaged in self-identification
and on it goes.
I think it is fair to say that we are a society thoroughly wrapped up in our "self’s", or should I say, self-centered.
Before I go too far on that, I must say that we need to somewhat self-aware, if we are to survive.
If we don’t pay attention to our body’s need for food or water,
we will eventually die of hunger or thirst.
If we do not pay attention to our need for shelter,
we will die of exposure to the elements.
And if we do not pay attention to our need for clothing, well, we get arrested!
Self-awareness is part of who we are, and when it begins to fail we suffer greatly.
However, most of us do not have a problem with self-awareness. We excel at it!
We’re so good at it, in fact, that we quickly move past it and on to self-centeredness, and then things start to go wrong.
Why is this wrong? It is wrong because when we begin to place our "self’ in the centre of our lives, everything else takes second place.
Now that doesn’t seem so bad at first, after all, who’s going to take care of our "self" except our "self".
But with our "self’s" in the centre, who then are we accountable to? What rules do we follow? Who is the most important influence in our lives?
If we answer all of these questions with our "self’s", then we walk the same road as some of the most evil people who ever walked this Earth.
The people who cause the most harm in this world are the people who have decided that they do not have to answer to anybody but themselves,
their own desires, their own appetites, their own prejudices, their own rules.
The contrast to self-centredness is self control - someone who has self-control recognizes that there is a right and wrong, that there is a standard he or she must live up to, and that we must exercise control over our desires and appetites if we are to abide by them.
Our passage today is about a man who shows us self-control in action
Joseph’s Self Control
Joseph was a man who knew where the line between self-awareness and self-centeredness was, and he live a life that shows that no matter what position he was in at the time, he always made sure that a - he was not the centre of his own universe and b- he was able to be self-controlled
Joesph has been sold into slavery by his own brothers, and the slave traders that purchased him for 20 pieces of silver have brought him to Egypt, where he was purchased by Potiphar - the captain of the Royal Guard.
Joesph stays faithful to God throughout this ordeal, and it soon become evident that God is faithful to him. The verses leading up to our passage tells us that "the Lord was with him and the Lord gave him success" - so much success that Potiphar puts Joesph in charge of everything concerning his household.
This entails much more than being the head servant. Joesph manages Potiphar’s investments, he runs the farming operations, he does lead the servants - the only thing Potiphar had to do himself was feed himself!
He is still a slave, but he works himself in to a very prominent and enviable position. It would be very easy to think highly of himself, and yet he remains faithful to the God who has blessed him so far.
Our text begins at a point where Joseph’s self-control will be put to the test.
Potiphar’s wife would have ample opportunity to see Joesph at work, and apparently she likes what she sees.
Here’s a strong, handsome man, who can manage investments, work hard and is good with people.
Her husband is a military leader who is very likely away from the house often, so she is probably a lonely "queen" in a house full of servants and slaves.
Her words in verse seven leave little to the imagination - ‘Come to bed with me", and it would have been very easy to accept this invitation.
* He justify it by saying that he was just following orders, after all, he is still a slave.
* He could certainly find the time and place go through with it - he is in charge of the house.
* Mrs. Potiphar is probably a very attractive young woman - she is the wife of an important official who could pick and choose a wife a leisure, she would have all the resources to obtain the finest scents and the most alluring attire and there is no talk of children being around yet.
However, Joesph refuses, and his refusal is based on two factors.
1. Potiphar trusts him, and he does not want to break that trust.
2. Committing this act would be a sin against God, and he simply will not do it.
Joseph’s decision is a strong demonstration of self-control. He could have the pleasure of sexual relations with this woman, and most likely get away with it, but instead he chooses to hold off because he knows that doing this would be wrong.
But his decision, even though it is the right on, gets him into more trouble than he can imagine.
Potiphar’s wife doesn’t give up, and eventually she catches him alone and actually grabs his clothes.
He runs, because there is no other possible way of getting out of the situation -
he can’t call for help - who will believe him?
He can’t complain or testify against Potiphar’s wife - he’s still a slave and his word means nothing against the word of his owner’s wife.
And he will not, under any circumstances, give in to her advances.
It would be the easy thing to do at this point, after all, he could rationalize it by saying that he really had no other option. but again, he demonstrates self-control and does the best possible thing under the circumstances - he leaves.
There is a struggle, and Mrs. Potiphar is left with Joseph’s coat in her hands. She’s not too happy with Joseph at this point, and her reaction demonstrates what someone will do when the only person they are accountable to is themselves.
She simply can’t let the story get out that Joseph spurned her advances - what would that say about her beauty, her charm, her ability to love? What would happen if Potiphar found out about her conduct? Would she be beaten or sent away?
She fears for her own reputation and safety, so she fabricates a story which turns the tables and puts Joseph in a guilty light.
He came after me in my own house,
he was taking his clothes off and trying to get mine off,
I screamed to protect myself,
and he ran, leaving his coat behind - here it is , see?
It’s pure poppycock, but it’s enough to land Joesph in jail - and our passage ends with him sitting in the King’s prison, his reward for his self-control being a dark and dreary cell.
So why?
If the story really did end there, one would under why Joseph ever bothered holding back?
After all, one simple yes would have given him pleasure, security in his Lord’s home, and kept him out of jail.
But the story doesn’t end there.
Even though Joseph ends up in jail, he quickly gains the trust of the jailers and actually runs the jail from his own cell, making sure everybody gets food, water and other essentials.
The warden himself trusts Joseph with the administration of the jail, and the word tells us that ‘the Lord gives him success in whatever he did"
Through a course of events, Joseph, even though he is nothing but a prisoner, is given a chance to appear before the Pharaoh himself, and Joseph’s trust in God lead him to help Pharaoh understand two dreams that no one else could understand.
Joseph gains the Pharaoh’s trust and is place in charge of the entire nation - second only to Pharaoh himself. And in this position he is able to take steps which eventually lead to the reunification of him with his family in Israel.
Not bad for a guy who left home in chains, eh?!
Joseph’s ability to say "no" at the right time, to exercise self control, may have put him in some short term trouble, but it lead to long term blessings beyond anything he could have anticipated.
The same formula is still at work for us today.
To understand self control, we have to first accept that there is something greater than ourselves, beyond our control, that we have to submit to.
That something is, of course, God, and his will for our lives is that we follow him.
Two E’s
He’s given us the Word of God, the Bible, and with it we get two "E’s" - explanations and examples - that show us how to live life the way God wants us too.
The explanations are the principles , the rules, the commandments, that teach us how to live "God’s way". They may seem like too many to keep track of, and indeed, it takes a while to learn them all - if we ever do.
But they boil down to the ten commandments, which then boil down to Love God and Love your neighbour.
And the examples are the stories - like Joseph, and Ruth, and Job, and Daniel, and Esther - who strive to live God’s way and were rewarded for their faithfulness.
All of them suffered at times for doing the right thing, for holding back form temptation, for exercising self-control, and all of them were eventually blessed beyond what they could have hoped for.
Help!
Once we recognize that we are not "the center of the universe", we must accept that we are not very good at exercising self-control - even though we may see how it can help us, our natural inclination is to take what looks best and brightest for us now.
That’s why sin never looks like sin when it comes along. No one would commit sin if it didn’t seem give itself such a shiny, attractive appearance, if it didn’t look good, taste good or feel good.
We, as people, are so programmed to follow what seems right for us that that it takes a superhuman effort to stop and make sure that we not being led down the wrong path.
And guess what? We have a super human who’s just waiting to help us! Jesus lived just like we do, and yet he was able to live without sin - exercising self control like no one before during or after him.
We need to be continually coming to him in prayer, asking for his help and guidance as we face our day to day decisions.
And as we pray, we will learn to trust in someone far greater than ourselves. Someone who wants to give us far more than our desires or appetites can even imagine. And we will learn to worship something far greater than our "self"
As we trust more and more in God and his word and his Son,
…a sense of self-control will build in us that helps us see past the silver lining of sin.
We will begin to see how holding back now can build blessings unfathomable for the future. We will not always fell blessed right away, just as Joseph suffered short-term pain for his self-control, we too will lose out on something’s that seem good at the time.
But eventually it will be made clear to us that trusting in God is always the right decision, and that it carries rewards beyond our understanding.
We will begin to understand that we really don’t want to be the centre of the universe, that God belongs in that place and we live better when he is there.
