Saved to Serve: Genesis 39:1-23 - Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

What person do you admire most?

Has this person ever experienced adversity? Did they have a difficult childhood? Did they suffer some terrible loss or tragedy? Were they ever poor?

The reason why I ask this is because when I think about the people I admire most, I immediately think of my grandparents. They grew up during the Great Depression with barely enough food on the table. My grandfathers served our country in World War II. When they came home and married my grandmothers, they worked hard. They raised my parents well. They faithfully served Jesus Christ in the church; and their love and generosity is beyond words.

It makes me wonder: can a person become Christ-like without struggle and sacrifice?

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Today’s sermon text introduces us to the Old Testament patriarch, Joseph. His father was Jacob, the grandson of Abraham and Sarah and the second-born twin son of Isaac and Rebekah.

Click here to read text

Jacob was the father of thirteen children with his two wives and their two handmaids: twelve boys and one girl. Imagine that…

Joseph happened to be the eleventh of his twelve sons. But he was also Jacob’s favorite, because he was the son of his favorite wife, Rachel. And boy, did he spoil him. He dressed him in the coat of many colors we know so well; he didn’t demand of him the same back-breaking work of tending to the flocks as he did his other sons. 

As you would expect, Joseph acted like a spoiled brat. He was a tattletale. And he was full of himself. He told his brothers of a dream he had where he ruled over them. 

He enrages his brothers so much that they conspire to kill him. But instead of incurring blood guilt, they sell him off as a slave to Midianite traders for the paltry sum of twenty pieces of silver—roughly $160 in today’s money. Then, they go home and tell their father that he had been eaten by a wild animal.

The Midianite traders ultimately sell him in Egypt to a man named Potiphar, who was a top official to Pharoah and captain of the guard. 

Yet God was with Joseph, despite his enslavement. So, he didn’t sit around feeling sorry for himself. He took action. He exercised his gifts. He gave his best. With God’s strength, Joseph proved to be quite an effective administrator; so much so that Potiphar put him in charge over all his affairs. 

Things were going quite well for Joseph, given the situation, until Potiphar’s wife began tempting him. But Joseph was not about to sin against God or violate the trust of his master. This went on for a while, until the wife finally decided to turn the tables on Joseph—accusing him of assaulting her. Potiphar is enraged, and has Joseph thrown into jail. 

Yet God was still with Joseph—and Joseph’s charisma and talents proved just as useful to the jailer as to Potiphar. 

What we see is that when Joseph is living it up as the favored, spoiled child, he is an arrogant jerk. But when he’s abused, exploited, and mistreated, God brings out the best in him.  God was all he had, and God was all he needed. Joseph prospers—not in the absence of adversity, but in the midst of it. 

Even still, how did Joseph keep going, realizing that his own brothers hated him so much that they were too lazy to kill him? How did he keep going, knowing that his own big mouth got him into this mess? Keep in mind that the events I described here didn’t take place over the course of a few days, but over many years. And just when things began to improve, he gets knocked down again?

Hope isn’t something that just drops from the sky, like rain. Hope is a choice you must make, every day. It’s believing that God will be stronger than anything or anyone that is against you. Hope is an attitude; a willful determination through which you give everything and everyone your God-given best, no matter what the circumstance. And it is confidence that God is going to bring something good out of your adversity, even if you have no idea what that is. 

This leads me to my next point—God’s deliverance of Joseph wasn’t just for his sake. It was for the sake of God’s chosen people, and ultimately for the sake of the whole world. With God’s help, Joseph becomes Pharoah’s second-in-command over all of Egypt. When a famine devastates the land of Canaan, where his parents and siblings still live, they will be able to take refuge in Egypt and will ultimately prosper. 

Just the same, nothing God does for you is just for you. You are blessed to be a blessing. Every good gift of God is meant to be shared, and everyone has gifts from God to share, no matter what the circumstance. The best way to enjoy God’s blessings is by sharing them. And if God helped you through a terrible ordeal, you can be of great support to those going through the same ordeal. You can even be an inspiration to those who have not gone through that ordeal, or perhaps may be going through other ordeals. 

Right now, we are in the middle of what is undoubtedly the hardest time for us to be church together. And yet, God worked through us to bless hundreds of lives last Saturday, so that all could see the goodness of God in our common life.  

My conclusion then is that you cannot become Christ like without participating in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. You will not overcome challenge and adversity in life by being angry, bitter, envious, or resentful. You cannot allow fear to dictate your future. Remember that God is with you, and that God will use the adversity to show you his best—and bring out the best in you—so that others may be blessed, because of you.