Podcasts about so potiphar

Every dream from God will _______ before it is ______________. [Exodus 2:15] And sure enough, Pharaoh heard what had happened, and he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian. When Moses arrived in Midian, he sat down beside a well. The dream gives us the _______________ to go through the _______________. [Genesis 37:18-20] When Joseph's brothers saw him coming, they recognized him in the distance. As he approached, they made plans to kill him. [19] “Here comes the dreamer!” they said. [20] “Come on, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns. We can tell our father, ‘A wild animal has eaten him.' Then we'll see what becomes of his dreams!” [Genesis 37:26-28] Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain by killing our brother? We'd have to cover up the crime. [27] Instead of hurting him, let's sell him to those Ishmaelite traders. After all, he is our brother—our own flesh and blood!” And his brothers agreed. [28] So when the Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders, came by, Joseph's brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to them for twenty pieces of silver. And the traders took him to Egypt. Sometimes the __________________ in your life will be in direct conflict with your dream. What Joseph thought was _______________ became his _______________ to Egypt. [Genesis 39:2; 6-12] The Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master. [6] So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn't worry about a thing—except what kind of food to eat! Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man, [7] and Potiphar's wife soon began to look at him lustfully. “Come and sleep with me,” she demanded. [8] But Joseph refused. “Look,” he told her, “my master trusts me with everything in his entire household. [9] No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God.” [10] She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible. [11] One day, however, no one else was around when he went in to do his work. [12] She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, “Come on, sleep with me!” Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house. Joseph had dreams of a _______________ but first had to go through the ________ and the ____________. Don't _______________ the dream when it dies. [Galatians 6:9] So let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up. When life is in the _______ see what you can _________ ______.

Sermon Summary: Genesis 39 - Joseph's Trials and Triumphs This sermon, delivered by Karen, explores the life of Joseph in Genesis 39, focusing on his time as a slave in Egypt. Key Themes: God's Sovereignty: Despite facing immense hardships, including being sold into slavery and falsely imprisoned, Joseph experiences God's presence and blessing throughout his journey. The phrase "the Lord was with Joseph" is repeatedly emphasized, highlighting God's active involvement in Joseph's life, even in challenging circumstances. Character Development: Joseph's experiences, though difficult, serve to refine his character. He demonstrates unwavering integrity by resisting the advances of Potiphar's wife, even when faced with significant temptation and potential consequences. His steadfastness and reliance on God are crucial to his eventual rise to prominence. God's Purposes: The sermon emphasizes that even in seemingly devastating situations, God is working out His plan. Joseph's imprisonment, though initially a setback, ultimately leads him to a position of influence in Egypt, paving the way for the preservation of his family during a time of famine. The Importance of God's Calling: The sermon highlights the significance of recognizing God's personal call. The passage from Isaiah 43:1 ("Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you; I have called you by name and you are mine") emphasizes that each individual has a unique identity and purpose in God's eyes. Character Analysis: Joseph: Presented as a man of integrity, courage, and faith. He demonstrates remarkable resilience in the face of adversity, consistently trusting in God's plan. Potiphar: A successful Egyptian official who recognizes Joseph's abilities and benefits from his leadership. Potiphar's Wife: Portrayed as a woman with limited agency within her social context. Her actions, driven by a desire for control and fulfillment, have significant negative consequences. Application: The sermon encourages listeners to trust in God's sovereignty, even when facing difficult circumstances. It emphasizes the importance of personal integrity and resisting temptation. It challenges listeners to recognize their unique identity and purpose in God's plan. It encourages seeking God's presence and guidance through prayer and relying on His strength during times of trial. Bible References: Genesis 39 Note: This summary provides a general overview of the sermon. The actual podcast will provide a more in-depth and nuanced exploration of the themes and characters discussed. This summary aims to capture the essence of Karen's message while maintaining its integrity and theological accuracy. Transcript Are we ready, Graham? My able assistant Graham is going to help me this morning. Welcome everybody. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Jonathan's wife. He was the gray-haired man on the stage previously and will be again later. Welcome to those in 146. Today we're looking at Genesis 39, which continues with the story of Joseph. It started with Chris two weeks ago and then there was a little bit of an interlude, wasn't there, Nick? Which Nick so ably did for us last week on the little story of Tamar. Okay, so if we look at, what I'm going to do is, it's such a well-known bit of scripture. I kept saying to people oh, I'm doing Genesis 39. Oh, that's the bit with Potiphar's wife, isn't it? So I proposed that we're just going to go through this bit by bit because there's some really interesting nuggets placed in there in places and then we're going to look at the three main characters and then we're going to sort of come to a conclusion if you like. Okay, so Chris talked about how Joseph and his family and how dysfunctional that was and how his lovely brothers sold him into slavery. We'd all like brothers like that, wouldn't we? Really pleasant. So we come now to Joseph has been taken down into Egypt and Potiphar, who was an Egyptian, one of Pharaoh's main people, if you like. He was, he was chief of the guard and, carry on Graham, please, next one. And when you think about it, Joseph could have been bought by anybody, but he wasn't. This was a man of great standing, a man who worked with the Pharaoh. He didn't just go into some mediocre house, he went into the house of a very rich person. You know, this guy would have had a very large house, perhaps two or three floors, nice gold plate, all sorts of stuff like that. It wasn't just anybody. And what I want you to think about are the pieces of jigsaw that are going to fit together in this passage with what's gone before and what will come afterwards, okay? I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd be very happy coming from being the favorite son and being very important in a family to being an Egyptian slave. A bit of a, yeah, quite a lot of a come down really, an Egyptian slave. I want you to think about that in terms of what happens later in Scripture in terms of the Israelites. If you like, this was the first Egyptian slave. Now, this verse here, the Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, okay? I don't want to be that technical with you, but it's this word, Lord. Yahweh was with Joseph. It wasn't, you know, God was around. Yahweh was with Joseph and he prospered. It's a bit weird, isn't it, because he's a slave. Sorry, I'm messing around here. He's a slave. He's in Egypt. He's in a very nice house, but he's still a slave. But the Lord was with him and he prospered even though he was a slave. Sheila and I have had little conversations about all of this. We had a little conversation this morning about how God is working and she said, I love it when bits of services come together and you can actually absolutely see God at work and it can't be manufactured. It has to be God, okay? And the same is true in Jacob's life here, okay? The Lord was with him and he prospered. In the house of his Egyptian master, he's still a slave, yeah? Okay, next one, Graham, please. Now, it says that when his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, then Joseph found a favor in his eyes. Now, let's think about that a bit. What if it didn't see that Joseph was good? It doesn't say Joseph was good at his job, but he must have been. It says he saw that the Lord was with him, Yahweh with Joseph, and other people saw that. This very important man clocked it. So he would have gone, he would have started as, if you like, a slave in the house, it says. So he would have been not outside working in the gardens, he would have been in the house. And he went from there to being his personal attendant, and then he went from there to being in charge of everything, and then he went from there to being in charge of all his possessions. So this man absolutely clocked. Hang on a minute. There's something special about Joseph. Not the person, but that Yahweh was with him. Okay, next one, please, Graham. Okay, carry on. We've done that a bit. Okay, right now. I think the potter for to leave everything in his hands, it talks about except the food he ate. Now that's a bit of an English translation, if you like. What that really means is his personal affairs, okay, the really personal bits to his life. And eating was quite a personal bit, if you like. But it would probably have included his wife as well, his personal affairs as well, you know. So that was Potiphar's bit, and the rest of Potiphar's life was what Joseph organized and took care of, okay. So we see Joseph as this trustworthy, capable person. And at this point, so he's still a slave. Get it? He is still a slave, but he's prospering. His life is moving on as a slave, but he's prospering, okay. Then, all right, carry on, Graham. Now Joseph was well built, and after a while, his wife's master took notice of Joseph. And actually, when you read scripture, it's more about the description of Joseph matches the description of his mother. So if you like, he was very, very beautiful, very handsome, looked good, just like his mother had, okay. And after a while, his master's wife took notice of him. Now when I introduced myself, I know you'd introduced me as Karen Dunning. I introduced myself as Jonathan's wife, which grated on me a bit, if I'm honest, because that's not my identity. But here, you've got Potiphar's wife. We don't know what she's called, but that would have been her identity. Her identity would have been the wife of Potiphar, and her role, her responsibilities would have been as the wife of Potiphar, okay. Now I've thought long and hard about this, about what it would be like. How much control would that woman have had over her own life? Not much. What time she got up, what clothes she wore, not what she did, not what she could do, not what her aspirations were. She'd have no control over that whatsoever because she was Potiphar's wife. We'll come back to that a bit later, okay Graham. Now she's saying to him, I want you to come and I want you to have sex with me basically. And she's saying this over and over again, but at some point in this, in these conversations, Joseph makes it very clear, no, I'm not going to do what you want me to do, even if you are Potiphar's wife and I am a slave. And he gives three definite reasons to this. He talks about, carry on Graham, he talks about the fact that it would be an abuse of trust because Potiphar has trusted him with everything except his personal affairs. And it would be an offense against Potiphar, but also it would be a sin against God. And we, I get this thing that, you know, he knows that God is with him. He knows that God is blessing him. He doesn't, he isn't doing any of this in his own strength. He isn't prospering in his own strength. He gets that this is happening to me because Yahweh is with me and Yahweh is blessing me. And I'm not going to do anything that would jeopardize that. And he says no. Now, carry on Graham. Thank you, you're doing a great job there. And, and she speaks to him day after day. So she's, she's tapping at him. So it's not just a one-off, you know, come and have sex with me on a one-off basis. She's coming to him all the time. And I try to understand why he was doing this. Would you remember I said she had no control over anything. Perhaps this is her trying to gain control over something, gain control in some way of Joseph. So she's tapping at him day after day. And he's refusing, because I think in the end she's sort of saying, the Hebrew intimates that she's no longer asking him for sex. She's saying, well just come and lie with me. Hopefully that would lead to other things in her eyes. So she's still doing it, but she's trying to, I don't know, soften it a bit if you like. And he's still saying no. But he's very aware that something could happen. It's not that stupid. And he knows himself well enough to know this is not good. So what does he do? He stays away from her. He stays away from her. Wherever he can, he's nowhere near her. Because he's sensible enough to know something could happen. However, this one day can't quite manage it. And he happens to meet her when there's no men around. There's nobody else around. It's just the two of them. His heart must have sunk. Okay, next one Graham. This is really interesting. Nick I'm going to, sorry you're going to have to put that down a minute. So it says she caught him by his cloak. That'll do. Turn around mate. She caught him by his cloak and said come to bed with me. Sorry. Now, but he left his cloak in her hand. You know, if Nick gets away from me now, there's some force behind her holding on to his cloak isn't there? It's not just, it's not just, hello would you mind? It's come to bed with me and there's some force behind it. There's some determination. Okay. And it says that he ran out of the house. In the Hebrew it talks about him and he fled the house. It's the same word that would be used if you were fleeing battle. Which is exactly what he's doing isn't it? He knows he's in a very tricky situation here and he's trying to get out of it. Okay. But she's got hold now of his cloak or whatever garment it happened to be. This is the bit I love. Hang on. Next to her. When she saw that, keep going. It talks about the fact that she screamed. Okay. She began screaming. You know what? I think she was a bit of a spoiled madam and hadn't got her own way and you know just like a child stomps and screams when they don't get their own way. I happen to think that that's what she was doing. She's got his cloak but she hadn't got him. She still hadn't got what she wanted and she's screaming and stamping her foot. But because she's screaming all the servants come in. So she's got to think of a reason why she's screaming and she can't say I'm screaming because I didn't get my own way. So she has to give a reason. Now keep going Graham. Next one. He kept his cloak with him. The first thing she does is she talks about Joseph as an Egyptian slave because what she's trying to do is get the household that would have been Hebrews or would have been Egyptians on her side. This man is different and this is what he tried to do to me. Okay. So then she told this story. That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. So again she's putting it on him and she's making him the outsider which he is but she's emphasizing that. Okay. Next verse Graham. As soon as I screamed for help he left his cloak beside me. Okay and ran out of the house. Next verse Graham. Now Potiphar comes back and she she keeps the same story but the words change slightly. This is how your slave treated me. So she's putting the responsibility on Potiphar. Okay and therefore Potiphar had no choice. We don't know how well he knew his wife. We don't know whether he believed her or not but he didn't have a choice. And again she's saying you've brought this Egyptian slave in. It's your fault. What are you gonna do about it? And here's the very interesting. This is where you get the little nugget. So Potiphar had no choice. Joseph's master took him and put him in prison. The place where the king's prisoners were kept. Actually he should have been killed. If she's saying he attempted to rape me and he's a slave he should be killed. Which leads me to believe that perhaps Potiphar did have a little doubt in his mind as to what had actually happened. But he could have been put in your common old garden prison. But he wasn't. This is where the jigsaw pieces come together. He was put in the king's prison and next week and the week after you'll see why it was important that he was in the king's prison and who he met in the king's prison which led him to meet the king. And again it's all those jigsaw pieces. So he's gone from being the best beloved son to a slave and now he's a slave in prison. Could it get any worth? But the Lord was with him. Yahweh was with him. And that phrase the Lord was with him. You only find in this this chapter and right at the end of Joseph's life sort of bookends the Lord was with him and showed him kindness. Okay and again he finds favor not because of who he is but because the Lord was with him. Okay really then we start to go into what happened in prison which was exactly the same as what happened in Potter's house. So go with that Graham. The warder puts him in charge of the prison and because the Lord was with Joseph gave him success in whatever he did. What I want to do now is think about those three characters hopefully. You've got Potiphar. He's a very important man but he recognizes when he can get more and he can get more from having Joseph as his slave and giving him all his household to look after. So he's a wily man but he knows that the Lord is blessing Joseph and he wants some of it. Okay then you get the lovely Potiphar's wife. As I said I don't think she had control of any part of her life and she wanted something to control and that was Joseph. She's nameless. I'm going to repeat that in the in scripture she's nameless and we sang a song today and believe me Jonathan and I although we talk we don't talk about what songs he's singing and what I'm going to talk about. I'm going to read to you from Isaiah 43. Do not be afraid for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name and you are mine. And then we sang the rest in the song didn't we? I have called you by name and you are mine. God calling us by name is very important because it then means that we can know that Yahweh is with us and blesses us. Just everybody else, us, me. I have called you by name and you are mine. Potiphar's wife did not experience that at all. You didn't have an identity outside of being Potiphar's wife. And then you get Joseph. I have no idea how I would respond from going being the beloved child, beloved foiled child to a slave, to a slave prisoner. And yet here you have Joseph who knew Yahweh was with him and blessed him. I've been in, I think this is my 41st year of being involved in education. And I utterly, utterly know God's blessing in my career. Of course I couldn't have done it without him and things have happened that, you know, I'm like how on earth did that happen? And yet I know that that is God's blessing in my life. It has nothing to do with me and my ability. Trust me because there isn't a lot there. And yet God has blessed me. And we all have that same opportunity to be blessed by God and for God to call us by name. The other thing it made me question was how much we value difficulties. We don't do we? We don't like them. They're not nice. You just want to get out of them. When you look at Joseph, he went from, oh gosh, do I use the word spoiled brat? Yeah, but we'll leave spoiled. Okay. And his character changes over time because of the experiences he is put through. When I was in my 20s, if I knew anybody who lost a family member, honestly I never, I didn't know what to say to them. If I saw them in the streets, I'd walk the other way because I was so worried I didn't know what to say to them. When I lost my own parents and I had the experience of what it was like to grieve and feel sadness and that sense of loss, I could then talk to people because that was then part of my experience. It wasn't a nice experience, but it changed me. Our experiences change us. Joseph was changed by these experiences because Yahweh was with him and he allowed him to be with him. And he was steadfast through those experiences that weren't very pleasant. And that's hard. Let's be honest. When things aren't going well, it's hard. It's hard to be steadfast. It's hard still to think Yahweh is with me despite what I'm going through. What helped Joseph was, I think, was he was very conscious of God. He was very conscious of God's blessing despite what he was going through. What am I asking you to take away from this chapter? I'm asking you to take away that if you do not feel that you have been called by name by the Father God, then you need to know that you have. I have called you by name and you are mine. And if you need to come out and ask the prayer so that you absolutely know that. I'm not talking about feelings. Sometimes you'll feel it and sometimes you won't. I'm talking about absolutely knowing that. I have called you by name and you are mine. If you're going through experiences now that you'd rather not be going through, God hasn't said, I'm going to get you out of that situation. When you walk through the water, I will be with you. When you go through the fire, you will not be burnt. It's not, I'm going to take you out of it. It's, I will be with you. If you don't feel that he's with you, perhaps you need somebody to pray with you so you've got that stamp. I will be with you. Okay? And if you need to feel that consciousness of faith, you need God to give you that consciousness of faith, then please again, you don't have to come out to the front. You can sit there. You can ask people to pray for you now or later. But for me, the challenge of this chapter is Joseph knew God was with him and blessed him. And there were times when he could have made some really rocky decisions. I'm sure he would have been tempted to do so, but he didn't. I want to end with just reading that again from Isaiah. I have called you by name and you are mine. When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. And that was Joseph's experience. But the Lord was with Joseph, whether it was in Potiphar's house or in prison. The Lord was with Joseph and the Lord is also with you. Thank you.

Genesis 39:1-23 39 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. 2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!” 8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. 11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. 13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.” 16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.” 19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.

·     How do you have faith in a dark place?  ·       Genesis 37:25-28 - 25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.  26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.  28 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. ·       How does my faith lead me to act in this situation?  ·       1 Thessalonians 4:13 - 13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.  ·       Genesis 39: 2-6 - 2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. ·       Faith is knowing God is with me even in the dark places.  ·       Psalm 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me… ·       Genesis 39:7-10 - 7 and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”  8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. ·       Faith means following God's path when there is no good outcome.  ·       Put God's way first.  ·       Genesis 39:20-23 - 20 Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.  But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. ·      Faith means trusting God when the outcome of following Him is bad.  ·      Genesis 40:23 - 23 The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him. ·      When you feel like God has forgotten you, you wonder if He cares. ·      Genesis 41:15-16 - 15 Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I had a dream, and no one can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.”  16 “I cannot do it,” Joseph replied to Pharaoh, “but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.” ·       God is at work in every dark place you are in.  ·       Genesis 41:45 - 45 Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-Paneah…  ·       Ask God to show you that He is with you in the dark places. ·       Hold on.  ·       When you emerge, give God credit.  ·      Ask Jesus to meet you in the dark place right now.

This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston, or donate to this ministry, please visit MosaicBoston.com.Our Heavenly Father, all of us face perplexing situations in our lives, in our youth, in our middle ages and in the challenges of our twilight years. We never know from one day to the next what turns will occur. And so daily, as we face your providence, we're challenged with the challenge of faith. Will we walk by faith or by sight? Lord, I pray that you give us grace to walk by faith even when everything that we see seems counter to good. Yet Lord, we know on the turn of a dime you can redeem any situation. As we consider your providence today in the life of Joseph as he is stuck in a dungeon, Lord, we thank you that you were with him even in the darkest pit.And Lord, teach us lasting lessons from your scriptures and we pray that your Holy Spirit enables us, not just to understand these lessons, but to embrace them and to love them. Help us experientially know your love and love the fact that you and your good purposes and your wisdom you brought us to where you have brought us and we know that you will lead us from here. Well Lord, in spite of the dark seasons of providence, we do trust in you and we pray that you deepen our trust in you. In Jesus' name, amen.We're continuing our sermon series that we've entitled Graduate Level Grace: A Study in the Life of Joseph. This is Genesis 37 through 50. Today we find ourselves in Genesis 40 and the title of the sermon is Seek God Defined Success. Among the most prized possessions of men in past centuries was a fine sword. Swords have been immortalized in mythology like King Arthur's Excalibur, the broad sword pulled from a cloven rock. More recently, there's Frodo Baggins' little miniature sword, Sting. Even science fiction boasts of swords like the light sabers of the Jedi Knights. But there's a sword more powerful than any of those, and that's the sword of the word of God, and that's an apt metaphor.Ephesians 6:17 says, and this is a commandment, "Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." When we take the sword of the Spirit on a daily basis and we first apply it to ourselves, it completely changes us. Why? Because Hebrews 4:12 says, "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." The word of God is like a sword in that it does penetrate through into the depths of our soul. John Bunyan's Pilgrim carries the right true Jerusalem blade, which was a way of saying the Christian is armed with the word of God.Now, when you study the word of God and you apply it to yourself and you seek to obey the Lord faithfully, and when you disobey, you ask for grace and repent of sin, what happens is that you yourself become a sword, that the human life, when it is presented to God in humility, God use me. Well, what does God do? He shapes us. He hones us. He tempers us by His word and also by the fires of providence, the fires that occur in life until we become a mighty blade in the hands of God. And that's what we're seeing with Joseph, that God is sharpening him, edge after edge, sharpening him until he becomes a singular instrument of redemption in the hands of God.The story begins with Joseph, just a young guy, naive and sensitive in many ways. Innocently arrogant in his youth and then he's sold into slavery. At that point, he could have turned to bitterness. He could have become a victim. At that point, he could have allowed his spirit to become wounded. No, he doesn't do any of that. The bitterness of Joseph's experience by God's grace seasoned him with sweetness so that the arrogance is deflated. And then ultimately, he is used by God to save his family whom he forgives. Joseph was already shown in the story, signs of spiritual greatness. Last week, we learned about his remaining faithful and not being compromised by Mrs. Potiphar's seductive siege. And Moses has written success in large letters all across Joseph's life at this juncture.If you remember last chapter ends in Genesis 39:21 through 23 with these words, "But the Lord was with Joseph, showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison and the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. And whatever was done there, he was the one to do it. 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." And here you got to pause and ask, is this success? He's in his late twenties, no family, no career, owns nothing. Successful in what category?Well, he's successful in the eyes of God and that's the only true measure of success. Despite trying circumstances, dark providence where he could have just run from God, run from responsibility. No, his faith actually grows stronger. Though he is far removed from his family, separated by the desolate expanse of the Sinai, immersed in another culture speaking a different language, enduring the living death of a slave. Despite all that, he still holds fast to his God.And we know in the coming chapters that he will be elevated to the vice regency of Egypt. He becomes number two only after Potiphar. And what we see is before his ascent to power, God gives us one more chapter that shows us where Joseph is in the darkest place in his life. It's a final stint, a final opportunity for God to shape him. And many lessons are enforced by the picture of Joseph in this dungeon, but he understands, come what will, right is right and sin is sin and that consequences are never to deter from duty. And that it's better to live with a clean conscience in prison then to do wickedness and sit at a king's table.Four points or categories, subheadings with which we'll walk through the text. First we'll look at the prisoners assigned to Joseph, then we'll look at the prisoners troubling dreams. Third, Joseph interprets their dreams. And fourth, the dreams come true. And we'll walk verse by verse through the text. First, prisoners are assigned to Joseph. So if you remember Potiphar who was in charge of the executioners of Pharaoh. Mrs. Potiphar came to him and said, "Joseph, he was trying to rape me." That's what was going on. And then Potiphar didn't really believe her. That's why he didn't have Joseph executed. And so he puts Joseph in this prison that he's in charge of and then he grows in responsibility. So this is Genesis 40 verses one through four."Sometime after this, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker committed an offense against their Lord, the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. And he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard in the prison where Joseph was confined. The captain of the guard appointed Joseph to be with them and he attended them. They continued for some time in custody."So Joseph was sold by his brothers into captivity when he was 17 years old. And we know that 11 years have already passed from that time. We don't know how those 11 years were divided between serving in Potiphar's household and in prison. But we do know that Joseph is now 28 years old because in the next chapter it says two years passed, two whole years passed from the events in this chapter, and then he'll be 30 at which at that age he ascended to the service of Pharaoh. So what happens is we don't know what the chief cupbearer or the chief baker did, but we do know that they are chief in their class. These are people to whom the Pharaoh entrusted his life. The royal cupbearer and the royal baker in a sense held the life of Pharaoh in their hands.If you wanted to take a king out or Pharaoh out, one of the ways you would do that is you bribe the cupbearer or you bribe the baker to poison the man. That's why the Egyptian cupbearers were sometimes called pure of hands. There were supposed to be people of incredible integrity. So the cupbearer's job was not just to taste the wine, he would oversee the whole process of the wine making and then finally taste it in the presence of Pharaoh before giving him the cup. The baker would do the same with food. So they were put in the custody in the house of the captain of the guard. Potiphar is the captain of the bodyguard. So Potiphar puts Joseph in a position to care for these criminals.And the thing you got to know about these guys is that they are high ranking officers. Remember, Nehemiah was a cupbearer, so he had incredible influence over the king, over the land. They were confidants, they were advisors. But here, something happened, we don't know what, but Pharaoh suspected them of plotting his demise. Perhaps he grew ill after a meal and he didn't know which one to blame, so he threw both into prison until it was decided. So here's Joseph. He's at the bottom of the bottom. He's 28 years old, been in prison serving prisoners, serving those who are enslaved. And at this point, he could have thrown himself a pity party and also checked out of reality. He could have thought, Lord, why did you give me this lot in life? I didn't sign up for this. Why was it that my mother died in an untimely death? And why was it that my father who loved me so couldn't quell the strife in the family?And why is it that my family sold me into slavery? And why is that Potiphar believed these false accusations, et cetera, and he's in prison. But instead of doing any of that, he continued to trust in the Lord and the Lord continued to sustain him even in prison. Before Joseph is put in the palace, he's taught by God to walk by faith in the prison. And that brings us to the next verses, and this is the second heading, prisoners troubling dreams. Verse five. "And one night they both dreamed, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison, each his own dream and each dream with its interpretation."So the ancient Egyptians put great stock in dreams because they believe that when they slept, they were put in contact with another world. A pair of dreams, dual dreams shows us that there is certainty of fulfillment. So these guys, they both woke up rattled on the same night. They had these dreams, they're burdened with this inscrutable dream. And we see here, of course, God, in His providence, bringing these two guys together and it's God who gives them these two dreams. And what is God doing? He's furthering His glory. "Yes, Joseph, I do have great plans for you, plans to prosper you and plans to glorify my name through you." And part of the process of glorification is, how will you respond to adversity. How will you respond to dark providence, seasons where the only place to look up is to look up to God from the pit. And that's what's happening here. And even as He's teaching Joseph, God is ultimately concerned about glorifying His name and His might. That's what's happening here.In verse six, "When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled." He noticed that they were perturbed, something was off. So he says in verse seven, "So he asked Pharaoh's officers who were with him in custody in his master's house, 'Why are your faces downcast today?'" Why are your faces gloomy today? In this question, what we see is, what do we see, we see kindness. We see interest. We see respect. He noticed things. By the way, this is a man. This is a man noticing the feelings of other men. This is a miracle in and of itself. But it just shows incredible sensitivity. I saw yesterday you were not gloomy, today, you're gloomy. Both of you are gloomy. And it shows this and this is a large measure of Joseph's success. He was present on a daily basis and he inquired of those around him of how they're doing or how they felt. Incredible sympathy, incredible sensitivity.And also, you can't but notice the growth. Remember when he was 17 years old, he's very good looking, beloved by Jacob. He's a beloved son. He's got the beautiful colored rainbow, the robe, and he knows he's the chosen one. And he didn't have the awareness to keep his dreams to himself. The dreams were it was clear that one day his brother's whole family would bow down before him. No, he decided to share that. Well, of course, how do you think your brothers are going to respond to dreams like that? So when he was younger, he lacked the sensitivity. But now, though he had every reason to ignore the feelings of his fellow inmates, he was tender to be considerate of them. And it's apparent that what Joseph had experienced in the famous ups and downs of his own life, well, those seasons made him sensitive and compassionate toward others.So he asked the question and verse eight they said to him, "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.'" Well, first thing you got to notice is he has this God reflex. As soon as he hears about they have a problem, let's take it to the Lord. And also, there's an implicit declaration of belief here. God sends dreams and God can interpret dreams. And by the way, this shows that he never stopped believing that those dreams that God had sent him early on were from God and they were to come true. Joseph's faith has also demonstrated in the fact that he doesn't take credit. He could have said, I have the skills of being a great interpreter of dreams. He says, no, no, no, let's take it to the Lord.Well, what has God just done? He has given Joseph the opportunity to testify to his glory. Now no matter what circumstances we're in, in God's providence, we have a choice to make. Will I trust whatever the circumstance I'm in, will I trust God today? Will I trust that God's hand of providence brought me here and God's hand of providence will take me out of here? Will I trust Him today? And part of trusting God is giving glory to Him verbally saying, "God, I praise you for this day. I praise you for this season. Whatever it is, I will give you glory." Joseph meant only God alone can give us the wisdom to understand what's happening here. And he, like Daniel, that's how Daniel approached dreams when he worked in Babylon. He said, "Let's take it to the Lord. I can ask of him and he can reveal it."So point three is, Joseph interprets their dreams and this is verse nine. "So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said to him, 'In my dream there was a vine before me. And on the vine there were three branches. And as soon as it budded, its blossoms shot forth and the clusters ripe ripened with grapes. Pharaoh's cup is was in my hand and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.'" So the cupbearer speaks first, perhaps because he wasn't really worried about his dream, it was kind of a pleasant dream. He didn't understand it, but there wasn't reason for misgivings. And we see here that there is a quick succession of ensuing steps. The blossoms develop into grapes and then all of a sudden there's complete clusters which ripen on the spot and then he takes them and he makes wine out of them. And pharaoh's cup is filled. And obviously a beautiful cup. That's the image.So what does Joseph say in verse 12? Then Joseph said to him, "This is its interpretation. The three branches are three days. In three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office and you shall place Pharaoh's cup in his hand as formally when you were his cupbearer." Now had Joseph lost faith by this point, faith in God, faith in God's revelations through dreams, we would imagine him to say something like, "Gentlemen, you had dreams. Congratulations. I had dreams. Let me tell you about my dreams. No, you don't want dreams. Forget the dreams. Don't let anyone interpret the dreams for you." Had he lost faith, that's exactly what he would do. No, no. God grants Joseph the power and the wisdom to discern the interpretation of the dream with perfect clearness, partially because he never stopped believing in the Lord.He walked before the faith of the Lord. He communed with the Lord, he was abiding with the Lord. So there's no wavering or uncertainty on Joseph's part. He seizes upon the essential features of the dream that are now, after the interpretation, clear to us. The expression, lift up your head, is counter to your head was down, you were gloomy. But in three days, your head will be lifted up and you will be restored. And that's precisely what happened. And because of the accuracy of his interpretation, the cupbearer, though he forgot Joseph for two years, he remembered Joseph when Pharaoh needed interpretation. That's next chapter.We continue in Genesis 40:14. Joseph said, "Only remember me when it is well with you and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house. For I was indeed stolen out of land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit." One commentator says that what we see here is the powerful man born to rule is also a needful one. We must understand that after 11 long years we see that Joseph, he knows he's innocent. And one of the lessons we can learn here is a lot of people, when they talk about God's sovereignty or God's providence, they talk about it in a way where it does nullify the human will. Does Joseph believe in God's providence, God's sovereignty? God has allowed me to be put ... yes. But does Joseph say, therefore, I will resign myself and never try to improve my situation? No, of course not.He believes that God put him here, put him here for a reason. But at the very first opportunity to get out, he says, "Look, remember me, please remember me." And it's a measured request. He doesn't say, "I want FaceTime with Pharaoh." He just says, "Can you mention me and mention my cause?" In Genesis 40 verse 16, when the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, "I also had a dream. There were three cake baskets on my head, and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating it out of the basket on my head." First thing to point out is Egyptians apparently loved their carbs, they loved bread. The dictionary of Egyptian from this period lists 38 different kinds of cake and 57 varieties of bread. So this is a big deal for them. And that's why, by the way, the famine with the grain is kind of a big deal because they're like, we love our carbs. And imagine, seven years with no carbs and thanks to Joseph that was wasn't as bad as it could have been.But so the chief baker has a dream and he hears the cupbearers favorable interpretation and he thinks, perhaps my dream was also favorable. The top basket had a variety of some of every sort of pharaoh's food, a handiwork of the baker. And none of this is unusual, butlers of that time, bakers of that time were men who commonly carried the baskets on their head. But one thing the baker failed to notice, which is really the outstanding thing of this dream and really ominous, he wasn't able to drive the birds away. The birds ate unhindered. Have you ever been to Nahant Beach? It's like the seagulls there, just demonic. And that's what's happening here. They really are demonic. And birds, by the way, usually are a sign of something ominous in scripture.Joseph has a decision to make. How will I interpret this guy's dream? Genesis 40 verse 18. "Joseph answered and said, 'This is its interpretation. The three baskets are three days. In three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head from you and hang you on a tree and the birds will eat the flesh from you.' So he's going to be lifted up too, but quite in a different way. And the same language is used here, your head will be lifted up and then the Hebrew just adds from you, showing he will be decapitated following by hanging on a tree and then the birds of prey would eat his flesh. Judging by Joseph's kindness, he probably broke this unwelcome news as kindly as he could. But he does break the bad news. He doesn't say, "I'm sorry, Mr. Baker, I can't interpret your dreams or I'd rather not interpret your dreams, or I'd rather not ruin your day by talking about something negative."No, God has a revealed good news to Joseph and bad news. And Joseph isn't the spiritual coward and he doesn't attack the wisdom of God. If God has revealed that this is His word, we are to proclaim that this is His word. And if we as Christians are going to preach heaven, we also must preach hell if we're going to be faithful to the Lord and His word. And also, Joseph didn't make up the interpretation of the dream. He doesn't enhance it in any way. He doesn't make up God's providence. He simply reported it. God gave him a message and he shared that message and he did it as lovingly as he could.The fourth subheading is, dreams come true. And this is verses 20 through 23. "On the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. He restored the chief cupbearer to his position and he placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand, but he hanged the chief baker as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him." So every interpretation of Joseph proved to be true. In fact, the specific words and phrases spoken to the cupbearer and to the baker, verses 13, 19, are echoed here, just to underline the precision with which Joseph predicted the future. How encouraging this must have been for Joseph.For 11 years, he had believed that his dreams would come true. He never wavered in his conviction despite his circumstances. And now, he had solid objective evidence that God's hand is upon him, he still has God's anointing and that God has purposes for him. And he brilliantly interpreted this pair of dreams. So now that he was doubly sure that his own dreams would be fulfilled and he knows that God is with him, what's he thinking? He's thinking that's it. My stint in prison is over. Praise be to God. He thinks he's going to be at the birthday party with Pharaoh. He thinks he's going to be chilling with the cupbearer. That's what he's thinking. He's preparing for the party. And then a month goes by and in the court, the news has circulated that, yeah, everything Joseph said, it happened with the cupbearer, and yet the cupbearer did nothing. The cupbearer forgot.What we see here is another two long years of disappointment, two whole years. That's what the next chapter says. Joseph experienced disappointment and after disappointment. Throughout the whole story, his brother's murderous rejection of him, evil in return for doing the good and resisting Potiphar's wife, the withering disappointment from the forgetful cupbearer. Joseph's life teaches us that disappointments are essential. They're not just part of our life, they're essential to our spiritual growth because they demand at this moment, Lord, I want this thing. Lord, I'm begging for whatever this is. At that the moment you got to exhibit patience and faith and rest all your hope upon God.Well, it's those seasons, in particular, of disappointment that refine us. As V Raymond Edman says, "Delay never thwarts God's promises, it only polishes his instrument." And if you take a step back and just meditate, why two more years, Lord? Why two more years? Part of it is, he needed the preparation. In two years, Joseph would go from being an absolute nobody catapulted to the second position in all of Egypt. And Pharaoh, at that moment, when he elevates Joseph, changes Joseph's name to Egyptian and gives Joseph an Egyptian wife. He's trying to Egyptianize Joseph, meaning, you're going to believe what we believe.And on top of that, the wife that he gives Joseph comes from a family of the highest priests of their religion, of the sun god. So Joseph, as a 30-year old man, will be tossed into this court of idol worship and a life that will be lived amidst a swirl of sensuality with Mrs. Potiphars everywhere. And the intrigues of the court, like happened with the baker, that was just a part of daily life with lying and backbiting, et cetera. So Joseph had to be prepared for the responsibility with which he would be tasked. So God continues to prepare him and He continues to teach him. And his greatest successes were not at the top, but actually here in the pit where he's wrestling with God and God is expanding his soul reflex and instinctively he turns to Lord despite the disappointments. God could have conveyed all of these truths about Joseph's preparation by simply listing them.As I prepare a sermon on long narratives, I'm like, "Lord, all these lessons that I have to learn from the text, why don't you just list them? That'd be great." Be like, at the end of the ... okay, here's the three lessons and that'd be tremendous. But instead, God has chosen to illustrate these lessons in the fabric and text of a human life so that his life can be pressed and impressed on ours. So in this 40th chapter of Genesis, it records the final living touches upon a man that will be used mightily by God.There are moments in the Christian walk where it feels like the Lord has forgotten you. It feels like the omniscient God of the universe has turned His back on you. We've all been in seasons like that. Experienced Christians can only too well imagine him in this prison year after year, crying out as the psalmists do. For example, in Psalm 13, "How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord, my God. Lift up my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him, lest my foes rejoice because I'm shaken." But notice the turn in the text. "But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because He has dealt bountifully with me."Those moments of God's dark providence, when you're walking through the valley of the shadow of death, you got to make a decision. And the decision the psalmist makes is no matter what, "But I have trusted in your steadfast love." That's what walking by faith looks like. God has led me into the valley of the shadow of death and He will lead me out. God is strengthening Joseph's faith by teaching him not to judge his circumstances only by his senses, but to trust God for His grace. Two Corinthians 5:6 through 10 says, "So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil."The passage indicates that God is furthering His glory by delaying Joseph's desire to get out of prison for several reasons. But if God had gotten Joseph out of prison through the cupbearer's initial pleas, then Joseph would've thought that the cupbearer was the rescuer. "Oh Lord, thank you for sending this guy to save me." And God would rather glorify Himself in the life of Joseph by making it absolutely clear it wasn't a cupbearer, it was actually God miraculously intervening. And finally, in this very act of delaying the answer to Joseph's desires, God is establishing His plan to save Israel. And through saving Israel, provides salvation for each one of us.For example, if Joseph was freed from the prison by the mere appeal of the cupbearer, well, he'd never get appointed to be second in command in the house of Pharaoh. Why? Pharaoh wouldn't even know about it. Okay, you're freed because unjustly, you were sold into captive. What would Joseph have done at that moment? He would've gone home. And then what happens? And then in a few years, the famine starts and then he's in the same situation, helpless as his whole family. No, God says, "You got to wait a couple more years and then Pharaoh will have that dream through which Joseph will be elevated." So God had a better plan than Joseph and a better purpose. And that plan meant waiting, it meant being frustrated. It meant being perplexed. It meant being patient. But also, it meant growing in the Lord and growing in faith.Many a lesson we can learn from here. I don't know what dreams the Lord has given you, and I'm not here to interpret them, but there is something that I can proclaim, and I can proclaim it with absolute assurance because it's 100% true. I can proclaim the future for each one of us. If you are not in the Lord Jesus Christ, dear friend, you will experience damnation for eternity. If you do not trust in Jesus Christ, then the penalty for your sin is upon you. Galatians 3:13, 14 says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, 'Cursed as everyone who is hanged on a tree', so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith."In the same way that the baker was cursed and he was hanging on a tree, anyone that was crucified by the Roman empire was also considered to be cursed in a theological sense from the Old Testament scriptures that was predicted, cursed is everyone who was hanged on a tree. Well, Jesus Christ hung on a tree and experienced the curse. And you say, "Why? Why does the second person of the trinity, the son of God, why is he hanging on a tree?" Because Jesus knew the bad news. He knew the bad news that faces every single person who was outside of Christ.If you're here this morning, you've never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, you might have been brought here by the sovereignty of God, for God to proclaim into your heart, into your soul of souls, that you are a sinner. You are under divine condemnation. You are headed for a Christ-less eternity. You are with without hope without God in this world. You are ultimately destined to spend eternity in the lake of fire where it grows hotter and hotter and hotter. And yes, for all of eternity. And yes, I know hell and fire and damnation of preaching, but I didn't invent it, it's God's word. It's in holy scripture. Jesus believed this. You're destined to be in the place of blackness, of darkness forever in which it gets darker and darker and darker.I'm the Lord's ambassador and I don't add anything to the message and I just proclaim it as it's given to us. And the reason why we start with the bad news and we share the bad news is to get you to a place to see how great the good news is. That there is a message of mercy. While your heart is still beating on this side of eternity, you have a decision to make. Will I accept the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God, the second person of the Trinity who took it upon himself to carry out the intention of the Father and to provide atonement for us, for sinners.He suffered in blood and bled and died on the cross at Calvary and he cried out, "It is finished." The work of atonement is accomplished. The blood was shed, and now salvation is offered to you. Well, dear friend, what are you going to do with it? Will you accept the grace of God? If God, through the Holy Spirit, today is convicting you and you know it, you know it. Deep inside, you're, yes, yes, someone is speaking, someone is stirring. That's the spirit of God. The Spirit of God's bringing conviction upon you. And dear friend, you have a decision to make and I urge you to flee to the cross and accept the salvation of Jesus Christ.What do you need to do? Well, you need to acknowledge your sin and your iniquity before the Lord. "Lord, I have sinned, I have broken commandments. I have lived as if you don't exist or as if your opinion of me does not matter." Acknowledge your sin, your iniquity before the Lord and receive as a free gift, salvation by grace through faith. God wants to give you all of eternal life. So receive the Lord Jesus as your savior and rest for eternity in the forgiveness that God offers. And then, dear friend, put your trust in the Lord again on a daily basis. And that's what we do. Deny ourselves, take up the cross and follow Him even through the seasons of dark providence, knowing that He will get us through.With that said, would you please pray with me? Our Heavenly Father, we pray, Lord, that you would teach us to embrace all of the truths in this text. And Lord, I pray, continue to stretch our ability to understand all of your purposes, but even when we don't understand what's happening before us, Lord, we do trust you. We believe in you, and we thank you, Lord, for the example of many saints in this church who have endured much in their walk with you, things that would've crumpled lesser humans, but because of their own trust in you, you've given them joy to endure as Christ did. And Lord, we pray that you continue by the Holy Spirit to forge us, to hone us, to polish us, to refine us, to strengthen us even through the fires of life, so we can be a powerful weapon in your hands against the powers of darkness.Lord, continue to build up your church and continue to use each one of us. Fill us with the Holy Spirit, protect us from the evil one and continue to glorify your name in and through us. And we pray all this in Christ's holy name. Amen.

Topic: The Journey Scriptures Genesis 37:7 “We were out in the field, tying up bundles of grain. Suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles gathered around and bowed low before mine!” Genesis 39:4-6 “This pleased Potiphar, so he soon made Joseph his personal attendant. He put him in charge of his entire household and everything he owned. From the day Joseph was put in charge of his master's household and property, the Lord began to bless Potiphar's house for Joseph's sake… So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there he didn't worry about a thing.” Genesis 39:22 “Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison. The warden had no more worries, because Joseph took care of everything.” Genesis 40:8-9 “We both had dreams last night, but no one can tell us what they mean. ‘Interpreting dreams is God's business', Joseph replied. Go ahead and tell me your dreams” Genesis 41:14 “Pharaoh sent for Joseph at once, and he was quickly brought from the prison… I had a dream last night and no one here can tell me what it means. But I have heard that when you hear about a dream you can interpret it. ‘It is beyond my power to do this, Joseph replied. but God can tell you what it means and set you at ease” Genesis 41:41 “I hereby put you in charge of the entire land of Egypt.” Genesis 39:2 “The Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master” Genesis 39:21 “but the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him His faithful love. And the Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden” Genesis 45:7 “God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors. So it was God who sent me here, not you!” Black girl Bible is a podcast that speaks on the black experience as a woman and uses the Bible to provide Godly advice on how to navigate through this world as a young black woman. New podcasts every Monday. Each week will feature a different topic, coupled with some of my experiences as a young black woman. I utilize songs, prayer, and scriptures to provide Godly advice relating to each topic. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blackgirlbible/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blackgirlbible/support

This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Heavenly Father, we thank you for another opportunity and occasion to study your holy scriptures before us. And Lord, we thank you that all of scripture is God breathed and it's profitable for teaching, for correcting, for rebuke and for training. And Lord, as we look at the text before us and we see the temptation set before Joseph, Lord, we thank you for his victory and I pray that you give us victory over our temptations. And Lord, we thank you for the tests that you send in life. And I pray, give us the power of the Holy Spirit to not just pass the test, but pass them with flying colors and graduate to ever higher levels of usefulness in your kingdom. Lord, if there's anyone who's not yet a believer in Christ today, save them, draw them to yourself. Remove condemnation and replace it with your love and your mercy. And Lord bless our time in the holy scriptures. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.We're continuing our study in Genesis 3750. We've entitled the series, Graduate Level Grace Studying the Life of Joseph. The title today is Tested and Tried. We never graduate from needing grace, although becoming a Christian happens by grace through faith, you repent, you believe you're saved. But there are times where God wants us to level up. He wants us to grow in our faith and he sends us grace to test us and to mature, and season us to make us more useful in the hands of the Father. This grace often comes when we are tried with temptation and testing, and often temptation and testing is one and the same occasion. Temptation comes from the flesh, Satan and the world, whereas God uses that temptation to test us because God does not tempt any one of us.And Genesis 39 is one of the truly great chapters on a subject that each of us is more than familiar with. It's the subject of temptation. We've all been in the situation where we've been tempted. Oscar Wilde, Tongue-In-Cheek, he said he could resist anything except temptation. The lesson is before us that temptation is not just something that we should grit our teeth and just get through as some useless thing to endure. No, temptation is an occasion to grow. We are to use that experience to grow. For example, look at the progression in James 1:12-15, "Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it is conceived, gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."In the previous chapter, we went through the episode of Judah and Tamar and here we are back to Joseph. And throughout the narrative we see that God seasons Joseph, matures, grows him. Why? What's the point? So that later he's able to endure. When he is placed in the position of prominence, he becomes a prime minister, so to speak in Egypt, the number two person in Egypt. When he's in that exalted position, will he be able to endure the temptations that come without falling into conceit? So that's what God is doing. He's purging Joseph's character of any dross. We've already seen that he has been a person of integrity, although probably naivete, maybe inexperienced.And yes, there was probably an admixture of pride in his disposition. So what is God doing through this narrative? He is refining Joseph. He's purging the dross out of his life and once he's refined, he becomes a more useful instrument in the hands of God. The same language of testing to describe Joseph is used in Psalm 105:16-19 "When he," God, "summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. His feet were hurt with fetters. His neck was put in a collar of iron until what he had said came to pass. The word of the Lord tested him," explicitly spoken that Joseph in his hardest years, darkest years, those are years of testing from the Lord. Surely Joseph was asking, "Lord, what are you doing?"He had been a favored son and now he finds himself suddenly as a slave, but the passage emphasizes eight times. Moses emphasized eight times, Joseph is not alone, for the Lord is with him. Despite the slavery, despite the temptations, despite the jail, the Lord is favorable to him even when it doesn't feel like it. We're going to walk together through Genesis 39 verse by verse three points to frame up our time. First, if God is for you, no one can stand against you. Second, how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? And third, how to win against temptation? First, if God is for you, no one can stand against you. Verse one of Genesis 39, "Now, Joseph had been brought down to Egypt and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard and Egyptian had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there."So we meet Potiphar, he's a big shot. He's the captain. It says of Pharaoh's guard or his body guards, meaning he's the captain of the executioners. He's a big deal. He's a dangerous man, keep that in mind. In verse two, "The Lord was with Joseph and he became a successful man and he was in the house of his Egyptian master." What's fascinating is after the experience of being sold by his brothers, we don't see Joseph just stuck in a place of hatred. You don't see bitterness or vindictiveness in his soul, and the Lord is with him. The word Lord here is Yahweh, the God of covenant love, and not just the reference to God's omnipresence. Yes, God is everywhere, but in a particular favorable way, God's presence was with Joseph. God takes special note of Joseph when he's in his time of need and God draws near.We see this repeated over and over and over. One fascinating thing to note is that Joseph isn't told that he's heard God's voice audibly. He's heard about God from his father and from his grandfather. He's heard that God spoke to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Joseph did not have the same experience. He had the divine dream. He still believed that God was with him, but he operates here in the same way that we do. By faith we believe that God is with us. By faith, we as Christians believe that Jesus Christ, God is with us, Emmanuel God is with us. So Joseph believes, and Joseph is working to be faithful. Potiphar's name in Egyptian means he whom ra'ah has given. The Egyptians worship this idol, ra'ah. That was their God. But ra'ah isn't given blessings here on Potiphar's household. No, it's Yahweh, it's God, and it's on account of Joseph and his faithfulness.Joseph doesn't have a friend in the world. He's thrown in. He doesn't know the language. If anyone has come here from a different country without knowing English, perhaps, you've been forced into immigration, you show up, you don't know the language. Joseph doesn't have any friends. He doesn't know the culture. He doesn't have a skillset that would make him valuable in Egypt. All he has is himself and his belief in God. How does he respond to the situation he finds himself in? Does he get angry at the world? Does he get angry at God? Does he play the victim? Is he paralyzed or immobilized by resentment? No, he can't control the circumstances he's in, but he can control how he responds and he chooses to be present and useful. He chooses to work hardly at whatever task he is given because he knows he's not serving Potiphar, he's serving God.He takes life by the horns and he does so quickly and speedily rises through the ranks in the house of Potiphar. And verse three, "His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands. Whatever the young man took in his hands thrived." Here's a young man who has been living in the presence of God. He's been working in the presence of God. And as shocking as this may sound, young men can be useful. This is what the text... Even when they're young, men can be useful. Charles Spurgeon put it like this. He says, "Chins without beards are better than heads without brains," and what he's saying is, young men when wise, they're to be preferred to those without sense who don't even have youth as an excuse for their folly. Now, he understands that God has given me this time.He was 17, 18 years old at the time, and he understands that yes, he isn't in a situation that he wants to be, but God is sovereign, so he is seeking to be faithful. So Genesis 39:4, "So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him." So Joseph becomes the personal attendant servant of Potiphar, "And he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. And from the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptians house for Joseph's sake. The blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in house and in field," so God is with him. God is prospering Joseph and prospering the Egyptians house. Potiphar notices that this blessing is much more than usual. Something here is coming from the supernatural realm.And this is what God promised Abraham. He said, "Look, if people bless you, I will bless them. And if people curse you, I will curse them." Joseph is being blessed by Potiphar, and Potiphar is being blessed by God. Joseph could hardly have risen higher, and this is incredible achievement. Thanks be to God and Joseph's work ethic, and this is a work ethic that is taught to us from holy scripture in Colossians 3:22-24, "Bondservants," or we can translate that to the modern day of employees, "obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work hardly as for the Lord and not for men. Knowing that from the Lord you'll receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ." And that's Joseph's mindset.He could have said, "I'm 17, this work of a slave is beneath me. I am not doing this or I'm going to do it just enough to get by." No, he throws himself into this work. He says, "The Lord is with me. I'm put here for a reason. I'm going to do the best work I can to the best of my abilities because Potiphar's not my ultimate boss. God is." Verse six, "So he left all that he had in Joseph's charge. And because of him, he had no concern about anything but the food he ate. Now, Joseph was handsome in form and appearance." So the text, everything was going great for Joseph and then all of a sudden the text takes a turn, and we go from Joseph's work ethic to what does he look like? Apparently he looked really good, well-built and good-looking. That phrase is only used of two other men in scripture, David and Absalom.And the same phrase is used of Rachel, Joseph's mom, so apparently the looks were in the genes. So yes, Joseph apparently is good-looking. What does he do with that? What's the text telling us? Well, this takes us into the great temptation and this is point 2, "How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" So this is Genesis 39:7, "And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, lie with me." And first of all, I do want to note that the temptation comes in Joseph's life. The timing's uncanny, when it seems everything's finally going well. He was a slave, now he's worked himself up in the hierarchy. He's in a place of influence. He's probably got the nice garments keeping up with his station of being a personal attendant of Potiphar. Everything is going swimmingly, that's when the temptation strikes.So just be careful, know that when everything's going great, be on guard. So as he's advanced in the household, we see Mrs. Potiphar notices him. She observes and the observation rapidly turns into lust and desire, and she propositions him, "Lie with me." And strictly from a human perspective, it wouldn't make sense to be nice with the boss's wife and he could justify everything that is happening. From a spiritual perspective morally speaking, he had no authority over him other than himself. It's him and God. He has no family. His family certainly wouldn't find out if he commits to sin. And moreover, he's a slave. He's got to do what he's told and sexual promiscuity was a daily part of the slave holding households. And face it, he could have said, "Old Potiphar is gone all the time and he's not meeting his wife's needs and she's entitled to some affection," et cetera, et cetera.And he could have even blamed it on his genes. He could have said, "It's in my blood. Look at my brothers. Look at Ruben, look at Judah," look at the previous chapter. No, we don't see any of that. He had all the reason in the world to act out. He had every reason to be angry and bitter, and resentful and cynical, and self-serving and self-pitying. He could have rationalized all of this, but Joseph has not forgotten who he is. He is not just a slave. He knows that, "I'm not just a slave and I'm not here because of anything I've done. No, I'm not a slave. I am the son of Jacob. I am the son of Isaac. I'm the son of Abraham. I am the son of God. How can I sin against my God?" His identity was rooted in God. He knew God's will.So in verse eight it says, "But he refused and said to his master's wife, behold because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house. And he has put everything that he has in my charge. He has no greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" His answer is unmistakable. He refused, and we see his wisdom. We see that even as a young man, he gives a response and his response very measured. It's very logical. He forges a powerful argument against the temptation with reason, and it shows his wisdom. And his wisdom is evidenced because he fears God. The root of his wisdom is the fear of the Lord. The three major reasons he gives for, "Why would I ever even think to do that?"The first, he's like, look, the master, Potiphar has bestowed so much trust in Joseph, so much trust in him and to betray this great level of trust would be the basis of betrayals. And then he emphasizes to Potiphar's wife that she's Potiphar's wife. He emphasizes, he's like, "You are Mrs. Potiphar. You're literally Mrs. Potiphar and have you forgotten your husband's an executioner? What are you tempting me with?" Here, even if she's forgotten her role, he reminds her. And then third of all, and this is the main reason why he doesn't sin, he realizes yes, the sin is against the people involved. Yes, he'd be sinning against Potiphar, he'd be sinning against his... But he'd be sinning against God. And for Joseph, this is the greatest of sin. And it echoes the language here does, of when David after repenting, after committing a sin against Uriah and Bathsheba, he repents in Psalm 51.He says, "God against you and you only have I sinned." And also if you compare this text with a temptation of Genesis 3, Satan comes to Adam and Eve and he points to the tree that God said, "Do not eat of it." And Joseph says, "Look, the master hasn't kept anything from me except you." Adam and Eve used the prohibition to actually be tempted by the thing that God kept from them. And Joseph here on the opposite, he says, "No, no, no. I will not take the thing the master has kept from me." In verse 10, "As she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her to lie beside her or to be with her." So the overtures are daily, she's persistent in her solicitations and he continues to remain steadfast. You see, she's flexible in her seduction. First she says, lie with me. She realized that doesn't work. And then she lessens the proposition. She says, "Lie beside me. Joseph, you had a long day come snuggle with me," and then that wasn't working. So she said, "Just be with me. Just sit here, just relax a little bit."She's trying to coax him into the sin and he does not. And Potiphar's wife is precisely the picture of the adulterous woman painted by the father in conversation with his son in Proverbs 5:6 and 7. By the way, the book of Proverbs was written for young boys. So these boys as they were entering manhood, they were given the book of Proverbs and said, "There's 31 chapters, read one a day." And by the way, if you have children, one of the best ways to form them spiritually is that. Proverbs, learn the fear of God. But look at Proverbs 5: 1-8, "My son, be attentive to my wisdom. Incline your ear to my understanding that you may keep discretion and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she's bitter as wormwood sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps follow the path to Sheol. She does not ponder the path of life. Her ways wander and she does not know it.""And now, oh, sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house." Realizing Mrs. Potiphar that she's not winning the war of attrition, we see one final ambush, and this is verse 11, "But one day when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, she caught him by his garment saying, lie with me. But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house. And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and fled out of the house, she called to the men in the household and said, see, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us. He came into me to lie with me and I cried out with a loud voice. And as soon as he heard that, I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled, and got out of the house."Joseph, by the way, the unluckiest guy in the world with his coats. If I were Joseph, I'd just stop wearing coats. I refuse. I'd rather get a cold, no. So she's got his coat and she's not happy about it. Someone said, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." She desired him and he rejected, and then her lust turns to anger. And there's many a lesson here. If you analyze what's really driving her, it was a matter of pride. When she was unable to seduce him, her pride was bruised, her ego was bruised when she realizes she is not going to have victory here. So she goes on the attack, she gathers all the men in the household, she builds her case against him. She calls him a Hebrew slave. She doesn't even name her husband, "Look my husband," she blames the husband. She makes herself a victim. By the way she puts the garment as incriminating proof on her bed, et cetera. Many a lesson here, but the root of sexual immorality is not just desire, it's always a spiritual root, and what's at the root is pride.Who is God to tell me what to do, his scriptures? I decide for my... It's pride. And that's what she's dealing with here. A lesson here from Moses. What is Moses doing in writing the text as he does, presenting the story as he does? Well, he is showing us that when God chooses to use a man, he first needs to test the man's uprightness. That's what's happening here. Joseph can't control his circumstances. He's a slave and he has no control over his destiny. All he can control is his faithfulness. Will I be faithful in this moment of temptation? And that's the quality that God wants for every man or woman that will be used by him, he wants faithfulness. That's what he wants for those to build his kingdom. This is the quality of a good steward. If God has entrusted something to us, will we be good stewards of a good managers of it?If we want to be put over much, are we faithful with the little that is before us? And how do you learn faithfulness? You don't learn faithfulness from a book. You don't learn faithfulness by just reading about it. No, you learn faithfulness by being tested at moments like this. When there's every reason to skirt faithfulness, do you stay the course no matter the consequences? And Joseph does. And Genesis 39:16, "Then she laid up his garment by her creating this optical illusion until his master came home and she told him the same story saying, the Hebrews servant whom you've brought among us came in to laugh at me. But as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment beside me and fled out of the house." The phrase here, "You brought him to laugh at me," implies attempted rape, that's the accusation.Verse 19, "As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, this is the way your servant treated me, his anger was kindled. And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined and he was there in prison." So Potiphar comes home, here's a story. He looks at Joseph, he looks at his wife, he looks at the other servants, and he has a decision to make. His anger is kindled. It's fascinating that the text doesn't say his anger is kindled at Joseph. Most likely, and this is what all the c, they're shocked by his reaction. Well, how do you expect him to react? Well, you expect him that he's the chief of the executioners to execute Joseph and execute him swiftly in order to maintain order. That's not what he does. Not only does he not execute Joseph, he also puts him in a prison where the king's prisoners were.And that's why in the next chapter of the cup-bearer and the breadmaker, that's where Joseph meets them. So it wasn't regular prison, it was a king's prison for the important people. Most likely what the text is telling us is that Potiphar wasn't convinced by Mrs. Potiphar. And this is the goal, to become such a person of integrity that when false accusations are made against you, the people who know you best refuse to believe them. So Joseph's faithfulness throughout the entire episode seems to be unrewarded. What does he get for being good at that moment of temptation? What does he get? He gets prison, but we know that ultimately that's the path that God has for him from the prison to the palace.And verse 21, "But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. And whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. And 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." We don't know how much time elapsed, how much time he had spent in Potiphar's house and then how much time in prison, but it was years. And I wonder how often Joseph remembered his dreams, the dreams that God had sent him, the dreams that he will be put in a position of prominence and power, whatever it was God was with Joseph, and Joseph remained close to the divine presence.God was with him and everything that he did as Joseph continued to work diligently. What God's presence meant in Joseph's life, it wasn't that everything's easy, smooth sailing. Yes, God was with him, but Joseph was still in prison. Yes, God is with him, but Joseph is still a slave. And what this means is from a theological perspective, yes, everything's settled, everything is secure and ultimate all is well and as safely in God's hands. But as we look at the life of Joseph, there's still risk and there's still uncomfortable circumstances and danger, and difficulty and even disappointment, but he continued to stay close to the Lord. He continued to work out his salvation with fear and trembling, and that's the same before us. We don't see the full story of God's plan for us. We know his purposes are to glorify his name, to do good, but we don't know all the details. And while we are alive, we must remember that we are still living in warfare. Day by day, we need to be conscious of the fact that we do have an enemy.We have adversaries of Satan and his lackeys and demons. We are living life in the thick of combat, in a battlefield strewn with a carnage of those who have come before us. And the scripture speaks about this often, that we are given weapons, weapons for our left hand and our right weapons to fight the good fight of faith. We are given a sword, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And so often we forget this, we meander through life. We forget that we are pilgrims headed to a country, a kingdom that is not of this world. A large part of why we forget is because most of the people around us don't have that worldview. They live with a faithless worldview as if the material is all there is. Well, we must never lose sight of the fact that our lives are epic, that our souls are eternal.Everything we do in the body has eternal consequences. We are not to stop thinking of our lives as being inconsequential and we are to think of our lives as God does, and walk by faith, not by sight. I think one of the greatest temptations before modern people is this. It's the temptation to live for nothing, of no purpose greater than just enjoying ourselves or enjoying the short years we've been given. There's a writer called Plantinga who wrote a book called Not the Way It's Supposed To Be, and this is, and I'll read the quote, it's so powerful. It says, "Many live life making a career of nothing, wandering through malls, killing time, making small talk, watching television programs until we know their characters better than our own children. Well, this robs the community of our gifts and energies, and shapes life into a yawn at the God and Savior of the world. The person who will not best stir herself, the person who hands himself over to nothing in effect says to God, you have made nothing of interest and redeemed no one of consequence including me.""C. S. Lewis has the devil's Screwtape explained to the junior devil wormwood that the man he is after can be drawn away from God by nothing. Nothing is very strong, strong enough to steal away a man's best years not, in sweet sins, but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why. And the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, and drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, and whistling tunes that he does not like. The only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one, the gentle slope, soft underfoot without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."Joseph thankfully remains faithful and he wins in this battle against this temptation. And this brings us to point 3, how to win against temptation in our lives? First of all, it's not a sin to be tempted. It is a sin to yield to temptation. As one writer says, "A mob may batter at the palace gates but if it's unable to enter in, there's no damage done to the kingdom." I'll give you three points to win against temptations. Tips first, forge a forceful argument using God's word, and we are to know God's word in order to apply God's word. You must make this argument with Satan sometimes, sometimes with people tempting you in your life, more often than not, with yourself.You have to learn to preach to yourself in particular in the moments of weakness, and you have to make a case. You have to convince yourself this is what Joseph was doing. He's making arguments. The sin Potiphar's wife was proposing would've been an outrage, yes, against Potiphar, but specifically against God himself. And a Christian can think of countless arguments, some of them specific to the certain sins you are tempted to commit, but many of the reasons we can marshal to not commit sin at any time in any way. How's this for one, how about the love of God that God loves me, I belong to him, that I am a son of God, that you are a son or daughter of God. That God loves you so much that he doesn't want me to die for my sins, therefore he sent Jesus Christ, the cross of Christ.How about the presence of the Holy Spirit, that we love the presence of the Holy Spirit so much that we do not want to grieve him. The damage to our own soul, that sin does have consequences. The unworthiness of it all, the fruitlessness in your life. The tendency of when you give into one sin that sin begetting another sin and then all of a sudden you are spiraling out of control. Well, what about the example to an unbelieving world? What about giving the evil one victory, the one who hates you? What about the fact that we will even as Christians be taken to a second judgment, a judgment where the Lord will judge us? What do we do in our body? What do we do with the gifts and talents he's given us? Joseph here is animated by his conviction that his life is not his own.That he has a God who is over him and a God who is with him, and a God who loves him, and a God who is not to be dishonored. He did exactly what Jesus Christ was doing in the desert when Satan comes to tempt him. Christ marshaled arguments from the word of God. The apostle Paul in Ephesians 6 when he talks about fighting the good faith and spiritual warfare, he says, "Take up the sword of the spirit." It's the word of God, meaning the stress there is on the precise application of the word of God when we are tempted, so we are to know the word of God and apply it specifically. Second is avoid tempting situations. Joseph did as best as he could. As soon as he saw Potiphar's wife's interest, he tried to avoid her all to together. The father in Proverbs says, "Do not go near the door of her house."Why? Because of the attraction of sin. It does lure us. It's like the closer you get, the more powerless you become. And such as the power of sin, even our love of it that we often want to get as close as possible without breaking the commandment. This is what Robert Murray M'Cheyne, a holy man as there ever was. He wrote the following, "Satan tempts me to go as near to temptations as possible without committing the sin. This is fearful, tempting God and grieving the Holy Spirit. It's a deep-laid plot of Satan." This is what Romans 13:11-14 says, "Besides this, you know the time that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep for salvation is near to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone, the days at hand, so then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires."And third is flee temptation. When Joseph had nothing else to do, he took flight and it was deliberate act of the will, abrupt, decisive and he runs. 1 Corinthians 6:13-20, the apostle writes, "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make the members of a prostitute? Never. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her. For as it is written, the two will become one flesh, but he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexual and moral person sins against his own body.""Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price to glorify God in your body." And then 2 Timothy 2:20-22. In this text, I just notice the connection between righteousness with sexuality and our usefulness to the Lord. And I'll never remember this text, I was 13. I was at Slavic Youth Camp. If you don't know, I was raised in Slavic churches. And at 13 they got all the boys in one room and they're like, "We're going to have a talk." And then they bring in just a savage, this old dude, just a savage guy, bearded, just massive hands, although he was 85 he could still kill you. And he walks in and he just said, "Gentlemen, remember this. 2, 2, 2. 2 Timothy 2:22." He said, "Memorize this and live by it, and the Lord's going to keep you from sin."And just look at the connection between usefulness and righteousness. 2 Timothy 2:20-22, "Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart." Flee youthful passions and pursue these great things, don't do it by yourself. Do it with others, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. So flee when faced with temptation, don't tarry.Thomas à Kempis in his famous description in The Imitation of Christ, he gives these successful steps of temptation. He says, "First, there is first the bare thought of the sin. Then after that, there's a picture of the sin formed and hung up on the secret screen of the imagination. A strange sweetness from the picture is then let down drop by drop into the heart. And then that sweetness soon secures the consent of the whole soul and the thing is done." Today, is Communion Sunday, and I do want to think through fighting temptation from the perspective of the cross that when we are faced with temptation, you've got to ask yourself, how can I sin? How can I, for whom Christ died, continue to sin? How can I, the object of God's electing grace, the object of the work of the Holy Spirit, the object of God's efficacious grace, he sought me when I was lost. He converted me. He regenerated. He filled me with the Holy Spirit, how can this great God that bled from me, how can I sin against him?What about those who have given into temptation? Well, that's every single one of us. We have all sinned. And what are we to do? Well, do you see the wickedness that your sins are before the Lord? Can you say, "Yes, I have done this egregious thing against God?" Do you understand that you are condemned because of your sin, that you will be judged for your sin? And once you do, once you understand that, well, then flee to Christ for refuge, then flee to him to receive everlasting life. The comparisons between Joseph and Jesus... Well, they're not just incidental. I think it was all part of the story, but you see the comparisons. Joseph was the A beloved son of the Father.Jesus Christ was the beloved son, the only-begotten son of the Father. Joseph was sent by the father to the brothers and Jesus was sent to his brethren by the Father. Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery, Jesus was as well. Joseph later on forgives his brothers. Jesus Christ forgives those who are crucifying them. On the cross Jesus said the following, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," he's forgiving them. But also notice that not knowing that you're sinning against God is not enough. That's not enough of a defense. We all know that we have sinned. We all need forgiveness. Jesus Christ was numbered among the transgressors in order to intercede for us. Isaiah 53:12, "Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors."Upon the conception of Christ, the Messiah, and the womb of the Virgin Mary, the angel Gabriel, explained to another Joseph in Matthew 1:21, "She will bear a son and you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us." Because Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, he can be with us because Jesus Christ was rejected by the Father on the cross. "He said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He did that so that we would not be forsaken when we come to the Lord and ask for forgiveness. We are now going to transition to holy communion, which is commanded in scripture to be celebrated as a remembrance of the suffering of Christ. For whom is holy communion?It is for repentant believers in Jesus Christ. So if you do not trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service. Or if you're living in unrepentant sin, also refrain from this part of the service. But if you trust in Christ and if you are repentant, you're welcome to partake. If you'd like to partake and don't have the elements, the cup and the bread, raise your hand during prayer and the ushers will hand them out. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you did not leave us in our sins. We have all transgressed your holy commandments. We have all sinned against your holy name. And Lord, we come to you with humility and contrition of heart, and we repent and we ask, Lord, forgive us for our sins and our many transgressions. We thank you Jesus, that those transgressions were placed upon you.Lord, we thank you that at the moment of your greatest test when you were in Gethsemane under pressure that we can't even begin to imagine, and as the capillaries in your face were bursting and you were sweating blood and you asked if there's any other way, you said, "Father, if there's any other way, let this cup pass from me, the cup of wrath, yet not my will but yours be done." Jesus, we thank you that despite the fact that you saw how difficult that would be, Lord, you gave into the will of the Father. And Lord at those moments of temptation, when we are tempted to do our will instead of the Father's will Lord give us more grace. Give us power, the power of the Holy Spirit to be a righteous people continuing to be useful to you. Lord, bless this time, the holy communion. Jesus, we meditate upon your sufferings. We thank you that your body was broken so that we might be healed and your blood was shed so that our souls might be cleansed.Lord, we thank you for the gospel. We thank you for the gift of grace. And Lord, right now minister to us as we partake in holy communion. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. If this is your first time with us, the bread is at the bottom, open that up. On the night that Jesus Christ was betrayed, he took the bread and after breaking it, he said, "This is my body broken for you. Take eat and do this in remembrance of me." Then he proceeded to take the cup and he said, "This cup is the cup of the new covenant of my blood, which is poured out for the sins of many. Take, drink, and do this remembrance of me."Heavenly Father, as we meditate the sufferings of Christ, we also remember the perfection of Christ. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you never sinned. We thank you that you never gave in to temptation, not even once. And because of Jesus, your faithfulness, you provided a way for us to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. Lord, make us the people that on a daily basis choose to remind ourselves that we are yours and we're not yours just once because you've created us, we're yours twice because you have redeemed us by the blood of Christ. Therefore, make us the people who live in a manner worthy of this gospel. And we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Heavenly Father, we thank you for another opportunity and occasion to study your holy scriptures before us. And Lord, we thank you that all of scripture is God breathed and it's profitable for teaching, for correcting, for rebuke and for training. And Lord, as we look at the text before us and we see the temptation set before Joseph, Lord, we thank you for his victory and I pray that you give us victory over our temptations. And Lord, we thank you for the tests that you send in life. And I pray, give us the power of the Holy Spirit to not just pass the test, but pass them with flying colors and graduate to ever higher levels of usefulness in your kingdom. Lord, if there's anyone who's not yet a believer in Christ today, save them, draw them to yourself. Remove condemnation and replace it with your love and your mercy. And Lord bless our time in the holy scriptures. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.We're continuing our study in Genesis 3750. We've entitled the series, Graduate Level Grace Studying the Life of Joseph. The title today is Tested and Tried. We never graduate from needing grace, although becoming a Christian happens by grace through faith, you repent, you believe you're saved. But there are times where God wants us to level up. He wants us to grow in our faith and he sends us grace to test us and to mature, and season us to make us more useful in the hands of the Father. This grace often comes when we are tried with temptation and testing, and often temptation and testing is one and the same occasion. Temptation comes from the flesh, Satan and the world, whereas God uses that temptation to test us because God does not tempt any one of us.And Genesis 39 is one of the truly great chapters on a subject that each of us is more than familiar with. It's the subject of temptation. We've all been in the situation where we've been tempted. Oscar Wilde, Tongue-In-Cheek, he said he could resist anything except temptation. The lesson is before us that temptation is not just something that we should grit our teeth and just get through as some useless thing to endure. No, temptation is an occasion to grow. We are to use that experience to grow. For example, look at the progression in James 1:12-15, "Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it is conceived, gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."In the previous chapter, we went through the episode of Judah and Tamar and here we are back to Joseph. And throughout the narrative we see that God seasons Joseph, matures, grows him. Why? What's the point? So that later he's able to endure. When he is placed in the position of prominence, he becomes a prime minister, so to speak in Egypt, the number two person in Egypt. When he's in that exalted position, will he be able to endure the temptations that come without falling into conceit? So that's what God is doing. He's purging Joseph's character of any dross. We've already seen that he has been a person of integrity, although probably naivete, maybe inexperienced.And yes, there was probably an admixture of pride in his disposition. So what is God doing through this narrative? He is refining Joseph. He's purging the dross out of his life and once he's refined, he becomes a more useful instrument in the hands of God. The same language of testing to describe Joseph is used in Psalm 105:16-19 "When he," God, "summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. His feet were hurt with fetters. His neck was put in a collar of iron until what he had said came to pass. The word of the Lord tested him," explicitly spoken that Joseph in his hardest years, darkest years, those are years of testing from the Lord. Surely Joseph was asking, "Lord, what are you doing?"He had been a favored son and now he finds himself suddenly as a slave, but the passage emphasizes eight times. Moses emphasized eight times, Joseph is not alone, for the Lord is with him. Despite the slavery, despite the temptations, despite the jail, the Lord is favorable to him even when it doesn't feel like it. We're going to walk together through Genesis 39 verse by verse three points to frame up our time. First, if God is for you, no one can stand against you. Second, how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? And third, how to win against temptation? First, if God is for you, no one can stand against you. Verse one of Genesis 39, "Now, Joseph had been brought down to Egypt and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard and Egyptian had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there."So we meet Potiphar, he's a big shot. He's the captain. It says of Pharaoh's guard or his body guards, meaning he's the captain of the executioners. He's a big deal. He's a dangerous man, keep that in mind. In verse two, "The Lord was with Joseph and he became a successful man and he was in the house of his Egyptian master." What's fascinating is after the experience of being sold by his brothers, we don't see Joseph just stuck in a place of hatred. You don't see bitterness or vindictiveness in his soul, and the Lord is with him. The word Lord here is Yahweh, the God of covenant love, and not just the reference to God's omnipresence. Yes, God is everywhere, but in a particular favorable way, God's presence was with Joseph. God takes special note of Joseph when he's in his time of need and God draws near.We see this repeated over and over and over. One fascinating thing to note is that Joseph isn't told that he's heard God's voice audibly. He's heard about God from his father and from his grandfather. He's heard that God spoke to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Joseph did not have the same experience. He had the divine dream. He still believed that God was with him, but he operates here in the same way that we do. By faith we believe that God is with us. By faith, we as Christians believe that Jesus Christ, God is with us, Emmanuel God is with us. So Joseph believes, and Joseph is working to be faithful. Potiphar's name in Egyptian means he whom ra'ah has given. The Egyptians worship this idol, ra'ah. That was their God. But ra'ah isn't given blessings here on Potiphar's household. No, it's Yahweh, it's God, and it's on account of Joseph and his faithfulness.Joseph doesn't have a friend in the world. He's thrown in. He doesn't know the language. If anyone has come here from a different country without knowing English, perhaps, you've been forced into immigration, you show up, you don't know the language. Joseph doesn't have any friends. He doesn't know the culture. He doesn't have a skillset that would make him valuable in Egypt. All he has is himself and his belief in God. How does he respond to the situation he finds himself in? Does he get angry at the world? Does he get angry at God? Does he play the victim? Is he paralyzed or immobilized by resentment? No, he can't control the circumstances he's in, but he can control how he responds and he chooses to be present and useful. He chooses to work hardly at whatever task he is given because he knows he's not serving Potiphar, he's serving God.He takes life by the horns and he does so quickly and speedily rises through the ranks in the house of Potiphar. And verse three, "His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands. Whatever the young man took in his hands thrived." Here's a young man who has been living in the presence of God. He's been working in the presence of God. And as shocking as this may sound, young men can be useful. This is what the text... Even when they're young, men can be useful. Charles Spurgeon put it like this. He says, "Chins without beards are better than heads without brains," and what he's saying is, young men when wise, they're to be preferred to those without sense who don't even have youth as an excuse for their folly. Now, he understands that God has given me this time.He was 17, 18 years old at the time, and he understands that yes, he isn't in a situation that he wants to be, but God is sovereign, so he is seeking to be faithful. So Genesis 39:4, "So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him." So Joseph becomes the personal attendant servant of Potiphar, "And he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. And from the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptians house for Joseph's sake. The blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in house and in field," so God is with him. God is prospering Joseph and prospering the Egyptians house. Potiphar notices that this blessing is much more than usual. Something here is coming from the supernatural realm.And this is what God promised Abraham. He said, "Look, if people bless you, I will bless them. And if people curse you, I will curse them." Joseph is being blessed by Potiphar, and Potiphar is being blessed by God. Joseph could hardly have risen higher, and this is incredible achievement. Thanks be to God and Joseph's work ethic, and this is a work ethic that is taught to us from holy scripture in Colossians 3:22-24, "Bondservants," or we can translate that to the modern day of employees, "obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work hardly as for the Lord and not for men. Knowing that from the Lord you'll receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ." And that's Joseph's mindset.He could have said, "I'm 17, this work of a slave is beneath me. I am not doing this or I'm going to do it just enough to get by." No, he throws himself into this work. He says, "The Lord is with me. I'm put here for a reason. I'm going to do the best work I can to the best of my abilities because Potiphar's not my ultimate boss. God is." Verse six, "So he left all that he had in Joseph's charge. And because of him, he had no concern about anything but the food he ate. Now, Joseph was handsome in form and appearance." So the text, everything was going great for Joseph and then all of a sudden the text takes a turn, and we go from Joseph's work ethic to what does he look like? Apparently he looked really good, well-built and good-looking. That phrase is only used of two other men in scripture, David and Absalom.And the same phrase is used of Rachel, Joseph's mom, so apparently the looks were in the genes. So yes, Joseph apparently is good-looking. What does he do with that? What's the text telling us? Well, this takes us into the great temptation and this is point 2, "How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" So this is Genesis 39:7, "And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, lie with me." And first of all, I do want to note that the temptation comes in Joseph's life. The timing's uncanny, when it seems everything's finally going well. He was a slave, now he's worked himself up in the hierarchy. He's in a place of influence. He's probably got the nice garments keeping up with his station of being a personal attendant of Potiphar. Everything is going swimmingly, that's when the temptation strikes.So just be careful, know that when everything's going great, be on guard. So as he's advanced in the household, we see Mrs. Potiphar notices him. She observes and the observation rapidly turns into lust and desire, and she propositions him, "Lie with me." And strictly from a human perspective, it wouldn't make sense to be nice with the boss's wife and he could justify everything that is happening. From a spiritual perspective morally speaking, he had no authority over him other than himself. It's him and God. He has no family. His family certainly wouldn't find out if he commits to sin. And moreover, he's a slave. He's got to do what he's told and sexual promiscuity was a daily part of the slave holding households. And face it, he could have said, "Old Potiphar is gone all the time and he's not meeting his wife's needs and she's entitled to some affection," et cetera, et cetera.And he could have even blamed it on his genes. He could have said, "It's in my blood. Look at my brothers. Look at Ruben, look at Judah," look at the previous chapter. No, we don't see any of that. He had all the reason in the world to act out. He had every reason to be angry and bitter, and resentful and cynical, and self-serving and self-pitying. He could have rationalized all of this, but Joseph has not forgotten who he is. He is not just a slave. He knows that, "I'm not just a slave and I'm not here because of anything I've done. No, I'm not a slave. I am the son of Jacob. I am the son of Isaac. I'm the son of Abraham. I am the son of God. How can I sin against my God?" His identity was rooted in God. He knew God's will.So in verse eight it says, "But he refused and said to his master's wife, behold because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house. And he has put everything that he has in my charge. He has no greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" His answer is unmistakable. He refused, and we see his wisdom. We see that even as a young man, he gives a response and his response very measured. It's very logical. He forges a powerful argument against the temptation with reason, and it shows his wisdom. And his wisdom is evidenced because he fears God. The root of his wisdom is the fear of the Lord. The three major reasons he gives for, "Why would I ever even think to do that?"The first, he's like, look, the master, Potiphar has bestowed so much trust in Joseph, so much trust in him and to betray this great level of trust would be the basis of betrayals. And then he emphasizes to Potiphar's wife that she's Potiphar's wife. He emphasizes, he's like, "You are Mrs. Potiphar. You're literally Mrs. Potiphar and have you forgotten your husband's an executioner? What are you tempting me with?" Here, even if she's forgotten her role, he reminds her. And then third of all, and this is the main reason why he doesn't sin, he realizes yes, the sin is against the people involved. Yes, he'd be sinning against Potiphar, he'd be sinning against his... But he'd be sinning against God. And for Joseph, this is the greatest of sin. And it echoes the language here does, of when David after repenting, after committing a sin against Uriah and Bathsheba, he repents in Psalm 51.He says, "God against you and you only have I sinned." And also if you compare this text with a temptation of Genesis 3, Satan comes to Adam and Eve and he points to the tree that God said, "Do not eat of it." And Joseph says, "Look, the master hasn't kept anything from me except you." Adam and Eve used the prohibition to actually be tempted by the thing that God kept from them. And Joseph here on the opposite, he says, "No, no, no. I will not take the thing the master has kept from me." In verse 10, "As she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her to lie beside her or to be with her." So the overtures are daily, she's persistent in her solicitations and he continues to remain steadfast. You see, she's flexible in her seduction. First she says, lie with me. She realized that doesn't work. And then she lessens the proposition. She says, "Lie beside me. Joseph, you had a long day come snuggle with me," and then that wasn't working. So she said, "Just be with me. Just sit here, just relax a little bit."She's trying to coax him into the sin and he does not. And Potiphar's wife is precisely the picture of the adulterous woman painted by the father in conversation with his son in Proverbs 5:6 and 7. By the way, the book of Proverbs was written for young boys. So these boys as they were entering manhood, they were given the book of Proverbs and said, "There's 31 chapters, read one a day." And by the way, if you have children, one of the best ways to form them spiritually is that. Proverbs, learn the fear of God. But look at Proverbs 5: 1-8, "My son, be attentive to my wisdom. Incline your ear to my understanding that you may keep discretion and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she's bitter as wormwood sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps follow the path to Sheol. She does not ponder the path of life. Her ways wander and she does not know it.""And now, oh, sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house." Realizing Mrs. Potiphar that she's not winning the war of attrition, we see one final ambush, and this is verse 11, "But one day when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, she caught him by his garment saying, lie with me. But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house. And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and fled out of the house, she called to the men in the household and said, see, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us. He came into me to lie with me and I cried out with a loud voice. And as soon as he heard that, I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled, and got out of the house."Joseph, by the way, the unluckiest guy in the world with his coats. If I were Joseph, I'd just stop wearing coats. I refuse. I'd rather get a cold, no. So she's got his coat and she's not happy about it. Someone said, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." She desired him and he rejected, and then her lust turns to anger. And there's many a lesson here. If you analyze what's really driving her, it was a matter of pride. When she was unable to seduce him, her pride was bruised, her ego was bruised when she realizes she is not going to have victory here. So she goes on the attack, she gathers all the men in the household, she builds her case against him. She calls him a Hebrew slave. She doesn't even name her husband, "Look my husband," she blames the husband. She makes herself a victim. By the way she puts the garment as incriminating proof on her bed, et cetera. Many a lesson here, but the root of sexual immorality is not just desire, it's always a spiritual root, and what's at the root is pride.Who is God to tell me what to do, his scriptures? I decide for my... It's pride. And that's what she's dealing with here. A lesson here from Moses. What is Moses doing in writing the text as he does, presenting the story as he does? Well, he is showing us that when God chooses to use a man, he first needs to test the man's uprightness. That's what's happening here. Joseph can't control his circumstances. He's a slave and he has no control over his destiny. All he can control is his faithfulness. Will I be faithful in this moment of temptation? And that's the quality that God wants for every man or woman that will be used by him, he wants faithfulness. That's what he wants for those to build his kingdom. This is the quality of a good steward. If God has entrusted something to us, will we be good stewards of a good managers of it?If we want to be put over much, are we faithful with the little that is before us? And how do you learn faithfulness? You don't learn faithfulness from a book. You don't learn faithfulness by just reading about it. No, you learn faithfulness by being tested at moments like this. When there's every reason to skirt faithfulness, do you stay the course no matter the consequences? And Joseph does. And Genesis 39:16, "Then she laid up his garment by her creating this optical illusion until his master came home and she told him the same story saying, the Hebrews servant whom you've brought among us came in to laugh at me. But as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment beside me and fled out of the house." The phrase here, "You brought him to laugh at me," implies attempted rape, that's the accusation.Verse 19, "As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, this is the way your servant treated me, his anger was kindled. And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined and he was there in prison." So Potiphar comes home, here's a story. He looks at Joseph, he looks at his wife, he looks at the other servants, and he has a decision to make. His anger is kindled. It's fascinating that the text doesn't say his anger is kindled at Joseph. Most likely, and this is what all the c, they're shocked by his reaction. Well, how do you expect him to react? Well, you expect him that he's the chief of the executioners to execute Joseph and execute him swiftly in order to maintain order. That's not what he does. Not only does he not execute Joseph, he also puts him in a prison where the king's prisoners were.And that's why in the next chapter of the cup-bearer and the breadmaker, that's where Joseph meets them. So it wasn't regular prison, it was a king's prison for the important people. Most likely what the text is telling us is that Potiphar wasn't convinced by Mrs. Potiphar. And this is the goal, to become such a person of integrity that when false accusations are made against you, the people who know you best refuse to believe them. So Joseph's faithfulness throughout the entire episode seems to be unrewarded. What does he get for being good at that moment of temptation? What does he get? He gets prison, but we know that ultimately that's the path that God has for him from the prison to the palace.And verse 21, "But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. And whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. And 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." We don't know how much time elapsed, how much time he had spent in Potiphar's house and then how much time in prison, but it was years. And I wonder how often Joseph remembered his dreams, the dreams that God had sent him, the dreams that he will be put in a position of prominence and power, whatever it was God was with Joseph, and Joseph remained close to the divine presence.God was with him and everything that he did as Joseph continued to work diligently. What God's presence meant in Joseph's life, it wasn't that everything's easy, smooth sailing. Yes, God was with him, but Joseph was still in prison. Yes, God is with him, but Joseph is still a slave. And what this means is from a theological perspective, yes, everything's settled, everything is secure and ultimate all is well and as safely in God's hands. But as we look at the life of Joseph, there's still risk and there's still uncomfortable circumstances and danger, and difficulty and even disappointment, but he continued to stay close to the Lord. He continued to work out his salvation with fear and trembling, and that's the same before us. We don't see the full story of God's plan for us. We know his purposes are to glorify his name, to do good, but we don't know all the details. And while we are alive, we must remember that we are still living in warfare. Day by day, we need to be conscious of the fact that we do have an enemy.We have adversaries of Satan and his lackeys and demons. We are living life in the thick of combat, in a battlefield strewn with a carnage of those who have come before us. And the scripture speaks about this often, that we are given weapons, weapons for our left hand and our right weapons to fight the good fight of faith. We are given a sword, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And so often we forget this, we meander through life. We forget that we are pilgrims headed to a country, a kingdom that is not of this world. A large part of why we forget is because most of the people around us don't have that worldview. They live with a faithless worldview as if the material is all there is. Well, we must never lose sight of the fact that our lives are epic, that our souls are eternal.Everything we do in the body has eternal consequences. We are not to stop thinking of our lives as being inconsequential and we are to think of our lives as God does, and walk by faith, not by sight. I think one of the greatest temptations before modern people is this. It's the temptation to live for nothing, of no purpose greater than just enjoying ourselves or enjoying the short years we've been given. There's a writer called Plantinga who wrote a book called Not the Way It's Supposed To Be, and this is, and I'll read the quote, it's so powerful. It says, "Many live life making a career of nothing, wandering through malls, killing time, making small talk, watching television programs until we know their characters better than our own children. Well, this robs the community of our gifts and energies, and shapes life into a yawn at the God and Savior of the world. The person who will not best stir herself, the person who hands himself over to nothing in effect says to God, you have made nothing of interest and redeemed no one of consequence including me.""C. S. Lewis has the devil's Screwtape explained to the junior devil wormwood that the man he is after can be drawn away from God by nothing. Nothing is very strong, strong enough to steal away a man's best years not, in sweet sins, but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why. And the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, and drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, and whistling tunes that he does not like. The only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one, the gentle slope, soft underfoot without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."Joseph thankfully remains faithful and he wins in this battle against this temptation. And this brings us to point 3, how to win against temptation in our lives? First of all, it's not a sin to be tempted. It is a sin to yield to temptation. As one writer says, "A mob may batter at the palace gates but if it's unable to enter in, there's no damage done to the kingdom." I'll give you three points to win against temptations. Tips first, forge a forceful argument using God's word, and we are to know God's word in order to apply God's word. You must make this argument with Satan sometimes, sometimes with people tempting you in your life, more often than not, with yourself.You have to learn to preach to yourself in particular in the moments of weakness, and you have to make a case. You have to convince yourself this is what Joseph was doing. He's making arguments. The sin Potiphar's wife was proposing would've been an outrage, yes, against Potiphar, but specifically against God himself. And a Christian can think of countless arguments, some of them specific to the certain sins you are tempted to commit, but many of the reasons we can marshal to not commit sin at any time in any way. How's this for one, how about the love of God that God loves me, I belong to him, that I am a son of God, that you are a son or daughter of God. That God loves you so much that he doesn't want me to die for my sins, therefore he sent Jesus Christ, the cross of Christ.How about the presence of the Holy Spirit, that we love the presence of the Holy Spirit so much that we do not want to grieve him. The damage to our own soul, that sin does have consequences. The unworthiness of it all, the fruitlessness in your life. The tendency of when you give into one sin that sin begetting another sin and then all of a sudden you are spiraling out of control. Well, what about the example to an unbelieving world? What about giving the evil one victory, the one who hates you? What about the fact that we will even as Christians be taken to a second judgment, a judgment where the Lord will judge us? What do we do in our body? What do we do with the gifts and talents he's given us? Joseph here is animated by his conviction that his life is not his own.That he has a God who is over him and a God who is with him, and a God who loves him, and a God who is not to be dishonored. He did exactly what Jesus Christ was doing in the desert when Satan comes to tempt him. Christ marshaled arguments from the word of God. The apostle Paul in Ephesians 6 when he talks about fighting the good faith and spiritual warfare, he says, "Take up the sword of the spirit." It's the word of God, meaning the stress there is on the precise application of the word of God when we are tempted, so we are to know the word of God and apply it specifically. Second is avoid tempting situations. Joseph did as best as he could. As soon as he saw Potiphar's wife's interest, he tried to avoid her all to together. The father in Proverbs says, "Do not go near the door of her house."Why? Because of the attraction of sin. It does lure us. It's like the closer you get, the more powerless you become. And such as the power of sin, even our love of it that we often want to get as close as possible without breaking the commandment. This is what Robert Murray M'Cheyne, a holy man as there ever was. He wrote the following, "Satan tempts me to go as near to temptations as possible without committing the sin. This is fearful, tempting God and grieving the Holy Spirit. It's a deep-laid plot of Satan." This is what Romans 13:11-14 says, "Besides this, you know the time that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep for salvation is near to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone, the days at hand, so then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires."And third is flee temptation. When Joseph had nothing else to do, he took flight and it was deliberate act of the will, abrupt, decisive and he runs. 1 Corinthians 6:13-20, the apostle writes, "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make the members of a prostitute? Never. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her. For as it is written, the two will become one flesh, but he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexual and moral person sins against his own body.""Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price to glorify God in your body." And then 2 Timothy 2:20-22. In this text, I just notice the connection between righteousness with sexuality and our usefulness to the Lord. And I'll never remember this text, I was 13. I was at Slavic Youth Camp. If you don't know, I was raised in Slavic churches. And at 13 they got all the boys in one room and they're like, "We're going to have a talk." And then they bring in just a savage, this old dude, just a savage guy, bearded, just massive hands, although he was 85 he could still kill you. And he walks in and he just said, "Gentlemen, remember this. 2, 2, 2. 2 Timothy 2:22." He said, "Memorize this and live by it, and the Lord's going to keep you from sin."And just look at the connection between usefulness and righteousness. 2 Timothy 2:20-22, "Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart." Flee youthful passions and pursue these great things, don't do it by yourself. Do it with others, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. So flee when faced with temptation, don't tarry.Thomas à Kempis in his famous description in The Imitation of Christ, he gives these successful steps of temptation. He says, "First, there is first the bare thought of the sin. Then after that, there's a picture of the sin formed and hung up on the secret screen of the imagination. A strange sweetness from the picture is then let down drop by drop into the heart. And then that sweetness soon secures the consent of the whole soul and the thing is done." Today, is Communion Sunday, and I do want to think through fighting temptation from the perspective of the cross that when we are faced with temptation, you've got to ask yourself, how can I sin? How can I, for whom Christ died, continue to sin? How can I, the object of God's electing grace, the object of the work of the Holy Spirit, the object of God's efficacious grace, he sought me when I was lost. He converted me. He regenerated. He filled me with the Holy Spirit, how can this great God that bled from me, how can I sin against him?What about those who have given into temptation? Well, that's every single one of us. We have all sinned. And what are we to do? Well, do you see the wickedness that your sins are before the Lord? Can you say, "Yes, I have done this egregious thing against God?" Do you understand that you are condemned because of your sin, that you will be judged for your sin? And once you do, once you understand that, well, then flee to Christ for refuge, then flee to him to receive everlasting life. The comparisons between Joseph and Jesus... Well, they're not just incidental. I think it was all part of the story, but you see the comparisons. Joseph was the A beloved son of the Father.Jesus Christ was the beloved son, the only-begotten son of the Father. Joseph was sent by the father to the brothers and Jesus was sent to his brethren by the Father. Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery, Jesus was as well. Joseph later on forgives his brothers. Jesus Christ forgives those who are crucifying them. On the cross Jesus said the following, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," he's forgiving them. But also notice that not knowing that you're sinning against God is not enough. That's not enough of a defense. We all know that we have sinned. We all need forgiveness. Jesus Christ was numbered among the transgressors in order to intercede for us. Isaiah 53:12, "Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors."Upon the conception of Christ, the Messiah, and the womb of the Virgin Mary, the angel Gabriel, explained to another Joseph in Matthew 1:21, "She will bear a son and you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us." Because Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, he can be with us because Jesus Christ was rejected by the Father on the cross. "He said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He did that so that we would not be forsaken when we come to the Lord and ask for forgiveness. We are now going to transition to holy communion, which is commanded in scripture to be celebrated as a remembrance of the suffering of Christ. For whom is holy communion?It is for repentant believers in Jesus Christ. So if you do not trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service. Or if you're living in unrepentant sin, also refrain from this part of the service. But if you trust in Christ and if you are repentant, you're welcome to partake. If you'd like to partake and don't have the elements, the cup and the bread, raise your hand during prayer and the ushers will hand them out. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you did not leave us in our sins. We have all transgressed your holy commandments. We have all sinned against your holy name. And Lord, we come to you with humility and contrition of heart, and we repent and we ask, Lord, forgive us for our sins and our many transgressions. We thank you Jesus, that those transgressions were placed upon you.Lord, we thank you that at the moment of your greatest test when you were in Gethsemane under pressure that we can't even begin to imagine, and as the capillaries in your face were bursting and you were sweating blood and you asked if there's any other way, you said, "Father, if there's any other way, let this cup pass from me, the cup of wrath, yet not my will but yours be done." Jesus, we thank you that despite the fact that you saw how difficult that would be, Lord, you gave into the will of the Father. And Lord at those moments of temptation, when we are tempted to do our will instead of the Father's will Lord give us more grace. Give us power, the power of the Holy Spirit to be a righteous people continuing to be useful to you. Lord, bless this time, the holy communion. Jesus, we meditate upon your sufferings. We thank you that your body was broken so that we might be healed and your blood was shed so that our souls might be cleansed.Lord, we thank you for the gospel. We thank you for the gift of grace. And Lord, right now minister to us as we partake in holy communion. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. If this is your first time with us, the bread is at the bottom, open that up. On the night that Jesus Christ was betrayed, he took the bread and after breaking it, he said, "This is my body broken for you. Take eat and do this in remembrance of me." Then he proceeded to take the cup and he said, "This cup is the cup of the new covenant of my blood, which is poured out for the sins of many. Take, drink, and do this remembrance of me."Heavenly Father, as we meditate the sufferings of Christ, we also remember the perfection of Christ. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you never sinned. We thank you that you never gave in to temptation, not even once. And because of Jesus, your faithfulness, you provided a way for us to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. Lord, make us the people that on a daily basis choose to remind ourselves that we are yours and we're not yours just once because you've created us, we're yours twice because you have redeemed us by the blood of Christ. Therefore, make us the people who live in a manner worthy of this gospel. And we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

(Bilingual) このメッセージでは登牧師が新しいシーズンが運んでくる新しいチャレンジへの向き合い方について以下の3つのポイントから話します。In this message Ps Noboru talks about how to face challenges of the new season in these 3 points:(イザヤ55:8:9 ERV訳) 神は語る・・・「わたしの思いは、お前の思いとは違い、お前のやり方は、わたしのやり方とは違う。(9) 天が地よりも高いように、わたしのやり方は、お前のやり方の上を行く。 わたしの思いは、お前の思いより遥か上だ。(Isaiah 55:8-9 ERV) If you do these things, your light will begin to shine like the light of dawn. Then your wounds will heal. Your “Goodness” will walk in front of you, and the Glory of the Lord will come following behind you. (9) Then you will call to the Lord, and he will answer you. You will cry out to him, and he will say, ‘Here I am.'(創世39:19-23 ERV訳) ヨセフの主人がこの話を妻から聞くと、彼はカンカンに怒り、(20) ヨセフをエジプト王が所有する牢屋に放り込んだのだ。 (21) そんな牢屋の中でも神はヨセフと共にいたため、神はヨセフを助け続けた。そのため刑務所長もヨセフのことを気に入り始めた。(22) すぐに刑務所長はヨセフを監視員として他の囚人たちがきちんと働いているかを監視する責任者として選んだ。(23) 所長は、ヨセフが全てをしっかりとこなしてくれるので、何の心配もなく絶大なる信頼を置いていた。 神がヨセフと共にいたため、ヨセフがすることなすこと全てが成功していった。(Genesis 39:19-23 ERV) Joseph's master listened to what his wife said, and he became very angry. (20) So Potiphar put Joseph into the prison where the king's enemies were held, and that is where Joseph remained. (21) The Lord was with Joseph and continued to show his kindness to him, so the commander of the prison guards began to like Joseph. (22) The commander of the guards put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners. Joseph was their leader, but he still did the same work they did. (23) The commander of the guards trusted Joseph with everything that was in the prison. This happened because the Lord was with Joseph. The Lord helped Joseph be successful in everything he did.1.ビジョンを見る！See the Vision!(ピリピ3:13-14 ERV訳) 兄弟、姉妹たちよ！私がまだその目標に達していないことぐらい自分で自覚している。しかし1つだけいつも心がけていることがある。それは過去のことを忘れ、自分の目の前にあるそのゴールに全集中で取り組むということだけだ。(14) フィニッシュ・ラインを目がけて全力で走り続け、そのゴール地点でもらえる賞を、すなわちイエス・キリストを通して私に約束された神からの人生を得るために全力で走っているのだ。(Philipians 3:13-14 ERV) Brothers and sisters, I know that I still have a long way to go. But there is one thing I do: I forget what is in the past and try as hard as I can to reach the goal before me. (14) I keep running hard toward the finish line to get the prize that is mine because God has called me through Christ Jesus to life up there in heaven. 2.心をキレイに保つ！Have a Clean Heart!(マルコ2:21-22 ERV訳) 古着のつぎ当てに、新しい布を使う人はいない。そんなことをしたら、つぎ当てた新しい布が縮んで古着が破れてしまう！(22) また、新しいワインを古い革袋に入れる人もいない。そんなことをしたら、古い革袋は新しいワインの発酵に耐え切れずに破れ、革袋と一緒にワインまでダメになってしまう。新しいワインは、新しい革袋に入れるのがお決まりじゃあないか！」(Mark 2:21-22 ERV) When someone sews a patch over a hole in an old coat, they never use a piece of cloth that is not yet shrunk. If they do, the patch will shrink and pull away from the coat. Then the hole will be worse. (22) Also, no one ever pours new wine into old wineskins. The wine would break them, and the wine would be ruined along with the wineskins. You always put new wine into new wineskins.3.ピンチはチャンスの裏返し！There's Opportunity in Difficult Moments!(ピリピ1:14 ERV訳) しかし、私が牢屋に入れられたことが原因で、多くのイエスを信じる者がイエスをさらに信頼するようになり、またそれが勇気へと変わって最高な知らせを広めていくことへと繋がっているのだ。(Philippians 1:14 ERV) My being in prison has caused most of the believers to put their trust in the Lord and to show more courage in telling people God's message.

(Bilingual) このメッセージではモンティー牧師がピュアを守る方法について以下の3つのポイントから話します。 In this message Ps Monty talks about how to protect purity in these 3 points: (Genesis 39:1-18 NLT) When Joseph was taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelite traders, he was purchased by Potiphar, an Egyptian officer. Potiphar was captain of the guard for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. (2) The Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master. (3) Potiphar noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did. (4) This pleased Potiphar, so he soon made Joseph his personal attendant. He put him in charge of his entire household and everything he owned. (5) From the day Joseph was put in charge of his master's household and property, the Lord began to bless Potiphar's household for Joseph's sake. All his household affairs ran smoothly, and his crops and livestock flourished. (6) So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn't worry about a thing—except what kind of food to eat! Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man, (7) and Potiphar's wife soon began to look at him lustfully. “Come and sleep with me,” she demanded. (8) But Joseph refused. “Look,” he told her, “my master trusts me with everything in his entire household. (9) No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God.” (10) She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible. (11) One day, however, no one else was around when he went in to do his work. (12) She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, “Come on, sleep with me!” Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house. (13)  When she saw that she was holding his cloak and he had fled, (14) she called out to her servants. Soon all the men came running. “Look!” she said. “My husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us! He came into my room to rape me, but I screamed. (15) When he heard me scream, he ran outside and got away, but he left his cloak behind with me.” (16) She kept the cloak with her until her husband came home. (17) Then she told him her story. “That Hebrew slave you've brought into our house tried to come in and fool around with me,” she said. (18) “But when I screamed, he ran outside, leaving his cloak with me!” (創世記 39:1-18 JCB)さて、イシュマエル人の隊商に売り飛ばされたヨセフに話を戻しましょう。彼はエジプトに着くと、エジプト王ファラオに仕える役人の一人、ポティファルに買い取られました。(2)ヨセフはこの主人となった人の家の仕事をさせられましたが、いつも主が助けてくださるので、何をしてもうまくいきました。(3)ポティファルの目に、主がヨセフに特別よくしておられることは明らかでした。(4)ヨセフは主人の気に入り、家の管理と業務のすべてを任されるようになったのです。(5)すると、ポティファルの家は祝福され、万事がスムーズに運びました。収穫も、羊の群れも増える一方でした。(6)喜んだポティファルは、全財産の管理をヨセフに任せることにしました。ヨセフさえいれば、何の心配もありません。しかも、ヨセフはたいへん美青年でした。(7)そこで、困ったことが持ち上がりました。事もあろうに、ポティファルの妻がヨセフに目をつけて、彼を誘惑するようになったのです。(8)ヨセフはそれを拒みました。「ご主人は家のこといっさいを私にお任せになりました。(9)家では、私のすることに、決して口出ししたり、指図したりなさいません。あなた以外は何でも私の自由にさせてくださいます。これほどまでにしていただいて、どうして、そんな大それたことができましょう。ご主人ばかりか、神様にまで背くことなどできません。」(10)それでも彼女はあきらめません。毎日しつこく言い寄り、ヨセフが相手にしないと何とかして気を引こうとやっきになりました。(11)そんなある日のこと、ヨセフは家で仕事をしていました。たまたま周囲にはだれもいません。この時とばかり彼女がやって来て、ヨセフの袖をつかみました。(12-13)「ちょっと私の部屋に来ておくれ。」とんでもないと、ヨセフがその手を振り払って逃げようとしたところ、上着が脱げてしまいました。しかし彼はそのまま家の外へ逃げ出しました。彼女はそのうしろ姿を、残された上着を手にしたままじっと見つめていましたが、(14-15)突然叫び声を上げました。何事が起こったのかと、男たちが駆けつけると、彼女が興奮して泣いています。「私の主人が、あんなヘブル人（イスラエル人）の奴隷なんか連れて来るからいけないのよ。おかげで危ない目に会うところだったわ。とてもひどいことをしようとしたので、私、大声で叫んでやったわ。そうしたら、上着を置いたままあわてて逃げ出したのよ。」(16)彼女はヨセフの上着を手もとに置き、その夜、夫が家に帰ると、(17)昼間の出来事を話しました。「うちで仕事をさせている、あのヘブル人の奴隷ですが、今日私にひどいことをしようとしたのです。 (18)大声を上げたから助かったものの、そうでなければ、どうなっていたかわかりませんわ。あの男ったら、あわてて上着を残したまま逃げ出して……。これがその上着です。」 1.God is With Us 神様が共にいる (2 Timothy 2:22 NLT)  Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of...

(English) In this message Ps Monty talks about how to protect purity in these 3 points: (Genesis 39:1-18 NLT) When Joseph was taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelite traders, he was purchased by Potiphar, an Egyptian officer. Potiphar was captain of the guard for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. (2) The Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master. (3) Potiphar noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did. (4) This pleased Potiphar, so he soon made Joseph his personal attendant. He put him in charge of his entire household and everything he owned. (5) From the day Joseph was put in charge of his master's household and property, the Lord began to bless Potiphar's household for Joseph's sake. All his household affairs ran smoothly, and his crops and livestock flourished. (6) So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn't worry about a thing—except what kind of food to eat! Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man, (7) and Potiphar's wife soon began to look at him lustfully. “Come and sleep with me,” she demanded. (8) But Joseph refused. “Look,” he told her, “my master trusts me with everything in his entire household. (9) No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God.” (10) She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible. (11) One day, however, no one else was around when he went in to do his work. (12) She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, “Come on, sleep with me!” Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house. (13)  When she saw that she was holding his cloak and he had fled, (14) she called out to her servants. Soon all the men came running. “Look!” she said. “My husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us! He came into my room to rape me, but I screamed. (15) When he heard me scream, he ran outside and got away, but he left his cloak behind with me.” (16) She kept the cloak with her until her husband came home. (17) Then she told him her story. “That Hebrew slave you've brought into our house tried to come in and fool around with me,” she said. (18) “But when I screamed, he ran outside, leaving his cloak with me!” 1.God is With Us (2 Timothy 2:22 NLT)  Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts. 2.We need the Word of God (Psalm 119:9 NLT) How can a young person stay pure? By obeying your word. 3.We need Accountability (James 5:16 NLT) Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

Genesis 39Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt. An Egyptian named Potiphar, an official of Pharaoh and the captain of the guard, purchased him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there. 2 The Lord was with Joseph. He was successful and lived in the household of his Egyptian master. 3 His master observed that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made everything he was doing successful. 4 So Joseph found favor in his sight and became his personal attendant. Potiphar appointed Joseph overseer of his household and put him in charge of everything he owned. 5 From the time Potiphar appointed him over his household and over all that he owned, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's household for Joseph's sake. The blessing of the Lord was on everything that he had, both in his house and in his fields. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; he gave no thought to anything except the food he ate.Now Joseph was well built and good-looking. 7 Soon after these things, his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me.” 8 But he refused, saying to his master's wife, “Look, my master does not give any thought to his household with me here, and everything that he owns he has put into my care. 9 There is no one greater in this household than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. So how could I do such a great evil and sin against God?” 10 Even though she continued to speak to Joseph day after day, he did not respond to her invitation to go to bed with her.11 One day he went into the house to do his work when none of the household servants were there in the house. 12 She grabbed him by his outer garment, saying, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his outer garment in her hand and ran outside. 13 When she saw that he had left his outer garment in her hand and had run outside, 14 she called for her household servants and said to them, “See, my husband brought in a Hebrew man to us to humiliate us. He tried to go to bed with me, but I screamed loudly. 15 When he heard me raise my voice and scream, he left his outer garment beside me and ran outside.”16 So she laid his outer garment beside her until his master came home. 17 This is what she said to him: “That Hebrew slave you brought to us tried to humiliate me, 18 but when I raised my voice and screamed, he left his outer garment and ran outside.”19 When his master heard his wife say, “This is the way your slave treated me,” he became furious. 20 Joseph's master took him and threw him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. So he was there in the prison.21 But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him kindness. He granted him favor in the sight of the prison warden. 22 The warden put all the prisoners under Joseph's care. He was in charge of whatever they were doing. 23 The warden did not concern himself with anything that was in Joseph's care because the Lord was with him and whatever he was doing the Lord was making successful.

Philippians 2:3–4  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.   Genesis 39:6–20  So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.  Now Joseph was well-built and handsome,  7 and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”  8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care.  9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?”  10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.  11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside.  12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.  13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house,  14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed.  15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”  16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home.  17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me.  18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”  19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger.  20 Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.   Holy Competitiveness is winning the interior battle before the exterior ones.   Losing interior battles blows up the exterior of your life. Losing interior battles creates a lot of exterior conflict. To win the interior battle: Depend on God. See yourself as set apart by God. Ask yourself, “What is shaping and forming my interior life?” Ask yourself, “Who am I becoming by the habits that I'm doing?” Win one window at a time. The interior battle is all about becoming more like Jesus.

Matthew 5:3 - Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (NKJV)Matthew 5:13-16 - You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. (NKJV)THE FUNCTION OF SALT1. Salt is just salt.Luke 14:34-35 - Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear (NKJV)2. When we exist on the earth, we help life to blossom.Genesis 39:5-6a - From the day Joseph was put in charge of his master's household and property, the Lord began to bless Potiphar's household for Joseph's sake. All his household affairs ran smoothly, and his crops and livestock flourished. So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn't worry about a thing—except what kind of food to eat! (NLT)3. When we exist on the earth, we help fruit to grow.  4. When we exists on the earth, we prevent bad growth.Genesis 18:32 - Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten should be found there?” And He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten. (NKJV)THE KRYPTONITE OF SALTIt must have greater quantityIt must have presenceTHE FUNCTION OF LIGHTIt exposes John 3:19-21 - And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. (NKJV)It revealsPsalms 119:105 - Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path. (NLT)HOW CAN LIGHT FAIL?

Genesis 39 NLT read aloud by Simon MacFarlane. 1 When Joseph was taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelite traders, he was purchased by Potiphar, an Egyptian officer. Potiphar was captain of the guard for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. 2 The LORD was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master. 3 Potiphar noticed this and realized that the LORD was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did. 4 This pleased Potiphar, so he soon made Joseph his personal attendant. He put him in charge of his entire household and everything he owned. 5 From the day Joseph was put in charge of his master's household and property, the LORD began to bless Potiphar's household for Joseph's sake. All his household affairs ran smoothly, and his crops and livestock flourished. 6 So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn't worry about a thing—except what kind of food to eat! Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man, 7 and Potiphar's wife soon began to look at him lustfully. “Come and sleep with me,” she demanded. 8 But Joseph refused. “Look,” he told her, “my master trusts me with everything in his entire household. 9 No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God.” 10 She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible. 11 One day, however, no one else was around when he went in to do his work. 12 She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, “Come on, sleep with me!” Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house. 13 When she saw that she was holding his cloak and he had fled, 14 she called out to her servants. Soon all the men came running. “Look!” she said. “My husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us! He came into my room to rape me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream, he ran outside and got away, but he left his cloak behind with me.” 16 She kept the cloak with her until her husband came home. 17 Then she told him her story. “That Hebrew slave you've brought into our house tried to come in and fool around with me,” she said. 18 “But when I screamed, he ran outside, leaving his cloak with me!” 19 Potiphar was furious when he heard his wife's story about how Joseph had treated her. 20 So he took Joseph and threw him into the prison where the king's prisoners were held, and there he remained. 21 But the LORD was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love. And the LORD made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden. 22 Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison. 23 The warden had no more worries, because Joseph took care of everything. The LORD was with him and caused everything he did to succeed.

Genesis 39 vs 3- 6. Potiphar noticed this and realized that the LORD was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did. 4 This pleased Potiphar, so he soon made Joseph his personal attendant. He put him in charge of his entire household and everything he owned. 5 From the day Joseph was put in charge of his master's household and property, the LORD began to bless Potiphar's household for Joseph's sake. All his household affairs ran smoothly, and his crops and livestock flourished. 6 So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn't worry about a thing—except what kind of food to eat!

Genesis 39 vs 3- 6. Potiphar noticed this and realized that the LORD was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did. 4 This pleased Potiphar, so he soon made Joseph his personal attendant. He put him in charge of his entire household and everything he owned. 5 From the day Joseph was put in charge of his master's household and property, the LORD began to bless Potiphar's household for Joseph's sake. All his household affairs ran smoothly, and his crops and livestock flourished. 6 So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn't worry about a thing—except what kind of food to eat!

Now the serpent was more crafty (subtle, skilled in deceit) than any living creature of the field which the Lord God had made. And [a]the serpent (Satan) said to the woman, “Can it really be that God has said, ‘You shall not eat from [b]any tree of the garden'?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, 3 except the fruit from the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God said, ‘You shall not eat from it nor touch it, otherwise you will die.'” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die! 5 For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened [that is, you will have greater awareness], and you will be like God, knowing [the difference between] good and evil.” Genesis 3 : 1-5 Run away from sexual immorality [in any form, whether thought or behavior, whether visual or written]. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the one who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. 1 Corinthians 6 : 18 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the [royal] guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there. 2 The Lord was with Joseph, and he [even though a slave] became a successful and prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. 3 Now his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to prosper (succeed) in his hand. 4 So Joseph pleased Potiphar and found favor in his sight and he served him as his personal servant. He made Joseph overseer over his house, and he put all that he owned in Joseph's charge. 5 It happened that from the time that he made Joseph overseer in his house and [put him in charge] over all that he owned, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house because of Joseph; so the Lord's blessing was on everything that Potiphar owned, in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left all that he owned in Joseph's charge; and with Joseph there he did not [need to] [a]pay attention to anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was handsome and attractive in form and appearance. 7 Then after a time his master's wife [b]looked at Joseph with desire, and she said, “Lie with me.” 8 But he refused and said to his master's wife, “Look, with me in the house, my master does not concern himself with anything; he has put everything that he owns in my charge. 9 He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God [and your husband]?” 10 And so it was that she spoke to Joseph [persistently] day after day, but he did not listen to her [plea] to lie beside her or be with her. 11 Then it happened one day that Joseph went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the men of the household was there in the house. 12 She caught Joseph by his [outer] robe, saying, “Lie with me!” But he left his robe in her hand and ran, and got outside [the house]. Genesis 39 : 1-12

We see that Joseph is living in Potiphar's house and is in control of everything in the house but then he suddenly has to deal with Potiphar's wife and her trying to seduce him into sleeping with her but Joseph refuses to do it. So Potiphar's wife goes to her husband and tells a lie on Joseph about what happens which places Joseph in Jail but even in Jail God still blesses Joseph to rule over the jail as well. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/sharise-johnson-moore/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sharise-johnson-moore/support

Hear now the word of the Lord from Genesis 40, 40 Some time after this, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker committed an offense against their lord the king of Egypt. 2 And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, 3 and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard appointed Joseph to be with them, and he attended them. They continued for some time in custody. 5 And one night they both dreamed—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison—each his own dream, and each dream with its own interpretation. 6 When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled. 7 So he asked Pharaoh's officers who were with him in custody in his master's house, “Why are your faces downcast today?” 8 They said to him, “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.” 9 So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said to him, “In my dream there was a vine before me, 10 and on the vine there were three branches. As soon as it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and the clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.” 12 Then Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days. 13 In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office, and you shall place Pharaoh's cup in his hand as formerly, when you were his cupbearer. 14 Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house. 15 For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit.” 16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream: there were three cake baskets on my head, 17 and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating it out of the basket on my head.” 18 And Joseph answered and said, “This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days. 19 In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from you!—and hang you on a tree. And the birds will eat the flesh from you.” 20 On the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand. 22 But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23 Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. Genesis 40:1-23, ESV One year ago today, or at least the corresponding Sunday one year ago today, it was actually March 1st. One year ago I was preaching to a church in Kisii, Kenya, I had been teaching the week before Kenyan pastors at a wonderful conference that I was able to go on. Then the following week we went to Rwanda where I taught there as well. Now this was an amazing trip, I have so many incredible memories of this trip. As I look back on this trip, I think I will always think about those memories and remember those times with sort of a shade on them, a tainting to them. That was the last normal experience I had before everything changed because of COVID-19. I landed back on March 6th, we had a normal worship service here on March 8th, even a fellowship meal if you remember what those are. We had a congregational meeting and then everything changed. So, it's hard not to look back on that trip without being colored and tainted by the suffering that was to follow. Similarly, 20 years ago this year, back in 2001 I attended a conference in Washington D.C. I have many good memories from that conference, but as I was packing up at the end of that conference to get on a plane later that day, on September 11th, I received word that our flight and all flights had been cancelled. Now I remember a few good things about the conference, but what I really remember is being in Washington D.C. on 9-11. That wonderful trip was overshadowed by such a great tragedy. Well we live in a world where things are like this, even at the best of times our best of times are overshadowed by suffering and trials. In the worst of times we feel that life is always moving from bad to worse. So in the midst of this, when everything is tainted by suffering, how do we continue to trust in the Lord? Well part of the answer and what we see in this story here in Genesis chapter 40, is that we can't rely on the moment by moment in time snapshots of how we think life is going right then and there. We must rather let the word of God interpret our circumstances. So, our big idea as we look at how Joseph navigated his own suffering is this, that interpretations belong to God. We are going to see this in three parts. 1. God Interprets our Circumstances God 2. God Interprets our Circumstances by His Word 3. God Interprets our Circumstances in His Timing God Interprets our Circumstances So we start here in the first eight verses with the idea that God is the one who interprets our circumstances. In verse 1 we read some time after this, or literally after these things. It's a very general vague description about how much time has passed. We don't know how long Joseph has been in prison since he was put there after being falsely accused by Potiphar's wife in the previous chapter. We do have a couple of time references that help us to understand how long Joseph's suffering as a whole has gone on. Back in Genesis 37:2 when we first met Joseph there, we read that he was 17 years old when his brothers began to hate him, which started all of this process of suffering. We know in the next chapter in chapter 41:46, that by the end of that he will be 30 years old. In chapter 41:1 so the next verse after the passage we're looking at today, we will read that two whole years will pass between this story and when Joseph turns 30. So he's 28 years old here, which means that he's been suffering for 11 years in one way or another. We don't know how long he was in Canaan hated by his brother suffering there. We don't know how long he was in Potiphar's house suffering there. We don't know how long he has been suffering in prison. We only know that for 11 years one thing after another has piled up to increase Joseph's suffering. Well, whenever this story happens, verse 1 is important because it introduces to us two key figures, two significant officers from Pharaoh's court, the cup bearer of the king of Egypt and the baker. Now we read that these two officers in Pharaoh's court committed an offense against their lord, the king. This phrase, committed an offense, is very literally simply the word for sinned. They sinned against their lord, the king. Why this is important, in part, is to let us know that they did do something wrong. These are criminals, they're in prison for a reason. It's also a reminder that Joseph is in prison because he did not sin, Joseph is there because he is innocent. Remember in fact in Genesis chapter 39:9 this word for sin appeared to describe what Joseph refused to do, but what he was eventually falsely accused of. Potiphar's wife continued to ask Joseph to lie with her and in 39:9 he said, “How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” Well that word for sin is the same word that describes the actions of the cupbearer and the baker. The things that land them in prison, Joseph is innocent of and yet he is numbered among the transgressors. Well Joseph here comes into contact with these two in a special way, because of what we read in verse four. In verse four we read that the captain of the guard appointed Joseph to be with him and he attended them. Now this captain of the guard, it's important that we remember is Potiphar himself. Now we've been told multiple times that Potiphar is the captain of the guard, precisely so that he's not sort of obstructing the view that we have of this particular passage. He's there, but kind of in the shadows. Remember in Genesis chapter 37 when we first read about how Joseph was sold by the Midianites into Egypt, we read that he was sold to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard. Then at the beginning of the last chapter in 39:1 we read that Joseph had been brought down to Egypt and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian had bought him from the Ishmaelites. So Potiphar is the captain of the guard and he appoints Joseph to do the same thing for these two officials, that Joseph had previously done for himself for Potiphar. In verse 4 it says that Joseph attended these two officials. That word refers to more than just sort of the menial tasks that would have been performed by the low-level slaves, we're talking about an honored position of being a close trusted personal assistant to someone. This is what Joseph did for Potiphar and we read about in verse four that Joseph found favor in part of his sight and attended the officials. So what Joseph formerly did for Potiphar, he now does for these officials. Well, all of this in the first four verses is background, it sort of sets up the story. The real story starts in verse five. 5 And one night they both dreamed—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison—each his own dream, and each dream with its own interpretation. 6 When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled. 7 So he asked Pharaoh's officers who were with him in custody in his master's house, “Why are your faces downcast today?” 8 They said to him, “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.” Genesis 40:5-6, ESV The problem that these two have is not simply that they have had dreams, but that they have had dreams and they don't have access to someone who can give an interpretation for their dreams. When they were formerly in the courts of Pharaoh, they would have had access to those who gave interpretations to dreams. Whether those were real or false interpretations, they would have at least felt confident that they were talking to an expert. Now in the prison, they don't have access to those experts and so they are troubled by this. As Victor Hamilton puts this in his commentary on this passage he says, “a dream without an accompanying interpretation is like a diagnosis without a prognosis. I know something's going to happen to me, but I don't really know what it's going to mean for me.” Now this moment is a test for Joseph. All this time Joseph has been suffering and remember how all of this trouble started, it started with his own dreams. Dreams are problems for Joseph when he shared his dreams back in Canaan. In Genesis 37 his brothers hated him because of his dreams. When he shared his dreams not only with his brothers, but also with his father, his father rebuked him for sharing his dreams. The dreams have been problems and more than that the dreams have not at all in the least bit come true. Joseph's dreams said that his whole family was going to come around him and bow down to him. Yet step by step, little by little, more by more, deeper and deeper Joseph's suffering descends him into pain, without ever being exalted to this place where others are bowing down to him. So the question is, has Joseph's suffering through all this shaken his confidence in God? The answer is no. Immediately Joseph responds with confident faith. He says in verse 8, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell them to me.” Joseph has suffered, but Joseph has not stopped trusting in God. So this is the question that this story raises for us and so vividly puts in front of us. How should we interpret our circumstances over this past year? My son Zachariah has really gotten into watching football games and those have been a lot of fun to watch with him. But I'm wanting to give him positive experiences of Nebraska football, which means that I've had to use a lot of recordings of old games, games that Nebraska actually won. So, as we've watched these older games, and I know the end of them, I'm choosing the good ones, the ones that we won. It's interesting to see him react with frustration every time we fumble the ball away or throw an interception or give up a touchdown. In those cases I remember when I watched those games for the first time live, I was doing the same thing if not more. I was super frustrated, despairing at the game as it was going along. But now as I'm watching these old games, I don't react that way at all. In fact some of the setbacks in those games are kind of fun, they're part of the joy because they only make the eventual victory all the more sweet. I can enjoy this because I know the ending. I can interpret those, not as reasons to despair, but as part of the joy of the drama. As Christians we must never forget that we know the end of the story. We know how the story ends. In light of what we know about the end of our story, God urges us not to look at our trials as sort of ultimate things in themselves, as reasons to despair in the moment. Rather we should look at them as part of the drama, part of the overall glory of the redemptive story that God is rolling out across human history. Now Joseph knows the end of the story, he knows what will eventually happen for him, he knows that he will be exalted. So in this moment, part of the way that Joseph perseveres is because he has his eyes fixed on what the Lord has promised to him. So he's still confident that God will hold him up and give him prophetic insight. God Interprets our Circumstances by His Word So, this leads us into the second section where we think about the prophetic insight that's given to Joseph and the prophetic insight that's given to us in the Bible in the word of God. That is that God interprets our circumstances by his word. 9 So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said to him, “In my dream there was a vine before me, 10 and on the vine there were three branches. As soon as it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and the clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.” 12 Then Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days. 13 In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office, and you shall place Pharaoh's cup in his hand as formerly, when you were his cupbearer. Genesis 40:9-13, ESV Now remember at the end of verse 8, Joseph had urged the cup bearer and the baker to entrust their interpretations of their dreams to God, “do not interpretations belong to God?” So in verses 9 through 11, the cup bearer takes him up on this. The cupbearer apparently is persuaded and shares this dream with Joseph. We read about this dream with vines and branches and grapes and Pharaoh's cup, and the cupbearer putting the cup into Pharaoh's hand. In verses 12 and 13, Joseph interprets the dream. Giving the interpretation that this means that in three days Pharaoh will restore the cupbearer to his former office. What's interesting is what Joseph says after he gives the interpretation, verses 14 and 15, he says, 14 Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house. 15 For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit.” Genesis 40:14-15, ESV This is one of the very few places where we see Joseph talk about his experience. Normally he is very silent, he is suffering but he suffers silently. The suffering is inflicted upon him and we don't know what he is thinking about it in the moment. But here we see Joseph speak about a situation, and this is important because it reminds us that Joseph is a real person like you and me. When he suffers, he hurts because of his suffering. Sometimes we think this about people in the Bible, they're so spiritual they can just float above their problems and nothing ever touches them or harms them. Yet we see here the depth of his suffering. Now the pain of Joseph's suffering is actually captured in one of the Psalms. In Psalm 105:16-19 we read that when the Lord summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, that happens a little bit later in Joseph's story, he had sent a man ahead of him or ahead of them. 16 When he summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, 17 he 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. Genesis 105:16-19, ESV We see here that he is patient in the midst of his suffering, but he is not passive. He's advocating for himself, while he still retains confidence that the Lord will one day do all that he has said that he would do for Joseph. Well in Genesis 40:16, we read that when the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable and then he goes on to share his own dream. Now this is interesting because the cupbearer was persuaded to share his dream when Joseph urged him to trust in God, “do not interpretations belong to God?” Then the cup bearer shared his dream, but the baker is not willing to share his dream until he sees that the interpretation given is favorable. Now this may suggest, and this is a subtle point, and we don't want to go too far out on this limb, this may suggest something negative about the baker's character. He may not be interested in the truth for its own sake, but simply in getting good news. This aspect of his character, this insight into his character, may tell us something about what leads to his execution. The reason that he is executed while the cup bearer is exalted back to his former position, may not be Pharaoh's arbitrary judgment. It may have been something that has to do with the baker's heart and potentially the original action the baker had done in the first place. That's to the side of the story we don't know. Instead we are told that the baker, even though his dream in a lot of ways sounds very similar to the dream that the cup bearer had. Even though the interpretation for the cupbearer was very positive in three days you will be restored to your former office, we read here that the interpretation for the baker is very negative. In three days you will be put to a gruesome death, your head will be lifted from you. You will be hanged, and the birds will eat your flesh from you. It's a horrifying kind of death given to this baker. Joseph though is able to interpret which dream means which interpretation, because he's not trusting in himself. He's not interpreting things on his own, he is rather trusting in the word of the Lord to interpret these dreams. Now we must look to God's word to interpret our circumstances. It doesn't come through dreams. 1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. Hebrews 1:1-2, ESV Through his word, God's word, the Bible still interprets our circumstances. But the difficulty we have is usually not in understanding what the Bible is saying, although there are some difficult passages to understand. The difficult thing, and we see this in the life of Joseph captured here, the difficulty is in how we have to wait patiently for God to reveal his promises in his timing. God doesn't do everything all at once, even if we know the end of the story, even if we know what God is doing, we still have to wait for God to do everything that he has promised to us. God Interprets our Circumstances in His Timing So this brings us to our third section in verses 20 through 23, that God interprets our circumstances in his timing. 20 On the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand. 22 But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23 Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. Genesis 40:20-23, ESV Now on the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, the cup bearer and the baker receive exactly what Joseph had interpreted. The connection to Joseph's interpretation is very clear in verse 21, it says that Pharaoh restored the chief cupbearer to his position, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand, but he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. These don't happen by chance or randomly, this is exactly in line with what Joseph had interpreted to each of them. It's in verse 23 that we read the heartbreak, and it's typically understated, it says yet the chief cup bearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. Now there's insult to injury here, it's not just that he didn't remember him, that's bad enough, but it's also that he forgot him. The redundancy helps us to underscore how painful this would have been for Joseph. This is the third time that Joseph has had to suffer for his faithfulness. He suffered first for his faithfulness with his family. He suffered by bringing a faithful report about the evil that his brothers had committed, and he suffered when he faithfully shared his dreams with his family back in Genesis 37. Next we read that Joseph suffered in chapter 39, when he was falsely accused by Potiphar's wife, even though he was faithful to his master Potiphar and faithful to his God. Now even though he is faithful in faithfully declaring the correct interpretation the word of the Lord for each man's dream. He suffers by being not remembered and forgotten. Joseph knows that one day he's going to be exalted, he knows the end of the story. His dreams have told him that God has told him the end of the story, but the question is when. So again we remember Psalm 105:19, until what he had said came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him. Psalm 105:19, ESV The difficulty of faith is often not the difficulty of knowing God's true promises, they're written clearly for us in the Bible. The much greater difficulty has to do with waiting for God's promises to come true, waiting for the end of the story and until what the Lord speaks comes to pass. The word of the Lord will test us. The question we're faced with, just like Joseph was, is will we interpret our circumstances in light of what we can see or will we walk by faith? Will we interpret our circumstances in light of what God has spoken to us in his word? Now this moment is another critical moment for Joseph and remember this lasts two whole years, which is what we read in the very next verse in 41:1. This last two whole years when Joseph is languishing in the pit in prison. He hits rock bottom here. This is as deep as his suffering goes. Think about it, put it yourself in his shoes. He finally has a real chance to get someone to do for him what he can't do for himself, to get to the attention of the only person who can secure his pardon, Pharaoh. Remember he's in prison because of a charge that was false, but brought against him by Potiphar. As we've been reminded in this story, Potiphar is the captain of the guard, one of Pharaoh's officers. There's no one else who can pardon Joseph's offense except for the only one who outranks Potiphar, Pharaoh. Now Joseph has this chance to connect his story, what has happened to him with Potiphar, with Pharaoh. Still nothing happens. So, does Joseph despair and give up now? How could he possibly keep going? I once heard the story of Admiral Jim Stockdale, the highest-ranking United States military officer in a prisoner of war camp in Hanoi during the Vietnam War. He was imprisoned over eight years from 1965 to 1973. As the book put it, Stockdale lived out the war without any prisoners' rights, no set release date, and no certainty as to whether he would even survive to see his family again. Now the author of the book interviewed Stockdale and asked, what I thought was a really interesting question. He asked Stockdale, who are the people who didn't make it out of the camp? Who were the people who couldn't survive, not because they were executed, but because they couldn't survive the soul crushing suffering without any end in sight of life in the camp? Stockdale replied, “Oh that's easy, it was the optimists. The optimists were the ones who said well we're going to be out by Christmas, then Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say we're going to be out by Easter and Easter would come and Easter would go. Then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again, and they died of a broken heart.” Stockdale added this very important lesson, you must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be now. I don't know what drove Jim Stockdale's faith, whether he was putting his faith in Christ as the ultimate source of prevailing in the end or whether he put his faith in something else. Yet when he talks about the need to separate our faith and that ultimate victory, versus the need we have to confront the brutal facts of our circumstances of our suffering in front of us, he's echoing what the Bible teaches us. That we must confront the brutal facts that in this fallen broken sinful world, our circumstances will always be hard and difficult and cruel. There's no way around this, there is no way to get beyond this in this life. Like Joseph our lives are going to be constantly overshadowed, even the best of times, with suffering. In the worst of times, things will often seem to go from bad to worse. What's so hard about this is that suffering won't end by Easter, suffering won't end by Thanksgiving or by Christmas. Now certain circumstances of our suffering will come and go. But if we're just waiting to get past whatever that thing is in our life, to get around it, to get around the corner and we expect that around the corner we will discover that elusive happily ever after, we will be disappointed time and time again. If we keep looking for happily ever after in this life, we will never find it until we eventually die of a broken heart, deceived into believing that God has failed us. He hasn't, but we won't find in the brutal facts of the reality of our circumstances, happily ever after in this life. Application Well, if this is true and that's grim and glum and I'm sorry about that. The question is how then do we endure? Well two applications from this story from Joseph's life. 1. Let the word of the Lord interpret your circumstances. As human beings we are constantly evaluating our circumstances, judging whether our circumstances are good or whether they're bad. Delighting in some circumstances, while grumbling and despairing about other circumstances. From these evaluations we are making a thousand decisions every day, all day, about how to act and react in light of our circumstances. This passage, and the whole story of Joseph, is raising a key question. How should we be evaluating our circumstances just by what we could see or in some other way? Throughout all of his suffering, this is raising the question, how does Joseph retain his gut level confidence in God's goodness toward him? How do we remain confident when we feel that we have been snake bitten? So often things seem good, but then they're overshadowed by suffering. When suffering taints even our best moments, what the word of the Lord teaches us is to interpret our circumstances by faith not by sight. By faith, specifically, not that our individual circumstances in this life will all work out well now. That's not the promise, but faith in the end of the story, not our circumstances today, but in the end of the story. The word of the Lord is teaching us that God is testing us until the day comes when all that he has spoken will come to pass and they must come to pass. In the meantime the word of the Lord reminds us, as we considered last week, that God will never leave us or forsake us. The word of the Lord reminds us that the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress. The word of the Lord reframes our circumstances by saying even though your life won't be suffering free, nevertheless for those who love God all things will work together for good. The word of the Lord points to the proof of that promise, that's not just a pie in the sky empty sort of idea, but the word of God points us to Christ as the ultimate proof that God will fulfill everything he has promised us. In Romans 8:32 we read, 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32, ESV If God sacrificed his beloved son for you, what will he withhold from you of all that he has promised to you? Let the word of the Lord interpret your circumstances. 2. Wait for the word of the Lord to be fulfilled. We've got to start by knowing the truth, that's we can't do anything until we know the truth. Merely knowing the truth will never be enough. Tt's not that the truth is weak, it's that our fears and doubts and worries are strong. So what we know in our heads can easily be drowned out by the waves of suffering in our hearts. So, we've got to constantly confront the brutal facts of suffering and yet at the same time we must never lose hope of the certainty of God's promises. We must not forget the end of the story. In this passage, one of the things that reminds us at the end of the story of what God is doing, and we can't miss this, is that the suffering in Joseph's life clearly foreshadows the suffering in Christ's life. Like Joseph our Lord was hated by his brethren, he was hated by the sons of Israel. Like Joseph our Lord was betrayed and he was falsely accused. Like Joseph our Lord was innocent, yet he was numbered among the transgressors as he suffered between two criminals. Like Joseph our Lord's suffering took him deeper and deeper into descent. into the pit as what Joseph in verse 15 calls the prison. Well, the pit for Christ was the cross and the grave. Nut also like Joseph, as we're going to see in the very next chapter, our Lord when all of this was done, our Lord was exalted to the right hand of the king. Joseph became the savior of the world by providing food in the midst of a famine. Our Lord Jesus Christ became the savior of the whole world as he offered his shed blood and righteousness to guilty sinners. Those who have sinned and who are in need in the forgiveness of God Almighty, people like you and me. Brothers and sisters, the only way for us to get through our suffering is to keep our eyes fixed on the end of the story. That Christ, when he returns one day, will raise us up with him. That as serious and significant and painful as our suffering is, and we must not minimize suffering, it is real and it is terrible and even death itself is our last enemy, that Christ will trample under his feet. As serious as suffering is, it is not ultimate. So, brothers and sisters in the midst of your suffering, don't give up. Wait patiently with unfailing confident expectation for the word of the Lord to be fulfilled. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would give us confidence that everything you have spoken will indeed come to pass. That in the midst of our great suffering, Jesus Christ is promising us, and we pray that we wouldn't lose sight of this, that one day he will return and put to right all the suffering that we have ever experienced. Maranatha, come quickly Lord Jesus. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Hear now the word of the Lord in Genesis 39 starting in verse 1. 1 Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. 2 The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands. 4 So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. 5 From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field. 6 So he left all that he had in Joseph's charge, and because of him he had no concern about anything but the food he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. 7 And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” 8 But he refused and said to his master's wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. 9 He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” 10 And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her. 11 But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, 12 she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house. 13 And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled out of the house, 14 she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. 15 And as soon as he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled and got out of the house.” 16 Then she laid up his garment by her until his master came home, 17 and she told him the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to laugh at me. 18 But as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment beside me and fled out of the house.” 19 As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, “This is the way your servant treated me,” his anger was kindled. 20 And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. 21 But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. 22 And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. 23 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. Genesis 39:1-23, ESV With a critical moment in Joseph's life, the moment that everything we are now reading is leading toward, is the moment when Joseph will lead Egypt through a time of intense suffering and distress. There will be seven years of famine and in that time thousands of lives are at stake, both in the land of Egypt and then in the wider area of the land of Canaan. What Joseph is going to do during that time is he is going to distribute food to the various people through that trial. Food that he organized to store up during the seven preceding years, years that came before of plenty. There were seven years of plenty before the seven years of famine. Now in those times what Joseph was learning to do, like he is doing here, is to learn how to navigate through times of both plenty and times of lack. We still face this today. We have to navigate through seasons of plenty and we have to navigate through seasons of suffering. When those seasons of suffering come, well we act as though these are something that shouldn't happen, that can't happen, that won't happen. So, when they actually come they catch us completely off guard, they catch us by surprise. We want our lives to be entirely characterized by those times of plenty. We want happily ever after to start now and to be ever after, without any kind of failing or flagging or diminishment. In fact we have to go through both the times of plenty and the times of famine. The times of suffering, the times of lack are one of the things that happens. When we enter into those times of suffering, it is not just that we are surprised by it, but sometimes we find in our hearts and our minds and our souls that we begin to gauge and evaluate whether we perceive God to be present depending upon our circumstances. If it's time plenty, well hey the Lord is clearly with me. If at the time of suffering and lack I don't know if the Lord is with me, in fact it feels like he has forsaken me in those times. What this story does is to teach us to look beyond our circumstances, the outward appearance of our circumstances. The story teaches us to learn to see God's presence with us, even in the midst of great suffering in our lives. Our big idea as we study this morning is this that the Lord is with his people, even in their suffering. So we see that the Lord is with us in three ways. 1. Flourishing in our Labors 2. Fighting Against our Temptations 3. Faithfulness in our Suffering Flourishing in our Labors So, let's start with this first section, verses one through six, where we see Joseph flourishing in his labors. When we come to the first verse we are being reoriented to the story of Joseph and in the last chapter. If you were here when we studied chapter 38, Joseph was not the focal point of that story, but the story focused on Judah and Tamar and the children born to Judah and Tamar, in chapter 38. Now in verse 1 we are reminded that Joseph has been taken down to Egypt by the Ishmaelites and that he has been sold to Potiphar, we read that at the end chapter 37. Now we're being reoriented to it, and in particular we're being reoriented to Joseph's sufferings. He didn't go down there on a vacation, he didn't go there of his own free will. He was bought there brought there as a slave who was sold at the hands of his own brothers. So, we're reoriented to the suffering of Joseph. Nevertheless right away in verse 2, we read this phrase, “the Lord was with Joseph.” Now this phrase, “the Lord was with Joseph” is the theme of this chapter. Now we read it here at the beginning of this chapter and then we read it again at the end of the chapter in verse 21. “The Lord was with Joseph”, in the beginning and the end of this, is the theme that the narrator the Bible wants us to see throughout this whole story. Now this seems a little strange a little ironic because this is a story about some of Joseph's deepest sufferings. Yet what the Bible wants us to see here is that even in these sufferings, it's not that the Lord has gone away. In fact the Lord is with Joseph as he suffered and in the midst of his sufferings. One of the ways that this passage underscores this, is that this is the only chapter in the entire story of Joseph where we read the covenant name of the Lord, Yahweh. Now this is very strange. In all of Genesis, all the way up through chapter 36, the name Yahweh appears in every chapter except the first chapter, where we read about God who creates heaven and earth and then chapter 23, which is about Abraham's negotiations to buy a burial plot for his wife Sarah. Everywhere else we see the covenant name of the Lord, Yahweh. That's not just a title like you would call a person, a king, maybe Lord so and so. That's not just the name of God, sort of a title for a divinity. We are talking about the covenant name of God Yahweh. This is the only place in the story of Joseph where it appears. If you look this is wherever you see the LORD in all capital letters, that shows us this is the name of the LORD, Yahweh. It appears in the midst of his deep suffering, because what Yahweh signifies is his covenant faithfulness to be with his people, even in the midst of their deepest trials. That's what's going on here, Joseph is suffering when he is brought into Egypt. Here we see that the Lord is with Joseph. For a time in the midst of his sufferings Joseph flourishes he, he prospers in all that he does even in the midst of his sufferings. So we see in verse 4 that Joseph gains favor in Potiphar's eyes. This is the first of four visual evaluations we're going to have of Joseph. We read at the beginning here that in the eyes of Potiphar he has favor. Because of this favor we read that Potiphar gave everything into the hand of Joseph. In verses four and six, now if you're reading from the ESV, this is translated charge he put everything in Joseph's charge. It's a good translation, but there's a reason that we need to see that literally this is into Joseph's hand. That phrase is going to become important a little bit later. Yet here we see that in all of this, everything Joseph touches prospers, and so everything is put into his hand. We want to see this time continue for Joseph. We see how much he has suffered, and we want to see that well, maybe this is the beginning of his happily ever after. But we should recognize that this is not the end of the story. This is rather what John Calvin calls, time to breathe, that the Lord is giving to Joseph this is time to breathe. John Calvin has this great point in his commentary, it really stuck out to me as I was studying this week. It is that the Lord, though he often plunges his own people into the waves of adversity, yet he does not deceive them. Seeing that by sometimes moderating or lessening their sufferings, he grants them time to breathe. Truly for this end God meets with us in our difficulties, that then with collected strength as men refreshed, we may be the better prepared for other conflict, for future conflict. By having time to breathe we will be prepared for the trials that are coming our way. Indeed more trials are coming Joseph's ways. One of my fondest memories of a vacation was a couple of years ago, at the beginning of January in 2019. I look back often on this vacation with particular fondness, in part the fondness had to do with some fun things that I was able to do over that vacation. However much of the fondness came because I knew that when I got back to work we were going to start the Building on a Firm Foundation campaign. That was two years ago, if you if you were here for that. I knew that when I got back I would be preaching for 12 weeks straight and that I was going to have a tremendous number of various meetings. I knew that I was going to be with the congregation in different disciple groups. I knew that this time was going to be exciting, but that it was going to be a grind. So that vacation, because I knew something of the trials that were coming and the difficulty and the busyness that was coming, that vacation felt like a refuge for me. It was a time to breathe where I was able to prepare myself for the incredible workload that was coming my way. The problem, of course, is that most of the time we don't know what's coming around the corner. We don't know the trials that are headed our way. We don't know the suffering that we are about to encounter. So sometimes when we are in times that we should be savoring as times to breathe, to prepare ourselves for what's ahead, we get confused and we think well this is the way it's got to be forever and ever. We think, I've entered the happily ever after and my life will continue like this. This has to be the default setting. But for Joseph and for us, the Lord uses these times of flourishing not to sort of give us an uninterrupted time of happiness, but to remind us and to assure us that the Lord is with us in good times as well as bad. Also to give us tangible evidence for us to tuck away and store away for those times of lack, for those times of famine, for the trials ahead, to remember that the Lord is with his people throughout. What we must always remember during these times of flourishing is that the Lord will not give us this happily ever after yet, but that in these times we should be not looking for that. Instead we should be preparing ourselves for the battle that we must face. Fighting Against our Temptations So as I say Joseph has a battle to face, and this is what we come to in the second section where we see the Lord is with us when we are fighting against our temptations. Joseph suffers deeply under the temptations that he faces at the hand of his of his master's wife of Potiphar's wife. So starting in verse six we see the beginning of this second section where we read, at the end of verse six, a very interesting phrase. It says, “now Joseph was handsome in form and in appearance”, or literally this is, “Joseph was beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance.” This phrase has come up in Genesis again and again, but there's a sort of a flip to it. Usually this phrase is used of the wives of the patriarchs. It's used to describe the physical beauty of women, the wives of Abraham and Isaac. When Abraham and Isaac are particularly concerned as they go into foreign countries that the beauty of their wives will attract the attention of foreign men. Yet here it is a patriarch whose physical beauty, whose physical attractiveness, is going to attract the attention of a foreign woman, the attention of Potiphar's wife. In verse 7 we read this is exactly what happens after a time. Joseph's master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph. This is the second of the three visual evaluations of Joseph. She looked at Joseph and the results of her evaluation of Joseph are reflected clearly enough in her blunt demand found at the end of verse seven, “lie with me.” It's just two blunt Hebrew words, lie with me. Now remember when Pharaoh's eyes saw the blessing of the Lord on Joseph, he wisely promoted Joseph to a position of authority. When Potiphar's wife's eyes see the beauty of Joseph, she sinfully demands that he commit adultery with her. Now again there's a contrast. We should look between what happens with Joseph and what happens in Judah's life, which we looked at last week. Last week we said that in many ways the lives of Judah and the lives of Joseph are kind of parallel, but they are written in such a way where we see the clear contrast between the two. Judah both sinfully married a Canaanite woman in 38:2, and then he sinfully initiated hiring the services of a prostitute in verse 15, because he saw them. It was his eyes, his seeing that initiated his sin in both of those cases. Now in Joseph's case there's going to be temptations to sin because of seeing, but Joseph is not the one initiating the sin. Joseph is not doing all of this because of what he sees, rather he is the one who is suffering under this temptation because he himself is seen. So there's some parallels to what happened with Judah, but we're seeing a very clear contrast. Joseph is the innocent one, he is the one who is seen. So Potiphar's wife not only comes and demands that he lie with her, but then when we read that Joseph turns her down. That doesn't stop her, as we will see. Look at what Joseph says in verses 8 and 9. 8 But he refused and said to his master's wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. 9 He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” Genesis 39:8-9, ESV There are two really interesting things about Joseph's response. First of all we should notice that this is not part of it, but how wordy Joseph's response is in comparison to the blunt demand of Potiphar's wife. The first thing that's really interesting about this is that Joseph identifies the extraordinary blessings, the privilege, the influence that Potiphar has given him over everything in his house except for Potiphar's wife, for obvious reasons. The reason this is so remarkable is that we very often overlook our vast blessings, and we wrangle, and we become discontented at the few things that we do not have. We look at our lives and we sort of explain away the great blessings that we have, and we say but this thing I don't have and so I'm mad about that and I want to get that thing. This is actually as old as sin itself. You may remember that in the Garden of Eden our first parents were given lavish gifts by God. God said in Genesis 2:16-17, 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17, ESV So God said you shall surely eat from every tree. You can eat it all, except for this one tree, one thing is off limits. When eve began to dialogue with the serpent, with Satan, when the serpent asked her whether she wasn't allowed to eat anything she under emphasized God's goodness. She said, “well we may eat of the trees of the garden.” She didn't say, “we may surely eat of every tree”, she said “we may eat of the trees, I guess we can eat some things.” So she underemphasized God's goodness, she downplayed God's blessings, but she overemphasized the prohibition. She says, “but we may not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Neither shall we touch it lest we die.” Well God hadn't prohibited them from touching it, that was something she added. So she under emphasized God's blessings and over emphasized what was withheld from her. That was a part in leading her toward justifying, reaching out and eating from the tree that God had forbidden her. This is what still happens in our lives. We look at all the things that we have, and we downplay them and grumble at the things that we don't have. When the extreme cold came last week, was your heart filled with unending gratitude that you had power and heat and food and shelter, or did you find your time grumbling about the weather when you talked with people? Or this morning, my neighborhood had a power outage, and did I thank the Lord that that hadn't happened during the time of extreme cold? Did I thank the Lord that providentially I woke up early and was able to get dressed and ready to go before the power kicked out? Or did I grumble that I couldn't fix my normal breakfast and coffee at home? I'll be honest it was a mix of both. I had to call my wife and apologize for being a grump this morning on my way out the door. This is the way that we think. We think about all the things that we don't have, and we become discontented at the things that we don't have. Joseph shows us here a major key for fighting temptation is to keep our eyes fixed on our blessings, not on what we lack. The second thing that Joseph does to show us on how to fight temptation is that he identifies the true nature of evil. He says, “how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” What Joseph realizes is that at the end of the day, ultimately this sin is not against Potiphar's wife, not against Potiphar not against himself. Although all of those things he would be sinning against, but ultimately sin is always committed against God. Even when we think that sin will be victimless or that it will be justifiable in this world, we must remember that sin is fundamentally a direct personal rebellion against God himself. Even though God is not seen in this passage, God is unseen through most of this passage, Joseph knows that the Lord is with him and so he cannot he dare not sin against the God who sees all things. Well again Potiphar's wife doesn't quit. She hears what Joseph says, but she continues to tempt him. We read in verse 10, day after day, and then in verse 11 we read that she initiates an ambush after trying day after day and failing. Then one day when Joseph is alone in the house doing his work, and it happens that no other men of the house were there, she grabs him by his garment and she says in verse 12, “lie with me.” Joseph doesn't wait a moment, he flees the situation, runs away. She was grabbing his garment and pulls the garment off of him, so that he is running out of the house and she he still has that garment in her hand. Look at that phrase in verse 13, “as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand.” Now remember earlier that expression, in his hand, was used to describe Joseph's authority that was given to him by Potiphar over everything in Potiphar's house. Everything was put into the hand of Joseph. But now we see this expression “in her hand” as tangible proof that Joseph was worthy of that trust of Potiphar, but this also becomes the evidence that Potiphar's wife will twist to accuse Joseph falsely. That's exactly what she does. She calls then the men of the house to come to her and she points to this garment and says, And as soon as he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled and got out of the house.” Genesis 39:15, ESV What we see here as readers of this story, although this wouldn't have necessarily been apparent to those who were hearing this story, is that she has flipped the order. Originally Joseph left his garment behind when she grabbed it and then she called the men to come to her, but she's flipping the order so that we can see just how blatant her lie is, how she is twisting the evidence of Joseph's garment. When when Potiphar's wife's husband, when Potiphar comes home later she tells her husband the exact same story, in verses 17 and 18. Now once again, and we've mentioned this a few times in our study of Joseph so far, clothing again appears as an item that's used for deception. There's a long history of this in Genesis, it comes up again and again. Back in Genesis 27 Jacob, who is Joseph's father, Jacob deceived his own father Isaac, Isaac would be Joseph's grandfather, Jacob deceived Isaac by dressing up in Esau's garments. That is the same word that appears here for Joseph's garments. He dressed up in Esau's garments in order to steal from Isaac the blessing that Isaac intended to give to Jacob's brother Esau. Then in Genesis 37, Joseph's brothers deceived Jacob their father by taking Joseph's robe, his clothing. They dip it in goat's blood to trick Jacob into believing that Joseph was dead. So just as Jacob used clothes to trick his father Isaac, so Jacob's sons use clothing to trick Jacob. Then in Genesis 38 we read about how Judah, one of Joseph's brothers who had just tricked their father Jacob with clothing, was also himself tricked by Tamar. She took off the clothing, the garments of her widowhood, and dressed up as a prostitute to deceive Judah. Again, Judah had just tricked his own father this way and now he is deceived by garments, by clothing, in this way. Now once again we see Joseph, who is falsely accused because of his garments that are twisted to use as evidence against him. Now what's hard about this story is that in Jacob's case, when he was deceived by his sons, well Jacob had done the same thing earlier so there's something of a turnabout for Jacob. Then when Judah is deceived with Tamar, well he had just tricked his own father Jacob with this, so for Judah there's some turnabout for him. This is twice that garments are used against Joseph and Joseph has been innocent. This is twice that he has been the victim. Twice that his own clothes have been used against him. So this is a story that we have a very difficult time with. Hasn't Joseph already suffered enough? Here Joseph even went to great efforts to retain his innocence. He used a lot of words to try to show why this would be an evil thing, to lie with Potiphar's wife. When the ambush came, he fled from the room. Yet here again he suffers all the more by this false accusation, and so we want to know as we read this or certainly we would want to know if we ourselves were in this situation, we want to know where is the Lord in all this? Where is God? Now what this story doesn't teach us is that the Lord will necessarily intervene to prevent such things from happening. That's not what happens for Joseph and it sometimes doesn't happen for us. What this story does teach us though is that even though the Lord doesn't necessarily intervene to prevent suffering like this, that doesn't mean that the Lord is absent or that he is blind or that he is powerless. Rather the story points us in a different direction, to understand where the Lord is when we suffer. Namely this teaches us to see the Lord's presence in our suffering. Faithfulness in our Suffering So now we come to the third section where we see that the Lord is with us, by his faithfulness, in our suffering. In Joseph's life we see the Lord's faithfulness in two ways. First we see the Lord's faithfulness in verses 19 through 20, where we read that when Potiphar hears this story, and his anger is kindled. 19 As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, “This is the way your servant treated me,” his anger was kindled. 20 And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. Genesis 39:19-20, ESV Now the Lord's faithfulness appears here in the leniency, the lightness, of the punishment that Joseph receives. If Joseph has indeed attempted to rape Potiphar's wife, then Joseph should have been put to death on the spot. Again there is a comparison and a contrast to what happened in the previous chapter when Judah learned that his daughter-in-law Tamar had become pregnant by sexual immorality. He demanded in verse 24 that she be brought out to be burned death, that was the punishment that he commanded for her. Joseph here, he's innocent, but he is not put to death as he should have been, but rather he is put in the king's prison, the place for the king's prisoners. Now we don't know why this is, because Joseph doesn't really qualify for being put in this particular prison. Why the leniency? Well some people speculate that Potiphar may not have believed what his wife has told him. Again, if he should have put Joseph to death, this may be been a way of not doing nothing, not ignoring the charge against Joseph, but nevertheless not putting him to death. He may not have believed his wife's own testimony. What is certainly true is that the Lord's unseen hand is here protecting Joseph from further suffering. We see the Lord's faithfulness in preventing Joseph's suffering from going beyond a certain point. The second way we see the Lord's faithfulness is we see the explicit statement that was repeated from earlier back in verse 2, in verse 21. We read that the Lord was with Joseph and we get an expansion on that. 21 But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. Genesis 39:21, ESV This is the third visual evaluation, Potiphar saw the favor of the Lord on Joseph and so Potiphar had favor on Joseph to put all things under Joseph's charge. Potiphar's wife saw Joseph and lusted after him. Now the jailer sees Joseph, and in the assessment of the jailer, Joseph is again worthy of having all things put under Joseph's charge, into Joseph's hand. Again the Lord is faithful in the suffering of Joseph, so that Joseph flourishes in the midst of his suffering. Application Well, what should we do, how should we apply this text to our life? 1. Well the first thing that we must do is to know that the Lord is with his people the Lord is with his people. One of the great prophecies in the whole Bible comes in Isaiah 7:14, 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14, ESV That name Immanuel is the word that means God with us. The whole story, we read this a lot about at the Christmas time, to tell us that God would come to be with us. God the Son would come to be born as a human being, like us in every respect except without sin, in order to dwell with us, to be with us. When Christ came into this world he indeed was with us. He endured the most bitter suffering. He had to deal with and endure the harshest temptations and to be victorious over all of those. Then he was condemned to the most horrifying death, death on a cross, in spite of the fact that he was perfectly innocent, even beyond innocence of the temptations that Joseph experienced. Jesus was entirely innocent and nevertheless went to the cross. Indeed when our Lord Jesus went to the cross, he was forsaken at the cross. He cried out on the cross, “my God, my God why have you forsaken me?” “Why are you not with me?” Why did Jesus have to cry that out? So that we would know that God will never leave us or forsake us. Jesus asked why God had forsaken him, so that you and I would never need to ask the same question. So that we would know that forever the Lord will be with his people. The Lord was with Joseph in Joseph's suffering, the Lord was among us in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and now the Lord's Holy Spirit indwells all those who trust in Jesus Christ. So the question to ask is have you trusted Christ, or do you remain alone? The Bible promises that the Lord will be with his people and the Bible says that to all who have believed in Jesus he gave them the right to be called God's own children. Trust in the Lord and the Lord will save you by his powerful, redeeming, saving, presence. The Lord is with his people. 2. Well, the second application is that we must learn how to see the Lord's presence with us at all times. Potiphar and the jailer, and even Joseph himself, clearly saw the Lord's presence with Joseph. Joseph saw that times of flourishing and plenty were gifts from God, but he also knew that the Lord would remain with him even when those times turned to suffering and lack. As I mentioned earlier that lesson prepared him for the greatest challenge of his life, when he would have to navigate. When he would lead Egypt through in seven years of plenty, not just to enjoy them and to live for the moment, but to use those time to store away grain so that when the time of famine came, there would be enough food to feed the whole world. Well we see that Joseph was doing this in the midst of his sufferings. Joseph knew that times of flourishing were but a time to breathe. So he was storing up for himself memory, storing up for himself evidence, as food that the Lord would be with him at all times. Then when the time of famine, of increased trials and suffering, would come he would be able to draw on what he had seen of God's presence, as proof of God's goodness in the past. If the Lord was faithful to me then, the Lord will be with me now. We also see how clearly that is the case when Joseph had to fight his trials. He didn't lament how difficult his situation was, he says look at the great blessings I have. How then can I sin against God's unseen presence by doing this wicked thing? He didn't say to himself, who will ever know, but he staked his refusal to sin on God's unseen presence. Suffering, especially the suffering of temptation, often catches us off guard. Why? Well most often it's because we expect the good times of flourishing and plenty to be the normal, the default. We want a permanent happily ever after. We need to see those times to breathe. This time is to be storing up the evidence of God's grace toward us, so that when these times of trial appear we'll be ready for them, we'll be prepared, we will have reserves of memories of God's goodness stored up to get us through those difficult times. Now this doesn't mean that we shouldn't enjoy the times of plenty in fear as we wait for the other shoe to drop on us. Rather it means that we must live our lives deliberately cultivating confidence in the Lord's mercy. In good times this means we have to say to ourselves, the Lord is my shepherd there is nothing I want, I lack nothing. Then in bad times we say to ourselves, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. The Lord is with his people even in their suffering, even when they walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We must say to ourselves, the Lord has been on our side in good times and in bad and blessed be the name of the Lord. For our help is in the name of the Lord ,who made heaven and earth. I once heard a wise woman tell other believers, especially other younger women, to stop saying “what if” so often. They can stop saying, “what if this happens” or “what if that happens” or “what if this, that, or the other would happen in my life.” Rather change the language and it changes your whole perspective. Instead of saying “what if”, to say “even if”. “Even if those things happen”, “even if this, that, or the other happens”, the Lord will be with me. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil for the Lord will be with me. Brothers and sisters, we cannot gauge God's presence by whether we see times of plenty or times of lack. We cannot judge whether God is with us just by our outward circumstances, as though he's here when our lives are good, and he has somehow forsaken us when our lives are bad. We must instead learn to see that times of comfort and times of suffering as different avenues through which God expresses the fullness of his covenantal faithfulness toward us, as the Lord, as Yahweh. So wherever you are this morning, whether this is a time of plenty or whether this is a time of suffering, we must learn from this passage. If it's a time of plenty store up these times, remember it for the future. If this is a time of suffering, draw from your reserves, remember the times in the past when the Lord has been faithful. Wherever you are today, do you see the Lord's presence? That's what this story challenges us to do. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would indeed help us to see Christ and that you would help us to see the goodness of Jesus Christ who was forsaken at the cross, so that we would not be forsaken, that you would never leave us or forsake us by the presence of your Joly Spirit. So we pray for that and we pray for faith, even if and even when times become difficult. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Episode RecapIf we're going to overcome, we need to stop managing things and instead be intentional about overcoming them.Anything that would cause you to shrink back instead of step into your calling is something that is not from God and something that needs to be addressed and with faith and the help of the Holy Spirit overcome.We need to start with the right foundation. The unchanging word of God.We need to take up the mindset of, no more excuses, whatever it takes.Make it harder to fail than to succeed. (At the things you want to set out to overcome) i.e Make bad habits hard to give into. We were never meant to go through this life alone. Just like we need other people to help us and be there for us, we need to  bear each others burdens. If we stay single-minded and determined, with the help of the Holy Spirit and God's grace, we will overcome whatever it is that would try to keep us from living the lives God has for us.Verses MentionedJohn 8:36 "So if the Son sets your free, you are truly free."Isaiah 53:3-5 "He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds, we are healed."John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”Ephesians 6:12 "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."John 10:10 "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."Luke 18:1-8 "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.  He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought.  And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary. For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don't fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually come and attack me!' And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”Genesis 39:1:12  "Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.Genesis 2:18 "Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone..."

Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. 2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!” 8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. 11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. 13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.” 16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.” 19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.

THE PRINCIPLE OF KINGDOM ECONOMY AND THE CRAFTSMAN. THE JOSEPH ORDER GENESIS 39 2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. We have stepped into a new day prophetically, and we are mandated to know the requirements of the Lord as we proceed further towards the current emphasis of the Spirit. Both the redemptive and judgment of God upon the earth in the season are exposing the false and weak humanist and religious system many have accepted in place of God’s values. As the Lord continues to shake the economy of the world, which, of course, is established in mammonic, materialism spirit, heaven is introducing us again to the eternal order and the value of his economy, and as we accept this concept of life and its provisional system, we can rest assured that we will be eternally secured in the provision of the Father. The economy of our life, that of our family, and of course, that of the body of Christ and the nations is under scrutiny as we begin to feel the socioeconomic impact of the coronavirus plaque. It is critical to listen and examine what the current prophetic directive and instruction coming from the heart of God is. Clarity of understanding regarding what the spirit of God is doing through the devastation of the corona pandemic should be sought so we can be well positioned in the spirit of obedience.

Genesis 38 & 39 Judah and Tamar1 At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah. 2 There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her and made love to her; 3 she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was named Er. 4 She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan. 5 She gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him.6 Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 7 But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death.8 Then Judah said to Onan, ‘Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfil your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.’ 9 But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to avoid providing offspring for his brother. 10 What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also.11 Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, ‘Live as a widow in your father’s household until my son Shelah grows up.’ For he thought, ‘He may die too, just like his brothers.’ So Tamar went to live in her father’s household.12 After a long time Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah, to the men who were shearing his sheep, and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went with him.13 When Tamar was told, ‘Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep,’ 14 she took off her widow’s clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife.15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. 16 Not realising that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, ‘Come now, let me sleep with you.’‘And what will you give me to sleep with you?’ she asked.17 ‘I’ll send you a young goat from my flock,’ he said.‘Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?’ she asked.18 He said, ‘What pledge should I give you?’‘Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand,’ she answered. So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. 19 After she left, she took off her veil and put on her widow’s clothes again.20 Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from the woman, but he did not find her. 21 He asked the men who lived there, ‘Where is the shrine-prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?’‘There hasn’t been any shrine-prostitute here,’ they said.22 So he went back to Judah and said, ‘I didn’t find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, “There hasn’t been any shrine-prostitute here.”’23 Then Judah said, ‘Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughing-stock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn’t find her.’24 About three months later Judah was told, ‘Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.’Judah said, ‘Bring her out and let her be burned to death!’25 As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. ‘I am pregnant by the man who owns these,’ she said. And she added, ‘See if you recognise whose seal and cord and staff these are.’26 Judah recognised them and said, ‘She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.’ And he did not sleep with her again.27 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 28 As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, ‘This one came out first.’ 29 But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, ‘So this is how you have broken out!’ And he was named Perez. 30 Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out. And he was named Zerah.Genesis 39Joseph and Potiphar’s wife1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favour in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, ‘Come to bed with me!’8 But he refused. ‘With me in charge,’ he told her, ‘my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?’ 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even to be with her.11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, ‘Come to bed with me!’ But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. ‘Look,’ she said to them, ‘this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.’16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: ‘That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.’19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, ‘This is how your slave treated me,’ he burned with anger. 20 Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favour in the eyes of the prison warder. 22 So the warder put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warder paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.

Genesis 39:1-6 New International Version (NIV)Joseph and Potiphar’s WifeNow Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.Now Joseph was well-built and handsome,

Hurt and ForgivenessGen 37-50 Life of JosephOctober 13, 2019I. Introduction:A. Baby Announcement - Grayson Gary Borger was born September 26 to Matt andLexi. The proud grandparents are Gary and Tami Reyna. The proud greatgrandparents are Don and Sharon Couwenhoven.B. Today’s sermon is my most direct response to the Father’s Day sermon I gave ayear and a half ago about those who did not have a good relationship with theirparents. But the truths we learn from today’s message will apply to anyone whohas been hurt by someone, whether a parent, a mate, a trusted friend or even astranger! The various kinds of damage to the human soul still linger long after theevents took place.C. The struggle is real and the pain is especially deep for those who have been hurtby who is supposed to love you like a mate, parent, sibling, trusted friend, etc.D. The goal of my message today is learn how to turn “victims” of people’s sinsagainst them into a “victors” over that sin!• This morning I want to jump-start the process of healing by showing you threelessons from the life of Joseph that turns victims into victors. Let’s start by seeinghow …II. Joseph was a VictimA. The first happened to Joseph when he was 17 years old. God had shown him in adream that someday he would rule over the rest of his family. When he sharedthis dream with his family, it was not received very well.1. One day when his brothers were out in the field with the flocks they sawJoseph coming towards them and they plotted together to kill him.2. Eventually rather than killing him, they sold him as a slave to someIshmaelite foreigners who were passing by on their way to Egypt.3. When these Ishmaelites reached Egypt, they sold Joseph to an Egyptianofficer named Potiphar, who was the captain of the bodyguard.4. So Joseph was literally sold into slavery by his own family.B. Potiphar’s Wife1. God was with Joseph and all that he did prospered. So Potiphar put him incharge over everything that he owned.2. Now Joseph was a handsome man and Potiphar’s wife desired to sleep withhim. Day after day, she offered herself to Joseph but he refused her offers.3. One day Potiphar’s wife was tired of his rejections and grabbed his garmentas he was running away, and she made up a story that he tried to rape her.Because her lie, Joseph actually ended up in jail!C. While in jail through a long chain of events, Joseph ended up interpreting thedream of one of the king’s servants who was in jail with him.1. Joseph asked only one request, he asked the cup bearer that when it went wellwith him to remember to mention Joseph to Pharaoh so he could get out ofthe jail2. Well the cupbearer forgot to mention Joseph to the Pharaoh and he spent twomore years in jail because of this man’s neglect and forgetfulness.3. Eventually Joseph got out by God giving him the wisdom he needed tointerpret the Pharaoh’s dream.D. The point is this, over a 13-year period from the age of 17 to 30; Joseph threetimes had to bear the severe consequences of someone else’s sin or neglect.• But what we learn from Joseph’s life are the lessons that turn a victim into a victor.The first lesson we can learn from Joseph isIII. Seeking God in the midst of your painA. Read Gen 41:50-52B. Now we know from the story as it goes on that Joseph did not forget the details ofwhat happened to him.1. So forget is not used in the sense that God wiped the memory of the situationclean from his mind,2. Rather what happened to him was that God had broken the power of thatsituation controlling and enslaving his mind.C. Note that it was “God” who made him forget, and it was “God” who made himfruitful. Reread v51 & 52 emphasizing “God”1. It is important that we get face to face with God in the midst of our pain andallow Him to do His work of healing us, breaking the power of that memoryand using our life and pain to bring glory to Him and blessing to others.2. When God meets us in our pain and messes as someone has said, “our messbecome our message!” that God uses to bring life and grace to othersD. I mentioned last week that when we seek God in the places He is working(programs, services, etc.) and deeply depend upon Him miracles happen! I call itDD & DD. Due diligence on our part and deep dependence upon God1. At Next Steps Table pick up resource cards!2. This last week Emotional Resilience started and I was excited that some 80people have put themselves in a place where God can work3. This coming week on Thursday Night starts Celebrate Recovery, which isspecifically designed to help people who are struggling with hurts, hang-ups,habits and addictions from eating to drugs and everything in between. Oftenaddictions are used to medicate our depression and emotions. Information isavailable at the Next Steps table – Jeff Janulis¨ So the first thing we need to do is position ourselves to involve God in our pain andonce we do that we are ready for the second lesson which is …IV. Seeing God’s purposes in your painA. Joseph saw God’s sovereignty and purposes in the terrible sin that his brotherscommitted against him.1. Listen to what happened when Joseph first revealed to his brothers who hewas. Read Gen 45:5-8a.B. Many people that I have met who have been seriously sinned against are stillseeing and interpreting their life through the lens of the sins against them.C. When God is working in our hearts, we begin to see life from a completely newperspective. We begin to see it from God’s viewpoint rather than our own. Webegin to understand that there is more going on in my life than what meets theeye. There is a larger story going on than that of which I am aware.• Illustrate the tapestry and my ability to see only a small piece of it and onlythe backside of it that looks very messy.D. Let me suggest two things that we know from Scripture that God is doing. Weknow that there are more, but these are two major ones that have applications toeach of our lives.1. Rom 8:28-29– conform us to the image of Jesus Christ.2. Two Cor 4:7-10– manifest the indwelling life of Christ through us.¨ Once we learn to experience God in the midst of our pain,which allows us to see God’s purpose in our pain, then the finallesson on turning a victim into a victor is …V. Forgiving the offenderA. Read Gen 50:15-21B. Forgiveness is essential to experiencing the deep healing within our souls. Yet itis such a struggle as 2 Cor 2:10-11 tells us that we need to forgive lest Satan takeadvantage of us because we are not ignorant of Satan’s schemes! Satan shots hispoison into our hearts through un-forgiveness and compounds the struggle!C. The hardest part of forgiveness for me is when the person who hurt me does notacknowledge they did it or does not apologize for what they have done. Ifsomeone apologizes normally, God gives me quick grace to forgive. But what dowe do with those who have not:1. As I wrestled with forgiving someone who hurt me and did not acknowledgeit or apologize to me. God spoke me through Jesus on the cross when Hesaid, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing” –a) Jesus forgave without anyone asking for forgiveness oracknowledgement of their wrong doingb) I could no longer hold out for an apology or acknowledgement – Ineeded to forgive without that.2. Last week we talked about two thingsa) Room of grace – depend on Jesus for strength and next steps –(1) It is not a program to follow or a principle to learn but a person, theSavior, Jesus that gives us the ability and wisdom we need to walkthrough this!b) When we take a radical honest look in our hearts we see helplessness –bigger than me, smarter than I am smart and stronger than I am strong –(1) So I need to turn to Jesus to show me what I need to do next andgive me the strength to forgive!D. Let me tell my story and how God met me on the issue of unforgiveness that wascontrolling my heart towards those who hurt me!1. I was at a conference when the speaker told his story of his need to forgivesome people that deeply hurt him. Afterwards the host of the conferencechallenged us and gave us some time to examine our own hearts and the needto forgive.2. That time with the Lord at the end of that message ended up being four hourslong and my missing the entire afternoon session.E. As I met with God that afternoon, He placed in my heart an image that set me freeand I have been free now for over ten years. This is what God spoke to me aboutthat day:1. Need to hand over to God the “papers”, the ‘blood stained’ papers that haveall the offenses on it that this person has committed against me. That bloodstained list with “paid in full” written over it with Jesus’ blood. (Yes, theyare guilty as charged but Jesus paid for it in full.)2. Get the keys from God, go to the prison of my heart, and open up the prison.Then go back to the torture chamber of my heart where I have been mentallyand emotionally beating them up and making them pay for what they havedone to me, and set them free3. Next, I needed to go over to the judgment stand where I had been hurlingaccusations at them and set them free from my judgments and from thinkingevil about them.4. Thank God, for the relationship I did have with this person and the blessingthey were to me.5. Thank God, that He will use their wrong against me and all the pain that hasbrought for a good purpose in my life.6. Confess my sin of unforgiveness as being as great of a sin as what they didagainst me7. Resist the Devil from taking any further ground in my heart from myunforgiveness8. Pray a blessing for that person for their life.9. Do all of this in Jesus’ name trusting Him to enable me for this.E. Working through all these people, I had never forgiven and God genuinely settingme free took about six weeks of going through this process. With each person Ijournaled before the Lord about each different person or groups of people as toexactly what they did and what I did and how I respondedVI. ConclusionA. Turn to Psalm 1231. Note the contempt in his soul. Read 3-42. But that contempt was placed on him by others3. He is not saying it is his contempt for others that fills his soul but thecontempt that others placed on him. Modern day translation, “These peoplehave crapped on me and now I am full of their crap!”B. How do I get rid of this crap in my heart? How do I release this from my heart?1. Listen to 3a – God’s grace – only God can do this – it is a gift from God2. Read v1-23. The same way a servant looks to the hand of their master for direction andprovision we must look to God for direction and provision until He providesit!a) We need to continually look to, rely upon, call upon and wait for theLord until He gives us the grace to forgive and let it go!

Week 2 – Jeff Maness – October 21, 2018 Some people say that everything rises and falls on leadership, but I believe that everything, including leadership, rises and falls on purity. Through the story of Joseph in Scripture, we see a perfect example of how the progress you make in your purpose is directly linked to the purity you choose to pursue. My Declaration: Purity Big Idea: The progress you make in your purpose is directly linked to the purity you choose to pursue. 2 Peter 1:3 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly (pure) life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. Big Question: How do we pursue purity in our purpose? Main Scripture: Genesis 39:6-12 Free YouVersion Bible app events search “Element Church WY” Genesis 39:6-9 6 So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn't worry about a thing—except what kind of food to eat! Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man, 7 and Potiphar's wife soon began to look at him lustfully. “Come and sleep with me,” she demanded. 8 But Joseph refused. “Look,” he told her, “my master trusts me with everything in his entire household. 9 No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God.” 1. Recognize what I'm after “How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God.” Genesis 39:10 10 She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible. 2. Refuse to even get close Proverbs 5:7-8 7 So now, my sons, listen to me. Never stray from what I am about to say: 8 Stay away from her (immorality)! Don't go near the door of her house! Genesis 39:11-12 11 One day, however, no one else was around when he went in to do his work. 12 She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, “Come on, sleep with me!” Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house. 3. Resolve to do whatever it takes Psalm 105:19 19 Until the time came to fulfill his dreams (purpose), the Lord tested Joseph's character.

1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. 2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!” 8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. 11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. 13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.” 16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.Genesis 39:1-20 NIV

Genesis 39 (NIV)Joseph and Potiphar's Wife1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.Genesis 40 (NIV)The Cupbearer and the Baker1 Some time later, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt. 2 Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, 3 and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the same prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he attended them.After they had been in custody for some time, 5 each of the two men—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were being held in prison—had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own.6 When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they were dejected. 7 So he asked Pharaoh's officials who were in custody with him in his master's house, “Why do you look so sad today?”8 “We both had dreams,” they answered, “but there is no one to interpret them.”Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”9 So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. He said to him, “In my dream I saw a vine in front of me, 10 and on the vine were three branches. As soon as it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh's cup and put the cup in his hand.”12 “This is what it means,” Joseph said to him. “The three branches are three days. 13 Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will put Pharaoh's cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. 14 But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. 15 I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.”16 When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: On my head were three baskets of bread.[a] 17 In the top basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”18 “This is what it means,” Joseph said. “The three baskets are three days. 19 Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head and impale your body on a pole. And the birds will eat away your flesh.”20 Now the third day was Pharaoh's birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials: 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh's hand— 22 but he impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.23 The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.Footnotes:Genesis 40:16 Or three wicker baskets

Genesis 39 (NIV)Joseph and Potiphar's Wife1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.Genesis 40 (NIV)The Cupbearer and the Baker1 Some time later, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt. 2 Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, 3 and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the same prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he attended them.After they had been in custody for some time, 5 each of the two men—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were being held in prison—had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own.6 When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they were dejected. 7 So he asked Pharaoh's officials who were in custody with him in his master's house, “Why do you look so sad today?”8 “We both had dreams,” they answered, “but there is no one to interpret them.”Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”9 So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. He said to him, “In my dream I saw a vine in front of me, 10 and on the vine were three branches. As soon as it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh's cup and put the cup in his hand.”12 “This is what it means,” Joseph said to him. “The three branches are three days. 13 Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will put Pharaoh's cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. 14 But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. 15 I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.”16 When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: On my head were three baskets of bread.[a] 17 In the top basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”18 “This is what it means,” Joseph said. “The three baskets are three days. 19 Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head and impale your body on a pole. And the birds will eat away your flesh.”20 Now the third day was Pharaoh's birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials: 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh's hand— 22 but he impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.23 The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.Footnotes:Genesis 40:16 Or three wicker baskets

Genesis 39 (NIV) Joseph and Potiphar's Wife 1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. 2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!” 8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. 11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. 13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.” 16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.” 19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. Genesis 40 (NIV) The Cupbearer and the Baker 1 Some time later, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt. 2 Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, 3 and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the same prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he attended them. After they had been in custody for some time, 5 each of the two men—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were being held in prison—had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own. 6 When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they were dejected. 7 So he asked Pharaoh's officials who were in custody with him in his master's house, “Why do you look so sad today?” 8 “We both had dreams,” they answered, “but there is no one to interpret them.” Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.” 9 So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. He said to him, “In my dream I saw a vine in front of me, 10 and on the vine were three branches. As soon as it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh's cup and put the cup in his hand.” 12 “This is what it means,” Joseph said to him. “The three branches are three days. 13 Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will put Pharaoh's cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. 14 But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. 15 I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.” 16 When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: On my head were three baskets of bread.[a] 17 In the top basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.” 18 “This is what it means,” Joseph said. “The three baskets are three days. 19 Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head and impale your body on a pole. And the birds will eat away your flesh.” 20 Now the third day was Pharaoh's birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials: 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh's hand— 22 but he impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation. 23 The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him. Footnotes: Genesis 40:16 Or three wicker baskets

Genesis 38 (NIV)Judah and Tamar1 At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah. 2 There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her and made love to her; 3 she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was named Er. 4 She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan. 5 She gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him.6 Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 7 But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the Lord's sight; so the Lord put him to death.8 Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” 9 But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. 10 What he did was wicked in the Lord's sight; so the Lord put him to death also.11 Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father's household until my son Shelah grows up.” For he thought, “He may die too, just like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father's household.12 After a long time Judah's wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah, to the men who were shearing his sheep, and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went with him.13 When Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep,” 14 she took off her widow's clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife.15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. 16 Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.”“And what will you give me to sleep with you?” she asked.17 “I'll send you a young goat from my flock,” he said.“Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?” she asked.18 He said, “What pledge should I give you?”“Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand,” she answered. So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. 19 After she left, she took off her veil and put on her widow's clothes again.20 Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from the woman, but he did not find her. 21 He asked the men who lived there, “Where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?”“There hasn't been any shrine prostitute here,” they said.22 So he went back to Judah and said, “I didn't find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, ‘There hasn't been any shrine prostitute here.'”23 Then Judah said, “Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn't find her.”24 About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.”Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!”25 As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. “I am pregnant by the man who owns these,” she said. And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.”26 Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn't give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again.27 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 28 As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.” 29 But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez.[a] 30 Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out. And he was named Zerah.[b]Genesis 39 (NIV)Joseph and Potiphar's Wife1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.Footnotes:Genesis 38:29 Perez means breaking out.Genesis 38:30 Zerah can mean scarlet or brightness.

Genesis 38 (NIV)Judah and Tamar1 At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah. 2 There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her and made love to her; 3 she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was named Er. 4 She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan. 5 She gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him.6 Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 7 But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the Lord's sight; so the Lord put him to death.8 Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” 9 But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. 10 What he did was wicked in the Lord's sight; so the Lord put him to death also.11 Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father's household until my son Shelah grows up.” For he thought, “He may die too, just like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father's household.12 After a long time Judah's wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah, to the men who were shearing his sheep, and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went with him.13 When Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep,” 14 she took off her widow's clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife.15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. 16 Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.”“And what will you give me to sleep with you?” she asked.17 “I'll send you a young goat from my flock,” he said.“Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?” she asked.18 He said, “What pledge should I give you?”“Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand,” she answered. So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. 19 After she left, she took off her veil and put on her widow's clothes again.20 Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from the woman, but he did not find her. 21 He asked the men who lived there, “Where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?”“There hasn't been any shrine prostitute here,” they said.22 So he went back to Judah and said, “I didn't find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, ‘There hasn't been any shrine prostitute here.'”23 Then Judah said, “Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn't find her.”24 About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.”Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!”25 As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. “I am pregnant by the man who owns these,” she said. And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.”26 Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn't give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again.27 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 28 As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.” 29 But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez.[a] 30 Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out. And he was named Zerah.[b]Genesis 39 (NIV)Joseph and Potiphar's Wife1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.Footnotes:Genesis 38:29 Perez means breaking out.Genesis 38:30 Zerah can mean scarlet or brightness.

Genesis 38 (NIV) Judah and Tamar 1 At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah. 2 There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her and made love to her; 3 she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was named Er. 4 She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan. 5 She gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him. 6 Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 7 But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the Lord's sight; so the Lord put him to death. 8 Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” 9 But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. 10 What he did was wicked in the Lord's sight; so the Lord put him to death also. 11 Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father's household until my son Shelah grows up.” For he thought, “He may die too, just like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father's household. 12 After a long time Judah's wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah, to the men who were shearing his sheep, and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went with him. 13 When Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep,” 14 she took off her widow's clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife. 15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. 16 Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.” “And what will you give me to sleep with you?” she asked. 17 “I'll send you a young goat from my flock,” he said. “Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?” she asked. 18 He said, “What pledge should I give you?” “Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand,” she answered. So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. 19 After she left, she took off her veil and put on her widow's clothes again. 20 Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from the woman, but he did not find her. 21 He asked the men who lived there, “Where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?” “There hasn't been any shrine prostitute here,” they said. 22 So he went back to Judah and said, “I didn't find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, ‘There hasn't been any shrine prostitute here.'” 23 Then Judah said, “Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn't find her.” 24 About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.” Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!” 25 As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. “I am pregnant by the man who owns these,” she said. And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.” 26 Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn't give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again. 27 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 28 As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.” 29 But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez.[a] 30 Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out. And he was named Zerah.[b] Genesis 39 (NIV) Joseph and Potiphar's Wife 1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. 2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!” 8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. 11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. 13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.” 16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.” 19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. Footnotes: Genesis 38:29 Perez means breaking out. Genesis 38:30 Zerah can mean scarlet or brightness.

39 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. 2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!” 8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. 11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. 13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.” 16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.” 19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.

Genesis 39:6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!” 8 But he […]