Joseph and the Faithfulness of God
Posted by Aaron on November 1, 2009
Had a good class yesterday in the Jr. High and High School group at Life Cathedral (my home church). We did our last lesson in the book of Genesis. We had been going through the book looking at some of the major characters and events and looking at God through those characters and events. It was a good series that revealed a lot about God.
Yesterday we looked at Joseph, son of Jacob. We looked at how throughout his whole life he was faithful to God. While working for Potiphar, as a slave sold by his brothers, he worked diligently and God blessed him. God’s blessing on Joseph was so apparent that Potiphar, an unbeliever, saw it and placed Joseph over all his possessions. He essentially was the second most powerful man in Potiphar’s house. Then he had some problems with Potiphar’s wife, she wanted to sleep with Joseph and he refused. She then trumped up false rape charges and had him put in prison.
While in prison Joseph continued to love and serve God by being the best prisoner he could be. Odd, isn’t it. He was so reliable and trustworthy that the guard put him in charge of the prison. You know you’re trustworthy when you’re in prison and they give you the keys. While there he interpreted the dream of the Pharaoh’s cup-bearer, telling him that in 3 days time he would recieve his job back (the poor baker jumped at getting his dream interpreted, only to find out he was to be killed on the same day). It happened just as Joseph had predicted, and after a couple years Pharaoh had a dream and the cup-bearer remembered Joseph. Pharaoh had Joseph brought to him to interpret his dream and Joseph predicted 7 years of plenty, followed immediately by 7 years of famine in the whole region. Pharaoh was so pleased by Joseph and God working through him that Joseph was raised to power a third time, this time above all on the earth save for Pharaoh himself.
Throughout his whole life Joseph, though he was not sinless, kept himself in the place where God could bless. Joseph was faithful to God and his master, and even though things didn’t always go the way he would have preferred, Joseph was blessed by God, and in his humility was raised to power. The same is still true today, if you want God to bless you, you have to put yourself in the place where God can bless. Our sins prevent God from blessing us with things he intended for us. King David was forbidden from building God’s Temple (would have been a great honor and blessing) because of the blood that was on his hands. God has great things for us but if we live a life of unrepentant sin, even as “Christians”, then He will withhold some of his blessings because He cannot bless sin. Blessing sin wouldn’t encourage us to stop, therefore God won’t do it.
We aren’t perfect, and never will be. The idea isn’t to be perfect, but faithful. Faithful means that we try not to sin, but when we do, we repent and give it to Jesus. He died so we could put sin to death, not so we could wallow in it. He died to reconcile our relationship with God, and so we could be opened up to the blessings of life with God.
Thank you Jesus that you loved us enough to shed your blood for us, undeserving sinners. Thank you for giving us your Holy Spirit who enables us to say no to sin and yes to You. I praise you for what you have done, and as that you continue to refine us to be more like you. Amen.
