Joseph - Faith Under Pressure

June 22, 2003, 8:00, 9:30, 11:00 AM

Rev. Ronald Burcham

Typed from audio transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The next time you think that you're having a bad day; I want you to read Genesis 37 and read about Joseph. The next time that you think your older siblings are picking on you just a little bit too much, I want you to read Genesis 37. The next time you say to yourself, "Man, the kids just don't get along with one another," I want you to read about Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 37. Talk about a man who was having a bad day. It's hard to top Joseph's bad day. Here is a kid 17 years old who's sent out to spy on his brothers. It's nothing less than that. He'd proven himself a worthy spy before because, when he was out tending the flocks, he came back to Dad and said, "Pops, you better watch those other sons of yours because they're sleeping on the job. They're not doing such terrific work out there." So now the 17-year-old kid is being sent out again, 17?year?old boy who's the favorite son of his father and a father who unashamedly shows his favoritism to this boy, who gives him this richly ornamented coat so that he can flaunt it in front of his older brothers. He sends him out to check on them. Nothing less than sending a lamb out to a pack of wolves.

So here comes Joseph. He starts out the day on top of the world. He's not out in some distant land with the flocks. He's Number 1 son at home. He's going to keep the books for everything else. So he heads out with his nice coat and his good clothes to check on his brothers. He's on top of the world. Before the day is done, his nice coat will be ripped from him and he will be thrown into a cistern that maybe or maybe not his brothers knew didn't have any water in it and then yanked back out thinking they had a change of heart only to be sold off into slavery to go into a foreign land where he had never been before. Talk about a bad day. We will learn in the next few weeks that it goes from bad to worse for Joseph. Each time he thinks things are looking up, the rug gets pulled out from under him again and he hits rock bottom. But the amazing thing about Joseph is his unwavering faith. No matter how stressful the situation, no matter how bad the circumstances are, no matter how much pressure he's put under, he has a strong and committed faith. He can serve as an inspiration for us. He can serve as an example for us of how to maintain faith under pressure because, yes, Joseph had a bad day but I know that you've had bad days too. Joseph had to live with some pretty bad circumstances, but you have to live with bad circumstances. You have those times that are stressful. You have those times when there's a lot of pressure on. Maybe it's the pressure of just trying to manage a busy household. Maybe it's the pressure of trying to find your way through in the proper career path. Maybe it's just struggling through school and trying to balance that with sports and friends and everything else. But, as Joseph was a man under pressure, he kept his faith. So also we, when we're under pressure, can keep our faith.

In fact, I'd like to suggest three questions to ask yourself. You can ask them anytime but especially in those stressful times, in those bad circumstances, three questions to help you make it through and not just make it through but come out on the other end stronger than what you were at the beginning. The first question to ask yourself is, "What do I need to let go of?" What is it that I need to let go of in my life, that I just have to let it go? If we read from John 15, Jesus is talking to His disciples and He says, "I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch that doesn't bear fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes so that it can be even more fruitful." Jesus is saying there are times when we need to let go of something, where things are going to happen in our life, situations, circumstances where God is going to prune us. We have faith in Him, we trust in Him, but there are times we need to let go of some things, let go of something that stands in the way between us and God, between us and our faith being even stronger and deeper than it was before.

We could ask the question of Joseph. What did Joseph need to let go of? Did Joseph need pruning by God? Scripture is kind of silent about it, but I think we can read between the lines just a little bit. Now picture this: He has all these brothers. He's the youngest and yet he's the favorite. And it's obvious that he's the favorite because Dad has made no bones about it that Joseph is Number 1 son. So I ask you, was it really necessary for Joseph to tell his dream to his brothers about how all of them were going to bow down to him? And after their reaction, was it really necessary to tell them then the second dream to confirm the fact that they were all just down there someplace and Joseph was up here someplace? The other question I have is, if he's going to make a trip across country to visit them, couldn't you wear a traveling coat? Did you really need to put on the fancy duds that your father just gave you? They don't have anything like it, so he sports his new coat as he heads off to check on his brothers. Did he really need to do that? Now I know I'm reading between the lines, but maybe Joseph needed to let go of a few things. Maybe Joseph needed to let go of some arrogance. Maybe he needed to let go of some of his ego and some of his conceit about being Number 1 son. Maybe that's how God was pruning him when he got tossed into the cistern, when he got sold to the Ishmaelites. Was God showing him that maybe he's not quite as important as he thought he was, a little bit of pruning going on?

And then the obvious question is, "Does any pruning need to happen in your life?" Is there something that you need to let go of? If Jesus is the vine and we're the branches, because of our faith connection to Him, because we've experienced His forgiveness, because we've tasted His love and we know the promise of His salvation, because we're connected to the vine, we're one of those branches and we're bearing fruit, we're letting our faith be shown, do we need to be pruned every now and then so that we can bear even more fruit, so that we can work even more in God's kingdom and bring more glory to Him? Sometimes you need to ask yourself the question, "What do I need to let go of?" What's standing between my relationship with God and me? Is there something stopping, prohibiting me from trusting Him completely, wholeheartedly? Have I been thinking more of myself than I should instead of thinking about God and all that He's doing in my life? Is there something that you need to let go of? Is there something standing in the way? It's an extremely important question but especially in those circumstances and those situations of life that just aren't real pleasant, the stressful times, the times when all the pressure is on. The first question to ask is, "What do I need to let go of? What's standing between God and me?"

The second question you ask yourself is, "Where is the real source of my strength? Where is it that I get my strength? Where is it that I have this power in my life?" Now we all know the answer to that. We know that God is the source of that power in our lives, but do we acknowledge it? Do we make ourselves aware of the fact that it is God's strength, God's power? 2 Corinthians has a great passage in Chapter 4. It says, "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God, not from us. We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed." The real power in our lives is the fact that Jesus Christ lives in us, that His spirit has engulfed in our heart and He is that power source that all of us can rely upon. St. Paul says it's as if we by ourselves are nothing more than a clay pot. Well, think about a clay pot. It's pretty fragile, isn't it? If you throw it on the ground, it will shatter. I suppose if you pressed hard enough on the sides, then it would crack and break apart. A clay pot is not what you would call sturdy. So St. Paul says we're like clay pots. We're not very strong, but what's inside us is what makes the difference, the all-surpassing power of God inside us. That's evidenced in Joseph's life. There is no way that Joseph could have made it through all of the circumstances of his life on his own. There's no way that he could go from being Number 1 son having a luxurious life, having to take it easy to being thrown into a pit, carted off to Egypt, sold into slavery, and, if that's not enough, we'll read next week that he's unjustly accused of trying to fool around with his boss's wife, so he gets thrown into prison. Just when he thinks he's going to come out of prison, the rug gets pulled out again and he sits there for another two years before he's ever released. There is no way that Joseph could do that on his own. As we read through the account of Joseph in 37, 39, 40, 41, we see God's power active in his life. We see God giving him just what he needed at just the right time. It was the all-surpassing power of God that enabled him to make it through all of that and do some incredible things in God's kingdom.

It's that same power that you have available to you. The question that you ask yourself, especially when you feel beaten down, especially when you think that you can't go on anymore, that if the next shoe drops, that's it, you're going to call it quits, when life is really treating you bad, you ask yourself, "But where does my strength come from? Where is my power source?" If it's just ourselves, we're lost. But it's not. It's God. We can be hard pressed. We can be perplexed. We can even be abandoned and struck down, but we can never be destroyed. And knowing that God's power is available to us, that His spirit lives in our hearts, we can face any and every situation with confidence, confidence knowing that we will make it through to the other end. It's an acknowledgement. Make the acknowledgement that it's not of your own power, but it's God's power in your life.

The last question to ask yourself is, "How is God preparing me for something bigger? How is God preparing me for something bigger that He wants me to accomplish?" You see, God has plans for all of us. Jeremiah 29:11 says, "I know the plans I have for you," says God, "plans to prosper you." Or in Ephesians 2:10, it says, "You are God's workmanship created in Christ for good works, which He set aside from the beginning of time for you to do." God has plans for you, individual plans for you in His kingdom. He has something He wants you to accomplish, and He is going to spend time preparing you so that you can accomplish it. So you don't ask the question, "What is God preparing me to do?" Because we won't know. Instead, how is God preparing me? We have the advantage of looking back at Joseph's life. We can see how God was preparing him each step along the way so that he could do some incredible things, that He threw him in the cistern for a reason, that He sold him off into slavery in Egypt for a reason, that He kept him in prison for a reason, that He then stood before Pharaoh for a reason. Why? Because this group of people that God has chosen, this family that God had chosen through Abraham and now He was building a nation, if Joseph wouldn't have been in Egypt, they all would have died of starvation because of the drought that was going to hit for seven years. But God, years in advance, was getting Joseph ready so that he would be in this position of power, so that he would store up the grain, so that he could bring his family over to Egypt and, all of a sudden, Israel would become a mighty nation in this foreign land. Why? Because God took Joseph each step along the way. So Joseph would ask himself how? How is God preparing me and, more importantly than that, how can I make the most of this situation? That we can see evidenced in Joseph's life. Joseph is sold into slavery. He could have gone into depression. He could have called it quits. But he didn't. He made the most of the situation. Scripture tells us that he rose through the ranks until no one was more trusted in Potiphar's household except for Joseph. He was the Number 1 man of that household. He was asking, "How can I make the most of this situation?" When he's thrown in prison, everything taken from him, scripture again tells us that he made the most of the situation, rising again so that no other prisoner was trusted as much as Joseph. He asked himself, "How can I make the most of it?" And when Pharaoh appointed him to the position of being at his right hand, Joseph said, "How can I make the most of this situation? How is God preparing me for something bigger?"

Ask yourself that question. Ask it today. Ask it when things are going bad and when things are going good. How is God preparing me for something in the future? How can I make the most of this situation so that when God calls upon me I'm ready to act? I'm ready to work in His kingdom. I'm ready to see some incredible results of God working through me.

Three questions. Three questions to ask ourselves all the time but especially when our faith is under pressure, especially when times get stressful. What is it that I need to let go of? Where is my true source of power? And how is God preparing me for something bigger?

We can look for inspiration to Joseph and see how God worked through his life, and then we can look into our own lives and see how God has worked through the years for you. Faith under pressure. God won't let us down. He'll prune us when we need to be. He'll show us His power and strength. And when the time is right, He'll show us how He prepared us for this moment at this time and this place. Amen.

Copyright 2003 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church