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.