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Run Away From Your Problems |
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Written by Pastor Darrell Cooper
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Friday, 06 March 2009 10:13 |
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Genesis 39:1-20
January 18, 2009 - Lindsborg Cov.
“Run Away From Your Problems”
(Faithful, Holy Living)
Sermon
If you were here last week you might remember that Pastor Jeff told the story of when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Which is particularly baffling when you consider that God had already promised that it would be through Isaac that God would produce many descendants, too numerous to count. And it would be through the line of Isaac that the whole world would be blessed.
Well, in the end it all turned out to just be a test. It was a test to see if Abraham really trusted God. So, Isaac grew up and married Rebekah and they had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Now, from the very beginning there was a bitter rivalry between these two brothers, fueled in part by the fact that Isaac favored Esau and Rebekah favored Jacob. Interestingly enough, God too favored Jacob, and chose Jacob’s line as the one through whom the whole world would be blessed.
So it is a bit ironic, I think, that Jacob turns out to be a rather conniving younger brother. For example, at one point he took advantage of his brother’s weakness and purchased the family birthright. Later on he outright stole his brother’s blessing and so he was forced to run for his very life.
While he was far away from the family, living in exile, Jacob married two sisters, Leah, whom he did not love, and Rachel, whom he did love. To make a long story short, between these two wives and their two maidservants, Jacob had 13 children, 12 sons and one daughter. How would you like to be that little girl?
The Joseph was the 11th son born to Jacob. Because Joseph was born in Jacob’s old age and doubtless because he was the firstborn of his favorite wife, Rachel, Joseph was his favorite son as well. He made no secret of this at all. In fact, he very clearly exalted Joseph above the status of his ten older brothers, which only served to embitter them against him. They hated Joseph, and their jealousy and resentment only grew and festered for years until they had finally had enough.
One day, as they were far away from dad watching over the family flocks in the fields, they saw an opportunity. Here came little brother, Joseph, to check on them. They seized Joseph and then argued among themselves, “Should we kill him now, or just sell him into slavery?” They opted for the latter. So, they sold Joseph to their distant cousins, to a group of Ishmaelites who happened to be traveling by.
The Ishmaelites carried him down to Egypt where they sold Joseph on the open slave market. And this brings us to our story today. Joseph was purchased by a man named Potiphar, who happened to be a very high-ranking official in the Egyptian government.
Potiphar purchased Joseph to be a household servant, but very quickly he noticed something very strange. Everything Joseph touched turned to gold. He could not seem to fail at anything. Joseph did everything with excellence. So, Potiphar started assigning him more and more responsibility and observed carefully that his entire household began to prosper. Even his crops in the field were blessed, and Potiphar realized that it was all because of Joseph. So, Potiphar promoted Joseph and made him the head servant over his entire household. In fact, he placed absolutely everything under Joseph’s management. The only decision he reserved for himself was what he would eat for supper. He utterly ignored everything that was placed under Joseph’s charge because he trusted Joseph implicitly.
But Joseph was cursed. Joseph was cursed because he looked like Brad Pitt. OK, that is not exactly how the Bible describes him. It actually says that he was well-built and handsome, a terrible curse with which many of us men would love to be afflicted. But in Joseph’s case, it really did turn out to be something of a curse because Potiphar’s wife could not help but notice.
Now, Potiphar’s wife was a loose and unscrupulous woman. She was quite brazen in her advances to Joseph. She was not subtle in her propositions at all. She flatly said, “Come to bed with me!”
Joseph rebuffed her advances, saying, “No, I will not do that, because my master, your husband, has put me in charge of his entire household. He trusts me and has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against my God?” And Joseph tried to avoid her from then on.
But Potiphar’s wife was not one to take no for an answer. Perhaps she saw it as a challenge because she tried to seduce him day after day. Every day she pursued him, inviting him into her bed.
Then one day Joseph went into the house to do his chores and he noticed that it was strangely quiet inside. None of the other servants seemed to be around. Suddenly, Potiphar’s wife comes around the corner dressed suggestively. She grabbed Joseph’s clothes and began dragging him toward the bedroom, saying in a seductive voice, “Come to bed with me!”
Joseph freaked out. She had a strong grip on his clothes so he could not get away, so he wiggled out of his cloak and ran out of the house and stayed out of the house. When she saw that she had been spurned, she screamed at the top of her voice, “Rape! Rape!” This, of course, brought the other household servants on the run and she told them, “That Hebrew slave came in here while I was alone and tried to rape me! When I screamed he panicked and ran out of the house, but he left his cloak here with me.”
She kept Joseph’s cloak with her until her husband got home from work that night and then she told him the same pack of lies. Potiphar was enraged and threw Joseph into prison, where he stayed for years.
Now, there are so many things we can learn from the life of Joseph in these last chapters of Genesis. But from today’s story I want to look at only two.
The first life lesson from today’s passage is how Joseph handled temptation. If you were here two weeks ago you might remember that we talked about Adam and Eve and how they handled temptation. Theirs was a spectacular failure, but today we have a classic example of how Joseph overcame what had to have been an incredibly intense temptation.
Let’s consider the two major players here. As we already established, Joseph was well-built and handsome. He was a smart and hard-working young man. He was undoubtedly a virgin. Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that he was a slave, which means that he had no rights. He had no power or privilege other than what was delegated to him by his master.
Contrast this with Potiphar’s wife. We have already noted that she was a very loose woman, which was quite common among Egyptian women of that time. To be fair to her she was probably alone a lot. Her husband was a high-ranking official under Pharaoh and very busy. He was likely gone all the time. This left his wife home alone, perhaps bored without much to do but watch the servants all day and one in particular. And keep in mind that she holds all the power here. In fact, she and her husband have almost absolute power over their slaves. So there is a severe power imbalance in this relationship.
Now, consider this temptation from Joseph’s perspective. Here he is, a young man, a virgin. Here is this beautiful woman who is literally throwing herself at him. He might be thinking, “Hey, I am not the one trying to seduce her. She is seducing me!”
And Joseph is not stupid. He knows his lot in life. He realized that his prospects for marriage are slim to none. He understands that he will likely serve his entire life as a slave and die alone, never having been with a woman. This may be his one and only chance. This older, experienced woman is inviting him into her bed and promising that no one will ever know.
Now, if Joseph says, “Yes,” not only will he be able to experience the pleasure of sex, but he knows that this is a powerful woman with great influence. She has the ability to advance him in rank and power. This could be very good for his career, so to speak. She seems to hold the key to his future.
On the other hand, if he says, “No,” not only is he denying himself physical pleasure but she has the power to make his life miserable too. She can beat him. She can sell him to a harsh taskmaster. Or, she can simply put him to death if she chooses.
And she is wearing him down. She is coming after him day after day after day. He has already turned her down a hundred times. He is tempted to sleep with her just to get her out of his hair.
There are a hundred reasons for Joseph to say yes to Potiphar’s wife, and there is only one reason to say no - because it is wrong! Because it would violate the trust of his master, Potiphar and because it would dishonor the Name of the God he loves and constantly serves. And Joseph refuses to go to bed with her.
How did Joseph resist the weight of a temptation so powerful it would crush most men? Well, Joseph had developed what I call a personal strategy for holiness. We see it in verses 8-10. Let’s take a closer look at Joseph’s strategy.
There are three things Joseph does in this passage. The first thing he does, in verse eight, is rebuke her. This is a very gutsy thing to do considering, again, that she holds his very life in her hands. Joseph rebukes her by pointing out two things: 1. To sleep with her would be violating the trust of his master, and 2. To sleep with her would be a wicked sin against God. Notice that Joseph was not thinking about Joseph. He was thinking about his responsibility to his master and his love for his God.
The second thing Joseph does is simple and obvious. He simply refuses to go to bed with her. He flatly rejects every advance and communicates a clear, “NO!”.
But there is a third thing here, and I don’t want us to miss this. Joseph refuses to even be in the same room with her. Not only does he resist the temptation, but he removes himself from the path of temptation. He just tried his best to never be with her. If she came into this room he went into that room. If she followed him into that room he went outside. The backbone of Joseph’s personal strategy of holiness was that he avoided temptation whenever possible.
I want to ask you, do you have a personal strategy for holiness? This means knowing what your weaknesses are and paying close attention to the times, the places, the people, and the circumstances in which you are likely to be tempted and then avoiding those things if possible.
I heard a teacher on the radio years ago who was giving advice about how to avoid falling into sexual sin. He said, “If you take care of how things look, you take care of how things are.” I have never forgotten those words and have thought much about them. If you take care of how things look, you take care of how things are. In other words, if you avoid even the appearance of evil, you end up avoiding the evil too.
For example, I have adopted an unwritten rule for my life and ministry, which could be lifted straight off the pages of this story. I try to never be alone with a woman who is not my wife. It is not always possible, but as much as I am able I try never to be alone with a woman unless it is my wife. I don’t travel alone with other women. I do not dine alone with other women. I do not meet alone with other women.
Now, due to the nature of my job, I sometimes have to counsel with women. If that happens I do one of two things: I invite my wife to sit in on the session with us, or, if that is not possible, I choose our meeting location very carefully. We will meet in a public place, or, if it is a sensitive matter and we must meet behind closed doors, I make sure that door has a window in it so anyone who happens to be passing by can look in at any time and see us. This becomes for me a built-in accountability. If you have been to my office you may have noticed that my office door does not have a window, so I do not meet with women alone in my office.
Do you see the wisdom of this policy? It is not a sin to be alone with a woman who is not your wife, but it is unwise and dangerous. The wisdom of this rule in my life is that if I am always able to maintain this boundary I will never violate the covenant promise I made to my wife and to my God because I will never even have the opportunity to do that. If you take care of the way things look, you take care of the way things are. If I avoid the appearance of evil, the rumors and the suspicions that could arise, I will avoid the evil itself. This is part of my personal strategy for holiness.
And gentlemen, remember that Satan is a lot like Potiphar’s wife. He is clever. He is creative. He looks good. He sounds good. And, he does not give up. He is persistent in his temptations. He comes after us every day. Day after day after day he is relentless in his dogged pursuit of destroying our lives. Just like Potiphar’s wife he tries to wear us down. He looks for opportunities like when we are vulnerable due to lack of accountability, when we have been working hard, when we are tired, hungry, etc, and then he strikes.
Potiphar’s wife struck. I am reading between the lines a bit here, but I think the reason there were no servants in the house that day is because she made sure of it. I think she set him up. For weeks and maybe months Joseph has been avoiding this woman like the plague, so I think it is unlikely that he would have gone into the house if he had known that she was the only one inside. She has set a trap for Joseph and by the time he realizes what is happening he is caught - literally, she has caught him by his cloak.
So, what does Joseph do? Well, he says, “Let’s discuss this. Let’s sit down and talk about this like two adults.” No. He doesn’t say anything at all. He just runs! He literally runs away. The only way to escape is to leave his cloak in her clutches, but he bolts anyway.
This is a great model for how to deal with temptation when it literally has you by the collar. Do not try to reason with it. Do not try to resist it. Just run. Run away from your problem. Leave your collar in the clutches of temptation if necessary and just get out of there!
This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20. “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” Paul says, “When it comes to sexual temptation, just run! Get out of there as fast as you can!”
Again, in 1 Timothy 6:11, he says, “But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.”
This is precisely what Joseph did. He left his cloak in her clutches hand and ran out of the house. Now, depending on the season and the climate of the region he was perhaps naked or nearly naked when he ran out of the house. But Joseph preferred public embarrassment to private shame. One Puritan preacher said, “Joseph lost his coat, but he kept his character.” And as Pastor Steve often says, “Sometimes doing the right thing is the hard thing”, and it can cost us dearly.
So, the first life lesson we can glean from this passage is to develop a personal strategy for holiness. Be a student of your own behavior and tendencies. Know your own weaknesses and pay attention to the times and places where you are likely to be tempted and then avoid them if possible and run away from temptation when it is not.
The second lesson I want us to learn from Joseph today has to do with what I call the divine merit system. We all have what theologians call an embedded theology. These are things we believe, but we may not even be aware of it ourselves. This is a belief system that we could not or would not necessarily articulate out loud, but we believe it nonetheless.
One very common embedded theology is what I call the divine merit system. In short, it works like this: Do good things and good things will happen to you. Do bad things and bad things will happen to you.
Let me say very clearly that this is simply not true. The Bible does not teach this at all. In fact, there are many stories, today’s being one of them, which directly challenge this bad theology.
To illustrate this more clearly, let’s compare Joseph to his father. What was Jacob like? Well, he was a liar. He was a cheat. He was a manipulator. He was a thief. In short, Jacob was a dirty, rotten scoundrel. You would not want to purchase a used car from Jacob.
And yet, God seemed to reward his bad behavior. God gave him not one wife, but two, which is arguably a blessing. He gave Jacob many children, huge, healthy flocks, great wealth and honor. And above all else, God chose Jacob, not his brother Esau, as the child of the promise. It seems that the more evil Jacob became the more God blessed him.
Contrast this with Joseph. Joseph was everything his father was not. He was an honest man. In fact, he was a man of impeccable integrity. He was fair. He was generous. He was hard working. Joseph was the kind of used-car salesman that you would drive 300 miles one way to buy from because you knew you could trust him implicitly.
And yet he seems to get punished for it at every turn! He loses his family, his home, his possessions, his position, and his people. His very identity is stripped away from him, his freedom is stolen, and his whole future is in question. He is made not just a slave, but a prison slave! Joseph spent 13 long years languishing as a slave and then a prisoner not for doing the wrong thing, but for consistently doing the right thing! He rots in prison with no explanation, no apology, and no hint of hope at all.
Let me pause for a moment to point out an irony in this story. Had Joseph sinned by committing adultery with Potiphar’s wife he could have maintained his reputation as a godly man. He ended up losing his reputation as a godly man precisely because he was a godly man. It reminds me of another story of another Joseph.
No one believed Joseph. He was condemned without a trial, perhaps even without being heard at all. There was only one person who believed Joseph was innocent, and that was his accuser.
So, let me draw an important distinction here: there is a difference between our reputation and our identity, who others think we are and who we really are before God. If you are ever pushed to the wall and forced to choose between the two, always choose to maintain the integrity of your identity before God, even if it costs you your reputation.
So again, Jacob almost always does the wrong thing and he seems to be rewarded for it. Joseph almost always does the right thing and he seems to be punished for it. Is this right? Is this fair? No. This is not fair at all, and that is exactly the point.
You see, God does not relate to us on a merit system. It is not a simple equation of do good and good things will happen to you, do bad and bad things will happen to you. Sometimes we do good and suffer devastating consequences for it.
Which really tests our motives, doesn’t it? What is it that motivates us to do good? Is it a self-serving attempt to better our circumstances, or is it an honest attempt to honor God and please His heart?
So, these are two of the things we can learn from Joseph today. Joseph wisely developed a personal strategy for holiness by avoiding temptation when possible and running away from temptation when necessary. And we are also reminded that God does not deal with us on a divine merit system. To be sure, God will set the record straight. He will reward good and punish evil, but He doesn’t always do it on our timetable, or even in this life.
Which leaves us with the question I think God would ask of us today, and that is, “Will you serve Me anyway? If it cost you all you have, if it cost you your job, your home, your family, your reputation, your identity, your dignity, your very freedom, if it cost you all you have, will you serve Me anyway? Will you love Me anyway? Will you follow Me anyway? Will you remain faithful to Me?
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Last Updated on Friday, 06 March 2009 10:24 |
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