The Risk of Responsibility // Genesis 39 // Jeff Myers

Let us pray.

Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as these scriptures are read and your word is proclaimed,

we may hear with joy what you say to us today.

Amen.

Today's reading is from the book of Genesis, chapter 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.

The Lord was with Joseph so that he 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 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 on 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.

Them.

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 her left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.

When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called to her household servants.

Look, she said to them, this Hebrew has been brought to me— brought to us to make sport of us.

He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed.

When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak behind left beside me and ran out of the house.

She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home.

Then she told him the story: That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me, but as

soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and I ran out of the house.

When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, This is how your slave treated He burned with anger.

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, the Lord was with him.

He showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.

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.

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.

This is the word of the Lord.

Here we are in our fourth week studying the book of Joseph, or the story of Joseph, and now we're starting starting to see the themes come through.

This is the third deception where a garment is used as a prop to fabricate a story.

Starting back a few chapters ago, we're starting to see these themes fall in.

And a second story now about an illicit ploy for sexual relations with another.

And yet this is a very different story than the one before it.

It's a beautiful thing to witness someone who is the ruler of their domain.

One of the reasons that I love watching basketball highlights of Michael Jordan is because when the game was

on the line, he wanted the ball.

I remember reading about Michael Giacchino, who's a composer, a music composer And when they were making new movies

for the Star Wars franchise, the big question was, who could possibly carry the weight of John Williams'

soundtrack to Star Wars?

And Michael Giacchino said, give it to me, I know what to do with it.

This is my domain.

What's your domain?

Where's the place where you feel like you can achieve and succeed, where you feel competent in the eyes of others.

This domain may be a mental competency that you have, working with software and computers, or maybe

it's communication with other people.

You feel like you can defuse situations, you're a great mediator.

Maybe you feel in your domain when you're talking about geopolitical affairs.

Maybe it's creativity, creativity, outside-the-box thinking.

Maybe you're in your domain when you think about design and layout and the way that things look, or your ability with literature.

You can take apart a text very easily.

Maybe it's details, or maybe it's big picture, but all of us have a domain.

And maybe there's a physical domain that comes to mind.

Ah, I'm in my domain when I'm at my desk, or I'm in my domain when when I'm with my small team of employees, or when I'm

overseeing a project or involved in a certain type of project.

Maybe it's hosting parties.

Maybe it's caring for small children.

Maybe it's building something physical.

Maybe it's the office.

Maybe it's the kitchen.

Maybe it's on the ship.

Maybe it's the classroom.

Friends, to be competent and successful in our domain is actually something we were created for it.

It's a good gift of God's grace.

Humans were created to work and have dominion, to care for and work in the Garden of Eden, and to

rule over all of creation, to be blessed in competency and good success in order that everything under you

would be blessed.

Blessed to be a blessing.

And this is why one of the best ways we can show God God's grace to our workplaces and in our neighborhoods

is by simply being the most competent employee and neighbor we can be.

And this is where we see the opening of the Joseph story today.

He has his own garden, and he is a new Adam in that garden, blessed to be a blessing.

Joseph is serving as a slave in the home of one of the chief officials of the Egyptian Pharaoh, and his employer sees that Joseph does

everything well.

Anything on Joseph's watch,

the Potiphar doesn't need to even care about.

He shows up for work during the day, Potiphar, all he has to do is worry about what he's going to have for lunch, the text tells us.

Look at verse 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.

Why was Joseph able to be so successful, to be a blessing to Potiphar?

The text tells us 4 times the Lord was with Joseph.

The Lord was with Joseph.

The Lord was with Joseph.

It was because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him favor that he blessed all that was underneath Joseph's domain.

See, Joseph is a new Adam blessed in the garden.

He's a new Adam blessed in the garden.

And before we even get into the tension point of the story, look at what the Holy Spirit is already teaching teaching us.

All of our competence and success comes from God, our Creator, and he's designed the domain in which he's

placed us.

God took the man and put him in the garden.

The workplace, the home place, the school place, along with the families and the co-workers and the church families that we

serve with.

You have been placed in that domain and And he has blessed us for the purpose of being a blessing to others.

Friends, God has given us influence and responsibility and competence, and that is not for a feeling of self-importance,

but to bless others.

Students in the room, if you are the best biology student in your class, it is for the purpose of helping other people

who don't understand what mitochondria and RNA is, like myself.

You're not there to set the curve.

You're there to bless your teacher and your classmates.

Employees, if you're the best person on your team, it is not for the purpose of making the others on your team look bad so you can feel superior.

You are there to bless every coworker and every supervisor with the peace of knowing if that assignment is on your watch, they don't

need to worry about it.

Imagine the gift that you could give to your supervisor if they show up for work and all they have to do is think about what they're going to have for lunch.

That's what it was like in Potiphar's household with Joseph in charge.

How might God be calling you to be a blessing to others with the responsibilities of

success and intelligence and competence that he's given you.

This is so helpful to me because many mornings I wake up and my prayers are prayers of exasperation.

They're wandering prayers.

What am I going to do today?

How am I going to get all this work done today, Lord?

But what if instead of praying that we would get all our work we prayed that we'd enjoy God's favor upon our work

and to ask God to make it a blessing for others.

Eric Liddell was the Scottish Olympic sprinter who was famous from the '80s movie Chariots of Fire.

He lived his devotion to the Lord in a very public way, and of course he finally won the gold medal in the 1924 1924 Olympics,

but he spent his final days in a Japanese internment camp where he would die.

And as he waited and he suffered— think about what the day-to-day experience would be like for that person—

he continued to offer every day to the Lord in order to be a blessing to others.

He wrote most of a book while he was there, wasn't wasn't able to finish it, called The Daily Disciplines of the Christian Life.

And included in that book was this prayer:

Father, I pray that no circumstances, however bitter or however long drawn out,

may cause me to break your law, the law of love to you and to my neighbor.

That I may not become resentful, having hurt feelings, I may not resent, hate, or become embittered by life's experiences,

but that in and through all I may see Thy guiding hand and have a heart full of gratitude for Your

daily mercy, daily love, daily power, and daily presence.

Joseph has been blessed by God with with daily presence and power, and he is to be a blessing to

Potiphar's whole household.

But what happens when that power is tested?

The narrative suddenly offers a single detail that pivots everything.

Now Joseph was well-built and handsome.

He was beautiful in form and appearance.

In other words, he takes after his mother, Rachel, beautiful in form and appearance.

And the text is setting up a key tension.

Joseph is successful in all that he does.

He is the reason the household is prospering in the field and in the home, and he's pretty easy on the eyes.

Will he be tempted to abuse those responsibilities?

And this is where we learned that not only is Joseph a new Adam blessed in the garden, he is also a new Adam tempted

in the garden.

In the Garden of Eden, friends, God blessed humanity with dominion and power and responsibility, but

paradise came with obligations.

It was not just pleasures.

God didn't just release humanity with unchecked authority.

They weren't given free range because he knew that they needed to learn something.

They needed to learn integrity.

When I was in high school, there was a poster up on the wall, and the poster said, "Integrity is doing the right thing when no

one is looking."

Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.

And God built in a mechanism where humanity would learn

integrity: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,

with the command, "You shall not eat of it."

And in doing so, God took a great risk.

Would humans trust God's authority when no one is looking?

And what do you remember about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

When Eve takes a look at it, not only does she understand that it would open the eyes to wisdom, but also it was what?

Beautiful in form and appearance.

Not only will Joseph be tempted as the new Adam, he has also become the new forbidden fruit.

Fruit, and a woman sees and wants to take of the fruit.

Joseph is beautiful in form and appearance, and as the forbidden fruit, suddenly the wife of his master says, "Come to

bed with me."

And every responsibility

that he had is being tested right here.

And friends, every responsibility we oversee

The garden comes with responsibility, and it also comes with risk.

If we are managing a project, we will be tempted to cut corners.

If we oversee employees, we will be tempted to abuse our power.

If we're raising children, we will be tempted to attach our success to their success.

Us.

And the scriptures teach that all people without exception fail in their faithfulness to God.

Every new Adam and Eve placed in every new garden will lack integrity.

You and I fail.

And what's the result?

Well, we compromise the responsibilities God has given us.

Adam and Eve We lose the garden.

We lose our jobs.

Employees quit underneath us.

Children are driven away from our care.

The world around us demonstrates the exact same thing that the Bible testifies to.

People abuse their responsibilities.

There's misuse of power in this world.

There's dishonesty in business dealings.

There's affairs in marriage.

There's spousal abuse and child abuse and bullying bosses and manipulative friendships and exploitative

partnerships.

So Joseph, as the new Adam in a new garden, being faced with a new temptation, is he going to botch it the way that we do,

the way that Adam did?

And with bated breath, we read verse 8.

But Joseph refused.

'With me in charge,' he told his master's wife, 'my master does not concern himself with anything in the house.

Everything he owns he's entrusted to my care.

No one is greater in this house than I am.

My master has withheld nothing from me except you.'

Does that sound like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

And then he closes with this: "How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against

God?"

Not my master, but God.

See, why does Joseph reason that he's not going to have this affair?

What's his motivation?

Is it because he wants to maintain his position Is it because he loves his boss?

Is it because he considers himself morally above having an illicit affair?

No, it's because he knows that he would sin against God.

And finally, in the book of Genesis, finally, when we get to these final chapters of Genesis, here is a man who understands that all of his

conduct is done before the sight of the Lord, who has He has blessed him.

We're reminded of King David

who confesses after he himself commits adultery.

He says, "Against you and you alone have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight."

David is praying to the Lord.

Well, doesn't he sin against the man who he's murdered and the wife that he's taken?

when you alone.

Now, why is this so important that Joseph's motivation was to please God?

Because sometimes obedience to God results in not reward but punishment.

If we're motivated to do good so that we can feel superior, if we're motivated to do good so that we can get a good grade,

If we're motivated to do good so that we can achieve a promotion, or that people will respect us, we will eventually end up abusing our

responsibilities.

Verse 10 tells us that every day Potiphar's wife spoke to him, saying, "Come to bed with me."

That means that every day Joseph was faced with a choice.

No one would know.

They could keep the affair totally hidden.

The only result would be sheer pleasure.

There's no barrier to sin in Joseph's case.

It is completely anonymous.

But Joseph shows himself faithful because he does what is right when no one is looking.

Or maybe we could put it like this: he does what is right because he knows only God is looking.

And what is his reward for this righteousness, this obedience, this faithfulness with his responsibilities?

He's put in prison.

It's punishment.

And interestingly, the authors of Genesis use the word pit to refer to the prison.

Do you remember where Joseph was before he was sold into slavery?

He was in a pit awaiting his death.

And now we're told that the reward for Joseph's obedience is that he went right back to where he started.

He's gone from pit From the pit to blessed with everything back to the pit, the pit of dismay.

The Bible tells us many stories of people who are faithful to God and they end up going into the pit.

They end up suffering for it, like this story in Joseph.

Jeremiah also speaks God's word to the king, and where is he thrown?

Into a cistern like Joseph.

Daniel is told not to pray to the Lord.

He does it anyway, and where is he thrown?

Into the pit full of lions.

And all of these stories make up a composite image of a fuller picture.

A photo mosaic is a picture composed of lots and lots of tiny other pictures.

It's okay, Joseph is not making a up a picture of Abraham Lincoln.

Just by way of example, here's a man of great integrity, Abraham Lincoln.

But if you look closely at the tiny pixels that create his image, you'll find individual frames of different images that

make up the whole.

And when we look over all of the stories of the characters in the Bible who acted in faith, none of them is a complete picture of

Jesus, but each is a small pixelated snapshot that contributes to his identity.

And this is why Jesus is able to tell his disciples and the students of the law that the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament,

wrote about him.

It is when people obey God and expect to suffer for it that we see Jesus most vividly.

vividly stories like this,

because Jesus is actually the new and ultimate Adam in the new and ultimate garden.

Jesus is the one faithful in that garden.

Jesus obeys out of pure devotion toward God.

Joseph may not have known that his obedience was going to lead to, uh, being put in prison, but Jesus certainly knew what his

obedience would mean.

His faithfulness would mean damnation.

When he was in his own garden, the Garden of Gethsemane, he spoke about a cup.

"Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me."

And that cup had one meaning in all of the Hebrew scriptures.

It was the bitter cup of God's anger.

anger and wrath that God justifiably had against the unfaithfulness of every

previous Adam in every previous garden who had taken their responsibilities and abused them.

Friends, that's all of us.

No one was looking in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The devil himself Satan himself was taunting Jesus to reach out and take hold of the forbidden fruit of worldly

power.

He tells Jesus, "There can be rain with no pain.

All you have to do is take it."

But Jesus knew that he wouldn't sin against anyone else by avoiding the cross.

He wouldn't sin against you or me.

But he would sin against God.

See, Jesus' motivation was perfect to do what God desired, even obedience that meant damnation.

And do you know what that means for us, friends?

It means that Jesus had integrity in the garden so that—

There's a transfer that takes place.

Jesus' perfect faithfulness won him damnation in the pit, so that we, the unfaithful, would have salvation.

Brothers and sisters, in your domain you will have temptation.

It is how God is training you to employ the integrity of Christ that he gives you by his Holy Spirit.

There will be times when obedience to God means punishment in this world.

That's when Christ, friends, will show you his love and companionship most powerfully.

1 Peter, chapter 2, tells us what God's will is for us.

He says, "For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering

because they are conscious of God."

In other words, they know that God sees

them.

But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing what is wrong and you endure it?

Ah, but if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his

steps.

Do you see See what this passage is telling us.

When you and I suffer for obedience, you and I are displaying examples of Christ to the

world.

That means everyone who follows the example of Christ becomes a small pixelated image in the great photo

mosaic of displaying Christ's character to the world.

He who suffered unjustly— because he cared for God.

Every Christian is to do good even though suffering awaits.

And when we do so, we become a little picture of the huge makeup of Christ's photo mosaic.

People need to see a snapshot of Jesus, and they'll see it through how we face the temptation in our own responsibilities.

On Friday, I went to Citytree Chapel, where a teacher had recently recognized a student who displayed

Christlike conduct.

The student had received a test back that had been graded incorrectly, and he knew that by telling the teacher about her

mistake, it would actually result in a grade deduction.

He would lose points for it.

There was a moment in that student's head and heart where temptation speaks loudly.

No one will ever know.

You know, you'll only suffer for doing what is right.

That student turned the test in and received a lower grade.

Ah, but wasn't Jesus put on display in the classroom?

Wasn't Jesus put on display to the whole whole school.

And Jesus's love and reassurance became that much more powerful in the heart of this young man.

Finally, in the story of Joseph, did you notice what happened when he was thrown in prison?

The Lord was with him.

The Lord showed him favor because he had been responsible with everything before, and he had been responsible in the face of risk

and temptation.

The prison prison warden made him responsible for everything under Joseph's charge, so that all the prison warden needed to think about when he showed up for the

workday was, "What am I going to have for lunch?

Anything put under Joseph's watch, I don't need to worry about."

Friends, likewise, Jesus did not stay dead.

He did not remain in the pit, but he has been given lordship and authority and responsibility over God's whole creation.

We could say that when God the Father comes into work, all he needs to do is worry about what he's going to have for lunch, because

God the Son is taking care of everything else.

And you too,

as a member of God's household, are under his loving care.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your faithfulness.

Thank you for the result of that faithfulness,

that you by your Holy Spirit have given us your heart.

You've shown us great joy in the fact that we belong to you, and now you've given us charges, things that we're

responsible for, and we have great joy in exercising dominion.

Thank you, Lord, that we get to play a part in the great photo mosaic picture to the world of who you are.

And we pray that you would be glorified, you would shine through us, especially

in the face of temptation.

In the name of Christ, amen.