May 8 Sermon: The Trials of Joseph
Consider these questions as you listen to this week’s message from Genesis 39:1-23:
1. How does Joseph's integrity in resisting temptation from Potiphar's wife contrast with the behavior of Judah and his brothers in earlier parts of the story?
2. In what ways does God's presence and favor with Joseph become evident in the story, even as he faces adversity and false accusations?
3. What lessons can modern readers take from Joseph's response to temptation, particularly his decision to flee from sin? How can we apply this in our own lives when faced with temptation?
Feel free to use these questions for further discussion or reflection on the passage and its implications.
Transcript:
There are some character traits that you just know when you see it. When someone acts with integrity you don’t sit there and wonder if it was a good thing or not. When someone acts with virtue we are able to identify it without question. The same applies to behavior that we would consider to be vile. When we see someone doing something that we consider to immoral or even distasteful we don’t have to run it through a filter to determine how we feel about it, do we? We know it when we see it.
And as we think back to the passage we were looking at last week and the story that we read about Judah, we had no difficulty looking back on that story and evaluating the actions of Judah and his family and determining that they were something we see as being depraved. No way we come to his ignoring his daughter-in-law and hiring someone he believes to be a prostitute and we come away morally indifferent about it. We can even go back to the chapter before that one and I am guessing there isn’t a one of us who didn’t feel as though the sons of Joseph contemplating murdering their brother and then selling him into slavery were acting in a most heinous way.
And you likely recall that I drew out last Sunday that what we feel about the actions of Joseph’s brothers and how we look at the actions of Judah is a natural contrast to the integrity of Joseph that we read about this morning. Once again, you know integrity when you see it. And while we had to deal with the evil actions of Judah a week ago, this morning we are blessed to see an example of virtue and holiness in the behavior of Joseph.
Now before we get ourselves into the text, let’s line out the points I’ve decided on to help us navigate the text.
First, we see Joseph excelling despite the the circumstances that he has found himself in. Now, we know the story and so we expect this but it is really unexpected. If you were hearing the story of Joseph for the first time you would expect him to be destitute and you would likely say his circumstances allow him to not have to do well. He’s in slavery, what do we expect him to do. This is not what we find though. He is thriving in Egypt and we find that God is blessing him.
Second, we find that Joseph is tested. As I already mentioned Judah and his brothers have been shown to us to be examples of immorality and having a corrupt nature and when they are tested, they fail. Joseph has an option to pursue the things of the flesh and to act in a worldly way but he does not succumb to this temptation and he acts with integrity because he does not want to sin against God. A consideration his worldly brothers do not even make.
Our third and final point today is that despite the faithfulness and integrity of Joseph he is once again persecuted but we find that God remains faithful to him despite the trials he must endure. For everything that we find to be noble and good in Joseph we would expect him to be excelling by the world’s standards, but instead we find that he is once again afflicted but yet, God remains faithful to him and is working to rescue his people.
And so, let’s get into this passage and take a look how Joseph has taken advantage of the negative situation that his brothers have placed him in.
Genesis 39:1–6
ESV
Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands. So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field. So he left all that he had in Joseph’s charge, and because of him he had no concern about anything but the food he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.
After the interlude with the situation with Judah and Tamar Moses brings us back to what we feel is the story that we are really more interested in anyway. If we were reading this for the first time this is what we would have been wanting to know about. Joseph has been sold into slavery and Jacob thinks he’s dead. While there is some interesting drama and scandal in that story with Judah it is the type of subplot that you are wanting to hurry through to get to the main story and Moses transitions us back well here by reminding us of what has happened with Joseph.
He has ended up in Egypt of all places and in the house of the captain of the guard who is known as Potiphar. And it is important that we take a second and get to know what that name means. Potiphar means the one who the sun god, Ra, has given. Not only i she captain of the guard but he is considered to be a divine blessing by the Egyptians. Just the fact that Joseph has ended up in his household instead of somewhere else as a menial laborer tells us something about the divine providence of God on the life of Joseph. Even though he is in slavery he finds himself in a house of high position and we find that he is making the most of it and the hand of the Lord is upon him. You wouldn’t think it possible but Joseph is successful even as a slave and as a part of this he has advanced all the way to being in the house of his master. This is likely a pretty big step up from being anywhere else and was most likely an earned position and so we have to feel a little passage of time here. He is not instantly going to end up here, is he? He had to endure and shine in the position that he found himself in when he first arrived.
And we read, the Lord is with him and the Lord caused all that Joseph did to succeed.
Now, this is a pretty good arrangement and so it causes Potiphar to put Joseph in charge of everything. This turns out to be a pretty good arrangement for Potiphar as well, right? He’s got this guy who he probably didn’t pay too terribly much for as a slave and now everything is turning up roses. His house is being blessed. I’ve got to wonder what this exactly looked like. How did his life improve? Was the food lasting longer. Were his investments doing better? Were his crops having higher yields? Were the other slaves becoming stronger and having a higher level of productivity? Regardless of what this looked like it was obvious to Potiphar that something was going on and ultimately the primary benefit to him is that he just gets to chill. He doesn’t have to worry about a thing other than the food he has to eat. He is living the easy life.
And what I want us to see here is not that Potiphar is living well but that Joseph has God blessing him and Joseph is excelling despite what we would have expected to occur when we came back to his story here in chapter 39. And this isn’t because Joseph is a productivity master, he may well have been, but that isn’t the reason he is excelling. There were probably other people under the charge of Potiphar who could organize the household well. The difference is that God is blessing Joseph. That is what we are meant to feel and understand here and now we are going to see that Joseph is tested. Does he deserve this blessing? Will he act with integrity as the blessed one of God or will he fail and act in a depraved manner like his brother Judah? And we see that Joseph is tested in perhaps the most soap opera manner that you and I can imagine.
Genesis 39:6–10
ESV
So he left all that he had in Joseph’s charge, and because of him he had no concern about anything but the food he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.
And the soap opera nature of it is set up by Moses really well here right because he lets us know that he is not only handsome in appearance but in form. Whatever the standard was for being a handsome fella in the Egyptian culture, Joseph was clearly blessed with it.
And the drama picks up quick in the text here because we find out that the wife of Potiphar is making eyes and is warm to his form, as they say. And we are told that she is more than just observing his attractiveness, she wants him to lie with her. Joseph here is being tempted with the sin of the flesh, just as Judah was, right? The wife of Judah dies, he is a lonely and so he lies with a prostitute while he is away from home. And it’s important that we consider just what is involved in this situation for Joseph. It’s more than just does he desire pleasure or not. Remember, he is a slave and he is the property of more than just Potiphar. He has to deal with whether or not he is going to upset his master’s wife and we see that Joseph has a clear answer for her and it addresses the loyalties that he feels.
He acknowledges that he has charge over the entire house. Potiphar doesn’t have to worry about a thing. Joseph is just below Potiphar in household status and he can do pretty much anything he wants to but he reminds Potiphar’s wife that nothing has been held back from him except her. Now, the text doesn’t tell us if this is just a general cultural understanding or if Potiphar has made this known to him explicitly but what we see is that this is more than just being in submission to his earthly master because Joseph realizes that his sin would be more than just an offense to Potiphar, it would be wicked and it would be sinning against God.
Now there is an important point that we need to stop and make a quick observation about here. Joseph considers this to be a violation against God. Now, I’m going to point out something obvious here. Take note of where we are in our Bibles. This is Genesis 39. You have to turn right through 11 more chapters of Genesis and then go through 19 chapters of Exodus before you get any “thou shalt not” statements. What this should make us very aware of is the fact that sexual sin is not simply something that is established because God put his finger into rock and etched away the words “thou shalt not commit adultery”. The prohibitions God makes against sexual sin is inherently connected to the created order. You know this because we’ve addressed it in Genesis 2 with the creation details of Adam and Eve and I went back to that created order when we were confronted with homosexual sin in the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. We don’t have to be told that adultery is a sin when we read the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife and we don’t have to be told fornication is a sin when we saw Judah uniting himself to someone he thought was a prostitute in the previous chapter. The created order and what we know about the nature of God and his creation of male and female to become one flesh informs our sexual ethic even without explicit “thou shalt not” statements.
And so Joseph is concerned with sinning against God. He has integrity and once again, we know it when we see it, right. This is a trial for Joseph. He has plenty of reasons to give in. She is pressuring him. She is his master’s wife and isn’t he supposed to obey her. And lets not forget that he might even find this enjoyable and who ever needs to know. It can be their little secret.
But Joseph does not give in even though we read that she offers this temptation day after day and we see that there is some scheming on the part of Potiphar’s wife as the story continues.
Genesis 39:11–12
ESV
But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house.
We aren’t told if the house being empty is planned out by Potiphar’s wife but she still takes advantage of the situation. She thinks maybe she can get Joseph to give in by the fact that there won’t be anyone to tell on him. But Joseph is not rejecting her advances because he is concerned with being caught. He is rejecting her out of respect for his master and more importantly because he does not want to sin against the Lord. And as we look at this text we find an excellent example from Joseph here as we consider how to resist sin and so it is important that we stop and dwell on that here as a point of application. Notice what Joseph does here. He doesn’t try to accommodate her. Even a little. He flees. He gets out of there. So quickly, in fact, that he leaves a piece of clothing behind. And the application point I want us to understand here is that he flees sin. We like to cuddle up to our sin and get as near to it as we possibly can. We believe that we are in control or that our hearts are in the right place and so it isn’t really sinful or it isn’t as bad as someone else’s sin. Joseph runs away from it and you and I need to seriously evaluate how we view the sin that is tempting us. Are we listening to the temptation and cozying up to it thinking we can handle it and we can be in control or are we running away from it. Do we put ourselves in situations where we can be tempted and sin or do we run from our sin. This is a tough question for us to consider because I’m guessing every one of us is prone to thinking we are in control but what we see here from Joseph is what we are called to do. We should flee from temptation that we might not sin against God.
But it is important that while it is vital that we flee from sin it does not mean that everything is going to turn out peachy for us because we were faithful to the commands of God. And this brings us to our final point for today that despite his faithfulness Joseph is persecuted.
Genesis 39:13–18
ESV
And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled out of the house, she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And as soon as he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled and got out of the house.” Then she laid up his garment by her until his master came home, and she told him the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to laugh at me. But as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment beside me and fled out of the house.”
This is where the scheming really picks up, right? Joseph did the right thing except he left something behind that was easily used as evidence against him and the soap opera level drama really picks up. She flips the story and suddenly he is the one who was the one attempting to make a move on her. It isn’t true but it is a believable story and who do you think is going to doubt the word of the wife of Potiphar, especially with the evidence she has, and by the way she comes across in the story you get the idea that even if you don’t believe her you are going to say you believe her side of the story because you don’t want to mess with her.
Genesis 39:19–23
ESV
As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, “This is the way your servant treated me,” his anger was kindled. And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge, because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed.
And we find get to the next obvious step of the story. She didn’t make this story up for the sake of the servants. She contrived this falsehood and it was meant to get to the ears of her husband because he is the one who can punish Joseph. Clearly she wants Joseph to suffer for resisting her advances and this is the way to make it happen.
Now, there is always speculation on what Potiphar thinks about this situation. We are clearly told that his anger is kindled but I have to wonder just how hot the fire gets. How is Joseph not immediately executed for this? Clearly, Potiphar is a very patient man or he doesn’t think the evidence adds up. Regardless, the life of Joseph is spared and this is just one sign that the hand of God is once again on him. His brothers wanted to kill him but he is spared. Now he is accused of something that could easily get him executed but he comes out of it with his life once again. God is doing something here but he doesn’t stay in his high position in the house of Potiphar. Some price had to be paid and so he ends up in prison but notice what type of a prison this is. He is with the king’s prisoners. I’m sure it wasn’t an excellent facility with a pool and a ton of other amenities but he isn’t in a prison for slaves. And once again, we are brought to feel the pain along with Joseph. He was just checking in on his brothers but he ends up in a pit and then sold into slavery. He was just desiring to not sin against God but he is accused of the sin he fled from and ends up in prison.
Thinking “poor Joseph” is our natural reaction but the text doesn’t leave us to mourn the plight of Joseph for very long. We read some amazing words. The Lord was with Joseph and he showed him steadfast love. Despite the difficulties that Joseph is facing he is in an excellent state of affairs because the sovereign Lord of all of creation has steadfast, unending love for him. And so, even in prison the hand of God is upon him and he rises to prominence.
It’s almost as if it wasn’t enough of a challenge for God to have Joseph be a slave who rescues his people and so he divinely orders that he would be a prisoner who is used by God despite the circumstances and we see that Joseph has the Lord with him even in the prison because it is described very similarly to the arrangement in the house of Potiphar. Joseph is in charge of everything and the Lord makes his work succeed. We are meant to understand that the blessing of God is upon Joseph and that nothing will stop the work of God. Not slavery. Not Potiphar’s wife conspiring against him. Not even prison is going to stop the work that God is going to do through Joseph.
And as we come to the end of this passage we will come away with two applications for us to consider in the week.
The first one I have already addressed but it is so important that it needs to be repeated. You and I need to flee temptation and sin. Joseph didn’t hang around. He fled the scene. It is very easy for you and I to cozy up to the things that tempt us most and then we are surprised when we give in to that temptation again. And so, may the story of Joseph and the conviction that comes about by the work of the word and the Spirit motivate us to flee sin, just as Joseph did.
Secondly, we need to remember that God is at work even in the worst of circumstances. I mentioned this when we were in the story of Joseph in the pit and being sold to his brothers. Remember that Joseph was seen as dead to his father and as good as dead to the rest of us. He had been sold to Ishmaelites and ended up in Egypt in slavery. The story is as good as over. When we looked at that story I pointed out that the story of Joseph points us to the story of Jesus because even when it seems as though death has won and the plan of God has failed we find that God is actually doing his best work.
Even in prison God is at work to rescue his people and this was his sovereign rescue plan to bring glory to himself. And so, as we face the circumstances and trials that God places before us may we remember the truth of the gospel. God has rescued us through the worst possible circumstances. Jesus was dead and in the tomb but it was the path to our salvation. May we trust that God is able to work all things for good for those who love him and may patiently believe that we are his and nothing can take us from his hand. Amen.
