All right, we're in the book of Genesis. We're gonna go ahead and carry on a little bit further in this message series that we did, learning from the life of Joseph. Joseph was 17 years old, which is what drew me in when I was a young man. I gotta say, when I was 19, And the Lord changed my life in a lot of ways. A lot of my friends kind of, I didn't tell them to hit the road, Jack, but they started hitting the road because they didn't want to be around me as much, because I didn't want to drink with them. I didn't want to go out to the same places. And it changed. And then I got introduced to finding out there were some teenagers in the Bible that lived for God dynamically. And they went through some really hard times in their life. and they had a lot of adversity. And Joseph, I just connected to, is one of my favorite characters of all the Bible. And I'm not trying to say spiritual, act like I'm real spiritual and sit beside Jesus. Everybody knows there's no other name above that name, Jesus. No one compares to him. But for others who are those who need to be redeemed, I relate to Joseph, and I look at Joseph's life, and I have learned many things from him. And we talked about last week about Joseph being loved by his father, and we talked about the jealousy that was there, the fact that he was rejected by his brothers and rudely treated by them, and that he was loved by his father to such a degree with that coat of many colors, it created more jealousy in the family. And then we talked about that he was listened to by his father. His father, even though he did not agree, there was a disagreement concerning all these dreams that Joseph was having. Joseph was having dreams that pretty much said everybody's going to bow to Joseph. And that was hard to digest. Can you imagine you and your teenagers and they said, I had a dream last night, mama, and you're going to be bowing. That's not easy to digest. That don't swallow too well. And so that was something they disagreed about, that that would even happen. And there was disbelief about it, that it would even be possible. But he did listen to him. The Bible says, Genesis 37 10 we find the phrase real quickly his father rebuked him and then later on it says his brothers his brother in verse 11 envied him which means that envy and jealousy and And then it says, but his father observed the saying. So he kind of took a step back and realized, I need to I need to observe this and be careful how I overstep and discount what God's doing, what kind of dreams God's giving to Joseph here. And of course, in the story, it's a it's a great story, makes a great storyline, goes through most of the rest of the book. Only one chapter is not about Joseph, and that's chapter 38. and it goes all the way to chapter number 50. And so I want to look at some places here in Genesis 37 again, just to recap a little bit about the dream. You know, Joseph was going to be, because he believed God gave him these dreams and they weren't wrong to dream them and they weren't wrong to share them, he got by others. He was attacked by his brothers and he was misunderstood by his family and envy and jealousy began to grow based upon other things and it caused a lot of division there but he had dreams, he had visions, and he told it to his family. like the one in verse seven about the sheaf of wheat that would rise up and then it would be above the others and stand upright and the others of wheat would bow down around him. And it says, verse seven, made obeisance unto him, which means they obediently bowed down like they had no choice in the matter. And in the middle of this dream and all that's going on, there's no way in the world Joseph knows what's going on, what God's speaking to him about. But man, God's got such big and amazing plans that are coming down the line. There's going to be such a drought and such famine that's going to happen upon this land that food's going to be very scarce and people are going to be starving to death. And all that time, God's going to move Joseph out of that area into the land of Egypt where that of Egypt where it's the only place that has any kind of food. And God's, listen, you've heard that some people are playing checkers and some people are playing chess. Y'all have heard that little phrase before. Well listen, God is way, way ahead of all the steps on the board. I mean the game, he's got the game from one end to the other because he is an omnipotent, omniscient God. We need to trust him. Even if that means that we forsake our dreams for a while or we don't understand what he's doing in the midst of the dreams that he has given us. Even if we had to follow God and seemingly forsake everybody else around us, it is better to do that. And so in the passage of scripture, verse 9, chapter 37, chapter 37, he dreamed another dream and told his children, he said, I have dreamed and dreamed more, and behold, the sun and the moon and the 11 stars made obeisance unto me. So the sun and the moon here are his mom and his daddy, and the stars are his brothers. He's not even the sun in this dream. The sun revolves around him. He's the middle of all of this, according to this stream. And they put their places there. And so that's the one where he really got rebuked and misunderstood. But anyhow, in the midst of all of that, the envy and the jealousy continues to grow. And I tell you, if you let that stuff, envy and jealousy grow, it'll get so bad it might even cause someone to die one day. It could even cause such destruction such as that. So the scripture rolls on down into the place where verse number 20, they make a plan. They have plotted a plan. It says, come now, therefore, and let us slay him. Now, I've gotten in some pretty good fights with my sister over the years, but she never I don't think she really ever planned to kill me. Now, she might have said she was going to do it. She might have threatened to do it. But I don't think she ever planned to do it. This is some serious stuff going on. They're planning to kill their brother. They're tired of seeing him when he comes across the field there. They said, behold, the dreamer cometh. I mean, they could not stand to hear him. They couldn't stand to see him. And they made plans to slay him and cast him into some pit. And then we will slay him. We'll hide him in the pit, slay him. And then we're going to, verse 26, we're going to say some evil beast has devoured him. So they're going to come up with a plan that says some kind of animal ate him up and some kind of animal killed him. And we'll fool daddy with this plan. And we'll fool everybody with this plan. And then here's this little phrase. And here you can see where the pain is in their heart, the envy, the jealousy. And it says, and we will see what will become of his dreams. When he's dead, we'll see what becomes of his dreams. I'll tell you this, if your plans and dreams and God gives you a purpose, he gives you a plan, he gives you a will for his life, nothing can kill that. No who plots against it. Nothing can kill it. Now it may be delayed and you may feel like it's done, but if you'll just trust God, and there's a great spirit of that when we see that Joseph Through all the testing and trials, all the times when he does not understand what God is doing, he does not get bitter over things. I'm sure he had moments where he almost did, and there were some moments you'll finally know he was bothered by it, no doubt. It's okay to be bothered, but be careful about getting bitter. Really going to that next level and allowing that. Because if you will learn what God is trying to teach you in the trials and testings of your life, then you will not get bitter, but you will get better. Because God's got a purpose. Listen, he is putting Joseph in the forge of life in a way we could never understand. We do not understand this 17-year-old boy when he hits the age of 30. And 30 used to sound old. to me. It used to sound old. Some of you think it sounds old now. I can tell by the way you're acting, your body language. When I was 17, 30, man, that's double me. When I hit 30, 30 didn't sound old anymore. And now that I'm getting closer to double nickels, 90 don't sound old, 100 don't sound old. I was like, hey, let's just slow down here. That was amazing to see this young man go from a 17-year-old boy to a 30-year-old man. And I'll just go ahead and cheat on there and let you know. I know some of you know the story, but I know some of you don't. He becomes the governor of all of Egypt. Every bit of the power to survive the famine in the region of the world around him will run through his hands. In the moment of a 17-year-old boy, he has no idea the plans God has for him. He has no idea. But it's not just going to be here, I'll stamp this authority upon you. I'm just going to make you, shazam, poof, make you who you're supposed to be. There is a time of trials and testings in our lives. I tell you, I'm not who I am. I'm not who I really want to be. I've got a lot of faults in my life, no doubt. A lot of regrets. But I am not what I am today without the trials and the testings that have gone through my life. They've made me who I am. They've made me to have endurance in my life where not just little any wind of doctrine, even a little huff and puff will blow me out. I'm going to stand fast in the faith that I have and continue to stand and preach the word of God. But years ago, I might have got rattled real easy. but the trials and the testings and the burdens of life that come and God gives grace and he brings you through. So he's going to be thrown into a pit with a plot to kill him. And then the scripture says, verse 28, they're passed by Midianite merchant men. So there's this traveling shopping mall, so to speak. These guys travel around. They sell people. They buy people, slaves. They buy all kind of things, animals, anything they can buy, sell, or trade. And they're traveling. And the idea comes while Judah is, there's plots going on. Reuben's trying to get him out. And Judah's trying to talk him out of it. And then they talking about selling him to this group of Ishmaelite, Midianite merchantmen that are traveling through there. And so in verse 28, they lift him up out of the pit and they actually physically sold their brother for money. Now, I don't know if you ever thought about doing that with one of your brothers and sisters, but you might have. But this is not a joke here. They made a transaction for 20 pieces of silver, and they struck a handshake or some symbolism, and those men shackled Joseph and chained him to the slave gang, and he had to march and walk across the desert as they headed in to Egypt And in between there and Egypt, town to town to town, they sold their brother. And I can just imagine what Joseph felt like. We'll see what will come to his dreams. Death didn't stop his dreams, but now it seems like his dreams are done. He's a slave and sold as one here, sold to these merchantmen. But I finally see him go from hardship to hard time to trial to difficult one after another after another. We see Joseph being faithful in the hard times. That's something we need to learn to do as believers, is to be faithful to God, faithful to our faith, faithful to our walk for God in the hard times of our lives. Anybody can live for God and shout the victory and talk about how good God is when everything's going well. If you've got money flowing through and you never have a car breakdown, you never lose your job, you don't have any physical problems, and there's nothing ever goes wrong in your life, well, no wonder you're so happy all the time. But there are times when all of the above goes wrong, sometimes the same week. You endure that hardship as a good soldier. And you say, remain faithful in those hard times when you are being tested, and instead of quitting and running away from God. And we also see, as we go to chapter 39, not only is he faithful in the hard times, but he receives favor from God in those hard times. Now I'll say this, if God didn't help us through the hard times, and didn't bless us some along the way within the hard times, I know I would have quit. I know I couldn't have made it. Listen, I don't have that much faith to believe. I'll just let you just wipe me out for 13 chapters here, and I'll just wait on God down to the end. There has to be some help along the way, otherwise I know I wouldn't have made it. So here he is. He's brought down to Egypt in chapter 39, and here's the Lord connecting the dots, gonna put him into Potiphar. He's an officer of Pharaoh. Wow. How did he end up a slave? His brothers didn't want him, and now he's working, he's living in the house of an officer of the Pharaoh of Egypt, the greatest empire of all the land of the world. Well, it's because God's got a plan. God's stepping him through this process. But here in this, you can say, you know, I could live a good life here working for Potiphar. I could work here. And he goes to work for him. And the Bible tells us in verse 2, the Lord was with Joseph. The Lord was with him in the midst of that. He didn't belong there necessarily. He didn't know the language. I mean, he's just a fish out of water, as you'd say. It seems like there's no way he can make it. But you can make it when the Lord is with you. He can make it anywhere in this world if God is with you to help you make it. Joseph is a proof of that. The Bible said the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man. He was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. And his master saw the Lord was with him. What a blessing. Now, I'll tell you what this is. This is when not only do you have the favor of God, but you see now that man sees that favor on your life. This master over him said, I see something going on. I see God's favor on that man. I want that man involved in more in my life here. I want him to take more things. So he gives him more things to do. He becomes more powerful in the household. And even though this is not the greatest power he'll ever understand or know as a person, he resists that temptation to, with all that power and that responsibility coming into his life, he resists that to abuse it. You ever meet somebody who gets a raise at work or gets a management position and they become a jerk? It goes through their head? I mean, they get a little power. So you can imagine, he says, you know what? Forget my brothers and forget all that. And I'm doing good now here and I got a little authority here. And then he becomes real hard to deal with. Joseph does not do that. He doesn't do that. He continues to give God glory and honor. He keeps trying to do what is right. And in the context of this scripture, as he becomes an overseer of the whole household of Potiphar, who is an officer who works for Pharaoh, he's trusting him. with his whole household affairs. Now this is not maybe a small household like maybe some of us will not have when we have a little bit of land and a few things. This would be probably a very large estate, maybe have barns and all kinds of stalls of animals and we don't even know his position to any depth of what it was. The Bible said in verse number six, he left all that he had in Joseph's hand. Everything that Potiphar owned, every bit of his business dealings, he just turned it all over to Joseph and said, you take care of it. He trusted him because he could see the favor of God. And I'll tell you, as I talked about this morning in Sunday school, honor is before humility. You won't get honor until humility comes first. And I do not believe you'll get favor from God until faithfulness comes first. I believe it's important that we are faithful through the hardships. through the trials of our lives. And it's then that we can trust ourselves and trust God. And God begins to send favor through us. He begins to send His favor, His blessings, and then also to have favor with man. What a blessing to have favor with God and man. That's a powerful thing to have and a lot of people can't control it. A lot of people don't. A lot of people abuse it. They take it for granted. Joseph had all these things going on and the Bible says in verse six, Joseph was a goodly person, well favored. It gives it over and over and over again. Well, the Bible says in this story, I won't get into great detail here, but the Bible teaches that the Potiphar's wife begins to get the eyes for Joseph. and she makes an advance towards him. She must have thought he was good looking or whatever, and she's willing to cheat on him, cheat on her husband, and he's not even around anyway, and Joseph's the only one who knows what's going on. And in the middle of that, when it seems like no one would ever catch you, no one would even care, that's when you see the true integrity and steadfastness and faithfulness of us as a person. and he resisted that temptation. He said, no, I can't do this. And she got scorned and got mad, and then she grabs his garment and he runs. The Bible said he got himself out of there. Boy, I always saw that phrase, and I said, that's a good thing. Hey, sometimes you just got to get yourself out of there. Get yourself out of there, boy. Just get out of there. Well, the scripture tells us that Verse 12, he got himself out, and it came to pass when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and was fled forth, she called unto the men of the house, and she began to scream to the servants and people in the house, and they came, and there's all the evidence of a crime of passion against her. blaming Joseph. There's his garment and she's the household wife, the wife of Potiphar. Who are you going to? You're going to take the word of a slave over her? So you see where Potiphar, even if he doesn't know or didn't even trust, he has to take the word of honor for his wife. And so Even though Joseph believed it was a wickedness, even Joseph said it was a sin against God, she still framed him and now he goes to prison. It seems like as it gets a little better, you ever heard that phrase, two steps forward, three steps, is that it? One step forward, two, whatever it is, it's going forward and going backwards further than it seems like you're going forward. And that's where he is in this moment, where it seems like things of favor were going good and he was, but see, sometimes I believe God doesn't want us to get comfortable. If it's not where God wants us to finish, then he might stir the nest a little bit. And God, listen, God allowed this. I don't know why. All you can do when the temptations and trials come in your life is endure them. you resist them, whether it's a sexual temptation, whether it's drugs, whether it's some other thing, to steal something. I mean, can you imagine that Joseph could just steal something whenever he wanted and nobody would know about it? Sure he could have. He's the only one who knew what was going on. He could cook books, but integrity and faithfulness and steadfastness and doing what is right is important for us, no matter how difficult our lives are, how many trials or testings that we go through. And he had integrity and he resisted the temptation with Potiphar's wife. And the Bible says, as she began to say, she lifted up her voice and he attacked her. They put him in prison, verse 20, chapter 39. Joseph's master took him and put him in the prison, a place where the king's prisoners were bound. Many times the king's prisoners were headed to death row, most of the time. So he didn't go to jail down there in Simpsonville. He went to the king's prison. And this was a crime against the office of Pharaoh because you could understand it would come back to Pharaoh I heard one of your officers and his wife and all this story about where that slave boy you brought in there So they want put him in the Pharaoh's jail. This is serious So he goes to prison where the king's prisoners are, and most of the king's prisoners are there because he got mad or he didn't do what they thought he should do. I mean, he's the king and he can do what he wants to do. Put him in jail, let him rot for a while, or he can put him on death row for execution. So, Joseph was put in prison, and they're in that prison, and then verse 21 pops up. but the Lord was with Joseph. That's why this blesses my heart so much. When things seem to, I'm gonna say seemingly, when things definitely get worse, the Lord was still with him just like he was at the beginning. And the Lord will continue to be with him and there is favor connected with his presence when the Lord was with him. But whether I have the God's favor in my life, whether he's sending blessings and promotions and whether I'm eating well or not, I would rather have the promise that he's with me. I'd rather have his presence if I could not have his favor. Many times Joseph had both. I'm going to tell you that phrase jumps out at me in verse 2, the Lord was with Joseph. Verse number 5, the Lord, the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had. And then verse 21, the Lord was with Joseph. And in verse 23, the Bible says that the Lord was because the Lord was with him and that which he did, the Lord made it to prosper. There's that blessing and favor connected together. So here to make the story go a little faster for you, Joseph goes to prison. In verse 22, the prison keeper, which is like the warden of the prison, He committed everything there to Joseph's hands. He turned everything over to him. Everywhere Joseph went, God gave him a favor. He said, you know what? You're a good worker. You're trustworthy. This is some special favor. You can't explain it. And they gave him the authority over all the prison. Instead of him going in on the bottom of the barrel and being abused and all those things that happen in prison, he goes to the top of the ladder. That's the favor and the amazing protection of God. Keeper of the prison committed to Joseph Han, all the prisoners that were in the prison and whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it. If they had exercise out in the courtyard, he was the doer of that. If he got special meals, he was responsible for that. He kept up with everything the prisoners did and all that was going on. In verse 23 of chapter 39, the Bible says, the keeper of the prison looked not to anything that was under his hand. He pretty much didn't have, he got an assistant manager. He got an assistant keeper. And he let Joseph handle it. He didn't have to worry about it. And nothing was going wrong because the favor was God. God was there. People were seeing God's favor. When I studied this as a young man, I desired that. I wanted God's favor on me when I worked, wherever I worked, the furniture store where I worked. It was not an easy job unloading transfer trucks of furniture in a warehouse that had no AC, 100-something degrees. Then I got in my little Honda car that had no AC. By the time I got home, I didn't know I could be more wet and soaked and hot than I was when I worked all day, but I usually was. That wasn't easy to do. And there were temptations and things that came to my life. I worked in the inventory thing. I could have stolen things. There are things that could, but God helped me to retain and regain and keep my integrity in life. And I was encouraged and inspired by people like Joseph, that even in the midst of difficulties and trials, just let God prosper you. Let God give you favor. Let God promote you and bless you and protect you. You just keep being faithful, even in the hard times. And the Lord made everything that was going on in that prison prosper. That's an amazing thought, Sister Moore, to think the prison was prospering. Why? Why would you even care if a prison prospers? Well, you know why it was prospering at this moment? Because Joseph was there. because Joseph was there. You know why we have grace and mercy? Because Joseph is the type of Jesus Christ. And the favor of God in our life is not because of you and I, it's because Jesus is there. We never need to forget that typology and picture of who Jesus is. So this whole prison is enjoying favor because Joseph is there. Because we know he's not going to be cruel. He's not going to be mean and wicked to the prisoners. He's going to have a level of compassion that will be different than others. And so, in the midst of this story as it goes on, He gets more power. Now he's over a prison. Now I don't know if you might think that was a promotion, but I'm going to tell you this. If I was in prison and they put me in charge of me, I'd be okay with that. I'd be real good to me as much as I could be. Y'all don't know what I'm talking about. I wouldn't put myself in solitary confinement unless it was for protection purposes. And if there's good food going down the pike, if I can get some good food, I'll be sending it to me, if I could. Now, I also take care of other people, but the Lord made him to prosper. Now, I'm reminding you, they're in the king's prison, and something happened. I'm gonna just fast forward a little bit. The king got mad at his baker, and he got mad at his butler, and he put them both in jail. Now, Joseph is a dreamer, and he can dream dreams, and the dreams he has about himself don't seem to be coming to pass. But if somebody else dreams, God gives them interpretation, and it comes to pass. I'm sure that was a challenge to Joseph, but in this story, The baker and the butler have dreams. I'm going to go through every detail of the verses here. It's some strange dreams. And the baker has a dream that Joseph interprets that the baker is going to have his head cut off. That's not a good outcome to that dream. The butler has a dream that interprets him that he's going to get out of jail. Well, the butler gets out of jail and the baker gets his head cut off. Now when the butler is getting ready to leave jail, the pharaoh kind of gets over his mad and wants the butler to come back to work. And Joseph asks him to remember him. I've interpreted the dream, it came true. Remember me when you go, when you get out of prison. And the Bible says as he restored that chief butler to the butlership again, hanged the Chief Baker. I got it wrong, I'm sorry, I meant to say he was hanged. I'm thinking of Haman in the book of Esther. The Baker was hanged, so they hung him by his neck. So in Genesis 40, 23, here's what happened. Remember me, please remember me when you get out of here. Yet did not the Chief Butler remember Joseph, but forgot him, forgot him. The Bible says in chapter 41, it came to pass at the end of two full years, he was forgotten in prison. That'd be hard, Brother Donnie, to go that long. still holding on to your dreams, still holding on to God, still thinking somehow He's going to do what He said He's going to do. Even though things may not be terrible, terrible, terrible, they're not what you thought they would be. They're not at all the dreams that you, even though you might not understand what God's doing, you sure can say, I sure couldn't see myself when I was at a certain age here, maybe in my 20s, in jail. with no hope of getting out. I'm sure he saw the butler leaving, going up to the pharaoh, and knows he did no wrong. Maybe he saw a little window of hope that somehow he was going to get out of there in two years. Can you imagine? I don't know about you, but I put myself in this man's shoe. I think, well, it's been two or three days. Surely he's going to remember me. Maybe he got busy. It would have been a big party up there. butler serving two weeks, two months, two years. And so that kind of leads us where we'll pick up next time. It's an amazing story that God's going to put that butler right next to the Pharaoh who some in the world called the God of Egypt. He'll put that butler back to work when he could have been hung for his grievances. and had cross paths with a slave boy who's in prison by the name of Joseph. And guess what's going to happen? Joseph is going to get a chance to interpret the dreams of the pharaoh of Egypt. God's going to give some nightmares to Pharaoh, give him some dreams. And Mason, I don't know if you knew about this, but under the pharaoh's care of a government, he had magicians. He had all kind of soothsayers. He had all kind of, they just hired, almost like our government, they'd hire anybody to do anything, probably. And he'd bring them in and say, I've had a dream. And he'd bring all these people, and they would try to interpret the dream when none of them even had a clue what the dream was. Can you imagine making up a bunch of stories? And nobody even knows. And the pharaoh's like, that's not it. You guys don't got it. And he was so mad, he was getting ready to just lay the hammer down on everybody like a bunch of people that had this no interpretation. And then the butler's going to go, Wait a minute, I know somebody who not only can interpret dreams, but did interpret my dream. And it came true, and he would be here today. So we'll look at that, finish up this story. It always encourages me to see, learn some lessons, and learn some truths, and glean some little nuggets through the life of Joseph. So we'll try to go on in that, Lord willing, next Sunday night. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for putting these stories in the scriptures Lord about real people going through real experiences or their miraculous things involved in Joseph's life. But there are also some very painful things in Joseph's life. What I had to say, we can relate mostly to the bad things more than we can sometimes the miracles. But I know God, there's been amazing things you've done for us. Those two years and all the time of just sitting in pits and sitting in places, people plotting against you. Lord, in the prison, and two years go by with no voice, no hope. Lord, help us, God, to take scriptures like this and realize there's always hope. God is never, never not working. He's not quitting. He's not going to walk away from us. And God, these things will come to pass. And there's always something bigger going on in God's heart and mind concerning us than what we can even dream or imagine. Help us, Lord, to be faithful and steadfast, to walk for you and walk close to you and walk right for you and forsake this world and put you first in our life. I pray that you'll guide and direct us. Lord, we might have a favor that comes from you, a favor that comes with God, giving favor through mankind as well. But not take it for granted, Lord, and help us to have compassion, making a difference. Help us to have wisdom. Help us, Lord, to just be steadfast true to you, Lord, all the way, no matter what changes, no matter how many times we go backwards. Help us, God, to keep holding on and walking for you. Help us to improve and get better through the testing and not allow our heart to get bitter. In Jesus' name we pray.