The Faithfulness of God
In your Work
This is Labor Day weekend so it’s appropriate that we talk about God’s Faithfulness in your work. Work can be a very fulfilling aspect of your life, or it could seem like curse.
Take for example Joseph. His work was an extension of his life and faith. That’s what a vocation is. A vocation is more than a job or a career track. It’s a calling.
You sense that God has placed you where you are with the gifts, abilities and aptitude to make a difference for God’s glory and the common good.
Unfortunately for Joseph, his vocation was imposed on him. He was sold as a slave, then incarcerated. In chapter 40 he was 28 years old and had been enslaved in forced labor for the past 11 years.
Yet Joseph was not the first or the last man to find himself in that situation. Some of you here today feel like a prisoner to your jobs.
You feel stuck in a job that brings you no joy and you don’t see anyway out. You’re certainly grateful to have work, but it hasn’t been the kind of employment that you dreamed about.
That was certainly true for Joseph. As a 17 year old wet behind the ears youth, Joseph walked around with his coat of many colors dreaming about being somebody important.
He saw himself in an executive role someplace in some kind of important position. He dreamed of how his family members would all come and show him respect.
His older brothers who never liked him would bow and show him deference.
But most of all, he dreamed about his father Jacob coming to visit him at his place of work and showing how proud he was of his firstborn son from his beloved wife Rachel.
Up until that point, Jacob loved Joseph because of Rachel. But Joseph could hardly remember Rachel because she died when he was just a toddler when Benjamin was born.
Joseph loved the special attention he got from Jacob, but every son wants to make his father proud by his own merits.
Being the son of Rachel was fine, but he didn’t have his mother anymore. He dreamed of earning the respect of his father.
Joseph was young an naïve, and he told his family of his visions of grander without really understanding what they meant.
Greatness isn’t achieved by position or power. What the world venerates, God dismisses as vainglory. God raises up people for His purposes, and He brings them down.
All of us have aspirations to do something meaningful with our lives.
Those kinds of fantasies are harmless enough, unless they cause you to lose focus on what’s really important in life.
Your work, your vocation, is to reflect your sense of calling. It’s an extension of who you are.
If you’re always wishing that you were somebody and someplace else, you’ll never see the hand of God where you are now.
Your situation may have been forced on you. In today’s economy, a lot of people are doing things they never had any intentions on doing.
That was certainly the case with Joseph. First as a slave with Potiphar, then as an administrator in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph, and he succeeded wherever he was in whatever he did.
The Lord was with Joseph. Do you sense the Lord’s presence in your life? Success isn’t just winning the accolades of those around you; it’s a sense of satisfaction that you have internally.
A young mother taking care of her children isn’t going to get a promotion. But one day her children will arise and call her blessed.
Nobody is going to notice if you’re conscientious in your work while nobody is watching, but you’ll know.
If your work is an extension of your faith, your labor will never be in vain. You work not for men, but to honor the One who has placed you there for a purpose.
Four view of work:
Joseph did what he did in creative and efficient ways so that those who were in charge could rely on him with confidence and even joy.
It is a delight to see someone, anyone do their jobs well and with pleasure. (Tyler Kern)
Joseph’s Gifts
While in prison, Joseph came into contact with two high profile prisoners. The chief cupbearer and the chief baker were both imprisoned for some unknown reason.
These were two white collar inmates who had prominent positions in the household of the Pharaoh. It would be the equivalent Presidential aides, like chief of staff or head of security.
These were men who had daily contact with Pharaoh, who wasn’t just a head of state but was considered deity.
They messed up and found themselves in prison. They both had dreams, and they desperately wanted someone to interpret them.
Dreams in that culture were thought to put you in contact with another world; another sphere of life. To interpret a dream was to understand the deeper meaning of what was taking place in life.
Joseph took note of their troubled disposition, and asked them what was the matter. They told him about their dreams, and Joseph said, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me about your dreams.”
You heard from our text what the dreams were and how Joseph interpreted them.
What Joseph did in that situation was a significant part of what God was doing to preserve God’s chosen people through whom the entire world would be blessed.
You could say that what Joseph did was unique and exceptional for that time and place. However, God is the giver of all gifts, spiritual or otherwise.
What Joseph did was use what the Lord had given him as a child of Abraham for the glory of God and the benefit of others. In that sense, you’re no different from Joseph, if you belong to Jesus Christ.
At the end of the section on spiritual gifts in the book of I Corinthians, Paul writes that in the end, three things remain: faith, hope, and love. You can see that in Joseph.
1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction
of things not seen.
Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Faith is trusting in the saving work of Jesus Christ and believing His Word to be true.
Saving faith gives the believer spiritual insight that the unbelieving world doesn’t have access to.
There’s faith, and hope. Hope is being able to look to an unknown future with the certainty that God will make all things work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.
Hope gives you the strength to suffer well. Hope gives you something to hang onto while you wait for God to fulfill His promises.
It had been 11 years since Joseph had his dreams dashed when he was taken to
Then after he interpretations were vindicated, the cup bearer forgot to speak to Pharaoh about Joseph. So Joseph spent two additional years in prison not knowing if his situation was going to change at all.
Without hope, you have nothing to sustain you when you’re waiting for God to fulfill His promises. Paul says in
We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Don’t hope that your situation will change. Hope that your character will grow and you’ll see the hand of God even in the midst of your pain.
Faith, hope, and LOVE. How does Joseph demonstrate love here in prison? He spoke the truth in love, even when it wasn’t pleasant.
Joseph’s interpretation of the chief cup bearer was well received. In three days, the cup bearer would be received back in the good favor of Pharaoh and restored to his position.
To be the carrier of good news is very pleasant. But it was not so pleasant to tell the baker that in three days, he would lose his head and the birds of the air would devour his carcass.
Some might say that it wasn’t very loving of Joseph to tell the baker that he was going to die like that. I’m not sure what he could have done to soften that a bit.
I suppose he could have told the baker that in three days he was going to be invited to the Pharaoh’s birthday party and he was going to be the center of attention.
That would have been true, but unloving. Sometimes you are put in a position where you have to speak the truth in love, even when it’s unpleasant.
The old expression “the emperor has no clothes” is really a metaphor for someone who doesn’t have anyone around them with the guts to say what needs to be said.
If you truly love someone, and you see that they’re headed down a path that will lead to their destruction, you have an obligation to tell them.
In some cases, the wounds of a friend will save a life. In other cases, their fate is set, but their soul is in the balance. They need to hear the truth of the Gospel.
Speaking the truth in love requires more than bluntness and candor. It takes a great deal of humility, wisdom and sensitivity.
You have to know what to say, when to say it, and how to phrase it. You have to care more about the other person than yourself, and quite frankly, that doesn’t happen with everybody.
You have to trust that it’s God that changes hearts, not you. You can be the vessel, but God must do the work.
Joseph’s gifts and your gifts need to be used in the context of faith, hope and love.
The Third Day
20On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants.
21He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. 22But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.
Joseph went out on a limb and was very precise in his interpretation. It would be three days when these events would take place.
Three days; not sometime down the road or in the distant future. Three days and the Word of God would be fulfilled.
I don’t want to make too much of the third day, but it does bring to mind some things that Jesus said.
38Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
39But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
40For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
At the trial of Jesus, that statement was repeated by witnesses as a major piece of evidence. What could Jesus do in three days to rebuild the temple? Of course Jesus was talking about the temple of his body.
Just when you thought everything was lost, in three days Jesus destroyed death and made all things new. A lot can change in three days.
Going back to the story of Joseph, I wonder what that baker did during those three days before he died.
Did he ignore what Joseph had said? Did he dismiss it all as a bad dream? Did he see the shallowness of his life and seek to find out more about the Lord that Joseph spoke about?
The actor Michael Douglas was recently diagnosed with stage IV throat cancer. He was interviewed on a late night talk show. He showed a mixture of courage and spiritual callousness.
Like for anyone in that situation, you pray for their well being, and for them to come to terms not only with their mortality, but with the One who could save their soul.
Whether you’re given three days, or three months, or three years, or three decades, you have to be ready to come before God and give an account of your life.
If you think you can justify yourself before God on your own merit, then you’re in the same boat as the Baker. You will face the wrath of the one who controls your fate.
But if you look to the One who took on the wrath not of Pharaoh but of the only true God, and in three days rose victoriously from the grave, you’ll be ready face your day of destiny.
With Jesus, you have the One who knew no sin, but became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God.
God shows Himself to be faithful in your labor and in your life. You can’t work your way into God’s favor, but He’ll give meaning to your toil.
In the end, it will be the work of Jesus Christ on the cross that will give you hope.