Godly Attitudes: Positive – Joseph Genesis 39:20-23
A country-western song
hit the airwaves in the summer after my freshman year of high school that
climbed all the way to #5 on Billboard’s charts. It is song that would not have as good of a
reputation now as it did then, and rightfully so, for the violence it seems to
advocate, including violence against women and apparent police brutality. The song, was the 1984 hit by Hank Williams
Jr., “Attitude Adjustment.” In the song,
he talks about folks needing attitude adjustments, those adjustments coming in
the way of a bar fight, a tire iron, a scene that reeks of domestic violence,
and police beating a man into submission while sticking the police dog on him. Why bring up such a negative song? Because, over the next several weeks, we are,
in many ways, going to talk about those in need of attitude adjustments—primarily
the folks we see when we look in the mirror.
We are going to spend
some time examining the Godly attitudes that we need to develop. These are the attitudes that we encounter in
Scripture in a variety of God’s people—attitudes that God desires to see in
each of us. However, God’s not going to going
to challenge us in a bar fight, use a tire iron upside our heads, a head punch,
or police baton and K-9 unit. God
doesn’t operate in that way. God brings
about attitude adjustments through the conviction and transforming power of the
Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit reveals to us,
through Scripture reading, through prayer, through worship, through Christian
conversation, the need that we have to change the way we think—the need to stop
being conformed to the way the way this work thinks and responds to thinks, and
instead be transformed, by God’s Holy Spirit, with the renewing of our minds—God’s
Spirit comes and, if we surrender to Him, gives us an attitude adjustment. Through these coming weeks, we are going to
look at several folks throughout Scripture who have the attitudes that we need
to develop.
Imagine, if you will, you
are your father’s favorite son…yes, I know that I am being gender specific, but
there’s a reason. You are not the
eldest, but also not the youngest. You
have eleven brothers as well as some sisters.
Yet out of all your siblings, your father has taken a liking to you. You receive gifts that they don’t…you don’t
have to do all the chores that they do.
It seems to be a truly blessed life.
Then you start having dreams…dreams of gathering wheat with your
brothers and their shaves of wheat bowing down to yours. There’s a little bit of a braggart in you, so
you tell them. They take it about like
any one would take being told they are going to be ruled over by a younger
sibling. You have another dream…in this
one the sun, moon, and eleven stars are bowing before you... You not only tell your brothers, but also
your dad…and rather than help you sort out the dreams, he tells you to hush.
You dad sends you out to
check on the rest of your brothers who are out caring for the sheep while you
are relaxing at home. Your bothers jump
you, take your favorite jacket, and throw you down in a pit. How are you feeling now? A little scared, maybe? You hear them ripping up the jacket. Maybe
getting a little angry? You hear them talking about killing you. Maybe
a lot scared now? Then suddenly they draw you up out of the pit
and drop you to the dust in front of a group of slave traders, and you watch
the money exchange as they hand you over to the traders. So how do you feel now…has depression set
it? Do you start thinking that God
abandoned you? Do you become an angry
person? Do you resign yourself to
silently sulking? This is Joseph’s
beginning. So did Joseph withdraw into
himself, become angry, or sit in a corner weeping?
Joseph didn’t. Joseph found himself sold to the captain of
the guard for Pharaoh in Egypt. Joseph
felt God’s presence. He worked hard…and with
everything that Joseph labored at, God brought success. The captain of the guard, Potiphar, takes
such a liking to Joseph that he put him in charge of his entire household. Unfortunately for Joseph, Potiphar was not
the only one who took a liking to Joseph…Potiphar’s wife did as well. She continually tried to seduce him, yet he
refused each advance. Then one day,
which she got him alone and he refused her advances, she grabbed his shirt when
he fled, and then accused him of attempting to rape her. Potiphar was outraged….and we picked up his
reaction with our reading this morning.
He had Joseph thrown in prison.
Would that be enough, falsely accused and jailed, to make you a hateful
and bitter person or cause you to withdraw into yourself?
Yet not Joseph…He
continued to faithfully serve God and found God blessing all that he did, to
the point that the chief jailer put him in charge of all the other prisoners. Later we find that two of those prisoners,
the Pharaoh’s cup bearer and the Pharaoh’s baker, are there with Joseph. He noticed them seemingly depressed one day
and asked why they were so downcast.
They told them that they had had troubling dreams. Joseph, with the aid of God, interpreted
their dreams. One would die, the other
would be freed. The cup-bearer, when
freed, promised to tell the Pharaoh, that Joseph might be set free. Yet he forgot Joseph, and left him to
continue living in the darkness of the prison.
Would you, at that point, come to believe that Murphy was an optimist? Would you begin to be a person that had no
hope? Would you start to anticipate that
the worst would always happen?
Yet, Joseph apparently
didn’t let negativity overtake him. Then
two years later, when the Pharaoh has a dream that no one can interpret,
suddenly the cup-bearer remembers Joseph.
Joseph is brought before Pharaoh, and, giving credit to God, interprets
the Pharaoh’s dream—warning the Pharaoh that after seven years of plenty, there
would be seven years of famine, and recommending that Pharaoh ought to make
preparations by taking in and storing away during the years of plenty. Pharaoh, impressed with Joseph’s wisdom, puts
him in charge of the project. All that
Joseph predicted came true came true, and the plans of storing up food proved
beneficial not only for Egypt, but for all the nations around Egypt as
residents of those nations came to seek food and resources. Among those coming for food? Joseph’s brothers, who thinking Joseph long
gone, had no idea they were facing their younger brother when standing before
Joseph. How would Joseph respond? How would you respond? Would there be bitterness, maybe even hatred
for what they had done? Would this be an
opportunity to get even, maybe even forcing them to become slaves? Would there be gloating? Would there be the opportunity to say, “Remember
that dream I shared with y’all about bowing before me?”
Yet, none of that
happened. Though Joseph tested his
brothers to see whether they had changed and matured, tearfully revealed
himself to them and not only ensured they had enough to eat but, at Pharaoh’s
order, brought his dad and all the family to live in Egypt. Years later, after Jacob
passed, the brothers became fearful that Joseph would use the opportunity of
his passing to finally exact revenge, approached Joseph, asking for mercy. It is then that Joseph spoke the words that
revealed his positive nature more than anything else, “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you
intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a
numerous people, as he is doing today.
So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little
ones.” In this way he reassured them,
speaking to them kindly.”[i]
Joseph, though given
every reason and every opportunity to become a negative, bitter, pessimistic
person, chose to respond to every situation with positivity. Why? I
firmly believe it was because Joseph realized that no matter what circumstances
he found himself in, he realized that God was going to use it and turn it into
a blessing. Joseph’s response to his
brothers seems to, thousands of years in advance, foreshadow the words that
Paul would write to the Romans, “We know that all things work together for good
for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”[ii].
It is the belief, held by Joseph and Paul, that there is nothing in all this
world, no situation so bad, that God can’t redeem it and turn it into a
blessing.
Is their where we need an
attitude adjustment?
Are we bitter or angry? Do we sit around with our innards all in
knots because of what someone said to us or what they did to us? Can we let it go? Can we look at that person or persons,
especially if they are a sister or bother, biological or, more importantly, in
Christ, and forgive them? Can we with
tears in our eyes, without them even apologizing, embrace them, and if need be,
even care for them? Can we have the
positive, forgiving attitude of Joseph?
Are we depressed? Do we think that there is no hope? Are we ready to just throw in the towel
because it looks like everything is going to fail anyways…no matter how hard we
try…that brief glimpses of light are just that, and when they disappear, we
feel like we are in a darker place all the time? Can we accept our circumstances, no matter
how dour they might be, and rather than let the darkness drive us to despair,
instead let it drive us to respond by being the light in the dungeon? Can we be determined to, rather let the
situations rob us of life, bring life to the worst of places—as Joseph did
whether as a slave or as a prisoner?
Are we a pessimist? Do we always worry about the worst-case
scenario? Do we always expect the
worse-case scenario? Do we let that
thinking keeps us from acting? Do we
figure why try, it is not going to turn out well, in fact it’s going to turn
out bad? If so, my brothers and sisters,
we need to move from thinking about Joseph, though he refused to be a
worst-case scenario person—he strove for best-case responses to those worst
case scenarios—we need to move to thinking about Jesus.
The worst case scenario
has happened. This world took the only
completely innocent man that has ever lived, stripped him and whipped him, forced
him, bloody and battered to carry a cross through the streets of Jerusalem and
up the hill of Golgotha, nailed his wrists and ankles to that cross, slides
open his side with a spear, and then laid him in a tomb, sealing that tomb with
a bolder.
Now tell me, can you
think of a situation any worse than that?
Is there anything that you think any one of us could experience that
could be worse than that? Not the
accidental or unavoidable death of a person…but the intentional torturing and
killing of the only innocent person to ever walk the earth. Worst-case scenario…period…it has happened.
What did God do with that
worst-case scenario? He redeemed
it. He raised that innocent man, His
very Son, from the tomb and through Him brought salvation to all the world,
including those who had abandoned him, those who had betrayed him, those who
had even crucified him…and brought that same salvation to each of us. What the world intended for bad, God intended
for God…in all things, even in the worst case scenarios, God brings good…God
brings the best-case scenario—forgiveness, love, life…
Is there any negativity
in us? Bitterness, hopelessness, depression, despair? May we allow the Holy Spirit to give us an attitude
adjustment and give us the positive attitude that is marked by Joseph and
revealed by God. In the Name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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