Dungeon Academy

We are now several weeks into the story of Joseph and we have watched him go from mountain high to valley low to mountain high to valley low. Joseph started at the top. He was dad’s favorite. Everyone else got thrift store hand me downs and Joe got the Louis Vitton shoes and the Supreme hoodie. But then tragedy strikes and he descends into the valley. And it’s deep. His brothers strip him of his swag and he’s tied to the back of a pooping camel, drug south deep into the nation of Egypt, and sold at an auction to the highest bidder at a slave block. He’s in a deep valley.Then we watch him slowly, faithfully, steadily rise to a position of influence and power in Potiphar’s house. And suddenly Joseph is running the entire estate. But tragedy strikes in the form of a seductress. Potiphar’s wife tries to lure him through her seductive arts. We imagined her thousand tricks. “Joseph, I’m sick today, would you take care of me? Joseph, do you like this necklace or this one? Joseph, can you rub my back? Joseph, can you help me untie this bow?”But, Joseph says the noble, beautiful phrase, “How could I do this great evil and sin against God?” And what was his reward for righteousness? The manipulative seductress first freaks in rage and then without missing a beat, shrieks to stage an attempted rape scene.Her husband comes home, sees his wife upset with fake tears, “What’s wrong honey?” “Potiphar, if you love me at all you will immediately have Joseph executed.” “Joseph? Why Joseph? He’s our best slave. Why?” “He tried to rape me. How ungrateful can he get? After all we’ve done for him. All along he was laying these secret plans to defile me, and during the festival, when he knew you would be gone. He always pretends to be so noble and full of integrity around you but he’s a beast when you are gone. The way he looks at me makes me feel so dirty. You’ve trusted him with this entire place, you even promoted him above other slaves who have been here longer and look what he did.”Potiphar acts on that lie and boom: Joseph’s in the dungeon. Now if you ever find yourself in a dungeon, what’s the first step? We talked about it last week:Step 1: Reminded yourself that the reward for righteousness is not justice. Being righteous does not guarantee any outcome. But it does guarantee is the nearness of God. So that’s always the first step when you find yourself in the dungeon. Remind yourself that the nearness of God is your good. That is always available. So if that’s step one of being in the dungeon, what’s step two?Step 2: Try to get out of the dungeon. Here’s the thing about dungeons: they are terrible. Nobody wants to be in a dungeon. They are stuffy. They are designed to crush a person psychologically. Nobody likes the dungeon. And it’s certainly not wrong to want to get out of a dungeon. Pain is not synonymous with righteousness. It’s not inherently righteous to live in a cave. If you have the option to upgrade from a cave to a two-bedroom house, well then maybe you should do that.Now, here’s what we are going to see from the text today: - Joseph wants to get out of the dungeon.- And he’s going to try and get out. - And it’s even going to look like God is helping him get out.But at the end of the chapter today there is this incredible temptation for Joseph to crash into deep disappointment, discouragement, and despair because he is forgotten by his friend and it seems like he has been forgotten by God. And depending on how he responds, he will either be boosted to incredible effectiveness or rendered completely ineffective.Now let’s watch this unfold in the text itself. We’ll grab the last few verses from chapter 39 for context.Now let’s stop here for a moment. We are asking the question this morning, how can we be effective in the dungeon? Now to help us answer that we’ll use a little acronym.We all dislike dungeons so that’s the acronym. And you say, “Ah that’s cute.” Why do preachers like acronyms? “Well, you see it’s a pneumonic device intended to help the listener remember the points.” Now I hear you challenging me. Do you remember any sermon from any preacher who used an acronym? No. So with that encouraging thought, let’s begin our ineffective acronym: DISLIKE.To be effective in the dungeon you just need to do the right thing for the right reason. Joseph’s audience was God and his motive was the nearness of God. But because doing right simply for God’s sake is so incredibly rare, the prison guard took notice, and Joseph was promoted to a small position of influence and responsibility.This is the second time that the phrase is used to describe Joseph. Both with Potiphar and with the prison warden it is said that they, “Paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge.” Let me ask you, what does it take to totally and completely release something into someone else’s charge such that it literally doesn’t even cross your mind? I 100% completely trust that it will be done well and on time.There’s a lot implied there. For the prison guard to totally release his control, several things must have been true about Joseph: - He must have been trustworthy. He had to have good character to appropriately use the freedom and resources given to him. - He must have been competent. A person can have a great heart but just lack the skill and ability. Joseph clearly had the ability. - He must have been honest. When he failed, he confessed. He probably didn’t make excuses when he had circumstances that made faithfulness hard. He probably made adjustments so that it wouldn’t happen again. He’d increase margins to account for the unexpected, make better lists so he didn’t forget, etc.The text doesn’t say any of that but it’s all there. We don’t trust people and release our oversight of something unless all these things are in place. Joseph, we are told, was charged with managing two new prisoners, a baker and a cupbearer. I always wonder what these guys did to get thrown in prison. What was the great capital crime? Pharaoh got offended and flew off the handle. I mean I could see maybe the baker forgetting the salt or something, but what did the cupbearer do wrong? I mean the cupbearer had a pretty simple job: taste the wine to make sure it isn’t poisoned. If you didn’t die, pass it on to the king. I mean how do you fail at that job? My guess is that Pharaoh was just having a bad day and took it out on his attendants. So perhaps Joseph and these guys had something in common - unjust treatment.Now the point is that Joseph’s decision to ‘do the right thing because it’s right to do the right thing’ gave him the opportunity to influence these two men. He’s responsible for a prisoner who is part of the palace furniture. Maybe he gives them food and bedding, checking in on them to some degree. Who knows. Somehow he had some responsibility that was given to him because of his faithfulness. He’s being faithful in the little things.What’s the lesson? Want to be effective in the dungeon? Step one, do the right thing. Always keep doing the right thing. You don’t know what opportunities will open up. Maybe nothing. Maybe the most unexpected amazing thing. But you do it because it’s right and honors the Lord. Maybe your dungeon is your own house. And doing the right thing for you as a mom means caring for your little kiddos and cleaning the house and doing it all with a happy heart. Maybe your neighbor is watching you and you don’t even know it. Maybe God is rooting some procrastination bone out of your body or stripping an idol out of your life. Maybe God is shaping you and you’ll have all this experience to start a mom’s ministry in your later years. Maybe nothing will happen. But you just do it because it’s right in God’s eyes. Maybe your dungeon is your job, that you hate. I’m sure your job is lame, but don’t go crying to Joseph because I’m pretty sure Joseph’s dungeon promotion was still pretty lame. Just do the right thing. What does it mean to not cut corners, to be faithful, to work at being more competent, not as a men-pleaser but as one who tries to honor the Lord? Maybe you will be promoted like Joseph and have an influence. Maybe not. You just do the right thing. For Joseph, doing the right thing elevated him to a position of influence for a bit of ministry opportunity. Look at how this opportunity presents itself.So the cupbearer and the baker each have a dream. And this dream is very vivid and obviously from God. Joseph can relate to this. He’s had one of these divine dreams. He knows a thing or two about this phenomena and he knows how disturbing it can be. And the thing to note here is how he cares for the two men in their troubled state.“Why are your faces downcast today?”What do you do when you dislike the dungeon? Inquire of others.In our dungeon circumstances, it’s always so tempting to focus on ourselves. It’s the most natural thing in the world. When you are suffering, all your body’s energy turns inward to protect and try to remove the offense. When you are going into surgery, you talk about your surgery. It’s natural. It’s major. It’s significant. Of course that’ what you talk about.Now if you compare, Joseph was very likely suffering much larger injustices than the cupbearer and the baker. But the goal is never to compare who has the worse setting. “Oh, you think you’ve been dealt an injustice? That’s nothing! Oh, you think you’ve had a dream? Let me tell you about my dream. I bet my dream is better than your dream.” I doubt very seriously, that the cupbearer and baker suffered an injustice anywhere near as significant as Joseph. And yet, Joseph is inquiring of them, thinking of them, caring for them, looking into their needs. He goes beyond the basic duty of just shoving some food at them. He’s caring for the condition of their soul. He knew them well enough to detect, just by their countenance, that something was wrong. He was willing to ask the question, “How are you doing?” and went beyond, “No, I can tell something is wrong. Seriously, how are you doing?”And you know what’s impressive about this? When you are hurting yourself, the last thing you want to do is ask about someone else’s hurt, because you are afraid of the answer. What if what comes back is something really heavy? I’ve got to be able to bear that. I’ve got to have a way to offer some sort of help and I’m about to drown myself. You need to have something to give. This is evidence of the nearness of God, isn’t it? Joseph did have something to give. When God is near, he will give strength to care for others, to inquire of them and their needs. So Joseph caringly inquires about their dejected state and now they tell him why they are so dejected.What Joseph says here is simple but incredibly impressive. What did Joseph have to give? Well, really, he had nothing to give. If you want to be effective in the dungeon, you have to confess your total and complete inability to do anything of any value whatsoever. After all, you are in the dungeon. Dungeon inmates don’t have a lot to offer. Joseph was effective because he leads with inability. Joseph says, “You look really bad today. How are things?” And the baker says, “Man, you are right. Things are terrible. I’ve had this dream and I have no idea what it means, but I know it’s from God. I’ve never been so anxious, depressed, and worried in my entire life. I’m a nervous wreck.” “Man, that sounds terrible. I feel like before you go too far I need to tell you some bad news. I can’t help you, at all. Like, you have some serious problems and I’m just a dude. Did you notice, I’m in prison too? Kind of unfortunate. But here’s the good news. God can help you. Dreams exist in the domain of God. You see, God’s outside of prison while we are in prison. Let’s appeal to him.”Do you know that’s the most loving thing you can possibly do when someone is suffering? It doesn’t feel loving. In fact, it feels very uncompassionate to say, “I can’t help you,” when they are in their most desperate hour. Man, that is way, way too hard for me. I could never fix that. It feels so unloving. But it’s true. Just think about the consequences of lying with good intentions at that moment. “Oh, I can totally help you. I’ve got experience with that.” What are you setting them up for? You’re setting them up for disillusionment.Disillusionment comes when people put their trust in men. It could be a counselee putting trust in the counselor, a wife putting her trust in her husband, a Christian putting hope in well-known preachers or teachers. They will fail you. Disillusionment comes when you put your trust in men. Hope comes when you put your trust in God. So tell people the truth. I can’t help you unless we define help as pointing you to Christ. In that case, let’s get busy. Because he’s right here waiting for us. I can help you do that.Joseph answers these guys. “Do not interpretations belong to God?” Later on, when Joseph is drug before Pharaoh, he says the same thing with increased clarity. Pharaoh says, “I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.” Joseph answered Pharaoh plainly, “I cannot interpret dreams; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer,” (Gen 41:15-16 ESV).Do you want to be useful in the dungeon? Then don’t see yourself as the savior. None of us are saviors. If you think you can save, then you need to be saved. That’s just a rephrase of Jesus’ words to the Pharisees. It’s not the healthy that need a physician but the sick. God wants the weak and foolish things of the world to shame the wise. When people turn their gaze upon us mistakenly thinking we are the savior, he wants us to laugh and say, “Are you kidding? I’m a prisoner with you. I have no keys. Look at my pockets! They are empty. We are beggars together. Who do you think I am? God is the one who saves!”Do you want to be effective in the dungeon? See your inability! So Joseph tells the cupbearer, “I can’t help you but God can. Tell me the dream and let’s see if God helps us.”Here’s the fourth letter in our unhelpful acronym:Here we see Joseph trying to change his circumstances by any means he can possibly think of. Joseph doesn’t like the dungeon and he wants out. Big time. Nobody likes the dungeon. Nobody likes to be sick. Nobody likes to be hurt by people. Nobody likes circumstances hemming them in. Joseph is no exception. He’s trying to get out.I don’t think this plan of Joseph’s was God whispering in his ear to do this. I think Joseph reasoned this out. You see the cupbearer was significant. Yes, he was kind of the canary in the coal mine, but he also served as an advisor and close friend of the king. Remember Nehemiah? When you read the narrative, you see that the king and the cupbearer had a relationship. The cupbearer was not a nobody. Joseph thought, “Okay, the cupbearer sees the king every single day. He’s got Pharaoh’s ear. So if I interpret the cupbearer’s dream, well, I know that Pharaoh is superstitious and perhaps even respects mysticism and spiritualism and maybe he’ll see some use for me in the courts of the magicians. Maybe he’ll improve my station. If I can just get out of here, I know, with God’s help I can work my way up.”He’s got to be thinking something like this. He’s making his case to the cupbearer. Listen, I’m innocent. You have to help me. Please remember. Here, let me write my phone number on the back of your hand so you don’t forget. And the point to make here is a simple one. God’s providence includes your planning and your orchestration of circumstances. Waiting for God to deliver you from the dungeon does not necessarily mean doing nothing or trying nothing. It might feel a bit more spiritual to say, “There I was praying for food for our orphanage and suddenly a bread cart broke down outside our door and we were fed.” Well, that does happen.But it’s just as spiritual to pray, “God I need a job.” And then go fill out job applications and then be given a job and praise the Lord for it. The spiritual part is depending on God, trusting God, putting your hope in God. That’s the part that matters. If you are sick, you pray and then you also go to the doctor. Both of those can be spiritual acts if your hope is in God and not the doctor. It’s okay to say, “Okay God, here’s my plan but I can’t control if that plan works out. That’s your job. So I’m just going to pray while I try some different things.” I think that’s what Joseph did here. He’s looking for an opportunity to act to remove the suffering. That’s good.So Joseph interprets the first dream and perhaps the baker was impressed. He thought to himself, “Now, that worked out well for the wine guy.” So he says to Joseph, “Hey dream whisperer, you got any more interpretations of that vintage?”“It’s not my job to interpret God’s dreams. Tell me your dream and let’s see if God helps us.”Now I don’t know about you but I don’t know of any interpretation that could go well that includes birds picking at your head. But you can imagine him holding his breath at this point hoping for the best.The two interpretations could not be more opposite. In the case of the cupbearer, Pharaoh would lift up his head. In the case of the baker, he would lift off his head. There’s a lot of power in a preposition. Now, you have to commend Joseph for telling the truth here. This the fifth letter in our unhelpful acronym:Nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news because they don’t want to be associated with it. What boss who’s worth his salt enjoys saying, “Hey, you haven’t been performing well at work and so you are fired.” It may be true, but the great fear is that they are going to map that bad news onto you. You are a bad person for telling me this bad news.But I want you to notice the double standard. Compare for a moment, the two dreams. It would have been easy and perhaps even fun for Joseph to interpret the cupbearer’s dream. “Want to hear something really encouraging? You are going to not only get out of here in three days, but you’re in line to get a promotion and raise.” That’s a fun message. A manager who gives his employees a raise doesn’t mind taking a little credit as if he’s the one who is personally giving them the money. He’s not giving them any money at all. The company is rewarding him for his good work. It has nothing to do with the manager, but the manager doesn’t mind a little redirection of that goodwill.“Joseph, man, you are amazing. I’ve never met a guy who can interpret dreams. Joseph, thank you so much. What do I owe you?” “Oh, this one’s on the house.” It’s easy to accept a bit of that praise, isn’t it? We don’t mind taking that message of God and associating it with us. But what happens when the message of God is bad news? Baker, you are going to get your head chopped off and the birds are going to peck on your rotting body hung up in a tree. Well, we are so happy to distance ourselves from that message that we won’t even say it. God, if you are going to successfully communicate that message, you are going to have to find someone else.And this temptation is intensified when you are in the dungeon. Because when you are in the dungeon you already feel bad. You don’t want to feel even worse by having someone dislike you. You want to find something positive and focus on it. You don’t want someone who is already suffering to suffer more by telling them really bad news which then causes you to suffer. But do you see how self-serving both those attitudes are? If we are truly servants of God, then the good messages don’t come from us and neither do the bad ones. The blessings don’t originate in us but neither do the trials. We are servants of God who find our joy in simply being communicators of what God tells us to communicate.The gospel message has both good news and bad news. The bad news is that all our sin deserves eternal punishment in hell, and not only does it deserve it, but there’s no escaping it. All men, without Jesus Christ, will pay for their sins in hell. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.” That’s really not very fun to say to someone.But the good news is that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. You deserve to suffer, but he suffered in your place. And all his righteousness is given to you. This great exchange took place where you gave him your sin and he went to the cross and he gave you his righteousness. That’s really good news!And we are messengers of that really bad and really good news. My friends, there is a lot of freedom in that. If they don’t like the message, then take that up with God. You’re just telling them what he said. You don’t have to take it personally. And if they like the message, don’t let them thank you. You didn’t do anything. Tell God how thankful you are.So Joseph interpreted the dreams. But only time will tell if those dreams are accurate. Sure enough:Now, this is a pretty important point. Know your bias. This is the idea: we all have a bias from which we view the world. There’s an expression that says, “If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” We have a certain way of looking at the world that causes us to misinterpret many things. And if we are not aware of that bias, we will often be very disappointed especially as it relates to the visible movements of God. When God moves visibly in the world, we want to instantly assign meaning to it.This could be on a national or international scale. When the nation of Israel became a state on May 14, 1948, people saw that as this incredible working of God to affect the fulfillment of many biblical prophesies. Wow, now there is an actual Israel that God can begin working with again. There’s an actual nation that God can bless, just as he promised in the Old Testament. And of course, it is true. God is working. He’s never not working. But we just don’t know his plan. What if the nation of Israel gets destroyed by Syria or Lebanon or Egypt or any of their other dozen Middle Eastern enemies? Would God have failed his people? Would God have forsaken his promises?God is up in heaven shaking his head, “When did I say that recreating the nation of Israel was the way I was going to fulfill my promises? That’s what you said. You wrote all those commentaries and books. Not me.”On the other hand, our interpretation might exactly be correct. The point is we just don’t know. But our biases can get us into trouble. We can get very disappointed. “Oh, I thought God was working!” He was. And he is. It’s just not like you thought. We have a bias from which we interpret the visible movements of God.And that bias is especially accentuated when we are in the dungeon. We think, “God I have a great idea on how you should get me out of this dungeon,” and we start dreaming about how God should be working to free us from prison. This is what undoubtedly happened to Joseph. He saw, in the dungeon, a visible movement of God. God gave him supernatural abilities to interpret the dream. And man it was really awesome. And he puts two and two together in his mind and says, “I’m going to interpret the dream and then this cupbearer has the ear of Pharaoh, the only guy who could grant me a presidential pardon. It’s the only way out. And clearly, this is what God is doing.” Joseph is filling in all the blanks. It’s so obvious. It’s so easy for him to get so excited. Joseph is observing so many true things. God did orchestrate that both the baker and the cupbearer would be thrown into the same prison as Joseph. They could have been imprisoned in a different prison or at the same prison but at a different time. Or at the same time but in a different area. But Joseph just happens to be in charge of these prisoners. That’s God’s hand. Joseph observes that correctly. God did cause these two men to both have dreams, dreams that were troubling enough for them to share them with Joseph. That’s God’s hand. Joseph observes that correctly. God had even given Joseph the interpretation of these dreams. That’s God’s hand. Joseph observes that correctly.And putting these things together in his mind, he thinks, “Certainly, what God is up to is that I will interpret these dreams and the cupbearer will tell Pharaoh of my talents and I will be delivered from prison because after all, I’ve had a dream that one day my brothers would bow down to me, so that must mean I’m getting out.” And Joseph was correct on so many details, clear down to the means by which he would be delivered. But his bias blinded him from one key detail. His bias caused him to assume that this deliverance would happen immediately.Oh, the disappointment of that one small detail. “Joseph, you will be delivered. You will have influence and power and you will save the nation and your brothers will bow down and you will see your father again, but not for two years. Until then, just sit tight. I’ve got more work for you to do in the dungeon. There’s more refining of your character than needs to happen before I can use you the way I want you to be used. The dungeon is good for you. We can’t take the clay pot out of the fire too soon or it won’t be useful.”And the lesson for us when we are in the dungeon is to know our bias. We say to ourselves, “If I were God, here’s how I’d deliver me.” Be very cautious of your bias. God may have many more years of dungeon refinement ahead.But here’s the other thing. When you see the visible movements of God in the dungeon, rejoice! Maybe you suffer from watching a child or relative or friend walk away from the faith. When you see an openness to the gospel in someone you love, that’s God working. Rejoice! Or maybe your marriage is in a very bad state. When you see a moment of clarity in your marriage and there is tremendous growth, that’s God working. Rejoice! That is God working. God is always working and those are gracious reminders that he remembers, he loves you, he is working all things together for good. Just be careful about informing God of your timeline or how he’s going to deliver you. God probably won’t take your advice. He’s got a much better plan.God’s doing stuff in suffering. Other’s might have looked at Joseph and said, “Wow, Joseph got catapulted from the dungeon to the palace in a flash of fortune. Joseph became a tremendous leader overnight.” But no, he was given the position overnight. He didn’t become a leader overnight. He became a leader through years of suffering in the dungeon. And that may be exactly what God is doing with you. We don’t know God’s good plans.This final point is a reminder of the big picture. Don’t expect immediate change or deliverance from the dungeon. But you can expect the nearness of God.God promises to be near to the brokenhearted. He promises to be near to the humble, to those who seek him. We are told that the cupbearer forgot Joseph. One of two things happened here. Either the cupbearer was so self-absorbed and excited at this incredible stroke of fortune that he truly did forget. This kind of forgetfulness is akin to what happened when the ten lepers were healed by Jesus and only one came back to say thank you. They are just so consumed by their good fortune they forget that there was a person connected to it. So he could have forgotten in this way.But my guess is that he forgot in a slightly different way. I’m guessing that in the back of his mind, he’s saying, “Dang, Joseph was exactly right. That guy has God’s hand. But he’s in there for attempted rape. That’s no good. I’m not sure I want to risk my job and my reputation my recommending this guy to Pharaoh. I’m not going to cash in my chips and put my neck on the line for a Hebrew slave.” And he just conveniently puts it out of his mind until Joseph is forgotten by the busyness of the week.Either way, Joseph is forgotten by men. And when you are forgotten by all men, alone, what is your only hope? The nearness of God. The glory of God will be revealed to you in the dungeon. That’s our promise. Do you remember 1 Peter 4?God promises to reveal his glory to you and others in the dungeon. Trust that. Expect that. Hold onto that.Application of Submission and Preparation for CommunionWe are going to take communion in just a moment, and so I want to invite up the musicians. And I think now, it may be appropriate to prepare our hearts by surrendering to him a difficult circumstance. Let me ask you, what’s an area of your life that you really want to change and maybe it even seems like God has put pieces together such that it will change, but it hasn’t changed? Maybe seeing a loved one come to Christ. Or overcoming health, financial, or relational challenges. Don’t be tempted into thinking that suffering is strange. Suffering is normal. When we suffer, we share in Christ’s sufferings.We submit now. And why can we trust him? Because of the cross. Do you know even Jesus did this? Jesus wanted to change his circumstances on the way to the cross. “Father if it is possible, remove this cup from me.” But God was doing something in it for our good and for his glory. If God can redeem the suffering of the Son of God, can you trust him in your suffering? We are going to sing a song and I want to encourage people here and at home to get the elements if you haven’t already.