The Greatest Promotion of All Time

Every time I leave downtown there’s this big billboard that says what the winning lottery prize is: $300 million. And I know I’m not supposed to fantasize about this as a pastor, but I think, what would I do with 300 million dollars? And it’s such an intriguing thing to think about because right now we are all limited by our finances. We want to do things, but we can’t because we don’t have the power to do what we want. Money is just liquid power. You can get a lot done if you have a lot of power. What if all of a sudden you were not limited? What if you had this incredible opportunity to make powerful changes? That kind of money is powerful.Now, this is a surprise to nobody, but according to folks who track this stuff, a third of those who win the lottery end up filing bankruptcy. Roughly the same statistics apply to celebrities or athletes who made their millions in their short bursts of fame and then somehow squander it away. But even more than that, many who are given the gift of this incredible power will say, “Winning the lottery was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I wish it never would have happened.”How can it be that getting more of a powerful resource would represent a bad thing? And here’s the answer: power given to those who lack character will ultimately destroy them.You see, I already know the answer to the question of what I would do with the money. It’s what I do with it right now. What I value is not going to change if I win money. How I care about people now is how I will care about people then. My financial priorities then will be what my financial priorities are now. If I don’t save, serve, and give now, I won’t then.A winning ticket will simply reveal in a more dramatic fashion who I already am. Money is not the problem. Money revealed the problem that was already there. And what we are going to learn today from the story of Joseph is that success, power, influence, and blessing are just as much a test of character as trials, suffering, pain, and hardship. Both failure and success are pressures that reveal either weakness or strength in our character.The sermon today is entitled, “The Greatest Promotion of All Time”, a promotion that will test Joseph far more than any prison cell.In our text today we watch Joseph - in a single day - rise from the lowest position in society with the least amount of power, influence, and purpose (as a prisoner) to the highest position in society with the most amount of power, influence, and purpose (as the second in command in the most powerful nation in the middle east).ReviewNow in order for this promotion to have it’s full and appropriate impact we need to remember the extremes that Joseph experienced. Joseph was the favorite son of a father who suffered from acute favoritism. He was hated by his brothers for that favoritism and consequently thrown into a pit and sold as a slave in Egypt. Now, while in slavery, the rays of God’s providence shine upon him and he begins to prosper. He finds favor in the eyes of his master and is afforded some measure of freedom as a sovereign in the household of Potiphar. In fact, we read that the entire household was entrusted to his care.And then all of a sudden he was hit by a sniper bullet out of nowhere in the form of the advances and proposition of his master’s wife, this artful seductress. Potiphar’s wife had come at him like a lioness with outstretched claws, and he had only managed to escape barely, but it cost him everything, his cloak, his reputation, his freedom. He had previously been dumped like a pile of trash in a cistern by his brothers, and now he has been dumped in a dungeon by his boss. The one who was in charge is now being charged with attempted rape.Now he finds himself in a hole in the ground, full of disease, likely without sun, eating terrible food. You can imagine it. In fact, Psalm 105 gives us some divine insight into his conditions. In the Psalm, David is recounting how God in his loving care was guiding the nation of Israel.So the Psalm gives us some divine insight as to his condition in the pit but also some divine insight as to God’s reason for the pit. Joseph was in the pit. Why? Joseph, I am quite certain, asked the question many times, “God why are you allowing me to suffer?”God was testing him. He was refining his character for significant later use. So we should imagine him enslaved, in irons, around both his ankles and neck. Imagine the neck pain, the rubbing.But then again, the providence of God shines upon Joseph and he finds favor in the eyes of the warden and rises to a position of influence where he is able to interpret the dreams of both the cupbearer and the baker, only to be forgotten again for two full years. And the days, weeks, months go by and Joseph has no idea if he will ever get out.But then it happens. Pharaoh has a dream. He’s troubled. The cupbearer remembers Joseph and he’s brought before the king. And Joseph interprets the kings dream. Today we watch Joseph get promoted, from the pit to the palace. I think this is the greatest promotion that has ever happened in the history of the world. The tides of providence turn Joseph’s life around, almost instantly. In less than 24 hours, Joseph goes from wearing rags to golden garments. He’s riding a chariot. People are bowing down to him. And in all of this Joseph’s goals never changed. Joseph was always asking the question, “How can I be effective for God in my circumstances?”Two weeks ago we talked about how to be effective in the dungeon. Last week we talked about how to be effective in times of change and uncertainty. This week we’ll talk about how to be effective in the palace. How do we serve God when we have been given power, responsibility, oversight, and influence? All of us have been given this to one degree or another. You may be given power to lead your children or your family, to lead a group in your class, to lead a team at your place of work, to lead a ministry. How can we be effective when God sees it fit to give us positions of leadership? Let’s look at the text and find out.We are in chapter 41 and verse 33 and you will remember that Joseph had just finished interpreting Pharaoh’s dream. He said both that the dream was fixed and that it would happen soon. So immediately after interpreting the dream, Joseph speaks.So we are asking the question, how do we serve God when we have been given power, responsibility, oversight, and influence? The first thing we learn from the text is to:Now Joseph has not yet been given a position of power, but he has been given an opportunity to speak to someone of power. He’s given the rare opportunity to influence a powerful political leader. How many minutes do you suppose Joseph had to speak with Pharoah? He doesn’t know. Was this a 5-minute interchange? Was he given 15 minutes?What if you had 5 minutes to speak to the president. What would you say? His time is worth more than a million dollars a minute. You have 5 million dollars of his time. What would you say? Do you feel the pressure?It takes great wisdom to balance all that is at stake in that interaction. It takes great wisdom to talk to a man who does not value what you value but has incredible influence to change what you care about. This is the dilemma of politics is it not? We long for change in our country right now. We long for justice, peace, order, honesty. How do we wisely speak into these situations to people who don’t see the world the way we do?Here Joseph is speaking to a guy that worships the sun god and the fertility god and whose conception of morality would make our heads spin. And he wants to speak God’s truth into this situation. How tricky! Such wisdom would be needed. How does he capture the ear of Pharaoh, represent God accurately, and act in such a way that the nation is preserved? So many conflicting values! So many wrong things a guy could say! So precious few right ways to say it! So much is at stake. It would be so easy to be misunderstood. But Joseph speaks in wisdom. And his wise words direct Pharaoh in wise ways.He says to Pharaoh, “Take advantage of the insight God has given you. When God gives you insight, act on it. You have been given an incredible gift. Knowledge of the future.” In contemporary terms, you know what the NASDAQ is going to do every day for 14 years. You could make a whole lot of money if you knew that, couldn’t you? Go all-in with that information Pharaoh. Don’t dabble.That’s a power advantage, isn’t it? So Joseph speaks to Pharaoh wisely. He appeals to Pharaoh’s self-interest, showing him that he could be a hero and could increase his wealth. He upholds the name of God by insisting on the trustworthiness of dreams and interpretations that come from the God of Israel. He saves the nation by ensuring that the right course of action is taken ensuring that millions of lives would be saved. Joseph says, “This famine is coming and you need to help your nation prepare for it.” And so he suggests a plan. Institute a 20% wheat tax. That was Joseph’s suggestion.And now drum roll here. How is Pharaoh going to respond? Remember, we know how this is all going down. Joseph has no idea. Pharaoh still hasn’t even spoken a word. He’s just listening. Joseph is just speaking, watching Pharaoh’s jaw twitch. Maybe Pharaoh is frowning. What do the furrowed brow and frown mean? Maybe Pharaoh’s got the poker face going on. For all Joseph knows, Pharaoh’s going to fly off the handle and hang him from the next available branch or send him back to prison. Joseph has no idea what’s next.So we are asking the question, how do we serve God when we have been given power, responsibility, oversight, and influence? Here’s the second thing we learn.Joseph tells Pharaoh that to administrate ahead of this coming storm, you are going to need leadership. Now I’m always tempted to read this - and I think I’m tempted only because of how I know the story ends - thinking that Joseph is inserting himself into the suggestion he makes to Pharoah. “Pharoah, here’s what you need to do. You need to pick a very wise leader, but be careful in your selection. You can’t trust a lot of people out there so if I were you I’d pick a pastor, a pastor in west Boise, preferably. They are the most trustworthy. Maybe a man who is 6’4”, brown-eyed, dark-haired…" I mean is Joseph describing himself? Now, I really don’t think so. I honestly think what happened next could not have surprised Joseph more. I think he thought to himself, “Best case scenario, Pharaoh says thank you and delivers me from prison and maybe, just maybe grants me citizenship. Then I’d be free to return to my family. That would be best case.”I mean not even a total lunatic would do what Pharaoh does next. Who turns the kingdom over to a prisoner accused of attempted rape without even a background check? How do you instantly have this much trust in a felon? God is turning the hearts of kings like rivers of waters.And so in a moment, in an instant, Joseph is thrust into the second most powerful office in the world. His head must have just been absolutely spinning. His mind must have been choking from the force-feeding of ideas and swirling emotions being crammed into his brain. Excitement, fear, terror, elation, insecurity, and doubt were all mixing together in his experience.Suddenly he is now in a position to lead. Now he has power. He has influence. Now what he says or doesn’t say will impact those around him. He’s in a position to lead. The only difference from the day before to today is that he has been given a position. He’s got a new office with new responsibilities.There are many people who could be great leaders but are not in the position to do so. There are many who have the talent, who have the ability but are not given the office. Some people would make awesome parents but God hasn’t given them that leadership responsibility yet. Some would be great pastors, ministry leaders, life group leaders, and bible study leaders but aren’t yet in that position. Some would make amazing managers of large corporations but instead, are being faithful as parents. This was Joseph for many years. In fact, let’s just review the timeline for a moment. Joseph here is 30 years old. He was sold into slavery at age 17. So for 13 years, he was in some combination of working for Potiphar or in prison. No wife or children or family to lead. No ministry to lead, no congregation. He’s had some power in Potiphar’s house and in prison but nothing compared to what he’s capable of. For years of his life! Even though he was capable of so, so much more, even though he had the gifts necessary for leading a country, he didn’t have the position.Just because you don’t have a position today doesn’t mean you won’t tomorrow. But it may be that it’s just not the season. Realize, it is the seasons of submissions that prepare you to be the kind of leader that others want to submit to.Remember Psalm 105? God put Joseph in prison to test him, to forge him, to make him a good leader. What is it about prison that prepares you for leadership? Consider what happens to a person as they rise to leadership. As people acquire power they are required to give up freedom. Good leaders recognize that power and freedom are in an inverse relationship to one another. When you are not in a position of leadership you don’t have the power but you do have the freedom to act without it having your decisions affect people. When you are in a position of leadership you exchange freedom for power. Now you have power but you don’t have freedom because you can never just make decisions that have no effect on others. When you say something or don’t say something it has an impact. Acting or not acting. Acting in this way versus this way. It always matters. Good leaders acquire power and give up freedom.It’s so hard to be a good leader because the prison that good leaders find themselves in is not fun. It’s hard to recognize that your life is not your own. That you are imprisoned in service to those you lead. You know what, the best leaders are always the ones who have been trained by imprisonment so that when the imprisonment of leadership comes, they are conditioned and familiar with the bars and are able to serve God in it. Moses was trained by the desert before he led. Daniel was trained by captivity. Jesus himself was trained by 30 years of submission to his parents. Joseph steps into this leadership position well-trained by the dungeon. And that is very evident in his decision making.Now there is a moment for Joseph when this promotion must have just brought tears to his face. “Oh, God has remembered me in my affliction! All this refinement in the dungeon is over and it’s time to be used by God.” Just imagine the transformation! The greatest promotion of all time!So Joseph goes from having an iron chain to a gold chain. The first chain represents the stripping of power and the second chain represents almost limitless power. He goes from bowing the knee to having others bow the knee. He’s given Pharaoh’s signet ring and chariot, this is like Pharaoh’s Visa and BMW. Not only that, he’s given a plaque with an office and a big fancy title. We see here his name is changed which has all the significance of a new identity, new role, new office, new power.Joseph’s name was changed to Zaphenath-paneah. There are a couple of different ideas of what this name might mean. There’s a Hebrew stem in the first part of the name that means ‘to hide.’ The second part of the name could be rendered ‘elucidate.’ So his name might mean something like, “the revealer of hidden things.” Others see an Egyptian root that means God speaks, he lives. In the Septuagint, it could mean the creator and sustainer of life.And to seal the deal, to show how serious Pharaoh is about giving Joseph the office, irrevocably let’s just go ahead and marry him into the royal family. Joseph is given the daughter of the priest of On as a wife. You’re not going to marry your daughter off to a slave who is not a citizen, who has no rights, and who belongs in the dungeon. You marry the princess to who? A prince! To prove that he’s elevated Joseph to the status of prince, Pharaoh gives him one of the kingdom’s princess. He gives Joseph the daughter of one of the priests. The priests were the highest-ranking class in society and Pharaoh himself was part of the priestly class.So you can imagine, the thrill. The elevation. So much new. A new title. A new place to live. A new wife. A new life. Now there are ceremonies, and medals and gold trinkets passed back and forth. There are all sorts of decorations and music and parades and official decrees and fanfare, and talk show appearances, and press releases. People are downloading the Joseph app. I mean Joseph the star is rising. But then the dust settles and Joseph is alone for the first time in days. And he’s just staring at the wall. “What am I going to do with all this power? Everyone is following me. Everyone is looking to me for direction. What am I going to do now that I am in this position of influence and have all this responsibility resting upon my shoulders?”Joseph immediately gets to work. He uses his head to leverage his power. He doesn’t let the power go to his head. He doesn’t rest on top of his heap of abundance. Let’s see what he decides to do with his power.So we are asking the question, how do we serve God when we have been given power, responsibility, oversight, and influence? He’s the third thing we learn.Joseph spoke advice. He was given a position. Now he has to do the work. It’s one thing to say, “Here’s what you should do to be successful.” It’s fun to spend other people’s time and money. It’s fun being an armchair politician. “Oh, if I was in charge of the country, here’s what I’d do.” It’s another thing entirely to make those decisions and be responsible for the outcomes. But Joseph was gifted to do this work.Now there are several things to note here that don’t immediately jump off the text but are apparent upon contemplation. Joseph would have been at least three things. He would have needed to be organized. Joseph would have had to develop systems that worked with repeatable steps. Go into every city and do these things. Immediately begin building silos. Immediately start spreading the word about the coming grain tax. Explain that country is going to begin building food reserves. To have this work effectively, systems, policies, and enforcement protocols all have to be in place. You can see from the text that the entire system is decentralized. Every city is in charge of their own grain supply, their own grain collection and storage, and their own enforcement of the policies. And this all has to be done quickly. No internet, telephone, no way of quickly sending information. The clock is ticking.He would have also needed to be methodical. When you have seven years to work as hard as you can, you have to pace yourself. You can’t go too fast or you’ll burn out. You can’t go to slow and take days off, thinking you have all the time in the world. You have to work at a sustainable, constant speed. Ultramarathon runners are all about pace. One-tenth of a mile per hour to fast and you won’t make it; one-tenth of a mile per hour to slow and you won’t win. What’s that perfect pace that will allow me to cross the finish line with nothing left in the tank?Joseph would have needed to be unrelenting. It says that they just stopped counting the grain. And I’m positive that people were saying to themselves, “Joseph, this is enough. No person alive had seen a famine extreme enough to warrant this kind of preparation. The grain is going to go bad. I mean how could we ever use this much grain? Why do we have to keep pushing so hard Joseph? Can’t we slacken the pace? The grain silos are overflowing. This is ridiculous. Getting a little greedy don’t you think? Joseph, you have hoarding tendencies.”But Joseph as a leader knew how he needed to use his power to serve the people. He knew what to listen to and what not to listen to. He listened if he was pushing them too hard and was in danger of breaking their spirit. He didn’t listen if they said ‘the grain is sufficient.’ So Joseph was effective because he acted in wisdom, led in season, prepared in times of plenty and now we see a fourth one:So we are asking the question, how do we serve God when we have been given power, responsibility, oversight, and influence? He’s the fourth thing we learn.It is right to praise God when we have been blessed. That is good and right. It is part of being a good leader to pause and just say, let us thank the Lord for blessing us. To look back at the ways in which God delivered from calamity.We sing the line in the second verse of the old hymn Come Thou Fount, “Here I raise my Ebenezer; thou hast brought me to this place.” What the heck is an Ebenezer? It means stone of help. It was a pile of stones erected in 1 Samuel so that Israel might remember God’s deliverance and how far he has brought us. Why do we do that? To remind ourselves that God has told us that he is going to be faithful. It doesn’t seem like he is always faithful but we trust him. And now look, he’s proven to be faithful.I don’t want to forget that. And now when I go forward and there more hard times, I will look to this pile of stones and remind myself, if you were faithful back then you will be faithful again. In Joseph’s case, it wasn’t a pile of stones, it was the way he named his kids. He names his first son Manasseh, which means God has caused me to forget. So every time he calls his son it will be a reminder of God’s faithfulness. He will remember a previous time of great pain and hurt and how God blessed him to the point of forgetting all that previous hurt. God will be faithful again.He names his other kid Ephraim whose name means fruitful. Every time he calls him it will be a reminder that God can cause fruitful fields to spring out of deserts.This kind of praise is absolutely appropriate during prosperity. Joseph wasn’t eating dungeon porridge anymore. He was eating the finest leaks and garlic and watermelon that Egypt had to offer. He wasn’t living in the squaller of a sunless dungeon. His palace door had a sprawling eastern view of the Nile River. There were herons and the smells of reeds and grasslands and fertile soil. I mean, life was good and he thanked God for it.I want to apply that corporately for us right now. God, you have blessed us as a church with financial prosperity, stability in our leadership team, a comfortable facility, and the ability to worship freely in our state. It wasn’t always this way. God, you have blessed us and we are thankful. Thanking God in times of blessing and remembering his faithfulness in times of blessing is important because times of hardship are coming.So in times of plenty what do you do? You prepare and your praise. What do you do in times of famine? You serve.Now, this is where it gets good. Joseph is now in a position to really serve. And I’m telling you, this is where all the character is tested. Yes, his character was tested in the dungeon, in times of change and transition, and in the palace as he’s given leadership and the entire country surges in prosperity. But here’s where his character is tested more than anything else. When he is in prosperity and everyone else is in famine. When he has all the chips. When you have all the wealth and influence to help those in need, what do you do then?The story of history is the powerful suppressing the weak. That is the natural disposition of the human heart. That will happen 100 percent of the time unless the spirit of God has transformed it.Consider Jesus. He had all the power. He had all the chips. He had all the wealth. And he surrendered it all. He came not to serve but to be served and give his life a ransom for many. Do you see how significant this point is? When God puts you in a position of power and resources and those around you have none, it’s time to serve.You see, Joseph never saw these gifts as his to start with. It was all God’s when he stripped it away. It was all God’s when he gave him more. It never was not God’s. And so Joseph saw it as his job to serve the people of the kingdom and serve his God. It’s so tempting to see our positions of influence as positions earned. That’s wrong. It’s tempting to see our wealth as earned. That’s wrong. It’s given by God. It’s tempting to see our intellectual accomplishments, artistic, athletic, and work accomplishments as products of our efforts. That’s wrong thinking. All of these are gifts from God. The person you are in the dungeon is the person you will be in the palace is the person you will be when you are in charge of the storehouses in the famine.Now we might not experience a food famine in our lifetime like Joseph, but we certainly will experience other types of famines. Our country is in a spiritual famine right now. And just like Joseph, we have access to food. Just like Joseph, we, as servants of the living God, are able to dispense from the treasuries of the king, the bread of life. We have access to the king’s silos. We have access to unlimited spiritual wealth - to the bread that satisfies, water that springs forth into everlasting life. How are we going to act in wisdom? How will we speak on Facebook, at our workplaces? How will we lead in our respective areas of leadership? How will you prepare and praise in prosperity? As you have time to learn God’s word and study and pray and meditate in freedom, how will you prepare? How will we serve in famine? When all around us are broken people how can we dispense the bread of life? How are we going to minister to our country right now in this spiritual famine?ConclusionNow speaking of famine, we are going to self-inflict a famine on the land this week. This week is a week of prayer and fasting for our body.This year our church theme is “Change What You Love.” What we love determines how we live. Or to say it in terms of hunger - our appetites direct our decisions. We have appetites for food, possession, power, money. What about our appetite for God? By pursuing these lesser joys our hearts can be dulled. There can be a very serious dulling effect of food, money, pleasure.Fasting is designed by God to strip us from the noise of the world. Fasting empties the container of our heart of all the trivial things of this world and makes room for God. You received a handout on the way in. For those of you watching via livestream, there’s a button on the homepage where you can download all this information. And here’s what I want to draw your attention to. We want to pray and fast for three areas:Now let me talk through some practical tips:During the week, we will have a special night of prayer and worship led by Jim and Kirstie Stout.And we’ve also given you some simple resources. This all culminates on Sunday where we come back together and sing to Jesus.