Survival as a Candidate for Advancement
Tom Shrader continues his series on Joseph's life, focusing on Genesis 39-41 where Joseph serves faithfully in Potiphar's house, resists temptation, and ends up in prison despite doing right. After two years of waiting, God elevates Joseph to second-in-command of Egypt through his interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams. Shrader emphasizes that consistency of character matters more than circumstances, and that God's timing often requires patience.
“It's a mistake to judge my spiritual condition based upon my physical condition.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Survival Through the Cycles of Life
Recorded: 2013
Duration: 39 min
Themes: patience, faithfulness, temptation, character, waiting, integrity, perseverance, trust, facing false accusations, enduring injustice, waiting on gods timing, young adult, career setbacks, moral temptation, feeling abandoned, workplace integrity
Scripture: Genesis 37, Genesis 37:4, Genesis 37:34, Genesis 39:1, Genesis 39:2, Genesis 39:3, Genesis 40, Genesis 40:6, Genesis 40:14-15, Genesis 40:23, Genesis 41, Genesis 41:4, Genesis 41:7, Genesis 41:8, Genesis 41:12, Genesis 41:14, Genesis 41:16, Genesis 41:17, Genesis 41:25, Genesis 41:29, Genesis 41:33, Genesis 41:37, Genesis 41:39, Genesis 41:46, Acts 17, Isaiah 55, 1 Peter 5
Theological Themes: providence, gods sovereignty, spiritual formation, character development, divine timing, gods presence, sanctification, becoming holy
Full Transcript
If you have Bibles, why don't you open them to the book of Genesis? We're working our way through the life of Joseph. The premise of the series is that life has cycles to it, and you are inevitably in them. Life has this to it, and you can't take that out of it. But how do I not just survive, but thrive in the midst of that? It's always great to have a role model or a model, and Joseph provides that.
We met him in chapter 37, and he was the favorite of his dad's. His dad sheds this favoritism on him in the form of a coat of many colors. Genesis 37, verse 4 says his brothers saw his father loved him more, and they hated him. That sets up really what happens for the rest of Joseph's life.
There's a point in time where the boys are away from their dad with a flock in the field, and his dad sends Joseph out to do a little reconnaissance work about 50 miles away from home. The boys see Joseph coming, and they take him in captivity. They sell him to the Midianites, and he then, in chapter 37, verse 34, is sold to Potiphar, who is Pharaoh's captain of the bodyguard.
Joseph's Faith in Difficult Circumstances
We pick up the story in chapter 39, verse 1. Potiphar now has Joseph. Joseph has been sold into slavery. God gives us, in His Word, an important piece of information. In your Bible, which should be circled, chapter 39, verse 2: the Lord was with Joseph.
It's easy in those times of difficulty to say, where is God? It's a mistake to judge my spiritual condition based upon my physical condition. They're not always directly connected. I may be where Joseph is in a very difficult situation, and somehow think, oh, God's abandoned me. You may be there. It may feel like that to you.
You may be cruising along. You got this life thing going pretty well, and you're doing what you think God would have you do. You're obeying His commandments. You're involved. You're living for Him. All of a sudden, it's as though the wheels come off, and your sense is to say, wait a minute, where's God? The answer is, the Lord is with you. He'll never leave you or forsake you.
Verse 3 says they could see the Lord was with them. So the question becomes for us on an application point, and it's really hard: can the people around you see that the Lord is with you? Especially in times of pressure. Especially when things are going difficult. When they're not going the way you want.
You have to ask that. What do the people around you see? Do they see something different, distinctive, unique, not odd, just something unique and different about you? Joseph has such a reputation, just based on who he is and what he's doing, that Potiphar says, alright, here's everything I have. You run it.
Joseph's Integrity and Imprisonment
In the midst of this, Potiphar's wife approaches Joseph. Tries to seduce him. Joseph says no and pushes her away. Potiphar comes back, she pleads her case, and Joseph is then put in chapter 40. Joseph is now under the supervisory care of the chief jailer.
The end of chapter 39 says the chief jailer saw that the Lord was with Joseph. The same thing happens again in Joseph's life. The chief jailer watches Joseph in the midst of this. Understand, he's a prisoner in this dungeon. The chief jailer watches Joseph and he says, I got nobody like this guy. The chief jailer takes everything he has and puts him under Joseph's charge.
When the chief jailer goes and finishes a round of golf, and they're sitting around having a nice tea, and the guy says, how are things at the jail? He says, I don't really know, because Joseph handles all of that. That's where he is.
Ministering to Others in the Dungeon
In the midst of this, and this is where we left off last week's story, chapter 40, two guys, the cupbearer and the baker, have a dream. We made a huge point in verse 6 of chapter 40: Joseph came in and observed that they were dejected. They had a dream and it bothered them.
We said in our life, it's not good enough for us to say, hey listen, you take your private life and you keep it out of here. No, I bring that in here and you and I have a chance to minister to the whole person. You're walking around and you see somebody, and you can tell by looking, and I think it's okay to ask, you doing all right? And they say, yeah, you know. Well, it's one thing to notice, it's another thing to get involved in.
I think a lot of the reason we don't have friends, I used to think, was because we feared rejection, but in fact we fear acceptance. Now the guy's got your cell phone and it's going to ding at 1:30 in the morning. Now you're going to get the call, 10 o'clock on Saturday morning, Iowa, Indiana, big game, and right in the midst of it they're going to say, yeah, you know, can we get together? Sure, how about today at 2? Really, right now is my best time. Now I have to be involved in that.
Joseph's Plea for Help
They have a dream, Joseph interprets it, and look at verse 14 and 15. Because we could miss this. This is moving along in such a way that we could think Joseph's just gliding through this, but verse 14 says to Joseph, to the cupbearer, after he interprets his dream, "Keep me in mind when it goes well with you, and please do me a kindness by mentioning me to Pharaoh and get me out of this house, for I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I've done nothing, they put me into this dungeon."
Joseph is saying, I want out of this. I didn't do anything, the best I can tell. I didn't do anything to be here. I'm minding my own business. I'm moving along, doing what God had me do, and I just keep falling physically on the org chart, deeper and deeper and deeper into the dungeon, and I want out of here.
Here's where we left off. Verse 23: the cupbearer's restored to his position with Pharaoh, and he forgot Joseph. I'm sure the word spreads through the dungeon, cupbearer's been restored.
Joseph is thinking, alright, here it comes. He's going to put a word in for me. He's with Pharaoh, I'm going to get out of here.
Chapter 41, we pick up the story two full years later. And here we see Joseph again, as we saw him with Potiphar, as we saw him with the chief jailer, we see Joseph being Joseph. So back to where we started today, as circumstances are going like this, there's this consistency that we find in Joseph's life. The same thing we should see in yours. And that consistency is not based on where you are, but based on who you are.
The Consistency of Character
Circumstances are going to come at you in all different directions. Things you never anticipated. Not always good things. And God's primary concern is not your happiness, but your joy—what's found in a relationship with Him.
So we say the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Love, joy, peace. That peace is not the absence of turmoil, it's the presence of God in the midst of where you are.
So I tend to pray differently than I used to. I used to pray a lot, "God, will you remove this?" And then it occurs to me, I don't know that that's the objective, as much as to say, "God, will you use this?"
When Everyone's Watching
You need to know that in your life, your times of hurt and pain and challenge, that's when everybody's watching. That's when you preach that wordless sermon. When all of a sudden they look at you and they go, "I don't think I could do that."
I watched Susan. It was November 22nd of 2004 that she was diagnosed with the cancer. And they told her six months, maybe nine months. And it was a seven-month process. And I watched her. I didn't fully get it. I get it way more now than I did then.
But I watched her, and I watched the people around her. I look at my girls, who today are the women they are, based, I think, primarily on what God's doing in their life, but what their mom taught them. She taught them to bake cookies, and she taught them to be a godly person and a godly woman. But she taught them how to live life in the midst of hurt and pain and suffering, because that's what life is.
Lessons from Grand Canyon
I did the chapel at Grand Canyon on Monday. I had never been up there. Holy smokes, is that a big deal. I walked in and went, wow, I should have studied. I should have worked for this thing. So they got, it's a voluntary chapel, and they've got 2,000 students there on this campus.
And it was interesting, I read the review in the school paper of my talk. I read my reviews now. "The chapel on Monday was conducted by a white-haired 65-year-old." I thought, isn't that interesting? I'm part now of a subculture that's invisible to the society around me.
But I kept trying, because I told them, I think I told you last week, I had something in mind that I wanted to say. And so I said to Sandy on Wednesday, "You know, I'm ready for Grand Canyon." She said, "What are you going to say?" And so I told her, and I said, "How does that sound?" And she said, "Here's how it sounds: wah, wah, wah. It sounds like a crotchety, angry old man yelling at a bunch of college kids. Is that what you wanted to communicate?" Well, not the angry part, but yeah.
The Escalator Moment
And what happened is, the longer I talked, the more we connected. And I happened to be having a really bad day Monday, so I'm tripping over wires and moving around, and I couldn't get up the steps. And I was talking to them about the challenge of an escalator.
And you don't think of this until you're there. I got at Fashion Square not long ago behind a lady. She's trying to get on an escalator, older lady. And I mean, this is going on and on. And I'm thinking, "Go back to Canada or North Dakota or wherever you're from." But now, here's me. And I'm telling you, you don't get it until you're there.
That first step, you're committed after this. I mean, you don't think about it until you're getting on. And that foot's gone, and now we're off for a ride. And when you've been there, now you can see it.
So you're in the midst of the hurt and pain. I know this sounds so goofy, but embrace it, because God uses it in your life and in the life of the people around you.
Pharaoh's Dreams
So Joseph's back. Now, in chapter 41, Pharaoh has a dream. And he has this dream, and I'll let your eyes fall across it here. I don't know that I'll read it all. But Pharaoh has a dream, and there's seven cows that are fat. And then there's seven cows that are ugly and gaunt. And then the ugly and gaunt cows, verse 4, eat up the fat, sleek cows. And every time I have a dream, every time I have a cow dream, I wake up. And so did he.
So he woke up, he fell asleep, seven ears of healthy corn, seven ears of corn that's scorched, and the thin corn, verse 7, swallow up the plump corn, and he awakes. And so like the cupbearer and the baker, verse 8, "in the morning his spirit was troubled. So he sent and called for all his magicians and all his wise men." That's not Penn and Teller and David Copperfield. These are his spiritual consultants. These are his go-to guys. This is his cabinet. He calls them together, and he says, "Listen, I had this dream," and they have no idea. No one could interpret it.
The Cupbearer Remembers
Now look, here's the moment we've been waiting for since chapter 40. The cupbearer said, "I'd make mention today of my own offenses. The Pharaoh, remember, you were really mad with me, and you put me in confinement in the house of the captain of the bodyguard, both me and the chief baker, and we had dreams the same night. He and I, each of us, dreamed according to the interpretation of our own dream. We had a dream. He had a dream."
"And there was this guy," verse 12, and here's what I love, "and I don't even remember his name. There's this guy, there's an old Hebrew guy, and he was there. He was servant of the captain of the bodyguard, and we related the dreams to him, and he interpreted our dreams. To each one is interpreted according to his own dream, and just as he interpreted for us, so what happened? He restored..."
me in my office, but he hanged him. He hanged the baker. He said, "I had this guy," and I love it, I don't even remember his name.
You can have a little application point here: you can have a great impact with very little input. I had a chance to speak to a group at Desert Springs Bible Church just about a year ago now, and it was a graduation of their Timothy group—young leaders that they're developing. Rick Efert called it very nice and said, "Would you come up, have dinner with us, and then share afterwards?" I said, "Share what?" He said, "Well, you know where these guys are, give them some helpful advice for how to work in the church." I said, "Are you sure?" He said, "Yes."
I don't know where the paper is, because he just called yesterday and asked me if I would do it again, which blew me away. But one of my points, and it's become one of my go-to points, was: think small. Everybody gets all carried away and thinks big. "I'm going to do this, and we're going to start this program, and I'm going to move this over here, and we're going to get a 501c3, and we're going to do all of these things." Think small. It doesn't take much to make a big difference.
The Ordinary Nature of God's Calling
Come to grips—I have a hard time, I get it in my own life, but I have a hard time getting this with people—there's in all likelihood not much special about you. You're probably very average, otherwise average doesn't mean anything. We got this thing going where just like Jeremiah was set apart in his mother's womb for this, and you will be too. It's almost like a Christian Tony Robbins. You're just a guy slugging it out, a gal trying to make it work. You're not going to cure cancer.
Now, I'm not trying to take away your dream. If you're that special person, that's fine. But here's what I'm telling you: we tend to think we need a letterhead, and a logo, and a tax number, and an organization, and a strategic plan to make a difference. All you have to do to make a difference is be available to somebody, and even then for just a little bit of time.
I'm in a group—years ago now—of us who knew each other. We all became Christians around the same time, and somebody got the idea that we should get together and have lunch. So we're having lunch, we're in a dining room so we can talk, and the question was, "Who's been the most influential person in your life?" We're going around the room. They started to my left, heading clockwise, so I was going to be last. I think there were ten of us. Of the other nine, eight of the nine said Larry Wright.
Now I know Larry Wright. I know him a lot, not as well as Sue, but maybe as well as anyone else, or certainly a handful of us. I knew Larry never spent any time with these guys. I said, and here's what they said: "Well, when we called, he'd go to breakfast with us. When we needed something, he'd be there." Literally now, there was not one of the nine that he saw more than twice a year. Yet when push came to shove—now maybe that's a sad comment on how little everybody else is pouring into our life—but I learned a lot right there. They may not remember your name, but they'll remember what you did. They may not remember Tom Schrader, but they'll remember that you were available for something when they needed it.
Joseph's Preparation for Cross-Cultural Ministry
Then Pharaoh, verse 14, sent and called for Joseph, and they hurriedly brought him out of the dungeon. When he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came to Pharaoh. So Pharaoh's going to go, "Who's this little guy?" He does his research. It's Joseph.
I don't want to read too much into verse 14, but I think there's a lot we can pull out of this. The shaving and the changing of clothes wasn't just a hygiene issue. Joseph is about to have a cross-cultural experience. The Hebrews were shepherds, sheep guys. The Egyptians were cattlemen. We know that from watching Gene Autry. That doesn't work.
The Hebrews were monotheists. The Egyptians were polytheists. The Hebrews were rugged. The Egyptians were more sophisticated. In your life, you're going to have these opportunities that are going to be cross-cultural by nature. You're going to have to dial in, because if you grab some of this, you're going to misquote it and misunderstand it.
The Challenge of Cultural Accommodation
You need to accommodate the culture around you. This is one of those weird moments. We're not trying to be right. We're just learning for an opportunity to begin to reach the world around us. Our church, when we started East Valley Bible Church, and still is, is very conservative, a Bible teaching, narrow. It's hardcore. You tend to attract people like that.
I discovered over the years, I don't really like people like that, even though I am one. I don't like them, and there's a lot of problems with guys like me. So I would do the welcome class, the information class. Then I would go, "Why are you here," and this, and that, and the other. We'd always get somebody, and you can pick them. You always get the Bible guy, he's wound real tight. Or women, they're the same way, wound real tight.
Every once in a while, in the midst of that, I would say one of the values we have here is to be relevant. Well, that's a code word to them for compromise. So they'd say, "Well, yeah, relevant, and I'm not sure about that." I said, "Well, we had a long planning meeting concerning the other option, which was irrelevant. We just thought that didn't look good on our mugs, the church that's irrelevant. We didn't think that nobody wants to be at that."
Relevant doesn't mean compromise on essentials, but the burden on us as followers of Christ is to communicate. Cut me slack now, because I know it's an assimilate into the culture around us to be able to talk to them. It's Paul in Acts chapter 17 when he comes into Athens. If Paul's speaking to the Jews, he's quoting from Isaiah 55. When Paul's speaking to the
Men of Athens, he's quoting the prophets of the day. He's got the politics of the day. Joseph understands here, I'm coming in. It's not, we're playing an away game here. And you and I, this is not our world. We're in an away game. And the burden is on us to communicate.
It's just like Paul. So Paul's got some time. He doesn't just sit like I would and watch TV in Athens. He's walking through Athens. Remember, he sees a statue to the unknown God. They said there were 35,000 statues in Athens. Easier to find a statue than a man. And Paul said, he said, I saw a statue to an unknown God. Get this, he gets the culture. You got a statue out there to an unknown God. And Paul said, I want to talk to you about that God that's unknown to you. That's connecting through the culture. That's how we need to be.
Speaking Their Language
The burden is on us to communicate, not just to do an intellectual dump, not just come up and dump information, but to communicate in a way that somebody on the other end can get it. Paul's, or I'm sorry, Joseph's relationally savvy here.
So Joseph comes in, and now he has his big moment. Joseph said to Pharaoh, Pharaoh said, I have a dream, nobody can interpret it. I've heard it said that you can interpret dreams. Verse 16, here's some humility. Joseph said, God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.
I will tell you in my flesh, I would have been tempted at that point to say, you know what? You are a very lucky Pharaoh to have a guy like me in your prison, because I can interpret dreams, which is true. But Joseph said, it's not about me. It's about God, any gift I have, any ability I have, anything I have, it's not. So here, when we talk about give God glory, that's exactly what Joseph is doing here. Joseph is redirecting any sort of attention from him to the source of that giftedness.
The Dream and Its Interpretation
And Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, and he said, listen, I have these dreams, and there they are repeated in verse 17. 22, he said, I woke up, here it is. And now, verse 25, here's the interpretation.
Joseph said to Pharaoh, Pharaoh's dream are one and the same. And God has told it to Pharaoh what He's to do. Seven good cows are seven years. Seven good heirs, seven years. The lean ones, those are severe years. And so they're the same dream. It's been spoken to Pharaoh, and God has shown Pharaoh what He's about to do.
The seven years, verse 29, of great abundance are coming in the land, and after them, seven years of famine. So you're gonna have seven years, like we had in the valley, when anybody could build anything, and lease it, and spin it, and make money on it. When you could buy any house, and fix it up, and put it on the market. We're gonna have seven years of plenty, but after it, we're gonna have the crash. This ought to relate to us pretty well, to the environment we've been in. We're gonna have seven great years, and you're gonna have seven lean years.
Joseph's Practical Wisdom
And Joseph said, you know, you need to be ready for this. Verse 33, he says, let Pharaoh look for a man discerning and wise, and set him over the land, and let Pharaoh take action to appoint an overseer in charge of the land, and let him exact a fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt in the abundance, and then let him gather all the food from these good years that are coming, and store them up for the lean years.
He said, here's what you need, Pharaoh. You need a grain czar. You need somebody, and this is government involvement, so we're always careful. This is government involvement. You need to come and take 20% of that good stuff, and you need to hold it, because there's some lean years coming.
And we find, in verse 37, that the proposals seem good to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and Pharaoh says, can we find a man like this, in whom a divine is a divine spirit?
Knowledge Versus Wisdom
I have these theories, and you all know, many of you have been hanging around with me since 1991, so I have opinions on everything. Sometimes, they're well thought through. Sometimes, they aren't. Often, they're wrong. But one that people seem to remember the most is my prediction that the computer was a fad, and wouldn't last. Now, I think it's important to point out, not all the data is in yet, but it seems like I'm wrong on that.
Here's my latest one, that knowledge is going to become less important than wisdom, because knowledge is so readily available. Whenever my grandson Braden's over, we have all these conversations. He and I talk all the time about everything, and he's nine going on 40. He'll ask about stuff. He'll ask about presidents. He'll ask about history.
We had that moment where there was some quiet. He was over, and he's always so, he's not your typical nine-year-old. He'll come in, and he'll give me a hug, and he'll say, how are your hands today, and do you feel okay? I mean, he's an unbelievable kid. So we're sitting there, and there's a calm in the conversation the other day, and he said, Papa, have you been to any good restaurants lately? That's not your typical nine-year-old kid.
So whatever we talk about, he's got my phone, and so we were talking the other day about one of the presidents, and I said, well, I'm not really sure. He was quizzing me on middle names. And I don't know why, it was weird. What was Herbert Hoover's middle name? And I remember it was Clark. I don't know why I remember that. And he said, wow, that's pretty good.
So then he got to. One of them, he said, what do you know about whoever it was? I said, I don't know. Well, he got on my phone, and in 60 seconds, he had all the knowledge or information he needed. You used to have to know it, but now it's available. The question is, what do you do with it?
Your Greatest Asset
See what Joseph said in verse 33? You need to find a guy that's discerning and wise. Can we go back to what we've talked about twice in each of the last two weeks? And that is this. Your greatest asset in the marketplace is your Christian faith, your servant leadership, in a relationship at the club or in the homeowner's association.
knows in the homeowner's association, is the willingness to have discernment. Here's all these facts, all this knowledge, but what do I do with them? Pharaoh says, where are we going to find a guy like this? And he said, you know what? I think you're the guy.
Verse 39, since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning as you. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put you over all my house. He was CEO, COO, C-everything-O, of Potiphar Enterprises, the chief jailer enterprises, and now he's the second most powerful man in the world. And you're going to ride behind me and the rest of this chapter is him transferring this power, the signet ring, the power. Verse 46, Joseph is 30 years old when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Joseph went out and he went through the land and Joseph began to store up grain until there's abundance.
Five Lessons for Waiting on God
Let me give you five things real quickly in this life as you're waiting for God to move.
Be Patient
Number one, and this is really hard, be patient. There are those verses that tell us to wait upon the Lord. I am not a patient guy by nature. I eat differently now than I used to, but I used to go to McDonald's a lot. And McDonald's has a culinary delight that I love, a quarter pounder with cheese. I love a quarter pounder with cheese.
So when I go to McDonald's, what do you think I order? Here's what I order. I go in and I look at what's ready and I'll say, in the old days, the blue one was the fish. I'll say, give me a blue one and give me one of those yellow ones. And they'll go, all right, that's a fish. I go, no, no, no. Don't ring it up. Get it and put it in a bag because I've had it where they rang it up and by the time they ring it up, it's gone. So when I go to McDonald's, this is really simple. I'm not at McDonald's for a culinary experience. I'm at McDonald's for what? Fast food. I don't go through the drive-in because I'm going to get some jerk ahead of me that's going to want a quarter pounder, medium rare, and a salad, but we're going to turn this into a long thing.
Well, listen, you have to be patient. I finished this study one day, went down to AJ's. This is one of those low points. I'm at AJ's. I grabbed my number. It's 73. And I look up and the next number served was zero, zero. So I don't even know what that means. I don't even know where they are. So there's a group of us huddling around and I said to the guy next to me, what's your number? And he said, 63. I said, I'm not going to wait. And I put it in and I got in the car and I turned it on and I realized I didn't have anywhere to go. I got nowhere to go. I didn't have anybody to meet. I'm going to drive around and end up in the old days down at Katz's or somewhere.
Be patient. Be patient. If Joseph would have gotten out of the prison when he wanted out, he would have never had this blessing. If Joseph would have gone in and think about this and Pharaoh said, what would you like as compensation for this? He would have never thought to ask to be the second most powerful man in the world. Be patient.
Have Satisfied People Around You
Number two, have satisfied people around you. In this two year wait, Joseph continues to build this group of people who don't remember his name, but remember who he was and what he did. We have a funeral this Saturday and there'll be a great share time in this. And be accumulating, not in a manipulative way, but accumulating people who at your memorial service want to get up and say, it didn't seem like a big thing, but she was right there when I needed her.
Be a Compromiser, But Not on the Essentials
Number three, this'll kill you. Be a compromiser, but not on the essentials. If you're dying on every hill, it's going to be painful. So much of what I fought over and about doesn't matter. And then when it's time to fight about something important, I got no capital left to fight with.
We see it in church all the time. We got opinions and you know this, this is the old music wars and everything that goes with it. If you take what you do on a Sunday and you mark in yellow the essential things and blue the preferential things, you're going to find the stuff that's driving you nuts are the non-essentials.
We had a guy, an older guy, great guy, who used to come to East Valley and in our days, early days, we didn't have traffic control. And so you would sit out on Elliott as long as five minutes to try to make a turn in. And I'm watching him out there one day sitting in line, I'm thinking, he's going to go out of his mind. And I saw him, he said, you know how long I waited out there? And I said, no, I don't. He said, five minutes, six minutes. I said, oh, I'm sorry. He said, no, no, no, don't be sorry. He said, I don't like hardly anything you do here. I don't like the music. We used to sing a song called Let the Walls Fall Down. I don't know if you remember that old song, but we would sing it during a building campaign and it drove him crazy. Let the walls fall down. But he said, I don't like hardly anything you do, but I love the results of it. That's maturity.
We're in this world where everybody's dug in. You listen to sports radio, political radio, fashion radio, everybody's yelling at everybody about everything. I can't take it. All of a sudden, I'm taking my two and three-year-old granddaughters for peace and quiet. That's how bad it is.
Be Aware of Character Over Accomplishment
Number four, be aware of character over accomplishment. It's become another one of my mantras. It's far more important how you do what you do than what you do. Think Tiger Woods. Think Michael Phelps. I could list business guys and gals you know. The great book that Peggy Noonan wrote on Ronald Reagan when character was king. It's a great book. It's got a great scene at the end when she takes her son to meet the great man. And as they're doing it, George Shultz is there. Do you remember this scene? George Shultz is there and Peggy is with her son meeting Reagan and
She looks out and Shultz is walking around, and Reagan said to the boy, "He really used to be famous." It's a great book.
Focus on Others
Here's the fifth thing: Focus on meeting other people's needs instead of your own. Isn't that kind of Christianity 101? He came not to be served but to serve. There's so much we learn from Joseph, and that's almost a summary of the first three weeks.
Here you go for the next two weeks: What do you do when somebody's screwed you over and done you wrong and you can get even? They've mistreated you and you have the hammer. What do you do in that? That's Joseph the next two weeks.
Father, thank You for this amazing truth. Thank You for what You teach us in the life of Joseph. God, let us be the person we just talked about. It's not natural, it's supernatural. So we ask Your Spirit to work in our life. We ask it in Christ's name, amen.