Survival When Your Network Fails
Tom Shrader explores Joseph's story from Genesis 37-40, highlighting how he maintained integrity and served others even through betrayal, slavery, and false imprisonment. He emphasizes Joseph's willingness to reach out to hurting people, like the cupbearer and baker in prison, demonstrating Christ-like service. The teaching calls believers to look for opportunities to serve those who are struggling and to be willing to help even when it requires going beyond normal expectations.
“The people around you, in casual or professional or family environments, should see your faith at work.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Survival Through the Cycles of Life
Recorded: 2013
Duration: 39 min
Themes: integrity, service, suffering, betrayal, character, perseverance, faithfulness, ministry, facing betrayal, enduring hardship, young adult, new believer, mentor, struggling with injustice, prison ministry, feeling abandoned
Scripture: Genesis 37, Genesis 37:3-4, Genesis 37:19, Genesis 39:2, Genesis 39:3, Genesis 39:6-8, Genesis 39:23, Genesis 40:1-23
Theological Themes: providence, sanctification, christlikeness, servant leadership, spiritual maturity, character formation, biblical narrative, old testament
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles, if you would, to Genesis chapter 37. I'm going to do a little bit of summary. I want to make sure you get this background sketch.
I was in a situation at a dinner a couple of weeks ago and somebody said to me, "What do you do?" And I said, "Well, I used to pastor a church. I don't do that much anymore. I'm on a leadership team there. I have this thing called Priority Living." And he said, "Well, what is that?" And I said, "Well, it's me talking." And he said, "Well, talking about what? Are you a Bible teacher?"
I've grappled with this for 30 years on how to describe it. I don't think I'm a Bible teacher like Jamie is, for example, or like Daryl, who will take a passage and get into the Greek and the sentence structures and all of that stuff. There's a place for that, and they call it seminary. But I think what I do is to get the Scripture and what it says, and when it's done, you walk out with some connection to your life. I think that's what I do best.
So this Monday, I'm at Grand Canyon doing the chapel, and I'm so intimidated. Two or three thousand kids, and I don't know what to say. I think everybody that goes in there wants to say, "When I was your age." So I shared with Sandy, I said, "Here's what I'm thinking. How does that sound to you?" And she said, "Mom, I wouldn't want to hear that. I don't want to hear it now. I wouldn't want to hear it then." So I'm praying God is moving me in a different direction.
The Universal Human Condition
But this especially is that the human condition doesn't change. People are people are people are people. And 4,000 years ago, there was this guy named Joseph. From His life, though the circumstances are different, we can learn an awful lot from him.
So I want to go back and remind you of chapter 37, where we meet Joseph in verses 3 and 4. He is the favorite of His dad, which in and of itself I don't think is a problem, but the problem arises in verse 4 when the brothers know it. Joseph is given by His dad a coat of many colors, and that becomes just something that gets in these boys' faces over and over again.
Joseph is home with His dad. The boys are out watching the flock, and His dad sends him out to check on the boys. They're 50 miles from home. So Joseph is vulnerable. The boys have no restrictions around them.
What People Say When They See You Coming
They take Joseph, and here was the first application point. So it's verse 19 of chapter 37: "They said to one another, 'Here comes the dreamer.'" And the application point was, when people see you coming, what do they say about you? If somebody met one of your friends and said, "I've heard a lot about Tom. Tell me about him," what would they say? What do you want them to say? And so that was an application point.
Joseph's Integrity Under Pressure
Then Potiphar's wife attempts to seduce Joseph, and he says no. We see in verses 6 through 8, three reasons. Number one, Potiphar trusts me. There's a relationship here. He's my best friend. Then he says, "How could I do this? You are His wife." This was a big point last week. When you stand up and you get married, you declare not your love for that day, but your love forever. That's what that whole wedding thing is. Better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health. And so you're there. Joseph said, "I couldn't sin against that." And ultimately he said, "I couldn't sin against God."
So they take Joseph and they sell him into slavery. He ends up working for Potiphar. Chapter 39, verse 2: "The Lord was with Joseph." You may not look at it that way. He's in the prison. He's enslaved. You might look and say, "Where's God in all this? What's wrong with Joseph?" And the Bible says the Lord was with Joseph. And because He was, he prospered.
Your Faith as Your Greatest Asset
Verse 3: "And His master could see the Lord was with him." We said this about you last week. The people around you, in casual or professional or family environments, should see your faith at work. We made the point, and this is not new—we've been making it for 22 years—that your faith is your greatest asset in not just life, but in business.
Last week, after I made that point, I got this text from a friend of mine who's working on His postgraduate work at Harvard. So he says this: "My professor is using the term servant leadership and the leadership secrets of Jesus in my exercising leadership across cultural and international perspective." Which is what we just said to you. The greatest asset you have.
Tyler and I were talking last night. We just kind of did a little boys close the day. We hadn't been by ourselves in a while to just talk, minus kids and baseball and fantasy basketball. Yale's now 13 and 1 in fantasy basketball. He's a lot easier to be with when he's 13 and 1 than when he's 1 and 13. He's making big trades. But Tyler and I are just talking, and we're talking about the future. He said, "I just can't imagine the world, what it's going to be like." The boys are 9 and 7, the girls are 2 and 3.
I said, "Tyler, listen, but they have skills. There's always going to be a place for somebody who can smile and show up on time and say thank you and give the correct change. There's always going to be a place for that. You're going to need those people everywhere." And who really cares about you? Isn't that ultimately what we're talking about in business? Serving the customer. You're in politics—I understand this is theoretical—serve the constituency. That's what you want. That's a follower of Christ. We're here not to be served, but to serve.
Faithful in the Depths
So Joseph is falsely accused. Potiphar now takes him and puts him in the dungeon. What's happening to Joseph is just physically, he's falling deeper and deeper and deeper into the bowels of the dungeon. He now has a new boss that we see in chapter 39, the chief jailer.
The chief jailer took, verse 23, took everyone in His charge and put them under Joseph. Verse 23: "The chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph's charge because..."
The Lord was with him. He made him prosper. So Potiphar looked at Joseph and said, "I can absolutely trust this guy." He took everything he had, all of his responsibilities, and placed him under Joseph. So Joseph is CEO, COO, CFO—see all the other O's that you want. Joseph is in charge.
He now moves over here. I'll make the point that in the midst of all this, Joseph could have absolutely risen up and said, "God, I don't get it. I've done everything right and here you are. I go further and further and further. Where are you?" And he could have been bitter and angry, just like—I'm going to guess—everyone in here has been screwed by somebody, somewhere, sometime, and you didn't deserve it, and they put it to you, and you can harbor that and hang on to that and get bitter or angry.
I'm suggesting Joseph didn't, and the evidence is, the next boss he has, if he saw a bitter, angry guy, he ain't promoting that guy. And here's Joseph again, and here's the chief jailer, and he says, "You got it all," and this guy's an important guy. We're going to see today, an important guy. So he's out, and he's played golf, and they're in the clubhouse having an iced tea afterwards, and the guys say, "How's it going at the jail?" He's going, "I don't know. Joseph's got all that. That's why he can play golf. That's why I'm free." So there's the practical side of that.
Two Important Officials in Prison
Here's the story, chapter 40. "Then it came about, after these things, that the cupbearer and the baker, for the king of Egypt, offended their lord, the king of Egypt. Pharaoh is furious with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. So he put them in confinement, in the house of the captain of the bodyguard." So that's back to Potiphar in the jail, the same place where Joseph was in prison. "The captain and the bodyguard put Joseph in charge over them and he took care of them and they were in his confinement for some time."
So let me make sure you get, because there's no way you would without some background, the cupbearer and the chief baker are not as trivial as the position sounds. In that day and age, as in now, you're frequently trying to overthrow people, trying to do a new power regime. And you could do it through blood and war—that was hard and expensive—but a lot of times they would just poison them. So the cupbearer's job was this: he would be with the Pharaoh, they would bring in Pharaoh's food, the cupbearer would taste it, they'd wait a little bit, and if he didn't die they'd eat it.
It was hard to get life insurance for this. "You skydive?" "Yeah, that's all right." "Race cars?" "That's all right." "What do you do for a living?" "Cupbearer?" "No insurance for you." The baker is more—I don't know if this is accurate, but he's more an internal ceremonial guy. He's not just making cookies, he's overseeing the affairs of a state dinner.
So these two guys who are with Pharaoh in proximity and probably varying levels of relationship, these two guys do something we don't know. Something they said, something they didn't say, something they did, we don't know. All we know is Pharaoh's angry, if Pharaoh's angry to jail they go, and they land under Joseph's care.
Joseph's Compassionate Response
Joseph comes in, in verse 5, and "the cupbearer and the baker for the king of Egypt are confined, and they both had a dream the same night, and each man with his own dream and each dream with its own interpretation." So they've had these dreams—you have dreams—and these are apparently very troubling because they don't know what they mean. "Joseph came in"—look at this, here we go for application again, a lot of application today—"Joseph came in in the morning and here's the word circle mark, observed them and beheld they were dejected, and he asked Pharaoh's official who were with Him in the confinement in the master's house, 'Why are you so sad?'"
Here's Joseph role modeling again, but to me, the call for the way that we interact. Joseph walked in and here are these guys and they're visibly distressed. So number one, He sees it. Number two, He takes the time to get involved and say, "Why are you so sad?"
You have this all around. You could walk in an office—I don't even have to work there—take me to your office today and I can walk in, when you look around, and we'll go, "What's wrong with him? What's wrong with her?" Those of you that go to church, you really can see it at church. Show up to the Sunday service 15 minutes early and see who's there. Somebody sitting by themselves, reading the bulletin, studying it like it's going to be a test, and there's nothing in there. Reading it, and you can look at them.
Church is a great place to see these hurting people all around you. Now you're going to see it, but then it's the next step, is to go over and say, "Hey, how you doing?"
The Challenge of Real Friendship
I used to wonder why we didn't have friends—and I meant you—my friend dance card's pretty full. But I used to wonder, why don't people have friends? And I thought it was because of fear of rejection, but I've come to accept it's a fear of acceptance, because if I'm your friend, now I've got that cell number and I can call you at 2 in the morning. I can come by, I can call and say, "Hey, listen, I know it's Saturday, I know the Iowa game's on, I know they're behind by three touchdowns. Recruiting day yesterday, we signed every six-five, 280-pound guy who runs a seven-flat 40, we signed them yesterday, so we're ready to go. But I know that that's what it is, but can I come over?"
Being a Christian thing is not just marking up my Bible and studying and getting an A, it's now moving to life. It's now dealing with the hurt and the pain that you see all around you. I had a friend who taught seventh grade, great teacher, and she had in there the ideal student—you know, which is always a girl who doesn't cause any problems, cleans up everything and gets all A's. And this girl came in one day and she was out of control from the first bell in the morning. Finally, at lunch, she said, "You need to stay in here."
And she sat down and said, "What's going on?" She said, "I just found out last night my mom and dad are going to get a divorce." Now, those of you with kids and grandkids, you need to know, I don't care how stable your house is, these kids are around that all the time and wondering when it's going to happen to you.
She took this girl for the entire lunch and said the lesson after lunch was colons and semicolons. And she said it didn't seem so important. Well, the call here is not to abandon jobs. You need to teach colons and semicolons, but in the context of the stuff, the pain you see around you. I mean, it's all over. You can be busy all day long if you're this type of person.
Because here's what happens. If you're that type of person, the word gets out and your phone's going to ring and ring and ring. I know how you feel when you hear that. I don't want it either. But Joseph does it.
Joseph's Response to Unexpected Opportunities
It's above and beyond. It's something that He sees different. It's those casual things that God just drops in your life. They're not on this. If I look back over the last year at the most significant moments of my life, they never showed up on the schedule. It's somebody you run into at AJ's. You sneak into Costco to get a hot dog and a Coke. And all of a sudden, there's somebody and they see you and there it wasn't on here.
That's Joseph. That's the scene he's in. And all of a sudden, it's not I'm not going to get involved. He sees it. He asks and they say, we've had a dream. There's no one to interpret it.
Now here's the humility. Joseph doesn't say, "Tell me the dream. I'll figure it out." Joseph said, "The interpretations belong to God. Tell it to me. I'll give it to you."
The Cupbearer's Dream and Interpretation
The chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said to Him, "In the dream, behold, there was a vine in front of me. And on the vine, there were three branches. And it was budding. Its blossoms came out. And its clusters produced ripe grapes. Now Pharaoh's cup was in my hand. So I took the grapes, squeezed it into Pharaoh's cup. And I put the cup in Pharaoh's hand."
Joseph said, "Okay, I can tell you what that means. This is the interpretation. Three branches or three days. Within three days more, Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office. And you will put Pharaoh's cup into His hand, according to the former custom, when you were His cupbearer." He said, "In three days, Pharaoh's going to call you in and you're going to be restored to your position."
The Baker's Dream and Its Harsh Truth
I want to pass over verse 15 and 16, because we'll come back to that. Verse 16, when the chief baker saw the interpretation, he said, "I'll take one of those." So he said, "I also had a dream, and behold, there were three baskets of white bread on my head. And on top of the basket, there were some of all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh. And the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head."
Joseph said, "All right, here we go. This is the interpretation. The three baskets are three days. Within three more days, Pharaoh will lift up your head. Now, we got to finish it, because it's from your body. So your body's here, and your head's here. Not a good place. He'll lift up your head from your body, will hang you from a tree, and the birds will eat your flesh."
Thus it came about. So there's the self-explanatory. Don't need anything there. I mean, even if you're working on your PhD at the U of A, you can get this. We got it? You don't need me to point this out to you. You got it.
The Fulfillment of Both Prophecies
Thus it came about on the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast for all his servants, lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer, and the head of the chief baker among the servants. He restored the chief cupbearer to his office, and he put the cup into Pharaoh's hands. And he hanged the chief baker just as Joseph had interpreted. So there it was.
The Challenge of Speaking Hard Truths
And there's a subset in there, and I made some notes. I'm not sure how deep to go into it, but to at least make the point that one of the things that's hard to do, if I'm Joseph telling the cupbearer you're going back into Pharaoh's court, that's got to be a fun job. Calling somebody into the office and saying, "I got good news, going to promote you," that's easy.
Here's the hard thing is to tell the truth when it's tough. I don't know about the world in general. I assume it's that way. But one of the things that I see over and over again in the Christian community is we don't tell the truth to each other very well. This is not a license to be a jerk.
But one of the things we struggle with, with our staff, with people, is self-awareness. There's a whole bunch of it. Trust me. My view of me is higher than your view of me. There's a whole bunch of things about me that you see that I don't see. And the only way for me to see them and to work on them is to know them, to be in a relationship.
The Need for Authentic Relationships
Let me tell you what I just did not do. I just did not invite you all to start emailing me about how to dress, lose some weight. I don't need all that. Well, I'm just saying, in a relationship, there has to be that. How many times in a husband and wife, I have to be able to say to Sandy, "Hey, here are the things that I see. Here's what we ought to work on."
See, this is really living. This is relational. This is more than on a Sunday morning, "How you doing?" "Fine." "How about you?" "Fine." "How about that Tom Brady? That was amazing. That was really good. Think Tiger will get it back together?" "No." And go on from there. "See you later."
It's this relationship. You can't just go around randomly with a shotgun blowing people up. But it's being willing to say those difficult things. It's being willing to say, "Listen, this is why I'm here." Got that? I mean, does that make sense?
The Accuracy of Joseph's Prophecy
The prophecy that Joseph gives the cupbearer and the baker is 100% accurate. I read years ago, Gene Dixon, remember Gene Dixon? Gene Dixon was right 47% of the time. That means she's
Joseph's Remarkable Resilience
Wrong a lot. One of the powerful things about Scripture is when they make a prediction, the prediction is true. So there's the call. I mean, I'm early, but I want to wind you even toward the close. You get the story. That's the story.
To me, there's the backstory of the challenge of how to live and how to be an effective person, how to be a good friend, how to be a good spouse, how to be a good sibling. Here's what I want you to see. I'm back into Joseph. Joseph blows me away with His resistance.
When we were little kids, we've been talking a lot lately, just maybe because I've been thinking about my mom and my dad and how we grew up. We did not... We had four boys. We did not get much. Like at Christmas, we would each get a present that was significant. My mom used to get, for Christmas every year, she got an apple and a nickel. Doesn't sound like much today. But one year, my dad, I assume he thought this was a good idea for the boys. He bought us one of these things that you blow up. It had sand in the bottom. You punch it. And remember, bap, bap, and it'd come.
That's Joseph to me. You should just put Joseph across it. You hit him, he's down, he's up. You hit him, he's down, he's up.
Joseph's Honest Plea for Freedom
What I want you to see here that I skipped in verse 14 and 15 is you could sterilize this story and miss what Joseph says here. He's talking to the cupbearer. He's told him he's going to be restored. He said, "Only keep me in mind when it goes well with you. Please do me a kindness by mentioning me to Pharaoh and get me out of this house. For I was, in fact, kidnapped from the land of Hebrews. And even here, I've done nothing that they should put me into this dungeon."
Don't read this and sterilize it and think somehow there's this super extraordinary Joseph who's this spiritual giant who's there and go, ah, this is it. No big deal. And it doesn't bother me. You get what He's saying there in verse 14 and 15? Get me out of here.
Learning from Larry's Example
I used to watch... And again, he's my hero. And so I lived with him and around it and in some way have some of the stuff he had now, nothing like he had it. But I watched Larry when I first met him. I watched him. His hands were all marled. And I used to go to get stuff out of his trunk. And to open his trunk, he had to back up to it and get it like this to get the leverage to get it open, which is ironic because that's the only way I can get my trunk open now.
And I would carry around his... he didn't have one of these. He had a briefcase with all this stuff in it. And he couldn't carry it. And he couldn't carry tapes. And I would watch him. And he'd say, "Tommy, can you open this for me?" And it was this sweet and low. Couldn't tear it. It's when we sit down at home to dinner and I say to Sandy, "Can you open the water for me?" Because I can't get it open. I'm not comparing me to Larry at all.
So in the midst of all of this, I meet him one day for breakfast. And his neck is just, as we're eating, his neck is growing. I said, "Doc, you got to get that. That's not normal." So I don't know if you remember, then they went in and it was all cancer.
The Surgery and Its Aftermath
And it was a Wednesday. They were going to do the surgery because I was teaching in Tucson. And I drove back up and I went in. We were down at St. Joe's. And they sat me down and they said, "Tom, here it is. They got in there and it's all cancer. They've had to go in and they had to do this huge cut and just take out." I told him he went from 16 and 1/2 32 to 9 32.
And I went in and he's driving. I'll never forget it. He's in the bed and they said, "He wants to see you. He's coming out of the sand. He wants to see you." And I went in. I didn't know what to say. I mean, I'm better now. And he's all stapled. And he held up his little hand and I'm holding his hand. And I said, "Are you OK?" So at this moment, only the truth comes out. And he said, "God's grace is sufficient."
And I watched him. And I'd watch the people that knew him come in contact with him. And he was almost too much to endure. He was such a pathetic little figure. He was a cartoon character.
Larry's Ministry Despite Suffering
And he'd walk until he got to here. Here's what he'd do. Then he'd get that Bible. He'd hold it two hands. He'd get it to here. And he'd get it to his hip. And then somehow he'd get it up to here. And he'd get it open. And he would start to teach. And when he started teaching, it was a whole different game.
And I'll never forget, the sweetest little old lady came up and said, "Oh, Larry, Larry, haven't you suffered enough?" He said, "Apparently not." And I was with him. I mean, I didn't know him as well as Sue or maybe a couple of his kids. But I knew him as well as anybody on the planet. Never complained.
And here's what Larry said. And it's what you've heard from people in similar situations. "I would have never chosen this. I don't want to go through this. But I wouldn't trade it for the world." See, there's that attitude. I watched Susan with her cancer. Seven years of it. I watched the same thing. I mean, I just watched her unwind. And she would say, "I would never choose this. But I know God's using this."
Joseph's Honest Humanity
That's what Joseph's got going here. You see it? He's with Potiphar. He's with the chief jailer. He says in verse 14 and 15, "I want out of this thing. I don't want to stay in this. Get me out of here. Remember me." So here's what he's saying. You're going to go into Pharaoh. You're my advocate. Remember this moment. And Pharaoh's going to have a time where he needs an asset. And you go, "You got one. His name's Joseph."
All that to get to chapter 40, verse 23. Maybe one of the saddest verses in the Scripture. "The chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him." Joseph is down, he's whistling, leaving on a jet plane, and he's getting all of his stuff together, and now he's forgotten.
Five Principles for Relationships
I'm going to give you five things to think about. As it relates to relationship and friendship, all that in this. Number one, be willing to be a friend to those...
Friendship in Crisis
Who are down and out. Pretty easy to be a friend to an up and inner, but down and out is difficult. I had a friend from California, and still have him as a friend, high visible, real estate, politics, screwed up, everything fell apart. And He would call randomly and say, "Shreds, can I come over and stay with you guys for three or four days or a week or whatever? I don't have anything for you, I'll just carry your briefcase, I'll go around with you."
And here was the line He gave me, talking about the fall. He said, "In a moment, dozens of my friends became unresponsive business associates." These are the guys I'd call, the secretary would say, "I'm sorry, He's really busy." "Well, tell Him so-and-so's on the phone." And then, two seconds later, He'd get right through. Now He'd call and say, "Well, yeah, He's around, hang on, can I tell Him who's calling?" And you'd tell Him and He'd come back and say, "I can't take your call."
You need to be looking for those people that are hurting.
Be Sensitive to Others' Needs
Number two, be sensitive to others' needs. I'm convinced the beauty about getting old and getting sick is you can relate finely to the people around you. Those are the ones that need the friend, the people that are hurting.
Be Ready to Serve Beyond Your Job Description
Number three, be ready to serve beyond your job description. Joseph could have easily come in, seen the chief cupbearer and the baker and said, "You know what, I can see they got problems, but that's their problem."
I used to work for a guy, this guy taught me a lot about life and how to do it and more how not to do it. And He was my sales manager, constant smoker, didn't use an ashtray, literally didn't use an ashtray. He looked like He was cremated by the end of the day. He'd just sit there and the ashes would fall all over Him. We'd go out, He'd go to lunch every day at the same place back home. It would be like a Durance. When He'd come in, they'd wave, His table would be ready and there'd be a Manhattan there. And then you'd eat and there'd be another one.
This guy was great. And He used to say to us, this would be a sales meeting, "We need to sell more. You guys seem to have a lot of problems, don't bring them in here. I'll be in the office if you need me." I mean, that was our sale. It was like Zig Ziglar every day. It was like, hold on, hold on.
You can't say, I don't think, this was my staffing philosophy anyway, I never said to my staff, "You got issues, don't bring them in here." When they come in, their issues come in with them. If you're the manager of the boss, if you don't like, that's my view now, if you don't like this, get out. Because you're a financial counselor and a marriage counselor. You may not be the ultimate, but you need to be engaged with the people around you.
What Would Jesus Have You Do?
There was a little bracelet. Remember the bracelet a couple years ago? "What would Jesus do?" And I hated that bracelet for two reasons. One, I didn't think of it, so I didn't make any money on it. So that bugged me. Somebody made some dough on that.
But the second one was, I always thought it was the wrong question. The question isn't, "What would Jesus do?" The question is, "What would Jesus have you do?" If Jesus meets a blind man, He picks up dirt, spits in it, puts it on His eyes and He's healed. If I do that, we just have a sanitation problem. I can't heal the blind. What should I do?
There was a book, one of the most popular books of all time, called "In His Steps." Do you remember that? Somebody that's a smidgen older been around. How many of you read "In His Steps"? I think the author's name was Charles Shelton.
Well, I'm home one Saturday, laying around. Movie comes on, "In His Steps." It's like a 1945 movie. It was about the pastor and a sermon in which He said, "How would God, let's say Jesus, have a teacher live? Have a carpenter live? Have the guy at Costco live? How would Jesus have the third guy in a foursome act?" You have to be willing to be engaged.
Don't Expect Favors
Two more. Don't expect a lot of favors. Don't let that be the motivation for the friendship.
I'm on a plane coming back from somewhere, sitting down next to a guy, and it's clear in two minutes, He either has a lot of money or access to a lot of credit. One of the two. Because He's dressed right. Everything's right. His under-the-seat-in-front-of-Him bag is right. His iPad is the new iPad. Everything's right.
So we're flying along, and I don't want to, and then finally He said to me, "I'm George." I said, "Well, George, I'm Tom." And He said, "Are you a sports fan?" And I said, "I'm an Iowa football fan. I don't know if that's sports or not, but I'm an Iowa football fan. Like college football, pros a little bit. Baseball, when I can't sleep, is perfect." Well, He said, "Are you a basketball fan?" I said, "You know, sort of, if they make the extra pass." He said, "Are you a Suns fan?" I said, "No, I used to have season tickets for like 15 years, but not really." He said, "Oh, I have season tickets."
Let me tell you where my mind went. I'm going to reveal sin to you. I'm going, "He's a sports fan. He's engaging me. He likes the Suns. He has season tickets. I'll bet if I go to a game with Him, I'm going to get sweat on me. I'm going to be front row." And it, I mean, this is sick. It changed the whole way I, until I only realized going, "I don't like this guy. He's not very bright. What am I doing? Other than I may get a Suns ticket out of it." Are you kidding me?
You got to be willing to reach out to people who can't do anything for you.
Be Ready to Be Disappointed
And then here's the last point. I always like to end on a high note. Be ready to be disappointed. I wrote, circled, put a red box around it. Expect bad things daily.
As you reach out to people in this, it's not going to always have the happy ending. We just had winter camp for junior high, high schoolers. I've never been to winter camp. I go to summer camp. And summer camp, so we go over to Point Loma. It has the same rhythm. We arrive. They realize they got to walk these hills. It's tough to get around. It's awkward the first night.
Sometimes in a relationship, you're going to be the one that's giving, sometimes receiving. It's a two-way proposition. Here's what I'm saying: you're like Joseph. "What would Joseph do?" is a question you should ask yourself.
I'm encouraging you to put this to work today. You can look at the people around you, and you can begin to reach out to them today. Think about this for a second. You can be the instrument God uses to extend His grace and love to those people around you, just like Joseph.
The story continues next week.
Father, thank You for the truth of this. Make us men and women who think this way and then act this way. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.