Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, January 13th. How do you keep moving forward when bad things happen? Let's explore the answer to that question by looking at the life of Joseph. When we talk about faith's fixed focus, a fixed focus is the directing of our attention and our faith toward a specific object and holding it there. And for the believer, our fixed focus is God, none other than God. Now I mentioned to you before that the five men in the Old Testament that most influenced my life were Abraham and then Joseph and Moses and David and Daniel. And as a kid growing up and reading and searching and asking God to speak to my own heart, how these truths affected my life. Well, we've talked about Abraham, the call of faith. And today, Joseph, faith's fixed focus.
Now my friend, listen carefully. Here's a man whose faith was so fixed upon the Heavenly Father that it sustained him through a family that hated him, sustained him through a period of slavery, sustained him through a period of intense temptation, and sustained him through an unjust accusation that resulted in throwing him in prison. He didn't deserve it, but he had no recourse, no trial, no lawyer, none of that, into a dungeon in prison.
Now think about this for a moment. Joseph would have had lots of human reasons for saying, well, this is where being moral and trusting God has gotten me. Rejection from my family, sold on the slave block for 20 pieces of silver, falsely accused by Potiphar's wife, and now I'm in a dungeon in prison probably for the rest of my life, which probably would not have been long, living in a dungeon. And that's what his faith and his obedience got him.
Oh, that's not what he said. Because you see, Joseph fixed his faith on Jehovah God. It sustained him through his brother's attempted murder. It sustained him through those early days of slavery in Potiphar's household. It sustained him through the most intense temptation. It sustained him through rejection and being cast into prison. And now here he is in prison. What happens to him?
Well, look if you will. In verse 21, now he's in prison, but the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer and the chief jailer committed to Joseph's charge all the prisoners who were in the jail so that whatever was done there, he was responsible for it. Isn't this just like God?
Watch this. Because he fixed his faith upon God, he would not waver. The Bible says when he was a slave in Potiphar's household and the Lord was with him. Now he's thrown into prison with no hope of getting out.
And what happens? And the Lord was with him. And the scripture says again in the 23rd verse, the chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph's charge because the Lord was with him and whatever he did, the Lord made to prosper.
Now look at this. You see how I want you to get this truth. When you and I fix our faith upon God and we trust him and we do not allow the circumstances and the environment around us and the opinion of others to push us over on the side and get us out of God's will, the Lord will be with us. God will favor us and what?
Whatever we do will prosper. As a slave, he prospered. In jail, as a prisoner, he's prospering because he obeyed God and he would not let his faith be a faith that wavered because of his circumstances and his environment. The Bible says on one occasion that he had two new inmates, Pharaoh's Butler and Pharaoh's Baker and they'd been there for a little while and they both had a dream. And so the scripture says, and if you'll notice this, this is why I know that he had a concern for his fellow inmates. In verse 7, he asked Pharaoh's officials who were with him in confinement in his master's house, why are your faces so sad today?
You see, he could tell that these two men were really having a tough time. They said to him, we've had a dream and there's no one to interpret it. Then Joseph said to them, do not interpretations belong to God? Not the gods of Egypt, God, Jehovah, Yahweh, he would have said to them, tell it to me. So they told him their dreams and you'll recall in this 40th chapter, the Butler said, for example, in verse 9, so the chief cup bearer told his dream to Joseph and said to him, in my dream there was a vine in front of me.
On the vine were three branches and as 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 and squeezed them into Pharaoh's cup and I put the cup in the Pharaoh's hand. Joseph said, I'll interpret that dream in three days, you're going to be restored to your original position with Pharaoh and you'll be his cup bearer. Well, you can imagine what the baker said, well, I love that interpretation. What about mine?
Let me tell you about mine. And so verse 16, when the chief baker saw that he had interpreted favorably, he said to Joseph, I also saw in my dream and behold, there were three baskets of white bread on my head and in the top basket there were some of all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh and the birds were eating them out of the baskets on my head. Then Joseph answered and said, this is its interpretation, the three baskets are three days.
Within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head from you and will hang you on a tree and the birds will eat your flesh off you. Well in three days Joseph's interpretation came to pass, one restored, one hanged. Now look at this 23rd verse if you will, yet the chief cup bearer did not remember Joseph but forgot him. So here he is now in prison, forgotten, but his focused faith in God has sustained him through the rejection of his family, through his time of slavery, his intense temptation, his unjust accusations and now he's been in prison all these years. Where is Joseph's God? Now listen to me carefully, God knows please don't miss this. You see one of the reasons you miss God's blessings is because you get your focus off him and start looking. And I agree, I meet people all the time, all of us have been in circumstances and situations where we've said, God, where are you?
Why don't you do something? We complain. Now we do a little bit more sophisticated. We get on our knees and we say, now God, now Lord you know our, Lord you, and we remind him of all the things we've told him and how good we've been and all of this stuff. Has it ever occurred to us that what he said was true when he said, my ways are not your ways. Nor my thoughts, your thoughts. Because you see he says, no matter how high your thoughts are, mine are higher.
And no matter how high your ways are, mine are higher and more noble than yours. So somewhere around eight years in prison or thereabouts, maybe ten, forgotten. And I can imagine that Joseph must have thought, boy I sure hope the cupbearer reminds, I hope he just says just a word or two, week went by, month went by, two months, three months, six months, nine months, one year, fifteen months, eighteen months, two long years. And then one of the darkest moments of his life, one looked like that's where he'd be for the rest of his life, humanly speaking.
You know what Joseph was doing? He was recalling what his great-grandfather had said and what his grandfather had said and what his father had taught him. And he remembered those dreams that he had. And somehow he knew God had spoken to him.
Now watch this, but by the hand of God in God's timing, almost ten years of dungeon living, Pharaoh has a dream. He has two dreams, both of them with the same message. The first dream said he saw these seven very fat cows come up out of the Nile. Then he saw seven lean ones that were just skin and bones and they devoured the first ones. Then he saw these big beautiful ears of corn just full and ripe and abundant.
Then he saw these that were almost barren and those that were barren consumed those that were full. He called all of his magicians, all the court magicians, Potiphar was there, everybody was there because Pharaoh was afraid. He had this dream. He didn't know what to think about it. He knew there was something significant about it, so he got everybody there. And he said, I want you to interpret this dream.
Nobody could interpret it. Then the cupbearers said, sir, I remember when I was in prison, there was a young Hebrew slave there, young Hebrew who interpreted my dreams. So Pharaoh calls for Joseph. This is a beautiful passage.
Now think about this, if you will. Here is Pharaoh sitting upon his majestic throne with all of the symbols of all the gods of Egypt all around them. Here's his court of magicians and this priest and everyone else.
Everything over here close by is Potiphar. Brought to center stage is young Joseph, now 30 years of age. And so Pharaoh says, I hear you are able to interpret dreams.
I love this response. Look at verse 14 in chapter 41. Then Pharaoh sent and called for Joseph and they hurriedly brought him out of the dungeon and when he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I've had a dream, but no one can interpret it. And I've heard it said about you that when you hear a dream, you can interpret it. Now listen to this response. Joseph then answered Pharaoh saying, it is not in me, God, not gods, Jehovah, Yahweh, singular God, God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer. Well, I'm here to tell you he had everybody's attention and I can imagine one person's attention he really had was Potiphar. So Pharaoh tells his dream and the Scripture says that when he told his dream, then Joseph responded to that dream.
And so here's what he said. He said there are going to be seven very abundant years when the crops will just be absolutely amazingly fruitful. Following that will be seven years of barrenness and famine.
Nothing's going to grow. Therefore Pharaoh, you must find someone to put in charge to so organize the agricultural system of Egypt so that you'll be able to garner all of these crops in this seven-year period so when the famine comes, you'll be able to feed all of Egypt because other nations too will come and need something. When Pharaoh heard that, it is amazing what he did. Now I want you to look for just a moment at the rewards of this young man's fixed focus of faith upon God. When he stood before Pharaoh, his first responsibility as a believer in the one true God was not to take credit for interpreting his dream, which would have been the human response. But what did he do?
He said it is not in me. That is don't give me credit, Pharaoh, but God will interpret your dream favorably. The first reward that he had for his faithfulness was he had the privilege of a public testimony to Pharaoh, the Jehovah God is the God and not the gods of Egypt.
The second response and the second reward is that he became the second most powerful man in the civilization and that whole culture. Because the Bible says in this forty-first chapter, so Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has informed, listen to that, not the gods, since Jehovah, since Yahweh, since God has informed you of this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you in age thirty years of age. You shall be over my house, according to your command, all my people shall do homage. Don't you know that while he was standing there listening to Pharaoh, that in that thirty-year-old boy's mind, he found himself listening to Pharaoh, but picturing himself the night that he had the dream and those sheaves bowing down and the stars and the sun and moon bowing down and while he was listening to Pharaoh, God was reminding him, Joseph, I have been faithful to you. And so Pharaoh said to him, everything I have is under your responsibility.
He says, see, I have set you over all the land of Egypt. Verse forty-two, then Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand, put it on Joseph's hand, clothed them in garments of fine linen, put the gold necklace around his neck. He came into Egypt, listen, as a slave in iron chains, listen, by the time he was thirty years of age, he had the finest of clothes and a gold chain around his neck. Verse forty-three, and he had him ride in his second chariot. He not only had power, he not only had a personal testimony, he had position and he had praise. Look at this, verse forty-three, he had him ride in his second chariot and they proclaimed before him bow the knee and he set him over all the land of Egypt. Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, though I am Pharaoh, yet without your permission no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. Not only did he have authority, he had absolute authority, second only to Pharaoh. Now he became a prosperous man, of course, and lots of wonderful things happened to him.
Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Now listen to me, many of you young people, you get tempted and you get tried and somebody says it's not going to make any difference. Little drugs not going to hurt you, little sex not going to hurt you, little rebellious attitude toward your parents not going to hurt you.
Listen carefully. It won't hurt you if you don't want to make anything out of your life. It won't hurt you if you don't want to be used of God.
It won't hurt you if you don't want your best. It won't hurt you unless you really want to be what God wants you to be. Then sin today has its consequences tomorrow. It was his very simple, fixed, childlike faith on God as a teenage boy that thirteen years later brought him to become the prime minister of Egypt. Now listen, when Joseph was hated by his brothers, thrown in the pit, he was in God's place. When he was bound in an iron chain, walking across a hot desert into Egypt, he was in God's place. When he was in Potiphar's household as a slave, he was in God's place. When he was falsely accused by Potiphar's wife, he was in God's place. When he was in the dungeon, he was in God's place.
And when he stood before Pharaoh and became the prime minister, he was in God's place. If you want God's best for your life, you set your focus upon him. You need to listen to the strange voices, nor do you allow your environment or the barriers, all the things that would hinder you. You don't get your focus on those things, you set your focus on him and you just keep thanking God, Lord, I'm in your place because you're powerful enough to put me where you want me and you're powerful enough to keep me where you want me.
You're powerful enough to protect me from being where you don't want me and here I am. I'm going to trust you that where I am, you're going to guide me and lead me to where you want me to be. If you and I can learn the simple principle of fixing our faith on him and steadying it there and gazing upon him, looking to him, trusting him, nothing but him, you'll be amazed at what God will do in your life. Thank you for listening to part two of Faith's Fixed Focus. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
