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Joseph: Portrait of a Winner, Part 4

Leading the Way / Michael Youssef
The Truth Network Radio
January 23, 2025 12:00 am

Joseph: Portrait of a Winner, Part 4

Leading the Way / Michael Youssef

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January 23, 2025 12:00 am

In this 9-part series, Joseph: Portrait of a Winner, Michael Youssef shows you how God defines a winner through the turbulent life of Joseph. Using nine character qualities, Dr. Youssef leads you to the truth that will help you live a life of a true winner -- God's type of winner!

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Do you read the Bible as if your life depends on it?

Well, you should. In Dr. Michael Youssef's book, How to Read the Bible, he reveals how the Bible guides you through life with faith and power. You'll understand that from the first pages of Genesis all the way through the last words of Revelation, God is pointing you toward the Lord who saves completely and eternally. Learn how to get your copy of Dr. Youssef's book, How to Read the Bible, today when you visit ltw.org.

Ltw.org. Joseph was falsely accused of a very serious crime and sat in jail. But how he handled the situation offers a window into how you and I should face life. Here's Dr. Michael Youssef.

Joseph was inside the dungeon, the dark dungeon, but he never allowed the darkness of that dungeon to enter his life inside of him. Difficulties will come to all of us. No one is immune. But how you and I respond to the difficulty is going to determine whether you're a winner or a whiner. When life goes sideways, are you a winner or a whiner?

Welcome to Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef, the author of more than 50 books, including his most recent, My Refuge, My Strength. Life happens. There are those seasons when everything's smooth, things are going along without much pain. And then there are times when sickness and loss and volatile relationships press in. Well, today on Leading the Way, Dr. Youssef guides you into the pages of Genesis chapter 40, where Joseph is hearing a lot of silence from God, wondering if he's been abandoned.

Join me and listeners worldwide as Dr. Michael Youssef begins today's teaching. I am personally convinced in my own heart, my own spirit, of the fact that attending the God's school of patience is a requirement of all believers. At least in my case, I often see the hand of God in waiting. In every delay, God uses it to construct my character. In every waiting, God chisels away at the excesses in my life.

In every detour, it increases the level of my trust and the level of my commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. In every disappointment, I have learned to see God's appointment. Now, today, on a much larger and a more significant scale, we're going to find God's winner, Joseph, is being put on hold. Joseph, in chapter 40, you find him holding the telephone in his ear and is on hold for 11 years, 11 years.

But through it all, God was working his purposes out. All those who have accomplished great things for God as you read the scripture, that they have been at one stage or another in their life, been put on hold. Abraham was put on hold for 25 years. Moses was put on hold for 40 years. David was put on hold for many years from the time he was anointed by Samuel to the time he became the king.

Paul, who had the dream of going to Rome and the revelation of God that he must go to Rome, his dream was put on hold for two years while he was in the prison in Caesarea. And here, Joseph ended up in the Egyptian dungeon for a sin that he never committed and with a totally false accusation, being put on hold. It is impossible to really know how Joseph must have felt at that time. Sitting there in a dark dungeon, it is impossible to know exactly how he felt.

It is impossible to know what his thoughts were, except the scripture gives us a little insight. It's in verse 15 of chapter 40, the book of Genesis. You can sense in that verse the inner agony.

As he said to the cup bearer after he interpreted his dream, he said, mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison, for I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews. And even here, I have done nothing to deserve being in this dungeon. It's the first time we hear that inner agony in that great man, God's winner Joseph. There's nothing could be worse than this kind of testing. It is one thing to be tested and tried when you are guilty and it's a whole different ball game when you are innocent. When your very purity cause you injustice, when your very integrity causes you suffering, when your very loyalty and honesty throws you in the darkness. But I want to tell you that. How you deal with that injustice in your life, how you deal with that unfairness that comes your way makes a difference whether you are a winner or a loser, whether you are a winner or a whiner in the kingdom of God.

It really does. An interviewer from the West Coast had me on a talk show program for about an hour and one of the early questions in the conversation, she asked me, she said, what is in your opinion the number one problem in American Christianity? Without a second's hesitation, as if it is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I said to her, sentimentality.

And she was such speed, she said, what do you mean by this? I said, what I mean is this, that we have placed everything in the Christian life on the scales of feelings. We feel, I feel, he feels, she feels. We are living on our feelings. We have allowed our feelings to rule supreme in our lives. We have placed our feelings on the thrones of our hearts. We have let our feelings replace our convictions. We have made our feelings to be the measure of all things. And there are whole churches today that are functioning and operating based on feelings rather than the authoritative word of God. Our relationships and our friendships are built upon feelings, not devotion. Our marriages are built on feelings, not commitment. Our work is driven by feelings, not honor and duty and a sense of accomplishment and doing something right in our lives. Even our faith is now measured by feelings.

I feel spiritual, therefore I am spiritual. Never mind about conduct, never mind that the purity of my heart, never mind about the moral demands of the scripture. When I want to tell you in reality, feelings have very little to do with the faith.

In fact, if I look at it from my perspective, it has probably less than five percent in the scheme of things. After all, our moments of great spiritual feelings and the moments of ecstatic joy, they really don't require much faith, do they? Joseph, our winner here in God's eye, wins because he learned the lesson of walking with God regardless of his feelings.

I want to tell you something. Please hear me right and you know my heart and I don't mean that in any, because I'm as guilty as the rest of you. I am convinced that we Christians in America have been ruined by Hollywood.

We really are. We have expected to see a hero in every crisis. We have expected to have a quick solution to every problem.

We have expected a quick way out of every predicament and we have taken that same rotten, infected attitude and applied it to the church, applied it to the work of God, applied it to our own Christian life. Have you had your miracle today? I might not get a miracle today. I may be in the Egyptian dungeon today but I'm still God's winner regardless of where I am, regardless of how I feel. I don't get up every morning and say, I don't feel like working today.

Well, if you want to starve to death, do it. You don't live by your feelings because you don't trust your feelings. So we have taken this unreal, unbiblical Hollywood attitude and applied it to the Christian faith and we ring the bell and the bill, the big, great bill hop in the sky we call God, jumps to his feet and he said, yes sir, what can I do for you today? That's really the way we think. Our attitude in prayer, listen God, I'm talking. Instead of speak God, I am your servant hereth.

And there's a world of difference between the two, a world of difference between the two. Joseph was a winner even when his life was put on hold. Far from living on the level of his feelings, Joseph was living by faith.

Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not against feelings, these are part of our God-given gifts. But what I'm saying is this, don't live by your feelings, don't trust your feelings to be the measure of things but live by faith in the God of Abraham and the God of Jacob, that he is the God of yesterday, today and forever and he is not going to change simply because we're not able to hear him. Simply he has taken time to answer your prayers and Joseph was far from living the life of blaming somebody else or blaming God. To be sure he proclaimed his innocence but never once, look at the scripture, never once did he blame anybody in his life and he could have rightly done so. He said listen I have these miserable brothers of mine and they're the ones who sold me, they're miserable, they're the bad ones, they're the ones who caused me to be here but let me tell you about this old hag called Mrs. Potiphar. I mean she is the one who falsely accused me, not once, you look at it in the scripture, not once did he blame anybody else, why?

I want you to listen carefully please. Joseph was in the cell but he never allowed the cell to enter into his heart. Joseph was inside the dungeon, the dark dungeon but he never allowed the darkness of that dungeon to enter his life inside of him. Joseph was living in the wilderness of despair but he never let despair live in him.

Difficulties will come to all of us, no one is immune but how you and I respond to the difficulty is going to determine whether you're a winner or a whiner. How easy it would have been for Joseph to have let himself into that self-pity mode of seething, resentment, eating into his life, how easy it would have been for him and you know what I think you'd have been justified. How easily for Joseph to have dwelt upon the incredible injustice that has happened to him. How easy for Joseph to have dwelt upon the fact that his family was a dysfunctional family and make no mistake about it, no more dysfunctional family like Jacob's family. He would have been justified in complaining and talking about it but listen, I'll tell you exactly what would have happened to Joseph had he fallen in that trap because the scriptures show us other examples. He would have allowed the darkness, the dark clouds of the dungeon to gather inside of him and he would have slowly but surely wasted in despair. Instead Joseph got himself according to the scripture busy caring for other inmates. He was concerned for the others, he was so loving, he was serving, he was doing things, he forgot about his problems and got involved in somebody else's problem and you know what happened?

The officials noticed that and they said hey, we want to make you honorary deputy warden of the prison. How do I know that Joseph lived above his pain? How do I know that Joseph lived above his circumstances? How do I know that Joseph did not focus on his problem, focus on himself but focused on others?

It is right here on verse 6 of Genesis 40. One morning he noticed that two of the inmates who were officials in Pharaoh's palace were dejected. Just think about it, with all of his problems, all that he's going through but he noticed these guys dejected. I want to ask you a question.

Do you ever get yourself wrapped up in your problem so tightly like a rug that's wrapped up tight that you even fail to notice how the dearest and the nearest feel in your life? That wasn't Joseph. He was so sensitive about the conditions of these people around him that he sensed even when one time they were feeling dejected and they were feeling sad. We are not told why the chief cook and chief of protocol, that's really what the cup bearer is. It's not a waiter in the White House. This guy was really a chief of protocol. He was in charge of everything. We are not told why they were thrown into prison.

Probably false accusations, most likely it would be. Chief Cook may have given Pharaoh medium rare steak instead of well done. The Egyptians don't like medium rare.

Take that from me please for next time you invite me to a steak. And Pharaoh just didn't like it and said throw the rascal into prison. Be that as it may, it doesn't really matter. Joseph got involved in other people's lives. That's what the scripture is trying to communicate to us. He helped to cheer the inmates. Verse 7, the latter part of verse 7, he comes to them and says, why are your faces so sad today?

Why are your faces so sad today? Man, the man has got alligators up to his ears. And he's got a lot of problems. He's got his own feelings of injustice. He's got our own feelings of being there wrongly. But that didn't stop him.

Why are your faces so sad today? Joseph never let his own troubles make him lose his compassion toward others. Well, they said to Joseph, well, we both had dreams last night. Dreams. Joseph knows all about dreams. He just came to the right man. He knows all about dreams. Let me tell you how I would have responded to these guys.

Okay, not you, just me. This is how I'd have responded. Dreams, dreams, dreams, dreams. And I wouldn't sing it.

I just say it. Don't get hung up on your dreams. Oh, I had a dream once exactly 11 years ago. But look what my dreams have gotten me. Look where I am. Where are my dreams now?

Listen, the sooner you get over your dreams and get them out of your head, the better off you're going to be. But thank God, Joseph was not like me. Giving full credit to God, he proceeds to interpret their dreams. You notice Joseph here is wedged between two men. One was destined to salvation and the other was destined to death. Just like the Lord Jesus Christ, when he hung on the cross, he was wedged between two criminals. One called upon him and was saved and went to paradise and the other grumbled and complained and denied him and ended up in eternal judgment.

Everywhere you go, everywhere I go, you are wedged between two people. Those who will listen to the message of Christ through your witnessing and those who will refuse. Well, within three days, both were released and the baker to be hung just as Joseph told him and the cupbearer was restored to his position back in Pharaoh's palace. Verse 14, you can freely feel Joseph's pathosis as he's telling the cupbearer to remember him when he gets out of prison.

He said, I have interpreted this dream for you and I want to ask you one favor. Please, please, please don't forget me. And after the cupbearer was restored to his position in Pharaoh's palace, day after day he was with him, yet he did not tell Pharaoh about Joseph. Why? The Bible said, as verse 23, that the cupbearer has forgotten Joseph.

He's forgotten him. Is there anything worse than disappointment in others? Make no mistake about it, live long enough and you will be disappointed in people.

You will be disappointed in people. I was discipled at the age of 18 by a man who was working as a domestic in our home. He was a literate man but he loved God. He had more wisdom than so many of the theologians that I got to know later on in life.

And he said to me, I will never forget it, the age of 18, new Christian, he said, don't ever look up to somebody because he's in a position of leadership. Respect them, yes, but don't make them your model because sooner or later they will disappoint you. Sooner or later they will disappoint you.

But look to one, his name is Jesus. He will never disappoint you. We often place such high expectations of others who will disappoint us. And the higher the expectations that we place on them, the bigger the disappointment. For those of you single, when you start meeting someone and you get all excited and you get romantically involved and you think that this person, he or she is the best thing since sliced bread.

And then when the hammer falls, you think they're the biggest laughs since that period too. Husbands and wives who place unrealistic expectations of each other will be disappointed and hurt. Parents who place unrealistic expectations of their children will end up being disappointed and hurt. Christians who place unrealistic expectations of the church or the pastor, all people in leadership will be disappointed when they wake up one day and discover that they're not the fourth member of the Trinity. Thank God for that.

Now you need to say amen to that one. So Joseph's hope for early release from prison gets delayed two more years. Now it's been 13 years since that boy left home looking for his brothers.

13 years and now he's celebrating his 30th birthday in this Egyptian dungeon. Where are his dreams? Where is the God who has given him those dreams? The author of these dreams, where is he? Remember that God's delays are his detours and not his terminating point. Remember that interrupted dreams are not necessarily broken dreams. Remember that unrealized dreams are to be waited for, not to be abandoned.

Frozen dreams are meant to be defrosted in God's oven and in God's time. There's an early Australian explorer by the name of Hamilton Hume. He took a team with him and they set about to find a path between Sydney and Melbourne. They came to a point in their exploration with point of crisis when they came face to face with a mountain range which now known as the Hume range. When they came to that mountain range they were utterly exhausted.

They were thoroughly worn out. They could not move one more step and the team came to Mr. Hume and they begged him. They said please let us give up and go back. Hume pointed to a high mountain just ahead and he said to them no, we must climb that one. We must climb that one. From the summit of this one I am sure we will see the ocean and then we can go back home and then tell our friends about our successes. In a desperate struggle they climbed that particular mountain and they reached to the top of that mountain and imagined their utter despair and disappointment when all they could see for miles and miles and miles ridges and gullies and ridges and gullies all covered with trees. The goal that they had dreamed was not even in sight.

To their credit they kept on going and they reached Melbourne and they named that mountain Mount Disappointment, appropriate name. God's winners always win even when they are on hold in their life. Your dreams may be on hold right now. Your marriage may be on hold right now. Your profession may be on hold right now.

Your dream of having children may be on hold right now. Your ministry may be on hold right now and you are probably feeling frustrated and disappointed. Remember Joseph, don't be tempted to live by your feelings and not by faith. That's the first temptation that Satan will bring to your life. When you are disappointed, when your dreams are on hold, the first temptation he brings to you is to begin to live by your feelings not faith in the God of Heavens. Remember Joseph and don't be tempted to place your emotions above your will.

Remember Joseph and don't be tempted to place your emotions above the will of God in your life, which is most important of all. Encouragement for those who may feel like life is on hold. This is Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. And if you would benefit from speaking with someone about where life has you today, especially if you feel like you're on hold, won't you consider reaching out to a Leading the Way pastor or counselor? You can begin that conversation at ltw.org slash jesus.

As we close out this episode, let me quickly mention a few ways that you can connect further with Leading the Way and with Dr. Youssef. One is a daily email from Dr. Youssef called My Devotional. Each day you'll receive practical words in your inbox with a verse or two in the Bible. Many read this devotional content during their break at work or when another spare moment comes for some needed encouragement. Just sign up for My Devotional when you visit us online, ltw.org.

You'll be so glad you did. My Devotional is also available as a podcast so if you'd rather listen and be guided toward biblical encouragement, look for My Devotional wherever you consume your podcast. This program is brought to you by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Connect further with audio and video content at ltw.org or through your favorite social media platform.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-23 02:18:05 / 2025-01-23 02:26:35 / 9

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