From Pit to Purpose

One of the things that can help us to live a more fulfilling life is know our purpose. Now, if you are thinking that this sounds like a worldly concept and not something that we as Jesus-followers need to concern ourselves about, let me remind that Jesus was very clear about his purpose and so was his apostle, Paul. In Luke 19:10, Jesus tells us,  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)

In Acts 20:24, these words from Paul are recorded for us, …I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. (Acts 20:24). So knowing your purpose in life is just as important for Jesus-followers, and maybe even more important than for people who do not follow Jesus because the lives of Jesus-followers are focused on things that matter, not just for this life, but forever.

 But how do we discover our life’s purpose, and how can our purpose help us when we are going through tough times? That’s what we are going to be thinking about during our time of reflection this morning, and to help us as we do that, we are going to be looking at the life of someone in the Bible who experienced a lot of ups and downs throughout their life, and that person is Joseph.

From Favorite Son to Slave

Joseph was the eldest child of Rachel, who was Jacob’s favorite wife, and was only born after many years of infertility for Rachel. Joseph was the second youngest of Jacob’s twelve sons and was father’s favorite. Jacob made a beautiful, ornate robe for Joseph to wear, and when Joseph’s other brothers saw that their father favored Joseph, they despised Joseph and spoke rudely to him.

At the age of seventeen, Joseph gave a bad report to his father about his older brothers. Then Jacob then had two dreams. In the first, his brother’s sheaves of grain bowed down to his sheaf. In the second, the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed down to him. When he told these dreams to his brothers, they hated him even more because of the obvious interpretation of the dreams that they would bow down to him. Even Jacob was shocked when Joseph shared the second dream with him.

Later, when Jacob again sent Joseph to spy on his brothers and report back, his brothers made plans to get rid of Joseph. They stripped him of his ornate robe and threw him in a pit. When a caravan of Midianite traders passed by, they sold Joseph to them for 20 pieces of silver. Joseph was stripped of the favor of his father and forced to live as a slave among strangers in a strange land. But he still had the favor of his heavenly Father.

Joseph was taken to Egypt and sold to Potiphar, the captain of the guard in Pharoah’s circle of officials. Potiphar placed Joseph in charge of his household, and because of God’s favor upon Joseph, Potiphar’s household prospered under Joseph’s management. All was going well until Potiphar’s wife took a fancy to Joseph and tried to seduce him, but he continually refused her. Eventually, she falsely accused Joseph of assaulting her and, Potiphar threw Joseph in the prison where the Pharoah’s prisoners were kept. Even in prison, the Lord was with Joseph and gave him favor with the warden. The warden put Joseph in charge of the prisoners and all that happened in the prison, and again, everything under Joseph’s management prospered.

From Prisoner to Prime Minister

One day, the Pharaoh became angry with two of his officials: his cupbearer, who probably functioned like a wine steward, and his baker.  Pharaoh threw both men into prison and Joseph was assigned to take care of them. While in jail, both the baker and the cup bearer had dreams which they did not understand. God gave Joseph the interpretation of the dreams and within three days both interpretations came true: the cup bearer was restored to his position and the baker was executed.  Joseph asked the cupbearer to mention him to Pharaoh when he was restored and get him out of prison, but the cupbearer promptly forgot all about Joseph.

Two years later, the Pharaoh had dreams which he did not understand. That was when the cupbearer remembered what Joseph had done and mentioned him to Pharaoh. Joseph was promptly brought before Pharaoh, where he gave, with God’s direction, the correct interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams. There would be seven years of abundant crops followed by seven years of severe drought. Joseph not only interpreted the dreams, he also advised Pharaoh to appoint a wise manager who would gather food during the abundant years and then distribute it in the years of famine so that the nation and the people could be saved. Recognizing that God had given Joseph wisdom, Pharaoh put him in charge of the food gathering and distribution program, and Joseph became second in power only to Pharaoh. Joseph was now thirty years old. He had endured thirteen years of slavery and suffering but now a new phase of his life began.

Joseph faithfully carried out his duties and during the years of famine word spread that there was food to be had in Egypt. Over in Canaan, Jacob sent his ten eldest sons to Egypt to buy grain. When they got there, they did not recognize Joseph, but Joseph recognized them. He accused them of being spies and had them imprisoned for three days. The ten brothers interpreted this unexpected change of circumstances as punishment for their lack of compassion for Joseph when he pleaded with them for his life thirteen years before.

Joseph had Simeon bound before them and taken away into custody. This is significant because Simeon was the eldest brother present when Joseph was sold into slavery. He could have proposed a different course of action and his brothers would have followed him, but he didn’t.

At their first stop on the way home from Egypt, the brothers discovered that the money they had paid for the grain was in their grain sacks. They returned to Egypt and again Joseph accused them of being spies. If they wanted to prove themselves to be honest men, they would have to leave Simeon in Egypt and bring Benjamin with them on their next trip. They returned home and told their father what the official in charge of the grain had said. Jacob was distraught. He had lost Joseph more than 20 years before, now he had lost Simeon, and he certainly did not want to lose Benjamin, his only remaining son of Rachel. Jacob refused to let Benjamin go to Egypt.

Eventually, Jacob’s family ran out of food and needed to buy more. The sons reminded Jacob that they had to take Benjamin with them. This of course, did not want to do. But Judah guaranteed Benjamin’s safety and Jacob reluctantly agreed.

The band of brothers set out for Egypt with Benjamin, and when they got there, they bowed down before Joseph, thus fulfilling the message of Joseph’s dreams many years before. Joseph prepared banquet prepared for his brothers and seated them around the table in their birth order. The brothers were amazed at this.

When it was time for the brothers to go home, Joseph had his silver cup planted in Benjamin’s sack of grain. Shortly after they left, Joseph sent his steward to go after them, accuse them of stealing the cup and bring them back to him. Joseph insisted that Benjamin stay behind in Egypt and become his slave as punishment. At this point, Judah spoke up, share the family’s background and then said,

³² Your servant guaranteed the boy’s safety to my father. I said, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life!’

³³ “Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers. ³⁴ How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come on my father.” (Genesis 44:32-34)

Joseph then revealed himself to his brothers and told them to go back to Canaan and move their father and the rest of the family to Egypt so that they would be safe for the remainder of the drought. Jacob was overjoyed that he would get to see Joseph again before he died.

One might think with everyone together and safe in Egypt, that the issues between Joseph and his brothers were all resolved, but they weren’t. When Jacob died, the other brothers feared that Joseph would take revenge so they went to him

 …and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said.

¹⁹ But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? ²⁰ You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. ²¹ So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. (Genesis 50:18-21)

Four Lessons for a Purposeful Life

 So what does the story of Joseph mean for us as we seek to live a purposeful life? Here are four lessons we can draw from Joseph’s life.

First, faithfulness is a prerequisite for knowing your purpose. Looking at the span of Joseph’s life, we can see that there were three stages. In his first seventeen years, Joseph was naive, but he was faithful. He told his father the truth about what his brothers had done and he told his family the truth about the dreams that God had given him. In his next thirteen years, Joseph suffered, but he was faithful. He was faithful in the responsibilities Potiphar had given him, he was faithful in refusing the advances of Potiphar’s wife, and he was faithful as he served in the prison. In the third stage of Joseph’s life, he was powerful, but he was also faithful. He faithfully carried out the responsibilities he was given to gather, store and distribute food. I believe that a case can be made for saying that, without faithfulness, Joseph would not have discovered his God-given purpose of wise management for the benefit of others.

Second, we need hard times because often sometimes our purpose is revealed through hard times. Joseph did not discover his purpose of wise management until he was a slave in Potiphar’s house and a prisoner in Pharaoh’s jail. I didn’t realize that God was calling me into the ministry until God frustrated me to the point that I finally came to the end of myself.

Third, God needs to be the center of our life for us to discover our purpose. When he enslaved in Potiphar’s home, Joseph could have looked at his challenging circumstances, interpreted them to mean that God had abandoned him, and then decide to give up on life with God by giving in to the advances of Potiphar’s wife. But he didn’t. Joseph loved God so much that he would not, could not, “…do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” (Gen.39:9), even though the offer may have been tempting and the consequences for refusal were onerous. Those things didn’t matter to Joseph because God mattered to him much, much more. Joseph looked at things through the lens of God’s love and that’s what helped to see that God was at work through all the circumstances of his life, even when he was enslaved and suffered injustice and neglect, to accomplish the good things that happened later, “…the saving of many lives.” (Gen. 50:20).

Fourth, compassion for others is key. That is what aligns us with God and with our true purpose. The greatest sin of Joseph’s brothers when they sold him into slavery is that they did not have compassion on him when he pleaded for his life from the bottom of the pit. It was compassion for their elderly father that finally broke the hard and bitter hearts of Joseph’s brothers and moved them to confess their sins. It was compassion for his family and the people of Egypt that motivated Joseph to be a wise steward of the resources that God had entrusted to him.

The Compassion of Jesus Transforms Us

You might be thinking that I have just given you a road map of tasks which will help you to live a purposeful life, but now I am going to tell you that you can’t do it, and neither can I. We need compassion from the outside to transforms us on the inside into becoming people who live a purpose-filled life. And that compassion comes to us through Jesus. We can see that when we notice that Jesus’ life mirrored the life of Joseph in significant ways. Like Joseph, Jesus had an early period of naivety. Yes, he was God the Son who knew all things, but he did not know what human life was like in an experiential way. Then he became fully human and experienced slavery to our human limitations, along with suffering, injustice and sorrow. But after his death and resurrection, Jesus was raised to a position of power at the right hand of our heavenly Father where he rules over all creation. Through all those stages, Jesus was faithful. And he fulfilled the purpose that his Father had given him “…to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)

Because of Jesus, we can know that God is with us in those seasons when we don’t even know what we are really doing, when we experience suffering and betrayal, and when we have power that we did not expect to have. Because of Jesus, we know that we are forgiven for all our sins, all those times when we fail to be faithful and compassionate, and when we use the gifts God gives us for something other than the purpose for which he gave them to us. Because of Jesus, we know that we have new life with him, and he gives us the Holy Spirit to enable us to live as his people in this world. With the help of the Father, Jesus and the Spirit, we faithfully manage what God has entrusted to us so that he can accomplish what he desires in this world, which is saving countless lives, for now and forever.

A Challenge

So, the challenge that I want to set you before you today is this, ask God to help you do three things: be faithful, discover your purpose, and passionately engage with it. And through it all, as you live your life with faithfulness, compassion, and purpose, you will experience something that is beyond happiness, and that is the Joy of life with the Lord. Amen.