Genesis 39: The Lord Is With You When Everything Falls Apart

Introduction

That Sunday, Pastor Horo Yokota of Aburayama Shalom Church in Fukuoka had the flu. The church therefore played the recording of a message he had given at the first session of the 35^th Kyushu Holiness Convention. The text: Genesis 39:6-23, Joseph at Potiphar's house and then in prison. The title: “The Grace of the Lord Who Is With Us, Supports Us, and Makes Us Grow.”

The pastor begins with a personal confession. At this convention, he was introduced with a reminder that at his father's funeral service, he had been able to say that his father had lived as he preached. After that service, his prayer was simple: “Help me live what I preach.” It is in that spirit that he opens up the life of Joseph.

He gives his conclusion right from the start: the heart of the Christian life is being transformed into the image of Christ. And Joseph's life shows how God goes about it, even in a prison cell.

Outline of the Message

1. The Heart of the Christian Life: Being Transformed Into the Image of Christ

• The theme of the convention is the fruit of holiness: a faith and a life that bear fruit. The pastor gives thanks for the richness of the body of Christ across all denominations, and for the Holiness family of churches in which God has placed him.
• Pastors from other traditions confide a difficulty to him: some Christians believe in Jesus, are saved, and will go to heaven, but stop there. They do not know how to live their lives on earth.
• Salvation and eternal life are an immense grace. But there is more: bearing the fruit of holiness right now, that is, being changed into the likeness of Jesus.
• The pastor borrows a Japanese image: the “honmaru,” the central keep of a castle, the one you have to take to win the battle. The keep of the Christian life is being transformed into the image of Christ.
• Paul's letters are full of complicated problems, in Corinth as well as in Galatia. These problems matter, but when we are changed into the likeness of Jesus, a light rises over them and hope returns, in the church too.
• Paul writes to the Galatians that he is “again in travail until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). A woman generally gives birth only once for the same child, the pastor remarks with humor, but Paul is willing to start over.

2. Staying Close to the Source

• How are we transformed? By abiding in Christ, by remaining in his love. That is when Christ is formed in us. “It may be very simple, but the gospel is simple.”
• To sum up Joseph's life, the pastor reads Genesis 49:22: “Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a spring. His branches run over the wall.”
• The wall stands for the walls of life: the limits, the constraints, the obstacles that seem to say “you will go no further.” Humanly speaking, Joseph should have stopped. He climbed over them one after another.
• The secret is neither a special talent nor strength of his own. Joseph was a tree planted by a spring. In the Near East, where water is scarce, water is life itself. Joseph stayed connected to the source of life.
• “What really matters is not this or that: it is staying attached to Christ, the source of life.”

3. The Nodes of the Bamboo

• Bamboo grows, forms a node, grows again, forms a new node. Being formed into the image of Christ does not happen in a straight line.
• Every season of life has its trials: your twenties have theirs, and your thirties bring new challenges. We run into nodes, into walls.
• When we get past them, new growth comes. Then another trial, another stage. This is how Christ takes shape in us.
• You may be wondering why this is happening to you. God uses these things as material to make you grow into the image of Christ and to prepare you to bear even more fruit.
• This fruit does not stop with you. Jesus came to save. When we resemble him, God uses us for the salvation of our family, our friends, and our children. The fruit of holiness becomes a fruit of evangelism.

4. Joseph, From Trust to Prison

• Joseph is the second-to-youngest of Jacob's twelve sons. His father loves him dearly, with a somewhat partial love. His brothers are jealous of him, want to kill him, and then sell him as a slave in Egypt.
• In Potiphar's house, God blesses his work. His master entrusts him with everything he owns. Things finally seem to be going better.
• Then his master's wife notices him and tries to draw him into a sexual relationship. Joseph refuses: “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9). She presses him day after day, and he does not give in.
• In the end she falsely accuses him. His master does not listen to him and has him thrown into prison. The trust built over years collapses all at once. Joseph is treated like a criminal.
• If he had done wrong, we would understand. But he wanted to live with integrity before God. If you cut out this one scene, like a clip on YouTube, you can only ask: “Why, God?”
• “What is wonderful is that his life does not end there.”

5. “It's Over”: The Day Effort Was Not Enough

• The pastor tells the story of his eldest son, now a university student. After high school, he spent a year at a prep school in order to enter a business faculty.
• His goal: to earn money to support a young man he considers a big brother, now an evangelist in their church, who wants to go abroad as a missionary.
• All year long, he biked the 9 kilometers between Aburayama and his school, 18 kilometers a day, in the summer heat and in the cold. He got home at 10:30 p.m. and ate dinner afterward. On Sundays, he looked after the worship service, played with the children, and helped a middle schooler prepare for his high school entrance exam.
• The results did not come. He could no longer apply to the university he was aiming for. In tears, he said: “It's over.” And: “I understood that effort is not rewarded.”
• His father had no words. All he could do was cry with his son. The next morning, in prayer, God gave him Lamentations 3: “It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn’t fail” (Lamentations 3:22). He prayed: “Even if effort was not rewarded, your grace does not run out. Help my son understand this one day.”
• Today, his son studies at a different university from the one he was aiming for. He joined KGK, a Christian student group, became a leader this year, and lives out his faith with joy.
• There are moments in our lives when we think “it's over.” Joseph's life did not stop in prison. Neither does yours.

6. “Yahweh Was With Joseph”

• One expression keeps coming back in Genesis 39: “Yahweh was with Joseph” (verses 2, 21, and 23). According to the pastor, the name Yahweh appears twelve times in the story of Joseph, and eight of those occurrences, two thirds, are found in this chapter.
• The moment when Joseph is in sadness, disappointment, and discouragement is not the moment when God is absent. It is the moment when God reveals himself to him.
• The pastor shares that this discovery changed his life of faith. When things go in the opposite direction from what he asked for, when God seems not to be acting, he remembers Joseph: that is precisely where God was with him.
• “Even when you are in the fog and no longer understand what God is doing, that is the moment when the Lord is with you.” And that is not the end: God's guidance goes further.

7. Two Years of Silence to Move From “Me” to “God”

• God did not only support Joseph in prison. He made his faith grow during that time.
• In chapter 40, Pharaoh's chief cup bearer and chief baker are imprisoned. They have dreams, Joseph interprets them, and the cup bearer returns to his place beside the king.
• Before he leaves, Joseph asks him: “remember me […] and bring me out of this house” (Genesis 40:14-15). The pastor counts six times “me” or “I” in these two verses. Joseph believes in God, but part of him still wants to get out by his own means.
• Joseph clings to the cup bearer. And the cup bearer forgets him (Genesis 40:23). “That is truly the worst, after everything Joseph did for him. But it is what Joseph needed.”
• “At the end of two full years” (Genesis 41:1): two years of silence. Joseph was no doubt disappointed by people, perhaps by his own faith as well. For him it was a time of grace in which God shaped him.
• You too may be wondering why the door is not opening, why your plan is not moving faster. It may be the time when your faith moves from a faith centered on yourself to a faith centered on God.
• When Pharaoh sends for Joseph to interpret his dream, Joseph answers: “It isn’t in me. God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace” (Genesis 41:16).
• Later, he names his firstborn Manasseh, saying, “God has made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house,” and the second Ephraim: “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction” (Genesis 41:51-52). He does not say “I managed to forget” or “I became fruitful.” The subject is God.
• Moving from “I have to get out of this, I have to act” to “God does, God has done, God will do”: that is sanctification. This is how we are set free from pride and pulled out of the swamp of disappointment and discouragement.
• The pastor ends with a prayer: that the “me” who wants to fix everything would die with Jesus, that Jesus would live in us, and that our faith would become centered on Jesus, centered on God.

Key Takeaways

• The heart of the Christian life is not solving every problem, but being transformed into the image of Christ.
• Joseph climbed over his walls because he was planted by the spring. Abiding in Christ is the secret of a life that bears fruit.
• When everything collapses and God seems absent, that is often where he is most present: “Yahweh was with Joseph.”
• Times of silence and waiting can be times of grace in which God purifies a faith that is still centered on self.
• A mature faith says “it isn't me, it's God.” The subject of your life becomes God.

Personal Application

1. What wall is standing in front of you right now, and what source are you drawing from to get over it?
2. Is there a scene of your life that you look at in isolation, telling yourself “it's over”? What would change if you thought of God as being with you in that very place?
3. In your recent prayers, how many times do you say “me,” “I have to,” “help me get out of this”? Which “cup bearer” are you counting on to get you out of trouble?
4. Are you going through a time when the door does not open? How could you receive it as a time when God is shaping you?
5. In what area of your life could you say this week, like Joseph: “It isn't me, it's God”?

Verses Cited

• Genesis 39:6-23
• Galatians 4:19
• Genesis 49:22
• Lamentations 3:22
• Genesis 40:14-15
• Genesis 40:23
• Genesis 41:1
• Genesis 41:16
• Genesis 41:51-52

Frequently Asked Questions

Where was God when Joseph was thrown into prison?

Horo Yokota points out that the expression “Yahweh was with Joseph” is concentrated in Genesis 39. According to him, the name Yahweh appears twelve times in the story of Joseph, eight of them in this one chapter. The moment when Joseph loses everything is precisely the moment when God reveals himself most to him.

Why did Joseph stay two more years in prison?

In Genesis 40:14-15, Joseph begs the cup bearer to remember him, and the preacher counts the word “me” six times in his request. The cup bearer forgets him. For Horo Yokota, these two years of silence were a time of grace in which God turned a faith still centered on self into a faith centered on God.

What is a God-centered faith according to Genesis 41?

Before Pharaoh, Joseph answers: “It isn’t in me. God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace” (Genesis 41:16). By naming his sons Manasseh and Ephraim, he again says “God has made me forget” and “God has made me fruitful.” The subject of his life is no longer “I” but God. For the preacher, that is the fruit of sanctification.