Well, we are now several weeks into the story of Joseph and wehave watched him go from mountain high to valley low to mountainhigh to valley low. Joseph started at the top. He was dad’s favorite.Everyone else got thrift store hand me downs and Joe got the LouisVitton shoes and the Supreme hoodie. But then tragedy strikes andhe descends into the valley. And it’s deep. His brothers strip him ofhis swag and he’s tied to the back of a pooping camel, drug southdeep into the nation of Egypt, and sold at an auction to the highestbidder at a slave block. He’s in a deep valley.

Then we watch him slowly, faithfully, steadily rise to a position ofinfluence and power in Potiphar’s house. And suddenly Joseph isrunning the entire estate. But tragedy strikes in the form of aseductress. Potiphar’s wife tries to lure him through her seductivearts. We imagined her thousand tricks. “Joseph, I’m sick today,would you take care of me? Joseph, do you like this necklace or thisone? Joseph, can you rub my back? Joseph, can you help me untiethis bow?”

But, Joseph says the noble, beautiful phrase, “How could I do thisgreat evil and sin against God?” And what was his reward forrighteousness? The manipulative seductress first freaks in rage andthen without missing a beat, shrieks to stage an attempted rapescene.

Her husband comes home, sees his wife upset with fake tears,“What’s wrong honey?” “Potiphar, if you love me at all you willimmediately have Joseph executed.” “Joseph? Why Joseph? He’sour best slave. Why?” “He tried to rape me. How ungrateful can heget? After all we’ve done for him. All along he was laying thesesecret plans to defile me, and during the festival, when he knew youwould be gone. He always pretends to be so noble and full ofintegrity around you but he’s a beast when you are gone. The wayhe looks at me makes me feel so dirty. You’ve trusted him with thisentire place, you even promoted him above other slaves who havebeen here longer and look what he did.”

Potiphar acts on that lie and boom: Joseph’s in the dungeon. Now ifyou ever find yourself in a dungeon, what’s the first step? We talkedabout it last week:

Step 1: Reminded yourself that the reward for righteousness is notjustice. Being righteous does not guarantee any outcome. But itdoes guarantee is the nearness of God. So that’s always the firststep when you find yourself in the dungeon. Remind yourself thatthe nearness of God is your good. That is always available. So ifthat’s step one of being in the dungeon, what’s step two?

Step 2: Try to get out of the dungeon. Here’s the thing aboutdungeons: they are terrible. Nobody wants to be in a dungeon. Theyare stuffy. They are designed to crush a person psychologically.

Nobody likes the dungeon. And it’s certainly not wrong to want to getout of a dungeon. Pain is not synonymous with righteousness. It’snot inherently righteous to live in a cave. If you have the option toupgrade from a cave to a two-bedroom house, well then maybe youshould do that.

Now, here’s what we are going to see from the text today: - Josephwants to get out of the dungeon.- And he’s going to try and get out. - And it’s even going to look likeGod is helping him get out.

But at the end of the chapter today there is this incredible temptationfor Joseph to crash into deep disappointment, discouragement, anddespair because he is forgotten by his friend and it seems like hehas been forgotten by God. And depending on how he responds, hewill either be boosted to incredible effectiveness or renderedcompletely ineffective.

Now let’s watch this unfold in the text itself. We’ll grab the last fewverses from chapter 39 for context.

Now let’s stop here for a moment. We are asking the question thismorning, how can we be effective in the dungeon? Now to help usanswer that we’ll use a little acronym.

We all dislike dungeons so that’s the acronym. And you say, “Ahthat’s cute.” Why do preachers like acronyms? “Well, you see it’s apneumonic device intended to help the listener remember thepoints.” Now I hear you challenging me. Do you remember anysermon from any preacher who used an acronym? No. So with thatencouraging thought, let’s begin our ineffective acronym: DISLIKE.

To be effective in the dungeon you just need to do the right thing forthe right reason. Joseph’s audience was God and his motive wasthe nearness of God. But because doing right simply for God’s sakeis so incredibly rare, the prison guard took notice, and Joseph waspromoted to a small position of influence and responsibility.

This is the second time that the phrase is used to describe Joseph.Both with Potiphar and with the prison warden it is said that they,“Paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge.” Let meask you, what does it take to totally and completely releasesomething into someone else’s charge such that it literally doesn’teven cross your mind? I 100% completely trust that it will be donewell and on time.

There’s a lot implied there. For the prison guard to totally release hiscontrol, several things must have been true about Joseph: - He musthave been trustworthy. He had to have good character toappropriately use the freedom and resources given to him. - He

must have been competent. A person can have a great heart butjust lack the skill and ability. Joseph clearly had the ability. - He musthave been honest. When he failed, he confessed. He probablydidn’t make excuses when he had circumstances that madefaithfulness hard. He probably made adjustments so that it wouldn’thappen again. He’d increase margins to account for the unexpected,make better lists so he didn’t forget, etc.

The text doesn’t say any of that but it’s all there. We don’t trustpeople and release our oversight of something unless all thesethings are in place. Joseph, we are told, was charged with managingtwo new prisoners, a baker and a cupbearer. I always wonder whatthese guys did to get thrown in prison. What was the great capitalcrime? Pharaoh got offended and flew off the handle. I mean I couldsee maybe the baker forgetting the salt or something, but what didthe cupbearer do wrong? I mean the cupbearer had a pretty simplejob: taste the wine to make sure it isn’t poisoned. If you didn’t die,pass it on to the king. I mean how do you fail at that job? My guessis that Pharaoh was just having a bad day and took it out on hisattendants. So perhaps Joseph and these guys had something incommon - unjust treatment.

Now the point is that Joseph’s decision to ‘do the right thingbecause it’s right to do the right thing’ gave him the opportunity toinfluence these two men. He’s responsible for a prisoner who is partof the palace furniture. Maybe he gives them food and bedding,checking in on them to some degree. Who knows. Somehow he hadsome responsibility that was given to him because of hisfaithfulness. He’s being faithful in the little things.

What’s the lesson? Want to be effective in the dungeon? Step one,do the right thing. Always keep doing the right thing. You don’t know

what opportunities will open up. Maybe nothing. Maybe the mostunexpected amazing thing. But you do it because it’s right andhonors the Lord. Maybe your dungeon is your own house. Anddoing the right thing for you as a mom means caring for your littlekiddos and cleaning the house and doing it all with a happy heart.Maybe your neighbor is watching you and you don’t even know it.Maybe God is rooting some procrastination bone out of your body orstripping an idol out of your life. Maybe God is shaping you andyou’ll have all this experience to start a mom’s ministry in your lateryears. Maybe nothing will happen. But you just do it because it’sright in God’s eyes. Maybe your dungeon is your job, that you hate.I’m sure your job is lame, but don’t go crying to Joseph because I’mpretty sure Joseph’s dungeon promotion was still pretty lame. Justdo the right thing. What does it mean to not cut corners, to befaithful, to work at being more competent, not as a men-pleaser butas one who tries to honor the Lord? Maybe you will be promoted likeJoseph and have an influence. Maybe not. You just do the rightthing. For Joseph, doing the right thing elevated him to a position ofinfluence for a bit of ministry opportunity. Look at how thisopportunity presents itself.

So the cupbearer and the baker each have a dream. And this dreamis very vivid and obviously from God. Joseph can relate to this. He’shad one of these divine dreams. He knows a thing or two about thisphenomena and he knows how disturbing it can be. And the thing tonote here is how he cares for the two men in their troubled state.

“Why are your faces downcast today?”

What do you do when you dislike the dungeon? Inquire of others.

In our dungeon circumstances, it’s always so tempting to focus onourselves. It’s the most natural thing in the world. When you aresuffering, all your body’s energy turns inward to protect and try toremove the offense. When you are going into surgery, you talkabout your surgery. It’s natural. It’s major. It’s significant. Of coursethat’ what you talk about.

Now if you compare, Joseph was very likely suffering much largerinjustices than the cupbearer and the baker. But the goal is never tocompare who has the worse setting. “Oh, you think you’ve beendealt an injustice? That’s nothing! Oh, you think you’ve had adream? Let me tell you about my dream. I bet my dream is betterthan your dream.” I doubt very seriously, that the cupbearer andbaker suffered an injustice anywhere near as significant as Joseph.And yet, Joseph is inquiring of them, thinking of them, caring forthem, looking into their needs. He goes beyond the basic duty of justshoving some food at them. He’s caring for the condition of theirsoul. He knew them well enough to detect, just by their

countenance, that something was wrong. He was willing to ask thequestion, “How are you doing?” and went beyond, “No, I can tellsomething is wrong. Seriously, how are you doing?”

And you know what’s impressive about this? When you are hurtingyourself, the last thing you want to do is ask about someone else’shurt, because you are afraid of the answer. What if what comesback is something really heavy? I’ve got to be able to bear that. I’vegot to have a way to offer some sort of help and I’m about to drownmyself. You need to have something to give. This is evidence of thenearness of God, isn’t it? Joseph did have something to give. WhenGod is near, he will give strength to care for others, to inquire ofthem and their needs. So Joseph caringly inquires about theirdejected state and now they tell him why they are so dejected.

What Joseph says here is simple but incredibly impressive. Whatdid Joseph have to give? Well, really, he had nothing to give. If youwant to be effective in the dungeon, you have to confess your totaland complete inability to do anything of any value whatsoever. Afterall, you are in the dungeon. Dungeon inmates don’t have a lot tooffer. Joseph was effective because he leads with inability. Josephsays, “You look really bad today. How are things?” And the bakersays, “Man, you are right. Things are terrible. I’ve had this dreamand I have no idea what it means, but I know it’s from God. I’venever been so anxious, depressed, and worried in my entire life. I’ma nervous wreck.” “Man, that sounds terrible. I feel like before yougo too far I need to tell you some bad news. I can’t help you, at all.Like, you have some serious problems and I’m just a dude. Did younotice, I’m in prison too? Kind of unfortunate. But here’s the goodnews. God can help you. Dreams exist in the domain of God. Yousee, God’s outside of prison while we are in prison. Let’s appeal tohim.”

Do you know that’s the most loving thing you can possibly do whensomeone is suffering? It doesn’t feel loving. In fact, it feels veryuncompassionate to say, “I can’t help you,” when they are in theirmost desperate hour. Man, that is way, way too hard for me. I couldnever fix that. It feels so unloving. But it’s true. Just think about theconsequences of lying with good intentions at that moment. “Oh, Ican totally help you. I’ve got experience with that.” What are yousetting them up for? You’re setting them up for disillusionment.

Disillusionment comes when people put their trust in men. It couldbe a counselee putting trust in the counselor, a wife putting her trustin her husband, a Christian putting hope in well-known preachers orteachers. They will fail you. Disillusionment comes when you putyour trust in men. Hope comes when you put your trust in God. Sotell people the truth. I can’t help you unless we define help aspointing you to Christ. In that case, let’s get busy. Because he’sright here waiting for us. I can help you do that.

Joseph answers these guys. “Do not interpretations belong to God?”Later on, when Joseph is drug before Pharaoh, he says the samething with increased clarity. Pharaoh says, “I have heard it said ofyou that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.” Josephanswered Pharaoh plainly, “I cannot interpret dreams; God will givePharaoh a favorable answer,” (Gen 41:15-16 ESV).

Do you want to be useful in the dungeon? Then don’t see yourselfas the savior. None of us are saviors. If you think you can save,then you need to be saved. That’s just a rephrase of Jesus’ words tothe Pharisees. It’s not the healthy that need a physician but the sick.God wants the weak and foolish things of the world to shame thewise. When people turn their gaze upon us mistakenly thinking weare the savior, he wants us to laugh and say, “Are you kidding? I’m

a prisoner with you. I have no keys. Look at my pockets! They areempty. We are beggars together. Who do you think I am? God is theone who saves!”

Do you want to be effective in the dungeon? See your inability! SoJoseph tells the cupbearer, “I can’t help you but God can. Tell methe dream and let’s see if God helps us.”

Here’s the fourth letter in our unhelpful acronym:

Here we see Joseph trying to change his circumstances by anymeans he can possibly think of. Joseph doesn’t like the dungeonand he wants out. Big time. Nobody likes the dungeon. Nobody likesto be sick. Nobody likes to be hurt by people. Nobody likescircumstances hemming them in. Joseph is no exception. He’strying to get out.

I don’t think this plan of Joseph’s was God whispering in his ear todo this. I think Joseph reasoned this out. You see the cupbearer wassignificant. Yes, he was kind of the canary in the coal mine, but healso served as an advisor and close friend of the king. RememberNehemiah? When you read the narrative, you see that the king andthe cupbearer had a relationship. The cupbearer was not a nobody.Joseph thought, “Okay, the cupbearer sees the king every singleday. He’s got Pharaoh’s ear. So if I interpret the cupbearer’s dream,well, I know that Pharaoh is superstitious and perhaps evenrespects mysticism and spiritualism and maybe he’ll see some usefor me in the courts of the magicians. Maybe he’ll improve my

station. If I can just get out of here, I know, with God’s help I canwork my way up.”

He’s got to be thinking something like this. He’s making his case tothe cupbearer. Listen, I’m innocent. You have to help me. Pleaseremember. Here, let me write my phone number on the back of yourhand so you don’t forget. And the point to make here is a simpleone. God’s providence includes your planning and yourorchestration of circumstances. Waiting for God to deliver you fromthe dungeon does not necessarily mean doing nothing or tryingnothing. It might feel a bit more spiritual to say, “There I was prayingfor food for our orphanage and suddenly a bread cart broke downoutside our door and we were fed.” Well, that does happen.

But it’s just as spiritual to pray, “God I need a job.” And then go fillout job applications and then be given a job and praise the Lord forit. The spiritual part is depending on God, trusting God, putting yourhope in God. That’s the part that matters. If you are sick, you prayand then you also go to the doctor. Both of those can be spiritualacts if your hope is in God and not the doctor. It’s okay to say, “OkayGod, here’s my plan but I can’t control if that plan works out. That’syour job. So I’m just going to pray while I try some different things.” Ithink that’s what Joseph did here. He’s looking for an opportunity toact to remove the suffering. That’s good.

So Joseph interprets the first dream and perhaps the baker wasimpressed. He thought to himself, “Now, that worked out well for thewine guy.” So he says to Joseph, “Hey dream whisperer, you gotany more interpretations of that vintage?”“It’s not my job to interpret God’s dreams. Tell me your dream andlet’s see if God helps us.”

Now I don’t know about you but I don’t know of any interpretationthat could go well that includes birds picking at your head. But youcan imagine him holding his breath at this point hoping for the best.

The two interpretations could not be more opposite. In the case of

the cupbearer, Pharaoh would lift up his head. In the case of thebaker, he would lift off his head. There’s a lot of power in apreposition. Now, you have to commend Joseph for telling the truthhere. This the fifth letter in our unhelpful acronym:

Nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news because they don’t wantto be associated with it. What boss who’s worth his salt enjoyssaying, “Hey, you haven’t been performing well at work and so youare fired.” It may be true, but the great fear is that they are going tomap that bad news onto you. You are a bad person for telling methis bad news.

But I want you to notice the double standard. Compare for amoment, the two dreams. It would have been easy and perhapseven fun for Joseph to interpret the cupbearer’s dream. “Want tohear something really encouraging? You are going to not only getout of here in three days, but you’re in line to get a promotion andraise.” That’s a fun message. A manager who gives his employees a

raise doesn’t mind taking a little credit as if he’s the one who ispersonally giving them the money. He’s not giving them any moneyat all. The company is rewarding him for his good work. It hasnothing to do with the manager, but the manager doesn’t mind a littleredirection of that goodwill.

“Joseph, man, you are amazing. I’ve never met a guy who caninterpret dreams. Joseph, thank you so much. What do I owe you?”“Oh, this one’s on the house.” It’s easy to accept a bit of that praise,isn’t it? We don’t mind taking that message of God and associating itwith us. But what happens when the message of God is bad news?Baker, you are going to get your head chopped off and the birds aregoing to peck on your rotting body hung up in a tree. Well, we are sohappy to distance ourselves from that message that we won’t evensay it. God, if you are going to successfully communicate thatmessage, you are going to have to find someone else.

And this temptation is intensified when you are in the dungeon.Because when you are in the dungeon you already feel bad. Youdon’t want to feel even worse by having someone dislike you. Youwant to find something positive and focus on it. You don’t wantsomeone who is already suffering to suffer more by telling themreally bad news which then causes you to suffer. But do you seehow self-serving both those attitudes are? If we are truly servants ofGod, then the good messages don’t come from us and neither dothe bad ones. The blessings don’t originate in us but neither do thetrials. We are servants of God who find our joy in simply beingcommunicators of what God tells us to communicate.

The gospel message has both good news and bad news. The badnews is that all our sin deserves eternal punishment in hell, and notonly does it deserve it, but there’s no escaping it. All men, without

Jesus Christ, will pay for their sins in hell. Jesus said, “I am the way,the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except throughme.” That’s really not very fun to say to someone.

But the good news is that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. Youdeserve to suffer, but he suffered in your place. And all hisrighteousness is given to you. This great exchange took place whereyou gave him your sin and he went to the cross and he gave you hisrighteousness. That’s really good news!

And we are messengers of that really bad and really good news. Myfriends, there is a lot of freedom in that. If they don’t like themessage, then take that up with God. You’re just telling them whathe said. You don’t have to take it personally. And if they like themessage, don’t let them thank you. You didn’t do anything. Tell Godhow thankful you are.

So Joseph interpreted the dreams. But only time will tell if thosedreams are accurate. Sure enough:

Now, this is a pretty important point. Know your bias. This is theidea: we all have a bias from which we view the world. There’s anexpression that says, “If you are a hammer, everything looks like anail.” We have a certain way of looking at the world that causes usto misinterpret many things. And if we are not aware of that bias, we

will often be very disappointed especially as it relates to the visiblemovements of God. When God moves visibly in the world, we wantto instantly assign meaning to it.

This could be on a national or international scale. When the nationof Israel became a state on May 14, 1948, people saw that as thisincredible working of God to affect the fulfillment of many biblicalprophesies. Wow, now there is an actual Israel that God can beginworking with again. There’s an actual nation that God can bless, justas he promised in the Old Testament. And of course, it is true. Godis working. He’s never not working. But we just don’t know his plan.What if the nation of Israel gets destroyed by Syria or Lebanon orEgypt or any of their other dozen Middle Eastern enemies? WouldGod have failed his people? Would God have forsaken hispromises?

God is up in heaven shaking his head, “When did I say thatrecreating the nation of Israel was the way I was going to fulfill mypromises? That’s what you said. You wrote all those commentariesand books. Not me.”

On the other hand, our interpretation might exactly be correct. Thepoint is we just don’t know. But our biases can get us into trouble.We can get very disappointed. “Oh, I thought God was working!” Hewas. And he is. It’s just not like you thought. We have a bias fromwhich we interpret the visible movements of God.

And that bias is especially accentuated when we are in the dungeon.We think, “God I have a great idea on how you should get me out ofthis dungeon,” and we start dreaming about how God should beworking to free us from prison. This is what undoubtedly happenedto Joseph. He saw, in the dungeon, a visible movement of God. God

gave him supernatural abilities to interpret the dream. And man itwas really awesome. And he puts two and two together in his mindand says, “I’m going to interpret the dream and then this cupbearerhas the ear of Pharaoh, the only guy who could grant me apresidential pardon. It’s the only way out. And clearly, this is whatGod is doing.” Joseph is filling in all the blanks. It’s so obvious. It’sso easy for him to get so excited. Joseph is observing so many truethings. God did orchestrate that both the baker and the cupbearerwould be thrown into the same prison as Joseph. They could havebeen imprisoned in a different prison or at the same prison but at adifferent time. Or at the same time but in a different area. But Josephjust happens to be in charge of these prisoners. That’s God’s hand.Joseph observes that correctly. God did cause these two men toboth have dreams, dreams that were troubling enough for them toshare them with Joseph. That’s God’s hand. Joseph observes thatcorrectly. God had even given Joseph the interpretation of thesedreams. That’s God’s hand. Joseph observes that correctly.

And putting these things together in his mind, he thinks, “Certainly,what God is up to is that I will interpret these dreams and thecupbearer will tell Pharaoh of my talents and I will be delivered fromprison because after all, I’ve had a dream that one day my brotherswould bow down to me, so that must mean I’m getting out.” AndJoseph was correct on so many details, clear down to the means bywhich he would be delivered. But his bias blinded him from one keydetail. His bias caused him to assume that this deliverance wouldhappen immediately.

Oh, the disappointment of that one small detail. “Joseph, you will bedelivered. You will have influence and power and you will save thenation and your brothers will bow down and you will see your fatheragain, but not for two years. Until then, just sit tight. I’ve got more

work for you to do in the dungeon. There’s more refining of yourcharacter than needs to happen before I can use you the way I wantyou to be used. The dungeon is good for you. We can’t take the claypot out of the fire too soon or it won’t be useful.”

And the lesson for us when we are in the dungeon is to know ourbias. We say to ourselves, “If I were God, here’s how I’d deliver me.”Be very cautious of your bias. God may have many more years ofdungeon refinement ahead.

But here’s the other thing. When you see the visible movements ofGod in the dungeon, rejoice! Maybe you suffer from watching a childor relative or friend walk away from the faith. When you see anopenness to the gospel in someone you love, that’s God working.Rejoice! Or maybe your marriage is in a very bad state. When yousee a moment of clarity in your marriage and there is tremendousgrowth, that’s God working. Rejoice! That is God working. God isalways working and those are gracious reminders that heremembers, he loves you, he is working all things together for good.Just be careful about informing God of your timeline or how he’sgoing to deliver you. God probably won’t take your advice. He’s got amuch better plan.

God’s doing stuff in suffering. Other’s might have looked at Josephand said, “Wow, Joseph got catapulted from the dungeon to thepalace in a flash of fortune. Joseph became a tremendous leaderovernight.” But no, he was given the position overnight. He didn’tbecome a leader overnight. He became a leader through years ofsuffering in the dungeon. And that may be exactly what God is doingwith you. We don’t know God’s good plans.

This final point is a reminder of the big picture. Don’t expect

immediate change or deliverance from the dungeon. But you canexpect the nearness of God.

God promises to be near to the brokenhearted. He promises to benear to the humble, to those who seek him. We are told that thecupbearer forgot Joseph. One of two things happened here. Eitherthe cupbearer was so self-absorbed and excited at this incrediblestroke of fortune that he truly did forget. This kind of forgetfulness isakin to what happened when the ten lepers were healed by Jesusand only one came back to say thank you. They are just soconsumed by their good fortune they forget that there was a personconnected to it. So he could have forgotten in this way.

But my guess is that he forgot in a slightly different way. I’mguessing that in the back of his mind, he’s saying, “Dang, Josephwas exactly right. That guy has God’s hand. But he’s in there forattempted rape. That’s no good. I’m not sure I want to risk my joband my reputation my recommending this guy to Pharaoh. I’m not

going to cash in my chips and put my neck on the line for a Hebrewslave.” And he just conveniently puts it out of his mind until Josephis forgotten by the busyness of the week.

Either way, Joseph is forgotten by men. And when you are forgottenby all men, alone, what is your only hope? The nearness of God.The glory of God will be revealed to you in the dungeon. That’s ourpromise. Do you remember 1 Peter 4?

God promises to reveal his glory to you and others in the dungeon.Trust that. Expect that. Hold onto that.

Application of Submission and Preparation forCommunion

We are going to take communion in just a moment, and so I want toinvite up the musicians. And I think now, it may be appropriate toprepare our hearts by surrendering to him a difficult circumstance.Let me ask you, what’s an area of your life that you really want to

change and maybe it even seems like God has put pieces togethersuch that it will change, but it hasn’t changed? Maybe seeing aloved one come to Christ. Or overcoming health, financial, orrelational challenges. Don’t be tempted into thinking that suffering isstrange. Suffering is normal. When we suffer, we share in Christ’ssufferings.

We submit now. And why can we trust him? Because of the cross.Do you know even Jesus did this? Jesus wanted to change hiscircumstances on the way to the cross. “Father if it is possible,remove this cup from me.” But God was doing something in it for ourgood and for his glory. If God can redeem the suffering of the Son ofGod, can you trust him in your suffering? We are going to sing asong and I want to encourage people here and at home to get theelements if you haven’t already.