EDWMF Evangelism Worship Discipleship Missions Fellowship

Pastor Shane L. Johnson, D.Min.7/25/10

New Life Church

1. Joseph will know great pain and suffering in his lifetime- Do you have a theology of suffering?- In other words, how do you explain it?- CS Lewis; pain is God’s megaphone to a deaf world

2. God will use this suffering to make of Joseph much more than the man he would ever be otherwise

3. God will use Joseph to be a pivotal person for millions of people

4. Joseph will only know some of this later on, and never all of it

5. He prospered because of the presence of the Lord in his life

6. He called sin for what it was, and he put up healthy boundaries

7. The 2 biblical responses to sin- resistance (James 4.7) and escape

Why? The Lord was with him…v21 We have westernized the environment needed

for success- “in order for me to be successful, I need to have, or be in…” look at v23

Most would not say one can prosper in prison; the exceptions- Chuck Colson, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nelson Mandela, Martin King, John Bunyan

God’s view of prosperity and ours are different People with a right attitude will find a way to

succeed even under adverse circumstances The presence of Christ and a right attitude go a

long way toward biblical prosperity Location has little to do with biblical success

He sees God as the source of interpretation for dreams rather than an Egyptian seer, v8

Mind you, Joseph has no idea when he will be released from prison, there for something he did not do- he could either be enraged by the injustice, or he could change his mindset- you may not be able to change your externals, but you can change your internals- notice that he did not deny his reality, v14-15

The cupbearer forgot Joseph, who would languish in prison 2 more years, 41.1

When people are removed from painful situations they sometimes remove themselves from the people who were with them in those situations- don’t expect gratitude, so you’ll be pleasantly surprise when it happens

You have very little control over what happens to you in life; the only thing you can control is your reaction to it