How's it going guys? All my tables over there. We're getting going. Sorry.
Sorry. Sorry. Do you guys have a good day? Oh, yeah.
So, so fun hanging out with some of you guys today, seeing you around. I don't know if you saw my kids down by the lake just covered head to toe in mud. But we host them off through in bed and they're good now. So, well, tonight we're going to continue in this roller coaster of Joseph's life, continuing the story of Joseph.
But let's just remember a little bit of where we've been. Last night we started by looking at the main character. Who's the main character in the story of the life of Joseph? God.
That's right. Right. It's not Joseph. It's God.
And we see him really orchestrated. We see him throughout the entire story, throughout this entire roller coaster of Joseph's life. And then this morning we began at that roller coaster. Right.
And we saw how Joseph was betrayed, hated by his brothers and his brothers threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery. And he was taken by these Midianite traders to this faraway land of Egypt. And we'll see what happens next. Although we just saw it in the video.
We'll see it in the scripture here in a second. But as we were talking about that, we were also talking about this concept, this idea of sin. And this morning as we talked about sin, we said what sin is. Right.
That sin is any action or attitude that does not align with God's moral will. Anything we do or even think or feel that is not in line with what God has commanded in his word. We also saw this morning who sins. Right.
And people like Joseph's brother who sell their siblings into slavery, who sin. Now the Bible says that we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And we also saw not just what sin is and not just who sins, but we saw what the wages of sin is. The wages of sin is death.
It's physical death. It's spiritual death. It's eternal death. We saw those things this morning.
And so then with that in mind, the question that comes up is why then do we sin? If that's what sin is, if that's how serious it is, if that's the consequence of it, then why in the world do we do we do you, do I, does anyone sin? And maybe even more important than that, how do we fight sin? How do we avoid it?
That's what we're going to talk about this evening as we walk through the story of Joseph in the house of a man named Potiphar. So before we do that, before we open up the Bible together, let me pray for us and then we'll jump into Genesis chapter 39. That's right. Father, we thank you.
We thank you for your word. We thank you for the fun that we've had today. We thank you for the opportunity to open up your word tonight and to learn more about what it means to love and serve and follow you. Because we talk about this idea of temptation, of combating sin.
I pray that you would help us to just see the power that we have to do that through Jesus Christ. And ultimately, Lord, that as we come to face to face with our own sin, as we contemplate our own sin this evening, God, that it would not just drive it as a sorrow for sin, an earthly sorrow, but it would be a godly sorrow, sorrow that brings about repentance, Lord, that we would leave this place more ready and willing to fight sin and be filled with a deeper love for you. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
All right, my friend. So we'll be in Genesis chapter 39. Genesis chapter 39. So Joseph has been betrayed by his brothers, thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, and then we see this in 39.1.
Now, Joseph had been brought down to Egypt and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had brought him down there. So these people, they take Joseph to Egypt and he's sold into the household of this man named Potiphar. And Potiphar is a high-up official, a very wealthy, connected individual in the kingdom of Egypt, and he buys this slave, Joseph. But then listen to this, verse two.
The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, as he was in the house of his Egyptian master. And his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands. And so Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him. And he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had.
From the time that he had him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake. And the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in the house and in the field. And so he left all that he had in Joseph's charge. And because of him, he had no concern about anything except for the food that he ate.
All right, and so Joseph, everything's going well, Dad's favorite, he gets the cool jacket. He has these dreams of how everyone's going to be bowing down to him, right? And then his brothers hate him, they beat him, they throw him into a pit, he's sold into slavery, and he's purchased by this man named Potiphar. But while he's a slave in Potiphar's house, things begin to look up for Joseph.
Every task that his master assigns him, he finds success, and not just a little bit, but a great deal of success. And he starts to get a higher and higher position in Potiphar's house. Things are looking up for Joseph. In fact, he becomes over all of Potiphar's house, all of Potiphar's wealth, all of Potiphar's business dealings, it's all going through Joseph.
Potiphar doesn't have to worry about anything because Joseph is taking care of all of it. The only thing Potiphar has to worry about is what is he going to eat for his next meal. Joseph is in control over all of Potiphar's possessions, all of Potiphar's businesses, all of Potiphar's household. He's in this place of honor, still a slave, but a place of honor within the household, one of the most powerful men in the most powerful nation on earth.
Joseph has gone from way up here to way down here, and now things are looking back up again in those first six verses of Genesis chapter 39. But then we get to the second half of verse six, and we see this. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. Well, I mean, that sounds pretty good.
I mean, he's a little bit higher than I thought. But that causes some trouble for him because listen to what happens next. And after a time, his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, lie with me. But he refused.
And he said to his master's wife, behold, because of me, my master has no concern about anything in his house. And he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except for you because your his wife, how then, can I do this great wickedness and sin against God. And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her to lie beside her or to be with her.
So Joseph's in this position of great authority and power and even privilege within Potiphar's house. And yet Potiphar's wife sees Joseph. She sees this handsome young man. And what does she do?
She tries to get Joseph to cheat on Potiphar with her, right? She wants to cheat on her husband and she wants Joseph to be the one that she does that with. And what does Joseph say? He says, no, no, I can't do that.
I will not do that. I will not sin against God. I will not sin against my master in doing this horrible thing. But Potiphar's wife doesn't take no for an answer.
She keeps pushing day after day, it says. But he would not listen to her. Then look at this in verse 11. But one day he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house were there in the house.
And she caught him by his garment saying lie with me, but he left his garment in her hand and he fled out of the house. So once again, she does not take no for an answer. She says, Joseph, come do this thing with me. And Joseph says, no.
And he runs out of the house. And he does it so quickly that he leaves his coat in her hand. He runs away, gets away as quickly as he can. So here's my question to you.
Talk this morning about how everyone is a sinner. Did Joseph in this situation did Joseph sin? No, no, he didn't. Joseph didn't sin.
Joseph was being asked to sin, but Joseph refused. Joseph did not sin, but I believe Joseph was tempted. Now, why do I say that? Why do I say that?
Joseph was tempted. I don't mean that Joseph wanted to sin. But here's what I mean. I mean that if Joseph had done this thing, if Joseph had sinned in this way, some things might have been a little bit easier for him.
And that's tempting. Listen to this. Listen to the result of Joseph's refusal to sin. Because spot-at-first wise, she doesn't then just take no for an answer.
What does she do? She falsely accuses Joseph. She says that Joseph tried to force himself on her and she tells the people. She tells them into the house.
She tells Pot-at-first. And it has some incredible consequences for Joseph. Consequences not of his sin, but consequences of his righteousness. Listen to what happened because Joseph refused to sin.
This is in verse 19. As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, those words are words of false accusation against Joseph. As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, this is the way that your servant treated me. His anger, that's Pot-at-first's anger, was kindled.
Do you know what it means for something to be kindled? They've ever taken a big old handful of pine needles or like news pages? Or like news paper and thrown it on a fire? What happens?
It goes, ooh, right? It kindles. That's why we call it pine needles. We call it kindling.
So that's what happens to Pot-at-first's anger when he hears his wife saying this horrible thing that she says Joseph did to her. His anger is kindled. It's like a fire. And so this is what happens.
His anger was kindled. And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. And he was there in the prison. The person who was in the prison was the Lord and showed him steadfast love.
I want to focus in on this temptation that Joseph must have had. Because Joseph understood what was happening. Joseph understood that to make Pot-a-fers' wife angry was a very dangerous thing. And if what Joseph wanted above all else was comfort and ease and safety, then Joseph would have sinned.
Because it was a dangerous thing for a woman like Pot-a-fers' wife to be angry at a slave like Joseph. And so he had this temptation. And the reality guys is in a fallen world like the one that we live in. Every single one of us will face temptation.
Every single one of us will face a situation at one point or another where there's some kind of temptation, some kind of incentive, something that's dangled in fact. That's dangled in front of us that tempts us to sin. Something that would just do this thing that we know we're not supposed to do. Just say this thing that we know isn't true.
Just take this thing that we know doesn't belong to us. Just do this thing that is not right, that is not in line with God's law. Then lives will be easier or happier or whatever. We'll face these temptations just like Joseph did.
But here's the thing about temptation. Temptation is not the same thing as sin. Temptation and sin are not the same thing. And temptation is not even the reason or the cause of our sin.
No one makes you sin. No one forces you to sin. No amount of temptation requires that you sin. Temptation is not sin.
It's not the reason for sin. It's not the cause of sin. No, the cause of sin is something else. We don't sin because we're tempted.
We sin because temptation is made effective in our lives by our own broken desires. I'm going to say that again. We don't sin because we're tempted. We sin because temptation is made effective.
It's made powerful in our lives. Not by anything outside of us, but by our own desires. By the things that we want. By the things that we love.
Let me read this to you out of the book of James. It's in James chapter 1 and James 1, 13 through 15. And it describes what I call the life cycle of sin. Listen to this.
James 1 starting in verse 13. It says, let no one say when he is tempted. I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil.
And he himself tempts no one. But then listen to this. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. What is desire?
Desire is what we want. So we're tempted when we're lured and enticed by what we want, by what we desire, by what we love. And then verse 15 says this, and then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin. And sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
So temptation comes along with the own wicked desire of our hearts. That desire grows and grows and grows. And until we desire that temptation, we desire that thing other than God more than we desire God. And our desire brings forth sin.
And what does sin lead to? Death. It leads to, that's a good death sound effect. It leads to death.
I'm going to put this really, really simply for you. I asked that question at the beginning. If sin, the wages of sin is death, then why do we sin? Even those of us who know that, we know that the wages of sin is death.
We know that sin is a big deal. We know that it's important. We know that there's no such thing as a small sin or a light sin or a sin that doesn't matter. So why do we still sin?
Here's the answer. We sin because we want to. We sin because we desire something more than we desire God. We sin because we want something more than we want to honor and obey and love and seek and serve the God who made us.
We sin because we love something else more than we love God. It's what sin is. Sin is distorted, broken desire. And temptation is when something comes along and it takes our broken desires and it plays them out.
Let me give you an example. When I was a kid, my favorite candy was a Reese's chocolate tree. Now, and not a Reese's peanut butter cup. Okay, that's not the same.
Because every, a couple times a year, there are Reese's chocolate trees at Christmas time. There are Reese's eggs at Easter. There are Reese's like a jack-o-lanterns or pumpkins or something at Halloween and there are those special Reese's peanut butter cups that are different than the normal ones. Because they have more peanut butter, the chocolate's a little bit different.
I don't know. There's something special about the Reese's chocolate tree. They sprinkle on Christmas magic. I don't know what they do.
But they're incredible. Now, I have one sibling. I have a sister. She's two years older than me.
And my sister is very much the oldest. Maybe some of you already know what I mean when I say that. My sister was the one whose room was always clean. Her homework was always done.
She was very high achievers. She had everything kind of put together and buttoned up and put together. And buttoned up and I was the younger brother. So I just kind of lived in a whirlwind as a kid.
And I remember at Christmas when we were kids, we would come out to the living room and have our stocking filled with candy. And we would take our stocking and rip into them. I mean, you don't actually rip a stocking. But I would grab the stocking by the toe and shake it like this and candy would just fly all over the living room.
And then I would go around and stuff my face with all of my Christmas candy and eat all of it on Christmas morning until I was just sick. My sister on the other hand would take it and she would sit there and one at a time she would pull out a candy and place it on the coffee table. And she'd pull out a candy and she'd place it on the coffee table. And then she took all of her candy and she put it in the shoebox.
This shoebox that she kept on her bedside table in her room. And she would eat one candy a day. So she would eat one on Christmas and another 26 and another 27. So her candy would last her all the way through Christmas break and into the school year.
But mine was gone by Christmas morning. And so there was one day a year where I would get Reese's chocolate trees. It was Christmas morning because I would eat them all and then I would never see them again. But I remember one Christmas break where I was done with my Christmas candy.
And I remember coming out of my bedroom door and walking by my sister's bedroom and the door was open and I saw on her bedside table that shoebox and I knew what was in it. It was her Christmas candy and not just any Christmas candy. I knew that in that shoebox there was what? A Reese's chocolate tree.
I knew it was in there and there's this moment of temptation in Little Chip's young heart. This moment of temptation where I see the thing that I want and there's nothing stopping me from taking it. But I know that it's wrong. So this is a temptation because it's a test of my desires.
It's a test of my loves, my affections. It's a test of what do I want the most? Do I want a Reese's chocolate tree or do I want to serve and obey and glorify the God of the universe? What do I want more?
That's the temptation. That's the battle that was going on in my little heart and my little mind. And I know I remember this. For the first day I said no, that's wrong.
That's my sister's candy. I'm not going to take it and I kept walking. But the next morning I woke up and I walked by my sister's door. Don't clap.
The story isn't over. And I walked by my sister's door and I saw the shoebox and I know the inn the shoebox. There's what? A Reese's chocolate tree and once again the battle, the temptation.
And this time I looked and I looked a little bit longer. And I thought a little bit more about the peanut buttery chocolatey goodness hidden in that limited to shoebox on my sister's bedside table. And the battle once again happens. What do I love more?
What do I want more? What do I desire more? Reese's chocolate tree or the God of the universe? And that second day I continued walking.
But then the third day I woke up and I looked in my sister's room and I saw the shoebox. And once again the battle takes place and just a little bit more. And a little bit more. And day after day I allowed myself to look and to think and I allowed the battle to take place.
And you know what I was doing is I was comforting and cultivating and growing my desire. Not my desire for God, but my desire for comfort, my desire for sugar, my desire for peanut butter. I was letting that desire grow. And you know what happened?
I don't know how many days it took. I don't remember how long it took. But eventually that desire for something other than God grew greater and stronger. And my love for that grew more profound than my love for following and serving and seeking after the God of the universe.
And so I went and I took the candy that wasn't mine and I ate it and I hid the evidence deep in the trash can. And I don't know if I was ever found out. I don't know if my sister ever knew, although I did tell this story a couple years ago and my sister listened to the recording and she said, you owe me some candy. But I don't know if she ever found out.
I don't remember if my parents ever found out. But at the end of the day it doesn't matter. Because what I did in that moment is I made a choice between a vaguely Christmas tree shaped hunk of peanut butter and chocolate and the God of the universe and I chose the candy. And it's easy to hear that and to go, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Because it is. Because when we hear that, when we talk about a candy and we hold it up against the God of the universe, what person in their right mind would ever choose a stupid candy? No one would. But here's the thing.
We all do. We all do. We all make that same kind of choice sooner or later. For you it might not be a candy.
It might be something else. But there's something else, something that you desire, something that you want, something that you love, something that you seek after that you're tempted by. And you allow that desire to grow, to grow and to grow and to grow until it becomes your greatest desire, your deepest love, the thing you want more than anything else. And then you choose that thing over God.
You sin. You give in to temptation. You take the thing that you know is wrong. You do the thing that you know is wrong.
Again, maybe it's not a candy. Maybe for you that thing that you're tempted by. So to want more than anything else, maybe it's popularity. Maybe it's people telling you how great you are.
So what do you do? You lie. You lie. You make up stories about yourself so that people will think that you're such a bigger deal than you are.
What are you doing? You're choosing your reputation over the God of the universe. Or maybe it's money. It's things.
And so you allow your desire for money or for stuff to grow and grow and grow until you desire that more than you desire the God of the universe. So what do you do? You steal. You take things that don't belong to you.
You take things that you want more than anything else. Maybe it's academic success. It's straight A's. And so you allow your desire for that to grow and grow and grow until it's the greatest desire of your heart.
And what do you do? You do anything that it takes to get straight A's. Maybe it means you're missing out on church all the time. Maybe it means you don't have time to ever open a Bible.
Maybe it means that you're cheating on tests. Maybe it means that you're cheating on your homework. You don't care because at the end of the day doing the right thing isn't important. At least not nearly as important as getting the grade.
Guys we all have something. I don't know what it is for you. For me it was a Reese's chocolate tree. We all have something that we are tempted by.
Tempted to desire more, to seek after more than we seek after God. That's why we sin. We sin because we want to. We sin because it's what we desire.
But how do we combat it? How do we fight against it? If that's why we sin then how do we stop sinning? How did Joseph do it?
I'm going to give you three strategies. Three ways that we fight sin. Three ways that Joseph fought sin. The first one is this.
We fight sin by knowing the truth. In Hebrews chapter three, Hebrews 3, 13, it uses this phrase that says we encourage one another every day as long as it is called today so that we might not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. The deceitfulness of sin. What does that mean?
It means that sin lies. That sin is a liar. These things, these other things in our lives, they tell us lies. They tell us that hey, if you just get all of the good grades, you get straight A's, then your life is going to be better.
You'll be happier. People will look at you and they'll think of how great you are. You'll be fulfilled. You'll be happy.
You'll have a good and comfortable life. But only if you get straight A's. So this is the most important thing, guys. That's a lie.
Hey, if you're really popular, if you always have a friend around, you'll never be alone. Everyone will think of how great you are. Your life will be comfortable and easy and happy. Guys, that's a lie.
If you take this Reese's chocolate tree, then you are going to be the happiest person in the world and there will never be any consequences. Guys, that's a lie. Sin lies to us constantly. It promises to give us the desires of our heart, the things that we want.
If you just disobeyed God in this way, then everything's going to be all right. But the reality is that what does sin bring? Does sin bring us? The deepest desires of our heart?
What does sin bring us? Death. It's like this. You guys know what this is?
It's a mouse trap. Now here's the thing with a mouse trap. A mouse trap works because a mouse trap is a lie. All right?
A mouse trap doesn't say to a mouse. Hey, come on over here and get your next snapped. You're going to love it. Because the mice wouldn't exactly line up for that.
What does a mouse trap say? It says, hey, free cheese. Right? Come over here.
Get a free snap. It's going to be your favorite. So the little mouse comes along and it goes for the free cheese. And what does the mouse get instead?
Does it get the cheese? It gets a broken neck. That's what it gets. It still gets the cheese, but it is not worth it.
Guys, sin is the same way. Sin says I'm going to give you all these things that you want, but all that it actually delivers is death. So we need to fight sin by understanding the truth, by seeing through sin's lies. You see, that's what Joseph did when he was tempted.
When Potiphar's wife said, come and sin with me. And Joseph's response, I'm going to read it to you. And Genesis 39, 19. Joseph's response.
Sorry, that's the wrong verse. Genesis 39, I think it's 12. 9, 39, 9. There it is.
That's why I had 19. Joseph says this, he is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept anything back from me except for you. Because you are his wife. He says this, how can I then do this great wickedness and sin against God?
See, Joseph realized that this wasn't a harmless thing that he was being asked to do. It was a sin that was going to hurt Potiphar. And even more than that, it was a sin against who? Against God.
So we fight sin by knowing the truth of sin. We also fight sin by freeing from temptation. When we know what's going to tempt us to sin, scripture tells us in no uncertain terms that we need to get out, get away. And first Corinthians, verse 13, verse 13, that tells us that whenever we're tempted, we're tempted in ways that everyone else is tempted, but God is always faithful to provide for us what it calls a way of escape.
There's always a way out, a way, a way from temptation. So when I was a kid and I was walking by my sister's door and I was seeing that Reese's chocolate tree, it's a very easy thing to close the door and to stop allowing myself to be tempted. But I didn't. I sat there in the temptation and I allowed that desire to grow until it became a desire stronger than my desire for God.
So we are to know the truth about sin, to see through its lies. We are to flee from temptation, whatever that looks like. It's going to be different for you depending on what your area of temptation is, but to run away from temptation, just like Joseph ran away so quickly and so hastily, he didn't even bring his jacket with him. We are to know the truth.
We are to flee from temptation, but that's just not enough. It's not. To know the truth about sin and to say, yes, it feels like this. Sin is promising me this, but that's not true.
The only thing that sin brings is death. To flee from temptation and set up all the safeguards that we can and try to avoid temptation at every turn, that's still not enough. And why do I say that? Because when the Bible talks about sin, it doesn't just say that we deserve death for our sin.
It says that we are dead in our sin. And what makes temptation effective in us is that our loves, the loves of our heart, are distorted, they're broken, they're twisted by our sinful nature. The Bible uses this language that we are slaves to sin, that we are slaves to our sin, that we are powerless on our own against temptation, because our hearts love our sin. Naturally, we love things other than God.
And so no amount of knowing the truth and saying true things, no amount of fleeing from temptation is going to give us the power to do battle when we're dead. No amount of fleeing from temptation is going to give us the power to be set free from sin when we are its slaves. Yes, we are to speak the truth and know the truth about sin. We are to run fast away from temptation.
But ultimately, if we are going to do combat against sin in our lives, what we need above all else is we need a new heart. We need new loves. Temptation is made effective and powerful in our lives by the distorted, broken, messed up loves of our hearts. But temptation is made weak in our lives when we have a right love of God.
Listen to this out of Romans 6, Romans 16. Do you not know that if you present yourselves as obedient slaves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one with whom you obey, either slaves of sin which leads to death or slaves of obedience which leads to righteousness? Then we'll say this, but thanks be to God that you who were one slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed. And having been set free from sin, you'll become slaves of righteousness.
What's his point? His point is this, at the end of the day, the only way that we can effectively do battle against sin and do battle against temptation is if God by his mercy and grace through his Holy Spirit takes out the Bible, says our heart of stone and gives us what it calls a heart of flesh. Praise out our sinful, wicked, old heart that desires everything but God and gives us a heart filled with affection and love for him above all else. Guys, tomorrow we're going to talk a lot more about what that means, about how God can take your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, can take your love of sin and give you a love of him.
But this evening I'm going to leave you with these questions. The first one is this. What is the thing that you are tempted to love more than you love God? For me it was a resource chocolate tree.
For you, is it grades? Is it reputation? Is it athletic achievement? Is it a relationship?
Is it a friendship? What is the thing that you are tempted to love more than you love God? It might be something that on its own is not bad. It might be something that on its own is very good.
It's good to get good grades. But if you're tempted to love that thing more than you love God, you have a real danger. What's the thing you're tempted to love more than you love God? And then number two, what are the lies that you believe that lead you into sin?
What are the lies that you believe that lead you into sin? Those are the questions I want you to think about, pray about, talk about with the other kids in your cabin with your counselors and tomorrow we'll talk more about how we can be given that new heart, that new life, that new love to desire God above all else. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word.
God, we thank you that you give us the power by your spirit to see through sins lies. God, I pray for the young men and women in this room. God, I pray that you would just grow in them a profound love of you. A love of you that is so full that it expels the other loves of their hearts.
They would not seek after things other than you, but they would seek you above all else. God, as we reflect on our own hearts and our own temptations tonight, pray that you would show us the areas where we're tempted to love something else more than you. And God, that you would teach us to love you more that we might live lives of obedience so you would pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.