James 1:2-4 (NASB)
²Consider [count] it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, ³knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ⁴And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are three significant words in these verses.  They are consider, know and let.

 

   At just 5-foot-10 and 202 pounds, Walter Payton was not a particularly big running back for the National Football League. But he set one of sport's greatest records: the all-time rushing record of 16,726 yards. During his twelve-year career, Payton carried the football over nine miles!

   What is truly impressive, though, is that he was knocked to the ground on average every 4.4 yards of those nine miles by someone bigger than himself. But he kept getting up, and he kept getting up, and he kept getting up. Great victories await those who refuse to stay down.

 

Joseph was such a man.  He was a man that knew how to count, know and let.  He was a man that refused to let go of his dream; who refused to stay down.

 

Early on, Joseph was marked as exceptional; a young man that was destined for greatness.  His dreams indicated that God had a special destiny for him, but instead of endearing him to his brothers, his brothers “hated him even more for his dreams and for his words” (Gen. 37:8). 

 

 

The brothers’ plan to murder Joseph was forestalled, first by Reuben (37:21-22) and then by Judah (37:26-28).  Instead of killing him, the brothers stripped him of his multicolored tunic [a sign of his father’s favor] and cast him in a pit (37:23).  At Judah’s urging, they extracted Joseph from the pit and sold him to a band of traveling Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver (37:28).  Their criminal behavior would later be condemned by Mosaic Law (Ex. 21:16; Deut. 24:7), which would make such an action a crime punishable by death.

 

This betrayal by his brothers was enough to wound him for life.  It was an event significant enough to embitter him with a deep desire for revenge. 

 

As the Ishmaelite traders led Joseph further and further away from his home and into slavery, they could not see the struggle that Joseph was engaged in.  Would he draw strength from the promise revealed in his dreams or would he give way to hate and unforgiveness?

 

Have you ever been betrayed by someone you trusted?  I can tell you that the chains of bitterness forged by unforgiveness are more binding than the chains of the Ishmaelites.  Who stripped you and placed you in the pit?  Who sold you?

 

 

According to Genesis 37:36 and 39:1, the Ishmaelites took Joseph to Egypt and sold him to Potiphar, an officer in Pharaoh’s army.  Instead of rebelling against Potiphar, Joseph submitted to him and unto the Lord.  This suggests to me that Joseph was holding onto the promise made to him when he was seventeen-year-old teenager living in his father’s house.  It suggests the absence of bitterness.  It suggests that knowing God’s purpose can reduce and even eliminate the pain produced by betrayal and adversity.

 

The story is familiar to us all.  Once again, Joseph is given reason to embrace bitterness, as Potiphar’s wife falsely accuses him. 

 

Have you ever been mistreated for doing right?  You should have been given a promotion, but instead your were given a pink slip, because someone lied.  Can you remember that event without feeling the pain?  Do you experience anger when you think of the person who did you wrong?  If so, then you’re more focused on the problem and the person who caused it than you are on God’s promise and purpose.

 

 

“Then Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison” (39:20). 

 

Although it was yet to be fulfilled, the promise in Joseph’s dreams kept showing itself in his life.  In Potiphar’s house, he was made second in charge (39:4).  In the prison he was made the chief trustee (39:22).  God has a purpose and when you can keep that purpose in focus, it will hope and hope will increase your ability to endure the most severe adversity without shuddering. 

 

In prison, Joseph was given charge of two important prisoners—Pharaoh’s butler and baker (40:1).  When Joseph interprets their dreams, he tells the butler that he will be restored to his place of service, but the baker will be put to death (40:12-22).  Joseph takes this occasion to tell the butler of the wrongs that he has suffered and asks for his help when he is restored—“remember me when it is well with you, and please show kindness to me; make mention of me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this prison” (40:14). Although the chief butler was restored, instead of remembering Joseph, he forgot him (40:23). 

 

The Get Even List is getting longer.  Let’s see, first there are his brothers, then the Ishmaelites, then Potiphar and his wife, and now the butler. 

 

Have you ever befriended someone, only to be forgotten by them or to be refused help when you needed it?  You helped them get on their feet, but when you needed them they wouldn’t answer the phone.  You gave them money, but now that they’re doing okay they won’t even give you the time of day.

 

How many people are on your Get Even List?  Let me tell you that those people have more to do with your life than you may realize.  They occupy your daytime thoughts and your nighttime dreams.  You may not realize it, but you’ve empowered them beyond their historic acts.  What they did years ago is robbing you of your future.  You’re more focused on getting even than you are on being the person God called you to be. 

 

Is it possible that God can’t change your circumstances until you allow Him to change you?

 

 

The path was difficult and the night season was long, but Joseph’s moment came.  The butler remembered (41:9) and Pharaoh sent for Joseph (41:14).  Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dream and with the interpretation is made second in command (41:39-45).  Joseph was seventeen when he was sold into slavery and 30 when he stood before Pharaoh (41:46).  In view of the fact that the nation experienced seven fat years before the famine came, Joseph was at least 37 when his brothers came to Egypt.  If revenge had been in his heart, then he would have killed his brothers.  Instead of remembering their deed, scripture tells us “Then Joseph remembered the dreams” (42:9).  Evidence of his forgiveness is seen in his response to their misery—“And he turned himself away from them and wept” (42:24). 

 

Joseph understood God’s purpose for his ordeal—“I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.  But now, do not be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.  For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting.  And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.  So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt” (45:4-8). 

 

If Joseph had not forgiven his brothers, then he would have killed them instead of preserving them. 

 

Later, after Jacob’s death, Joseph’s brothers feared for their lives.  They say, “Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him” (50:15).  When Joseph heard their plea for forgiveness and knew of their fear, he wept (50:17).  Does that sound like a man seeking revenge?  Joseph’s response to his brothers was, “… ‘Do not be afraid, for I am here by God’s doing.  You meant do do me evil, but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.  Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones…’ And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them” (50:19-21).

 

Those are the actions of someone who can remember the wrong done without experiencing the pain.  Those are the actions of someone who has forgiven his offenders.  Joseph doesn’t take revenge on his brother or on Potiphar and his wife. 

 

 

Has life knocked you down?  Are you sitting in some pit or some dark prison cell licking your wounds?

 

Bad things do happen to good people.  Good people get knocked down, but they refuse to stay there.

 

Evil experienced is still evil to those who experience it, but God has a way of weaving those dark threads into life so that they serve His purpose for good.  The cross event was for Jesus a horrific experience, but it was by that horrific event that God redeemed humanity.  Paul’s beating and incarceration were painful to experience, but by them a jailer and his family are brought to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  Joseph’s pit and prison experiences were the product of evil intent, but God used them for good.

 

Maybe you can’t see it from your pit or from your prison cell, but God has a purpose for the path you’re on.  Paul said, “All things work together!”  We tend to focus on what we’re going through right now, but God uses everything!  Don’t allow failure or unforgiveness or adversity to keep you from experiencing your destiny.  Others meant it for evil, but God means it for God. 

 

In Good to Great, Jim Collins writes about Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was captured by the enemy during the Vietnam War. He was "the highest-ranking United States military officer in the 'Hanoi Hilton' prisoner-of-war camp…. Tortured over 20 times during his eight-year imprisonment from 1965 to 1973, Stockdale lived out the war without any prisoner's rights, no set release date, and no certainty as to whether he would even survive to see his family again. He shouldered the burden of command, doing everything he could to create conditions that would increase the number of prisoners who would survive unbroken, while fighting an internal war against his captors and their attempts to use the prisoners for propaganda.

"At one point, he beat himself with a stool and cut himself with a razor, deliberately disfiguring himself, so he could not be put on videotape as an example of a 'well-treated prisoner.' He exchanged secret intelligence information with his wife through their letters, knowing that discovery would mean more torture and perhaps death."

Collins had the chance to meet Stockdale, who now walks with a limp because "his stiff leg never fully recovered from the repeated torture." Collins asked Stockdale how he could deal with the uncertainty of his fate and the brutality of his captors when he did not know the end of the story.

"'I never lost faith in the end of the story,' he said. 'I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.'"

What about you?  Are you still holding on to your dream?  Do you know that in the end you will prevail?  If so, then your temporary trial can be faced joyfully. Knowing God's purpose disspells the pain.

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(C) 2005, by Louis Bartet.