Greetings, all!
In light of another exceptionally busy week for me, I thought I'd postpone a new Song of Solomon post for next Monday, and instead give you a reflection I wrote up awhile ago about Joseph, in relation to the fear of the Lord, the promises of God, and the battle for purity. Given that I posted a list of God's promises to you a few days ago, I thought it might be helpful to reflect for a bit on what a life looks like when you trust the God who makes these promises fully.
When I began this study, I wanted to know where Joseph got the strength to live such a virtuous life. Compared to everyone else in Genesis, Joseph stands apart as a very faithful, reliable, true follower of God. I don't think this was because he was born as a superhero of the faith, someone we could never be like. Rather, I think he learned a few very important lessons from his father Jacob, grandfather Isaac, and especially his great-grandfather Abraham. If we pay attention to those lessons, I think we can live in the same strength Joseph enjoyed.
Abraham seemed to have developed the most fear of the Lord when he saw the birth of Isaac, when he saw God do exactly what God promised to do. Prior to that, he seemed to doubt that God would do exactly what He had said; Abraham willingly gave up Sarah to Abimelech, and left her in his house for months (long enough for them to realize that every womb had been closed). But once he saw his son, once he saw the promise completely, perfectly fulfilled, he learned the fear of the Lord.
I'm guessing that this was influential for Joseph, as well. Hs story begins with God promising a great thing to him, and Joseph believed it. Perhaps he had such faith because of his great-grandfather Abraham, who believed God when God promised the covenant to him, and then learned the fear of the Lord when the promise was fulfilled. Perhaps Joseph learned from this that Yahweh can be completely trusted; when He promises, He carries through, completely. This God can be trusted.
So Joseph trusts God, even when his life is going to hell. He doesn't see the negative circumstances as a curse from God; rather, he trusts that God is going to use them to bring about His promise.
His response to Potiphar's wife speaks volumes about this. First, Genesis 39 is clear that God was blessing Joseph immensely, and everyone could recognize it. Joseph must also have been aware of it, of course. Yahweh poured out His blessing on everything in Potiphar's household because of Joseph.
So then, when Joseph tells her no, what does he say? He catalogs how much God has blessed Potiphar because of him, how God is blessing Joseph himself and giving him all sorts of authority and power. In other words, God is beginning to give Joseph what God promised: authority and power, such that his family will one day bow down before him. Sure, Joseph may have thought he would rise in authority through respectable channels, instead of jail, but the point is that he was seeing God's promise to him being fulfilled. As he was being obedient to God, living in holiness and integrity (which is a condition for God's promises, see Genesis 17:1-2), God was being faithful and blessing him, fulfilling the promises. How, then, could Joseph disobey God and throw away his integrity, scorning the promise that God was already fulfilling? God was blessing Joseph in line with the promise at that moment. The seduction of this woman must have been pathetically weak to Joseph, since she was essentially saying, "Throw away your lifetime of joy in all of the promises God is fulfilling to you, for one night of pleasure with me."
Part of the fear of the Lord is knowing the promises of God to us and being so captivated by them that the temptations of sin pale by comparison. To be sure, to some extent sin will always be tempting; that's why it's called temptation. But our strength to resist does not come primarily from self-control. It comes from the relationship we have with God, from the trust we have in Him, from the confidence we have that we will see His goodness and the fulfillment of His promises, from knowing His character so much that we trust His commands as being life-giving, from enjoying the fulfillment of past promises so much that we do not doubt God's power or desire to fulfill His future promises.
So strength in the battle for purity does not come from simply developing stronger self-control or running away from temptation (not that those are bad things by any means). It comes from studying the promises of God, seeing how He is already fulfilling them, and trusting Him with all of His future promises. It comes from seeing Him answering our prayers, knowing that He cares for us, and trusting that His way really is best. It comes from knowing Him, being so drawn into Him that we don't want anything to harm our relationship.
It's also set in the context of fearing God. Joseph also knew the stories of Sodom and Gommorah, of God pouring out His wrath against sin. Joseph knew that there was no messing around with this God. This is a God fully powerful and fully capable of either punishing sin, or of making His enemies into His friends, promising amazing things to them, and then fulfilling His promises.
So it's a double-pronged motivation. If Joseph slept with Potiphar's wife, he would throw away the immensely joyful promises that God was already delivering, and he would be risking God's wrath through his sinful rebellion and idolatry. No matter how hot Potiphar's wife was, she wasn't tempting enough to be worth that price!
Upon further reflection/revelation, God showed me that Joseph's motivations were triple-pronged. Joseph feared God and avoided sin because he wanted the promises of God that he saw being fulfilled, and he didn't want to invoke God's wrath. All true.
But he also cared about God's Name. He esteemed God constantly: he wouldn't sin against God, he trusted God when all else failed him, he proclaimed that all interpretation is from God, he confidently trusted that God would give him the interpretations and let God use him however God pleased.
Part of the fear of Lord is caring about the fame and renown of Jesus, of avoiding sin because you don't want to tarnish the reputation of the Gospel. When you fear God, you realize that He is greater than yourself, that He must always be greater. This translates over into our desires: His purposes must be accomplished at the expense of mine. Our desires, if appealed to sinfully, must be disregarded if they would hinder the forward progress of the Gospel.
And the great testimony of Joseph's life is that when we make God's desires more important than our own, our lives become joys to live. Our circumstances might be terrible, like Joseph being thrown in prison. But as Joseph showed, by trusting and fearing God, we can be filled with joy and peace even in these circumstances, fully confident in God, happy enough that we can even minister to others.
This is not a prosperity gospel, claiming that by trusting Jesus we'll be lavished in cash and physical health. That's far too pathetic of a pleasure for the Gospel. Rather, by trusting and fearing as Joseph did, we gain the immense joy of being with God everywhere we go, having full access to the joys of His presence regardless of whatever else we lack!
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