Keith Battle - The Gift of Favor - Part 3

As we’re making a shift today, we started this series on Christmas Day, discussing the gift of favor. This is part three, and I’m shifting my focus from Mary, who had to give the favor, to Joseph and the gift of favor he had. So if you were online and guessed Joseph, you were right. Verse 1 says: «Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Israelites who had taken him there. The Lord was with Joseph, and he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his whole household and entrusted to his care everything he owned.» Verse 5: «From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So he left in Joseph’s care everything he had; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.» Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while, his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, «Come to bed with me.» Somebody say, «It’s a trap!» Let me switch mics now. Y’all say, «It’s a trap!» Verse 8: «But he refused. He told her, 'With me in charge, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. [Music] Now, where am I here? No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? '» Although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even to be with her. One day, he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants were inside. She caught him by the cloak and said, «Come to bed with me!» But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called her household servants. «Look,» she said to them, «this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us. He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.» She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. In verse 17, she then told him this story: «That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me, but as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.» When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, «This is how your slave treated me,» he burned with anger. Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him. He showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. WOW, amen. You may be seated. Genesis 39 gives us a glimpse into the life of Joseph while he is in Egypt, first as a slave and subsequently as a prisoner. But I want to let you know, in case you don’t know, that Joseph is not Egyptian; he’s not from Egypt. Being a slave and being in prison was neither his history nor his destiny. Joseph came from a wealthy, prominent family; he was the great-grandson of Abraham, the grandson of Isaac, and he was the son of Jacob. So how do you go from being in a prominent family in Canaan to being a slave in Egypt and even in prison in Egypt? I suggest to you that it all started with favor. Joseph was his father’s favorite child, his favorite son out of the twelve sons that Jacob had. Joseph was his favorite. But in addition to being his father’s favorite son, he was also a snitch. Joseph would tell his father what his brothers were doing wrong so that his father would know. His brothers had two reasons to dislike him. First, «We don’t like you because you’re Dad’s favorite,» and second, «We also don’t like you because you’re a snitch.» When Joseph turned 17 years old, he had a series of dreams. He had a couple of dreams that revealed to him where God was ultimately going to take him, to a place of authority, leadership, and rulership, even over his whole family. But because he was naive and lacked emotional intelligence, he told his brothers about a dream where he would be over them, and they didn’t like him before the dream. Sometimes, God can give you favor before you have the maturity to handle it. All right, so he is now in more travail and more.