v. 42 Linen is known to have been the dress of the court in the Egypt of those days and many paintings show the Pharaoh placing a gold chain around the necks of servants he was rewarding. There is even one painting that shows this gold chain as a detail in the investiture of a vizier.

v. 43 Or "bow down" – bend the knee. Most of the commentators I read prefer "bow down." In this detail as well Joseph is a Christ figure. As they had to bow before Joseph, every knee shall bow before Christ.

v. 45 Giving Egyptian names to Syro-Palestinians is also a custom well-attested in the archaeological record. Such marriages were not forbidden in the law of Israel, if you remember. And, in this case, it was a political marriage, setting a seal on Joseph’s promotion. She was to be his only wife and they would have two sons. We may hope it became a loving marriage as well. On is ten miles north of Cairo and was then the center of Egyptian sun worship.

"Joseph went throughout …" may well be taken to mean that Joseph actually emerged in charge of all the land of Egypt.

v. 46 Joseph, you remember, was 17 when he was sold into slavery by his brothers. It had been thirteen years that he had been a slave or a prisoner in Egypt.

"he traveled" with what follows suggests the frenetic pace of Joseph’s activity during the years of plenty, the energy of his administration, as we might say today. Perhaps that had something to do with an enthusiasm for life that Joseph had upon deliverance from captivity. Light is doubly beautiful after darkness and freedom to move after confinement.

v. 49 When the Lord had said seven years of plenty; he meant seven years of plenty!

v. 50 It was during the years of plenty that Joseph’s sons were born. And where did Joseph become fruitful? In the land of his affliction!

v. 54 Seven year famines were a familiar feature of life in the ANE. In Egypt, a famine would result from inadequate rains in the southern Sudan which, in turn, would prevent the Nile from flooding for its usual three months in northern Egypt. Without that flooding, Egyptian agriculture was doomed. The failure of rains in Syria and Palestine would lead to poor harvests there. What was unusual was that there should be a failure of rains in Palestine and the Nile in Egypt at the same time. How severe famines in Egypt could be – Egypt remember is a thin fertile strip between two deserts – is indicated by two separate records of its inhabitants resorting to cannibalism. The description of the famine emphasizes the severity of it. Just as the plenty had been remarkable, so now the famine.

v. 55 There may be an echo of this in John’s account of the wedding at Cana (John 2:5), where Mary says to the servants at the wedding, "Do whatever he tells you." John may be intending us to think, "What Joseph was to the men of his day, this and much more, Jesus would be to the world." [Kidner]

v. 57 "The whole world" a typical hyperbole, exaggeration for effect. But, in this case, it hints at and sets the stage for the next scene in the unfolding drama of Joseph’s reconciliation with his family.

In his beautiful book on the life of Joseph, George Lawson, the 19^th century Scot draws attention to the remarkable changes that overtook Joseph in the course of his life.

"The life of different men presents not greater varieties to our observation than the life of the same men has sometimes done. How different is a king’s grandson, a shepherd, a lawgiver, from one another! and yet Moses sustained all these characters in different periods of the same life. Joseph was in early days the favourite son of a venerable father. He was, in the next period of his life, a slave, and then a prisoner, held in long confinement under the imputation of one of the worst and basest of crimes; but in the best and longest period of his eventful life, he was the lord of all the land of Egypt, trusted with all the power of the king, and honoured by the people as their saviour from destruction. Let us not be greatly dejected by adversity, let us not trust in prosperity. It is a storm and tempest to-day; it may be sunshine tomorrow. If it should, storms may again disturb our tranquility. Nothing is permanent in this world of changes. Nothing is more foolish than the presumption that to-morrow shall be as this day." [The History of Joseph,]

Well, so with Joseph. The path of his life, under God’s merciful hand, had led him, at last, to the highest pinnacle of the greatest court of the world of that day. He wasn’t simply the second most powerful man in Egypt, he was the second most powerful man in the world!

This completes the four act drama in which the narrator tells us the story of Joseph’s rise from slave to ruler: the scene in Potiphar’s house; the scene in the prison with the cup-bearer and the baker; the scene in which Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dreams; and, now, the conclusion, Joseph in charge in Egypt as events unfold precisely as he had said they would.

With the entire story before us, now, we are able to perceive its lesson, as a whole. Obviously, as we have said many times now, the greatest demonstration of this history is of the providence and faithfulness of God. In this most amazing way, the Lord is inexorably leading Joseph into a position from which he might save the covenant family from death and extinction and, in the process, be the instrument of the spiritual renewal of that family and, especially, of Judah, as well as be a blessing from God to the whole world. That sermon can be preached from anyone of these texts – and we have already preached it several times – as it can be preached from the entire text. We have noted from the very beginning of our studies in Genesis what sophisticated theology meets us in this very first book of the Bible, and especially what a sophisticated, developed, theology of divine grace to undeserving sinners.

But, we would miss one of the narrator’s major points if we did not also take note of Joseph’s own faithfulness and the reward that comes to him for it. Joseph, you remember, as we first met him, was a bratty youth seriously lacking in good sense. But, by the grace of God and through the trials and the afflictions that God appointed for him, he became the Lord's faithful covenant partner.

One of the arguments that used to be offered as proof that Joseph was a type of Christ, that his life was an enacted prophecy of Jesus Christ, was that there was no record of a sin anywhere in the narrative of Joseph’s life. It was not denied that he was a sinner, but it was pointed out that the history doesn’t record any of his sins. Well, I don’t think that view can be maintained anymore. It seems clear to me now, with a new and far deeper appreciation for the narrative art on display in the book of Genesis, that the narrator certainly intended us to see Joseph’s early behavior for what it was: brash and foolish and proud. He is not without sin in this narrative.

Nevertheless, there is also no doubt that the narrator expects his readers to find in Joseph as he has matured a faithful man of the covenant, a man noteworthy for his faithfulness.

He was so trustworthy, able, and conscientious that, though a slave, and a foreign slave at that, he very soon was managing his master’s business and so completely that his master stopped paying attention to his own affairs, so completely did he trust Joseph. This was true both in Potiphar’s house and later in the prison. He was scrupulously faithful to the demands of God’s holiness in the matter of Potiphar’s wife, even though that faithfulness cost him dearly. He was patient in the face of unjust suffering. He was forthright in his confession of the Lord his God, even in his very first meeting with Pharaoh and even though it was the first time he had been out of prison in some years. When most men would have nodded their heads at whatever the king said, for fear of giving offense, the first thing out of Joseph’s mouth was a correction of Pharaoh’s theology, because the king had given him credit that belonged to God alone. Here is a man who had been imprisoned unjustly, had been thirteen years a slave or prisoner, but still remained steadfastly loyal to the Lord God! Wonderful!

And, now, we find Joseph, in luxury and with great power, the same man spiritually he was when a slave and a prisoner. The names of his two sons are indication of that in this narrative. Both of the names he gave to his sons are confessions of his faith in God. Both are demonstrations of his gratitude to God. "God has made me forget all my trouble" and "God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering." Both are means, the sort of means godly men and women always use, to fix forever in his mind and memory the faithfulness of God to him and how good the Lord had been to his word when he promised Joseph, "I will be with you…"

And now we find Joseph being faithful still. After all, he did not simply prophesy the coming plenty and famine, he advised the king as to what to do and then did it himself. Just as he was faithful over Potiphar’s house and then over the prison, now he is faithful over Egypt. Joseph’s advice and his faithful and wise leadership were as important to Egypt’s salvation as was his prediction of the future in the first place.

And there is more, I think, the narrator intends us to notice. There is no hint whatsoever that Joseph did seek or ever would have sought revenge against those who had mistreated him. Think of what he could have done to Potiphar and his lying wife from his position as the second man in the Kingdom of Egypt. She had lied about him and, out of sheer spite, got him put in prison to rot. He was a young man when he was sent to prison. It wouldn’t have bothered her if he had spent the rest of his life there and died in that prison. How satisfying to imagine Joseph summoning her to the court. But he did nothing of the kind. Nor did he repay the cup-bearer for his inexcusable neglect of Joseph after Joseph had done him such a good turn. He exacted no vengeance against those who had done him such terrible wrongs. Instead, entering his new situation, he sought to serve the Lord in it as faithfully as he had served him in slavery and imprisonment.

We have been speaking about the grace of God throughout this entire narrative and, indeed, throughout the entire book of Genesis. This first book of the Bible, this most ancient book, has from its very beginning a profoundly sophisticated theology, and the lynchpin of that theology is the grace and mercy of God to helpless and guilty sinners. And we have seen that doctrine of divine grace, of sola gratia, most clearly in the Joseph material. It is God who protected him through it all, God who brought him indeed into these trials, precisely that he might save Joseph from his brothers and then use Joseph to save his brothers. Joseph was grateful to Pharaoh, no doubt, but he also knew where his blessings came from. Joseph himself confesses that his life has been ordered by the Lord and that it has been the story of God’s kindness to him.

But, alongside of that and running through that is the very real emphasis of the entire book and the narrator here on the importance, the necessity of our faithfulness to God and of God’s rewarding that faithfulness. No doubt, Joseph would have been the first to say, that it was the Lord who enabled him to resist the temptation of Potiphar’s wife and that it was the Lord who granted him the endurance of faith in prison, and he does say explicitly that it was the Lord who interpreted the dreams.

But Joseph’s faithfulness is a major emphasis of this history, as has been the faithfulness of others before him. Noah, Abraham, even, for all his faults and failures, Jacob. The Bible is not chary to say that God rewards those who trust in him and who live faithfully before him, even as it teaches us that without God and God’s grace, we can do nothing.

In David’s great celebration of the grace of God in 2 Samuel 22, where we read such sentiments as "The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God…in whom I take refuge…my refuge and my savior; I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise; …he rescued me from…my foes who were too strong for me," we also read, "To the faithful, you show yourself faithful…you save the humble, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low." [22:27-28]

We will not be true to the mind of the Holy Spirit speaking in Holy Scripture if we do not pay attention and take to heart the emphasis that is placed on Joseph’s faithfulness and God’s reward of that faithfulness.

We’ve had this point made explicitly many times already in Genesis. On Mt. Moriah, after Abraham proved his faithfulness and his trust in God by his readiness to sacrifice Isaac, the Lord said to him – listen to these words Christian people – "I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." [22:16-18]

And, later, the Lord said the same thing to Isaac. "I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky…because Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees and my laws." [26:4-5]

Joseph is quick to say himself, as he does here in the naming of his sons, that his deliverance is all of God and all by grace. But the narrative has celebrated Joseph’s covenantal integrity and does not hesitate to connect his deliverance and his great reward – now second man in Egypt! – with Joseph's faithfulness to God and steadfastness, even in trial. It is true, absolutely, that Joseph became the vizier of Egypt because God was with him. No one knew that better or was more eager to say it than Joseph himself. But, it is also true that Joseph received that great honor and power because he had been faithful to God. Those facts are not contradictions of one another. However hard it may be for us to understand precisely how to reconcile the Bible’s emphases on sovereign grace and human responsibility, what is unquestionable is that both emphases may be found in the Bible from its beginning to its very last page, that the Bible is unapologetic about teaching both, and that both are connected directly to the practical outworking of an individual believer’s life. Fact is, we are given no reason to think that Joseph would have risen to power as he did were it not for his faithfulness to God in Potiphar’s house, in the prison, and in his first encounter with Pharaoh. God saved him by means of his faithfulness, not in spite of it or without regard to it, or in indifference to it.

And so it continues. "By the grace of God I am what I am," says Paul. But the same apostle and Christian man says, I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith, and – for that reason, he clearly means – there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.

How many times have we spoken of this, dear brethren? And how many more times will we speak of it, if we are to be faithful to the teaching of God’s holy Word? I want you as I want myself to be people of the grace of God, who love to give glory to God for his grace, who, from the bottom of their hearts, are always giving glory to God for every good thing, including their own faith and obedience.

But, if we would be faithful to the Bible, we must also be people who are determined to be faithful to the Lord, to live in the integrity of his covenant, to prove ourselves steadfast in our faith in him by the obedience, the reverence, the devotion, the patience, and the submission of our lives, and who expect from our God the reward of our faithfulness.

These things are not in conflict with one another – though Christian history and developments in our own day continue to demonstrate Christians’ almost uncanny knack for setting them over against one another and pitting them against one another. The Bible never seeks to reconcile divine grace and our responsibility because reconciliation is for enemies not for friends, and in the Bible grace and a Christian’s faithfulness are friends, not enemies.

You know how often the Bible speaks as if it were all God’s doing: salvation and every part of it, including the faith, repentance, and obedience of Christians. And the Bible speaks that way because these things are all God’s doing.

But, you know, if you read the Bible, how often the Bible speaks of a Christian’s faithfulness, obedience, and loyalty to God as the reason why God has blessed and rewarded him. "He who honors me, I will honor!"

And here you have both. "I will be with you," God said to Joseph and proved it in the most remarkable way. But, he also says as clearly in this same narrative, "because you honored me, I will honor you."

Now, brothers and sisters, are you hearing the Word of God at this point also? We are so quick to wonder why God has not done this or that for us. We confess his sovereignty and with a knowing shake of our heads admit that the Lord’s will is far above us. And we smile in a kind of patronizing way at people who tell us that someone is suffering this or lacking that because he or she does not have enough faith. And there is truth, absolutely, in the confession of the inscrutable sovereignty of Almighty God and in the egregious error of all forms of "health and wealth" views of the Christian life.

But, we are not so quick any more, certainly not so quick as our faithful father’s were, to brace ourselves with the very real possibility – for no one can read the Bible and doubt the possibility – that we do not have because there is not that in our lives for the Lord to reward. He would reward us, but we do not deserve it, not in that way that we can be genuinely deserving even in the world of pure grace.

He tells us, for example, in regard to the life of prayer, that we have not because we ask not! He also teaches us that "if we regard iniquity in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us," or that if we pray with impure motives, our prayers will die stillborn and have no effect. In these ways and others, our failure to be faithful in prayer has diminished the measure of his blessing in our lives. And he says the same thing a hundred other ways in regard to every aspect of Christian holiness and faithfulness.

And then he says the same thing in the reverse. "…the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless." [Psalm 84:11] or "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun." [37:4-6]

Joseph did that, and look what God did for him! Brothers and sisters, we cannot read the Bible, cannot learn our view of life from the Bible and not think that there is very definitely an "if…then" in Christian living. If we are faithful, God will reward that faithfulness, and the more faithfulness, the greater the reward. Joseph is one of many men and women in the Bible whose lives are recorded for us in demonstration of that fact!

Absolutely, we must be careful here. We must not forget the grace that lies beneath everything in our lives. Joseph did not forget, even as he was being so faithful to God. His sons weren't named "I have been faithful to God", but, "God has been faithful to me"!

And we must not imagine that any of us is capable of telling in any case, our own case or that of other’s, that any particular lack of blessing is the result of a lack of faithfulness on our part or the part of others.

But, I say once more, you cannot read the Bible and deny that God has made the clearest conceivable connection between our faithfulness to him and his reward in and through our lives. And when we lack some blessing from God, when we long for what he has not yet given us, surely a faithful Christian should ask himself first of all, "have I honored the Lord, that he should honor me?"

Which is not at all the same thing as asking: have I been sinless? Joseph was not sinless, the little brat! But he was faithful and became more and more faithful, and, in particular, was faithful when tested and tried. And look what God did for him! And look what God did through him!

We should aspire to be like Joseph, a man of covenantal integrity, of faithfulness and steadfast loyalty to the Lord God. And we should do so, not only out of love and reverence for our God and Savior, but in the expectation that, as David said, in keeping the commandments of God there is a great reward.

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