The Waiting

You'll get through this is what we call our series in the life of Joseph in the very first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. We've been going through this verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and the point is no matter how dire life circumstances get, you'll get through this. Say that out loud with me: you'll get through this. My name is René, another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes. It's so great to have you joining us today.

I want to start with something I saw the other day that I thought was pretty fun. The other day, I saw that a food critic at a local TV station decided to go to all the major fast food chains. Now, why would a food critic, you know, used to reviewing restaurants, go to fast food chains? Well, he wanted to compare the pictures you see on the menu in the stores and in the ads with what you actually get when you order food at these restaurants. So here are some examples.

Here's the Whopper in the ad, right? That looks pretty nice from Burger King, and in real life, just disgusting. Here's the Subway Club sandwich in the ad. I mean, that looks very thick and lush, and in real life, that just looks—if a sandwich could be depressed, that looks like a depressed sandwich. Okay, how about this: the Taco Bell Cantina Power Burrito? Man, I just—I don't just want a burrito; I want a power burrito. Look at that! The steak is just thick and lush, and in real life, I am literally nauseated right now just looking at this.

And finally, let's go to McDonald's, shall we, for the McDouble? It's a good deal; it looks awesome, and in real life, it literally looks like it's sticking its tongue out at us, like it's mocking us for even thinking of ordering it. Right? Well, here's my point. Maybe you're thinking right now, "Yeah, my life didn't exactly turn out like the picture on the menu," right? I thought I'd be married by now. I thought I'd finished college by now. I thought I'd have a better job by now, more friends, kids, a house, be better off, retired, happier. I thought my life would have more impact, but my reality is kind of sticking its tongue out at me right now, like making fun of me for even hoping.

Well, that is exactly where we find Joseph as we start today's episode in his life in Genesis 40. Just a quick recap: previously on the life of Joseph, Joseph has a dream of his future from God. All the grain in the fields is bowing down to him, and all the stars—he is literally the center of the universe. He takes this to mean he's going to be the patriarch of his family. That's the picture in the ad, and here's the crud burger he actually gets. He tells his brothers his dream, which is not a good idea. They do not, you know, contribute to his GoFundMe page. To the contrary, they throw him into a pit, sell him into slavery, where Joseph's falsely accused of rape and thrown into prison. And that is where we last left Joseph, and this whole run of bad events lasts, by the way, about 13 years from the time he's around 17 to the time he's about 30 years old, so most scholars say.

A question that comes up in his story is: how do I respond when my dream is delayed or even seems to die? What am I supposed to do when years and years and years go on and my life does not look like the menu? Somebody told me, "René, the problem seems to be I live in a microwave world, and God apparently cooks with a crockpot," right? Ever feel like that? That's true. But have you noticed all the good stuff is cooked slow? All the best stuff is cooked slow. You might go, "Well, that's true, but in the meantime, how do I wait?"

Well, I mean, that's a key skill to life, right? How do you wait well? Because waiting is just a part of life. Every single day you wait. Well, there are some destructive responses to life's delays, like cynicism, right? It's all rigged against me. It's all a scam, all a joke; it's all just stupid and all designed to just frustrate me. Or self-absorption, self-pity—all I think about is me and my mess, and that leads to passivity. Because apparently, my actions don't matter, and the world is doomed anyway, so any attempt to change anything is futile. So I'm just gonna binge-watch Netflix and play video games and not do anything productive. And that all leads to finally despair, where I just stop taking care of myself, stop exercising, stop learning new things, stop learning new skills, because I've just given up. Are we seeing a lot of this in our world right now, or what?

Well, the good news is in Joseph's story, you see four responses to the wait that are the opposite of these four destructive things. So grab your message notes, and let's talk about it. Let's pick up the story in Genesis 40:1. Some time later—and this could be possibly many years later—Pharaoh's chief cupbearer. Now, a cupbearer was kind of like the royal sommelier with a little element of danger because if someone was trying to poison the king and they tried to slip poison in his wine or beer, then the cupbearer would die and the Pharaoh would survive. So it would be long live Pharaoh, and we've got a job opening. So that's what was his job, the cupbearer.

The chief baker offended their royal master. Now, we don't know how they offended him; it probably had something to do with the meal, right? Because both of these guys, the cupbearer, the sommelier, and the baker were all about the menu. So maybe the coffee was too hot and he wasn't warned. Whatever it was, Pharaoh became angry with these two officials, and he put them in the prison where Joseph was—just happened to put them there—which was now the palace of the captain of the guard. Remember who, by the way? Let me test your memory. Who did we find out last weekend the captain of the guard was? Anybody? The captain of the guard's name was Potiphar. That's right.

So now Joseph's moved from the previous prison where, in Psalms, it tells us his neck was in chains, and he's kind of tucked into the dungeon in the palace of Potiphar. They remained in prison for quite some time, and the captain of the guard, Potiphar, assigned them to Joseph, who looked after them. So now he's kind of like their butler while they were in prison. Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker each had a dream one night, and each dream had its own meaning. When Joseph saw them the next morning, he noticed that they both looked upset. This is where I see the first way to wait well: stay sympathetic.

Stay sympathetic instead of cynical. It's kind of funny to me because Joseph, clearly early on in his life when he's a teenager, is very low EQ, like very low social skills, because he just brags about his dreams even though his brothers were clearly bad guys. But now, by now, he's finessing relationships a lot more. He's noticing these things, and you see this in verse 7. So he asked Pharaoh's officials who were in custody with him in his master's house, "Why do you look so sad today?" Now, of course, they were sad; they were in a dungeon. But he's picking up that they're sad for other reasons. "Why are you so sad today?"

Well, we both had dreams, they replied, but there is no one to interpret them. Now, Joseph could have said, "Oh, did the royal sommelier have a bad dream? You want to know bad dreams? I've been living in a nightmare. Your pain is nothing on mine." But he doesn't try to do that, and that brings me to this point about staying sympathetic. When you are in pain, you need to guard against your heart growing hard. You need to guard against the thought, "No one has it worse than me." Joseph easily could have gone there, right? You need to guard against getting cynical about other people's pain. As the Bible says, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Stay empathetic; do not allow adversity to diminish your empathy. And this is very hard to do.

I saw a fascinating study yesterday from Harvard and Columbia, along with researchers from four other universities, and they did some very interesting research about what is going on right now in our culture. It was a big study with thousands of people, and here was their conclusion: really, more certainty plus more anxiety equals less empathy. They were specifically talking about people who were doomscrolling, addicted to the news all the time. The more bad news you take in—and of course, bad news sells, so there's a lot of bad news—the less empathy you are going to have for other people, other problems, people of other races, people of other socioeconomic groups, just people who believe differently than you. This is what's happening in our society right now. All of this anxiety and adversity and uncertainty is creating less and less and less empathy. You and I have to guard against that and stay sympathetic.

And then second, instead of self-absorption, serve others. Serving as you wait is one of the best things you can do. Look for ways to bless other people even when you can't see the blessing for yourself because this helps you and it helps them. Watch Joseph do this. Verse 8: then Joseph said to them, "Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams." So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream first. "Well, in my dream," he said, "I saw a grapevine in front of me, and the vine had three branches that began to bud and blossom, and soon it produced clusters of ripe grapes. Can you—are you seeing this? And I was holding Pharaoh's wine cup in my hand, and so I took a cluster of grapes and squeezed the juice into the cup, and then I placed the cup into Pharaoh's hand. And that was the dream that I woke up. I don't mean something; it's troubling. What does it mean?"

And then Joseph goes, "I got good news for you. This is what the dream means: the three branches represent three days. Within three days, Pharaoh will lift you up and restore you to your position as chief cupbearer." He served them; he helped him out. He put his fears to rest. Now, maybe you're thinking, "Well, Joseph had like this mutant superpower, right? He could tell the future with, you know, his mind about what other people were dreaming of, and I don't have that superpower." So how does this apply to me? Well, you do have a superpower if you believe the Bible. One of my favorite books of the Bible is the book of Ephesians, and look at what it says in chapter 1: "I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead." Our Savior died on the cross for our sins, and then he rose again. I mean, imagine the power that would raise somebody from the dead, and the Bible says that same supernatural power—that superpower—is in you.

Now you're thinking, "Okay, well, how is it in me? What's it in me for? How am I empowered?" Well, Ephesians goes on to say this in Ephesians 2:10: "For we are God's masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus." And here's the purpose for which we are superpowered: "to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do," right? And so all around you every day, God is leading you to large and small good works, blessings that he's gonna empower you to do. It's not just up to you and your mind and your power. You don't even have to plan it. God is gonna give you these opportunities in his providence. And what happens is when we serve other people, we open up hearts. Good deeds lead to goodwill, which leads to openings to share the good news, just like it did eventually in Joseph's life.

And that's one of the reasons, as Mark said earlier, we do our acts of kindness every fall. Please sign up for one of these, our big church-organized activities. They really end next Saturday, so if you want to get in on those, you've got to sign up at TLC.org/aok. But this is also a great reason to serve right here at the church, and we need you. I want to give you a peek into what happens during the week here at the church because I think most of us often just see what happens on Sunday mornings, and Sundays are growing. This was last Sunday's 11 a.m. service. It's so fun to see this happening. But during the week right now, I'm saying the Holy Spirit do something. Here's what I saw in one week recently.

Tuesday nights, we have our junior high group. It is doing great. Our Mission Springs Bible study—great turnout up there. Wednesdays, we got People's Pantry; midweek classes are packed, like this Joseph Bible study, the young families class, the theology class, and more. The high school youth group is just killing it. Thursdays, we got the mothers of preschoolers group. It is at capacity; we literally can't take any more people. Thursday nights, the Hub college group—this was last Thursday. Look at this! Every single chair was taken; students were sitting on the floor all over the place studying the Bible together. Friday night a week ago, the Latin gospel concert starting next week at our Spanish service. Every day of the week, Bible studies, home groups. To me, it feels like a revival is happening. God is giving us this incredible wave, but now we've got to ride it well.

If you go to TLC.org/volunteer, you'll see what I'm talking about. It's a great, simple website to find out all the ways that you can help out, and we need help. As people start coming back, suddenly starting the last week of July, attendance at all these things just went up, but volunteers at all those things went down. So we really need you. We want the people who come to have a great nursery experience, kids' ministry experience, a great welcome team welcoming them. We just all need to get on board. Let's ride this wave God is giving us as best we can. Amen?

Serving others is a very effective way to wait well. It boosts your mood, it makes you happier, and it helps other people. And then third, instead of passivity, self-advocate. Advocate means speak up for yourself, ask for what you need, do what you can instead of just sitting around waiting for God to act. Listen, being a good Christian does not mean I just shut up and suffer, even though sometimes people kind of think that's what we need to do. I can still act proactively while I wait on the Lord, right? This is what Joseph does. Watch this: verse 14, next verse. He's still speaking to the cupbearer, but when all goes well with you, remember me. Show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh. Get me out of this prison because I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in this prison, this dungeon.

I love that these two verses are in the story because this tells me Joseph was not living in, you know, some kind of stoic, detached acceptance. He was as frustrated as you and I would be and should have been in this kind of an unjust situation. We can sometimes get this idea that self-advocacy is not biblical because, as Christians, we're not supposed to be self-centered, right? So I shouldn't speak up for myself. That is just not biblical. Self-advocacy is not the same thing as self-centeredness. There are so many examples in the Bible. Like think of King Saul trying to kill David repeatedly. Does David just stand still and say, "Well, I'm the Lord's anointed, so some angel's gonna protect me"? No, he runs, and he makes his case before Saul in the moments when Saul is sane.

Right? Or think of the life of the baby Jesus being threatened by Herod. Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt as they are also trusting God. They're proactive. Or think of the Apostle Paul. This is one of my favorite examples. Actually, he's unjustly imprisoned in Philippi. He's beaten and in prison. He does sing praises to the Lord, but the next morning, the city fathers realize—the city council realizes they made a mistake; they acted illegally. And I don't know if you remember the story in the book of Acts, but they send a message to Paul, and they kind of ask him to silently leave, right? "We're setting you free." Do you remember what Paul does? He says, "No." Here's the verse: "They beat us publicly without a trial, and now they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come here and publicly take accountability." And he makes them come and apologize to that, explain transparently to the whole city, and then he makes them escort him out. I mean, that sounds like self-advocating to me.

Don't just do nothing, hoping God will do his thing. Do what you can and also trust God to work through all things. That's what Joseph does here. He says, "Get me out, please." Right? In three days, the cupbearer, he's gonna be out. So maybe on day four, can you get me out of here? Now, the baker is hearing all of this, and so he's thinking, "Awesome! I can't wait to hear my good news. Me next! Me next!" Joseph goes, "Okay, when the chief baker saw that Joseph had given the first dream such a positive interpretation, he said of Joseph, 'Oh, I had a dream too! In my dream, there were three baskets of white pastries stacked on my head. The top basket contained all kinds of pastries for Pharaoh, but the birds came and ate them from the basket on my head.'"

And Joseph goes, "Whoop! Got some bad news for you. This is what your dream means: the three baskets also represent three days, but three days from now, Pharaoh will lift you up and impale your body on a pole, and then the birds will come and peck away at your flesh." And I picture Joseph like, "Sorry, dude, don't hate the messenger, right? That's just—that's reality." Okay, anybody else need a dream interpreted today? And everyone's like, "Uh, no, no, not me, not me." Pharaoh's birthday came three days later, and he prepared a banquet for all his officials and staff. He's throwing himself a birthday party. He summoned his chief cupbearer and chief baker to join the other officials.

He then restored the chief cupbearer to his former position so he could again hand Pharaoh his cup, but Pharaoh impaled the chief baker just as Joseph had predicted when he interpreted his dream. So Joseph, again, he's waiting there. He's like, "Oh good, I got an ally there. I feel sorry for the baker, but I got an ally. Can't wait to get out." But this is Joseph we're talking about. The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he totally forgot him. And you're reading this, if you've been joining us in the series, you're like, "Not again!" Joseph's story is like a soap opera. I love the way Max Lucado puts it in his book: Joseph's like a human piñata; he just gets hit again and again and again.

Yet, this is also where I see the fourth way to respond in times of delay: I need to stay ready. I need to stay ready instead of in despair, letting myself go. Look at Genesis 41:1. I'm just gonna read the first half of this verse, and then Mark will cover the rest of the story next weekend. When two full years had passed—don't miss the emphasis—two full years, Joseph was thinking maybe on day four or five, right? I'll be out of here. But for what is that? 730 straight days. Every day he hears steps coming down the corridor: boom, boom, boom, boom. He's like, "This is it! I'm gonna be free now!" And they go away: boom, boom, boom, boom. 730 days of this.

Then Pharaoh had a dream, and as we will see next weekend, Joseph was ready. And this is what the Bible tells you and me: always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. You know, Joseph is asked to eventually interpret Pharaoh's dream, but we are asked to share our dream, our witness of our faith, what Jesus has done for us. But do this with gentleness and respect, always being prepared. That was Joseph. So in these four ways, Joseph waited well. And if you do these four things as opposed to those four self-destructive ways to wait that we saw earlier, you will be waiting well.

And you've got to do this proactively, or you will slip into these four things. But don't want to put away your notes yet because if we stopped right here, I'm afraid that you might get the completely wrong impression of what the Bible is teaching here. If we stopped with this, even though this is a good application of this chapter, you could still leave the day thinking of Joseph the wrong way and missing the whole point. If we stopped here, you could think the point of the story is the way I've heard the story told most of my life. Even in his darkest times, Joseph followed his dream. So don't give up on your dream; be a dreamer like Joseph. That's a very American way to interpret this, right? Joseph ends up being the hero of the story, but Joseph is actually not the hero of this story.

I don't know if you've been noticing something. It's not apparent at all in the text that Joseph was even thinking of that dream that God gave him when he was 17 years old. Not one verse in Genesis 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45—the chapters where Joseph's story is told—says anything like, "But Joseph remembered his dream and pushed on through, clearly seeing God's plan for all this suffering." He was able to navigate his trials well and with hope. That is not in there once. But you know what you will see? Another phrase reiterated over and over: "The Lord was with Joseph." That's the hero of the story—the Lord.

That phrase is repeated when he's sold into slavery, when he's falsely imprisoned, when he was forgotten about, when he's hated, incarcerated, unappreciated, forgotten. Then the Lord was with Joseph. In other words, exactly when Joseph was most likely to think, "Where is God?" that's where the text tells us the Lord was with him. And this means more than just vaguely his presence was there, like God is everywhere in the universe. This means God was there actively working. As I heard a pastor say, the point of the story is not that Joseph followed his dreams. Joseph did not follow his dream; the dream followed Joseph. Do you see that?

Joseph didn't follow his dream; the dream followed Joseph. Joseph, as we saw in the story, was frustrated. Joseph was clueless. Joseph didn't know what was happening. In fact, part of the irony of the story is Joseph is able to see with crystal clarity the timeline on the reality of everybody else's dreams. "That's gonna be in three days; it's what's gonna happen." And later, when he interprets it for Pharaoh, "Yours is exactly what God has decreed." But his own interpretation of his own dream, he actually gets completely wrong. The meaning of his own dream is apparently opaque to him; it's foggy. But the Lord was still with him.

In other words, the burden was not on Joseph to figure out God's plan or how God was gonna use all these things for good. God was still there working even when Joseph didn't see it or feel it or even understand it. And the exact same thing is true for you. This is really good news. When you look back on your life one day, you'll see very clearly God was still there working. But whether you see it now or not does not hinder God at all. In other words, the pressure is off for you to figure it out. And I really want to bring this home because so often when our dreams die or are delayed—like seriously, like a prayer doesn't get answered or a loved one dies or something unfair happens—we can sometimes get trapped in, "What's God doing here? What's his plan? I can't see it." And if I can't see it, then I don't know how to move forward in life.

For so much of my life, I was trapped in this way of thinking, like, "What's God's will? I've got to figure it out exactly, or I can't take one step forward." What Joseph's story shows us is I do not need to know God's plan to be in God's will. This is really important. In fact, let's say this out loud: I do not need to know God's plan to be in God's will. What do I mean by that? Joseph is a good model here, not because he knows every detail of God's plan—he doesn't—but because he just takes the next right step with godly character. God's will is a lot more about character than it is about circumstances.

The way to prepare for an unknown tomorrow is simple obedience today. Remember, Jesus said, "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you." So while you're in the wait and you can't figure it out, what you do is you stay tender-hearted and sympathetic, you serve people, you do what you can, and you stay ready for those doors of opportunity which are going to happen. And then you trust that God's gonna take care of the rest as you just obey in simple ways today, just like you did for Joseph.

And this isn't just Sunday school propaganda. This is real-life stuff. In fact, I want you to meet somebody here at TLC whose life I think just exemplifies what I've been talking about. One of our great volunteers at our People's Pantry ministry on Wednesday afternoons. This is a person, as you'll hear, who has gone through one tough thing after another. How did she get through this? Watch the screen.

My name is Raya Guzman. People's Pantry is an amazing, amazing part of Santa Cruz. You're able to come; you're able to show up, no questions asked, and receive food that is not only quantity but quality. Then at the end of it all, you can come and get prayer. When I started volunteering, I had been in a very difficult spot a couple of years before that. I lost my father; I lost every penny I had. I lost my IRA; I lost every penny my mother had. I lost my brother to terminal cancer. And to top it all off, my little dog waited till this all sort of died down a little bit to die in my arms. So let's just say it was a bit of a bleak time. And then the pandemic hit, and I was teaching science at a school out in Watsonville, a bilingual school. I'm a bilingual educator.

After giving the speech to the kids about what this really was and not to worry and so on and so forth, I was laid off on the 13th. So I had no more job and went home and just fell into a pit of despair. I don't know what happened to me. I don't know if it was just fear of death or not being ready yet to die, and I think it's a combination of both factors. And all of a sudden, I stopped sleeping. I stopped eating. I wasn't going outdoors. I wasn't talking to neighbors. I was afraid to touch a banister. I couldn't fill my tank with gas. I was a mess. I'd stand there out the third-story window and look down and just think of how I could jump out and instantly end it. And I called around to a couple of churches and managed to get to Robin, of course, here. And she said, "Well, maybe the prayer ministry would work a little bit. We have people standing outside." I said, "You can do that? I'll be outside. Keep my body in, you know, I'll try that."

And people would come by and ask for prayer, and when I tell them what's going on, all of a sudden, I would learn more about their lives in five minutes than I think they themselves were aware of. People have been healed; there have been jobs; there have been answers to prayer in ways that I don't think even they expected. The ability to minister to others through this prayer is—I totally am convinced that this is what lifted me up out of this vile pit that I had spiraled into. And by listening to God, by trusting him, by serving others, all you can do is just stand there and say, "Lord, what now? What now?" and waiting for him to come through because he always does. Trust God, serve people, and see what happens. Bloom where you're planted.

Isn't that a beautiful, beautiful story? I love that last line: trust God, serve people, and see what happens. Bloom where you're planted. I mean, to me, that absolutely summarizes the story of Joseph, right? That's him here in chapter 40, right there, trusting that God is always quietly working—quietly working always to bring his purpose to pass. And in the end, I mean, remember Joseph kind of figured it's apparent when he reveals his dream to his brothers, and they thought the same thing—that his dream was about him becoming the patriarch of their ranching family. But as you will see, it turns out that Joseph was sort of dreaming of the best Big Mac ever while God was preparing a meal at the French Laundry the whole time.

Let's pray. And for our closing prayer today, I want you to flip your notes over to the top of page two, and I'm gonna put this prayer on the screen. I don't usually pray written prayers at the end of a sermon, but I saw a prayer by Pete Briscoe, which I then adapted for this message. And what I'd like us to do is this: as I pray out loud, I want to invite you to read this prayer silently. And if it reflects your heart right now, pray this in your spirit with me, and then we'll close with one final song. Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, am I an initiator of love? Even as I wait for better days, I long for you to initiate moments of sympathy and service through me starting today. Help me to see this as part of my destiny from you. I choose to believe that you are quietly at work behind the scenes at all times. I am ready, Lord Jesus. Amen.