Genesis 39 - Just Say No!

Have you ever wanted to do something you really knew you shouldn’t? Like maybe you’ve had a big test at school, but you didn’t really want to study for it, so you ended up playing games with your friends instead. And if that’s not bad enough, because you didn’t study the night before, then you decide you’re just going to take a small peak at the test of the person beside you. And then that first peak becomes just copying their answers!

There’s a word for this: temptation. Temptation is something we all deal with, and it doesn’t just have to be about tests. We can be tempted to do all kinds of wrong things – to do things God has said we should never do.

And sadly guys, sometimes when we’re tempted to lie or cheat or do any of those other bad things we’re not supposed to do, we give into temptation. We decide we’re going to do that thing even though it’s wrong.

We might even be tempted by people close to us. Friends can tell us to do things we know are wrong, and we’ll do it because we don’t want our friends to think we’re boring or chickens. We know we shouldn’t do those things, but we do them anyways!

So how do we avoid that? How do we avoid giving into temptation? Well actually, the answer is simpler than you think. And to help us figure out that answer, we’re going to look at Part 3 of Joseph’s story today!

To quickly recap last week, Joseph’s brothers didn’t always like Joseph. They didn’t like that Joseph got treated better than the rest of them, so they decided to get rid of their brother. They sent him away with some people going down to Egypt where Joseph was bought as a slave.

That’s right, a slave! Joseph had to do all this hard work for some random guy, and he didn’t even get paid for it. That doesn’t seem fair, does it? But sadly, that’s what happened. And we can only imagine what Joseph was thinking as the traders took him away to Egypt.

How did I end up in this mess? Joseph thought. I knew my brothers didn’t always like me, but I never thought they’d do something like this! Will I ever go home? Will I ever get to see my family again? Oh God, what are you doing? Why are you letting all this happen?

It would be years before Joseph would get answers to some of these questions. And he would have to go through quite a lot before those answers came. But Joseph was patient and trusted God through all these tough times. And thankfully, Joseph’s early days in Egypt weren’t all bad. Joseph’s master was named Potiphar, and he was a fairly kind master. And pretty rich. He was no Pharaoh, but Potiphar was important enough in Egypt that he had lots of servants and slaves working for him.

But Potiphar realized pretty quickly there was something special about Joseph. No matter what job Potiphar made Joseph do, Joseph was always successful. If Joseph was in charge of cleaning the floors, they were the shiniest floors Potiphar had ever seen. If Potiphar asked Joseph to sell some old furniture at the local market, Joseph came back with more money than Potiphar was expecting. If he asked Joseph to count all the bags of grain in the back storage room, Joseph did it quicker and more accurately than any of his other servants!

As a result, Potiphar made Joseph his special attendant. This means that Joseph was in charge of Potiphar’s house. It was Joseph’s job to make sure the house was clean, that there was always enough food, and that all the other slaves and servants were doing their jobs properly. And the Bible tells us that “with Joseph in charge, Potiphar didn’t have to worry about anything except the food he ate” (Genesis 39:6, NIrV).

I’m sure that Joseph still missed home. It couldn’t have been easy being so far away from everyone he knew and loved. But even so, Joseph slowly started to be happy. He didn’t understand why God had let his brothers send him to Egypt, but Joseph wasn’t mad anymore. He still had questions, but he trusted that God knew best, even if Joseph didn’t get it all.

Anyways, things were going pretty good for Joseph except for one little thing. You see, Potiphar’s wife was also impressed with Joseph, but for different reasons. She thought Joseph looked handsome. And the longer that Joseph was around, the more Potiphar’s wife wanted to spend time with Joseph. But pretty soon, she wanted to do more than just spend time with him. Soon, she was looking for ways to be alone with Joseph so she could… well… kiss him.

“But she’s married to Potiphar!” you might be saying, and you’re right. That’s what so wrong about this. Potiphar’s wife wanted to commit adultery, a fancy word meaning she wanted to break her marriage promises with her husband and be with Joseph instead. God tells us this is wrong, and Joseph knew that.

So Joseph did what any guy does when he doesn’t want to spend time with a girl. He avoided her. Anytime he saw Potiphar’s wife coming, Joseph would try to go a different way. She would ask to spend time with him, and Joseph would suddenly remember that he had some bags of grain that needed delivering to the storeroom.

But Potiphar’s wife didn’t give up. Day after day she would track Joseph down and try to get him to do what he knew was wrong. And day after day, Joseph would get away from her as fast as he could. Joseph didn’t want to hurt his master and he wanted to obey God, so he continued to do what was right, no matter how many times she asked.

But then one day, this all changed. Potiphar’s wife was fed up with waiting, so she found a time when Joseph was all alone doing some work. She snuck into the room, threw her arms around Joseph, and said, “Finally. We’re alone, just the two of us.”

Joseph’s eyes grew wide. His mouth fell open, and he blushed a little bit. Now Joseph could have easily given into temptation here. Nobody was around. Potiphar would never find out. Joseph probably could have betrayed his master and gone about his day like nothing had happened.

But Joseph knew better. He knew that God didn’t want him to betray Potiphar and that doing what Potiphar’s wife wanted him to do would be wrong. So without even saying a word, Joseph took off running as fast as he could.

Now we can’t always literally run away when we are tempted. If you’re in the middle of a test, you can’t just get up from your desk and run out of the room when you’re tempted to cheat. Actually, that would probably make your teacher think you were cheating.

But Joseph does give us an example here of what we should do when we’re tempted. Say no. It sounds super easy, but it can actually be really tough when we want to do the thing we’re not supposed to do. But when we’re tempted, the right thing for us to do is say no, and to say no as many times as it takes. Potiphar’s wife didn’t just tempt Joseph once. She tempted him lots of times, and Joseph said no each and every time.

There was just one problem. As he was running away, Potiphar’s wife grabbed Joseph’s coat. It slipped right off his back, but Joseph refused to go back and get it. He knew that he had to say no, and he wasn’t going to put himself back in a place where Potiphar’s wife could tempt him again.

But because he didn’t go back, Potiphar’s wife had Joseph’s coat. And now, she was angry. So she decided to get revenge on Joseph in her own way. She called for some of the other servants and said, “Look! Joseph has been brought here to make fun of us! He came in here and tried to make me betray my husband and to make me kiss him! But then he heard me scream and ran out of here, leaving his coat behind!”

The lie quickly spread throughout Potiphar’s house. And Potiphar’s wife made sure she greeted her husband as soon as he came home to tell him this lie too. Potiphar was furious! He believed his wife and immediately had Joseph arrested.

Now you might be thinking, “So doing the right thing got Joseph in trouble?” Unfortunately, yeah. That can happen sometimes, but that shouldn’t stop us from doing the right thing. Joseph went to jail, but for something he didn’t do. Potiphar’s wife was the one who did all the wrong, but God was pleased with Joseph for being faithful to Him even when it got Joseph in trouble.

Our main point for today is We can always say no to doing what God doesn’t like. We might try and make excuses for why it’s okay to give into temptation. We can convince ourselves that nobody will ever find out. Or, like Joseph, we might be afraid that by doing the right thing, we might actually get into trouble. But no matter what excuses we come up with, God still wants us to say no to temptation. That’s something we can always do, no matter what we tell ourselves. In fact, the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “[God] will not let you be tempted any more than you can take. But when you are tempted, God will give you a way out. Then you will be able to deal with it.”

Did you catch that? The reason we can always say no to doing what God doesn’t like is because God will give us the strength, the courage, and anything else it takes to say no. He will give us a way out so that we can deal with temptation, no matter how difficult it may seem.

So that’s where we’re going to leave our story for today. Joseph is in jail, but he had still done what was right in God’s eyes. He had said no to temptation. And we’ll see next week how, because Joseph continued to trust in God, God used Joseph to do some absolutely incredible things. But more on that then. 

~Brentagious