10-19-2025 - LESSONS IN GOD'S WAITING ROOM -(Joseph series) Genesis 40

 MESSAGE BY PASTOR ROB INRIG

FROM BETHANY BAPTIST IN RICHMOND, BC.

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I invite you to pray together: O Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need: We humbly beseech thee to behold, visit, and relieve thy sick servants for whom our prayers are desired. Look upon them with the eyes of thy mercy ( Vicky O, Nancy R, Tere G, Liz N, Stevie A, Socrates D, Sara's mom H, Margarita G,   Rosy Ch, Patricia L. Lina J.  Magda- Laci M.  Gloria F, Miguel A H. Silvia H.)   Comfort them with a sense of thy goodness; preserve them from the temptations of the enemy; and give them patience under his affliction. In thy good time, restore them to health, and enable them to lead the residue of their life in thy fear, and to thy glory; and grant that finally they may dwell with thee in life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

You can add names from family and friends who need prayer.

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I can’t speak for you, but I hate God’s waiting rooms, when He takes us into seemingly dead end places and says, Wait here. Places where we anticipate we’ll be there for 10 minutes or so but instead, turn out to be 10 months, or even 10 years.

Places that have us sidelined while others go merrily about their lives. 

Like many of you, I can do the 10 minutes, even a half hour if the situation warrants, but years?   I’m not wired for that.  Few of us are, instead we are conditioned for the immediate.   

But God not coming to us in the immediate, instead making us wait:

Waiting as He shapes us 

Waiting as He builds our character 

Waiting as He tests our character

Waiting until our lives are no longer based on our demands and our desires. Waiting until God is enthroned, not us.

These waiting times challenging who we are and how we will respond.  Challenging us to determine who we will become. Will we be driven deeper into God or walk far from Him?  Will we be people who live based on what we see or disciples who follow, trusting on who He IS?  

As we visit Joseph this week, we are taken into these places.  Places where he has fallen from privilege to a life changing pit not once but on two separate occasions.  And just when he thinks the worst of the past is behind him, the past raises its head again, putting him in places where he must decide for who and for what he is to live. 

He thrown into places that are confusing and hard because life isn’t supposed to unfold this way for those who do the right thing, follow the right path, serve the right God.  Places that seem out of place with any perceptions we have about what following God should look like. 

I doubt Joseph could make sense of it - experiencing what he did for doing the right thing:

the right thing when dad said, Go find out how your brothers are doing, but going even though this mission is walking into a vipers’ nest, but going because dad asked

the right thing when temptation shouted, Stay – but going, actually running, because everything he believed in depended on it

the right thing when temptation shouted, Stay – but going, actually running, because everything he believed in depended on it

the right thing when opportunity tempted, Who will know? – but going because he would know and more importantly, God would know what staying would mean. 

In many ways the story we are looking at today, needs little explanation, two men of rank have violated Pharaoh’s trust.  These men are far more than servants rather they are people of importance who in all probability, served as his trusted advisors.  Given that Pharaoh was furious enough to throw them into prison, it’s likely their wrongs are significant.  Beyond serving food and drink, these men were to ensure the safety of what Pharaoh was offered and for whatever reason, it had been determined they failed in what they were employed to do.  

But while these men are in the spotlight in today’s story, they play a minor role alongside the one central to God’s story and God’s plan.  As we enter events, Joseph is in prison. For how long, we’re not sure but we know it’s a long time.  We do know Joseph arrived in Egypt when he was 17 and when he leaves prison he is 30.  The in between time, before Potiphar’s wife decided she could take what she liked, is unknown.

It’s fair to assume that Joseph’s jail time is in the range of 10 or 11 years.  We know for certain that two years go by after Joseph successfully conveys the meaning of the prisoners’ dreams.  Surely Joseph believed that after the favorable report he gave the butler that he would be reinstated into Pharaoh’s service, Joseph’s time of waiting would finally be over. 

And then 2 more years of hearing footsteps coming down the hall, expecting this would be the day, but it never was. So the question? - what has God been doing in Joseph’s life during this time and what do we take from it that God is wanting to accomplish in us?  

1^{sT WE ARE TO REMAIN COMMITTED IN OUR WAITING TIMES - places where GOD does His FAITH WORK in our lives.}

Don’t miss it – in his imprisonment, Joseph was doing hard time.  He has lost everything. He has been stripped of his family, his heritage, his culture, his identity, his rights and his reputation.  None of what has occurred to him, was due to his actions. 

Some commentators attribute Joseph’s suffering to his arrogance.  I mean, it sure seems arrogant and foolish to tell your brothers - older brothers at that - that they are going to bow down before you?  Surely he should have kept this dream to himself. But - is it not strange that God would discipline this ‘foolish and arrogant’ behaviour by giving him another dream that communicates the same message but even more strongly? 

Other commentators suggest that Joseph needed to lose his sense of entitlement and brash ways he had used to help him survive his brothers’ hatred. Interesting theories around which to build a sermon but Scripture gives no indication that any of this is true. I suspect that in sharing the dreams, Joseph is actually acting more faithful than foolish.

What is true is that God takes him through a process that strips him of the old so he can wear the new - strips him of haunting reminders of his brothers freely expressed hatred.  Strips him of the scheming and violence that characterized his family’s DNA.  Strips him of self-reliance that’s allowed him to rise above the obstacles he’s had to face. Strips him so he can be fitted for the purpose God has for him. It’s not the ways of the Egyptians he needs to know nor the ways of the royal court.  He needs to be fitted in the ways of God.

Figuratively, old garments had to be cast aside before new garments could fit. Literally, that’s what Pharoah will do in when an unchallenged new robe is placed on Joseph’s back :41 – a robe better than the one he had known before.  This robe conveys position and honor unlike the envy and contempt his previous one earned.  And then Pharaoh’s ring was placed on Joseph’s finger bestowing power and wealth. All Pharaoh’s resources are his.  

It’s a similar picture Jesus gives us in Luke 15 at the return of the prodigal son when the Father removed the tattered clothes of the son who was lost and places on him a new robe, His celebration robe.  A ring bearing His Father’s authority was placed on his finger – his time of begging is gone and as sandals were slipped on his feet, the picture was complete – the days of being a nameless slave, messed up as badly as he had, are no more — YOU ARE A SON with all the rights and possession of the Father. 

Your identity is the one GOD gives.

That is the picture God is preparing Joseph for as he waits in God’s waiting room. It is the picture God wants you and I to hold – that when we repent of our sin at the foot of the Cross, we are made new - not by our will but by His. Our robe is Christ given, Christ wrapped, Christ protected; our authority placed in us by the indwelling Spirit of God when in repentance we came to Jesus – all the riches of Christ are ours – we are joint heirs with Christ – His inheritance is our inheritance; our feet – no longer a slave, instead free, forgiven, faultless.  

The Joseph waiting out his hours in a cell doesn’t know this is where his future is heading.  Through His faithfulness to God, he has been made new but he is still waiting to take possession of what that new will be.  How could he have imagined that one day he would stand in front of Pharoah not waiting to be judged but standing in confidence as one valued and loved?  That he wouldn’t just be set free, he would be set free to rule.  A prisoner one day, a kingdom ruler the next.  I wonder how we would be different if we truly understood that this is what Jesus has for us? 

But for now, Joseph and us, living in the ‘in-between’ time, waiting as God shaped:      

SHAPING HIM so he would be   •  committed to live a life that pleased God

SHAPING HIM so he knew who his Master was – beyond Jacob, beyond Potiphar, beyond Pharoah - GOD! It’s not that Joseph didn’t know this, it’s just that he didn’t know it as he’d need to know it for what God had next.  Knowing it, not just when God provided blessings, but also knowing it when hard times come.   

Sometimes the waiting times God allows us to go through are not merely rest stops where we re-gather perspective and re-stoke energy.  Sometimes His waiting times involve stripping away much of what has defined us.  Stripping away the things we hold to and more importantly, that hold us.  Waiting times where God stops us to ask:

Are we living for the right purposes?

Are we living with the right perspective?

Are we living with the right passion – for His priorities not ours?

Joseph needing right priorities as he prepares to live in a place of power among a culture that’s opposed to God.  That he was set apart to be God’s person in a culture that worshipped every god except the One who truly is God. It’s the same Christ-centred commitment we need as we live in our culture. Scripture telling us, No man can serve 2 masters, either you will hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Mtth 6:24

2^nd we are to learn servanthood in our waiting times – where GOD does some EGO WORK in our lives.

Joseph’s coloured coat was a sign of privilege and favour. His brothers wore the work clothes, he wore the robe. They had the callouses, he had the comfort.  In places of privilege like that, it’s easy to remain distant from the needs that surround. 

So when in verse 4, it says that Joseph was put in charge of the butler and the baker, for Joseph that meant serving, looking after their needs. Serving not being served.    

Working backward in the story, we could surmise that Joseph saw Pharaoh’s butler and baker as his way of getting out of prison.  But despite their previous high station in life, now they were no more than prisoners who’d fallen from grace. 

Seeing them, Joseph certainly could have responded, In this place, your previous place of service earns you nothing.  They got what they deserved BUT we are told, Joseph noticed their downcast spirit.  Joseph not wallowing in his own pain, but seeing the pain of others, he served.  

Joseph tending wo wounds,  hearing stories of wrongs done and bringing comfort to those in pain.  All the while he could have been infected by their wounds and embittered by the pain. But he wasn’t.  Even here, in a place that could be thought of as the unlikely, the Lord with him.  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. Gen 39:21-23.  

Were it me, I’m sure my response would have been, Great God but my life goal has never been to have number 1 status in the prison in which I find myself.  I’m faithful – so where’s it got me?  I truly believe in You - but how has that spared me?  I know my priorities are to live fully for You but my suffering is no less in knowing that.  I shouldn’t be in this place, so get me out of here!  Out of the pain I’m in.  Out of the mess I feel.

Is it possible this is where you find yourself this morning?  Forgotten.  Unseen.  Unloved.  It’s easy to think that when we’re sitting in our prison.  

But in those places we think we’re on hold and God is distant, God comes.  Not always in the ways we like.  There’s no voice from heaven, no writing on the wall. Just a call to faithful servanthood – ignored by many but not missed by the One who took upon Himself the form of a servant and became obedient unto death.  In things that are hard, Joseph being schooled in what it means to live committed to please God and committed to faithfully serve.

But what’s incredibly hard for us in times like these is the painful reality that God’s timetable is different than ours. Our plan is for God to put a quick end to our pain; His plan is to accomplish what He purposes.  Joseph having to experience long times of suffering and injustice that one day will be used to bring rescue to a nation.  Though he couldn’t have known it, his suffering will be used by God to achieve the deliverance of many.  Which brings us to the 3^rd we are to learn, that we are to be:

SOFTENED IN OUR WAITING TIMES - where God does His HEART WORK in our lives

In order to lay a foundation for this, I need to step outside Joseph’s story for a moment and go to where God appeared to Moses telling him to lead the Israelites out of slavery. Moses asks, Suppose I go to the Israelites and say, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I tell them?   Then God said to Moses, I AM who I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you  Ex 3:13,14.

God’s I AM name conveying He is above all, His existence, His power, His presence is not contingent upon anyone or anything.  In a time to come, Jesus will also refer to Himself as I Am when He says, Before Abraham was, I AM Jn 8:58.  The Jews, knowing that in this, Jesus is declaring Himself to be God and so they take up stones to kill Him.

So why is this relevant to God doing a heart work in Joseph’s life and ours?  God softens the hearts of those who will bow - to His Power - yes.  To His Supremacy - yes.  But I want us to notice something that speaks to the greatness and assurance of His Presence, His Everlasting Presence.  That our God, knows the beginning and the end because He authored the beginning and He knows that for His children there will be no end.  Our God who had no beginning is Almighty God.  Notice, Jesus doesn’t say, Before Abraham, I was.  He says, Before Abraham, I AM.  Present before the mess, before the chaos, before the pain who is also present now in all those things wanting to draw us close, present to take us through, present to take us where He wants us to go.  Present in our now and present in our then.  He, Our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble ... our eternal God is our refuge, underneath are His everlasting arms   Ps 46:1, Deut 33:26.  

Our God wanting us to know His great love for us - knowing our hurts, our pain, our dreams but in these, also waning to sensitize us to come alongside the needy and powerless. Sometimes these needy appearing differently than how they present.  That underneath the self-assured and confident, these are ones looking for meaning and identity that’s based on more than what they do, what they’ve achieved or what they’ve won.  

This learning would serve Joseph well in a time to come.  He sensitized to a need that easily could have been academic for him.  After all, when he was living with Jacob – no provision was denied him and even as Potiphar’s slave, everything in the house was his.  

If he had remained in Potiphar’s house, there’s a good chance he would have been inclined to listen to the demands of the wealthy rather than the whispers and tears of the needy.  But God knows there’s coming a time when Joseph’s going to be engulfed in need.  People who would come to him who have had everything stripped away.  

But in God’s waiting room, Joseph had received a PhD in compassion.  He’d need that later when his hand distributed food, but he was in fact distributing hope to those who had no hope, a future to those who couldn’t see past the bankruptcy of their present.  

When famine hit, they would need a provider who could understand the needs of those easily passed over, those easily dismissed.  Those stripped of hope and freedom.  Those who would never again feel the embrace of love or the laughter of innocence and freedom. 

No one was better equipped to give this than Joseph who we are told in Psalm 105 knew what is was like to have bruised feet, his neck bound in iron. Treated this way unjustly, nothing that should have put him in the dungeon, in the pit or on the slave auction.  

In countless ways, the story of Joseph is a foretelling of the story of Jesus who would endure the worst of what man could give in order to give us the best of what God has for those who put their trust in the Jesus, our Redeemer.  He who was despised and rejected of man, who suffered unjustly, for no fault of His own.  He of whom we are told, was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed.  We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all...  He is the propitiation the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not only for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world  Is 53:5,6; 1 Jn 2:2. 

In his waiting time, Joseph became a hope giver, placed into a world that was surrounded by need.  Filled with people who are broken.  He molded by God so when the pressures of life squeezed in, what squeezed out was 1) a genuine awareness of need; 2) a heart that had been schooled in compassion and 3) a life of integrity and faithfulness.  All rooted a relationship with the everlasting GOD who knew him, loved him and was present with him even in times he did not understand and could not see.

Let these same things be said of us because of what Jesus has done in our lives.  A hope giver when life doesn’t make sense.  A healer from the pain and sin that rises up to doit’s best to rip us apart.  So hear God’s word to you, For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Jer 29:11  

His promise even in those times we do not understand, The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.  It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord  Lam 3:25.26. 

The overwhelming presence of God – Faith in God, Hope in God and Total Dependence on God - all because of what has been given us in the saving blood of Jesus.

That above all else was what God was

working into Joseph’s life, He wanting

us to stay God focused in our waiting times -

God doing His throne work in our lives.

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