The Story of Joseph - When you Feel Forgotten - Genesis 40

Well, good morning, South Church. Is it good to be in the house this morning? Amen. Right. It's good to be here today. You know, I was going to thinking about it. I was like, maybe I should play a joke on them and tell them my my twin was actually the one singing and I'm actually the other twin. But hey, it's good to be here. My name, we haven't met you yet. My name is Daniel Ortiz. I'm one of the pastors here at South Sub Church. If you're online, welcome. more so glad that you have decided to worship with us today. You know, last week we've been in a series of Joseph, right? We've been learning about his life. We've been learning about different obstacles. We've learning along the journey of every single thing that has gone throughout his life. And you know, today I want to just talk to you about something that we have all experienced in our walk in our life, right? Every single maybe moment, every single day, we experience this in some shape or form and that is delays, right? We all experience delays. you know, we we experience delays whether it's at the airport, right? You're waiting and you're like, you know, my flight is on time and everything looks like it's going well and then I don't know where you would get you get that text and it says, "Hey, your flight's delayed 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, an hour. You know what? Guess what? Your flight's canceled." Right? That's Has that happened to anybody in this room today? It's happened to me a couple times, right? Or maybe you experienced delays when you know you decide that it it's a great idea to go to Costco on a Saturday. You're like, I'm only going to walk in for one thing. All I need is is a 24 pack of eggs and that's all I'm going to get. And then next thing you know, it feels like everything is free, right? Like, why are these people's cards so full? Or maybe you've experienced this today. You're in the car, you're ready to go. You're like, man, I'm excited to get to church. I'm going to drop off the kids early and maybe I can even swing by and grab some McDonald's. But then you're in the car waiting and somebody is not quite ready. And you're honking the horn. I I saw a couple elbows get thrown out right here. Right? Nobody experienced that, right? But everything that we do, sometimes it can cause certain delays. And here's another one. Have you ever been stuck in traffic? Like you put it on ways and it says, "Yeah, it's only going to take you 15 minutes to get there." And the next thing you know, it's bumper to bumper and everything's a complete haul. What if I told you that the average person actually spends about 50 hours of year in this what we would call today delay? And then I was kind of doing some calculations. So I talked to my good friend Chad GPT and I asked it, you know, if somebody lives up to 80 years old, how many days have they lived? And it said that they have lived over 29,000 days. And I said, 'But what if we took the average of the amount of days that we spend in a year in this so-called delay? And it told me something pretty incredible. It said this, that out of those 29,000 days that an 80-year-old will live, one year of those would be considered a year of living in delay. Imagine that. One entire year of your life and you are in this what we would call this situation a delay. But let's be honest, we can handle those type of delays, right? Whether it's traffic, whether it's it's going to Costco, whether it's, you know, waiting for somebody in the car, those delays are totally fine. But what about the delays that happen in our lives? What about the delays that are happening every single day, every moment over things that we've prayed for, over answers that we're waiting for God to to respond to, right? We've knocked and the door hasn't been opened. We're waiting on what the diagnosis is going to be and it feels like we we are hearing nothing. We look left, we look right, and it looks like and it feels like everybody around us is moving in the direction of where God wants them to go, but we feel like we're still stuck in neutral, right? Those are those are the hard delays because those are the delays of life. And that's where Genesis 40 is going to meet us today. But before, I want to kind of take you back before we look forward. Last week we were in Genesis chapter 39 and we saw Joseph's lives take a dramatic turn, right? He was sold into slavery by his own brothers. He's sold off into a foreign land and then he finally gets to go to a man named Piper's house and it seems like everything is finally starting to go in the right direction, right? He has favor. He's trusted. They put him in a high place where he's actually overseeing everything in the household. It feels like finally he's going to be out of this season of delay. But then something tragic happens, right? See, Piper's wife is being consistent in wanting to sleep with Joseph, the 17-year-old that we learned about last week. And what does Joseph do? He flees from temptation, right? He doesn't allow the situation, right? When in doubt, he gets out. He pulls away. He retreats. But even though Joseph has done nothing wrong, he's done nothing to deserve what is coming to him, he is still thrown in prison for a crime that he did not commit, for something that he's innocent. And even though he has heard and he's seen all these different dreams and everything that God wants to do in his life, when we get to chapter 40 right now, he's in prison. He's forgotten. He's delayed. And it doesn't seem like anything is moving forward. So, if you have your Bibles this morning, we're going to be in Genesis chapter 40. And what I love it was what we left off last week is there was a line at the end of the phrase and it said this that the Lord was with Joseph and no matter what was going on in his life the Lord was with Joseph. So let's read God's word together. It says this says sometime later the cup bearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master the king of Egypt. Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cup bearer and the chief baker, and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard in the same prison where Joseph was confined. The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph and he attended them. Right? All right. So, we get to this place where the chief cup bearer and the baker, we don't know why they're thrown into prison, but they did something that offended Pharaoh so much that he decides, you know what? It's time to get behind bars. Like, I was thinking about this. Maybe, you know, the chief cup bearer, Pharaoh was like, "You know what? I really want a Coke Zero. Like, that's what I've been craving all day. I want a Coke Zero." And then the cup bearer brought him a Pepsi. Like, I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty mad about that if somebody brought me a Pepsi when asked for a Coke Zero. Or or the baker, you know what? He was like making some sourdough and instead of putting salt, he put stevia or sugar, right? And he totally threw the flavor off. Like maybe that's an offense, right? We don't know what they did, but we know that they offended Pharaoh so much that he decides to throw them into prison. And you see, here's the thing that we have to think about. Pharaoh is the law, right? Once you're thrown in, he's not like there's no parole. He didn't read them their Miranda rights. He didn't tell them like, "Hey, you you have a first call to lawyer." No, he told him like, "You're in prison." And hey, if you're forgotten, well, too bad, so sad. This is where you're going to end up. And that is the exact same prison that Joseph is in. But you see, what happens is one day, Joseph notices that something isn't quite right with these two men. He notices that something is off, that they look sad, they look worried, like he can tell that something is bothering them. And what does Joseph do? He goes up to these two men and he asks them like, "Why do you look so sad today? What's going on?" Right? He cares for them. He goes to them and asks them, "What can I do?" And the two men tell him this. You know, we had a dream last night, but there is no one that can interpret this dream. No one can tell us what this dream means. And it's bothering us. like we we we want to know what this dream means, what it represents. And then Joseph tells him this. He says, "Well, do not interpretations belong to God. Like, tell me your dream, and God will tell me what they mean." So the cup bearer tells him, "Well, Joseph, here is my dream. I saw a vine and in that vine there were three different branches. And when those three branches when they were there, they suddenly started to bloom and they gave grapes. And in my hand, I was holding Pharaoh's cup. So what I did was I grabbed each grape and I started to fill Pharaoh's cup with the juice. And then Joseph tells him, "This is what your dream means. In three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head and he will restore you to your former position. But I want you to lean in with me for a second because this is what Joseph tells him back. He says, "Remember me when you go back to Pharaoh. Mention my name. Tell him that I have done nothing wrong, that I don't deserve to be here. Do me this kindness and remember me. And you see, because the baker heard that the cup bearer's dream was positive, he said, "Well, you know what? I also had a dream." So then Joseph tells him, "Well, tell me my tell me your dream then." And then the baker says, "On my head there were three baskets and they were filled with, you name it, sourdough, ponder, right? Cheesecake, all these different things that were for Pharaoh. But then something happened. birds started coming and they started picking and eating at the bread that were in the baskets that were supposed to be for Pharaoh. And then Joseph tells him this. This is what your dream means. In 3 days, you will be executed. And it just so happens that in 3 days it was Pharaoh's birthday. And Pharaoh went up and he lifted the head of the cup bear. And then he lifted the head of the baker. He restored the cup bearer to his former position. But the baker, in other words, he offed him, right? He was done. And then we get to this final place, right? The chapter ends like this. All it says is this. Yet the chief cuff bear did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. He didn't delay him. He didn't think about him in a different way. He says he completely forgot him. And here's the first point I want you to write down this morning, and it is this. God's delays should not diminish my faithfulness. I'm going to say it again. God's delays should not diminish my faithfulness. You see, from early on, as we've been reading over and over over Genesis, right, Joseph's life is is what I would call a series of unfortunate events. Like, he is his his father's favorite son. He is the poster child. Like, his dad loves him, right? So much that he gives him a coat of of many different colors. And Joseph has had all these dreams and these visions of how God is going to exalt him. But what happens is that Joseph's brothers, they get jealous. They hate him so much because of that that they want to kill him, right? Their own flesh, their own brother. They would rather destroy their own brother. But instead of that, they sell him off into slavery. And then Joseph is is thrown into this foreign land. And it finally seems like at Piper's house that things are finally going to start to change. But instead, he gets thrown into prison. Right? The man that had all these dreams and visions of God lifting him up, he is now in prison for something that he did not commit. Right? And I can look at that and I can say, you know what, Joseph has every single right to be angry with God. Like, God, how could you do this? Like, I have served these people. I have served these men in prison. I'm innocent. I have done everything that you have asked me to do. And yet, look where it has taken me. look what it has produced for me. But you see, Joseph doesn't do that. No matter what his situation is, no matter the room that he's in, he has still chosen to be faithful to God. He has still chosen to serve others. He has still chosen to do everything that is right even though nothing around him is the way it should be. And when I was listening to this, it kind of made me remember a story in my own life that I've lived. You see, growing up, there were a lot of moments where things were very, very tight at home. And I remember one specific day in my life, like honestly, like it was yesterday. It is ingrained in my mind. I remember my brother and I got home one day and we went to our fridge and we opened it and there was nothing in there. And I remember my mom walked in and and she looked at us and she could tell that we that we were worried that we didn't quite understand what was going on. And she walked away and she grabbed a piece of paper. And then I saw her grab a marker. And then she went into the kitchen and she started writing a note down. And my brother and I, we were like trying to see what she was writing, but we couldn't quite see it. And then she walked over and she put it right on her fridge and it simply said this. For my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory. And that taught me something about God. It taught me that God is faithful in empty seasons just as he is faithful in full seasons. Right? And that is exactly what Joseph is doing. Because what we've been reminded last week is that no matter what was happening in Joseph's life, the Lord was with Joseph. And let me just tell you this that just as the Lord was with Joseph, he is also with you. So it doesn't matter what you're walking through, we have to be faithful to God because he is with us every single moment, every single step of our lives. And sometimes even when it is hard for us to see what he is doing, when it is hard for us to see his purpose, when it is hard for us to see the doors that he is opening, he is still doing something. Even when we can't see it, God is still moving in us because he is still with us. Right? And his promises are yes and amen. Because you know sometimes what we do is we assume that if something looks empty then it must be. If something looks dry, then there must be nothing happening. But even when there is drought, there can still be a harvest. And it's not always visible. It's not always immediate. It's not always when it's most convenient for us, but God is still doing something. I don't know if you've ever tried to pull a weed, but man, those those roots go deep and they go wide. And here's what I've come to understand. that God is doing his foundational work in our season of delay. He is preparing us for what is coming even when we can't see the outcome. Because even when Joseph's circumstances, they may look like drought on the outside, but God is still producing something in him. Because you see, faithfulness doesn't depend on fruitfulness. Faithfulness depends on presence. And if God is with you, it doesn't matter what is happening around you, right? If he is for you, then he is the one that is going to lift you up. Like it would have been easy for him to say, "God, look, I've done everything you've asked me, and this is the what I have to show for it. Like, I might as well turn my back. I might as well do whatever I want to do. But here's the thing." Even if he's forgotten, even if he is in a season of delay, even if he feels like God is absent, the silence of men cannot silence the faithfulness of God. Here's the second thing I want you to write down this morning, and it is this. It is God's delays are not God's denials. Right? The cup bearer forgot Joseph. He didn't forget him. He completely forgot him because it looked like for him, you know what? Finally, I have somebody that's going to help me. It's like he's been g given a lifeline. He's been given an opportunity to finally get out. It feels like a door is finally starting to open for him. Like, you have to feel that the heaviness of that moment, right? He's been in jail for a long time. like he's 17 when he gets in and we think he's roughly about 28 to 29 years old right now and he's been over a decade for something that he did not do and all he tells him is remember my kindness remember me help me get me out of this place and he is completely forgotten it feels like suddenly there's a there's a turning point in him but you see here's the thing that sometimes Even in our own lives, what feels like a delay can also feel like a denial. But that's not what's happening. God is doing something in him. See, because God is still working when people stop remembering. Now, I want to tell you a story about how in my wife's life, in my life, we felt like a delay from God felt like a denial from him. You know, we, my wife and I, we had been trying for over a year to have kids. And it felt like every single moment that was passing by, it felt like honestly like that that dream that we had was getting further and further and further away from us. Like I remember spending so many nights in my in our room where where I would just cry out to God and I would pray to him and I would be like, "God, like I honestly don't understand what you're doing. Like I don't understand where you are going. I don't understand what this delay is. Like it feels like you are denying the very thing that we've been praying for over a year for. And I was honest to God like God, we are so ready to love. We we have our hearts full of just anticipation to love on the child that you'll give us. But it felt like God was simply saying no. But see, there was one truth that my wife and I, we kept remembering and kept speaking to each other over and over and over again. And it was just simple words. in God's perfect timing. Even in that moment of delay, we kept telling ourselves in God's perfect timing. And you see, last year during Christmas Eve, I was driving to church that that day and and we had thought, I mean, no no news is good news, right? That's what we thought. And we had already kind of pictured it in our heads. We were going to tell our family like we had a gift ready. everything was ready to go. Like I could imagine their faces just glowing of of excitement and gratitude and thankfulness and like we're like, "Hey, you're going to be grandparents. Like it's finally going to happen." And suddenly I get a phone call while I'm driving here. And my wife says, "We're not pregnant." Let me just tell you, I I pulled my car over and I was really angry because it felt like the delay was actually a denial. And I thought to myself, God, how can it be that I'm about to go into your church and sing about this newborn king and sing about a child of God coming down and becoming flesh and God, you won't even give me ours? Like, how can I even sing to that when God, you won't even make a way for us? And it felt like God was was denying what we wanted for him to do. But then I had to remember once again the word that we had been speaking over and over and over again in God's perfect timing. And we come back from from visiting family and and in January we found out we were pregnant and now we're expecting a baby boy in September. Right? that that is what God can do. But let me just tell you that in the moment that we lived in in that walk in that journey, man, it felt like God was saying no. It felt like the delay, we would never get out of that season of delay. But here's what I have come to understand about God. Just because God doesn't move today doesn't mean God won't move tomorrow. I'm gonna say it again. Just because God doesn't move today doesn't mean God won't move tomorrow. But you see in in Joseph's life, what he is understanding, what he is learning is that yes, he he is in this prison. And yes, he is in this place of of not knowing what is going to happen. And he could have easily checked out. He could have said, "You know what, God? Woe to me. I'm going to count down the days. It's 2,601, 2,62, 3,000 days in prison." He could have easily have checked out, but instead he chooses to serve even when his situation is limited. He chooses to serve even when it doesn't make sense. He has an eye for these people. He knows that something is wrong. And he says, you know what? Even in limitation, I'm going to live out my calling of what God has called me to do. Even when I can't see the reason, I'm still going to choose to live in the purpose that God has for my life. Because you see, there's two things that we can do in our delay. The first thing that we can do in our delay is we can push us. It can push us to depend on God. Right? My delay can push me to depend on God. I can continue to serve. I can continue to trust. Even when I don't see what is happening, even when sometimes I doubt, even when sometimes I fear, I can still choose to rely on God. I can still choose to serve him even in the midst of uncertainty. But the second thing that I can do is this delay can also pull me away from God. I can check out. I can say, "God, well, it's not happening the way that I thought it would." Or, "God, I don't see you doing anything, so you must not be working. God, you've been silent. You've been absent. So maybe, you know what? I need to put my trust in something else." But that's not what Joseph does. Because you see what he understands is that God is not absent in his delay. God is active in his delay. Even when he can't see it, even when he can't understand it, he is still being who God has called him to be. Because you see, it means that his prison, it's not wasted time. He's not there just because God was like, "Sorry, dude. You got to wait a couple years. Like, that's that's what you're gonna do." No, you see delay is shaping space because God is not just doing something through Joseph. God is doing something around him, right? Something that can't be formed in comfort, but something that cannot also be formed in ease, but something that only comes in waiting. So, here's the truth about this. Here's what Genesis 40, here's what it all is really is that just as God is not wasting Joseph's delay, he is also not wasting your delay. Because what often we see as restriction is God actually forming us into who he wants us to be. See, when it looks like nothing is happening, God is actually positioning us to something better. A few weeks ago, my wife and I, we went to to Vegas. My brother lives out there, and I have an amazing niece and nephew. She's six and he's three. And we ended up going to an arcade one of the days. And they had that that claw machine, right? You you go down, you grab a he calls it a fluffy, and then you pull it out and you get your gift, right? And as a good uncle, I was like, "Dude, here's a 20. Have fun." Right? I had to do it. And so I gave him a token and he as soon as I gave him the token, he puts it in. He pushed the button. The claw goes to the exit, grabs nothing and comes up and he's like, "I lost." Like, "What happened?" Like, "Come on, dude." So then I told him, "Hey, we have to position this, right? If we want to get the fluffy, like there was a Spider-Man that he was like on it." He's like, "I need to get that one." So I told him, "All right, let's let's move the joystick. Let's position it to where we need it to be." We got it lined up. We push the button. It comes down. Proud moment here. If you ever need me to go with you, I'll go with you. We didn't grab one. We didn't get two. We got three with one hit. We got three of them. Right? Like, but here's what it taught me. That it was the same machine, but it was a different position. Right? And sometimes what we think about what we think is a delay is actually God redirecting us to something better because the problem wasn't the machine. The machine was f or maybe the machine was messed up but the problem wasn't the machine. The problem was the positioning, right? It needed to be redirected, right? Cuz even when Joseph is in prison, God is redirecting him to something better for something that is to come. He is preparing him to continue his journey of what God has planned for his life. And you see Joseph when we look back at his story, he's not wasting that time. He's serving in it. He's getting ready like he he is ready to go. He is serving other people because he knows that what people might see as punishment is actually God using that moment of his life for purpose. Right? It's not a wasting time. It's a forming time that God has for him. And here's the truth. What sometimes what we would call delay, God calls positioning. And he doesn't waste any of it. Because even though we may think on the outside that it looks like he has been forgotten by man, we know the truth that he has never been forgotten by God. And if I just give you a hint for one second, guess what? I think he gets out next week. So you might want to come back for that, right? he's going to get out, right? And we can look, we can take a step back and look at Joseph's life. And sometimes, can I just be honest with us? We may be walking the same journey that he's in right now. We feel like we are we are stuck. And maybe we've been stuck for years in what we are calling our own life, our own season of delay. like we've been knocking on doors for for opportunities, for jobs, for our business, and it feels like nothing is opening up there. Maybe there are relations that that are broken that need to be restored in us, and we've been trying to to pray for that person and ask God to make a way and it feels like nothing is moving forward. Or maybe it can look like in your own walk with God, you're like, "God, I I want to feel your presence. I want to know what it is like to to be in your presence and be with who you are." And it feels we are not moving forward. You see, Joseph knows one thing that when it seems like nothing is changing around him, when it feels like nothing is changing around him, he doesn't stop being faithful and he doesn't let the circumstances that he cannot see change the faith that he has in him that God is still doing something in his life and through his life. So before we go, I want to just kind of ask you, I want you to take these three questions home before you go. And here's the first one. It is this. Am I still faithful in the waiting? I'm going say it again. Am I still faithful in the waiting? Or has my delay started to affect my faithfulness? Has my delay started to affect the way that I serve, the way that I look at God, the way that I trust? Has it started to change who I am and what I do? Or am I still faithful in the waiting? And here's the second thing. Do I still trust God is working even when I can't see it? Or have I started to believe that silence means absence? Like am I still trusting God even when I can't see the end of the line? Because you see this chapter, this story, it's not the beginning of Joseph's life. This is the middle. This is the middle point when God is going to send him to do what he's called him to do. And then here's the last question. Who am I becoming in this season? Because here's what I know. That God is still shaping us in the waiting. God is still forming us into who he wants us to be. And Joseph teaches us this. Don't quit in the delay. Stay faithful. Don't waste the waiting. You see, because God isn't just working on where you are going, God is also working on who you are becoming. And let me just say this, if we are in God's hands, we're in the best hands. And even when we can't see him, even when we don't feel like God is doing something, he is still forming us. He is still moving. He is still positioning us to where he wants us to go and who he wants us to be. God is for us. God is with us. And it is his plans that are going to be perfected in our lives. Even when we don't understand the situation, even when we feel like we've been stuck in our own prison, God is still going to move us forward. We just have to be faithful in the waiting and be obedient in the delay. Would you bow your head as we pray this morning?

Father, thank you

that even we are faithless, you are faithful. Lord, I pray that even in our delay, even when we don't understand what you are doing, where we are going, Father, I pray that we would still trust in your perfect plans and your perfect will.

Father, your word says that your promises are yes and amen. And your word also says that you finish what you start.

And Lord, I I pray for whoever is is experiencing a a season of delay in their life right now. That they wouldn't quit. That they would lean into you. that they would understand that Father, you are faithful and you you finish what you start. Father, I pray that you would give them just vision to see what you see. Father, I pray that you would open doors. Lord, I pray that we would trust that we are never alone, that you are always with us. So, Father, we love you. We thank you. And everyone said, "Amen.