[0:01] Good morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Chris. I'm on the pastoral staff here, and it's after the typhoon.
[0:12] It's good to see all of you in one piece this morning. We're going through a series, a six-part series, looking at faith and work together.
[0:26] We're going to be looking at some different stories through the Bible. And just kind of getting a picture of how the Bible talks about our work. Last week, we started off talking about our work as worshipped.
[0:41] And I told the story, the very famous parable of the three bricklayers. If you remember, we talked about a guy walking along, and he sees somebody laying bricks, and he asks him the question, what are you doing?
[0:53] And the guy says, I'm laying bricks. He comes to the next person, walking along, sees him doing the same thing, building a wall there. And he asks him, what are you doing? He says to him, I'm building a church building.
[1:07] He walks along to the next person, sees another guy building a brick wall, laying bricks, asks him, what are you doing? The guy says to him, I'm building the house of God to the glory of God.
[1:18] And we said last time that those three kind of different images show us three different ways of looking at work. One looks at work like a job.
[1:30] That's the first one, just a task you've got to do. The second person looks at job as like a career. You know, there's something I've got to achieve, something I've got to get to. The third person sees their work as a calling, their work as something of a higher purpose, something which is about worship to God.
[1:50] And we said that secular research is showing us increasingly that if you want to find meaning in work, you've got to have something bigger than yourself, higher than yourself, more satisfying than yourself to make your work meaningful.
[2:06] And we very briefly talked about how God is a God who works. And we are made in his image to reflect him.
[2:16] And if we want to live truly human lives, we work, but we work in such a way that it's about him, not about us. There was a former Dutch prime minister who was called Abraham Kuyper.
[2:30] This is for Henrika here. And she said, sorry, he said, not she, he. He said, there's not one square inch in the whole domain of human existence in which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, mine.
[2:53] Not one thing in the whole of human existence that God does not cry, mine, over. And yet the question is whether that is true of our work or whether we're a bit more like, you know, the seagulls in Finding Nemo who are like, mine, mine, mine.
[3:09] Are we like that? My fulfillment, my security, my finances, my money, and that's how we view our work. It's mine. And so we kind of separate our lives into like a nice little bento box, you know, God over here, my work over here.
[3:25] And the gospel is going to come into us and say, if you want to know what it leads to live as a Christian and what is the majority of your life, you've got to get the Bible's view of work. So, and just remember, we said work is anything you do that is not leisure.
[3:40] So if you're a homemaker, if you're a student, if you're a volunteer, all of that is work, okay? So today we just want to, I want to develop the idea a little bit more, kind of put in some more flesh in looking at the story of Joseph and looking at the idea of work as a calling and work as service to God, okay?
[4:01] And so what we're going to do, we're going to skim through the story of Joseph. We've just seen a couple of passages there. I'm basically going to skim, it's 13 chapters, the story, so I'm going to kind of give you a skim overview and then I want to pull out some threads from it, which tell us something about what calling and service means for us in our work, okay?
[4:19] So that's kind of where we're going to go. Let me go through the story. So you can have some of your bulletin open. I'm going to give you some more that's not there. But basically, Joseph is a very talented, arrogant teenage brat, okay?
[4:35] He's the kind, you know, I've already started a mobile app company at the age of 10. You know, he's that kind of guy. He's like 17 years old. He's the most loved son of his father. He's a visionary in the literal sense of the word because he's having dreams about himself being the greatest in his family and all the rest of his family bowing down and worshiping him, basically.
[4:57] He's the one who's the most successful person. So he's got ambition, this guy. And, you know, even if you have a kind of dream like that, it's not very sensitive to go and tell your family that that's exactly what's going to happen.
[5:11] But this guy, his ambition is all about his status, his respect. He doesn't care what other people think because when he's great, they're just going to have to acknowledge it.
[5:22] But what happens later in the story is not exactly the career path that I think he would have chosen. Out of anger, his brothers throw him into a pit, then sell him to foreign traders.
[5:36] And basically, he gets trafficked to be a domestic helper to the head of the secret service in Egypt. He's a rich, this guy's a rich man who's got slaves.
[5:47] This master is called Potiphar. So here is Joseph in a foreign country. He's in a different culture with a different religion and people looking down on him like a migrant worker.
[6:01] And he's trapped. But instead of getting depressed, and maybe he did for a little while, but the story doesn't say that. He doesn't say, okay, this is not where my passion is.
[6:13] I'm a leader. I'm supposed to be fulfilled in my job. Well, this guy doesn't have much of a choice. Okay, in chapter 39, what he does, he just basically gets on faithfully doing his job well.
[6:25] He does his job well, and it tells us Joseph was such a good employee that he gets promotion to the chief household manager. And, you know, he uses his skills, and God's grace is with him, and the master's business just flourishes.
[6:41] And just as Joseph thinks, oh, my career is beginning to take off again, Potiphar, the master's wife, kind of takes a bit of a liking to him. Joseph's a bit of a looker.
[6:52] And so Potiphar's wife tries to kind of get in bed with him, and he resists. He says, listen, I can't do that.
[7:04] I love my employer. I love God. How can I do this thing against God? The wife kind of keeps coming back and keeps coming back. He resists. Eventually, the wife says, basically, falsely accuses him of sexual harassment.
[7:24] So, from the point of getting up, moving up the ladder, suddenly Potiphar hears about this. Joseph's right back down in prison. And he's in prison for about 10 years, okay?
[7:37] 10 years. And he's been doing his work really well. He's been trying to honor God in everything, and look where it's got him. Right back down in the bottom. Life is unfair. Think of the opportunity cost, okay?
[7:50] He's like prime time in his life to really be developing, and he's back in prison. And while he's kind of languishing in prison, it's really interesting, because if I was there, I'd be incredibly depressed.
[8:05] I'd be kind of, oh, I can't believe what's going on. Joseph gets on and sees in prison there's some things he can do. So, he's actually, he gets on serving everybody else, and eventually he gets promoted to overseeing the other prisoners, which, I mean, I guess that's a promotion.
[8:21] And it says the Lord was with him in the pain. Then we come on to a little bit of the story which we had in the bulletin.
[8:33] Chapter 40. Two government ministers, okay? The cupbearer and the baker. Now, I know they're not kind of government positions now, but they were then. And they get arrested and thrown in prison, okay?
[8:48] Government corruption is nothing new, okay? They get arrested. They get thrown in this prison, and Potiphar puts Joseph in charge of looking after them, okay?
[9:00] Now, what does Joseph do? He's this high-flying, ambitious Jewish boy who's languishing now in prison, right in the prime of his life. He just gets on and serves them. He gets on and serves them.
[9:12] Even though they're on the opposite team, they represent the very people who are oppressing him. And one day, he's bringing breakfast to these guys.
[9:23] You know, it's mundane, ordinary work. And, you know, I'd be thinking, these guys are the enemy camp. Why should I treat them nicely? Why should I give them anything special? Why should I serve them?
[9:33] That's what I'd be thinking. But Joseph comes in, and he doesn't do that. He goes in, and he sees that the cupbearer and the baker there, they've got a few issues going on.
[9:46] They seem troubled. So he takes the time to ask them, hey, guys, what's going on? And what they sell him is that they've just had a dream.
[9:58] They've had a dream. And in this dream, they don't know what's going on. And they're worried about this dream. And it's very interesting because Joseph could have been just so wrapped up in the stuff that he's doing, like I'm getting wrapped up in the stuff that I do, and feeling sorry for himself about the unfairness of the situation, that he doesn't notice them.
[10:19] But he notices them. He asks them what's going on. He listens to them. And then he says, hey, listen, I belong to God, and God's a guy who kind of helps me with dreams.
[10:30] So let me interpret your dream for you. And what he does, he's there at the right time, and he gives hope to the cupbearer, basically saying, you're going to get out of prison. And he tells the other guy, the baker, that judgment is coming on you.
[10:45] Now, Joseph, as I think I would in that situation, he basically says, cupbearer, when you get out, listen, I've helped you.
[10:57] You kind of remember me down here and help me get out as well. Okay? Fair deal, right? Fair deal. Do you know what happens? Cupbearer gets out of prison, becomes restored to the government again, forgets all about Joseph.
[11:12] Completely. For two years. I mean, just imagine that. You've tried to help this guy out. I mean, that would have been getting to me by now. I don't know about you. But I've been looking out for others.
[11:25] I've been trying to serve God. But they're only looking out for themselves. And the moment I've given them help, then they're out of there. No gratitude. No thanks. I'd be thinking, where's God? God, forgotten, alone, abandoned, trapped.
[11:38] I don't know if you've ever felt like that. I don't know if you've ever felt like that in a workplace. But that's, I think, how Joseph must have felt. Two years go by. Story's still going.
[11:48] We're getting somewhere. Two years go by. The king of Egypt, Pharaoh, has a dream. No one can interpret him. The cupbearer finally remembers after two years.
[11:59] There's a guy who can interpret dreams. Pharaoh calls Joseph. Joseph interprets his dream and says, there's going to be a famine here soon. You need to have a great project manager who's going to be able to sort this job.
[12:12] Pharaoh looks at the guy, realizes, Joseph, man, he's a smart young kid. He's got ideas. So he hires him. He hires him to be prime minister of Egypt.
[12:29] Now, just think about that kind of career progression. Okay? That's a little up and down, right? And the crazy thing is, there wasn't even a vacancy.
[12:42] Joseph couldn't even have applied for the job, even if he'd wanted to. Both as a migrant worker, but also no one knew that this famine was coming. But God, all the time, throughout the whole of this up and down cycle, had something bigger that was going on, a bigger call on his life.
[13:04] Because, you see, once Joseph got to that title of prime minister, you see, before, when he was a young kid, he thought, I'm going to rule, and it's going to be all about me. When finally God takes him through to that place at the end, where he is actually second in command, everyone is bowing the knee to him, it's no longer about the title.
[13:25] It's no longer about the fame. It's no longer about the respect. It's about serving a people who are facing starvation. And so what he does, he uses the management skills that he's learned all the way through, and he uses it to create kind of a warehouse system, which practically and tangibly puts food on people's tables.
[13:45] You see, his work has become about loving and serving real people, even if they're foreigners, people who have oppressed him. And he sees all the time, you go to chapter 45, right at the end, right at the end, his brothers come back to him, they're expecting him to be taking revenge on him.
[14:07] But what he says to them, and it's quite incredible, he says basically to them, in chapter 45 on your bulletin, he says, hey guys, don't be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here.
[14:20] You know, this isn't a bitter guy. For God sent me before you to preserve life. Verse 7, he says, God sent me before you to preserve you. Verse 8, he says, it was not you who sent me, but God.
[14:34] He has made me a father to Pharaoh. God was calling me. God was sending me. Now that's very interesting. Because he's begun to see that the opportunities that he's been given are to be used, and the talents he's been given are to be used both to serve and worship God and to love other people.
[14:57] Total change from right at the beginning. So what do we get from this story? I mean, it's a fascinating story, and I do encourage you to go back and actually read the whole story.
[15:07] It's amazing how it works out. Because this story is a story about calling and about work as service. You see, in the Bible, God sends many people.
[15:21] God sends Moses to Pharaoh. God sends prophets to Israel. God sends the apostles out to the world. But here, God sends Joseph to work in a secular organization, a government.
[15:35] But for Joseph to work out and get to that point, it takes him 13 years. 13 years of not knowing, really, where he was going at all. So, what does this tell us about calling?
[15:48] The very interesting thing is a lot of modern researchers are now telling us, we need to find our calling. You need to find your vocation in life. But the way you've got to do it is find your passion.
[15:59] Okay? Find your passion. And do your passion. Follow your dream. Be true to yourself. If you can't find a fulfilling job and you love chocolate, go and open a chocolate shop.
[16:10] Okay? Do a startup. Do something which is going to kind of follow your dream. And you know, that's fine. There's some great things about that. But the problem is many of us haven't lived enough life to know what our passion is.
[16:24] I finished university. I had no idea what I wanted to do in life. And I find most graduates that I meet don't. Right? And I found many people who've opened the chocolate shop soon discover they can't pay the bills because chocolate only gets so far.
[16:39] And so they come with life kind of gets in the way of your passion and your dreams sometimes. And so there's another way we resort to making decisions about work.
[16:49] And what we do is we choose the job which makes us the most money, gives us the most status and the most security. And you know, maybe, I don't know about you, but many of us are just doing the jobs that we're doing because our parents pushed us that direction.
[17:03] Or maybe, if you're a domestic helper, just the needs of the situation just to get money have kind of pushed you into a certain place and you don't have a passion for where you are. But you just kind of followed along with the expectations and you kind of ended up where you are today.
[17:21] And so that's often why we struggle with the idea of calling because it doesn't sound very kind of spiritual. You know, I went for a job interview at Morgan Stanley and I got the job. It doesn't sound like a very spiritual calling.
[17:34] Right? But what is this story telling us? What is this story telling us? I think it's telling us a few things. I think firstly, this story is telling us if you want to find a calling, a calling starts with a caller.
[17:48] Okay? It's not rocket science. Right? Notice Joseph. Joseph, whether he's up or down, whether he's at the heights or whether he's at the low points, God is the centerpiece of his life.
[18:01] Did you get that? When he's resisting Potiphar, he says, Potiphar's wife, he says, this is sin against God. In prison, he says, God is with me. And he experiences love. When he's meeting with his brothers, at the end, he's like, God has sent me.
[18:14] God is just this kind of continual theme going all the way through. The Puritans, who were kind of Protestants, English Protestants about 400 years ago, used to talk about a primary calling and a secondary calling.
[18:30] Okay? They took this from the Bible. They took the primary calling. Like in John, it says, God calls us, first of all, primarily into relationship with himself.
[18:41] That is your first calling. If you're a Christian here, you are called. Did you know that? You are called. You are called into relationship with God. That is the first call. Okay?
[18:51] The second call is he then provides you with gifts and talents and opportunities and resources to steward and to use for his glory. and that's what you do with your life to worship him.
[19:04] That's the secondary call. Okay? First call, who you are. Secondary call, so first to God and as a Christian, second to work for him and they kind of overlap together.
[19:16] But if you don't make the first call your priority, then you're going to miss the second call. Okay? Now, that may sound just very obvious, but think about it.
[19:30] If someone calls you on the phone, okay, what's your first thought? Is it, I wonder if this phone call is going to fulfill me? Is it, I wonder if this really fits my passion to come and pick up this phone call at this moment?
[19:47] No, the first question you ask is, who's calling? Right? Who's calling? And the word, I don't know if you know the word vocation is the Latin word which means call.
[19:59] So if you want to find a vocation in life, you've got to know who is calling you. And the Bible says, God, the creator of the universe in whose image you are made, is the one who calls you to himself.
[20:15] It's not about you, it's not about your fulfillment, and everything that you do flows out of this now. So it's not, does this job make me feel valued? That's the wrong question.
[20:27] The first question is, who's calling you? That's important because this, if you think your first calling is to primarily to pursue your passion, to find a fulfilling job, to gain influence, if you think that's first, then when God puts you in situations like with Joseph, you know, in prison, don't seem to be finding any fulfillment, you know, you're with a load of idiots in your office, okay, they don't fit your personality type, you're going to get depressed, complaining, thinking life is unfair, hating your boss, hating your clients, hating everybody else, because you thought the secondary calling was actually more important than the primary.
[21:10] I mean, why in Hong Kong do we have to change job every single year? Because we wanted to find fulfillment in it, right? Right? But if, even if you're down there, or even if you're made to be the prime minister, you know, you become the boss, everything's going well, everything's going successfully, if you don't make that primary call the primary call, you're not answering that call to him, you're going to be like the cup bearer who just forgets about Joseph's service, you'll forget about God, and you'll kind of be like, yeah, I'll pray occasionally when I'm in trouble, but basically work is all about you.
[21:54] But if you know the caller is your priority, you're going to be constantly on the phone to him. You're going to be constantly, because it's relationship throughout your day, checking in before a meeting, help, okay?
[22:08] You're not going to be like a teenager in a boarding school who only ever calls their parents when they run out of money, right? But isn't that so often how we treat God, particularly in our work days?
[22:23] I do. I get so wrapped up in the busyness of what I want to do that I forget I'm actually to be relating to the one who has called me. So calling is a day-to-day relationship, okay?
[22:39] It's not just kind of a big, you don't just have a kind of once-off call to your parents and that's it. It's a day-to-day relationship. And the more you become sensitive to his voice in the day-to-day, the more you'll begin to understand and hear his voice in the bigger decisions that you have to face.
[22:56] If you've only ever tuned into your voice in the small things of life, then it's going to be really tricky to try and understand what is God calling you to in these bigger decisions of job choice.
[23:08] So that's the first thing. Calling starts with a caller. Secondly, calling requires day-to-day faithfulness. I don't know, if I'm to ask you right now, what has God called you to?
[23:24] Thinking secondary calling. What has God called you to? Can you answer me? Can you answer me? Because here is where we often struggle.
[23:39] we have both the, okay, he's called me into a relationship with himself, he's called me to do something, but sometimes we're kind of like, well, I get a bit fuzzy in between.
[23:49] I'm not quite sure where I am. And sometimes I meet so many people who feel like I'm missing out on God's call. You know, I'm not doing what I'm passionate about. And yes, if you have a choice, passion is one of a number of clues to steer you to a calling.
[24:06] You know, Joseph, he seems to be pretty good at management all the way through, okay? There are interests, there are gifts, there are abilities, they can guide you, but we've got to be careful a little bit that we don't make the idea of calling all about me.
[24:19] Because in most of history, most people have never had a choice of jobs. You know that? Like, because poverty meant that you had to do anything just to get food on the table. Joseph doesn't have much of a career choice.
[24:31] Now, we've got far more career choice than him. Sometimes you wish you didn't have so many choices because it makes it easier, you know, like a menu. You've only got 50 choices on the menu. It's so much harder to make a decision, right? But in the midst of slavery, unfairness, injustice, famine, a kind of restricted choice, Joseph still finds a calling in God, which I find encouraging.
[24:56] I find that encouraging because if you feel, if you feel like you're trapped in your work and you don't feel like, I don't really get where the meaning is, or you're even in a high-flying job and you're in even a great position but you're like, I can't sense where the call is in this, then Joseph has got a lot of hope for us because Joseph, I don't think when he's in prison he's like going, oh, I feel really called here.
[25:25] But what he does, he gets on in his day-to-day work and he gets on and does faithfully what he's there to do. He uses the talents God has given him, the place where God has placed him, the needs and the opportunities which are around him and he gets on and does it.
[25:44] He gets on and serves. And that's where you find your calling. Just not like a big voice kind of saying it's there, okay? Now some people do have that strong, and that's great but I find most people don't.
[25:57] Most of us, it's actually as we look around the situation we're in and what God has given us and we say, okay, let me get on and be faithful day-to-day. I heard this story of a young lawyer in New York.
[26:12] At heart, she was really passionate, wanted to be an artist. But when she got to choosing her degree, she decided to do law because that's where she could make money, right?
[26:24] And art exactly doesn't kind of exactly pay well. so she joins this law firm and after a while she just kind of feels like I'm just missing, missing my call.
[26:34] This is not where I'm passionate about. And she would go to her pastor and say, pastor, should I quit? And just as she got to the point of quitting, she got a promotion.
[26:48] And then this kind of cycle continued for a number of years. She was good at her job but, you know, she just wanted to get out. She gets to the point again of wanting to quit and get out of the job and then she gets another promotion. And this kind of cycle goes on and she's like, God, why are you doing this?
[27:01] And finally she gets offered a position as a partner in the firm. She's like, but I don't even want to be here. And finally, just in talking to a pastor one day, she suddenly realized her passion as to be an artist meant that all the normal temptations of power, money, money, status that drove most of the other lawyers in her law firm, they weren't temptations for her at all because she wanted to be an artist.
[27:32] But that meant she could analyze and see clearly issues which others couldn't because they were tainted by their own self-interest. It meant that she was actually in a position to lobby for change within the company and working practices, conditions for junior staff, without any kind of sense of like her own self-interest being at stake.
[28:01] And she began to see that God had placed her there for such a reason and she just had to be faithful and God was using it. Now it took her quite a few years to find that.
[28:13] Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't change jobs. I have. But I am saying that some of us need to learn to see where we're up to and maybe to see that God wants to use you and there is a bigger picture with where you are than necessarily what we see day to day and he calls us to be faithful with it.
[28:35] Some of you may have no idea why you're working where you are but you don't have to have the big picture to realize that God is doing and painting a bigger picture than you can ever realize.
[28:48] Some of us may actually have to leave our jobs because we're holding on to our jobs because we're wanting the financial status and security and the gifts and the passions and the talents and the opportunities and the needs that you see around you there are opportunities for you to move into those but you're not doing it because of fear because you're trying to hold on to those other things.
[29:08] And so we need wisdom to ask God to speak to get godly counsel from people around us to see God with what you've given me it's no longer and Tim Keller says this when we begin to see our work as a way of service to God and our neighbor the question regarding our choice of work is no longer what will make me the most money give me the most status or even the most fulfillment the question must now be how with my existing abilities and opportunities can I be of greatest service to others knowing what I do of God's will and human need and sometimes it's just being faithful where he's placed us until he opens another door.
[29:58] So calling requires a caller calling requires day-to-day faithfulness and you'll see God working out a picture. Third thing how calling looks like day-to-day okay what calling looks like day-to-day I think there are two things that the gospel shows us and this passage shows us one is we take pride in our work the second is we see people beyond the task okay Joseph is placed in this position he becomes the second in command with all these management skills and abilities that he's been given and he realizes that this is about serving people this is about loving people he's carrying out two of the great commands of the Bible love God love your neighbor through his work do you realize actually you carry out those commandments in your work I don't know if you realize that you see how does he do that he takes pride in his work you know
[31:00] Joseph makes sure he's got the best storage distribution system available okay he's not cutting corners he's not saying I need to go and pray and I'll leave I'll leave the logistics to somebody else no he's he's he's doing the good job because he knows people are going to starve if he doesn't do it and often that kind of setting up of systems it's administrative it's mundane but he knows that it was sustaining life for families and so he did it well now some of us may struggle yeah I don't feel like I'm feeding starving people with my trading or something but when I go to the bank to get money my first concern is not I hope they tell me about Jesus when I go there my first concern when I go to the bank is that I get good service right and if when I go down you know I don't know if you've ever seen this I sometimes go down to the bank and I go to get served and then the people behind it just chatting to each other and like
[32:00] I'm kind of like an interruption you ever felt that I don't feel loved at that moment right or you receive a letter and it's just filled with all these typos and I feel like couldn't you be bothered couldn't even proofread it right you see is that how much your work means to you no Joseph would say and the Bible would say no take pride in your work do your work so well because actually that's a way of loving people right whatever you're doing whether it's cleaning whether it's number crunching whatever it is do it well it's a way to love God and love your neighbor but the other thing is this to love God and love our neighbor through our work to serve we go beyond the tasks and we see people even the snobbish arrogant self-consumed enemies like the cup bearer we see them made in God's image and we treat them like people you know
[33:03] Joseph has had a hard time from these guys he's got every right to think this is not fair I'm going to treat them badly but he doesn't he goes out of his way to ask how are you doing how are you doing you know I heard some a member of our congregation went to hospital and you know while they were there doctor came past came to see them basically says hey you've got this problem don't know you might not get you might be paralyzed in one part of your body and yeah okay we hope you'll be out of hospital soon and then left a Christian doctor came to them and sat down with them and spent five ten minutes with them just explaining to them the process of what was going to happen listened to some of their inquiries and things and just was there for them treating them like a human being do you know that member came to me and said you know there was such a difference between the way the Christian person did it and the way the other person did it one just saw it as a job one saw me as a human being and you know whether it's your secretary whether it's the receptionist whether it's the cleaners whether it's your colleagues do we see the people as human beings and do we take the time to love them you know there was a president of one marketing firm he said he said this he said
[34:39] I owe much of the health of my business to my COO Jill Evans he said he used to go I used to go about making day by day making decisions in response to events and situations rarely thinking about the people involved I don't know do you ever do that I do that all the time but Jill his colleague regularly asks us to look at things from another perspective to see people in their unique circumstances she quietly asks in a response to some emergency I wonder what must be happening over at their shop for them to be responding to us like that what chaos must be causing them to tyrannize us man that's tough the light goes on he says for just a few minutes and we think about their boss or the pressure they have after some business or some business failure and it often softens us and causes us to be gentler as we enter conflict or some difficult negotiation he says this in helping us to see ourselves as servants of those around us she has changed our whole model of business can we see people and I'm not saying you may be in a situation where you are like in prison and you're trapped with two people in your office or in your workplace or at your home or you may be in a position where you are overseeing many many people but do you see the people around you do you see them and the thing is what stops us seeing them so often is because we feel like things are unfair we're mistreated there are difficulties around us and I know that's so tough but Joseph is different and you know the Bible has an even greater
[36:32] Joseph because what's fascinating in this story the parallels between Joseph and Jesus are huge you see Jesus Christ was also the beloved son of his father he was hated and tyrannized by his people he was thrown into a pit accused of wrong though he was utterly innocent blamed for mistakes that he didn't make and yet he continued to serve his accusers he said I did not come to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many and you see he does that not just for random people out there he says I do that for you I came to serve you and you know how I often respond and I think how we often respond we say thank you Jesus that's great just like the cup bearer and then we go off and forget about him and wouldn't that annoy you if you were like if someone did that to you but do you know how Jesus keeps responding it says he keeps serving he keeps showing grace he shows forgiveness on the cross he says father forgive them and he keeps reaching out to you again and again and he says
[37:56] I want to be with you whether you're in the prison or whether you're out in the highest place I want to be there with you and the caller is constantly calling you saying I'm here I'm here I'm here will you pick up his call because when you see that grace like that is shown to you even though you treat others in so many different ways in a culture where it's all about me he's serving you that actually begins to change your own heart so when you begin to see the people around you who do exactly the same thing to you you run back to him with grace you realize his kindness and then that frees you from making work all about your own fulfillment it frees you from making it all about getting everything for yourself it frees you about the frustration and I know we have to do it again and again and again because we keep getting frustrated but in that call do you see he's saying when you're free from having to just wrestle with all the unfairness and all the bitterness and why are they not doing this and why are they not doing it when you're free from all of that you begin to see people you begin to see people so the call of this is look to the caller in your work every day every hour help can't do this
[39:30] God but then ask him right now who has he placed around you for you to serve and for you to love by doing your work well because you know if you try and love people and you're not doing your work well they're just going to think you're an idiot right but if you're working well but actually you also take the time to just take an interest in people that has so much power I used to I had one receptionist I used to every morning I'd just take two minutes just say hi after a year of just saying hi hi just finding out how she's doing after a year she started going back to church in the moment you don't always know what's going on but if you're faithful with what he's given you God will do something so much greater than you could have imagined and there will be meaning and purpose in your work let me pray