Preparation for Greater Usefulness

Pastor Vic preached on Genesis 40:1-23

I'm excited to understand this more deeply. So, I’m praying that God will prepare me and make me wholeheartedly willing to know Him better today.

The most difficult situations in life prepare us for greater usefulness - if we respond the right way.

Pastor Vic highlighted three aspects that prepared Joseph for a greater position and usefulness:

1. The forgetful cupbearer
2. The forgiving Savior
3. The forgotten baker

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1. The Forgetful Cupbearer

- Decapitation, hanging, or shame - one of the contexts here is that it was seen as a terrible way to die if one was eaten by birds, as people desired to be mummified when they died.

- The cupbearer forgot Joseph after he was released from prison.

- In verse 14, Joseph asked to be remembered, yet the cupbearer forgot him for two years. Joseph’s friend forgot him. Many people will forget the favors done for them, as though you were never friends. People you help will often forget you. Many such people exist in our lives today. The right question is: How do we respond to this?

- Joseph did not respond with bitterness or anger. There are far better ways to respond, like Joseph did - like Jesus would have. Don’t be:

- Revengeful
- Bitter
- Unforgiving

Instead, be:

- Loving
- Humble, remembering how forgetful we can also be toward others.

- I am also very forgetful and ungrateful toward the Lord. In fact, I might be the criminal, the worst among them. But by God’s grace in Christ Jesus, I am forgiven, pardoned, and God no longer holds my sinful past against me.

- One purpose of our Church sacrament, the Lord’s Supper, is to help us remember God. Every sin is a willful forgetting of God. When was the last time you sinned? Would you say you fully remembered God, His whole being, statutes, grace, mercy, and anger toward wickedness? I don’t think so.

- This is the truth. When I sin, I purposefully forget God. So, I need to be gentle and loving toward others, as those who have been forgiven much, forgive much.

2. The Forgiving Savior

- In contrast to me, who often deliberately forgets Him, Christ never forgets. He remembers every good deed and kindness done in His name. The Savior never forgets.

- When we remember our God, who never forgets, bitterness and ingratitude vanish. After two years, the cupbearer finally remembered Joseph. Two years!?

- God had a reason for those two years of character-building to prepare Joseph for the throne. God ordained this forgetfulness and caused the cupbearer to remember Joseph when he was ready.

- There is a parallel here. In Genesis, Joseph asked to be remembered - the innocent man asked to be remembered. At Calvary, the guilty (us) asked to be remembered. But God remembers, in either case.

3. The Forgotten Baker

How did God use this to prepare Joseph?

- Joseph was vindicated because he was right. Both the cupbearer and baker brought offerings, yet they met different ends. The cupbearer was restored, while the baker faced death.

- In Christ, the greater Joseph, there is life for those who repent and trust in Him. Those who rely on their own deeds, like the baker, face death.

- Which one are you? Are you the cupbearer, symbolizing life through grace in Christ Jesus, or the baker, representing trust in one’s own works, leading to death?

- The lesson here is a vast contrast: the baker is the symbol of death, trusting in his own work rather than in Christ.

- God may forget us if we forget His salvation. If we persist in trusting our works, He may say, “I don’t know you.” The baker reminds me to resolve the conflict in my soul now - to come to Christ and praise Him forever. This is the only way forward.

- At this point, Pastor Vic emphasized that it’s not enough to simply attend church; we must resolve the conflict in our souls and come to Christ, praising Him for as long as we live.

I sensed he was closing, so I wrote, “Christ must be found in us” in my journal. Then, he said exactly what I had written: “so that Christ may be found in us.”

- It’s such a relief to understand the message from the beginning to the end, feeling the drama of the truth, grace, and mercy of God in Christ's Jesus as preached at the pulpit.

Praise be to God.

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PS. My notes are a bit messy, incoherent even. I’ll aim to be more accurate next time because I didn't capture everything that's said. However, this note includes the preacher's outline along with my personal reflections throughout.