This captain of the guard was the “chief executioner”. So he wasn’t some wimpy bureaucrat. He would be a pretty tough character. There was something on Joseph; it was that blessing of the first-born.

The word “blessing” can mean empowerment to prosper. To be empowered means: enabled; authorized. To be blessed is an empowerment to prosper.

That blessing had come down from Abraham, his great grandfather.

Joseph was living in the blessing.

When you are living in the blessing, you are living in the favour of God.

Joseph lived in the favour of God.

Everything he did prospered in his hands. Everything he did produced a good harvest.

He was successful. The favour of God came on him so that he would be successful.

That favour didn’t go unnoticed. Potiphar saw this in Joseph. Potiphar was no fool, he could see that everything in his house was going right, and he knew it was because of Joseph.

The financial management was in order, the crops around the house were flourishing, the other slaves or employees were happy and productive.

The blessing of the Lord was on Potiphar’s house and fields because Joseph was there.

Things will prosper around a person who has the favour of God on them.

Potiphar became so convinced that Joseph knew what he was doing that he left everything in his charge. The only thing Potiphar had to pay attention to was what he was eating for dinner. Everything else was being managed and it was all prospering.

Now just because he was walking in the favour of God, it didn’t mean that the devil wasn’t going to try to make it rough for him.

What we need to remember here is this. The devil was the ruler of the world at this time. Adam had given it over to him and Jesus hadn’t come to take it back yet.

Joseph was under the covenant blessing of Abraham and that was all that he had to protect him.

Now that’s a lot, but he couldn’t cast out the devil or take authority over him like we can today. He didn’t have the Name and the Blood of Jesus to speak into the situation.

But what he did have was the favour, the blessing.

Most of us know what happened next to Joseph. Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him. He wouldn’t go along with it, and said this about Potiphar:

He knew it would be a sin against God, the God that he was living in favour with. He wasn’t about to dishonour that by sinning. Potiphar’s wife was mad, and a woman scorned is a bad enemy to have. She grabbed Joseph’s robe and he ran out the door. She then cried rape and the men in the yard came in and saw her with Joseph’s robe, assumed the worse and grabbed Joseph.

Notice the racial prejudice coming out here. “The Hebrew whom you brought to us”.

The account says that Potiphar was mad and threw Joseph into prison.

Now think about this for a moment. This Potiphar is the “chief executioner”. Wouldn’t you think that he would drag Joseph straight over to the chopping block and finish him off instead of just throwing him into prison?

Quite possibly Potiphar believed Joseph’s account of things more that his wife’s. He was no dummy. He knew his wife and her moral values and he also saw in Joseph something he’d never seen in a man, and that was the favour of God.

Here’s Joseph, he had been hated by his brothers, thrown in a pit to die, then taken out and sold into slavery. He gets a great job working as chief steward in Potiphar’s house. Then gets accused of rape and is thrown into prison – likely to be forever.

But in no time at all, he’s running the prison. He’s going to prosper no matter where you put him.

We don’t know exactly how long Joseph was in prison, maybe 3 or 4 years. That would make him about 22

– 23 years old when he finally got out.

I’m not going to go into all the details of the butler and the baker and how Joseph interpreted their dreams.

Genesis 41

Here we see Joseph interpreting the dreams of the Pharaoh.

This Pharaoh wasn’t an Egyptian. He was a Hyksos King, sometimes known as the Shepherd Kings. The Hyksos were West Semitic tribes from the area we now call Palestine and Syria.

They had conquered the Egyptians in about 1700 B.C. and were the ruling people at the time of this account.

They were very favourable toward the Hebrews because they were from a similar culture. This is one of the reasons that Joseph found favour with this Pharaoh.

Later, around 1550 B.C. the Egyptians rose up and drove the Hyksos rulers out. That’s why by the time Moses came along they had no knowledge of Joseph.

Meanwhile back to the Pharaoh’s dreams. The dreams were about the 7 years of plenty and the 7 years of famine that were about to occur. Joseph as we know interpreted the dreams. The Pharaoh was so impressed with Joseph that he put Joseph in charge of the whole food supply.

Genesis 47:13-26 13 Now there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine. 14 And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, for the grain which they bought; and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house.So when the money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us bread, for why should we die in your presence? For the money has failed.”Then Joseph said, “Give your livestock, and I will give you bread for your livestock, if the money is gone.” 17 So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the cattle of the herds, and for the donkeys. Thus he fed them with bread in exchange for all their livestock that year.

Joseph was so good at managing things that he was able to get every thing for his boss. By everything I mean this. Because, just like the people of India today, they considered the cattle to be sacred and therefore wouldn’t eat them. Four hundred years later the Hebrews had become like that. They had cattle and yet they told Moses that they were starving. That is also why they built a golden calf when Moses was up on the mountain so long.

Joseph, this former kid from the pit, has the people at the mercy of the Pharaoh.

He’s got them living in the city where he can control them. He didn’t quit there. He brought in the first recorded feudal system and that wonderful thing we now call “income tax.”

Meanwhile Joseph had set up his family in an area called Goshen. There the land had water. The crops and cattle were in abundance.

They had a place of favour in a land of want. The whole tribe was enjoying the favour of God. They were heirs of the covenant that Abraham had been given with God. Today, you and I have the same blessing on our lives. Jesus got it for us. We are joint heir, firstborn heirs of the favour and grace of God.