KidMin Leadership: Personal Godliness (Joseph)

Rushing into the lecture hall after battling LA traffic, I collapsed into my chair for the three-hour lecture.

It was the first class of the quarter, and I really didn’t know what it was about.

After all, “Basic Leadership Emergence Patterns” isn’t exactly clear. I had joked with my wife that I knew what each of those words meant individually but had no idea what they meant taken together as a course title.

Graduation required a leadership class and this one fit my hectic schedule.

Serving as the children’s pastor in a mega church, my life was consumed by creative programming, recruitment, staffing, and keeping the children’s ministry “buzz” going.

The senior pastor had even referred to me as the “golden boy.” A seminary degree was key to advancing my children’s ministry career…I mean calling. This class was another one to check off my list towards graduating with my Master of Divinity.

The professor entered the room and began going through the syllabus that we had in front of us. As he finished, he summed up the class with words never to be forgotten.

“Many of you are here on a Thursday night because you are already involved in ministry leadership. Some of you are leading dynamic ministries and probably going Mach 8 with your hair on fire. But…inside you there is nothing spiritually. You’re running on empty and eventually you’re going to burn out and blow away, along with your ministry…because you don’t understand that God is more concerned about who you are than what you are doing.”

It was like someone hit me on the head with a board. He was describing me.

People often said that I was the “energizer bunny.” The children’s ministry was the talk of the church and community. I was going Mach 8 with my hair on fire.

But it was a shell, with a spiritual void inside.

Looking back, I realize that my life was like a beautiful fall gourd. On the outside it was colorful and beautiful, but inside it was empty.

The professor had my attention, and over the next thirteen weeks, he taught some life-changing leadership principles that have become essential for me. 

The first of those is that effective leaders build a foundation of personal godliness. God is concerned about what we are doing as leaders, but He is more concerned about who we are.

We will examine this important principle through the lives of three leaders: Joseph, Jesus, and Paul.

The LORD Was With Joseph

Joseph first came to my attention while teaching fifth-sixth grade boys about adolescence and a Christian view of sexuality.

In contrast to David, Joseph was a young man who did it right by not being drawn into an immoral relationship with Potiphar’s wife. Later in life, I came upon Luther’s writings about Joseph where he identifies so many Christlike characteristics in Joseph.

Luther believed that Joseph prefigured Jesus the Messiah. During my leadership classes in seminary, we looked more closely at the leadership lessons that can be learned from Joseph.

One that stands out is Joseph’s commitment to personal godliness. This is evident in the text itself but also clear from the author of the Genesis account.

The biography of Joseph begins essentially in Genesis 37 and continues to the end of Genesis, comprising fourteen chapters of the book.

As a biography, it tackles the events in Joseph’s life with some of the highlights as follows:

• Favored son of Jacob (many-colored coat, etc.)
• Dreams
• Jealous brothers
• Sold into slavery
• Potiphar’s household servant
• Prison
• Cupbearer and baker
• Pharaohs dreams
• Egyptian regent
• Brothers’ visit
• Joseph reveals himself
• Joseph provides for his family
• Death of Jacob
• Final peace with brothers

We are all familiar with this magnificent narrative, but within the biography lies a peculiar literary feature. Of course, I am referring to Genesis 38.

Nested within the Joseph biography is a rather strange story of sexual immorality involving Joseph’s brother, Judah. The author makes it clear that this story is inserted into the biography by the way chapter 37 ends and chapter 39 begins.

Meanwhile, the Midianites sell Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard. (Genesis 37:36 NIV)

Now Joseph has been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, buys him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. (Genesis 39:1 NIV)

The obvious question that arises is why Genesis 38 is in the story at all? Why would a biographer insert a story about a brother and his sexual immorality? 

Let’s just say that in the unlikely event that someone was to write a biography about me, I would hope they would not include a seedy chapter about one of my siblings. Unless…there is some reason.

In the case of Joseph’s biography, the author appears to have made it clear that his intention is to draw a contrast between Joseph and his brothers —particularly in the case of personal godliness.

This is evident by contrasting chapter 38 with chapter 39. Judah is guilty of ungodly behavior, sexual in nature. By contrast, Joseph acts in godliness, avoiding the adulterous snare set by Potiphar’s wife.

Judah’s story follows immediately on the heels of the brother’s evil actions threatening to kill Joseph, then selling him into slavery and concocting a lie for their father leaving him brokenhearted.

Joseph on the other hand acts with integrity, truthfulness, and with a complete lack of bitterness towards his brothers or Potiphar who unjustly has him jailed.

To make the point about Joseph's godliness, we see a phrase repeated several times in Genesis 39. In fact, it is this phrase that characterizes the life of Joseph.

We see the phrase, which I have highlighted, in its various forms as follows:

The LORD was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. (Genesis 39:2 NIV)

When his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD gave him success in everything he did. (Genesis 39:3 NIV)

Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, the LORD was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. (Genesis 39:20-21 NIV)

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. (Genesis 39:23 NIV)

The repeated use of this phrase makes it clear that the author is seeking to characterize Joseph’s life as one lived with the presence of the LORD.

The events in Potiphar’s house and the jail come at the beginning of his leadership life and establish personal godliness as a foundation upon which Joseph’s amazing leadership develops.

This foundation merits further exploration where personal godliness and leadership can be better understood.

Virtue

Personal godliness in Joseph’s life results in virtue, understood as moral excellence.

We see several examples of virtue, early in Joseph’s life. In response to his brother’s death threats and subsequent sale into slavery, we never see Joseph respond in bitterness, frustration, or anger.

In the case of Potiphar’s wife, he not only confronts the sin of adultery head-on, but he also has the moral clarity to see the temptation as an enticement to sin against God (Genesis 39:9).

His virtue leads him to be wrongly accused, convicted, and imprisoned, all for acting in godliness. You can’t read that section of the narrative and not be incensed by the injustice.

Once again, however, we see no trace of bitterness, frustration, or anger with God—or the injustice done to Joseph. Far from that, we see Joseph sowing virtue in his efforts to serve faithfully wherever he finds himself.

Similarly, when interpreting the dreams of the cupbearer and baker (Genesis 40), he asks that they remember him in prison. This they do not do; one after being impaled and unable, and the other from forgetfulness. This leaves Joseph unjustly imprisoned and forgotten.

Once again, we find no indication of bitterness, anger with God, or any sense of frustration. Joseph is acting at the highest level of moral virtue setting the foundation for God using him in magnificent leadership.

God’s Eyes

Another quality of Joseph’s godliness is his ability to see things through God’s eyes and with God’s perspective.

As mentioned above, in the face of numerous evil acts including nearly being killed, sold into slavery, imprisoned unjustly, and forgotten, Joseph never expresses bitterness, doubt, frustration, or any other “normal” human reaction.

Somehow, he seems to see the hand of God in every circumstance of his life. Nowhere is this more evident than in the final chapter of his reunion with his brothers.

After the death of Jacob, the brothers are stricken with fear. They realize that while their father was still living Joseph would be unlikely to exact his revenge on them for attempting to kill him and then selling him into slavery.

Therefore, following along with their ungodliness the brothers concoct another lie, apparently one of their specialties. This time they share with Joseph that their father left final instructions to them, which somehow Joseph has not been privy too.

So, they send word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers, the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly. Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept. (Genesis 50:16-17 NIV)

The brothers, in contrast to Joseph, had been living in fear and guilt for years.

They now believed that a reckoning was coming that would end very badly for them. Certainly, reading this story you would understand if Joseph paid them back for their evil.

However, Joseph’s response is through God’s eyes: weeping over their lives of guilt, shame, and fear. 

Then in one of the great passages of the Old Testament, Joseph, seeing things through God’s eyes, communicates to the brothers the real workings of God.

His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said. But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children. And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. (Genesis 50:18-21 NIV)

In their evil actions intended to harm Joseph, God accomplished His purposes.

Through Joseph’s leadership, God’s people were a blessing to the nations, and their descendants multiplied like the sand on the seashore. These were two of the key elements in the covenant with Abraham realized through Joseph. 

Effective leaders build a foundation of personal godliness evident in recognizing God’s constant presence, applying moral virtue, and seeing life through the eyes of God.

Next week we will examine personal godliness in the life of our Savior! I hope you can join us next week.