If God is For Us, Who Can Be Against Us?

By Rev. Robert Ingram

Rev. Ingram is the Headmaster of the Geneva School, Winter Springs, Florida

Genesis, chapter 39:

Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands. So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake. The blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field. So he left all that he had in Joseph’s charge, and because of him he had no concern about anything but the food he ate.

Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance, and after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”

And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her. But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house were there, she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled out of the house. And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled out of the house, she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us. He came in to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And as soon as he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled and got out of the house.”

And she laid up his garment by her until his master came home. And she told him the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to laugh at me. But as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment beside me and fled out of the house.”

As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him—“This is the way your servant has treated me”—his anger was kindled. And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge, because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed.

The Word of the Lord.

Let’s look to God in a time of prayer.

O God, our heavenly Father, we marvel at what You are able to do, even against all that man conspires against You. We bless You, Father, that You are the governor of Your world. We bless You for the manner in which You superintend all things, great and small. And Father, we bless You for raising up among us a man such as Joseph. O Father, we ask that You would produce within us the ability to wonder—that we might stand in wonderment at what You have done and what You are yet prepared to do.

And so we ask this morning that by the power of Your Spirit, You would take this, Your Word, which You have safeguarded and preserved through the ages, and by that same Spirit cause it to come alive again in our presence this day. Illumine this text. Illumine our hearts. Conform them to Your own desires and will. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Joseph lived with a conviction about God and God’s character: God is for us. Therefore, who can be against us? When we read in Romans chapter eight, beginning at verse 31, Paul writes that if God is for us, then all these things—heaven and earth, things under the earth, height, depth, breadth, sword, famine, peril, persecution—all those things and more cannot and will not stand against God’s elect. It is a marvelous passage of confidence in the character of God and what He will do for His people.

Now, Paul wrote that in Romans, but I am quite certain that if Joseph had wanted to, he could have written those same words. Joseph knew that if God is for him, then who can be against him?

Throughout the totality of Joseph’s life, we see that he encounters people who are, in fact, against him—violently against him. They are animated by jealousy, anger, and resentment. It begins with his brothers. It extends to Potiphar and his willingness to listen to his wife’s lying words about an attempted rape that never occurred. It continues through Potiphar’s wife and her trumped up charges, and it extends into the prison where he was cast. It extends to the prison warden, and it could possibly have gone all the way to Pharaoh. Joseph could have seen that every one of those people stood against him and sought to thwart what Joseph believed was the will of God as it was being expressed in his life.

Joseph was a contender, and I am sure that what allowed him to continue in this spiritual state of well being was his own ability to have written those words in Romans: If God is for us, then who is against us? Because the answer is: no one, and nothing, can ultimately stand against us if God Himself has called us.

Joseph knew Deus pro nobis—God for us. The God who would reveal Himself in that way, not only in word but in deed as well. God had already shown Joseph that He was well able to contend against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Now Joseph needed to come to this conclusion. He had a long life of trouble yet to live out before him. Even by the time we arrive at Genesis 39, this is only the beginning of those who would contend against him. And so Joseph needed that conviction of Deus pro nobis.

Israel needed it as well. And I’m convinced that the reason this particular story of Joseph’s life is included here is because Moses and God wanted Israel—standing in the wilderness, preparing to go into this same Egypt where Joseph is now in prison—to know that they would face similar temptations. Egypt would be a place of countless seductions. And what Moses and God wanted Israel to know was this: When you go into that place, Joseph has already been there. Joseph has prevailed. God was with him, and God will be with you in Egypt as well.

And so it is not only God’s continuing kindness to Moses and the children of Israel, but we want this text to speak to us, because we live in our own Egypt. We live in a pagan culture—a culture that would seduce us, that would invite us into all sorts of pleasurable sins, and a culture that would steal away our conviction that God is for us; who can be against us?

For Joseph, this conviction was not an abstract intellectual notion. The truth of it translated into very real, powerful, life shaping experiences of the unusual presence of God in his life. Listen to the text:

Verse 2: “The Lord was with Joseph, so he became successful.”

Verse 3: “His master saw that the Lord was with him.”

Verse 21: “But the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him.”

Verse 23: “Because the Lord was with him… whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper.”

What does that phrase mean—“The Lord was with him”?

How would Joseph—or any of us—be able to point to something and say, “Oh, there. That’s it. That shows that the Lord is with me.” In Joseph’s case, there was almost an unusual sense, a supra abundance of God’s presence with him. The fact that the text says it four times gives us a strong indication that Joseph was experiencing something of the Lord’s presence that exceeded what many others had ever sensed.

But the question remains: How did God communicate this extraordinary sense of His presence to Joseph?

One answer, of course, has to be through his family.

Was Joseph’s family dysfunctional? Yes. Was it a family mixed up with sin and corruption? Absolutely. Was it a family of mixed blessing, a bittersweet place in which to grow up? Without question. But beyond all that, the Abrahamic promises were alive and well in that family. The hopes of Israel were conveyed to him and to his brothers time and time again.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived very long and very overlapping lives. The story of redemption—what God had done, what God was doing, and what God would yet do—had been communicated to those patriarchs repeatedly. And in their faithfulness, they passed on those same truths, convictions, experiences, and memories to their children. I am sure Joseph heard, in innumerable times and places, the Abrahamic promises and how they would be extended through that family. And as Joseph matured, I am sure he sensed those promises coming to pass in him.

We have no way of knowing how many times, around campfires under the stars, they looked to the heavens and said, “Those stars do not exceed the number of children that will come from this family. Those stars cannot begin to suggest the abundance of the people of God who will issue forth from us.” We have no idea how many times, during long walks and pilgrimages crisscrossing the Middle East, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob told those stories—even to Joseph. We have no idea how many times, while watching sheep and goats eat grass (not a very entertaining job), they repeated those same stories again and again.

And so God’s presence—His being for them as a people—was embedded in Joseph’s mind. It was embedded in his heart and soul. It became part of the fabric of who he was. His whole identity was wrapped up in the fact that God was for His people, and Joseph was one of them.

So the role of the family is undoubtedly one of the key reasons Joseph had this deep sense of God’s presence.

But beyond that, God also directly communicated with Joseph through his two dreams.

The first dream involved sheaves of grain bowing down to Joseph. The second involved the sun, the moon, and all the stars bowing down to him. In those days, God used dreams as a revelatory experience in a way He does not today. But the patriarchs had all experienced such dreams—Abraham had, Isaac had, Jacob had. And so when Joseph became a dreamer, with God implanting those dreams in him, you can imagine what his father and others must have thought: Here is one who will continue in this patriarchal line of revelatory dreams. Here is one being called into patriarchal succession.

There is no doubt that those dreams, which Joseph relayed to his family when he was just seventeen, distressed the entire household. They provoked such resentment that the rest of Joseph’s life can be traced directly to the anger and jealousy stirred up by his telling of those dreams.

Joseph interpreted the dreams to mean that he would gain ascendancy over all of them. His brothers interpreted them differently. They saw them as the product of an arrogant, rude, precocious young boy who thought far too much of himself and deserved rebuke.

But it is interesting that in chapter 37, verse 11, Scripture tells us that Jacob kept all these things in mind. The brothers may have thought Joseph was the most brash and arrogant young man they had ever encountered, but his father remembered these things. That phrase is the same one used of Mary, who, as she came to understand who Jesus was, “pondered all these things and treasured them in her heart.” Jacob understood what Mary understood: as they looked at their sons, they knew the hand of God was upon them.

I believe that through those dreams, God gave Joseph hopes, aspirations, and a vision for the future. Joseph had been given a destiny, and he believed that God was moving toward him in a magnificent and gracious way. Joseph believed that God had secured for him a future, and he was willing to entrust himself to that God and to that God’s unfailing delivery of the promises.

This inner sense of calling propelled Joseph forward through circumstances that required an unusual perseverance. The lineage of Abraham was traced upon his inner consciousness, even though he was only seventeen. And so Joseph possessed an overwhelming sense of destiny that outlasted every attempt of people and circumstances to crush it.

We must not underestimate this strong internal conviction placed in Joseph by God Himself. We must accept that it was directly from God and worthy of Joseph’s nurturing and fostering into reality.

In Joseph, this became what I would call a greatness of soul. It is something to be admired, desired, and prayed for. This greatness of soul allowed him to live his life from the inside out. It put steel in his bones, fire in his belly, and an ability to look at reality without blinking or shrinking from it. It animated him with joy, and it honed his conscience.

And look what it did for Joseph’s relationships. Apart from his brothers, who continued to rebuke him, everyone else Joseph encountered recognized that here was a man with greatness of soul—a man with destiny written all over him, a man eminently faithful and trustworthy. Potiphar immediately recognized it and put Joseph in charge of everything. When Joseph was put in prison, the warden immediately recognized it and handed him the keys to the very prison that confined him. And eventually Pharaoh would recognize it, elevating this foreigner—this outsider, fresh from the dungeon—to the role of prime minister, to lead Egypt through a severe and testing famine.

Such a person as Joseph is convinced that his or her supreme value is discovered in fulfilling the calling of God. This alone is genuine destiny and greatness of soul: to make every encounter with the world an opportunity to demonstrate, through word and deed, the calling of God and the glory of God.

Joseph was one such man.

One other thing emanates from a man with such greatness of soul and such a sense of destiny stamped upon him: there is an evident standard of righteousness in the conduct of his work and in his relationships. For Joseph, it was always far too soon to quit. It was far too soon to give up or to capitulate to the people or circumstances that were against him.

How else can we explain why—after repeated rejections, repeated death threats, and abuses from people in power over him, namely Potiphar’s wife, Potiphar himself, the prison warden, and perhaps even Pharaoh—Joseph quietly pursued righteousness and excellence in his new work under the most abusive conditions? When it would have been, in our minds, perhaps justifiable to say, “Joseph, call it a day. Give up. Quit. You’re not going to get anywhere. You’re beating your head against a wall, and it will prove futile”—nonetheless, this greatness of soul in Joseph caused him, every single time, in the face of tremendous injustice and abuse, to quietly pursue excellence and righteousness in all his work and in all his relationships.

And so we have to ask: What compels a person under unjust circumstances—without bitterness or vindictiveness—to still desire the pursuit of righteousness? It can only be attributed to the gracious work of God creating this greatness of soul.

Before we leave this point, I want to speak directly to all the young people here this morning—those in grade school, middle school, high school, college, and seminary. And I want all of us as parents to eavesdrop on this next point. We are talking about a young man who, by the age of seventeen, had begun to experience this greatness of soul. This was a man who grew up in a very dysfunctional family, yet still had the promises of God extended to him, the lineage of Abraham traced upon his consciousness. By the age of seventeen, he had already concluded: Deus pro nobis—God is for me; who will be against me? And in the face of unrighteousness, he resolved to demonstrate righteousness.

We tend to think of “primitive cultures” as being less capable than we are today. But this so called primitive culture—nomadic, unstable, and in a family that, quite honestly, none of us would choose to be adopted into—nonetheless produced this kind of man.

So, young people—those headed off to college—Joseph was, in our terms, about to graduate from high school and head far from home. Let’s use that metaphor. And by that age, he had attained such greatness of soul that the Scriptures themselves extol him. When you look through the Scriptures and ask, “Who exceeded Joseph, even at that tender age?” there may be very few men or women who could be named.

I want us to feel the pinch of that. I want us, as a congregation, to ask ourselves about our young people. I want us as parents to ask the difficult question: Are we producing sons and daughters with greatness of soul—who, by age seventeen, could be on the same track as Joseph?

This greatness of soul was tested. We all know the real test of character is not judged by what happens when all is going well, but by what happens under adversity and injustice, under pain and suffering. Once again, Joseph’s character is tested, and once again, it involves his cloak. Remember, it was his cloak that got him into trouble in the first place with his brothers. Now it is his cloak that becomes the prima facie evidence, according to Potiphar’s wife, that he attempted to rape her. Once again, lies are told about him: “Your son is dead. He has been killed in a violent accident with an animal that tore him limb from limb. See the blood stained cloak.” Potiphar’s wife lies to the authorities about him as well, and in each case he is thrown either down into a well or down into a prison dungeon.

The text tells us something interesting about this incident with Potiphar’s wife. This is the only place in Scripture where language is used of someone being “well built and handsome”—something that sounds like it belongs in People Magazine. Joseph must have been uncommonly handsome and well built for Scripture to draw attention to it. Potiphar’s wife certainly noticed it every day. The Scriptures tell us she was full of sexual desire for Joseph. Day after day she made advances, clearly indicating what she wanted. And just as energetically, Joseph said no, giving a biblical reason: “How could I do this great evil and sin against God?”

Let’s not kid ourselves about this temptation. We can only guess how she became daily more seductive in her advances. We can only imagine what she tried to do to allure him into her bed. As stalwart and virtuous as he may have been, he was still a seventeen year old—or perhaps twenty by now. He was far from home. His family would never know. She was the one initiating it. And this must have been a very heady thing for Joseph.

Let’s not pretend Joseph wasn’t tempted. This must have been an overwhelming temptation that required daily vigilance. It required all the greatness of soul God had implanted in him for him to successfully resist that seductress day after day after day.

Notice also: the Scriptures do not tell us that Joseph refused because he feared being caught. That was not his reason. Joseph, honed to a razor’s edge, clearly stated the biblical ethic: “How could I ever commit this sin—this great evil—against God?”

And here is the beauty of this story: temptation does not inevitably lead to sin, even in the daily presence of a seductress. Joseph would not and did not sin.

The Israelites desperately needed to hear that under Moses’ leadership. They needed to hear it because, as they were in Egypt, they would be tempted in many and diverse ways. As they wandered in the wilderness, they were tempted. And Moses wanted them to know that one man had gone through Egypt and had not succumbed to temptation and sin. And if Joseph could do it, then the God who was with Israel in the pillar of cloud, the God who was with Israel in all the miraculous events He wrought on their behalf—that same God, Deus pro nobis, was able to keep them from sinning as well.

Moses wanted his people to see Joseph and be encouraged. I want you to see Joseph. I want you to look at Joseph and be encouraged that temptation does not inevitably lead to sin.

For you see, as Moses was writing Genesis, the book opens with a man—Adam—who did not prevail against sin. The book closes with the story of Joseph, a man who did prevail over temptation and sin. That contrast was not lost on the Israelites. God was doing something by His presence to invigorate His people, to strengthen them to withstand even a seductress who, day after day, tried to lure a seventeen year old into sexual sin.

Joseph teaches us that successfully resisting temptation becomes a dividing line between those with greatness of soul and those who become consumed by moral and spiritual downfall. Joseph knew he could not fulfill his God given calling and destiny if he became repeatedly disobedient to God. No one can continue in sin—willfully so—and expect to enjoy the favor and presence of God that Joseph enjoyed. That truth alone should give us pause. No one can continue in sin and expect to be a person of greatness of soul or to experience the presence of God as Joseph did.

Now, we need to add a qualifier. Joseph wasn’t perfect. Joseph was a sinner saved by grace. As such, he continued to sin throughout the course of his life. He was not perfect. But that is not the point of this particular story. Forgiveness and grace needed to prevail for Joseph in the ordinary ways they must prevail for us. The point here is his particular resistance to sin—especially those sins that tempt us at very particular times and places, where we are especially vulnerable, where we sense that this moment could be a dividing line, a watershed of how we will respond. It could be a testing of whether we possess greatness of soul.

Joseph understood that. And in that sense, he did not sin. Yes, he was a sinner saved by grace, but here God was testing Joseph’s integrity in order to prepare him for the experiences he would later face. In the years to come, the stakes would become even larger. When he was managing all of Egypt during the famine, people would come to him with bribes, schemes, and manipulations—anything to get more food, to get rich quick, to subvert the system he had put in place, to exploit the poor. I am sure Joseph was inundated with temptations. But because he succeeded now—because he was faithful in little things—God allowed him to become faithful in greater things. Under Joseph’s leadership, Egypt would not become a WorldCom, an Arthur Andersen, or an Adelphia. Here was a man who, having been tested early in life, continued with consistency and a pursuit of righteousness that allowed him to stand under the most difficult circumstances.

God is actively putting us through the same stress training to see who emerges with kingdom aspirations and a desire for kingdom service.

What is your temptation?

Where is God testing whatever greatness of soul you have?

Where is He placing before you an opportunity to prove faithful—or not?

Where are the watersheds, the dividing lines that will reveal your integrity and character?

They are there. What has been your response? And what has been mine?

This is a strong reminder that greatness of soul comes in direct proportion to moral excellence and spiritual maturity.

Now allow me to end with what may be the most distressing question that came to me from this text over the past week:

Is Joseph an anomaly?

An anomaly is something that stands apart from the rest—something that doesn’t fit the paradigm. You have your model that explains how things work, and then you have your anomaly off to the side, the thing you put on the shelf because you don’t know how it fits.

Is Joseph an anomaly?

Is he a once in a millennia kind of person?

Does Joseph break the grading curve for our spiritual lives?

We might say, “Look, I can identify with Abraham. I can identify with Isaac. I can identify with Jacob—I’m a scoundrel like he was, a forgiven scoundrel, but still a scoundrel. But Joseph? A man of greatness of soul? Let’s put him on the shelf. We don’t know what to do with a man like that.”

Is he an anomaly?

Do we only know biblical Josephs?

Do we only know Josephs in church history—men or women raised to this level of destiny, commitment, excellence, spiritual vitality, and greatness of soul?

Are there any Josephs alive today?

We look at Joseph dismissively and say, “Great story. Don’t know anyone quite like him.”

Friends, Joseph is not an anomaly.

He may be on the endangered species list, but he is not extinct.

God continues to draw men and women to Himself with Joseph like qualities. We live in the new covenant. We live in a state of grace—a grace that surpasses anything Joseph knew or experienced. The grace available to Joseph is now richer, wider, deeper, more magnificent for us.

God is for us—not just for Moses and the Israelites, not just for Joseph. Deus pro nobis. God is for us. And therefore He is well prepared to do again what He has done before. God loves to repeat Himself. If He produces one Joseph, He will produce many.

He is present with us now by the power of the Holy Spirit, even unto the end of the age. He has called us into a new community—the church. We have His Word, His Spirit, His sacraments. And as long as He has redemptive purposes in this world, God will call forth people with a sense of kingdom destiny. He will not leave Himself without a witness—even a witness like Joseph.

Habakkuk said he would stand on the rampart, the highest part of the fortress wall, and watch to see what God would do. And God said, “Go. Stand. Observe. Look. Wonder at what I am about to do.”

Friends, I want to encourage us to go to the rampart. We don’t have fortress walls here, but I’m going to send you—and myself—to the cry room, to the nurseries, to the Sunday school classrooms, to the middle school and high school youth groups, to the college group, and to the seminary students among us. And I want you to look, wonder, and observe what God is doing.

These are the people—around the ages of seventeen to their early twenties—who are so much like Joseph. These are the people we desperately need to be raised up from the midst of this congregation. And I’m going to send you and myself into our covenant families to look and ask: What is happening in our homes that can and should be producing men and women with greatness of soul?

God has a tremendous role that He plays. If He does not bless, we cannot manufacture the results. God is for us. God is doing this in our midst. But we have a covenant faithfulness that we must attend to—beginning in the cry room and extending through all our contacts, relationships, and opportunities with our children and young people.

If God is for us—and He is—then nothing can be against us in this pursuit of greatness of soul, particularly within our young people.

This article is based upon a verbatim transcript of a sermon by Rev. Robert Ingram. It has been edited with Copilot and the theological staff at Third Millennium Ministries.