The Charge of Joseph by Bob Fraser

By Bob Fraser

The Charge of Joseph
by Bob Fraser

www.josephcompany.org

(Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Marketplace Christianity.)

For many years I puzzled over a bizarre reference to Joseph in Hebrews 11, the "hall of faith" chapter:

²²By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.

Heb 11:22

Why would Joseph care about where his bones were taken after he died? As I was meditating on this one day, the meaning hit me. This was Joseph's way of declaring the true location of his heart. As a forerunner of Marketplace Christians, Joseph lived fully in the "marketplace" of Egypt, a wealthy and comfortable land. Joseph's people were multiplying and prospering, partaking of the "good life" of riches, cuisine, art, craftsmanship, learning, science, government, culture and extravagance of Egypt. God sent them there to become strong and to learn to build a great nation under the tutelage of the greatest nation yet known. But there was a problem: along with the greatness, there was sensuality and indulgence. Complacency and assimilation threatened the purpose for which they were designed.

But Egypt was not God's final destination for the people of Israel. It was merely the place where they would grow strong from seventy-five nomadic ranchers to a great nation by the time Moses led them out.

By his astonishing declaration about his bones, Joseph proclaimed he lived for the promises of God rather than temporal earthly gain. He refused to be identified with his accomplishments or the blessings on his life, but only with the promises of God. He proclaimed Egypt was not his true home (nor by implication, theirs), but the Promised Land was - he and they were but strangers and sojourners in the land of Egypt. His bones became a "monument of temporality" to his descendants, reminding them this life was but a warm-up for the life to come and that their promised inheritance was in that other life.

Our Real Destiny

Like Joseph, Marketplace Christians are anointed to govern, but we govern in a foreign nation the marketplace. While we serve with everything we have, our eyes are on another country; we live in awareness of the promises.

We live in the wealthiest, most seductive culture ever to exist on planet earth. We face the same dangers the Israelites faced in Egypt: we are in danger of being assimilated by the world. Every day the pleasures, dissipations, distractions, desires and pursuits of other things war against our soul, seeking to undermine the promises, making them distant, seeking to make us forget who we are and what our true purpose is.

Where do you want your bones to be buried? Where do you want to leave your legacy? Will your legacy be trophies, bank accounts, homes, boats and automobiles the passing pleasures the marketplace provides? Or will it be in heaven, where the throng of saints will greet you at the gate, your Father praising and affirming you because you spent your life working as for the Lord?

Though we work wholeheartedly in the marketplace, we are commanded to live as strangers on earth, as those just passing through:

¹⁷Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. 1 Pet. 1:17 (NIV)

¹³All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. Heb. 11:13 (NIV)

¹¹Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 1 Pet. 2:11

We live and work on this earth, but we have a different inheritance, a different home. Like ambassadors in a foreign land, we do not seek our reward in the land of our service, but in our homeland, and from our King. To seek our reward in the land of our service would be a betrayal of our King, because it is Him we are to be serving and representing. We know our service is short, and we must faithfully discharge the trust He has placed in us, representing Him and His wishes as much as we are able, not our own, until we return home to Him.

True Faith

We must have great faith, as Joseph had. Faith is giving up today's temporary reward for tomorrow's eternal reward. It's investing in an unseen world and disinvesting in the seen world. It's placing trust in the invisible realm above the visible realm. It's giving up what is tangible to lay hold of that which is only promised. Such faith honors the One who promises.

When we accept Jesus Christ as savior it is dis-investing in human efforts at salvation and investing in His unseen efforts. When we give in faith, it is forgoing earthly reward which we can see, taste and feel, in order to attain heavenly reward, which we have never seen, tasted or felt. When we work as for the Lord, it is rejecting the serving of man, by which we would have earthly gain, in order to serve the unseen God, to attain an unseen reward. When martyrs gladly give their lives, it is a willingness to dis-invest in earthly gain in order to attain unseen, unknown heavenly gain. When we pray, we disinvest for a time in human efforts, in order to ask of an invisible God. These activities are all born of faith. All honor God, because we are placing our trust in Him.

To become spiritual men and women, we must readily trade earthly gain, reward and recognition for heavenly. We must embrace earthly loss for heavenly gain. We must eagerly follow Him from a heart of love.

John Wesley was a classical scholar. He loved books and learning, art, music and architecture. Visiting the beautiful grounds of an English nobleman one time Wesley said, "I too have a relish for these things; but there is another world." Let that truth pervade our lives as we passionately pursue our calling and purpose in the marketplace.