Character Counts

By Chad Shaffer

Throughout the past few years, our nation has seen a decline in character and morals.  The character of our nation's leaders is a standard by how we can measure our nation's morals.  By looking at this standard, our nation has come to say that it does not matter how a person lives as long as they do a good job in the place where they work.  However, a good example of character is Ray Floyd.  Even though he is not as well known as Tiger Woods, Ray Floyd is a professional golfer.  In a tournament one time he was, getting ready to tap in a routine 9-inch putt, he saw the ball move ever so slightly. According to the rulebook, if the ball moves in this way the golfer must take a penalty stroke. Yet, consider the situation. Floyd was among the leaders in a tournament offering a top prize of $108,000. To acknowledge that the ball had moved could mean he would lose his chance for big money.  Writer David Holahan describes as follows what others might have done: "The athlete ducks his head and flails wildly with his hands, as if being attacked by a killer bee; next, he steps back from the ball, rubbing his eye for a phantom speck of dust, all the while scanning his playing partners and the gallery for any sign that the ball's movement has been detected by others. If the coast is clear, he taps the ball in for his par. Ray Floyd, however, did not do that. He assessed himself a penalty stroke and wound up with a bogey on the hole.  As we see Ray Floyd felt that, his character was worth more than the money of winning a golf tournament.  I want to look into the Bible at another person who felt that his character was worth enough that he was willing to be falsely accused and thrown into prison.  We will look at the four steps that show Joseph’s character and can help us show our character and that our character really does count.

           Read Genesis 39:1 –23

Open in Prayer

            The first step we must see is that our position will produce power.  Let us first look at Joseph's position in these first few verses of chapter 39.  In the first verse we find a little of the background of Joseph.  We see that the Ishmaelites sold him to Potiphar.  We must remember that Joseph was sold by his brothers to the Ishmaelites.  Potiphar was a commanding officer of Pharaoh’s bodyguard.  In verse, two we see that the Lord was with Joseph in everything that he did.  This gives us a clue already that Joseph had exceptional character.  In verses, three and four we see that Joseph started to rise in power in the house of Potiphar.  In verses, five and six, it states that Potiphar left everything in his house under the care of Joseph.  Potiphar trusted Joseph so much that he did not have to worry about anything except the food that he ate.  Joseph had power over everything that Potiphar owned.

            We also can see this in the story of Ray Floyd can see the same principle at work.  As Ray Floyd was golfing his position allowed him to make certain calls that would affect the outcome of the tournament.  As Ray stood there, he had complete control of the ball.

            In our lives we to will be in a position that will bring power.  This position and power will be very different for people.  We as adults will many times be in the position of power because of the position in life we hold.  Some people will be in great authority because they run a business while others will not be in as much authority because they are the common worker on the assembly line.  However, it does not matter if you are a blue-collar worker or a white-collar worker if you have a position you have power.  Your power may be limited but you still have power.  Now the young people are wondering I am just a kid and I have no power at all.  All I do is go to school and come home.  This is really not true however, because no matter if you are at school or at home you have control over certain situations that will arise.   As I stated before we all have a limited amount of power and some people’s power is limited more than others are but we still must see that we all have some power because of the position that we are in.  Folks there will come a point in time when the power and/or the position that we are in will produce a challenge to our character.

             We can see this principle power produces a challenge to our character very clearly in the story of Joseph.  In verses one through five, we see that Joseph had gained much power in Potiphar’s household.  In verse seven we see that Potiphar's wife saw Joseph and liked the way, he looked and wanted him to have sex with her.  Therefore, we can see that the position of leadership of Potiphar’s household brought Joseph in contact with Potiphar’s wife.  

            Remember Ray Floyd the golfer and his little predicament while golfing.  When Ray was golfing, he ran into a situation that was a test of his character.  He had a choice either he could be honest about the ball moving and he could end up losing a large sum of money.  On the other hand, he could do what other golfers might do and try to cover it up and keep him in the tournament.

            Throughout our lives, we all have the same challenges.  When is the last time you had a challenge to your character?  Was it a couple weeks ago or was it just yesterday?  We must be ready for these challenges to come.  Some of the challenges that we have may be public challenges to our character where someone will ask us to do something that is wrong or is not totally right.  Someone at work may ask you to help them out by punching in their time card once because they were running a bit late.  Sure, they were only a half a minute late and that should not hurt anything should it?  Young people many times run into public challenges to there character also.  Maybe after school some day your walking home with your friends and someone pulls out a pack of Camels and wants you to smoke them.   Your character is now being challenged in a public way. 

 People’s character also can be challenged privately.  Private challenges are quite possibly the hardest challenges to face.    Many times, we find that we will be in a position and we will have a challenge to our character.  We will be sitting at our computer and we will find an inappropriate site come up.  On the other hand, maybe we will be driving down the road, someone cuts over in front of us, and no one else is in the car.  Or how bout young people at school?  You are sitting there in school and no one is looking.  It is a big test, you need the answer to one of the questions, one of your friends is sitting beside you, and you can see his answers.  The challenges are out there waiting for us.  I know that we all face challenges some of them are different from others.  Some people are challenged in different areas than another person.  However, one thing is constant. That no matter who you are and what position you are in you will have challenges to your character and when there is a challenge to our character this challenge will produce a response.

We can see clearly that the challenge produced a response in this story.  When Joseph was approached by Potiphar’s wife we see that Joseph first responded by a firm No and then told her the reason why he could not have sex with her.  Potiphar’s wife kept coming back to Joseph and asking him to come lay with her but he kept refusing and in verse, ten it says that Joseph did not even listen to her.  However, one-day Potiphar’s wife went further than asking Joseph and took a hold of him.  When she did this in verse, twelve we see that Joseph ran away from her.  He did not even take time to take his cloak away from Potiphar’s wife.

In Ray Floyd’s case when he moved the ball a little, and he then had to decide whether he would take a chance and hope no one saw that his ball had moved, or that he would say that his ball had moved and give himself the proper score even though it could possibly put his chances of winning at stake.  Ray decided that he would not compromise his character by cheating but that he would do things according to the way the rules stated them.

The response to the challenge of our character is absolutely the most crucial part in the four steps that show character.  This step alone will show the true character of a person.  D.L. Moody once said that “Character is what you are in the dark”.  This goes back to private sins or “sins in the dark”. Our response to these sins shows our true character.  Nobody can see what we are doing it is only God and us.  We can learn a lot from Joseph on this matter.  As we go through life, we will be faced with challenges but we must respond to them.  We can have either a good response or a bad response.

            Therefore, what is a good response to a challenge?  Lets look further into the response of Joseph.  First, we see that Joseph made an immediate response to the challenge.  He did not sit and think about it and try to rationalize it he made a decision on what he knew was right.  To many times, we as people try to rationalize things that we do.  I know that I am as guilty of this as any one of you.  However, we must try to make an immediate decision that we are going to do what is right.  This will allow for less temptation possibly.  We must however be careful that we do everything making sure that we are biblically correct.  Second, a good response will give reason for why you will or will not do something.  Joseph gave Potiphar’s wife a reason why he would not sleep with her.  He told her that she was Potiphar’s wife and that he was not permitted to have sex with his master’s wife.  Joseph knew this to be right and he stuck to that. If we cannot or will not give a reason for why we will not do something sometimes that will allow for more temptation.  Sometimes not saying anything at all is like agreeing with what other people are saying around you.  Even if we do not agree with them, keeping things to ourselves may lead them to believe that we do.  Even though Joseph told Potiphar’s wife that he would not have sex with her and he gave her a firm and clear reason why he would not she was still persistent.   This lead Joseph to go further it says that Joseph would not even talk to her in verse ten.  In verse, twelve Potiphar’s wife takes a hold of Joseph and wants him to go to bed with her.  This led Joseph to run away from Potiphar’s wife leaving his cloak in her hands.  We ourselves must make decisions like this as well.  Will we do what is honest?  Will we when we are confronted say no to things that we know are not of God?  If someone comes into our office in the morning and asks us to do something that is not ethically correct are we going to say no I will not do that.  Or will we go with the flow and do what other people want us to do.  When you are sitting in school and you have the opportunity to look at another persons work and make the grade that you will get on your test better will you do that or will you be turn your head and do your own work.  We must try to remove ourselves from situations that challenge our character and integrity.

            Since we have seen, what a good response may be let us look at what a bad response is.  We have already touched a little bit on what a bad response may be but lets look at this again.  First, a bad response may be not saying no and trying to ignore the challenge.  Many times, we think that if I just turn my back the problem may go away.  This may work occasionally but this does not happen and if you just try to push the test away it will probably come back, just as Potiphar’s wife kept coming back to Joseph.  Another bad response is not saying anything at all.  I know I have said this before but we must remember this, that if we do not say anything about a challenge to our character it will lead people to think that we agree with them even if we really do not agree with them.  Let me give you a practical example or two.  Lets say that you are sitting at work and you see some employees doing that are against company policies.  This will be different for each individual.  Some people may see people punch in for others.  You can always turn your head and act like you did not see or you can find a way to politely tell the person that you do not agree with what they are doing.  Other people will see people actually stealing merchandise or supplies and they must then make a decision of what they are going to do.  They will tell either their supervisors or they will just let it go and pretend they did not see what happened.  You as young people have other problems and challenges like these.  Maybe you will see your friends smoking or stealing from a store.  Or maybe a friend will try to cheat off your test.  The way you respond will show what your character is.  If you do not say anything to your friends about what they are doing, they may possibly think that you agree with them. This is certainly not, what we want to convey to the people that are around us.  Another bad response is to just give in and compromise what you believe.  This response can show that you could possibly not have a good character.

            I must offer a warning however while we are talking about responses to the challenge.  We must also be careful to judge others by their response to challenges.  Let us not forget that we cannot tell for sure what their character is by watching one response to a challenge.  We must realize that we all do make mistakes and that we are continually trying to press onward and keep growing in our faith.  This sermon is not meant for you to take these points out and judge someone on each point but rather it is to give you a way of guarding against challenges that come against your character.

            Therefore, as we are going through our day and we see that we will face challenges and that our challenges will produce a response.  Next, we will see that our response will produce a result. 

            The first thing that we must see here is that even though the response will produce a result we also find that the result is not directly dependent on the response.  You are saying Chad what in the world are you trying to say?  What I mean is this.  Even though you may chose a good response this does not mean that you will immediately get a good result. 

            Lets first look at the result of the responses of Joseph.   After Joseph had responded by running away from Potiphar’s wife we see that in verse fifteen she tells that she screamed and scared off Joseph.  In verse seventeen, we see that she told Potiphar that Joseph was the one that tried to rape her.  Therefore, after hearing, what his wife had told him Potiphar went out and he threw Joseph in jail.  This does not look like the result that we would expect since Joseph did the correct thing and fled from the temptation.  However, this is what God had in store for Joseph.  We come to find that in the following chapters in Genesis this eventually turns out for the good of Joseph and the whole nation of Egypt.  We can only speculate what would have happened if Joseph did not do what was right and would have slept with Potiphar’s wife. 

            This is a lesson that we should cling to as we go on our spiritual journey throughout life.  There are going to be many times that we are going to do what is right and it is going to end up hurting us at that particular time.  However, we must also realize that God does have a reason for everything that he allows into our lives.  Just as Joseph may not have realized that this would eventually help him become one of the leaders of Egypt, so we also may not fully understand what the impact of our decisions in life will be.  Granted many of our decisions will not turn out to affect they course of history the way that Joseph’s decision did, but does that give us any reason not to make a right choice?  We must realize that we are called to make right choices.  We must make the choice and then depend on God for the result.  If we can realize this truth, our choices may come a little easier.  By no means will ever choice be easier but we should gain some comfort in knowing that God is in control. 

            In conclusion, as we have looked through four steps of how to see and help your character by the example of Joseph we must keep two things in the front of our minds. First, God does care about what our character is like.  Second, we must remember that God is in control of the results of our choices that we make.  Lets quickly review the four points.  First, Position produces power, second Power and/or position produce challenge to character, Third, Challenge to your Character will produce a response, and Lastly our response will produce a result.  If we can keep, remember these four steps it may help you be prepared to make a good choice the next time you face a challenge.  Always remember that God cares about your heart and you character and not what others may think or say.  Character does count.

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