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Houston's First Baptist Church is a relevant biblical community where we gather our hearts, grow our souls and give our lives as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). This podcast provides weekly messages from Pastor Gregg Matte and others. Visit us at HoustonsFirst.org to learn more about HFBC, and visit us in person the next time you're in Houston!
I'm going to read from the 40th chapter of Genesis this morning and ask you to follow along there in your Bibles. Genesis chapter 40, beginning in verse number 1. You remember that Joseph, for something he did not do, had been cast into prison. And there, because he was a godly man, he had been exalted to the position of director of the prisoners under the chief guard. And it came to pass after these things that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker had offended their lord, the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was wroth, was mad against two of his officers, against the chief of the butlers and against the chief of the bakers. And he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound, or where he was held. And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them. And they continued a season in ward. And they dreamed a dream, both of them, each man his dream in one night. Now this baker must have been eating some of his own cooking, because he was having some wild dreams at night. And so each man, according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, which were bound in his prison, in the prison. And Joseph came in unto them in the morning, and looked upon them, and behold, they were sad. And he asked Pharaoh's officers that were with him in the ward of the Lord's house, saying, Wherefore, or why, look ye so sadly today? Now here was a cheery Christian in prison. And he went around to his fellow prisoners and said, Boys, what's the matter? Why do you look so sad? He was in prison too. But because he had God in his life, he wasn't sad. And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me then, I pray you. In other words, you're talking to God's man. I can handle this. And so the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me. And in the vine were three branches, and it was as though it budded. And her blossoms shot forth, and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes. And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it. The three branches are three days. Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thy place. And thou shalt deliver Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner, when thou wast his butler. But think on me what it shall be well with thee. In other words, remember me when it's well with thee. I pray thee, and remember me, make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house, out of this place. For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon. Now, he's given some good news to the chief baker, a butler. He tells him he's going to be released. But when the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, I also was in my dream, and behold, I had three white baskets on my head. And in the utmost basket there was awe of all manner of makements for Pharaoh. And the birds did eat upon them of the basket upon my head. And Joseph answered and said, This is the interpretation thereof. The three baskets are three days. Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree. I guess he had decided he wished he hadn't heard his interpretation after all. And he said, The bird shall eat thy flesh from thee. And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants. And he lifted up the head off the chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants. And he restored the chief butler unto his butlership again, and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. But he hanged the chief baker as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgot him. I call this sermon this morning, The Man Who Forgot. Let me share with you a little bit of the frustration of a preacher when he looks at a text that is as replete with truth as is this one. I do not think that I can justify 25 minutes of your time on Sunday morning by giving you a history lesson or indeed a simple lecture on the aspects of prophecy. But when I read through a text like this, I have to ask myself the question, what lesson is there in here? What picture is there for us? What application can I make to us that will help us from this Old Testament text? And I see that there are literally scores and perhaps hundreds of them. I could preach to you, for example, the fact that here are three men who are imprisoned. A picture of three men who are imprisoned on a cross in the New Testament. That one of those men was there unjustly. That two received the due recompense of their reward. As did our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. He unjustly suffering for the just who deserved to sin and to die. I could suggest to you that the inference is here made in the scripture that when the time for salvation came, the salvation of the two depended upon the one. And they were released because of him. And the salvation of the two men on the cross depended upon the one in the center cross. I could say that these three days in prison suggest three days in the grave before our Lord was resurrected from his imprisonment. I could suggest to you that there is the inference here that a good man is able to patiently bear the shame and awful imprisonment of something that was unjust. I could suggest that a man's honor when at stake that a good man is always recognized by an evil man and honored and exalted. I could suggest to you that the dual justice of God in slaying one man and in freeing one man is identically inferred here as the mercy of God and the judgment of God both meted out in accordance to the will of God from the same man. And on and on and on, as you can see, there are literally scores of lessons for us. But after prayer and thinking about it, it has occurred to me that perhaps the most important lesson for us to learn is that this man forgot to remember Joseph down in prison. There is something in all of us that tends to forget. Forgetfulness can be a very bad habit. Indeed, the Bible over three dozen times reminds and exhorts us to remember the Lord. And well over a hundred times we are told to remember things in general. The Bible says, for example, remember thy first love. Remember the words of Jesus. We are exhorted to remember the pit from which we were digged and a rock from which we were hewn. The Bible says, remember thy creator in the days of thy youth. We're told, as of the rich man that went to hell, remember the chances that you in your lifetime had for salvation. Jesus himself said, remember Lot's wife and remember the poor. We are told in Hebrews to remember the holy covenant. The Bible says, remember how our Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. And remember that thou hast received the word of life and hold fast unto it. Without question, the greatest and most complex and powerful and wonderful thing in all of the world is the mind of man. It is a great computer that is able to remember what it will. There are things that we forget. We tend to forget those things that are either unimportant or unpleasant to us. Our Lord has the beautiful and wonderful capacity of forgetting the things that he wants to. The Bible says that he has the ability to forget our sins. He casts them when confessed behind him as far as the east from the west and thank God remembers them against us no more. And yet, there are times, most of the time, which we as Christian men and women need to remember. It is usually better to remember than to forget. The mind helps us to forget the suffering and the heartbreak and the disappointments of yesterday. And oftentimes, the scars that come over a severed relationship or a severed spirit, a problem in our life, make us even stronger than we were before and blot out with wonderful mercy the unpleasant things of the past. And yet, there are many good things that we forget that we ought to remember. Now let's look at the man in our text this morning. The Bible, I think, sums up everything the Lord would have us learn from this by bringing to a grand climax in the last verse of the 40th chapter the simple words, yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgot him. Or the old English expression for forgot him. Three things I want to say to you this morning about the man who forgot to remember. Number one, what did he forget? Why did he forget? And the result of his having forgotten. Forgetting. Forgotten. First of all, he forgot the dreary pit from which he had been rescued. Now listen, there is a subtle temptation of Satan for us to remember the dregs of sin without the accompanying difficulty of it. It is intrinsic in human nature that once a redeemed man has been removed from sin, that Satan tends to blot out the memory of the awful accompanying presence that went with sin and remember only the attributes and the sparkling glamour. You remember that the Israelites, finally after years of crying and prayer, had been released from Egyptian bondage. But Satan came to them as they started across their way to freedom and reminded them of some of the so -called pleasures of sin again down in Egypt. And they were striving and crying and yearning and longing for the sin and the leaks and the garlic of Egypt. But they forgot the bricks and the mud bath. They forgot the stripes and the imprisonment. They forgot the slavery. They forgot the awfulness that went with sin. And when you as a believer and Satan will tempt you with this consistently, are reminded of the pleasures of sin for a season back in the world, I regard, I urge you to remember with high regard the accompanying pain and heartbreak and misery and disappointment and death that went with it. To be sure there is pleasure in sin, but there is an accompanying death as well. The Bible says she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. But we tend, as did this man, to forget the awfulness of that pit and another man that was in it. I suggest to you that he forgot a man who came to him. He forgot that the man who was the agency, the vehicle of his salvation and freedom sought him out. He did not go to him. There had been nothing intrinsic in his personality that had produced his salvation. He was free because somebody came to him and told him how to be free. What a lesson there is in that for all of us. That had not someone paid the price, had not someone taken the initiative to come to him, that he would still have been bound in the despot of sin. Again, I think that he forgot to remember the price that someone else had paid to be the right man in the right place at the right time to be the agency of his salvation. You see, he was just in there for a short season, but Joseph had been in the pit for years. There was a severe price that was paid by Joseph for him to be able to still be there to be the agency of freedom for this enslaved man. And has not our Lord Jesus Christ similarly paid an awful price, have not Christians, have not believers through the years paid a price of dedication and holiness and faithfulness to witness to the Lord Jesus Christ to be God's man in God's time in God's right place. When you and I miss the awful, the wonderful and awesome opportunity of witnessing and being God's man in God's place, we may be the agency of keeping someone bound in the prison of sin. I think he forgot the first blush of joy, the first full bloom of gladness that was his when he first learned the good news that he would be freed from sin. And that the slavery and the imprisonment was about to go, the first joy that rushed over him when he learned the good news, the relief that he would be set free. I think he forgot that. And I think there is a severe tendency in the lives of all of us to forget the first joy, the first blush of enthusiasm with which we were filled when we first learned the news that through Jesus Christ we could be set free. The best time in this world to be a witness for Christ is when you first received him. And I think some of us that have not deacons, workers, Christian people, singers, ushers, even preachers who have not witnessed for the Lord in 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 years, who have not told someone the joy that it means, some of us need to go back to Bethel, back to the altar and re -experience the first flash of the original joy of knowing Jesus Christ. Maybe your heart has grown cold. Maybe you have forgotten what it means to be set free, to experience when Jesus comes. For in loving kindness, Jesus did come. My soul and mercy to reclaim. And from sinking sand, says the songwriter, he lifted me. And we are so prone to forget the difference in sin and righteousness, the difference in knowing Christ and being enslaved, the difference in life and death, the difference in lostness and salvation. And if you have grown cold and have gone month after month and year after year without telling others the joy of what it means, and perhaps you ought to go back and re -experience and reclaim that wonderful delight, the first full flush that comes when a man finds Jesus Christ. Now, why did he forget? Well, it's obvious to me because he was a basically a selfish, egocentric man. The sun rose and sat in his life. And he lived by a philosophy that said in so many words, as long as I get mine, the world can go hang. Now, I want you to watch what happens because one man lived a life and never learned the lesson of the secret of life, that life does not consist of the abundance of things men possess. For a man to be a butler does not merely suggest that he drove the chariot and opened the door. It was the number three position in all of the kingdom. There was the first ruler under Pharaoh and then there was the butler. There was a great difference between the butler and the baker. The baker was a man who just cooked. He had no status, but the butler was a highly entrusted individual. And the inference is here that he was wealthy, that he had status, that he had possession, that he had position, and everything in life was coming in and there was nothing going out. Like the dead sea of life in which so many lives are, this egocentric man who lived and existed and was born and died for good old number one, resulted in a life that missed the total point of living. Because first of all, he was so primarily concerned with the satisfaction of his own flesh and his own self and his own satisfaction that that was all that counted in life. He was an egocentric man, as I've suggested, and he never learned the secret of life. When Jesus said that the only thing a man keeps in life is what he gives away. Listen, he tells us in the 16th chapter of Matthew, whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's sake shall save it. What an important lesson it is in life and how late we learn it. The old German proverb says we get too soon old and too late smart. And we do. And this man never really learned that real abundance and real living came not in worrying about himself, but in a life that was given to other people. And he was basically because of his position, because of his nature, because of everything in his life concerned with number one. And like the cesspool of the dead sea that always took in, but never gave out, he stagnated and died and has become an eternal debacle to selfishness. He forgot because he was concerned primarily with what happened today. I cannot imagine that he did not remember the agency of his freedom. I cannot imagine that he did not concern himself at least sometimes with what had happened. But it is obvious to me that he totally forgot about the future. That one day he was going to meet face -to -face that man because his prison sentence was running out and he could not think that he would be in there forever one day you see the past he forgot about but he surely should have remembered the future that one day he was going to meet this man joseph face to face and what would he say to a man of whom he had not even remembered to speak a good word he had pled with him had he not joseph had said remember me when you come out of this place but he forgot about it he forgot about what he'd done in the past he forgot one day he would live in the future his life was all centered in today and the selfish egocentric life that lives and concerns itself with me and number one and now today and the satisfaction of this life and this day and this pleasure and this drive and this desire is a life that is destined to die life does not consist in the abundance of things possessed james says that the abundance of a of a man's possessions did not speak of the nature of the content of his life for many people who own the most and have the most are the emptiest and the most dead on the inside but because this man live for himself live for now live for today live for the flesh the result was a simple one number one he went to hell he died because that kind of life does i read the word of god there is no record of him in the new testament his name is not found in the roll call of the faithful he is not a great monument to one of the great saints of the word of god that is the end of him he lives and he dies a life that is centered in number one it is egocentric it is self -satisfying and he is dead and that is the end of it and he never has any record that he ever anywhere in life gave his selfish life in exchange for his selfless life and a man whose sun rises and sits somewhere in his body who has never given himself to the christ of the cross who never expresses it in giving himself to others is a man whose stagnated life begins and ends and dies in itself no relationship to man no relationship to god no relationship to others it was a dead -end street it was a one -way street in his life and that kind of life goes out into eternity as it has lived in this world of the empirical realm dead and separated from god and from others and then because of his neglect and his unconcern a good man stayed in prison while he went free simply because he forgot to speak a little song that says i wonder have i done my best for jesus when he has done so much for me the chorus goes how many are the weak that i have lifted how many are the chain that i've set free i wonder have i done my best for jesus when he has done so much for me and what man is there of us who would not say i have done so pitifully little and what man of us is there who would not say lord i could do better if i wanted to i am trying simply i want to nail down for us this morning that a man whose life is centered in himself who has never learned that the basic the principle of life is that real living comes through dying that easter comes after calvary that living is the result of a mother nearly dying in the valley of the shadow of death and only when our life is crossed out and given into his hands does a man begin to live and until and unless that happens the end result can only be the kind of an inverted egocentric life that ultimately lives and dies bigness lives life and love and others is the name of the game what kind of men shall we be what kind of women and young people shall we be should we go through life with a philosophy that says what's in it for me what about today what does it mean how much can i keep like the little boy who thrusts his hand into the milk bottle to try to get the penny and when he finally grabs onto it cannot get it back through the neck because his hand in selfishness is enclosing that little choice bit of possession in a hand that will not turn loose and he gets back neither the hand nor the penny when he turns loose and lets it go he gets the possession and he gets his hand as well a life that is given to others a life that is big, a life that gives, a life that loves, a life that lives for others, or a life that is narrow and bigoted and personal and egocentric and selfish and dead and decadent that ends in death. The choice is ours and the only way that a man can have the power to do that that is unnatural to human nature to go cross -current to everything that is naturally in us, to seek our own and to protect ourselves and to satisfy ourselves, I say to you, is in the power of Jesus Christ. It is not natural. It is not normal for a man to want to crucify himself, to live for others. That comes only by the engrafted nature of Jesus Christ within us. It must be experienced. And if we do not know him and have him and let him live and control through us, then we are destined to self -centered lives that end up in death. The choice is ours. You can give your selfish life in exchange for his selfless life and live. For you can keep you on the throne of your life and die. Which will it be? You are a free moral agent, free before God to make your own choice. And that choice decides not only your eternal destiny, but the destiny of your life as well. God, the exchange life, my life given up for his glorious life, my sin for his salvation, my failure for his success, my impudence for his power. This is to live. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? If you have never experienced, and unless you do, you can go to the University of Houston and get 100 degrees. You can philosophize and theorize until the world looks level. But the truth of the matter is that this grand principle that the sages of the ages have found throughout all of life's history to be true, that life is not given, is not really experienced by my selfishness, but in giving myself to him and to others, you will, with all the education and knowledge and book learning and experience in the world, never have the capacity to do it until Jesus Christ comes in you and gives you that power. It is absolutely in rebellion and opposition to the normality of human nature. It is not like us. Only when there is an infused power through the power of Christ, who lived the perfect selfless life through a new birth experience where Christ comes in, then and then alone, do we have the power to live a normal life, to live winning lives, to live selfless lives. It must be given in willingness to him. Give him yourself. As an unbeliever, if you've not done that this day, and if you do know Christ, you have just hung on. You've kept that penny, that nickel, and that milk bottle of life squeezed until you've almost lost everything. I want to repeat to you, there is no virtue in being poor. There is no shame to being rich. Neither are important. It is the heart what lives inside the man and his basic approach to life that will make the ultimate difference that will crush you up on the crag of life or dash you up on its waves to mighty pleasure and joy and success. The decision is absolutely yours. A selfless life or a selfish life. You cannot do it unless the selfless, perfect one is incarnate in your being in a wonderful experience called being born again. Have you experienced him? Have you experienced that? If not, you may do so this day. He said, him that cometh unto me, I'll in no wise cast out. He knoweth our frame that we are but dust. He understands. He became in the form of a man. He knows all about it. When you come and say, dear Lord, my lust and my pride and my sin and myself and my covetousness and my ego and me, me, me, that I know mentally will lead to death, but has no power mentally to get off the merry -go -round and start living a life that ends in life given to thee. I know I cannot do it. O God, thou Jesus Christ, do it in me. Do it in me i give thee myself i receive you and your fullness and power to come into me and begin to live in me give me that kind of life then he'll do it you have to want it you have to realize that it's true you have to desire it but you have to come and ask him for it he said him that cometh i'll in no eyes cast out the savior is waiting to enter your life i repeat self me my flesh today is to die but others and god and love is to live give you for him and you christians have you totally surrendered your life to the lordship of jesus christ are you trying to hang on to the leaks of in garlics of egypt remembering a little bit of the insipid taste of sin but forgetting the bondage that goes with it that's satan that's the devil he wants nothing more in this world than to blind and grind and deceive and damn and destroy the effect of your life oh the joy the possession of life the gift of life that god has given you to learn well the lesson that it is only experienced in its completeness its total potential when it is given back in surrender to him so