Favor Underground Part 3: Joseph’s Coat Was Never the Favor
Joseph lost his coat twice in Genesis. Neither time did his favor go with it.
There is a detail in Joseph’s story that is easy to read past. In Genesis 37, his brothers strip him of his coat of many colors before they lower him into a pit. Two chapters later, in Genesis 39, Potiphar’s wife catches him by his garment, and he leaves it in her hand and runs.
Two coats. Two losses. And in neither scene does Joseph lose what actually mattered.
That was the heart of Favor Underground Part 3, preached by Pastor Doug Lattimore at Solo Faith Church in Concord, North Carolina, on Sunday, October 18. Jacob’s coat showed the whole family which son he favored. But the coat only displayed the favor. It was never the favor itself.
Pastor Doug gave Joseph’s brothers a name that stuck with the room: functionally illogical. They could work, go to school and look fine from the outside, but Joseph’s favor made them unreasonable. They were angry over a dream and angry that their father loved him. Most of us have met someone like that, someone no explanation will satisfy. His advice was simple. Don’t give them the reaction they are waiting for.
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He also lingered on Reuben, the brother who talked the others out of killing Joseph and put him in the pit alive instead. When people are tearing you down, not everyone believes what they hear. Sometimes there is a quiet supporter you never knew you had.
The sermon’s sharpest turn was about light. When someone flips on the lights in a dark room, the first reaction is to squint and say turn it off. Joseph’s light kept landing in places that could not take it: his father’s house, Potiphar’s house, a prison where nobody gets a coat at all. It was a question of light and darkness, Pastor Doug said, not blood and water. Being family does not guarantee being received.
Then Joseph reached Pharaoh’s house, and nobody needed an explanation. Pharaoh saw the wisdom of God on him and trusted him with the plan that would feed a region.
Some of us, Pastor Doug said, will find pits and prisons before we find palaces. What people take from you was never what God put in you.
The Favor Underground series is now also a book, available on Amazon.
Originally published on the Solo Faith Church blog: https://www.solofaith.org/post/josephs-coat-favor-underground-part-3
