AudioWe return today to our series on the Essential 100 passages of Scripture, and we pick up with the story of Joseph where we left off in Chapter 37. In our study of the Bible, we rarely encounter a man of Joseph’s caliber. Even in his own lifetime, his uniqueness of character was evident to those who knew him. Of all the people described in the book of Genesis, of Joseph (and Joseph alone) do we read that he was filled with the Spirit of God. Pharaoh declared, “Can we find a man like this in whom is a divine spirit?” (41:38). The Hebrew could be literally translated “the Spirit of God,” but the translators allow for a little ambiguity, given that the statement is made by Pharaoh, a man who considers himself one of some two-thousand or more deities in the Egyptian pantheon. But the point is clear enough. In all of Pharaoh’s dealings with people the world over, he’d never encountered anyone like Joseph, and what made him different was the presence of the Spirit of God in Joseph’s life. The New Testament teaches us that this same Holy Spirit indwells each and every follower of Jesus. The New Covenant which was promised in the Old Testament and inaugurated by Jesus promised that the Spirit of God would be within the people of God (Ezek 36:27). Galatians 4:9 says God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into the hearts of those who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ because they have been adopted into God’s family. This indwelling of the Spirit is a one-time event that occurs at the moment a person is born again by faith in Jesus. The Holy Spirit comes into our lives and never departs. There is, however, an ongoing need for surrendering control of oneself to the Holy Spirit. This is referred to in Scripture as the “filling” of the Holy Spirit. Writing to Christians who are indwelt by the Spirit in Ephesians 5, Paul gives an imperative command for Christians to “be filled with the Spirit,” or perhaps more literally, “be always being filled with (or controlled by) the Spirit.” Just as Pharaoh had never encountered a man like Joseph who was filled with the Person and power of the Spirit of God, so also many in the world today have yet to meet a person like this. Many have met Christian people who are indwelt by the Spirit, but they do not see evidence of the Spirit’s presence and power in the lives of those believers because the Spirit is “quenched” and not allowed to have full control of our lives. When we live as Spirit-filled people, yielded to His control, we will make the same kind of impact on others that Joseph did, and His presence within us will be made known in the same ways that He made Himself known through Joseph. So as we look at the manifestation of the Spirit’s powerful presence in Joseph’s life, we see how He may be manifested in our lives as well. So these are the marks of a Spirit-filled person. I. The presence of God is the root of his success (39:1-6) In our therapeutic culture, it has become commonplace for people to identify themselves as victims. Now, we want to be sensitive to the reality that there are a great many people who have been terribly victimized by the wrongdoing of others. No one denies this. However, it is one thing to be victimized, and it is another thing to make victimhood become one’s identity, and to allow the wrongs of others to shape and define our lives. If anyone in history could have identified as a victim and blamed all of his life circumstances on the evil deeds of others, surely Joseph could have done so. He could have blamed all of his problems on his father, his brothers, the band of traders who bought and sold him into slavery in Egypt, or Potiphar who purchased him and made him his servant. But in spite of all these unfortunate circumstances, Joseph did not allow the victimization he had experienced at the hands of others to define his life or become an excuse to be an underachiever. Neither did he become idle and wait for his circumsta