is.  First, Joseph was in Potiphar’s house to serve him and to help him, and he did that, and Potiphar learned to trust him, so that he said, “All that I have I will give into his hands.”  Now, that is exactly what is to take place with a great many Christians.  They know Christ, they trust Him, they love Him, but He is not Master, He is a sort of helper.  When there is trouble they come to Him, when they sin they ask Him for pardon in His precious blood, when they are in darkness they cry to Him; but often and often they live according to their own will, and they seek help from themselves.  But how blessed is the man who comes and, like Potiphar, says, “I will give up everything to Jesus!” There are many who have accepted Christ as their Lord, but have never yet come to the final, absolute surrender of everything.  Christians, if you want perfect rest, abiding joy, strength to work for God, oh, come and learn from that poor heathen Egyptian what you ought to do.  He saw that God was with Joseph and he said, “I will give up my house to him.”  Oh, learn you to do that.  There are some who have never yet accepted Christ, some who are seeking after Him, thirsting and hungering, but they do not know how to find Him.

Let me direct your attention to four thoughts regarding this surrender to Christ:  First, its motives; second, its measures; third, its blessedness; lastly, its duration.

First of all, its motives.  What moved Potiphar to do this?  I think the answer is very easy:  he was a trusted servant of the king and he had the king’s work to take care of, and he very likely could not take care of his own house.  All his time and attention were required at the court of Pharaoh.  He had his duty there; he was in high honor; but his own house got neglected.  Very likely he had had other overseers, one slave appointed to rule the others, and perhaps that one had been unfaithful, or dishonest, and somehow his house was not as he would have it.  So he buys another slave, just as he had formerly done, but in this case he sees what he had never seen before.  There is something unusual about the man.  He walks so humbly, he serves so faithfully and so lovingly, and withal so successfully.  Potiphar begins to look into the reason for this, and finally concludes that God is with him.

It is a grand thing to have a man with whom God is, to entrust one’s business to.  The heathen realized this, and between the need of his own house and what he saw in Joseph, he decided to make him overseer.  I ask you, do not these two motives plead most urgently that you should say:  “I will make Jesus master over my whole being?” Your house, Christian, your spiritual life, the dwelling, the temple of God in your heart,—­in what state is that?  Is it not often like the temple of old, in Jerusalem, that had been defiled and made a house of merchandise, and afterwards a den of thieves?  Your heart, meant to be the home of Jesus, is it not often full of sin and darkness, full of sadness, full of vexation?  You have done your very best to get it changed, and you have called in the help of man, and the help of means; you have used every method you could think of for getting it put right; but it will not come right until He whose it is, comes in to take charge.