If you didn’t join us this past Sunday or if you missed the conversation we had on “Unstoppable Partnerships” then you should listen to the message here or download the podcast from iTunes. I glossed over some of the ideas and characteristics of what the “right partner” would look like and have felt that perhaps, I did you some injustice by not expounding on those ideas. By partnership, I don’t mean romantic life partner, mostly characterized by a man and a woman in love with 2.5 kids, a white picket fence and a dog. By partnership, I mean a relationship where you and somebody else or other people walk together in life and approach the impossible journey of vision that burns deeply within your soul to become bigger than yourself or your partners’ combined imaginations. This partnership can be forged professionally, socially and especially spiritually. All of us have some type of life goal or vision or pipe dream ruminating within our souls and without the right partners, those goals or visions will remain as just figments of our wildest imaginations. This morning, I give you the characteristic of “purity.” Let me just be clear and say, very few of us are pure in any sense of the word. The closest many of us will ever get to purity is the diluted solution of milky scum we get after rubbing our hands with soap and water. However, when we seek a partner, we should remember the “right” partner will be pure– in motive and intention. No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God. She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible. – Genesis 39:9-10 If somebody comes into your life, wishing to be your partner but has bad intentions and motives, it’s the beginning of a bad partnership. Vice versa, if we come into a partnership where our motives and intentions are not for the best of the other person, we are in a lot of trouble. Joseph was in partnership with Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s body guard and we see in his actions, a purity of motive and intention toward Potiphar. People may call this characteristic “loyalty.” But more than just being loyal to somebody who has entrusted him, Joseph was pure, not having any malicious intentions toward the man who enslaves him. Let’s be honest, if we were enslaved and had the opportunity to sleep with the captor’s wife and impregnate her with our own seed in an act of rebellion against our captors, a Shakespearean comedy of sorts, we would probably do it. It would be the greatest inside joke ever; to have our captor raise the slave child as his own. And that is what makes us impure, our intentions. We see Potiphar’s wife in the story and it is very clear that she is not the type of person you want as a partner. She goes and tries to get what she wants despite of the commitment she made to her partner, that’s another story for another day. The right partnership begins with a person pure in motive and intention for you. They want the best for you, even to the point of their own detriment. This is the embodiment of love. Jesus gave up his life in sacrifice to our own. His motive was pure and his intent was clear– eternal life for those who deserved eternal punishment. Joseph lived pure and characterizes a “right” partner. The question is: are your partner’s motives pure? More importantly, are your motives pure?
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