Fleeing Sin, Living in Grace

Genesis 39, Matthew 5:21-29

The Untitled, Open-Ended Study Bible

Sunday, August 23, 2026

Rev. David Collins

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Are you flight, fight, or freeze? This is your default reaction when things get stressful.

I'm a classic freezer. Megan will tell you, when a problem or a conflict shows up, I go full Jurassic Park. You remember the trick with the T-Rex, it can only see you if you move. So that's my go-to.

If freezing doesn't work, I'll fight. I know some of y'all go straight there. Honestly, I wish that were my reaction, too. I love how y’all just aren’t scared of conflict. Is it because you played sports as a kid? 

Flight

In our story today, Joseph is a great example of flight. But not in the way you may have heard. 

Today we’re going to dig into Genesis 39, where Joseph runs away from the advances of Potiphar’s wife, which is often presented as a lesson to young men about how to keep themselves pure. Like an illustration of 1 Corinthians 6:18 which says, “Flee from sexual immorality” And that’s true, and you should, and we will talk about that a little bit later.

But that’s not what this text is about. If you read the book, or have seen the movie, or the play, or were here last week, you are familiar with the plot. After Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, he ends up in Egypt, because he was purchased by a man named Potiphar. 

Joseph is not an employee who could resign, and he is not a guest bound by the rules of hospitality. He is enslaved property. Every privilege and responsibility he holds in that household, has been delegated to him and even the clothes on his back, were given to him by a man who legally owns him and can take all of it back. 

So Potiphar's wife enters this arrangement with all of the power over him. The text never describes her appearance, because that is not what the story is tracking. It is tracking authority. If she accuses Joseph of something, whether or not it happened, he has no real way to contest it. He is a foreign slave in a household where her word carries far more weight than his ever could.

This is not a distant problem. 

Harassment

People today face the same thing in workplaces, when the person harassing them signs their paycheck, or sets their schedule, or is recommendation they need for the next step in their career.

Reporting it can cost the job. Refusing it can cost the job. Many of them freeze, not from weakness, but because freezing is often the only option available to someone who can’t afford to lose the position and has no guarantee anyone will take their word for it. 

Before Joseph runs, he tries something else first.

Look at verse 8. She says, "Lie with me." And he says no, but notice how he says no. He doesn't say "this is wrong" and walk out. He explains himself. He lists everything Potiphar has handed him, everything Potiphar trusts him with, everything he still won't touch out of respect for the one thing that isn't his to take. "How then could I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”

He’s negotiating. He’s keeping a smile on his face while being as firm as he can get away with. 

But we all know that people like Mrs. Potiphar don’t hear words. They hear tone. And all they really care about is what they want. 

And verse 10 tells you exactly how well that worked. "Although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not consent to lie beside her or to be with her." Day after day. Which means verse 8 wasn't the end of the conversation. It was the first of many. He kept refusing. And he kept showing up.

If that’s you, know that you have more options than Joseph did. Talk to someone outside of your organization. Stop freezing and talk about it. 

What is happening to you is so wrong and it’s not your fault. 

People in positions of authority, who do things like Mrs Potiphar, aren’t looking for a relationship. They’re predators and parasites. 

We’ve been told this story like it's about willpower, but when Joseph explains himself out loud in verse 9, "How then could I do this great wickedness and sin against God?", he doesn’t mention wanting her.

Which means that the temptation wasn’t lust.

The temptation wasn't lust

The actual offer on the table is simpler than that, and honestly more tempting. Say yes, and nothing changes. He keeps his position, the trust Potiphar has placed in him. He keeps being somebody, in a country where he arrived as property. All it costs him is letting the one person with total power over him take what she wants.

Joseph’s real temptation here was to trade what he knew was right, for what he thought would keep him safe. And since it’s Joseph, who really doesn’t ever stray from the narrow path, he makes it look kind of easy. He flees from temptation even if it means leaving his clothes behind, running away naked, and ending up in prison. 

We should all be more like Joseph. Stop negotiating with sin and just run.

And for some things, that really is the whole strategy. Ask anyone who's worked a twelve-step program. They'll tell you there's no negotiating with the thing that's trying to kill them. You don't manage it. You just don't pick it up today. It's a predator, and it doesn't care about you. 

Negotiating with it is how you lose.

Jesus was pretty clear about this. He taught his disciples not to mess around with sin. He got a little hyperbolic, but the point was the same.

Jesus on Fleeing from Sin

Matthew 5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

There’s some specifics about hell there that need to be unpacked, but let’s focus on the lesson there. Namely…run. Don’t mess around with it, and see how close you can get. Stay far away. And not just from the part where you’ve gone too far and can’t take it back, but from the whole sordid affair. 

This verse follows where Jesus connects the feeling of anger to the act of murder and the look of lust with the act of adultery. 

Matthew 5:27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 

Matthew 5:21 “You have heard that it was said …’You shall not murder,’ …22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment, and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council, and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. 

Nobody in that crowd needed convincing not to murder somebody, that commandment was already settled. Jesus doesn’t lower the bar, he moves it back. Anger, and the contempt that shows up in what you call someone instead of their name, gets held to the same standard as the act itself. Same with lust and adultery.

No one accidentally commits adultery. They get there by way of a hundred little compromises. 

That's what we see in Joseph too. He doesn't wait until he's alone with Mrs. P to decide where he stands. He's already decided, day after day, long before verse 12 ever happens. Joseph didn't outlast the temptation in the moment. He made sure there was as little moment as possible to be in.

But running has a limit, and Joseph is proof of it two different ways.

The Limits of Running

First: Joseph does everything right here, and still ends up in jail. Mrs. P takes the garment he left in her hand and uses it as evidence, and Joseph goes to prison for a crime he didn't commit. Doing the right thing doesn't protect him from what happens next.

That should trouble us, but it doesn’t surprise us either. As much as we like stories where virtue comes with a guarantee of success attached, we know that’s naive. Whistle-blowers and people who stand up to harassment all too often get the same treatment as Joseph here. 

That’s why the predators and the parasites target those they do. They don’t want a relationship with an equal. They want to control and be placated with no risk of repercussions. That’s why the Epstein class targets the poor and why ICE agents wear masks.

Jesus tells his disciples to deal with sin before it happens. To cut off whatever would drag you somewhere you can't come back from, in advance, while you still have the chance.

Predators and parasites do the same kind of advance planning, just in the other direction. They don't remove the thing that that leads to sin. They remove the things that would stop them. 

And some of them even do it as Christians, counting on God’s forgiveness ahead of time. They are walking illustrations of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught about cheap grace.

Cheap Grace, according to Bonhoeffer

He wrote that it's "grace sold on the market like cheapjacks' wares," where forgiveness gets thrown out at cut prices, no questions asked, no limits set. Grace without price. Grace without cost. The account has been paid in advance, so everything can be had for nothing.

And if the account is already settled, and settled infinitely, then the spending possibilities are also infinite. That's the math the predator is doing. Not out loud, and maybe not even consciously, but it's there. Forgiveness is a line of credit that can't be maxed out. So they run up the balance.

Bonhoeffer names exactly what that produces. "Forgiveness without requiring repentance. Baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession." Grace without discipleship. Grace without the cross.

Which is the same trick, run in reverse, that Jesus is dismantling in Matthew 5. The one who never commits adultery but looks however he wants is claiming the grace while keeping the appetite. The one who never murders anybody but calls their brother a fool is technically clean and actually contemptuous. 

Cheap grace lets people think they can have the anger and the lust, and even the murder and the adultery, and still get the forgiveness. 

You get the sin and the absolution, and neither one costs you anything, and you never once have to become a different person.

Jesus closed that loophole from the front. And Bonhoeffer closed it from the back. 

And Joseph just ran away from the whole thing. 

But Joseph got to run because the sin in his story was another person. She lived down the hall. He could put a door between himself and her, and once he did, she was on the other side of it.

But for us, that’s not where sin lives, is it? We can run all we want, and it’s just right there inside. No matter where you go, there you are.

Now while you can and should do everything you can to keep yourself from harming another person, and if you sense in yourself the predator or the parasite who wants to take what you can from those with less power than you, you must do better.

But even if you do cut our your eye and cut off your hand, you can’t cut out your sin. You’ll just use your good eye to look down on people who didn’t do the same, and your good hand to point to your own bravery. 

As bad as it is when people make grace cheap, the fact is that if it wasn’t cheap, if it weren't free, none of us could afford it. 

If grace wasn't cheap, if it wasn't free...none of us could afford it

That's the tension we live in. It really is unlimited. There really is no bill coming.

And thank God, because if there were a price, if there were a threshold of clean living you had to cross before God would have you, we'd all still be standing outside the door.

Jesus doesn't just name the thing you can't cut out. He took on a body himself. A body that got held down and nailed to a cross, a body that can't run anywhere. And he didn’t fight it or flee it or freeze. He stayed.

Then on the other side of that, he doesn't hand you a list of amputations to finish before he'll have you. He just has you. Right now. Eye still in your head. Hand still on your arm. That anger you've been carrying around since 1997 still sitting exactly where it's always sat.

Repentance isn't a cover charge. Repentance is gratitude. It’s what life looks like after you've truly received God’s grace. 

That doesn't make the cutting talk wrong. Some things need to go, and there are some rooms you need to run out of as fast as you can. But you are not buying your way back into the love of God with a clean cut. You're already loved.

Grace is free. It isn't cheap. 

Grace is costly

Bonhoeffer goes on to call it the treasure hidden in the field, the one a man sells everything he owns to go get. The pearl the merchant liquidates his whole inventory to buy. And listen to how Bonhoeffer describes it, because he brings it right back to Matthew 5, costly grace is

"the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble."

"Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a person their life, and it is grace because it gives  them the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner."

"Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son. What has cost God much cannot be cheap for us."

The gift stays free. What it asks of you afterward is everything. Both of those are true at the same time, and that's the tension we live in for the rest of our lives.

Flight, fight, freeze. Whatever your default is (and I'll be over here holding perfectly still) none of them were ever going to be enough.

Joseph ran and went to prison anyway. Doing the right thing didn't spare him. And the sin most of us are dealing with doesn't have a door to run out of, because it gets in the car with us.

So some of you are going to walk out of here carrying exactly what you carried in. The habit that's outlived every promise you ever made about it. The thing you did in a room you didn't leave in time.

You're still loved. You’re still forgiven. And you’re still given the chance to spend the rest of your life learning what it cost. That's the part the predators never get to. They take the free and skip the costly, and they end up with neither.

You get to live in grace with the sin you may never run away from.

It's free.

But don't ever let anybody act like it was cheap.

Amen.