Joseph in the Pit: Favor Underground, Part 2 on Genesis 37
Updated: 2 hours ago
On Sunday afternoon, October 11, Pastor Doug Lattimore picked up where Saturday left off. Favor Underground Part 2 took Solo Faith Church in Concord to Genesis 37:18-22 and to Joseph in the pit: a young man thrown into a hole by his own brothers, who still carried every bit of God's favor down there with him.
Saturday's message, Favor Underground Part 1, planted the idea. Sunday dug into it. A season that looks unproductive may simply be a season underground, where God is keeping something safe until the harvest.
Why Favor Grows Underground
Everybody can see a banana, Pastor Doug said. A potato grows where nobody can see it. When farmers spray pesticide on the strawberries and blueberries up top, the sweet potatoes, yams, beets and carrots below are shielded from it. The gossip, the lies and the people spraying poison at you reach the surface first. What God has buried is kept safe.
Once you understand that, he told the room, you stop crying as much, stop worrying as much, and stop being so anxious. Where God has you may be exactly where God wants you, no matter what it looks like outside.
He was just as plain about relationships. Your favor is not in the people who walked away. When God separates someone from you, it can be for you, moving a negative spirit out of your path, and the favor stays with you wherever they left you.
Joseph in the Pit, and the Brothers Who Wanted His Coat
Genesis 37:18 says the brothers saw Joseph coming afar off and plotted to kill him before he even reached them. Pastor Doug noticed the distance. You can be related to people, work beside them, even live in the same house, and still not be with them.
He compared envy to weeds in a wheat field. Weeds don't like wheat, he said, because wheat bears fruit they can't produce. Lowering your standard to fit in won't change that. Then he gave the room a line to say to each other:
Killing me don't make you king.
Getting rid of Joseph would not hand his brothers the coat, their father's favor, or the inheritance. Trying to bury someone never transfers their anointing to you. Pastor Doug covered similar ground in an earlier message on Psalm 2, Anointed for the Opposition.
Favor You Didn't Earn, and the One Talent
Favor is nothing to brag about, he said, because nobody earns it. It is given by grace and mercy so a person can finish what God called them to do. But it is also nothing to bury. In the parable of the talents, the servants given five and two talents each doubled what they had, 100% growth, while the servant given one hid his in the ground.
How you do anything is how you do everything.
Stop comparing, he urged, and start producing with what you have. Moses had one rod and parted the Red Sea. God took two fish and five loaves and fed thousands. And when God set out to save the whole world, he sent one man, Jesus Christ.
Two Plans for the Same Pit
Back in Genesis 37, Reuben refused to go along. Shed no blood, he told his brothers; throw him into this pit instead. Pastor Doug drew two lessons. First, not everyone believes the gossip. There is usually a Reuben somewhere who won't take part. Second, the same pit can serve two different plans. The enemy wants to kill you and then cast you in. God puts you in a pit to keep you alive.
His test was simple: check your pulse. If you are in a pit and still breathing, Satan didn't put you there. You can be lonely, short on money, lied on, or forgotten the way Pharaoh's cupbearer forgot Joseph, and still be saved, in that place for a season and for a reason.
The story ends where Joseph's favor always led. When famine came, the brothers who sold him had to travel to Egypt for bread, to the very place his favor had gone. Joseph told them that what they meant for evil, God meant for good, to save many people alive (Genesis 50:20). So stop trying to get even, Pastor Doug said. If God allowed it, he allowed it for a reason.
Favor That Was Never Just for Us
He closed by bringing the message home. Solo Faith Church has fed well over a thousand people in Concord, he said, and the favor that came through its doors was never only for the congregation. God knew that if he could get it to the church, he could get it through the church. Neighbors who need groceries can request a free grocery delivery from the church's online pantry.
If you are in a pit season right now, you don't have to sit in it alone. You can send a prayer request, or join us Saturday or Sunday at 1 PM for the Saturday Sabbath service or Sunday service at 587 Old Charlotte Rd SW in Concord.
The series continues in Favor Underground Part 3 on Joseph's coat, where the coat comes off a second time, in Potiphar's house.
Solo Faith Church shares this message because many of the neighbors we serve, in the pantry, on the livestream and in the pews, are living through a pit season right now. We want them to hear plainly that a hidden season is not a forgotten one, and that what God is growing there is meant to feed others.
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Community Support Note: This sermon recap is part of Solo Faith Church's community journalism initiative to share the teaching heard in Concord with neighbors who could not be in the room. It was drawn from the transcript of the Sunday, October 11, 2026 service at Solo Faith Church; quotations were lightly edited from that machine-generated transcript.
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