Main idea: Anticipate God’s redeeming purposes, God uses even his enemies’ hatred to graciously rescue them.
Lord, I trust you. What are you up to here?
Application
0:13
please stand with me for the reading of God's Word. We are going to read all of Genesis 27 and it's a long chapter, like the chapters are in Genesis. So if you can't stand the whole time, you can start seated. That's that's okay. We do it in a sense, out of reverence for the Word of God, but not any, any sense where that is a demand, when it's difficult to do. Chapter 36 is the transition between Isaac's life and Jacob's life. At the end of 35 we get Isaac's passing. 36 is Esau and his descendants. And just a couple of things to note before we dive in here, God's faithful to His promises. Faithful is to His promises to Abraham with Ishmael, Ishmael became a company of peoples and nations. Same is true for Esau. We don't have time to go through all of those, and there's a lot of names that don't mean much to us, but they meant a lot to Israel, because this is the people they're going to live next to for centuries. And that sets up this passage, the next 14 chapters is how God is going to save Israel and the world through a slave boy named Joseph. So it's a really interesting story. We start that out today. Genesis, 37 Jacob lived in the land of his fathers, in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob, maybe, to say it, this is what comes from Jacob. Joseph, being 17 years old, was pastoring the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah his father's wives, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now, Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a robe of many colors. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. Now, Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, hear this dream that I have dreamed. Behold we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold my sheaf arose and stood upright, and behold your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf. His brother said to him, are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to rule over us? So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, the 11 stars were bowing down to me. But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you and his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind now his brothers went to pasture their father's flock near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, are not your brothers pastoring the flock at Shechem, come I will send you to them. And he said to them, here I am. So he said to him, go now see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock and bring me word. So he sent him from the Valley of Hebron, and came to Shechem, and a man found him wandering in the fields. The man asked him, What are you seeking? I'm seeking my brothers. He said, Tell me please where they are pasturing the flock. And the man said, they have gone away, for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan. They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him, to kill him. They said to one another, here comes this dreamer. Come now. Let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams. But when Reuben heard it, he rescued him out of the hands, their hands saying, Let us not take his life. And Reuben said to them, shed no blood. Throw him into the pit in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him that he might restore him out of their hand to restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe the robe, many colors that he wore. They took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty. There was no water in it. Then they sat down to eat, and looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, where their camels bearing with their camels bearing gum, balm and myrrh on. Their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, what profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh, and his brothers listen to him. Then Midianite traders passed by, and they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. They took Joseph to Egypt. When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes and returned to his brothers and said, The boy is gone, and I Where shall I go? Then they took Joseph's robe and slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood, and they sent the robe of many colors and brought it to their father and said, this, we have found, please identify whether it is your son's robe or not. And he identified it and said, It is my son's robe. A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph was, without doubt, torn to pieces. Then Jacob tore his garments and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son. Many days, all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning Thus his father wept for him. Meanwhile, the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard. This is the word of the Lord God. We thank you indeed for giving us your word. And this is such a compelling story, and we, as we start in it, we identify so many human tendencies of jealousy and hatred, pride, family, strife is so common in the Bible. It's so common in life. Strife among nations is so common. We desperately need a Savior. And what is profound about the Joseph story is that you use sinners, sins still to accomplish your purposes without ever sinning yourself. You are orchestrating something good here, like you are orchestrating something good in this day and age, and we want to entrust ourselves to you as we experience evil injustice or we perpetrate it ourselves, Father, we look to this passage asking that your spirit would help us understand and apply the many things that are here that are really relevant, or at least meaningful to where we are in our life and time. Father, I do pray as there are many things in our our region. I pray for FBC, Hood River, with Chris Mullins, preaching and teaching, help that church faithfully grow and discipling and helping each other through the Word, through prayer, through good examples. Pray for First Baptist Church in Sandpoint. Help Brandon faithfully lead their team. Help them raise up future leaders, women's leaders, men's leaders, elders and even pastors in the Sandpoint area. Father, we pray for the Raimundo family, thank you for host ways faithful life. It is exemplary to me how he gave himself to pastoring and missions training. Pray that you would comfort the family, comfort Thiry, Josh and Jen and the grandkids as they will miss their grandfather. We do pray for the situation in Venezuela, and we pray that You would first help the believers, the brothers and sisters who have endured much hardship under Maduro and the country has endured much hardship, much evil goes on under that regime. We pray now that they would be able to stand upright, bearing witness for the gospel and to Christ and His work. I pray that you would give them stability and wisdom, and they may be a resource in a country that needs a new regime. Father. We pray for our connections there, that you would strengthen, encourage, provide in the transition and the time. Give our president wisdom. Give our Congress wisdom. There are many different feelings about what has happened, and we would pray that we would count on what you're doing and that we would ask the very same questions about this towards you as we do, out of this text and out of Joseph's stories, Lord, we trust you. We are eager to see what you will do. So do your work in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, I don't know about you, but the Joseph story is probably one of my favorites of the Old Testament. It's the most emotionally and spiritually gripping of all the Old Testament stories.
10:07
You got to put it in perspective, Genesis one and two about the creation of all the earth, including all the way down to the details of marriage took two chapters. Joseph's story takes 14. It's an interesting reality that he wants us to jump into, the actions, the reactions, Jacob the brothers, Joseph, the Egyptian characters. I mean, they're dramatic, they're riveting. You start reading. It's a page turner. It's probably some of the fastest Bible reading you will ever do in these first two chapters of the story, I want you to ask, God a question with a sense of anticipation. Lord, I trust you, what are you up to here? Certainly Joseph is asking that at the most heightened way possible, as he is following a caravan of stinky camels in chains to Egypt and sold as a slave. I trust you. But what are you up to here? I mean, the real story isn't so much about Joseph is it is what God is doing. God is rescuing and renovating a people through a slave made Prime Minister. And as Bible stories go, it more closely foreshadows Christ's work than any other single Old Testament story. It lays out truths about God's saving work, and God displays his power to rescue and renovate his people through their evil and weakness. The whole story needs to be interpreted by some of the bookends, and we'll get to those in just a minute. The promise made to Abraham that one day his offspring are going to sojourn in Egypt 400 years, while they grow large, but as slaves. And it needs to be bookended by Genesis, 5020, where Joseph interprets the whole scenario, the last of the chapters interprets it all. What you meant for evil, God meant for good. So as we begin, it's a it's a good time to ask God the same kind of question as you read a text, as you do when stuff happens in your life, like you grow jealous, you grow angry, you get hostile towards someone in your family, or when someone in your family, somebody close to you, some near friend, grows jealous, grows hateful and wants to Do or does do harm to you, Lord, I trust you. But what are you up to? That's a common scenario. Either we are sinners against others, or others are sinners against us, or we're both. What are you up to? We're just getting to the first chapter of the story, but we know something else is coming. This is key in interpreting the Bible. At any point, Lord, I see what's happening, what are you doing? What are you like? And how do I relate to it in practical terms like it shows up just this week. At some point in the day, you catch a bit of news. Today's news, the last day's news have been tragic fire in a Swiss bar killing many or the US capture of Venezuela Ian President Maduro. And you should learn to ask with anticipation. Lord, we trust you. What are we doing? What are you doing here? Lord, we trust you, what are you doing here? Like I want to watch what you do in anticipation of seeing your work. What ends up happening in the Joseph story is that God saves his people. Through their evil. It is the evil that Joseph's brothers do that get Joseph to Egypt and set the setting for Joseph being a functional savior. He's a practical savior for not only Egypt, but for this small, little nation called Israel, he becomes the leader that saves the day. So we should be ready to look forward when things catch us like that and they catch. Us in our families. They catch us in our life, they catch us in our workplace, they catch us in our neighborhood. And when they do, we need to be able to say, Lord, I trust you. What are you up to here? What are you doing here? Let's take a look at the story. We're going to take a look at those bookends. We need to look at God's promises that surround the situations that we're in that surrounded Joseph. We're going to look at the bookends, and then we need to watch what God's doing. We need to watch how God channels sinners sin. All of this is orchestrated by God. He takes sinners like you might take a wild tiger in a cage and give it a goat. What's the tiger going to do with a goat? It's going to eat it. That's what that's what Tigers do. Watch how God channels sinners sin. We're going to take heart at about how Grace and Truth will win out. The story ends. Joseph is alive, regardless of how it looks. There is still hope in the situation. So let's dive in. Let's unpack this. I think, before we jump into 37 through 50, let's look at those bookends. We need to look at God's promises. Jump back to Genesis 15, verse 13 through 16. Genesis 15 is the beginning of Abraham's story, or at least at the beginning of Abraham's story, and he is given the great covenant here. He is going to be the father of a multitude of a nation. He's going to have as many descendants as the stars and the skies. In the middle of this promise, he says this to Abraham. That time he's still called Abram, verse 13. Then the Lord said to Abram, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there they will be afflicted for 400 years. Who's the descendants? It's going to be Jacob and his family and the growing nation of Israel, the sojourners. Where is that going to happen? In Egypt? There are going to be slaves there. They're going to be afflicted for 400 years. God is going to work a mighty salvation, but it's going to be worked through a very long period of affliction, hundreds of years. Why does God save that way? Because God demonstrates His power to save and His grace to the weakest, least likely people to be heroes. This is the principle that's set out. There is a great comfort in this, because God is not sitting in heaven watching the evil of man, the machinations of presidents and kings and family members. He's not sitting going, okay, you know what? So and so just did this. What am I going to do about that? God's not doing that. God is carefully unfolding his plans. They do include affliction for his people. Jesus promised it. Paul promised it. The New Testament writers promised it. Through many trials, you will enter the kingdom of heaven, because God will show his power through people who are weak and even sinful, there's an enormous comfort in this reality that what's happening in the Joseph story is getting Joseph to Egypt, to get the nation to Egypt, so that Egypt will grow into a populous nation and be redeemed. It's all part of the plan. It may not have looked like it to Joseph at the end of chapter 37 but it's clear to us jump to 5020 the bookend, after his brothers come to Egypt, he gives them a place to live. They live under the blessing and protection of Pharaoh. Jacob dies, and the brothers are thinking, Okay, now we're dead. Dad is dead, or now we're we're going to be in trouble. They come to Joseph saying, Dad doesn't want you to kill us. Do Yes, Joseph is the divine interpreter. 2050, 19, Joseph said to them, Do not fear for Am I in the place of God? Am I the judge? No, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring. It about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.
20:06
Everything that's happening in the Joseph story is meant by God, because God has a much bigger plan than Joseph or his brothers. He has the practical salvation. I mean by practical meaning, Egypt, Israel, the surrounding nations aren't going to starve to death. God initiates a kind of salvation in a very practical way. So you need to be ready. You need to be ready when those surprise things come, either you're the victim or sometimes you are the perpetrator, God, what are you doing? What do I need to recognize? You need to recognize that God is unfolding His purposes and he has specific promises, and these can comfort you and help you. You might not know it for 20 years. Joseph didn't know it for 20 years, but you need to be able to put your hope and trust in God. What are you doing here? So look at the story proper number two. Watch how God channels sinners sin. Remember this is all a story of things that God meant to do. God is orchestrating the situation. In 37 we find the transition to the life of Joseph, verse two. These are the generations of Jacob, meaning, this is what comes from Jacob. And instead of a long list of genealogies, we get a long story about Joseph and his brothers. This is what comes from Jacob. Joseph, being 17 years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah his father's wives and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. A bad report? Was it slander? Was it gossip? Was it correct? Was it incorrect? Author doesn't tell us. But as I was reminded in between hours, he should have remembered this adage. Maybe people remember it from the story snitches get stitches. Like he should have thought about this, whether he was giving an accurate report or not, whether he felt like he was responsible or not. What happens when you snitch on your brothers? They hate you. They hate you. Well, let's make it worse. Israel loved Joseph. Israel is the other name for Jacob. Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons because he was the son of his old age. He was the last, and you could add to that that he was Rachel's son. Rachel was the beloved wife of the four wives that he had. He had him later in life. And there is a special joy of being older and having a new baby around a son around. But it's also a problem because it's a kind of favoritism. It's really clear that he loves Joseph more than his other sons. They hate him for it. Let's make it worse. He made him a robe of many colors, a special tunic might have hand woven it himself. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. He's wearing the clothes that depict it. What's probably going on is that Reuben is being passed over as the first born. Reuben made a huge blunder and sin with Jacob's other wife, and sleeping with her, he's probably overlooked. Simeon and Levi are no strong candidates for first born, first born as a status or a place of honor and then responsibility and they and he makes 17 year old Joseph the head of the household after him. Well, no wonder why he's not very smart about how he communicates about his brothers. 17 and he probably loved being loved. He probably loved getting the robe. He probably loved the idea of taking on the role of the First Born, and he was probably going to be really good at it. Watch how God channels sinner sins. He gives Jacob over to his favoritism, which was generational. His mother favored him, his father favored Esau. Now he favors Joseph, and you can excuse it by saying he's the son of my old age, but the favor. Autism incited the hatred. And then notice this, Joseph is already hated. They can't even speak peacefully to him. When he shows up and the brothers are all around, they can't speak peacefully to him. So now God gives him a dream. Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. Now, who is inciting the hatred? God Himself. Dreams in the ancient Near East, dreams often in the Middle East today, are revelatory. God speaking. God is declaring, here is my Savior of the world. It's not quite that explicit yet, but he's saying, here is the ruler that I've chosen, and here, here's how it goes. It's an interesting dream. He said to them, hear this dream that I have dreamed. Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field. It was time of harvest, and yes, they they herded sheep, but they probably also planted barley or wheat, and it was harvest time. And a sheaf is where you cut off the low end of the branches before you shake out all of the grain, and they stack those up, and they tie them up, and Joseph's sheaf took to life. It's a dream, right? Dreams are weird. It's a weird dream. And all the other brothers, sheaves jumped to life too and bowed down to them. No, I can't explain how these dreams work. Joseph would say it's just It's the dream, but God is revealing who is going to be the ruler of the family. His brothers said to him, are you indeed to reign over us? Joseph gives no explanation. They understand it perfectly well. Are you indeed to rule over us and reign over us? So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Joseph is the goat thrown into the cage with the tigers, and they do what Tigers do. Sinners do what sinners do. They hate him. He dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun the moon and 11 stars were bowing down. Now it's cosmic, and Joseph is in the middle, and I don't know how stars bow. I don't know how the moon bows. I don't know how the sun bows, but they did in the dream. It's a dream. You don't get to explain it. Everybody understood what was going on. He told it to his father, to his brothers, and Israel rebuked him. His father rebuked him, and said to him, What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you? He's incredulous. You God announces his Savior, King. And what do the sinners do? They reject his rule. They reject the revelation. There's a greater sin here than being upset with Joseph. There is a sin of being angry at God for allowing Joseph to have a role that they wish they had instead, the sons hate Joseph even more. Why is God doing this? He's going to get Joseph to Egypt at the right time to save the world. God is channeling all of this. The story continues. We see that God is giving the nine sons over to their jealousy and hatred. What is Joseph's potential sin. I don't hold Joseph too guilty, other than he's 17 and naive. He hasn't learned how people respond to certain things, and to be more careful, I don't know if he's bragging. I don't think he's bragging. He gets a revelation from God, divine revelation. What do you do with divine revelation? When you're an Old Testament prophet, you say it, so he's got to say it, and he does what's Jacob's sin, Israel's sin, the favoritism, the insensitivity to his sons and so blind that he can't imagine that His sons would do anything to his favored son. Look, verse 12, his brothers went to pasture their father's flocks near Shechem. He's in Hebron. Shechem is about 50 miles away. Gary Morgan said this week he could walk 14 miles a day. I mean, I hope I can walk 14 miles a day when I'm. Gary's age, he could have walked maybe 15. He's probably three days, three or four days away,
30:07
and there is nobody there to protect him. Israel said to Joseph, are you not your are not your brothers? Pasturing the flock in Shechem. Why would that be a concern? Well, two of the sons killed all the males in Shechem. I want to see if they're safe. Come. I will send you to them. And of course, Joseph is now the dutiful son. Here I am. So he said to him, go now see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock, and bring me word. And he goes. And he starts searching around. Shechem, and he's he can't find them, so he's wandering around. And there's this mystery character. There's a man who sees him wandering and says, What are you looking for, son, I'm looking for my brothers. Insert the man. God is sovereignly working this out because he wants Joseph to be seen and captured by his brothers. Joseph went after his brothers, found them at Dothan, another 15 miles away. He's now roughly five days away from father's oversight and protection. Exposed alone, they saw him from afar, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him, to kill him, they said to one another, here comes this dreamer. Come now. Let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. The Pit would have been a cistern, a dug out large hollow cave, straight down, fill up with the ground water and the rain water, very small opening. This was absolutely dry and it's plastered over. There is no way you're climbing out. Let's throw him in there. Let's kill him. Let's throw him in there. He can rot in there, and nobody will ever find him. We're going to say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what becomes of his dreams. They conspired to murder him, and what are they doing? We'll see if God indeed will be more powerful than we are. A ha. Let's see what God will do with that. Let's see what God will do with him. When Reuben heard it, he rescued him out of their hands, saying, Let us not take his life. He's the only one with a conscience, and it's Reuben who has just slept with his stepmother. He's not a great guy, but he has an attack of conscience. Maybe he does have some responsibility as first born, but he wished to rescue him. They said, let's throw him in a pit and he he has a soft intervention. Let's throw him in a pit and let him starve to death. That's much more humane. But he is sneaky. He's going to come back and he's going to rescue him. The brothers are like, Oh, even better. Even better than running him through with a sword or beating him to a pulp and throwing him in there, we'll let him starve to death. What's going to happen if his grain then? So Joseph came to his brothers, this stripped him as the idea of attacking him, beating him, imagine them manhandling him and ripping the clothes off of him, beating him up, and then throwing him into the pit. If it was empty, there was no water in it, he's going to starve to death. And they sit down and eat. Think of how hard hearted they had become. Throw him in the pit. Later on, we're going to find out when Joseph tells the story that he was crying out, Judah is going to say, remember, he was crying out. We didn't. We didn't do anything about it. They they ate in Glee over their brother's predicament. You suddenly there are Ishmaelites and Midianites. They're interchangeable words. Mid Ian is keturahs one of keturah's sons, they became their own trading band. Ishmaelites were ishmael's sons. They joined forces. So they were interchangeable. They're traders, and they go across the desert, bringing the valuable things, gum, which is not chewing gum, but they bring myrrh and gum and other precious spices. They're coming by. Judah has a brainstorm. Arm, and it's possible that Judah is having an attack of conscience. I really, I really hate my brother. I mean, I really hate him, but I don't really think I want to kill him. I don't even want him to starve to death. So I have an idea. Let's sell him. What does he say? He said, what profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother our own flesh. Remember, it's the first serious sibling rivalry in the Bible between Cain and Abel that left Abel dead and his blood crying out for justice from the ground, Judah is saying we should treat him better than that, as if selling him to slavery is a lot better. At least he's not dead. Notice through this whole situation between Reuben and Judah, God is restraining the sinfulness of the sinners. They are doing horrific, unthinkable things to a brother, and yet God is restraining God channels sinners, sins, he puts a limit on how far they can go, so that he can accomplish his own purposes. And God's purpose for Joseph is to put him at the capital in Egypt, ready to save the world. God
36:42
gives the sons over to their jealousy and at the same time he restrains them, watch how God channels sinners since now, just stop for a moment. Think of the first point we have to look at the promises and purposes of God as jealousy comes toward us, or hatred comes toward us, or hostility comes toward us, we need to stop and ask, Lord, I trust you, I know that you're going to do something good. I am waiting and anticipating for what good you're going to do. Here we watch how God channels sinners sin. God is in charge, and he is working an outcome, and sometimes you don't know it for years and years, what that outcome is, but with anticipation, you find an answer that leads us to our third point, take heart, Grace and Truth will win out. The lies will not win the day. As we look at what happens verse 29 Reuben returns to the pit. He sees that Joseph was not in the pit. Tears his clothes, returns to his brothers and says, The boy is gone, and I Where shall I go? He has this massive grief and sorrow. He wanted to return him to his father. What am I going to go tell dad? But he's still afraid of his brothers. They took Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat, dipped the blood, and dipped the robe in the blood. They sent the robe of many colors, brought it to their father. Is this? Is this your son's robe? They don't say, is this Joseph our brother's robe? This is your son's robe. And they're thinking, I bet dad can figure this out. An animal got it. And Jacob Israel says it's Joseph's an animal attacked him. He is certainly dead and torn to pieces. He buys the scheme, and all his sons and daughters rise up to comfort him and go along with the scheme. How ironic. Jacob got the blessing by deceiving with a garment. Jacob bears the sorrow in being deceived by a garment. Jacob's deception has sprouted 20 legs. His family is carrying on the generational deception. Jacob is devastated his favored son, all his sons and daughters rose up to comfort him, the daughters, either more daughters that Jacob had, that we're not told about, or the daughters in law, everybody rises up to comfort him, but he refused to be comfort. Said, No, I shall go down to Sheol, to my son, mourning, going to die. I. I'm going to see him again, but it's going to be sorrow until I get there. Thus his father wept for him. Thus his father wept for him. Looks like the lie wins the day certainly does for Jacob for a very long time. But there's a little word here. Verse 36 meanwhile, meanwhile, the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard. Probably Potiphar is the elite leader of Pharaoh's Special Forces. Guess who's in a strategic place. Joseph is while the lie is being perpetuated at home. The truth is Joseph is alive and well, the narrator wants us to know the story is hardly over. The drama is now just heating up. We jump to Judah's story. Next week. This week we find out how bad the brothers are. Next week we're going to find out how bad Judah really is, and the turn of the tide in Judah's life, because the whole story is about rescue and renovation. Gotta have rescue first before the renovation, and Judah is going to find he needs rescue for the first time. Take heart, Grace and Truth will win out. This is an important thing. Have you been the jealous one? Have you hated a family member? Has somebody in your family gotten the treatment you thought you deserved, or at least you wanted, somebody at work, somebody in life, somebody in the neighborhood, some other country, all of those things creep in. There's good news, there's good news. There are promises that we can bank on already. There was a promise to Abraham about his offspring, and Joseph's an answer to that he is going to be a little Savior God's got good plans. Worked out. We have the great promises in the New Testament out of Romans. 828, God works all things for good to those who love him and are called according to His purpose. Are there promises that you can stand on, are there promises that you can wait and endure with Joseph has to endure for a very long time,
42:52
Grace and Truth will win out. If you're the jealous one, if you're the one who hates a family member. What's going to happen here? God is not going to level justice on this family. He's going to raise up a Savior, and he's going to restore the family. How is that possible for you today? Like I said, Joseph is one of the clearest Old Testament foreshadowings of Jesus Christ. We often want to throw Joseph under the bus, but remember, just hear this out. Joseph is the chosen son of a father dearly loved, given a special role within God's people, God's family. And in that special treatment, he is given a revelation that he is going to be the ruler, the king, that his brothers are going to bow down to him, that his family will bow down to him. In fact, with the cosmic scene, the whole world is going to bow down to him. Joseph is given that then he is hated. He is murdered. They plot to murder him. They sell him off to slavery. And at the end of this chapter, Joseph's as good as dead to Jacob. Sounds a lot. Like what sounds a lot like the story of Jesus, and there's a resurrection coming. There's a resurrection coming for you here today, that foreshadowing is a reality in Jesus Christ, the world. Hated him. The nations did. His own family hated him, were jealous of him, put him to death. But unlike a foreshadowing where it was as if he came back from the dead, he really did come back from the dead. He. Ah, the hated one was hated in order to save many from their sins, God had a plan for Jesus, far more significant than the plan for Joseph. Have you been jealous? Have you hated? I mean, just walk down the list of sins, possibly pride and naivete for Joseph, favoritism for Jacob, gross insensitivity to the rest of the sons. The sons are jealous, are hateful, can't even talk peaceable. They plot to kill him. They settle for selling him into slavery, and they lie for 20 years to their father, you might have any one of those kinds of sins. And Jesus died for those, and he rose for those, and he offers restoration for those, if you've been the subject of someone's jealousy, if you are hated by a family member, there is good news for you, God may be working in you in such a way that gives you The voice to bring good news to your family about God's grace. God may be working good that you do not know, and that might take decades to show up, but because of what Jesus Christ has done, he has paid for your sins, and he now wants to use you as an emissary of His grace, so you have to step back, Lord, I trust you. What are you doing here? What are you doing here? I trust you. Jesus is the far better Joseph, and he's the one you can look to as a sufferer in daily life, we're drawing near, looking for purpose, looking for hope, and we have it. We have it in the promises and the plans that are unfolding from God as victims. We are looking for relief from our bitterness, our sense of injustice, and we have it in what has been given to us by God through Jesus, Christ, as people of faith, we've seen it in Christ, and we're about to celebrate it in the Lord's Supper. So let's do that, Father, thank you for the good word that you have given us here, the Joseph story, as we warm up to it, so to speak, as we get used to it. A lot has happened that's horrible, but your sovereign hands are orchestrating all of it because you have saving purposes. It just stuns us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So with those kind of thoughts, we carry a different disposition to those who have sinned against us. We're going to watch your rescue and renovation of the brothers pray that there be rescue and renovation of us as well Christ's name.
Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.
View Resources by Dan Jarms
