Where is our wilderness in Joseph’s Story?

Union Gospel 

1/20/2024

Where is our wilderness in Joseph’s Story?

Genesis 37

Joseph's story shows & teaches us many character’s lessons, it teaches us how a young man stays faithful throughout life difficulties and throughout the wilderness of his life. This is a story that tells us a true wilderness: The reason why I said that this is a true wilderness is because majority of the painful situations that Joseph encountered in life were inflicted on him by evil acts of others.

 

Joseph

1.      Favored of his Father Jacob

2.      plotted to be killed by his Brothers

3.      thrown into the empty well (cistern)

4.      sold to Ishmaelite (uncle) name Potiphar

5.      slave of Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.

6.      falsely accused by Potiphar wife for sexual assault

7.      spent time in prison for a crime that he did not committed

8.      interpreted dreams in prison

9.      pharaoh’s heard about him

10.  rose to the #2 most powerful nation in the world at that time

11.  save the lineage of Jacob and brother Juda

12.  Jesus

 

Thus, when we read about Joseph, it taught us that, when we fix our gaze on God and choose to rely on him, even the heaviest situations can be made lighter, even the most dire situation, even at near death situation, God can see us through. Remember that “God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28).

 

Joseph teaches us how to be faithful. If we just keep our faith fix on the lord, He will eventually come through.

 

 

37 Jacob lived in the land where his father (Issac) had stayed, the land of Canaan.

 

² This is the account of Jacob’s family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

 

This is not a story about Joseph, it is about Jacob’s and how the family lineage was preserved.

 

Joseph just happens to play a very important part on preserving the lineage. Joseph was an instrument of God on preserving the lineage of Christ.

 

Started with a very dysfunctional family: imagine, 4 wives and they were cousins. But when we look at the family tree, we a told by the Bible how dysfunctional were some of his ancestors.

 

Abraham -> Ishmail & Isaac ->Essau & Jacob -> 12 tribes: Judah..etc  (Rachel mother of Joseph and Benjiman)

 

Abraham and Selah, could not wait on God’s timing so they thought, lets help God out, Sarah allow her servant to have Abraham child (Ishmail). It turned out, in their old age, Sarah finally had Isaac

 

2 Peter 3:8

⁸ But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. ⁹ The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

 

Isaac and his wife Rebeccah had 2 children: Essau & Jacob, Jacob tricked his father to get the blessing  

 

Jacob had twelve sons through four women, his wives (and cousins), Leah and Rachel, and his concubines, Bilhah and Zilpah, who were, in order of their birth, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin, all of whom became the heads of their own family groups, later known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel. He also had a daughter named Dinah.^[3] According to Genesis, Jacob displayed favoritism among his wives and children, preferring Rachel and her sons, Joseph and Benjamin, causing tension within the family—culminating in Joseph's older brothers selling him into slavery.

 

What is our picture of the normal family?

1.      Parents that love each other

2.      Mom put here career on hold so she can raise the kids

3.      Plenty of resources ensure they live comfortably

4.      Kids never heard the parent fight

5.      Kids loved one another

6.      Kids had no school drama

7.      Parents had no work drama

8.      Kids with no boy/girl friend’s drama

9.      They wen to the best colleges

10.  They got married just in time

11.  Wonderful grandkids just in time

12.  Comfortable retirement

a.      Who’s in here that matches all of those images?

 

Family is messy, we are all affect by the first sin and fall short of the glory Roman 3:23-24 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.

 

The perfect family is not what we find in our text today. We find a family, not only in their ancestral struggle with raising family but Joseph current situation was very difficult.

 

In fact, the normality of this life, we find ourselves in Jacob’s dysfunctionality. All of in here can see this type of drama seep into our own families.

1.      Sibling fighting each other.

2.      Parent with multiple partners

3.      Brother or sister plotting to kill one another

4.      Favoritism

5.      Cheating each other in order to gain something

 

What can you do in order for your siblings to hate you: Tell on them, he was arrogant, and it was proven by how his father had treated him: not only your mother is my favored, her children Joseph and Benjiman are also my Favored

 

Remember at the beginning of this sermon series: In our wilderness, God is willing to come.

 

³ Now Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate^[a] robe (many colors robe) for him. ⁴ When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

 

If you are walking around in your house as a kid, and father told you and make sure that you understand that you are not my favored, your little brother or sister is his favored. It is literally like telling you that I hate you. This is some of the roots of the dysfunctions. Imagin what the other wives felt. My favored wife is Rachel, NOT Leah, Bilhah, nor Zilpah. So the plot started: the brothers hate him and the only thing that will satisfy this hate was to kill him.

 

Jacob has made him a coat of many colors – what’s important about this, not only it made him stands out like loyalty because of the many colors but also suggesting that the word could mean a "long garment" which reaches the hands and feet and when someone wear a coat of many color, it means that he is someone of a higher status.

 

⁵ Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. ⁶ He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: ⁷ We were binding sheaves (wheat bundles) of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”

 

Joseph here is blinded by his pride. A bit egotistical and arrogant and rather disrespectful. He had not idea that his brothers hated him already or either that, he knew but I am going to tell you anyway because I am my Father favored and there’s nothing you can do about it.  

 

⁸ His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

⁹ Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

 

¹⁰ When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” ¹¹ His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.