Joseph Genesis 37 Topical/Narrative Sermon. Series

If you read Genesis 37 you will be aware of the start of the journey of Joseph. Jacobs favored son born from his favored wife.

This message is a wee bit different as it is a topical message, from the position of Joseph. I have tried to represent him from Genesis 37. When the hat goes on I am speaking for him, acting the part, well sort of, when it comes off it’s back to me. I wanted to tell you that, so you don’t think I’ve lost the plot.

The story of Joseph is an interesting one as you will see as you journey through it or may already be aware of it, I know most will be well aware of his story. You see Joesph is a type of Christ figure, not the Christ, there is only one true Messiah, Redeemer, Christ and he is Jesus. In my opinion all the best stories have a Christ type figure, be it Superman, or Bilbo Baggins, Bilbo is a very good one, he travels with a trope, combats evil… in all its Middle Earth forms ultimately destroys the Ring that would rule everyone, ultimately defeating all the bad guys who evaporate into the dark abyss. For those if you who aren’t into J. R. R. Tolken, J. K. Rowling came up with this character Bilbo like character Harry Potter who ultimately defeated evil, or did he? Neville Longbottom cut the head off the snake Nagini. If those don’t float your boat Flash Gordon, Spiderman, The Famous Five they all sort of fit the bill.

But back to reality, back to Joseph, he is raised to be a shepherd looking after his father’s flocks, Jesus is the Good Shepherd, looking after The Father’s flocks. He is of good character; Jesus is of perfect character. Joseph is betrayed and sold for 20 pieces of silver, Jesus’ price was higher, 30 pieces of silver. Joseph was taken to Egypt, after Jesus was born where did his parents escape to avoid his being killed? There will be another couple of points I will touch on when the hat comes off again.

Put the hat on!

I have something to tell you, my name, well my name is Joseph. I am one of the sons of Israel.

This is an account of something that has happened within the family, my family, my father who now goes by the name Israel, had four women in his life, two of them wives and two of them concubines, from them he had twelve sons and one daughter. Thirteen well that is a good number of children, however we did have our challenges.

I will tell you now an account of my life from when I was seventeen, I was attending the flocks with my brothers from another mother, Dan and Naphtali, and my brothers' from yet another mother, Gad and Asher, yes it gets a bit confusing, you should try living it. All four of these brothers were born to maidservants, yes, their mothers were servants in our group. My mother was Rachel, my father's favorite wife. My mother has now gone to be with her our God and our ancestors, this occurred while she was giving birth to Benjamin our little brother, really fully only my little brother. We were travelling to a place called Ephrath, you might know it as Bethlehem. There is a pillar there, Father set up as a memorial to my mother. May God bless memory, I miss her she was very kind to me.

My father also favored me above all my brothers, why you may ask? Well, I was born to him in his old age, as a result he treated me differently, I was even attired in a splendid robe by him, I looked quite the man, spiffing in fact. This could one day be the stuff of dramas or musicals. However my brothers were jealous, they came to hate me and could not speak to me in any fit way, jealous of my looks and my splendid robe.

Well, I had this dream, I have these dreams, insights you might say, I also understand dreams that others have, it is a gift from God, but at times it has got me into trouble, however looking back I can see that trouble was part of God’s plan to save many. You see I had this dream, and I told my brothers; they hated me for it even more than they had before.

I told them about my first dream that went like this, I told them to listen and said, “We were binding sheeves 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.” (Genesis 37:7).