Joseph The Dreamer Series

No Ordinary Joe: Dreamer

Genesis 37:1-11

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church

9-19-202

Why Study Joseph?

I’m excited to begin a new sermon series on the life of Joseph entitled, “No Ordinary Joe.” Those of you who grew up in church may think you know the story of Joseph but there is a lot the flannel graphs didn’t teach you.

Let’s start the series out with five reasons to study the life of Joseph:

Two chapters of Genesis are devoted to the creation account. But 28 chapters are dedicated to two different people - Abraham and Joseph. There are more of Joseph’s words recorded in Genesis than any other patriarch. 25% of Genesis about Joseph’s life so it must be important for us to know.

Paul wrote in Romans:

“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4)

These 14 chapters are what theologians called the “locus classicus” (the ultimate example) of the doctrine of providence. We will talk more about what providence is and how it plays out in the story of Joseph at the end of this sermon.

The story of Joseph helps us understand how the Israelites ended up in Egypt and then the Promised Land.

God made this clear to Abraham in Genesis 15:

“Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.  But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” (Gen 15:13-16)

4. Joseph is a type, a foreshadowing, of Jesus. We’ll look at how Joseph’s life points to Jesus at the end of this sermon.

5. Joseph is from an incredibly dysfunctional family and, yet, he shows us that there is hope for those of us who have a few nuts on the family tree.

The story is full of deceit, favoritism, jealousy, hatred, mass murder, incest, rape, human trafficking, polygamy, and somehow Joseph keeps his eyes on God the whole story.

Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 37.

Prayer.

Background to Begin

In order to set the stage for our study, let me walk you through Joseph’s family tree.

His great-grandfather was the “father of the faith,” Abraham. God had called him to

“Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you,  and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Gen 12:1-3)

God told Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky:

“Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” (Gen 15:5)

There was just one problem - they had no children and they were growing old.

So Sarah took matters into her own hands and gave Abraham their Egyptian slave Hagar to be another wife. (See Genesis 16)

God nowhere condones polygamy and when it happened it always ends in disaster.

Abraham had a son with Hagar named Ishmael but that would not be the son of the promise.

After 15 years of waiting, three angels showed up and announced to them that within the year they would have a son. At this, Sarah laughed at the absurdity of it all. That’s why the baby was named Isaac (see Gen 21) Michael Card has a song about this:

“The called him laughter, for he came after, God made an impossible promise come true. The birth of a baby, to a helpless old lady, they called him laughter for no other name would do.”

Some time later, God told Abraham to take Issac up on a mountain and sacrifice him. Just as Abraham was about plunge the knife into Isaac’s chest, God stops him and provides a ram caught in a thicket to be Isaac’s substitute. (See Gen 22)

Issac went back to his family’s homeland to find a wife and married Rebecca. They had twins - Jacob and Esau. (See Gen 25)

This family was marked by favoritism with Rebecca favoring Jacob and Isaac favoring Esau.

Jacob name means “deceiver” and he lived up to that reputation. He swindled his brother out of his birthright of the first born and, when Isaac was dying, tricked him into giving him the blessing reserved for Esau.