Pastor Allan Kircher
Shell Point Baptist Church
Jan 5th, 2014
Genesis 37:1-11
Standing out in the kingdom
Intro:
“There are two great days/person’s life - the day we are born and the day we discover why.”
• One is easier than the other.
• One is a date in time.
• October 4 or March 29/February 12/September
• Moment you celebrate every year
• Date when you made your first public appearance.
• That date is easy/The other one isn’t.
It’s probably not a literal date at all.
• Moment you finally figured out why God put/planet earth.
• Reason/joined seven billion other people on this ball of dirt floating through space.
• First day explains/presence/earth/second explains/purpose.
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Often it takes a long time to discover why you were born.
• She was born/mother/play baseball/senator.
• She was born to help the homeless.
• He was born to lead a nation.
• What were you born to do? That’s a hard question.
You’ll spend the rest of your life trying to answer it.
“Lord, what do you want me to do?”
Proverbs 3:5-6 promises that….
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Here are seven fundamental facts about God’s guidance:
He can
• Put you exactly where he wants you to be.
• arrange all the details years in advance
• open doors that seem shut tight
• Remove any obstacle in your way.
• take your choices and fit them into his plan that you end up at the right place at just the right time
• even take your mistakes and bring good out of them
• Take tragedy and use it for your good and his glory.
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This is what Proverbs 16:9 means when it says “in his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”
Ask you a crucial question: Do you know why you were born?
• Sometimes we find our calling early.
• Often the revelation doesn’t come until late in life.
• Sometimes others see it before we do.
• Often the circumstances of life reveal it to us.
I am thinking of a man who fits that last category.
• Never knew his purpose for many years of his adult life.
• only after a series of events unfolded
• nearly all of them outside his control
• many of them quite painful
• The plan of God for his life became evident.
• Joseph, however, is so different he literally stands out
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I. v. 2 THE PURITY OF JOSEPH’S LIFE
One of the most striking ways Joseph was different was in the purity of his life.
• Every time you see Joseph, he is doing the right thing
• Made him very different from his brothers.
• Purity/integrity/desire/right things/marked the life of Joseph.
V 2 brings us face to face/holy heart/beats within/chest of Joseph.
• Told/Joseph/tending/his father’s sheep
• With his half-brothers, the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah.
• Bilhah/Rachel’s handmaid/Zilpah/Leah’s handmaid.
Two women/given to Jacob by his wives and he had fathered two children with each.
• Sons of Bilhah/Dan/Naphtali/sons of Zilpah/Gad/Asher.
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As you read the story, you get the impression this is the first time that Joseph has been sent out to work with these men.
What he saw them doing must have shocked him deeply.
• Brothers of Joseph were and evil bunch.
• they were guilty of murder, Gen. 34:25; incest, Gen. 35:33;
• hatred, Gen. 37:4; envy, Gen. 37:11;
• enslaving their brother, Gen. 37:38;
• Lying, Gen. 37:31-33; and immorality, Gen. 38:12-18.
Whatever it was these men were doing, it shocked Joseph so much that he came and told Jacob.
• surely caused problems between Joseph/rest of his brothers
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Some authors accuse Joseph of being a talebearer.
They believe Joseph brought about the hatred of his brothers because he acted like a “goody two-shoes”.
• Joseph displayed absolute integrity in going to his father
• Joseph had a responsibility to his father.
• Whatever his brothers were doing, it involved the flocks of Jacob.
• He needed to know what was going on with his sons.
• Joseph did the right thing when he went to Jacob and told him about the evil deeds of his brothers.
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Some lessons/verse we need to take to take to heart today.
Our lives should be marked by purity.
• God we serve is a holy God
• He expects His people/holy people, 1 Pet. 1:16.
• He wants us/stand separate from/world/its evil ways.
• He wants us to be different.
• We should be different/way we act, talk, think, live, etc.
• Purity should be the hallmark quality of our lives!
• It isn’t easy/always strive/right thing in every situation.
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Our lives should be marked by integrity.
• Plenty of people who are willing to do the wrong thing, especially if it makes life easier for them
Would have been easier/Joseph to just cover up what his brothers were doing.
• Would have been easier still to have joined them in their sin.
• He was determined to do the right thing
• Even if it cost him everything.
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It’s easy to tell a “little white lie” to keep the heat off your life.
• Don’t do it! Tell the truth!
• Easy/cheat/little here/there/make things easier for yourself.
• Don’t do it!
• Always be above board in all your dealings.
• Easy cut corner/school/work so you will fit in with the crowd.
• Don’t do it! Do the right thing at all costs! Eph. 6:5-9
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One other lesson has to do with the proper use of the tongue.
We should never be guilty of being a talebearer Pro. 26:20-22.
There is something you just must tell, be sure tell right person.
• Jacob had/right/know what his sons were doing
• Joseph told him and him alone!
• He told his father in an effort to stop evil.
• A gossip always tells the wrong person.
• They are not trying to stop evil, but to spread it!
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II. 3-4 THE PROMOTION OF JOSEPH’S LIFE
He was marked out as special at an early age.
“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” (v. 3).
• Part of the story that almost everyone knows.
• coat was richly embroidered
• Robe a son of royalty might wear.
• Perhaps he should not have made his feelings so obvious, but nothing in the text suggests he did wrong.
By wearing the robe, Joseph signaled to his brothers he was destined for greatness in his father’s eyes.
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III. V. 9-11 The Promise of Joseph’s Life.
He had two strange dreams
• First dream (vv. 5-8) he and his brothers were gathering bundles of wheat in a field.
• When his bundle stood up, the other bundles bowed down before it.
• Not too hard to figure that one out.
• Needless to say, his brothers weren’t happy with what he shared.
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Second dream was even more marvelous
“Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, ‘Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me’”.
He told this one to his father and his brothers. At first his father rebuked him but later pondered what it meant.
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His brothers hated him more and more.
Note how things have developed in a downward spiral. The text mentions it four times:
• v. 4 His brothers hated him.
• V 5. They hated him even more.
• V. 8 They hated him even more.
• V. 11 His brothers were jealous of him
• Soon their anger and envy will lead to a shocking betrayal.
Many a young person has had to fight through family opposition in order to serve God.
• Not everyone will applaud your decision to follow Jesus.
• Some will oppose you openly.
• Others may criticize you behind your back.
• In Joseph’s case, his brothers are about to commit a heinous crime.
• They will conspire to kill their own flesh and blood.
• All because of envy.
• Envy will not only cause trouble, it will nearly destroy the family.
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His brothers betrayed him/Now events unfold swiftly:
• The brothers conspire to kill him (v. 18)
• When they see him coming, they derisively say
• “Here comes this dreamer” (v. 19)
• Plan/kill him and throw him in one of the nearby pits (v. 20)
• Ended up throwing him alive into an empty pit (v. 24).
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Along come some desert traders at just the right moment.
So Judah comes up with a clever plan that will make some money off their brother’s distress:
“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” (v. 27).
• So the deal was done.
• Joseph was sold for 20 pieces of silver.
• The price of a slave.
• reminds you of someone else sold for 30 pieces of silver
• Jesus who was betrayed by Judas was a distant descendant of Judah who sold his own brother.
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Only one detail remains.
What will they say to their father when Joseph does not come home with them?
Taking the coat of many colors, they dipped it in goat’s blood, and told their father that a wild animal had killed Joseph.
It was a bald-faced lie.
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He ended up as a slave in Egypt
• Verse 28 tells us what happened next:
• “They took Joseph to Egypt.”
• There he was sold to a man named Potiphar.
When God chooses a leader, he often allows enemies to arise who will put him to the test.
• Where did Joseph’s enemies come from?
• Worst enemies came/people who should have been closest to him—his own flesh and blood.
Jesus warned that a man’s enemies will be those of his own household (Matthew 10:36).
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At the beginning of Genesis 37, Joseph is tending the flocks with his brothers who already hate him. At the end of Genesis 37, he is a slave in Egypt.
• Is he better off or worse off?
• It depends/your point of view/depends/how big your God is.
Brings us back to the saying….
“There are two great days in a person’s life - the day we are born and the day we discover why.”
• Long time/Joseph eventually discovered why he was born.
• He’s not there yet.
• Do you know why you were born?
• Perhaps the right answer should be,
“I was born to serve the Lord. Everything else is just details.”
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There is a word here about hope.
• In/dreams Joseph received/shadow/promise from the Lord.
• He held onto those dreams
• They sustained him through some trying times.
• When God births a dream in your heart
• Let nothing take it away!
• Rest assured God will accomplish in your life all those things that please Him in His time!
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There is a word here about hatred.
• When you serve the Lord, live clean and follow the dream God gives you
• Some people are going to rise up against you.
• Don’t be surprised when you are hated/following/Lord.
• They hated Him and they will hate you, John 15:18-20.
• Don’t let the haters stop you from achieving your fullest potential in the Lord.
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Conc: In the bouquet/formed Jacob’s family, there was really only one flower.
• Joseph was a rose among thorns.
• Like cream this young man rose to the top
• life stands/testimony/what God can do with a life in spite of the difficulties
We leave him now headed off to Egypt in chains….
• Jacob heartbroken and inconsolable.
• Brothers guilty of terrible sin
• Family has been plunged into the depths of gloom and hopelessness.
• Appear that Joseph’s great dreams are at an end.
• They will never come to pass.
• At least, that’s what they think!
There is a word here for us as well!
• There will be times when things appear hopeless.
• times when/shattered pieces/our dreams will lie around us.
• In times like that we must not despair!
• Instead, we must cling to the precious promises of our great God, Rom. 8:28
• Are you a rose today or a thorn?
