Joseph's Story part 1

Joseph's Story part 1

Genesis 37-50

God’s word is great! Fully human, fully divine profoundly prophetic! I am sure most of you know that technique in TV shows and movies where you first get presented with one person’s story, then another person’s story etc. till the whole thing starts to make sense, and you grasp the overall story. Well, we are going to try that technique here. And so, in looking at these chapters, today we will start with;

Joseph’s story

This is a profoundly human story. It begins with the verse, “now Joseph brought an evil report about his brothers to their father.”

Joseph is the eldest of the two sons born to Rachel, the wife Jacob loved. This by itself might have been enough to make Joseph feel a bit superior, but Rachel died. All Jacob’s other children have a mum to run to when they get hurt, but Joseph and Benjamin don’t have a mum. And if they are like most children, their very looks remind Jacob of the wife he loved, and had died. You can see Jacob giving these little boys some extra attention. We read; “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him.” Its understandable, its natural and its wrong. The other sons soon begin to resent dad’s favourite. Genesis 37:4 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.

As we will see, Joseph is a Godly boy, but that does not top him thinking a bit too much of himself, he is dad’s favourite, after all. The coat of many colors makes everything worse, as does Joseph dobbing in his elder brothers to their dad in the starting verse. And God also does something very strange here – rather than telling Joseph not to have such a big head, and to be nicer to his brothers, he gives Joseph dreams of grandeur, of his other brothers, and then even his parents, all bowing down to him. Surely this is the last thing Joseph and this family need! Rather than repairing a weakness, it exaggerates it. Why would God do that? All we can say at this stage is that it doesn’t create the problem, the special treatment, the envy and the coat are already in play, but it sure cant have helped the brothers to get along.    

So, Jacob sends Joseph to the brothers, and they sell him into slavery and lie to their father. This is massive. The family is shattered; can you imagine selling your own brother into slavery??

Suddenly, Joseph has lost everything, and is alone in a strange and amazing new world. Its like being captured west of Charleville, and sold as a laborer to the Gold Coast. And it is here that we find out that Joseph really is a good kid. Alone in a strange land, he is offered all the wrong sort of comfort by the boss’s wife. He does not say “life has been unfair, no one is looking, I’ll take what I can get.” Rather he says “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?" He knows God, and he knows his character. Like Daniel in a similar situation, he refuses to defile himself.

We sometimes skip over the time in prison because he was promoted there to overseer, but it was still a wretched place, and years and years of grinding hardship and misery. We read in the Psalms of Joseph; “They afflicted his feet with fetters, his soul was laid in irons”; All those years of agony because his own brothers sold him into it.

At the same time, Joseph clearly grows, both in Potiphar’s house and in jail. Precisely because he is manager and overseer, he has to manage and understand people. To his faith and goodness are added, knowledge, self-control, perseverance; and brotherly kindness (to mangle 2Peter 1:5-7). These things are not easily done. There are no short cuts – they take time and suffering. The Godly but shallow and self-centered young boy slowly becomes a Godly, wise and caring man. He starts to think about and understand people and their motivations – this is what much wisdom literature is about, rulers writing about how people work, based on years of judging their cases. The suffering and responsibility grow this young man incredibly.

Hebrews 12:5-15 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

 ⁶ because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."

 ⁷ Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?

 ⁸ If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.

 ⁹ Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!

 ¹⁰ Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.

 ¹¹ No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

 ¹² Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.

 ¹³ "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

 ¹⁴ Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

 ¹⁵ See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

It seems that Joseph never allowed that root of bitterness to grow inside him. Even when things are at their worst, he does not blame God, but rather he gives God the glory.

While in jail, opportunity for advancement comes.

Rather than taking the credit, and the rewards he must be desperate for, however, Joseph tells the cupbearer beforehand that it is God who is to be praised, and that he knows this God.  Genesis 40:8 "We both had dreams," they answered, "but there is no one to interpret them." Then Joseph said to them, "Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams." Here, Joseph is living out Jeremiah 9:23-24 “This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, ²⁴ but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the LORD.”

Joseph’s hopes that this might be his ticket out are not realized immediately – it is another two full years before the cup-bearer remembers his words;

Genesis 40:14-15 “when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. ¹⁵ For I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon."

When Joseph is finally brought out of prison to interpret the Pharaoh’s dreams, once again, Joseph’s first act is to give glory to God. This is again impressive, as he does not try to use the situation for self-advancement, even though he is in prison and must be desperate for it, but rather, up front gives all the glory to God. Genesis 41:16 "I cannot do it," Joseph replied to Pharaoh, "but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires” … Genesis 41:25 Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, "The dreams of Pharaoh are one and the same. God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do.”

Even when things are hard in our own lives, are we quick to tell others the goodness of our God? Do we only praise him when things are going well for us personally, or do we praise him at all times, because he is worthy? Like Joseph, the little Israelite girl who was taken captive in 2 Kings 5 spoke to her master about the God of Israel. Even in captivity, she was more than victor. Joseph proves that even in the hard places, God was to be trusted and praised. He grew in faith, and he also grew in wisdom. These things cannot be rushed, and he was right to humble himself under God’s hand, knowing that God was trustworthy.

Now, while Joseph was in jail, he presumably did not have access to a messenger service, but once he is raised to being number 2 in all of Egypt, why doesn’t he contact his father to tell him he is still alive? We know he loves his father, the tears, the desperate first question, “tell me, does my father still live?” Why did he make no attempt to find out I the previous ten years?  Precisely because he has gained wisdom, learnt about human nature, and no doubt thought long and hard about how he came to be in such a situation. “Why did my brothers sell me??” He will not repeat his error from the first verse of the story, he refuses to bring his father a second evil report about his brothers. He cannot contact his father without damning his brothers who sold him into slavery. So for twelve years he waits in hope for their sake, trusting that somehow he will be given an opportunity. During his time of favour, he has two children. Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh and said, "It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household." The second son he named Ephraim and said, "It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering."

And then we read;

Genesis 42:5-9 So Israel's sons were among those who went to buy grain, for the famine was in the land of Canaan also.

 ⁶ Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the one who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph's brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground.

 ⁷ As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them. "Where do you come from?" he asked. "From the land of Canaan," they replied, "to buy food."

 ⁸ Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him.

 ⁹ Then he remembered his dreams about them

Joseph still calls Egypt the land of my suffering, where his feet were in fetters and his soul in iron, and now suddenly, here are the ones, his own brothers, who did all this to him.  They are unknowing, and at his mercy. What will he do?? Revenge, hatred, fury, who knows what emotions rushed unchecked through his heart? “Then he remembered his dreams about them.” Suddenly, he remembers, and understands that this is of God, and everything changes. Suddenly, he is standing on holy ground, and he cannot take revenge. Suddenly, when he most desperately needs it, when he is unexpectedly confronted by his brothers in the flesh, with no warning or time to consider and pull himself together, suddenly, the gift of God, given decades ago at an inopportune time, is fulfilled and imparts the grace and knowledge he so desperately needs. Our God, his ways are perfect!

1Corinthians 10:13; And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

Joseph now acts in a seemingly very strange way towards his brothers. He does not reveal who he is. He has changed in the past years, have they also?  

Genesis 42:21-24 They said to one another, "Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that's why this distress has come upon us."

 ²² Reuben replied, "Didn't I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn't listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood."

 ²³ They did not realize that Joseph could understand them, since he was using an interpreter. ²⁴ He turned away from them and began to weep, but then turned back and spoke to them again. He had Simeon taken from them and bound before their eyes.

What is going on here? The first thing to note is that Joseph is not acting here for revenge, to inflict pain on those who had caused him pain. At each significant stage (42:24, 43:30, 45:1-2), Joseph turns aside to weep, but is careful that his brothers do not him doing this. What Joseph is doing is causing him pain, and as you look at what he is doing, you come to see that he is acting not for himself but for the sake of his brothers. He is both testing them and at the same time leading them through the stages of repentance. Without this, genuine reconciliation between the brothers will be impossible.

Stage 1, confession and remorse. When the brothers are accused of a crime they did not commit, their hearts immediately go back the 20 or more years to the crime they did commit – they have always believed they deserved punishment for what they did, they never got over it; "Didn't I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn't listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood."

They have finally confessed what has been eating away at them.

The next step, which Joseph goes to great lengths to arrange, is for the brothers to show that they have truly repented and turned from their sin is for the brothers to refuse to repeat it, given the same circumstances. This step takes some time. Firstly, Simeon (the eldest of the brothers who had refused Reuben’s pleas to save the boy) is taken, and they are told they will not see him again until Joseph’s full brother, Benjamin, is brought to Egypt. They don’t want to do this, but hunger finally compels them. There is a reason for the famine.

Now, Benjamin is brought to Joseph, and he gives all the brothers a feast. Here, just as God had done earlier with the dreams, Joseph exaggerates any remaining jealousies between the brothers – Joseph’s father favoured him, so Joseph outrageously favours Benjamin in front of them all. Benjamin gets 5 times the food everyone else gets. Are the brothers also bitter towards Rachel’s remaining son? Benjamin is then accused of theft, and the brothers are given a way out – they can simply leave spoilt Benjamin in Egypt, and go home free. Just as they had earlier sold that other favoured son into Egypt to free themselves. But here, everything changes. Judah, the very one who had sold Joseph, comes forward and offers himself if only Benjamin can go free.

Genesis 45:1-3 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, "Have everyone leave my presence!" So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers.

 ² And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh's household heard about it.

 ³ Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph! Is my father still living?"

The brothers are truly reconciled, the dream has come true (three times in his speech, Judah refers to all the brothers as Joseph’s slaves) at last, he can let his father know he is alive.

Interestingly, the brothers also needed to know that all this was of God. This did not excuse them, but opened their eyes to a larger reality. They had repented, and they were forgiven.

Genesis 50:15-21 When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?"

 ¹⁶ So they sent word to Joseph, saying, "Your father left these instructions before he died:

 ¹⁷ 'This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.' Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father." When their message came to him, Joseph wept.

 ¹⁸ His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. "We are your slaves," they said.

 ¹⁹ But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God?

 ²⁰ You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

 ²¹ So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children." And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

This is the story of Joseph, sold by his brothers, faithful to God, tested and refined through years of slavery. Through God’s pre-emptive grace, enabled to see beyond himself and to redeem the very brothers who had so terribly wronged him. United at last with his family and father, through what God had accomplished in him able to save many lives.

I should note here that God’s ways are not our ways. It is right that we do try to fix things Philippians 4:2 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord. We try our best from our limited perspective, and at the same time trust in a God who is greater than us.

Our God is not afraid to take time to achieve what is best. He is not into quick fixes or Band-Aids. We need to know that God is in control, that nothing can reach us that his loving hand does not permit. This is not easy. Joseph’s feet were in fetters and his soul laid in irons. He spent years in brutal captivity, just as our brothers and sisters in the persecuted church of today. But he did not lose faith, and looking back, he could say; “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. ²¹ So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children."