The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E17 - Joseph

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

Hey, church family, it is time for Devo. If you've got your Bible, we're going to try to cover Genesis, I don't know, like 33 to 50, maybe even more than that. As this coronavirus thing has hit and we have been quarantined into our homes, one of the things that you've heard me talk about over and over and over is that God is sovereign. And one of the things that I referenced is something that Joseph says in Genesis chapter 50 when he looks at his brothers and he says what you intended for evil, God intended for good. I want to tell you that whole story. So Joseph was the youngest of 12. His dad's name Jacob and he was his dad's favorite, which is okay. But the problem is that his dad let everybody know that Joseph was his favorite. And so he gave him this coat of many.

colors. And then not only that, Joseph would have these dreams. God had this incredible plan and purpose for the life of Joseph, which is also okay. But Joseph's problem is that he shared these dreams with his brothers. And he had a couple sets of dreams. One of the dreams that he had is that he and all of his brothers were like corn and all of their corn bound down to his corn. And so he went and told them, hey, guess what guys? I mean, they're just like eating cereal one morning. He goes, guess what? but one day, God is going to use me in a miraculous way, and all of you will bow down to me. And if that wasn't enough, he followed it up with a second dream, because they started to get mad at it.

I mean, can you imagine, right? The youngest brother telling the older brothers, God has told me that all of you will bow down to me. And then he said, so they started getting mad. And he's like, no, no, no, it's even better than that. I had another dream where the sun and the moon and the stars will all bow down to me. and so the brothers got sick of it and so they beat him up and they were going to kill him but they decided not to and they throw him in the bottom of this cistern like a well and they were just going to

let him die and then this group of people come by slave traders and so one of the brothers decides that they're going to sell Joseph into slavery so they take his coat of many-cote They rip it all up, they put animal blood on it, they go home to their dad Jacob, and they say, hey, the dreamer's dead. Sorry. So Joseph finds himself on the auction block. And he just happens to be purchased by a man named Potterfer.

Potter for was a high-ranking official in Egypt. And interestingly enough, the Bible says this phrase about the life of Joseph multiple times throughout his journey. It will say, like, and Joseph was bought as a slave by Potiphar, and the Lord was with him. To which you scratch your head, and you're like, wait a minute. No, he wasn't. That's not how that works, right? I mean, if the Lord is with us, things go good. If the Lord is with us, then we get a parking spot right up front of publics. If the Lord is with us, then it's all green lights from here to wherever we're going. If the Lord is with us, then shouldn't we be cancer-free?

If the Lord is with us, then nobody gets sick. If the Lord is with us, then blessings should be with us. But throughout the saga of the life of Joseph, you hear these words over and over and over, the Lord was with Joseph. So he's a slave in the house of Potiphar, and the crazy thing is that Joseph, in every situation, he does what anybody would do

that really believe that God was actually. with them. And so he serves Potterford to the best of his ability, and before you know it, he has risen to be in charge of all of Potipher's household. And then one day, as he's trying to be obedient and faithful to the Lord, as Joseph is, Potipher's out of town, and Potipher's wife tries to put the moves on Joseph. And Joseph says, would I sin against the Lord this way? and then Joseph flees sexual immorality. He runs away, but Potterfer's wife grabs onto Joseph's coat and takes it from him. And then when Potterfer gets home, his wife makes accusations against Joseph

and says, this young boy of yours that works for you came in and tried to rape me. So Potterfer, I don't know that he fully believed her, but he's filled with anger, and so he throws Joseph into the prison. and now Joseph is in the bottom of the prison and the Bible once again says, and the Lord was with Joseph. To which, when I read that, sometimes I think Joseph may have thought, Lord, could you just not be with me for a little while? Because every time the Bible says you're with me, I end up in, I mean, I was domestically abused.

I was a human trafficked. And now I'm falsely accused. And I'm in this jail. Well, two of the people that he's in jail with, they used to work for the king or for Pharaoh, and one was the baker, and one was the cup bearer. And they, for some reason, have been both put in prison. And they had these weird dreams.

And so one day, they're talking about it in the prison, and Joseph says, well, funny enough, God has given me the gift of dreams and the interpretation of dreams. So tell me about your dreams. And they both share their dreams, and they sound eerily similar. One guy's like, yeah, I, you know, I had this dream that I was going to be restored, and he just described it, and the other guy's like, yeah, I had a dream about a loaf of bread,

and what does this mean? And Joseph looks at one of the guys and says, good news, you're going to be working for the Pharaoh again very shortly. And when you're there, whatever you do, will you please, please, please remember me when you go before Pharaoh and let them know that I'm here, and I don't deserve to be here, and will you let them know? And the other guy is like, what about me in my dream? He's like, I got bad news for you.

You're going to be dead by tomorrow. And sure enough, the dreams came true. Well, the Bible says that the one that God got restored and goes back to the Pharaoh, he forgot about Joseph. Totally forgot about Joseph. And for years and years and years, he forgets about Joseph. And then one day the Pharaoh wakes up and he has dreams. And so he gathers all of his,

and wise men around him. And he says, I have this dream, and nobody can interpret the dream. And then at that point, the cup bearer raises his hand. He's like, you know what? I totally forgot. There's a guy I know in jail. I don't want to bring that up at the time you put me in jail,

but I met a guy who happens to be in the prison, and he can interpret dreams. And so the Pharaoh's like, well, go get him. And so he goes and he gets him, and they bring Joseph forward. And he says, okay, Joseph, he says, I've heard that you can interpret James. And Joseph looks at the Pharaoh and says, it is my God that gives me the interpretation. Now, at this point, if you were standing around as one of

Pharaoh's councilmen, you would think, Joseph, you're a dead man. Because Pharaoh thinks he's God. And he can't interpret this dream. And what you've just said is that my God is bigger than your God, Pharaoh. and here's what Joseph believed. Joseph believed that only God could promote him, so he did not have to try to win the approval of Pharaoh. He was just faithful and obedient to the one true God. And so Pharaoh says, all right, well, interpret my dream. And Pharaoh had this weird dream about there was like a fat cows,

and then a little skinny cow comes up and eats all the fat cows. And he's like, what's that all about? And Joseph said, no, it's clear, you're going to have seven years of plenty, then you're going to have seven years of famine. and I have an idea, here's how you should prepare yourself. I mean, I know I've been in jail for the past bunch of years because the cup pair forgot to tell you about me,

but I've got an economic plan to get us out of this crisis. How about if for seven years we keep back enough supplies so that when we hit the seven years of famine, then we'll be the only ones in all of the world with enough food and resources. And so Pharaoh says, all right, you're my guy. he promotes him to like senior VP of all of Egypt. Well, sure enough, for seven years, they have plenty, and then seven years famine hits.

Meanwhile, back with Joseph's brothers and his dad, they find themselves in a famine. And one thing leads to another, and eventually all of Joseph's brothers make their way to Egypt, and just like his dream, they bow down before Joseph, because Joseph is in charge of who gets what. and they bow down before their brother.

But it's been at least 17 years. And so they don't recognize their younger brother anymore. And then he reveals himself to them, and he looks at his brothers, and he goes, it's me. And you know what they're thinking? They're thinking we're dead men. I mean, we beat him up, we sold him into slavery, we told everybody he was dead,

and surely, surely he's going to do that same thing to us. And then Joseph says no. No. I tell you what, I want you to go home and get dad and bring dad here too. So they do that, they go home, they get Jacob, they bring Jacob all the way back. And then the Bible says that Joseph treats his brothers who had sinned against him and his dad. He treats them at the Pharaoh's table. Takes care of all of their needs. And then by the time you get to Genesis chapter 50, Jacob dies, the dad dies. And when the dad dies, the brothers think, well, surely the only reason that he was keeping us around

is to not make our dad sad. But now that dad is dead, surely, surely he's going to kill us. So in Genesis 50, verse 15, it says, And when Joseph's brother saw that their father had died, they said it may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him. And so they sent a message to this. Joseph saying, your father gave us this command before he died, say to Joseph, please forgive the transgressions of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you. And now please forgive

the transgression of the servants of the God of your father. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him and his brothers also came and fell down before him and said, Behold, we are your servants. But Joseph said to them, do not fear, for I am in the place. of God. Joseph believed that God was in control, that God was sovereign, that God had never been surprised. He says, do not fear for am I in the place of God. As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. So do not fear. I will provide for you and your little ones, and thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. The reason I share that part with you is I just want to remind you that I know it seems like

our world is out of control, but our world is not out of control. It's not. God still has the whole world in its hands. And what the enemy meant for evil, like trying to shut down every church on the planet, God meant for good. Like I'm sure this weekend was the highest attended Easter service in the history of Christianity with the tens of thousands of people. tuning in and thousands of people surrendering their life to Christ. So God is in charge. But one of the things I want to point out is as Joseph is standing over his brothers and they are and they are kneeling before him, begging him for forgiveness, how did he have the ability to forgive his brothers? I mean, I know that he trusts the Lord and I know that he has believed

that God was with him, and I know that he believes that God was going to deliver him, but how did he know that really what hung in the balance here was the nation of Israel from which Jesus or Messiah would come from? And here's what made me think about this. I know most of us are quarantined and our kids are home from school, and my kids just got an announcement that they're not going back to school this year. It's all virtual. And so it's just us at the house a lot, a lot more than normal. And one of the things that I have noticed is that our kids are watching us more than ever. That if you've got roommates, you're with each other a lot more than normal.

And the things that we do can have an incredible impact on other people. And especially parents, the way we react to this corona situation could have an incredible impact on our kids and on future generations. here's what I mean Joseph is standing in front of his brothers they've done evil against him he knows that he would be within his own right to retaliate and yet

instead of retaliating he offers them forgiveness where did he learn that well if you back up to Genesis chapter 33 there's an account there about Joseph's dad Joseph's dad's name's Jacob Jacob had a brother named Esau

I'm probably going to cover this in one of next week's devos. Jacob had a brother named Esau. Esau was born first. Esau deserved the birthright and the blessing from the father. Jacob, it actually means like deceitful one or trickster. And on two different occasions, Jacob tricked Esau and stole the birthright from his brother. Jacob was like, he was kind of a mama's boy. He was his mom's favorite, and he liked to hang around the tents and cooking stuff.

and Esau was a warrior. It means hairy. He's a big hairy hunter guy. And so Esau gets angry and wants to kill his brother. So for many chapters, Jacob is on the run, fleeing for his life. And then eventually, and all kind of stuff happens while he's on the run. While he's on the run, he gets married. He has kids.

All of that's going on. Okay? One of the kids that he has is Joseph, the youngest. And while Jacob is on the run, he finds out that Esau, his big brother, his older brother, the big Harry Hunter one, has tracked him down and he wants to kill him. And in Genesis chapter 33, Jacob, the father of Joseph, is finally going to confront and go see his older brother, Esau. And the Bible says this.

And Jacob lifted up his eyes, this is Genesis chapter 33, and Jacob lifted up his eyes, and he looked and behold, Esau was coming and 400 men with him. And so he divided the children among Leia. That's his first wife. And Rachel, that's his second wife. And the two female servants. And he put the servants with the children in front. Then Leah and her children.

And Rachel and Joseph, last of all. He's the only son that's named, the only child that's named. And he himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother. but Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him and they wept and when Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and the children he said who are these with you and Jacob said the children whom God has graciously given your servant and then the servants drew near they and their children and bowed down Leia likewise and her children drew near and bowed down

and last Joseph and Rachel drew near and they bowed know. Why do I bring that up? Here's what I think happened. In Genesis chapter 50, when Joseph's brothers are all bowing down in front of him, begging for their lives, I believe that in Joseph's mind, he's like, I have seen this picture before. I can remember a day where my dad was on the run and Uncle Esau tracked us down and I remember my dad kneeling before his brother and my dad had sinned against his brother, and maybe my dad deserved to be punished and deserved to die. And in that moment, I watched Uncle Esau forgive my dad. And if Uncle Esau did not forgive my dad in that moment, then I would not be here in this very

moment. And so as my brothers kneeled down before me, then the thing that I'm going to do is what I saw modeled for me and my family. I saw my uncle forgive my dad at great expense to himself. Therefore, I forgive you my brothers. What you meant for evil, God meant for good. The way we conduct ourselves through this pandemic, there are people watching.

And especially parents, let me talk to you, your kids are watching you. And the things that you do and model during these times, especially of high-pressure times, I'm telling you, more will be caught than will be taught. kids are not very good listeners. Can I get an amen? But they are incredible imitators. And so if they see you respond to all this and stress and worry and complaint and freak out, then that's probably the direction that they will go with their life. But if they see us by faith understand that God is

with us and they see us respond with prayer and faith and contentment and this blessed assurance that God still has the whole world in their hands, in his hands, then you have no idea the kind of impact that could have in their life. There could be a day, generations from now, years from now, decades from now, with the very things they see from you in these moments, impact them in those moments. And this whole corona thing that seems out of control, God's still got the whole world in his hands. let me pray for you.

God, I pray for each and every one of us as we do life together. Though we're socially distanced from a lot of people, there's a bunch of us that are really close to a few. And Lord, I pray that we would conduct ourselves in a manner that just displays that we believe that you are with us, that you love us, and that you are in total control. God, what the enemy intends for evil, Lord, we know that you intend it for good, for the good of those that love you

and are called according to your purpose. And so God, let us not waste this time. Lord, let us live in such a way that others would see our good work and glorify you. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.