Family Brokenness and Redemption — Genesis 37

0:01 Why don't we open up with prayer? Father in heaven, you know the better than anyone else here, the weakness of the person who's speaking and Father, that I should dare to take your words upon my lips. Oh, Father, I pray this morning that you would speak to me and to those who would listen to me as well. We want to hear from you. We want our lives to reflect what you teach in your word.

0:38 And we just pray these things in Jesus name, amen. Woke up this morning with a song kind of running through my head. It's a song that's been playing on the radio lately. A lot of you probably heard it. The the song is called Storyteller.

1:06 And the song is kind of about how God works in each of our lives to create a story and turn us into a storyteller. And the words that were kind of that I was thinking about was you put the pieces together. This is what this is how one of the lines in the song. It says you put the pieces together, made me the storyteller. And so I just wanted to start off just by kind of quoting that and thinking about that idea of God putting together the pieces of the story of our lives.

1:52 And to try to keep that context as we think about the story that we're going to talk about today. That God is taking what looks like a shattered mess up picture and putting together a beautiful story. So what we're going to be talking about today is the story of Joseph. It's going to be Joseph Part one. I believe Abe is going to be doing Joseph Part two.

2:21 So we're going to, it's kind of going to kind of be, have to be a cliffhanger here. We're going to stop right in the middle of Joseph and, and, and you're going to have to wait to find out what happens. And the outline of what I'd like to talk about today, let me just kind of give you the outline. The first point is that Joseph is a truly enthralling story. The second point is that Joseph is a story about family brokenness and redemption.

2:50 The third point is that Joseph is a story about God's sovereign goodness. And the fourth point is that Joseph is really the story of Jesus. And I'm not going to be able to go into detail on all those points, but I just wanted to kind of give you the big picture of what I'm going to talk about. So the first thing, Joseph is truly an enthralling story. I want you to think about the story of Joseph for a minute.

3:13 I think probably everyone in this room has read through the story of Joseph at some point in their life. And it is truly a brilliant piece of literature. I mean, it's got all the pieces parts that you need to make a good story. It's got the suspense, it's got the drama, it's got the blood and guts, it's got pretty much, it's got it all there, right? So rather than me just trying to talk about like dissect the story, what I want to do is to spend the first big chunk of this morning just enjoying the story.

3:57 Okay? And I'm going to just we're just going to read through big chunks of the story, skip a couple places to try to move things along and just have minimal commentary on it. So I'm just going to through it. So we're going to start with Genesis 37. We're in Genesis chapter 37.

4:42 Take note of the age of Joseph. This is the start of the story. Joseph is 17 years old. He was feeding his flock with his brothers And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah. Again, take note.

4:59 That's important, right? We already see the multiple wives of Jacob. And that's the context in which the story of Joseph is set, is in the context of polygamy. He was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah. Joseph's mother, by the way, we've learned already that Joseph's mother is Rachel, right?

5:25 So that was Jacob's favorite wife of the four that he had. His father's wives. So his father's wives, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to his father. Joseph is a tattletale. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age.

5:50 Also, he made him a tunic of many colors. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably for... To him. Now Joseph had a dream and he told it to his brothers and they hated him even more. So he said to them, please hear this dream which I have dreamed.

6:13 There we were, binding sheaves in the field and then behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright, and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf. And the brother said to him, shall you indeed reign over us, or shall you indeed have dominion over us? So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time the sun, the moon and the 11 stars bowed down to me.

6:53 Yeah. They bowed down. And he told it to his father and his brothers. Bet that went over well. And his father rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream that you have dreamed?

7:07 Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you? And his brother envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind. Then his brothers went to feed their went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, Are not your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.

7:32 So he said to him, Here I am. Then he said to him, Please go and see if it is well with your brothers and well with the flocks and bring back word to me. So he sent him out of the Valley Of Hebron and he went to Shechem. Now a certain man found him and there he was wandering in the field and the man asked him saying, what are you seeking? So he said, I am seeking my brothers.

8:02 Please tell me where they are feeding their flocks. So the man said, they have departed from here, for I heard them say, let us go to Dothan. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan. Now when they saw him afar off, even before he came near them, they conspired against him to kill him. Then they said to one another, look, this dreamer is coming.

8:29 Come, therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit and we shall say, some wild beast has devoured him and we shall see what will come of his dreams. Reuben, Reuben is the firstborn son, right? He's the son of Leah And Reuben heard it and he delivered him out of their hands and said, Let us not kill him. Here's big brother's wisdom. Let us not kill him.

9:01 And Reuben said to them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit which is in the wilderness and do not lay a hand on him, that he might deliver him out of their hand and bring him back to his father. So Reuben's willing to stand up somewhat, but not all the way, So it came to pass when Joseph had come to his brothers that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of his... Of many colors that was on him. Then they took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty.

10:12 Now just one brief comment here. In previous times when I've read through Joseph, a lot of times I've kind of skipped over the like these names. There's just like there's a bunch of them. There's 11 of them. It's one of the one of the is one of Jacob's sons, you know, just like for a lot of you, just the Morris boys, you know, don't, you know, so so, but, but we need to pay, pay, pay careful attention to the family dynamics and what's going on here.

10:44 Judah, that's an important name to remember. And it's this, this, this wicked man, Judah, whose idea it is to sell his own brother into slavery. Judah. And Judah said to his brothers, what profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? What a generous soul.

11:07 Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and let not our hand be upon him for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brothers listened. Then Midianite traders passed by. So the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.

11:32 Then Reuben returned to the pit and indeed Joseph was not in the pit. Apparently, was not with the other brothers at the time when he was sold. And he tore his clothes and he returned to his brothers and said, the lad is no more. And I, where shall I go? So Reuben is forced into the position for all his high morals where he has to go along with his brothers and feels like he needs to deceive his own father.

12:03 So they took Joseph's tunic, killed a kid of goats, of the goats, and dipped the tunic in the blood. Then they sent the tunic of many colors, and they brought it to their father and said, we have found this. Do you know whether it is your son's tunic or not? And he recognized it and said, it is my son's tunic. A wild beast has devoured him.

12:28 Without doubt, Joseph is torn to pieces. And Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist and mourned for his son for many days. And all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, for I shall go down into the grave to my son in mourning. Father wept Thus for him.

12:56 Now the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard. Now, at this point, just pretend you haven't read the story before. Like you don't know what's going to happen, okay? At this point, you're supposed to be sitting on the edge of your seat. What's going to happen to Joseph?

13:23 Right? What's going to happen to Joseph? And the writer of Genesis says, Oh, well, I'm going to leave you there for a minute. I want to tell you what's going to happen back home first. So he leaves us in suspense and he begins to tell the story, instead of telling the story of Joseph, he tells the story of Judah.

13:44 Okay? Tells the story of Judah. So at this point, we begin to learn that God is at work in the life of Judah. And I'm not going to read through this chapter partially because, you know, it's a hard chapter. There's some things in here that are not pretty, right?

14:11 So let me just kind of briefly give you the overview of what happens. First of all, Judah, he goes and gets married and he has three sons. And his first son follows in his day's footsteps. He's a very wicked man. So wicked in fact that God actually just takes his life.

14:34 Second son, same thing happens to him. We're not told how God took his life, but we're told that it was a direct God's was so upset with their behavior that he actually just bam, you guys are gone. And so you can imagine, you know, this is the the hand of God in Judah's life. It must have been a terrible set of circumstances for Judah to be going through. But as you continue in the story, you end up with this bizarre situation where Judah actually thinks he's going into a temple prostitute.

15:23 And he actually ends up but the person that he thinks is a temple prostitute is actually his his daughter-in-law. And I mean, it's a bizarre twisted story of Judah's behavior in this situation. And then Judah ends up, he doesn't realize it was his daughter-in-law. He ends up accusing her of being a prostitute and then saying, well, we're going to stone her until he realizes that actually he was the one that got her pregnant. What?

15:59 It's like, messed up can it get? And this, guys, this is the family that God had chosen to bless the world. This is the family. Okay, that's the story of Judah. And if we trace the story of Judah farther, Judah is gonna show up next next time.

16:41 Back to Joseph. Genesis chapter 39. Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, brought him bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there. And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man, and he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian.

17:08 And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and the Lord made all he did to prosper in his hands. So Joseph found favor in his sight and served him. Then he made him overseer of his house, and all that he had he put under his authority. So it was from the time that he had made him overseer of his house and all that he had that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake. And the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in his house and in the field.

17:41 Thus, he left all that he had in Joseph's hands, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. Now it came to pass after those things that his master's wife cast longing eyes on Joseph, and she said, Lie with me. But he refused. And he said to his master's wife, Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house and he has committed all that he has to my hand.

18:14 There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? So it was, as she spoke to Joseph day by day that he did not heed her to lie with her or to be with her. But it happened about this time when Joseph went into the house to do his work and none of the men in the house was inside, that she caught him by his garment saying, lie with me. But he left his garment in her hand and fled and ran outside.

18:54 And so it was when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and fled outside that she called to the men of her house and spoke to them saying, see, he has brought into me us a Hebrew to mock us. He came into me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice.' And it happened when he heard that I lifted my voice and cried out that he left his garment with me and fled and went outside. So she kept his garment with her until his master came home. She spoke to him with words like these saying, the Hebrew servant whom you brought to us came in to me to mock me.' So it happened as I lifted my voice and cried out that he left his garment with me and fled outside. So it was, when his master heard the words which his wife spoke to him saying, your servant did to me after this manner, that his anger was aroused.

19:50 Then Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, a place where the king's prisoners were confined. And he was there in the prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hand. All the prisoners who were in the prison, whatever they did, it was his doing.

20:16 The keeper of the prison did not look into anything that was under Joseph's authority because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper. And that's where I'm going to leave the story for now. Next, you're going to have to wait until next time to hear the rest of it because I know none of you know what actually happened after that. Or you could just read the story yourself.

21:30 We see that Jacob had multiple wives. Know, it's interesting in various contexts, discussed with different people, both believers and unbelievers, what the Bible says about polygamy. And another, a number of people have expressed to me the belief that they have the Bible really doesn't say anything about polygamy, that it never condemns it. It just, you know, it's just there. And what I want to do is just because I don't remember any of the speakers and that we've as we've gone through Genesis talking about this.

22:07 I want to just take a couple minutes talking about what the Bible really says about polygamy because it's not good, okay? The Bible does have things to say about it. Probably the most obvious mention of polygamy is in one Timothy chapter three where one of the requirements for church leadership is that a man be the husband of one wife, right? So that's clearly a reference to the fact that polygamy is certainly not the God's will. It's not something that is ideal of marriage.

22:53 But probably the passage that I want to take us to take us to, and actually I would like us to turn to this, is found in Matthew 19 because I just want to spend a couple minutes looking at this passage. So the context of this passage is this. The Pharisees, they're out to get Jesus. They're out to trap him into something. And so they come to him with this question.

23:16 They say, Jesus, is it okay for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? You know, it doesn't, just any reason. Is that okay? Just because he doesn't like her one day, can he just say, I divorce you. Is that okay?

23:34 And Jesus says, I don't... No. No. It's absolutely not okay. And the reason that Jesus gives is this.

23:44 He says in verse four, Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female? So he takes us back to Genesis two. He says Genesis two is the prototypical marriage. That's how marriage is defined. That's the way it was always meant to be.

24:01 That's how God started it. He made them male and female. So it's one man and one woman. And he said, For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother. He's quoting here straight from Genesis two, from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the scriptures.

24:20 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and the two, note, the two shall become one flesh. So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. Okay. So the point is that the definition of marriage has to come from Genesis two and anything that's outside of that one man with one woman for life is not God's best.

25:00 Okay? It's definitely not God's best. Okay. Now, if you think about that for a minute, you will realize that that passage is just as equally condemning of polygamy as it is of divorce. Okay?

25:24 With one foul swoop, we've swiped away both polygamy and divorce. And, you know, this is not a comment about anybody's individual situation. So please don't take it that way. But, you know, families are complex, lives are complex. But if you think about it for a little bit, you will realize that actually polygamy and divorce and remarriage are very similar things.

25:55 Divorce and remarriage is a sort of serial polygamy that's oftentimes practiced in our culture. And the results in terms of what happens in a family is not actually all that different than polygamy. If you look at what happened in the lives of Joseph's family as a result of polygamy, you will have to agree that it is not while we may look at it from this distance three thousand, four thousand whatever years ago it was that this happened and say what a bizarre thing having multiple wives. All of us can look at family situations. Many of them, most of, in fact I think probably all of us have family members or friends that experienced the consequences of divorce in their families and it's not at all unlike what we see in terms of the polygamous relationships in the Old Testament.

26:57 Okay? Now, the Pharisees at this point, they've got Jesus, right? Because they say this, they say, Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and put her away? They say, Ah, Old Testament allowed this. Moses allowed this.

27:20 Why are you saying you can't do it? And you could say a similar thing. Look, Jacob had multiple wives. You know, David had multiple wives. Isn't it why, you know, God didn't like just come down and say, no, don't do that.

27:40 Jesus has a response for them though. And I think his response in my mind over the past few years has become really to me a key verse in understanding and opening up many of the Old Testament passages that I have difficulty understanding. And this is what Jesus' response is. He says this, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives but from the beginning it was not so. So Jesus says look, God defined what the ideal for marriage was in the beginning.

28:20 That's the way, that is the way God wants marriage to be. One man, one woman for life. There's circumstances. There's crazy things that happen. There's people that are living in societies that are, you know, complex and God at certain points in time over the history of his revealing himself to people may have said, well, you know, divorce or, you know, polygamy, those things, I don't like them.

28:59 But right now, the thing that I'm trying to communicate that with them to them right now is something different. So I'm going to focus on that and I'm going to choose my battles. And at the same time, at the same time, as we think about this though, you think about the book of Genesis. In fact, you think about the whole Old Testament. Every time where you see polygamy, does the Bible depict it in a positive or a negative way?

30:18 It's absolutely, absolutely condemned in the scriptures. So we see Joseph, a family and Joseph, a family that is destroyed by a polygamous relationship. Then we see also, we see a family that is destroyed by favoritism. Back in Genesis chapter 37, We see it says that, And Israel loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age. And, man, parents, we've got to keep this in mind.

31:14 We've got to keep this in mind. Favoritism can destroy a family. It really can. We've got to treat our children as fairly as we know how. And I think all of us can think of examples in our own lives.

31:30 If we're parents, I know we can think of examples in our children's lives where we've seen our children fighting and we have to look at our own behaviors and think, well, that might be partially my fault because I did something that favored one of them. And so here we have a classic example of how favoritism can tear apart family relationships. Then we also see arrogance. While the Bible doesn't actually say that Joseph is an arrogant person, I would say that as I read through the text, that's how I see him. You can disagree, but that's the impression that I get of the personality that Joseph is displaying.

32:24 He's a spoiled child. He's He's arrogant. He's a tattletale. And his brothers, well, brothers have their own problems, right? But the surely we can see that this is something that has fed into serious family problems.

32:46 And one thing to just think about as I was thinking about the story line is that we see the arrogant of Joseph contrasted by the fact that in the next chapter he becomes a slave. And it's almost as if God is saying, I've got great things for you, Joseph, but before you do those great things, you're going to have to learn a couple of lessons. And so he has to go through this time period of being a lowly slave instead of being the favored son of his father. Next we see envy. The brothers envied him, uses that word envy.

33:36 And they grew in their envy into bitterness and anger. So such an overwhelming sense of anger that they were willing to consider killing their brother and ultimately sold him as a slave. I know how envy can flip into our lives so many places. We don't even want to recognize that we have it sometimes. But my, how often I can look at my life and say, man, I I would never want to admit that I envy that person.

34:18 I would never want to admit that I would want to have what they have. How messed up it is in my mind. And envy starts out small, doesn't it? And then it just grows. Bitterness starts out small and it just grows into a plant that destroys our own lives and the lives of others.

35:24 Here we had Isaac playing whose favorite was Esau and Rebecca whose favorite was Jacob, right? And so Jacob's just playing out the scenario that he lived as a child. And then we also see this anger between the brothers. Same thing, Jacob and Esau at each other's throats. Esau ready to kill Jacob.

35:56 So Jacob has to run away. And then we see the same thing, next generation. Brothers ready to kill each other. And then we see Judah who's living out this wicked and moral lifestyle and next thing you see his two sons. So wicked that God has to just snap out their lives.

36:22 It's transmitted from generation to generation, isn't it? Brothers and sisters, we have to remember if we're parents, our kids are looking at us. They're seeing how we live our lives. We need to live our lives in a way that honors God and that will pass on a legacy that's good instead of a legacy that's bad. Next thing I wanted to point out is that there's a brokenness of sexual sin that's in these passages, especially when you read the story of Judah.

37:04 But in brilliant contrast to that, we see Joseph standing against this temptation, this woman who's tempting him. And I kind of wanted to bring out a couple of lessons from that about how Joseph withstood this temptation. The first thing that we see in Joseph's withstanding of it is that Joseph understood it was sin. He uses that word. He understood that it was sin.

37:39 If we look in Genesis chapter 39, he says, look, my master does not know what is with me in the house and he has committed all that he has to me. There is no one greater than this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? So clearly he's saying it is a sin, it would be a great sin against my master for me to do this with you. But he's also saying it fundamentally and primarily it is a sin against God, that God has commanded me to live a certain way.

38:21 And if I was to do this, it would be a sin against God. But here, you know, one verse I was thinking about in conjunction with this that maybe even adds a little bit more is in first Corinthians chapter six, where verse 18, where it says, every sin that a man does is outside his body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. So not only is it a sin against other people, the people that are depending on us, this sort of a sin is also a sin against ourselves. It is something which, if we make the wrong decisions, we will receive in our own minds, in our own bodies, the consequences of our decisions. And it won't be nice.

39:19 But of course, ultimately and fundamentally, the issue is that it is a sin against God. That is the first step in overcoming temptation is you've got to know what God says about these things. Then second step is flee. Joseph ran. He didn't stay around.

39:40 Right? He ran so fast that he left his garment behind him. And it's interesting, the Bible tells us to resist the devil, but he says to flee sexual immorality. That's one Corinthians six eighteen again. Flee sexual immorality.

40:32 So we see that if we were to just stop at this point, it'd be like the way most of us can see our own families and our own lives. We look at it and we say, how is this all going to work out? I mean, it's so messy. It's so messed up. There's all these, all this stuff that's, it's not right.

40:55 And yet God, think about this for a second. Who gave Joseph his dreams? God did. Here we are, this critical, messed up melting pot of bad things that could happen and it's almost as if God says, Here Joseph, here's a dream. Go make your brothers real mad.

41:17 He's pushing them. Creating the situation because he has a story that he's going to create out of this. He has a redemptive purpose that's going to come out of all of this. And probably, think the key verse in the entire story of Joseph is one that we haven't read yet, but it's at the end of the story of Joseph, where Joseph says to the brothers, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. It's God's sovereign goodness.

41:58 And so, you know when I think about this a little bit, okay, I see in the story of Joseph some remarkable things. I see a family that is truly, truly, truly deeply messed up and broken. And I see also the possibility for redemption in a remarkable way. So this arrogant Joseph, you know, he becomes the most powerful man outside of Pharaoh in the known world eventually. And he, more importantly, becomes actually a type of the Lord Jesus, which is something hopefully the speaker next week will have a little more time to talk about than I do.

42:46 It becomes actually a type of the Lord Jesus. And this man Judah, who's so wicked in his behavior and in his lifestyle, This guy actually, you know, you read those remarkable words at the beginning of Matthew where it says, you know, Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, Jacob begot Judah, Judah begat and he lists some the guy's name, I forgot his name. Pharise. Pharise. Through and he lists the name Tamar, right?

43:21 One of the few women listed in that that list of Jesus' genealogy. Who was it through? It was through Judah and this crazy messed up relationship and God had it all planned out. And this was how God was going to bring about the Lord Jesus. And so as we look at our lives and the threads that aren't lining up and the pieces of the puzzle that aren't matching together, We need to be cognizant of the fact that God has His sovereign plan.

43:53 He will work it out in the end. And someday, all the threads and things that don't make sense right now, He's going to put it together into a beautiful story. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you so much for the Lord Jesus who, like Joseph, was despised and rejected. We think of the lord Jesus who like Joseph is now glorified.

44:45 Amen.