Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You have your bibles opening the Genesis forty one. If
you were here on last night, you knew this was
where we were going. We had our outline of Genesis
on last night. And now we begin the story of Joseph.
Where all stories should begin in the middle, we usually
(00:26):
don't start in the middle. However, Genesis forty one is
really the crux of the matter. It's sort of the
fulcrum point, if you will, in the story of Joseph.
It's the most well known part of the Joseph narrative.
You know, followed closely by what happens to him in
thirty nine and what happens to him in thirty seven.
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But if you talk about Joseph, generally, people are going
to refer to what happens to him when he becomes
second in command in Egypt. And as I began to
share last night, we get it wrong. We interpret it wrongly,
and there are a number of reasons that we do that.
Number one, we're ignorant of the context. And we looked
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at the context in our first session, and we saw
in our first session that when you understand the context,
you interpret things differently. In this book and really in
the Bible, as a whole. So if you don't have
that context and all you have is g this is
forty one, you'll interpret it wrongly. Second all. Secondly, our
overall approach to the Old Testament kind of that Esop's
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fable slash yearbook approach to the Old Testament. Right, I
go when I'm looking for me and what's there for me?
And where am I in this? And what that means
is when we read biblical stories, we usually put ourselves
in the place of one of the characters, and it's
usually the protagonist. We don't usually read the story and
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think about it from the perspective of us being the
bad guy, right. We usually read the story and think
that God has given us this story so that we
can think about ourselves through the lens of the good
guy and how the world impacts us as the good guy.
And so we read this story of Joseph as though
we are Joseph and you're not. You're not be much
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healthier to read this and see yourself as a reuven
or somebody. Amen. And Thirdly, our addiction to movies, our
addiction to movies and literature, there's a character arc. We're
used to a certain character arc, and the story goes
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something like this. We're introduced to the character, and then
the character arc goes up in a good story and
we're seeing good stuff about the character and all these
sort of things, and then all of a sudden, there's
a precipitous drop. Something horrible happens in the life of
this character that we came to love in the upward
climate character arc, and all of a sudden it drops,
and he goes through much difficulty, and then he begins
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to overcome that difficulty, and in really good stories, it
will drop again, even lower than it did the first time,
and then all of a sudden something happens and he
comes out on the other end victorious. And you say
that was a great story. That's called a character arc.
And if you looked in movies and into the literature,
you'll find a very similar character arc. And in fact,
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the most shocking books are the ones that change up
the character arc. You're expecting it to go in one
direction and it goes in another. Why because we know
how stories are supposed to go. And so when you
understand that and you read the story of Joseph, you
know here he is. He comes along and you know
all of a sudden he's Joseph as Daddy loves him
and gives him his coat, and then his brothers hate
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him and bad. He goes down into the bitch, and
then his character arc comes up in the palace and
everything is wonderful, right, and all of a sudden he
gets you know, chased by you know, Potiper's wife and
back again, and then he meets these guys in prison.
He purposed their dreams. Please remember me. A couple of
years later he's remembered, and then all of a sudden,
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the character arc goes right back up to the top.
All's well, that ends well, except that's forty one and
Genesis has fifty chapters, and so we tend to reach
chapter forty one through the lens of a culture that
is very familiar with the character arc. We know a
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hero's character arc, and if we assume that Joseph is
the hero in this story, the way we understand a
character arc makes us feel like forty one is the apex.
It's the denument and the story all right, And that's wrong.
And then finally, our materialism, our materialism, what's the good ending?
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The good ending is he gets rich, he's faithful, and
God makes him rich. That's the good ending. And we're
materialistic and we think blessings equal wealth, right, and so
when he gets to the apex of his wealth, that
must be the apex of his blessing. These are reasons
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that make us interpret chapter forty one wrongly. But if
you think about it, here's the story of the fictional
character Victor. Victor's mother comes to church, and Victor's mother
comes to the pastor, and Victor's mother says, I need
you to pray for my boy. Okay, we'll pray for
your boy. What's going on with him? Well, I'm not
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too sure. I'm kind of getting secondhand information because the
fact is I haven't seen him in years. Victor went
off and he left home, and since he's left home,
we haven't heard much from him. In fact, he doesn't
even call himself a Victor anymore. He's got a whole
nother name that he calls himself. He's gone off and
he's gotten himself educated, and he's running with this crowd.
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Doesn't even go to church anymore. He's working with a
company that is really an immoral company, but he's making
a lot of money. He got married he got married
to a young woman that's not even a believer. They
have children. I've never seen them, and they don't go
to church anywhere. But you pray for my boy? Does
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that sound vaguely familiar? It don't sound familiar for two reasons.
One because that's a story that we hear often in church,
is it not. Two, I just told you Joseph's story
with a different name. He's gone away from home. He's
been gone for years. He doesn't go to church anymore,
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not even called by his name anymore. He married a
woman who's not even a believer. He's got kids. Grandma
and Grandpa haven't even seen the kids, and his kids
aren't getting raised in church, teach kids in Sunday school.
That chapter forty one is the payoff. It's the familiar
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horror story of every Christian parent, and we call it
the payoff. Now, granted, it's different in that this is
forced on Joseph, we get that right. However, the elements
are exactly the same. So again I say we're wrong
in interpreting chapter forty one in a positive light. But
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I believe that there are other things in the midst
of the story that help us to see that it's
not a good thing if we read carefully. First, let's
remember where we are. We're in the Totaldte of Jacob.
It's the last total dote of Genesis, the generations of Jacob.
We're not gonna get the generations of anybody else. Okay,
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why because Jacob's name has been changed to Israel, and
ultimately we're getting to the nation, the nation of Israel.
So he's the life tot Adote because this is the
foundation of the nation. Now we know that we have
to continue to see the promise seed and the fulfillment
of the Covenant, and we know that there's a promise
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of land. If we keep in mind land, seed and
Covenant and the fact that we're in the Totodote of Jacob,
that orients us in the story, so we can interpret
him in light of that. Let's look at a few things.
Reuben firstborn committed incests and he's been disinherited. Simeon and Levi,
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they're mass murderers, not just murderers, mass murderers. Remember their sister,
remember Shechem. Yeah, you guys get inter marry with us.
Just be circumcised, all of you. And they come back
three days later, when the men cannot defend themselves and
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they slaughter everybody. Fourth son Judah, Chapter thirty eight. Some
commentators have even argue that chapter thirty eight is sort
of out of place here because you have chapter thirty
seven right, and here is where Joseph is sold into Egypt.
Chapter thirty nine you pick up again with Joseph in Egypt.
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But chapter thirty eight is all about Judah and eventually
about Judah and Tamar. What's that got to do with anything. Well,
i'll answer that tomorrow or maybe tonight. We'll see. But
Judah's gone. He's voluntarily left the Covenant community and left
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the Promised Land. He voluntarily married outside of the Covenant community,
and he's fallen into gross immorality. There's a problem here.
Where are we gonna find this promise? See there's a
good guy in the story, his name's Joseph. But where
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is he. Well, he's outside of the Promised Land, he's
away from the Covenant community, and we don't know his
relation to the promise. See, this is not a good thing.
There are other things in the story that make it
clear that we're not supposed to view this positively. In
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the wrong land we find that God is being glorified
from the mouth of a pagan. Listen to this. Go
to Genesis forty one beginning he wors thirty seven. We
know what's happened up to this point. There have been
three pairs of dreams. Okay, don't miss the symmetry there.
The first pair of dreams is in thirty seven, when
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Joseph has two dreams. One he shares with his brothers,
one he shares with his brothers and his father. This
is what sort of leads to his bad relationship with
them and them selling him into slavery. Then there's a
second pair of dreams, the baker and the cupbearer in prison.
That second pair of dreams is what allows Pharaoh to
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be informed that there's a man in the prison who
interprets dreams. Because Pharaoh has a pair of dreams, the
dream of the cows, the fat ones and the lean ones,
and the dream of the ears of corn, the fat
ones and the lean ones, and so now he goes
to get this young man out of prison to interpret
the dreams. It's not only the interpretation of the dreams.
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I'll say more about that in a moment, but the
interpretation of the dreams is a very important piece of
the puzzle as to why Joseph is brought before Pharaoh.
There's other things that explain why he's put into the
position that he's put in. I'll say something about that momentarily,
but remember the interpretation of the dreams. Basically, Joseph says
to him, here's what's gonna happen. There're gonna be seven
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fat years and in seven lean years. During the fat years,
you need to store up everything you can, store up
your excess so that you have something to make it
through the lean years. Now beginning Firse thirty seven. This
proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. And Pharaoh said
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to his servants, can we find a man like this?
In whom is the spirit of God? Now Pharaoh hasn't
been converted, folks, he had been convert He still believes
in the Nile God. He still believed he's God. Okay,
it may be very accurate in terms of his thinking
to say, in whom is the spirit of the Gods? Okay.
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Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has shown you
all this, there is none so discerning and wise as
you are. Amen, Because you have the word of God.
And it's true. There's none more wise than one with
a handle on the word of God. Amen, Hallelujah, Praise
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the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of knowledge, foods, despise, wisdom, and instruction. Amen. So God
is being praised from the lips of Pharaoh. Pharaoh doesn't
even intend to praise God. He doesn't even know the
God he's praising, and yet he's praising God. That's the
God I serve. Then God will be praised. God will
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be praised even by those who don't know that they're
praising God. And one day every need will bow and
every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. To the
glory of God, the Father, God will be praised by all.
And here he's being praised even by Pharaoh, and there's
irony in that. Next we see that there has been
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a transfer from Jacob's house to Pharaoh's house, beginning at
verse forty. Here's where we begin again. If we hold
onto our context, you shall be over my house, and
all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only
as regards the throne, will I be greater than you.
And Pharaoh said to Joseph, see, I have set you
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over all the land of Egypt. A couple of things here,
Number one the word house. From chapter thirty nine through
chapter forty one, the word house appears twenty times. Twenty times.
First Potiphar's house, then he's in prison, but it's in
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prison in the house of the captain of the guard.
And now he's being put over Pharaoh's house. Why is
this significant, Well, go back to Genesis thirty nine, Versus
four and five, because this explains why Pharaoh was so
eager to put this man in command. Notice, and he
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interprets the dream. Pharaoh can say, thank you very much
for interpreting the dream. I'll put somebody in charge of this.
You can go back to jail. But he doesn't do that.
Do you realize that just the fact that he interprets
the dream interpret to the dream is not reason enough
to put him in charge, to put him second in
command in Egypt. So why why would Pharaoh do that? Well,
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the key is that word house. From thirty nine to
forty one, you see it twenty times. Look here thirty nine,
beginning of verse four. So Joseph found favor in his
sight and attended him This is Potiphar, and he made
him overseer of his house and put him in charge
of all that he had. From the time that he
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made him overseer in his house and over all that
he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake.
The blessing of the Lord was on all that he
had in house and field. So Potiphar puts Joseph in charge,
and everything that Joseph touches is blessed. Four times in
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chapter thirty nine, when I said last night, God was
with Joseph. Potiphar knows there's something special and unique about
this kid. God is with him, and Potiphar's house is
blessed overwhelmingly. Whose house is supposed to be blessed by
Joseph Jacob's house, not Potiphar's. Now he goes to prison.
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Now watch this chapter forty verses one to three. Sometime
after this, the cup bearer of the King of Egypt
and the baker committed an offense against their lord, the
King of Egypt, and Pharaoh was angry with his two officers,
the chief cup bearer and the chief baker, and he
put them in the custody in the house of the
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captain of the guard. In the prison where Joseph was confined.
They're confined in the house of the captain of the guard.
By the way, why would Joseph go to a prison
at all? If an Egyptian slave attempts to rape or
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an Egyptian woman, you don't put him in prison. You
kill him. But Potterford didn't kill him. Why well, because
God was with Joseph, and I believe Podiford knew his wife. Okay,
But secondly, when you put him in prison, you know
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you First of all, you don't put him in prison,
you kill him. Secondly, if you do put him in prison,
you don't put him in prison with the captain of
Pharaoh's guard. That's for the king's prisoners. But everything he
touched was blessed. And if he's got to go to prison,
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you put him with the captain of the guard, who
also puts him in charge of his house, so that
everything there is blessed. So that now when he comes
before Pharaoh and interprets this dream, it's oh, by the way,
this is the guy who was over at Potiphar's house
and blessed everything. And this is the guy who is
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the right hand to the captain of the guard, and
everything there was blessed. And now Pharaoh says, fine, you
come to my house then, so that everything here will
be blessed. This is the favor of God. It's the
favor of God. By the way, I've just put a
footnote here. Again, Joseph is still a slave. We forget that.
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He's just a slave to a more powerful man. But
he's still a slave. He's still not free. Okay, we
forget that because we forget ourselves. So number one, this
idea of house, this question of the house is very important,
number one, because he's in the wrong household, and he's
been a blessing to every household that he has been to.
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The one household that he's not blessing right now is
Jacob's household. But by the way, he was a blessing
in Jacob's household, which is why Jacob sent him on
an errand to check on his brothers when he's just
seventeen years old. His brothers are grown, his brothers are grandparents,
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and the seventeen year old is checking on them. Why
because God was with Chilseph, That's why. And so the
irony here is he's blessing the wrong house. He's blessing
the Egyptians. And of course he's in the wrong land.
You see that in that passage, all the land of Egypt,
that's the wrong land. That's not the land of promise.
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It's outside of the land of promise. From Jacob's robe
to Pharaoh's more irony. So we know he's in the
wrong land. We know he's in the wrong house. Watch
this verse forty two forty one. Then Pharaoh took his
signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph,
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Joseph's hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen,
and put a gold chain about his neck. It did interesting.
How was Joseph distinguished from his brothers in his favor
with his father by robe? And how is Joseph now
distinguished in his favor with Pharaoh by a robe and
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also by chains of gold and dreamings of gold. This
is irony. This is irony. This is reminding us that
Joseph is in the wrong place. It's reminding us that
Joseph is serving the wrong man, he's serving the wrong nation.
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He should be serving Israel, and instead he's serving Egypt.
He should be clothed in Jacob's robe, but instead he's
clothed in Pharaoh's robe. If we're paying attention to the story,
there's no way we'd get here and say there's what
he was looking for. Verse forty three. And he made
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him ride in his second chariot, and they called out
before him bother me. Thus he sent him over all
the land of Egypt. Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, I
am Pharaoh, and without your consent, no one shall lift
up hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.
Here's what's interesting. What did his brothers say when he
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interpreted the dreams? Will never bow? The meed to you?
What did the Egyptians say when he interprets the dreams
bow the me? The Egyptians bowed gladly to God's word
through Joseph. The covenant community won't have it. This is irony.
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This is irony. We're supposed to understand that this is irony.
Genesis thirty seven, Verse eight. His brother said to him,
are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you
indeed to rule over us? So they hated him even
more for his dreams and for his words. They hated
him for his dreams and for his words Chapter thirty seven,
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Verses ten and eleven. But when he told it to
his father and to his brothers, this second dream, his
father rebuked him and said to him, what is this
dream that you are dreamed? That you've dreamed? Shall I
and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow
ourselves to the ground before you? And his brothers were
jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.
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How about that? Isn't that interesting? Well? Would his father
keep the saying in mind? Genesis twenty eighth, verse twelve,
Real quick, go there, Jacob dreamed of. Behold there was
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a ladder set up on the earth, and the top
of it reached to heaven, and behold the angels of
God were ascending and descending on it. God revealed himself
to Jacob in a dream, and Jacob hassed the broken
hip to remind him. Chapter thirty one, Verse ten. Laban
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was a scoundrel, and Laban tried to deceive Jacob. Right,
you remember this Firs. Ten. Chapter thirty one. In the
breeding season of the flock, I lifted up my eyes
and saw in a dream that the ghats that made
it with the flock were striped, spotted, and modeled. Then
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the Angel of God said to me in the dream Jacob,
and I said, here, I am, why do they have
the immense wealth that they possess right now? Because God
revealed himself in a dream. So when his boy says,
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I dream something, he doesn't like it, but he keeps
it in mind because he understands that he serves the
God who speaks. He understand that he serves the God
who reveals himself, and specifically the God who reveals himself
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and dreams. Remember he's the son of Isaac, who's the
son of Abraham. He understands what's going on here, and
yet he doesn't caution his sons. He doesn't say to them, boys,
you might not like it, but this is God God
we're dealing with. You might not understand it, but let
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me tell you something about God revealing himself in a dream.
He didn't do that. He didn't do that at all.
And so he reveals the word, and he's hated for it.
It's a good thing. The nation of Israel got over that.
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It's a good thing. The rest of their history is
not filled with them killing the prophets who reveal God's
word to them. That's a wonderful thing, because if that
were the case, then you know, the Messiah could even
come to his own and his own not receiving him.
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Now we have a pagan wife and a pagan name,
and from my perspective, these things become increasingly obvious. If
you're reading carefully, you get to the first part and
you realize he's in the wrong land, he's outside of
the Covenant community, he's being a blessing to the wrong house. Okay,
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maybe you've missed that clue. Right now, he gets this
road put on him. Certainly that screams, you know, go
to minic color. Yeah, that's got to run you back.
Maybe you don't get that one right. And now it's
the dream and the bow to me. Certainly, that's got
to take you back to why his brother started to
hate him. Okay, fine, maybe you missed all of that
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and still think that Moses intended for you to read
this as a positive occurrence. But now we get to
one that you just gotta let go. You might be
holding on barely with your fingernails. Right. I love this
story the way that it's interpreted. Don't you dare try
to take it away from me. I'm holding onto it, Okay, yeah,
but you know, yeah, I don't think so. I'm about
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to remove your fingers. And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphanath Peneia.
Is there somewhere else in the Bible where the people
of God whose names are very important, had their names
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changed by a powerful king Hananayah, Michael Isariah and Daniel,
or as we know, shad Raq Meshak and a bad Negro.
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Their names are changed. And it's obvious that that's a
bad thing when you are named in the covenant community
and given a name with covenantal significance, and the pagan
changes your name to reflect his pagan worldview and pagan religion.
Everywhere else in the Bible we say that's a bad thing.
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But in Genesis forty one we go la la la
la la la la la lah. This is good, this
is playoff. He obeyed God, and this is what God
gave him a return La la la la la la
la la. No, this is awful. And in case that's
not enough, and he gave him in marriage as Anath,
the daughter of Potipherah, priest of own. So Joseph went
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out over the land of Egypt, again a reference to
the land. Now he's got a pagan wife, second most
powerful priesthood in law of Egypt. Her father is a
priest of Um. She's a pagan. Is this significant? I
don't know. Genesis twenty four four. Now Abraham was old,
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well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham
in all things. And Abraham said to his servant, the
oldest of his household, who had charge of all that
he had, put your hand under my thigh, that I
may make you swear by the Lord, the God of Heaven,
the God of Earth, that you will not take a
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wife from my son, from the daughters of the Canaanites,
among whom I dwell, but will go to my country
and to my kindred, and take a wife for my
son Isaac. This is a big deal. Same thing happens
with Jacob. They're very particular. Throughout the rest of redemptive history,
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God makes you very clear that you do not inter
marry with the Pagans. By the way, it wasn't ethnic,
it was religious, because the reason was they will draw
you off after their gods. That was the reason God
was not looking for a purified people. As the genealogy
of Jesus makes very clear. Amen, they're gentiles airwhere, not everywhere, airwhere,
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down south, airwhere. That's bigger than everywhere. All right, they're
gentiles all over. In that blood line rehab, she's in.
She's in why because it's not about pure ethnicity. It's
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never been about pure ethnicity. That's why every time the
Covenant has reiterated and you, all the mixtures of the
earth will be blessed. So he's away from the Covenant community.
He's serving and blessing the wrong house. He has a
pagan identity, he's a pagan wife, he is Pagan's buying
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the need to him. He's wearing the robe of the pagan,
not the robe of his father. Please believe me when
I say this was never intended to be read as
a positive occurrence, but it does get good. Next. So
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that was about That was about the land. He's in
the wrong landing. Right, There's a couple of other things
here besides land. There's seed and there's covenant. Right. Well,
what is the next section? Say, First we get a
quick look at the calendar. Joseph was thirty years old
when he entered the service of Pharaoh, king of Egypt,
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and Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and
went through all the land of Egypt. This is very
important because you know, sometimes when we read the Bible,
we lose of time. He was seventeen when he left,
and now he's thirty. Okay, it's been thirteen years. It's
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going to be at least another seven before he sees
anybody from his family. That's twenty years, probably more accurately
twenty two or twenty three years. And so a seventeen
year old young man is about forty years old before
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he sees any of his family. Again. That is not
to be lost on us. That's why that's dropped in there.
By the way, we're getting a timetable here so that
we understand. But we know, for example, when he was
in prison, was another two years before he was remembered.
This is stuff that's happening over a long period of time.
This is a lifetime that's being shaped here. We have
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trouble for a week, and we think God has fallen
off his throne. The story of Joseph reminds us God
does not work on your time table. He neither slumbers
nor sleeps, and Just because it's taking long doesn't mean
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that he's forgotten. Just because it's taking long doesn't mean
that he's not in control. He is completely and utterly
in controlled. Amen. Sometimes I have to remind myself of this.
Sometimes I look and I think about my own circumstances,
and I just have this order who do you think
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you are? A moment? And this is one of those
texts in scripture that brings me to that place. And
I've been praying about this for a week. I've been
praying about this for a month. God, you haven't you know?
Who do you think you are? You know how long
Joseph he was in Egypt? Are you serious right now?
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When were you a slave in Potiphar's house? When did
you go to prison? When did you have to serve
a pagan king? When did you have to spend twenty
twenty two, twenty three years away from any member of
your family or anybody who even spoke your language? Who
do you think you are? I don't know about you,
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but I need that sometimes because on the other side
of the who do you think you are? Is this?
Who do you think I am? You actually think I've
forgotten you? You actually think you fell through the cracks.
You actually think there's you know, a renegade molecule anywhere
in my universe, because there's not. When you can't see
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his hand, trust his heart. We know who God is.
That this little note right here about time is one
of those things that we often overlook. Please don't, please don't.
Here's where it gets interesting. During the seven Plentiful years again,
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we're dealing with the seed. Right During the seven plentiful years,
the earth produced abundantly, and he gathered up all the
food of these seven years which occurred in the land
of Egypt again earth land, and put the food in
the cities. He put in every city the food from
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the fields around it, and Joseph stored up grain or
seed in great abundance. Now watch this like the sand
of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for
it could not be measured. Have we got somewhere before
Genesis thirty two twelve? Go back to thirty two. Jacob
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has fled from Esau across the Jordan. But you said,
I will surely do you good and make your offspring
as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered
for multitude. There it is. That's the reiteration of the
(36:35):
Covenant to Jacob about the Promised Seed. And it's almost
the identical phraseology that's used in verse forty nine in
reference to what Joseph is doing in Egypt. So there's
something about the seed that he's storing up that has
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to do with the Promise Seed. I already told you
on last night. He's storing up seed Egypt so that
the Promise se doesn't starve. There is absolutely a connection here.
And so now all this life is this. We see land, right,
We know that Joseph is in the wrong land. We
know he's serving the wrong house. There's a problem there
(37:16):
the land. We see seed. There's a connection here with
the sea. And we see that this seed is connected
somehow between this physical seed and the spiritual seed. We're
not quite sure how. There's one thing missing, Covenant. Where
does that come in? In the naming of his sons?
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Two sons are born to Joseph, and there are three
things about these sons that point to the Covenant. And
this is the first good news we get in chapter
forty one, because again I'm arguing that there's not good
news in forty one other than the providence of God. Amen.
That's always good news. Now the providence of God. He's
still alive, He's still there. Amen, So we know good
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news is coming and his good news to know that
good news is coming. But so far, what do we know?
What do we know? We don't know about Joseph and God, right,
I mean, we could assume, but we don't know until
he has these two boys. Three things about this number
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one he gives them Hebrew names. That's significant. That's significant.
Almost twenty years in Egypt. He's an Egyptian now, he's
been an Egyptian longer than he's been a Hebrew as
far as nationality goes, Okay, he speaks Egyptian, his name
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is Egyptian, his wife is Egyptian, his bosses Egyptian, his
job is Egyptian, his surroundings are Egyptian. Everything about him
is Egyptian. His sons are born and he gives them
Hebrew names. That's huge. Why he's still identifying with the
Covenant community. He's still identifying with his Hebrew heritage. This
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is important and it's the first positive note that we
get from Joseph that he identifies with the people of
God in spite of his surroundings. The names of our
children are important. The names of our children are important.
The naming of our children is an important covenant opportunity.
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It's an opportunity to speak to them certain truth for
their entire life, just through the name that we give them.
These are significant, and these are important. Secondly, the names
that he gives. The first one's name is Manassa, which
means to forget, because he said God has made me
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to forget all my hardship in all my father's house.
Now does that mean I've forgotten my father? Absolutely not.
It's wise boys have Hebrew names, But he's forgotten all
his hardship. What does that mean? It means that Joseph
chose to define himself by the hope that he had
in God, rather than by his current circumstances. Some of
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us need a Manasa moment. You want my interpretation of
the name Manassa. The name Manassa means I let that
stuff go. That's my interpretation of the name Manassa. I
let that stuff go. Joseph, your brothers hated you Manassa. Joseph,
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you gave your boys Hebrew names. I mean, here we
are in Egypt. He gave the boys Hebrew names. We
know that. I mean, those are not Egyptian names. Why
would you want to identify with then those people put
you in a whole Manassa. I let that stuff go.
That didn't define me. Why do you get those boys
Hebrew names? The here verus rejected you. We Egyptians have
embraced you. Manassa, I let that stuff go. Why would
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you give them Hebrew names? You brought them the revelation
of God and they rejected you for it. You brought
us the revelation of God. We've bothered them me before you, Manassa,
I let that stuff go. Some of us need that.
I meet Christians all the time who are defining themselves
by their past circumstances as opposed to the reality of
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God's covenant, God's grace, and God's truth in their life.
How long, oh Christian, are you going to excuse your
sin because of your past? How long, oh Christian, are
you going to say, yeah, I'm hot tempered, but I'm
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hot tempered because of my Irish blood or my Latin
blood or my you know whatever. And then interesting, how
every nationality, Italian, Irish, whatever, everybody's got some excuse for
a sinful outbursts when you say that, what you are
saying is the Cross is not sufficient for your nasty attitude. Manassa,
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you need to let that go. Well, I just have
trust issues because the bad things that happened to me
in my past? Can Christ not heal that? Must you,
as a believer continue to be defined by that as
(42:31):
opposed to the grace of God that nailed that to
the cross. Yeah, I realize that I'm not doing what
I'm supposed to do in my home, but I never
had a father, Manassa. You may never have had an
earthly father, but your heavenly father is a father to
(42:54):
the fatherless. How long are you going to hold onto
the excuse of what you didn't see when we had
before us the very word of God so that you
can see everything that you need. Even if you did
have an earthly father, he was a wretched example of
(43:14):
a man. God is the only perfect father, Vanessa. Let
that go. Stop being defined by the things that have
harmed and hurt and scarred you in your past. But
cling to the cross, Profess hope and Christ and let
(43:36):
that stuff go. Joy. Joseph, did that do you realize
what happened to him? And yet by the grace of God,
he could do that. The second boy Ephrin or Ephrin
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that means fruitful. He says that, because God has made
him fruitful in the land of his oppression. Hold on.
He has these sons in Egypt, and he names this
boy Therephreim, because God has made him fruitful in the
land of his oppression. Joseph saw the land of Egypt,
(44:26):
not the promised land, as the land of his oppression.
This is only possible when viewing his circumstances through the
redemptive historic lens. Egypt is the land of his oppression.
Why why Because God made a promise to his father Jacob,
and to his grandfather Isaac, and to his great grandfather Abraham,
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and it wasn't Egypt. Egypt is not the fulfillment of
the covenantal promise. Therefore, no matter how much wealth he
acquired and accumulated in Egypt, Egypt was always is going
to be the land of his oppression. That is why
later on he would say, if I die here, don't
you dare leave my bones? You take them back. The
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significance of this ties to what we saw in yesterday.
God makes a promise to the land. Does Abraham get
the land? Nope? What does he get? A burial ground?
A burial ground, there's the first fruits. There's the first
fruits of the promise that God made. God is faithful.
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We got a burial ground. Boys, it's ours in front
of witnesses. We own it now, and we're gonna continue
to be buried here. So it means to go live
with your fathers, to go to the family burial ground.
That's all Jacob knows, or Joseph knows, and so he says,
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don't bury me here. And when they come out in
the accidents, they bring his bones and they take him
back to the promised land. Why because Joseph was not
willing to trade earthly possessions, earthly wealth, and earthly power
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for his covenantal promise. That's what his son's name meant.
No matter how good it gets here, this is the
land of your oppression, and it can be good, it
can be wonderful. But don't ever forget that we are
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merely pilgrims passing through this barren land. Amen, we are
seeking another city. We are seeking a heavenly city. Listen,
I am proud and grateful to be a citizen of
the United States of America. I've traveled the world. I've
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been to many many countries, and as much as we
complain about things here, we're not lining up to leave
because there's nowhere else to go. Heymen, this is as
good as it gets. And by the grace of God,
we live here and for now live here as free people,
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free to worship God. We have an incredible Godly heritage,
which is why we're so free here and so free
to worship God. Go read the Mayflower Compact sometime. Don't
let people tell you all this nonsense about who we
are and us being a secular nation. Go read what
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people wrote when they came to this land, and then
you'll understand why the Gospel has had free or reign
here than just about anywhere else in the world. Praise God.
People in the South complain all the time, and people
in America complain all the time. We got all these
people who have this outward religion, and they say, I
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would rather live among people who are just honest about
being lost. Know, you wouldn't be grateful for people who
still have Christian residue on them. Preach the Gospel to them,
but be grateful because the society that's built on the
foundation of that Christian residue is the reason that we
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continue to enjoy the freedoms and the blessings that we enjoy.
And yet this is the land of our oppression. People
literally dying to get here, and it's gonna burn. This
is not the new Jerusalem. New Jerusalem will be somewhere
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around Texas, but this is not Jrusalem. And we have
to teach our children this, we really do. We have
to teach our children the concept of dual citizenship. I'm
a dual citizen, and my heavily passport trumps this one
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all day, every day, and twice on Sundays they read
That's why he could say what he said. And again,
all of this without knowing what we know. He doesn't
even know yet why he's here twenty seven years. He
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hasn't seen anybody in his family, and he has no
reason to believe he ever will. And yet, without anything
to hold on to other than what he heard from
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his father and from his grandfather, and probably about his
great grandfather, he knows that he's part of that covenant
community to whom God has promised something more than Egypt.
And so he holds on regardless of what he sees.
He holds on this faith. We walk by faith, not
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by sight. I know there are people under the sound
of my voice who are dealing with pain, sorrow, guilt, hopelessness, disappointment, fear,
and everything else. And hear me when I say to
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you that unless you have this covenantal hope, all you
have is despair. It is only when we recognize that
the maker of heaven and earth is our God and
our Savior and our redeemer, that we know that we
can endure whatever it is that we're called upon to endure,
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and that we know that whatever it is, it's better
than we deserve. And we know that whatever it is,
it will only last a little while weeping may endure
for a night, but joy comes in the morning. How
many of you know that's not talking about tomorrow when
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the sun comes up. It's coming. It's coming. So Christian
her mourn, but not like those who have no hope grieve,
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not those who don't know who hopes tomorrow. And if
you're here outside of Christ, may I plead with you
to consider this reality. All of us hurt, all of
us weep, all of us mourn, all of us have
lost all of us, every last one of us. But
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if you are here today apart from Christ, what do
you hold on to in the midst of that? Do
you lean to your own understanding? Do you lean to
your own goodness? Do you lean to your own grasp
of things? Do you lean on people around you who
themselves can't explain your circumstances any better than you can?
(52:46):
Do you lean on the hope that somehow things are
gonna get better because you're a good person and you
deserve better. God help us. You have offended a holy,
righteous God. The breath you just took, You stole from him.
I would say you borrowed it that you don't intend
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to give it back. You live by God's mercy, You
grieve by God's mercy, You hurt by God's mercy, and
yet you shake your fists at God. Better to repent,
(53:28):
turn from your sin, turned to Christ in your suffering.
Recognize that Christ endured the cross, despising its shame. Recognize
that he endured it not because of what he had
done or what he owed to God, but because of
what sinners owe to God and could not pay him.
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Recognize that this is what this whole story is about
that God was preserving the promised scene so that Christ
might come and bear the sins of his people, because
that's our only hope. And if God, by his grace
and through his providence, can see to it that the
promised Seed doesn't die in a famine, how much more
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will he see to it that Christ has the fullness
of the reward for which he died. Consider that you
might be here today just because of that. Turn from
your hopelessness, from your helplessness, turn from your self reliance,
(54:41):
turn from your strength, embrace your weakness and cling to
the cross, wherein is your only hope. That's where we
find the peace that passes all understanding. This is where
we can say, Vanessa, I let that stuff go. Why
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Because Ephraim, even when it's good, this is no more
than the land of my oppression. I'm waiting for something more.
I'm not waiting idly. I'm serving, I'm believing, I'm proclaiming.
(55:33):
I'm telling everybody I can tell, And yet I'm waiting.
Thank you for another day, Come Lord Jesus. There's the
attitude of the believer. Hold on to him, Christian fleeing
(55:55):
to him, non Christian let's brand nice, Oh merciful God,
(56:18):
our father, how we need you. We live in a
world that tells us we need a fairy tale with
a happy ending, and yet that's not the way life works,
(56:44):
because we live in a world that is ruined by
sin men who don't live as they ought. And yet,
by your grace, you continue to strive with us. Yea,
(57:10):
though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
you're with us. Thank you for reminding us today that
even in our darkest days and hours and months and
years and even decades, you neither slumber nor sleep, but
(57:34):
you watch over your people, and you fulfill your purpose
in and through them. Grant by your grace that we
might cling to this truth. Grant by your grace that
we might be defined not by the hurt or disappointments
of our past, about the hope that we have in Christ.
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Grant by your grace that we might hold on to
the things of this world with an open hand, recognizing
first and foremost of everything that we have is a
gift from You, and we're recognizing at the same time
that it wasn't meant to last. Grant by your grace
(58:24):
that we might live with an eternal perspective, living in
light of our heavenly home, living in light of our
covenant promise, And that that might cause us to live
(58:46):
with urgency, that it might give us boldness to preach,
that it might give us strength to endure, that it
might give us patience to wait. And for the ones
(59:06):
under the sound of my voice who have not come
to you through repentance of their sin and faith in Christ,
would you grant that to them? Would you bring them
to the end of themselves, open their eyes and cause
(59:29):
them to see that they might flee to Christ, that
they might flee from the destruction, to come and cling
to the cross. Lord, We thank you, and we praise you,
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and we rejoice in all that you have taught us.
Grant by your grace, But it would not be in
vain that we might be changed by it, and that
Christ might be glorified as a result. For it is
(01:00:14):
indeed in His name that we pray and ask all
these things Amen.
You have your bibles opening the Genesis forty one. If
you were here on last night, you knew this was
where we were going. We had our outline of Genesis
on last night. And now we begin the story of Joseph.
Where all stories should begin in the middle, we usually
(00:26):
don't start in the middle. However, Genesis forty one is
really the crux of the matter. It's sort of the
fulcrum point, if you will, in the story of Joseph.
It's the most well known part of the Joseph narrative.
You know, followed closely by what happens to him in
thirty nine and what happens to him in thirty seven.
(00:47):
But if you talk about Joseph, generally, people are going
to refer to what happens to him when he becomes
second in command in Egypt. And as I began to
share last night, we get it wrong. We interpret it wrongly,
and there are a number of reasons that we do that.
Number one, we're ignorant of the context. And we looked
(01:08):
at the context in our first session, and we saw
in our first session that when you understand the context,
you interpret things differently. In this book and really in
the Bible, as a whole. So if you don't have
that context and all you have is g this is
forty one, you'll interpret it wrongly. Second all. Secondly, our
overall approach to the Old Testament kind of that Esop's
(01:30):
fable slash yearbook approach to the Old Testament. Right, I
go when I'm looking for me and what's there for me?
And where am I in this? And what that means
is when we read biblical stories, we usually put ourselves
in the place of one of the characters, and it's
usually the protagonist. We don't usually read the story and
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think about it from the perspective of us being the
bad guy, right. We usually read the story and think
that God has given us this story so that we
can think about ourselves through the lens of the good
guy and how the world impacts us as the good guy.
And so we read this story of Joseph as though
we are Joseph and you're not. You're not be much
(02:21):
healthier to read this and see yourself as a reuven
or somebody. Amen. And Thirdly, our addiction to movies, our
addiction to movies and literature, there's a character arc. We're
used to a certain character arc, and the story goes
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something like this. We're introduced to the character, and then
the character arc goes up in a good story and
we're seeing good stuff about the character and all these
sort of things, and then all of a sudden, there's
a precipitous drop. Something horrible happens in the life of
this character that we came to love in the upward
climate character arc, and all of a sudden it drops,
and he goes through much difficulty, and then he begins
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to overcome that difficulty, and in really good stories, it
will drop again, even lower than it did the first time,
and then all of a sudden something happens and he
comes out on the other end victorious. And you say
that was a great story. That's called a character arc.
And if you looked in movies and into the literature,
you'll find a very similar character arc. And in fact,
(03:26):
the most shocking books are the ones that change up
the character arc. You're expecting it to go in one
direction and it goes in another. Why because we know
how stories are supposed to go. And so when you
understand that and you read the story of Joseph, you
know here he is. He comes along and you know
all of a sudden he's Joseph as Daddy loves him
and gives him his coat, and then his brothers hate
(03:47):
him and bad. He goes down into the bitch, and
then his character arc comes up in the palace and
everything is wonderful, right, and all of a sudden he
gets you know, chased by you know, Potiper's wife and
back again, and then he meets these guys in prison.
He purposed their dreams. Please remember me. A couple of
years later he's remembered, and then all of a sudden,
(04:08):
the character arc goes right back up to the top.
All's well, that ends well, except that's forty one and
Genesis has fifty chapters, and so we tend to reach
chapter forty one through the lens of a culture that
is very familiar with the character arc. We know a
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hero's character arc, and if we assume that Joseph is
the hero in this story, the way we understand a
character arc makes us feel like forty one is the apex.
It's the denument and the story all right, And that's wrong.
And then finally, our materialism, our materialism, what's the good ending?
(04:53):
The good ending is he gets rich, he's faithful, and
God makes him rich. That's the good ending. And we're
materialistic and we think blessings equal wealth, right, and so
when he gets to the apex of his wealth, that
must be the apex of his blessing. These are reasons
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that make us interpret chapter forty one wrongly. But if
you think about it, here's the story of the fictional
character Victor. Victor's mother comes to church, and Victor's mother
comes to the pastor, and Victor's mother says, I need
you to pray for my boy. Okay, we'll pray for
your boy. What's going on with him? Well, I'm not
(05:37):
too sure. I'm kind of getting secondhand information because the
fact is I haven't seen him in years. Victor went
off and he left home, and since he's left home,
we haven't heard much from him. In fact, he doesn't
even call himself a Victor anymore. He's got a whole
nother name that he calls himself. He's gone off and
he's gotten himself educated, and he's running with this crowd.
(06:00):
Doesn't even go to church anymore. He's working with a
company that is really an immoral company, but he's making
a lot of money. He got married he got married
to a young woman that's not even a believer. They
have children. I've never seen them, and they don't go
to church anywhere. But you pray for my boy? Does
(06:24):
that sound vaguely familiar? It don't sound familiar for two reasons.
One because that's a story that we hear often in church,
is it not. Two, I just told you Joseph's story
with a different name. He's gone away from home. He's
been gone for years. He doesn't go to church anymore,
(06:45):
not even called by his name anymore. He married a
woman who's not even a believer. He's got kids. Grandma
and Grandpa haven't even seen the kids, and his kids
aren't getting raised in church, teach kids in Sunday school.
That chapter forty one is the payoff. It's the familiar
(07:07):
horror story of every Christian parent, and we call it
the payoff. Now, granted, it's different in that this is
forced on Joseph, we get that right. However, the elements
are exactly the same. So again I say we're wrong
in interpreting chapter forty one in a positive light. But
(07:28):
I believe that there are other things in the midst
of the story that help us to see that it's
not a good thing if we read carefully. First, let's
remember where we are. We're in the Totaldte of Jacob.
It's the last total dote of Genesis, the generations of Jacob.
We're not gonna get the generations of anybody else. Okay,
(07:50):
why because Jacob's name has been changed to Israel, and
ultimately we're getting to the nation, the nation of Israel.
So he's the life tot Adote because this is the
foundation of the nation. Now we know that we have
to continue to see the promise seed and the fulfillment
of the Covenant, and we know that there's a promise
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of land. If we keep in mind land, seed and
Covenant and the fact that we're in the Totodote of Jacob,
that orients us in the story, so we can interpret
him in light of that. Let's look at a few things.
Reuben firstborn committed incests and he's been disinherited. Simeon and Levi,
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they're mass murderers, not just murderers, mass murderers. Remember their sister,
remember Shechem. Yeah, you guys get inter marry with us.
Just be circumcised, all of you. And they come back
three days later, when the men cannot defend themselves and
(08:57):
they slaughter everybody. Fourth son Judah, Chapter thirty eight. Some
commentators have even argue that chapter thirty eight is sort
of out of place here because you have chapter thirty
seven right, and here is where Joseph is sold into Egypt.
Chapter thirty nine you pick up again with Joseph in Egypt.
(09:18):
But chapter thirty eight is all about Judah and eventually
about Judah and Tamar. What's that got to do with anything. Well,
i'll answer that tomorrow or maybe tonight. We'll see. But
Judah's gone. He's voluntarily left the Covenant community and left
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the Promised Land. He voluntarily married outside of the Covenant community,
and he's fallen into gross immorality. There's a problem here.
Where are we gonna find this promise? See there's a
good guy in the story, his name's Joseph. But where
(09:59):
is he. Well, he's outside of the Promised Land, he's
away from the Covenant community, and we don't know his
relation to the promise. See, this is not a good thing.
There are other things in the story that make it
clear that we're not supposed to view this positively. In
(10:20):
the wrong land we find that God is being glorified
from the mouth of a pagan. Listen to this. Go
to Genesis forty one beginning he wors thirty seven. We
know what's happened up to this point. There have been
three pairs of dreams. Okay, don't miss the symmetry there.
The first pair of dreams is in thirty seven, when
(10:41):
Joseph has two dreams. One he shares with his brothers,
one he shares with his brothers and his father. This
is what sort of leads to his bad relationship with
them and them selling him into slavery. Then there's a
second pair of dreams, the baker and the cupbearer in prison.
That second pair of dreams is what allows Pharaoh to
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be informed that there's a man in the prison who
interprets dreams. Because Pharaoh has a pair of dreams, the
dream of the cows, the fat ones and the lean ones,
and the dream of the ears of corn, the fat
ones and the lean ones, and so now he goes
to get this young man out of prison to interpret
the dreams. It's not only the interpretation of the dreams.
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I'll say more about that in a moment, but the
interpretation of the dreams is a very important piece of
the puzzle as to why Joseph is brought before Pharaoh.
There's other things that explain why he's put into the
position that he's put in. I'll say something about that momentarily,
but remember the interpretation of the dreams. Basically, Joseph says
to him, here's what's gonna happen. There're gonna be seven
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fat years and in seven lean years. During the fat years,
you need to store up everything you can, store up
your excess so that you have something to make it
through the lean years. Now beginning Firse thirty seven. This
proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. And Pharaoh said
(12:09):
to his servants, can we find a man like this?
In whom is the spirit of God? Now Pharaoh hasn't
been converted, folks, he had been convert He still believes
in the Nile God. He still believed he's God. Okay,
it may be very accurate in terms of his thinking
to say, in whom is the spirit of the Gods? Okay.
(12:30):
Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has shown you
all this, there is none so discerning and wise as
you are. Amen, Because you have the word of God.
And it's true. There's none more wise than one with
a handle on the word of God. Amen, Hallelujah, Praise
(12:51):
the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of knowledge, foods, despise, wisdom, and instruction. Amen. So God
is being praised from the lips of Pharaoh. Pharaoh doesn't
even intend to praise God. He doesn't even know the
God he's praising, and yet he's praising God. That's the
God I serve. Then God will be praised. God will
(13:13):
be praised even by those who don't know that they're
praising God. And one day every need will bow and
every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. To the
glory of God, the Father, God will be praised by all.
And here he's being praised even by Pharaoh, and there's
irony in that. Next we see that there has been
(13:36):
a transfer from Jacob's house to Pharaoh's house, beginning at
verse forty. Here's where we begin again. If we hold
onto our context, you shall be over my house, and
all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only
as regards the throne, will I be greater than you.
And Pharaoh said to Joseph, see, I have set you
(13:58):
over all the land of Egypt. A couple of things here,
Number one the word house. From chapter thirty nine through
chapter forty one, the word house appears twenty times. Twenty times.
First Potiphar's house, then he's in prison, but it's in
(14:21):
prison in the house of the captain of the guard.
And now he's being put over Pharaoh's house. Why is
this significant, Well, go back to Genesis thirty nine, Versus
four and five, because this explains why Pharaoh was so
eager to put this man in command. Notice, and he
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interprets the dream. Pharaoh can say, thank you very much
for interpreting the dream. I'll put somebody in charge of this.
You can go back to jail. But he doesn't do that.
Do you realize that just the fact that he interprets
the dream interpret to the dream is not reason enough
to put him in charge, to put him second in
command in Egypt. So why why would Pharaoh do that? Well,
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the key is that word house. From thirty nine to
forty one, you see it twenty times. Look here thirty nine,
beginning of verse four. So Joseph found favor in his
sight and attended him This is Potiphar, and he made
him overseer of his house and put him in charge
of all that he had. From the time that he
(15:27):
made him overseer in his house and over all that
he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake.
The blessing of the Lord was on all that he
had in house and field. So Potiphar puts Joseph in charge,
and everything that Joseph touches is blessed. Four times in
(15:55):
chapter thirty nine, when I said last night, God was
with Joseph. Potiphar knows there's something special and unique about
this kid. God is with him, and Potiphar's house is
blessed overwhelmingly. Whose house is supposed to be blessed by
Joseph Jacob's house, not Potiphar's. Now he goes to prison.
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Now watch this chapter forty verses one to three. Sometime
after this, the cup bearer of the King of Egypt
and the baker committed an offense against their lord, the
King of Egypt, and Pharaoh was angry with his two officers,
the chief cup bearer and the chief baker, and he
put them in the custody in the house of the
(16:41):
captain of the guard. In the prison where Joseph was confined.
They're confined in the house of the captain of the guard.
By the way, why would Joseph go to a prison
at all? If an Egyptian slave attempts to rape or
(17:02):
an Egyptian woman, you don't put him in prison. You
kill him. But Potterford didn't kill him. Why well, because
God was with Joseph, and I believe Podiford knew his wife. Okay,
But secondly, when you put him in prison, you know
(17:27):
you First of all, you don't put him in prison,
you kill him. Secondly, if you do put him in prison,
you don't put him in prison with the captain of
Pharaoh's guard. That's for the king's prisoners. But everything he
touched was blessed. And if he's got to go to prison,
(17:48):
you put him with the captain of the guard, who
also puts him in charge of his house, so that
everything there is blessed. So that now when he comes
before Pharaoh and interprets this dream, it's oh, by the way,
this is the guy who was over at Potiphar's house
and blessed everything. And this is the guy who is
(18:08):
the right hand to the captain of the guard, and
everything there was blessed. And now Pharaoh says, fine, you
come to my house then, so that everything here will
be blessed. This is the favor of God. It's the
favor of God. By the way, I've just put a
footnote here. Again, Joseph is still a slave. We forget that.
(18:37):
He's just a slave to a more powerful man. But
he's still a slave. He's still not free. Okay, we
forget that because we forget ourselves. So number one, this
idea of house, this question of the house is very important,
number one, because he's in the wrong household, and he's
been a blessing to every household that he has been to.
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The one household that he's not blessing right now is
Jacob's household. But by the way, he was a blessing
in Jacob's household, which is why Jacob sent him on
an errand to check on his brothers when he's just
seventeen years old. His brothers are grown, his brothers are grandparents,
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and the seventeen year old is checking on them. Why
because God was with Chilseph, That's why. And so the
irony here is he's blessing the wrong house. He's blessing
the Egyptians. And of course he's in the wrong land.
You see that in that passage, all the land of Egypt,
that's the wrong land. That's not the land of promise.
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It's outside of the land of promise. From Jacob's robe
to Pharaoh's more irony. So we know he's in the
wrong land. We know he's in the wrong house. Watch
this verse forty two forty one. Then Pharaoh took his
signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph,
(20:02):
Joseph's hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen,
and put a gold chain about his neck. It did interesting.
How was Joseph distinguished from his brothers in his favor
with his father by robe? And how is Joseph now
distinguished in his favor with Pharaoh by a robe and
(20:24):
also by chains of gold and dreamings of gold. This
is irony. This is irony. This is reminding us that
Joseph is in the wrong place. It's reminding us that
Joseph is serving the wrong man, he's serving the wrong nation.
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He should be serving Israel, and instead he's serving Egypt.
He should be clothed in Jacob's robe, but instead he's
clothed in Pharaoh's robe. If we're paying attention to the story,
there's no way we'd get here and say there's what
he was looking for. Verse forty three. And he made
(21:10):
him ride in his second chariot, and they called out
before him bother me. Thus he sent him over all
the land of Egypt. Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, I
am Pharaoh, and without your consent, no one shall lift
up hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.
Here's what's interesting. What did his brothers say when he
(21:33):
interpreted the dreams? Will never bow? The meed to you?
What did the Egyptians say when he interprets the dreams
bow the me? The Egyptians bowed gladly to God's word
through Joseph. The covenant community won't have it. This is irony.
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This is irony. We're supposed to understand that this is irony.
Genesis thirty seven, Verse eight. His brother said to him,
are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you
indeed to rule over us? So they hated him even
more for his dreams and for his words. They hated
him for his dreams and for his words Chapter thirty seven,
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Verses ten and eleven. But when he told it to
his father and to his brothers, this second dream, his
father rebuked him and said to him, what is this
dream that you are dreamed? That you've dreamed? Shall I
and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow
ourselves to the ground before you? And his brothers were
jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.
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How about that? Isn't that interesting? Well? Would his father
keep the saying in mind? Genesis twenty eighth, verse twelve,
Real quick, go there, Jacob dreamed of. Behold there was
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a ladder set up on the earth, and the top
of it reached to heaven, and behold the angels of
God were ascending and descending on it. God revealed himself
to Jacob in a dream, and Jacob hassed the broken
hip to remind him. Chapter thirty one, Verse ten. Laban
(23:33):
was a scoundrel, and Laban tried to deceive Jacob. Right,
you remember this Firs. Ten. Chapter thirty one. In the
breeding season of the flock, I lifted up my eyes
and saw in a dream that the ghats that made
it with the flock were striped, spotted, and modeled. Then
(23:58):
the Angel of God said to me in the dream Jacob,
and I said, here, I am, why do they have
the immense wealth that they possess right now? Because God
revealed himself in a dream. So when his boy says,
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I dream something, he doesn't like it, but he keeps
it in mind because he understands that he serves the
God who speaks. He understand that he serves the God
who reveals himself, and specifically the God who reveals himself
(24:40):
and dreams. Remember he's the son of Isaac, who's the
son of Abraham. He understands what's going on here, and
yet he doesn't caution his sons. He doesn't say to them, boys,
you might not like it, but this is God God
we're dealing with. You might not understand it, but let
(25:04):
me tell you something about God revealing himself in a dream.
He didn't do that. He didn't do that at all.
And so he reveals the word, and he's hated for it.
It's a good thing. The nation of Israel got over that.
(25:27):
It's a good thing. The rest of their history is
not filled with them killing the prophets who reveal God's
word to them. That's a wonderful thing, because if that
were the case, then you know, the Messiah could even
come to his own and his own not receiving him.
(25:54):
Now we have a pagan wife and a pagan name,
and from my perspective, these things become increasingly obvious. If
you're reading carefully, you get to the first part and
you realize he's in the wrong land, he's outside of
the Covenant community, he's being a blessing to the wrong house. Okay,
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maybe you've missed that clue. Right now, he gets this
road put on him. Certainly that screams, you know, go
to minic color. Yeah, that's got to run you back.
Maybe you don't get that one right. And now it's
the dream and the bow to me. Certainly, that's got
to take you back to why his brother started to
hate him. Okay, fine, maybe you missed all of that
(26:38):
and still think that Moses intended for you to read
this as a positive occurrence. But now we get to
one that you just gotta let go. You might be
holding on barely with your fingernails. Right. I love this
story the way that it's interpreted. Don't you dare try
to take it away from me. I'm holding onto it, Okay, yeah,
but you know, yeah, I don't think so. I'm about
(27:02):
to remove your fingers. And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphanath Peneia.
Is there somewhere else in the Bible where the people
of God whose names are very important, had their names
(27:24):
changed by a powerful king Hananayah, Michael Isariah and Daniel,
or as we know, shad Raq Meshak and a bad Negro.
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Their names are changed. And it's obvious that that's a
bad thing when you are named in the covenant community
and given a name with covenantal significance, and the pagan
changes your name to reflect his pagan worldview and pagan religion.
Everywhere else in the Bible we say that's a bad thing.
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But in Genesis forty one we go la la la
la la la la la lah. This is good, this
is playoff. He obeyed God, and this is what God
gave him a return La la la la la la
la la. No, this is awful. And in case that's
not enough, and he gave him in marriage as Anath,
the daughter of Potipherah, priest of own. So Joseph went
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out over the land of Egypt, again a reference to
the land. Now he's got a pagan wife, second most
powerful priesthood in law of Egypt. Her father is a
priest of Um. She's a pagan. Is this significant? I
don't know. Genesis twenty four four. Now Abraham was old,
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well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham
in all things. And Abraham said to his servant, the
oldest of his household, who had charge of all that
he had, put your hand under my thigh, that I
may make you swear by the Lord, the God of Heaven,
the God of Earth, that you will not take a
(29:24):
wife from my son, from the daughters of the Canaanites,
among whom I dwell, but will go to my country
and to my kindred, and take a wife for my
son Isaac. This is a big deal. Same thing happens
with Jacob. They're very particular. Throughout the rest of redemptive history,
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God makes you very clear that you do not inter
marry with the Pagans. By the way, it wasn't ethnic,
it was religious, because the reason was they will draw
you off after their gods. That was the reason God
was not looking for a purified people. As the genealogy
of Jesus makes very clear. Amen, they're gentiles airwhere, not everywhere, airwhere,
(30:13):
down south, airwhere. That's bigger than everywhere. All right, they're
gentiles all over. In that blood line rehab, she's in.
She's in why because it's not about pure ethnicity. It's
(30:38):
never been about pure ethnicity. That's why every time the
Covenant has reiterated and you, all the mixtures of the
earth will be blessed. So he's away from the Covenant community.
He's serving and blessing the wrong house. He has a
pagan identity, he's a pagan wife, he is Pagan's buying
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the need to him. He's wearing the robe of the pagan,
not the robe of his father. Please believe me when
I say this was never intended to be read as
a positive occurrence, but it does get good. Next. So
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that was about That was about the land. He's in
the wrong landing. Right, There's a couple of other things
here besides land. There's seed and there's covenant. Right. Well,
what is the next section? Say, First we get a
quick look at the calendar. Joseph was thirty years old
when he entered the service of Pharaoh, king of Egypt,
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and Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and
went through all the land of Egypt. This is very
important because you know, sometimes when we read the Bible,
we lose of time. He was seventeen when he left,
and now he's thirty. Okay, it's been thirteen years. It's
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going to be at least another seven before he sees
anybody from his family. That's twenty years, probably more accurately
twenty two or twenty three years. And so a seventeen
year old young man is about forty years old before
(32:35):
he sees any of his family. Again. That is not
to be lost on us. That's why that's dropped in there.
By the way, we're getting a timetable here so that
we understand. But we know, for example, when he was
in prison, was another two years before he was remembered.
This is stuff that's happening over a long period of time.
This is a lifetime that's being shaped here. We have
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trouble for a week, and we think God has fallen
off his throne. The story of Joseph reminds us God
does not work on your time table. He neither slumbers
nor sleeps, and Just because it's taking long doesn't mean
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that he's forgotten. Just because it's taking long doesn't mean
that he's not in control. He is completely and utterly
in controlled. Amen. Sometimes I have to remind myself of this.
Sometimes I look and I think about my own circumstances,
and I just have this order who do you think
(33:46):
you are? A moment? And this is one of those
texts in scripture that brings me to that place. And
I've been praying about this for a week. I've been
praying about this for a month. God, you haven't you know?
Who do you think you are? You know how long
Joseph he was in Egypt? Are you serious right now?
(34:07):
When were you a slave in Potiphar's house? When did
you go to prison? When did you have to serve
a pagan king? When did you have to spend twenty
twenty two, twenty three years away from any member of
your family or anybody who even spoke your language? Who
do you think you are? I don't know about you,
(34:30):
but I need that sometimes because on the other side
of the who do you think you are? Is this?
Who do you think I am? You actually think I've
forgotten you? You actually think you fell through the cracks.
You actually think there's you know, a renegade molecule anywhere
in my universe, because there's not. When you can't see
(34:58):
his hand, trust his heart. We know who God is.
That this little note right here about time is one
of those things that we often overlook. Please don't, please don't.
Here's where it gets interesting. During the seven Plentiful years again,
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we're dealing with the seed. Right During the seven plentiful years,
the earth produced abundantly, and he gathered up all the
food of these seven years which occurred in the land
of Egypt again earth land, and put the food in
the cities. He put in every city the food from
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the fields around it, and Joseph stored up grain or
seed in great abundance. Now watch this like the sand
of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for
it could not be measured. Have we got somewhere before
Genesis thirty two twelve? Go back to thirty two. Jacob
(36:10):
has fled from Esau across the Jordan. But you said,
I will surely do you good and make your offspring
as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered
for multitude. There it is. That's the reiteration of the
(36:35):
Covenant to Jacob about the Promised Seed. And it's almost
the identical phraseology that's used in verse forty nine in
reference to what Joseph is doing in Egypt. So there's
something about the seed that he's storing up that has
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to do with the Promise Seed. I already told you
on last night. He's storing up seed Egypt so that
the Promise se doesn't starve. There is absolutely a connection here.
And so now all this life is this. We see land, right,
We know that Joseph is in the wrong land. We
know he's serving the wrong house. There's a problem there
(37:16):
the land. We see seed. There's a connection here with
the sea. And we see that this seed is connected
somehow between this physical seed and the spiritual seed. We're
not quite sure how. There's one thing missing, Covenant. Where
does that come in? In the naming of his sons?
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Two sons are born to Joseph, and there are three
things about these sons that point to the Covenant. And
this is the first good news we get in chapter
forty one, because again I'm arguing that there's not good
news in forty one other than the providence of God. Amen.
That's always good news. Now the providence of God. He's
still alive, He's still there. Amen, So we know good
(38:05):
news is coming and his good news to know that
good news is coming. But so far, what do we know?
What do we know? We don't know about Joseph and God, right,
I mean, we could assume, but we don't know until
he has these two boys. Three things about this number
(38:29):
one he gives them Hebrew names. That's significant. That's significant.
Almost twenty years in Egypt. He's an Egyptian now, he's
been an Egyptian longer than he's been a Hebrew as
far as nationality goes, Okay, he speaks Egyptian, his name
(38:51):
is Egyptian, his wife is Egyptian, his bosses Egyptian, his
job is Egyptian, his surroundings are Egyptian. Everything about him
is Egyptian. His sons are born and he gives them
Hebrew names. That's huge. Why he's still identifying with the
Covenant community. He's still identifying with his Hebrew heritage. This
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is important and it's the first positive note that we
get from Joseph that he identifies with the people of
God in spite of his surroundings. The names of our
children are important. The names of our children are important.
The naming of our children is an important covenant opportunity.
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It's an opportunity to speak to them certain truth for
their entire life, just through the name that we give them.
These are significant, and these are important. Secondly, the names
that he gives. The first one's name is Manassa, which
means to forget, because he said God has made me
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to forget all my hardship in all my father's house.
Now does that mean I've forgotten my father? Absolutely not.
It's wise boys have Hebrew names, But he's forgotten all
his hardship. What does that mean? It means that Joseph
chose to define himself by the hope that he had
in God, rather than by his current circumstances. Some of
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us need a Manasa moment. You want my interpretation of
the name Manassa. The name Manassa means I let that
stuff go. That's my interpretation of the name Manassa. I
let that stuff go. Joseph, your brothers hated you Manassa. Joseph,
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you gave your boys Hebrew names. I mean, here we
are in Egypt. He gave the boys Hebrew names. We
know that. I mean, those are not Egyptian names. Why
would you want to identify with then those people put
you in a whole Manassa. I let that stuff go.
That didn't define me. Why do you get those boys
Hebrew names? The here verus rejected you. We Egyptians have
embraced you. Manassa, I let that stuff go. Why would
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you give them Hebrew names? You brought them the revelation
of God and they rejected you for it. You brought
us the revelation of God. We've bothered them me before you, Manassa,
I let that stuff go. Some of us need that.
I meet Christians all the time who are defining themselves
by their past circumstances as opposed to the reality of
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God's covenant, God's grace, and God's truth in their life.
How long, oh Christian, are you going to excuse your
sin because of your past? How long, oh Christian, are
you going to say, yeah, I'm hot tempered, but I'm
(41:49):
hot tempered because of my Irish blood or my Latin
blood or my you know whatever. And then interesting, how
every nationality, Italian, Irish, whatever, everybody's got some excuse for
a sinful outbursts when you say that, what you are
saying is the Cross is not sufficient for your nasty attitude. Manassa,
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you need to let that go. Well, I just have
trust issues because the bad things that happened to me
in my past? Can Christ not heal that? Must you,
as a believer continue to be defined by that as
(42:31):
opposed to the grace of God that nailed that to
the cross. Yeah, I realize that I'm not doing what
I'm supposed to do in my home, but I never
had a father, Manassa. You may never have had an
earthly father, but your heavenly father is a father to
(42:54):
the fatherless. How long are you going to hold onto
the excuse of what you didn't see when we had
before us the very word of God so that you
can see everything that you need. Even if you did
have an earthly father, he was a wretched example of
(43:14):
a man. God is the only perfect father, Vanessa. Let
that go. Stop being defined by the things that have
harmed and hurt and scarred you in your past. But
cling to the cross, Profess hope and Christ and let
(43:36):
that stuff go. Joy. Joseph, did that do you realize
what happened to him? And yet by the grace of God,
he could do that. The second boy Ephrin or Ephrin
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that means fruitful. He says that, because God has made
him fruitful in the land of his oppression. Hold on.
He has these sons in Egypt, and he names this
boy Therephreim, because God has made him fruitful in the
land of his oppression. Joseph saw the land of Egypt,
(44:26):
not the promised land, as the land of his oppression.
This is only possible when viewing his circumstances through the
redemptive historic lens. Egypt is the land of his oppression.
Why why Because God made a promise to his father Jacob,
and to his grandfather Isaac, and to his great grandfather Abraham,
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and it wasn't Egypt. Egypt is not the fulfillment of
the covenantal promise. Therefore, no matter how much wealth he
acquired and accumulated in Egypt, Egypt was always is going
to be the land of his oppression. That is why
later on he would say, if I die here, don't
you dare leave my bones? You take them back. The
(45:13):
significance of this ties to what we saw in yesterday.
God makes a promise to the land. Does Abraham get
the land? Nope? What does he get? A burial ground?
A burial ground, there's the first fruits. There's the first
fruits of the promise that God made. God is faithful.
(45:35):
We got a burial ground. Boys, it's ours in front
of witnesses. We own it now, and we're gonna continue
to be buried here. So it means to go live
with your fathers, to go to the family burial ground.
That's all Jacob knows, or Joseph knows, and so he says,
(45:59):
don't bury me here. And when they come out in
the accidents, they bring his bones and they take him
back to the promised land. Why because Joseph was not
willing to trade earthly possessions, earthly wealth, and earthly power
(46:22):
for his covenantal promise. That's what his son's name meant.
No matter how good it gets here, this is the
land of your oppression, and it can be good, it
can be wonderful. But don't ever forget that we are
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merely pilgrims passing through this barren land. Amen, we are
seeking another city. We are seeking a heavenly city. Listen,
I am proud and grateful to be a citizen of
the United States of America. I've traveled the world. I've
(47:05):
been to many many countries, and as much as we
complain about things here, we're not lining up to leave
because there's nowhere else to go. Heymen, this is as
good as it gets. And by the grace of God,
we live here and for now live here as free people,
(47:26):
free to worship God. We have an incredible Godly heritage,
which is why we're so free here and so free
to worship God. Go read the Mayflower Compact sometime. Don't
let people tell you all this nonsense about who we
are and us being a secular nation. Go read what
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people wrote when they came to this land, and then
you'll understand why the Gospel has had free or reign
here than just about anywhere else in the world. Praise God.
People in the South complain all the time, and people
in America complain all the time. We got all these
people who have this outward religion, and they say, I
(48:09):
would rather live among people who are just honest about
being lost. Know, you wouldn't be grateful for people who
still have Christian residue on them. Preach the Gospel to them,
but be grateful because the society that's built on the
foundation of that Christian residue is the reason that we
(48:31):
continue to enjoy the freedoms and the blessings that we enjoy.
And yet this is the land of our oppression. People
literally dying to get here, and it's gonna burn. This
is not the new Jerusalem. New Jerusalem will be somewhere
(48:57):
around Texas, but this is not Jrusalem. And we have
to teach our children this, we really do. We have
to teach our children the concept of dual citizenship. I'm
a dual citizen, and my heavily passport trumps this one
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all day, every day, and twice on Sundays they read
That's why he could say what he said. And again,
all of this without knowing what we know. He doesn't
even know yet why he's here twenty seven years. He
(49:44):
hasn't seen anybody in his family, and he has no
reason to believe he ever will. And yet, without anything
to hold on to other than what he heard from
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his father and from his grandfather, and probably about his
great grandfather, he knows that he's part of that covenant
community to whom God has promised something more than Egypt.
And so he holds on regardless of what he sees.
He holds on this faith. We walk by faith, not
(50:30):
by sight. I know there are people under the sound
of my voice who are dealing with pain, sorrow, guilt, hopelessness, disappointment, fear,
and everything else. And hear me when I say to
(50:51):
you that unless you have this covenantal hope, all you
have is despair. It is only when we recognize that
the maker of heaven and earth is our God and
our Savior and our redeemer, that we know that we
can endure whatever it is that we're called upon to endure,
(51:15):
and that we know that whatever it is, it's better
than we deserve. And we know that whatever it is,
it will only last a little while weeping may endure
for a night, but joy comes in the morning. How
many of you know that's not talking about tomorrow when
(51:36):
the sun comes up. It's coming. It's coming. So Christian
her mourn, but not like those who have no hope grieve,
(51:59):
not those who don't know who hopes tomorrow. And if
you're here outside of Christ, may I plead with you
to consider this reality. All of us hurt, all of
us weep, all of us mourn, all of us have
lost all of us, every last one of us. But
(52:24):
if you are here today apart from Christ, what do
you hold on to in the midst of that? Do
you lean to your own understanding? Do you lean to
your own goodness? Do you lean to your own grasp
of things? Do you lean on people around you who
themselves can't explain your circumstances any better than you can?
(52:46):
Do you lean on the hope that somehow things are
gonna get better because you're a good person and you
deserve better. God help us. You have offended a holy,
righteous God. The breath you just took, You stole from him.
I would say you borrowed it that you don't intend
(53:07):
to give it back. You live by God's mercy, You
grieve by God's mercy, You hurt by God's mercy, and
yet you shake your fists at God. Better to repent,
(53:28):
turn from your sin, turned to Christ in your suffering.
Recognize that Christ endured the cross, despising its shame. Recognize
that he endured it not because of what he had
done or what he owed to God, but because of
what sinners owe to God and could not pay him.
(53:51):
Recognize that this is what this whole story is about
that God was preserving the promised scene so that Christ
might come and bear the sins of his people, because
that's our only hope. And if God, by his grace
and through his providence, can see to it that the
promised Seed doesn't die in a famine, how much more
(54:17):
will he see to it that Christ has the fullness
of the reward for which he died. Consider that you
might be here today just because of that. Turn from
your hopelessness, from your helplessness, turn from your self reliance,
(54:41):
turn from your strength, embrace your weakness and cling to
the cross, wherein is your only hope. That's where we
find the peace that passes all understanding. This is where
we can say, Vanessa, I let that stuff go. Why
(55:07):
Because Ephraim, even when it's good, this is no more
than the land of my oppression. I'm waiting for something more.
I'm not waiting idly. I'm serving, I'm believing, I'm proclaiming.
(55:33):
I'm telling everybody I can tell, And yet I'm waiting.
Thank you for another day, Come Lord Jesus. There's the
attitude of the believer. Hold on to him, Christian fleeing
(55:55):
to him, non Christian let's brand nice, Oh merciful God,
(56:18):
our father, how we need you. We live in a
world that tells us we need a fairy tale with
a happy ending, and yet that's not the way life works,
(56:44):
because we live in a world that is ruined by
sin men who don't live as they ought. And yet,
by your grace, you continue to strive with us. Yea,
(57:10):
though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
you're with us. Thank you for reminding us today that
even in our darkest days and hours and months and
years and even decades, you neither slumber nor sleep, but
(57:34):
you watch over your people, and you fulfill your purpose
in and through them. Grant by your grace that we
might cling to this truth. Grant by your grace that
we might be defined not by the hurt or disappointments
of our past, about the hope that we have in Christ.
(57:59):
Grant by your grace that we might hold on to
the things of this world with an open hand, recognizing
first and foremost of everything that we have is a
gift from You, and we're recognizing at the same time
that it wasn't meant to last. Grant by your grace
(58:24):
that we might live with an eternal perspective, living in
light of our heavenly home, living in light of our
covenant promise, And that that might cause us to live
(58:46):
with urgency, that it might give us boldness to preach,
that it might give us strength to endure, that it
might give us patience to wait. And for the ones
(59:06):
under the sound of my voice who have not come
to you through repentance of their sin and faith in Christ,
would you grant that to them? Would you bring them
to the end of themselves, open their eyes and cause
(59:29):
them to see that they might flee to Christ, that
they might flee from the destruction, to come and cling
to the cross. Lord, We thank you, and we praise you,
(59:51):
and we rejoice in all that you have taught us.
Grant by your grace, But it would not be in
vain that we might be changed by it, and that
Christ might be glorified as a result. For it is
(01:00:14):
indeed in His name that we pray and ask all
these things Amen.
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