The Beginning - 6 - Joseph

So today is the final week of our journey through Genesis. From the very beginning of time we have seen many characters, such as Adam, Noah, and Abraham. We have learnt about making decision, having faith and the dangers of pride.

This week we are looking at Joseph, we will be learning about the power of listening to God, as well as the importance of respecting the feelings of those around us.

Joseph’s story covers several chapters in the Bible (he features between Genesis 37 and 50), so today we are just going to focus on the highlights. However if you are doing the Bible Challenge you will get the opportunity to read the entire story over the next few weeks.

As we have seen over the past few weeks the family relationships we see in Genesis can be pretty intense. We have seen a lot of examples jealousy, particularly between siblings. As we are about to read the relationship between Joseph and his brothers was pretty tense as well. Genesis 37 : 5 - 11

Joseph was his dad’s favourite child. He was the most spoilt, and had been given gifts such as an ornate robe which blatantly made him look special in comparison to his brothers.

As you might expect this made his brothers dislike him a lot. What made things worse is the way that paraded around in his special coat all the time, even when he was out on the fields working as a shepherd. This acted as a constant reminder to his brothers that he was the special child.

Joseph probably didn’t really realise the extent that he was upsetting his brothers simply by wearing his robe. It can be the same for us, we might not wear a fancy robe but we still carry around stuff that we feel give us status, we are proud of or form part of our lives, that we would not want to be without.

Having nice things like the items that you have just modelled are not bad. After all God wants us to be happy and provides for our needs.

However we need to be sensitive to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes that Joseph did, and not to boast about what we have. We need to be careful not to let our possessions make feel that we are better than our friends or family.

Being aware of the impact that what we own and what we do have on other people is important for us to maintain healthy relationships with our friends and family.

As we saw in the passage earlier, Joseph had been dreaming some vivid and specific dreams. As we are about to see although they were not particularly welcomed to begin with as we see later on in the story they were prophetic (they gave a glimpse of what was to come).

So let’s take a look at Genesis 37 : 19 - 23, 28 where we see Joseph’s brothers taking this vision really badly, to the extent that they are considering killing him, but instead decide to sell him as a slave to some passing merchants who take him off to Egypt.

For Joseph this must have felt like a disaster, he had a vision from God that he was going to be a leader, and then the next minute he is being carted off to be a slave in a foreign land. However as we will see later this was just the build up to the great things that he had to come.

Fortunately for us we are able to see what happened next and join the dots between this initial dream and what happened next, something that is much easier to do when looking back than it is at the time.

We are now going to play a game which illustrates this, split into pairs and on these whiteboards draw 9 dots, to form a square with 3 dots on each line. All you need to do is connect all nine dots together. However all you can use is for straight interconnecting lines.

Like with this puzzle, when we are able to look back and see the solution it seems simple. Once we accept that there can be some detours, which take us outside of what we are expecting, outside of the box the route can be simple.

This is the same for us in lives, and we are about to see for Joseph, the same was true for him as well. Although being carted off as a slave into Egypt would definitely have been seen by him as an undesirable detour it was essential for God’s plan to be accomplished.

Over time God uses Joseph’s situation, God rises him up through the Egyptian court until Joseph is being called on to interpret the Pharaohs’ dreams when no one else can in Genesis 41 : 14 - 30 and finally his reward in Genesis 40 : 41 - 42.

God used Joseph to interpret the Pharaoh’s dreams to warn them of the forthcoming food shortage and to give Egypt time to prepare and store up enough provisions to get them through this 7 year famine.

God chose to use someone who seemed insignificant, a foreign slave, and something as simple a dream to save an entire nation from starvation.

What is the most vivid dream that you can remember?

Then finally in Genesis 42 : 6 we see Joseph’s original dreams coming true and his brothers, who treated him so badly before are now bowing down before him, as he provides provision for them during the worst famine of their generation.

This reminds us, like we have seem in previous weeks (with Noah and Abraham) that God keeps his promises that he makes to us and has a plan for us, even when at the time they do not make sense.

By Joseph trusting in God and taking notice of the dreams that God gave him he was able to save the whole nation, and his family from famine.

Joseph may not have understood God’s plan while living through it, but God’s plan always works for good, both then and for us today