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Genesis 37
37:1 Jacob lived in the land of his father’s sojournings, in the land of Canaan.
2 These are the generations of Jacob.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors.1 4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.
5 Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more. 6 He said to them, “Hear this dream that I have dreamed: 7 Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” 8 His brothers 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.
9 Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10 But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?” 11 And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.
12 Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. 13 And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” And he said to him, “Here I am.” 14 So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock, and bring me word.” So he sent him from the Valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. 15 And a man found him wandering in the fields. And the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” 16 “I am seeking my brothers,” he said. “Tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” 17 And the man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.
18 They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him. 19 They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. 20 Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits.2 Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.” 21 But when Reuben heard it, he rescued him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” 22 And Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father. 23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore. 24 And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.
25 Then they sat down to eat. And looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing gum, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. 26 Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? 27 Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened to him. 28 Then Midianite traders passed by. And they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels3 of silver. They took Joseph to Egypt.
29 When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes 30 and returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is gone, and I, where shall I go?” 31 Then they took Joseph’s robe and slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. 32 And they sent the robe of many colors and brought it to their father and said, “This we have found; please identify whether it is your son’s robe or not.” 33 And he identified it and said, “It is my son’s robe. A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.” 34 Then Jacob tore his garments and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days. 35 All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, “No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” Thus his father wept for him. 36 Meanwhile the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard.
[1] 37:3
[2] 37:20
[3] 37:28
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Good morning, Redeemer Community Church. Glad that you have decided to join us this morning. Before we get started, I have just a few announcements. First is this, I know that things are going pretty crazy right now and so I just wanna say, if you are in a place where you need help, please reach out to the Church. You can email us, call us, reach out to the Church and if there's any way that we can help you out, we would gladly do so.
Joel Brooks:And we have been keeping a list of the people who need help and we've been trying to actively take care of all those people, so please reach out. Second is this, many of you are going to be getting a stimulus check that'll be coming in soon. And I would just encourage you that if you don't need that stimulus check, if you haven't really been affected by this, to consider, prayerfully consider giving that to those who are in need. And we would ask first as a church that since you know the people around you and you know those who are in need, maybe better than we do, and you would have a personal connection to some people, that you would give to those people, maybe to whom the Lord stirs your heart to give to. If you don't know of anybody in need, but you would still like to give your stimulus check towards that that end, you could give it to the church.
Joel Brooks:We will earmark all of those because we do do know plenty of people who are in need and we will gladly pass along those funds to help them. The next announcement I have is this, and that's that this is Palm Sunday. And so happy Palm Sunday, everybody. And, it's actually an important day for us to remember, especially during these times, because it's at Palm Sunday when Jesus entered into Jerusalem, the week before His death. But He was going to take on sin and death at this time.
Joel Brooks:If you remember, the crowds, they lined up and they cried out, Hosanna, Hosanna. Hosanna means save us. Save us, Lord. Save us now. And these are the cries that we have now, Lord, that we need your salvation.
Joel Brooks:And they'd also said, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. That phrase, coming in the name of the Lord, is actually very rare in scripture. One of the only times we find that is actually when David went to go confront Goliath. And he said that he came in the name of the Lord. And so the people of Israel, they recognized something when Jesus was coming into Jerusalem, when they said, save us.
Joel Brooks:He who comes, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They're saying, save us from our enemies. And we know that Jesus is coming. This week, He was coming to save us from our enemies. The greatest enemies being sin and death.
Joel Brooks:And the church has never stopped crying out, Hosanna. Because this is Palm Sunday, that means this is holy week. And Jeff is gonna come up here and he's gonna announce, what we'll be doing during this week.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Joel. As Joel said, this is Holy Week and we begin, this week with Palm Sunday. It's this week, Holy Week, is an opportunity, an opportunity to ask that the Lord would direct our hearts to the love of God and to the faithfulness of Christ. And so we do that, beginning today with Palm Sunday, moving to Maundy Thursday. Maundy Thursday marks when Jesus gathered with his disciples for the Passover meal, and at that time, he washed their feet.
Speaker 2:He gave them new teaching. He gave them a new commandment, to love one another. And, that was the the night that he was betrayed. And so we mark that time. We're gonna be doing that together, with our Maundy Thursday service, which will be at 6:30 streaming online.
Speaker 2:A time of prayer, a time of scripture, and a time of song. And then on Good Friday, we will gather again at noon, for our Good Friday service, which is a reading through John's gospel of the trial, the, the beatings, and the crucifixion of Jesus. And we'll conclude with the burial and a time of prayer. And so we hope that you will make it a priority to to join us during this time, as we seek to walk through the the events of Holy Week, asking that Jesus would draw near to us and increase our affections for him in this special time. Thank you, Jeff.
Joel Brooks:If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Genesis chapter 37. Genesis chapter 37. We are about to enter into the longest continuous narrative, actually, in the Bible, which is the story of the life of Joseph. And I can't think of a better story for us to be studying during this crazy pandemic time because it answers many of the questions that, we are all wrestling through at this time, which is why is all of this happening? Where is God in all of this?
Joel Brooks:Or is He even in all of this? Is He in our suffering? And how are we supposed to live during this time as the world seems to be falling apart around us? Is God punishing us? Or is He doing something else in our lives?
Joel Brooks:These are the types of questions that the story of Joseph addresses, which is one of the reasons I think the story itself is so long. Don't worry, we're not gonna just jump past Jacob at this point, though. We are gonna continue to look at the life of Jacob. I love Jacob too much to just jump past him. Actually, the best story of Jacob is is to come in my mind, but we're gonna be examining his life now through the lens of his son, Joseph.
Joel Brooks:So Genesis chapter 37, and we're gonna read, the entire chapter. Jacob lived in the life of his father's journeyings in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph being 17 years old was pastoring the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zippah, his father's wives.
Joel Brooks:And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors. And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. Now Joseph had a dream and when he had told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.
Joel Brooks:He said to them, hear this dream that I have dreamed. Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf rose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf. His brother said to him, are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you going indeed to rule over us?
Joel Brooks:So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. And then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and 11 stars were bowing to me. But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?
Joel Brooks:And his brothers were jealous of him. But his father kept the saying in mind. Now his brothers went to pasture their father's flock near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, are not your brothers pastoring the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.
Joel Brooks:And he said to him, here I am. So he said to him, go now. See if it is well with your brothers and with the flock and bring me word. So he sent him from the valley of Hebron and he came to Shechem. And a man found him wandering in the fields.
Joel Brooks:The man asked him, what are you seeking? I am seeking my brothers, he said. Tell me please where they are pastoring the flock. And the man said, they've gone away, for I heard them say, let us go to Dothan. So Joseph went after his brothers and he found them at Dothan.
Joel Brooks:And they saw him from afar. And before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him. They said to one another, here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him and we will see what becomes of his dreams.
Joel Brooks:But when Reuben heard it, he rescued him out of their hands saying, let us not take his life. And Reuben said to them, shed no blood. Throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of the robe. The robe of many colors that he wore.
Joel Brooks:And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty and there was no water in it. Then they sat down to eat. And look looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. With their camels bearing gum, balm, and myrrh on their way to carry it down to Egypt.
Joel Brooks:Then Judas Saul said to his brothers, what profit is it if we kill our brothers and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell them to the Ishmaelites and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh, and his brothers listened to him. Then Midianite traders passed by and they drew Joseph up and lifted him up out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt. When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes and he returned to his brothers and said, the boy is gone.
Joel Brooks:Where shall I go? Then they took Joseph's brother Joseph's robe and slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in blood. And they sent the robe of many colors and brought it to their father and said, this we have found. Please identify whether it is your son's robe or not. And he identified it and said, it is my son's robe.
Joel Brooks:A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph is without a doubt torn to pieces. And Jacob tore his garments and put sackcloth on his loins and mourn for his sons many days. And all his sons and his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, no. I shall go down to Sheol to my son mourning.
Joel Brooks:Thus his father wept for him. Meanwhile, the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, the officer of pharaoh, the captain of the guard. This is the word of the lord. Thanks be to god. Pray with me, church.
Joel Brooks:Our father, we ask that you would, through your spirit, bless the very reading of your word that even now it would begin to penetrate our hearts and our minds doing its work. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may Your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:So I bought a new grill a few weeks ago. For the last 20 or so years, I've always bought disposable grills. You know, a grill that would last 2, maybe 3 years tops before it would completely rust out. But this time, I spent a little bit more money and I bought the cheapest Weber that I could find. And so, I bought this Weber.
Joel Brooks:I love it. I even gave, this girl a name. I named her Rachel. She is Rachel. Yes.
Joel Brooks:She's a she. She's a Rachel because she is beautiful in form and appearance. I had just finished, preaching about Rachel and Leah at the time. And, I remember I remember saying that we could sum up the entirety of our lives with this saying, we went to bed with Rachel and we woke up with Leah. And yes, that's a summary of our lives.
Joel Brooks:We always think we're going to bed with Rachel, but we always wake up with Leah. I remember saying that, but this time, it's different. This time, it's it's different. I'm certain that it's going to be Rachel when I wake up in the morning, and that my grill Rachel's gonna fulfill all of my dreams. I'm going to grill the most delicious meat.
Joel Brooks:Rachel's going to be everything that I wanted. My wife, she just kinda rolls her eyes at me when I've, named her Rachel. And I said, you know, it's different this time. Because in the past, I only bought Leah's. This time, I bought a Rachel.
Joel Brooks:And so I'm gonna wake up with a Rachel. It's going to be different this time. And that's how we always think of this. We always try to convince ourselves that this time, things are gonna be different. It's actually the definition of insanity to do the same thing over and over expecting a different result each time.
Joel Brooks:But we say things like, I'm older, I'm wiser now, I've learned my lesson, now I really know what I want. This time, it will be different. Over the last 5 weeks, we have seen Jacob. And we have seen him try to fill that emptiness in his heart repeatedly by going to other people. Thinking other people or other things could could finally fill that that void that is in his heart.
Joel Brooks:And here in this story, he does the same thing again. But once again, he expects, I guess, a different result. Now, he's trying to fill this void in his heart with Joseph. He just showers affection on Joseph at the expense of all of his other sons. Now, I recently read a study, that said, that the firstborn child receives 3,000 more quality 1 on 1 parent hours than the second born child.
Joel Brooks:3000 more quality 1 on 1 hours. So sorry, Natalie, who is my second born about that. Actually, I think that that's probably not saying enough. Because once you have more children, it's hard to get any quality one on one time with your kids. So the number seems low to me.
Joel Brooks:But but Jacob here, he's bucking this trend because he's doing the opposite. He's showering all of his affection, all of his one on one time. He is showering on 1 person, Joseph, child number 11. Joseph was the first child of his beloved Rachel. And so, this is the one whom had his affection in his heart.
Joel Brooks:And by spending all of his time and his devotion being poured out on this one child, he's he's poisoning the well. He's poisoning the rest of the family, and he's creating an environment of bitterness, jealousy, anger, hostility, arrogance, deceitfulness. In other words, he's creating the exact environment that he grew up in. The sins of the father, once again, being passed on to the sins of the sons. He's creating the home that He grew up in.
Joel Brooks:Now the narrator here gives us 3 things that describe this environment, the destructive family dynamics that are going on in this story. And so let's quickly look at these 3. The first is this, we learned that Joseph was a young lad. He was 17 years old, and at around 17 years old. And at the end of verse 2, he brings back a bad report of his brothers to his father.
Joel Brooks:Several different commentators, they're going to tell you that this word used for report, elsewhere, every time it's used elsewhere is actually used to describe a untrue report, a false report. Report, a false report. Some translations even call this, false tales, is how they translate this word. And so what seems to be happening here is that Joseph is making up some bad stories about his brothers or at least at the very least, exaggerating on some of the bad things that are going on. We would call this tattle telling.
Joel Brooks:It's an exaggerated tattle telling. He excitedly runs back to his dad and he says, you won't believe what I caught my brothers doing. And then he exaggerates the tell about what they were doing. Presenting them in the worst possible light. All the while, seemingly showing a personal devotion to his father, securing that he would remain the favorite child.
Joel Brooks:The second thing we see here is that Jacob is described as loving Joseph more than his other sons. And he demonstrates this love by giving him the the robe of many colors, which instantly became featured in many plays, musicals, coloring books, picture Bibles. I I hate to shatter your myth or your childhood that you had about this. But but really, it's not describing a coat of many colors here. The word most likely means, it's kinda boring, that likely means long sleeved.
Joel Brooks:It was a coat of importance and a long sleeved robe or coat was a coat of importance. You see, if you had to work in the field, and you had to do manual labor, your outfit, your robe was short sleeved. So you can have your hands free and you could do the manual labor. But if you wore a long sleeve robe, it showed that you were not meant for manual labor. You had a, a more important job.
Joel Brooks:Joseph here, he's essentially being given by his dad a brand new suit. While sending his brothers off or while Jacob sends his sons off and overalls to go work at the factory. Jacob gets to stay home, work at the corporate office, while his sons go to work at the factory. Joseph is meant for better things. The third detail here, that the narrator mentions is that of the dreams.
Joel Brooks:Joseph was a dreamer. They even call him Look at the dreamer. He has a dream about his brothers, and how they have sheaths of grain bowing down to his sheaths of grain. It's not the most exciting dream. It's also not one that's hard to interpret.
Joel Brooks:What is hard, about this dream is it's hard to believe that Joseph thought it was a good idea to tell his brothers. He eagerly tells his brothers about this dream. And it went over like you and I thought it would go over. They respond by hating him. You're actually gonna see the word hate here start occurring more and more frequently.
Joel Brooks:Hate is building in this family. Joseph has another dream. This time, it's about the stars, their sun, and the moon, and 11 stars. And he tells his brothers, and because it went so well the first time, he not only told his brothers, but he told his father. And this is how you know that Joseph has gotten really annoying.
Joel Brooks:His dad, the dad who could think Joseph could do no wrong, actually gets so irritated and annoyed at Joseph, he rebukes him. Now Tim Keller, when he is commenting on this story, he said that this shows at the very least, Joseph is a sociopath. At the very least, he's a sociopath. Meaning that he is incapable of discerning the feelings of others, or how his actions impact the feelings of others. He he doesn't have empathy.
Joel Brooks:And at the very worst, it means he is becoming an evil person. If God doesn't intervene, if He doesn't step in and do something, this entire family is going to be lost. And by intervening, I don't mean God just coming and saying, you need to stop doing these things. Because nobody learns by being told. You have to be shown your faults, painfully shown your thoughts.
Joel Brooks:Your and and the evil that you've kept hidden deep in your heart that you're unaware of. So God is going to begin painfully teaching some lessons. So we're now at the point in the story where you can feel the tension building, and it's about to explode. The brothers go off to Shechem and then to Dothan to pasture their flock. Joseph doesn't go.
Joel Brooks:He started off the story in the fields, but now he doesn't have to go to the fields because he got his suit and he's not meant for manual labor anymore. But then Jacob, at one point, he decides he wants to get a report back from his sons. And so he does send Joseph off to get the report. Verse 18 says that, Joseph's brother saw him from a long way off, which means Joseph is actually wearing his suit. He's actually wearing his fancy new suit on this long journey, and they could spot him a mile away.
Joel Brooks:It's just plain stupid. And it's actually the last straw. That's it. They see him coming and they know he's coming to get a report, to bring back their father report and they remembered what he said the last time and how he tattletolled on them. The last time he came, and this time, they're not gonna let it happen.
Joel Brooks:And so they conspired to kill him. Let me just divert here for just a brief moment and say something about the engine in these brothers that's driving them to these murderous thoughts. That engine is envy or jealousy. We read that the brothers were envious or jealous of Joseph, And that's why they decide to kill him. And although I rarely preach topical sermons in the past, I actually did take time to preach a sermon on envy, because envy is as dangerous as it is joyless.
Joel Brooks:You see, envying is not the same thing as coveting. When one covets, one simply wants what another person has. You want that. And perhaps, you want it so badly that there's the temptation to to steal it or or to do whatever you can to get that one thing. But envy is different.
Joel Brooks:Envy, it doesn't just want what another person has. It wants to destroy that other person's good. It wants to deprive that other person of the blessing they're enjoying. Those who struggle with envy, they're incapable of rejoicing when other people rejoice. It's hard to feel good about another person's blessings.
Joel Brooks:Now those who struggle with envy can be really good at at weeping when other people weep. They're really good at coming alongside other people in their sorrow, but they're incapable of rejoicing or celebrating when good comes to another person. And if you struggle with envy, and that's a hard thing for us to admit. If you struggle with envy, you need to realize that your struggle is really with grace. It's hard for you to accept that we can ever receive any undeserved good.
Joel Brooks:And as a result, envy destroys your ability to believe in the gospel, which is a undeserved good coming to us. Envy is gonna rob you of all joy, rob you of all, rob you or poison your ability to love others. How can you love a sinner when you can't rejoice in their undeserved kindness? And so what we see here is the fruit of envy in the lives of Joseph's brothers. They don't want what he has so much as they want to destroy him and to take away the blessings that he has.
Joel Brooks:And this gives birth to these murderous thoughts. And if Reuben had not got there just in a nick of time, they would have certainly killed Joseph. They did grab him with the intent to kill him, but Reuben arrives. And and so instead of killing him, they violently just rip off his robe and they throw him into a pit or to a cistern instead. The word cast there means that they, it's used to describe to be abandoned to death.
Joel Brooks:They were throwing him in there to die. And although we don't realize this until later when we get to chapter 42, chapter 42 describes that at this time, Joseph was crying out. He was screaming for mercy. Begging and pleading with his brothers to not do this to him. But they ignored the cries of their younger brother.
Joel Brooks:And just to show how callous their hearts had come to him, It says that after they threw him in the pit and as the the cries are coming out of the pit, they sat down to eat lunch. They enjoyed a meal. They broke bread with one another, and just ignored the cries of their brother. Reuben, after they eat, then he apparently goes off to check on the sheep. Reuben, typical firstborn child.
Joel Brooks:He's still that responsible firstborn task oriented. He knows we gotta still keep doing that and so he goes off and he leaves the rest of his brothers behind. And while Reuben is gone, they pull Joseph up out of the pit and then they sell him to some Ishmaelites or to some Midianite traders. They then kill a lamb. They smear blood all over Joseph's robe, and then they take it to the father, to their father.
Joel Brooks:It's ironic, isn't it? Jacob, he used a lamb. And he used his brother's robe to once deceive His own father. And now, the same thing is happening to Him. Once again, the sins of the father being passed to the sins of the sons.
Joel Brooks:Now, here's the question, And it took a long time for us to get here. But here's the question. Where is God in all of this? Where is he? If you notice, it was a chapter 37 is really long, and this is a long story, and yet God is not mentioned anywhere in the story we just read.
Joel Brooks:Which is highly unusual for Genesis. Because throughout this book, we have seen God constantly interacting, intervening, showing his power. But he doesn't do so here. Instead, all we get to see are these terrible things happening. A family being, ripped apart through envy and through hate.
Joel Brooks:Joseph being thrown into a pit, crying out for help. Nobody coming to rescue, and then him being sold off as a slave. God seems to be utterly absent. But is He? There's actually 2 dominant views of God out there.
Joel Brooks:One is this, that God is intrusive. And by that, I'm not using that in a negative way that God is intrusive. I'm meaning that in the most positive way that that God comes and He rescues us. We pray, we cry out. God hears us and He comes with mighty power and outstretched arm, and He rescues us.
Joel Brooks:He intervenes in our situation. So that's one view. The other view is this, and it's well, God has no hands, but ours. If you wanna get yourself out of the pit, you better do it. And that's how God works, is by you.
Joel Brooks:You, putting on your boot straps, tightening them up, you getting out. God has no hands, but ours. We're the ones who intervene. We're the ones who actually do the work of God in our lives. And so those are the 2 dominant views out there, but the Bible actually presents a third way.
Joel Brooks:The 3rd position is this and it's extremely important for us to understand during this time of pandemic, this time of sick, sickness spreading, this time of death spreading, joblessness, economic collapse, all of this disaster around us, it's important for us to understand this third option, especially during this time. And it's this, God works, but he's hidden. The 3rd position shows us that there's a hidden mercy of God. He's at work, but the vast majority of time, we don't actually see it. And the Bible is quite clear that during times of of horrible suffering and evil, God is not only a work, often He's doing His greatest work.
Joel Brooks:But it's usually behind the scenes. And we we see Genesis kind of steering us or or going towards God working this way. Genesis doesn't start off like this. You know, Genesis, when we first read it, God is front and center. I mean, he's just creating things left and right.
Joel Brooks:God is very visible to Adam. He's walking with Adam in the cool of the evening. There is no doubt where God is and how He is working. And then, Genesis begins to transition to where, by time we get to Abraham, God is working more through dreams, more through some interactions with others. There's an occasional wrestling with a stranger in dark at night.
Joel Brooks:And then, we get to Joseph. By this point in Genesis, there are no visitations. There's no dreams about God coming. There's no voice from heaven. What's striking about this story is actually it's so ordinary.
Joel Brooks:The ordinariness of it all. There's no supernatural events. There's nothing that we would call a a hyper spiritual experience happening here or occurrence here. This is why I actually love this story because this is where most of us live our lives, Where it's not so obvious to see God at work. We rarely see in our lives what we would easily be able to identify as this is supernatural.
Joel Brooks:This, without a doubt, is God working in a supernatural way in our lives. We rarely experience that. And so we're kinda like Joseph. We we have to look more carefully if we're to find God at work. And so let's look carefully through this text, because He is hidden, but He is there.
Joel Brooks:If you read through the story, you're gonna realize so many coincidences happen. So many. Joseph's brothers, they go off about 30 miles to first shepherd their flocks and Shechem. And then they leave to go 15 more miles to a place called Dothan. This is a very remote place.
Joel Brooks:No one really goes there, but it is right in the middle of a trade route. A very important trade route. After they left to go to Dothan, is when Joseph goes to Shechem and he doesn't find them there. But he does find a person who just happened to be near his brothers at just the right time, where he just happened to overhear a conversation saying that they were going to Dothan. So now, Joseph knows to go to Dothan.
Joel Brooks:When he arrives there, his brothers grab him and they're gonna kill him, because Reuben was gone, but then Reuben comes back in a nick of time. So instead of killing him, they throw him into a pit instead. Reuben then, he leaves just for a few moments, But during that time while he's gone, they decide that they would sell him because at the exact moment, that is when some Midianite traders are coming and they could sell him as a slave to these traders. And they weren't just any traders, these were traders who were going to go to Egypt, where he would be sold to Potiphar, who was an officer to Pharaoh. And spoiler alert, all these things had to happen in order for, many many people to be saved.
Joel Brooks:God's gonna use all of this to save all of Egypt and the nations around it there. If anything other than this exact thing had happened, even if you had had the slightest little variation there, if a person been a different place at a different time or not overheard something, the whole story would have played out completely different. And everybody would have died. If the brothers hadn't left Shechem to go to Dothan, well then they would have never been near enough to that trade route in order to sell Joseph to the Midianites to get him to Egypt where he had to be. If Reuben didn't keep coming and going in the story, well then, they might Joseph might have either been killed, but then he had to leave, so then they could instead pull him out of the pit and then they could sell him off.
Joel Brooks:The Midianite traders had to be there at that exact moment that Reuben was then gone. And they had to be going to no other place than Egypt. It's coincidence after coincidence after coincidence they line up. Now, the only reason the only reason that we know that these things had to be this way is because we know the end of the story. We know the end.
Joel Brooks:But Joseph doesn't know the end. And we don't know the end of our story either. We don't know what God is working during this time. All we could do is that All we could do is trust Him. We have no idea why this whole pandemic is happening, And all the suffering is happening.
Joel Brooks:And now we're having to go by, week after week after week of isolation, and it just seems like no end in sight. But we do know this, that God is working in it. We might not be able to see Him, but we know that He is working and He is working it for our good and for our salvation. This has not caught God off guard. Actually, everything is going exactly as planned.
Joel Brooks:The soft word for that is providence. The hard word for that is predestination. But we certainly see that God is in control, orchestrating every event towards His own ends. Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't at least say a few words about the place Dothan itself. If you've been a part of Redeemer for any amount of time, you've heard me mention Dothan.
Joel Brooks:I often go to Dothan to help me understand God's different ways in which He works through suffering and how God responds to our pain. Dothan is only mentioned 2 times in the Bible. But 2 very key events happen in Dothan. The first, we see here in Genesis 37, where Joseph is thrown into this pit and he cries out for help and he cries out for help and no one helps him. He's abandoned.
Joel Brooks:God seems to do absolutely nothing. The other time, is in 2nd Kings chapter 6, where the prophet Elisha, he's surrounded by an army. His doom seems to be certain and he's with his servant, And his servant is terrified, yet Elisha is at complete peace. And his servant says, how can you be a complete peace? And so, Elisha prays to God.
Joel Brooks:God opens the eyes of his servant, and he sees angels with chariots of fire surrounding them, protecting them. So here, Elisha cries out to the Lord and God opens his eyes and intervenes in a miraculous way. And so those are the only two times that Dothan is mentioned in the Bible. Same place, same or similar situations, the same desperate cries for help, but you get 2 completely different responses by God. In 1, God sends angels with chariots of fire.
Joel Brooks:In another, it's silence. And yet, we know that God is working equally in both of those situations. He is working powerfully behind the scenes. As a matter of fact, if we were to look forward 2000 years from this story, we see that another another time in which God seemed to be absent, yet He was working powerfully behind the scenes in that moment. Like Joseph, Jesus was Jesus was betrayed.
Joel Brooks:Jesus was sold. Jesus too was stripped of his robes. Jesus was beaten. Like Joseph, Jesus too cried out. And Jesus cried out, my God my God, why have you forsaken me?
Joel Brooks:But unlike Joseph, Jesus was not spared. Jesus was not sold off to slavery, Jesus descended to death. Yet, it was during this time in which God seems so absent that God is actually doing His greatest work. When the day literally became night, when the light became darkness, when things couldn't seem to be any worse, God is actually orchestrating everything for His own end, for His own glory, and for our good. Every spit spit that went on Jesus' face, every act of betrayal, every blow to His head, every nail that pierced His skin was orchestrated, planned by God.
Joel Brooks:And God was in it all, working through those horrible evil events, working out our salvation. Satan thought he was destroying Jesus, but Jesus was using all of that suffering, not for His destruction, our destruction, but for the redemption of all things. He was working it all for our salvation. So church, yes, things are pretty terrible right now. And from everything I've read, the next few weeks are likely going to get worse.
Joel Brooks:But, in this time, trust that God is working behind the scenes, all for His glory and for your good. Pray with me, church. Jesus, we thank you for everything that you endured on our behalf. We thank You that You were the greater Joseph. You were not just sold as a slave, but You went to death itself And you defeated death and we have nothing to fear because of that.
Joel Brooks:You have purchased our salvation and you have given us eternal life. And Lord, in light of all that, I pray that we would trust You during this dark time. Trust that You are at work and that every suffering that comes our way, comes because it is necessary. And may we worship you through it all. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen.