Aug. 11, 2019 Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 “A Good Man”

09 Aug Aug. 11, 2019 Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 “A Good Man”

Aug. 11, 2019   Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28     “A Good Man”

I have told you before that my hope as I began this little series on Genesis was that you would be able to see that these wonderful stories of the Old Testament are relevant in our lives today.  I hope that you will also see that these familiar stories are really the same message that is repeated throughout the Bible.  I think that it is really amazing at how simple the message is.  We are to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and love our neighbor as ourselves.  Today we will be looking at part of the story of Joseph.  This section of the story might help us to see our own shortcomings through Joseph and also tell us how to love God.

David Dykes tells the story of a friend of his who, when he was a youngster, had the ugliest bicycle in the world.  It was made up of parts from this bike and parts from that bike.  You see, they didn’t have much money and this is how the dad could make a bike for him.  One of the problems with this bike of many colors was that the lad’s hands would slip off the handle bars all the time.  So he had kept asking his dad for handlebar grips.  The dad had refused to get them.  One day they were in the local hardware store and the boy found the perfect grips.  He ran to his dad and said, “Dad, Dad, I found the perfect grips for my bike and they are on sale.  Can we get them?”  His dad turned to him and said, “No son, you don’t need those grips.  Now please come with me to the back of the store.”  The boy was upset and he was muttering to himself something to the effect that, “I never get anything.  They are only a lousy three dollars.  My dad sure is mean.”  When they got to the back of the store the owner wheeled out a brand new bicycle for the youngster, complete with fancy handlebar grips and streamers.  The dad said, “Here son is your early birthday present.  I couldn’t get you those grips because I had already ordered a new bike for you.”  Of course the boy was elated as he wheeled his new bike out of the store.

I think that there is a pretty good lesson that we can learn from this story.  As a matter of fact, there are several lessons.  Sometimes we are like the boy and we ask and ask and ask God for something and we don’t get it.  And the reason that we don’t get it might be because that God has something much grander in mind for us.

I think that the story of Joseph is similar.  The story begins in Chapter 37 and goes on for fourteen chapters.  It is almost like a mini novel, a novella.  We begin with a lot of emotions.  Jacob, who is now called Israel, listens to the 17 year old Joseph as he brings back bad news about his half-brothers.  It doesn’t tell us what the news was except that it was bad.

So right away we might think that Joseph is some sort of tattle-tail.  Now this might not be the right interpretation here.  Maybe Joseph was doing the right thing.  As we read along here we are going to find that basically Joseph was a pretty good kid.  But it made no difference to his brothers if what he did was right or not.  They hated him because he told on them.

They also hated him because Israel or Jacob loved him the most.  You see, Joseph was the first born son of Israel’s favorite wife, Rachel.  Now if there was anyone who should know better than do this, it would be Israel.  After all, the jealousies of Esau and him had led to Jacob fleeing for his life.  It seems to me that the people of these olden days had just as tough a time with learning lessons as we do today.  We should not play favorites either.

But that isn’t all that we find out in this opening.  We see that Israel has given Joseph a richly adorned robe.  So this makes the brothers even more inflamed.  The part we skipped is the part about the dreams of Joseph whereby he tells his brothers that they will bow down and serve him.

So what we have here is a lot of fuel for this fire of jealousy.  The narrative doesn’t really say that Joseph really did much wrong.  He might have been guilty of flaunting the robe and dreams a little, but what was he supposed to do.  After all, he couldn’t help who his mother was.  He was given the robe, so was he supposed to hide it?  And I think that it is only normal to share our dreams with someone.   So I don’t think that the fault lies totally with Joseph.  Usually in situations like this there is enough blame to go to everyone.

I think that we have all known people like Joseph.  We probably don’t notice them that much after we have grown up.  But when you were young, didn’t there always seem to be that one person who never got into trouble?  This would be the kid who would go along with you until you crossed a line, and then he would disappear.  He/she would do things that might be a little wrong but never anything that was totally wrong.

And I really doubt that you would have hated this person like the brothers hated Joseph.  We don’t harbor hate like that today unless someone is from the other political party.  And I will make a prediction here.  If we don’t get our political hate under control, we will soon lose this country.  Anyway, I would guess that you can all remember such a person when you were growing up.  Or maybe some of you are that person and I should be quiet because things weren’t always that nice for you.  But you did do the right things.

We can see this in the story of Joseph as we continue.  Israel sent Joseph off to find his brothers who were grazing the flocks at some distance away.  Joseph, who was always obedient, set off.  I would also like to say here that Joseph probably knew that his brothers disliked him.  But he probably wasn’t aware of the intense hatred that they had.  Anyway, it took him awhile but he finally caught up with them.

They saw him at a distance and immediately put a plan into motion to kill their younger brother.  They are going to kill him.  I cannot imagine that much hate but we are getting close to it in this country today.  All these mass shootings are all hate related.  The solution to our mass shooting problem doesn’t lie in gun laws or anti-hate laws.  The only solution to these shootings is our turning back to Jesus Christ.  We are no longer a Christian nation and we have to turn back.  Anyway these brothers aren’t kids either.  They would probably be between 20 and 30 years old.  This is the part of the story that we seem to neglect.

This is what I mean.  Joseph was a good man.  We have all known good men and women.  As I said earlier, none of this stuff was really the fault of Joseph.  But I think that we are a little too quick to throw the blame at his feet.  We like to say that he shouldn’t have bragged about his colorful garment.  But it doesn’t tell us that he did this.  It only says that he had it and wore it.  I fail to see any fault there.  We like to read in things sometimes that really aren’t there.

He tells his family of his dreams.  We seem to want to say that he flaunted this at his family.  We didn’t read that part today but nowhere does it tell us that Joseph did anything like this.  He just told them of his dreams.  There was no fault there.  If you can’t express your dreams to your family, then I don’t know where else you would be safe.

And the same thing can be said about his being his father’s favorite son.  He had no choice in this matter.  It was something that was thrust upon him and he had to deal with it.  The point I am trying to make here is that too often we are too quick to blame the innocent person and let the guilty one go free.  In today’s world it is always someone else who is at fault!  We are never wrong and never at fault!

Jacob or Israel was to blame for Joseph being the favorite.  He is the one who started this whole hateful event rolling.  But do we blame him?  No, it is easier to blame Joseph, the innocent one, by reading between the lines, by making up stuff that isn’t there.  This is no different than what our news media does every day!

And I would guess that this is something we also do on a regular basis in our own personal lives.  We see an article in the paper about a man getting beat up in downtown Fargo at 2 AM.  The first thing we say is, “What was he doing there at that time of night?”  We blame the victim who just might have been on his way home from a shift work job.  Let’s forget about the perpetrators and blame it on the victim.  We are just too good at this.

And in the last part of our story where the brothers are planning to kill Joseph, we have the same thing.  We want to lay the blame on Joseph because he wore his robe and told of his dreams.  I think that we find that it is much easier to do that than to actually put the blame where it belongs, on the brothers, on the brothers.

I think that the problem lies in the fact that we can see ourselves, own petty jealousies and character flaws in the brothers and Israel.  I know for a fact that I am much more like them than I am like Joseph.  But that doesn’t give me the right to lay the blame at his feet or the feet of any victim.  Just because I look like and act like the worst of these brothers, doesn’t give me the right to judge the victim or anyone else.  Remember this from our story today, we are not being represented by Joseph, but rather we are represented by Israel and the brothers.  We are usually not the good guys!  We are the brothers!

I think that this is kind of hard for us to swallow.  But it shows us just how important it is to know where we are or where we were.  And the focus of this story shouldn’t be on Israel or the brothers or even the alleged bad behavior of Joseph.  The focus of this story, and I mean the entire novella of Joseph here, is to be on the reaction of Joseph to all of these events.

Now don’t get me wrong.  Joseph was far from being a perfect man.  All I am saying is that “don’t read too much into all of this.”  As you have seen, he is basically a good person.  He loves God.  He obeys his father and in those days the father was the absolute boss.  And his being a good person carries over into the rest of the story.

Soon we will read that Joseph was sold to one of the Pharaoh’s officials Potiphar.  We learn that the Lord is with Joseph and that Joseph continues to do the right things.  He walks away from Potiphar’s wife and gets into all kinds of trouble.  It seems that no matter what this evil world throws at Joseph, his faith in God helps him to get through it all.  He is thrown into this pit in the desert and he doesn’t give up.  He is framed by Potiphar’s wife and he doesn’t give up.  No matter what happens, Joseph doesn’t give up and he keeps himself focused on God.  He keeps on doing the right things.

And this is the lesson for us.  We are to keep focused on God and Jesus Christ.  I remember one of the lessons we used to have in VBS and Sunday school was about Peter walking on water.  The lesson was that Peter took his eyes off of Jesus and he sank.  We are bombarded, flooded with temptation and hardships from the evil Satan.  It is everywhere we look.  We keep sinking deeper and deeper as our eyes are not on Jesus.  But we can learn to be safe if we keep just our focus on Christ.  Don’t ever take your eyes off of Jesus Christ.

It is very hard to live in this broken, sinful world.  Jesus is in pain every time you sin.  He feels the pain.  You actually hurt Jesus every time you sin.  But He is also elated when you bring your sin to Him in confession.  I just read an article this past week that says one of the things that modern church leaves out today is confession.  We sometimes get to be too proud to confess.  This week, as you are in your prayer time, confess your sins to Jesus.  This is one of the greatest ways to keep your eyes on Him.  Confess to Jesus that you are like the brothers in this story.  Confess and let Jesus have your troubles and see what happens.  It may not be immediate, but good things will happen when you start on the road to being a good person like Joseph.

I once knew of a young lady in West Fargo.  She was a brilliant student, a superb athlete, and she loved Jesus.  Many people didn’t like her because she did all of these things.  But she persevered and kept her eyes on Jesus.  And the last I heard, she was doing just fine.  The road is often rocky, but the destination is always great.

Next week we will finish our look at Genesis.  I hope that you are able to see the connection between Genesis and the New Testament and modern times.  Even though we are all like the Joseph’s brothers at times, you need to keep our focus or refocus and strive to be like Joseph or, better yet, like Jesus.  God loves you in ways that you cannot understand.  Let’s see if you can just accept it and keep looking to your loving God.  I thank you Jesus for your love and patience with me.  And thank you for first loving us.  Let’s pray.