The Story - Chapter 3

Open the Bible and read it. They think that the people in the stories are different than they are. In the sense that they're sort of like, you know, a father knows best families, everything happened to them right, and they turned out perfect, and everybody did the right things at the right time in the right way. And a lot of times I hear people say, you know, I would serve God, but, you know, my life has been so different, and I have things in my life that have happened to me that are hard for me to think that I could ever be useful to God. Stories of the Bible are about real people. It's a story of God who comes down to say, I have a great plan for this world, and I'm not going to work this plan through angels, and I'm not going to work this plan through people who are perfect. I'm going to look around the world, and I'm going to pick people, ordinary people who lived in this world and all of its difficulties, and through them, I'm going to accomplish everything that I want to accomplish. And so God, after Adam and Eve rebelled against God, he looked around the world and chose Abraham, who was not a perfect man. Isaac, his son, was not a perfect man. And Jacob, the father of Joseph in our story today, was not a perfect man. Many of the things when you read this story seem maybe strange to you, but you won't find in the world, almost anywhere you go, a more dysfunctional family than the family of Jacob. Jacob and Esau were twins. Esau was born first, and Jacob came out holding on to his brother's heel. And he was called the deceiver. The idea of holding on to someone's heel or tripping them up comes from that idea. In all of his life, this name fit him. He lied to his father when the time came for his father to die and divide his inheritance and give his blessing. He tricked his father into thinking it was Esau. His father asked him if he was, and he said yes. He prepared a meal for his father like his brother would have prepared. And he received the blessing of his father. When Esau's brother heard that this had happened, he was so infuriated. It meant that Jacob was receiving two-thirds of the inheritance when he should have only received a third. It meant that the blessing of his father promised from God would be on Jacob instead of Esau. It changed everything in Esau's life. His family was so torn apart that Jacob knew that his brother was going to kill him. The family was torn apart because whenever Jacob and Esau were born, the father, Isaac, loved Esau because Esau was a man's man. He was a hunter and he was a fisherman, a man who lived in the woods. He had the smell of the woods on him. But Jacob was the kind of guy that liked to hang around the tents, the Bible said. He was the chef of the family. He liked to cook and to do things, and his mother loved him. So his father loved Esau and the mother loved Jacob, a family divided. I don't know if you've ever been in families like that where it was clear and plain that one parent favored one child and one another. It makes tension everywhere. That's the way it was in this family. This family was torn apart. And Jacob learned that his brother was going to kill him, and his mother talked this over and decided he had to get out. His mother, again, lied to her husband, said, let's send him off to the land where our relative lives and he can marry one of our relatives so he'll be a part of us and not these Canaanite women like Esau has chosen. And so they sent him to Rebekah's brother. When he got there, he found that his brother and his uncle had two daughters. One of them was Leah, and she was not very attractive to Jacob. We don't know what was wrong. Scripture says something about her eyes being weak. We don't know if that means that she had weak eyes or that she was cross-eyed or she had a lazy eye, what we call a lazy eye, or if she was just not good to look at. We don't know exactly what all that means, but we do know that Jacob did not accept her as a person he wanted to be married to. But then she had a sister, Rachel. She was well-formed, the scripture says, and she was beautiful. And so Jacob wanted her for a wife. He made a deal with his uncle, seven years he would work and then he would get her. The wedding time came, and you know, you've seen pictures of ladies in the burqas, you know, all fixed up so you can't really tell who it is. Something like that happened to Jacob. His wedding night went well. The next day in the daylight he discovered he was married to Leah. Now I don't know how that would be if you went to get married and found out the next day you were married to someone entirely different than the person you thought you were going to be married, but I'm guessing that hard feelings would arise out of that circumstance. And it did. Jacob's mad at his uncle, infuriated at what had taken place. His uncle said, okay, I'll tell you to go ahead with the one-week honeymoon, which was their custom, at the end of the first week, then I'll give you the wife you really want. Now think if you're Leah. You know the deal is coming. You have one week with your husband, and then he's going to get the woman he really wanted. I think there was tension in that family. The anger and resentment came for a long time for Jacob and his two wives. Leah wanted to have the approval of her husband. She wanted him to love her as any woman would, more than anything, but it never seemed to happen. She thought as children were born to her that it would change the tension between her and her sister. They were at odds with each other. They fought. They were not happy because one was favored and the other one wasn't. But whenever Leah started having children, she did something that in the Bible people often do, name their children things that reflect something of the circumstances that were going on. And so she named her first son, Reuben. She named him that because she said, it's because the Lord has seen me in my misery. Surely my husband will love me now. Can you think of a sadder thing to say? And so her first son's name, every time she said it, reminded her that she wanted her husband to love her, but he didn't. And he wanted him to love her because he'd given her a son, but he didn't. Then the second child came. It was Simeon. This one, she said, she named him Simeon because the Lord heard my misery and I'm not loved and he gave me this son too. Simeon was a sign that she wasn't loved in her household. And every time his name was mentioned, it was like saying, come here, the one who reminds me I'm not loved. What kind of home would that circumstance find itself in? Then a third son came and his name was Levi. It means attached. She said, now at last my husband will come attached to me because I've borne him three sons, but he didn't. There were 10 sons born in that family, none of them Rachel's sons. And then Rachel had a child. It was Joseph. You can see in the story that you hear the tension that was living in that home, tension filled because one woman was loved and one was not. Simeon had 10 sons who resented their father and resented what he had done and resented the two children born by Rachel, Joseph the first. Jacob didn't help himself very much because he was not an honest man in his life. He'd done all these things and had his family completed and he decided it was time to go back. The Lord had told him, go back to the land you came from. He was scared to death. He knew that his brother Esau would hold a grudge. He sent all of his animals and his family ahead of him in a way as a gift to give to his brother Esau to turn back his anger. And there he stayed on the other side of the Jordan River all night long, wrestling with God, talking to God, trying to get this straight in his own mind. He thought he might die. Jacob the deceiver who'd tricked people, who'd had life his own way, was now facing his death. God had told him to go back. God had told him that he was a stream of this great history where he was going to build this great nation, but he didn't see how in the world it could possibly be under the circumstances he was facing. He didn't have the confidence that God was going to finish what he started. He thought that his brother stood in the way of God being able to do what he could and what he wanted to do through Jacob's life. All night long he wrestled with this angel, this messenger of God. And then at daylight he said, I'm not going to let you go until you bless me. Now, the blessing of God on a person meant that they got a special care for God. And what Jacob was wanting was the assurance that God was going to lead him through this circumstance where his brother wanted to kill him. He didn't know if he could defend himself or change his mind, but he wanted to have God's protection. The angel said to Jacob, I am going to bless you, but also I'm going to change your name. You will no longer be known as the deceiver, but now you will be known as Israel. His new name was to indicate the change in his life. The rest of Jacob's story is ended here. This is Jacob's last time. From now on, Israel is his name. He is a different person. No longer do we hear the stories of his deception. No longer do we hear the stories of his life lived apart from God's plan for him. But now he's focused on doing what God wants. But he's still not a perfect person. God had worked in his life. Before he was even born, God chose him. And after he chose him, he found that this man was a deceiver and there were so many things wrong with him, but God never gave up on Jacob. He kept after him until finally by the river that night, Jacob was willing to say, I will acknowledge you as the authority of my life and I want to live in obedience to you. I want you to take my life and bless me. In that moment, he had what we might call a conversion experience, a change in his life, an awareness of a new world that God wanted him to live. But all that's the background of this story. The anger, resentment, and bitterness in this family continued. Actually Jacob didn't help it very much. When Joseph was born of the wife that he loved, she had hounded him so bad he was happy to have that off his neck, but more than that, he loved this boy. He didn't parent very well. He had these 10 boys and he treated them, I guess, well, but they knew they weren't favored. It was like he would take them to Walmart and say, now, you go over and buy you a coat. Don't spend more than $10. And then he sent his own son off to Nike, got a Kansas City Chief jacket, you know, official jacket he could wear, and all the other boys were in their trash and here's his son wearing this jacket. That's what the robe of many colors was like. It was like a sign saying, this is the one I value. It was saying to the others, I don't value you. Bad parenting, we know, but that was that home. Now the other 10 guys in this family, they were not only kids that saw from the very beginning they weren't really loved by their father, but they were also pretty mean guys. One time someone mistreated their sister and they went to the town where that happened and killed every single man in the town. Now you set the scene for what's going to happen to Joseph. He is the one that they're angry at. They can't do anything to the father. But Jacob did something else that wasn't quite square. He made Joseph a spy for himself. The Bible tells us how Jacob would send Joseph out to check on his brothers to see what they were doing and come back and tell him if they were doing anything wrong. And then they would be in trouble. Now when they looked up and saw that Jacob had sent his special son out to spy on him again and they saw him coming, all of the anger and the resentment and the bitterness boiled up in their lives. Now if you were in God's place and you had chosen Jacob and you finally got Jacob straightened out and then you've chosen Israel to lead this family and now he sent this son out to spy and he set up a circumstance where Joseph is the hated of the family. God had tried to indicate to the family that Joseph was special, but Joseph was kind of like any child who's given special treatment and everything they want. He was a little bit arrogant and a little bit proud. I suppose if we were living around the family, we'd say he was a brat. Dad's special treatment, all the special things he gave him. So whenever God revealed in a dream to him about what was going to happen and the special role he'd had, he ran right out and told his family, all of you someday are going to bow down at my feet and you're going to worship me. Now you think these ten guys took that as a good sign from God? Not at all. But here in this circumstance you see, God is still at work in his great plan for Joseph and his great plan for this family of Israel. His plan will always be accomplished. That needs to be riveted in our minds. God's plan will always be accomplished. It didn't matter that Jacob was a tricky, deceiving person. God changed him. It didn't matter that Joseph was a brat. God's going to change him. He goes out to his brothers. You know the story. If you read in your book, it's on page 29. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. But they saw him in the distance and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. Now you can understand how close to the surface their anger was. It didn't take very much and finally it boiled over. Here comes that dreamer, they said to each other. Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him and then we'll see what comes of his dreams. They weren't dealing with the dreams of a boy. They were dealing with the plans of God. God told Joseph what was going to happen to his life. He wasn't building Joseph up. He was telling Joseph what his plan was for Joseph. One of the things you need to understand is whatever God gives you in your life, whether it's to raise children or to be married or to work in the church or to go on a mission trip, whatever God has planned for you, he will accomplish. So many times when we come to the difficulties trying to do what God wants us to do, we stop because we see the overwhelming obstacles that are there. These boys didn't know what they were doing. They were trying to stand in the way of whatever God's plans were. But God has none of that. They thought they could. When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. Let's not take his life, he said. Don't shed any blood. Throw him into the cistern here in the wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him. Reuben said this to rescue him from them and to take him back to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the ornate robe he was wearing. They took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty and there was no water in it. As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spice, balm, and myrrh. They were on their way to take them down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood. And his brothers agreed. So in the middle of the night, merchants came by. His brothers pulled Joseph out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites who took him to Egypt. Joseph was going to be killed. How did God work? He put in the mind of these mean guys a different plan. Sometimes people don't even know when God is directing them. God put in the mind of this young man, You know, you could kill him, but what if he had some money out of this deal? And the greed took over. God knows how to manipulate people when they don't even know they're being manipulated by putting in front of them something that changes the direction of their life. Every time you're doing the work of God and you see obstacles come, God knows how to work through those. He sometimes even works through people who are evil, who have bad plans in their mind and causes them to do things that will allow His work to be completed and finished. God always accomplishes His plans even if the people He works with don't deserve it and even if mean, evil, wicked people try to stand in His way. God has a way of working in the minds of people so they have no earthly idea what God has done. If you had interviewed the family that was standing there that night and you'd talk to Judah and say, Do you think God gave you the idea about what you're supposed to do? He would have said, Oh, I just thought of it. But we can see that the story unfolds because God in His power changed the mind of a man set on murder. Page 32 in your book, Joseph now goes to Egypt. He's sold into slavery. Something happens to Joseph between the time he meets his brothers and this story takes place. He's no longer the arrogant kid that he was at one time. He's no longer the self-centered and self-focused kid he was at one time. All of a sudden, he begins to act like a man controlled by God. It would be interesting to know what thoughts he had when he was on the caravan, interested to know what thoughts he had when he was in the bottom of the cistern, interested to know all the things that passed his mind, but what we know is the difference in his action. Now all of a sudden in this place, he's a different guy. Joseph had gone to work for Potiphar, who was a man of great wealth in that community. He was put in prison because he took a stand on what he thought was right. While Joseph was there in prison, the Lord was with him. He showed him kindness, granted him favor in his eyes in the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison. He was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success wherever he went. The very same thing was told about Joseph in the house of Potiphar. He was put in charge of the house and the scripture tells us that Joseph was trusted with everything and Potiphar's house prospered because of Joseph's efforts. Here's a man who no matter what he did, God honored and blessed. God had plans for Joseph and in every circumstance, even the most difficult place, God accomplished exactly what he wanted. Potiphar's wife wanted to trick Joseph, wanted to get him to be unfaithful, wanted to get him to commit adultery with her, but God gave him the strength to say no. Even though he was thrown in jail, when he got in jail, God blessed him. As he had blessed him in the first place, he blessed him in the second. So suddenly he was trusted with everything that was given to him. All through this, God's hand was on him. An evil woman, a prison sentence, hopelessness, but all of a sudden, Pharaoh dreamed a dream. People who had been in prison with Joseph knew he could interpret dreams and so Pharaoh called him to come to him. He wanted to find out what the dream that he'd had meant. It's chapter 41 verses 15 and 16 or page 33 in your book. Pharaoh said, I had a dream and no one can interpret it, but I've heard it said that you, when you hear a dream, can interpret it. Joseph as a young man might have said, yes I can, but Joseph, after all he's been through, says I cannot do it. But God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires. All of a sudden this young man becomes conscious of the fact that God is in charge. He's not to be worshipped, God is. Now the story ends, of course, with Joseph having his family come. Joseph does not know at any time in this story why he's where he is, what his purpose is or what's going to happen. But all of a sudden when his family comes, the whole story of his life begins to be clear. You may not know why you're here. You may not know why you teach a class. You may not know why you have the job you have. But somewhere along the line you will wake up and discover that God has been in charge. If you trust your life to him and you live in obedience to what God wants, his plan for your life will always work out. A part of God's covenant is to say, and I will make you a powerful person. I will give you an influence in the world. I will make your life full and complete. That's God's plan for every one of his children. Every person who turns their life over to God has the promise that God is going to make it work exactly as he always intended. Detours are no problem for God. Our own failures are no problem for God. The attacks on other people on our lives are no problem for God. He always accomplishes his purpose. And whenever his brothers came to him after the father died, they were quite sure that now he would say to them, I'm ready to kill you because of what you've done to me. Because they thought that would be human nature, and it probably is. But when they came to him and said, now you're going to kill us, Joseph said, don't be afraid. I'm in a place, am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children, and he assured them and spoke kindly to them. What you intended, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done. Centuries later, Paul wrote in Romans chapter 8 the very same thing. In all the things that happen to those people that are called by God and living in obedience to him, in all things that happen to them, God will bring good out of it. To the follower of God, there is never a hopeless disaster. There are disasters, but they're never hopeless. For in all these things, God brings good. I cannot offer you more in life than this, to say to you that if you give your life to God, he will make sure that your life accomplishes the purpose for which you're on earth to accomplish. I can say to you that in living in your life in obedience to God, there'll be lots of bad things happen to you and you'll think that nothing good is going to come, but I can promise you that in all those things, God works to accomplish his purpose. In every disaster that comes to you, he makes good follow it. To every disaster that you face, he gives you hope for the future. This is what God does. In our little scheme on earth, every day we wake up to problems and difficulties and trials, but God is always at work in his own kingdom, in his own way, with his own power to make sure that everything he wants to do is done. You can have that assurance. You have that assurance by saying to God, no longer will I plan it my way, as Jacob did, but it's your way. You can have it as Joseph did when he said, okay, God, instead of trying to be the most important person in the world, I'll serve you no matter what. All of these things are footprints for us to say, we can walk with God, and the very same result can come to us. Would you bow your heads for just a moment? So the most important thing you have to ask yourself is, is my life in God's hands? Have I said to God, take my life and use it any way that you choose? You may look at your past and say, I'm not good enough. Forget that. You may be living for God, but have problems arise, and you may think there's nothing God can do to help me. Forget that. All you look at is to say, do I accept God as the authority for my life? Am I listening carefully to what he tells me I should do, and doing it? Am I listening carefully to what he says I shouldn't do, and refusing to do it? If that's true for you, you will find your life works right. If you've never made that promise to God, I want to ask you to do it today. You may be like Jacob, lived a long time, a lot of experience before you come to that place, but you can do it now. You say to him, Lord, I've lived my life the way I want to. From this moment on, I'll live it the way you want me to. I trust you. You may be here as a part of this congregation, and you know that that story is what you want for your own life. Right now, where you are, you can say that. After you've said it, you may want to come and talk to me, or Carl, or Debbie. Tell us the promise that you've made to God. It may be that you know that this is a place God wants you to be a part of a church family, where a church is a group of people who said to God, we want to live our lives in complete obedience to you. If you've made that promise, you need to become a part of the church and work with the people who are trying to live to allow God to fulfill His purpose in their lives. I want you to ask God if there's anything He wants from you. If He lets you know that, you say yes to Him today. God has spoken to you. You do today what He's asked. I want to introduce the Beckham family to you. Tim, the big one on the far right-hand side, and Jody, his wife, Eliana, and Dodger, and Caleb. Right? Did I get all that right? I've talked with you earlier about your own commitment to Christ, and you've said to him that you've made a promise to God to let Him control your life and live in obedience to Him. Is that correct? Is that correct to you also, Jody? Eliana, I understand that that's a promise you've also made to God, right? Dodger, is that a promise you've made? Caleb, is that a promise you've made? We think that this is the way a person enters into a relationship of salvation with Christ, the promise to live in obedience to Him. We think also that it means you join with a group of people, that you're interested in reading the Bible, listening to God direct you, and living in obedience to Him. We express that by entering the water and showing that our old life has passed and our new life has started, and each one of you have been baptized by immersion. Is that right? Except for you. Now, you've been baptized before, but you told me that you were interested now in saying that coming to be baptized to show that your life that you lived in the past is over, and the life of God's control in your life has started. It didn't start today, it started some time ago, but you feel that witness is important to you. God's brought that in your mind, so we'll schedule a baptism for you at a little later time. But we have a promise to make to each other. When God says to someone, I want you to be a part of a church family, we have an obligation to them to say, yes, we'll take you. We don't vote to get people in our church, because God makes that choice. God adds to the church what pleases Him, as Scripture says that. But what we do have to promise is that we're going to accept people. So I want to ask you if you make a promise to them that this will be a church where the Bible is taught and preached. You make a promise to them that when they see you at different places, wherever you are, that you're living a life of a submitted person like Joseph was doing. That's a promise you can make to them as a member of this congregation. I want you to hold your hand up high. We promise you that we're going to try to live the way God wants us to live. Thank you very much. We also have a promise that we need to make to say that whatever needs come to this, whatever needs arise in this family, as God gives us the resources and time, that we will stand by you, whatever those needs are. What we ask of you is to be faithful in the promise you've made to God and allow Him to work in your life to help us to accomplish the purpose God has for us. I'm going to ask if you would to stand with me outside as people come by to greet. Would you stand, please? I want you to introduce yourself. Just say your name so they'll be familiar with your name. We're not going to give them a test to remember who you are, but it'll help them to begin to get acquainted with you and you with them. Father, we're thankful that you guide us. We don't always know the things that are going to happen today or tomorrow, but we know that whatever your plans for us are, they will be accomplished. If we do one thing, and that is submit our lives to you in obedience and faith, teach us to trust you no matter what, that you might show your power in our lives. We ask for this family as they come to us, that we might strengthen them and that they might strengthen us. We ask that your kingdom would grow because of their obedience to you. In the name of Christ, we ask this, amen. You guys come with me. As you go and say hello to them, you might say happy birthday to our wonderful pastor as well. It's coming tomorrow, I believe. Is that right? Tomorrow's the big day. When we walk with the Lord in the light of his word, what a glory he sheds on our way. Let us do his good will, he abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.