The Story of Joseph - When Dreams Don’t Make Sense - Genesis 37:1–11

Well, good morning. Morning. Listen, before I forget, Kenan mentioned it. Vacation Bible School is not starting tomorrow. It's one week from tomorrow. And so, I'm looking at your faces and every one of you look like you're dying to volunteer for vacation Bible school. And so, um, really Debbie's doing good on volunteers, but if you'd love to help, grade, but even more than that, um, we can still take more kids. She has over a hundred kids signed up right now. Um, and but we can still take more. So, if you got neighbors or grandkids or your own kids or just find a kid on the street somewhere and bring them with us, okay? We are going to have a great time with vacation bible school, but you can still sign up. So, make sure you do that this week. And if you are a volunteer and you haven't picked up your t-shirt, Debbie has them as you leave today. Next Sunday, all of the volunteers, we're going to wear it so we can say, "Look how proud we are of vacation Bible school." Listen, have you ever had a moment in your life that didn't turn out the way it was supposed to? One of those things that you planned, you knew how it was supposed to come out and what it was supposed to look like, and it just didn't turn out that way. I had one of those several years ago. My daughter was about to turn 15 in a couple of months. And so, we were in the market for a used car for her. And so, um, she knew the price range, which was a little a little bit less than what she wanted, but we're looking for this used car. And she came home one day said, "Dad, dad, I found the perfect car." It turned out one of her friends from school who happened, his family went to our church. His father was selling this little car. And she goes, "Dad, it'd be perfect." And she said, "Can we get it?" And I looked at it and it was a BMW Z3 convertible, like a little like James Bond type of car. And I'm going, "Wouldn't I be the best dad in the whole wide world if I got that for her?" So, I talked to my buddy who went to our church and we worked out a deal. And so, I bought this car for my daughter. Now, she was about two months from from getting her license. So, guess who got to drive it for two months? Dad did. And so, I dropped the top and I drove it for a couple of weeks and I thought, if I give this little Z3 BMW to my daughter, I would be the best dad in the world, but I would be the dumbest dad in the world to let her drive this car for her first car. So, I made the decision. I called her and said, "Listen, Alex, this is not a good car for you." And so I put it on Craigslist to sell. I had done a little research. I knew what the offering price was. So I thought, I'm going to turn from being a pastor to a car flipper and I'm going to make me a couple of thousand dollars on this car. So I put on Craigslist. I started interacting with somebody right off the bat to sell it. And I'm going, this is awesome. He's offering the right amount of money and I'm like, I am going to get rich selling this car. And so we had set up an appointment on the next Saturday that I would meet him in the Costco parking lot right next to the church. And so he would we would make the deal and sell the car right there. So all that week I cleaned the car. I polished it. I got to Costco early. I dropped the top. I wanted him to see that he would be as cool as I would be sitting and driving this car. So I'm sitting in the Costco parking lot with my little Z3 BMW convertible car. I'm waiting and all of a sudden I hear this voice behind me. Fort Worth police. Hands up. Fort Worth police. I turn around. No kidding. There must have been 12 Fort Worth policemen, guns drawn, pulled on me. They had a semiircle almost surrounding my car. Here's what it turned out. My friend from church who was selling me the car had actually bartered and traded some guy because this guy owed him money. He didn't know it was a stolen car. So when I go to try to sell this car on Craigslist, I'm interacting with an undercover policeman from the Fort Worth Police Department. So, I hear this voice, "Pands up. Get out of the car." And I turn around. All these guns are I mean, there were pistols, there were shotguns, there were machine guns, there was a bazooka. At least that's what it felt like sitting here right in this parking lot right next to the church. And so, he says, "Get out of the car." Well, I knew it was a used car, so the handle didn't work inside. And I knew I had to reach over to unlock the door from the outside. I thought, "That sounds like a shaky move. And if I get shot, my wife is going to be so mad at me for getting shot in the parking lot." Anyway, I get out of the car. They put me down on my hands and knees. They have the pastor, remember, I'm the pastor at a church next door to the Costco. I'm on my hands and knees, handcuffed in the parking lot of the of Costco. And they keep me there for five or 10 minutes and finally they put me in the back of the police car. I'm trying to use my pastoral presence. I'm trying to use my pastoral humor. They were having nothing to do with it. So, they haul me to the police station. They take me to the interrogation room, the kind that you see on the TV drama shows, the police shows, metal table, light coming down, and the dude, the the policeman said, "Would you like something to drink?" I thought, "No way. You're trying to get my DNA. There's no way I'm going to drink out of your cup right now." Now, long story short, I explained it to the policeman. He gets my record. He calls the guy. They let me loose. Okay. But can I just say this right now? That is not how I intended it to work out. When I put that post on Craigslist trying to sell this car, that is never how I intended for it to turn out to be like. Now, needless to say, the man from my church that sold me the car that didn't know it was stolen but got me arrested, he didn't come to church for like 6 months. But that's another story another day. He was so embarrassed. But my story, it didn't turn out the way I expected it to. Now, that's my story about getting arrested for selling a stolen car. But we all have a story, right? You might not have ended up handcuffed in the parking lot next to the place where you worked, but we all had a moment in our life that something happened. Something transpired and it did not turn out the way you thought it would. Or maybe it's not a moment in your life. Maybe you have a season of your life that didn't turn out the way you thought. Or or maybe you're sitting here going, Keith, it's not a moment. It's not a season. my life hasn't turned out the way I thought it would. And it can be so frustrating. It can be discouraging. It can be just just you. You don't know what to do. Well, if that's you and you have a story that you can fill in the blanks somewhere there, you have come to the right spot because we're beginning a brand new series today that we're going to carry throughout the whole entire summer. And the series is over the life of Joseph. Now, someone said, "Joseph of the New Testament, Jesus's dad or Joseph of the Old Testament?" It's Joseph of the Old Testament. In fact, as we found in the book of Genesis, and here's what we find in the book of Genesis. More time and more energy and more chapters are spent describing his life than any other character that we find in the book of Genesis. And if we brought Joseph up here somehow and we wanted to interview him right now going, "Joseph, do you ever feel did you ever feel that way that life didn't turn out the way you thought it would? He would have a bigger and better story or maybe I should say a bigger and worse story than probably any one of us. What we're going to discover in his life, it was some lives of a little ups and a lot of downs. Maybe a little up and down return. He had this horrible from the world standards life that God was working throughout all of it to do something bigger in his story than Joseph could ever imagine. And so it could be that whatever your story is that didn't turn out or it's not turning out the way you want it to, maybe like Joseph, you'll discover this summer that God is doing more behind the scenes than you actually recognize and can see right now. So, I hope you'll join us all summer long. The story, the life of Joseph. So, we're going to start today. If you've got your Bible, the scripture will be up there on the screen in chapter 37. And here's what it says when we learn first learn about Joseph in chapter 37. And I'll be starting in verse two. It says, "When Joseph was 17 years old, he often tended his father's flocks, and he worked for his half-bros, the sons of his father's wives, Bill and Zilpa." Now, let me kind of pause there for a second because he mentions some halfb brotherthers of his w life, his his his father's wives. His life is much more complicated than that. Now, let me just do this. Let me back up because Joseph is the grandson or the yeah the grandson of Abraham. Really, what we'd consider the forefather of our faith. If you go back to the Old Testament, God made a special promises that I'm going to choose some people and I'm going to bless them and I'm going to pour myself out and I'm going to do something great through this nation. In fact, we know that nation today is Israel. That's the just the Jewish people. That's where it all started from. So, there was in the story, and you'll see it up there, that there was Joseph's grandfather, and his name was Abraham. This is kind of clue you in because you, oh, I remember now. And his son was Isaac. And Isaac gave birth to a son named Jacob. And Jacob gave son gave birth to a lot of children. Jacob is Joseph's father. Now, you ready for it to get complicated? Like, if you've never heard this story, you're going, "Dude, that's some messed up people." If you've heard this story, you're going, "Yeah, they are some messed up people." Jacob had a love of his life, and her name was Rachel. And so, he went to her father one day, and you can read all about this in in in the book of Genesis. He went to her father one day and said, "Hey, I want to marry your daughter." And the do and the father said, "Well, what do you have to pay me for?" That was the usual custom back in those days, a dowy. He goes, "I got nothing." So his father or soon to be father-in-law said,"Well, why don't you work for me for seven years and that will be what you will pay for my daughter Rachel because you love her so much." So Jacob worked for seven years. You saw the name Leah. I thought you said her name was Rachel. Well, on the honeymoon night, here's what Leah's father did. He swapped his daughters. Instead of giving him Rachel, he gave him Leah. Leah was the older daughter. He wanted to marry her first. probably wasn't near as pretty and good-looking as Rachel was. So, he slipped in there Leah on his wedding night. Well, after they consummated the marriage, Jacob couldn't go back on his word. So, he went to his father-in-law and said, "Hey, this is not the deal we made. I wanted Rachel, not Leah." And the father-in-law said, "Well, work another seven years and I'll give you Rachel also." Do you see how it's getting a little complicated here? So, he works another seven years. He ends up marrying Leah, but Leah during this time, there's a little competition going on in the family, right? two women and one man. And so in the competition, the way they started the competition, well, whoever gave birth to more kids, because back in those days, that's where a woman really found her value by giving children to the man, especially male heirs to the man. So Leah gives birth to four kids. Rachel at the same time is barren. She can't even get pregnant. So can you imagine like one's up the other one? I got four kids, you got none. Who do you love more? But Jacob really loved Rachel the most. Yet she wasn't producing him any kids. So Rachel has this great idea. She goes, "I'll go solicit solicit one of my servants to be your concubine, which is kind of your woman on the side, your mistress. And if she gives birth to kids, they will kind of sort of be my kids." So she enlists Bill. We read about her there in in the Bible there. And Bill gives birth to two kids. Well, Leah's over there going, "Well, I'll just have more kids." But her womb became shut, so she can't have any more kids. So, guess what she does? She goes and finds her own servant maid, and says, "Why don't you be Jacob's mistress, his concubine?" So, she enlists Zilpa. And Zilpa gives birth to two kids. Do you see the complication going on in this family right now? Do you think this is the family reunion you would like to visit and kind of see how all the dynamics work out? I don't think so. But the story doesn't stop there because next all of a sudden Leah's womb opens up and she begins having more kids. She gives birth to three more kids. So here's Rachel, the love of Jacob's life, the one that he wanted to marry in the very beginning. He never dreamed of other women. He never dreamed of other kids. But the one he loved is going, "I'm useless. I'm not giving you any kids. And life is not turning out the way I expected it to until all of a sudden one day she becomes pregnant. And guess what? Her son's name is Joseph. That's where we get Joseph. In fact, she doesn't just have Joseph, she ends up having one more child, and his name is Benjamin. But Joseph, that's where we find this story taking place. Now, you're going, Keith, why did you tell us all of that information? And if this story is about Joseph, let's move forward with Joseph. Joseph's lives get so complicated and some of the downs with some of the ups. If you don't understand some of the dynamics of his family as we work our way through the summer, you will get lost. So, hope you took a picture of that. Hope you memorized it and we're ready to go. Right. So, here's what it says. So, Joseph is out tinninging the flocks. He worked with really for his half-brothers, the sons of fathers of wives of Bella and Zilpa. Verse two, but Joseph reported to his father some of the bad things his brothers were doing. There's nothing worse than bad dynamics and intermaring a family than tattling. So he goes home, he says, "Dad, you got to know this. I'm out there working with your other sons, but this is how they're taking care of their sheep, and this is what they're doing, and this is what they should be doing." And the brothers find out about it. Can you see how the dynamics of the family are really unraveling? There's enough tension of enough women and favorite kids and this one and this one and now all of a sudden the tensions begin to rise up. And then in verse three, but the Bible says this that Jacob loved Joseph more than the other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. Remember his first love was Rachel, but she never could have kids. And we'd all admit if you got two, three, four, five kids somewhere down the road or maybe married a second time or just as we get older, we really become sometimes more mature in our parenting. Whether good or bad, Jacob became more mature in his parenting. And the love of his life, Rachel, gave birth to Joseph. And of all the kids that Jacob called his own, the Bible says he loved Joseph more than any of the other ones. Do you think the dynamics are going to get worse? Yeah. This is a family you don't want to go to to have dinner with. And then it says this. So one day, Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph, a beautiful robe. This is the point of our story that Donnie Osman comes in to play. If you're over 40, you know what I'm talking about. There was a Broadway play about this whole story right here. And Donnie Osman played Joseph and he got the what? a coat of many colors. But this day in the Bible, it really wasn't Donnie Osman. But one day, Jacob walks up to Joseph going, "Joseph, I love you so much and I would love to give you this coat. It was a robe and it was a colorful robe. It was an ornate clo robe. It would have been the type of robe that nobility wore." Now, there's a problem with that. Jacob's family were shepherds. Guess what kind of robes all the other brothers wore? Brown, ugly, work out in the field, smelly robes. So, you've got this one who Joseph, Jacob loves more, Joseph. All the brothers know it. He's a tattletail. There's all this conflict going on in the family. And all of a sudden, one day the dad says, "Hey, I've got a present to give Joseph. Hey, everybody, gather around. This is such a great present. Here, open it up." Joseph. Joseph opens it up and he puts on this. It's almost like putting on a mink coat to go mow the lawn. That was really the type of gift he gave him. Do you think the other brothers are sitting around going, "Oh, that's so great, Dad. That is the nicest gift. You're such a thoughtful dad." They're going, "He's a jerk and you're a jerk. I didn't like him and I can't stand him right now." And so giving him this coat, what might have been a great gift to give to Joseph, for Joseph to receive, it was almost like a curse on his life that the father didn't know it, but he was setting Joseph up for greater animosity, greater jealousy, greater hatred from all the brothers. Now, that's all the introduction. That just kind of sets you up for what's going to happen in this family. Because in verse four it says this. But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them and they couldn't say a kind word to him. That's the dynamics of the family day in day out day in day out. That's the emotions. That's the feelings. That's the interaction that's going on with this family. Now I'm going to storyt tell the rest of it to you. I want you to go home today and read what I'm going to share with you there in chapter 37. But one day, Joseph, remember he's around 17 years old. He wakes up from sleep and he said, "Hey brothers, wake up before we go out to take care of the sheep. I got to tell you about this dream I had." He said, "I dreamed that we were bailing grains." Like, think of bailing hay. They would put them in what's called sheav and just the long stocks and they would tie them up so they could carry them around better. And he said, "I I dreamed that we were bailing these bundles of grain and you got yours and you got yours and you got yours and I got mine and we set them all down standing up and he goes, "Brothers, remember the brothers who hate him, the brothers who are jealous of him, the brothers who wished he was never born." And he goes, "Hey brothers, we set them all down and your sheav of of grain they bowed down and they worshiped mine." That's a cool dream, isn't it, brothers? Do you think the brother's like, "Wow, yes, good brother of ours." They're like, "Shut up." Okay. Like, what do you think? We're going to bow down and worship you? There's no way. Just get your stuff and get out of here. He goes, "But I had another dream, too." He said, "I had another dream and that is I was standing there and the moon and the stars and the sun, they all bowed down to me." Again, the brothers are hearing this is going, "Dude, you need to get a life. Okay? You you need to understand we'll never bow down to you. Nobody's going to bow down to you. Nobody likes you." again the animosity of this family. And Joseph actually took the dream about the moon and the stars and the sun and he went to his dad and said, "Hey dad, can I tell you about this dream?" And here's what the Bible says. Go back and read it word for word this this afternoon, chapter 37. His dad looked at him and said, "Joseph, you shouldn't be sharing these things. Like some dreams you're better off just to keep to yourself." But the Bible says, "But Jacob, Joa's father, walked away and thought to himself, I wonder what all this means." You see, this is the beginning of the story of Joseph. Now, it doesn't take too far to get in the story of Joseph. You're going, I don't think it's turning out the way he thought. I mean, he may be getting the road, but you can see the tension growing in all this. you can see all the things happening. And so you might be sitting there right now and you're just asking the question, so we're going to spend all summer long learning about this dysfunctional family and how it interrelates with Joseph? If I want that kind of dysfunctional family, I'll just go to the family reunion in July. Like really, we're going to spend all summer talking about this type of character. And you might even ask the question, there's a lot more to the story. And some of you, you know, and you're starting to remember now and others like, I tell me the rest of the story. I only knew about the code of many colors. Tell me the rest of the story. But you're you're you're hearing it and you're going, "How could anything good come from this?" I mean, think about it. I made a list here. Here's some things that we've already talked about in our first sermon. That's the introduction of Joseph. We talked about broken family, death of a loved one, jealousy, backbiting, divided loyalties in a home, unresolved family conflict.

So we ask the question, how could anything good come from this story? There's another question we sometimes ask. How could anything good come from my story? Your father might not have given you a colorful robe. You might not have had a big family that all the brothers hated you. But we all have a story, don't we? And sometimes we look in the mirror and we think about our own story and we question how could anything good come from this. I want you to know as the pastor of the church handcuffed in the backseat of the police car. Now this gets worse. I am a children's pastor at that time. Do you know how many phones I saw going by and videoing me as they were handcuffed me? I'm in the parking lot putting me in the police squad car and I'm in the back of the squad car thinking, "How can anything good come from this?" And no doubt you have asked the same question about moments in your life that didn't turn out the way you wanted them to, about seasons of your life that didn't turn out the way you expected them to. And for some in this room, you're even asking the question when you're going, that is a story of not a season and not a moment. It is a story of my life.

I'm going to give you a statement that I want you to hang on to. And this statement may be what I've referred to as a refrigerator statement. It's the one that you plaster on your refrigerator because if you don't, you'll forget it. But it's one that you need to be reminded of day after day after day. If you're taking notes in your in your handout, here's what you can write down. God is working on the story of your life even when you can't see the final chapter.

Just like the story of Joseph, God is working on the final chapter of your life even when you can't see or working on the story of your life even when you can't see the final chapter. All we see is what's right in front of us. But God sees down the road. All we see is destruction. All we see is hurt. All we see is just nothing seems to make sense. But could it be that God is behind the scenes and he's arranging the pieces of your life like a puzzle and he's putting this piece here and this piece here. And it doesn't look like anything that makes sense, but he is making an order to it. You know, if I walked up to you and handed you a bunch of broken pieces of tile, mosaic tile, maybe something that just looks something like this, just a bunch of little pieces up there. And those pieces of tiles are up there. And I'm going here. You're going, "What is this? My life." But for some, that is what your life feels like. I got a broken dream over here. I got a bad relationship over here. I got finances over here that don't make sense. I've got a career that I never want to do and I don't enjoy. And it feels like a bunch of bro broken pieces. And when you see that, that's all you can see. Just going, what can you do with this? Those are actually pieces of tile taken from a beautiful piece of artwork that looks like this.

Could it be what you see of your life is the first picture, but what God sees of your life is that picture that he's going to take the broken pieces. He's going to take the dysfunctional family. He's going to take the bad career moves. He's going to take the financial pitfalls. He's going to take all those things that seem to don't make sense and he's going to put them together.

That's the story of Joseph. And that's the story that we'll be looking at together, digging in deep. I promise you, even those that think, you know, Joseph, there's parts of this you've probably forgotten a long time ago. We're going to see all the beautiful broken pieces come together as we work this whole summer. But this summer, as we study Joseph, it's about more than just Joseph. And it's even more than just you and me. As we look at the story of Joseph, we will also see the story of Jesus. Think about this for a second. When Jesus entered the world, he stepped into a broken world with jealousy, betrayal, division, hatred, and sin. He stepped into dysfunction as much as Joseph, as much as you and I. And as he stepped into it, even as we watched his life unfold on this earth, as we read about in the gospels, he's trying to put it together. But here's what we find. His family questioned him. The religious leaders opposed him. The disciples that he was giving his whole life to misunderstood him. And at the end of his life, his followers fled when he needed the most. Joseph, Jesus, me, you. Isn't there some parallelism there that you see? And when Jesus was arrested and was crucified, it got worse. I mean, think about it. when he was nailed on the cross. If you were there in real time, if you're Peter, if you're James, if you're any one of the disciples, Mary, his mother, any one of those ones following him, nailed on the cross and what seemed to was bad seemed to got worse. And some may say that on the cross, things weren't turning out the way Jesus expected. At least his brother James could have said that. Peter could have said that. His mom could have said this is not Jesus. You were supposed to come and like be the new king of our of our nation. Remember the nation of Israel, those that Jesus was leading was the very nation that Abraham, the great grandfather of Joseph began. This is not the way it's supposed to turn out. But what appeared to be a tragedy on the cross became mine and your salvation. Do you know why you didn't get too rattled when I said they hung him on the cross? Because you're looking at it in rear view, not front view. You have a different perspective than anyone there that was there that day. We look back and we know he hung on the cross. We even know it got worse. They put him in the tomb. It got worse than that. They rolled the rock in front of him where he couldn't get out. It got worse than that, but better than that because on the third day, what happened? He resurrected. Hindsight gives us a completely different perspective to let us see and remind us that God is in the middle of it putting all the pieces together.

Whatever you're going through right now, whatever you're dealing with right now, all that you have right now is real time view. But guess who's got hindsight? Jesus has already seen your life. He already knows how all the pieces go back together. You see, when it came to Jesus, what looked like defeat became victory. What looked like death became life. What looked like the end of the story became the beginning of salvation. I want to read this little note to you that I I jotted down. Just as God was working through the brokenness of Joseph's family to accomplish something far greater than anyone could imagine, God was working through the suffering of Christ to accomplish something far greater than anyone else could see.

The story of Joseph, the story of Jesus, the story of you and I. So my encouragement as we move forward and we dig into the story is let's say God let us see our life as you see it. Things may not have turned out the way I expected but that doesn't mean you're not in charge God. That doesn't mean you have bigger and better plans than I can see right now.

The same God who is at work in Joseph's story is the same God who's working through the cross and is the same God who is still at work in your life. Do me a favor. Turn to the person next to you and just say, "I may not feel it." Say that. I may not feel it. But I'm claiming right now, God is at work in my life. Sometimes you just got to say it, don't you? May not feel it, may not even believe it, but sometimes you just got to say it. That's where the belief starts. The same God who is working in Joseph's life is the same God who is working through the cross is the same God who is still at work in your life. church. I can't wait this summer to walk and learn, discover the story of Joseph, the story of Jesus, and the story of you and I. Will you pray with me? Father, thank you for your word. An Old Testament story about a man that we learned about probably at vacation Bible school is the same story of the same man that's going to change our lives this summer. And so Jesus, would you help us to see a clearer picture of Joseph, Jesus, of you and through you our lives. And we pray this in your holy name, Jesus. Amen. And amen.