Before we get into the message this morning I want to start off
recognizing all of the fathers here. As a father you have the responsibility to
lead your family. It is not always easy balancing family life, work
responsibilities, financial concerns, etc... but as a father that is what you
are called to do. We also don’t always get it right, we get angry, we make
mistakes, we make the wrong choices. But, everything we do is out of love for
our children. Growing up without my father in my life I honestly did not know
the value the father provided to a family, other than another pay check. As a
father myself, I see how what I do, the life I live, the example I am, has an
impact on the future generation. Fathers, I want to thank you for what you do.
I pray today is a wonderful Father’s day for you. Thank You!
As we turn to the Story, we need to remember that during this series we
will be looking at both the Lower Story and the Upper Story.
The Lower Story is the things we deal with on a daily basis. It is the
choices and decisions we make. The Upper Story is God’s big plan, tied to His
supreme passion of wanting to spend eternity with us and how it works out in
our lives. We saw the Upper Story being worked out in the last two weeks of The
Story. We say God created everything in the universes and yet God’s passion is
His final creation, human beings and His desire to be with us. So when Adam and
Eve sinned, God made a plan to get us back through the promise of a Savior. The
Upper Story continued as God built a nation upon faith of the most unlikely
couple.
This morning we pick up The Story and get to see the Upper Story and
Lower Story played out in the life a man named Joseph. Joseph was dealt a bad
hand in life but he continued to honor God and was eventually blessed beyond
his wildest dreams. As we look at The Story let’s remember that both the Upper
and Lower Stories are playing out in our own lives. We need to be careful to
not let the Lower Story bog us down so much that we cannot see what God is
doing in the Upper Story. If you think about it, we need to keep our eyes open
to what God is doing in the Upper Story to make sense out of all the stuff we
deal with in life.
Joseph’s life started out fairly pampered.
Genesis 37:3
“3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than
his other sons because Joseph was a son born to him in his old age, and he made
a robe of many colors for him.”
While Joseph was the son of a sheep herder, Joseph was
treated better than his brothers. He is given nicer clothes to wear and most likely
was not expected to work as hard as the others. This created some serious
tension, which did not get any better when Joseph started having prophetic
dreams and shared them with his family.
Genesis 37:5-8
“5 Then
Joseph had a dream. When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. 6 He
said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 There we were,
binding sheaves of grain in the field. Suddenly my sheaf stood up, and your
sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.”
8 “Are
you really going to reign over us?” his brothers asked him. “Are you really
going to rule us?” So they hated him even more because of his dream and what he
had said.”
Talk about not the smartest thing
to do. Here Joseph already despised by his brothers, thinks it’s a good idea to
tell them about his dream. A dream that shows that they are going to submit to
him, probably not the wisest thing to do. As if that was not bad enough and the
hatred it earned him from his brothers, he went and did it a second time. He brothers
were full of jealousy and hatred, which tends to lead to bad things.
Shortly thereafter, we find Israel
sending his favorite, unwise, son out to check on his brothers and that is
where things get real ugly. The brothers first plotted to kill Joseph but
decided it might be better to get some money out of him. They sold him to a
slave trader and dipped his prized cloak in blood and lied to their father
saying Joseph had been killed. Joseph was then sold in Egypt to Potiphar, an
officer of Pharaoh and the Captain of the guard.
Imagine how down Joseph must have
been feeling. His life starts out with s silver spoon in his mouth, but then he
is betrayed by his own flesh and blood. He went from a life of privilege to one
of servitude. Thankfully this all fit into God’s plan, the Upper Story.
Genesis 39:2-6
“2 The
Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, serving in the
household of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that
the Lord was with him and that the Lord made
everything he did successful, 4 Joseph found favor in his
master’s sight and became his personal attendant. Potiphar also put him in
charge of his household and placed all that he owned under his authority. 5 From
the time that he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned,
the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house because of Joseph. The Lord’s blessing was on all that he owned, in his house and in his
fields. 6 He left all that he owned under Joseph’s authority;
he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.”
Joseph honored God and God blessed
everything he did. No matter how bad things were God was with Joseph.
Could Joseph have been preoccupied
with the betrayal? Could he have let everything weigh him down? Could he have
allowed all that happened turn to bitterness and hatred?... Yes, he could have.
Joseph did not let the things of the Lower Story, the here and now, ruin him.
Joseph was successful and was
probably thanking God for making lemonade out of the lemons he had been given.
His brothers had intended for things to be horrible, but God had other plans. Then
the rug was pulled out from under Joseph once again.
Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce
Joseph, but honoring God and respecting the man who had elevated from scrubbing
floors to running his house, Joseph resisted. She tried time and again, until
one day when Joseph turned her down she accused Joseph of attacking her. Which
landed Joseph in prison, life was going good and then he was knocked down once
again.
The prisons of this time in Egypt
did not have running water, free TV, weight rooms, and three square meals a
day. This would have been a cold, wet, dingy, stinky place to be. Joseph was
knocked down once again.
When disappointment hits, we might
take it out on God or we might use it as an excuse to turn away from God. If we
are focused on ourselves, that is likely to happen. If on the other hand we can
see that God has a plan, an Upper Story and our Lower Story is a part of
something bigger. When you find yourself in a position like Joseph, you need to
ask one simple question. Does God Love Me? If you believe that God loves you,
you will know that God wants to be with you. Joseph believed God loved him and
it showed in his life.
Genesis 39:21-23
“21 But
the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him. He granted him favor
in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 The warden put all the
prisoners who were in the prison under Joseph’s authority, and he was
responsible for everything that was done there. 23 The warden
did not bother with anything under Joseph’s authority, because the Lord was with him, and the Lord made
everything that he did successful.
Once again, God
works in Joseph’s life and turns something bad into something good. This was
true for Joseph and it true for you. Do you believe that God loves you right
here and right now? When you go through the disappointments and trials of life,
His love never stops. God NEVER stops loving you. The next time you go through
a trial, remind yourself “Jesus Loves Me.” You could sing the song “Jesus Loves
me this I know”. If your are having marriage issues, “Yes, Jesus loves me.” Bad
report from the doctor, “Yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.” The next
time you are going through something tough, remember that Jesus Loves You!
So far all of this
has happened to set Joseph up for something that will change His life for good
and be a major step in the history of the Nation God is creating.
While Joseph is in
prison God gives him the ability two interpret two dreams. One for the royal
cup bearer and the other for the chief baker. The cup bearer was to be restored
to his position and the baker was to die. It took the cup bearer two years to finally
tell Pharaoh about the gift God has given Joseph when Pharaoh could find no one
to interpret his dreams.
Genesis 41:15-16
“15 Pharaoh
said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, and no one can interpret it. But I have
heard it said about you that you can hear a dream and interpret it.”
16 “I
am not able to,” Joseph answered Pharaoh. “It is God who will give Pharaoh a
favorable answer.”
Joseph was
summoned and gave credit where the credit was due when he said it was God who
will give the answer Pharaoh was looking for.
The dreams told of
7 wonderful, bountiful years, followed by 7 years of drought and famine. God
was warning Pharaoh of what was to come and giving him a chance to prepare.
Seeing the wisdom that God had given Joseph, Pharaoh elevated Joseph over all
of Egypt. He had authority over everything. Once again God blessed Joseph and
took calamity and turned it into good.
Joseph started as
the favorite son and ended up as a slave. He was put in charge of the Captain
of the Guards house and then ended up in jail. From the lowest position of his
life, he was elevated to 2nd to only Pharaoh.
As it said in
Genesis 39:2
“The Lord was with Joseph”
Joseph could have
easily let life pull him down, but instead he honored God and was blessed and
the blessings kept coming.
If we take a step
back and look at what God was doing, we can see that God had a plan all along. The
dreams Joseph shared with his brothers do come true. At the age of 39, Joseph’s
brothers come to Egypt and bow down to Joseph asking for food.
In Genesis 42, the
sons of Israel come to Joseph asking for food and he treats them harshly. In
chapter 43 they return to Egypt and bring their youngest brother Benjamin with
them and in chapter 44 Joseph lays a trap for them planting his cup in Benjamin’s
bag. When it is found Judah begs to be punished in Benjamin’s place. Upon
seeing Judah’s love for his youngest brother, Joseph reveals himself to his
brothers in chapter 45.
Genesis 45:3-8
“3 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my
father still living?” But they could not answer him because they were terrified
in his presence.
4 Then
Joseph said to his brothers, “Please, come near me,” and they came near. “I am
Joseph, your brother,” he said, “the one you sold into Egypt. 5 And
now don’t be worried or angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God
sent me ahead of you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has
been in the land these two years, and there will be five more years without
plowing or harvesting. 7 God sent me ahead of you to establish
you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. 8 Therefore
it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh,
lord of his entire household, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.”
It is hear that
Joseph understands and reveals that his struggles in life, the Lower Story, was
all part of God’s Plan, the Upper Story.
Genesis 50:19-20
“19 But
Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You
planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present
result—the survival of many people.”
Joseph was God’s agent to save the
new nation by bringing the new nation to Egypt. If this had not been done,
there is no telling if they would have survived in Canaan for another 5 years
without a harvest. Instead they flourished in Egypt and the Israelites grew to
a great nation of over a million people.
God is at work in all the details
of our lives to accomplish His purposes.
Romans 8:28
“We know that all things work
together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to
His purpose.”
Knowing that God is working in our
lives even when things seem to be crumbling around us, allows us to honor Him
and remember that we need to look to the Upper Story and see what God has in
store.
Remember God loves you and He wants
to spend eternity with you!
If you have not picked up your copy of The Story please do and join us on this amazing journey!
Blessings,
Robert
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