When Pride Gets in the Way of the Promise

I am thankful this evening… that God speaks to His people!

I am glad tonight that we do not have to imagine what God might say… but rather we can listen to what He is saying to us.

I want us to stop and think about the many ways God speaks to us. Can we name those ways this evening?

He speaks to us through prayer.

He speaks to us through the Spirit.

He speaks to us through the Word.

He speaks to us through dreams.

He speaks to us through visions.

He speaks to us… through others.

AND… He has given us a metric or a standard by which we can know if the “word” is coming from God or if it is coming from another source.

The Word of God is that metric or standard. The Word helps to remove any guess work out of knowing who it is that is talking! Why? Because when God speaks, it will ALWAYS line up with His Word!

So… what are we suppose to do… when God speaks?

Prayerfully, we act upon the word He has given us! Be it a word of direction, correction, or protection, we need to MOVE on what He is saying.

And with this in mind, we need to know that it is possible… to move in the wrong direction regarding the word given to us.

We can reject it… like Jonah did.

We can accept it (the right way to go) and obey.

OR… a person can use it in a prideful boast to show his brothers that some day, they will bow down to him all while wearing a richly ornamented robe made bad their dad to show his favor!

Can pride get in the way of what God is wanting to do in our lives? I’m afraid that this happens more than we even realize!

In our story this evening, we are going to see how pride caused Joseph to do a foolish, even childish, thing that would land him in a place he never thought possible.

In our story, pride might move us to make a name for ourselves OR refuse to do something God is calling us to do because it is beneath us… in either case, pride can cause us to miss the promise.

Joseph allows his pride… to get the best of him. Let’s look at the lead up for a moment.

Genesis 37:2–4 NIV

2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

Oh man… things don’t sound exactly good in the household!

One, Joseph is a teenager and he is building a name for himself with his dad.

He brings a bad report about his brothers. We don’t know what was said, but he’s “tattling” on his brothers.

I’m not sure that I know anyone who likes… a tattletale! Consider this:

IF a person seems eager to give a bad report to you regarding someone else… chances are… when given the opportunity… they will also give a bad report about you to others!

In ministry, I’ve come across a few individuals who were more than eager to tell me the wrongs of another pastor. The first time this happened, my then lead pastor and continued mentor pulled me aside and gave me this warning: Be careful. Because if they are eager to tear down another pastor, openly and freely, your name could be the next one they are tearing down.

And it wasn’t long before I became the target of this person’s rants.

Joseph had earned favor with dad… but at what cost? His brothers hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

Look at the wording, it didn’t say they would not… it said they could not. This is some deeply entrenched hatred!

Hatred aside, Joseph was LOVING his favor with dad! He liked being the favored son! He stood out… literally… in his bright beautiful coat and his pride was boiling over!

Even with all this going on… God had a plan.

Do you know that even in our mess… God has a plan? Did you know that God can take our mess and turn it into something amazing?

In order for that to happen… God can USE our mess to help get us back online. I believe this is what happened with Joseph. And it all starts, with a dream.

The Dream

Genesis 37:5–11 NIV

5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.” 8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. 9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

God gives Joseph a dream. And He does this fully aware of Joseph’s pride problem.

God had a plan for Joseph… but how would God’s plan come to fruition with Joseph’s pride problem?

I believe the dream could have been received in two ways:

One, Joseph is humbled by the dream. He understands the magnitude of what he has been shown and his heart is humbled by the thought of God using him in mighty ways.

Two, the dream goes to his head (see what I did there) and Joseph, in a long round about way… would be humbled in another way.

My point? God’s revelation was… God’s revelation. What a person chooses to do with that revelation will greatly determine what happens next.

You will NEVER go wrong by operating in a way that honors God and places Him first. But… if you go in the way that puts you first instead of God, you might run into some obstacles.

This might look like:

Arguing with God regarding the timing of the plan.

Arguing with God regarding details of the plan.

Arguing with God regarding the nature of the plan.

Arguing with God regarding the plan itself.

This is a me-first mentality… and Joseph sank deep within it.

He already had dad’s favor… now he has the favor of God!?! And… his brothers are going to bow to him!?! Bring it on! He really must be the high and mighty guy he thinks he is!!!

Joseph is strutting his stuff! Problem is, no one is lining up with his pride… they are instead rejecting it.

So Joseph had chosen the second path. Instead of being humble and obedient, He is prideful and defiant.

The dream was not given that it would be shared, it was given that he might have a glimpse of what was to come.

Instead of coming into this with pride… prayerfully he would have moved by faith. If God had given him the dream, then Joseph needed to trust in God to make it happen… no matter what… not take matters into his own hands.

This seems to be a theme throughout Genesis and we need to pay attention to the warning. When God speaks or gives a promise, we need to trust Him with the details. We do not need to force or manufacture what comes next. God will take care of it all.

Joseph missed that memo… and the sharing of his dream, leads to disaster.

The Disaster

There comes a time when Joseph’s brothers are in the field with the herds. Dad sends Joseph out to check on them. As Joseph is approaching, we see the brothers begin to act in their hatred.

Genesis 37:19–20 NIV

19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. 20 “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”

It is clear… they resented the dream AND the dreamer. So, it was only logical to take them out. No Joseph meant no dream. They would be free of this mess and could on with life. But as time goes by, their plan begins to shift.

They finally land on throwing him in a cistern and then selling him into slavery.

Genesis 37:26–28 NIV

26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed. 28 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.

I can’t imagine that Joseph ever dreamed… he would find himself in this position. In fact, I bet he was thinking “Wait a minute! This is NOT how things are supposed to be going right now!”

But just because things did not look favorable for Joseph did not mean that God was not moving. In fact, God was using this situation to bring about the results of the given dream.

But I wonder… if Joseph had been humble at the reception of the dream… would this have played out differently? Only God knows the answer to that question!

But this is something that we do know tonight Proverbs 16:18

Proverbs 16:18 NIV

18 Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

Unchecked pride will lead to destruction.

Destroyed relationships, plans, possibilities, opportunities, etc. Pride does nothing but tear down others in order to build up self.

Pride should NOT be our response when God speaks or gives us a revelation. Our hearts should be humbled at the idea that God chooses to use us… despite our flaws and failures.

None of us are perfect… but God still uses us! AND… the things that He reveals can only come about by HIS POWER AND AUTHORITY. Not be our might or our power.

Closing

As we close, I want us to simply remember that when God speaks, we need to humbly submit ourselves to what He is revealing.

I am thankful that God speaks to His people! My prayer is that as His people, we will respond in a way that honors Him through obedience and faith.

Nothing will slow down your walk with the Lord faster than pride. Pride leads us to believe it’s all about us instead of God. It puts self above all else and that is a very dangerous reality to live in.

We are called to give of ourselves… completely. Not just a part but all of ourselves. We are called to honor God and to glorify His name. We cannot glorify God… and self… at the same time.

Hear from God… faithfully obey with a humble heart.

Disclosure… I’m not saying that such will keep you from experiencing future hardship… but it does help keep you in the right mindset to faithfully keep walking as the Lord would lead you to go.