The Forgotten Son
Notes
Transcript
The Forgotten Son
The Forgotten Son
Eye doctor switching between lenses. Is this clear or this one? 1 or 2?
At times we see clearly, others it’s all out of focus. What is our purpose? Are we on the right path? Are we making any difference in the world?
Pray
36-40 The lens of scripture flips back and forth between clear, and cloudy. Wicked, and righteous. The things of this world, and the things of God.
It starts out with an picture of rebelion. Chapter 36 - Esau leaves the land. He chooses to remove himself from the promise of God, the blessing of God, in the land God has given.
1 These are the generations of Esau (that is, Edom). 2 Esau took his wives from the Canaanites: Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, Oholibamah the daughter of Anah the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite,
6 Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, his livestock, all his beasts, and all his property that he had acquired in the land of Canaan. He went into a land away from his brother Jacob. 7 For their possessions were too great for them to dwell together. The land of their sojournings could not support them because of their livestock. 8 So Esau settled in the hill country of Seir. (Esau is Edom.)
Outside of the context of Genesis, we might struggle to see the problem here. The text gives us a fairly reasonable situation - There wasn’t enough room, so Esau found greener pastures.
But we’ve seen this before. When Abraham and Lot had too many sheep for the land, Lot chose to leave the land God had told them to dwell in.
Was this the best land in all the region? Maybe not. But, it was where God chose to plant His people and His nation. When Lot chose to dwell in the city of the wicked, he lost almost everything. When Esau chooses to leave Canaan and plant in Edom, he gains a new home, more wealth, and dominance in an new nation. Just like Ishmael, God give Esau a form of the blessing, but not the substance of it.
So what’s the problem? The problem is Esau didn’t have his pleasure in the Lord, but in what he could achieve. His wives from the nations, his home on his terms, his identity in his own alliances.
When we establish the meaning and motion of our lives outside of God’s design and set our desires outside of His desires, we might end up with a form of the promise, but not the substance of it.
And that’s were Esau was. His descendants become the rulers of Edom. And over the generations, by the time Israel escapes Egypt, Edom is the nation that is called out as standing in their way to the promised land.
How often the case that a little change in direction, a little shift in desire, results in opposing the purpose of God. When we start without commitment, we can end up as enemies.
37 - But Esau was Jacobs brother. And Jacob remained faithful to the promise God had given him. God had renamed Jacob Israel. And Jacob had 12 sons.
This is the point in Genesis that the entire book shifts to the sons of Israel. And mostly about one - Joseph.
1 Jacob lived in the land of his father’s sojournings, in the land of Canaan. 2 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors. 4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.
This is the beginning of Josephs story. And it doesn’t start out great. There’s favoritism and factions in his family. Joseph was a cocky and brash 17 year old… because he was a 17 year old! He got special treatment. His brothers didn’t like him, in no small part due to his own actions.
Joseph would have a few dreams though. They tell of how his brothers and parents will give him honor.
10 But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?” 11 And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.
Joseph
Joseph
So his brothers hatch a plan to get rid of him. But they can’t just kill him themselves for the sake of their father. They scheme to get rid of him and end up selling him as a slave to traders headed to Egypt.
There are two themes of note here that will help understand the dynamics.
Joseph begins at this point to become the standout character in this story. The lens focuses more on him than anyone else. And what we will see is someone who’s life and actions reflect Jesus in a more complete way than probably anyone else in the Bible.
Abraham gave us a picture of what faith in God’s promise looks like.
Joseph shows us what the end-point of that promise will look like.
There are many, many parallels between Joseph and Jesus. I’ve got a handout in the back if you’d like to explore some of those.
If there’s someone to look to, it seems to be Joseph.
If Joseph points us to redemption in Jesus, The accounts of Esau earlier, and then Josephs brother Judah give us a picture of rebellion.
After Josephs brothers sold him into slavery, his brother Judah fell into many of the same patters we’ve seen in Esau and others throughout Genesis.
1 It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. 2 There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua. He took her and went in to her, 3 and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er. 4 She conceived again and bore a son, and she called his name Onan. 5 Yet again she bore a son, and she called his name Shelah. Judah was in Chezib when she bore him.
Judah
Judah
Let me summarize this story. Judah’s sons were wicked. So much so, that the text says God killed them. But before they died, his oldest married Tamar. But before she had a child, Er died.
Tamar then to Onan. Onan died without an heir.
Judah promised once Shelah was of age, he would marry her. In all this, Judah did what was right.
But when Shelah was of age, Judah hid that from Tamar. This was a huge sin against her and would consign her to be a widow in her own fathers home until she died.
So she deceived her father-in-law Judah by dressing up as a cult prostitute and propositioning him. She ends up blackmailing him because if she didn’t, she would have been killed for being unfaithful.
If all this sounds way messed up… It mostly is! Some of it is a difference in culture. God gives us freedom in that. But this is way beyond that.
This is one of the lenses of rebelion in this passage. Why do I bring this one up? If Joseph is the one who points us to Jesus, why talk about Judah’s Jerry Springer family?
Well, Because Jesus cam from Judah and Tamar! What kind of forgiveness and redemption is found in God’s promise? The kind that overcomes ALL things! God delivers like Joseph and redeems like Judah!
The story shifts back to Joseph now. That very image of God’s deliverance.
Potiphar, His Wife, and the Prison
Potiphar, His Wife, and the Prison
We have two accounts of Joseph’s adventures in Egypt. One shows Josephs integrity to righteousness. The other about God’s purpose in using Joseph to bring about that nation that will be called by his name.
Potiphar’s house…
Two Dreams…
Joseph is left in what seems to be a forgotten hole. abandoned by family, forgotten by the world. All his righteous choices have not done him any good.
But there is hope for us, when we feel like forgotten ones in the world.
Both Joseph and Judah point to Jesus…
The deliverer of those in bondage, prison. Caught up in all sorts of things
And Judah points to hope in Jesus for those who need redemption. Whose choices in the past have separated us from God’s love, from His promise, or from His purpose in our lives.
Pray