D - Joseph Pt. 2 (Genesis 37: 12-36)
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24 Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.
It’s been a while since we last got together for church last time, but last time we got together we talked about Joseph. We learned that Joseph was 1 of 11 brothers and his dad loved him more than he loved the rest of his brothers. It seems like a cool thing to be the favorite. Like I am Mrs. Stephanie’s favorite husband. That’s kinda cool right?
JK, I’m Mrs. Stephanie’s only husband. But while it’s kind of cool to be the favorite, being the favorite caused Joseph to be hated by the rest of his brothers. And We’re going to see what happens next:
So Joseph’s brothers went to take care of their family's flock. While they were out there, Joseph went to go see his brothers because his dad sent him. While Joseph was far away, his brothers saw him and said this:
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.”
They planned to kill Joseph! Isn’t that crazy?! But the oldest of the brothers, his name was Reuben, can you say Reuben? He tried to save his brother by telling them not to kill him. But let’s read what happened next:
Genesis 37:23–25 (NIV)
23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing—
24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.
25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead....
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.
They took their brother, Joseph, and sold him to slave traders. Isn’t that awful? They hated him so much, they thought about killing him but instead they sold him into slavery. Let’s be honest, God protected Joseph. It may not seem that way now, Joseph was about to be killed though and instead of being killed, he was sold into slavery.
It is an awful thing that happened to him, but being sold was better than being killed. If you have never read the story before then you don’t know what happens next. And we are going to see later next week how God is going to use this awful mess to protect Joseph and eventually save his people.
But we won’t get to that until next week. For now, we see one bad thing after another happen to Joseph and as I read this I can’t help but ask this question:
Why do bad things happen?
We saw last week that truthfully, Joseph wasn’t perfect, his dad wasn’t perfect, and his brothers aren’t perfect. But who is? Not me, I am definitely not. But although Joseph and his family are not perfect, they are God’s people. So why do bad things happen?
Through this story I learn something super important:
God won’t make anyone do anything.
God is a very kind God. He gives all kinds of things. The roof over your head, the clothes on your back, your family, your friends, the electronics you play on. God gives you all of those things. When do you guys go back to school? Have you been on break? Did you know that summer break is a gift from God? Yeah it is. God also gives us something we like to call:
Free Will.
What is free will?
The definition of free will is:
The ability to act on your own.
We can do the things we want. Let’s be honest. I love to play the guitar so I play the guitar. I love to eat so I eat. I love to hang out with you guys so I hang out with you guys. We do the things we want. Sometimes we do things we don’t want to do, like homework, chores, getting up early but no one forces us too. We just know we ought to, so we do those things. But having the ability to choose is a gift from God.
So why do bad things happen?
God won’t make bad people do good things.
Many bad things have probably happened to you guys before. and sometimes we want to blame God for those things that happen, but you have to remember that God does not make bad things happen, he allows people to make decisions and sometimes people make bad decisions. Even though God does not want them too.
Joseph could blame God, and he might, we’ll take a look at that next week, but even if Joseph blames God for being sold into slavery we must see that God did not make that happen, his brothers did that.
God is good, but people are not always good. The reason why God allows people to make their own decisions, is because He wants you to choose to follow him. He doesn’t want to make you. God wants you to choose Him. My question for you today is:
in a world in which people choose to blame God, will you choose to follow God?
Let’s play a game and then we’ll have discussion questions:
How do you think Joseph feels right now in the story?
How would you feel if you were in Joseph’s shoes?
Why do you think it’s easier for people to blame God for the difficulties in their life?
in your group: think about 3 good things God has gifted you and pray thanking God for those things together.
24 Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.