Joseph

Notes

The first thing to notice is that Joseph was cooperating with God not like Jonah. God’s plan includes preparing the stage.

This story really starts with ‘Jacob loved Joseph more than his brothers”. Gen 37:3-4

Then Joseph had to have a dream that puts him over his brothers and Joseph shares it. Gen 37:8

Joseph had to be sent out by Jacob...

the brothers were going to kill him,

but 1 brother, Judah, stopped them and gave them a different plan to put him in a pit and he was going to come back later and rescue him.

The Midianite caravan had to come at the perfect time

Potipher was the one Joseph was sold to

The wife had designs for Joseph and lied about him

Potipher didn’t have him killed but put in Jail

The cupbearer and the baker had to be put in with him

They had to be given dreams and share them with Joseph(the jailers aid.

The cupbearer had to forget and later to remember Joseph.

All this worked because Joseph was obedient and not only didn’t run from God but was faithful.

All this was in preparation for what comes next with Pharoah and beyond.

And you don’t think you can be used by God today?

You think this is an old story to be told and not lived out? Christian life is about expectation and living beyond our limits...relying on God’s limits...and he has none!!!

God is directing our lives and forming our character ...if we let him.

Proverbs 19:21. man makes plans, God directs

Downward steps in our lives are actually steps forward in God’s plan. ‘Nothing we do for the Lord is ever wasted”

Sometimes we feel like the ball in a pinball machine, bouncing in all directions and we do not see the overall plan but God does. God is running the paddles and looking at the overall situation, we can’t.

What makes the difference? Confidence and faith by us that God cares, God is working, God is smarter than we are, God loves us, God is in control.

v.1-3 We do not know what the cupbearer and the baker did. Except offended their king and the pharoah was furious and put them in jail

v.4 Joseph was also in jail and he was put in charge of them and it was for ‘some time’

v.5-8 God gives them a vision, even though they were not believers in God. Both had specific dreams that made them dejected/bothered. Joseph noticed their dejection.

v.8-11 They trusted Joseph enough to tell him their dreams. Remember Joseph told them dream interpretation was from God so they must have trusted Joseph by his actions and words

v.12-15Good interpretation for the cupbearer and Joseph pleads with him to remember him in jail without cause.

This reinforces Joseph attitude that shows he knows all the tings that have happened to him are ‘unfair’ He wasn’t a Pollyanna thinking everything was good. Optimistic? maybe..Confident in God, YES!

v.16-18 The baker saw the good result so then he wanted his dream interpreted. Bad News.

Are you willing to tell the cupbearers story and not the baker’s story? The Gospel contains them both. God is more than a God of love, mercy and grace but he is also...holy, righteous, just, jealous

v.18-22 It happened as Joseph predicted on Pharoah’s birthday. Quite a way to celebrate a birthday.

v.23 Joseph was forgotten

Genesis, Volume 3: Living by Faith (Genesis 37–50): An Expositional Commentary “Revealer of Secrets”

He who knows not and knows not that he knows not

is a fool; shun him.

He who knows not and knows that he knows not

is a child; teach him.

He who knows and knows not that he knows

is asleep; awake him.

He who knows and knows that he knows

is a wise man; follow him.

The last is Joseph..complete confidence in God. That is the story of the many prophets in the Old Testament and the apostles in the New Testament. They knew!!!!

What do you know? What actions do you take because you know? How do you live because you know?

Genesis, Volume 3: Living by Faith (Genesis 37–50): An Expositional Commentary Chain of Circumstances

Is God not also working out the circumstantial details of your life? One commentator writes correctly, “God directed everyone from king to jailer as easily as you set a watch or wind its spring. How sinful, therefore, for a Christian to worry or fret. God moves the very stars in their orbits to work his will, and he rules the passions of men and the decisions of those in authority to accomplish what he had planned.”1 Donald Barnhouse

Joseph was

Hated by his brothers and almost killed (rescued by Reuban)but sold as a slave

Sold to an Ishmalite/Midianite who sold him to Potiphar an officer of the Pharoah in Egypt and served him well. 39:3.

Genesis 39:3 (NASB95) — 3 Now his master saw that the Lord was with him and how the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hand.

Enter Potiphars wife who had designs for Joseph and Joseph did not cooperate. Wrongly accused of of a crime by the wife of that officer and thrown into jail.

Genesis 39:9 (NASB95) — 9 “There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?”

Did well , was trusted and seems like no reward for him even though he was true to his word and commitment to God. Joseph can’t catch a break.

Genesis 39:21 (NASB95) — 21 But the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer.

Then, in the next chapter we see the reason God had for this trial.

When your plan and God’s Plan collide

Attitude

The Charge of the Light Brigade. Poem by Lord Tennyson about the ill fated charge. “Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die

Heb 12:1-3

Journey

Future