Joseph--The Dreamer

This morning we're beginning a new sermon series on the life of Joseph. Joseph was the 11th son born to Jacob, he was the first born of Jacob's beloved wife Rachel

will recall that Jacob head fledge from Land of Canaan and went to his uncle's place and there met his cousin and fell in love with her and her name was Rachel and he asked leaving his uncle if he could marry Rachel and his uncle said yes but first you must work for me for 7 years and so Jake willingly works for his uncle all those seven years because he's so greatly desired Rachel that no trouble working in fact the seven years just seven days because of such great was his love but leaving turned out to be trickier if possible then Jacob was and Laban on his wedding night on Jacobs wedding light switch to daughter and so Jacob ended up marrying the older daughter how can I put this less beautiful then Rachel was and so he end up marrying her instead and then after the appointed time leaving gave Rachel to Jacob in exchange for another 7 years of work now when I first read this story all these years ago I thought that Jacob had married the wrong woman and had to wait 7 more years before you finally got Rachel. Wait until the time of the marriage or whatever was cons and then he got Rachel either way you look at it it's a nasty piece of work it's a source of all kinds of strife and Family Diner said just mess everything up because Leah was jealous of Rachel because she had Jacobs love and Rachel is jealous leah because she could Bear all these children and so it was a nightmare I'm sure if Judge Judy had been around in those days there would have been countless cases that you could have listened to and there would have been huge ratings of course on television so Jacob finally has a son by Rachel and his name is Joseph jacob was a favourite son only because he was born of Rachel but because he also displayed even at a very young age great wisdom and insight and discernment the Edge of Seventeen where we pick up Joseph story he's telling his father's flocks and he share this responsibility with his half-brother either in some sort of helping Roar the scriptures are clear and the way you interpret the Hebrew words that can either mean that he was a helper or he might have even been a supervisor in Sulphur younger child's to be in a supervisory role or even to be helping out his other brothers in such a way would have that would have created some sort of tension in frustration even amongst was older brothers do they have the younger one telling them what to do in the some of us have the experience of having your younger bossy siblings and it drives us Round the Bend right and you can relate and understand how it would be like for Joseph's brothers joseph presence did not him to his brothers and it's also clear from our passage that's his brothers were not the most responsible and hardworking men either no I didn't grow up in a large family only have an older sister and an older brother so annoying youngest right I can't remember if I was bossy but I do know that I fought hard to get my own way and sometimes probably on more than just a few occasions I did get my own way so I'm sure that is in many ways I was just as bad as Joseph was but if you are a member of a large family whether you're on the the top and or the bottom ends you have familiarity with these situations you know how your parents treated the youngest ones youngest I was giving a whole lot more latitude than my siblings were so what was it like in your family probably. Put yourself in Joseph shoes or even in his siblings shoes initially only these q Brothers think they were four brothers from these two wives of of Jacob initially only they had a grievance against Joseph and we're told why joseph was a man of integrity probably had witnessed the destruction in his own family and saw how lies and in hiding truth in the end don't make things better by the make it worse and so when his father asked for the reports of how things were going in the fields or how things were going with the flocks he was honestly told his father exactly what was going on telling his dad that his brothers were abusing the responsibility by not doing well when I served in Edson one of the members of that church told me a job that he had had when he leaves for a. Of time search for the town of Edson it was a union job some of us have heard Union stories before they said this town manager in in in working out this job had figured out how he could possibly get the most pay for the absolute least amount of work and service fellow you know I'm a very upstanding hard-working diligence and his pass was given a task to do and you right away put all this effort into doing it and no sooner had he gotten done I need something else to do and then manager said well what do you mean why I finished all that job should have taken you for hours is 4 hours it took me half an hour what are you talkin about so you need to slow down you're working too fast you're making the rest of us look bad turn the line if you want of us you tried but he just couldn't do it he had such a work ethic that he ended up quitting the job giving up the benefits giving up a good pay giving up what others might have seen as a really easy way to make a lot of money but instead found a different job coincidentally with it the different Union i'm sure he was still able to work hard and we didn't get into that that way eventually came to see the the older boss has a way of working I don't know but here is Joseph and his brothers are slacking off and I'm sure they're saying similar things to him Joseph slow down you're making us look bad what's going on here doesn't care he's got too many kids got too many feels just got too many foxy he can't possibly watch all of his all the time we can live the good life you know take a longer lunch so you know one of us goes and gets Pizza okay we just have to go to Italy and back it's not going to take that long the Joseph couldn't doing anything but his best would have been sinning against his father and certainly keeping it a secret from his father would have violated the trust that his father had put in him in this way we see how Joseph had the same attitude of Jesus Christ jesus refused to fall into Satan's Temptations take the shortcut to take the easy route remain true to his father out of love and respect for him Paul tells us in Philippians chapter 2 that we should have the same attitude as Jesus Christ do you have Christ attitude you I to question that we have to ask ourselves all of the time we also have to ask ourselves what is motivating on obedience are we acting Faithfully out of fear from the father's punishment if we are then we will struggle under a great burden will never truly experience The Father's Love you'll remain distant from us he is just in for that we are keeping him distance if you allow the righteousness of Christ to cover you to clothe you you will respond to God as God has responded to you and that is in love we can have the same attitude as Jesus Christ because Jesus gives us his attitude he has already given it to us Jesus has placed his very own love for his father in a so bad how to beat this love as we think about my father and I challenge you in this way specifically in order to generate a greater and deeper love for God here's where you start give thanks to God give thanks to him for who he is for the love of Jesus Christ there's somebody in your life do you have difficulties with maybe they have sinned against you in in a certain way and then you just have a hard time forgiving them pray for them to pray this way father I thank you for this person in my life even though I am struggling with these feelings I give you thanks for them because you created them as you give thanks for other people as you give thanks for God it will stir up love for him for God and for those people it has love is stirred up then comes responsibility then comes a desire to serve their then comes a desire to show love grace and mercy to them allow Christ in his love to grow in you out of a heart of thankfulness and demonstrate your love to God by keeping his,nd joseph brother's perspective Joseph was nothing more than a spoiled brat tattle tailing goody-two-shoes you must have infuriated them rather than respecting him for his work ethic is integrity and his honesty they hated him so much so that these four straight up hatred amongst all the other brothers it wasn't hard to do even though Joseph honest and a young man of integrity even though you possess great wisdom even though the Lord was with him he wasn't very bright what song is wisdom came from seeing the Strife in his whole family is 4 but when it came to talking to his brothers it wasn't too bright his dad gave him this wonderful cloak never look like if you had long sleeves Scholars are all over the all over the place what it looks like and look at paintings and interesting those put the cloak actually foreshadows what's going to happen later on in this life so I can be wearing that cloak anymore he's going to be wearing one that Pharaoh gave him patricia V he had been smarter we went to the field to visit his brothers how to take an axe logo off is that good and put a different one on we went to his brothers and told him about his told them about his dreams you could have said it in such a way that make them wonder why he received the dreams and said he comes on at 6. The Lord gives me dreams and this is what I Dreamed a Dream but we're out in the fields and and we are gathering Crane and and also the grand that I had dinner together extra tall and all your dream that you had gathered came around mine and bow down to I got a pretty good future ahead of me. Glory Harvester logo $20. So straight and his brothers looked at him and hated him you're frustrated with him and the angry somehow he doesn't see that because the Lord blesses him with another dream tell the truth brothers and he tells it to his dad and his dad even rebukes him joseph wasn't very bright joseph was however a devout follower of the Lord and out of cards on purpose and on Pleasure he blessed Joseph with these dreams you did this because he knew Joseph he knew that Joseph had this bad relationship with his brother so the lord gave him dreams what do Joseph Rhodes maybe ignorance whatever personality he knew that in giving Joseph these dreams you would cars his brothers to get angry and more angry and still more Angry until next week when we look at what happens it boils over in the extreme hatred Lord knew that i'm even prepared for it you see the word cakes people it takes you and he takes me and he takes the characters that we have it takes a personalities that we have he takes the good parts of us need takes even the bad parts of us the person aren't so nice for other people to live with he uses it for his own purposes so maybe you are a person kind of like Josephine your kind of ignorantly obnoxious toward other people mcCall rates you but behind your back they speak less than kind things maybe you're like Joseph brother's trying to get away with doing the very least amount you can do either in your own work or for the lure maybe you're somewhere in between on that Spectrum it doesn't really matter by what matters is that God created you just like he created Joseph just like he created Joseph Brothers to recreate all of them for a specific purpose play unfurling of this story trust yourself is a famous person before his family from their perspective he's just a son favourite son he's just a son he's just a brother these annoying to the point of hatred let's comedy nevertheless as we see God brings all these people all these personalities into this family for a reason for the Salvation of God's people god broke his own son into the world to see them jesus was part of a family and his brothers didn't understand him either world part of families biological families we have good family members we have some not-so-good family some Treatise row others not so much the God created all of us for a purpose no don't get me wrong. What does not ordain evil he transforms evil actions into our benefits Cross of Good Friday the execution of an innocent man the Son of God no less was the man who did it intended it for evil but God intended it for good our good to set us free from sin god is building this congregation into a family his family we've had hardship and struggle we've had bad good times we've had good people and maybe not so good people going to takes all of it and uses it to form us into the people he redeemed us to become joseph trusted God is listed in hebrews chapter 11 as a man of faith who foresaw The Exodus of the people joseph loved his father he loves his brothers he probably understood his dreams his brother certainly got the points in his father certainly caught the point but did you notice at the end of verse 11 where it says his father kept the matter in mind ring a bell in your mind phrase remind you of another person another parents who had a son about whom certain things were spoken of remind you of Mary jesus mom she pondered all these things in her heart jacob understood that the dreams were from the Lord Jacob understood that God was up to something he knew that he would understand what it all meant someday just like Mary when is Good Friday aries heart torn apart come on Easter Sunday she understood joseph trusted God also he trusted God with his life at the moment his future looked great his siblings and even his parents would Revere him joseph being a man of integrity had to share his dreams revelation from the Lord with his siblings even though it meant that they would hate him even more he was obligated to tell the truth brothers and Sisters in Christ we have the truth concerning Jesus Christ we need to share it with people in the world some people are going to react just as poorly to that truth as Joseph's brothers reacted to him cuz we have to tell them the truth about the situation they're living in jesus came to tell us the truth and even though we didn't want to hear it we listened even though he knew it would cost him his life he came and he told it anyway out of love for our father let us also pursue honesty truth and integrity filled with a presence and work of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit Let's pray.