Oasis or Mirage?

Big Idea: We can easily read the story of Joseph rising to power in Egypt as the ‘Big Payoff.’ Our minds are naturally transported to this conclusion because of how terrible Joseph’s circumstances have been up to this point and how favorable they now are. The fact that our minds immediately go there (to view his exaltation in Egypt as the big payoff) speaks to our hearts inclination to become distracted by the riches of Egypt and lose sight of Gods plan of redemption and our part in it. What if Satan’s greatest weapon to disrupting God’s kingdom advancement isn’t sin, oppression, sickness, and death? We love the story of Job because it fits the narrative we already have of the enemy in our head. While the enemy does sometimes use those things, what if Satan’s greatest weapon against God’s kingdom people carrying out God’s kingdom plan is opulence? What if Satan reserves the big guns for those who stand to do the greatest good for God’s kingdom, and what if those ‘big guns’ aren’t temptation or overt oppression what if it is opulence. Its like a loaded gun he hands to an unsuspecting four-year-old.

Briefly recap: story behind the story...

Oasis vs. Mirage illustration…

A mirage is dangerous because of what it can cause us to do.

I want to briefly recap Joseph’s story and then I’ll tell you why Mirages...

Set up the big payoff feeling by recounting the story up to this point...

Talk about how we are inclined to see this part of Joseph’s story as the big payoff.

Tell the moralistic story we often try to take away from this part of the Joseph narrative. “If we just hang on and have faith, everything will work out ok....see…Joseph is living proof of that.” And then our kids get up and sing father Abraham, glue some googly eyes on a paper bag and then its time for pickup.

“The fact that we are inclined to see Joseph’s exaltation in Egypt as an oasis moment tells us something about our heart.”

My hope is to ruin that image of this part of Joseph’s story for you today. I hope you never look at it the same again because when our hearts are inclined to see this as the Oasis part of Joseph’s story, it can do some real damage because… this part of the story is actually a mirage. When people go off chasing the mirage it leaves them disenfranchised from the true faith and with a false view of God that they will ultimately reject when things fail to pan out the way it did for Joseph.

Let’s just retell the story in some modern terms to show you what I mean about this being a mirage:

There is a story in one of my commentaries that hopefully puts this in perspective:

Joseph and the Gospel of Many Colors: Reading an Old Story in a New Way 5 Exaltation (Genesis 41)

Helen is a concerned mother. She has a son named Christian who keeps her on her knees. She has frequently called upon the elders of her church to pray for her boy. Christian was always a talented, handsome young man. He went to a great university, earned an impressive degree, and landed a great job. Whatever he touched seemed to turn to gold. However, his pursuits came with a price.

Christian ended up working for a company whose moral reputation was less than desirable. He also moved quite far away from home—to another country, in fact. He never went to church, and he never saw his family, not even for holidays. Eventually, he even started to go by a different name. Nobody knew him as Christian; his friends called him Darwin because of his ability to thrive in their “survival of the fittest” company culture.

Eventually, Christian married an unbeliever, the granddaughter of one of the founders of the company. They had a couple of kids, but Helen never got to see them—she had never even seen a picture of her grandsons. She did know, however, that they had never seen the inside of a church. Needless to say, Helen was heartbroken!

Now, think about the elements of Helen’s story. Did you notice where they came from? Apart from the obvious differences (i.e., Christian wasn’t sold into slavery and forced into his situation), the rest of the elements come straight from Genesis 41! How on earth, then, can this chapter be considered the big payoff? Why do we hear Hollywood theme music when we picture Joseph standing next to Pharaoh? And why do we tell our children that this is what their faithfulness will bring? No, my friend, I think we’ve got it all wrong. I think we need to look at the key elements of this chapter again.

Let’s go back and identify the elements of this story that tell us that this is actually a mirage and I think we will learn a thing or two as we do that.

Remember why this story was written bit...

This story actually comes at the end of a long line of stories about a family, a heritage, and a covenant promise of God to bring blessing to the entire world. When we view this story in the context of God’s promises given to the family of Abraham (the patriarch) we see some details that are meant to catch our eye.

Do the then/now contrast:

Pagan King/Kingdom vs. The Patriarch’s House

This is first a contrast between Pharoah and his father Jacob. At Jacob’s house in the promised land, Joseph was an asset. Joseph looked after the affairs of his father’s house and in Egypt he continues this trend not as a free son but as an enslaved outsider. Joseph was a slave to Potiphar. Although Joseph ran the prison, he was still an imprisoned slave. The crazy irony is that even though Joseph is essentially second in command in Egypt he is still an enslaved outsider only now his master is a pagan who is worshiped as a god. When we view the story this way, Joseph’s situation has actually only gotten worse.

It’s funny…every time I ever made rank in the military, Jack would always ask me…so does that mean you are the boss now? I would have to explain that no, I still have a boss I answer to. Unless your name is the Honorable Mr. _________ you always have another boss while in the military. Even the four star General has to snap to attention and salute someone higher than him. But in the father’s house it doesn’t necessarily work like that does it? Sure a son may be underneath their father’s authority but it works a little differently doesn’t it? That authority isn’t enslavement…the father’s authority is actually a type of freedom.

How easy would it have been for Joseph to lose sight of his freedom in light of his new position. Sure he was still technically an outsider and a slave but at home, his brothers hated him. He may have been free but he also lived with the reality that his brothers might try and do him harm.

How easy would it have been for Joseph to lose sight of his freedom when compared to his new position? It isn’t real…the freedom this position gave was a mirage...

Pagan Wealth vs. The Patriarch’s Gift

Genesis 41:41–42 NASB95

Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put the gold necklace around his neck.

Pharaoh is lavishing the royal Jewelry and clothing on Joseph as a symbol of his status. I want you to think back…was there ever another moment in Joseph’s story where he was given clothing by his own father as a symbol of the status he held?

Given how messed up Joseph’s family history was, how easy would it have been for Joseph to really find comfort in all of those things that Pharaoh gave him? I mean when his father gave him his robe it made the entire rest of his family hate him. And yet when we consider the blessing and riches promised by God to the family of Abraham and all those who follow him…all that Pharaoh had to offer was basically a mirage.

Pagan Worship vs. The Patriarch’s Adoration

If you remember back to one of our first lessons in this series, I told you that Joseph’s story happens around a sequence of different dreams. We’ve just read the Pharaoh’s dream today, last week we talked about the dreams of the baker and cupbearer…but if you go all the way back to the beginning of the story, Joseph also had a dream. Here is how that dream worked out:

Genesis 37:10 NASB95

He related it to his father and to his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?”

And here that dream is contrasted with how Pharaoh’s dream worked out:

Genesis 41:43–44 NASB95

He had him ride in his second chariot; and they proclaimed before him, “Bow the knee!” And he set him over all the land of Egypt. Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Though I am Pharaoh, yet without your permission no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.”

I mean this is good right? This is surely what God meant by Joseph having this first dream where everyone bowed to him right? Jacob and his brothers were just too hard hearted to understand what God was doing…I mean Joseph recognized that those dreams came from God…so if Jacob and his eleven brothers had a problem with it they didn’t have a problem with Joseph, they had a problem with God.

How easy would it have been for Joseph to latch on to that idea? I mean literally every single person in Joseph’s life (to include the most powerful man in the world) was supporting the idea that this was Joseph’s rightful place. He deserved to be here. Like…you would die if you didn’t bow the knee to this guy. Joseph has already had a dream, given to him by God, that supported the idea that people would one day bow to him so why wouldn’t Joseph completely latch on to this new identity?

In week one of this series I showed you how Joseph had hung onto this promise of God. But don’t miss this...God’s promise wasn’t merely about Joseph’s exaltation…God’s promise was there showing how Joseph would save his family. God’s promise was part of a greater story of redemption that God was working through Joseph…it wasn’t merely for Joseph’s enjoyment.

And so when Pharaoh gives Joseph the very thing he had dreamt about it seems like a good thing. And yet, if Joseph merely latches onto the power for powers sake, he has missed the very thing that God was trying to do by giving him the dream in the first place. Mirage.

Pagan Identity vs. The Patriarch’s Name

Genesis 41:45 NASB95

Then Pharaoh named Joseph Zaphenath-paneah; and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, as his wife. And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt.

Now, we have to move a little beyond the Joseph narrative to see the significance of this one. But if you just look backwards through the book of Genesis you will quickly see that names are a BIG deal!

In Genesis 17 we see Abram go to Abraham. There is a whole big thing there that we don’t have time to develop besides the fact that God was communicating something big about Abrahams character and story that we would see fleshed out as God’s plan of redemption unfolded.

Genesis 32 See’s Jacob wrestle with God and at the end of it God renames him Israel.

And yet in Joseph’s story, the name change goes the opposite direction. Nobody really knows what Zaphenath-Paneah means but we assume its got something to do with one of the Egyptian gods. What we know for certain is that there is significance of the name change coming from a pagan king. We see the same thing happen in the book of Daniel where Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah are given new names to mask or alter their Hebrew identity. The book of Exodus tells us the Hebrews were detestable in the sight of the Egyptians and so its not surprising at all that Pharaoh would try and hide the identity of his right hand man.

As a side note...We actually have an example of another Semite official elevated to high office and given an Egyptian name. It is in a source outside of the Bible. It happened under the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah and scholars are certain it was to hide his native identity because it wouldn’t have been good for the press to have an outsider serving so close to the king.

Why do we read this story as the big payoff? Pharaoh is literally deconstructing every aspect of who Joseph is (TO INCLUDE HIS OWN NAME!!!) and remaking him into an Egyptian. How easy would it have been for Joseph to get lost in all of this though? Let’s just think about it for a second…Joseph has been in prison for years now and this guy wants to give me a new name?!? Bro you can call me buttered toast if it means I don’t have to go back into prison…who is this Joseph guy again?

In God’s story of redemption where names matter a lot, for Joseph to lose his name and begin to live into that new identity would’ve been catastrophic. It would have been one more aspect of Joseph’s identity gone. Mirage.

Pagan Wife vs. The Patriarch’s Provision

This is the final bread crumb in the story that is meant to open our eyes to the fact that this is not the ‘big payoff.’

Genesis 41:45 NASB95

Then Pharaoh named Joseph Zaphenath-paneah; and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, as his wife. And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt.

Here is what is crazy…we actually know about the family of On from sources outside of the Bible. They were incredibly wealthy, well-connected, and famous. There is only one other family of priests more famous or powerful than them in all of Egyptian historical sources. I would use the Kardashians as an example but I’m pretty sure everyone hates them now....but think America’s sweetheart…whoever that is. That’s who Joseph was given as a wife. Instantly Joseph and Asenath are like the most famous Hollywood power couple in all of Egypt. And with that, the transformation would be complete.

This is his wife. This is his family now and guess what…they aren’t goat herders living in tents and they surely aren’t trying to kill him. How easy would it have been for Joseph to walk away from his family, his name, his heritage, his lineage, the covenant promises made to his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before him? I mean Joseph was literally saving the entire civilized world…I would say that qualifies as bringing blessing into all the world (you know that promise that God made to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob).

That family, that name, that heritage, that covenant promise, that promised land of Canaan that have been a huge part of the story in Genesis thus far are incredibly important to what God is doing for the whole world… And yet…how easy would it have been for Joseph to walk away from all of it and live into this new identity? No. This isn’t the big payoff this is a mirage.

But, how does Joseph respond? And what do we learn from that?

We get this passage at the end of the chapter that shows us where Joseph is and it reveals something about his character. Joseph has a couple of kids by Asenath and there is this little bit that I think we might typically skip right over where it talks about their names.

What is immediately striking is that Joseph gives his children Hebrew names. As a slave, Joseph had no choice but to receive the name given to him by Pharaoh. But with his own two sons he did have a choice. If he had rejected his Hebrew identity, we would expect to see Egyptian names but that's not what we get. We see loyalty to his father, his heritage, and the covenant promises of God of which he was definitely a part of.

Genesis 41:51 NASB95

Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.”

Manasseh means to forget and this choice of name is a tremendous picture of grace. Only God could be credited with keeping a seventeen-year-old, who had experienced all that Joseph did, from becoming a 37 year old filled with bitterness, resentment, and hatred towards his brother, or Potiphar, or Potiphar’s wife, or the jailer, or the cupbearer who forgot him in prison or any of the other dozens of people who had wronged him over the course of his life. Manasseh is also this beautiful picture of the type of grace that Joseph will soon extend to his brothers when he meets them again.

Joseph hadn’t forgotten his father, or brothers, or heritage, or the fact that he was a servant of the Most High God…he had just moved on from hardship that was inflicted on him. He wasn’t defined by it.

Genesis 41:52 NASB95

He named the second Ephraim, “For,” he said, “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

Did you notice that Egypt is the ‘land of my affliction.’ Joseph isn’t embracing his Egyptian identity. Joseph has not forgotten the promises of God. Joseph has allowed all the wealth of Egypt to remove him from God’s redemptive plan for the world.

Joseph see’s all that he has as being given by God in spite of his circumstances (whether good or bad) in Egypt and as part of God’s redemptive rescue plan.

I just threw a lot at you guys so let me sum things up with some language that has a lot to do with us.

What is Satan’s greatest weapon against mankind? If you said temptation, I would say that you aren’t technically wrong but you could be a little clearer. What about persecution? Well because none of us in this room have ever experienced that first hand I would have to say no probably not. What about affliction? Think like the story of Job…we like that story because it sort of fits the picture of the red pitchfork wielding demon we have in our mind. But no.

Let me tell you what it is.

Satan’s greatest weapon against mankind is opulence.

Its like a rope he knows we’ll just hand ourselves with. Its like a loaded gun given to a four year old…he doesn’t have to do anything because he knows we are going to shoot ourselves with it. You even notice how people don’t go crying out for God when their life is going great? Like, I never sit in my office counseling with people who are like “Pastor my finances are so amazing right now I’m worried I will forget my need for God.... I worry we aren’t being generous enough with this new raise we got.” Or… “Pastor, my marriage is doing so amazing right now I’m just worried we’ll forget to pray together as a couple and do our quiet time…we’re really drowning in all this Bible study we are doing together.” Yeah…never happens and I’m not sure I’d know what to do if that ever happened honestly.

Opulence… its a killer. We lose focus. We get soft against temptation. We label everything that seems remotely unfriendly to our religious liberties as persecution…bro we wouldn’t know persecution if it was pointing a gun at our heads.

You wanna know what most often derails God’s people from participating in the mission of Jesus? It isn’t temptation. The church has historically thrived in the face of real challenges of compromise. It isn’t affliction or persecution…go back and look at some church history. The blood of the martyrs is the fertilizer that grew the gospel like a weed across the face of the planet. It was Christians forsaking their own safety and lives as the marched into plague encampments to serve where nobody else would because it was a death sentence.

NO! Opulence is the mirage that Satan hands God’s people to take them out of the fight. Pretty soon we are squabling about freedoms and liberties that God never guaranteed were going to be ours in the first place and we’ve fogotten that Jesus said to follow him on mission means we are going to be despised, beaten, enslaved, imprisoned, and killed.

And it isn’t just followers of Jesus that Satan uses this weapon against.

Think about Jesus’ words in Mark 10:25

Mark 10:25 NASB95

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

People don’t go looking to God when their lives are going great… but the mirage that this world is all to eager to create is that our lives are going well because we have money, status, friends, health, and freedom.

Joseph was part of this redemptive rescue mission that had he followed the mirage of opulence given to him by Pharaoh and forsaken faithfulness to God could have led to the death of God’s chosen family.

Maybe God would’ve started over. Maybe He would’ve just wiped us off the face of the planet…I don’t know. I do know that it wouldn’t have been good.

But what do you do with that? How do I close with that? Just reject opulence? Give up all your stuff and freedoms and move to a third world oppressed country? I don’t think that’s the answer because it was exactly Joseph’s opulent circumstances that God would use for His redemptive plant.

I think we need to look at one more quick thing before we can make application that will actually drive this home though.

There is one more story behind the story being told though. Its about a seed...

I am going to tell you something that is going to forever disrupt the way you see the Joseph narrative…Joseph isn’t actually the main character bit…even though most commentaries you will read will tell you that much, I believe they stop a bit short actually by even saying it is about Jacob (Joseph’s father). Here is what I mean:

Genesis 3:15 bit…its about a seed...

Cain kills the chosen seed Abel

Genesis 4 at the end of the chapter, we get a new seed named Seth

Flood narrative gives us a list of families. Shem is the chosen seed.

We see the continuation of that seed through Terah who has a son named Abram.

Talk about how the seed is the central part of Abrahams story (given they were too old to produce any and yet tried to substitute it with Ishmael).

The seed narrative continues with Isaac…it isn’t the older brother (this wasn’t just about lineage it was about God’s divine election) because in their narrative, the older serves the younger.

Then we come to Jacob who loves Rachel and thinks he’s met the one....and works seven years to marry her but in the morning, he wakes up and finds out he’s actually married the other one (make it funny). No...Laban and God had other plans. In fact, Rachel isn’t able to bear any children (we know that isn’t Jacobs issue…that dude is like snoop dog…a woman spends too long in the same room with Jacob they are likely to wind up pregnant with one of his kids) until way later in her story when she has Joseph (who we’ve been studying) and Benjamin and then she dies. We often read that part of Jacobs’ story like it is a love story but its actually a story about God’s election of another child. Because Leah, the one who the Bible flat out says Jacob doesn’t love, goes on to give birth to Reuben, Simeon, Levi (the father of the priesthood), and Judah.

What’s really strange if you are just reading the story of Joseph straight through is that there is the break in the story between Genesis 37 where we see Joseph thrown into the pit and Genesis 39 where Joseph is at Potiphar’s house. Genesis 38 is a story about…who…none other than Judah. One guess for what that story is about. Without me going back and reading that story or getting too graphic with it…its about seed. Like people get killed because they do the wrong thing with their seed and it is a really low point in the story for Judah but that story is there to show how the continuation of that seed of promise.

A little later in the Old Testament the story of the seed picks back up with a couple names Ruth and Boaz who have a son named Obed.

Obed has a son named Jesse.

Jesse has several sons but one of them you already know of as the promised seed named David…David who would become king.

And the story goes on and on and on in like fashion and then we come to Matthew Chapter 1 in the New Testament. How does Jesus’ story begin in the book of Matthew? Not with his birth but with a genealogy that most people skip right over.

Jesus is the promised seed of a woman promised in Genesis 3:15!

Joseph’s story is told because it shows the fragile thread by which God’s plan of redemption hung…at no point in the story, was that thread thinner than when Joseph was exalted in Egypt. How Joseph handled that position, power, and opulence could’ve changed the story of God’s redemption in some major ways. Because Joseph was grounded in God’s promises and the redemptive plan of which he was a critical part, Joseph rejected the allure of finding his identity in Egypt and the associated ‘blessings’ therein.

God was preserving a seed through which blessing would come to the whole world. This is why Genesis chapter 41 exists and makes sense. Without knowing this story and what God was going to do through the line of Judah…none of this makes any sense. In fact, this is why the entirety of the Old Testament matters; because it points to God’s redeeming and rescuing work in the person of Christ.

Regardless of where your story winds up, in the pit, in the prison, or in the palace, you must find its significance in God’s ultimate portrait of redemption and rescue…Christ.

Our identity has to be rooted in this story behind our stories if they are to mean anything at all…otherwise, we are playing with a loaded gun that will one day go off. We will inevitably see the blessings as an end to themselves and we will view the trying times as though God has forsaken us.

No matter where your story may wind up, you must find its ultimate significance in Christ’s redeeming work on your behalf.

And so the question I want to leave you with is this...

What is your identity tied to?

Best way to answer this question is by answering this one:

What thing, if it were gone tomorrow, would make life not worth living anymore?

That’s really easy when it’s something like money because we can be super self-righteous and say…well at least we’ve got love. Bologna! What we communicate with our words and what we communicate with our actions are two totally different things. And some of us sacrifice on the alter of money and career like our life depends on it.

What about our children? Man we love them and I don’t believe God would ever take them as a punishment or something like that…but the reality is that our kids aren’t God. Our children don’t define our identity and yet many of us live like that were the case. That’s not fair to them. And we will never parent them well if they are what defines our identity.

What about our, homes, our freedom, our religious liberty, what about church, what about our hobbies or any number of a million other things that we will make ridiculous sacrifices to maintain? All those things are good things.

Look at me right here as we close this out..Joseph’s position, money, wife, name, were not bad things.

They are were a-moral…explain.

If we chase those things as a end to themselves, however, we are chasing a mirage. And whether we catch those things or lose those things, if they are ultimate things to us and if our identity is ultimately rooted in Christ then they can do some incredibly damage. Like walking 10 miles towards a mirage.