Connecting the Story of Joseph and Jesus | Sermon Series Wrap-Up | Trinity Talks

Thanks for having me.

Can you believe that we just finished our sermon series on Joseph?

Honestly, the time went by so fast because it was so engaging.

And when things are that engaging, time tends to run really fast.

I really had a good time with that series.

Did you? Did you like the t-shirts?

Oh, yes, I did.

I think we're going to have to keep wearing these t-shirts even after the Live in the Dreams series.

I have a feeling that's going to happen. I love the t-shirt.

So we are going to be joined with Rob in just a few minutes.

And I'd love to do a sermon series wrap up where we sort of look back over the last couple of weeks.

Okay.

How does that sound?

Sounds great.

Yeah. And then after this sermon series, we're actually going to be moving into the season of Advent.

So true.

I also can't believe.

So true. Great.

I'm thinking of the coming of the Advent season, what it means for us as Christians.

And it's really difficult that we've come this far.

And we're just so thankful to God.

Well, here we have Rob.

So welcome, Rob.

And welcome, Eric Han, to our sermon series wrap up.

I'm very happy to be here.

Yeah. How's everyone today?

Oh, it's another day.

Well, we're live in the dream.

I think we're going to have to keep saying this even after today.

What do you guys think?

Yeah, I was wondering about these t-shirts.

Are we just going to see a whole bunch of these t-shirts in all the local thrift stores

for the next few weeks?

Or are we going to hold on to them and keep wearing them?

Yeah.

I hope we keep wearing them.

I will be wearing mine for sure.

Mine's not going to the thrift store.

Well, so as we said, we just finished our sermon series on Joseph over the last five weeks,

where we really did walk through the entire life of Joseph.

And we sort of saw how God's dream for Joseph's life,

really his purpose for Joseph's life, carried out and was fulfilled throughout his life.

And I think what we saw was also that God's dream for the entire world was carried out as well.

So Rob, you came up with a sermon series idea.

Well, yeah.

I mean, it was a conversation that actually you were part of too.

We knew there was this big change happening in the life of our church.

And we kind of latched onto this idea of a dream, maybe what was God's dream for our church?

What was God's dream for Trinity streets, Phil?

And then just, I think, as we thought through that, we had a few different ideas,

but we landed on this idea of living the dream when we especially thought of Joseph's life.

And we thought, you know, what better way for our church to enter into this new vision God has given us

than by to look at this story of this young man who was given this incredible vision of a future

that didn't quite seem possible.

But anyways, so yes, using the Joseph story has allowed us to kind of help unpack and celebrate

the story God is working out here at Trinity.

I think that's exciting.

Well, I mean, the story of Joseph itself is a pretty incredible standalone story, right?

It's like there's a lot of ups and there's downs.

There's a lot of emotions that go on throughout the story.

There's twists and there's turns.

I mean, it's no wonder that they turned it into a Broadway musical.

Which, did you know that we are showing the movie after our 1115 service?

Yeah, we heard that announcement.

And we saw the multicoloured coat.

And we did!

All right, I'm going to have to go back and watch that.

I think I missed something.

But another thing that we've been doing here at church is on Wednesday nights,

some people have been diving even deeper into the story of Joseph.

And we've been walking through an online Bible study on Zoom.

And Erikan, you are actually one of the leaders in that session.

So how are you finding that?

Oh, I am.

It's just amazing.

We're getting so blessed and just having the time to come together as a church community

to just go over the messages, the sermons that we're hearing and apply them,

not just as they were applied to Joseph's lives, but to our own lives,

to our own daily experiences and see the parallels and learn from Joseph.

And it's been great.

I don't know if you remember, but in the very first session of that online study,

the presenter, his name's Andrew, he likened the story and made the analogy of the story

of Joseph to that of a Russian doll.

Have you seen these before?

Right.

And he talks about how there are layers within the story.

So as we unpack the story of Joseph, just like this doll,

if we open up the story and dive a little bit deeper, we see the story.

We can actually find the story of Jesus within that.

And he says that, I'm just going to do this little visual for you.

I'm sure most of you have seen a Russian doll before,

but even if we unpack it further and we look at the story of Jesus within Joseph,

we can find ourselves.

We are of Christ, so we can find ourselves within that story as well.

So I'm just going to leave my little display here.

But I was thinking it might be kind of fun as we sort of reflect back on these last five weeks

to dive a little bit back into those different sermons that we talked about

and that Rob, that you really walked us through.

And if we could look a little bit beyond the story of Joseph,

which I know we did in our services, but maybe we could go a little bit deeper

and look to see where Jesus is within these stories as well.

What do you guys think?

Yeah, I think that's a really important way that we can all read the Bible every day,

is to ask the question, where is Jesus in this passage,

whether it's Old Testament or New Testament or whatever.

It's one of the ways I think the Spirit inspires the words pointing us toward Jesus all the time.

Yeah, I agree with Rob completely, not just because he's the pastor.

Always a good idea.

Always a good idea.

No, no, no.

But Rob is so correct in saying we always want to see where is God in all this experience?

So where is God in all of this?

And how does what we're hearing apply to us?

Right.

So that first sermon that we talked about was, I believe it was called Disruptive Dreams.

And Joseph's dreams really did shake up his life.

They seemed incredible.

They seemed preposterous.

They seemed impossible.

And they even shook up the lives of the people around him.

So I'm wondering how we could maybe see this truth play out.

Do we see this in Jesus' life at all?

Yeah, Erica and I were talking about this a couple days ago.

And actually, I think it's really true that you could say that Jesus himself had a very unpopular

message that in the same way that Joseph's brothers were offended and scandalized by

this vision that Joseph told them about Jesus too, when he began to preach about the kingdom

of God or that the first shall be last and the last shall be first or all of it.

Like this was not a popular message, right?

I mean, he did gather a following to himself.

Many of those were, I think, the poor and those who were on the margins

because they found hope in that message.

But for those who had power or influence who stood to lose something,

they found Jesus' message very troublesome and worrisome.

And ultimately, it was because of that that it led to his own persecution like Joseph.

I mean, you want to add to that?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

That's what you...

Everything about what Jesus did was disruptive.

And he actually even had to reassure them that he had not come to cancel the law,

but to actually fulfill it.

It was kind of like acknowledging that, yes, I know you see so many changes,

but I'm not breaking down what we stand for.

I am fulfilling it.

So there was a lot of disruption going on there.

Yeah.

And Jesus is both his like maybe overt or more covert times when he spoke about being

the son of God, it reminded me of, you know, where Joseph's brothers are like,

oh, we're going to bow down to you.

What, we're going to bow down to you or is your father and mother,

we're going to bow down to you, Joseph?

Like the idea that Joseph would have an authority greater than them was incredibly challenging.

And Jesus, too, comes along to the religious establishment

and claims to have an authority that is greater than theirs.

And yeah, they can't believe it.

They can't believe it either.

It's...

Yeah, it's...

And I think it's one of the reasons why, especially in Mark's gospel,

if you read Mark's gospel, there's this motif that is going on throughout

where Jesus is constantly telling people, you know, don't tell people who I am.

Right?

So, oh, there's a miracle.

Don't tell anybody about it.

Or there's this wondrous thing Jesus says, don't tell anybody.

And why does Jesus not want, you know, Joseph couldn't help.

Joseph just started telling, telling, telling people.

But there was a sense, I think, of Jesus knew as soon as this gets out,

as soon as I start telling people about this, it is going to be very disruptive

and ultimately lead me to the cross.

So just let's keep it a secret for as long as we can.

Anyway, so yeah, there's a lot of commonalities there for sure.

Wow, those are actually some ideas that I had never even thought of.

I love that.

And then you mentioned that if the news gets out,

there's going to be some pain in Jesus's life, which we see in Joseph's life.

We see that his dream actually becomes a bit of a nightmare,

like we talked about in our second sermon,

where Joseph was thrown into the pit and he was sold to slavery

and things just looked so bad for him.

But then Rob, you brought up the idea of divine providence.

So where, where does this fit in?

How, how can we fit this into Jesus's story?

And I think, I think some of us might have some ideas,

but where do we see this really relate in parallel with Joseph?

Yeah, I mean, the, the piece of scripture that comes to my mind

is the picture of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane,

where he's praying and he has a certain wish,

I guess you could say for how his life will go.

He says, you know, father, if there's any way that I can avoid this suffering,

if I can avoid this pain, you know, take this cup from me.

Right.

And yet then in the next breath, Jesus says, but not my will be done,

but your will be done.

So that is a theme.

I mean, I think Jesus in that moment was aware that there's his own vision for his life

and his own kind of ideas for where he wants to go.

But, but God also is working out something.

And the challenge for Jesus was to somehow submit his own plans

to God's providential plan there.

But go ahead, Erica.

I mean, no, absolutely.

I see a lot of in terms of just providence and God's provision,

it's God making sure he places Joseph in a position where he's able to provide for others.

And he's also making sure he is right in all the way in the story of Joseph.

And it's kind of the same with Jesus.

Jesus is coming as provision to us to bring reconciliation,

to meet us where we are and do a lot of things, show us how to leave the faith.

And that's provision in a lot of ways.

And so there's that theme of God always being aware of our human needs,

our humanity, and being able to meet us right where we are,

both in the story of Joseph as an example,

and in the story of Jesus and what we learned from both.

Yeah.

And isn't it true that there was like in Jesus life,

there was a sense that he came along at the appointed time,

at the, when the time was right, the Kairos moment, the,

the even he announced, he says the time has fulfilled, right?

The kingdom of God has come.

There was a moment this, the world had been building toward a moment

and what was about to happen, events had been set in place

that we're now going to transpire.

And so the same way Joseph came along for this moment,

for this particular time.

Yes.

Yeah. Do you think that we can find ourselves in that as well?

That we are here at this moment, at this time and place?

Absolutely. So true.

There's in all things, God works together, you know,

he pulls all things to make sure they work together for our good.

That means there is a pre-knowledge of what is good for us.

And so he's aware of who we are, where we are,

and how it's all going to help his threading it.

That's a great analogy.

That's nice.

And when the third sermon, I'm just going to move us along to the third sermon,

Joseph finds himself facing some challenges

and he finds himself in the face of temptation when he's in Potiphar's house.

And I know that Jesus himself, we know faces temptation as well.

And the situations are different.

The two different temptations are different.

But I'm wondering what the similarities are there.

Like, where do we see Jesus sort of in that story of Joseph?

Go ahead, Erica.

Oh, well, that is we see Jesus.

Okay. First of all, I see that Joseph was a child loved by his father,

very much the same as Jesus was loved by his father.

Joseph submitted to the will of his father to go take food to his brothers,

whom he knew did not really like him.

Same way as Jesus submitted himself to the will of God to come rescue us.

And even at Gethsemane, he was he wanted he when the humanity was there,

he still submitted his will to God by saying, but your will,

if you would take this away, but your will, not my will.

And Joseph ended up being a provider in a lot of ways for his family.

And Jesus has in a lot of ways brought us into a place where provision is full for us.

And so in those areas, I see some a lot of similarities.

Yeah. And as he's on that trajectory, he does come across these these two temptations

that we spoke about.

One was the temptation to power where Joseph rises to the ranks and is given insane amounts

of power at a very young age.

And then as well, the temptation to pleasure this sexual temptation that he

went through with part of our wife.

So and I think that when we spoke, we also said, you know, of course,

Jesus surely was tempted with these same two temptations as he moved through his life.

Everyone's familiar with the story of the temptation and the wilderness where Jesus is.

There's I think three specific temptations that Jesus.

But one of them definitely is the temptation to take power for himself.

I think the evil one says to Jesus, hey, says, I can I have an authority and I can give power to anyone.

I choose, you know, if you'll just be a little bit more

bow down and worship me, I'll give you everything or or the other temptation was

throw yourself down off of this precipice and let your angels, let these angels come and save you.

It's a strange thing.

What's what's he getting at?

But what he's it's it's the temptation to spectacle.

It's the temptation to to flex your power, show your power to the world and do it in a way that's

actually not really helping anyone other than just aggrandizing your own status.

So Jesus, he, you know, most certainly was tempted in similar ways that Joseph was.

Right.

Yeah, so true.

And and and and scripture actually says that that he was tempted in ways that are similar to us.

And yet in all of that, he did not sin.

So that he went through a lot of suffering and Joseph did as well.

And yet they both stand out as examples for us to follow.

And if you if you want to build on the story of the temptation in the wilderness for Jesus,

the third temptation was in some ways a temptation to pleasure.

Right.

Because here, Jesus, the one temptation was just make bread for yourself, you know,

make some food and have a feast, you know, fill your stomach, you know,

you're you're tired, you're hungry, you know, scratch that itch.

Right.

Just just do it.

And maybe we can draw a parallel between that and Joseph's temptation to hey, Joseph, right.

Here's Potiphar's wife.

She's beautiful.

Scratch that itch.

You know, do that thing that feels good.

Right.

Fill that need in your life.

You've earned it kind of a thing.

So yeah.

So and I mean, good grief, of course, Jesus on the cross,

enduring great suffering, as you said, could he have just pulled himself down?

Surely, you know, it was within his power, I suppose, to step down from that cross to

give up that suffering and take pleasure instead.

But he chose not to.

Right.

So yeah, there's there's some good connections there for sure.

Yeah, thanks, guys.

Now, the last one I want to talk about is last week's sermon, actually, which was I think you

called a dream job.

And we talked about Joseph's job that he had eventually with Pharaoh, which I suppose back

in the day would have been a pretty big job, pretty powerful and for all intents and purposes

could have been considered by human standards a dream job.

But Rob, you brought up the idea that really anyone can have a dream job and that God has

a dream job for everyone.

And you mentioned the idea of being a minister.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so does God have a dream job for everyone?

Yes, I guess.

So long as we understand what a dream job is.

But we're not talking about everything that fulfills all your dreams.

But what I said, if it somehow furthers God's dream.

So, yes, you know what?

I was thinking about this after we talked, but Jesus, Jesus, in some ways, treats his

own disciples with an authority and gives them authority and makes them ministers of

his kingdom.

He sends them out.

He says, go preach, go teach, go heal, go do all these things.

I give you the authority.

I give you the power.

In other ways, he's saying you are my ministers, right?

You are going to be my agents out there in the world.

And some people would say, man, Jesus gave them that authority really early on, right?

Really early on before they had really proved themselves or shown that they had, you know,

all the skills and abilities or they learned all the lessons.

No, at a very early stage, Jesus commissions them and sends them out as ministers in his

kingdom, even though they don't have great qualifications to go with it.

Yes, that's so true, Rob.

I see what you're saying in terms of delegating authority earlier on.

And isn't that exactly what Jesus, what the dream was about?

Isn't that what Joseph realized that early on, even before, you know, he saw it as a

dream, but it was still an acknowledgement that you're going to be somebody down the

line.

17 years old, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

For really.

Yeah.

And so that and then even though he went through so much, he still got to that point

pretty early.

By the time he got sold as a slave, he was already a slave within the space of authority.

He was already engaging, you know, in a sphere of authority.

And he was entrusted with everything other than Potiphar's wife.

And that's a lot of authority.

So in terms of ministering, I would feel his service and his being a minister started

pretty early in his life.

Yeah.

And if you understand ministry as a service, as you just said, there is this interesting

connection between Joseph and Jesus where what was Joseph's ministry?

Joseph's ministry was to provide bread for all these hungry, hungry people in the world.

And what that was his ministry, what was Jesus' ministry?

His ministry was to be the bread of life, right?

So to offer himself to a world that is, you know, hungry and empty.

And, you know, Jesus says, only my bread will truly satisfy you.

And so there is this, they both ministered in a similar way, one offering physical bread,

and the other offering a spiritual bread.

And a bit more of a fulfillment of everything.

Yeah.

Well, I just want to say thank you for wrapping up this sermon series with us.

It's a great way to conclude the Live in the Dream series.

It's also a great way to transition into a new sermon series, which I know is called

the Advent Conspiracy.

And we're going to be starting that next week, which I'm very excited for.

So thank you, Rob.

And thank you, Ericann.

Thank you so much.

All right.

And our 1115 service is starting soon.

Great.

Thank you.

Bye.

Thanks.