Genesis: I Am Joseph

Welcome to Venture Church. Daylight Savings time. You did great.

How many of you thought you were arriving for the

eight thirty service? A few of you. I have a

feeling we're gonna have a very large eleven thirty service today.

If you don't know why, I'm Brandon, I'm the lead

pastor of the church. I'm glad that you're here this morning.

I do want to welcome everyone that's new. If you've

never met me before, hang out in the lobby after

the service. I'd love for you to come up introduce

yourself to me. I'd love the opportunity to meet you

and see who you are. Grab your bibles. Turn to Genesis,

chapter thirty seven, winding down this Genesis series. How many

of you have enjoyed this series? If you haven't enjoyed listening,

I have definitely enjoyed studying and preaching it. So we're

gonna read from verse six. Then we're gonna pray together.

Joseph said to his brothers, listen to this dream I had.

We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field,

when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your

sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it. His

brother said to him, do you intend to reign over us?

Will you actually rule us? And they hated him all

the more because of his dream and what he'd said.

Then Joseph had another dream and he told this one

to his brothers, said, listen, I had another dream, and

this time the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars

were bowing down to me. I want to ask everyone

to buy your heads, close your eyes. I want you

to repeat this prayer after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus,

speak to my heart, change my life in Jesus' name. Amen.

I want to share with you where we left off

in the story of Genesis. We have been looking the

last couple weeks at this individual whose name is Joseph.

Scholars believe that the story of Joseph is one of

the most compelling stories in all of human history. And

we know so far that Joseph was seventeen years old

when his brothers, ten of them, sold him into slavery

in Egypt. And we are going to pick up today

in chapter forty two and chapter forty two, Egypt and

the rest of the world are deep in the midst

of an unprecedented famine like utter devastation is hitting this

entire region. But Joseph had risen from being someone who

was sold in slavery in Egypt. He was first a

slave in the home of Potiphar. Potiphar was Pharaoh's executioner. Well,

that didn't work out well for Joseph and he ends

up in a prison cell in Egypt for about ten years. Now.

I want you to be Joseph. You have a dream

that you are supposed to be here, and you are

in prison in Egypt, which is about as far from

that dream as you could possibly get. And I shared

with you last week. What do you do when you're

supposed to be here but you find yourself here. You

hold on to the promises of God and you honor

God with the circumstances that you have. And that's what

Joseph did. And he had this divine appointment opportunity to

meet with Pharaoh. Pharaoh had had these dreams that had

been tormenting him, and no one in an all of

Egypt could interpret these dreams. But Joseph said, the God

that I serve can tell you what these dreams mean,

and he translated these dreams for Pharaoh. Pharaoh was so

moved that he put Joseph into his palace and made

him second in charge of all of Egypt. And God

had spoken to Joseph that seven years of absolute prosperity

and blessing were gonna come, but they would be followed

by seven years of famine, and that Joseph's job was

to start this incredible feeding, nationwide feeding program. And long

before there was Convoy of Hope, there was Joseph in

the Egyptians, long before Compassion International was Joseph and the Egyptians.

So Joseph for seven years built storehouses, and he said,

saved up grain and live stock so that when the

famine came, Egypt would have food. And sure enough a

worldwide famine hits, but Egypt was prepared. Last week we

ended the message with chapter forty one, verse fifty seven,

which declares this that all the world came to Egypt

to buy grain from Joseph because the famine was severe everywhere. Now,

at this point, Joseph is thirty nine years old. We

already know that all the childhood trauma, all the difficulties

that Joseph had gone through as a seventeen year old,

he'd moved on from He had two sons in his

thirties that he named them, gave them the names that

represented what the Lord had been doing in his heart

and how God had been healing him. He named one

of his sons Manassa, which means God has made me

forget all my trouble and my father's household. Basically, this

was Joseph saying, I've moved on from my childhood trauma.

I know that I had pain, but I'm not gonna

let that pain define me. I am not gonna live

my life as a victim anymore. I have moved on

from this. I have forgotten my childhood pain and trauma.

And then he named his other son Ephraim, and the

name Efraim means God has made me fruitful in the

land of suffering. What the enemy meant for evil, God

has done good in People from all over the world

are coming to Joseph to buy food. He's rule Egypt

in chapter forty two, Verse one. Guess what happens next.

When Jacob or Israel learned that there was grain in Egypt,

he said to his sons, why do you just keep

looking at each other. I've heard that there is grain

in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us

so that we may live and not die. Then ten

of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt,

but Jacob did not send Benjamin Joseph's brothers with the

others because he was afraid that harm might come to him.

So remember, Jacob has twelve sons from four different wives.

It's in the Bible. I don't agree with it. It

happened his favorite wife, the one that he loved, was Rachel.

She was only able to bear him sons later on

in her life. Her first son was Joseph, and that

was Jacob's favorite, eventually leading Joseph to get have his

brothers be jealous. They sold him into slavery to Egypt.

And then Rachel gave Jacob one more son, Benjamin, but

she died in childbirth, and so Benjamin now firmly resides

as Jacob's favorite. And he knows that when I have

sons that leave, not all my sons typically come back.

And I'm gonna watch out for Benjamin. He is not

going I'm keeping him here safe with me. So the

ten older brothers go on, and it says so Israel's

sons were among those who went to buy grain for

there was famine in the land of Canaan. Also verse six.

Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the person

who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph's

brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces

to the ground. Does this sound familiar. As soon as

Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended

to be a stranger, and he spoke harshly to them.

Where did you come from? He asks? Then verse nine,

it says in that moment, then he remembered his dreams.

I guarantee you Joseph never thought he was ever gonna

see his brothers again. He was over this, he'd moved on,

and now they're bowing down in front of him, And

in that moment he remembered his dreams. Today, Church, I

want to talk to you about forgiveness. Specifically, I want

to share with you the four stages of forgiveness. When

I was doing my master's level studies, I had to

read ten books in this one class called Marriage and

Family Therapy. I don't remember the book exactly, but I

do remember the four stages of forgiveness. Hebrews twelve fourteen

through fifteen says that you and I are to make

every effort to live in peace with everyone and to

be holy. Without holiness, no one will see The Lord

see to it that no one falls short of the

grace of God, and that no bitter root grows up

to cause trouble and defile many. Do you know what

the opposite of forgiveness is? Bitterness? Bitterness and resentment are

like a poison in our hearts. They poison our relationships.

There's a famous quote that describes bitterness. It says bitterness

is like you personally drinking poison, yet falsely believing it

will kill the other person. In other words, bitterness only

hurts you. Here are the four stages of forgiveness. To

be honest, if anyone had a right to be bitter,

it was Joseph. If anyone had a write for revenge

against someone who'd wronged him, he is now the person

who has power, and his brothers are desperate bowing in

front of him. Now, sure, Joseph was a little bit

cocky and arrogant when he was seventeen, but these guys

sold him into slavery, told his father that he was dead.

Four stages of forgiveness. Number one you have to face

the offense. You don't minimize what happened to you. You

don't excuse the other person's offensive behavior. It is okay

to say and know how you were treated was wrong.

Joseph knows what happened to him was totally wrong. He

knew that these ten brothers had mistreated him, and he

never minimized what they had done. But he didn't allow

his childhood drama trauma to define him. His attitude was,

I can't control what happens to me, but I do

have a choice to make how I respond to what

happens to me. So number one, you face the offense.

Number two, you feel the offense. Don't deny your pain.

Don't carry false guilt for hating what happened to you.

There's many psychologists that say that actually hate begins the

forgiveness process. If you've been wronged, it's normal to hate

what happened to you. It's even normal to hate the

person that offended you. But you can't stay there. You

can't live in hate. Ecclesiastes tells us that there is

a time for everything, that there is a season for

everything under heaven, a time to love and a time

to hate, and you're gonna see over the next three chapters, which,

by the way, I'm only gonna paraphrase, I promise that

Joseph feels all the pain. In fact, six times we

read that Joseph burst out into tears dealing internally with

what his brothers had done to him. He rehashes what

happened to him over and over again in his mind. Remember,

Joseph named his son Manassa. God has made me forget

my trauma and my family face the offense, feel the offense.

Number three, you have to get to the point where

you forgive the offender. You see, church's followers of Jesus,

you and I are called to forgive. True forgiveness draws

us into the heart of God. When you forgive, you

your life takes on the character of Christ. Joseph naming

his son Manassa was literally him forgiving his brothers. It

was him saying, I've moved on from my pain. I

wasn't gonna let my circumstances and pain define who I become.

I wasn't gonna spend my life being a victim. So

he forgave his brothers in his heart. Here's what Jesus

has to say about this, He says, for if you

forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly

father will also forgive you. But if you don't forgive

others theirs, your father will not forgive you your sins.

I tell you this all the time. You look around.

I mean, venture we're a large church, full of diversity,

different stories. I mean, we all have different backgrounds, upbringing everything.

There's really not a lot we have in common except

for the biggest thing. And I tell you all the time,

At just the right moment, Jesus crossed our path. We

forgave our sin, regardless of how messed up we were.

He forgave us, and then he changed us. If you

realize how much Jesus has forgiven you of, and by

the way, continues to forgive you of, how can you

not forgive others? Face the offense, feel the offense, forgive

the offender, and finally reconciliate if the opportunity presents itself,

which it doesn't always, and I do want to have

a caveat to this, which is if the offender accepts responsibility.

Joseph never thought he'd have the opportunity to reconcile with

his brothers. He never thought he was ever going to

see his brothers again. I bet Joseph by the time

he's thirty nine, twenty two years after his brothers did

this to him, never thought he ever needed to reconcile

with his brothers. And now he is face to face

with them, feeling all the pain, remembering all the betrayal,

all the hurt, and all the anger comes rushing back.

And what you're going to see over the next three

chapters is the process of reconciliation. Interestingly enough, scholars argue

about what Joseph does now. Mix Many scholars believe that

what Joseph should have done is instantly reconciled with his

brothers when his brothers bowed down to him, he should

have been the bigger man in that moment, said guys,

it's me Joseph. But instead Joseph keeps his identity a secret.

Really quickly. I want to explain why did his brothers

not recognize him. He recognized them, but they didn't recognize him.

Few reasons. Number one, this was twenty two years, a

lot had happened. Joseph was fully Egyptian. Now he was

wearing Egyptian garb. He had Egyptian face pain. Egyptians, especially

high ranking Egyptians, shave all the hair off their face.

Plus he was the ruler of Egypt, and he wasn't

speaking Hebrew. They thought he spoke Egyptian. He was talking

to them through an interpreter. And then the last thing

that I would say is the person they never expected

to see was Joseph. True reconciliation requires sincere repentance and

humble confession of sin, and it often takes the person

a while to get to that place. I think it's

easy to argue that Joseph dealt with his brothers in

a patient, loving and wise way because he wanted to

see are they really changed? Has their character changed? Are

they sincerely repentant. Joseph knew that if he immediately announced, guys,

i'm your I'm Joseph, his brothers would have immediately in shock,

said oh dude, so sorry for what we did to you,

and that he wouldn't know if they were sincere. Have

you ever had someone realizes they've hurt you and they

immediately say they're sorry, and you question the sincerity of

the apology. I mean, that was literally what mattered to

Joseph in that moment. So Joseph knows that these brothers

don't know who he is, and he starts testing them.

He accuses them of being spies. They share their story.

They say, we are twelve sons of our father, Jacob Israel.

One of the sons is gone, that one being Joseph,

and the other one is staying home with him. Well,

Joseph says, I think your spies. The only way that

I'm gonna know you are not a spy is if

you go back to your father's house and you bring

that other brother back with you. And he takes them

and he throws them in prison for three days. Then

after he pulls them out of prison, he keeps Simi

and with him the second oldest brother, and he sends

the rest of them back to Canaan, saying, don't come

back to me without your youngest brother. In fact, I

don't ever want to see your face without your youngest

brother here being here too. And they he sends them off.

But before he sends them off, he hears them saying

this verse twenty one. Remember, Joseph speaks Hebrew. They don't

realize he speaks Hebrew. So the brothers are all talking

amongst themselves. They say to one another, surely we are

being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed

he was when he pleaded with us for his life,

but we would not listen. That's why distress has come

to us. Ruben replied, didn't I tell you not to

sin against the boy? But you wouldn't listen. Now now

we must give an accounting for his blood. They did

not realize that Joseph could understand them, since he was

using an interpreter. It was in that moment Joseph knows

my brothers feel bad. For over twenty years, they've been

haunted by what they've done to me. This is also

the first time Joseph discovers that his oldest brother, Reuben,

actually tried to save him. The Bible says that he

turned away from them and began to weep church. You

need to understand that in this moment, Joseph has all

the power. Literally, he is the most powerful man in Egypt.

He's got those that wrong and offend him in front

of him. He has the right for vengeance, and he

could have done whatever he wanted. He could have him

thrown in prison, he could have had them killed. He

could have said no, you get no grain, die of starvation.

He had all the power literally, and then we also

know that he had all the power morally. They were

wrong and he was in the right. When you have

all the power and you extend forgiveness, that's forgiveness. In

that moment, Joseph wondered if God was returning his family

to him. He wondered, if maybe our family can be reconciled.

I do a lot of counseling. Our pastors do a

lot of counseling. I would say ninety percent of the

counseling that we do is family related, husbands and wives,

parents with their kids. And I can tell you by

a firsthand experience that family reconciliation generates some of the

most powerful human emotions. Reconciliation in any fashion is immeasurably

better than alienation. Joseph sends them off, keeps simeon with him.

You would say, why did he do this? This as

a test. And in the Hebrew law Mamanidas, in the

Code of Jewish Law, it states this what constitutes complete repentance.

So in the Jewish culture, this is what they believe

is complete repentance. When you were confronted with the same

situation in which the transgression occurred. Instead of commit the

same transgression again, you abstain out of repentance, not fear.

So Joseph was testing them when given the chance to

sacrifice one brother for their own safety, would they do

it again? Would they protect Benjamin or would they protect themselves?

So he sends them off back to their home. I'm

going to show you a map to give you an

idea of how far they had to go. I know

this map is blurry, it's not you. You probably do

need glasses, but not you don't need glasses from this.

I've told Callen that I'm going to publicly blame him

for this map. If you look up north kind of

in the green area, there is a blurry word that

says Dothan, and that's where they started. So the ten

brothers traveled all of this way down to in all likelihood,

probably right around here Memphis. This is likely where Pharaoh's

palace was, probably where Joseph was, and then they would

draw walk all the way back this red arrow all

the way back up to Dothan. Scholars estimate that's about

six weeks so they had left their dad. They're down

here a few days because they were in prison. Then

they left went all the way back. So about a

month and a half later they arrived, I've back and

they tell their dad what had happened. Be Jacob be

the father. The first time all your sons left, Joseph

didn't come back. The second time all of your sons left,

Simeon did not come back. And now the brothers are

telling you. The sons are telling you, we can't go

back and get more grained from Egypt un lest Benjamin

goes with us. And Jacob's like, every time I send

you guys away, I'm missing a son. I am not.

I am not letting my favorite child leave with you.

And he refused. He refused even after Ruben the oldest, said, hey,

here's the deal. You let Benjamin go with me. If

anything happens to Benjamin, you can kill my two sons.

Ruben's got serious issues. And it leads us to chapter

forty three, verse two. When they had eaten all the

grain that they had bought from Egypt, their father said

to them, he did it go back to Egypt and

buy more food. And this time Judas steps up and

he says, Dad, we told you that we can't go

back to Egypt and face this ruler without Benjamin being

with us. And Dad is like, if anything happens to Benjamin,

I will die. That's what he says. I literally die

if anything happens to him. And he says, Dad, we

can't go back there without him. In fact, if you

would have just let us take him to begin with,

this is important because you got to understand the timing.

He said, we could have gone to Egypt and back

two times already if you would have just let us

go the first time. So you gotta imagine this is

now three months has passed well. They're desperate, they are

completely out of food. Jacob has no option. He releases Benjamin,

assuming he's probably never gonna see this son again. They

travel the three week journey. They end up back in Egypt.

Joseph sees them, welcomes him into his home, says, is

this the youngest brother and he immediately recognizes Benjamin. He

is overwhelmed with emotion, but he can't let it be

seen because this is actually the other brother of his mom.

This is his full brother. He's overwhelmed with emotion, throws

a huge feast, invites them to dinner. All the brothers. Interestingly,

he puts name places, so everybody has a signed seats,

and he puts them in birth order. You think they'd

be cluing into something's up in the last seat being Benjamin's.

Then all the food food comes out, and they serve

generous portion to each one of those brothers. But Benjamin

gets five times as much food as the other brothers

as they're eating. Listen to this. I love this verse,

and because I love it so much, I'm actually gonna

translate it for you, which makes it even more fun.

Verse thirty four of chapter forty three, when portions were

served to them from Joseph's table, Benjamin's portion was five

times as much as anyone else's. So they feasted and

drank freely with him. Now, where it says drank freely

with him, the actual Hebrew translation would be drank their

phil It actually means Joseph like full on partied and

got wasted drunk with his brothers. You would think they'd

be cluing it. Why would the ruler of Egypt be

partying with us? But they don't know what's happening yet.

So Joseph the next morning sends them away with grain,

but he does one final test. He takes his silver

cup and he hides it in Benjamin's pack, and as

they're about halfway back to Canaan, Joseph's guard stopped them

and accused them, saying, why would you repay our master's

good with evil? Why would you steal from him? And

they're like, we didn't steal. We promised. You can look

in our knapsacks to see if we took anything, and

it says he went from oldest to youngest started looking

through those knapsacks. You think they clew into this. And

when they got to Benjamin's they found that silver cup

hidden and they make this big scene. They say, we're

going to bring him back to Egypt. This is gonna

cost him his life for thinking he could steal from Pharaoh.

And as they drug Benjamin away, the other brothers are thinking,

we can't, we can't let harm come to Benjamin. Our

dad will never survive. So they actually go back to

Egypt with him. Joseph confronts them and remember this is

all a facade, This is all for show. He wants

to see are they sincerely repentant. He wants to see

will they protect Benjamin or will they make Benjamin face

the crime for all of them to save themselves. And

he starts saying, I'm gonna throw him into prison. I'm

gonna execute him. How dare he do that to us?

And then Judah steps up and he said, I told

my father that I would take responsibility for Benjamin, So

all the punishment that he would get, give it to

me instead. Let him go free. If someone has to die,

let me die, let him go free. If someone has

to go to prison, let me go to prison. Let

him go free. Joseph in that moment, overcome by their pain,

overcome by their presence again, and overcome by their moral growth.

These weren't the same brothers that had thrown him into

the pit, says this chapter forty five, verse one. Then

Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants,

and he cried out, leave my presence. So there was

no one with Joseph. When he made himself known to

his brothers, he wept so loudly that the GPS heard him,

and Pharaoh's household heard about it. Joseph said to his brothers,

I am Joseph. It's me Joseph. I mean, be those

brothers like they're stunned. Have you ever had somebody give

you news that was so shocking your mind couldn't catch

you up? And you're like, what we say it again? No? No,

the brother you sold them into slavery. It's me. I'm

I'm Joseph. Wait a second, who are you? I am Joseph,

and I love what Joseph says. Next, he says, my

father is our Dad's still alive. Joseph in the moment

had all the power. He was right morally, they deserved

whatever they got. He also had all the power literally.

I mean, he could have enacted vengeance and most of

us probably would have heard the story and not blamed him.

But instead, what does Joseph do? He offers forgiveness to

his brothers, and he doesn't conditionally forgive his brothers. He

freely forgives them, and he welcomes them into his heart

and into his home. He had the ability to act

and act in vengeance, and instead he should owed mercy.

He eventually says to his brothers, Hey, guys, I forgive you,

but I want you to know what you guys meant

for evil? God did good like I Actually, now, after

twenty years, have perspective and I realized God had a

plan for me in Egypt that I had a dream

when I was seventeen. And I'll tell you the ten

years that I spent in prison, man, it seemed like

the furthest thing from my dream. But the whole time

I held on to the promise and I honored God

where I was not knowing the whole time God was

refining my dream. He placed me in the position I

am to prepare away for our family to be saved,

for me to be able to provide a home for

you in Egypt, to be able to meet not just

your needs, but your family's needs. And so he tells him.

He says, I want you to go back to Canaan,

bring your wives and your children, and my father and

everything you've accumulated, and I'm gonna give you a large

plot of land in Egypt where you get us survive

Romans eight twenty eight, incredible verse. I prophesy this over

you right now. You might be in a situation and

you're feeling like, can the crowd that I'm in can

God do good out of it? We know that in

all things God works for the good of those who

love Him, who've been called according to his purposes. Wow,

by your heads, close your eyes. Some of you need

forgiveness from Jesus. I want to give you that opportunity today.

If you are here today and you do not know Jesus,

but you want to, I'm going to count to three.

When I say three, i want you to raise your hand.

There are others of you. You've gone to church, you've

prayed prayers, but you know that in this moment you

are far from God. If you want to say pastor

Brandon today, I want to leave this place knowing I

am right with Jesus. When I say three, I want

you to raise your hand. So here I go. No

one looking around between you and Jesus. If you want

to leave this place knowing you're right with Jesus. When

I say three, raise your hand. Here I go. One, two,

raise your hand, now three, keep them up. Awesome, you can

put your hands down. Can I ask everyone to stand

upon your feet. I'm going to invite everyone that's here

to pray a prayer with me. I want everyone to

pray this prayer. If you're newer to venture, you might say,

why do you make everyone pray this prayer? And that's

because I want those that raise their hand to know

they're not alone. We're family. We do this thing together.

And in addition, I know there are probably some of

you that wish you would have raised your hand and

wonder if you missed your moment. Well, it's not too late.

Pray this like you mean it. So I want to

ask everyone to buy your heads, close your eyes. I

do want to tell you that next week I'm going

to finish up the story of Genesis and Joseph his

family is all going to move to Egypt. You're now

going to understand and how the Israelites ended up in Egypt,

where the twelve tribes of Israel come from. And we'll

talk about Jacob Israel passing away and placing a blessing

on each one of his sons, and then we will

put a period on our Genesis series. But I want

you to repeat this prayer after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus,

I stand before you today. I admit I've messed up.

I've made mistakes. But today I ask you to forgive me.

I invite you to come into my life and to

change me. I choose from this day forward to serve

you with my life. Thank you for forgiving me and

for saving me in Jesus' name