Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] This series that we've been going through, exploring the Old Testament, Discovering the Savior. It's an overview of the Old Testament. We started last week, and we're gonna continue through to the end of November. This is an overview. It's a survey. And there's plenty of opportunity for you to dive into the things that we're covering on Sunday morning during the week in what we call Gospel Community. And so if you're not a part of one, join one, because maybe you're coming on Sunday. You're like, wow, there's just so much information.
[00:00:27] He skipped that. And they skipped that and skipped that. Go to Gospel Community and say, can we talk about this one thing? It's a great place for you to do just that. All right. We also have. We probably won't put it on this. Well, it's on the screen as well. We have a memory verse. Every month, we'll have a memory verse. It's in the foyer as well that you can pick up and you can read and work on memorizing through this year. So with all those things kind of said, you can go back to the series. Slide. Last week, we started in the beginning. The first book of the Bible is Genesis. The beginning, the origin. Right.
[00:01:02] Last week, we started there. So let me just give you a brief review of some of the things that we talked about last week. If you weren't with us.
[00:01:09] It's this. There's the beginning portion of this book. Chapters 1 through 11 was this. And it's on the screen. I think this snapshot that we looked at in part one of Genesis. God created the universe, and it was good, it was free of sin, that then God created humanity to have a personal relationship with him. And then the first two people, their names are Adam and Eve, they sinned and thereby brought evil and death into the world. Evil steadily increased in the world until there was only one family in which God found anything good.
[00:01:41] And that father's name was Noah. Then God sent a flood to wipe out evil, cleansing the earth, delivering Noah and his entire family with many animals on the ark. And then after the flood, humanity began to multiply, to spread out throughout the earth as God commanded them to do so. And this set the stage for the Savior's forefathers, of whom we're talking about today. Last week, there was four words that kind of broke down the structure of Genesis 1 through 11. It was the formation, the fall, the flood, and then the filling. So those were the four words that we looked at last year before we pray. I think it's really important that we understand the timeline of what's going on here. So we are in. What year are we in right now?
[00:02:27] 20, 26? 2020? Someone say 25? I don't know. It's important to remember. Sorry. We're about 2,000 or so years removed from Jesus. And so we looked last year, last week at the formation. That is when God created the earth. And for many Christians, the conservative viewpoint of when creation took place was about 6,000 years ago. Can you say that with me? 6,000 years. So from the creation, there's three big sections. And if you are a math person, you know that if we take six divided by three, that leaves us with.
[00:03:05] You guys are good.
[00:03:07] So 6,000 years ago. And if we break that up into three sections, the first 2,000 years from the creation until Abraham is about 2,000 years. So creation from Adam and Eve to Abraham is about 2000 years. From Abraham to Jesus is another. Anybody 2000 years. And then from Jesus to us is another 2000 years. And so we're looking at 6000 years total from creation. We're in this last. This 2000 years over here. Then from Jesus to Abraham, going backwards now is 2000 years. And then from Abraham until creation was 2000 years. And so with that said, and since we're only doing the Old Testament, that means technically we're halfway done.
[00:03:58] Right?
[00:03:59] Right. So 2,000 years to Abraham. We covered Abraham last week, and then we're at Abraham to Jesus. So, but not to worry. We're still a lot of weeks to go, but helpful for you to have framework for that.
[00:04:12] From Adam to Jesus, about 4,000 years. Cut that in half. We're starting in chapter 12 today of Genesis, which is the 2,000 years from Abraham until Jesus. So we're not doing all of that in one week. We're gonna go much slower now through these next 2000 years. So Genesis part two is where we're gonna be today. Let's pray, and then we'll start in God's word. Lord Jesus, thank you so much for the time that we have this morning as we just sung songs about your greatness and of your faithfulness, your love and of your mercy for us.
[00:04:41] We're able to come today rejoicing because we can approach the throne of grace this morning with great confidence because of your incredible grace and love in our lives, because we're new creations in you.
[00:04:53] And as we spend time here this morning in your word, I ask that you would open our eyes to what you want to teach us. You would Reveal more of your character to us, maybe that we've missed before would show us who you want us to be as post resurrection people, as we look at the lives of people that lived many thousands of years ago. But yet you still called, you still chose and you blessed in significant ways, Lord, that we would be reminded again of what it looks like to walk with you as your followers in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:05:26] All right, let's jump right in. So chapter 12 is where you should be in your Bibles. And there's a snapshot again because I think that's helpful for all of us of where are we going today? What are we talking about today? Snapshot, this is part two of Genesis. Genesis chapters 12 through 50 is what we're covering today form the patriarchal history of the Bible that is of the Israelite nation, detailing the lives of key figures who lay the foundation for God's special nation, named as the Hebrews, later known as the Israelites and eventually the Jews. These chapters shift from what we saw last week, the universal stories of creation and early humanity.
[00:06:10] We really focus in here to the narrative of God's covenant with one family, one family line through whom he promises to bless all nations. Now who is the one who's going to bless all nations?
[00:06:24] Jesus Christ.
[00:06:25] And it's through this nation that he's going to bless. He's going to create, he's going to call. And so we start now in your outline, if you have a bulletin, hopefully on the back end of your bulletin, on the back side of your bulletin is the outline that you can write things down on. Lots of notes there that you can take the basics, the real structure that we're working through, that we saw last week as well, the author of the book of Genesis. This is again a reminder for us, if you were here with us last week is who. What's his name?
[00:06:51] Moses. Moses was the author of Genesis and the first five books of the first five books of the Bible called the Law or the Pentateuch, the Torah. And Moses, he wrote this most likely as he's wandering through the wilderness, probably getting some alone time away from the complaining Israelites. He's like, all right, I gotta get away. And he's probably taking some time. He's pending and God has revealed these things to him. He's also bringing about stories from the, from the people. So Moses wrote this. When did this happen? Last week we saw. I put a timeline on the screen. It's on the screen for you again. Last week we saw it started off early, go to the next slide there. We'll go back to that last week. We started off with that red arrow there. The early part of Genesis. This is the Old Testament kind of broken down this week. Go forward one slide. We move forward a little bit further in the narrative of the Old Testament. When does this occur? Go back a couple slides to that number that you saw on the screen. This is most likely happening. And again, we saw this last week. The timelines of the Old Testament can be challenging because they didn't use the same dates that we used. So a lot of the ways that we figure out when stuff occurred is either through archeology and also by adding people's ages together. And this is how old this person was. And then they lived this long, and then they had this many kids, and these kids lived this long. And so we do a bunch of math to kind of figure out how to how old people were and when things occurred. So this again, most likely about just over 2000 years before Jesus to, as you can see, about 1800 years or so before Jesus. This span, this time frame that we're looking at is about 350 to 400 years or so of these four patriarchs that we're going to talk about today. And just to give you a time, like a reference, for 350 years. How long has America been a nation?
[00:08:41] So add another hundred years to that, and that's what we're covering today. Okay, so it's like American history plus 100 years in 30 minutes. All right, let's go.
[00:08:51] The next section here is not just the author and the timeline, but we need to know where is this taking place, the location. You can write this information in on your outline. The location is. This happens in what's called the Fertile Crescent. This is in the Middle east, just east of where Israel is today. This is in a place called where today is like Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel. There's a picture on the screen as well, and I put some arrows of some key locations. Ur, you can see where Abraham was called out of in Genesis chapter 12, which we'll talk about in a minute. There's another arrow pointed at Bethel. That's a key place in this story. And then over the Mediterranean Sea, there's an arrow pointing down over Goshen, which is where Israel would go to when they go into Egypt.
[00:09:37] And there was a lot of traveling that happened in that section. The soil was rich, a lot of agriculture that took place there. As you know, there was a lot of animals that they would have brought with them. All over the place. And so they needed a place with lots of plants and animals for their animals to be plants and plants for their animals to be able to feed on.
[00:09:58] And in Ur, you can see in some other places there, just north and on the, I think left side of the right side of the screen for you, there's lots of lakes and bodies of water that the animals would have been able to get water from, not to mention the wells that they were digging. So this is, we know now who wrote the book when this happened about 4,000 years ago or so, and where this occurred. Let's get into the outline. And this is really the bulk of what we're going to be looking at today. So we're going to kind of breeze through some of these other things I just talked about. But the structure is where we're going to spend most of our time. So the outline you can see on your, in the back of your bulletin there's four subjects, someone say four subjects that we're gonna be talking about today or four characters, key characters, and it is Abraham or Abram, Isaac, Jacob, and the last of them is Joseph. So those are the four key characters that we're gonna be looking at. Abram, it says Abraham, it says on the screen at first his name was what the shorter version and Abram. And then his name shifts to Abraham later on. You can leave that slide on the screen right there. We know with Isaac, with Jacob, his name was later turned or changed to Israel. We'll talk about that a little later on as well. So the structure, hopefully your Bibles is where we're looking at God's word here. Chapter 12, verse 1, starts us off here in this story. Now the Lord, and we're just going to read through verse, through chapter 50.
[00:11:26] Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse. These are really important verses for us to hear this morning because this is foundational for the same promises that God is going to give to Isaac, to Jacob, and as well to Joseph. In all the families of the earth, in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And so that you see on the screen there as well, the first character that we see in chapters 12 through 25 or so, Abram is the first of them as we think about structure. Now there's an interesting phrase I want you to just look at. Lean in a little bit more to these verses in your Bible. It says this.
[00:12:20] I will make you a great nation and I will bless you. Do you see that there?
[00:12:28] What's interesting about that is in chapter 11, if you go back one chapter, what we find is this. Is that the Tower of Babel? Here's what the people said, is we wanna make a name for ourselves. Did you see that there? And then God says, no, you're not gonna do that. And they said, we're gonna build this massive tower. We wanna make a name, Our name. Great. And then God disperses them by breaking up, by changing their language. And then one chapter later, God says this. The way that you have a name for yourself is because of me, not because of you. And so Abram's story starts off with a calling of God saying, I'm gonna make you great. Not because you're a great guy already, not because you wanna be great, because of all the things that you have. But it's through me alone that you become great. So we continue on kind of zooming back out here. Abram is. Anyone know how old he was when God called him?
[00:13:20] 75 years old. Right? That's just a good time to start something new. So anybody here who's like, I need something to do. 75, that's a great place to start something new. He doesn't have any kids. His wife, his name is Sarai. We know her name will be changed little later on. And God calls him out of this place called Ur. This is around Babylon.
[00:13:39] This is a nation that is an idol worshiping nation. But most of the time they're worshiping what's the Sun God. How God calls him, we don't know. Does he have a dream? Does God show up in some significant way? We don't know. But we know this is when God called Abram. Abram didn't say, I'm gonna sit back and think about it, or God, let me pray about that.
[00:13:58] He says, I'm going to go. Abraham though, does. Or Abram at this time does make an error. God told him to leave his family, didn't he?
[00:14:09] Now Abram says, I'll do mostly what you said.
[00:14:13] And he brings along his nephew Lot. We'll talk about Lot in just a minute. So Abram then leaves Ur and he goes up kind of the Euphrates River. He travels along that. And after some time, if you have your Bibles, you can kind of keep flipping with me. In chapter 15, God makes a one sided covenant with Abram. You're going to be doing a lot of flipping, so it's okay to hear that around you. That means you're staying on track. Chapter 15. God makes this one sided promise with Abram, his covenant and says, I'm gonna make you a great nation with descendants as numerous as maybe you remember this. He took them outside, it was nighttime, and he says, look up at the stars. He says, I'm make you to have descendants as numerous as the stars. And then Abram, he says to God, all right, that's great. I have this problem though.
[00:15:00] I have a problem. What was his problem?
[00:15:02] I don't have any kids.
[00:15:04] So I don't know how you plan to have this many descendants come after me. But Abram's job was simple. Have faith in God.
[00:15:11] This is the same for us too, right?
[00:15:14] Do what I've called you to do and have faith that I will take care of the rest.
[00:15:20] So after some time goes by, Abram does what a lot of us do when we're waiting on God. We take things into our own hands.
[00:15:27] And Sarah says, hey, Abram, you should take my servant. You can have a kid by her. And this was. It seems really strange to us in the culture this would have been very normal if the wife of somebody could not have kids. They would have said, all right, well let's just bring the servant and you can have a child from my servant and then they will be called my child. Well, how does that work out?
[00:15:49] Not well. Yes, there's a child, his name is Ishmael. And then there begins to be some conflict between Hagar, the servant of Sarai and Sarah. And God says, all right.
[00:16:00] Abram says, all right, well this is going to work out. I think this is going to be fine. But God shows up to Abram and says, no, I told you, you're going to have a child. But the child's not going to be from Hagar, it's going to be from Sarah.
[00:16:13] Let's pick up that part of the story when we go to the next section in just a minute. We need to talk more about Lot, though. Remember lot, chapters 13, 14, 18 and 19 talk about lot, Abram's nephew, who actually shows up quite a bit now. Lot was not a blessing in Abraham's life.
[00:16:31] Abram gave Lot better land. Abram had to go and rescue Lot when he got captured by enemies. Chapter 14. Abram had to rescue him again when God was like, I'm gonna destroy Sodom and what Gomorrah in chapter 19. And even after. So Lot is kind of this, he's over here and he keeps getting the better things. Or Abram's like, all right, I got to go save my nephew again. And then even after Abram dies, Lot and what happens with Lot continues to be a problem in Abraham's life. There's a point in time that even after Abram dies, negative repercussions of Lot continue. Like, for example, his daughters end up having kids with him, and then those kids end up being the father of. Of the Moabites and the Ammonites. Do those sound familiar to you? Israel had to deal with fighting the Moabites and the Ammonites for years to come, years later.
[00:17:22] Now, what could have stopped or solved that problem for the Israelites if Abram didn't take Lot at the beginning? Isn't it interesting how when we don't do something right over here, we deal with the repercussions over here? Have you experienced that before?
[00:17:38] Or when you don't do something right over here, you're like, it'll be fine. I think it's gonna be okay.
[00:17:43] I'm just adjusting God's command a little bit. How other people have to deal with the punishment for that later. This happens for us today, and it happened in Abram's life as well. One marker I wanna draw from Abram's life that's significant is this.
[00:17:59] Abram waited a lot. Any of you like waiting?
[00:18:03] Abram learned that doing the right thing often means waiting longer than you originally thought for the good thing to happen.
[00:18:11] And when you cut corners, it often leads to consequences for you and for other people. And so perhaps that's a call for us today to ask God, God, where are you calling me to go? And maybe if you already know God, am I cutting corners?
[00:18:25] Am I doing what you haven't actually asked me to do in that role? Now, yes, Abram left like he was told to, but he didn't do exactly what God said. When God asked us to do something, we should do it. The amen.
[00:18:37] So let's look onto the next individual. We see this in chapters 21 through 28. Abram, he doesn't have kids. But then, after 25 years of waiting, the evidence of God's faithfulness comes to be finally born. And his name is Isaac. What does Isaac mean?
[00:18:55] Laughter.
[00:18:56] Laughter.
[00:18:58] Why laughter? Why is his name Laughter?
[00:19:02] Sarah laughed when she found out. Right? You know who else laughed? Abraham did. They both did. When Abram heard, oh, your Wife is gonna have a. When God said, your wife is gonna have a child, he laughed. And then Sarah, when she heard the same thing a little while later, she also starts laughing.
[00:19:20] So God's like, all right, well, we're gonna run with this, and we're gonna just call him Laughter. I mean, talk about, you know, as he gets older. Mom, why am I. Why am I called Laughter? Well, son, when God said you were going to be here, we just laughed. It's like, mom, that's not very kind. Mom.
[00:19:39] Here's what this teaches us, though. With Adam and. I'm sorry, with Abraham and with Sarah, no matter how old you are or how young you are, God can use you.
[00:19:49] And that's important for all. As long as we continue to take breath, God has a purpose for us being here. Now, Isaac's life, interestingly, he is.
[00:19:58] He lived longer than the other four characters that we're talking about. But in Genesis, the description of his life is actually shorter than everybody else that we read about. Now, the most notable part of Isaac's life is when Abram, listening to God's instruction, Abram takes his dad, takes him on a journey and then up a mountain, because there was to be a sacrifice.
[00:20:22] And God takes Isaac with him, and they go up this mountain.
[00:20:26] And this is something that Isaac probably wondering, what's going to go on here? And Abraham definitely wondering, what is God doing? God told me to sacrifice my son, my son that he gave me. And he takes him up to this mountain. This is a beautiful picture of Jesus as well, right When Isaac, then about to die, is given a substitute, when God provides a ram in his place on this mountain, years later, we see that obviously Isaac does not die. Years later, we see that Sarah, his mom, ends up dying. And Abram says, all right, we gotta find a wife for my son Isaac. And in a series of events that really only God can ordain, God provides an incredible wife for Isaac. I mean, wouldn't it be neat if.
[00:21:18] Yeah, it's just a great story. So read through that. In chapter 24 and chapter 25 of Genesis, Isaac gets married to his wife. Her name is Rebekah. And some time goes on, similarly with Sarah and Abraham. They don't have kids. And so what does Isaac do when there's no kids?
[00:21:38] What we should do when we have a problem. What is that?
[00:21:41] This is not complicated.
[00:21:43] He prays and he says, God, I really want to have kids. And God says, all right, you're going to have kids. That's going to be next. In just A minute. We see this great reality, though, in Isaac's life. God says, you're going to have kids, Rebekah, but there's going to be some conflict going on in your kids. And those two kids, what are their names?
[00:22:07] Jacob and.
[00:22:09] And Esau.
[00:22:11] And so as time goes on, they end up having kids. And we move to Jacob in the next slide here.
[00:22:20] Before, though, Jacob comes along, we see all of his life, Jacob and Esau have this tussle back and forth. And Jacob, who is the younger one, and his older brother's name is Esau, God says to Rebekah and to Jacob, these two kids are gonna be fighting it out. Any of you seen kids fight?
[00:22:40] This is gonna be more than that, more than bickering that goes on, actually. And this is opposite of what would have normally happened. The younger one is going to be in charge of the older one. And oftentimes, especially when you see two different age kids, the younger one does want to be in charge of the older one. But God says, that's actually what's going to happen. And so as these two kids get older, Jacob says, all right, I see that Esau is the older one, and he's gonna get the birthright or the blessing, but I want that blessing. And so when his dad says, all right, I'm gonna die, what does Jacob do?
[00:23:17] Kind of a switcheroo here. And he says, all right, I stole the birthright through a pot of stew, right, from my brother. And then he goes and he fakes being his brother. To his dad, Jacob does.
[00:23:30] Jacob means cheater.
[00:23:34] Not to say that you shouldn't name somebody Jacob, but that's what he does. He cheats, he tricks. And so he tricked his way into getting this birthright. And then how does he trick his dad? He dresses up like his brother. He gets food like his brother would have because he wants to be in charge. Years before, God said the younger was going to rule over the.
[00:23:56] Not to say that God said, esau, you should do all this evil stuff. You should be doing this tricking and everything. But God works through broken people, doesn't he?
[00:24:05] And so Jacob, we see in his life that trickery, deception is really permeating through his entire life. There's something that happens because he tricked his brother. How do you think his brother felt about that?
[00:24:19] Really angry. Now we know he got so angry. You can read about this in chapter 25 and following.
[00:24:25] He got so angry that he's like, I'm gonna kill my brother. Now, if somebody says they wanna kill you, what do you do?
[00:24:31] Some of you are like, I grabbed my gun right now for them. Here's what Jacob says. When my brother's angry, angry enough to kill me. And now that Dad's gonna die, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna run the other direction. And so Jacob goes, knowing that he really brought about this messy stuff in his life. Jacob does something. He says, I'm gonna run away at his mom's really direction. Here's where you should go. He runs away. And I'm sure he's wondering, God, now what?
[00:25:00] Have any of you asked that question of God? Now what? And as he's running away, the time's getting later in the day, and he lays down and he goes to sleep at night, and he has this dream. And this dream is where God shows up. It's on the screen here. God says something to him.
[00:25:17] In Jacob's dream, he sees this ladder going from earth to heaven, and angels going up and down on this ladder. And he looks up and he sees the Lord. Look on the screen. Or in your Bibles, verse 13, it says this in chapter 28. And the Lord said to him, and remember, this is after this trickery. This is after deception. This is after lying.
[00:25:38] God says this. I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give to you and your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And in you your offspring shall.
[00:25:57] And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be. What?
[00:26:01] Blessed have we heard that before, right? With Abraham. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go. And I will bring you back to this land. Notice how many times God is saying, and I will do this, and I will do this, and I will do this. Look at the last sentence. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised. This is God saying, I am faithful. Even in the midst of you being an unfaithful person, I will remain faithful. And so Jacob wakes up from this dream, realizing again, he makes an altar, realizing this is something that God can only do.
[00:26:35] Jacob then moves on and he meets his uncle. His uncle's name is Laban.
[00:26:42] Laban. Can we say that together? Laban. He meets his uncle Laban, and he falls in love with this girl. And he's like, all right, I want to marry her. He works for her for seven years. And then, right, you could Read about this. He marries. He thinks he's going to marry Rachel, the girl he fell in love with. And then Laban, he's also a tricky guy. This runs in the family. Laban switches out one daughter with his other daughter, Leah, which is a strange thing to do at a wedding, right? Is switch out the bride with another bride. And then Jacob wakes up the next morning and finds not Rachel, the girl he fell in love with, but Leah, right? Literally, this deception runs in the family.
[00:27:23] And so Jacob ends up marrying Leah and Rachel. And then he says, well, it's time for kids. And so kids come along. But before Rachel, the person he loves, starts having kids, Leah starts having kids. And then there's this drama that happens. I mean, there's more drama in this marriage. This is only marry one person at a time. That is, he marries, right? Rachel and Leah, they're bickering back and forth, and who's gonna have the next kid? And who's gonna have this kid? Leah's having more kids, and Rachel's not having kids. And then as we saw with. With Sarah and with Abram, when one person's not having a kid, what was culturally acceptable at the time was, all right, well, if I'm not having a kid, here's my servant. And so on the screen, I know the print is really small, he ends up having 12 kids, and in the midst, or 13 actually, but 12 sons by four different women. And there's all sorts of drama spread out in all of this. And Jacob, through it all, he's kind of just like, there in the middle of it all. And there's kids everywhere. And this mom and that mom and that mom. It's just a strange, unique kind of thing, full of drama. So some of you don't have enough drama in your life.
[00:28:38] And if you need more drama, don't flip on the TV. Just flip your Bibles, open and read through chapters 32.
[00:28:46] Well, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35. You will see some crazy stuff there.
[00:28:52] But what is God doing? What is God doing through all of this? He's saying, I am faithful even in the midst of your unfaithfulness, even in the midst of broken people and broken relationships, I hold things together. Because we know that in all of this drama and all of this deception, God is not saying, yeah, I wanted it that way, but God can use that brokenness. God can use our sin and say, I'm gonna make something beautiful in the midst of that. Now, we saw earlier that Jacob's name was changed it was after he has all these kids, he's done with Uncle Laban, and he says, all right, I'm gonna leave. And he, like, sneaks away from Laban, and he tries to sneak away from Laban. And as he's. After he leaves Laban, he ends up meeting this person, angel of God, what's often considered a theophany. It says that he wrestled with God and he wrestled all night with God. And as daybreak begins to happen, this other individual, possibly like the incarnate Christ, showing up and wrestling with him.
[00:29:54] And Jacob says, let me win. It's almost day. Let's stop wrestling. The other guy's like, let me go. We need to stop. And the angel or this person who is this Christophany, most likely this person of God who is God, touches his hip and, like, throws it out of place. And he ends up having to limp for quite some time after that. And it says in Genesis that people still, to this day, still don't eat that part of the body of animals, because that was the part of Jacob that was touched. And in the midst of that wrestling, in chapters 32 and 35, here's what God says. I'm changing your name from trickster to someone who wrestles to someone who wrestles and prevailed. And that's where the name Israel came from. Someone who wrestled with God. And so as we talk about even Israel today, that's where this name is came from.
[00:30:48] So Jacob has these 12 sons. He has a favorite son, doesn't he?
[00:30:55] There's all these older sons. He has a favorite son because one of these, this favorite son was born by his favorite wife. Her name was Rachel. Right? So he has this favorite wife, and then he has this favorite son. The favorite son's name was Joseph. So we shift a little bit further in this outline. 30 chapters in Genesis, chapters 37. Hopefully you've still been flipping with me.
[00:31:17] Chapters 37 through 50. Give us the rest of. That's the rest of the book. Joseph's life, the favorite son of Jacob. Now, we learn some things from Jacob's life.
[00:31:32] Oftentimes the story that we hear is Jacob was the guy with the Technicolor dream coat, the multicolor coat, right? If you've been in church things, there's all these stories about, about that and songs and such. Jacob was affectionately known by his older brothers as the dreamer, Right? That was something that marked. Joseph's life is the dreamer. Joseph's life is broken down in three main acts, if you like drama, right? There's three main acts. Of Joseph's life. Let's just look at them briefly if you'd like to write things down. Again, act one starts off in chapter 37. So look in your Bibles. Chapter 37 starts off with act one with Joseph's life. He's 17 years old. He's Jacob's favorite, and he often reports back to his dad about how his older brothers are doing. At age 17 or so, he has these dreams that say, one day. This sounds familiar, by the way. One day, you, the younger of the brothers, is going to be in charge of the older brothers. Right? When did we see that earlier?
[00:32:34] Jacob and Esau, right where that role was switched. The older should be in charge of the younger. But that switch with Jacob and Esau here, we're gonna see that switches again where Joseph has these dreams that you're gonna be in charge of your brothers. Now, Joseph flaunted this to his brothers.
[00:32:55] Now, we like to think he was this nice guy. He was trying to be respectful. He was flaunting it to his brothers. So much so that his brothers called him, oh, here comes the dreamer. You could read about that. And in chapter 37.
[00:33:08] And so, because they hated him so much, because Joseph was saying, I'm gonna be in charge of you one day. Even he shared this with his parents. His brother said, we should what?
[00:33:19] We should kill him. Look at in your Bibles, chapter 37, verse 20. Here's what his brother said. They're out in the field. Joseph's walking over. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of these pits.
[00:33:32] What loving brothers.
[00:33:34] And so what do they do?
[00:33:37] We see that they actually don't kill him.
[00:33:41] Because there's one brother who says, let's not. Let's hold out for a little while.
[00:33:46] Act two then shows up.
[00:33:48] He is sent in act one with slave traders. To where? What country?
[00:33:55] To Egypt. Act two starts.
[00:33:57] He thinks, my life is done. I have been taken from my homeland. I've been taken from my father. I've been taken from my brothers. I've been taken from anybody who knows me. And I'm going to this massive metropolitan city, this country, where people literally will just disappear as slaves. That's where he's off to. So he thinks, my life is done.
[00:34:17] But then there's this particular guy who pays attention to him and asks him to be one of his servants. What was that guy's name?
[00:34:25] Potiphar. And so then Joseph, he starts off probably as a lowly slave in Potiphar's house, But God hasn't Forgotten about Joseph. And God gives him success after success after success after success. And Potiphar starts to say, this guy is different than the rest.
[00:34:43] And after a while, he's in charge of all of Potiphar's house. But then, right.
[00:34:49] Cause as soon as things start to go well for somebody, it goes downhill. Potiphar's wife steps in, she lies about him, and he is tossed back in jail again. Jail in a massive city, in a massive country, only to be forgotten again.
[00:35:05] And so he's sitting there in jail going, God, now what? Have any of you asked that question of God before?
[00:35:11] Now what?
[00:35:13] And God shows up again after some time. There's these other people who have these strange dreams. And here we go, right? The dreamer says, I can help you with that. Through the power of God, he helps them both. Well, he helps one of them.
[00:35:28] The other one is not his help because he's gonna die, but the other one, he's told, you know, you're gonna serve Pharaoh again. Joseph says this.
[00:35:37] I'm not sure.
[00:35:39] Maybe God forgot about me. But can you remember me when you go to Pharaoh? Can you remember me? Can you mention me to Pharaoh? Cause I'd like to get out of here.
[00:35:47] And the guy forgets about him for two years.
[00:35:51] Two years he's sitting in jail going, the guy talks to Pharaoh every day. The wine bearer, he talks to Pharaoh every day. Has he not mentioned Pharaoh to me? It's been two years. And after a while, he remembers because Pharaoh has this dream, act three.
[00:36:06] And Joseph is brought out of prison. And. And he's able to not only answer the dream, interpret the dream of Pharaoh, but he's then placed in a position of authority in Egypt. God said, I didn't forget about you. I didn't forget about you. And as you know the story, Joseph's brothers, they show up because they need food, because a famine happens. And God says, I ordained this. Look at the end of chapter or the end of the book of Genesis. We see here in chapter 50, something incredible happens.
[00:36:39] It's on the screen. Joseph says this to his brothers because they did something evil. God did not say, yes, you should try to kill your brother. You should send him off. But here's what Joseph said. His brothers came to him. They fell down before him. This is in chapter 50, verses 18. And following his brothers came and fell down before him. They are afraid. He's the most powerful person under Pharaoh in Egypt. And they say, behold, we are your servants. Does this sound familiar? Remember this beginning of Joseph's story. Remember the dreams, how the brothers should have been in charge. And Joseph was the underling. And he said, I have a dream that one day you're gonna fall down before me. And they're like, that's never gonna happen. Years later, that happens here. Literally, they are. The dream comes true.
[00:37:22] It's like God knew what the future was gonna be.
[00:37:25] Joseph said, Verse 19, look in your Bibles. This is so powerful. But Joseph said to them, do not fear, for I am in the place. Am I in the place of God? In other words, why are you falling down before me? I'm not God. I didn't ordain this. Look what it says, verse 20. For you know this verse. For as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. Can someone say for good? For good to bring it about. That many people, not just you, but that many people should be kept alive as they are today. Here's what we learn from this whole section here.
[00:38:00] It's this. God can bring good results out of our sinful actions.
[00:38:05] And I'm so glad that I serve a sovereign God.
[00:38:08] I'm so glad that we do. In the midst of all of this, let's transition to the next S word on your outline. It's this. We'll just look at this really briefly.
[00:38:18] We saw the subjects, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We looked at the structure which we just walked through in the bulk of our time. And then briefly, let's just look at how the Savior is woven into all of this.
[00:38:28] Look with me, if you flip back in your Bibles, In Genesis chapter 14, there's a unique individual that shows up that we only hear about really in Genesis 14. We hear about him a little bit in Psalms and then Hebrews. There's a passage in Hebrews that speaks about this person named Melchizedek. Right Again, if you don't know what to name your kids, you can either look at all the genealogies or just go with Melchizedek. Good guy.
[00:38:52] Melchizedek shows up in chapter 14 and he is known as the King of Salem, which is later to be the city of Jerusalem. And he is a priest as well. Is there another king and priest that you know about?
[00:39:06] Jesus Christ.
[00:39:08] Jesus Christ and psalms, I think 110 speaks about it. In Hebrews, chapter seven speaks about this Melchizedek, this king of Salem, priest of the most high God. As we look at Jesus, we see this. Just as Melchizedek was both a king and a priest, so is Jesus. And Jesus today, friends, is our intercessor before God, the one who marks you and I, if we've trusted in him as bought and paid for, and the only one who is our advocate before God, before a holy God. How can you and I approach God? Just as Melchizedek was a priest, the go between, between sinners and a holy God, Jesus is that person. And it is through trusting in Jesus and him alone that we can come to be right with God. We see even more so in the next section. You can write this in. Jesus is not only our priest and our king, he's also our justifier through what's the Word? Through faith. In Genesis chapter 15, if you go from chapter 14 to chapter 15, we see this. Abraham was made righteous. Not because of his works or were his sacrifices, but because of his. What faith. It says this. Genesis 15, verse 6. And he believed God. That is, he had faith. And it was counted, it was credited, it was given to him as righteousness. How was Abraham right with God? Because of his faith? How are you and I right with God? Because of our faith. Romans, chapter four. We won't read through all of it, but you can see it in your outline. Chapter 4, verses 1 through 3, 13 and verses 23 all speak about this. You and I are not made right with God because of our own efforts.
[00:40:49] You can't make yourself more right with God. Do you know that? There's nothing you can do. It is Jesus alone who does that work. Ephesians 2:8 says this right. God justifies us. For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith. Faith is the key word.
[00:41:09] And then the third one on your outline, you can write this in. Jesus is not only our priest and our king. He's not only the one who justifies us through faith, but also he is our sovereign Lord. We just talked about this a minute ago. Chapter 50, verse 20. We see sovereign, by the way, just means completely in control.
[00:41:26] We see that Jesus is completely in control of all things.
[00:41:29] There is no one more powerful than our God.
[00:41:34] As we look at a parallel even between Joseph and Jesus, consider this. Both of them were loved by their father.
[00:41:41] Both of them were betrayed by family.
[00:41:44] Both of them decided the fate of their families. And both of them saved those who once hated them, Joseph and Jesus.
[00:41:53] As we consider this phrase that Joseph said what you meant for evil, God meant for good. I'm reminded maybe you are as well. I'm reminded of why we call it Good Friday.
[00:42:05] Good Friday. That was a terrible day. Evil things happened on Good Friday. The murder of Jesus Christ. And yet we call it what good. That, friends, is us saying God is sovereign. God can bring about goodness from evil. One pastor said this. The gospel of our salvation was accomplished through evil, through the evil of sinful men as they killed the Son of God. That is the gospel. That is the good news happened because evil things happened, friends. That's what God does, isn't it? God brings about beautiful things even in the midst of our brokenness. Three applications. Things that you could write in if you'd like. It's on the screen. We'll just read through this. It just calls our attention to learn about God, to learn about man, and to learn about me. You could write this in if you'd like. It's kind of a lot of things that you could write, but I'll just read through it. It's on the screen as well. What does this teach me about God?
[00:42:57] In these 39 chapters that we just looked at, the founding fathers, if you will, of the greatest nation to ever exist were deeply flawed.
[00:43:07] If you're reading through that right now with us through the Old Testament, you're in this section right now. You see, they are deeply flawed. And yet, because God had made a promise, he did not quit.
[00:43:20] He did not give up.
[00:43:23] That's pretty amazing. This teaches us, teaches me that the faithfulness of God is greater than I can fathom and his ways are much higher than my ways. Trusting him will lead to my greatest challenges and to my greatest blessings.
[00:43:38] That's what this shows us about God.
[00:43:42] Secondly, what does this teach me about man or about life?
[00:43:46] It's this great people will fail at times.
[00:43:50] Abraham laughed at God's promises. Isaac denied being married to his wife. Don't recommend that. To protect his own skin, Jacob tricked a bunch of people. Joseph flaunted his dreams before his family.
[00:44:04] Great people will fail at times. Oftentimes humans discard those who have failed in one area. Right? We call this cancel culture today, by the way, rather than looking to restore and renew a relationship, these passages teach us that God doesn't discard those who fail, but hopes to restore and renew relationships.
[00:44:27] People need second chances.
[00:44:30] We see God doing that. What does this teach me about me there? Will you go to the next slide there? There will always be temptations for me to listen to voices other than God's.
[00:44:41] There will always be temptations. Abraham listened to the voice of Sarah's request. Then they had a son that God did not ordain, that God did not want them to have.
[00:44:50] Literally. Israel is still dealing today with the repercussions of Adam listening to his wife there over God. Isaac listened to his fear and denied being married. Jacob's life was marked by fighting and fighting and listening to his own fear inside of him rather than fighting to obey.
[00:45:08] And Joseph was tempted to listen to Potiphar's wife. There are voices all around us calling us away from what God has for us.
[00:45:18] And as you see a continuation on the screen each day I must be watchful. I must be watchful. The enemy prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to distract, to devour, to deceive.
[00:45:33] I must be watchful. Can we say watchful together?
[00:45:36] Watchful and do what it and I must be watchful and do what it takes for God's voice to be the loudest voice in my life. Because that's where we experience joy. That's where we experience blessing. Let's pray together.
[00:45:51] Lord Jesus, as we consider these things before us, we know that it is only through your power that we're able to be here today. You knew even at the time that Abraham was walking the earth, you knew that we would be here today talking about him.
[00:46:06] You brought about through broken people, wonderful things. And so today we rejoice knowing that you knew we would be here and you knew that we would need your help. And so today we rest, as I said earlier, we rest in your grace.
[00:46:23] I pray that you would help us as we consider our these four individuals.
[00:46:28] That you would help us to be watchful, that you would help us to listen well to you first in the busyness of our life around us and all the things that are happening in our life. That you would help us to wait and be patient, to have faith in you above all else. And we know the results of that will be great blessing for us. In Jesus name, amen.
