Genesis 37. This evening we're going to just break into the story of the life of this great man of Scripture, and he's the last of the seven great saints of the book of Genesis. And you'll read of Abel and Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, And then Joseph. These seven men dominate the book of Genesis, and Joseph will have more chapters allocated to him than any of the rest. And when God does that, he's letting you and I know, pay attention to this man. He's significant. He's someone that God has put there for you and I to grasp his life and then learn the lessons from his life for your life and for my life. One of the remarkable things about Joseph is despite so much is written in the Bible about him, there's not a black mark accorded against his character by God. And we'll see him at 17 years of age here in Genesis 37. right through to his death at 110 years of age at the end of Genesis 50. And yet you'll see this man walk with God, consistent, determined, going through great sufferings and rejection, growing up in a dysfunctional family. Here with these dysfunctional families today with all these partners and children from here and there. Well, Joseph grew up in a home like that. His dad was a polygamist. He had all these wives and concubines and all this civil war in the family. And his brothers were very ungodly men. And yet Joseph will not deviate from walking with God to the left or to the right. We'll see him in Egypt as a slave, then a prisoner, and then prime minister. And yet through it all, he'll just walk with God. right to the very end. And then we'll see him at 110 years of age on his deathbed with his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren. And we'll see him finishing his course with his faith anchored to God. And he leaves instructions to all of his ancestors, when I die, bring my body back to the land of Canaan, the land of promise, where God will one day bring the Jewish people back according to his covenant promises to them. So this is a man that's really worth studying and thinking about very, very carefully. I'm going to jump in in verse 1 of Genesis 37. It says, And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob, Joseph being 17 years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren. And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age, and they made him a coat of many colors. When his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren, and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, Here I pray you this dream which I have dreamed. For behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo my sheaf arose, and also stood upright, Behold, your sheave stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheave. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren. and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more, and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And it told it to his father, and to his brethren. And his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? and his brethren envied him. But his father observed, saying, Amen. God will bless the reading of this word. Now, the life of Joseph is going to teach you and I many, many different things. If you read it carefully and you read it prayerfully, it's going to teach us how to deal with growing up in a home with troubled people. He's going to teach us how to deal with envy, how to deal with adversity. He's going to teach us how to deal with rejection. He's going to teach us how to deal with temptation. Oh, this young man's going to be tempted in many, many different ways. It's going to teach us how to deal with this great problem of forgiveness towards those who have hurt us. It's going to teach us how to be consistent in inconsistent places, particularly the home. We often make excuses for ourselves because of our home environment, and we blame A and B and C, and it may well be true that our homes that we grew up in We're full of troublesome people and family members. Maybe still have troublesome individuals within the family structure, but Joseph will show you and I that's just an excuse because he will not let it affect him. He'll show us how to acknowledge God's sovereignty in all things in our lives. Now, one of the remarkable things about Joseph is he didn't have a Bible. He didn't have the story of Joseph to instruct him. He didn't even have really very many believers apart from his father, and we really don't know if any of the brothers were believers. It would appear not at this moment. So here's Joseph, and he grows up with everything against him, surrounded by the Canaanites, ungodly race of people. with all kinds of perverse, idolatrous beliefs and practices. And Joseph, we could say, has everything against him. And like Daniel in Babylon, he'll shine like a diamond in the dark. And he's one of God's great diamonds. that's placed there in history and in scripture for you and I to admire and to reflect on, but also to be inspired by and say, well, I want to be like that. I work in such and such a place, or I live in such and such a home, and I want to be a Joseph there. I want to have his character. I want to have his integrity in my circumstances and in my situation. Now, the great theme that overarches the story of Joseph is what we call the providence of God. Now, the word providence is a Latin word. It's a compound word of two Latin words, pro, which means before, and video, where we use the word video, if those of you are old enough to remember the old VHS tapes, the videos, which means, the Latin verb, to see. So you put the two words together, provideo, means to see before. And the idea of the word providence is that God, being God, who's independent of time, outside of time, space, and matter, can see before. what's going to happen. He has full knowledge of all circumstances and all choices before they ever happen. And then he guides and directs all the events, including the players in the great drama of life, according to his ultimate purpose and plan. The Apostle Paul was summed up in Romans 8, 28, when he said, all things work together for good. And Joseph will, state the Old Testament version of that. We have the New Testament version, Romans 8, 28. The Old Testament version of Paul's great statement of the sovereignty of God in the life of a believer is found in Genesis 50 and verse 20. If you turn to it, the last book of the Genesis, and if you want to know why Joseph was great, It wasn't because of his patience or his great intellect or his good looks. He was a very handsome young man, clearly. It wasn't because he was blessed simply with a great mind. He clearly was a very industrious young man. He was a very brilliant young man. He mastered the Egyptian language. He mastered working in Potiphar's house. He mastered being in the jail. He mastered working for the King Pharaoh. He grew up just in a farm laborer's job or in a farm. And yet he was able to learn another language and another culture and another industry and master it in a very short time. He was a brilliant man. Sometimes we overlook that. Wonderfully talented and gifted young man. But these were not the reasons why he succeeded. Because there were many brilliant young men who failed in life. Many talented young men or young women who made a mess of their lives. Why did he succeed? Well, at the end of his life, or towards the end of his life, it explains how he views life and how he views Joseph. At this point, he had risen to become prime minister of the greatest empire in the world at that time, Egypt. And his brothers had come to him, fearing that he would take revenge on them after the death of his father, Jacob. And look how Joseph begins, verse 19. He says, fear not. Don't be afraid. I'm not like you. Reuben, Gad, Asher, Judah. He says, I'm not going to return good for evil. He says, don't be afraid. It's not who I am. Calm them first. And then he explained why he had no hatred in his heart towards them, or no desire to take revenge on them. He says, for am I in the place of God? He says, Joseph may be great in Egypt, but he's not great compared to God. I'm not in God's place. I don't run this world. I don't decide what's right and wrong. I'm as much a subject of the king of kings as you are. I know my place." That's what Joseph gets straight to them. And then he explains something of the Old Testament, Romans 8, 28, that Joseph understood in his life. This is what guided him through the hard days, through the days when God didn't speak to him, through the days when he was alone, being rejected by his brothers, and then enduring the pain of slavery and then being put into prison for doing the right thing, not the wrong thing. How did he get through it? Here's how he got through it. He says, verse 20, but as for you, ye thought evil against me. He says, you did evil. He doesn't sugarcoat it. He says, you and your human responsibility acted with evil motives and in evil deeds towards me. But he says there's another side to this, not just the human side, there's a divine side. And he says, but God. But God was working behind the scenes. He says, but God meant it for good. Didn't say it was all good that happened. They were evil in their intentions. But through it all, the greatness of God and the sovereignty of God in his great providence, working behind the scenes, guiding and directing and permitting all these things to come about, he says, God was working, weaving a tapestry, a beautiful pattern, And he says, but God meant it unto good to bring to pass. And Joseph understood some of the purposes of God, not all, because Joseph didn't know that in 2024. there would be a bunch of people in our mission hall learning from his life. He didn't know that would flow from his example and God's dealings in his life. But he knew some of the things that God was doing and the reasoning God was doing. He says, but God meant it only for good or unto good to bring to pass as of this day to see of much people alike. He says, one of the purposes God permitted me to suffer, the rejection, the betrayal, the hurt of slavery, the loneliness, the temptation with Potiphar's wife, and then the imprisonment, and all of those things. Joseph says God was working through it, secretly in the shadow, providence, through providence, to save your lives, to save the Jewish people from starving in Canaan through the famine. So Joseph understood a little bit, but really what he was stating there in Romans 8, 28, he was stating the Romans 8, 28 of the Old Testament. God was working all things together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose. Now, let's go back to Genesis 37. We may not get through all of these 11 verses tonight, but that doesn't matter. And we're told in verse one, that Jacob, his father, dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger in the land of Canaan. Now, if you have your Bible with you, if you just cast your eyes just back to the previous chapter, you'll discover that in the previous chapter, God takes time to record the lineage of Esau. Remember there were twin boys, Jacob and Esau. God chose Jacob, rejected Esau, the firstborn of the twins. And Esau inherited, or became a great nation, the Edomites, his descendants. If you go to the city of Petra today in the land of Jordan, that great city carved into the caves there and to the side of the mountains, I've been there, and you'll see that that was the ancient city of the Edomites. And Esau and his descendants, became powerful people. If you read carefully, you'll see there were princes, dukes, or kings and rulers. They were powerful people, and they were significant people, and they had significant influence. By contrast, Jacob in verse 1 is just a stranger. Yes, a wealthy one. But in the world's terms, not that significant compared to his brother Esau. And yet the Bible only gives us one chapter recording all the details of Esau's descendants, because they're not the chosen people. They're not the children of God. And from God's perspective, they're not significant. From the world's perspective, yes, they're the significant ones. They're the ones that occupy all the magazine covers and the newspaper headlines. But from God's perspective, they're nothing. God sees things different from us. And the focus of this book is going to be Jacob and Joseph and their descendants. They're the ones that impress God, the people of God. And sometimes we need to be reminded of that, that God's eyes are always on his people. And God's love is always upon his people, not just the Jewish people, but the people of God, whether Jew or Gentile. And although Jacob is just wandering around like his ancestors, Abraham and Isaac, from place to place, no fixed city, no fixed abode, and Esau's making his money and making his name and making his wealth and influence, God's not impressed. God has no interest. But the names are recorded just to let you know that God knows they're there. He knows each one from Esau's descendants. But that's all they are, just names that don't impress God. Because what's going to impress God is the character of Joseph. And that's why he's going to devote 13 chapters, 14 chapters, from Genesis 37 to Genesis 50, recording the life of a man that impressed God. And it's supposed to impress you and me. Now, verse two is the first introduction to Joseph. It says, these are the generations of Jacob. Joseph being 17 years old. So he's not even an adult at this moment. What we know about Joseph was he was born the son of the favorite wife, Rachel, the first child. of Rachel, waited a long time, Jacob and her, to have children. And Joseph was the firstborn. And what a child he became. What a blessing he became to both his father and his mother and the rest of the family, although they didn't appreciate it, and although they didn't know what a blessing he was going to become. But even as you read this story, you get a sense that old Jacob, he had an inkling. And especially when these dreams came, he had more than an inkling that this boy is special. This boy is going to be different from all the others for the right reasons. And he was born in Harran, 17 years before. And when he was about five or six, he and his father and his mother and his stepmothers And all his brother, his brother, and his brother wasn't born yet, Benjamin, his full brother, but all his half-brothers, they all fled the house of Laban, if you remember the story. And they left at night, and Jacob, Joseph as a boy, would have grasped all that. They made their way to Canaan, and were told that, although he's only 17, Joseph has witnessed many things by this stage of life. He's witnessed growing up in a home that's greatly divided, that there's great bitterness within the home. He's grown up in a home where his father was a very inconsistent man. He's grown up in a home where There's partiality between Jacob and his wives, and even with his sons. He's grown up at a home, Joseph, where there's many bad influences. His mother and his stepmother, Leah, were idolaters and thieves. His uncle, Laban, that he would have known right up to the age of five or six, was a very evil and a very cunning man. And then his brothers, probably the ones that may have had the most influence in such a huge family with a huge business operation, he would have run around with those brothers, Reuben and Judah, Simeon and Levi. They were cruel men. They were hard men. They were murderers. In fact, they were mass murderers, we discovered in Shechem. They were fornicators, adulterers. Reuben, in particular, was a very ungodly man. And Judah hung around with prostitutes. So that was the home that he grew up in. Just to give you the details here, he didn't grow up in a home that was a home that honored God, that his older brothers and sister were a great example to him. that his father and all the wives were an example to him in righteousness and in holiness. No, he grew up in a home far from that, a divided home, a home with bad influences. He saw his father sneaking away from Laban at night in deception. He saw his father trying to deceive his brother. He saw lying to him. He saw all these things. And being such a talented and intelligent young man, he could see right through what was going on. And yet, character is forged in such crisis, isn't it? We sometimes forget you make your own choice. Yes, there are influences, but at the end of the day, an individual makes his or her choices. And someone said, God often has to make a man godly. God always makes a man godly before he makes him great. And in Joseph's case, he's going to forge his character in the crisis and through it all make and mold and shape and make him a godly man. And when he becomes a godly man, then God will be able to use him greatly. We've been looking at the life of David, haven't we, in the Sunday morning service recently. And maybe to your surprise, because we often just read the Bible through our children's storybooks, we forget that David went through 12 or 13 long, hard years as a fugitive from Saul. And he bore a lot of scars. and a lot of hurt and a lot of loneliness and a lot of rejection, a lot of disloyalty, a lot of backstabbing. And through all of those things and his own imperfections were exposed when he lied and deceived when he was in a panic. God was, what, shaping him and molding him so that David could become the greatest king Israel ever had when he got to the age of 30, through all those bitter experiences. And the same with Joseph, because Joseph, like David, will become leader of the nation when he's 30. Because at 30 years of age, Joseph will become prime minister. David became king over all of Israel. Well, certainly over the majority of Israel at 30 years of age. But before they got to those positions, God brought them through a school of suffering until they were able to graduate as great men of faith that God could use. And in Joseph's case, it's going to be 13 long years, from the age of 17 to the age of 30. And as you read this story, Remind yourself continually, not once does God speak to Joseph and say, Joseph, just you hold on for 13 years and you'll be prime minister, and you'll be great, and you'll be significant, and you'll be free, and you'll be powerful, and you'll be influential. Not once does God say that to him. Not once does God even, that we read of, Intervene directly and explain to Joseph what's going on. Why he's having to suffer these things? Why does he have to be sold as a slave? Why does he have to be humiliated? Why then does he have to be betrayed by his brethren and then by Potiphar's wife? Not once does God explain that to you, that we read of in those 13 years. And God is going to use all these bitter, difficult, hard experiences to do what Joseph said in the Psalms, put iron in his soul, put iron in his heart, to make him the man that God wanted him to be. Now, verse two, what's the time? I'm taking a long time on this introduction, but it's worth saying these things, because if you don't grasp them, you'll not understand what God's doing. in this man's life. You have to see the big picture before you can understand the small detail. In verse 2, we're told, he was feeding the flock with his brethren. And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Now, there's a lot we could say in that verse. Look, notice what he's doing first. He's feeding the flock. He's learning the business. His dad's a man with great interests in terms of material interests in flocks and herds, all of the wealthiest men of the area. And Joseph's just learning the business, the agricultural business. He's learning to be a shepherd, learning how to take care of the sheep. And one of the things you'll see about Joseph's life all the way through is he's industrial, never lazy. D.L. Moody, the American evangelist, said, you'll never meet a lazy spiritual man. It's true. Never meet one. Or a woman. Don't want to be sexist about this in these modern times. But you'll never meet one that's lazy. And Joseph, you'll see, like David, do you remember where it is, David, when we first meet him? He was taking care of the sheep on the hills of Bethlehem. Then his father sent him to the battlefield, and he hands the sheep over to someone else, and he does what his father wanted him to do, and then he fought Goliath, and then he just did what he was told to do by Saul. And everything Saul asked him to do all the way through, David was industrious, David was diligent. In fact, the only time David was lazy, if you remember, was when he fell into the sin of Bathsheba. He was lying in his bed till the lunchtime, instead of out fighting, leading his armies the way he was called to do by God. And his laziness and his indolence led him into the sin of adultery and murder. And Joseph was a busy, even as a young man, he's busy. He's learning the business, the trade. And he's out with his younger brothers. Because his older brothers, no doubt, they were involved in probably more mature aspects of the business. But he's just learning to take care of the herds. And he's with Gad and Asher and Dan and Naphtali. These four sons of Bilhah and Zilpah. And we're told he brought unto his father their evil reports, or their evil report, what they were doing. I'll talk about that in a sec, but look at what happens in verse three. Now Israel, that's Jacob, loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a coat of many colors. Now, Jacob was favored Joseph. Now, we have to just pause and say, well, he shouldn't have favored one or the other. The Bible makes clear partiality is a sin. Read the book of James carefully. And it's something that can affect us all so easily. And we have to guard against it. how we treat people in the workplace, in the society, in the church, in the family. And if you read carefully the book of Genesis, there's huge problems that come in families there through favoritism or partiality. Now, having said all of that, he gives Joseph this coat of many color. The commentators all argue what this means. Some think it means that Joseph was chosen by Jacob not to do manual work like the rest. It was like almost told, you're special. You're the one that can not get your hands dirty and do the jobs that nobody else wants to. You can have a managerial job. Others think that what Jacob was doing was setting Joseph apart as a leader. Because even at this stage, 17 years of age, he could see that God's hand was upon him in a special way, that God was going to use him, and he was of such a trusted character that the father thought, he's the one I'll leave to look over, take care of the rest, make sure they don't do right or wrong. We really just don't know. But whatever, this favoritism, this choosing out by Jacob created tremendous tension within the home. And it was very unwise for Jacob to make his favors or his favoritism so obvious in such an evident way. Now, just to mitigate the severity of that statement, There may well have been reasons why Jacob was particularly drawn to Joseph. Doesn't excuse every aspect of it, but there may be legitimate reasons in some cases why he would have showed such favour to Joseph and had such a high opinion of Joseph. As I said earlier, it could well be his character. We know he is a young man of great character and integrity, and compared to his brothers, it must have been so refreshing. to have one son that didn't lie, and one son that had manners, and one son that could be trusted, and one son that truly loved him unconditionally. You can understand old Jacob being drawn to that particular boy. Also, Jacob, Joseph was the son of Rachel, his favorite wife, that they waited so long for a child with. Maybe he loved Jacob or spiked him out because he could see that he was the one with the potential. Maybe he particularly was kind to him because he saw that he was bullied, disliked by the others because of his godliness. We know he was a handsome young man because we read that in subsequent chapters. Potiphar's wife was particularly attracted to Joseph. His mother was a very beautiful woman, so it's not hard to do the gene mapping there, is it? He's probably the best looking of the 12 boys. He's the best mannered. He's the most intelligent. He had incredible talents and abilities and a work ethic. You can see why old Jacob, in some respects, would say, his face would light up when Joseph came through. The one with no problems. Parents know what I'm talking about. So you can understand, to some degree, it doesn't excuse every aspect of what Jacob does here, but you can understand to some degree why Jacob was drawn to Joseph. Because we're drawn to Joseph when we read this story, aren't we? Because he has the heart of Christ beating in his heart. And Jacob now is a much more spiritual man than he was when his first children were born. Maybe he has grasped already that Reuben and the others are almost lost cases. At least they seem to be. And Joseph may be his chance to redeem his mistakes as a father before. And he's drawn to this young man. And he makes him this coat of many colors. And then we're told that Joseph, and this also may be part of the reason why Jacob trusted him and respected him and loved him so much, is he brought an evil report. Now, there are some commentators and they condemn Joseph. They say, well, that's a black mark against him. He shouldn't have done that. Well, let me say very bluntly, the Bible doesn't say he shouldn't have come. Bible doesn't say he was a tail-bearer, a tittle-tattle. In fact, we could well imagine that Jacob, his father, asked him to take responsibility for the other. And he was just doing what he was told to do, in submission. And we know that the sins that these boys practiced were heinous sins. They weren't, you know, stealing a sandwich from the other one at lunchtime. These were boys that committed mass murder. These were boys that were serial adulterers and fornicators. These were boys that were involved in the worst of sins. So when it says Joseph brought an evil report, his father was the patriarch, his father was the head of the home, the head of the business. And it was right and proper that Joseph informed his father of what these boys were up to. particularly the sins that they were involved in. It would be a sin for him to have hidden it and covered it up. Of course, they hated him for it, but that doesn't mean he was wrong to do it. Doing right is never the popular thing, particularly in a home, particularly among siblings. And Joseph, being such a godly young man, would have had a very sensitive conscience for evil, particularly the evil these boys did. would have indulged in. And you'll see that subsequent history will demonstrate that he did not have a proud heart. He did not have an evil heart, Joseph. He did not indeed have a hatred in his heart towards his brothers. If anything, the subsequent history demonstrates that this young man had a tremendous love for his brothers. a tremendous passion to see them live right and do right. And maybe his action here as a 17-year-old, he was guided by all these principles. He wanted to see these other brothers walk right and be disciplined, not to hurt them, but to guide them and direct them and prevent them from harming themselves. So when you read this incident, don't jump to the conclusion, oh, here's a tittle-tattle. He's not a child, he's 17. He's on the brisk, the point of adulthood from our perspective, but in Jewish terms, he already was an adult. And he was placed in this position of authority and accountability by his father, Jacob, and he lived up to that responsibility. And he told his father, this is what's going on. You need to deal with it. It needs to be corrected. Well, we're gonna stop at this point, because of time. But next week, when we come back, God willing, we'll see how his brothers will react to Joseph being a man of integrity. And then we'll come to these two dreams, because these are fascinating. And maybe you think as you read it that Joseph was showing off, Oh, I don't think so, when he reveals these two dreams. What was his purpose in telling his brothers and his father what God had showed him through these two dreams? Oh, we'll come and talk about that next time. But as you finish this little section, you just have to admire this young man. Gifted, talented, handsome, no doubt. Youth on his side. growing up in this terrible home, led by a weak, inconsistent man called Jacob, a very passive man who seemed to let his wives and his children run riot. Surrounded by the ungodly influences of his brothers and the Canaanites, and his father's wives and his own mother, who's far from a woman of integrity and honor in many ways, And yet Joseph, without even a Bible to guide him, without even the story of Joseph to look at us and learn as an example, he's just going to rise above it all. Through it all, as the old hymn says, he learned to trust in Jesus. He learned to trust in God. What a man Joseph is going to be. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the story. of this great godly young man. What an example he is to us all. What an influence he still has on the world, among the people of God. Not because he was gifted, but because he was godly. Help us to be influenced by his example, and even be provoked to say, I want to be like him. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.