Genesis 36-37

Transcript

We study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel. We have extra copies if you didn’t bring one and you’d like one to follow along, raise your hand up real high and somebody will get to you with one of those. Anybody need one at all? And of course we have up on the screen the name of the network here in the house if you would like to jump on board there, you can do that. I believe the password is up there for you as well.

The book we’re studying is the first book in the Bible, first book of the Old Testament, and it’s called Genesis. It begins with, “In the beginning,” and so we’ve titled the whole study of Genesis In the Beginning. We’ve been through it before and may get to go through it again. I love this book. Every time you jump into these narratives there’s just so much here and so many new things to learn.

Today we’ll take chapters 36 and 37. Fear not. It sounds like a lot of text, but this is the last of the genealogies in chapter 36. So I know several of you will be very disappointed that we won’t have another genealogy after this one. Myself, I do kind of enjoy reading through these and every now and then there’s a brilliant little statement that just sort of surfaces in the middle of all the names and it just reminds you of some of what’s going on and that it’s so many things about it. I’ll point some of that out.

But today I want to start with… Let’s see if I can do this. I’ve got a pointer here (shows map) that… You know Mr. Technology here, right? Okay, there we go. Yeah, good. So we’ll be reading about Esau and his descendants and how they settle down here in Edom to the south and a little bit east and down into the mountain range Seir. Okay. I’ll remind you that most of the activity in terms of the sort of hub of activity has been Hebron. And that is right about here. Jericho is up about here. Jerusalem’s down in this area right here. Sorry about the rambling of my green dot there. That’s the best I can do with my… I’m a little blood sugar low this morning I think.

So we’re going to hit Shechem. Well we’ve talked about Shechem before. That’s right up here. And then we’ll see Dothan. I know most of you think of Dothan as in Alabama, but there is one here as well. As a matter of fact, I mean it’s quite fascinating to me. I think we’ve got a couple photos of the digs that tell Dothan. This is one of the sites that one of the Wheaton professors of biblical history and archeology has been working on for quite some time.

And so our bibles are set in space time history as well as real places in geography. And so as opposed to you might read another kind of literature that sounds fantastic and has all kinds of amazing things happening, but then you go to find the land or the name of the person, whatever and you can’t find them anywhere. And that’s because you might’ve been reading a legend or a myth or something like that that was fictional. But this book that we study, this catalog of 66 books, a library if you will, that we call the Bible, is actually set in space time history, real names, real places. You can crosscheck it and that just sets it in a whole another league, doesn’t it? It just makes everything kind of different.

But anyway, there’s some of the guys doing some of the digs there and they’ve found some amazing stuff there, including stuff that dates back to the middle bronze period, which is that era of human history. I think it runs 2200 BC to about 1500 BC. So it certainly would include some of what we’re reading right now. So with all of that in terms of history, I would like very much to read for us if you will Genesis 36 and 37.

Pastor Jim prays: Lord, what we know not, I pray that you would show us, teach us. What we see not, I pray that you would show us. What we have not, I pray that you would give us and what we are not, Lord, pray that you would make us.

So at 120 years old now… We studied last week. Pastor Matt led us through chapter 35 and Isaac had died at 180 and now Esau and Jacob are 120 years of age. So it’s awesome to think about, isn’t it? Yeah.

Genesis 36: “These are the records of the generations of Esau (that is, Edom).”

So he went by both names. Jacob goes also by Israel. Same person, Jacob, Israel. And with Esau, he’s also called Edom from time to time, which means red. And most of the Bible commentators will tell you, probably had red hair and it was a hairy man. I mean that’s exactly what they would say.

“Esau took his wives from the daughters of Canaan: Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Oholibamah”

That’s an interesting name too, isn’t it? Oholibamah, it sounds like they’re either related to a president or perhaps from Alabama. I’m not sure which one that might be, but it’s an interesting name. It means tent of the high place, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. High places were places where people would go and worship, and in the cases of Canaanites they would go and worship pagan deities, little either carvings or stone statues that they had made themselves. Human beings worshiping things that they had made. Eyes, perhaps, but couldn’t see. Hands, but couldn’t do anything. Feet, but couldn’t move. Mouths, but couldn’t speak. These statues. Almost makes no sense when you start to just think about it, just rationally it makes no sense. Right?

Why do we though in our own day and time worship things that we make or that we do? We just have another version of the same problem, don’t we, in that our hearts are creating idols all the time and we’re essentially worshiping them.

Well, “Oholibamah the daughter of Anah and the granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite; also Basemath, Ishmael’s daughter, the sister of Nebaioth. Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau, and Basemath bore Reuel, and Oholibamah bore Jeush and Jalam and Korah. These are the sons of Esau who were born to him in the land of Canaan. Then Esau took his wives and his sons and his daughters and all his household, and his livestock and all his cattle and all his goods which he had acquired in the land of Canaan and went to another land away from his brother Jacob.”

And so they literally probably just because of their wealth, because of the sheer number of animals that needed to graze and the space that they needed for them to do any kind of farming and that sort of thing, just needed more space. So they went to another land and it will be Edom, which I pointed out to you earlier on the map that they go and settle in.

Verse 7, “For their property had become too great for them to live together, and the land where the sojourned could not sustain them because of their livestock. So Esau lived in the hill country of Seir. Esau is Edom.”

So again south and east, just a little bit of the Dead Sea there over in the southern region of what was called Canaan at the time.

Verse 9, “These then are the records of the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir.”

I’m going to let you read the rest of this and we’re going to jump to chapter 37 because I want to get there. But there are some really important things. Drop to verse 24 for just a second. I love this. This just is that kind of live body detail that I really love. “These are the sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah. He is the Anah who found the hot springs.”

Some of your translations might say, because the ancient language is a little hard to translate, but he found the hot springs in the wilderness. It might say in your translation the water or in some cases it might say the vipers, the snakes. Anybody here like snakes? I think a lot of people… How many of you hate snakes? That’s a good thing. Okay, yeah. But most of us like a hot spring. And there are indeed a lot of… If you’ve been to Israel, if you’ve been down the Dead Sea area, you know that region is rich in minerals. You know that there are all kinds of spas that have risen up in the southern part of the Dead Sea where you can go and spend thousands of dollars and lots of time and you’ll come out and your skin will feel really great and it’s really awesome. I’ve not done it, I’m just going on based on what people have told me.

But that what I wanted to do there with verse 24 is just say, look at that. “He is the Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness when he was pasturing the donkeys of his father Zibeon.”

Now if you’re just writing a fairy book, you don’t include that kind of thing. It’s just superfluous at that point. But if you’re writing history, if you’re writing real… The guy that actually… We have a lot of towns where you pull them into the town and it says, “This is such and such a city, the home of…” And there’s a notable person, right? And here, all the way down there, they got a sign in their ancient way and they wrote a little thing that this is the home where so-and-so founded the hot springs. And so for historical purpose, it’s just fascinating to me.

And you go on and read the rest of those over lunch together and while you’re waiting for your food to come, but you’ll find it quite fascinating and I want you to know why I think that’s true, why I would even suggest that. And this is why. It has the scent and smack of real history. They aren’t just made-up names. They’re names that you read elsewhere in the Bible or sometimes even in literature that isn’t contained within the scriptures, ancient near eastern literature that we find. Okay? It’s got that smack and that scent of history because it’s real details. It talks about topography. It talks about the way the land is. It talks about the relationships between the people and all that sort of stuff.

So you got this book Genesis that has some fantastic claims, makes some amazing claims, to answer the question, where’d everything come from? To do that, you’re kidding me! Really? That’s a bold move on the part of God. But then when you think about it, he’s God. He’s the creator of everything. Why wouldn’t he know where everything came from? He created it out of nothing. The source of all human life, the significance of each and every human life.

As you read those names, even as Kim prayed, you find that each and every one of those names represent a human person with a story. They had a biological mother and father. They had, many of them, siblings of some sort. And we’ll see some sibling rivalry here in the next chapter, won’t we? The connectivity of all human persons. Because you see how even here with Esau named also Edom, he’s related isn’t he, to Jacob. And so when we read of some of the descendants of Esau, we’re kind of reading about the cousins of the descendants of Jacob, which you read about last week when Pastor Matt walked you through chapter 35.

And there is a sense in which we are all connected in some way, distant cousins, if you will. The spiritual longings of humanity. Of course our Bibles are not merely a record of lives lived, but this is a record of God who has been in pursuit of a people that he created and placed within them a hunger and a longing for him. And what’s gone wrong with the world, which is a question philosophers ask all the time, cultural and analysts ask that all the time. What’s gone wrong with the world? The Bible also answers that question. When sin entered the world, our hearts rebelled against the One who made us and created us with a longing and the deepest longing that he created us with is for Him. And sin entered the world and we turned away from Him and tried to live our lives as if He doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist. And that’s what’s wrong with the world as Genesis would summarize.

And then of course we have God’s unfolding plan of redemption. So that’s the rest of chapter 36, which ends with Chief Magdiel, Chief Iram. And by the way, some of your translations might say duke or king. And so these are ancient titles that probably would represent from what a lot of the commentaries would suggest that probably represent somebody who’s a leader of a tribe or a clan as they might call them back then, perhaps of a thousand people or so.

Verse 43, “These are the chiefs of Edom, that is Esau the father of the Edomites, according to their habitations in the land of their possession.”

Now the Edomites will be mentioned again. And throughout our Bibles, we find them sometimes being the enemy of Israel just as Jacob and Esau were sort of fighting with each other a little bit there as we’ve already studied their story. And they had a great reconciliation, I think in chapter 33. They come back together to bury their father at the end of chapter 35 there, I believe. And so there is this give and take in their relationship and it looks very much like a relationship, like we would expect a relationship to look. So these are real people with real stories and a real need for God in their lives and the redemption that God can bring to their lives.

So we’re going to title chapter 37, The Time the Dream Became a Nightmare. Okay? So you might want to sit up straight. This is one of those times. I don’t know. How many of you do remember your dreams often? You’re pretty good at it? My wife’s great at it. She remembers her dreams in technicolor, remembers what she wore, remembers what I wore, if I’m in it, if I’m even in it. She remembers and it’s usually got stuff that’s completely disconnected. It’s like people are chasing her and then there’s an aardvark. And then over here is a game of Monopoly that three people are playing and why they? I don’t know why they’re doing that, but one of them is really routing the other ones. And I don’t understand all of that. I mean I’m a very simple kind of guy when it comes to dreams. I barely ever remember any of my dreams and I may have told you that before.

But let’s look at these dreams that Joseph had and the whole story that centers around it because really at this point in chapter 37, the rest of Genesis is going to be focusing in on the story of God at work in the life of this guy named Joseph. And it’s pretty fascinating. He’s 17 years old as we open this up. Check it out.

“Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned in the land of Canaan.”

And see that’s exactly where he was supposed to live because as you recall, God had chosen Jacob to be the one through whom ultimately would come Messiah. And so Jacob and all of his connivings in his relationship with Esau had basically stolen the birthright and the blessing from Esau. And that would include the land of Canaan and having it as a possession. So we even see Esau honoring that as he moves to Edom and Jacob is here in Canaan.

“These are the records of the generations of Jacob.” And right here you would expect there to be a genealogical record, but there isn’t. “These are the records of the generations of Jacob.” And it goes right into, “Joseph was 17 years of age. He was pastoring the flock of his brothers while he was still youth along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives.”

And you’ll remember that Jacob essentially has four wives as we know it at this particular time. He has Leah, he has Rachel, he has Bilhah and Zilpah. And so we’re set up already. I don’t know how many of you have a dysfunctional family in any way shape. No, don’t raise your hand. But we have set up at least to understand and feel some of the pain of what could possibly go wrong, right? Yeah.

And so he was 17 and so he’s a teenager. This guy, you got a picture of this guy too. 17, young, yeah. Just got his chariot driver’s license and all of this is about to happen to him, right? Joseph brought back a bad report. He was out there shepherding along with his brothers, brought back a bad report about them to their father. So he’s a young man, 17 years old. He’s got some shepherding skills, but he comes back and he does what some would say is kind of a tattle tell kind of a thing. And he’s one of the youngest of the whole group. And there he is running back to tattle tell on his brothers, but he was favored by his father. We’ll see that.

“Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a varicolored tunic.”

Probably rich in color, ornamental. Some would say a long robe. Some would say it was even symbolic of the fact that he was favorite. So it was a visible sign of Jacob’s love for Joseph. And that was kind of every time the other kids would see it, it would be just a reminder about how they weren’t the favorite ones. Right?

“His brother saw that their father loved him more than all of his brothers. They hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms.”

That’s a nice way of saying they’re really angry with him. They’re really mad and just couldn’t even talk to him and couldn’t even be civil. I know some of you have had an argument with another human person at some point and you could not speak to them on friendly terms. And so that’s exact… This is human beings here that we’re talking about and they’re jealous, they’re bitter. There’s competition, and it’s funny because it just kind of reminds us of Jacob and Esau a little bit, doesn’t it? That little bit of Jacob is a heel grabber. He wants to take. He’s coveting something. He wants what belongs to another properly and it just runs through as a human problem, doesn’t it?

“Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated even more.”

So have a dream. It’s not always true that you should tell everybody about your dream. All right? Just a thought, just a suggestion.

“He said to them, ‘Please listen to this dream which I have had.'”

Again, and not yet good at dream interpretation. He’ll get better at that later. I think learning through this experience, he may learn something about interpreting dreams.

He says, “For behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood tall; and behold your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.'”

Now how do you think that went? You got the multicolored coat, you got dad’s love. He seems to be favoring you in ways that just have made us mad for lo, these many, many 17 years since you were born. And now you’re going to tell us this. I don’t think that went very… I’m not sure that was a smart move.

“Then his brothers said to him, ‘Are you actually going to reign over us? Or are you really going to rule over us?’ So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Now he had still another dream and related it to his brothers.”

And you would think at that point, how’d it go last time, bro? I mean, did you not sense the acrimony? Did you not sense the heat in the room or the tent was raising when you were telling them your dreams? So he does it again.

“Lo, I have had still another dream; and behold the sun and the moon and the 11 stars were bowing down to me.”

Now it’s all of heaven is bowing down to me. And 11 is the number of brothers. So this is… They’re supposed to… I mean they would get this, right?

“He related it to his father and to his brothers; and his father rebuked him.”

Even his father who favored him is rebuking him, right?

“And said to him, ‘What is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother, [sun and moon] and your brothers, [11 of them] actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?'”

So his father gets this and kind of rebukes him in this whole thing, right?

“His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.”

So, this is a dad who is keeping something in mind. And I’m not sure exactly what that means. Maybe you who are parents will understand that, pondered it a little bit, mulled it over a little bit, didn’t want to just react, but he’s mulling it over, thinking it over. I’m not sure what that means. But there are really different responses here to the same message. The brothers out and out, hate and anger on the grow, and probably visible and audible. That’s not recorded. We don’t get all of the yelling and screaming that might have gone on, a little bit of it, but not in all of it. And dad kind of going hmmm….

And later, even though this is actually what happens, that doesn’t necessarily justify that Joseph should have opened his mouth and told them all of this. There are three different parties involved with ancient historical literature like this. There’s the omniscient narrator who is actually going to tell us stuff that the people on the ground don’t know. And the narrator is sort of inspired by God to preserve this record and that’s great. There’s the expectant reader, that’s all of us and we’re kind of wondering, “Where do I fit in this story and how’s this relate to my everyday life?” And so we’re kind of expecting, hoping something like that will happen.

And then there’s the people that are actually living it out on the ground here and they’re ignorant of some of the truths that we will be able to come to some conclusion about because they’re actually living it. They didn’t have the book of Genesis to study. They didn’t pull up, “Hey guys, settle up. We’re going to have a Bible study. We’re going to do Genesis 37 tonight.”

They didn’t have that option. So, we have that and it’s a little bit better for us. But when you read stories like this, it’s just amazing. And I so appreciate the way God has preserved all of this in these details.

“Then his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock in Shechem.[You saw that on the map earlier.] Israel says to Joseph  [This is Jacob (Israel) saying to Joseph] “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock in Shechem? Come. [And that’s about 50 miles from Hebron, probably.] Come and I’ll send you to them.’ And he said to him, ‘I will go.’ Then he said to him, ‘Go now and see about the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flock, and bring word back to me.’ So he sent him from the Valley of Hebron and he came to Shechem. A man found him” [We don’t know who this man is, but this man he runs into, it says]“Behold he was wandering in the field and the man asked him, ‘What are you looking for?’ And Joseph says to him, ‘I’m looking for my brothers. Please tell me where they are pasturing the flock.’ And the man said, ‘They’ve moved from here. I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’’ So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.”

So that’s about another 15 miles. And remember, this is not in a car. This is, you’re walking. This is pretty slow to get there, it takes awhile and a very dangerous kind of situation.

“But when they [the brothers] saw him [Joseph] from a distance and before he came close to them, they plotted against him to put him to death.”

Well, how would they know it’s him? Well, he is wearing a multicolored tunic and he’s wearing that proud thing. It’s like a neon sign says, “Father loves me best.” Yeah, and they can see him from a distance and they know who he is and it’s like they thought they got away from this pesky little punk and now here he is coming after us again. And by the way, the last time he was with us when we were shepherding, he ratted us out to dad. Is that going to happen again?

“They said to one another, ‘Here comes this dreamer. Now then come, let’s kill him.'”

Look at how far they’ve gone in their thinking and their attitudes toward him.

“I will throw him into one of the pits and we will say a wild beast devoured him. Then let us see what will become of his dreams.”

Well, Ruben heard this. Ruben’s the eldest if you’ll remember that. Ruben has made a few missteps at this point. Ruben might be thinking to himself in some way, “I really blew it in chapter 35.” No, he’s not thinking chapter 35, but you know what I mean. He’s thinking that way. He did blow it and he knows it, but he heard this. And so he starts to think it all through a little bit.

And so these guys got murder on their minds. They want to stifle the dreams. Shut them down. Ruben hears at verse 21 and it says, “He rescued him out of their hands by saying, ‘Let’s don’t take his life.’ Ruben further said to them, ‘Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but do not lay hands on him.’ That he might rescue him out of their hands to restore him to his father.”

Now there’s the narrator who’s omniscient, telling us something behind the scenes that even the brothers don’t know, but the narrator is telling us something so we can kind of see what Reuben’s doing and what he’s up to right there. Okay?

“It came about that when Joseph reached his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his tunic.” Of course,when that would be the first thing they would do. The sign and symbol of dad’s favoritism toward Joseph, right?

“They strip him of his tunic, the varicolored tunic that was on him; and they took him and threw him and the pit. Now the pit was empty without any water in it and they sat down to eat a meal.”

Now that just shows how callous they are at this point. Murder on their minds tossed him in the dry well that he would not be able to get out of. He’s likely screaming and hollering at this point. “What are you doing? What? You’re my brother!”

And he doesn’t understand in his naivete of even telling them those dreams. I mean, and I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt that he just didn’t understand that telling those dreams would be such an offense to them. But he is completely shocked. He can’t believe the betrayal, the rejection, and they sit down and order pizza. I mean they just literally sit down around the well there and eat some food together, eat a meal. And again, shows I think how callous they are at this point.

“As they raised their eyes and looked, behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead with their camels bearing aromatic gum, balm and myrrh on their way to bring them down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, ‘What profit is it? [This is Judah. Okay?] What profit is it for us to kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.’ And his brothers listen to him.”

And it’s fascinating to me, you guys. In the New Testament the name Judas is a Hellenized version of the Old Testament name Judah. In the New Testament, a guy named Judas sells Jesus for 30 shekels. In the Old Testament, God is on the move, even in the dark and wicked life of Judah because Jesus will be from the tribe of Judah. Is that not powerful when you start to think about it? Look at what God can do, take the darkest scenario and transform it, change it.

He says, “We’re not going to profit.” His whole point is about profit, Judah, right?

“Come over, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him for he’s our brother, our own flesh.’ And his brothers listened to him.”

“Some Midianite traders.” Which is it? Ishmaelite or Midianites? It’s both. I know some people read this kind of thing and they go, “Oh, the Bible’s contradicting itself. Oh, that shows us that part of that was written by one guy and part of that was written by another guy.”

Well, it may have been written by different, but it’s quite possible. It may be that this is an edited work. That’s quite possible, but Midianites and Ishmaelites could easily have been the same. In other words, the Ishmaelites would be like saying, like for us, you’re an American. But raise your hand if you’re a Tennessean or raise your hand if you’re a Nashvillian. Okay, so it gets a little smaller. Or where are you from in Nashville and what? So there’s that same idea here. The Midianites would indeed be Ishmaelites too.

“And these Midianite traders passed by, so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. Thus, they brought Joseph into Egypt. Reuben returned to the pit.”

Evidently Ruben, and we’re not told this by the narrator, but evidently he was not there at that time when this Midianite group comes through and the other brothers pull him out of the pit and sell him. He comes back, Reuben does and Joseph wasn’t in the pit. So he, Reuben, tore his garments. Remember, in his mind there was going to be a way to save Joseph’s life. Now what happened to him? Where is he?

“And he returned to his brother and said, ‘The boy’s not there. As for me, where am I to go?’

So, they took Joseph’s tunic.”

We don’t get a lot of narration here about how that all goes down. But they did take Joseph’s tunic and they slaughtered a male goat. Ironic, because when Jacob lied to his father, Isaac, he used the skins of a goat and the meat of a goat. Interesting.

“So Joseph’s brothers slaughtered a male goat and they dipped the tunic of Joseph, the very colored coat in the blood, and they sent the varicolored tunic and brought it to their father.”

Time is going by really fast here. They literally are going to travel the 65 miles back to Hebron where Jacob is. And all along the way, lots of opportunities to talk about how they’re going to reveal this to dad and some of them shuffling and some of them feeling vindicated. They got their revenge on Joseph and all that. And some of them, I’m just thinking about how callous you’ve got to be to go tell your dad this. It just breaks my heart.

“And they brought it to their father and they said, ‘We found this. Please examine it to see whether it is your son’s tunic or not.'” [Not our brother’s tunic or not, not Joseph’s tunic or not. Your son’s tunic or not.]

“Then he examined it and he said, ‘It’s my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.’ Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, ‘Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning. [When I pass away, I literally will be weeping for the rest of my life for my son.] So this father wept for him. Meanwhile, the Midianites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s officer, the captain of the bodyguard.”

Fade to black. And now I want to know what’s next. And I’ll just remind you that we encourage you to read ahead and that’s where we’ll pick up. So, we have from here, of course, as we’ve seen on the map, real places that are named in this chapter and some real space and some real space for discussions to happen, manipulations to be arranged, conspiracies to be talked about, anger vented, frustration vent, all of that. Real people going through all of this kind of stuff.

What do we see here? At the very least, there’s a warning against parental favoritism. And actually I should just say there’s a warning against favoritism because we do it. All of us do it at some point, don’t we? We arrange for things so that we can meet somebody that we favor. And we’re opportunists, aren’t we? And so we treat them differently in some way. Jesus would talk about it, he’d say, “Give them a prominent seat,” that kind of thing.

And favoritism is, I think that’s a good warning for us in this particular passage. We’re going to get to the gospel in this, which is really great. But I think there are some everyday practical lessons that we can draw from this as well. So favoritism, and those of you that have multiple children, I’m sure you struggle with it a lot. If you are a sibling of many, you might understand either the feelings on one side or the other of favoritism that was shown.

My mom has four sons and I am her favorite and so are my other three brothers. And she makes sure that each one of us knows that. See, it’s hard though, isn’t it? But I think it’s a good word to all of us at any time. Don’t show favoritism. Every single… See, back behind all of this is the worldview of the biblical thinker. When asked the question, what does it mean to be a human person? The answer from Genesis comes back. It’s to be created in the image of God. And therefore, every human person, whether they believe what I believe or not, whether they look like me or not, whether they live in our country or not, or somewhere else, it doesn’t matter. Every human being has intrinsic value. Why? Simply because they’re created in the image of God.

Therefore, the Bible leaves no room whatsoever, not one bit of room for racism or some kind of prejudice against somebody else because they don’t think like you or think like me or look like you or look like me. No, no. Every human person has intrinsic value because they’re created in the image of God. I may not reflect that image very well at any point in time in my life. That’s true. And others may reflect that image even worse or twist that and distort that image even more like a carnival mirror. But there is something in every human person when they’re created in the image of God that makes their life important to God from the womb to the tomb. No matter where they’re born, no matter how old they are, how young they are, how infirm they are, it doesn’t matter. Every human person, womb to tomb.

Secondly, I think we’re reminded here to read the room. Isn’t that an awesome thing there that… Joseph, read the room, dude. Read the tent, I should say. Yeah, read the tent. Just didn’t and…, and I’m speculating a little bit, I get it. Please don’t email me. But I kind of look at it and I go, “Maybe I identify with open mouth switch feet for him because the one foot goes in on the first dream and then he switches feet on the second dream.”

And you’ve done that, haven’t you? When the words rolled out of your mouth, don’t you remember a time when you were going, “Oh no. Oh no”? And there was no way to retrieve them and you just made a mess of things because you didn’t read the room or you didn’t read the moment. And it’s happened to me all the time. So good lesson for all of us, I think.

And I think though thirdly, and this is where we turn, I think to the eternal and timeless lessons that really are here for us. Our longing for a perfect love, you see that? I mean I see that in the brothers who are just desperate for their father’s affirmation and love. And you’d think that Jacob might have known a little bit about this because he was his mama’s favorite and Esau was the daddy’s favorite in the Isaac and Rebekah household. And you would’ve thought maybe that Jacob would be more aware of that and not shown favoritism like he did to Joseph.

But what it says to me is that for all of us, whether we’re the parents or the children or whether we’re the mad and angry siblings or whether we’re the favored one, is that all of us are longing for a perfect love. We all want to be fully known and fully loved. And that’s the beauty really of the gospel. I’ve got to move quickly. That leads me to my final point, which would be this, God’s always at work, sometimes silently, but nonetheless sovereignly working out his plans and purposes, often despite our immaturity, Joseph, foolishness, everybody, and even our wickedness, the brothers in this particular case.

John Lennox has a book on the life of Joseph.
“It is sad when some people with the best of motives, eager to protect the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, forget the glory of God’s genius in creating human beings capable of responding to Him in trust and obedience. It is equally sad when others so stress human freedom that they make no space for the glory of God’s providence.”
John Lennox, Joseph

You see, we see in this chapter the glory of God’s providence on display because he’s literally shepherding history. Because we’ve got the perspective of people who’ve read to the end of the book. See, we know the story and what we’re seeing here is God shepherding all of this to where the story of redemption begins to flow.

Joyce Baldwin has one of the really great commentaries on Genesis.
“Joseph was going through an experience which was to become a major theme of the Bible. The godly Servant was despised and rejected, only to become the rescuer of those who abused him; the Lord’s shepherd was underrated, was struck down and his sheep scattered, but the ‘sheep’ found they were the Lord’s people; the way of the cross involved for Jesus betrayal by a friend, as well as agony and death, but it was the way to life for all believers.”
Joyce G. Baldwin, The Message of Genesis

You see how this story in chapter 37 foreshadows the greater Joseph, Jesus, the one who actually suffers and dies? And it is his death and resurrection that become for us life in his name. Joseph, in a similar way, has been sold to Egypt. Most of you know the story. He’ll go down there and because he goes down there and God is with him, we’ll be told that over and over again, God is with him. He ends up being used by God to save his entire family as well as many, many thousands of people just because the Lord uses him in a powerful way to save food during the time of famine.

So, this is just an amazing story to me, and it continues to remind me of my deepest longings, your deepest longings, to know that perfect love and give me an opportunity for all of us to be reminded that the perfect love is actually found in the person and work of Jesus.

We’ll close it with this quote from Spurgeon.
“Blot out every other reflection from your soul, and sit down by the hour together, and meditate deeply on this one resplendent display of unmerited, unexpected, unexampled love, ‘Christ died for the ungodly.’”
Charles H. Spurgeon

Including the parents that don’t get it right all the time, including the favored kids and the kids that feel rejected, including all of the people that are victims of wickedness at the hands of others. Christ Jesus came to die for sinners like me, broken people like me, and broken people like you. For that, we give thanks. Let’s pray.

Lord, thank you for this amazing story, a sense of the drama building as we get to that last verse. But I don’t want to miss what we just read here and as we consider how it does indeed point forward to the great love of Jesus for each and every one of us. I pray that the good news of the gospel will find root in our hearts, that we will look up to you to see that our Redeemer has come, to give thanks. You haven’t left us alone at the bottom of the well, but indeed, Lord, you have come to rescue us, to set us free and to give us life in your name. And so, we come to give thanks in Jesus’ name and for his sake. Amen and amen.

(Edited for Reading)