God Is With Us - The Life Of Joseph, Part 1

i'm going to read from genesis chapter 37 i'm going to start at verse 2 genesis 37 2. we will go back through this passage but i do like to kind of read it ahead of time so that you can hear the whole story before we start taking it apart and seeing what happens amen in this story and so that's why we will read this genesis chapter 37 beginning at verse 2. these are the generations of jacob joseph being 17 years old was feeding hit the flock with his brethren and the lad was with the sons of bilhah and 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 he made him a coat of many colors and when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethrens they hated him he could not speak peaceably unto him and joseph dreamed a dream and he told it to 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 bringing sheaves in the field and lo my sheep arose and stood upright and behold your sheaves stood round about and they mowed obeisance to my sheep sheaf and his brethren said unto him shalt thou indeed rule 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 he told it to his brother and said behold i've dreamed to dream more and behold the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obesity to me and he told it to his father and to his brethren and his father rebuked him and said unto him what is this dream that you've 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 the same start a series of as we said a few weeks ago the lessons are broken to mini-series of one month each so this series is entitled god is with us and so we're going to look through joseph's life and see how that god was with him and gaining encouragement on how the god will be with us and so today's lesson we're going to study a young joseph and see how his early years really set the course for his life lesson number two next week we'll study joseph's faithfulness through suffering and trials when it appeared like his dreams would not be realized and then our final lesson course will have easter in between there but this final lesson will show god's faithfulness in keeping the promises that he gave joseph in his youth and so this series will highlight the thing that will highlight through that is that god promises to be with us even when it doesn't seem like it god is there and so i've been titled this lesson early dreams early dreams joseph's story is best understood i think if we begin with just a little short synopsis of his father jacob of course we know jacob was the third in the line of patriarchs abraham isaac and then jacob but jacob had fled the house of his father isaac because he had deceived him into thinking that he was esau he wanted to steal the blessing from his brother and so he colluded with his mother and they went in before esau or before his father isaac who could not see very well at the time and convinced him that he was esau fooled his father and then took the blessing away from his brother esau he had earlier bargained with his older brother to steal the birthright that was supposed to go to esau as the older of the twin brothers and he tricked esau or bargained with him and took the birthright away from him and now he has the blessing and so fearing esau's revenge jacob leaves and he goes to the land of his mother's family and he dwelt with his uncle it's kind of interesting because joseph or jacob known for his

trickery there is deceived by his uncle so his uncle laban promised jacob he said do you work seven years and i will give you my daughter rachel in marriage jacob works seven years only to find out when he lifts the veil it's not rachel he gets instead the older daughter the one that he did not want and so he lives goes to his father-in-law and said you tricked me you deceived me he said well that's okay work seven more years and you can have the other one 14 years of free labor right well it wasn't free but labor so that he could have the two wives bible tells us that after that time that rachel he finally receives her and that jacob loved her more than leah and because of that god shut rachel's womb and opened up leah's and so leah had four sons while rachel had none and just in a blatant show of sibling rivalry both sisters tried to gain jacob's favor and tried to bring forth children for him and at some point leah could no longer bear children either after the four and so rachel had this brainstorm well then i'll just give you my handmaiden and you can bear children through her and they'll be my children through my handmaiden well that happened and so leah says well i can do that too and so she does the same thing and gives jacob her handmaiden and so now you've got four women involved and all these children and finally finally rachel has a child and because she was the favorite wife joseph becomes the favorite son so ten sons later and one daughter joseph finally shows up on the scene and so that's the dynamic and that's why i wanted to set the stage for this narrative we'll be studying i think what do we find interesting in all this and and obviously that's quite the mess in a family situation dysfunctional is the word we would use today but god was still faithful to them isn't it interesting that god is with us even when we just mess things all up i'm thankful that when we just mess it up he doesn't turn his back and say you know what forget it and he walks out on us he doesn't do that he strives along with us the bible says and so our text begins with a couple of facts concerning joseph first off it said this 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 that's one of the handmaidens and the sons of zilpah the other handmaiden so not really even with the sons of the real wives of his father and so joseph brought unto his father their evil report the bible tells us so it is interesting that first off we find out that joseph was 17 when the story begins now if you look back at abraham's life abraham's story doesn't start until he is 75 years old the bible begins to talk about abraham isaac's story of course talks about his birth but we really don't see much going on with isaac until his father takes him up mount moriah to sacrifice him it's estimated he was about 30 years old when that happens we don't really see god dealing with abraham or isaac until a little later in their life but at 17 joseph's story begins and if moses had a purpose in telling his joseph's age i think it's probably to show us that god can deal with us in our youth and i'm going to circle back to that thought later in the lesson so just keep that in mind although joseph was his father's favorite the same could not be said about his brother's attitude toward him he's the favorite and that made the rest of the brothers envious of him jealous of him and so the story opens as we said with joseph feeding the flock with these sons of jacob the sons of the the servant women so it would appear early on that really he had received no special privileges he had to go to work with the other brothers he had to tend the sheep just like they did although he went with the children

of rachel and leah's handmaidens it's been observed that much in joseph's life is typical of jesus and that's not the focus of this series but i do think it's worth a passing mention paul said this of jesus he made himself of no reputation and he took on himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man so just like jesus joseph had to become or start out as that servant of course we know that the beloved son became the servant and that is what happens in this story however joseph's story changes very quickly because the very next phrase tells us this that joseph brought unto his father their evil report somebody said well what a tattletail or he was just somebody just talking about his brothers and doing this there's been a lot of speculation concerning what that evil report is the bible doesn't tell us so anything we say is speculation right you don't know what evil report what they were doing but the interesting thing to me and the thing that jumps out to me is this notice it does not say joseph brought unto his father an evil report it says he brought unto his father their evil report what evil report their report not joseph's report in fact the sense of the phrase in the hebrew refers to this it refers to defamation or perhaps a like a whispered slander against someone else and so i think what he's saying joseph is bringing to his father their evil report or the defamation and the whispering and the slandering and the things they were saying about someone else so it wasn't like he just saw him doing bad things but he heard the report the things they were saying and he took it to his father you know what they're saying who they were defaming or slaying is not clear but i think given the function of this dysfunction in this family that we've already talked about it's very possible that they were slandering their dad look how he treats joseph and look how he does this and look how he prefers this one and he doesn't like us as well and you know they were the sons of the handmaidens and the sons of the leah the real wife and now joseph the right son of rebecca he's looking at them and saying you know these dad prefers them over us and so joseph goes to his father in any case he the next verse seems to give us jacob's response to the report okay you think that jacob's favor for zelda's son through rachel was symbolized by a coat of many colors that we've heard about many times now israel 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 well if they had something to slander and whisper about now they really had something to get aggravated about i guess it was a long most likely a very long expensively dyed garment went down long sleeves all the way to the ankles was to be frank it wasn't the garment that a shepherd would wear was something more of a nobleman or someone that was important and so seeing that they suddenly realized okay well he was a shepherd with us now look what dad did for him and and a lot could be said about this coat he made perhaps most interesting thing i found looking at the ancient culture was this from a very early period a robe similar to that was preserved and handed down among the patriarchs as a badge of the birthright so what this robe was saying was this is the son i choose to give the birthright to now think back just a few minutes ago jacob was the one who stole his brother's birthright so he had no problem with taking it from who it rightfully belonged to the eldest son and giving it to someone else because he had done it in his own life and now he turns around saying well i'm not going to give my oldest son the birth right i'm going to give it to joseph he knew what it was like to take the birthright from the rightful

owner he felt no obligation toward reuben in fact the chronicler in second or first chronicles 5 gives us this insight talking about and of course if you read through chronicles you know it's just a list of genealogies and he starts with reuben's genealogy but he says this he was the firstborn but he defiled his father's bed and that was reuben's sin he went and laid with one of his his father's concubines one of those servant women and so the birthright the bible says says here was given unto the sons of joseph the son of israel he talks about how that even though reuben was the oldest that's where his genealogy is reckoned but not necessarily talking about the birth right there he said judah prevailed above his brethren out of him came the true chief ruler comes david and comes the other kings but then he says this way but the birthright was joseph's so you can see why his brothers envied him joseph was son number 11 and yet he received the birthright that should have been reserved for the firstborn and so the coat was just a constant reminder to everyone who saw joseph that he was going to receive the largest portion of the inheritance he was the one that was going to get the the biggest blessing when this was all said and done and so when the brethren the bible tells us in verse 4 his brethren saw their father loved him more than all the other brothers they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him i think in this regard again we can see that jesus joseph is typical of jesus christ jesus often spoke of his father's love toward him and his brothers if you will the jews hated him for it we're the sons of abraham we know who our father is who are you jesus said my father loves me my father i'm from heaven and it just didn't set right with them just as joseph's being the favorite is did not set right with his brothers in fact the writer of hebrews said it this way talking about jesus he was made so much better than the angels and he hath by inheritance and obtained a more excellent name than they so jesus his name is above every name right and the jews did not like that jesus would inherit what the jews thought belonged exclusively to them now we can stop this story here but there's so much more to go already here's a 17 year old taking preeminence over his brothers he's wearing a robe that says i'm the one that gets the birthright even though i'm way at the end of the line of a series of brothers and this next series of events of course we're familiar with and we know the story of joseph but really it's almost like rubbing salt in a wound isn't it they don't like him already they already see that he's the favorite and now joseph dreams a dream and he tells it to his brethren and the bible says and they hated him yet the more i think it's interesting joseph's problems to this point were really not his own doing were they it wasn't his fault the messes dad made of the family it wasn't his fault that his dad chose him as the favorite it wasn't his fault that his brothers were talking bad about their father or whatever they were slandering and talking about those things weren't his fault and i really don't know if joseph e understood the dream he had when he told it to his brothers i'm not totally sure when we look at how this is written i don't even know if he knew what it meant you know it was a dream it might have been one of those dreams you ever have him you wake up and it just seems so real and you're thinking did that happen did this and you're you're you're sorting through it man that it just you know what happened there seemed so real we we lie there puzzled thinking about what what that was all about and so regardless of the why we do know that joseph jude choose to share it and when joseph received the coat the bible says

this the brothers hated him and now he has this dream and now it says they hate him even more and so he begins to tell them this dream and he said here i pray you this dream i dreamed we're out in the field we're binding sheaves so they're cutting down the wheat and they're binding it up and laying it down there and all of a sudden the one that joseph binds up stands up and all the ones around him that his brothers are doing stand up and then bow down to joseph's chief shares the dream and i what i find interesting in this story and why i wonder if joseph even knew what it was about his brothers give the interpretation his brothers say oh really so here's what you're talking about now later in the story we know jacob joseph becomes an interpreter of dreams but at this stage it's his brothers telling him did he know what it meant did he share it to make a point i don't know the answers but here we do know the brothers knew what was going on because this said this his brother said oh really are you going to reign over us or you shall indeed have a dominion over us and they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words this verse reiterates from that phrase from verse five they hated him even more and he adds they hated him and here's another thing that i find it jumps out they hated him what for his dreams now think about that isn't it interesting they hated him for his dreams how many dreams have you had that you laid down said tonight i'm going to dream that i'm going to be ruler over my whole family and you wake up and have a dream it doesn't work that way does it you don't control those things i mean if you're conscious enough to control your dream you usually end up waking yourself up fed that happen you're dreaming something you don't like what's going on no and and next thing you know you're awake because you stopped that joseph didn't give himself this dream and yet they're mad you dream this dream that's my fault and they hated joseph for really something he had no control over i think the lesson we can learn from this is when god gives you a dream there's always going to be detractors there will always be naysayers who will try to discount your dream i said earlier we're going to come back to god's dealing with joseph at an early age and i i said i called this the early dreams god often will place dreams in one's life when they are young god often gives us direction and gives us things when we're very young and the things that we can look back to and say you know what that was god working in my life we just came through a children's revival in just a couple months we'll be sending our children to youth camps never underestimate what god will do in a young life i don't think he wants to wait till you're 30 40 50 60 and say okay here's what i want for your life and even at a very long young time in our lives it may be many years before the dream is realized as we'll see here in our study of joseph they're going to be in times it seems the dream has died but hold fast to the promises that god has given you if there's a message for us today it's hold fast to those dreams hold on to the calling you may have felt at an early age hold on to the direction it's never too late to act upon that dreams i know most of us probably all of us in here as i look around are over the age of 17 years as joseph was but i dare say most of us can remember times when god dwelt with us while we were young there were times maybe you didn't even know god maybe you didn't have anything to do with church or wouldn't run around anything but there was something in your life and say you know what looking back that was god speaking to my heart those dealings and those times and you know them because they never leave you you can point to them you remember

those times it may be true that many never reach their potential and never rise to the level of those dreams but don't let past failures keep you from pursuing what god has given you i know who i'm talking today and i know most of us are are a little bit further along in life than than some others but that doesn't mean you can't still work toward a dream that god has given you never stop pursuing that dream this may be a little a bit of an aside but let me attempt to give us a little help here sometimes we fail to realize our dreams because we place expectations on our dreams that god never intended we feel a direction or a calling or something in our life maybe we don't even classify it as that but something that god wants me to do and immediately we think i've got to be a missionary and go halfway around the world and it doesn't happen in our lives and we say i just never got to what here's the thing and remember this god gives the dreams let him control the narrative we try to work it all out well if that's what i'm going to do then i'm and we try to begin i'll be completely candid this morning i realize i stand here before and i'm never going to preach general conference you don't have to worry about that you know oh man i gotta go halfway across country so i go here brother small preach conference it's it's not gonna happen that's okay regardless of where i may have felt my dreams would take me i have to understand that he places us where he desires i had i had a discussion with a pastor several years ago from a rural church that good friend of mine he asked me he said why don't you leave you know a big church like ap they got plenty of people why don't you go and find your own church and pastor somewhere and that's okay if that's the way god leads you but i realized then in fact i told him so that by teaching this class every sunday morning i am probably impacting more lives than i ever would in a lot of different situations and i'm not bragging believe me what i'm saying is god has placed me where he desires me to be and i'm comfortable in knowing that i'm fulfilling the dream in the way he desires should he open up another door different times i understand i have to be comfortable in following that leading but the bottom line is this do what you can where you are at and let god place you where you need to be hold on to that dream but get busy working in the kingdom of god and here's the truth we know the most damaging action you can take in fulfilling your dream is in action well i can't preach conference so i'm going to do anything i can't do that so i'm not going to do i can't be the lead singer so i'm not gonna sing it all i can't do this so i'm not gonna i don't get to do that so now just get involved in the kingdom of god okay i digress let's get back to the story of joseph he said this and he dreamed the bible says in verse nine he dreamed yet another dream and he tells it to his brethren and said behold i've dreamed to dream more i might have kept that one to myself especially after the first one and the response i got hey guess what i had another dream last night no really and behold behold look at this the sun and the moon and the 11 stars made obesity to me if the first one was a little bit confusing to him and you'd understand i think he had a pretty good idea what this one meant i do think it's important to notice that the dream was doubled it was essentially the same dream using a different analogy same dream over again in fact this is the only clue that gives us that these dreams are not simply expressions of joseph just having an over excited imagination i wonder what's going to happen or maybe going to bed after eating a big pizza and who had some crazy dreams last night because then later in genesis 41 joseph

is interpreting pharaoh's dreams and this is decades later and he said this and for that the dream was doubled unto pharaoh twice it's because the thing is established by god and god is going to bring it to pass so that brings us to another important concept that i want you to remember and it says if god gives you a dream if god gives you something he will verify you to it either through another means or by repetitions one word is not a calling in itself god will always validate that through other means i think many people fail because they feel a calling and immediately set out to fulfill it that's what i'm going to do i'm going slow down be patient wait for some confirmation it may come in a message it may come in a sunday morning bible class may come in a word from your pastor it can even come in from word from a stranger who doesn't even know you and they just happen to be talking this you know i feel god's got something in your life i think that's what i've been feeling how do you know what god's got from you know i don't know where it will come from but it will come from somewhere i don't think a one-time feeling is is enough to spend your life chasing after in other words but when god confirms it in little ways over and over then you better start paying attention to paraphrase paul a dream is planted but others are going to water it and god is going to give the increase you can read both daniel and nehemiah daniel from studying the word of god knew some things saw some things in the scripture that he said wow i understand some things i i need to get this this message out nehemiah he he heard a message of what was going on in jerusalem and and how the walls were broken down and he understood i've got to do something about it both of them stopped at that point and began to pray and seek god they didn't just run off daniel hey guess what i just read i want to tell you about this no he began to pray and repent and seek god and the angel came and said here let me help you on that gave him a confirmation nehemiah same thing he began to pray and to seek after god spent time in prayer and preparation before he ever went before the king and said you know what jerusalem has broken down i need to do something about it and by that time god had worked out the situation and the king said go and i'll give you the papers and the blessing and everything that you need take some time in preparation and prayer and fasting before you enter into a particular work paul after his damascus message you would think okay the light knocks him down he sees jesus who he is he said i've called you to preach the gender he could have immediately just started preaching the word of god but instead he goes to arabia out into the desert and we get seek god and to find out exactly what god wanted him to do then he turns around and he goes back to jerusalem said hey peter i need to talk to you here's what happened to him here's what god's doing in my life hold fast the dream wait for the confirmation and while that's happening prepare yourself so you'll be ready when the time of fulfillment comes the brother's reaction to joseph's dreams was hatred and even more hatred and when he told the second dream told it to his father and his brethren his father rebuked him so now just isn't this the brothers being upset about even his dad rebukes him what is this dream that you've dreamed shall i and thy mother and thy brother and indeed come to bow ourselves down to do you really think all of us now he can understand the first dream i've already given you the birthright i've already showed you favoritism so they understand that you get you get the most and so we can understand that you're going to be greater than they are and you know i can see their son the brothers bowing

down to you but your mother and me you know sometimes even those who are closest allies are going to question your dreams in fact probably they're the ones that are going to question it first at one point jesus mother and brothers even came to find where jesus was ministering and knocked on the door go tell jesus you know why they did that that's when they knocked on the door and they said hey behold your mom and your your brothers are outside and he turned to them and said who's the who's my mother who's my brother it's you to do the will of my father the reason they were there they wanted to get jesus and take him back to nazareth they were embarrassed of what was going on and the things that were going to happen and and maybe his mom just wanted to protect him or whatever but they went to get him and say you know he's got to stop this so they knock on the door jesus as we studied several weeks ago walks into nazareth to all the people that knew him and he begins to preach the word of god and they look okay you're saying you're the son of god we know you you grew up right here we know who you are when you start to step out or when you start to talk about that dream you're going to find some opposition anytime you step out for god you're going to be questioned the interesting statement the next verse is this in chapter in verse 11 and his brothers envied him but his father observed the same that word observed means he guarded it he kept it he treasured it now maybe he didn't understand it obviously because he had to rebuke him but there was something in his mind said hmm i wonder what god's got going god's planning for joseph while it is true others may rebuke you for your dreams yet some who do are going to take notice and they're going to remember the things that god placed in your life you just hold on and be faithful you just keep doing what god wants you to do and the direction god has led you in your life you know i'm thankful we look at the story of joseph as you can in other stories in the bible this book is unique you know it takes its heroes and it shows you all the problems and all the issues and all the things that they faced it doesn't just try to sugarcoat things that happened you know david you're a man after god's own heart but you had no business lying with bathsheba and i'm going to tell it and put it in the book and it's going to be there forever everybody know what you did we're not going to just sweep that under the rug of course his repentance is in there too that's why he's a man after god's own heart there's no glossing over the father's favoritism the brothers hatred they can unflinching honesty about human failure and here's why the story is not determined by human action but by divine action man's going to try to mess things up and man will always mess things up i think that's what we can see from this and what we can learn for it there's always going to be things that are going to happen but you know what when god has a plan if we will be faithful to that dream and faithful to that calling and faithful to that direction that he has given us god is going to work it out don't be ashamed don't be discouraged by dysfunction by failure by mistakes of the past instead follow the dreams and let god bring it to pass we're obviously further lessons we'll get further into what happened but we can see immediately what happened as powerful as joseph's god-given dreams were they were not designed and god does not design those dreams to prevent trouble and heartache from entering our lives you ever notice that god is saying i'm going to give you a dream and i'm going to make you great at this or i'm going to put you in this guy but he doesn't take away the struggle to get there in fact they're designed to give you hope

and to endure the trouble dreams give us endurance to withstand the hurts of life they help us get through them because we have our eyes on a goal and on something beyond what we're facing let's look at some of the hurts just briefly here that he faced the first expression was their hatred of him they said they hated him the second one was jealousy they saw him coming they begin to make a mockery of his dreams and then a little bit later he he is sent out go go see your brothers they were out somewhere else now they're shepherding without joseph he's at home with the nice coat on showing who he is he's no longer the shepherd and his dad says go check on your brothers so here he goes after them of course this nice coat on that they can see from a mile away and what do they say behold this dreamer cometh sarcasm but it's even more evident in the original he is the master of dreams is what they were saying look at this guy he's the master of dreams he he really knows his stuff he's got all these fancy delusions of how important he is and how it's going to be it's never going to happen to us you know they didn't believe it that's the attitude that they're expressing as they see him and in the rejection of his dreams they're really rejecting joseph himself their mockery in their words makes it clear they no longer considered him even worthy of their time no to notice how they did here's what they said come now in verse 20 let us take slay him let's kill him and then we'll throw him in a pit and we'll just make up a story evil vist devoured him and we'll see what will become of his dreams we'll take care of those dreams we'll see who you think you really are you're out here in the middle of nowhere nobody's going to know it there's a pit over here we're going to kill you throw you in nobody will ever find you we don't know what happened to you the first thing that came to mind was murder and then a plot to cover it up someone is always going to try to destroy that dream interesting twist in the story his older brother reuben the one that had the birthright and lost it steps in and says oh hey wait a minute let's slow down let's not kill him that's going just a little bit too far that's murder we we shouldn't do that let's shed no blood but what we will do let's cast him in the pit that's in the wilderness and don't lay a hand up on him this is kind of like the black lie thing or little white lie i should say you know we'll just make it look like we'll throw him in the pit he can just starve to death we didn't kill him let me step outside i'm not here tell him i'm not here the phone just rang we don't do that anymore because we got caller id before you had that in the phone ring you have two options you either pick it up or you don't don't know who it is throw them in the pit we won't kill him let him die on his own now that wasn't reuben's i'd thought but it worked for his brothers okay let's do that that way we don't we don't get caught nobody said we didn't kill him reuben he intended to return later he was going to rescue joseph and i don't know what his intentions were maybe he had this idea you know what if i rescue him after his brothers say he's dead i can go back to dad and say hey i found and maybe dad will have a little favor on me maybe give me some of that inheritance that i'm supposed to be getting i don't know what his his thought were so he walks away leaves the brothers to it probably thinking i'll leave they'll leave and i'll come back when they're not around and while he's gone a band of ishmaelites comes by and the brothers are sitting there having lunch jacob's down in the pit probably screaming hey let me out of here what are you guys doing up there don't worry we're enjoying lunch well it's sure good probably taunting

him a little bit ishmaelites come by and they say you know what what good does it do if we kill him what does it do if we hide his blood let us sell him and her hand won't be upon him we won't touch him he's our brother in flesh we won't we'll just sell him they'll take him away and dad will never see him again i can't imagine that they would do that but here's the interesting thing little did they suspect the very plans they were scheming were going to lead to the fulfillment of joseph's dreams we'll see that at the end of in our last lesson isn't it amazing how god works things out what that says to me is you keep dreaming you keep working and don't worry about all the obstacles that you face because god is just going to turn it around and put you where he wants you to be god is with us and joseph's faith in the face of intimate betrayal isn't a lesson for us today he didn't let the severity of the trial poison him he held on to the dream he'd be given even when everybody else rejected it and we should hold on to the things god has placed in our life let's let his word define us don't let hurt don't let betrayal that you've experienced don't let anything detract you from that dream i think it's important to note when you look at all the characters mentioned when you look at abraham there's failure abraham was promised a son and what didn't happen he takes sarah's handmaid to have a son no that's not the way it was supposed to be he goes down to egypt and he says i'll just tell pharaoh that she's my sister that way they won't take her from me and kill me messed up isaac jacob you can see failures in their lives but nothing you see in joseph's life and you know why i think it's because he saw the dream and he held on to it he's the only character in the book that you don't see anything bad that he did he surpassed abraham isaac jacob but the flip side of that he was probably the most traumatized character in the entire book he had to suffer the most and even at the hand of his brothers and i think it's very likely those realities are interconnected he went through a lot but because he was faithful he achieved a lot and it's the essence of divine grace that god uses the trauma and the trials and the things of our past to bring things unexpected for our futures something we will never recognize until we get to the end and we look at it and say god's hand was in my life joseph's cage it wasn't until after his father's death in egypt that he finally recognized god's hand was in it all so this first story of joseph calls us to look deeply and honestly at our memories look at the things that we have the things that god has placed in our life look at the opposition look at the confirmations and keep your trust in god keep your trust in god let's stand this morning aren't you thankful to know that he is with you and that he is i'll repeat that he is in control of your life amen just thank him for that before we go any further lord so thankful to know god i may not see it i don't understand it i may look at what's around me and not grasp it but god you're in control you've even brought me here this morning god so i could hear an affirmation of your word that you are with me and that you are guiding me lord and that you are going to keep me in jesus name we thank you lord we thank you lord hallelujah hallelujah thank you lord aren't you thankful for his word this morning hallelujah that's it give him a praise thank you lord for the promises of your word the encouragement god that is in your word we glorify you hallelujah amen greet some of those around you others are joining us amen greet them before we take a break here to go into morning worship