Message 01-14-07
Series: Developing Character
Scripture: Genesis 37:12-27
Title: From Riches to Rags
Puzzles – do you like puzzles? I love puzzles.
And although I like puzzles of different sorts I tend to look at life as if it was a puzzle. I think of life, figuring out how it works and what it means as a puzzle. Do you do that? How do I figure out what’s going on in life? How should I live?
The thing I’ve learned is that you really need the puzzle box in order to figure out how the puzzle works. I’ve got friends who tell me that’s cheating, but I basically want all the help I can get, so I’m willing to have the lid of the box around. Can you imagine doing a puzzle without the picture to guide you? There’s a game store out in California that has a lot of puzzles. When you enter the store, directly ahead of you, is a puzzle hanging on a pillar. It is a completely red puzzle, framed and finished except for one thing. Can you imagine doing a completely red puzzle? It wouldn’t matter what the lid was like – it’s just red. But this puzzle hanging up in the game store is missing the last piece – the one in the middle. But, hanging on a string off the frame is the last piece of the red puzzle. You can put the last piece in place. Do you know what’s fascinating about that? It doesn’t really make any difference that you haven’t worked on any of the rest of the puzzle… it still feels really great to put the last piece in place.
How do you figure out your days? How do you figure out how to live? What do you look at to give you help to figure out the best way to live?
God gave us an answer to this. God gave us Jesus and showed us that this is what the puzzle box looks like. This is what the picture should look like when it is done. When we are putting life together, God says look at Jesus and see how he lived. And Paul goes on to tell us to look at each other. We can find help, get the picture from other Christ followers, the people of God.
Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians,
8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
In another place Paul writes, Imitate me as I imitate Christ. We’re not to put anyone on a pedestal. We don’t expect that anyone except Jesus is going live a perfect life. But we do have Jesus and as we see how someone we know lives like Jesus, then we can choose to imitate them. We are told to watch for Jesus in each other and then to imitate it. We are to look at the people of God to learn how to live as the people of God.
So for the next few weeks I’m going to lift up the story of a man from the Old Testament, Joseph from the book of Genesis so that we can consider imitating him. As we think about the New Year, sometimes we think of making changes in our lives and I’m thinking that it would be great to think on a great life and to see how God worked with someone who went through serious heartache and serious triumph.
Before I read our Scripture for the day, let me fill you in on Joseph’s life. Joseph was one of the 12 sons of Jacob. Jacob is the man whose name was changed to Israel and when he say the children of Israel, or the people of Israel, we’re talking about an extended family that grew out of relatively large family. Jacob was the son of Isaac and Isaac was the son of Abraham – the friend of God. Over and over in the Bible we hear the repeated phrase – the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is the God we believe revealed himself to the world through this family and through this nation and who revealed himself specifically through Jesus.
Jacob was a man whom God came to find. God spoke to him, God challenged him and God wrestled with him. The name Israel means “wrestles with God.” Jacob fell in love with Rachel and worked for her father 14 years in order to have her for his bride. In the midst of that came the story of Rachel’s sister Leah who was not as attractive as Rachel. Their father tricked Jacob into marrying Leah first and then allowed Jacob to marry Rachel. Leah was blessed however and had a lot of children. Rachel could not conceive for a long period of time, but eventually gave birth to Joseph and his brother, the youngest of the brothers, Benjamin.
Names always mean something in the Old Testament and Joseph’s name means “More”. Can you imagine what that would be like? When his brother’s talked about him they wouldn’t be saying “Joseph” like we say “Joseph”. They’d be saying ‘More.” Did he always want more? Did he always get more? Did he always have more? Well, when you read the story of Joseph you realize that the answer to those questions is, “yeah.” Joseph was the favorite. He was spoiled and like a lot of spoiled kids he was obnoxious and rude. He was a tattle-tale. He tattled on his brothers when they didn’t do good work. He didn’t have to work like his brothers. We learn that because his father gave him an exquisite robe. We don’t really know what made it different. In the old days we were told the words used to describe the robe meant many-colored. But today we say that it was long with sleeves or in length and ornamented. It was very special and there was a lot to it. What the means is that he couldn’t really work in it. He could walk around and look special in it, but he couldn’t do the regular day’s work in it.
So, we already know he’s a bit obnoxious and that the favoritism of his father slides his way, but then we read that he has dreams. In his dreams he sees images that represent his brothers and family bowing down before him. And like a dope he goes and tells his brothers this. Now, Joseph is about 17 and some of his brothers are adult men with families of their own – some 35+ years old.
Hear the Scripture:
12 Now his brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near Shechem, 13 and Israel said to Joseph, "As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them."
"Very well," he replied.
14 So he said to him, "Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me." Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron.
When Joseph arrived at Shechem, 15 a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, "What are you looking for?"
16 He replied, "I'm looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?"
17 "They have moved on from here," the man answered. "I heard them say, 'Let's go to Dothan.' "
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. 18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
19 "Here comes that dreamer!" they said to each other. 20 "Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams."
21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. "Let's not take his life," he said. 22 "Don't shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the desert, but don't lay a hand on him." Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.
23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the richly ornamented robe he was wearing- 24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it.
25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.
26 Judah said to his brothers, "What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood." His brothers agreed.
Joseph’s brothers are so angry, jealous and upset with him that they think first to kill him, second to abandon him in a pit and finally to at least make some money off of him by selling him into slavery. They hated Joseph. And Joseph goes from the riches of his family, from the favoritism of his father, and from the promise of his dreams to rags. It’s interesting to note that the sale price of Joseph was for a handicapped slave. So there’s at least a possibility that in ripping off his robe and throwing him into the pit that he was hurt – so he was sold as damaged goods.
What I want you to consider as we start looking at the story of Joseph is two things is first – God starts with whatever is at hand. Joseph was an obnoxious, rude and self-centered kid. But that didn’t keep God from working with him or speaking to him. God poured himself in Joseph early on. Some thing spoke to Joseph in the night and said that there was something more to his life than just the favoritism of his father and the work he didn’t have to do.
That’s important to catch because that may be what helps Joseph gets through suffering. How do we get through suffering? There’s a formula I want you to keep in mind as we look into the story of Joseph. It comes from Paul’s letter to the Romans. He writes in chapter 5,
1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
So the formula goes like this – love is poured into our hearts by God and so we can deal with [and even rejoice in] our sufferings because suffering that comes after we know God’s love produces perseverance and this perseverance will produce character and this character will produce hope and this hope will not disappoint us.
What this means is as you go into your day and as you face the struggles you face you can find a means to deal with them first because you have God’s love. How do we remind ourselves of God’s love?
We look to the lid on the puzzle box? We look to the picture of what it’s supposed to look like at the end. The picture is Jesus who came to show us that God loves us. You matter to God. You are loved by God more than you can imagine.
We look at the puzzle box, but God tells us that it’s not just what we read about Jesus in the Bible. We can also see it in each other. There’s a small motel room in Memphis, TN that has a plaque on the wall. On the plaque are words from our Scripture today – “here comes that dreamer, let’s kill him and see what comes of his dreams then.” Joseph’s brothers chose not to kill him, but our brother Martin Luther King was shot down just outside that motel room. Martin’s life was a threat to some people because he was taking away their ability to look down on others.
It can make you feel good to look down on someone. It makes you feel powerful, better. Some people use that feeling to help them make it through the struggles they’re facing. They do not use love and they do not find hope. They chew the salt out of hatred and they use violence to make the world work the way they want it to work.
But Martin Luther King was able to make it through the struggles he faced and to lead others because he claimed the love of God was poured into his heart. We can look to the Christ followers around us to find out how to live, how to make our choices, how to survive the heartache and struggle we face. We can find the love of God as we look to Jesus and as we others living Jesus’ way around us.
