The E100 Bible Reading Challenge: The Story of Joseph: Sold Into Slavery (11)

Genesis 37:1-36

Joseph Dreams of Greatness

Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. This is the story of the family of Jacob.

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves.But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

 Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, ‘Listen to this dream that I dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.’ His brothers said to him, ‘Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?’ So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

 He had another dream, and told it to his brothers, saying, ‘Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.’ But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, ‘What kind of dream is this that you have had? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you?’ So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Joseph Is Sold by His Brothers

 Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem.And Israel said to Joseph, ‘Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.’ He answered, ‘Here I am.’ So he said to him, ‘Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me.’ So he sent him from the valley of Hebron.

He came to Shechem, and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, ‘What are you seeking?’ ‘I am seeking my brothers,’ he said; ‘tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.’ The man said, ‘They have gone away, for I heard them say, “Let us go to Dothan.” ’ So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, ‘Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.’ But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, ‘Let us not take his life.’Reuben said to them, ‘Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him’—that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

 Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, ‘What profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, 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 agreed.When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.

 When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes. He returned to his brothers, and said, ‘The boy is gone; and I, where can I turn?’ Then they took Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. They had the long robe with sleeves taken to their father, and they said, ‘This we have found; see now whether it is your son’s robe or not.’ He recognized it, and said, ‘It is my son’s robe! A wild animal has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.’ Then Jacob tore his garments, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son for many days. All his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and said, ‘No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.’ Thus his father bewailed him. Meanwhile the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.

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KEY THOUGHT

Tensions can destroy families unless “nipped in the bud.”

OVERVIEW

As with most sibling rivalry, it’s rarely the fault of only one person. When things go wrong we tend to remember “the big blow up” but it usually takes time for tensions to get to the boiling point. Favouritism, arrogance, jealousy and hate plagued Joseph’s family. If we let our angry feelings go unresolved they’ll destroy us. Jesus’ example (Matthew 5.43-48; 18.15-17) is to deal with the little offences before they fester into full blown hate.

CHALLENGE

THE BEST TIME TO BEGIN WORKING ON FAMILY PROBLEMS IS NOW.

The E100 Bible Reading Challenge: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: Jacob & Esau Compete (9)

Genesis 27:1—28:22

27When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, “My son”; and he answered, “Here I am.” ²He said, “See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. ³Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me. ⁴Then prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.” ⁵Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it,

⁶Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father say to your brother Esau, ⁷‘Bring me game, and prepare for me savory food to eat, that I ay bless you before the Lord before I die.’ ⁸Now therefore, my son, obey my word as I command you. ⁹Go to the flock, and get me two choice kids, so that I may prepare from them savory food for your father, such as he likes; ¹⁰and you shall take it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.” ¹¹But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a man of smooth skin. ¹²Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him, and bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.” ¹³His mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my word, and go, get them for me.” ¹⁴So he went and got them and brought them to his mother; and his mother prepared savory food, such as his father loved. ¹⁵Then Rebekah took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob; ¹⁶and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. ¹⁷Then she handed the savory food, and the bread that she had prepared, to her son Jacob.

¹⁸So he went in to his father, and said, “My father”; and he said, “Here I am; who are you, my son?” ¹⁹Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.” ²⁰But Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” He answered, “Because the Lordyour God granted me success.” ²¹Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.” ²²So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”²³He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him. ²⁴He said, “Are you really my son Esau?” He answered, “I am.” ²⁵Then he said, “Bring it to me, that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you.” So he brought it to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank. ²⁶Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come near and kiss me, my son.” ²⁷So he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garments, and blessed him, and said, “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that theLord has blessed. ²⁸May God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. ²⁹Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!”

³⁰As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau came in from his hunting. ³¹He also prepared savory food, and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, “Let my father sit up and eat of his son’s game, so that you may bless me.” ³²His father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am your firstborn son, Esau.” ³³Then Isaac trembled violently, and said, “Who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate it all before you came, and I have blessed him? —yes, and blessed he shall be!” ³⁴When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, “Bless me, me also, father!” ³⁵But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.” ³⁶Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright; and look, now he has taken away my blessing.” Then he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” ³⁷Isaac answered Esau, “I have already made him your lord, and I have given him all his brothers as servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son?” ³⁸Esau said to his father, “Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, me also, father!” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. ³⁹Then his father Isaac answered him: “See, away from the fatness of the earth shall your home be, and away from the dew of heaven on high. ⁴⁰By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; but when you break loose, you shall break his yoke from your neck.”

⁴¹Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” ⁴²But the words of her elder son Esau were told to Rebekah; so she sent and called her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. ⁴³Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran, ⁴⁴and stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury turns away— ⁴⁵until your brother’s anger against you turns away, and he forgets what you have done to him; then I will send, and bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?” ⁴⁶Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women such as these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?”

28Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, “You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women. ²Go at once to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father; and take as wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.³May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and numerous, that you may become a company of peoples. ⁴May he give to you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your offspring with you, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien—land that God gave to Abraham.” ⁵Thus Isaac sent Jacob away; and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.

⁶Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he charged him, “You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women,” ⁷and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan-aram. ⁸So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please his father Isaac, ⁹Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael, and sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had.

¹⁰Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. ¹¹He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. ¹²And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring;¹⁴and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. ¹⁵Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

¹⁶Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” ¹⁷And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” ¹⁸So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. ¹⁹He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first. ²⁰Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, ²¹so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God,²²and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one tenth to you.”

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Analyse This!

KEY THOUGHT

We often encounter God in the broken places of our lives.

OVERVIEW

A permissive father, a controlling mother, an errant older son and a deceptive younger son. It sounds like reality TV. But Isaac’s family is one of the most important in the Bible because God used it to build the nation of Israel. Of course, no family is perfect. God uses broken people from broken families to accomplish his perfect purposes. He has no other choice. And he can use our brokenness to draw us closer to himself, also.

CHALLENGE

BRING THE BROKEN PARTS OF YOUR LIFE TO GOD FOR HEALING.

Why bother with the church?

Introduction

During the course of this year in our sermons we are looking at some of the big questions of faith. Because today is a special day for Lexi and her family, as she is baptized and welcomed into the church family, I want us to explore the important question of ‘why bother with the church’ and in particular ‘is it possible to be a Christian & not go to church?

If you ask someone what they think of when you mention the word Church you find that they will come up with a variety of answers, and let’s be honest, not all of them are positive!

For example Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘If all the people who fell asleep in church on Sunday morning were laid out end to end . . . they would be a great deal more comfortable.’ Some people’s few of church can often be quite negative, although I often found this sort of few comes from people who themselves haven’t been to church for a long time.

Some associate the word ‘church’ with the clergy. Somebody who is entering the ordained ministry is said to be ‘going into the church’. There was an advert in the church press sometime ago which said: ‘Are you forty-five and getting nowhere? Why not consider the Christian ministry?’ Others associate the word ‘church’ with a particular denomination. While still others associate the word ‘church’ with church buildings. But for me the word church means something completely different. And this morning I want to share with you why the church is so important.

In the New Testament there are over 100 images or analogies of the church, and I want to look at just a few of these which are central to the understanding of the church.

The people of God

The church is the people of God. SHOW SLIDE 1 PETER 2:9-10 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

The Christian faith is all about relationships. The first part of that relationship is with God Himself, and the second part of that relationship is fellow Christians. We’re not just individuals, we’re a community – we are part of the vast universal church.

The universal church is all those who follow Jesus. Baptism is a visible mark of being a member of the church. It is also a visible sign of what it means to be a Christian. It signifies cleansing from sin, dying and rising with Christ to a new life, and the new life the Holy Spirit brings to our lives. Paul in his letter to the Romans says that if anyone is a Christian, you’re in Christ. Baptism is a picture of this. If you’re in Christ, whatever happened to Christ happened to you. So when Jesus died on the cross, you were there, you died. When Jesus was buried, you were buried with him. When Jesus rose from the dead, you rose with him to a new life. That’s what baptism signifies.

It is in the church that relationships are built, where friendships are made, and where people get to know one another. This happens particularly in small groups, where people gather together in homes to study the Bible together, pray, and support one another. As these relationships are built, trust develops, so that we can start to share what really matters in our lives, where we can ask people to pray for us, and where we can encourage and support one another.

It is within the church also that gifts and ministries can be exercised in an atmosphere of love and acceptance, where people are free to risk making mistakes.

It is also the place where we encounter God’s love and presence in a very real and profound way. There is something very special about worshipping God with other Christians. Some of my most powerful encounters with God have been whilst worshipping with other Christians in church.

The church isn’t a building, it is wherever the people of God get together - that’s the church.

The family of God

The church is also a family. When you become a Christian you join God’s family, the church. In John’s Gospel, the Apostle John writes “Yet to all who received him [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

And being part of a larger family, means that we are called to fellowship with one another. Christian fellowship cuts across race, colour, education, background and every other cultural barrier. What I particularly love about the church, and St Martin’s in particularly, is that there is a level of friendship, love and support which is found here, and which I have not experienced outside the church.

Fellowship with other Christians is not an optional extra John Wesley said, ‘There is no such thing as a solitary Christian.’ The writer of Hebrews urges his readers, ‘Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing’ (Hebrews 10:24-25). The reason he said this is because we need each other. There are two things we simply cannot do alone. We cannot marry alone and we cannot be a Christian alone. Often Christians lose their love for the Lord and their enthusiasm for their faith because they neglect fellowship.

One man who found himself in this position was visited by a wise old Christian. They sat in front of the coal fire in the sitting room. The old man never spoke, but went to the coal fire and picked out a red-hot coal with some tongs and put it on the hearth. He still said nothing. In a few minutes the coal had lost its glow. Then he picked it up and put it back in the fire. After a short time it began to glow again. The old man still said nothing at all but, as he got up to leave, the other man knew exactly why he had lost his fervor – a Christian out of fellowship is like a coal out of the fire.

The body of Christ

Thirdly the church is the body of Christ. SHOW SLIDE 1 CORINTHIANS 12:27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

The church is the body of Christ, you are the body of Christ. That means there is a unity, we’re all part of the same body. But it also means that there is diversity. Just as the human body has many different parts, hands, feet, ears, etc., so the body of Christ, the church, also has ‘many parts’ and they are all different with ‘different kinds of gifts’. There is great diversity within the church; but we are mutually dependent. For example, just as the eye can’t survive on it’s own, or the hand can’t survive on its own, all of us need each other.

Every Christian is a part of the church. John Wimber was once approached by a member of his congregation who had met somebody in great need. After the Sunday service this man told John Wimber of his frustration in trying to get help. ‘This man needed a place to stay, food and support while he gets on his feet and looks for a job,’ he said. ‘I am really frustrated. I tried telephoning the church office, but no one could see me and they couldn’t help me. I finally ended up having to let him stay with me for the week! Don’t you think the church should take care of people like this?’ John Wimber says he thought for a moment and then said, ‘It looks like the church did.’

People will make up their minds about Jesus through what they see of his body on earth. That’s why we have an important responsibility to represent Christ to the world. This is a major responsibility, as the prayer by Teresa of Avila reminds us:

Lord Christ, you have no body on earth but ours,
No hands but ours,
No feet but ours.
Ours are the eyes through which your compassion
Must look out on the world.
Ours are the feet by which you may still
Go about doing good.
Ours are the hands with which
You bless people now.
Bless our minds and bodies,
That we may be a blessing to others.

Bill Hybels, an influential American Church leader and author said this about the church. “I believe that the local church is the hope of the world. I believe to the core of my being that local churches have the potential to be the most influential force on planet earth. If they get it and get on with it, churches can become the redemptive centres that Jesus intended them to be. Dynamic teaching, creative worship, deep community, effective evangelism, and joyful service will combine to …strengthen families, transform communities and change the world”

So to go back to my original question, is it possible to be a Christian and not go to church? The answer is we don’t go to church, we are the church, and today as Lexi is baptized, my prayer is that she will come to know fully what it means to be part of God’s family the church.