The RIse of a Hero Genesis 37:1-2
Life’s Most Important Questions
The Rise of a Hero
Genesis 37:1-2
 
While studying the book of Habakkuk, a seed thought stuck in my mind and I have found it difficult to escape or get out of my mind since I said it.  The paragraph that set my thoughts in motion was when I said:
 
“Far too many people have not found a God big enough for their problems.  If you had a bigger God, you wouldn’t worry as much.  If you had a bigger God, you would be stronger in the moment of crisis.  If you had a bigger God, you would be less tempted to compromise.”
 
From that thought, I began to think about the God of our Bible heroes such as Moses and Joshua and Elijah.  Eventually my mind settled on Joseph and how he trusted God no matter what.
 
He was the favored son of his father Jacob. When he enters the stage of biblical history, he is 17 years old. Because his brothers hated him, he was sold as a slave and taken to Egypt. After being falsely accused of rape, he was imprisoned with no hope of getting out. Because he correctly interpreted Pharaoh’s dream, he became the prime minister of Egypt. Eventually he welcomed his family to Egypt, which preserved the line of promise that had started with his great-grandfather Abraham.
 
And eventually he was able to declare to the brothers who betrayed him, “You meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20).
 
He was chosen and rejected.
He was loved and hated.
He was favored and abused.
He was betrayed and rescued.
He was promoted and imprisoned.
He was tested and rewarded.
He was slandered and praised.
He never took his eyes off the Lord.
 
And at no point did he ever take his eyes off the Lord.  As far as we can tell, he never doubted God.
Adversity didn’t harden him.  Prosperity didn’t ruin him.  Temptation didn’t destroy him. Imprisonment didn’t embitter him. Promotion didn’t change him.
He was a truly great man.
 
Starting with Genesis 12, the Bible focuses on four great men:
 
Abraham
Isaac
Jacob
Joseph
 
Of those four men, Abraham and Joseph receive the most space. It may surprise you to know that Joseph’s story takes up more space in Genesis than the story of Abraham. That one fact ought to alert us that this is no ordinary man and no ordinary life story. Joseph is the “hinge” that connects Genesis (the Book of Beginnings) with Exodus (the Book of Redemption).
If Exodus tells us how God delivered his people from Egypt, Joseph’s story tells us how they got there in the first place.
 
Though Joseph was God’s man, he did not have an easy life. Here are some of the things his story teaches us:
 
Trusting God when in the pit of despair.
How to deal with sexual temptation.
How to redeem a painful past.
What to do while you wait.
How to see God’s hand in all things.
How to make wise plans.
How God awakens a guilty conscience.
The marks of true repentance.
How to live for God in a pagan culture.
Overcoming lingering bitterness.
How to die well.
 
As you study Joseph’s life, there are two primary thoughts to keep n mind:
 
1. Joseph did not know how his story would end.
 
We have a problem that Joseph didn’t face.
We know how the story ends.  We know it all works out in the end, but Joseph had no clue about his future.  And no matter how hard we try, it is almost impossible to read it as the amazing, unpredictable adventure that it was. When you know the end of the story, you may lose the sense of how unexpected it all was.
 
How much did Joseph know about his future when he was a teenager tending the flocks with his brothers? Nothing.
 
How much did he know about his future when he was cast into the pit? Nothing at all.
 
How much did he know about what was about to happen when he was rising in Potiphar’s house? Same answer.
 
How much did he know when Potiphar’s wife falsely accused him of rape? He knew only that he was innocent of the charge.
 
How much did he know when he was languishing in an Egyptian prison? He had no clue what was about to happen.
 
How much did he know about God’s purposes when he was elevated to being the prime minister of Egypt? He didn’t see it at all.
 
By the way, how much do you know for certain about what will happen to you in the coming week? You have your plans, of course, but those could be changed. You have classes to attend, calls to make, people to see, appointments to keep, papers to write, plans to make, ideas to discuss, and decisions you have to make.
 
But all of that is contingent on circumstances far beyond your control. Just ask the parents of four young girls on their way home from a softball game a couple of weeks ago.  Life can change with one phone call.  Life is short, fragile, and uncertain.
No one knows what tomorrow may bring.
And I’ll tell you what I’ve discovered:  I gain a whole lot more from Joseph’s story when I read it the way he lived it.  He had no clear idea of the future, with no big picture to guide him and no “happy ending” in view. In short, we should read Joseph’s life the way we live our own lives—one day at a time.
 
And that leads me to the second key point.
 
2. God is the hero of the story.
 
On one level, we certainly know this is true. Joseph says as much when he declares to his brothers that “God meant it for good.” But it’s easy to forget that through all the ups and downs of Joseph’s life, there was an “invisible hand” working through every single event to produce the desired result, which Joseph himself could not see until he arrived at the end.
 
If we read Joseph’s story and do not come away with a new appreciation for God’s providence over all things, then we have certainly missed the point. While there are many important lessons to be gleaned from his life, above all else Joseph’s story points us to God.
 
And that is where my study of Habakkuk and the life of Joseph intersected.  Remember that paragraph from an earlier study?
 
“Far too many people have not found a God big enough for their problems.  If you had a bigger God, you wouldn’t worry as much.  If you had a bigger God, you would be stronger in the moment of crisis.  If you had a bigger God, you would be less tempted to compromise.”
 
Joseph discovered what it meant to have a big God.
After all, when you’ve been betrayed by your brothers, a small God won’t do.
 
When you’ve been falsely accused of rape, a “medium God” won’t be enough to support you.
 
When you’ve been forgotten in prison, an “average God” will not sustain you.
 
A “medium God” can’t help us.  We need a big God.
We need a God whose ways are vast beyond understanding.  We need a God whose purposes span the generations.  We need a God who cannot be stopped by the evil deeds of evil men and the good news is we have a God like that!
 
The God of Joseph is our God too.
 
Notice how his story begins.
 
Genesis 37:1-2
 
With no other introduction, Joseph steps onto the stage of biblical history. At this point we know only three things about him:
  • He is a teenager.
  • He is working in the family business.
  • He doesn’t have a clue about his own future.
 
I suppose that if we had asked Joseph about his career plans, he would probably have said, “I’m going to be a shepherd like my father and my grandfather and my great-grandfather.” After all, that was the family business. Apparently Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had done pretty well at it.
So we would expect Joseph to figure that his future would include sheep.  But God had other plans.  In fact, before this story is over Joseph will become the prime minister of Egypt, but you couldn’t tell it that day when he went out with his brothers to tend to the flocks.
 
As the story begins, the threads of his life are scattered in all directions. Only later will the grand design become apparent. But it is clear enough that Joseph was being prepared by God for his destiny long before he was aware of it. Marcus Dods emphasizes the traits he inherited from his ancestors:
 
    He had Abraham’s dignity and capacity, Isaac’s purity and power of self-devotion, Jacob’s cleverness and buoyancy and tenacity. From his mother’s family he had personal beauty, humor, and management.
 
Although God had been preparing the way for Joseph long before he was born, it would take quite a while for him to discover his calling in life. But when he did, he saved his family and changed the course of history. For the moment he’s seventeen years old, working in the family business, without a clue about the events that were about to unfold.
 
What a remarkable life this young man will experience.  His life was filled with turmoil. It started early in his life and never really stopped and yet through it all, he emerges triumphant by God’s grace.
 
–You betray him, and he ends up in Egypt.
–You throw him in prison, and he ends up running the joint.
–You travel to Egypt, and he’s the prime minister.
–You try to trick him, and he turns around and
forgives you.
 
Joseph always lands on his feet. Here is a man who conquers crisis by supreme confidence in God. Though he came from an extremely dysfunctional family, God turned him into a hero who delivered the family that sold him into slavery.
 
And along the way, he became a key link in the chain of God’s plan that would 2000 years later bring the Messiah to the earth. As Joseph saved his own family, so Christ would come as the Savior of the world. What a man! What a story!
 
In studying Joseph . . .
 
1. We will learn about life itself.
 
This is how it works. This is what we should expect. Life isn’t easy for any of us, and for most of us it can be quite difficult. To say it another way, anyone looking for an easy life has picked the wrong planet to be born on. Life is hard
 
2. We will learn how this life works for our good.
 
Spurgeon remarked that “God is to be seen in small things.” Since God himself stands behind the universe he created, we should not be surprised to find his fingerprints everywhere, even in the tiniest details of life.
 
 
3. We will learn how Christ is the power to make life worthwhile.
 
Note that I did not say that Christ “has” the power, which is true, but that Christ “is” the power, which is slightly different. Because Christ himself lives in us, he himself is the power that gives meaning and purpose to life.
 
As we will see in our next study, the hero arises out of the turmoil of a dysfunctional family. His brothers don’t like him. There is trouble on the horizon.
It’s going to be a bumpy ride
 
Joseph proves you can come from a crazy, mixed-up family and do amazing things for the Lord.  But it won’t be easy and definitely not predictable.  You won’t believe what his brothers do to him.
 
As we take our leave of Joseph for the moment, remember this. His God is our God too. We need a big God, and we have one. Let that thought give strength to your heart this week.
 
Let’s pray.