And so listen now to God's Word from Genesis 37, beginning in verse 2. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being 17 years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with 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 sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. Now Joseph had a dream. And when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, hear this dream that I have dreamed. Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf. His brothers said to him, are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us? So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and 11 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 is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you? And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind. Sends our reading in God's word. Let's ask his blessing and word of prayer. Will we come tonight And we ask, as we begin this new portion of Genesis, that you would enlighten our hearts and minds to receive it with knowledge and with faith. Lord God, open this text to us, cause it to penetrate our hearts, produce fruit in us as you apply it through the work of your Holy Spirit. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Genesis chapter 37, verse two. begins a new phase in the story of Genesis. You probably recognize this if you have been with us throughout the study of the book. We've mentioned this in many points. Anytime we encounter that phrase, these are the generations of, we are entering a new chapter in the grand saga of redemption. A page is turning in that tale of the struggle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. And last week, in Genesis chapter 36 verse 1 through chapter 37 verse 1, we worked through the complex family history of Esau, whose legacy revolved around developments within the kingdom of Eden. But in that chapter, we observed many signs of outward earthly glory around Esau. But we also concluded that Esau's generations preceded Jacob's because Esau was the non-elect brother. This was the brother whom the Lord was not going to use. Moses needed to get him out of the way so that he could move on to the story of Jacob, that pilgrim whom God had chosen to bless with all the blessings of the covenant. And therefore, it should be no surprise to arrive tonight at the generations of Jacob, where his family history is given to us at great length. And yet you might be formulating an objection that, well, have we not already gotten the family history of Jacob? Has Genesis focused on his life and times for many, many chapters now already? And that's true. You would be correct to make that assertion. But remember that usually when Genesis speaks of the generations of so and so, that is actually the point at which the spotlight turns to their children. Spotlight turns to their children. It's what happens in the life of their descendants when they are still the head of the family. True to form, Genesis chapter 37 through chapter 50 is going to tell us plenty about Jacob's children. Most people, in fact, think of this section of the book not as the generations of Jacob, but as the story of Joseph. This is, in many people's minds, it's the story of Joseph with a few little diversions along the way. And he is the central cast member in a great many of the events which are preserved at the end of this book. We're going to spend a great deal of time studying and evaluating the life and times of Joseph. But I want to challenge you to remember, right now, that these are the generations of Jacob. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph will frequently serve as our main character. He is going to drive the narrative through the remainder of the book. Nevertheless, this is the story of how God preserved all 12 tribes of Israel through times of great hardship. And our text tonight plays an important role in setting up the context of Israel's preservation. Because Genesis chapter 37 verses 2 through 11 identifies the source of the conflict that is going to drive Jacob's sons apart, resulting in Joseph going ahead of his brothers to Egypt to make provision in times of famine. I simply call upon you to remember those lines which we read a few moments ago from the book of Acts. It's a bit of a spoiler as to where the book is going. That's what Joseph was going down to do. And so we know, the basis of that text which we've already read, that even at this stage, God is paving the way for the salvation of his people in the years to come. With that in mind, what I want you to take away from tonight's sermon, if you don't take away anything else, is this. The sovereign God who providentially orders all things is always working to accomplish his redemptive purposes long before we are able to recognize what he is doing. That is not, I admit, a wholly new insight within the book of Genesis. As I thought about it, I thought, you know what, I feel like I've preached this sermon before. But new circumstances are going to teach this old lesson to us afresh. We're forgetful folks, forgetful people. And in this case, The way in which God is going to providentially order all things is that God is going to allow tension to fester between Joseph and his brothers, and he is going to use that tension for his own purposes. He is going to allow dominoes to begin to fall, which are ultimately going to result in the redemption of Israel from their temporary trials of famine. And to get specific, there are three sources of tension mentioned here in the text. I also thought about the fact, as I was preparing this, that I don't go looking for three things in the text, but I often find them, okay? So three sources of tension in the text, and here they are. Joseph's behavior, Jacob's favoritism, and Joseph's dreams. Those are the three sources of tension. Joseph's behavior, Jacob's favoritism, and Joseph's friends. First of all, Joseph's behavior, in verse 2, stokes tension within Jacob's household. The first thing that we're told about Joseph, now after his birth, is that he spent time as a shepherd when he was a teenager. 17, very specific. And his specific charge as a shepherd led to him being stationed with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, which would include Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. If you didn't remember that right away, I had to go look myself just to refresh my mind. Who goes with who? And so he was with them out among the sheep. But it seems that even from this young age, Joseph was jealous for his preeminent status as the firstborn son of Jacob's most beloved wife. He zealously guarded his position within the family. He was not eager to share the limelight with his half-brothers, specifically those half-brothers who had come out of Jacob's marriage to his wife's servants. And thus the text tells us that Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now, it may not be immediately obvious when we read that, that Joseph was doing a bad thing. Maybe he's just a stickler for the rules. He wants to make sure his brothers follow them. So he's going to tell his dad, make sure they get back in line. But the language of a bad report here, when you go trace that down See where it's used elsewhere in the Old Testament. What you'll find is that this language frequently describes reports which are false and slanderous. This implies that Joseph wasn't merely reporting the facts to his father. They said things that were intentionally designed to knock his brothers down a peg in their father's eyes. He wanted them to get in trouble. And this shows us right away, we can clear away any confusion, any myth which has been built up around Joseph. He's not a perfect person. He's not. Throughout church history, various interpreters have viewed Joseph in very different ways. To some, he is the hero who hardly does wrong. He is the exemplar of piety and faith and all of those good things. Some have taken a dimmer view of him. They view him as a self-righteous man who stirs up trouble in his family and among his brothers. But as is often the case, the truth of the matter was that Joseph was a real man. He was a real man who possessed a mixture of good and bad qualities. You can argue, which is more? I think the answer is that he possessed, especially as you progress through the story, more good than bad. He's a man with upstanding character, but it takes a while for that character to begin to develop. And that's the way it is for all of our heroes of the faith, except for Christ Jesus himself. We find good and bad, all of us, and verse 2 shows us some of the bad in Joseph. His behavior among his brothers when he was a teenager exhibited characteristics of pride and deceit and ill will towards his family. And all of this provoked resentment. It provoked tension. This is going to be the only thing that provokes resentment and tension. in the life of Joseph and his brother. Because the second thing which provokes tension within Jacob's household is Jacob's favoritism, which comes out in verses 3 and 4. Favoritism has been a consistent theme throughout Genesis. And it has typically, maybe you'll agree with me on this assessment, I think we've seen pretty clearly that favoritism has produced more harm than good, at least humanly speaking, in the book of Genesis. Again, God's used it at many points, but it often drives negative developments in the story. Isaac prefers Esau to Jacob. Rebecca prefers Jacob to Esau. Jacob prefers Rachel to Leah. And now Jacob prefers Joseph to the rest of his sons. And as we see here, he does not have the good sense to hide it. These folks in the Bible, they did not care to hide their favoritism towards particular members of their family. Verse 3 says, now Israel, remember Jacob, Israel, we're going to see these interchangeably used throughout the rest of the book. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a robe of many colors. Among the 12, Joseph had been born 11th, which is why he's called the son of Jacob's old age. And additionally, he was the firstborn to Rachel, which may be the reason why Jacob prefers him to Benjamin. Benjamin's birth was traumatic. It was a bad day in many ways. And so Jacob still prefers old Joseph. And therefore, Jacob marks him out as the preeminent son by handcrafting him a robe of many colors. Now it's hard for me as a native of East Tennessee to not picture Dolly Parton's coat of many colors at this point. Probably did not look like that though. Scholars are conflicted actually about what this coat would have looked like because the Hebrew words which lie behind that phrase, coat of many colors, they're rare. We don't have a lot of other examples to compare them with. But our best guess is that this would have been something long, brightly ornamented, something which would have drawn a lot of attention. We might apply the word gaudy to this particular piece of clothing. It's as if Joseph were going to be walking around with a name tag that said, hi, I'm Joseph, and my dad loves me the most. That's what this particular coat communicated to anybody who saw it. Nobody else was getting these coats in Jacob's family. Again, this didn't go unnoticed by the others. Verse 4 explains that when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him. and could not speak peacefully to him. Joseph had already brought enmity upon himself, and so when Jacob placed his bright, shining stamp of approval on Joseph in the form of this handmade robe, that began to push things over the edge. The other brothers could hardly look at Joseph at this point. Literally, the text tells us that they could not say to him, shalom, And that's sort of the language there behind that phrase that he couldn't speak peaceably. They were unable to even feign love and agreeableness and kindness around him. And in this way, we see how Jacob's favor to him actually hurt his beloved son. It hurt his favorite son. Jacob should have learned from his own history. How many times had he experienced heartache and grief as a result of open favoritism? He'd been hurt by favoritism in his father's household. And he had caused division among his wives and among his children by displaying it in his own. Now he's going to perpetuate the problem by making Joseph stink to his brothers. By outwardly displaying that he had the most love. He had his father's heart. Lessons have not been learned for Jacob, at least in this regard, and the whole family is going to pay the price. But soon we see Jacob himself will find himself aggrieved. And we discover the reason why in verses 5 through 11. In these verses we see that Joseph's dreams were the third source of tension in Jacob's household. But before we examine the details of the dreams, we ought to make note of a unique characteristic of Genesis 37 through 50. Have you ever noticed this? While in the past, God has spoken frequently to the patriarchs, we do not hear much from God in the so-called Joseph story. He just doesn't speak much. We got really one occasion where he makes a clear revelation, verbal revelation to his people. For the most part, God in this portion of Genesis is going to be working behind the scenes through his providential ordering of all things. And so why do we note this? Well, it's good for us to note this because do you notice what's different about Joseph's dreams and many of the dreams we've seen before? Joseph's dreams are different from those we've encountered in Genesis because God neither appears in it nor speaks in it. He does not appear. He does not speak. This is not a theophany. It's not. Joseph simply has these dreams and he reports them. And this, when you take note of that, that raises a question which is, are these dreams prophetic or not? I mean, maybe Joseph, you know, ate some bad pizza and you dream this. Well, later on, the events in these dreams are going to come to pass. And that's going to show us that they do have a prophetic character to them. These things are from God. But in Genesis chapter 37 at least, it isn't clear to the reader, who hasn't read the rest of the book, or to Joseph's family. There's no thus saith the Lord here. And that's going to be a source of trouble. As such, we find a preface in verse 5 saying, Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. One of the main things we want to see in this portion of Genesis 37 is look at just the absolute drumbeat. They hated him. They hated him. They hated him. This is a portion of God's Word about the growing tension in Jacob's household. And so with that caveat in mind, that this dream was not a theophany and it caused the brothers to hate him, what is it that he dreamed? Well, he had two dreams, really, both of which communicated the same basic idea. In the first dream, he finds himself binding sheaves in the field. What does that mean, sheaves? Well, they were taking stalks of grain that had been reaped, and they were tying them together lengthwise in bundles during the harvest. And suddenly, in this dream, Joseph sees his sheaves stand straight up. And then the sheaves of his brother, they also become animated, but they don't stand up. The sheaves of Joseph's brothers, they gather around his and they bow down. It does not take a genius to decipher the significance of this picture. And Joseph's brothers figure it out pretty quickly. They're not happy with the insinuation. They ask, having heard the report of the dream, are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to rule over us? In other words, when Joseph sees his brother's sheaves bowing down before his, everyone, including Joseph, interprets this as a sign of Joseph's dominance. His dominance over his brothers. Though one of the youngest of the twelve, he is envisioning himself coming out on top, ruling over his kin. And for this, his brothers hate him even more. Now, at this point, Joseph, he probably should have quit digging the hole that he was digging with his family. I mean, no one told him to announce these dreams to the world. Again, God had not said, hey, tell your brothers that I said you're going to rule over them. But Joseph doesn't quit digging. He apparently was a bit sure of himself. So he had another, even more offensive dream, and he promptly announced it to the family again. This time he dreamt You see, that the sun, the moon, and the 11 stars were bowing down before him. In this case, we don't even have the sheaf representing Joseph. The sun, the moon, the stars, they're bowing down before him. And the implication now is that not just his brothers, but his father, and Rachel's dead, so his father's wives, they would also come under his jurisdiction. This time, the brothers are not alone in their annoyance. Jacob is also less than enthused. And so he rebukes, we see here, his beloved son, Joseph, saying, what is this dream that you've dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you? Oh, what a preposterous thought. Jacob was the pager. Remember, this is the generations of Jacob. Nobody said anything about the generations of Joseph. Even if Jacob was dead, Joseph didn't have the right for the firstborn. He's getting a little too high on the hog. If Joseph is dreaming stuff like this, then maybe he was getting too big for his britches. Jacob's starting to see his other son's point. We find this very interesting remark, though, in verse 11, which reminds us that Jacob was a man of faith. His initial reaction to Joseph's dream was anger and frustration. We see that in his rebuke. But, you know, he had heard from God in dreams himself. He was no stranger to this sort of thing. And so we read, and his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind. There is a willingness in Jacob, however faint, believe that this might be from God. He didn't know what God might do. How could he? But he kept this in mind because one day, in some unforeseeable way, this might come to pass. And thus we see in verses 5 through 11 that the third source of tension in Jacob's household is Joseph's dreams. Joseph may have been arrogant for so quickly believing them without the clear seal of God's approval. He may have been haughty and reckless for so gladly announcing them to his family. But God was going to use the building tension and the building animosity which resulted from these dreams to accomplish unbelievable good in the life of his people. You see, congregation, we are going to learn in future weeks that the bad behavior, the favoritism, and the dreams that stoked the sort of hatred was fit to kill. Joseph's brothers were going to greatly endanger his life because of the things that he had said and the things that he had done. Before it's all said and done, they're going to sell him off to be carried down to Egypt like a slave. But guess what? In 20 years' time, Joseph would be ruling in Egypt alongside Pharaoh himself. And his father and his brothers, they would come and they would bow down before Joseph as his vast store of grain saved their lives. And that means that God was intentionally utilizing these early events, the provocation, the shows of favoritism, the offensive dreams, to make provision for the redemption of Israel. He was providentially ordering all things to this end, the good of all twelve tribes. God would allow things to fester to the point that Joseph's brothers would commit great atrocities. But when Joseph looks back many years down the road, what's he going to say? Well, he's going to be able to trace the hand of providence all the way back to this point in his life. And here's what he's going to say to his brothers, you probably already know it, but Genesis chapter 50, verse 20, he's going to say to his brothers, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. To bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. And congregation, that is the way in which God operates. The sovereign God who providentially orders all things is always working to accomplish his redemptive purposes long before we're able to recognize what it is that he's doing. He did that through Joseph for Israel, and he did that through Jesus for his church. No doubt, those who put Jesus Christ to death on a cross meant it for evil. They meant it for evil. There was envy and jealousy in their heart as well. There was animosity and hatred in their heart as well. There was no positive motivation behind their actions. But God would use their evil to work the greatest good that this world has ever known. Acts chapter 2 verse 23, remember that one, that's a good one, because it teaches us that when Jesus was crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men, it ultimately happened because he was delivered up according to the quote, definite plan and foreknowledge of God. God used the sinful hatred of human beings to execute his decree leading to the redemption of his people. He did it a long time ago, then he did it with Jesus. So brothers and sisters, if you want an application, you want to take away here, you have got to believe in the providence of God. You got to. You've got to believe, and now I'm quoting. that God, the great creator of all things, does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to praise the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy. That's Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 5, paragraph 1. You won't make sense of the Bible if you don't believe that. And I would argue that you won't be able to make sense of your life if you don't believe that. We may not always know just what the Lord is doing, but He is always doing something. And you can rest assured, you don't have to know what he's doing because you can rest assured, that the thing that he is doing for you is a good thing if your faith is in Jesus Christ. The thing that he is doing for you is a good thing if your faith is in Jesus Christ. If you trust in Jesus Christ, then the words of Romans 8.28 reveal the true nature of God's providence towards you. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. So let us believe in providence, trust the God of providence, and rest in God's kind providence towards us who are in Christ Jesus. Let us pray.