Good evening, it's seven o'clock on Wednesday, and while we can, we assemble over the mile. We assemble but at a distance when we can't assemble in person. We do it this way, and we are Preston City Bible Church. We love one another, we love the Lord, and we consider ourselves privileged to be part of the royal family of God, to be part of his work, to be able to do what he wants us to do when when things are down, when the chips are down, and we're facing historical uncertainty. The new normal is going to set in at some point, but it hasn't set in for me yet. I try to take this thing a day at a time, like all of you, and I keep in mind Proverbs, or sorry, Psalm 46. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountain should slip into the sea, This is our hope that God is God, He's in control, and we can trust Him. More than that, we are well aware that He has for us a mission. He has work for us to do, and it helps us immensely to know that He's got a task, He's got a job that He wants us to accomplish, a mission He wants us to accomplish. So we're going to spend time tonight in the word of God to know him on his terms and to be equipped and refit and refueled and rearmed so that we can deal with this time in a way that honors him, to glorify our God and how we think of him despite the trouble of our time. So I'll just give you a moment for silent prayer. Sometimes confessing our sins means telling God we've been afraid when we shouldn't have been since he told us not to be. That's a challenge to be told that you're not supposed to be afraid, but it's what the Bible says. So I always give you a moment for silent prayer and we'll open after a few moments of time to confess if you have any sins that you haven't confessed to the Lord, let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for eternal life, for the Lord Jesus our Savior, for fellowship with you because of his work on the cross. We thank you for sharing with us the greatest and the highest and the best. If you've already given us Christ, how will you not also with him freely give us all things? Father, keep our minds on your Son, keep our hearts stabilized as you keep us in perfect peace with our minds stayed on thee. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. We're studying a series I'm calling Christian Stability in Times of Historical Uncertainty, or just in Historical Uncertainty. And we've been talking about this a little bit since this crisis of the virus happened. And we've said, you know, the big takeaway that I think everyone needs to adopt as they approach this, the big summary view we want to hold, is that we really don't know what we don't know. There is so much speculation. It's almost like a pastime for some Christians to just speculate and assume that they know something that they don't know. If the people who are trying to scare you and get ratings and make you look at their news because that's how they make their money because of ratings, if they're wrong for being doomsayers, we're glad they're wrong. What benefit you'd get from saying, oh, it's just a hoax or something? for when there aren't 200,000 deaths or something, whatever it is. What benefit you would get from saying that it was a hoax would be just the idea that you were right and you called it. Because the truth is that not anyone in the hearing of my voice, besides God who hears everything we say, no one is in control of this except God. And our government rulers aren't in control. And if they try to control our economy, they're going to learn a lesson that we've been taught, especially in the 20th century, that they can't. And that's gonna be hard on us, but the truth is that God's in control of this and he's the only one who is. So when you don't know, it's uncomfortable and some people are, some of you are just the kind of people you just wanna know and you wanna say that you know because there's no safe or comfortable place unless you know. And that's why I've been seeking this study of stability, because that's where the knowledge is. We know what God has told us, and he hasn't said a word about COVID-19. I can tell you this, COVID-19 is not the end of the world. It may be the end of our lifestyle. It may be the end of our global economic system. That may be. It may be the end of America's ascendancy economically and therefore politically and geopolitically. That may be true. It could be the end of the dollar, but no one knows. The Bible doesn't say. It just says that we are certain that we have not yet been raptured. We haven't seen the Antichrist. which is after the rapture, and therefore this isn't the end of the world. But as I've said, also this could be the setup for it. So when you don't know, it's an element of wisdom to say, you know, we don't really know. We don't know what we don't know, and so that's a really helpful place to start. and then start asking things that we do know. And what I'm asking you to do in this little study of Christian stability is to learn to think things through with what I'm calling a stability drill. What is the stability drill? This is just my way of replacing a morbid fixation on the bad news with a stabilizing, sanctifying, refreshing fixation on the good news. And just by way of review really quickly, what the stability drill looks like is you start with the bad news that you have an uncomfortable situation that you're in and it constantly draws your attention because it hurts. You're disappointed through unmet expectations. For whatever reason you're suffering pain and all that is the bad news and we can very easily slide into focusing on bad news all the time and I'm not just saying you know let's have a stiff upper lip, let's Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that we're just being optimistic for no reason. I'm saying that you can easily fixate on the bad things, the bad news, and some people, they like to wallow. They want to wallow in the bad news because there's something in their sinful nature. They lust. Truly, here it is, it's really nasty, but it's true. In a lot of our hearts we lust after saying God isn't good, God isn't doing the best, and that's ultimately where the the morbid fixation on bad news will take you is that God isn't good. And you may not even be thinking about it. You're just thinking about the problem, but it easily slides into our attention and focus becomes on the bad news. So what do you do about that bad news and that focus? What do you do about it? You have to stop paying attention to that as your focus. And it's true. It's not right to say it's not true. We need to zoom out a little bit. We need to zoom out in our attention to the truths of God's Word, to our faith, to the faith. And that's what I'm proposing as the alternative. The alternative to fixation on bad news is fixating on good news. The faith includes the truths of God's Word. That would be like his commands his promises the things that aren't really commands or promises But they're truths that you can hang on to like God is love. That's not a promise. That's a statement of fact That's a proposition and we hang on to these propositions and those are Objective, they're immutable and they're perfect They're even based on God's character they're based on God's character and this is a better focus for us, obviously. Now, it just so happens that God's word is true, that the good things that he tells us, like he has the best in mind for you, that all things work together for good for those who love him, those who are called according to his purpose. These things are all true, and the faith is actually all good news. It's all gospel. It's all wonderful for us. And that's the fact. But you know what? It's also what we want. It's what we want to be true. We want someone to care for us. We want someone to be looking out for us, that there is this benevolent creator who not only made a good world for us to live on and thrive in, but has a good eternity for us, the new heavens and new earth. And that's what we want, but that's what the Bible presents, and it's the faith. And so Christians, if we're really committed to the word, then we really need to avoid the tendency we have to to say the bad news is so bad, because it's not. The bad news isn't worse than the good news is good. The bad news has weight to it, but it's not more weighty than the truth of God's eternal plan for your life. And that's what you do in the stability drill, and it's kind of, for Christians that have been walking with the Lord for a while, it becomes kind of a no-brainer. Except that we get into times of trial and trouble where it's not a no-brainer for us and we really struggle. This reminds me of something that I wanted to do tonight. I had a request on Sunday to share the story of the Spaffords, It Is Well With My Soul, and I forgot to. And that happens. I was going to read the hymn story and I didn't get a chance to on Sunday. And so I wanted to do that tonight in Robert Morgan's Then Sings My Soul. This is a classic example of somebody who had a choice to either fixate on the bad news or to look at the good news and that song begins when peace like a river it's on page 184 and so do you know the story of Horatio Spafford and his family it's the song it is well with my soul and peace like a river attendeth my way when sorrows like sea billows roll whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say it is well it is well with my soul the idea is whatever bad things happen in this life it's nothing compared to the good things God has promised And that becomes a matter of faith, which then, when faith gets stabilized and kind of goes and hardens, it becomes hope, an expectation of what God has said. But let me read what Robert Morgan says, and then sings my soul, given to me by a beloved friend and the Lord, Mike Roundtree. When the Great Chicago Fire consumed the Windy City in 1871, Horatio G. Spafford, attorney heavily invested in real estate, lost a fortune. So the Chicago Fire of 1871 is how the story begins. About that time, his only son, aged four, succumbed to scarlet fever. That means he died of scarlet fever. Horatio drowned his grief in work, pouring himself into rebuilding the city and assisting the 100,000 people who had been left homeless. The story of It Is Well With My Soul doesn't start with the boat crossing the Atlantic. It starts with the Chicago Fire in 1871 and then the loss of a son at age four to scarlet fever. And how did Horatio Spafford deal? Well, he went to work. He was one of those kinds of people that would drown himself in his labor because it was a balm. It was a comfort to him, apparently, to be industrious. When an urgent matter detained Horatio in New York, he decided to send his wife, Anna, and their four daughters, Maggie, Tanetta, Annie, and Bessie, on ahead. As he saw them settled into a cabin aboard the luxurious French liner Ville de Havre, An unease filled his mind, and he moved them to a room closer to the bow of the ship. And then he said goodbye, promising to join them soon." So five of the most important people in his life, five women, his wife and his four daughters, were on the Ville du Havre boat. to go from New York to Europe. During the small hours of November 22 of 1873, that's 12 years after the Chicago fire and the loss of their son to scarlet fever, During the small hours of that day, November 22nd of 1873, as the Ville du Havre glided over smooth seas, the passengers rejolted from their bunks. The ship had collided with an iron sailing vessel and water poured in like Niagara. The Ville du Havre tilted dangerously. Screams, prayers, and oaths merged into a nightmare of unmeasured terror. Passengers clung to posts, tumbled through the darkness, and were swept away by powerful currents of icy ocean. Loved ones fell from each other's grasp and disappeared into foaming blackness. Within two hours, the mighty ship vanished beneath the waters. The 226 fatalities included Maggie, Tonetta, Annie, and Bessie. Mrs. Spafford was found nearly unconscious, clinging to a piece of wreckage. When the 47 survivors landed in Cardiff, Wales, she cabled her husband saved alone. So he would have known about the crash of the boat, that would have gotten out as a matter of news through the telegraph. And so when she finally got her personal communique, what he was told is that she was alive, but her daughters had died. So they have lost five children in 12 years. Four in one night and one in 1871. Horatio immediately booked passage to join his wife en route. On a cold December night, the captain called him aside and said, I believe we're now passing over the place where the Ville de Havre went down. Spafford went to his cabin but found it hard to sleep. He said to himself, It is well the will of God be done." He later wrote his famous hymn based on those words. The melody for It is Well, if you look in your hymnal, is this title, Vil de Havre, the name after the boat that sunk and he lost his daughters. It was written by Philip Bliss, who was himself soon to perish along with his wife in a terrible train wreck in Ohio. And there's a story about that tragedy in I Will Sing of My Redeemer, also written by Philip Bliss. You could tell this story in a book or you tell it in a little paragraph like Robert Morgan does. There's more to the story I've shared with you in the past. These people were persecuted for their sorrows. They were told by the Christians around them at one point that they must have done something wrong to draw God's wrath and that's why they're suffering so much. Maybe it was pride or something else. There's a whole book of the Bible written to tell us not to speculate about other people's sorrows and what their relationship with God is indicating. It's not your job to weigh in on that. Job's friends were dead wrong about why he was suffering. He was suffering because of his righteousness, not because of his wickedness. And I wouldn't speculate one way or the other about Horatio Spafford's family, but they did pick up stakes and they eventually, I believe, settled in Jerusalem and tried to start a ministry or started a mission work out there. And boy, Christians can really hurt you. And notice that history, everybody that knows the name Spafford, everyone honors him. Everyone honors his memory, his faith, and we all sing his song memorializing how he dealt with the loss of his children. And the grief involved in such an event, We read about it, we try to connect to it. I'm doing this public speaking thing from my office in my house, so I'm not going to cry, but I certainly could, just considering what's involved with a father having to deal with the loss of his children. and to encourage his wife. And I don't know of the story of that marriage, I'm not certain about it, but I believe they stayed together, they made their life together in the Lord. And that's another factor that's often very common, is you have problems, you have tragedy in the family and the marriage doesn't survive. And I don't want to speculate on that either. My point is that God is bigger and His promises are bigger than the life that we're so used to. And you get so used to the people around you and it's just how it is. And then there's something bad, something horrible like this, catastrophic happens. You know, not like having to stay home or maybe getting a really bad respiratory virus. But, you know, something catastrophic like you lose all your kids in one shipwreck. And when that happens, when something awful like this, we lose loved ones, it's the worst of all things. It's Genesis 2, it's the greatest test. Your only son whom you love, God tells Abraham. This is when even those types of things, if we zoom out a little bit and look at God's, the faith, God's promises, God's commands, God's propositions. We are strengthened. We are stabilized. And that's what I'm going for. That's what I'm asking God on your account, is that you'll be stabilized through His Word. And so here's the way I think this works. You have the objective content of the truths of God's Word, and that's what the Bible calls the faith. You have the information. It really is. It's informational. It's God telling you what you need to believe, the faith. And then you have our exercise of faith. what we do with the faith. And this takes a couple of things. You have to observe it. You have to listen. You have to pay attention. You have to be able to concentrate and focus on the Word of God despite the hardship. And sometimes if you're suffering badly enough, under enough pressure, sometimes you can look away from it. You feel like for maybe five minutes, if that, or that would be a miracle. And then your mind keeps going back to that same problem. And the more you go back to your problem before you get stabilized, I don't mean that the problem goes away or you're escaping it. I mean you're becoming bigger and more capable of handling it as you settle into the hands of your Father. You settle into the care of God, you become more stabilized and able to manage it. But sometimes you can only manage a few minutes at a time to focus on the Word of God and to think about it and to pray about it. You need to go immediately back to prayer because you're hurting so badly. But this is the drill. You exercise your faith. in the faith, in the truths of God's Word that we had, which we named like His commands and His promises and His propositions. And this is what's true about your exercise of faith. It is subjective. Only you can do it. It's your personal experience. It's no one else's experience. It's nobody else's responsibility. and it's subjective in that sense. It is dependent upon your choices. You are going to have to choose to trust in God. You're going to have to choose to put His Word in front of you and say, I believe it. I love the song Through It All by Andre Crouch. I hope you know that song. It's a really wonderful sort of a rhapsody or ballad about the Christian life and how we hurt, and the hurt makes us draw near to the Lord and trust Him. And if I didn't have these hardships, then I wouldn't know how much I can trust in the Lord. He tests my faith, and as I exercise my faith, He shows me how much He can accomplish. But it is your choice, you do have to step up to the plate, and that's part of what I'm trying to do in this study, is tell you you've got some choices to make in your approach to the problems that you're facing, the national disaster that we're facing right now, and the destruction of our economy and possibly of our civil liberties and possibly our political system. All that's involved with that, all these problems that you're facing, that you have to make some choices about how you're going to handle it. What are you going to do about it? And my proposal is a bit of attention to the word. and a bit of time and prayer and an intentional trusting in God through what he said is exactly what the great physician ordered. That's what the doctor ordered. And so, by the way, we're not consistent in your exercise of faith. That's the point, is every time you come up to bat, you're You're up to bat, and that's the way that works. Think about a batter. In the major leagues, we think somebody's a great player if they get above a 30% hit rate. 300 average is a good batting average. Somebody with above a 350 is a hall of famer. and baseball and batting with a consistent thing. Just think, 35% of people that get a hit and that's a success. Can you imagine anything like in school? In school, if you made a 35 on a math test and they said all-star, that's the way pitching and batting works in the major leagues in terms of the numbers. And I'm not proposing that you be that kind of batter with the challenges that God serves up to you, but I'm saying that there is an inconsistency in our success. And that's to be expected. Sometimes you're successful and sometimes you're not. That's what the Bible shows us. God actually spoke directly to Abraham, and Abraham spoke directly to God, and God called Abraham his friend. The angel of the Lord with two other angels appeared to Abraham in Genesis chapter 18, and they had a long conversation over some pancakes or some flatbread that Sarah cooked up. Yet, all the stories of Abraham, there are three major glaring failures of faith as the point of the practice of Abraham's life. God makes a promise and then he's got to trust him. It's a constant responsibility, but we're inconsistent in our practice. In Preston City Bible Church, we understand that there is inconsistency. There is no inconsistency in God's Word. There's inconsistency. The faith is stable. The inconsistency is in our exercise of faith, though it's always our responsibility. And, truly, when we have problems, our exercise of faith is stimulated by the trouble that we're facing. And, as we said, this is the thing. You have to actually do it. You actually have to exercise your faith. I believe this is a choice. I don't find in Scripture that it says God does this through you. God doesn't faith for you. God tells you to trust Him. My favorite illustration of this to tell the story of is in Matthew chapter 14. After the long day of ministry, the Lord Jesus walks across the Sea of Galilee and is passing by the disciples who've been rowing all night and they think he's a ghost and they call out in fear and he says, don't be afraid. Take courage, it is I. And then Peter sees that it is the Lord and says, Lord, if it's you and you command me, I can walk out to you and I can walk on water too. I'm paraphrasing, obviously. And the Lord says, come on. And he does. And Peter walks on water. And everybody knows that Jesus walked on water. That's kind of a trope that people, even unbelievers, know about Christians. We believe Jesus walked on water because it's in the Gospels. But what people don't know about this story, who haven't read it, is that Peter did too. Peter walked on water too. And that's really the point of the story, is that Peter, while looking at Jesus, could walk on water. But when he looked away, he sank. And the truth of this story is not that God stopped using faith through Peter in some sort of theological weird gymnastics. It's not the point of the story. And we know that's true because of what Jesus says when Peter wisely calls for help. He says, Lord Jesus, save me. And Jesus grabs his hand and saves him and they get in the boat and he says, why did you doubt? That's the point. As Peter looked away from Jesus, saw the trouble, saw the stormy waves around him, and sank, because he lost his focus. This is what I mean by the stability drill. If you're looking at Jesus, stable, able to walk on water, able to do things that you shouldn't be able to do, couldn't be able to do, and yourself, looking at the trouble, sink, because you will immediately begin to doubt. our attention and our choice to trust him go hand in hand. And if you're not paying attention to him, then you don't have the opportunity to trust him. I used to, I like to remind you of the story that I was told a couple of times by Dwight Pentecost in class at Dallas Seminary. J. Dwight Pentecost, one of my favorite writers, one of my favorite professors, favorite theologians of all time, was taught by the man himself, by Lewis Berry Chafer, was one of his students back in the early days of Dallas Seminary. And Dr. Pentecost said that on Friday, before Dr. Chafer would dismiss the class and their discussions on the spiritual life or theology or whatever it was, he knew that the men were going to go fill pulpits in Sunday schools or in supply for the Sunday sermon for various churches in the Dallas area. And he knew that they were going to go preach, so Pentecost said that he would walk toward the door and open it, and then he would turn around with his hand on the door, like it was a thing he always wanted to remember to say. He would say, men, remember, tell them something to believe. Give them something to believe. That's what you need to do when you preach. And the point is that if you don't have the word of God in some sort of saturation for you, then you don't have anything to exercise faith in. Very soon, without some consistent intake of God's Word, God becomes this rabbit foot sort of vestige on your life that you're always like, oh yeah, I believe in him. Oh yeah, I've got some beads. I'm a Christian. I've got the t-shirt. But it's not a real relationship. There's not a real communication that is feeding a real fellowship with God. And that's the problem. That's where there's going to be Christian instability. Some of you are just, this whole time in the study of Christian stability and historical uncertainty, many of you are just kind of like, yeah, this is the deal. This is how it is. It's your experience. And I'm just saying what you know. I'm also trying to say it in such a way that you'll be equipped to help others. On that topic of helping others, please don't help someone by shaming them that they're not trusting God. You're not going to help someone by making them not trust you. You shame someone who isn't where you are in the faith, and they're going to just know that you are self-righteous, or you don't know what you think you know, or that they know they're not being loved or something. And Jesus shames Peter, but he's good at it. He knows exactly where Peter is and what Peter needs, and he is himself the object of faith. But I don't think we should shame one another. We should be alongside to encourage one another. It's like this. I'm going on a walk. We all need to walk. I'm going on a walk. We need to get our heart rate up. We need to sustain some healthy cardiovascular breathing for more than 20 minutes. I'm going on a walk. Why don't you come with me? I love the company. I don't want to go on a walk. I know. I don't really feel like it either, but it'd be much easier if we had each other to talk to. And then your friend may or may not say, yeah, let's go on a walk. They have the option to say, no, I really don't feel like it. They'll say something like, I don't really want to do that right now. And you say, OK, well, hey, maybe next time. I know I'm going to need to do it tomorrow, too. And that's the attitude. I think that, hey, let's go on a walk together. I'd love for you to join me. Why don't we do this together? That's the attitude of coming alongside someone. The walk illustration, I think, could be helpful, because they do need to, and you need to. And so it's not like you're going to take them on the walk. It's that you need to go on the walk, and they need to go on the walk. Hey, there may be something to that. Anyway, I just. If you're going to help someone, you're going to do it because they trust you, they know you're saying it out of love, because you have listened, because you're being a Christian, you're representing Jesus Christ in the relationship. Alright, I did want to review a little bit this drill. this walk by faith drill for stability when we're in historical instability. And now I want you to turn, if you have your Bible, you can feel free to turn to Genesis 37. I want to tell the story of Joseph. I don't want to do that over the next several visits. We'll look at the theology of Christian stability, and then we'll look at the story of Joseph, and we'll switch back to the theology of stability. And what a fun thing is the book of Genesis. What a wonderful message is the story of Joseph and how God worked all things together for good in his life. And so let me cut that way. There we go. And we're in Genesis chapter 37. And why does it say desktop capture? I don't want to say that. Hopefully you're not Anyway, a gifted but an unpopular young man. That's the way the story of Joseph begins. He's a gifted but unpopular young man. And I'm just going to read the story and comment on it through, and the idea is that it'll be fun and it'll remind you of things most of you are going to know. You already know this story very well. But it's so encouraging to think through what God did in Joseph's life. Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan. These are the records of the generations of Jacob. This is how God begins each successive saga in the story of, in the book of Genesis. It's the Toledoth outline of Genesis. And you have the summary introduction of Jacob's relationship with his brothers. And this is the, in the grand narrative of Genesis 37 through 50, this is the problem that will be resolved. But we find that Joseph's personal problem of being rejected by his brothers and sold into slavery is actually a means to an end of resolving a much bigger problem, which is the famine that Joseph will resolve and save his brothers and bring them into Egypt. God arranged for them to do. But it begins with a bad report, and this is a popular, or I mean a very gifted boy, very beloved by his father for many reasons, who is very unpopular with his brothers. Joseph, when 17 years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives. Remember you have the You have Rachel and Leah and their two maids. And so Jacob has the four wives and so the twelve tribes come out of these four unions. And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father. This is kind of like a summary strike one where Joseph is part of the family business and he comes back to dad and he says, you know, they're not really being good workers. They're not doing the work that they should be doing. Now we're about to learn a lot about Joseph's upbringing and we can conjecture some things about his character by asking the question like, what would it be like if you grew up in this kind of a setting? Think about it. One man, four wives. two different castes, two different classes of wives. One caste is the sisters that are the actual wives. The lower level, economically, is their maids, their servant women that they've given to Jacob as wives. You could say, well, that elevates them somehow socially, but they're still the servant women who are now the sister wives in this very unbiblical four-wife thing. This is a mess, a very Rancid mess according to Genesis chapter 2 one woman one man. That's marriage. That's it That's God's design. You don't have four men that need for help meets you have one man who needs one help meet and Maybe she needs some help but her maidens like in in Proverbs 31 but but he doesn't she doesn't need help being a wife you see and so So it's just a messy family. In that situation, you've got to organize yourself. You have to start categorizing. And the categories work like this. Leah is the first wife because Jacob, the deceiver, has been deceived. And the story of Laban and he snuck Leah into the tent when Jacob thought he was getting Rachel. So that's the first thing is you've got Leah, the first wife, but then Rachel, the beloved wife. Well, God loved and blessed Leah by giving her, she was very fertile, had many children, and Rachel was not able to have children for a long time until finally Joseph. So you have the favored wife, Rachel, who can't have children, and the favored wife, as it were, by God, who has all the babies, and by the way, Judah and Levi come from Leah, that gives you Moses, that's Levi, and Jesus and David, that's Judah. I mean, the Old Testament is coming from Leah, in a sense. But we need Joseph, as it turns out in the story, so also Rachel. But my point is, you've got this really bizarre thing where a man married sisters. The Mosaic Law, years later, at Mount Sinai, will say, absolutely not, that's forbidden. Don't marry sisters. But Jacob has done this, and Laban has basically facilitated this. And so that's the first category. So the beloved wife is Rachel, and the son of that union is Joseph. And so that's one reason that Papa really loves Joseph, is it's from his more favored wife. And just think of the awful dynamics in this family. He's playing favorites with the wives. He's playing favorites with the kids. And kids want their father's approval, especially in this culture that we're talking about. And so it's just such a horrible thing to be born into. So you're the privileged one. You're the one born from the favored wife. Think about that and what kind of kid are you? Well, he's favored by God too. God blesses him. God makes him smart. We find out he's very attractive as the story progresses. God made this kid special. They're all awesome, but he made this one really special and in ways that stand out. He's kind of a standout. And he's got a sinful nature and all these problems, but he thinks that he is really special because his dad has elevated him. So he's grown up thinking this way. I mean, it's reality to him. And the fact that he's not a total loser, the fact that Joseph actually has the sense to trust in God and humble himself before God is actually a huge testimony, I think. I don't want to get any conjecture, but the way the story's set up, the fact that Joseph isn't just a brat. is wonderful news and it may be that he kind of was a brat to his brothers and this story kind of knocks him down a couple pegs but the point is that he is in an impossible situation as a child because he's in a horrible dysfunctional marital thing with his parents and he's being propped up as the favorite so that the other 11 hate him, the other 10 hate his guts from this favoritism as we'll read but Joseph is like he's going back to dad as the inside track and dad's oh yeah that's bad your brothers and so there's factions in the family and you people on lockdown with your togetherness that's now forced because you didn't you're not used to being together and we're supposed to socially distance and you can't just get in the car and go somewhere and hang out with your friends because for teenagers I mean because there's that's a probably a big fight among parents about how much social distancing will be extended to going to see your friends and all that You know, all the things that are now real because our families are tight and we're all stuck together. This is some good time for sanctification. And the problems in Jacob's family, you might have some problems like this in your family. Like, you know, people are there with sinful natures that think that their sinful natures aren't as bad as yours because they can see yours and they don't look at theirs and that kind of thing. So this is a really helpful story to bring out in a time in which we're kind of in cabin fever. Joseph brought back a bad report of his brothers to their father. And then what happened? Well, strike two will be the favoritism I've mentioned. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age. This was the one that we waited for. Rachel could never have a baby, and finally we got a baby. And it's like in the story of Abraham and Isaac, you know, the son of his old age. not a miracle story like that, but still in his old age. And he made a very colored tunic. And this is the famous coat of many colors. And I don't want to speculate about what that noun or adjective means. It's in the noun world, the adjective, what that word means. But we just know that when you saw Joseph, you knew it was Joseph. And you could tell from a long way off, it turns out. It may be that it's just really a special thing that he made him, and so it's got higher value, so the other guys didn't get such a nice jacket. Or it could be that this carries an actual way of expressing rank. But whatever this very colored tunic is, it sets him apart. And that's the point of the story. Jacob has marked his son. and it turns out for death. He put a bullseye on his back by putting this very colored tunic on him. His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms. So this is a horrible situation. You don't want to be this guy whose dad has made him the object of the hate of his brothers. So when he does what dad sent him to do, they hate him all the more because he's already hated for being favored. And so, what a horrible situation. I want to just go into a situation like this. I don't want to step into other people's business. I don't want to stick my nose into your business, but don't you want to just go say, Jacob, what are you doing? You're setting your kids up from the very formative years to hate each other. And how is there any of a walk with Yahweh in this arrangement that you have where you're playing this? Well, it's culture. There's a tendency to play this favorite and have the favored child and the double portion and all this. It's cultural and the world is affecting the family. And it turns out God uses it. God has a plan and he's bigger than the mistakes that Jacob makes. And we could all kind of look at this story and, hey, if you do this to your kids, if one of your kids thinks he's loved more than the others, and if your other kids think that the one is the most loved or the favorite, I want to challenge you. You can learn something from this that that's a bad idea. Your kids, all of them, according to Psalm 127, are an inheritance from the Lord. They're all His grace, they're all His gift, and they all have their purpose. And I challenge you not to play favorites with your kids, and you can watch me and see if I do whenever I ask my kids. Who's my favorite they all know to say we all are and it's not just because I come from an egalitarian culture I want to say it's not I want to say it's because I've had to think through What does this child need? What does this child need for me as his father to be able to function like he's supposed to so this is a bad thing that Jacob does and You can say, well God, in His election and so forth, and my answer to that is that God is your Heavenly Father and He's my Heavenly Father, and He's given me the Holy Spirit, He's given you the Holy Spirit, and He is glorifying Himself through your life, He's glorifying Himself through my life, and the way our Daddy treats us is better than we could ever imagine. And we should never look at our brothers and sisters in Christ with any kind of envy or jealousy. That's idolatry. That's presuming to take God's prerogatives on ourselves. So that's a road you should never go down, that God plays favorites. The Bible isn't presenting that, in my contention, even in the birth of Jacob and Esau. And we can get into that some other time. But strike two is favoritism. against his other sons. And strike three is Joseph has a dream, and this is what God does. God gives Joseph this dream, and it's a prophetic dream. Joseph's a prophet. His dreams are prophecies of the future, and God gives him this. Then Joseph had a dream. When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, please listen to this dream which I have had, for behold, We were binding sheaves in the field alone. My sheaf rose up and also stood erect. Behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf. Then his brother said to him, Are you actually going to reign over us? I looked this up and had a good time with this in Hebrew. That word actually began several doubles in this story in Genesis 37. My Hebrew students will really be excited about this. That's hamlok, timlok, and that's the word malak, to rule, coming from melek, the king. Malak as a verb is to rule, and it's the infinitive absolute followed by the imperfect, the kalimperfect. And so when you double the verb like this, and it's an idiom in Hebrew, it's some sort of intensification. So in New American Standard translates it, are you actually going to reign over us that's what the the new american standard does and so um indeed would be another translation and so this is um this is bringing emphasis in hebrew this is how you throw something in bold or you double underline it are you going to reign over us but you can't express the intensity with um with just words so they do it with this doubling of the verb and it's it's in Genesis 2 17 and the day the very day that you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will absolutely without any question certainly die and the day you eat from it you will die and that isn't two deaths That's the spiritual death that came when in the day they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That's the death he was talking about and that's what's going on at Calvary when Jesus paid for our sins on the cross. Anyway, this is going on here. Are you actually going to reign over us or are you really going to rule over us? So they hated him even more. for his dreams and for his words. Now let's do a quick analysis. I've been blaming Jacob for this. God gave Joseph this dream. Is that really the way to think about this? And the answer is, you are responsible for your choices. You're responsible for how you respond to the situation that you're responding in. These boys aren't responsible for their dead plant favorites. That's Jacob's problem. That's his choice. They're responsible for their bitterness, for their jealousy, for how they reacted to it. They're not responsible for Joseph having this dream. And by the way, neither is Joseph. They're responsible for hating him because they're jealous. And Figuring out your lane is a very helpful thing. So Jacob plays favorites. His brothers hate him for that. They didn't need to hate him for that, but they chose to. God gave Joseph a dream, favored him that way, in that sense, and played right into the tendency of the family is to elevate Joseph. And now God's doing it through these dreams. It's kind of the picture. So, yes. God did favor Joseph in this case this way and he did it because he's got a plan and the plan ends up being to save the lives of Jacob's other sons and their families and that's the amazing thing is God is elevating Joseph so that they will sell him into slavery in their hatred of him, because he's going to use what he knows they'll do. He's using their wrong reactions in his grand mosaic of sovereign plan to bring about their salvation. Now, he's not sinful, and he's not causing their sin, but he knows about it, and it doesn't get outside of God's plan. So that's why the story ends in chapter 48 with, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. God is able to manage history even around our wickedness and our stupidity. Hitler is going to kill 6 million Jews in World War II, which is a horrible, almost inconceivable thought of what they did, the Nazis did to the Jews, and it's unthinkable. And yet, three years after the conclusion of World War II, you have the state of Israel. You have Israel, its own state, in its own land that God gave them, being recognized by the United States and Great Britain and those nations following them. I don't know that you could have had that reaction, that state of Israel founded without the horrors. And I'm not saying that God used it that way. I'm saying that God is in control and He knows and He sees and noticed that in 1948 we do have a state of Israel. And that is awesome and that is God's work. That is God's historic plan. And that is even prophesied that there will be a second return to Israel after a first return. that there would be a second return and this one would someday be in belief because today there's a return in unbelief. But anyway, God is bigger than the situation. God is bigger than the evil that man can do and he can even use it despite the horrors of it. He's working all things together for good for those who love him, for those who are called according to his purpose. And so the brothers hate him. God doesn't hate Joseph, but his brothers do and God is going to use it. When we get to the next portion of the story in verse 9, Joseph will be promoted above his parents, according to God. Now, he still had another dream, and he related it to his brothers. He told them of his dream and said, Lo, I have had still another dream, and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me. So he told the dream, he related it to his brothers, and his father rebuked him. He rebuked him, and that word is an explicit Hebrew word. We're not in question about what that word means. He corrected him for saying that even his parents and his brothers would bow down to him. And Jacob said, what is this dream that you've had? This is a Hebrew way of rebuke. It's a correction by asking a rhetorical question. We would say, what are you thinking? What are you doing? What do you mean you had a dream? This is the kind of challenge that is itself a rebuke. Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground? Well, this is the doubling again. He did it again in come to bow ourselves down. Actually come, it's the word bow, which is to come to somewhere. And it is a doubling of the infinitive absolute followed by the imperfect. And there aren't two bowings of down. That's not the point. He's saying, do you really think that? It's an intensifier that really, we have the same type of idiom, but we use adverbs. Are you really going to, are your brothers actually going to come and bow down to you? Again, he does it here, and there's a third one that happens in the story. Your brother's actually come to bow down ourselves before you to the ground. His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind. His father isn't jealous of him, he's incredulous, but he keeps it in mind. Like Mary in the gospel, she kept all these things inside and thought about this. She pondered these things in her heart. This is Jacob saying, you know, I'm going to have to remember this because I guess it's going to be important. Also, the way Moses is telling the story, this helps us to grab on to these details. His brothers are jealous of him, but his father has a different reaction. He kept the saying in mind. Now, if this is a prophecy of God, If this is a prophecy of God, then Jacob should know something about the future and destiny of his son Joseph. He should know that there is coming an exaltation of Joseph in which he and his wife and his sons are going to bow down. See it? There's coming some sort of exaltation of Joseph based on this prophecy. So he's got it in mind, but it turns out as the way the story develops, he doesn't benefit from this information because he's going to almost die of grief when his sons Bring him the the tattered very colored tunic that looks like he's been torn by wild beasts So now joe the next phase of the story chapter two if you will of this of this story developing After the dreams is that joseph is sent by his father on another trip to to inspect his brothers Oh, and this is you know, i'm sorry. This is it. This is this is far too much The story has developed this conflict between joseph and his brothers and now it's going to have to come to a conclusion His brothers went to pasture their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, that's Jacob said to Joseph, Are not your brothers pasturing the flock in Shechem? Come, and I will send you to them. So great. Let's go see how that's going. And he said, I will go, as he would, because he's an obedient son. And then he said to him, go now and see about the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flock and bring word back to me and i know it's burning a hole of curiosity through your soul to know what the word welfare is in the bible well it turns out this word welfare is an interpretive translation of the word shalom, of peace. The basic concept of peace or wholeness, the completeness. You have no peace when the army marches away because half the population of men are gone or more. And so the country is divided in that way. So there's no peace. So peace and wholeness or welfare is a fine translation. As long as you know it means it's the word shalom. Go now and see about the welfare of your brothers. So he sent him from the Valley of Hebron And he came to Shechem to see about his brothers. And notice it was about the welfare. He doesn't say, go find out what those lazy, mangy, and no-count brothers of yours are doing. He says, go see how they're doing. Go check on them. Sometimes pastors will call you and say, how are you? And you'll say, I don't need any pastoral counseling right now. I'm doing just fine, thank you. Nobody ever says that to me when I call them. They just don't take the call. But there's never a time when a wise pastor is coming around to check on you not knowing what's going on because he speculates that he knows something bad is happening. If your pastor at Preston City Bible Church calls you, it's generally just to see how you are or to see if there's anything you need And he might even do that if he misses seeing you in church after a couple of Sundays. You might get a phone call and say, hey, are you guys okay? We miss you. We love you. That's not to see if you're still a Christian or see if you're doing what you need to be doing. Are you getting the word that you need to be getting? Of course, that's between you and the Lord, and it's a constant matter of my prayer for you that you are being saturated with the Word so that you're producing the fruit of the Spirit and glorifying God and growing spiritually and your giftedness and all that. But I can't make any of that happen. God's doing that. If I check on your welfare, make sure that you know I'm not checking up on you to see if you're behaving as you should, and nobody else at Preston City Bible Church is doing that either. So let's feel free to call one another and not anticipate the worst. Expect the best, that people actually do love you, and they do so because the Holy Spirit is working God's word through them. Joseph arrives in Shechem in verses 15 through 17. What happens in the story? Well, it goes like this. A man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the field. And the man asked him, what are you looking for? So he gets to where the brothers should be. There should be brothers that smell like sheep and a bunch of sheep that smell like sheep. And the sheep should be eating grass. But nope, it's just Joseph wandering around in a field. He said, I'm looking for my brothers. Please tell me where they are pasturing the flock. And the man said, what did he say? He said, nope. They have moved from here, for I heard them say, let us go to Dothan." So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan. Alright, so it looks sketchy. When you are supposed to be in one place, and then you're not there, and then the representative of the boss comes and finds you somewhere else, that's immediately like maybe they're doing something they shouldn't be doing. And the way these men behave, They're already very hateful of their brother, and they're not willing to tolerate any more of his skippiness of checking up and giving a bad report, like in the beginning of the story. But it looks like they have a guilty conscience, because they're not where they're supposed to be, and it doesn't tell us why they moved from Shechem to Dothan. It doesn't say that the grass was chewed up and there was no good grass. We don't know if there was a place for them to play dice near the flocks and the sheepfolds in Dothan. We just don't know. But they're not where they were supposed to be, so that introduces a discrepancy between the brothers and Joseph. So it provides an occasion for us to think, perhaps, There was going to be another bad report because they weren't where they're supposed to be. But you can't go beyond, in my opinion, we really shouldn't go beyond that in terms of our speculation. And so the story continues. Joseph will catch them in verse 18. When they saw him from a distance and before he came close to them, they plotted against him to put him to death. I'm going to kill that kid is what they decide. Why do they see him from a distance? Because he has an identifiable garment. It's not just that he has a distinctive shape, he's from a distance. They see a guy far away with something with different shades, different hues of probably red and earth tones. And so they can spot him because he looks different. Everybody else has something that is the color of linen that's been faded or, you know, soiled into a kind of a yellowy brown color. And he's coming around and something that probably from a distance looks mostly red I would imagine so that's just kind of the idea as they seem from all over here He comes here comes Skippy is what they think and they said to one another here comes this dreamer now then come now then come and let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits and we'll say a wild beast devoured him you know how how guys carry on at the construction site let us see what becomes what will become of his dreams so if we kill him It's kind of like a joke. There's no way we're bowing down to him. No way our sheep will bow down to him or our star is going to bow down to him because he'll be dead. Ha ha. And so it's a big ironic joke. It's a big statement of murderous intent and the idea has been expressed. It is in contradiction to the, to the prophecy of, of Joseph being ascended over them. And so, um, I don't think it's just a joke. I think it is a joking way to say, let's murder our brother. And I know that because of what happens next. Reuben will intervene. And he says, but Reuben heard this and rescued him out of their hands and said, let us not take his life. So it's very serious. It's ironic, but it's, it's deadly serious, at least to Reuben. And he wants to restore Joseph. We know that because of verse 22 Reuben further said to them Shed no blood throw him into this pit that's in the wilderness But do not lay hands on that he might rescue him that that Reuben might rescue him out of their hands So what's happening in verse 22 as you've read is that Reuben is telling them let's don't kill him Let's just put him in the pit Reuben's trying to save him. That's Reuben's objective. He doesn't say what to do from the pit, but we know that he secretly apparently wanted to restore him to his father. Reuben's like, put him in the pit, and then he's going to try to pull him out of there and send him on his way before his brothers can hurt him. And this is an honor to Reuben here in the Scriptures and forevermore. And then they throw him in the pit. So it came about when Joseph reached his brothers. It doesn't say what they said to him. We don't know if they had any good reunion. It just says they stripped him of his tunic, the very colored tunic that was on him. Notice that you have a lot of language to describe it. A lot of words are spent. on expensive paper to write the very colored tunic that was on him. That's how they knew. They knew him from a distance. And they took him and threw him into the pit. And now the pit was empty without any water in it. So you don't think that they're drowning him, I think is why we have that information. So it's an empty pit. And it also, if they threw him in a pit and it's deep enough to contain him, then it hurt when they threw him in because he's falling from a height of several feet. if he can't climb out of this pit. Then they sat down to eat a meal, as you would if, you know, as you're plotting the death of your brother. They sat down to eat a meal, and as they raised their eyes and looked, behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead with their camels bearing aromatic gum and balm and myrrh on their way to bring them down to Egypt. Now, do you know what I think happened here? I think that there was an actual caravan of Ishmaelites, children from Ishmael, who are traders who are carrying aromatic gum and balm and myrrh. I think these are their wares that they're selling. In other words, I don't think you have some sort of metaphor here for the death of Christ or the baby in the manger or anything like that. I think this is a historic event where you have a trade route and they're near it and these traders are coming through with these expensive items of interest and their wares, these perishables or consumables, I should say, that would be of interest, like perfume and luxury items bearing aromatic gum and balm and myrrh. doesn't say they're carrying any slaves, but they do have something that'll be for sale down in Egypt. And so they're on their way to bring these things to Egypt. And again, I think this is just historically what happened. We have the tales that coincide with the history that we know of the time. And so in verse 26, Judah will also intervene like Reuben. Judah said to his brothers, what profit is it for us to kill our brother and cover up his blood? We can't make any money on killing our brother. That's what that means. We cannot make a dime if we just kill him. Let's make some coin here. Come and let us sell him to the Israelites and not lay our hands on him for he's our brother, our own flesh. So we get a kind of a twofer. First of all, we don't kill our own brother, which would be a curse to us, but also we get some money out of the transaction. So this is like a win-win. See, this is the way to argue Judah. And his brothers listened to him. They said, this makes sense to us. And then they sold him. Then some Mamidianite traders passed by, so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Israelites for 20 shekels of silver. Not 30 silver pieces, so it's just They sold him for 20 shekels. That's what actually happened. And thus they brought Joseph into Egypt. And that is the point that Moses is driving to as he narrates this story. How did we get where we need an exodus? Joseph was sold by Israel's children, by the tribes of Israel, into slavery. And then they, on the other end, 400 years later, are calling out to God in their slavery in Egypt. That is sort of ironic, if you think about it, in terms of the big flow of history. Thus, they brought Joseph into Egypt. And I know some of you are like, it's already 8 o'clock, but I haven't finished the story. Now Reuben returned to the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit. So he tore his garments. He returned to his brothers and said, the boy is not there. As for me, where am I to go? Reuben, I have nowhere. He didn't know about the whole sell your brother to the Midianites. So they took Joseph's tunic and slaughtered a male goat. Here's how we'll deal with this. They're going to deceive Jacob. Jacob, who deceived his father Isaac with his brother's scent, and pulled the wool over his father's eyes. You know, blind Isaac and the story of Jacob stealing Esau's birthright. Well, here Jacob gets another swindle. He's being lied to again. First it was Laban and Leah, and now it's his own sons. They took Joseph's tunic and slaughtered a male goat, dipped the tunic in the blood, and they sent the very colored tunic and brought it to their father. And notice the detail of the deception. It's very detailed. This is how you lie. In a clever crafty way. These are genius liars. We found this. That's the lie Please examine it to see whether it's your son's tunic or not Now, the reason Moses narrates this is so we'll see the deceptiveness, the duplicity. They don't tell him the story. They show him the evidence and let him construct the story for himself. This is some high class lying. I mean, they're lying to Jacob, who's the best at it. He's the chiseler. So it's my son's tunic, he says. A wild beast has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces. If you think about it, Jacob is lying to himself. He's telling the story that they want him to conclude, but it's a lie. It's not true, but he has bought it. Boy, has Jacob ever been turned upside down from how he was the deceiver who supplanted his brother and deceived his father? And this is an interesting turnabout as fair play kind of thing, that the long turning of God's justice, of God's recompense, it does catch up. You're not going to get away with anything. And so Joseph is a cause for Jacob to think he's going to die. So Jacob tore his clothes. He put sackcloth on his loins and mourned his son for many days. And then all his sons, all those liars, and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He forgot that his son had a dream that was given as a prophecy. Apparently Joseph thought so, that he would be exalted above his brothers, even above his father. He said, surely I will go down to Sheol, the abode of the dead, and mourning for my son. Not a pit of the grave, but the abode of the dead. And so his father wept for him in verse 35. And the story concludes with Jacob in Potiphar's house. Meanwhile, the Midianites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh's officer, the captain of the bodyguard, which sets you up for the next phase of the story, where Joseph will start off as a slave and rise to the top, and then he gets sold, he gets sent to prison for something he didn't do, and in the bottom of the prison he rises to the top of the prison, and then he gets pulled out of the prison and rises to the top of the government. And this boy cannot be kept down because God has his hand on him. He has a plan for him. And what a fantastic story. You'll never think about the story of Joseph and God's provision and God's plan and God's deliverance of Israel through this hard time, this misfortune, this horrible treatment by his brothers. But boy, does it help when you're dealing with your family, when you're thinking about the people closest to you and how their sinfulness is often vented on you and you have to make your choices about how you deal with that. Beloved, be comforted that God has his hand on your life just like he had his hand on Joseph. And you are one if you have Christ and you are united to Jesus Christ. through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, so that you are sharing the destiny of Jesus. And this truth that is part of the faith, the body of propositions and promises God has given us, is far greater than the hardship that you're facing now, which may be bad, or it may be momentary light affliction, or the great troubles that may be on the horizon that God is going to challenge you to trust Him through. God never changes, but the world around us does, and we can trust Him. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the story of Joseph and your deliverance of Israel through their own contrivance. They hurt their brother, they sold him into slavery, and you used that horrible thing, that horrible sin, to save them from the famine as the story unfolds. And we just marvel at how you are working all things together for good. The more we think about your works in history and your dealing with your children and your grace, the more we just marvel at that grace. And Father, thank you for granting our prayer that we would see you more clearly tonight as we've paid attention to this story of your handling, your dealing with Joseph. Father, let us remember we're in the same boat. We have our Father's hand on us. and therefore we can be very confident in your care. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for joining me tonight. I enjoyed streaming with you and sorry I can't be with you in person, but soon enough we'll wait on the Lord for that. You still alive? You alive?