So Jacob’s sons did as he had commanded them: They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre, which Abraham had bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, together with his brothers and all the others who had gone with him to bury his father. When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?’ So they sent word to Joseph, saying, ‘Your father left these instructions before he died: ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept. His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. ‘We are your slaves,’ they said. But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.’

-Genesis 50:12-20

We are in a series called: Origins.

God gives us archetypes throughout the Gospel story.

Archetype: an original that has been imitated.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, ‘Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.’ His brothers said to him, ‘Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?’ And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.’ When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, ‘What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?’ His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

-Genesis 37:3-11

The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field.

-Genesis 39:5b

....God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

-C.S. Lewis

...the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

-Romans 8:21

Joseph continues to do the good.

  

Genesis 40 - The King’s Cupbearer & Baker

  

We nor Joseph have any way of knowing the mind of God unless God reveals it to us.

  

‘We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.’ . . . ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.’

-Genesis 37:7,9b

Has God revealed anything to you?

  

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? …Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

-Romans 8:31-32, 35

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Romans 8:37-39

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

-1 Peter 1:3-7

The amazing thing? In all of this Joseph lives a godly life!

  

‘I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt.’ Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his finger and put it on Joseph’s finger. He dressed him in robes of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck.

-Genesis 41:41-4

God saves an entire nation through the obedience of one man!

Joseph as an Archetype is easily seen!

  

But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

-Genesis 50: 19-21

Do you realize what Joseph is saying?

  

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

-Romans 8:28-29

Foreknew - Greek, prognosis: God sees it coming.

Predestined - Greek, prohorizo: God pre-ordains that it shall happen no matter what happens.

God in his mercy and foreknowledge uses every event of your life for sacred purposes.

  

But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

-Genesis 50: 19-21

“Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.”

When was Jesus most centered in the will of His Father?

  

How do we live in a way that is consistent with these truths?

  

“Am I in the place of God?”

  

He who did not spare His own son will surely give me all things….And the Spirit helps me in my weakness. I do not know what I ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for me through wordless groans. And he who searches my heart knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for me in accordance with the will of God.

-Romans 8:32, 26-27

  

If it was not for God or if it weren’t for the love of Christ, we could never have survived. Every boy I related to who was able to conquer this persecution had one thing in common, ‘Faith in God’s ability to bring about good.’

-Jeremiah Denton

"The soldiers stare, then drift away, Young John finds nothing he can say,

The veil is rent; the deed is done;

And Mary holds her only son.

His limbs grow stiff; the night grows cold,

But naught can loose that mother’s hold.

Her gentle, anguished eyes seem blind,

Who knows what thoughts run through her mind?

Perhaps she thinks of last week’s palms,

With cheering thousands off’ring alms

Or dreams of Cana on the day

She nagged him till she got her way.

Her face shows grief but not despair,

Her head, though bowed, has faith to spare,

For even now she could suppose

His thorns might somehow yield a rose.

Her life with Him was full of signs

That God writes straight with crooked lines.

Dark clouds can hide the rising sun,

And all seem lost, when all is won!"

-Jeremiah Denton, Vietnam, Easter 1969

Get out of God’s chair!

  

1 - You can place yourself in God’s chair by thinking you know better than God how your life should be going to get you to the desired end.

  

2 - You can put yourself in the place of God by inordinate worry!

  

Joseph understands all too well that he is not God

  

  

"Your life with Him is full of signs

That God writes straight with crooked lines.

Dark clouds can hide the rising sun,

And all seem lost, when all is won."

-Jeremiah Denton, Vietnam, Easter 1969

  

  

  

  

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