1/22 Sermon on the Life of Joseph, Part 2

This past Sunday at The Family Church in Gainesville, Pastor Philip Griffin delivered his second message in the ongoing series about the life of Joseph of the Old Testament, titled Upcycling: Trash to Treasure.  In this message he used two scripture passages from Genesis, 37:12-36 and 39:1-6, appearing below in the New International Version by means of Bible Gateway:

¹² Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, ¹³ and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.”
“Very well,” he replied.
¹⁴ So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron.
When Joseph arrived at Shechem, ¹⁵ a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”
¹⁶ He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”
¹⁷ “They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’”
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. ¹⁸ But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
¹⁹ “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. ²⁰ “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”
²¹ When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. ²² “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.
²³ So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— ²⁴ and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.
²⁵ As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.
²⁶ Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? ²⁷ Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.
²⁸ So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
²⁹ When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. ³⁰ He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?”
³¹ Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. ³² They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.”
³³ He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.”
³⁴ Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. ³⁵ All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.” So his father wept for him.
³⁶ Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.

1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.
² The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. ³ When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, ⁴ Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. ⁵ From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. ⁶ So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.
Now Joseph was well-built and handsome...

Pastor Griffin continued to describe inherited prisons that people find themselves confined to in their lives, prisons that if not recognized and liberated from are in danger of being passed on to the next generation and beyond.  He listed three more types: rejection, betrayal, and deception.  The older brothers of Joseph lived in constant rejection from their father Jacob in favor of Joseph.  They themselves then rejected Joseph as their brother and then went on to betrayal, as they seized him, initially intending to kill him but eventually selling their younger brother off to slavery for a bag of silver. Again, this is generational: Jacob betrayed Esau, the family's first-born, out of his inheritance.  Also, Pastor Philip pointed out the similarity between the brothers' betrayal of Joseph and that of Judas against Jesus...both for some silver coins.  Finally there is deception here: the brothers deceived Jacob that Joseph had been killed by a wild beast...Jacob many years earlier had deceived his father Isaac by pretending he was his brother when the inheritance was given.  So it seems that these "prisons" of rejection, betrayal, and deception are all interrelated and are symptoms of dysfunctionality in relationships...

But Joseph broke free of the bondage of these generational prisons, as the second passage illustrates, by placing his trust in God and not his circumstances...especially those circumstances resulting from rejection, betrayal, and deception.  He chose to be different and not a passive victim of his situation.  We can also choose to be different and break free from our own prisons.  I can relate strongly to this message as I very clearly remember the figurative prisons I was forced to live in as a child and with which I am still in a state of struggle...long after the circumstances and people that defined them have all gone.  I have a feeling that a lot of us are in the same boat, with just the details differing among us...

The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11.  They also have family and discipleship groups, and the praise music during the services...along with the complimentary coffee they provide...is tops.  If you can't attend but would like to hear the morning message, they have a YouTube video channel...here is a link to it: [link]...