LISTEN HERE SHOW SUMMARY In the fourth and final installment, host Hans Finzel draws important applications for our lives from the life and experience of Joseph. SHOW NOTES Joseph Series IV.mp3
SHOW TRANSCRIPT

HANS FINZEL: Welcome to our radio program, Missions on the Frontline. WorldVenture supports over 1,000 mission projects and missionaries in over 65 countries of the world. We’ve been sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ around the world since 1943. This program is part of our new initiative to educate our listeners on creative new ways to be involved in missions.

Today we’re in part four of a four-part series on Joseph, life-lessons from Joseph in the Old Testament. More space is given to Joseph than any other character in the book of Genesis. God must have told Moses when He asked him to write the book of Genesis, “Give plenty of space to Joseph because there’s such a powerful, positive story of redemption in this man.”

He has been a personal encouragement to me as I’ve gotten to know him through my study. Today we’re going to look at the fourth lesson from the life of Joseph which is winning the battle of resentment; how to overcome bitterness.

You know so many things happened to Joseph to make him bitter but we’ve learned that he did not get bitter; he got better and today we’re going to look at that.

In Acts 7: 9-10

"These sons of Jacob were very jealous of their brother Joseph and they sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him10 and delivered him from all of his troubles…”

And that’s such a great thing to observe about Joseph. My theme for his entire life is summarized by this statement: Get over it; get on with it! Now that may sound harsh; that may sound cold; but ultimately that’s what he did. He got over what his brother’s did to him. He got over what Potiphar’s wife did him and he made his life better.

I’d like to just review the Top Ten Things I Love About Joseph.
1.He was a dreamer.
2.He practiced faithfulness to God in solitude.
3.He kept his attitude positive in a very negative set of circumstances .He did not allow defeat to defeat him and that’s really what we’re going to look at today. How he refused to become bitter as he grew older.
4.He learned to grow where he was planted as a Multiple Uprooted One and some of you may be asking, “Why is a program about missions having a Bible study about Joseph?” Well because Joseph was such an amazing missionary. He was transplanted from his own country to a hostile place which had a different language, culture, food, music…everything. He learned to thrive in that new culture and that’s what missionaries do as Multiple Uprooted Ones.
The Top Ten Things I Love About Joseph,
5.He grew better as a person through his trials; not bitter.
6.He knew the source of his gifting – that his gifts came from God and in every opportunity, as we’ve seen in past weeks, he always acknowledged that God was the One who gave him the gifts that he had. When Pharaoh and Potiphar put him in charge of their kingdom and their household, they said it was because obviously God was in this young man.
7.He was the black sheep that survived and thrived.
8.He overcame a highly dysfunctional family with a passive father. I don’t know about you but I grew up in a dysfunctional family and it’s so easy to blame our families and to blame our mom and dad’s. You know, do the blame game and not become all that God wants us to be because of those reasons. I know it’s complicated but I also know that here’s a guy who overcame this. He got over it; he got on with it and he’s one of the greatest heroes in all the Bible, Joseph.
9.He was extremely gifted; yet humble. It says that he was strong, handsome, with unusual wisdom and yet he remained humble. And as we saw last week I think the higher you go into leadership and the more gifted you are and the more vision you have, the more humble you need to be.
10.His whole life is a positive boost to the story of redemption.
Today we are going to pick up the story of Joseph at the reunion between his family and himself after 20 years. From age 17 to 37, for 20 years, he did not see his family. After those 20 years and there’s famine in the land and his father, Jacob, unaware that Joseph is still alive and that’s a whole other sidebar story how sad and broken-hearted Jacob was that as far as he knew Joseph was dead and for 20 years that’s what he thought.
We’re going to pick up the story in Genesis 42, when there is the famine all over the land, all over the Middle East. Beginning with verse 1:
“ 1 When Jacob heard that there was grain available in Egypt, he said to his sons, "Why are you standing around looking at each another?2 I have heard there is grain in Egypt. Go down and buy some of it before we all starve to death."
3 So Joseph's ten older brothers went down to Egypt to buy grain.4Jacob wouldn’t let his youngest brother, Benjamin, go with him, however, for fear some hard would come to him.”
We learned in previous weeks that there was only one full brother of Joseph, and that’s Benjamin. Only Benjamin and Joseph were born of Rachel, their mom, so once Joseph was gone, the favorite son became Benjamin and so the ten brothers went to buy grain but Benjamin stayed behind.
And I always think it’s funny when it says here, Jacob said to his sons, “Why are you standing around looking at each other?” Well we know exactly why they were standing around looking at each other because what do you think they were thinking about Egypt? One word: guilt.
When I was a little boy I used to play with matches and when I was about 10-years old me and a friend of mine accidentally started a little forest fire in a neighborhood near my home. You know, we ran and I remember later that afternoon hearing all the fire trucks and I felt so guilty about that fire. And you know, for years after that I would never ride my bicycle anywhere near the street that had that little forest because me and my buddy burned down that little forest.
And that’s how the brothers felt about Egypt but much worse. They had so much guilt because they knew they had sold their brother down to Egypt. Well, they had to go and so they went. They went to Egypt to buy grain.
6Since Joseph was governor of all of Egypt and in charge of the sale of grain it was to him that the brothers came and they bowed low with their faces to the ground. 7And Joseph recognized them instantly but he pretended to be a stranger and they did not recognize him. He said to them, “Where are you from?” he demanded roughly.
They answered, "From the land of Canaan. We’ve come to buy grain.
8 Joseph’s brothers didn’t recognize him. 9 And he remembered the dreams that he had had many years before and he said to them, "You are spies! You have come to see how vulnerable our land has become!"
10 “No, my lord!” they exclaimed. “We’ve come to buy food. 11 We are all brothers and honest men, sir. We are not spies.”
You know, Joseph is remembering that the dreams he had when he was 17-years old. Do you remember what those dreams were? That his brothers would come and bow down to him and that he would be the ruler.
Now we don’t have time to go into all the intricacies of why Joseph begins by being mean to them but he’s really trying to get more information with them and he is playing with them of sort, but eventually he asks them, “Well how many brothers are there?”
13 And they said, "Well sir there are twelve of us and our father is in the land of Canaan. Our youngest brother is there with our father and one of our brothers is no longer with us.”
[Being a.k.a. Joseph.]
Well Joseph does not sell grain to the brothers but says to them, 20 First you need to go back and bring your youngest brother, Benjamin…”

Because he wanted to see his full brother and of course they said, “No, we can’t do that because our father has already lost one son and if we bring back him, the other prize brother…”
You know, there’s just no way it’s going to happen and he says, “Well, that’s the only way you are going to get grain.”
He keeps Simeon, another one of the brothers, as hostage while they go back and tell their father everything that happened and in Genesis 43 they had the second journey to Egypt; this time with Benjamin. A number of events happened over a period of weeks where he’s playing a game of “cat and mouse” with them, trying to get more information about them, treating them with less than full respect but he’s trying…
His ultimate end-game is he wants to get his father and all his brothers down there before he reveals himself. Well he can’t stand the suspense anymore so let’s pick it up in Genesis 45.
“ 1Joseph could stand it no longer. “Out, all of you!” he cried out to his attendants. He wanted to be alone with his brothers when he told them who he was. 2 Then he broke down and wept aloud. His sobs could be heard throughout the palace and the news was quickly carried to Pharaoh’s palace.
3 “I am Joseph!” he said to his brothers. “Is my father still alive?” But his brothers were speechless!”
[Can you imagine how they felt in this moment? The surprise and awe of what they were realizing?]
“They were stunned to realize that Joseph was standing there in front of them.”
[And, you know, that they were not only shocked but they were afraid.]
“4 He said, “Come over here.” So they came closer. And he said again, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt.”
[Yeh, that’s right. I haven’t forgotten what happened 20 years ago; don’t think I have.]
“5 But don’t be angry with yourselves that you did this to me. For did it. He sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives. 6 These two years of famine will grow to seven, during which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 God has sent me here to keep you and your families alive so that you will become a great nation.”
[Not only does he forgive them, but he has all this compassion for them.]
“8 Yes, it was God who sent me here, not you! And he made me the counselor to Pharaoh—the manager of his entire household and ruler over all of Egypt.”