Romans 8:31 CSB – If God is for us, who is against us?
Romans 8:37 CSB – No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Joseph’s Nightmare Family of Origin
Genesis 37:2 CSB – At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended sheep with his brothers. The young man was working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought a bad report about them to their father.
Genesis 29:16-19, Now Laban had two daughters: the older was named Leah, and the younger was named Rachel. 17 Leah had tender eyes, but Rachel was shapely and beautiful.
18Jacob loved Rachel, so he answered Laban, “I’ll work for you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”
19 Laban replied, “Better that I give her to you than to some other man.
Genesis 29:20 CSB – So Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, and they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.
Ephesians 5:25 CSB – Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her…
Genesis 29:22-23 CSB – So Laban invited all the men of the place and sponsored a feast. 23 That evening, Laban took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and he slept with her.
Genesis 29:25-27 CSB – So he said to Laban, “What have you done to me? Wasn’t it for Rachel that I worked for you? Why have you deceived me?”
Laban answered, “It is not the custom in our country to give the younger daughter in marriage before the firstborn. 27 Complete this week of wedding celebration, and we will also give you this younger one in return for working yet another seven years for me.”
Genesis 29:28–30 CSB – And Jacob did just that. He finished the week of celebration, and Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife. 29 And Laban gave his slave Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her slave. 30 Jacob slept with Rachel also, and indeed, he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.
Cold War in Jacob’s Home
Genesis 30:1 CSB – When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she envied her sister. “Give me sons, or I will die!” she said to Jacob.
James 3:16 CSB – For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and every evil practice.
Genesis 30:2-3 CSB – Jacob became angry with Rachel and said, “Am I in the place of God? He has withheld offspring from you!”
3 Then she said, “Here is my maid Bilhah. Go sleep with her, and she’ll bear children for me….
Genesis 30:9 CSB – When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her slave Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.
Genesis 29:23-24 CSB – She conceived and bore a son, and she said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” 24 She named him Joseph …
Jude 1:24 CSB – Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy,
Joseph’s Hostile Brothers
Genesis 37:3 CSB – Now Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons because Joseph was a son born to him in his old age, and he made a long-sleeved robe for him.
Joseph Triggers His Brothers
Genesis 37:2 CSB – At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended sheep with his brothers…. and he brought a bad report about them to their father.
Ephesians 4:29 CSB – only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear.
Proverbs 30:33 CSB – For the churning of milk produces butter, and twisting a nose draws blood, and stirring up anger produces strife.
Genesis 37:4 CSB – his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him.
Genesis 37: 5-11 CSB – Then Joseph had a dream. When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 There we were, binding sheaves of grain in the field. Suddenly my sheaf stood up, and your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.”
8 Are you really going to reign over us?” his brothers asked him. “Are you really going to rule us?” So they hated him even more because of his dream and what he had said.
9 Then he had another dream and told it to his brothers. “Look,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun, moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
10 He told his father and brothers, and his father rebuked him. “What kind of dream is this that you have had?” he said. “Am I and your mother and your brothers really going to come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
Philippians 2:4-7 CSB – Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.
Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,
6 who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
as something to be exploited.
7 Instead he emptied himself
by assuming the form of a servant,
Hebrews 12:6-7 CSB – the Lord disciplines the one he loves and punishes every son he receives.
Philippians 2:4-9 CSB –
Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.
Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,
6 who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
as something to be exploited.
7 Instead he emptied himself
by assuming the form of a servant,
8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death—
even to death on a cross.
9 For this reason God highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
Proverbs 22:6 CSB – Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he grows older he will not abandon it.
Applications
- It is difficult to be faithful to God if you grow up in a messed up family (but we all do)
- It is difficult to be faithful to God if you grow up in a messed up family, but with God’s leading, you can Rise Above!
Joel 2:25 CSB – I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust ate, the young locust, the destroying locust, and the devouring locust
Romans 8:28 CSB – We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
