The Father's Favor

Well, the title of our study today is The Father's Favor. The Father's Favor. So let's open our Bibles once again, if you will, together to Genesis 37. Genesis 37. As we pick up the story here in Genesis 37 of young Joseph in a moment that details Joseph really in his beginnings and this particular passage of Scripture that we're going to study today. It's so rich in its spiritual applications to us and the spiritual insight that the reader can gain from the life of Joseph and particularly here as we find him in his youth. So let's begin here. Genesis 37 to establish our moment in time with Joseph. We're going to read verses 1 through 11. Genesis 37 beginning in verse 1.

Now Israel, that's Jacob, loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age. Also he made him a tunic of many colors. And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him. Now Joseph had a dream and he told it to his brothers and they hated him even more.

And he said to him, Please hear this dream which I have dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field and behold my sheep arose and also stood upright and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf. And the brothers said to him, Shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have dominion over us? So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers and said, Look, I have dreamed another dream.

And this time the sun, the moon and the eleven stars bowed down to me. So he told it to his father and to his brothers and his father rebuked him and said to him, What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to earth before you? And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind. Let's stop there. So quite an interesting moment that we come to this afternoon. And with a little context here to begin, we are told in verse 2 that Joseph was 17 years old and he was involved with his brothers in the task of shepherding.

And leading up to this moment, the Scriptures tell us that by the time Joseph had reached this age of 17, that he knew more of the ugly side of life or the ugly side of family life than most people experience in a lifetime.

The events that had unfolded in these 17 years were events in Joseph's life that included all kinds of chaos within the family structure, so much so that it's quite remarkable to see the young man which emerges here. Here in his 17th year, we're beginning to get the sense that somehow God had something special planned for Joseph. Now, what I'd like to do is consider this passage of Scripture from three angles, three angles in particular. The first is to view Joseph as he's revealed to us, number one, as the object of his father's favor. And then, secondly, we want to consider Joseph, number two, as the object of his brother's jealousy and hatred.

So, number two, consider Joseph as the object of his brother's jealousy and hatred. And then, thirdly, view Joseph as the object of God's divine purposes. So, lastly, and thirdly, consider Joseph as the object of God's purposes. All right, then. First of all, we see here that Joseph in these verses is just that, the object of his father's favor.

This is clearly seen. We can see here in verse three again where it says, Now Israel, that was the new name given to Jacob, now Israel, or Jacob, loved Joseph more than all his other children, all the other sons. Let's stop there for a moment. So, right from the beginning, this is the fact given to us. And we could ask, is this right? No, it's not right. But it is what Joseph was dealing with. And what he was experiencing. And we're immediately given the explanation as to why this is. Why did Jacob love Joseph more than the other sons?

Well, the answer is in the middle of verse three here. Because he was the son of his old age. So, if you think about this, in a sense, this is no surprise. The other boys, the other sons, were older. In fact, quite older, much older. And they might have understood, might have had some understanding and found it in themselves to recognize that it was no real dishonor to them. That Joseph had become, in a peculiar way, the object of his father's love.

They didn't share their love of Joseph like the father did. But again, they might have found in themselves to excuse somewhat of this affection of their father. Because after all, if you think about it, everyone loves a puppy. Isn't that true? Everyone loves a puppy. So, even if you have a beautiful older dog, and you take your beautiful older dog, and then you also take this wonderful new puppy that you have along with you and take that to the park, which one will garner the most attention?

Of course, the puppy will every time. And so, in the same way, you have this new son born, and not only that, this new son was born to the great lifetime love of Jacob, Rachel. So, it's no surprise that there would be this unique sense of affection tied up in Joseph, especially as the other boys are now older. They're off more. They're off with their friends, off doing their own living, somewhat of their own lives. And so, here, the father would be by himself, in a sense, and he's given this gift of another boy. So, when the father, Jacob, goes to the hardware store, if you will.

You know, there's a young Joseph to come along with him. Or when Jacob goes to the farm next door to visit the neighbor, there's the young boy to come with him, Joseph. And so, there is this unique affinity that's established between an elderly dad and a tender-aged child. Now, there's wrong in this as well, but that's the explanation of it. And the favor is now expressed in the form of a gift. Here, we're told that Jacob gives Joseph a colorful tunic, or coat, if you will.

Jacob had made this for Joseph, and Joseph obviously enjoyed wearing it, but his brothers greatly despised it. They greatly despised this coat. And we could ask, why is that so? Why could a coat engender such hostility? I mean, if you think about it, your father and your mother, they go off and they take one of your siblings, your brother or your sister, and they take them off and they come back and they've bought your sibling a gift.

And in your mind, you might think, well, that's a little bit irritating, but you're able to reconcile it because you know that at some point you may go out with mom and dad, and they may buy you something on a different occasion. You learn to deal with it. But it would be a great surprise if your father showed up with a gift to your sibling, only to that have the result of establishing in your heart the most venomous, brutal, treacherous response.

You know, if a coat could do that, well, we could say, well, there's something deeper there in this individual than just the coat. If someone can get that venomous in the response to a gift to another, there's a deep-seated issue. And we know that's the case with the brothers. And I think if you read into this a little bit, I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to say that there was something here with this coat.

It wasn't so much, I don't believe, that the coat was valuable, although it was probably was a very nice coat, or that necessarily the coat displayed the father's affection, even though it did. But there would have been other ways that the brothers would have picked that up. But I believe that it must have been that this coat symbolized something. It symbolized something greater. And in a way, it set Joseph apart from the other brothers.

There was something in the wearing of this coat that spoke of leadership, I believe. Leadership. Leadership that wouldn't naturally fall to the 17-year-old of the house. That would have fallen to Reuben. Reuben was the oldest, of course, the eldest child from the son of Leah. But we know Reuben had violated his father's confidence through the sorry and despicable events of him being involved with one of his father's wives. So it had been only natural, maybe in the mind of Jacob, that he thought when he began to think about the transition of leadership in the home that he would then go to the son born to the wife of his affection, Rachel.

And Joseph had already been establishing himself as an individual of character and trustworthiness. And so I think in the giving of this lovely coat, Jacob is setting Joseph apart. And it obviously set the brothers off in a rage. You know, you can imagine there, every time you put that coat on, you know, the brothers there saying, man, I hate that coat and I hate him. But before we jump too quickly to judgment with regards to these brothers, do you realize that people have left churches over coats?

They have. And I don't mean because someone stole their coat. I mean, because, for example, the lady couldn't focus on God's Word or couldn't sing the hymn because she's looking for rows in front of her at the other lady wearing the coat and saying, boy, who does she think she is?

Maybe more common than we think. So let's not immediately distance ourselves from this. We may, all of us may have some kind of personal consideration with this. Now, before we move on, let's just pause for a moment to make clear and recognize that the actions of Jacob, they were unwise, to say the least.

Very poor judgment on the Father's part to display such obvious favoritism. So, no matter how much we can defend Jacob in terms of the whole idea of, you know, he's new to the family, natural affection, affinity, it was unwise for Jacob to display this favoritism in this overt, striking fashion. And particularly so, if you know a little bit about Jacob's life, Jacob was himself the object of undue favoritism.

You remember the mother of Jacob preferred him over his brother, and as a result, there was all kinds of chaos brought to that family unit. His relationship with his brother had been destroyed for years over favoritism, and you would think that that alone would prevent Jacob from taking this unwise step. But it doesn't, and we know that history repeats itself in many cases.

So we want to notice that not only is there folly in favoritism, but that there can just be disastrous consequences that follow from it. All of our children, all of our grandchildren, are unique gifts from God. And we need to learn to cherish each child, cherish each grandchild with obvious love, obvious affection, recognizing their unique personalities, their individual capabilities, their unique needs.

So it's imperative to make sure that you don't cherish a younger over an older or an older over a younger. None of this, well, you know, she's really her mother's child. There's so much like her. You know, my son, he's really more my kind of, nah, throw that out. Throw all that out. That kind of action, that kind of verbiage, it fractures, it breaks up, it destroys. So let's move on. So then, here he is first, the object of his father's favor. Secondly, secondly, we notice again that he is the object of his brother's jealousy and hatred. That's number two, we want to notice. Joseph is the object of his brother's jealousy and hatred.

And it was pure hatred, absolute pure hatred. And we see the progression here. I don't know if you noticed it. There's actually, there seems to be a progression of the hatred building almost with every verse. Verse four starts off, and his brother saw that their father loved him more than themselves. And verse four, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him. Couldn't even bring themselves to talk to him. Verse five, after the dream, it says, verse five, they hated him even more. It's building.

The middle of verse eight, they hated him even more, even more. And then verse 11, the climax of it all, they envied him. In other words, there's pure jealousy and hatred. So it wasn't that they just kind of disliked him.

It wasn't like, oh, do we have to bring Joseph along, Dad? You know, he's so annoying or, or like, you know, the kids do if they're all about the same age and they're out on the ball field and the young sibling comes along and it's like, oh, does Joseph have to participate? He ruins the game every time, you know, it wasn't that. There was nothing superficial about this. They didn't just dislike him. They hated him with a passion.

It was and it was a hatred that was capable of expressing itself. Later, we see in the most detestable forms of cruelty as to one day, they thought to kill him and but settled on stripping off his coat and cast him into a pit and selling him off to slavery. So we could ask, how, how does someone get to this point of hatred? What's at the core of this? Well, from the text, we see a building here. And part of this, part of it's provoked, we see, first of all, by a bad report.

That's verse two. There at the end of verse two, Joseph brought a bad report of them, that's the brothers, to his father. So maybe the closeness that Joseph had with Jacob would have, in one sense, encouraged tail-bearing. But there's nothing here that says that he was motivated by revenge or that Joseph was trying to be unkind or mean to his brothers.

We might infer that, but I don't think legitimately. It just simply says he brought their father a bad report of them. And if there was a reason to bring a bad report, well, that's all it was.

But now if he was lying or something like that, that would be wrong. But that's not what it says. And if the little we know about the brothers in the preceding chapters, you kind of know that there may have been plenty of bad reports that could have been brought. The fact that maybe Joseph only brought a bad report, maybe he was being kind.

We're not sure, but there could have been lots of bad reports, I'm sure. Whatever it was, when he came to his dad in doing so, I don't think that Joseph was acting any differently than any other teenager. You know, you remember being a sibling. Maybe you're a sibling today. It's very common, fairly normal behavior to go to dad or mom and give unfavorable reports, you know, on your siblings.

Normal behavior, maybe. But they hated him. They hated him because of this bad report. They also hated him, of course, like we said, again, for this coat there in verse 3. But again, we could say the reaction to it. It was just so disproportionate to the event. They hated him so much they couldn't speak to him. They're at the breakfast table, sitting there in awkward silence. Maybe Reuben looks at his dad and says, Can you tell Joseph to pass the salt? Or can you tell Joseph his donkey got out of the pen again? But just no eye contact, I'm sure. Couldn't even bring themselves to talk to him because otherwise, just they would be overflowing with venom from the brothers.

It would just spill out on every occasion. So what is all this? How? Where does all this come from? Well, I think we're told in verse 11. I think it's a very simple phrase. Verse 11. His brothers envied him. I think that's it. Could we say, is this the core? Jealousy. Jealousy. Is that the problem?

Jealousy. I think it is the problem of many families since that time to today, fractured family relationships, and maybe the root of all of it is jealousy. No matter how you try to dress it up. It's flat out jealousy. Brothers and sisters who haven't talked to each other in big chunks of time. And they'll say it's because of this or it's because of that. Could it be? Jealousy. At the very root. It's a monster. Jealousy is a monster.

It's a giant. It'll eat you and I alive. It's everyone's problem. It's jealous. The happiness and success of others in our humanity, that is poison to our bloodstream sometimes. It's poison to the jealous. It's almost easier to get demoted at work than to get promoted. And it's so hard for people to say, you know, I'm so pleased for you. So pleased that you passed me over. Good on you. Very hard to do. So we can't necessarily get too high of a position in our posture with regards to the brothers here.

And you'll note that with jealousy, where you want to be particularly careful is to understand that often we're not jealous of those who are completely removed from our circumstance. You don't necessarily see athletes jealous of doctors or doctors jealous of athletes to say. Usually within whatever your realm of movement and your scope, those who are similar to you, that's who you have the most potential to be jealous of. And make no doubt, even pastors, pastors get jealous of other pastors.

They absolutely do. We're not exempt from this. And we've seen jealousy. I think it's at the very root of it. Have broken up whole churches. And I think it's because of jealousy.

If you want to boil it all down. It happens. None of us are exempt. But jealousy will always and ultimately destroy the jealous person, not the object of the envy. Very important to understand. So if we're going to notice the importance of avoiding favoritism, we also should notice the trap of jealousy here. Because if the brothers had been able to be on guard to this, they would have been saved, I believe, from all this hatred that built up in their hearts to the point of no return, I think.

And I think the key with putting away jealousy comes with a particular understanding. That brings us to our third point. Our third point here. Joseph as the object of God's divine purposes. Joseph as the object of God's divine purposes. It's the consideration and understanding that God is moving in people's lives in a special way to fulfill his purposes.

And the brothers needed to understand that God is God who ultimately sets up people. And it's God, ultimately, that may take down people. God who sets up, God who takes down. And so to the one who gets set up, you can't get a big head, you see. And to those who don't get set up, you must not get discouraged. Again, if the brothers would have grasped this understanding, they would have saved a lot of heartache. They needed to consider the possibility that God was involved here with their brother. And that it wasn't just their physical father's favor that was being shown to young Joseph. They needed to consider the possibility that maybe it was their heavenly father that was showing favor to their brother. To consider that God was doing this and God did this. And it was something uniquely special that God was working through Joseph. There's nothing uniquely special about Joseph other than God's favor on him.

And again, they needed to consider that it wasn't only their father, Jacob, showing favor, but maybe their heavenly father was also showing affection and favor toward Joseph. If the brothers would have understood this, they would have avoided the occasion to become envious. Or they would have been able to manage the feelings better. They would have been able to have this understanding. But they refused to see it this way. You know, as the saying goes, it takes more grace than I can tell to play the second fiddle well.

That's the hardest part of the team. What's the hardest part? Second part. Second spot. That's the hardest part, the second spot of a team. And this may bring to mind someone who understood this perfectly. And I believe that would be John the Baptist. John the Baptist. You remember that John the Baptist of him. And if you read the opening chapters of the Gospel of John, God had given him a ministry. John the Baptist went out and he was proclaiming repentance. He was baptizing people. And he was having a tremendously successful ministry. People were flocking to him. But he understood what he was doing. It was all from God, not from him. It was all because of the Father's favor on him. He understood that. However, if you remember, the disciples did not understand that fully. Just like the brothers. Let's turn there. Just for a moment, we're going to come right back to Genesis. But let's turn to John chapter 3 and see this. Just for a moment. John chapter 3 and verse 26. Again, keep your finger here in Genesis.

I've got to make you turn at least once, more than once today.

John chapter 3 and verse 26. Let's just turn there for a moment. With regards to John the Baptist and the disciples, I think this is a direct connection here. The disciples were in the same position as the brothers. They couldn't see this understanding. They couldn't see that who was the object of the favor. Everything comes from God the Father. John chapter 3 and verse 26. John 3 verse 26. We're going to read now that the disciples came to John the Baptist and look what they said here. John 3 verse 26. And they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you testified, behold, he is baptizing, and all are coming to him. So Jesus, you got to understand this, John. Jesus is baptizing. They're all going over to him. You're losing your crowd, John. You're losing your appeal. You can look out. They're all dwindling. They're all going to Jesus Christ. How does John the Baptist handle it? He replies. Verse 27. He'd had this understanding. Verse 27. John answered and said, A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. There it is. So John the Baptist, even all this success, even through it all, he knew God had given him a voice, but that God had not made him the Word. God had made him a forerunner, but he was not the Messiah. He knew God was giving him all this. So he was happy to be appointing to a forerunner, a light shining. But he understood he was not the king. And we're speaking in Biblical terms here, but we have to understand this personally, translating into all of our lives. It translates into our lives in academics, craftsmanship, art, journalism, sports, business, homemaking, whatever it may be. God is the one who sets up and God is the one who brings down in his wisdom. And it's all here with John the Baptist. A man can receive nothing unless it's given to him from heaven. That's what the brothers should have said through their heart. Boy, when that ugly envy reared its ugly head, they should have told themselves, no, maybe it's God who sets up. Maybe God's involved with our brother.

Let's go back to Genesis 37 here and our brothers.

The brothers hadn't considered that it was actually God's favor that was involved here with their brother. Back to Genesis 37. But they needed to consider this. Again, it would have saved them this perspective. It would have saved them lots of heartache. Back to Genesis 37. So they hated him because of the bad report. They hated him because of the colored coat. They were jealous of him now because of the dreams. And this is a turning point, I think, for the brothers. And the level of hatred just now raises well beyond what it should to terrible levels. Verse 5 here. Now Joseph had a dream and he told it to his brothers and they hated him even more. So these dreams began to tell the brothers something and speak very loudly. These weren't ordinary dreams. Everyone dreams, of course. I was thinking about this. I don't remember my dreams ever. I don't know why. I don't know if I dream. I usually go through scenarios in my mind, but I'm still awake. It's a weird thing. But sometimes at the breakfast table we'll talk about dreams and laugh about it. And you know, it usually ends with, well, maybe you shouldn't have eaten that spicy food, you know, whatever it is before bed. And it would have been possible for the brothers to do just that. Oh, man. Joseph, what a dumb idea. Silly dreams. Silly coat. You look ridiculous, by the way, you know. Ha ha. You know, what brothers may do. Maybe we'll have it wash off of them. But it didn't. And the reason it didn't, I believe, is right now is really beginning to drive home to them. It was obvious that God was involved. It was obvious to them that God was involved with Joseph and involved in these dreams. And so God was involved with their brother and not them. And there was something loudly being spoken to the brothers here, to their jealous heart. These weren't ordinary dreams. In fact, they were projections, projections of God's hand and what was to occur. God was speaking to Joseph in these dreams and speaking of events that would unfold. And with the discovery of that, they would be able to see that God's hand was involved with Joseph from this very young age in this way. So Joseph tells the brothers his dreams. Should he have told them? Probably not. But really, we can excuse him for telling the first dream. Bad era judgment to tell the second dream, I think. Really bad. You know, verse 5 through 7 here. Now Joseph had the dream. He told his brothers, verse 5, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him even more. And he said to him, please hear this dream, which I've dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And indeed, your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheave. Verse 8, and the brothers said to him, shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall we indeed? Should you indeed have dominion over us? So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. They could have said, fine, whatever. We'll bow down to you. Sounds great. Go put your coat on. Maybe they were exiting the room. Joseph says, no, wait, hang on, guys. I want to tell you about this other dream I had. You're going to love this. Verse 9, verse 9, then I dreamed to steal another dream. He told it to his brothers and said, look, I have dreamed another dream. This time, get this. The sun, the moon and the eleven stars bowed down to me. Wait right there, you know, they're all worshipping me.

You can just imagine, you know, Joseph, I hate you. I really hate you. You know, did you tell Dad this one? Yeah, I told him. What did he say? Well, he rebuked me. That's verse 10 and 11. Verse 10, 11. So he told it to his father and his brothers. And the father rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come and bow down to the earth before you? Verse 11. And his brothers envied him. But his father kept the matter in his mind. So, you know, if you think about it, this is a very difficult situation for Joseph. Again, he's only 17 years old, only 17 years old. And now he's beginning to see that even his father's affection is beginning to cool a little bit. So, I don't know if you remember when you were 17. Acceptance and approval, probably the most important thing to you. Very, very most important thing. Do not feel like you're some kind of outcast, or that nobody likes you. That's what the predicament that was now here with Joseph was in this predicament. And so it would be no surprise if the Joseph that emerges from this context would have been a Joseph that would have been in a shell, or inward looking, or resentment, or fearful. And you'd find him lying in his room, you know, just trying to escape it all with the music. Escape this feeling of being hated. And now his father is rebuking him. But when you look at him, and when you project forward in his life, what you find is that he is resilient, focused, ready to obey the vision of his future. And the resiliency here of his personality, it's really absolutely striking. And it really is the charm and the intrigue of the story of Joseph. Because in human terms, Joseph should not have been this way. He shouldn't have emerged with any strength. 17 years of chaos in his family, incest, confusion, disruption, murder, intrigue, and now the height of hatred, all wrapped up in 17 years. His young life. But he's not crushed. Why is that? Why is he not crushed? I believe it's because not only did Joseph realize he was the object of his father's favor, and not only did he realize that he wasn't only the object of his brother's jealous hatred, but I think he realized something. I think he also realized that he was also the object of God the Father's purpose in his life. I think he knew that.

The providence of God. It's a wonderful thing. The providence of God, the act of grace and kindness by which God's wisdom and in his power he is preserving us, he's governing the events of our lives. And God was purposely involved in these events of Joseph, just in a very young life. And again, I believe Joseph knew that. What are you going through? I wonder if you acknowledge and realize that. I wonder if you can say to yourself, I am a child of God, and I know that God is fulfilling his divine purposes, even amongst all this chaos. Do you realize that? Does that give you comfort? I want to remind you that that's the case. If you are a child of God, called by God, God is fulfilling his purposes in you, in these things, in it all, during it all, through it all. Look at verse 13 as we begin to conclude here. Verse 13. We now have the moment in which Joseph is asked to go find his brothers. Verse 13, In Israel, as Jacob said to Joseph, Are not your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, I will send you to them. And so we might have anticipated here that the next thing we read is, Oh, no, Dad, don't send me. They hate me. They're not even going to talk to me anyway. Send one of your servants. It's miles away. But he doesn't. What's the answer at the end of verse 13? Here I am. In other words, that's fine, Dad. I'll go. Here I am. I'm here. I'll go. How do you explain that in a 17-year-old? I can only explain it that somehow or another he knew the awareness that was in Joseph that God was working out something in him, even if he couldn't understand it, fully. Somehow or another, somehow in these dreams, somehow in this coat, somehow in the chaos of his background, God was master and sovereign in his life.

So he said, I'll go in obedience. And he would go and seek out those who hate him. I might remind you of someone else seeking out those who hate him.

It's truly amazing if you think about it. At this moment, you realize that Jacob did not realize the jeopardy that he was putting his boy into now in this journey. And I don't know if he just had a superficial understanding of the hatred that was involved with his brothers. You know, maybe he, as parents, we sometimes do this. We explain things away. Yeah, it's not as bad as you think. Oh, they don't hate you that much. Go, Joseph. It'll be fine. Go find your brothers. Jacob would have never imagined in his wildest dreams when Joseph turned to ride off to go after his brother, Jacob would not see Joseph for another 20 years. Joseph would have never imagined that that would be the last time he would see his dad for 20 years. But, but we know that Joseph's father was with him on that day, and Joseph's father was actually with him every day for the next 20 years. His heavenly father. His heavenly father was with him. And God was fulfilling his purposes in these circumstances.

And as difficult as it is, it's very difficult to wrap our mind around this. As difficult as it is to wrap our mind around, it was actually better for Joseph to go and be away from his home for 20 years. It was better for him to be away and be in the center of God's plan. Then it was for him to stay home and be isolated from God's purposes. It's actually better. You see, the mistake we make is we try to determine God's guidance on the basis of what's comfortable or what's acceptable or what's most rational. You know, God surely wouldn't want me to be gone for this period of time. He wouldn't want me to leave my father and my mothers and my sisters and so on. When in fact God and his purposes, he'll take care of those things. He'll take care of the fractionings. He's taken care of the separations. He's taken care of the jealousies. Through it all, fulfilling his purposes in our lives, in Joseph's lives, in our lives. In it and all through it. So Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, and for all intent and purposes, they were sending him off to his death. Joseph never asked for the coat. Joseph never asked for the dreams. Joseph never asked for his father's favor. Joseph never asked for his brother's envy. Joseph could have looked at his circumstances in an environment like we do sometimes, and we find ourselves and say, I never bargained for this. I didn't ask for this. I didn't imagine being trapped in these circumstances.

But just know, there's no ideal place to serve God except for the place to which he sets you. There's no ideal place to serve God except for the place he has set you. And that could be a life-transforming understanding, because some of us are constantly looking for the ideal. Some of us are looking for perfection in this lifetime. It's not here. Perfection doesn't come until Christ returns. So you can release yourself from looking for that. For Joseph, this was not ideal, and he would have all kinds of temptations to give up, become bitter toward God, but he keeps his focus, and ultimately, God is able to take him, preserve him, and fulfill his purposes in him through all the valleys and all the high spots. So let's recognize that God's unique purposes are often expressed in wonderful and unusual ways. God's unique purposes are very often expressed in wonderful and unusual ways. Because with Joseph in the end, out of the dark pit, Joseph would come and shine in light, in victory, in power. Joseph, in one day, in one day, would be raised to second-in-command, from a prisoner all the way to second-in-command in Egypt. And then, hungry with no food, Joseph's brothers would come to Egypt for help, and you have this scene now. Joseph is set up in this high position, as now the brothers come, and they bow before Joseph, just as God foretold in Joseph's dream all those years before. Amazing! God's hand in it all.

And you can thank, you know, God knew he was going to set Joseph up, but before he got there, God needed to work a little bit with Joseph, work with his heart a little bit. Maybe there was some pride there. We took the time before elevating Joseph, before fulfilling his purpose in Joseph, to make sure he was going to do it in a proper way. Give Joseph all the opportunity to be as successful as he could. We have a loving Father. And so, when we cannot understand why it would be that we would be the object of such hatred, or why it would be that we would be on the receiving end of such difficulty, when we can't understand why we're facing this prospect of a lousy hole in the ground with no escape, it is at that point we must recognize that God is on his throne, and he's involved in my life, and he's asking me to participate in the incredible purposes, not only for myself, but for all of mankind.

God's purposes in our life will express themselves in wonderful and unusual ways. Don't forget that. Even when you don't quite understand. And just as God was intimately involved very early in Joseph's life, personally involved through the difficult times, and we have to recognize in Joseph's circumstances, God was in control, and in as much control during the trauma and hatred and difficulty, as he was in the fulfillment of the dreams in raising Joseph up to this unique position of usefulness to go on to fulfill the plans of God and his purposes for him. So, likewise, likewise, if we stay faithful to God, if we stay faithful to God, he will work in us great usefulness, and his purpose is for us here on this earth. We will always have our Father's favor, and one day, just like Joseph, in one day, God will raise us all up to victory and power.