A Faithful Young Man - Joseph Part 1

Jonathan, are you too old to go? He's older than Elijah. Okay. Oh. Oh, you're older than Elijah?

No. Two months. Two months. Are you happy about that, Elijah? No.

No. I didn't think so. Alright. Genesis chapter 45. This morning, Genesis 45 and then we're going to drop back to Genesis 37.

So, Genesis 45 read a few verses in a minute about Joseph and then we're going to jump back to Genesis 37. We're going to read several verses there. Concerning Joseph as a youth and what happened to him. So, I want to start with this verse on the screen this morning. I entitled my sermon, Chosen Vessel and a Faithful Young Man and we're talking about Joseph.

In Acts nine fifteen, it says this, but the Lord said unto him, go thy way for he is a chosen vessel unto me. To bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. There, God is speaking to a prophet who he had sent to restore Paul's or when we first meet him, he's called Saul. Saul's sight. After his meeting with God on the road to Damascus.

Who's the chosen vessel? The chosen vessel was Paul. Chosen by God for a particular ministry that had a profound effect on the history of the church and even to us today. Let's go to the Lord in prayer and we'll continue. Lord, thank you for your word today.

Thank you Lord for your many promises and blessings that we can stand upon. Lord, may we stand upon those promises and may we stand for Jesus Christ, our savior. May we stand up and say, Lord, here am I, send me. Lord, let me serve. Lord, you are calling each and everyone of us to serve you in some fashion or form today.

We are chosen vessels in Jesus Christ, our savior. Lord, help us to recognize that and to answer your call whatever it may be in service to our king. In Jesus name, amen. Martin Luther, John Huss, John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, John Wesley, George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards, Adoniram Judson, David Livingston, Mary Slessor, Hudson Taylor, Charles Spurgeon, Jim and Elizabeth Elliot, DL Moody, and we could keep going on and coming up more into the the day and age but we'll stop there for a moment. These people, some of you would recognize their names.

They were chosen vessels of the Lord who had profound ministries and effect on this world for Jesus Christ. Many of them were great missionaries that God used. Some of them were theologians who led in great revivals of doctrine. Some of them were great evangelists that led in the salvations of thousands and thousands of souls. These were chosen vessels of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Was it coincidence that God used them or was there something special about these people? Yes, there was something special about these people. They were chosen vessels of who? Of God. And so are you.

They were special and so are you today. Particularly, if you are a child of God, who have put your faith and trust in him. You are a chosen vessel of the Lord. God told his disciples, you have not chosen me but I have what? Chosen you and ordained you to go forth and bring forth much fruit.

We are called to differing ministries and differing task. Most to go unrecognized in this life but not in the next and many not reaching their fullest potential due mostly to the lack of faith and trust on our part. God has called us all in some form or fashion to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. That is true of every child of God. Most ministries that God gives to us do not end up with our names in history books and that's okay.

That's not what interest God. God isn't measuring people by whether their names end up in history books. What God is asking us to do is to simply follow and trust in him and the only thing that holds us back in fulfilling that ministry, whatever it may be for you today, is the amount of faith and trust we put in the Lord to follow him and to make it happen. It is we who limit ourselves often. Not God who limits us.

Not even our talents or abilities but our faith and trust. We are chosen vessels indeed. In service of the king. We're going to look at a young man today. His name is Joseph.

He was Jacob's son and he's a prime example of a vessel of the Lord and a faithful servant who reached his potential. Even beginning as a young man and service to the Lord. He was faithful and he was faith filled. Near the end of the story, we read Joseph's acknowledgement of how God used him in Genesis 45. I want to begin by reading that.

We find in verses four through eight of Genesis 45. Joseph says this, 45 verse four, Joseph said unto his brethren, come near to me, I pray you and they came near and he said, I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Now, therefore, be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land and yet there are five years in which there shall neither be earring nor harvest and God sent me before you to prepare you a prosperity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So, now was not you that sent me hither but God and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Joseph acknowledged that this was God's plan all along. Sometimes, we look at things that happen in our life. We think, how can that possibly be part of God's plan? Especially the bad things that happen to us and the bad things we do. What isn't the bad things we do or the bad things that some other people do to us are God's will that they do them but God has a will and a purpose and a plan and God knowing the things we are going to go through in this life can even take the difficult things and work them together for our what?

For our good and for his purpose. All things work together for good to them that love the Lord, to those who are the called according to his purpose and God has a purpose for you and he even take the difficult things and the bad things and if you'll let him and if you'll trust him, he will work them together for your good. I don't know how many of you bake things. I don't bake things. Every time every now and then, I watch my wife bake things and I notice some of the things that she puts in the cake before she bakes it.

And I would not want to eat them alone. I I I like fried eggs. I don't particularly like raw eggs. I like what baking powder does in a cake, but I really don't want to just eat baking powder. It doesn't sound that scrumptious.

There are things that you put in the cake that by themselves, they're not particularly very good. But when you mix it all up and you put it in the oven, what comes out is scrumptious and the same thing can be true of our life. It's true of Joseph's life as we continue and look in the next few weeks and see how God took the bad things and the difficult things and he worked them together for Joseph's good and to fulfill his what? His purpose in Joseph's lives. But when did it start?

It started as a young person. A lot of young people think, you know, when I get to be an adult, then, God can use me. Then, I will commit my way unto the Lord or after I do this or after I do that or when I reach this point, things will change. No, they don't just change if you're not committed and trusting God to change them. And the best time to start is when?

The best time to start is now. And if you happen to be 11 or 12, the best time to start is now. And if you happen to be 71, the best time to start is now, if you haven't started before. Now is the time. To serve the Lord.

Now is the time to say, Lord, I am a chosen vessel. Lord, you do have a purpose for my life. Help me to give up, to give over the things that I'm clinging to, that somehow I'm not trusting you with. And trust you with my life and my service. Let's take a closer look at this godly young man and how God used him in a rather unorthodox but yet profound way.

We're going to turn back to Genesis 37 here. We're going to begin reading just a moment. Want us to say a few things about Joseph number three things quickly. God used this young man beginning at age 17 to preserve the nation of Israel from destruction. Joseph's family was facing a famine that would have likely taken their lives but because of Joseph, they had food.

Because of Joseph, they ended up in the land of Goshen. A place in a a fertile valley near the Nile River that provided them with ample grazing land for their sheep and their cattle. God preserved them and grew them there. This was all part of God's plan and purpose for this young man. God used this young man to illustrate several ideals.

We'll see lived out some fifteen hundred years later in the person of Jesus Christ, our savior. And you'll notice as we go through the life of Joseph, certain commonalities between Joseph and Jesus. Now, Joseph is not Jesus and though the Bible doesn't tell us really anything bad that Joseph did, Joseph was not perfect but praise God Jesus Christ is and therefore, able to take our place. Indeed, Joseph is a breath of fresh air. We've been following the life of Jacob for the past few weeks and just when you think things are going better for Jacob, he just blows it up again and so Joseph is a breath of fresh air in our study in the book of Genesis in contrast to Jacob who struggled so much as a testimony of the Lord and Joseph indeed is a great testimony to the power and grace of God.

So, Genesis 37, we're going to read verses one through four. So, everybody got it? Genesis thirty seven one to four. Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger in the land of Canaan. His father being Isaac.

Isaac did not own land there. He was a pilgrim. He was a nomad. Jacob did buy land in Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob.

Joseph being 17 years old was feeding the flock with his brethren and the lad with the sons of Bilhah with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. In other words, they weren't doing something right and Joseph felt his father needed to know. Now, Israel, that is another name for Jacob as you remember, loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age and he made him a coat of many colors and when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him. So, write off when you read that, you think, boy, Joseph home life was just wonderful, right? No.

It wasn't wonderful in many ways. Actually, Joseph's family was quite dysfunctional. Quite dysfunctional. That's underscored by the mention of Bilhah Zilpah here at the very beginning of this chapter. These were his concubine wives.

Two of his four wives as you remember. That does not make for a happy home. God created Adam and just Eve, not Adam and Eve and and other ladies, just one for a purpose. That's what works best. The other doesn't work very well.

So, we see that beginning here. His father was or at least for much of his life was a rather double minded person. He spoke of the Lord but he was incredibly ambitious, conniving, shrewd, self centered, fearful, shortsighted. Those are many of the ways in which I would describe Jacob particularly in his youth and even into his adult years. He was not the shining, most shining example of great Christian integrity.

He was quite the opposite in many respects. He's unwise here obviously and exalting his next youngest son overall of his elder brothers. It was not so much Joseph's actions that made his brothers hate him. It was his father's actions that ended up making his brothers hate him because his father doted on him and showed the other brothers that or at least communicated that he loved them less than he did Jacob, Joseph. Nevertheless, Jacob was a believer in God, one redeemed by God, whose name and heart God had changed a few years previous at a place called Peniel where he struggled with God.

Remember that? God changed his name from Jacob which meant deceiver to Israel which meant a man governed by God and indeed, his life did change. Like us, he still struggled but it did change. At this time, Joseph has three mothers, his mother, his real mother, biological mother, had just died a few years previous. Leaving him with three stepmothers.

Imagine one's bad enough. He's got three stepmothers. 11 brothers, at least one sister, all of them older than him but one, that would be Benjamin, his only full blooded brother. Simeon and Levi, two of the oldest brothers, had a few years previous slaughtered an entire city of people of the men of a city, Shechem, for the sin of just one. They're not a very good example to follow for Joseph.

One brother, Reuben, the oldest, had committed immorality with one of his stepmothers. Not a very good example for Joseph to follow. And these brothers became so very jealous of him that they grew to hate him so much as we will see they actually considered doing what? They actually considered killing him. Like Cain had killed Abel all the way back there in Genesis chapter four.

Watch out for jealousy. Little side point here but watch out for jealousy. Jealousy will destroy you. It will destroy us. We need to be, the Bible says, godliness with contentment is great gain.

If you're content, you're not going to be jealous. Be thankful for who you are and what God has given you in Jesus Christ and don't be jealous of others. Joseph's brothers were jealous and that jealousy undealt with eventually turned into anger and hatred and violence. That's where it led to. The Bible says in Hebrews twelve fifteen and now it's not working again.

Hebrews twelve fifteen says this, looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. Let me read that again. Looking diligently, be careful, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. If you allow your jealousy to become bitterness, it will destroy you and it will destroy others. So, deal with it.

Now, before you become somebody you don't recognize. I'm sure his brothers years before would never have contemplated killing one of their own brothers. But later in this chapter, we will see they did. Not all of God's servants came from godly or conventional homes though many do. Not all do.

Joseph didn't. Consider Hezekiah and Josiah. These were godly kings of Judah. Godly kings whose fathers were some of the most wicked kings ever. In Judah.

There are many of examples like them which demonstrate that God can overcome such deficiencies in their family. And if there be so, can overcome the deficiencies in yours. God can overcome many obstacles in our upbringing and past. There are too many people today held back because of something that happened yesterday or last year or when they were young. These things do have an effect on us but they can be overcome.

They must be overcome. We cannot allow Satan to use the bad things that have happened to us to destroy us. When if we'll just trust God, he can take even the bad things and use them together for our what? For our good. But the choice is up to you.

We live in a society today of victims where everybody is a victim of what happened to them and so many people have no goals and no no no dreams and no ambitions in life because they have given up and said, well, I'm a victim. Look what happened to me. We're all a victim of sin but we don't have to let sin destroy us. We can come to Christ and we can conquer sin. We can be freed from its power.

We can have victory in Jesus Christ and we can find purpose and fulfill that by his grace in our lives. The way Joseph will. Few people have more dysfunctional family in some ways than Joseph did and yet, he did not let that stop him from becoming what God wanted him to be. Two people that come to mind in my life right away when I go down this this Road. One of em's name is John Bot.

I've mentioned him before. He grew up in the inner city in Chicago, was a bus kid, a rough life growing up, and he's been ministering at Christian Camp in North Carolina, The Wilds now for the past thirty or forty years. And being used mightily of the Lord. The other one's Jason Councilman, a kid in my youth group whose dad died, whose mom went crazy, who had a rough childhood. But he is being used of the Lord.

He has a beautiful family and it is it is such encouragement to see how God can overcome those things. Paul said in Philippians three thirteen, he says this, brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do. Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth under those things which are what? Before. You don't have to be held back by those things which are what?

Behind. You do not have to let those things destroy you. Destroy your faith, destroy your your goals in life, destroy your dreams, destroy God's will. You do not have to let that happen. Yes, they happen.

Yes, they may have been difficult. They may have been bad. But they do not have to keep you down. And the Bible is full of examples and life is full of examples. A matter of fact, often times, the people that do the most for the Lord in life are those that have been delivered from the worst of circumstances.

Whether it be circumstances they brought on themselves or circumstances that others brought on them. The apostle Paul before he came to Christ, what was he doing? He was going throughout Israel and in this case, even outside of Israel to arrest Christians to bring them back for trial and jail and in some cases, execution. That's who Paul was before he met Jesus. And look what he became.

Paul said, I'm not going to let my past define me. I'm going to let my savior define who I am in Christ today and I can do all things through Christ to what? Who strengthens me and so can you. But having said that, don't underestimate both the responsibility and the effect godly appearance have upon their children. As we pointed out in the life of Jacob, he learned many good things from Abraham.

Jacob did fail in many ways to be a godly husband and father. He should have been but he did seem to have taught his child about the Lord. And that stuck with Joseph. Sadly, didn't stick with all of em to the same extent it did to Joseph but it did stick with Joseph. It did stick with Joseph.

Deuteronomy chapter six reminds parents to teach the things of the Lord to their children. Why? Because it's best for them to remember their creator in the days of their what? Youth and how are they going to remember their creator in the days of their youth if the parents aren't teaching them? Is the world going to teach them about the things the Lord?

No, it's going to teach them the what? The opposite. If they're going to public school, are they going to hear a lot about the ways of the Lord today? The answer is no because our school system has said, we don't want God here. Who has to teach them?

Parents. And you're encouraged to do it daily. And you're encouraged to do it often. And if you do, those things will, will take root. It may take a long time for some of those things to blossom and to bear fruit.

But plant the seeds. Plant the seeds. Plant the seeds. They will find root Second thing I want us to see here is Joseph not only a young person growing up in a dysfunctional home but a dreamer. Joseph the dreamer, verse chapter verse five, if you look there, verse five and Joseph dreamed a dream.

He told his brethren and they hated him yet the more. He said unto them, here I pray you this dream which I have dreamed. For behold, you are binding sheaves in the field and low my sheaf arose and also stood aright and behold, your sheaves stood around about and made obey obeisance, obeisance to my sheep and his brethren said to him, shalt thou indeed reign over us or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us and they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words and he dreamed yet another dream and he told his brother and said, behold, I had a dream to dream more and behold the sun and the moon and the 11 stars made obeisance to me. That means they bowed down to him. And he told it to his father and his brethren.

His father rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee, to the earth, and his brethren envied him but his father observed his saying. So, Joseph was a dreamer. In his case, his dreams came from who? We know his dreams came from God later on.

That is made very clear. It was God who was telling Joseph that one day, his brothers were going to bow to him. His older brothers. Did that happen? Yes, it did.

They bowed to him when they didn't know who it was. They were bowing to. In Egypt later on. Indeed, it did come true. Joseph was appointed by God to reign over his brothers.

God's choice, choices aren't always our choices. Next, the youngest son, mama's boy so to speak. But just like David, there was something about Joseph that God saw and nurtured that others could not or did not want to see at first. Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the what? God looks on the heart.

Others may look at you, may look at me and say, well, you know, he's bald, he's kind of fat and short and not all that confident and his grammar is pretty messed up and how can God use him? God doesn't make mistakes, does he? He doesn't. And he knows what he's looking for and he's looking for someone to stand in the gap. He's looking for somebody who will say, Lord, here am I, what?

Send me. He's looking for somebody who will be willing to receive his dream, his will, and follow it. That's Joseph. To his brothers, he seemed ambitious but it wasn't Joseph's dreams, it was God's dreams It isn't always wrong to be ambitious if your ambition is to follow who? To follow the Lord.

To his brothers, he seemed arrogant. There's nothing in God's record to indicate that he was arrogant. What we do see in God's record is this, he was confident in the Lord. He was a young man of integrity who could be trusted. He was diligent to perform the task that was given to him.

And he was faithful. That's what we see about John. Now, could his brother see it? Now, all his brothers saw when they looked at him was a coat of many what? Colors that reminded them every time they saw him that their father loved him more than he loved them.

That's what they saw. What they saw was a tattle tale who told dad when they were doing something wrong. That's what they saw and that's all they could see. All they could see was a guy who dreamed that they were going to bow to him and that they didn't want, they weren't buying into that. But God saw something different and God looks on the heart.

God knows your heart today and God wants you to be a Joseph where he has planted you. God doesn't give most of us dreams today to communicate his will. He has given us his why? His word and his spirit to enable us to understand it, to apply it, and to seek his will in prayer. He still shows it.

Not usually in dreams. But the question is not, how many dreams have you had? The question is, when God leads by his spirit and through his word, are you listening? Joseph and Solomon, Joseph and Samuel were listening. So, God called them even when they were what?

When they were young. Remember your creator in the days. Of your youth. The best time to remember your creator. The best time to draw near to him.

The best time to start listening is when? Is now. And trusting him to take the bad things that we have suffered and the good things and to work them together for our what? For our good. Let's let's pray.

Dear heavenly father, thank you Lord. For this introduction this morning to the life of Joseph. A young man much like David after God's own heart. Lord, I pray that you would work in our life today. I pray Lord that you would begin to open up our heart to you and to your will and that we would say, Lord, here am I.

Send me. That we would not allow the things of our upbringing or the frustrations of our past to hold us back. But that we would be faithful and true. And that we would learn to trust in you. That we would be a chosen vessel prepared for the master's use today and I pray Lord if there's one here that is yet to receive you as the Lord and savior of their life and become a child of God.

I pray that today would be their day of salvation. In Jesus name, we do pray.