Return to Main Page Causes of Division in the Family Genesis 37:1-36 Introduction: A. Character God Can Use 1. “These are the generations of Jacob” (v. 2, kjv) informs us that we’re moving into a new section of the Book of Genesis, which will be devoted to Jacob, whom we’ve already met while reading about “the generations of Isaac” (25:19, kjv). a) But the chief actor in the “Jacob” section of Genesis will be Joseph, who is mentioned twice as many times as is his father in the next fourteen chapters. 2. Joseph’s life and character will speak to us as believers. a) We’ll be challenged as we see how God builds character into His man. b) Joseph will model integrity for us c) Both in slavery and in prison, he’ll exhibit faithfulness in serving well. d) In the end, as a powerful government official, Joseph will choose grace and forgiveness when revenge would be a lot more natural. 3. In Joseph we see character on display! 4. We need to take a hard look because the character God created in Joseph’s life is identical to the variety He wants to build into ours. 5. Joseph is one of few people about whom Scripture says almost no negative word and considering his family of origin, that’s pretty amazing. 6. The greatest single characteristic of Joseph was his absolute faithfulness to God under all circumstances, and it is through this that God worked to exalt him so highly. a) Joseph never complained. b) Joseph never compromised. 7. As a result, Joseph never lost his power before God. B. The Destructive Dynamics of a Family 1. “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Ps. 133:1, kjv) a) But Jacob’s family didn’t enjoy the blessings of unity because from its inception the home was divided. b) Jacob’s first two wives were rivals, and the addition of two concubines didn’t diminish the tension. c) When you have in a home one father, four different mothers, and twelve sons, you have the ingredients for multiple problems. 2. Why did the brothers hate Joseph so much? a) Genesis 37 unfolds the destructive dynamics of a family that knew the true and living God and yet sinned against Him and each other by what they said and did. b) The presence of Joseph in the home didn’t create problems so much as reveal them. c) Consider the destructive forces at work in this family, forces that God in His grace overruled for their good. d) Where sin abounded, grace abounded more (Rom. 5:20). I. Jealousy Causes Division (vv. 1–4) A. Joseph had integrity (v. 2) 1. The sons of Bilhah were Dan and Naphtali, and the sons of Zilpah were Gad and Asher; and Joseph apparently was their assistant or apprentice, learning how to care for the sheep. a) Nobody knew it at the time, but Joseph was destined for greater things, and yet he got his start as a servant (Matt. 25:21). b) We don’t know what evil things the men were doing, but whatever their sin was, Joseph felt that their father needed to know about it. 2. Did Joseph have the right to inform on his brothers? a) We’ve always held him in high esteem for his character, but in his youth, was he nothing but a teenage tattletale? b) Joseph did have common sense and discernment. c) So, whatever his brothers were doing must have been terribly wicked or Joseph wouldn’t have mentioned it to his father. B. Joseph was the favorite son (vv. 3–4). 1. Blatant favoritism. a) Swindoll says, “passive fathers tend to favor the child who’s easiest to raise.” b) If that’s true in this case, Joseph was probably super compliant. c) Joseph was the son of his favorite wife, Rachel, and the human heart sometimes plays tricks with the mind and makes people do strange things. 2. We can’t be sure what the famous “coat of many colours” (37:3, kjv) really looked like, although “richly ornamented robe” (niv) is probably as good a translation as any. a) Joseph’s “coat” reached to the ankles and had long sleeves. b) It was the rich garment of a ruler and not what the well-dressed shepherd needed out in the fields. 3. However, Jacob had something more important than fashion in mind when he gave Joseph this special coat. a) It was probably his way of letting the family know that Joseph had been chosen to be his heir. b) If this is the way the brothers viewed the scenario, then it’s no surprise that they hated Joseph. 4. Hatred is a terrible sin because it generates other sins, a) “Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrong” (Prov. 10:12). b) “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness” (1 John 2:9). c) Hatred in the heart is the moral equivalent of murder (Matt. 5:21–26). II. Envy Causes Division (vv. 5–17) A. Envy and Malice 1. The author of a fourteenth-century preacher’s manual wrote that envy was “the most precious daughter of the devil because it follows his footsteps by hindering good and promoting evil.” a) The author might have added that Envy has a sister named Malice, and the two usually work together (Titus 3:3; 1 Peter 2:1). b) Envy causes inward pain when we see others succeed, and malice produces inward satisfaction when we see others fail. c) Envy and malice usually generate slander and unwarranted criticism. B. Should Joseph have told his dreams to the family? 1. The two dreams couldn’t help but irritate the family and make things worse for him. a) When Joseph reported the second dream, even his father became upset and rebuked him; but privately, Jacob pondered the dreams. b) Jacob had received messages from God in dreams (Gen. 28:12ff; 31:1–13); so perhaps it was the Lord who was speaking to Joseph. 2. Joseph was right in sharing them with the family. a) It was the will of God. b) Had the brothers paid attention to these two dreams, they might have been better prepared for what happened to them twenty years later. c) If Jacob had grasped the significance of the dreams, he might have had the faith to believe that Joseph was still alive and that he would see him again. 3. The immediate result of Joseph’s sharing his dreams was that his brothers hated him even more and also envied him in their hearts. C. Questions (vv. 12–17). As we read this section, several questions come to mind. 1. First, why were Jacob’s sons pasturing their flocks fifty miles from home when there was surely good grassland available closer to Hebron? a) Possible answer: They didn’t want anybody from the family spying on them. 2. Second question: Why did they return to the dangerous area near Shechem when Jacob’s family had such a bad reputation among the citizens there? (34:30) Suggested answer: The brothers were involved with the people of the land in ways they didn’t want Jacob to know about. 3. But there’s a third question that’s even more puzzling: Knowing that his sons hated Joseph, why did Jacob send him out to visit them alone and wearing the special garment that had aggravated them so much? a) One of Jacob’s trusted servants could have performed the same task faster (Joseph got lost) and perhaps just as efficiently. b) The answer is that the providential hand of God was working to accomplish His divine purposes for Jacob and his family, and ultimately for the whole world. c) “He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant” (Ps. 105:17, kjv). d) God had ordained that Joseph would go to Egypt, and this was the way He accomplished it. III. Conspiracy Causes Division (vv. 18-30) A. Conspiracy (vv. 18–24) 1. When he came into sight of his brothers, they immediately recognized him afar off (he was wearing his special garment) and began to make their plans. 2. Hatred and envy simmers in the heart and waits for the spark that will set off the explosion. a) The brothers didn’t have to be tempted in order to decide to harm Joseph. b) All they needed was the opportunity. B. Indifference (vv. 23–30) 1. It must have given them great pleasure to strip Joseph of his special robe and then drop him into the empty cistern. 2. It’s difficult to understand how the men could sit down and calmly eat a meal while their brother was suffering and begging them to set him free (Gen. 42:21). 3. Just then a Midianite camel train moved across the plain, and this gave Judah an idea. a) They could sell their brother as a slave and at the same time get rid of him and make some money. b) God was still in control! IV. Deception Causes Division (vv. 31-35) A. Deception 1. “He who covers his sins will not prosper” (Prov. 28:13, nkjv) is God’s unchanging law, but people still think they can defy it and escape the consequences. a) Among Jacob’s sons, one sin led to another as the men fabricated the evidence that would deceive their father into thinking that Joseph was dead, killed by a wild beast. b) Years before, he had killed a kid in order to deceive his father (Gen. 27:1–17); and now his own sons were following in his footsteps. 2. Years later, Jacob would lament, “All these things are against me” (v. 36, kjv), when actually all these things were working for him (Rom. 8:28). a) This doesn’t mean that God approved of or engineered the brothers’ hatred and deception, or that they weren’t responsible for what they did. b) It does mean that our God is so great that He can work out His purposes even when people are doing their worst. c) The greatest example of this is Calvary (Acts 3:12–26). d) Years later, Joseph would say, “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20, nkjv). V. God Overrules Division (v. 36) A. God Meant It For Good (v.36) 1. Joseph’s story is a great example of the benevolent providence of God. 2. The doctrine is spelled out in Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” 3. God providentially brought Joseph safely to Egypt and saw to it that he was sold to one of Pharaoh’s chief officers. a) Potiphar is called “captain of the guard” which meant he was head of Pharaoh’s personal bodyguard. b) But the important thing wasn’t that Joseph was connected with such a powerful man in Egypt. c) The important thing was that “the Lord was with Joseph and he prospered” (39:2). 4. The workings of God’s providence are awesome, and this ought to be a great source of encouragement to us in the difficult circumstances of life. a) “He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’ ” (Dan. 4:35) 5. The remarkable thing about God’s providence in the story of Joseph’s life is that God used such little things as links in the chain of circumstances a) When these things are happening, we seldom realize how important they are. b) But looking back, we can see that God was at work‑often when we were least aware of his working. B. Principles 1. God removes familiar props to lay His foundation. a) We all want security. b) The problem is, we begin to depend on the familiar props to provide us what God alone will give us. c) Character is built into us by God, but it often comes at the price of something we love. d) God did some pretty drastic demolition work in Joseph’s life, in order to get Joseph to trust in Him alone. 2. God’s curriculum is seldom one we’d select. a) We do not get a vote. b) God knows precisely the kind of work that must be done to make us into His person. 3. God prepares people before He uses them. a) God cannot work greatly through us until He works deeply in us. b) Pain and suffering are a part of God’s program: (1) Because they press us trust Him alone (2) Trusting Him in the middle of affliction brings you to a closer walk with Him. (3) When Joseph is finally exhalted, there won’t be a doubt in His mind about Who put him there. 4. God never leaves us alone. a) Genesis 39:2 - And the Lord was with Joseph. b) Verse 3: The Lord was with him. c) Verse 5: the Lord blessed the Egyptian‘s house on account of Joseph. d) Verse 23: The Lord was with him and whatever he did, the Lord made to prosper. e) Jesus says, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.” f) Paul writes in Romans, “what shall separate us from the Love of Christ? Persecution, famine, sword, peril?” g) Will people, circumstances, cancer, friends or brothers who turn their back on us? No. h) Not any of those, or any other thing we‘ll ever experience - because God has sworn to be faithful to us! i) He whispered in Joseph’s ear, “You are Mine. I have called you by name. You follow Me. You trust Me. You walk with Me. You be faithful to Me.” j) That is the source of Joseph’s character. k) Joseph didn’t “reach down deep inside himself” and find character on his own. (1) Joseph believed God. (2) He knew God. (3) He trusted God. (4) God was with him. l) The evidence of his having learned to trust God, as I said at the beginning, comes in those powerful words in chapter 50: “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” 5. God is determined to move your trust to Him alone. a) God will grow you in faith, and He anticipates a response -- one like we’ll see produced in Joseph’s life. b) It will hurt at times. c) It will be costly at times. d) But the character He develops in you is always well worth it. e) He’s always right next to us.

Return to Main Page Site Rules and Restrictions