Perhaps you have heard of me, my dreams, my coat of many colors, my brothers. By way of introduction and review, I would like to describe my life from four locations, with four pictures..

I. The PIT – (Chapter 37)

Let’s start in the pit. It was a hot day and I was about 20 or more feet down in a hole. It was a cistern or a well with no water. I was 17 years old with my entire life in front of me, when suddenly I end up at the bottom of this cistern. "How in the world did I get down here?" I say. My brothers threw me in. "Nice brothers," you say. Yes, but in reality, we weren’t full brothers; we were half brothers. That was part of the problem.

See, my mother’s sister, who would be my aunt except that she is my father’s wife, and thus my step mother, had six sons. Her name was Leah and her sons were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. They were in reality my "half" brothers.

Then my mother’s sister’s servant, who would be my aunt’s maid, except for the fact that she is my dad’s concubine, had two sons named Gad and Asher. Her name is Zilpah. And then my mother had a slave girl named Bilhah. And she had two sons named Dan and Naphtali. That’s 10 boys, all half brothers. Then my mother, Rachel, had my younger brother, Ben, and myself, and died. It sort of became Ben and me against the rest of the boys – 10 against two. And they didn’t like us.

Why? I can think of a couple of reasons. My mom was my dad’s favorite wife – and everyone knew it. The 10 brothers knew it. That didn’t help. And my dad made me this special coat that was expensive looking and full of colors – because I was his favorite. You can imagine what that did. When I entered seventh grade it made me stand out like a big Mac at Chick-Fil-A. And then one day I told on my brothers. I mean, what they did was wrong, and so I told my dad. That didn’t help their attitude. They were so angry they would not even speak to me. Do you see that in verse 4? And then one morning at the breakfast table, I told the family of a dream I had had that night. We were all gathering grain in the field, tying it into sheaves when my sheaf suddenly stood upright and all their sheaves gathered around and bowed down to it. A couple of nights later I had a dream where the sun, moon and stars were bowing down to me. When I relayed that picture at the breakfast table, almost everyone choked on their bagel. My dad even said, "what?" "You think your mother and I and your brothers will bow to the ground before you?"

None of this made for happy family life. So today when my father asked me to go find my brothers, I hesitated. It was quite a distance, I had a lot of work to do, and I wasn’t sure what kind of attitude they would have toward me. They had taken their sheep all the way up to Shechem, about 40 miles up. But my dad wanted someone to go and find out how they were doing. I figured I didn’t have to stay. They were actually quite a ways beyond Shechem, up near the town of Dothan. By the time I found them, I had walked about 65 miles and was tired.

As I trudged up to them, they didn’t even say, "hello." They were waiting for me and grabbed me as I tried to run, stripped off my coat and threw me into this pit. I think I sprained my ankle on the way down. It’s hot. It’s hard to breath, and there is no water. But worse than that, do you know what? They intend to leave me here to die. My brothers, my own brothers intend to KILL me! I knew they were angry, I knew they couldn’t stand to be around me, I could tell by their language that they hated my guts, but KILL me? That’s hard to take.

We seemed to have a lot of what I would call "discrimination" floating around in our family. You know, my father showing favoritism to my mom as well as me, and his wives and the rest of the children vying for his favor. My uncle Esau seemed to be that way also, playing favorites with certain people. And that attitude just seemed to roll on to the rest of us. I think we figured that if the adults do it, everyone does it.

We learned to form an opinion before we had the facts. We would choose to look down on someone just because we chose to look down on them. I think that one of the easiest ideas to sell us children was that we were better than others. I mean we ought to endeavor to be the best we can be, but to encourage this notion that we can look down on others because we are better? It’s caused a mess in our family. In my brother’s eyes, I am trash; I am the clutter of their lives. And to them it makes perfect logic – to kill me.

You would never think that 10 boys, who are going to inherit the holy blessing of their great-grandfather, Abraham, which promises that they will be a blessing to every family on the face of the earth, would plot murder. But here it is. Sometimes life’s worst events come from those who are closest to you.

II. The PRISON – (Chapter 39)

I didn’t die in the pit. For that I praise the Lord. My brothers pulled me out, but then sold me to some gypsies. They were actually Ishmaelites, sons of my great uncle, my grandfather Isaac’s brother Ishmael. They tied me to the back of their camels and I walked almost day and night to Egypt. It was probably about 300 miles, walking through the desert behind those smelly animals. And they sold me to a big name in Egypt, a guy named Potiphar, who was one of Pharaoh’s officials and was the captain of the guard, meaning the chief executioner. He was the one in charge of the prison system.

What do you do when you are a SLAVE? I had never been a slave before. It’s hard to be a slave when you are 17, don’t know the language, and are away from everybody you know. I longed to see and talk to my father, and my brother Ben. The accommodations weren’t bad; it was a nice house, but, you know, it was Egypt. In spite of all this, I resolved that I was going to serve God by becoming the best servant Potiphar had ever encountered.

And God blessed me to the place where Potiphar put me over everything he owned. I think he had trouble finding servants who were honest, and sober, and faithful, who really listened closely and did what he wanted. It wasn’t long before I was in charge of his chariot, his horses, I paid the bills, I ran the house, I directed all the other servants, I ordered all the food. I even hired and fired the servants. Potiphar really had very little to do (6).

I think that God wants us to live that way, wherever we are, making a statement to our boss about God’s power by being the best we can be. And it excited me to see God’s blessing on my work. God worked in Potiphar’s house so that he was blessed all over the place. Do you see that in verse 5? I may not have been the greatest servant he ever knew, but I was in fellowship with a God he never knew, Who acted on his behalf to bless him, because of me. So Potiphar was enjoying the greatest years of his life, knowing that they came through a God he didn’t know, because of his slave.

I would say that I was even enjoying the slave business, as I saw God work in the heart of this BMIE – Big Man In Egypt. I began to realize more and more that even as a kid, God was at work in my situation, not just in me personally, but in my situation, and was at work through my life to influence a house and a town.

But Potiphar had a wife. And she was a dizzy female. I didn’t think about the fact to begin with, when I saw other guys there during the day during Potiphar’s absence. The fact that she was unfaithful to her husband, I sort of attributed to Egyptian society. And it never struck me that I might become the object of her desires. But it happened.

It started with the way she talked. I ignored her. But her talking became actions, where she got closer to me, and acted unusually cozy. I figured as long as there were other slaves in the house I was pretty safe. But one day there was no one there, and she came after me. She wasn’t just propositioning me; she wouldn’t take "no" for an answer.

I said to her, "how can I double-cross my master, your husband, who has given me all of these enjoyable responsibilities? He has trusted me with everything, and you are seducing me to break that trust. How can I do such a filthy thing and sin against God?" God was blessing her as well as her husband, and she wanted to throw it all away for a moment of pleasure. She couldn’t care less about her husband and grabbed me. The woman was surprisingly strong. As I struggled to get away, she pulled my robe off. I didn’t even try to get it back. I just ran and got away.

So here I am in prison. Potiphar heard her story, got angry, and tossed me in. Now, actually, he could have executed me. Attempted rape is a capital offense. So the fact that I am in prison is God’s grace. But twenty two – and nothing to do, watching my days and months fritter away. This isn’t the way I pictured my life was going to work out. You know, I obeyed God – and it hasn’t panned out very well. I’m not here for disobedience; I’m here for obedience. I did my best, I served God and my master, I made a right choice to veto a woman’s advances, and what do I get? At least a month ago I had the run of the house; I was doing something. Do you know what I am doing here? Fixing my wounds. My feet are constantly bleeding and my neck has an iron band around it (Psalm 105:18).

III. Pharaoh’s court – (Chapters 39:21-41:57)

You would not believe what has happened today. It’s three in the afternoon and I am standing in Pharaoh’s court – Pharaoh’s court – in total shock. Do you remember prison life? I was pretty discouraged. It was endless – 7 or 8 years. After awhile, the Lord encouraged me to become the best prisoner possible. And God did the same thing in prison as He had done in Potiphar’s house. He put me in charge of everything going on in the prison, and made me so successful that the warden went on extended vacations. I was in charge of the guards; I was in charge of the clean up crew; I was in charge of the cooks and the menu, as well as counseling the prisoners and meeting their needs.

One day we got these two new guys, Pharaoh’s butler and baker. I immediately put them to work in the kitchen. They were good guys. I don’t know why Pharaoh got angry with them. But one day at work they both looked glum, so I tried to encourage them a little. I found out that they were trying to understand dreams they had both seen. And they were frustrated. After they told me the dreams, I asked God for wisdom, and He showed me what they meant. So I told them. And it happened the way God had told me. I was encouraged, and told the butler to remember me when he was back serving in Pharaoh’s court. I didn’t bother to ask the baker to do that since I had prophesied that his head would be off in three days. And sure enough Potiphar hung him in three days.

But still nothing happened. I was busy running the prison, but it was in PRISON – another 100 days, 200 days, 300 days, 400 days, 500 days, 600 days 700 days. But then at about nine AM this morning, someone came in and said to me, "wash yourself, clean up and put on some decent clothes; we are taking you into Pharaoh’s presence." I couldn’t believe it. It took me awhile to shave off my eight-year-old beard. I was thinking as I was cutting my face with the dull razor, "I wonder what Pharaoh wants? I wonder if I will get the butler’s treatment or the baker’s treatment?"

By ten o’clock I was standing before Pharaoh listening to his dream. It was a crazy dream of seven skinny cows eating seven fat cows and remaining skinny. And seven withered heads of corn eating seven fat heads of corn and remaining withered. God gave me wisdom and I realized that He was warning Pharaoh of what was coming upon his kingdom. Egypt was going to experience seven amazing years of fruitfulness, but then they would be swallowed up by seven horrible years of famine. In fact the famine would be so bad that everyone would forget the amazing fruitfulness of the previous seven years (31).

I recommended that Pharaoh find someone to administer a grain conservation program. He needed to create a grain BANK. Individuals could not be trusted to save enough grain for 7 years of famine. Few people could do that. It needed to be a centrally administered grain bank. And the administrator would have to be someone absolutely honest as well as a leader to get the system up and running quickly, as well as persuasive to get people to give a double tax to the state in the few good years.

To my surprise Pharaoh’s response was very positive. He agreed with my recommendations, and he thought the grain bank was the way to go. Then he said that his choice as the director of the project was me. I was totally dumbfounded. I mean, I’m a foreigner, I’m a prisoner, I’m only 30 years old, I have had no training or experience for the job. I don’t have any connections with architects and construction crews to build massive grain warehouses at central locations. I don’t have any connections with the military to figure out how to guard these places.

That didn’t bother Pharaoh. Do you know what struck him? The Spirit of God in me. How did he recognize that? I didn’t preach to him or command him to repent. I think it was simply the fact that I met a need which no one else could meet. I gave him advice that he recognized was from God. And he probably felt that if the Holy Spirit could reveal the danger to me, He could also enable me to help solve the problem. So he "set me over the land of Egypt." Me, a foreigner, a slave! I am now "Mr. Egypt." He gave me his signet ring. I can sign any and all official Egyptian documents. He gave me a chariot, with tinted windows and a CD player. He gave me a wardrobe of the finest linen clothes. Attendants accompany me and command everyone to bow. I wear a gold chain of authority around my neck instead of the iron clamp of the prison.

Think about it. At 9 o’clock this morning I was in prison – for the 3157^th day. I was alone – no connections with my family for 13 years, no letters, no e-mail. I’ve been in prison longer than I have been in school. I have no degrees, and yet as of an hour ago, I am moving to my own house, with my own chariot, my own servants, my own swimming pool, and basically, whatever else I want. I report only to Pharaoh himself. Have you ever heard of anyone else in history who has received this kind of incredible promotion?

What is God saying with this kind of move? To me the lesson: is to walk in the Holy Spirit because you never know who is going to need God’s word from you. I think that’s how we open the door for the gospel – by meeting a need that no one else can meet and by meeting it with God’s word. What kind of need? LOVE is always needed. "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples – that you love one another." Just your concern for someone else is something that they rarely receive.

IV. The PALACE – (Chapters 42-45)

For seven years, I was so busy, I had no time for anything but the grain bank. I did get married, and we had two children, and we moved into a palace, but my mind was on one thing – food, how to collect it, how to store it, how to guard it, how to fairly apportion it out when the time came. I was building giant storehouses, I was moving and packaging vast amounts of grain, I was training food guards, I was working with the sales staff that was going to be selling it. I was setting up the thousands of servants that were going to handle all the grain.

There was one other thing on my mind, that entered several times a day – my family back home. I prayed daily for my brothers, the heirs of the holy blessing of Abraham, that God would somehow prepare them for their inheritance by transforming their lives. I wondered if I would ever see them when the famine came. And then I wondered what I would say to them when I stood before them.

And there they were, all ten of them one day, to buy grain. I had all foreigners sent to me, because I was working with the director of homeland security and we wanted to protect ourselves from terrorists and takeover attempts. There they were. I recognized them immediately as they bowed before me. It reminded me of my dream when I was 10. They didn’t seem to recognize me. Of course I had on my Egyptian clothes, my Pharaoh headpiece, and was speaking through an interpreter. And I was 21 years older. Prison life may have changed my looks.

Now what? How do I treat them? What do I say? I had forgiven them 21 years ago, and wanted to immediately tell them that, but I wondered if they had changed at all. I decided it would be better to go slow and check them out. I had three basic thoughts: What was their relationship with God? Has it improved? What was their relationship with me? Are they still glad I am gone? And what was their relationship with my brother Benjamin? Do they still despise him?

So I interviewed them (42:7), and said, "Where you guys from?" "Canaan," they replied. "Ha," I said in my authoritarian tone, "you guys are spies." After all that was a real danger, since we had what no one else within 500 miles had – food. Their answer gave me a piece of information I was looking for – my brother Benjamin was still alive and was at home with my dad! How I would like to see Ben, as well as dad. So I said, "the only way I will know you are not spies is if you bring your youngest brother here. Go get him." "I’ll put all of you in prison, and you can send one back to get him." So I put them in prison for three days.

As I released them from prison, I overheard what I thought was an amazing conversation that greatly encouraged me. I heard them talking among themselves, confessing their sin against me. They said to one another, "do you know why this is happening to us? It’s because of what we did to Joseph. Do you remember how he cried and pleaded with us when we decided to kill him, and we ignored everything he said? That’s why we are in such trouble." Then I heard Reuben say, "do you remember what I said to you, ‘what you are doing is sin against the boy; don’t do it,’ but you refused to listen to me. Do you know what we have on our hands now? His blood. And we’ve got to pay" (42:21-22). It was almost as if a little jail time caused them to think about the guilty secret they had been carrying for 20 years. Probably what they had done to me was always in the back of their minds, but now they are facing it honestly for the first time.

Can you imagine the scene, confessing their sins to one another in front of the one they had sinned against? If they had only known who I was and what their confession was doing to me! I had to turn away and leave the room because I was losing it. But at the same time I was thrilled to realize that God was answering my prayers of 20 years. They were honestly acknowledging that they were wrong. So I sent them home, and told them not to come back without their younger brother. Oh, I put Simeon in prison as a hostage also – to make sure they came back!

Of course, as I had guessed, it took quite a while before my dad would allow my younger brother to make the 250 mile trip to Egypt. After all, he was still a kid, probably only 31 or 32! But my dad could only argue his position while the food held out. And that wasn’t very long (43:11). Soon the brothers convinced my dad that their families were in danger because of lack of food and he capitulated. So they hurried back down and presented themselves to me. You can imagine my emotional state when I viewed my only real brother for the first time in over 20 years. You know, he was only 11 or 12 when I was sold. I didn’t get to watch him grow up. Here he was bowing before me, quite the young man. Rather than meet him there and cry, I announced to my servants, "these men are going to eat dinner with me at noon. Get it ready."

They of course were scared to death and don’t know what to make of it (18). When I finally got there and they were bowing and scraping themselves to the floor, I said, "oh is this your younger brother?" And then said, "God bless you my son," trying to act older. What I really wanted to do was grab him, hug him, and kiss him, but I still wasn’t sure they were ready. Instead I almost lost it and had to go out and cry. I was in such bad shape I had to wash my face and put drops in my red eyes before I came back out. And my voice probably shook when I barked out, "serve the bread."

The Egyptian custom was that foreigners sat at separate tables from us. I had a table set for my brothers. There was also a table for the rest of the Egyptians since I couldn’t eat with them because of my position. And there were assigned seats for everyone, and I sat them all according to their ages. I arranged to give Benjamin special treatment, giving him five times more of one part of the meal than the others. I wanted to see how they responded to this obvious favoritism. It didn’t bother them. That was encouraging. We had a great meal.

I thought it would be wise to do one more test. I really needed to be convinced about their attitude toward Benjamin. How important was he to them? My question was, "how would they respond when they had to choose between Benjamin and their own lives?"

I had my steward place my own special, silver, engraved, drinking cup in Benjamin’s sack. It had my name on it. That would make it look like Benjamin had "lifted it" after the meal. As soon as they were outside the city limits I sent the steward after them to charge them with theft. Of course the brothers denied that they would do anything like that. And they are so sure of their innocence that they offered to become my slaves if such a thing were true, and the guilty person would pay for his sin with his life.

I instructed my steward to have them take down their sacks starting with the oldest. Nothing was found until they came to Benjamin’s sack. He was the thief and there was my cup and the evidence. Of course the implication, according to their statement, was that he would have to die. They came back to my house quickly. I had stayed at home, knowing that they wouldn’t take long. Besides, I couldn’t wait.

I wanted to see their response. Would they say, "well let him die, we don’t care much about him anyway." "Yes it will kill our father when he hears that Benjamin is not coming back, but so what, he is old anyway." "Besides it is time we get his inheritance." Or would they demonstrate any kind of concern for my brother.

The response was amazing. They were all in distress. They tore their clothes. They all made an impassioned plea for their brother, Benjamin. Judah was the one who spoke for them and said the kind of things I had been dreaming of hearing for 20 years. His plea was 17 verses long (18-34) and said it all: "this is going to kill our father and he is precious to us." "Our brother Benjamin is so special to us that I will take his place as your slave if you will let him go." This was Judah willing to become a substitute for Benjamin – to take his penalty. I never thought I would hear that from Judah. I was ready to cry before he got finished. What a tremendous change had taken place.

Judah’s emotional pain went right to my heart and just shoved me over the edge. I couldn’t hold it back any longer. So I yelled for all the attendants to leave instantly. They meekly scurried out. And then I burst into tears and just cried and cried. They just stood there and stared. When I collected myself, I said to my brothers in Hebrew, "I am Joseph; does my father still live?" They just kept starring at me. They couldn’t say a word. They were not only speechless, but as they told me later, they were petrified. I guess it was a shock. Here they thought they were going to die, or at least all become slaves, and instead the opposite happens – they meet the one they think that they have killed..

It took them 15 minutes to sort things out, but then they realized who I was, they were as excited as I was. We kissed and hugged and talked and cried for a long time. It was great. I thought I was 12 again.

I tried to put all these experiences into perspective sometime later after my dad died when I said to my brothers, "you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." We sometimes misunderstand the word "good." God meant it for "good." We come to church with the idea of "good" meaning that we will be inspired and charged up and challenged. We hope the music is "good;" we hope the pastor will tell enough jokes or get us emotionally involved enough to be "good." But I’m afraid that’s not God’s concept. The end of the verse reads this way: "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." The good that I was referring to was not that I was vice president of Egypt, was rich and famous, lived in a palace, and had turned my brother’s desires on their heads. The good was that I was involved in God’s plan of "saving many lives." God is into far more than just satisfying us this morning. He is into "saving many lives." His desire is for the city of Bowie to be saved, Prince Georges county to be saved; Washington DC to be saved. And it is possible for us to come to church and read the word "good" in a strictly provincial manner – good for me. But that is not His interest. God may not be into blessing me at the moment. He already has blessed us with millions of dollars of spiritual blessings. His interest is in blessing the world through us. His interest is to reach out through our mouths, and our actions to people who are still suffering from the famine, and who are going to die without the bread of life. It is possible to be so interested in "my good" that we miss God’s good, and we miss His heart.

That’s why Stephen left this morning. God means it for good. That’s why Beka is leaving tomorrow. God means it for good. Maybe not good for them, in terms of money, fame and comfortableness, but good for the saving of many souls from the famine of life without Christ.

07/25/04, BBC am