Better than Joseph's bones...

“Listening to Stephen Preach About Joseph”

(Acts 7:9-16, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, July 31, 2011)

9 “And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him 10 and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household. 11 Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. 12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit. 13 And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh. 14 And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all. 15 And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, 16 and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

9 “And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him 10 and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.

Who was Joseph? Not the husband of Mary... He came centuries after the Joseph that Stephen was preaching about in Acts 7. The Old Testament Joseph lived about 1900 years before Jesus. Stephen focuses first on the relationship between the other sons of Jacob and this man Joseph. The patriarchs, who were the beginning of the tribes of Israel, were jealous of Joseph. They saw something in him that they wanted, but that they did not have. Joseph was the favorite of his father and he reported on his brothers to their father. That would be enough to ignite sibling rivalry. But there is one other important relationship that infuriated Joseph's brothers. Joseph heard from God in the form of dreams, dreams about him and about them, dreams about how he would be exalted above them, and they would bow down to him.

At the decisive moment when Joseph's brothers committed a brutal attack against him, one of them said, “Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.” Joseph heard the word of God, a word that spoke of his sure exaltation, and his brothers hated him for that. It was not only because of their father's relationship with Joseph that they conspired to lie together about his death. It was because of their younger brother's relationship with God that they hated him. That relationship revealed the fact that Joseph was the singular chosen one in his generation, though the Messiah would come from a different line. In his day Joseph was the man.

His own brothers hated him, and they did what they could to see that his prophesies would never come to pass. They thought of killing him, but they decided on another plan. They sold him. They made money on him and got rid of him. They thought that they had probably heard the last of his glory. But, as Stephen notes, God was with him.

Joseph went through many troubles, but the Lord rescued him out of them all. The low moments and the delays were necessary. Forgotten in the king's prison in Egypt, God used him as an instrument for life for the very brothers who had mistreated him so poorly. God used this chosen Joseph not only for the descendants of Jacob, but for the Egyptians. He gave him an interpretation of Pharaoh's dream about the future, and gave him favor and wisdom with Pharaoh. In what seems like less than a moment, this man was brought from the dungeon to the throne room of the ruler of the Egyptian empire. Pharaoh liked him, and he liked his wisdom, so that he made this Joseph his second in command.

11 Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. 12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit. 13 And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh. 14 And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all. 15 And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers,

Through Pharaoh's dreams, and the revelation given to Joseph regarding those dreams, God had spoken of events that were most certainly about to take place. There would be a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan (modern Israel). God used this suffering favored one, Joseph, to prepare a place for his father and brothers to go where they could survive the famine.

This was a time of great affliction for the whole region, and the lack of food in Canaan drove the sons of Jacob into the presence of their savior, Joseph. Jacob was very reluctant to let them go, but they had no food. They went there once, and then a second time, and it was on that second visit that Joseph revealed to his brothers who he was, for they had not been able to recognize that this great Egyptian who spoke with the authority of Pharaoh was actually the brother they had despised and sold into slavery.

Before they even knew who he was, these brothers actually fulfilled the word that God had given to Joseph so long ago in a dream, that the brothers would bow before him. Stephen does not dwell on the drama of what took place. He has a very specific purpose that causes him to select just the right details in his preaching on the life of Joseph. We see Jesus (and Stephen) in Joseph. Eventually Jacob, his sons, their wives, and their children, seventy-five people in all, settled in Egypt. Why? Because there was food there, and they needed to live. And Joseph, the brother that they thought they were rid of, was alive, and he was the key to their continued well-being.

16 and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

That is where Jacob and all his family lived out the rest of their days. But before they died, both Jacob and Joseph made their surviving family members promise that they would eventually be buried in Canaan, the land that God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants forever.

In the case of Jacob, when he died, his body was immediately brought back “home.” According to Genesis 50, “his sons did for him as he had commanded them, for his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field at Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place. After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father.”

In the case of Joseph, the story required more patience. Over 400 years passed until the bones of Joseph were buried in the land of promise. See Genesis 50:25, Exodus 13:19, and Joshua 24:32. This man of suffering had faced a very low condition. He was rejected by his own people, accused wrongly, and forgotten by those who promised to come to his aid. But God was with him. Eventually he was taken from his prison house and exalted at Pharaoh's right hand. Yet he did not want to be buried in Egypt forever. He was looking for a better end to his story.

In all of this suffering and glory, he was a light pointing to the chosen Messiah. The very people who were listening to Stephen's words already supposed that they had done what they needed to in order to stop Jesus and His followers. But God was with His Son, and God is with His church. There is no amount of trouble that can utterly destroy what God is determined to glorify. Jesus loved us when we were His enemies. Now we are sons of God through Him.

1. What were the sufferings and glories of the Old Testament man Joseph?

2. How is it that Israel came to Egypt?

3. What were the circumstances surrounding Joseph's return to the promised land?

4. What does all of this have to do with Jesus?

OT Passage: Psalm 105:16-22