Joseph: The Journey of Faith

Hebrews 11:22

How many of us like bird watching? Anyone have a bird feeder or two near a window so you can watch them more closely? I’ve always been fascinated by birds.

One small bird – called the bar-tailed godwit – grows up in northern Alaska, but every fall they fly nearly 7,000 miles to New Zealand. When the young birds mature and start to migrate, something wired in them directs them to New Zealand. Though they are land birds, and cannot fish or rest on the sea, they will cross most of the Pacific Ocean, and fly all the way to New Zealand. Many of them are young, and have never done this before.

How they do that, many of them never having been in the southern hemisphere, never having seen the southern stars, nobody seems to know. But they manage. In October 2022 a young, tagged Bar-tailed Godwit with the code name B6 set a new world record. Over the course of 11 days, B6 flew from its hatching ground in Alaska to its wintering ground in Tasmania, covering 8,425 miles without taking a single break. For comparison, there is only one commercial aircraft that can fly that far nonstop – a Boeing 777 with a 213-foot wingspan and one of the most powerful jet engines in the world.

During its journey, B6 – an animal that could perch comfortably on your shoulder – did not land, did not eat, did not drink, and did not stop flapping, sustaining an average ground speed of 30 miles per hour 24 hours a day as it winged its way to the other end of the world. Non-stop. The same homing signal that guides them over treacherous waters to New Zealand also navigates them back to their parents.[i] [ii]

You know, human beings have a similar kind of homing instinct that guides us on our journey through life. We also have “homing signals” for God and eternity. He has put eternity in our hearts. We can spend our whole lives trying to fill ourselves up with pleasures and things and accomplishments that never really satisfy. Or we can realize that we live on this earth as resident aliens – fully here and engaged and involved, but we belong to the kingdom of God. We are made to live as citizens of the kingdom of God not just here, but for eternity. The problem is that most of us lose sight of that ultimate goal and because of that, we get off track. We forget that we are made for eternity – eternity in the presence of God.

We’re working our way through Hebrews 11 – faith’s “hall of fame.” Hebrews 11 gives us example after example of very flawed and ordinary people who had an extraordinary faith in an even more extraordinary God. Their lives weren’t perfect. There were times when their fear seemed bigger than their faith. Times when they messed up. Times when they REALLY messed up. But even when they seemed to have gotten completely off track and messed everything up, God was there, faithfully staying true to his promises. Today, we’re talking about Joseph.

Joseph is one of the more popular characters in the Old Testament. Thirty nine of the fifty chapters in Genesis are devoted to Abraham and his family. Of those thirty nine chapters, 13½ are dedicated to Abraham himself, 2½ to Isaac, 9 to Jacob, and 14 to Joseph. Now, Joseph isn’t more important than Abraham, but as their story itself is being told, Joseph’s part of the story gets slightly more print than even Abraham’s. Andrew Lloyd Webber even turned his story into the popular musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” Take out your Bibles and turn with me to Hebrews 11:22.

That’s it. Out of all of the spectacular events of Joseph’s life and the amazing things God did in him and through him, this is what has Joseph in faith’s hall of fame. At the end of his life, he looked forward to the exodus, and made sure his people would carry his mummy back to the Promised Land for burial there. Joseph never lost sight of the promise of God, and he held onto it even as he lived and served God faithfully in another land.

Joseph lived what many would call a hard life, at least parts of it were incredibly hard. But God’s hand was all over him the entire time. We first meet Joseph back in Genesis 37 as one of Jacob’s sons. Isaac was his grandfather, and Abraham was his great grandfather.

Now, the Bible comes right out and tells us that Joseph was his father’s favorite. Parents aren’t supposed to have favorites, but clearly Jacob did. And the extra attention their father gave to Joseph made his brothers kind of salty. Genesis 37:3-4 says “Now Israel (remember, God renamed Jacob Israel) loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.” The Bible even tells us that, in typical youngest child style, Joseph tattled on his brothers. Genesis 37:2 says “And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father.”

None of that was Joseph’s fault. Well, maybe the tattling. But Joseph seems to be oblivious to the whole situation. God had gifted Joseph as a dreamer and an interpreter of dreams, a prophet of sorts, and spoke to Joseph through dreams. And Joseph had two dreams. In one, he and his brothers were in a field binding sheaves of grain, and his sheaf got up and stood upright and the sheaves his brothers were making bowed down around it. In the other, the sun, moon, and eleven stars (funny, he had eleven brothers) were bowing down to him.

Even his father rebuked him for telling everyone about that dream. “But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?” And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind” (Gen. 37:10). Again, the problem isn’t that Joseph HAD these dreams. It’s that he TOLD THEM TO HIS BROTHERS. There does seem to be a bit of impishness in Joseph. Impishness that continues through right to the end of his story. But more than anything, he seems oblivious and lacking in any sort of tact.

But his sharing those dreams is also evidence that God’s hand was on Joseph, and in everything Joseph was about to go through, God would be at work. God’s hand was on Joseph, even when it didn’t seem like it.

Well, his brothers had had enough of Joseph, and they decided to kill him. But one of the brothers – Reuben – talked them out of it. He convinced them to throw Joseph in a pit out in the wilderness, and Reuben figured he’d come back later and rescue Joseph. He’d rather teach Joseph a lesson about respect than actually kill him. So Joseph shows up while Reuben is away, and adding insult to injury he’s wearing the colorful coat his father had made for him, and not them, and they strip the robe off him and throw him in the pit. By the way, Joseph was 17 when that happened.

And then, without Reuben’s calmer head in the mix, Judah convinces them to sell him as a slave to some Midianite traders who were caravanning down to Egypt with goods. Now they had to hatch a plan – something to tell their father – so they took Joseph’s coat and smeared goat blood on it and sent it to their father, who assumed Joseph had been attacked and killed by a wild animal.

So Joseph was taken to Egypt and sold to Potiphar, an important man in Egypt – he was the captain of Pharoah’s guard. Now, what Joseph may have lacked in tact at the age of 17 (and what 17 year old is known for tact?), he made up for in ability. He was clearly a talented man. God had blessed him with gifts in administration, in addition to his being able to interpret dreams. And Joseph did well in Potiphar’s house. The Bible tells us that everything he did for Potiphar was successful. “The LORD was with Joseph, and he became a successful man (although a slave of Potiphar) … the LORD caused all that he did to succeed in his hands … the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake” (39:2, 3, 5).

And Potiphar noticed, and put Joseph in charge of his whole house. And the Bible tells us that with Joseph in charge, God blessed Potiphar’s family and business because of him and that Potiphar didn’t have to worry about anything other than what he was going to eat. After a rough patch, things are looking up for Joseph. Joseph has survived catastrophe, and God’s hand is on him.

Now, the Bible tells us that Joseph “was handsome in form and appearance” (39:6). In other words, Joseph had a handsome face and the body to go with it. Now, I don’t know what women look for in a man’s body, but whatever it is, Joseph had it. And Potiphar’s wife decided she wanted to sleep with Joseph, but no matter how often she threw herself at him, and she was persistent – the Bible says “day after day” (39:10) she spoke to him, trying to entice him, but he didn’t give in. One day she even threw herself at him, and she grabbed his clothes, so he had to slip out of his outer garment and run out of the house.

Joseph did the right thing in an incredibly tempting situation. But when Joseph rejected her that time, she told her husband that Joseph had come on to her and left his clothes in the room when she cried out and he ran out. So Potiphar had Joseph thrown into prison. The prison where Pharoah’s prisoners were kept. You know, most of us kind of get why Joseph’s brothers didn’t like him that much. Yes, they took things way too far, but we get why they didn’t like him. But this time, Joseph did exactly what he should have done – he honored God and Potiphar by refusing her advances, and he wound up in prison for it.

And again, the Bible tells us that God was with Joseph, even in prison. “But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison” (39:21). Favor? Steadfast love? Joseph has been unjustly sold into slavery by his own brothers and unjustly imprisoned for something he didn’t do!

But just like in Potiphar’s house, where Joseph was a purchased slave in charge of everything, the prison keeper placed Joseph in charge of all of the other prisoners, and with Joseph in charge, just like with Potiphar, the jailer didn’t have to worry about anything. But Joseph was still a prisoner. He did the right thing, and was punished for it.

Later, two of the prisoners, Pharoah’s cupbearer and Pharoah’s baker, each had dreams that Joseph was able to interpret because of God’s blessing on his life. And one of the two men was restored to his position in Pharoah’s court. At this point, it had been about 13 years since Joseph’s brothers had sold him to the Midianite traders. Joseph asked the cupbearer, who was restored to his position to remember him, maybe try to get Pharoah to let him out of prison, as a favor after interpreting the dream. But the cupbearer forgot. For two years. Until Pharoah himself had some troubling dreams that none of his wise men and sages could interpret.

This jolted the cupbearers memory, and Joseph was brought before Pharoah to interpret the dreams, which he did. Seven good years were coming to Egypt, and that would be followed by seven years of devastating famine. So Pharoah needed to appoint wise administrators to save and store grain during the seven good years so that the people would have enough to eat during the seven years of famine. Famine so bad that farmers wouldn’t even attempt to plant crops after the first two because it was just a waste of time and money. And in Pharoah’s eyes, Joseph, the man who had interpreted his dreams and suggested the plan, was just the man to handle the job.

Seven good years passed, and the famine hit with a vengeance. And Jacob and his sons were running low on food, but Jacob had heard that there was grain stored in Egypt, and so he sent his sons to get some. And though Joseph recognized them, they did not recognize him. And, true to form, Joseph’s impish nature came out and he toyed with them a bit. Ok, a lot. He sent them back with grain and hid a bunch of expensive stuff in his brother Benjamin’s sacks of grain. Benjamin was now Jacob’s favorite. And then he sent men after them to “discover” the supposedly stolen items, and Benjamin had to stay in Egypt while the others returned to their father, again without a son. They kept losing brothers. Man, if this is how Joseph messed with his brothers, I wouldn’t have wanted to be in Potiphar’s shoes when he realized Joseph was his new boss.

Eventually, Joseph revealed his true identity to his brothers, and asked them to bring their father and the rest of the family and their flocks and herds down to Egypt to ride out the famine.

Talk about a roller coaster of a life! For Joseph, when life was good, it was REALLY good. But when it was bad, it was REALLY bad. Here’s the thing. No matter what someone else did to Joseph, he never lost sight of God’s faithfulness. And so he never lost his faith in God and God’s love and faithfulness and goodness. Even when his life wasn’t good. If any of the people mentioned in Hebrews 11 had reason to quit on God, turn his back on his faith, and walk away from God, it was Joseph. But he didn’t.

So we come to the end of Joseph’s life. His entire family – recipients of an incredible promise from God that God would give them a home and descendants too numerous to count and would ultimately bless everyone who ever had lived, was living, and would live through them – his entire family numbered around 70 people and they were no longer living in the land that God had promised to give them. They were down in Egypt. Joseph had spent 93 of the 110 years of his life in Egypt. He had an Egyptian wife and his two sons were half Egyptian, half Israelite, and they had been raised in Pharoah’s royal court.

How tempting would it have been for Joseph to just consider himself an Egyptian, and a successful and powerful Egyptian at that, and just let that be his life and his legacy? Against all odds, he’d attained power and privilege and prestige that most only dream of. He could have looked back over his life and said, “Look at what I did.” But he didn’t. He knew that everything he had and everything he’d accomplished was a result of the grace of God. And he knew that Egypt, as good as life was there for all of them now, wasn’t their final destination.

In spite of all of the challenges and struggle, he never stopped trusting God. AND in spite of all of the success and wealth and power, he never stopped trusting God. He knew this wasn’t what God had called them to. Egypt and all of the wealth and comfort and privilege was just a temporary place for them, not their final destination. And so, Genesis 50:26 says “Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, ‘God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.’ So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”

God hadn’t said a word to Joseph, or to any of them, about an exodus from Egypt. But Joseph knew the promise. He knew that this wasn’t “home.” And 430 years later, as Israel left Egypt, “Moses took the bones of Joseph with him” (Ex. 13:19). Israel carried Joseph’s bones with them through the 40 years of wandering, and back into the promised land. And at the end of the book of Joshua, almost 500 years after Joseph had first left the promised land for Egypt when his brothers sold him as a slave, we read that “As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of money. It became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph” (Gen. 50:32).

But even that place was not Joseph’s final destination, and he knew it. Throughout Hebrews 11, the writer talks not about a “land,” as in the promised land, but a “place” God has for all who trust him in Christ. That “place” is not a land anywhere in this world. It is in the presence of God.

Joseph never lost sight of the promises of God, and he never lost his grasp on the faithfulness of God. But he very much lived in faithfulness to God wherever he found himself. He didn’t just sit in that pit, and then Potiphar’s house, and then the Egyptian royal prison, assuming that what he did didn’t matter. He was faithful. He was engaged in the things going on around him.

Have you ever heard the statement, “So heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good”? Some people live as if what we do in this world doesn’t matter. I’ve watched people downplay the importance of anything in this life. They downplay academics and athletics and the arts and their jobs, acting as if none of it matters. That isn’t what God asks of us.

He wants us to be engaged in this world. He wants us to make the most of whatever talents and abilities he’s given to us, dedicating them to him and his service. If we are doctors and nurses gifted as healers, he wants us to apply ourselves in that arena to his glory and to make a real difference. If we’re repair men and women, he wants us to do that work for his glory and to make a real difference with honesty and enthusiasm. If we sell cars or appliances or vacuum cleaners, he wants us to do that work honestly and for his glory and to make a real difference.

All while never losing sight of the truth that this world is not our final destination. It is where we are NOW, and so we live for him and for his glory NOW as we move through this world, faithfully going about the tasks he gives us, no matter how important or unimportant they seem in the eyes of those around us. But we don’t get so caught up in chasing the things everyone else is chasing that we lose sight of our final destination. And we never get so caught up in things that we quake in fear at the things going on around us. We just keep doing what God has us doing as long as God has us here, knowing that we are made to be loved by God, and to spend eternity with God, and THAT, not this world, is our final destination. Let’s pray.

[i] Adapted from Robert Krulwich, “The Toughest Little Bird You’ve Never Heard Of,” NPR’s Krulwich Wonders blog (9-21-11)

[ii] Michael B. Habib, “Why Feathers Are One of Evolution’s Cleverest Inventions,” Scientific American (4-16-24)