1. Part 9: A Hungry Family Molded for Greatness: The Story of Joseph

2. Note: The dramatic presentation that follows is amplified for effect, and includes some conjecture, speculation and embellishment of the bible narrative. In order to best understand the story and its lessons, listeners should read the narrative for themselves.

3. Part 9: A Hungry Family Molded for Greatness: The Story of Joseph

4. “I have had a dream, but no one can interpret it; and I have heard it said about you, that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.” “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.”

5. “Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and according to your command all my people shall do homage; only in the throne I will be greater than you. I hereby set you over all the land of Egypt.”

6. “…because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household…” Manasseh

7. “…because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering…” Ephraim

8. “You are spies! You have come to see where our land is unprotected!” “No, my lord,” they answered. “Your servants have come to buy food. We are all the sons of one man. Your servants are honest men, not spies.”

9. They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come on us.” Reuben replied, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood.”

10. #1: Unresolved ________ robs our lives of _________, ____________, and ______. guilt peacefreedom joy

11. Their hearts sank and they turned to each other trembling and said, “What is this that God has done to us?”

12. Then Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy along with me and we will go at once, so that we and you and our children may live and not die. I myself will guarantee his safety; you can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life…”

13. “What is this you have done?” Judah replied, “What can we say? How can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered your servants’ guilt. We are now my lord’s slaves - we ourselves and the one who was found to have the cup.”

14. But Joseph said, “Far be it from me to do such a thing! Only the man who was found to have the cup will become my slave. The rest of you, go back to your father in peace.”

15. “Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. One of them went away from me, and I said, “He has surely been torn to pieces.” And I have not seen him since. If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in misery.’

16. “So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father, and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy’s life, sees that the boy isn’t there, he will die. Your servants will bring the gray head of our father down to the grave in sorrow. Your servant guaranteed the boy’s safety to my father. I said, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life!’

17. “Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers. How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come on my father.”

18. #2: The LORD uses the _________ of life to _________ and _________ us, to develop His ______________ in us. trials character moldshape

19. #3: Similar to unresolved guilt, ________________ __________ burdens the wronged, and can only be resolved through complete _______________. wrongunforgiven forgiveness

20. “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping.

21. “But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.”