When Your Brothers Sell You And God Still Promotes You

Betrayal can make you cynical fast, especially when it comes from your own people. We walk through Joseph’s story in Genesis and keep coming back to one word that explains why he doesn’t break: integrity. From the coat and the dreams to the cistern and the slave caravan, Joseph’s life starts sliding in a direction he never chose, and it raises the question we all feel in our bones: what do you do when life happens to you and it is not your fault?

We trace the turning points that test character the hardest. Joseph serves faithfully in Potiphar’s house, faces relentless temptation, refuses to compromise, and still gets punished through a false accusation. Then prison becomes another proving ground where he keeps trusting God, interprets dreams, and watches help walk out the door and forget his name. When Pharaoh finally calls, Joseph doesn’t chase credit. He points to God, brings clarity, and steps into leadership that prepares Egypt for famine and saves countless lives.

The most stunning moment is not the promotion, it is the reunion. Joseph has power to crush the brothers who sold him, yet he chooses provision over vengeance. From there, we zoom out to modern Christian leadership, the headlines that come from small compromises, and the practical cost of living with real boundaries. If you care about faith, obedience, and building a life that holds up under pressure, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with the takeaway you want to live this week.

Transcript

Old Testament Faith And Abraham

SPEAKER_00 1:05

This morning we're gonna go uh we're continuing this this idea of faith. Talked about Abraham, Abram, who became Abraham last week and and the kind of faith it takes. Oh Old Testament faith is a fascinating thing to me. The New Testament, don't be wrong, I love the New Testament, but but they saw Jesus. They got to see him do some miraculous things. But the Old Testament, there was, yes, they saw God, right? They had a pillar and a cloud and and and they witnessed what he did, but but Old Testament faith is just this really incredible distrust in who God is. We see it in the life of Noah. You know, he's told to build a boat, and he does, and everyone thinks he's crazy. And then you have Abram, who comes from Shem, which is the son of Noah, right? So I can imagine he's heard this story. I mean, I would tell that story forever. Like about the boat that I built. Hey, you guys remember my dad built a boat and no one was there, and everyone thought he was nuts, and then it flooded, and we were right, and isn't that neat? And so I can imagine he grew up hearing this story. And so he kind of had it instilled in him that God could do great things. So when we see Abram and we see him step out into faith, we we see him willing to trust God. God shows up and and he says, Go, leave everything you have, everything you have, and I'll bless you. I'll take care of you. And and and we get the sacrifice, or you know, God calls him to sacrifice Isaac, which is a huge moment in his life. But we you know, we talked about this on Thursday night. So Thursday night with a jam session here, which is really cool. Uh so if anyone's interested in that, that's something we're gonna start doing. But but part of that is also one of our focus groups. So we always take time to talk about the message on Sundays. So the way that our focus groups works is we want to talk about what I'm preaching on on Sunday so we can kind of dig deeper. And so we talked about uh the fact that Abram had had almost a little more than a hundred years of consistent experience watching God show up, watching God be faithful. And so when it came to sacrifice Isaac, he gets up and he takes him to the altar. What a beautiful thing. What what beautiful faith to trust God even in moments like that. And so as we dive into this morning, we're gonna be talking about a man named Joseph. Same book, still in Genesis. But before I jump in too much further, I'm gonna ask you to take a minute and pray. I pray that you just continue to to bless our time together. God bless these words. Bless us as as we read your scriptures. God allow us to to to move us, to motivate us, to to help us understand it, to challenge us, convict us, all the things that scripture does. I thank you for these incredible stories of faith. And God may we be stretched in our own faith. Even to the point where maybe we're uncomfortable. May we be stretched in our faith to trust you. God is always protect the words that are coming out of my mouth, protect those who hear this message, God protect the hearts and the people that it's attached to. I would love you. Thank you. Your son's name pray. Amen. So again, Abram is this man of great faith. So then we come across a young man by the name of Joseph. And and Joseph is probably one of my all-time favorite characters or favorite people in the Bible, mainly because he embodies uh everything that I think a little brother embodies. And if you've ever read the story of Joseph, and we're gonna kind of read it here in the beginning, I have a little brother named Josh. Uh, and my little brother is everything I would expect the little brother to be. Now we're best friends. When I was younger, he was my competition. Always. My mom's shaking her head because she knows I'm not wrong. My little brother was the best person in the world at antagonizing me. Wasn't always my fault, mom. Just throwing that out there. He found a way one time that I did not hit him, but he had learned that if he yelled loud enough and no one was else was in the room, my mom would come in and immediately punish me. So we're sitting in the living room one day, and we're listening, we're listening, I say little, but we're probably like, I'm like 12. So we're we're like on that age of we should we stop, we should stop acting like this. And so him and I are having an argument, and out of nowhere, he goes, Ow. He's like on the other side of the room, and he's like, Why'd you hit me? And I'm like, what? And my mom's like, Jason, coming down the steps. I'm like, I didn't do it. She's like, I know you did. I'm like, no, I did not. She's like, I know it. You hit him all the time. I'm like, yes, but this time I did not hit him. I got grounded. As he walked out of the room, he looked at me and smiled. You better believe that night I hit him. But but I love little brothers, right? And I see it in my own kids. Miles kind of the instigator in our family. And so Joseph is the youngest brother. And so this is where his story starts. Genesis chapter 37, verses 1 through 36. It says, Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. This is the account of Jacob's family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending to the flocks with his brothers, the son of Bilal, and the sons of Zilphah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. So he's already out there telling on his brothers. Because he had been born to him in his old age, and he had made an ornate robe for him. So have you ever heard of Joseph and the was it the coat of keller? Is that what we call it? I always forget the terminology, but there's actually a is that a Broadway play? I think a couple of things out there. Yeah. I said I'm not musical theater. So he he had this ornate robe that was made for him. He he was he was clearly the highly favored child. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him because they could not, they couldn't even speak a kind word to him. So there's already tension here, right? Joseph is loved by his daddy. He's been given special treatment. So in verse 5, it says, Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, Listen to this dream I had. And he shares his dream, and his brothers uh respond to him. They say, Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us? And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. He said, Listen, he said, I had another dream, and this time the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me. When he told this dream to his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, What is this dream you had where your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you? His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the things in mind. So he goes to his brothers, and they already don't like him, and he says, Hey, by the way, I had a dream, not once, but twice, that all of you will bow down to me. My little brother said that to me, I'd be like, You're crazy. That's never gonna happen in this lifetime. And they already don't like him. They already hate him. I mean, dad's already showed favoritism to him. But he has this dream twice. Now his brothers, being the loving, kind, gentle, forgiving men that they are, decide to make a plan. Verse 12 says, Now his brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near Shechem. And Israel said to them, Joseph, as you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them. Very well, he replied. So he said to him, Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me. Then he sent him off from the valley of Hebron, when Joseph arrived at Shechem. A man found him wandering around the fields, and he asked him, What are you looking for? He replied, I'm looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks? They have moved on from here, the man answered. I heard them say, Let's go to Dothan. So Joseph won after his brothers and found them near Dothan. But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they had plotted to kill him. Right? Gracious, loving, forgiving, older brothers that they are. He said, They said, Here comes that dreamer. They said to each other, Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns, and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams. When Reuben heard this, he he tried to rescue him from their hands. Let's not take his life, he said. Don't shed any blood, throw him into the cistern here in the wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him. Reuben said this to rescue him from them and to take them back to his father. So his brother Reuben was trying to mitigate the situation. Don't kill him, just throw him in the cistern. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the ornate robe he was wearing, and they took him and they threw him in the cistern. And the cistern was empty, and there was no water in it. And as they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up, and they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm, and myrrh, and they're on their way to take them down to Egypt. Judas said to his brothers, What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood, and his brothers agreed. So we're not going to kill him. But we definitely can sell him. So when the Minianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites who took him to Egypt. When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, and he tore his clothes, he went back to his brothers and said, The boy isn't there, where can I turn now? Then they got Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son's robe. He recognized it and said, It is my son's robe. Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces. Then Joke Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. No, he said, I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave. So his father wept for him. Meanwhile, the many knights sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar and one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the garden. So Joseph tells his brothers and his dad of this dream, and their response is originally they wanted to kill him. Reuben intervenes, they throw him in the cistern, and they don't kill him, but they decide to sell him instead. So they take this robe, which is significant to him. His father had made it for him. And they tear it up and they dip it in some blood. And they go back to their dad and and they break his heart. They say your your son Joseph was was killed. Not even. They actually let him come to his own conclusion. They say that your son was killed. So he he rips his clothes and he starts to mourn and grieve, and he can't be comforted. So in this moment, there's two really significant moments, uh, events happening. One, you have Jacob, he was now grieving the loss of a son. So part of me wonders in his mind as he was thinking about Joseph's dream. How in the world is this dream going to come to fruition when my son has been killed? Maybe it's not. Maybe he's just thinking about the fact that his son's been killed. And it annoys me because the brothers just let this happen. No one tries to intervene. I mean, they it says that they all come to him and comfort him, but the ones who are comforting him are the ones who caused him the problem. They're the ones causing the pain. And and so I wonder in my mind if if they said they're like, it's okay, Dan. They don't really care. They just know that Joseph is gone. But the very end, the last verse is that he was sold uh to Egypt, or he was he was sold in Egypt to a man named Potiphar. One of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard. So Joseph's life, this entire scenario is is completely out of his control. You ever been there? You ever found yourself? Maybe it's a job, um, maybe it's a financial thing, maybe, maybe it's a uh a relationship or kind of a broken relationship. But but all these things keep happening to you, and and it's nothing you did. You you didn't cause this to happen. Joseph didn't go out there looking for his brothers, looking to be sold into slavery. That that wasn't his plan, but but he had no control over what was happening to him. The reason we're talking about this is because what we're gonna see modeled in Joseph is the word is integrity. Joseph is a man of a young man of great integrity. Right? So we we look at Abram, and and Abram kind of, you know, he knew kind of what was going on, but but you look at the life of Abram and he kind of made some decisions. He kind of lied about who his wife was, and and and not that he didn't trust God, but he he kept trying to like you watch that he's kind of like he takes stuff back, but he still follows, and and and he's human, right? So he he doubts and he worries and he's concerned. And so we get to the life of the 17-year-old man who has been given this incredible dream. God has called him to something extraordinary. God has given him this incredible purpose in life, and it starts the moment he's sold into slavery. God didn't just rise him to his position, it starts this journey to get him to where he needs him to be, starts at an uncontrollable moment in his life where he is sold into slavery. Now, if I if if God had given me a dream and a vision for my life, I don't think I'd want it to start there. Right? I I I'm I'm just selfish enough that if God told me and gave me a dream where people bowed down to me, I would hope that I would wake up tomorrow and it would happen. But that's not how God works. We see this in the life of Abraham that God has been faithful in his walk. God has continued to show up in spite of Abraham. And so here we have Joseph, a young man, 17 years old. God has given him a dream, and it starts by being sold into slavery in Egypt. Genesis 39 is the story of Joseph and Potiphar's house. So Potiphar is the captain of the guard that he sold to. Joseph becomes one of Potiphar's greatest servants. He does everything, he rises to the ranks, he he trusts him with everything. Joseph is an honest man, he he's known for being integral in the running of Potiphar's house. He actually takes as a slave, Potiphar leaves his house oftentimes to the care of Joseph because he trusts him this much. Now, this is this is God's favor, right? So God has is placed him in Potiphar's house where he's come, and he's rising to the ranks, and he's seeing who he is, and he's learning more about who he is. And again, one of the things Joseph is known for is he's a man of integrity, even in a very difficult situation. And then comes Potiphar's wife. Joseph is a nice looking man. He's young, probably in good shape. She's got eyes for him. She starts to try to weasel her way in. Just come on. Come to bed with me. She's probably done this before multiple times with other servants. And she tries to convince Joseph, but everything in the house is yours. Potiphar said it's fine. But but just lay with me. But again, Joseph is a man of integrity, and he continues to refuse her. He continues to avoid her at all cost. Because he understands that Potiphar has trusted me with everything, but his wife is off limits. That's not mine. He's a man of integrity. He's in this situation, he's a slave, he's running this house. Potiphar's wife is coming at him, trying to get him to sleep with him, and he's doing everything he can to avoid her. And then one day, as he enters the house alone, she attacks him, tries to force herself on him, rips a piece of his clothing. He flees, runs away, does what he's supposed to, and she lies. Tells another servant that he he attacked her. He tried to harm her, that he tried to force himself upon her. She's trying to ruin this this young man's life. And so Potiphar finds out. And Potiphar does, what any good husband would do. Just throws him in prison. Doesn't ask questions, doesn't give him a chance to speak his truth. Joseph again, this this man of integrity who who has done nothing wrong, finds himself in prison. Again, what a weird way to start a dream and a vision, God. So he finds himself in prison for something he didn't do. Chapter 40. He's an interpreter of dreams, or not him, but he believes that God can be, uh can interpret dreams. And so there's a cup bearer and there's a baker who who are both thrown in prison as well. And they both uh they've had dreams where they're trying to interpret uh Pharaoh has a dream, but they have a dream about their life and what they're gonna do, and they're trying to figure out what's happening, and so both of them have dreams, and they find Joseph, and Joseph goes and he interprets the cupbearer's dream, and the cupbearer and his dream is gonna be restored to power, and the baker is gonna find his head on a pole. That's what happens, right? This is the account of Genesis chapter 40. He's in prison with these men, he interprets their two dreams, they both leave, and Joseph says on their way out, hey, listen, remember me when you get restored back to your power. Remember, remember what I've done for you. Help me out. But that's not what happens. The cupbearer goes back to his place of power. The baker ends up sacrificed with his head on a pole. And the cupbearer completely forgets who Joseph was. Just ignores him. Then we get to chapter 41. Pharaoh has a dream. No one in the land can interpret it, not his magicians, not his soothsayers, not his none of them. None of his people know what's happening. And then couple bear remembers Joseph rotting in prison. He says, Hey, this guy interpreted my dream. Maybe he can interpret yours. And so they take Joseph and they clean him up and and and they take him to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh tells him the dream, and Joseph says, Listen, it's not, I don't interpret them, God interprets them for me. And so Joseph interprets this dream and he talks about the uh the importance of um there's a famine that's coming in the land, and they've got to do something to prepare for it. And and Pharaoh doesn't know what to do because obviously Egypt's a big country and they've got to feed all these people, and not only that, but other people rely on them. And so Joseph interprets this dream for Pharaoh. Pharaoh realizes that there's some kind of anointing on this young man, probably not a young man at this point, middle-aged man. He realizes that there's something special about him, and Joseph, through a series of different events, rises to prominence in the nation of Egypt. Pharaoh puts him in charge of many things, of all things. He puts him in charge of getting ready and preparing for the famine. The famine hits, and all of a sudden, now we find ourselves back looking at his family. The family of Joseph is on an outlier, but they need food, and they've decided that they need to go to Egypt. Now keep in mind, this entire time, Jacob is convinced that Joseph is dead. His brothers have no idea where he is. All they know is they sold him. But we continue to watch the life of Joseph, event after event after event. Not only does God continue to bless him and prosper him, but Joseph remains a man of integrity. He does the right thing. What I love about this is if you really pay attention, at any moment, Joseph could have cut some corners. Maybe he could have lied his way out of Potiphar's house. Maybe, maybe he could have found himself out of prison. Maybe he could have manipulated, maybe he could have stole. Maybe he could have gone to the Pharaoh who pulled him out of prison and said, Don't look at what you've done to me. At any point, he he could have come back and and he could have come after the people that have heard him. You know what happens uh uh as the story continues on is at some point his brothers arrive in Egypt looking for food. And they come and they stand before the man that they do not know is their brother. They don't recognize him. Talk about an opportunity for vengeance. Joseph sees them coming, hears them asking for food, knows that the the Pharaoh will do whatever he asks of him. And what does he do? He he sends them home, talks about this younger brother Benjamin, he says, Go get your younger brother and bring him here. I want to see everyone. And of course, they're they're hesitant about this, because the last younger brother in the family was mauled by animals. So they go back, they somehow convince Dan to send him Jacob's probably Leary at this point, so they bring the brother back. And again, Joseph has this ability, this incredible power over them to deny them everything, to punish them greatly, to get vengeance for the for the miserable life that he's had, sold into slavery, thrown in prison, forgotten in prison, now standing on the right hand of the Pharaoh. He has power to execute whatever he wants, to punish them completely, fully, to make them starve to death if he so chooses. But again, he's a man of integrity. Bring Benjamin through a series of events, they bring him back and they send him home to get his father. And then we get to Genesis 47, and I realize we jumped a big section, but uh 47 verse 1 says, Joseph went and told Pharaoh, My father and brothers with their flocks and herds and everything they own have come from the land of Canaan and are now in Goshen. He chose five of his brothers and presented them before Pharaoh. And Pharaoh asked the brothers, What is your occupation? Said, Your servants are shepherds, they replied to Pharaoh, just as our fathers were. And they also said to him, We have come to live here for a while because the famine is severe in Canaan, and your servants' flocks have no pasture. So now please let your servants settle in Goshen. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, Your father and your brothers have come to you in the land of Egypt before you. Settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land. Let them live in Goshen. And if you know any among them with special ability, put them in charge of my own livestock. And what I what I love about what's happening in this moment is, and we see the dream fulfilled a chapter earlier, that his brothers, his father, they come and they bow down to Joseph. It's a weird thing. I always wonder, in my in that moment, this is like the middle child in me, like 100%, the moment they bowed down, he was like, Finally, yes. But but again, he's a man of integrity. Instead of leveraging what God has given him to abuse, to punish, to vindicate himself, he takes everything that he has gone through and he presents his family to Pharaoh and says, use them. And Pharaoh's response is this land is yours. He he he blesses them. He blesses them immensely. It it changes the the the game for them. I mean, they they went from living in famine to to now living in plenty. And all of this comes from not only God's faithfulness, but Joseph's choice to be a man of integrity, to do the right thing at the right moment. Always. We talked about this last week. What we see in Abraham is faith. This man who is faithful, but he's obedient. What we see in Joseph is a man who is faithful, but but he is obedient. See the pattern? They're faithful because God is faithful. They're obedient to what God is calling them to do. Joseph is a man of integrity. He does the right thing because he knows that God is the one providing, God is the one taking care of him. And in Potter's house, he was raised to prominent power. Even though he was falsely accused and thrown in prison. In prison, he he met the cupbearer, he met the baker, he interpreted dreams. Even though he was left in prison, at some point it came full circle, right? That he was able to interpret the dream of Pharaoh. Through all of these different events, as difficult as it was, Joseph saw God working. Joseph understood that his reputation mattered. Joseph understood that being a man of integrity was more important than being a man who was right. I think about that a lot. And if you if you do as well, I mean the rise and fall of celebrity pastors, man. The rise and fall of uh men in pulpits who who rise to prominence and they build these these huge churches and and and you know thousands upon thousands of people. Probably more people than I've ever seen in my lifetime. And not all of them, but a large majority of them, at some point fail. Whether it's an affair, whether it's dishonest uh with finances, um, whether it's abuse of staff, I've seen the headlines are just fascinating to me. There's something about that that rises when God gives us more responsibility, it is super easy to become really puffed up really quick. And so we see this in pulpits all over the world. People who rise to authority and all of a sudden they're abusing it. You know, Billy Graham never once in his ministry had any accusation from any woman about inappropriate behavior ever. I think that's fascinating. Because he saw millions of people. Like his ministry was huge, but he was a man of integrity. I was reading a book about 12 years ago, and they were talking about his staff, and one of the rules that they had for their staff was they were never allowed to be alone with a woman who was not their wife. Ever. It was part of the policy. No rides. They wouldn't even get into an elevator with a woman that wasn't their wife. They account one of these stories. That one of his staff one time was getting on an elevator to go upstairs in their church, and there was a lady on the elevator, and she insisted that he ride with her, and he said, No, I'll walk. It was so ingrained in them in his life that he would not do anything alone with a woman unless it was his wife. That's something that when I read that book, I immediately put that into practice. I've been in student ministry long enough, and and I've had parents get mad at me because at two in the morning I'm sitting at the church with another one of our staff members and their daughter, and they're saying, Hey, can't you just bring her home? I'm like, I cannot. And I will not. Well, why? Because I'm not riding alone with your daughter in a car anywhere. Well, that doesn't make sense. Maybe not to you. Maybe it's an inconvenience to you, but but listen, this is the cost of integrity. Sometimes we have to be the people who are willing to do the right thing, even if there's consequences. Joseph did the right thing. He fled from Potiphar's wife and he still got arrested. He interpreted the dreams and he still stayed in prison. His brothers showed up and he could have punished them, banished them from the land, but he didn't. He did the right thing. Because faithful and obedient people always do the next right thing. We're not chasing, we shouldn't be. We're not chasing platforms and money and popularity and we're not. We're doing what God has called us to do. And sometimes if we're obedient, sometimes even when we do the right thing, we get in trouble, even if it's not our fault. But God continues to call us to be men and women of integrity. That's what faithful people do. Because in a world that is full of compromise, and this world is it, people love to compromise. It's compromise. They let things in that are not of scripture. They start to adjust their teaching because it because it makes the world feel better, or it fills the pews, or it fills the chairs. They start to teach things that are not scriptural because it makes people's hearts feel good. They don't talk about repentance because repentance is difficult. They don't talk about obedience and faith because those are things that we might upset someone. We live in a world that is full of compromise, and we wonder why things are as bad as they are. Because we have traded faith and obedience for emotions and numbers. As long as it feels good. Listen, your heart's wicked. It's sinful. You can't trust how you feel. That's not the point. Scripture calls us to be men and women of integrity, of conviction, of practice, of obedience, of faith. And sometimes the world does not understand that. We're not here to please the world. When I die, I don't stand before anyone but the God who made me. Joseph was a man of integrity. And God was faithful to him and used him to do incredible things, saved an entire nation. I read this quote recently. It's about living for him. A lot of people believe in him. But it takes sometimes it's the small few of us who live faithfully and obedient. To those who minister to the crowds of ten. To those who continue to live a life of integrity. To those who continue to do the next right thing, even if the world never sees it. Joseph is a reminder to you and I that integrity will always rise to the top. Because God will always bless those who follow him righteously. Because that's who he is. Abraham shows us what God can do, that God will be faithful and obedient. Joseph reminds us that because God is faithful and obedient, we should be men and women of integrity. We should live the life that Christ has called us to. Even if the world doesn't get it.