The Exaltation of Joseph

Genesis 41 

• What were you doing 2 years ago?     Personally I was in the wonderful land of deepest darkest Peru getting ready to move to Scotland, although I was still waiting for the visa to come, that time of waiting was really an annoying process, thankfully it took less than a year, but can you imagine what it feels to be waiting for something for a while? Today in our story we find Joseph who has not only been waiting for a few hours, days or months but he was waiting for about 2 years. Two years seating in that annoying waiting room in Prison.  
• This chapter begins with Joseph on the side-lines. Two years have passed since the events in the previous chapter where Joseph had interpreted the dreams of his two fellow prisoners, to one man - the good news that he would be restored, to the other - the bad one that he would be hanged. And it all came true.  

But even when Joseph had urge the cupbearer to talk about his case to Pharaoh, the cupbearer had forgotten about him and did not remember. 

• While Joseph is on the side-lines, somewhere in the palace not too far away Pharaoh was in distress by a dream. Dreams can be disturbing. Most of our dreams are reflections of our subconscious fears or desires. Pharaoh’s dream on this occasion is not one of that type.     This dream is given to him by God Himself. 

So if you like outlines and structures I can come up with 3 that can helps us here: 

1. A Disturbing Dream (1-13)  
2. A Divine Interpretation (14-36) 
3. A Dramatic Turnaround (37-57) 

1. A Disturbing Dream (1-13) 

•  This is a different kind of dream, these dreams put the most cup-bearer and the baker, who had been in jail with Joseph two years before.  

 a)     A dream no one could interpret  

• In his first dream, Pharaoh saw two groups of seven cows. The first group were ‘sleek and fat’ they were healthy, sturdy and strong, the second group were ‘ugly and gaunt’ and ‘the ugly cows ate up the seven sleek cows.’ 

 What was he going to make of it? He went back to sleep and started to dream again. This time he dreamt about seven heads of grain which were ‘healthy and good’, but then they too were swallowed up by seven head of grain that were ‘thin and scorched’. 

• Not surprisingly, Pharaoh woke up in some distress, so he called in the pagan priests, the magicians and the wise men of Egypt to see if they can offer an explanation. He tells them his dreams, but no one of these wise men could interpret them for him. 
• They represent the best that pagan religion can do. They stand for the wisdom of this present world. Yet they are useless when it really counts. All this intensify the tension in the story and leaves room for God to get all the glory.’ It is only the Creator who can give meaning and purpose to life and change the course of events. 

 b)   The right time to be remembered (Providence) 

• It is at this point that the cupbearer remembers Joseph ...after 2 years… at last! Something in the similarity of the circumstances jogs his memory.  He is convicted about having forgotten Joseph’s request. 

     (12-13) "a young Hebrew was there with us, a servant of the captain of the guard. When we told him, he interpreted our  dreams to us, giving an interpretation to each man according to his dream. And as he interpreted to us, so it came  about. I was restored to my office, and the baker was hanged". 

• These words of an eyewitness prepare Pharaoh to accept Joseph’s interpretation. As Christians, we do not normally have dreams which communicate God’s will to us today. His word normally comes through the Bible – God’s written word – but the Spirit gives the same witness in our hearts that the word is of God and can be trusted 
•  Providence: God delivered him from prison in the right time… not before his time or after his time. It had to be at that specific time. If done earlier there was no chance for Joseph to interpret the dream. Just imagine a different timing for this. The right occasion wouldn’t have come. God had to do it in his perfect time  

 2.    A Divine Interpretation (14-36) 

 a)   No Human ability (It’s not me) 

• Pharaoh uses all kinds of words to flatter Joseph. He  only needed to command Joseph to interpret his dream, but he is desperate to get an answer to this problem:  

(15b) 'I have heard it said of you, that when you hear a dream you can     interpret it.’ 

• What a temptation for Joseph to keep quiet and take the credit! But he can not do it. Joseph is very strong in his answer. ‘It is not me!’ he says. He will not take any credit to himself. He is not a magician or a professional dream-interpreter. His ability comes totally from God: (16) ‘God will give Pharaoh a favourable answer.’ 
• It may have been easy for him at this point to allow Pharaoh to think he was really so talented.  

Could this be his opportunity? But Joseph gave credit and glory to God 

 b)   A God that reveals his plans 

• Throughout his interpretation, Joseph emphasizes God’s central will bring him peace. Both the dreams and the interpretation are from God, and are concerned with what God is about to do. 
• Joseph tells Pharaoh that the two dreams belong together. The dreams used two symbols to represent the same two things. Seven years of abundance, and seven years of famine which would devour all the benefits of the previous good years. 

 Joseph stresses that God has been good to show Pharaoh what He is going to do.  (25b) ‘God has shown Pharaoh what he is about to do.’ 

• There is a clear contrast between the helplessness of the most powerful man on earth and the one and only true God, who is going to have His way in Egypt. (32b) ‘The thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about.’  
• Joseph is not only sure that God reveals his plans, but he is fully confident and trust that he will do according to what he has said, he has seen God acting this way before, he was giving the same pattern of 2 dreams (Ch 37), two dreams decided by God that hasn’t happened yet, still to come true… so he still has faith that God will make them true. 

 3.   A Dramatic Turnaround (37-57) 

• God’s sovereignty does not negate human responsibility, so Pharaoh needs to do something with this knowledge.  The plan Joseph outlines is to organize a way of storing grain during the good years, so that when the famine comes there is more than enough set aside to feed the people during those years.   

 a)    From the pits to the palace (Uniqueness through the spirit of God) 

• It is interesting to notice how Pharaoh acknowledges that the ‘Spirit of God’ rests on Joseph. Pharaoh didn’t get this, the way we do, but he spoke more than he knew when he said to his servants, (38) ‘Can we find a man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God? ’ What this pagan monarch is recognizing, is that the power of God is with this man. 
•  (39-40) Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you.’ This is such an amazing turnaround. Joseph was in jail in the morning and by evening he is sitting beside Pharaoh as his second-in-command. 

  b) Exalted but yet still humble 

• He is married into one of the most powerful families in all Egypt, in some ways he didn't have any choice in this regard. The wife came with the job!  Joseph is now very well connected. This was a great opportunity but also a great temptation.  
• He is even given a new name, Zaphenath-paneah, which means, ‘God has spoken and he lives.’  Imagine! This new Egyptian name is itself a testimony to Joseph’s God - ‘He speaks and lives!  Yet Joseph also finds himself married to an Egyptian wife. So he gets an Egyptian name and even a wife!  
• Joseph is invested with enormous power and influence.  
• The question is this: Will he become egyptianised?   
• The truth is that as Christians we soon buckle under the weight of the temptation to love the things of this world. No sooner do we start to earn a bit more and begin to mix with the influential, or the rich and famous, then sadly we lose our edge.  
• Joseph had come to Egypt when he was seventeen, and he is now thirty he still remembers where he came from. He also has children. He gives them names that are a testimony of his faith: (51) ‘God has made me forget my trouble’ and ‘God has made me fruitful.  

The names given to his children are Hebrew ones, as a clear testimony that Joseph stands for the things of God. Joseph was a man aware of God’s providence in his life.  

This describes his faith and that he was living for God. Even in his later days he gave them instructions about his burial no wanting to stay in Egypt, but being taken back to Israel. (Hebrew 11:22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones). 

• Joseph was in Egypt, but he was not an Egyptian. He did not lose his identity as one of God’s people. He was in the world but not part of it. His only concerned was how to give God glory anywhere he was.  

 c)    Godly servant-hood  

• He believed God. He was the only person in Egypt at that time who trusted in God, as far as we know. It was Joseph against the world. He served his master well enough so he could become a good witness for him, Joseph served God in the courts of Pharaoh with the same devotion as he served God in slavery and in prison. 
• At the end all of this will result on him being exalted to a position where he can bless many lives. It is amazing to see Joseph faithfulness throughout the different trials in his life, but what is most astonishing is to see God’s faithfulness with Joseph, God was with Joseph when he was a child with his dad, when he was a teenager with his brothers, when he was sold, when he was taken to prison and God was yet still faithful to him bringing him to the palace fulfilling his plan and purpose.  

 Application: 

What can we learn from Joseph and apply it to our lives?

1. Whatever your circumstances are, God is in control of things and he will do his plans and purposes in our lives in the perfect time. Not before or after, his timing will be perfect and he will do what is best for us. This is the doctrine of the Providence of God. It is a source of the most enormous comfort to the believer to know that God rules in His world, and he knows where history is headed. 
2. We need to be a counter-culture, this culture love giving glory to men, but that is not who Joseph is, that is not what our churches are meant to be, giving glory to God must be the reason of our living, acknowledging that everything we are, do and have is because of God, in him we live and move and have our beings. 
3. Today we are surrounding by an ungodly culture, almost the 99% of our bosses are non-believers and they want nothing with God, but here we see an example in Joseph about how we should behave what we should do, here we see Joseph serving his pagan master the best possible way so that he could be a good witness for the Gospel, let’s all learn that from Joseph and apply that in our own lives  
4. I can’t finish this part without talking about Jesus We have seen that Joseph often appears to have a career similar to our Lord Jesus. We have seen him sold for twenty pieces of silver; our Lord was sold for thirty. Now, at age 30, he begins his life work, as our Lord did at the same age.  Here in Joseph’s exaltation we see a glimpse of the success that accompanies Jesus in his exaltation to his Father’s throne. From that throne, He dispenses blessings to the world. He gives them the blessings of salvation.  We see this "Parabola of humility" in both Joseph and Jesus. God took Joseph from the love of his father, to the pits and then from the pits to the palace, the same way our Lord Jesus, God's begotten son, came from heaven and the love of his father to the earth and the cross, and he was raised from the cross and the grave to his throne of glory and Paul the apostle goes beyond and says that we must follow this example of humility. 

(Philippians 2:5-11) 

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

Ps Mike