Music It's rarely a problem to have a favorite song or a favorite book or hobby. But when we show favoritism among family members, that can be devastating. And today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg illustrates just how deeply family dysfunction can arise when one member of the family is treated with favoritism over the others. Genesis 37 and verse 2 tells us that Joseph was seventeen years old and involved with his brothers in the task of shepherding. As we noted last time, by the time Joseph reached the age of seventeen, he had seen more of the ugly side of life, the seamy side of family life, than many people ever experience in a lifetime.
The events that had unfolded since the day of his birth involving his brother's cruelty and all manner of chaos within the family structure are such that it is quite remarkable the young man to whom we are introduced as we find him in his seventeenth year. His background was prosperous, his family was large, and he was already living with an increasing sense that somehow, in some special way, God had something planned for him. There are just these little inklings of it that we have come to already, and which we'll find again this morning, indeed, throughout the whole of this record of the life of Joseph. It's immediately obvious that we could profitably engage in a number of topical studies which emerge from the text. And that would not be wrong to do.
There would be value in that. But we've set our purpose as looking at the life of Joseph in terms of God's dealings with him, and particularly having identified him as one of the classic Old Testament illustrations of the truth of Romans 8, 28—namely, that all things work together for good to those who love God, who are the called according to his purpose. And this morning, as we look at this further unfolding of the record of Joseph's life, we do so with respect to that.
Now, what I would like to do is to consider this from three angles in particular. To view Joseph, first of all, as he is revealed to us being the object of his father's special interest, then the object of his brother's jealous hatred, and then thirdly, the object of God's providential care. All right? First of all, then, we see Joseph here in these verses before us as the object of his father's special interest.
Now, this is clearly stated in verse 3.
Now Israel—that is the new name that was given to Jacob—now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons. That's the fact as it's given to us. Is it right? No, but it's the fact. That is exactly what he was dealing with, and it is exactly what we find before us.
Now, we're immediately given an explanation of this. Why was it that he loved Joseph more than any of his other sons? Answer, because he'd been born to him in his old age.
Now, in one sense, there's no surprise to this. These other boys were older. Actually, they were much older. They were considerably older. And we might have understood, if they had found it in themselves to recognize that it was ultimately no real disservice to them that Joseph had become, in some peculiar way, the object of his father's love.
Calvin put it like this, sons of a more robust age, by dictate of nature, might well concede such a point. And although they clearly didn't share their father's love for their brother, they might have found it in themselves to excuse something of this affection in their dad. Because after all, everybody loves a puppy. And no matter if you've got a beautiful dog that you've had for years and you're walking down the street with it, there's something about a puppy that is attractive. And in the same way, to be going through your life and to reach a significant age as Jacob had already done, and then to discover as the object of your affection this child born to the wife of your great lifetime love, namely Rachel, it's not surprising that there would be this unique sense of affection tied up with this young lad.
And after all, once the kids grow up a little bit and are able to move around on their own, go places with their friends, then the father is sort of left. And he wonders who he'll spend time with, and here he's given the gift of another boy. And when he goes to the hardware store, this kid comes. And when he goes over to see the man in the farm next door, this boy comes. And just by nature of the ebb and flow of life, there is a unique affinity which is established between the elderly dad and the tender-aged child.
Now, there's wrong in it, as we'll see, but that's the explanation of it. And it's not immediately such that we ought to be pointing the finger of criticism least I don feel so The explanation of this special interest that he was taking in Joseph is then expressed in a gift which he gave him. And we're told of this richly ornamented robe which he had made for him and which Joseph obviously enjoyed wearing. Why would it be, though, that a coat could engender such hostility?
Now, it wasn't so much that the coat was very valuable, although I'm sure it was a very nice coat, nor was it simply that the coat was a display of their father's affection, because there were other ways in which they were picking that up. But it was that the coat set Joseph in a class apart. That there was something about the wearing of this coat that spoke of leadership—a leadership which wouldn't naturally fall to the 17-year-old in the house. It would most naturally fall to Reuben, who was the oldest child, the son of Leah. And yet Reuben had violated his father's confidence in the sorry events which we saw last time in his involvement with one of his father's wives.
And so it would be only natural that in the mind of Jacob, as he thought of the transition of leadership within his home, he would then go to the son born to the wife of his affection, namely born to Rachel. And although he was only 17, he was already establishing himself as an individual of character and trustworthiness and so on. And in giving him this lovely coat, he sets him apart. He exempts him in one real sense from the menial tasks which the other brothers had to face. And obviously, it ticked him off.
I mean, it was unavoidable. Every time he put the coat on, he just said, Oh, man, I hate that coat, and I hate him. I hate the way he wears that coat.
Now, before we move on, let us just pause and recognize that there was in the actions of Jacob that which was unwise. Poor judgment as a father to display such obvious favoritism. No matter how much we are able to say in mitigation of him in terms of the whole idea of the junior member of the team and the natural affinities that would be there, it was really stupid of Jacob to display favoritism in such an overt and striking fashion, and particularly so with a little understanding of Jacob's life, because Jacob himself had been the object of undue favoritism. His mother had preferred him over his brother, and as a result of that, he had been introduced to all kinds of chaos. His relationship with his brother had been destroyed for years, and you would have thought that that alone would have prevented Jacob from taking such precipative action in relationship to this boy of his affection.
But not so. History repeats itself. He probably said to himself, I know this happened to me, but I won't let it happen to him. We're not in control of that. As soon as we let the cat out of the bag, there's no saying what happens.
So let us notice in passing, especially as fathers. Beware the folly of favoritism and the fury which will so often accompany it. All of our children are unique gifts from God, and we need to learn to cherish each child with obvious love, obvious affection, recognizing their unique personalities, their individual capabilities, and their special needs. And it is imperative, especially in those who are born a little later, to make sure that we do not cherish the older over the younger, or the younger over the older. And we will have to labor hard and long to make that clear.
And to the degree that we give any of our children the sneaking suspicion that we prefer one over the other for whatever reason it might be. Or, well, she's more her mother's kid, you know, because they like that kind of stuff, but he's more my kind of—that sort of nonsense fractures and breaks up and destroys. To have this young man Joseph as his favorite might have been a means of lighting up Jacob's life, but it simply casts dark, deep, destructive shadows over the life of Joseph. Favoritism within family life is a foolishness that leads to fury. And we see it clearly here.
So then, here he is, the object of his father's special interest. Secondly, we notice that Joseph is the object of his brother's jealous hatred. And hatred it is. There's a progression here. We're told that they hated him.
In verse 4, they couldn't speak a word to him. In verse 5, they hated him all the more. In verse 8, they hated him all the more, all the more. And in verse 11, they were jealous of him. It wasn't just that they kind of didn't like him.
It wasn't that they kept saying to their dad, Oh, do we have to take Joseph with us? You know, the way you see kids playing in playing fields, and they're all about the same age, and then there's some poor little tyke, you know, who's hanging around kicking the goalposts and being sent to get the ball from here and sent to get the ball from there, and it's part of his punishment from inveigling himself into the process And he said Oh do we have to take Joseph again Goodness gracious he such a pain in that It wasn anything as superficial as that It wasn that they just marginally disliked him They hated him with a passion which was capable of expressing itself as we see in the most detestable forms of cruelty And the narrative makes it clear that there were three contributing factors in relationship to their hatred. Their hatred of Joseph was provoked, first of all, by the bad report mentioned in verse 2.
Now, there's little doubt that the closeness that Joseph enjoyed with his dad would in one sense encourage this kind of tail-bearing. There is nothing that says here that Joseph was motivated by badness or by unkindness. We may infer that from the text, but not legitimately. It simply says he brought their fathers a bad report.
Now, if there was a reason to bring a bad report, that was it. If there wasn't, of course, and he was making up, that was wrong. But the little bit that we've read about these brothers in the last few chapters makes me think that there was plenty of reports to be brought. And indeed, if he only brought them a bad report, that was really very nice of him, because he could have brought lots of bad reports, whatever it was. He came to his dad, and he was no better or wiser than any other teenager who notes with dismay the unacceptable behavior of his older brother.
And the brothers didn't like it. Secondly, they hated him because of this coat. We've mentioned that already. In verse 4, he had this richly ornamented robe. But the reaction to it is disproportionate to any kind of offense.
they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.
So, in other words, if you imagine them sitting around the table at breakfast time, it was one of those scenarios where the fellow said, you know, Reuben said to his father, would you ask Joseph to pass me the salt? Or could you please tell Joseph that his donkey's in the shed? Or could you please tell Joseph this? But they never gazed in one another's eyes, they never engaged one another in conversation, because the hatred and the jealousy and the venom that was inside these older brothers would just spill out on every occasion. And so they determined it would be better if they kept quiet.
Now, the root of this is given to us in verse 11. A simple phrase, his brothers were jealous of him. That's it. Flat out, that's the problem. Jealousy.
And that's the problem in many families since then, right up until today. How many families are fractured? How many friendships are dissolved? And the root of the disintegration is jealousy. No matter how you try and cloak it up, no matter how you explain it away, no matter what you try to do in mitigation of the facts, the problem is flat-out jealousy.
There are people who have not written to their brothers or their sisters, called them, spoken to them, done anything with them over significant chunks of time. And although you tell me about why this and that and the next thing, in many cases the problem is in one word—jealousy. It is a monster, a giant, that will eat you alive and eat me alive. Jealousy is everybody's problem. The happiness and success of other men is poison to the bloodstream of the jealous.
The happiness and success of other men and women is poison in the bloodstream of the jealous. That's why it's easier for you to get demoted in your work than to get promoted. Because when you get promoted, it reveals the character of the people around you. And it's very, very hard for people to come and say, oh, I am so pleased that you had such a wonderful promotion, and I'm glad that you passed over me in the pecking order of things, and so on. Very hard to do that.
Very hard to do it. Let's just be honest.
So before we get up on our kind of spiritual high heels condemning the brothers here, let's just not be too quick in case the baseball hat with jealousy on the front, we find it fits perfectly on our heads, and it's a pro model, and it's the exact size.
Now, wrestlers aren't usually jealous of doctors, and doctors aren't usually jealous of athletes, and pastors aren't usually jealous of golfers. Usually. People tend to be jealous within their own thing, you know.
So you get jealous of the people who are doing what you're doing more than you get jealous of someone else. You know, there's a lady who is a fantastic diver, and she dives from 30 meters. You know, it's great. I'm not jealous of that. But pastors, they get jealous of one another.
Oh, yes.
Well, how many do you have? How many do you have? What was your picture like in the brochure? Did you get the inch picture, or did you get the magnifying glass picture. The odious passion of jealousy, said a Scottish commentator of 200 years ago, the odious passion of jealousy torments and destroys oneself while it seeks the ruin of its object.
Jealousy destroys the jealous person, not the object of envy. It's like self-pity. It eats you up. It doesn't do anything to the other person. If we're going to make sure that we avoid the folly of favoritism we need also to ensure that we don end up in the jail cell of jealousy Now you see if Joseph brothers had understood or were prepared to consider the essential unfolding principle in this, then they would have been saved from this horrible, envious hatred.
If they had understood that God sovereignly does things in people's lives, that God somehow or another had sovereignly determined that Joseph was going to be the object of his favor, his affection, and his usefulness, then they would have had no occasion to be envious of it. Or at least they would have been able to understand. But they refused to track in that way. If they had understood that, then they would have been prepared to accept their less significant position, although it might have been hard for them.
Someone put in a little couplet, It takes more grace than I can tell to play the second fiddle well. That's the hardest spot on the team—the second spot. John the Baptist played it to a T. You remember John the Baptist? You read of him in the opening chapters of John, how God had given him a ministry as a forerunner, how he was there proclaiming the repentance that there was and baptizing lots of people, and he was really having a quite tremendously successful ministry.
He understood what he was doing. His disciples didn't fully appreciate it, and on one occasion he says to the disciples that are with him, he says, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And his disciples must have said, Aha, okay, that's fine. And then in John chapter 3 and in verse 26, we read that these disciples came to John the Baptist, and they said to him, Rabbi, the man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan, the one you testified about, well, he's baptizing, and everyone is going to him. Hey, John, you're losing your crowd.
John, you're losing your appeal. John, the thing is starting to dwindle. Everybody's going to him.
Now, you see, it's in that experience that the reality of our hearts begins to open up, at least to us and to God, even if we can conceal it from other people. him. And John the Baptist replies, a man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You see, he knew that God had made him a voice, but he hadn't made him the Word. He knew that God had made him a forerunner, but he hadn't made him the Messiah.
And he knew that God had made him a herald, but he hadn't made him the king. but he was happy to be a voice crying, a finger pointing, a light shining, a herald speaking, a forerunner proceeding, and he understood he was not the king, he was not the Messiah, he was not the Word.
Now, we're speaking in very biblical terms here. The fact of the matter is, we can all translate this into whatever arena of life we find ourselves in this morning—academics, craftsmanship, art, journalism, business, homemaking, decorating—whatever it might be, God is the one who sets up and brings down. And it's all in 1 Corinthians 4.7. What do you have that you did not receive? Nothing.
Then if you received it, wide to your glory as if you didn't receive it. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. He's titled today's message, New Coat, Big Dreams, Deep Pit. We'll hear the conclusion tomorrow. With the new year just getting started, you may be thinking already about vacation plans for 2026.
And if you're looking for a grand adventure that is also spiritually enriching, let me suggest you consider joining Alistair on the Deeper Faith Cruise in September. It's a week-long cruise. It departs from Amsterdam, takes you through the beautiful landscapes of Norway. You'll enjoy Christian fellowship and spend meaningful time in God's Word as Alistair teaches from the Bible throughout the voyage. Find out more about the trip and book your cabin when you visit deeperfaithcruise.com.
In the meantime, if you'd like to get back into a routine of spending time in God's Word, or maybe start a routine for the first time, be sure to ask for the book we're recommending today, titled The Quiet Time Kickstart, Six Weeks to a Healthy Bible Habit. This book lays out a framework to help you implement a daily Bible reading program that leads you verse by verse through books of the Bible or sections of Scripture you'd like to study. When you follow the framework, you'll gradually increase your time each day in God's Word to an amount you desire. You'll also gain a deeper understanding of what you're reading, and you'll be able to apply what you've learned in your daily life. Ask for your copy of the QuickTime Kickstart today when you donate to Truth for Life online at truthforlife.org slash donate, or call us at 888-588-7884.
Thanks for joining us. Tomorrow we'll learn about how God is as much in control in the deep, dark pits of life as He is when the sun is shining and all seems well. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
