Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Household of Promise Is Not the Household of Peace: Favoritism, Hatred, and Divine Providence (Genesis 37:1–4)

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The Household of Promise Is Not the Household of Peace: Favoritism, Hatred, and Divine Providence (Genesis 37:1–4) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Imagine logging onto your favorite social media platform
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  right now. You see that quintessential
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  flawless family picture? Oh, we all know the specific 1
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  you mean. Right.
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  You know the specific kind of picture I'm talking about.
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  Everyone is wearing like matching holiday pyjamas.
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  The lighting is just flawless. And the smiles are, you know,
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  wide and bright. Yeah, and the caption talks
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  about how incredibly blessed they are.
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  They go on about how thankful they are for each other.
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  I mean, everything in that image is optimized, managed and
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  carefully curated to project absolute unity and peace.
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  It looks perfect on the outside. But now imagine finding out that
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  the moment the camera flashed, those same brothers started
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  plotting to murder the favored son.
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  Imagine they wanted to throw his body into a dry well.
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  Welcome to reform thinking. I am really looking forward to
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  this one. Today we are taking a
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  sledgehammer to the modern illusion of the picture perfect
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  biblical family. We're opening up the tent of the
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  patriarch Jacob in Genesis chapter 37 verses one through 4.
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  And what you will find inside is not a sanitized, optimized
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  household ready for a greeting card.
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  No, not at all. We are looking at a home
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  absolutely wrecked by fleshly partiality and settled murderous
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  hatred. We are going straight into the
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  dirt and mess of a severely fractured family.
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  Which is such a necessary reality check.
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  This narrative proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that holding a
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  covenant privilege does not eliminate the catastrophic
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  reality of indwelling sin it. Really is a massive reality
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  check for the listener. That contrast between the
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  outward promise and the inward reality is staggering.
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  Yeah, it is the absolute definition of diagnostic Muddy
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  Waters when it comes to family dynamics.
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  We are going to spend this deep dive looking closely at the
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  text. Right to understand how God's
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  sovereign Providence operates over and through total human
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  depravity, specifically within this patriarchal family.
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  And, you know, it is vital to establish our theological
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  baseline right here at the start.
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  We are approaching this text from a distinctly reformed
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  perspective. Absolutely.
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  We adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith, which means
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  we are viewing this narrative through the lens of God's
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  sovereign decree and His covenant grace.
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  We are not looking at a moral fable.
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  We are not reading a quaint story about sibling rivalry.
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  No, we are watching the Almighty govern all creatures and their
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  actions to preserve His redemptive plan, even when those
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  creatures are actively tearing each other apart.
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  It is a massive theological concept.
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  God is going to use the absolute worst sins of this family to
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  bring about their physical and spiritual salvation.
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  So before we step inside the tent and look at the family
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  conflict, let's zoom out. We need to build a historical
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  sandbox, yeah. We have to look at where they
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  are standing geographically and historically.
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  That helps to grasp the sheer gravity of this domestic
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  tension. The timeline places us in the
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  19th century BC. Jacob is living in the land of
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  Canaan. And I think modern readers often
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  picture Canaan as this empty, pristine piece of real estate,
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  like it's just waiting for the Israelites to show up and build
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  houses. Right, but Canaan is a heavily
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  populated region. It's filled with Pagan Canaanite
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  city states. These are fortified, established
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  societies. They have their own kings, their
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  own standing armies, and their own deeply entrenched, horrific
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  religious practices. Jacob is dwelling near Hebron
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  and his legal status is a resident alien.
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  He is a sojourner. He is living in a fragile tent,
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  holding onto a promise from God, and he is completely surrounded
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  by established, hostile nations. If there was ever a time for a
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  family to be united for sheer physical survival, it would be
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  right now. A fractured family in this
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  environment is a massive liability.
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  And that precarious living situation is deliberately
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  contrasted with what we see in the preceding chapter, Genesis
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  36. Yeah.
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  If you look at Esauk, Jacob's brother, you see a completely
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  different picture. Esau's non covenant line has
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  already built a settled secular Kingdom in Mount Cyr.
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  They have chiefs, they have kings.
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  They have a solid political structure, military might, and
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  undeniable earthly success. They look like winners.
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  Meanwhile, the covenant line is still living in temporary
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  shelters. This is the family through whom
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  the promises given to Abraham are supposed to continue.
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  Outwardly, Jacob's situation looks incredibly unstable.
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  The contrast is as sharp as a knife.
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  Esau has a Kingdom. Jacob has a divided, squabbling
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  household. Moses is showing the reader that
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  the physical preservation of this covenant family is entirely
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  dependent on God, not on their earthly establishment, not on
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  their military might, and certainly not on their moral
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  superiority. If God does not intervene, this
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  family will either assimilate into the Pagan culture or
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  slaughter each other. Which brings up a fascinating
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  point about who Moses is actually talking to when he
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  writes this down. We have to consider the original
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  audience to understand the heavyweight of this narrative.
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  Right. Moses is writing this for the
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  wilderness generation. These are the Israelites
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  wandering in the desert after the Exodus.
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  They're either camped at the foot of Mount Sinai or later on
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  the plains of Moab. And you, the listener, need to
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  picture this massive crowd of people.
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  They are prone to grumbling about the manna.
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  They are prone to intense tribalism.
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  They are constantly looking back at Egypt and complaining against
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  Moses. They desperately need to hear
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  this story. Moses is basically holding up a
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  mirror to their current behavior.
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  He is showing them that their entire nation was founded in the
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  soil of fratricidal jealousy. Their ancestors were at each
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  other's throats. They have no room to boast.
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  That mirror is entirely unsparing.
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  Moses is confronting their present sins of envy and pride
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  head on by exposing their past. The original hearers would have
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  recognized their own daily struggles in this narrative.
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  They were a people organized by tribes, and they struggled
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  constantly with internal division and jockeying for
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  power. Moses is teaching them that
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  internal rebellion against God's appointed order is just as
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  deadly as the external Chariots of Pharaoh.
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  He is proving to them that they are not a chosen nation because
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  of their father's inherent righteousness.
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  They exist as a people solely because of God's sovereign
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  electing grace and His covenantal fidelity to Abraham.
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  By exposing the raw, murderous jealousy of the ten older
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  brothers, Moses demands a response of deep from the
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  wilderness generation. He is completely stripping away
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  any romanticized view of their ancestral lineage.
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  He is forcing them to rely on God's grace, not their pedigree.
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  I'm so glad you mentioned the lineage, but I have to stop and
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  admit a genuine intellectual struggle I had when reading
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  this. Oh sure.
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  What part? Well, in verse 2 we get that
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  phrase. These are the generations of
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  Jacob. Now, for anyone casually reading
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  through Genesis, that sounds like a dry genealogical heading.
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  Yeah, it sounds like the opening to a spreadsheet or a census
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  report. Why should you or I care about
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  this specific literary transition?
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  Because honestly, when modern readers hit phrases like these
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  are, the generations of their eyes tend to glaze over.
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  They assume it is just a list of names they cannot pronounce
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  right? Why does this matter for the
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  story of Joseph? It does sound administrative to
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  modern years, but we must fiercely refute the liberal
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  critical scholarship that dismisses this phrase.
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  They often treat it as some patched together evolutionary
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  myth or a meaningless historical Ledger.
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  Which completely misses the point of the text.
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  Precisely that phrase, the toledot or generations, is a
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  major structural hinge in the Book of Genesis.
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  It signifies the historical Crucible of the nation.
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  When Moses writes These are the generations of Jacob, he marks a
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  definitive shift. Yes, a shift from the singular
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  patriarchal Fercus of Abraham and Isaac to the collective
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  reality of the 12 tribes. This is not just a list of
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  names. It is the historical development
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  of the covenant seed. It tells us that what happens
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  next is the blueprint for the entire nation.
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  The crisis that unfolds in these next few verses is the specific
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  mechanism God will use. He will use it to move the
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  family out of Canaan and down to Egypt to preserve them the.
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  Toledad is Moses announcing that the prologue is over, the main
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  act of Israel's National History is beginning, and the.
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  Reputation of this developing nation in that specific region
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  is already terrible. We have to bring up the
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  geographical shadow hanging over them.
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  You mean the city of Shichem? Yes, if you look back just a few
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  chapters in Genesis 2 of the older brothers, Simeon and Levi
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  committed a horrific massacre there.
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  They used the covenant sign of circumcision to trick the men of
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  Shichem, and then they slaughtered an entire city out
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  of revenge for their sister Dinah.
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  So when we talk about Jacob's tent being fractured, we are not
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  talking about boys who might throw a punch in the backyard.
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  No, we are talking about grown men who have already proven they
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  are capable of absolute cold blooded butchery.
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  The family's reputation is a dark cloud among the surrounding
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  Canaanite nations. They are isolated and they are
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  despised by their neighbors. And now they are turning that
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  capacity for intense violence inward.
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  They're aiming it toward their own flesh and blood.
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  That specific context, the capacity for lethal violence
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  from Simeon and Levi, is what makes the transition inside the
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  tent so chilling. We move from the fragile
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  historical stage in the land of Canaan to the specific mechanics
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  of the family's relational collapse.
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  And the catalyst for this collapse is a 17 year old boy
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  named Joseph. Verse 2 says Joseph brings a bad
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  report about his brothers to their father.
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  The Hebrew phrase here is debatam rah.
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  We needed to find this carefully.
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  Lexically, this is not petty, childish tattling.
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  It is not a younger brother whining that the older boys will
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  not play a game with him or that they called him a name.
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  Given the brothers track record, they were likely engaging in
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  serious covenantal violations. They could have been stealing
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  from the flock or mistreating the hired servants, or even
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  participating in the Pagan practices of the surrounding
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  Canaanites. Joseph is bringing a solemn,
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  righteous indictment of his brother's severe moral failures
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  to the head of the household. Joseph is functioning as a
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  righteous witness against the depravity of his kin.
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  He is speaking truth in a household characterized by
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  massive compromise. And the older brothers
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  absolutely despise him for it. But here is where the story gets
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  really fascinating and where the tension explodes.
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  Jacob's response to Joseph's righteous witness is to make him
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  the famous robe of many colors. Let me offer a modern analogy
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  for what is happening here, because our culture tends to
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  think of this robe as just a nice piece of clothing, maybe a
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  flashy sweater. Right.
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  We miss the cultural weight of it completely.
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  Imagine a high stakes, modern corporate environment.
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  You have a seasoned CEO and he has a board of senior vice
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  presidents who have been with the company for decades.
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  They know the business, they have the seniority and they
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  expect to take over when the CEO retires.
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  Suddenly the CEO brings in a 17 year old intern and right in
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  front of all those senior executives in the middle of a
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  board meeting, he hands the intern the keys to the entire
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  company and the corner office. He bypasses the natural order of
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  succession. He completely bypasses Ruben,
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  the first born. He bypasses Simeon and Levi.
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  That is what this robe represents.
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  It is a public structural humiliation of the older
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  brothers. Jacob is effectively saying this
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  boy is in charge of you. Your corporate analogy captures
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  a structural offense perfectly, by the way.
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  To understand the ketanet pasim, the Hebrew term for the robe
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  itself, we look at ancient Near Eastern extra Biblical usage.
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  This was an ornamental long sleeve tunic that reached down
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  to the wrists and the ankles. It was utterly impractical for
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  shepherding. You cannot wrestle a sheep or
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  hike through the rough terrain of Canaan wearing a delicate
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  ankle length garment. It was the garment of
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  administration. It signified a royal or priestly
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  status. By giving this specific garment
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  to Joseph, Jacob is visibly and structurally violating the
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  standards of impartial justice. He's operating out of fleshly
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  favoritism. He is an open daily declaration
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  that he prefers the son of his favorite wife, Rachel, over the
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  sons of Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah. This partiality abandons equity.
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  It is a severe failure of his stewardship as the patriarchal
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  head of the covenant family. Jacob is taking the internal
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  resentments of his wives and projecting them on to the next
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  generation. And the reaction from the
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  brothers is terrifying and it's quiet intensity.
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  Verse 4 breaks down the anatomy of this hatred.
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  When you look closely at the Hebrew syntax here, it is
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  chilling. The text says the brothers hated
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  him. The Hebrew word is vain, No, and
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  we are not talking about a fleeting moment of annoyance,
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  like snapping at someone before you have had your morning
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  coffee. No, the verb is in a wah
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  consecutive form. For those of us who do not read
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  Biblical Hebrew, let's break that down.
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  Instead of just saying they hated him.
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  What does that syntax actually mean for the brother's
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  psychological mindset? Yeah, how is this anger
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  functioning on a daily basis? The wah consecutive verb form
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  indicates an active, settled, and continuously growing
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  hostility. It is sequential and escalating.
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  They did not just feel a sudden spike of anger, yell at Joseph,
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  and then cool off. When they saw their father's
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  blatant preference, their envy took root and began to mature
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  into heart murder. It is a deliberate volitional
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  hatred that corrupts their entire perspective.
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  The text shows us the anatomy of relational collapse.
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  It works like a disease. Sinful preference from the
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  Father, mother gives birth to jealousy in the sons.
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  That jealousy hardens into a rigid bitterness.
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  And that bitterness matures into active, murderous hatred.
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  The violence that eventually happens when they threw Joseph
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  into the pit at Dothan does not start in the field.
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  It starts right here in the heart.
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  It is fueled by this escalating daily hostility every time they
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  see those long sleeves walking toward them.
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  It completely destroys their ability to even communicate on a
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  basic human level, the text says.
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  They could not speak peacefully to him.
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  Literally could not say Shalom. And the grammar points out that
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  it is not that. They simply chose to give him
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  the silent treatment one afternoon.
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  There is a negative particle with the infinitive construct
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  here. They were volitionally incapable
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  of speaking peace. To me, this is a textbook
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  definition of total depravity and human inability playing out
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  in real time. The common grace that allows
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  people who deeply dislike each other to still say good morning
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  or pass the salt at the dinner table was entirely suppressed by
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  murder. Their internal corruption
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  matured into a total breakdown of fellowship.
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  They are so bound by their hatred that they have lost the
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  capacity for basic civility. That loss of Shalom is the
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  ultimate evidence of their bondage to sin.
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  When the human heart is not governed by the fear of God,
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  comparison inevitably hardens into bitterness.
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  And bitterness literally binds the tongue.
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  Total depravity does not mean they were as evil as they could
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  possibly be in every single moment of their lives.
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  It means that sin had infected every part of their faculties.
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  Including their will, their emotions, and their speech.
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  They were enslaved by their envy.
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  And this domestic tragedy brings up the severe reality of
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  generational sin. The household structure itself
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  was already warped by polygamy. It was warped by intense rivalry
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  between the wives and by old deceptions that were never fully
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  addressed. The brothers are acting out the
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  dysfunction that has been modeled for them.
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  Right, because if you trace the sins of the Fathers through the
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  book of Genesis, you see a distinct, repeating pattern of
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  brokenness. Isaac favored Esau over Jacob
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  because Esau was a hunter. Rebecca favored Jacob over Esau
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  and. Now Jacob is favoring Joseph
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  over the rest of the brothers. Sin is a boomerang in this
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  family. Jacob deceived his father Isaac,
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  using a dead animal and a piece of clothing to steal the
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  patriarchal blessing. Now he is setting the specific
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  stage to be deceived by his own sons.
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  They will eventually use a blood soaked piece of clothing,
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  Joseph's tunic, to break Jacob's heart.
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  The sins of the fathers are reappearing in the children with
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  compounded interest because they have not been checked by
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  repentance and grace. It is a cycle of trauma and
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  deceit. That Boonerang effect is a
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  severe warning to anyone reading the text.
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  Scripture refuses to idealize the Patriarchs.
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  It presents them as real, severely flawed men in whom
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  genuine faith and massive moral failure often stand side by
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  side. And this brings us to the
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  overarching theological anchor of this entire discussion.
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  With the Covenant family actively tearing itself apart,
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  with brothers incapable of speaking peace, and a father
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  blinded by partial, how does God's promise survive such human
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  wickedness? If the vehicle carrying the
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  promise is broken, how does the promise reach its destination?
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  For the answer, we turn to the Westminster Confession of Faith,
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  specifically chapters 3 concerning God's decree and five
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  concerning Providence. The confession states that God
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  from all eternity did freely and unchangeably, ordained
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  whatsoever comes to pass. He governs all creatures and
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  their actions. Yet he does so in a way that he
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  never becomes the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the
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  will of the creatures. I have to push back hard on this
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  because if someone is listening right now, the natural objection
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  is massive. It carries real existential
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  weight. Of course, it is a very
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  difficult doctrine to wrestle with.
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  If God is absolutely sovereign over all of this, if he ordained
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  this whole sequence to get them to Egypt, then does that excuse
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  the Brother's hatred? Does it excuse Jacob's terrible
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  partiality? It is the crucial question of
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  human responsibility. If God wrote the script, why are
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  the actors being punished for saying their lines?
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  How do we hold absolute human guilt alongside absolute divine
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  sovereignty without compromising either one?
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  Because from a purely logical human standpoint, if God
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  orchestrated the pit at Dothan, it feels like the brothers
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  should get a pass. Yeah, they were just playing
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  their assigned roles in a cosmic play, right?
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  That is the most common and vital objection, and we must
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  strictly maintain the tension without compromising either
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  truth. This is the doctrine of
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  concurrence. The brothers are fully
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  volitional and entirely responsible for their wicked
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  hatred. They were not dragged kicking
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  and screaming against their will to hate Joseph.
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  They hated him willingly. Their desires were evil.
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  Their motives were evil and their actions were evil.
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  Jacob is fully responsible for his fleshly partiality, yet God
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  sovereignly orchestrates these specific sinful volitions to
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  initiate his saving process. Think of it like an author
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  writing a story with a villain. The villain does wicked things
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  because he has a wicked character.
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  He desires to do evil. But the author uses the villains
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  evil actions to eventually bring about the triumph of the hero.
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  The author ordains the action, but the villain is the one who
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  commits the sin. It is through the brothers
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  uncoerced willful jealousy that Joseph is cast into the pit and
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  sold into Egypt. God governs their sinful actions
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  to move the family to Egypt, preserving the promised sea
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  during the catastrophic famine that is coming.
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  God brings good out of evil without diminishing the real
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  evil of the axe themselves. But that concept of concurrence
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  is a massive theological fortress, and it gives us the
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  solid ground to thoroughly dismantle several contrary
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  modern theological frameworks using just these 4 verses in
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  Genesis. Let's look at the prosperity
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  gospel first. If you turn on certain
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  television networks, the prosperity preachers claim that
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  divine favor guarantees immediate earthly ease.
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  They promised financial wealth, perfect health and universal
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  admiration. They teach that if you are
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  righteous, you will be prosperous.
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  But look at Joseph. He's the object of his father's
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  highest favor. He's walking in righteousness,
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  bringing a true report against evil.
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  He is doing everything right. And where does that divine and
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  paternal favor lead him? It leads him straight into a dry
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  pit in the desert. It leads to the trauma of human
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  trafficking, slavery in Potiphar's house and years of
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  false imprisonment in an Egyptian dungeon.
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  The prosperity gospel would look at Joseph in the pit and
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  conclude he must have lacked faith.
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  The text completely shatters the prosperity illusion.
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  For the believer, the path to ultimate exaltation frequently
• 19:49
  leads through severe humiliation and intense suffering.
• 19:52
  The prosperity gospel cannot account for the righteous
• 19:54
  sufferer. Furthermore, this passage
• 19:56
  dismantles the theological errors of Arminianism and open
• 20:00
  theism. Those systems propose that man's
• 20:02
  independent free will is the final arbiter of history.
• 20:06
  They suggest the God is merely looking down the corridors of
• 20:09
  time, reacting and responding to human choices like he is doing
• 20:13
  his best to salvage the situation after humans make a
• 20:17
  mess of things. But the narrative of Genesis
• 20:19
  shows that man's will is bound by sin.
• 20:22
  The brothers were not free to love Joseph, they were enslaved
• 20:25
  to their hatred. And God's Providence is actively
• 20:28
  governing those very sinful volitions, ordaining the end
• 20:31
  from the beginning to ensure the preservation of the covenant
• 20:34
  seed. God is not reacting to the pit.
• 20:37
  The pit is the specific instrument he ordained to save
• 20:39
  the world from starvation. Man is not sovereign, God is.
• 20:43
  That is such a crucial distinction.
• 20:44
  I also think about modern seeker sensitive pragmatism when I read
• 20:47
  this. Oh definitely see this
• 20:48
  constantly. If you walk into a lot of modern
• 20:51
  church environments, they will preach A sermon series on
• 20:53
  Genesis 37 and treat it as a basic how to guide for family
• 20:59
  conflict resolution. You will get 5 steps to a better
• 21:01
  family dinner. They will say don't play
• 21:04
  favorites like Jacob and try to communicate better than the
• 21:06
  brothers. And while those are true
• 21:09
  statements on a horizontal level, treating the biblical
• 21:11
  text solely as a behavioral manual ignores the radical
• 21:15
  bondage of the human will shown here.
• 21:18
  These men could not speak peaceably.
• 21:20
  They did not need a seminar on active listening.
• 21:23
  They needed a sovereign intervention.
• 21:25
  They needed a resurrection of their dead hearts, not just
• 21:28
  better communication strategies. Treating this text as a self
• 21:31
  help manual starves the listener of the actual gospel.
• 21:35
  It reduces divine revelation to basic moralistic therapy.
• 21:38
  The original author, Moses was not trying to give the
• 21:41
  Israelites tips on sibling rivalry.
• 21:44
  He sought to produce deep faith and repentance in his.
• 21:46
  Audience. He wanted them to have an
• 21:48
  absolute reliance on God's covenant mercy, seeing that God
• 21:51
  saves his people despite their rebellion.
• 21:53
  Having established God's physical preservation of Israel
• 21:56
  despite their depravity, we must elevate our view to the
• 21:59
  redemptive historical trajectory.
• 22:01
  This ancient family crisis does not just point to a physical
• 22:05
  deliverance in Egypt, it points directly and beautifully to the
• 22:08
  Messiah. And as we move into that
• 22:10
  Christological typology, we need to issue a clear warning against
• 22:14
  fanciful allegory. We are not trying to find hidden
• 22:18
  gospel meanings in the literal threads of the coat.
• 22:20
  Right, that happens way too often.
• 22:22
  I have heard sermons where the pastor says the long sleeves
• 22:26
  represent the long-suffering grace of God and the many colors
• 22:30
  represent the different attributes of the Holy Spirit.
• 22:32
  That is allegorical stretching and it does a huge disservice to
• 22:36
  the text. Instead, we are focusing on the
• 22:38
  redemptive historical pattern. The Greek word is tupos or type.
• 22:42
  We are looking at the overall shape of Joseph's life, the
• 22:45
  contours of his suffering and exaltation, and how that
• 22:48
  overarching pattern foreshadows the greater reality of Jesus
• 22:51
  Christ. Precisely.
• 22:52
  We must avoid turning the text into a mystical puzzle.
• 22:56
  The staggering typological connections between Joseph and
• 22:58
  Jesus are undeniable when viewed through the proper redemptive
• 23:01
  historical lens. First, both are the uniquely
• 23:04
  beloved son of the Father. Israel loved Joseph more than
• 23:08
  all his sons wasting him in royal garments.
• 23:11
  At Christ's baptism, the heavens opened, and the Father declared,
• 23:15
  This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
• 23:18
  Second, both function in the office of Prophet, bringing a
• 23:21
  righteous witness against an evil world.
• 23:24
  Joseph brought a bad report of his brother's moral failures to
• 23:27
  the father. Similarly, Jesus testified
• 23:30
  concerning the world that it's works are evil as explicitly
• 23:33
  recorded in John Chapter 7 verse 7.
• 23:36
  They both spoke truth to a generation that loved darkness.
• 23:39
  And the reaction to both of them is identical, fierce, unmerited
• 23:43
  hatred. Joseph has met with active
• 23:45
  hostility from his brethren, who cannot even bear to speak peace
• 23:48
  to him. When Jesus comes, the Gospel of
• 23:50
  John says he came to his own and his own people did not receive
• 23:53
  him. They despised him.
• 23:54
  They plotted against him. And the trajectory of their
• 23:57
  lives shares that specific pattern.
• 23:59
  Both suffer intense humiliation, betrayal for pieces of silver,
• 24:02
  and rejection at the hands of their brethren.
• 24:04
  Yet. Both are highly exalted by God,
• 24:07
  raised up from the pit and the grave to provide salvation for
• 24:11
  the very people who rejected them.
• 24:13
  Joseph provides grain to the brothers who sold him.
• 24:16
  Jesus provides grace to the sinners who crucified him.
• 24:19
  That pattern is the architectural design of
• 24:21
  redemptive history. Yet even as we marvel at the
• 24:24
  parallels, we must clearly state the superiority of Christ.
• 24:29
  The type is never as great as the reality it points to.
• 24:32
  Joseph was a flawed, sinful man used instrumentally by God.
• 24:36
  Christ is the sinless Redeemer sent by God.
• 24:39
  Joseph provided relief from a temporal physical famine in
• 24:42
  Egypt, keeping people alive for a few more decades.
• 24:44
  Christ provides eternal life, saving His people from the
• 24:48
  eternal divine wrath of God. Yosef points forward like a
• 24:51
  shadow, but Christ completely fulfills the pattern with
• 24:55
  infinite perfection. We look at Joseph to understand
• 24:58
  the shape of the gospel, but we look to Christ to actually save
• 25:01
  us. You can see this typological
• 25:02
  connection explicitly made in the New Testament.
• 25:05
  Look at Stephen's sermon in Acts Chapter 7.
• 25:07
  Stephen is standing in front of the Sanhedrin, the religious
• 25:10
  leaders of Israel, and he brings up this specific history.
• 25:13
  He connects the patriarch's hatred of Joseph directly to the
• 25:16
  Pharisees hatred of Jesus. He says the patriarchs were
• 25:20
  jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt.
• 25:22
  And then he looks right at the religious leaders of his day and
• 25:25
  says they're doing the exact same thing to the righteous one.
• 25:28
  They are the brothers. Jesus is Joseph.
• 25:31
  The builders rejected the cornerstone in the precise
• 25:34
  manner the brothers rejected Joseph.
• 25:36
  It is a devastating indictment. Stephen's sermon proves that
• 25:39
  this typological reading is not something we are inventing.
• 25:42
  It is the biblical reading. The apostles read the Old
• 25:45
  Testament this way. Now, having established the
• 25:48
  brilliant doctrine of concurrence and the Christology,
• 25:51
  we must turn the mirror from the ancient text directly toward
• 25:55
  you, the listener. We must move from theological
• 25:58
  doctrine to intensely personal application.
• 26:01
  The Westminster Confession in Chapter 19 teaches that the
• 26:04
  moral law exposes the pollutions of our nature.
• 26:07
  When we gaze into this text, we are not just analyzing ancient
• 26:10
  Middle Eastern history, we are looking at the dark corners of
• 26:13
  our own hearts. Let's start with fleshly
• 26:15
  partiality. If you are a parent, a manager,
• 26:18
  a pastor, or a leader, listening to this favoritism is not a
• 26:22
  quirky personality trait. It is a structural failure of
• 26:25
  justice. When you show unequal affection,
• 26:29
  especially when it is visibly displayed, whether it is
• 26:32
  favoring the athletic child over the quiet child or the
• 26:35
  charismatic employee over the diligent 1, you are sowing the
• 26:38
  seeds of destruction in your home or your organization.
• 26:41
  You are abandoning equity. Jacob's failure was a massive
• 26:45
  pastoral failure over his own family.
• 26:47
  He built a system of inequality, and he reaped a harvest of
• 26:51
  violence. We have to examine where we are
• 26:53
  handing out the modern equivalent of the royal robe.
• 26:56
  And we must elevate the discussion of envy.
• 26:58
  Modern culture treats jealousy as a minor character flaw,
• 27:02
  something everyone deals with, perhaps even something to joke
• 27:04
  about. But Scripture treats bitter
• 27:06
  jealousy is a soul destroying idol.
• 27:08
  When Joseph's brother saw another person receiving a
• 27:11
  blessing, they turned that blessing into their own personal
• 27:13
  torment. Envy deforms words, attitudes,
• 27:16
  and actions. It blinds you to everything good
• 27:18
  in your own life because you are fixated on what someone else
• 27:21
  has. It is, as the text shows us, the
• 27:24
  seed of murder. When we harbor resentment, we
• 27:27
  are standing on the edge of the pit at Dothan.
• 27:30
  To put a really sharp point on how relevant this is today, look
• 27:33
  at the sociological statistics right now.
• 27:35
  Currently, 25% of adults in our society are entirely estranged
• 27:40
  from an immediate family member. One in four people.
• 27:42
  That is staggering. And a huge portion of that
• 27:45
  estrangement stems from perceived favoritism, bitter
• 27:49
  inheritance disputes, or long standing jealousy.
• 27:52
  The venom of Simeon and Levi is still flowing right now in
• 27:56
  modern suburbs, in city apartments and at Thanksgiving
• 28:00
  dinner tables. So if someone listening is
• 28:02
  harboring this kind of resentment right now, maybe they
• 28:05
  have not spoken to a sibling in five years because of an
• 28:07
  argument over an estate. Secular psychology would advise
• 28:10
  them to set boundaries. Right, protect their inner peace
• 28:12
  and cut toxic people out of their lives.
• 28:15
  What is the Reformed Gospel cure for this specific venom?
• 28:19
  The solution is not moralism. The answer is not simply try
• 28:22
  harder to be nice to your brother or send them a pleasant
• 28:24
  text message. The Gospel cure begins with
• 28:27
  repentance and beholding the true beloved Son.
• 28:31
  We must recognize that we are all by nature the hostile
• 28:34
  brothers. We are the ones who are
• 28:36
  alienated from God, hating His righteous witness, and unable to
• 28:39
  speak peace to our Creator. We must flee to the mercy of
• 28:43
  Christ, who is stripped of His glorious robe so that we could
• 28:46
  be clothed in His perfect righteousness.
• 28:49
  You cannot fix the horizontal fracture with your family until
• 28:52
  the vertical fracture with God is definitively healed by grace.
• 28:56
  The cross is the only place where the venom of envy is
• 29:00
  actually drained. And once that vertical fracture
• 29:02
  is healed, it completely changes how we operate on the horizontal
• 29:05
  level. This is what we call the third
• 29:07
  use of the law guiding our sanctification.
• 29:10
  According to Westminster Confession chapter 13, because
• 29:13
  you have been shown infinite grace by Christ, you are now
• 29:16
  obligated to offer Shalom to your brethren.
• 29:19
  And here is the difficult part. You do not offer it based on
• 29:22
  their merit. You do not wait until they have
• 29:24
  apologized perfectly, or until they deserve it, or until they
• 29:27
  admit they were wrong. You offer peace based entirely
• 29:30
  on the peace you received from Christ when you were actively
• 29:33
  rebelling against Him. You become an agent of the
• 29:36
  Shalom that the brothers lacked. That is the arduous path of
• 29:40
  obedience. We walk in sanctification,
• 29:43
  trusting that God's invisible hand is working through the
• 29:45
  dysfunctions of our lives for His glory.
• 29:48
  We abandoned our resentments, we lay down our desire for revenge
• 29:52
  because we rest in the sovereign Providence that rules the
• 29:55
  strivings of men. We know that God can take the
• 29:58
  worst actions of those who hate us and use them for our final
• 30:01
  eternal good. So let's trace the massive
• 30:04
  progression of what we have covered today.
• 30:06
  We started in the historical sandbox of Canaan, a land filled
• 30:09
  with hostility, where Jacob lived as a vulnerable alien.
• 30:12
  We stepped inside the severe fractures of his tent,
• 30:15
  witnessing the devastating effects of the bad report, the
• 30:18
  royal robe and the wall. Consecutive hatred of the
• 30:21
  brothers who were literally incapable of speaking.
• 30:24
  Shalom. We angered all of this chaos in
• 30:26
  God's overarching sovereign decree, proving through the
• 30:29
  doctrine of concurrence that His promises never fail, even when
• 30:32
  His people act with total depravity.
• 30:35
  And finally, we saw the glorious typology of Christ, the True
• 30:39
  beloved Son who suffered rejection to bring us eternal
• 30:42
  life. We saw that Joseph's pit was
• 30:45
  just a shadow of the cross. And as we close, we want to
• 30:48
  leave you, the listener, with a final thought to examine on your
• 30:51
  own. This builds on everything we
• 30:53
  have discussed regarding God's Providence and human conflict.
• 30:56
  Consider the individuals in your life to whom you currently
• 30:59
  struggle to offer Shalom. Think about the people whose
• 31:02
  very presence stirs up that latent envy, that frustration,
• 31:06
  or that deep resentment in your heart.
• 31:08
  What if those very people and the intense friction they cause
• 31:11
  you are the specific unwieldy instruments God has sovereignly
• 31:14
  ordained for your own sanctification and preservation?
• 31:17
  What if the person you wish God would remove from your life is
• 31:20
  the very chisel he is using to conform you to the image of
• 31:23
  Christ? It is a heavy question to carry
• 31:25
  with you as you go about your week.
• 31:27
  Thank you for joining this deep dive on reformed thinking.
• 31:29
  We will see you next time.