00:00 Introduction and Youth Retreat Update

00:25 Vision Series Recap

01:01 Engaging with Culture as Christians

01:40 Recommended Resources for Cultural Awareness

04:16 Joseph's Story: From Prison to Power

09:26 Joseph's Family Reunion

12:05 Lessons from Joseph's Brothers

13:49 Closing Prayer and Reflections

Hey, everybody.

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Welcome back to another edition

of the daily Bible podcast.

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It is still just me today.

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Uh, it is Saturday as I record this Sunday

as you're listening to this, and this

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is on Saturday, at least the final day.

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Of our youth retreat,

winter revival edition.

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So trust that we're going to hear this

morning at church, some updates from

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pastor, rod on how that week went.

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I've heard some along the way.

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Sounds like it's been an awesome.

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Awesome time away for our students.

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So we're grateful for that, but that

means that you just got me today.

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So.

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Uh, Sunday morning, we're going

to be talking about in church.

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This is our final installment

of this vision series that we've

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been doing where we've week one

looked at being Christ exalting.

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And then we two last week church equipping

and then this week culture engaging.

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And as we seek to fulfill our

mission of being a church, that's

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reaching, teaching and training in,

uh, in, in obedience to Matthew 28.

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Uh, 19 and 20, the great commission there.

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W this is the type of church we envisioned

being Christ exalting church equipping.

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And then finally, like, we're going

to talk about today, culture engaging.

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So hopefully you have either been to

church and heard that message or you're

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on your way, or you're planning to.

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Uh, be able to take any in at some

other time, if you weren't able

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to be with us in person, but I

wanted to give you a couple of.

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Uh, helps resources for getting engaged

with the culture as a Christian, just from

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a, an informed point of view sometimes.

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Uh, it's hard to know where do I look?

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What resources can I trust?

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What should I be taking in, uh, to be

able to have an understanding of what's

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going on in the culture around me.

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Uh, take for example, music, if

you're like me, you grew up listening

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to music and you knew kind of

what the top charts were in today.

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If you were to jump on and try to

listen to the Spotify top 10, you

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wouldn't recognize any of them.

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Right.

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So.

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How do we, especially those of us growing

older, more seasoned in our lives.

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Life stages.

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If, if I can put it that way, how do we

stay on top of what's going on in the

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culture, around us, aware of what our

kids are confronting, things like that.

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Couple of resources.

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I want to suggest to you.

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Number one.

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You probably would already assume

or know that I'm going to suggest

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this, but, but Mueller's Dr.

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Mullis briefing podcast, super helpful.

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A big picture.

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Just kind of hitting some

of the key headlines that he

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talks about on that podcast.

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That's Monday through Friday.

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Great resource there for you to check

into, uh, I'd say number two, this one

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may be, is a little bit different for

you to think through, but there's a,

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another podcast resource wretched radio.

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And they do something on Wednesdays

called witness Wednesdays where, uh,

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they, they, uh, get in and onto college

campuses and, and talk to students.

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And this is helpful to know what the

younger people are thinking and what

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they're processing and how they're

thinking about Christianity and, and

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either taught free or they're the holster

or one of his other co-host will be on

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the campus, talking with these students.

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What's a helpful resource.

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I've I've listened to that quite a bit.

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In the past.

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Um, living waters has some similar things

with Ray comforts ministry as well.

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There.

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Uh, so that that's kind of on the

apologetics evangelistic side, kind

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of knowing what's going on there.

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Uh, outside of that, there's a couple

of things that you might consider the

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pour over is a email update that, that

kind of gives you the headlines again.

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Uh, key headlines there and they

will compile that, curate that

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and deliver it to your inbox.

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I don't know how often it comes in.

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I don't think it's daily, but it's

it's most of the week, they're

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pretty consistent in getting

those into the inbox there.

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And they give you a little bit of a

Christian perspective at the end of

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every headline, along with a Bible verse

to think through the headline there.

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So that's called the pour

over, uh, that one's helpful.

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And then just in general, I've recently

found apple news to be helpful.

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Uh, just the app there.

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And I know that's dependent on whether

or not you've got apple or not.

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I assume.

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Our Android brothers and sisters and PC.

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Uh, brothers and sisters have something

equivalent, but, uh, with apple news, it

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curates again, the headlines, top stories.

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Uh, from all the major news sources

there, you can click on them.

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You can read them.

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There is a subscription

associated with it for apple news.

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I want to say it's around

$12 a month, $15 a month.

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I can't remember there, but.

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Uh, this is a good way to know again,

what's going on in our culture and.

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Uh, something like this is not from

a Christian point of view, obviously.

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And so you're going to be getting

headlines from CBS news, CNN wall street

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journal, um, and so forth and so on.

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But it's, it's good for us because

we need to know what's going

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on in the culture around us.

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In fact, I was just listening

to Mueller, uh, this past week.

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And he talked about the fact that

conservatives are far more likely to

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read and, and know the, the liberal.

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Uh, writings and positions out

there then liberal liberals

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are the conservative positions.

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And I think that's a good thing.

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I think we need to be aware of the

way that other people are thinking.

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That's a way for us to be

effective as a church that is

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going to be engaging the culture.

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So.

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Uh, I don't know how much of

that I'm going to talk about on

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Sunday morning during the sermon.

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Maybe this is a little bit redundant.

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If not, if I don't have

time to get to this, then.

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Here's some extra application points

thrown in for free this morning as

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you tune into the daily Bible podcast.

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But with that said, let's get

into our text for the day,

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which is Genesis 41 and 42.

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We are continuing the

story of Joseph here.

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And so in chapter 41, Uh, we

pick back up with Joseph and

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remember Joseph was in prison.

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Joseph had interpreted these dreams

to the cup bearer, and then the

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baker unfortunate for the baker.

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Cause it didn't work out well

for him, but the cup air.

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Uh, remember Joseph said to the cup

air, remember me when you are back with

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Pharaoh and our text opens up in 41.

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One after two whole years.

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Why?

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Because right before that, in chapter

40 end of the chapter, it says.

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The cup air forgot about Joseph.

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So two years in prison, I'm not

going to say languishing because

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God had blessed Joseph in prison.

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And.

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Yeah, it still, it was jail.

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If you asked Joseph, would you

rather be out of jail or in jail?

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I think we find it clear the fact

that he told the cup air, remember me,

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that Joseph didn't want to be there.

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Uh, and so he is in prison for two

years for gotten until chapter 41.

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God sovereignly has it.

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Uh, work out that that Farrow

received these dreams, these

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two dreams that trouble him.

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And this is a common theme that we're

going to find in scripture that dreams

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are given to people in positions of

power that are troubling to them.

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Especially book of Daniel.

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There's a ton of parallels here.

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And so these dreams spark the cup

bear or prompt the cup bearer to

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remember Joseph and he tells Pharaoh,

Hey, there was a guy that I knew in

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prison and he interpreted my dream.

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Maybe he can do the same for you.

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So.

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Joseph is brought, it

says in the text there.

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41 14 brought out of the pit.

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Now that is.

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There's a lot there that is

dripping with significance, right?

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Because remember what

happened with Joseph?

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Very back towards the very beginning

of the story of Joseph's life.

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He told his dreams to his brothers

and his brothers became jealous

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over him and his brothers took him.

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And, uh, they, they threw

him into a system into a pit.

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Right.

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And so he had been in the pit and

really kind of metaphorically, if I

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can put it this way, metaphorically,

Joseph has been in the pit ever since.

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There've been a few high points with

Potiphar's house when he was doing well.

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And before the whole interaction

with Potiphar's wife.

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Part of her and trusted him and made

him second command in his house.

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And so that was kind of a high

point, but then everything

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went down with Potiphar's wife.

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And where did Joseph end up

back in the pit back in jail?

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In prison.

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And so from this point forward 41 14,

when, when Joseph is brought out of

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the pit and I think it's significant

that that's how it's described here.

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He is.

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Uh, really going to be out of

the pit for the rest of his days.

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Uh, this is God kind of in the, in

the sense of what we studied with

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job restoring Joe's fortune, fortune

this towards the end of his life.

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Now God is going to use Joseph and Joseph

is going to be used in a powerful way.

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And Joseph's going to find himself

really in, in the highest position

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possible for anyone other than

Pharaoh to have in Egypt there.

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So this is significant that it

says he was brought out of the pit.

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This is.

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Is more than just the literal pit.

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This is a metaphorical pit that

Joseph is being brought out of.

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And really for the rest of his life.

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And we're going to see how that

unfolds as his life continues.

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But, uh, Joseph goes to Pharaoh.

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Pharaoh tells me his dreams.

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Joseph interprets the dreams for him.

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And what happens here, what Joseph finds

in Pharaoh's dreams is that God has told

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Pharaoh that there is going to be a time

of seven years of abundance followed

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by a time of seven years of famine.

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And the famine is going

to be quite severe.

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In fact, in the dream.

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For example, the skinny cows eat up

the fat cows and it doesn't look like

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the skinny cows have eaten anything.

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So.

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Uh, we're going to find that to be true.

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The famine is going to be severe

and Joseph not only interprets the

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dream, but he then counsels Pharaoh.

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He gives counsel to Pharaoh

as to what he should do.

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This is 33 through 36 of chapter 41.

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And Pharaoh listens to Joseph.

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In fact, he's fully embraced by a Pharaoh.

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Joseph is and raise to second

in command 37 through 57.

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Now in this next section of chapter 41,

Uh, he's given the King's signet ring.

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This would have been massive.

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Basically.

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Pharaoh was saying, Hey,

Joseph, you can act in my name.

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Here's my, my sign, my symbol.

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And so if Joseph declared something

to be so, and, and impress the King's

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signet ring on a seal of wax, then

it was as though Pharaoh himself

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was commanding that to be done.

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So this is massive.

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Joseph has just been in jail and now

he's second in command over all of Egypt.

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And not only that, but now.

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Uh, the Pharaoh gives Joseph a

wife and his wife is a member

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of the priestly class here.

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And this wife is going to be the one that

is going to give birth to a Joseph's sons

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that he's going to have there in Egypt.

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And so Joseph's first son.

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Versus 53 52 is the one that

he's going to call Manasseh.

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And the term Manasseh, the name

Manasseh means he has made me forget.

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He's made me forget apt for what we're

talking about in this chapter, right.

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That God had brought.

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Joseph up out of the pit and restored

him and brought him into this, this

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time of abundance and blessing.

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And now.

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His first born son, Joseph

is going to name Manasseh.

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He has made me forget.

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It's a way of Joseph to praise God.

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Uh, for bringing him to a

place where he was not bitter

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about the things done to him.

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And we're going to see that come

to fruition and fulfillment and

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his interaction with his brothers

in the next couple of episodes.

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But Manasseh, he has made me forget.

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And then next he has another one

named Efraim Efraim in every means.

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God has made me fruitful now.

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Every team is going to be a name that

is a stand-in for the Northern tribes.

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Eventually Efraim is real.

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It's it's going to be a moniker for all

the Northern tribes of Israel there.

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So every God has made me fruitful.

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Not only had he resolve the past.

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But he was also thriving

now in the present.

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And Joseph is recognizing God and

worshiping God, even through the names

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of these children that are given to him.

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And we're going to see

that these children are.

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Ultimately embraced by Jacob

embraced by Israel in the long run.

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So that's chapter 41 chapter 42, then.

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Uh, this chapter is the family reunion

chapter Joseph's brothers due to the

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famine are forced do go down to Egypt.

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And so God is using even the famine

that the feminine was not just

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about getting Joseph out of jail.

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The famine was not just about.

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Uh, getting Joseph to a position of

power in Egypt, the famine was really

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to set up what God was going to do

to form the nation of Israel there in

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Egypt, and then ultimately the Exodus

and everything else coming out of this.

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And so the feminist is going on and

in Canaan where Joseph's family is,

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they don't have any food, but they've

heard the there's food in Egypt.

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So.

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Uh, Jacob Joseph's father sins,

his brothers down to Egypt.

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Uh, to, to get food now.

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He does not allow them to take Benjamin.

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And you can imagine.

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Uh, he's already lost.

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Joseph Benjamin was the other

son of Rachel, his beloved wife.

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And so Jacob is hesitant to put

him in any sort of peril or danger.

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So he holds them back,

holds Benjamin back.

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And so the brothers show

up and Joseph sees them and

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Joseph recognizes them though.

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They don't recognize him.

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And.

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That's not too much of a

stretch for a couple of reasons.

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Number one, they think

Joseph is long gone.

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They're they're convinced.

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If he's not dead, they're sure there's

no way we're going to ever see our

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brother again for the rest of our lives.

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So they're not looking for him.

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Number two.

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Joseph.

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Uh, would've embraced and acclimated and

contextualized to the Egyptian culture.

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So looking at Joseph, it would have been

as though you were looking at a member.

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Excuse me.

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A member of the Egyptian culture there.

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And so they would have looked at this man

standing before them and they may have

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thought, well, he doesn't necessarily look

like an Egyptian completely, but whatever.

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He's just, he's an Egyptian official.

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We're going to just

interact with this guy.

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So Joseph continues this,

this, uh, this route with them.

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Uh, and he accuses them of

spying and he tells them, look.

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Uh, after finding out that

Benjamin was alive and Jacob

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was alive, he says, I'm, I.

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I need your youngest brother here.

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And so he holds Simeon back as

ransom and he sends them back.

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Uh, it gives them food, but he sends

them back and says, I'm not going

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to free your brother Simeon until I

see your younger brother Benjamin.

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And remember Benjamin was.

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Was Joseph's.

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Literal full brother.

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He's the son of his mother.

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And so Joseph has a heart for

him and he desires to see him.

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So, uh, the, the brothers

go back to Jacob.

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They tell him all that it transpired.

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And Jacob is wrecked and not

only wrecked because of the

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request to bring Benjamin back.

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He definitely doesn't want

to do that, but also racked

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because something else happens.

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Another plot twist here.

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Joseph has taken the money that

his brothers had brought to

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buy food and he has placed each

man's money back in his sack.

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So now they're thinking, oh no, it looks

like we've stolen from this powerful

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man in Egypt and we're in trouble.

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And what are we going to do here?

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Uh, this is, this is bad news.

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This is really bad news.

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And, uh, So we're going to see

how this continues to unfold.

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But, uh, one note here, as we think

about Joseph's things from the

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perspective of Joseph's brothers, as I

mentioned, they didn't think that they

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were ever going to see Joseph again.

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And they had certainly

sinned against Joseph.

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Um, they had sinned against God.

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Uh, first and foremost, and they probably

thought to themselves, you know, we've

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kind of gotten away with this, like, yes,

We had to watch our, our father and the

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grief that he felt, but, but really we

feel like we've gotten away with this.

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Well, Let this be a reminder.

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Uh, sin is not always find

found out immediately.

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And, and maybe for some, it's

not going to be found out in our

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lifetime, but believers, sin is

going to be exposed at the Bema seat.

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Uh, there will be a reckoning

for our sin before God.

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And that's part of what drives a.

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A fear of God.

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That is a good thing for a Christian to

have to remember that our no sin ever

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goes unnoticed or forgotten or dealt with.

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And yes, the ultimate punishment and

penalty for our sin is in, has been paid

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at the cross substitutionary atonement,

penal substitutionary atonement.

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Jesus died in our place on the

cross to bear the weight and

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pay the penalty of our sin yet.

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Yet.

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Our sinful actions and

deeds will be known.

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At the Bema seat as Christians

and we will suffer loss.

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Uh, loss being that which could have

been rewarded for our obedience.

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And that will, as, as scripture says,

that that is something that is lost to us.

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It's, it's a negative to our account.

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We're going to feel that.

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And feel it as such.

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And so let us be mindful of that.

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Let Joseph's brothers and what they're

about to go through and the exposure

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of what they did and everything else.

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Let that be a reminder to us,

Christian, that we want to be sure

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that as we live lives, we're living

lives of godliness and holiness.

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We're talking about

that even this morning.

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Uh, in light of the return of Christ,

we're going to talk about that in church.

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That's part of how we need

to engage culture even.

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And so let's be careful knowing that all

sin is ultimately going to be found out.

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All right.

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Well, let's pray.

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And then we'll be done with this

episode of the daily Bible podcasts.

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God, we thank you so much for your word.

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We thank you for, uh, just

that, that merciful, gracious

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reality that sin is exposed.

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Uh, reminded of the writer of Hebrews

saying that you discipline those that

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you love as a father disciplines,

his children, and we discipline

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our children as earthly fathers.

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God.

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We understand because we desire there,

their godliness, their holiness, we

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do desire that they would do right.

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And not do wrong for their own good.

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Uh, and so God, we know that you do

that in your exposure of our senior,

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revealing of are seen as a good thing.

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And I pray that you would do that more.

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This side of eternity, then you would,

uh, allow us to stand before you at

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the Bema seat and CSUN that we've

thought we've covered up exposed.

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And so God help us to be fearful of you

in a, in a sanctifying way, in a way that

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is an expression of our love for you,

even because we don't want the grief.

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Uh, of, of seeing forfeited reward

reward that would have redounded to

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your glory last instead, because.

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Of seeing that is exposed

there at the Bema seat.

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So may we be godly men and women?

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We pray in Jesus name.

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Amen.

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Are y'all keep, bring your Bibles and

tune in again tomorrow for another

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edition of the daily Bible podcast.

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Bye.