Dysfunctional Families vs. God’s Grace

A Sermon series on the Life of Joseph

Gen. 37

After finishing the series on the book of Galatians, I will be moving to the OT and going with you on a journey through the life of Joseph. Our annual motto is “A Renewing Mind”. This was a reality for Joseph who was raised in strange family circumstances. One can easily wonder if anything can come out of this mess.

I love my family. Sometimes I miss the days when I was growing up with my brothers and sister. Being the youngest among my siblings, I enjoyed some advantages. Yet I always questioned my brothers or sister about why they did not take me with them to the movies or with their friends. Anyway, overall I enjoyed my relationship with them. As I am getting older, I see how I have inherited from my parents certain good and bad characteristics. For the good ones, I am grateful; but for the bad ones, I wonder if I can change them. The world tells us we cannot change them; this is the way we were born. But the Bible teaches us that things can be changed and transformed. Joseph’s story is one of those stories.

Throughout my years of ministry I have often felt sad to see that family relationships can also become very bitter. I often helped brothers and sisters to reconcile. Their disputes are usually are about money, property, inheritance, and misunderstandings- you said he said and so on. I have seen fights when I had to literally stand between them so they would not hit each other.

Joseph’s family was very dysfunctional. You need to understand in those days polygamy was permissible, which made family life even more complicated. To examine how in the world Jacob’s family ended up this way, we need to go back.

-In Gen 12 we read that God commanded Abraham to leave his land and move on to a new place. “I will make you into a great nation,” God promised him, and Abraham obeyed and left. We learn a lot from the life of Abraham. We also learn from his mistakes. When Abraham, or Abram at that time, went to Egypt with his wife Sarah, he lied to the Pharaoh’s officials saying Sarah was his sister. Pharaoh took Sarah as his wife, and a plague hit pharaoh’s household. Pharaoh said to Abraham: “What have you done to me?"

Do you think Abraham learned his lesson?

- In Gen 20 Abraham does the same mistake again. This time he visits Abimelech, the king of Gerar. Now Sarah was 90 years old and beautiful. Abraham lied one more time and said Sarah was his sister. Trouble came to Abimelech, the poor king who took Sarah. God is merciful. God visited this king and warned him to give Sarah back to Abraham. He did. Next morning Abimelech said to Abraham, “What have you done to us?” You think Abraham hopefully learned to trust the Lord. Let me tell you that another person did learn; Abimelech learned his lesson (later we will see how).

-You see that Abraham and Sarah did not trust God to give them a child. They even laughed when they heard that God was blessing them with a new child. Isaac was born.

Why did Abraham lie twice? We do not see any danger. Did anyone threaten him? There was no reason to do this. I come from the Middle East and I understand that men are very protective towards their wives. There is a huge cultural difference between the West and East. Although this was happening in the Middle East and 3000 years ago, it is still not justifiable. Abraham acted out of fear, which was in his head. We can call it Paranoia. He acted out of fear and not faith.

We fall in the same trap.