Our Family Story

0:00 Aaron, you up until today have been a passive part of our people. But today, you actively took a step as you were walking through the doorway of manhood by becoming a Bar Mitzvah. I've entitled this message Our Family Story, and I'm welcoming you to join the story. Why? Because this story, and I'm gonna come back through and I'm gonna say a few things that you've already said, but this story is perhaps my favorite story in the whole Bible.

0:47 This story doesn't start with your Torah portion. It starts actually four weeks ago, or three, three weeks ago. But your Torah portion starts, uh, excuse me, not your Torah portion, but all of this starts with the life, the generations of Jacob. And it's very interesting because it ends the same way you ended with, and he lived, and Jacob lived. The life of Jacob is a very tumultuous life. When you begin to look at it, in fact, of the, of the, the, our fathers of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Jacob is the one who lives the most tumultuous life.

1:33 Abraham lives a life of righteousness. Isaac lives a life of completeness, at least in, in Jewish understanding, because he lives to be 180. Jacob lives this life that's full of tumult, that's full of strife, that's full of deception, all of these issues that we have as human beings. Jacob lives the remainder of his life in exile. But it's interesting because when he re lives the remainder of his life in exile in Egypt, it's not his first time in exile. It's actually his second time. Earlier in Jacob's life, he goes into exile because he does some things and irritates his brother.

2:22 But how does he end up living in exile in Egypt? Well, the first exile, he irritates his brother. The second exile, he irritates his sons against their brother because he chose a favorite. Now, I don't know if your father has chosen a favorite in your family, but I suspect not because us dads have learned, I hope, a few things from Jacob's life, which is number one, you cannot choose a favorite. You may have one, but you cannot let it be made known because it becomes very problematic at that point among the children.

3:09 He chooses his favorite son, Joseph, and he begins to lift him up above all of his other sons. He gives him special clothing, he gives him special attention to the point that Joseph's brothers begin to hate him. They knew that he was the favorite. They hated him for it. He, maybe he didn't even do as much work as the rest of them. In fact, I can, I can say it's probably safe to assume that because at the beginning of the story, Joseph is at home with Jacob and all the rest of the brothers are out tending the flock. And his dad says, why don't you go check on your brothers? By the way, Aaron, you were the youngest. And if you're ever at home and, and your parents say, go check on your siblings as they're out doing work, don't show up gloating

3:58 because it will just even further entrench their anger against you. They see Joseph coming in the distance. They're beginning to plot against him, and then they figured out, now is the right time for us to get rid of Joseph. And so they, they, they plot to kill him, and one of his brothers says, no, no, let's, no, let's not kill him. Let's just throw him in a well, because that's a lot better. And then another brother says, no, no, no, let's not throw, let's not just throw him in a well, let's sell him because if we kill him, we're not gonna make any money. Let's at least make a little bit of profit. And they sell Joseph often to slavery, or they sell him to, to traitors, who then take him to Egypt

4:45 and sold him as a slave. And Joseph prospers in this role, and he continues to receive the favor of the Lord. But in this role now in slavery, Joseph, as he's prospering in, in and, and continuing in the favor of the Lord, he begins to make, uh, the mistress of the house jealous. And so then she throws some accusations at him. The husband can't do anything but throw him into jail. He then is in jail. And what does he do? He prospers and he gets the favor of the Lord while he's in jail. And while he's there, he, he works his way up to where he's in charge of everyone.

5:33 And there's two servants of Pharaoh who come, they're sent to jail, and they begin to have dreams, and he interprets their dreams for them. And then they're released and he says, Hey, don't forget me, by the way, they go out and they do what? They forget 'em. And they, after a a, a few years, Pharaoh begins to have a dream and Pharaoh can't get understand what's going on. And Pharaoh says, I need somebody to tell me the meaning of my dream. And all of the people in Egypt can't tell him the meaning of his dream. And all of a sudden, one of these guys, the other one lost his head in the process. All of a sudden, one of these guys says, oh, Pharaoh was a guy in jail with me. I don't know if he's still there or not.

6:18 We can call up and see if the jailer still has him. So they call, they get Joseph, they get Joseph released, and Joseph comes and interprets this dream of Pharaohs. And in the process now, Joseph is receiving, uh, favor in the eyes of not just God, but now man, up until this point, it seems like he's not been, uh, receiving favor from those around him, uh, just from God. You know, because God's favor looks like this. You get your brothers to betray you. You get your, your master's wife to, to try to seduce you, and then you go to jail.

7:04 That's what God's favor looks like. I'm, I'm only partially being sarcastic, um, because sometimes it does look that way to us. We don't see beyond our physical circumstance to see what the favor of the Lord is actually doing. What, what the favor of the Lord is beginning to guide in a direction that he has predetermined. But for that to happen, Joseph's character has to be molded and created, and he has to be able to bear great burdens with a high level of character. Well, the way you get high character is you go through lots of trials, lots of problems.

7:49 It's not the easiest way to build character, but it's really the only way to build character that endures. So he's now receiving favor in both the eyes of God and Pharaoh. And Pharaoh says, you know what? I'm just gonna promote you. You be in charge of everything. The only thing you're not in charge of is me and my household. You go be you go be in charge of everything. And Joseph says, okay. So he goes around Egypt and he's gathering all of the grain. Why? Because the dream that he interpreted for ferret was that there was gonna be great famine after years of great prosperity. So he's going around gathering grain, building these grainery to store up the grain,

8:36 and then famine hits and famine doesn't hit just Egypt. It hits the world in particular, it hits Canaan. And so Jacob's family begins to feel the stress of not having food. And they hear, Jacob hears that there's grain down in Egypt. And so he sends his sons down to Egypt. They show up. By the way, I'm just, I'm giving you all of this story because it's, it's important for the end. They show up, they stand before Joseph. Joseph recognizes his brothers. They stand before him. They don't recognize him. They bow down to him and they say, we need some food.

9:21 And Joseph sets up a series of tests and trials for his brothers to see if they are still the same men that they were when they threw him in a well and then sold them to some traders. Or if they're different now, if perhaps they've changed. So he goes through these series of trials. You, you know them. Everybody else knows 'em if you've been paying all attention to the Torrah portions. But it's important to remember that they don't recognize Joseph. Joseph has become the savior of the gentile world, and they don't recognize him. He's not recognized by his own brothers.

10:13 In last week's Torah portion, I mentioned it on Shabbat, but Judah, when, when Joseph puts this final trial about selecting Benjamin to stay with him and sending the brothers back to their father without the next beloved son, Judah finally exhibits a change in his character. Judah stands up and he says he stands up. And he says, by the way, it's important to remember Judah's the one who said, let's sell him and make some money. Judah now stands up and says, don't take our father's favorite son,

11:02 rather, let take me. Let me go in his stead and you release my brother to go back. Otherwise it will send my father to the grave. You see, two things have happened here. Judah has exhibited some character and owned up to his mistakes. And so what Joseph notices is that the way they treat each other as brothers is different now. But the second thing, and I, and I wonder if this is actually even more important to Joseph, is that he cares about what his father, what's going to happen to his father. Because in the beginning they said, you know what? Let's just take a robe. We'll dip it into blood.

11:47 We'll, let my dad draw the conclusion that his favorite son has been, has been murdered by animals, which in fact, proverbially it was. But now he caress enough for his father that he stands in defense of his brother and says, let me take his place because if he stays, my father will die and that I can't handle. He chooses to accept this punishment on behalf of his brother, and he chooses to honor his father in the same choice. And enough is enough. Joseph can't hold it back.

12:35 Joseph just begins to break, and he begins to weep, and he sends the rest of the Egyptians out of the room. Now, you can just imagine as his brother, well, they don't know he is their brother yet. You can just imagine you're with the ruler of Egypt, perhaps. Let's put it this way. You're with the President of the United States with all of the Secret Service and everybody, and he sends everybody out of the room and you're like, uhoh, what's about to happen? There's no witnesses now. And he breaks and he says, I am Joseph, your brother. And they, they, they do what any of us would do. They take a step back,

13:21 especially as they begin to recognize what could possibly happen if he's been harboring, uh, some resentment now for two decades nearly. They take a step back and he goes, no, no, no, no. Come here. Draw closer. I'm Joseph, your brother. And he begins to explain to them that what happened. They intended for ill, but God has intended for good. In other words, they didn't want him around, but God needed them to be around. And in order for that to happen, Joseph had to go through all of this suffering to keep the rest of the house

14:06 of Israel near in this week's Torah portion, as you mentioned, Jacob's life is drawing to an end. You talked about Joseph bringing his two sons to Jacob and Jacob saying, these two are mine. Now it's interesting because Jacob finally gets his way in the fact that Joseph gets a double inheritance because now his sons have taken up and, and the two of them, them take a full inheritance each.

14:56 But what's interesting, and you talked about it, is Joseph brings them and puts them in front of his father on purpose, his right hand on the youngest, and his left hand on the oldest, so that his father, who's on the opposite side, would put his right hand on the oldest and his left hand on the youngest. Why? Because the right hand is, is where the blessing is. So it's very interesting because Joseph presents them in a manner as if he's blessing the youngest first, but he expects his father to do the opposite. And his father, like most fathers will do, throws a change up right at the end

15:42 and puts his hands across him like this. And Joseph argues with him, dad, dad, don't do that. You're doing it wrong. I tell you how many times I've told my dad that he's done doing it wrong. Not often publicly, but Dad, you're doing it wrong. Your hand is supposed to be here, not here. No, no, my son. I know what I'm doing. And then all of a sudden recognize, just as you mentioned, that this is the first set of brothers to live peacefully with one another. Not just in ma in, in a, in a, um, in a time of blessing. But when one is being slighted for the other.

16:29 You see, when, when one of us deserves a blessing, but somebody else gets it, it begins to awaken some, some, uh, inner emotions where we get a little bit upset. But right here, it's silence. There's nothing in the text that it all says that they were at odds with one another. In fact, we've seen Cain and Abel, we've seen, uh, Isaac and Ishmael, we've seen Jacob and Esau, we've seen Joseph and his other brothers, all of them. There's some real nasty relationships going on. Uh, but we get here to these two

17:15 and these two seemingly love one another to the point where they're willing to accept a lesser blessing on behalf of their, of their other brother. Jacob then blesses each of his sons, as you mentioned. And this is even the portion that you read. And each son, actually each son's blessing was different. And it's unique, and I could talk about those blessings the rest of the day, but we're not going to, because that's not the point. After that, Jacob closes his eyes and dies.

18:02 He breathes his last. And when he does, all of the brothers give, get very nervous because now Jacob is dead. And perhaps in their minds, Jacob was the one restraining Joseph from any acts of retribution. And so the brothers go, it's, it is interesting. I I I presume that they're making it up because they say, listen, dad told us before he died that you had to forgive us. You know, dad told us that. He told us to tell you. I mean, how often do you hear that?

18:49 As, as siblings dad told me to come and tell you. In fact, that's exactly what Joseph did. But they come and Dad told us to tell you, and he and Joseph says, look, you guys, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. And, and Joseph recognizes that God had a plan of redemption from the beginning. It didn't make him resentful to his brothers. It didn't make him resentful to God. This dude has undergone persecution after persecution after persecution, and still he remains. And he says, what everyone else meant for,

19:34 meant for ill or for evil. God has meant for good. In fact, now we can see that redemption has been brought to all of my family because of the things that I had to go through. In other words, God has a plan and he wants us to join in with him. So in that light, Aaron, God has a plan. It's evident not just a plan for you, but he has a plan of redemption for his people, which is very evident to me through this whole story as a,

20:21 as a, a foreshadowing of what Yeshua would do for us. God has a plan of redemption and deliverance for his people. It has never changed and it never will. But the question is, do we as Jewish people recognize our deliverer when he appears before us? Do we recognize him even though he looks like a foreigner? He sounds like a foreigner. He dresses like a foreigner. Do we know for certain that that redeemer is Yeshua, our brother? That's God's broad plan.

21:10 But Aaron, God has a little plan just for you. Not little, it's a plan just for you. But Aaron, here's the thing about us human beings, and really, I titled this message our family story. It's, it's really a problem in our family. I think I said this joke last week, but Jewish people are just like every other nation, just more so. So all people have this ability to be a little bit headstrong, uh, how shall I say, to want to determine their own destiny, to want to be the driver, the pilot that sets themselves their, their own course, their own history.

21:55 And we don't really want to depend upon anyone else, but really the whole challenge, and in this, in this case also with Joseph and his brothers, the whole challenge is really, are we willing to bend our will to match his? You see, because when God has his will set, it's not gonna change. What it does is it requires us to bend, to shift, to change, and really it requires us to diminish. But that process of diminishing, of bending, of shifting is a painful process. And some of us, it's more painful than for others. Why?

22:42 Because some of us are a little more headstrong than others. So Aaron, are you bending your will to match the Lord's will for your life? Because like the brothers in the story we're invited into the family story, you've taken your first steps today of entering into the family story. Your parents did it for you as a baby. Up until now, you've been, your parents have been making decisions for you. But the bar mitzvah is where you begin to make decisions yourself. You're not quite an adult, but you're no longer a child. And so now is where you begin to bend your will to match what the Lord has in store for you. If we don't bend our will to his,

23:31 we risk departing from his will and ending up completely outside of his will. It may feel good for a little bit, but in the end it's very painful. So my final point for you, Aaron, is this, how do you respond when you are slighted by a sibling or another person? Do you get jealous and try to remove that person from the picture like Joseph's brothers did? Or do you leave a path to reconciliation like Joseph did with his brothers? A wise man once told me in every conversation

24:17 and interaction with another person, there is something difficult or challenging going on in that person's life that I have no idea is going on. And so we have to be willing to sacrifice a little bit of our pride so that we don't get upset or injured by something that's going on in someone else's life when they choose to snap at us. Listen, I'm just telling you, it's our reaction that we can control. The reality is we so often react and don't let the filter that is in between our brain and our mouth catch it.

25:02 If you can get that filter to work a little bit more often, you'll save yourself a lot of headaches. It is always good to exercise mercy and grace and compassion to others, especially when you feel that they're not exercising it to you. So Maslow to Aaron on becoming a Bar Mitzvah today. You've done a fantastic job. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

26:27 In the name of our Messiah, Yeshua Shalom Ma Aaron.