From Ancient Paradigms to Modern Toxicity: Unearthing the Truths of Joseph's Family

What's up, my good people? This is your boy, cj Moneyway. Thank you for tuning in to the Moneyway Show. This week we're going to be talking about Joseph the Dreamer. This is part two of it. Last week, a couple of weeks ago, we heard it from TD Jakes Joseph Tears. So this week we're going to hear from another perspective where we're talking about basically the brothers and the dysfunctional family that Joseph had, as I alluded to in my intro a few weeks ago. This was a dysfunctional family, and so I brought somebody along with me today to listen to him today because I think that he brings it from another perspective about the story of Joseph that I hadn't actually heard before, but it was some things that I was feeling about the brothers myself, as I alluded to in my intro to Joseph the Dreamer, and so that's good until this week. Man, we're Pastor David and he's going to be talking about the dysfunctional family of Joseph.

Then his brothers went to feed their father's flock in Shechem and Israel said to Joseph are not your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, I will send you to them. So he said to him here I am. Then he said please go see if it is well with your brothers and well with the flocks, and bring back word to me. So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron and he went to Shechem. Now a certain man found him and there he was wandering in the field and the man asked him saying what are you seeking? And he said I'm seeking my brothers. Please tell me where they are feeding their flocks. And the man said they have departed from here, for I heard them say let us go to Dothan. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan. Last week, when we began a series taking a look at the life of Joseph and in particular how the life of Joseph points towards the person and the work of Jesus Christ, we saw that Joseph came from a very messed up family. I mean sometimes we use the phrase dysfunctional family. Joseph's family was extremely dysfunctional. Things were very messed up and part of the problem was was that when you have one man who has 13 children from four different wives. There's going to be a lot of sibling rivalry, especially when you pick out one of those sons and so obviously make him the favorite over the others. So now we see that, joseph's brothers. Now I'm going to count his brothers as 10. There were 12 total, but Joseph is back at home and I'm going to assume though I don't really know that perhaps Benjamin, the other favorite son, was at home. So let's just say there were 10 brothers of Joseph out managing the livestock. These were agricultural people and a big part of their business was to manage huge flocks of sheep and goats numbering in the thousands, and that was sort of a nomadic lifestyle. You had to take them from place to place so that they could good ground to graze on In any regard. The brothers are out doing their thing, feeding the flocks. And what does Jacob, the father of Joseph, say? He says to him verse 14, please go and see if it is well with your brothers and well with the flocks. The first thing I want you to notice Joseph's brothers are out doing the hard work, sleeping on the ground under tents, dealing with all the sheep, all the difficulty. Joseph is back at home. He's not out with his brothers doing the hard work. Then when his father wants somebody to check up on his brothers, to supervise them, to inform on their bad behavior, who does he send Joseph? And if that's not enough, look at the phrasing there in verse 14. Please go and see if it is well with your brothers. And look. I grew up in a good home with a loving mother and a loving father. But I don't ever remember my parents telling me please, when I went to go do the chores no, it wasn't David, could you please go pick up the dog mess in the backyard? It didn't work like that, it was just do it. And again, that was a loving, good home. But do you get the idea? Doesn't it seem strange to you that Joseph is so favored in his father's eyes that the father says please to him to go do it and he sends him off on a rare errand? That's going to put him in a supervisory role over his 10 other brothers who already hated him.

I had to start right here for a second man, because it's one thing for your enemies to wanna kill you. It's another thing for your friends that may wanna do something to you, do some type of harm to you. It's another thing if your cousins wanna do something to you, or your uncles or your auntie. But, man, when you talking about having your brothers, your brothers wanna kill you, your brother wanna kill you. Man, I got to be a hurting feeling to just walk around and have this type of thing on you all the time, knowing that your brothers hate you to the point where they wanna kill you. So you know, I know we talking about the brothers right now, but I'm just going back thinking about how Joseph just felt that, knowing that his brothers disliked him that much, that they wanted to offer.

You got the wheels turning. This is not gonna end out well. Verse 18, now, when they saw him afar off, even before they came near them, they conspired against him to kill him. Do you have the picture? There's Joseph walking from afar off. The brothers are there with the thousands of sheep and goats. They're in Dothan. It was about a 10 or 15 mile walk from Shechem to Dothan. There they are in the midst of it. They're all there together. They see him coming afar off and they say there's Joseph. We hate that God. Our father Jacob has sent Joseph to us to inspect us, to supervise us, to tell us what to do. He's gonna walk around with a clipboard and a cup of coffee and tell us what we're doing wrong, and then he's gonna go back and rat us out to dad. We hate this guy. That's what they said, seeing him from afar off coming. And then we read the words that are shocking in verse 18. And, ladies and gentlemen, I want you to feel how shocking this is. Sometimes we read the Bible and we kinda go on automatic pilot. They conspired against him to kill him. This is their own brother. They didn't say you know what, let's bully him really good. Let's give him an Indian burn. He will never forget the troubled relationship between Joseph and his brothers. But do you realize how bizarre it is that they'll say let's kill him? Not only because of what it would do against Joseph, but they knew that it would be like a dagger in the heart of their father. We see the depths of the hatred and the dysfunction in this family and we're shocked. Now the other thing I want to point out before I go into verse 19,. When we see how shocking their sin is, we understand that the sin was in their heart before it was ever acted out. Do you understand that our sin problem begins in the heart? Sometimes we think our sin problem is all about our behavior and look, the behavior is a big deal. I'm not saying that we ignore the behavior, but your behavior has a cause that comes from the inside. Christian transformation is not just about changing your behavior. It's about having Jesus Christ changes from the inside out. We just don't need to act in a different way. We need Jesus to make us different people. And again, I'm not ignoring the place of behavior that we got to focus on it. There's a time and a place for that, but don't miss the inside that it's possible for somebody to look fine on the outside but be corrupt on the inside. But even when you see somebody who displays bad stuff on the outside, it's because there is corruption on the inside. That's how it was with Joseph's brothers.

Let's just start right there for a minute and talk about the heart and what comes out of the heart, for the Bible says that. So, above all, god, the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from their flows the issues of life. And I say that to say that. Let's just take, for example, my man who was the face of subway. Who would have ever thought? On the outside, everything looked good he on commercials, he doing this, he doing that, he losing weight. But in the basement, this man is a pedophile. He's sitting up there with computers, praying on little kids as a football player. His father was a star football player in the NFL. I think he played for one of these colleges not too long ago. And here it is. He's a five star quarterback at a college. But then when he go in this dorm room, you see what I'm saying On the outside he looked good, but on the inside there's some issues with him, and so when he go to his dorm room, he's selling videotape, porn tapes and little kids. So therefore, it's times, man, where you look good on the outside and everything seems straight. I mean, I might catch some flak for this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. The download brothers Good looking man, nice car, smell, good, say all the right things and here it is. You know, maybe one day your man and cheated on you, okay, and so I always think me personally, I think that women don't cheat just to cheat. Women cheat to replace you, and that's just my thought. If you got a different opinion, I'll let your boy, cj, moneyway on the moneyway show and we can debate this. But so that's just say she goes out, see this night looking guy driving this nice looking car, got a nice job and everything, and she goes out and has sex with him. But she don't know that he don't just like having sex with women, he has sex with me too. And so you're not completely broke up from the woman. And so therefore, she comes to you and now y'all have intercourse, and not it's thing that he may have had, it didn't trickle down to you. Look good on the outside, but all messed up on the inside. And so therefore, that's our innermost being mad at some things that's going on within us, that we not thinking straight. And, like he said, we need God to change us from the inside, not from the outside in but from the inside out. I can look terrible on the outside but, like TD J said, I got that better angel in me that even if I'm looking down on the outside, I'm feeling good on the inside because I know who's walking with me, because I'm protected. My heart, because out of the heart comes the issues of life and out of the issues of life, man is some things that we have to deal with at certain times, that we can come into a crossroads and we can mess other people up. You can mess other people up with what's in your heart. You can mess up a family for what's in your heart. You can mess up your wife. You can mess up your children. You can mess up your whole household just because what's in your heart Our kids. They go out and do stuff, they go out and do this and this and that and they not think consequences, they not thinking of the issues of life and how it not only affects them if they go to jail, not only affects them if they go out there and get killed. It affects the whole family, a family man. So protect your heart with all that you got. Man. He say tie this around your neck, because these are the issues of life.

Verse 19,. Then they said to one another look, this dreamer is coming, come there, for let us now kill him and cast him into some pit, and we shall say some wild beast has devoured him. We shall see what becomes of his dreams. So his brothers mocked him as the dreamer. In a sense, joseph brought this upon himself by the foolish way that he spoke of his God-given dreams before his brothers. But leaving that aside, notice the depravity of the brother's hearts. Not only did they initially say let's kill him, now they're plotting it, and they're already plotting the cover-up. Okay, so we kill him, we tear him limb from limb, we club him to death. What do we do then? Oh, we can tell dad that a wild beast ate him. Yeah, that'll work. They're planning the cover-up already. It's one thing, isn't it, to have sin in your heart, then it's another thing to think about doing it. Then it's another thing to say you'll do it, and then it's a thing, on top of that, to already start plotting your cover-up. You gotta break this, saying you gotta break this cycle and say, no, we gotta stop, we can't go down this road. But to me, that's not even the worst part about verses 19 and 20. Look at what they say in verse 20. We shall see what will become of his dreams. Now there's a lot of talk about Joseph being a dreamer and there's kind of a standard way that preachers take the life of Joseph. I hope nobody misunderstands you. I'm not trying to speak against any other preacher or anything, but just I just kind of got in touch with it this week. In my own mind there's an approach to the life of Joseph that says the life of Joseph shows us how to fulfill your dreams. God's given you a dream and Joseph will show you how to fulfill it. The relationship of the life of Joseph is not about you fulfilling your dreams. It's just not Matter of fact. The life of Joseph wasn't really about him fulfilling his dreams. When Joseph was in the coat of many colors, enjoying his father's favor, with the clipboard and the coffee cup, bossing around his brothers, he was living his dream. He already had it. But I'll tell you this about Joseph Joseph never dreamed of being a slave. Joseph never dreamed of being falsely accused of rape. He never dreamed of being left in prison to rot. He never dreamed of being the second most powerful man in Egypt. He never dreamed of saving the world from failure. He never dreamed of being a family man, but God's dream for Joseph was better and greater than any dream that Joseph could have come up with by himself. Here's the problem with focusing on your dream for your life. God's dream is probably even bigger and better for you than your own dream for your own life. Now, please, it's very important that nobody misunderstands it. I don't mean to imply that if you want something in your life, then it's automatically wrong. No, god often builds those desires in our heart and in our life. Sometimes it can be totally consistent with calling and purpose and everything that he gives us. But the important point is this the important point is realize that I can't live my life focused on fulfilling my dreams. I have to seek God and say God, what is your dream and your plan for my life? And somewhere along the line, that may mean dying to aspects of my dream. What's the price of getting this wrong? The price of getting this wrong is that you can have a completely wrong perception of the Christian life, and when I say completely, I mean completely. Let me explain to you how Some people perceive the Christian life. Something like this I have my story, let's say the movie of my life. I'm the writer, I'm the director, but it hasn't gone so well. Movie of my life stinks. So you know what I need? I need to bring Jesus into the movie of my life Now, not as the lead actor. Come on, that's me. But Jesus man, you're great, you can be best supporting actor in the movie of my life, and you know what this is gonna make this movie a hit. This movie is gonna come up just exactly like that, because I invited Jesus into be the best supporting actor of the movie of my life. That is not Jesus' plan for your life. You know what Jesus says Rip up the script, lay it down, and I want you to be a player in my great plan. I want you to have a place in my great purpose. Jesus says let me be the writer, let me be the director, and I will show you things of yourself and in yourself and use you to a capacity that you never thought possible. You're going to see that it's so much greater than what you ever dreamed for yourself. But it'll never happen as long as you're fixated on your dreams and make Jesus just a means, just a way to accomplish your dreams in life.

I kind of get what he's saying here. It's like we make Jesus second fiddle to what we want to do or what we think is best for our life. And so, therefore, I did this, I got this degree, I got this education, I got my masters, I got my bachelor's, I got my doctor and degree. Everything that we have done has not been in it of ourselves that we have done it. Everything that we have done, everything that we have gotten, has been because of God, has been because of Jesus Christ. He has opened up a door for everything that we have done. You have not done nothing of yourself. You can't. You can't wake yourself up If he don't breathe breath until your nostrils in the morning. You will not wake up. If somebody that didn't wake up today, if somebody that didn't wake up yesterday, if somebody that's not going to wake up tomorrow because he didn't breathe breath until they nostril. So you can't do nothing of your own. Ain't no? Alarm clock woke you up. Your wife didn't wake you up. Your son or your daughter didn't wake you up. Your mama didn't wake you up. Your daddy didn't wake you up. God woke you up. But we always want to play God as if, like he said, like he's a role player in our life. No, he is the author and the finisher of our life. He knows our beginning, he knows everything that we're going to go through in the middle and he knows our end. We don't know that. We don't know our beginning, we don't know what's going to transpire in our life, we don't know what tomorrow's going to bring. They say don't boast and brag about tomorrow, because you never know what a day will bring. We don't know what tomorrow's going to bring, bro. Ask some of them cats that went out there and had a car accident. Ask some of them cats that just went in the bank and then somebody came in there and shot the bank up. Ask somebody that went in the grocery store and then somebody, a mad shooter, come in there and shoot up the grocery store. They did not know that when they went in that grocery store that day that they would not come back out alive. So you don't know what tomorrow will bring. We plan stuff and we plan vacations years apart. We plan graduations. We plan, but we don't know what tomorrow will bring. Man, we just don't know and we not thankful enough and we not mindful enough for God. But the Bible say thank you, lord, for being mindful of me. He was mindful of you today, he was mindful of you on yesterday and pray to God that he be mindful of you tomorrow. But we don't know and we can't say that it's just age that you dine of old age, man. There's people that's dying of all ages right now, from all types of things. Man, we just cannot say that God is not the most viable aspect or viable point in our life, because he is. He helps me to do everything that I do, he's the author and the finisher, he's the beginning and the ending, he's the alpha and omega. It's not me, I can't do nothing of myself, nothing of myself. So we have to thank God that when he make a way out of no way when I didn't know how I was going to pay my rent, but he made a way. When I didn't know how I was going to pay my car note, but he made a way. When I ain't know how I was going to pay my kids tuition, he made a way. God makes a way, man, out of no way, but we think that we do. And then so, when he makes a way out of no way, we get so to the point where we can't even say thank you. We don't even say thank you, knowing that we don't know how we got it, knowing that we don't know how we got out of that situation. But it just said, instead of saying thank you Lord, thank you Jesus, thank you for getting me out of this, we just go back and tell somebody oh yeah, I did this, I did that, or I didn't know how I was going to do this. But Billy, he loaned me $1500 and got me out of it. Well, who gave Billy the $1500? Who gave Billy enough to have more than enough to give to you? Think about that. God is our supply. It ain't my job. My job ain't my source, my momma ain't my source, my wife ain't my source, my children ain't my source, but it's God who is my source. God is my everything, he is your everything. Whether you want to believe it or not, god is all to all. Hey, I just had to come back to this topic for a second because I did this recording earlier. I went to work, I was reading and I came across an article that said that a man meets a woman on one of these dating apps and so, on a dating app. They hook up, get together. He takes the woman to his mother's house, locks her in the basement, keeps her against her will, beats her sexually, assault her. Now he's going to jail. And I've just brought that up because a lot of times it goes back to what I was saying earlier about how things may look good on the outside but it's not good on the inside. Some people out here crazy. So women, please stop meeting these Negroes on the dating sites because they'd sit up there and they're flogging, acting like they got money, acting like they drive at nice cars or whatnot. This dude was staying in his mother's house. He had the girl in the basement. But see, sometimes we get enticed by. Oh, you know, they want to go smoke, let's go get some white out. He got some weed, he got some Hennessy or the other little drink that y'all drink or whatever it is. But anyway, hey, man, we got to stop being enticed by what we see and what appears to look good, meaning somebody on the dating site. Ain't, ain't, come on now. I'm not saying that don't nobody make a fine love on the dating sites or whatever, whatever. But come on, man, come on now. Come on, come on when this dude for to take you to his mama's house. He ain't even got his own crib. He ain't even got his own crib. So everything that he probably had on his profile he was false flag. It wasn't real. What was in him Wasn't real. Come on, brothers, man, what's up with y'all cats man Coming out here getting these women and then beating them down? Man, y'all beating up women, bro, y'all beating up man. It's a soft man, and this is not the only occasion. These cats out here got money driving the cars, getting the woman and then they killing the chicks. Man, they killing the chicks and then burying them in fields and stuff. Bro, these ain't stories that I'm telling man, this is stuff that's for real. Y'all is out here killing women. Man, y'all supposed to be making love to women, not killing them. Y'all cats got a problem nowadays, bro, y'all don't even want something for next to you. You cats too busy want something hard next to you, because that's the only thing that you can want. When you got a woman, and the only thing that you can do is beat her and sexually assault her, I think you would sit there and false flags, man, y'all gotta keep it real, man. I ain't got off course a little bit with the story of Joseph man, because I'm tripping. This article just blew my mind, man, and I'm sitting back and I'm seeing how you guys sit out here and y'all operate, man. Y'all operate like women nowadays. I'm for real. We talking about dysfunctional. We talking about mental health. A lot of you cats, you want to blame mental health on your dysfunction, man. You want to blame your daddy for everything. You want to blame your mama for everything. Now you cats need to grow up and start looking at yourself and start holding yourself accountable. Bro, that's what's real. You need to start holding yourself accountable. When you do things that's not right. Then you need to sit there and take accountability for your own actions, bro, instead of trying to blame everybody else for what you indeed, or what you're going through, you put yourself in that situation. Then nobody else puts you in that situation. Then nobody make you do whatever you do. Then nobody make you pull that trigger to go shoot somebody. Then nobody make you beat that woman up. Man, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, because I got a series when I spoke as a child. It's coming at the beginning of the next year, man, so I want to get ahead of myself, but some of you cats need to grow up, man. Some of you cats need to grow up. I was one of them, cats, and I learned through life lessons, maturity, that I needed to grow up, and so it's no knock on anybody that's young or whatever. We all, at some point, man, need to grow up. We need to put childish behavior behind us, bro, and a lot of you grown cats are childish man, and a lot of you women are sitting here and y'all accepting this childish behavior because y'all childish too. You got a childish mindset yourself, and so two childish people, y'all acting like kids instead of being adults For real. Y'all allowing this to go on. You allowing to get beat on because he paying your rent or he paying your car note. So you sitting around here wearing sunglasses because you got two black eyes looking like a raccoon, you allowing this and you sitting out here hey, this is the money way show. How, let your boy CJ money way. I don't know what topic I'm going to be on in two weeks. Hey, just get at your boy, but know that I'm going to be on this childish behavior at the beginning of the year. This, your boy CJ money way. I'm out of here.