Chapel of the Lake
Overcoming Jealousy
Welcome to Chapel of the Lake in Lake St. Louis, Missouri. The chapel family is a multi-generational community of believers who gather weekly to worship and explore God's Word as we grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ. Join us now as Pastor Keith Spa opens the scriptures. Well, good morning, family. I encourage you to take your Bibles this morning and open to the book of Genesis chapter 37. As we continue last week, we started a series looking at the life of Joseph. Genesis chapter 37. It's not fair. Mom and Dad, if you've ever had, if you've got kids, whether they're little or older, you've heard that before, right? It's not fair. All of us have heard it from kids. All of us said it when we were kids, and a lot of us still say it sometimes while we're adults. It's not fair. We'll say it because somebody got treated better than we get treated. Maybe we say it because somebody is better looking than we are. Somebody's in better shape. Somebody has more and better stuff than we do. People like them better than they do us. We know how it goes. We look at it and we just say it's not fair. When I was said that as a kid, I would often hear from my parents something you probably heard, "It's not fair!" And they would say, "Life isn't fair or the world isn't fair." Yeah. And I said that to my kids on many occasions. I like years ago. I remember seeing this. I dug it up. The great theologian Calvin complained to his dad, "It's not fair." And his dad said, "The world isn't fair." And Calvin goes off saying, "I know. But why isn't it ever unfair in my favor?" We feel that way sometimes. And when things aren't fair, we start to get a little envious, a little jealous of those to whom are receiving all those wonderful benefits of the unfair world tilted in their favor. Jealousy sets in. You know the Bible calls jealousy a sin along with its cousin envy. And there are no small sins in Galatians chapter 5 just before the apostle Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit. It says there, "Now the works of the flesh are evident." Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, and then right in there, jealousy. Fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warned you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Right in there with really rotten sins, there's jealousy and envy. I remember when I was a teenager and back in the 70s, drugs were beginning to be a big deal and they started all the pushes to try to keep kids away from drugs. And there's a lot of talk about those things and they would call marijuana a gateway drug because using marijuana often led to, frequently led to, use of harder and more dangerous drugs. As I was thinking about this, I realized that jealousy and envy are gateway sins. They are sins which are inner. They are internal and they frequently lead to the outworking of more and very destructive sins. James says it this way in James chapter 3, "For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice." Jealousy and envy are not minor things. They lead to the outworking of all kinds of vile practices. That's the case as we come here to the life of Joseph. Jealousy and envy in his family set in motion a course of sins which wreaked havoc in the family and they put Joseph on the receiving end of all kinds of trials and sufferings as we'll see in the weeks ahead. There was jealousy in Joseph's house. Verse 11, look down, verse 11 here in chapter 37 it says, "And his brothers were jealous of him." So you might wonder why. Why were Joseph's brothers jealous of him? There are a number of things we see here in this passage. We'll go back. We're beginning in verse 2 today. We looked last week in chapter 1 where he pops on the scene and we went back and we looked at the very sordid background of this incredibly godly and good man and yet he came out of a background that's a mess. We saw that God's grace is better and is more powerful than our backgrounds and he can help us to overcome our background. Our background is not a barrier to our future. It's also not an excuse for our future. But here we find that right in his household jealousy is a big deal. Let's find out why. Verse 2, "These are the generations of Jacob, talking about his kids now. Joseph, being 17 years old, was pastoring the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpa, his father's wives, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father." Now, Israel, that's another name for Jacob, by the way. Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons because he was the son of his old age and he made him a robe of many colors. Several things there to notice why there is jealousy in the house. First is Jacob's favoritism. We read there in verse 3 that Israel, Jacob, loved Joseph more than any others of his sons. We go to verse 4, we see the same phrase again. "But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him." Jacob's favoritism towards Joseph was so prominent, it was so evident that it stated twice here in our text that Jacob loved Joseph more than any of the other sons. Favoritism, treating someone as special and treating others as less important, less valuable, it's a damaging thing in any relationships, but especially in a family. Favoritism, prejudice. The favoritism was obvious to all the kids from early on. As soon as Joseph came into the picture, it was obvious. We can just see one very clear, striking example. If we go back to one of the stories from last week but to some stuff we really didn't point out, when Jacob and the family have left Padammaram up at the north where they've been living really their whole life as a family, they were on their way down to Canaan, the land of Israel, because God had said it's time for you to go back. So 20 years after Jacob had gone to the north, he's gotten married, he's got a family, he's headed south, and he's about to run into his brother Esau, who last time that they saw each other was 20 years earlier, and Esau had vowed he was going to kill Jacob. And so as they're coming back, Jacob realizes that his family is in danger. He's afraid that their lives are in danger, and as Esau is approaching with a small army of 400 men, and he has sent gifts ahead, but he's now just there with his family, and so he prepares to meet Esau, and Jacob lines up his family behind him. Right behind him, he puts Billha and Zilpa, and they're four sons, and then behind them, he puts Leah and her seven children, and then behind her is Rachel and Joseph. The text really doesn't say it, but what's very plain in the order, what's very clear is that first person, if Esau comes with murderous intention, first person to go down, will be Jacob, then followed by Billha and Zilpa and their four sons, then followed by Leah, and the farther you go back in the line, the more chance you have if things go south that you might escape alive. You see, the clear implication here is that the first ones are more expendable. The last one is love the most, and hopefully if nobody else makes it, he will. That's the thought. And it's clear to everybody. It was clear in everyday life. Everyone knew their place in daddy's priorities. You know, sadly, Jacob should have known better than most people how wrong-headed and how damaging favoritism is in a family. His own father, Isaac, loved his brother, his twin brother Esau best, and Rebecca, his mom, loved him best. Jacob so desired his father's blessing that he and his mother tricked, they deceived his father to steal the father, the blessing that the father wanted to give to Esau. They managed to steal it. Long story there. You know, all children long for the love and the approval of their parents. Wise parents lavish love and lavish blessing on their children. They do so as equally as they can. Of course, it can never be perfect. We all know that. And in Jacob's family, his sons long for their father's love. They long for his approval. And Jacob lavished it on Joseph, but not so much on the others. And in their hurt, they grew jealous, which grew into resentment, and ultimately into such hatred that as we read there in verse 4, they couldn't even speak nicely to him. Couldn't even have a nice word for Joseph. You know, that situation must have been obvious to anybody looking on, except as unfortunately often happens with us as men and fathers, except to Jacob. Everybody else knows that Jacob is either unaware, oblivious, or he doesn't care. Because he certainly doesn't change. This passage is the verses we've read. Give us another reason why jealousy grew in this family. The primary reason was the obvious favoritism, love for Joseph that wasn't extended to the other sons. But another problem, we find in verse 2, there we see Joseph working with four of his step brothers, pasturing the flocks. And it says at the end of the verse, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. And a lot of folks who read this passage, they will point to this and they'll say, you know, Joseph is a spoiled rich kid. He's a tattle tale here just looking for ways to get his brothers in trouble. That's why his brothers can't stand him. He's just a squeaky voice, little tattle tale kid that just goes and is always trying to get them in trouble. And I suppose that's a possible understanding of this verse. But I rather see it differently. First, there's a lot of things we don't know. We can't know from this passage. The information here is rather limited. We don't know if Joseph volunteered this information to his father, or whether his father asked him. Hey, Joseph, how was it at work today? Tell me about what did the boys do about what happened when? The second thing we don't know is we really don't know what the bad report is. The bad report that Joseph brought might have been a squeaky voice, little tattle tale, telling about the boys will be boy stuff on their last little foray, shepherding the flocks, and they've been camped out for a week or so. And while I was out, you won't believe it, dad. While I was sleeping, they drew a mustache on my face. They short-sheeded my sleeping bag. You know, the boys will be boys, brothers. You know, my brothers used to tell me, they read the proverbs that said, "A brother is born for adversity," they said, "It's our job to cause you trouble." I was pretty sure that wasn't what the verse meant, but I wasn't smart enough at the time to understand. More likely, the report that he brought back wasn't about that stuff. More likely, it involved dereliction of duty. The brothers endangered the flocks and caused Joseph and others to do their work because they were lazy. They left their post. They went to the little shepherd camp, three camps over and were gambling all night long, playing poker. They got drunk or whatever. Or it might have been that his brothers were involved in some criminal behavior, embezzling a little bit from the family business. Or cheating a customer, giving our business a bad name. See, the text doesn't say, so we can't really know. But based on what we learn of Joseph later, it's unlikely that he's just a little tattletale trying to get his brothers in trouble because it seems more likely that the Joseph we meet later is a man of integrity and character. It seems more likely that as someone with that moral compass that is finely tuned and with a sense of integrity that will not bend, that when he sees whatever these brothers wrong doing is, he realizes it's something that he simply cannot ignore. He cannot just let it go on and without becoming complicit in what they're doing. Many of you know what that is in business. When you've been on the job side and you've been in a workplace and there is wrong being done and if you say nothing, if you do nothing, you realize you become complicit in it and there comes a time where you have to speak up, you have to act. One of Joseph's brothers will face that situation next week. We'll get there. So you see, I think more likely the brothers are jealous of Joseph because of his character. They're jealous of Joseph because of his character, his integrity. Joseph won't join them in doing wrong. Joseph is a boring stick in the mud, straight laced, killjoy, spoil sport, party pooping, goody two shoes. I tried to find a current slang for that. I couldn't find one. The last phrase of verse three gives us another reason why jealousy is in their house. The last phrase of verse three and he, that's Jacob, made him, that's Joseph, a robe of many colors. Here in the ESV that I'm reading from, it's called robe of many colors. The new international version translation calls it a richly ornamented robe. Other translations call it a long robe or a long sleeve tunic. The reason that these different translations use different terms is because translators aren't sure exactly how to translate it. It's kind of unclear. It's a rare Hebrew word. So it's not clear to translate it, but what is clear is that this robe, whatever it was, is not the robe of an average person, but it's the robe of a supervisor, the robe or the tunic of a boss, of a leader. It's a robe of honor. You see, up till this point, Joseph has been working with his brothers as, back in verse two, just as one of the other as one of the guys, what everybody's doing. Like any of the other workers, any other son is doing all the grunt work. But apparently here, Joseph has got a promotion. He's been working the family business like everyone else, but now Joseph has been promoted to a place of leadership, possibly supervising on the job site or even possibly leadership in the clan. And the more we look at this family, it's not a far stretch to imagine that Jacob has promoted Joseph to this place of leadership in the business or in the family because Joseph is the most trustworthy. Joseph is the most dependable, the most faithful, the one with the most integrity. He is the most godly of all the sons. Really, he's the only one godly among the sons at this point. We learned back in verse two that for the brothers, the sons of Billhad Zilpa, that they were somehow less than faithful in their duties. Last week, we saw back in chapter 35 that Reuben, the oldest of the sons, committed incest with his stepmother, Billhad, we saw in chapter 34 that Simeon and Levi were hotheaded guys who, in a devious plot of revenge, they murdered a ton of people in a city, scores of innocent people, and they plundered the entire city and likely had help of some of the other brothers. In the next chapter, after the one we're in, chapter 38, and we're not going to go there today or actually even in the series because it doesn't fit where we're going right now, but there's a story there that deals with another brother, Judah, and we learned there about Judah's, it's a sordid tale of his lack of character. And so it's easy to imagine that Jacob, as he looks out over these 10 boys, goes, actually, Benjamin is there, there's 12 other, 12 boys total, 11 besides Joseph. Benjamin is the youngest and he's still just a kid, but he looks at the 10 older ones and he goes, not a trustworthy one in the bunch. It's a no-brainer. Who are we going to put here in charge? Somebody needs to start taking leadership among this next generation. Joseph is the obvious choice even though he's the youngest of the first 11. But it's also easy to imagine that from the eyes of the 10 brothers who each one selfishly and desperately wants that position for themselves with the honor, with the prestige, with the extra pay, they want that spot. To them, Jacob appears to make this choice not out of merit, but it's all out of favoritism and nepotism. He loves him the best. He's always loved Joseph the most because he was the first son of Rachel, that was his favorite wife, and this is his favorite kid. Easy to see it. What could go wrong here? You know, when we go to the New Testament, Romans chapter 12, the Scripture instructs for you and me as followers of Jesus says, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." We've heard that phrase most of us many, many times. Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to weep with those who weep than to rejoice with those who rejoice? Especially when the people that we're supposed to rejoice with, you see, they just got that promotion that we wanted. They got the solo in the musical production that we thought we would get. They got the position on the team that we tried out for and didn't make. They got that new outfit or the new car or the new boat that we really have had our eye on and been working towards, and we deserve it more than they do. Yeah. Sometimes it's hard to rejoice when someone else gets a promotion, when someone else gets bumped ahead, when someone else is blessed, we become like Joseph's brothers and we think they don't deserve that. I'm older, I'm more experienced, I'm smarter, and these brothers, they're jealousy, seeds, and they're smolders. And the next verses we find a fourth reason for their jealousy against Joseph. We pick it up in verse 5. Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more, and he said to them, "Here this dream that I've dreamed. Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and it stood upright, and behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf." If you've ever seen the old time as we're moving into fall and everybody puts out their fall decorations, when they would harvest the grain, they would gather together and they'd bundle it and you'd have these little stacks of stalks out there bundled together, a sheaves. And Joseph says, "I had a sheaf there, you guys had sheaves there, and your sheaves came and bowed down to my sheaf." They go nuts. His brother said to him, "Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to rule over us?" So they hated him even more for his dreams and his words. Then he dreamed another dream, and he told it to his brothers, and his father rebuked him. I skipped ahead. Verse 9, "He dreamed another dream, and he told it to his brothers and said, "Behold, I've dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars were bowing down to me." But when he told it to his father and his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, "What is this dream you've dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?" And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the same in his heart. A fourth reason the jealousy came into the house was Joseph's dreams. Two dreams at two different times, both with the same apparent meaning. Joseph will rule over his family. They will bow down to him. He shares the dreams with his family, and predictably, it doesn't go well. And again, many people read this, and they're very hard on Joseph, and they say, "Why would he do that?" Obviously, Joseph is a loud-mouthed spoiled braggart. He's that tattle-tailed, whining kid, and here he is, this loud-mouthed spoiled braggart. Well, I doubt that. I tend to think that he is either a naive teenager, 16, 17 years old, who just talks a bit too much, none of us have ever run into teenagers like that, or that these dreams are so startling, so vivid, so different, so unique. They've truly got his attention. This wasn't a dream. This was strange. Amazingly real, vivid. Does this mean something? Is this a message from God? And he's seen there as a 17-year-old going, "I need to know." And he's asking his family, really wanting to know, does this mean something? Is this real? Or maybe a combination of both of those, a naive teenager with a very vivid dream that did come from God. It's interesting to me that no one in the family questions the point of the dreams. The meaning is very clear. They're just terribly offended by the thought. Whether Joe invented these dreams, or whether these dreams are somehow actually from God predicting the future, either way, the family just didn't have it. And so the dreams led his brothers to hate him all the more. They lead his father to rebuke him. However, somewhere in the recesses of Jacob's mind, he ponders and wonders, "Is there more to these dreams? Could they really possibly be telling about something that's going to happen?" He just kind of stays in the back of his mind. Kind of puts us in mind of Mary. When she hears the shepherds come as they come and worship, and it says that she took these things in. She hears the words of the wise men when they come to visit. She hears the words of Simeon and Anna in the temple. Mary took those things in. It says, "She pondered them in her heart." This whole story, by the way, all the way through. You need to be, as you read it, you need to be thinking, "A lot of this sounds very familiar because it's all pointing to Jesus. We're saving our last message for that, so I'm not going to take a lot of time with it along the way." The whole last message would be going back and seeing God is a great author. One of the reasons we know this book is not the invention of men is because all the way through it, God, like a great author, plants little foreshadowings, little pictures that you don't see it at the time. You don't see it until later, and it's when Jesus shows up, you go, "Oh, God made little pictures all the way along the way? No human could think of this." But here's a story of one, a son who is beloved by the Father, rejected by his brothers, one who is innocent and righteous and is hated by those who are evil, and we could go into more, but I'll save that for another message. The Festrine jealousy and envy of these brothers is a bomb that will explode in the next passage of Scripture that we'll look at next week. It will explode into murderous treachery. So I'm going to stop with the story this morning and just ask a question. How could, is there a way that this jealousy could have been overcome in the family? Is there something that they could have done differently? And as we look at that, is there's something that we can learn to help us to overcome jealousy in our own life and in our own heart? Because all of us have been there. Many of us are there now. There is jealousy and envy burning in our heart, and it's not right. How do we overcome jealousy? There are three main characters in this family drama, Joseph, his father, and his brothers. Quickly, I just want to look at those three characters and think of some things that perhaps each one could have or maybe ought to have done. First, I look at Joseph. What about when you are the blessed person? When you are the one who has got the new car, when you're the one with the nice things, when you're the one with the good looks, when you're the one with the talent, when you're the one who has received the favor and the blessing of someone, maybe an unsolicited and misguided favoritism, you are the favored son in the family, but you didn't choose that, you don't even really want that status, but a misguided parent has put you at the top of the list. What do you do? First of all, I'm not saying at all here that Joseph is responsible for his brother's sin. We are not responsible for other's people's wrong and sinful hearts and actions, and we cannot change them, but we can and should avoid pouring fuel on the fire of envy and jealousy by living godly lives. Just a few things that I would note, it means that we need to be humble. Don't gloat and don't flaunt our wealth or our looks or our abilities or our positions, but rather be humble. Remembering that every blessing we have is a gracious gift from God. The giver of all good gifts, James 1, 27, tells us every good, every perfect gift comes from above, coming from the father of lights. They're gifts. They're not things that we deserve, not things that we had a lot of choice in. They're gifts. Philippians 2 calls for us to have the same humble attitude of Christ Jesus, and if so, doing, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility to count others more significant than yourselves. One of the most important things that we can do, if we're the blessed person, is be humble. Not proud. Look at what I've got, but humble. Wow. Look at what I've got. What a good gift. Thank you, God. What do you want me to do with this? That comes up in a second. Be sensitive. Consider how our words and how our actions might make others feel. Significant in that, by the way, is be grateful. I should have made it probably another point. Be gracious and grateful, appreciative of other people. Notice what other people do and be thankful. Wow. I noticed you did that. That is so awesome. Thank you. What a great job you did. See, far too often people who are in power, people who have all these blessings, they just expect everybody else to act like their servants. Instead of being the people who are appreciative, the Scripture says, "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceable with all." Be generous. Every blessing that we have is a stewardship from God. Use those blessings wisely. Share them with others. You know, to me, one of the most frightening, there are many frightening passages in Scripture. One of them is this. Everyone to whom much was given of him much will be required. Those of us who have received much, it's not a reason for pride. It's a matter of, "Wow, God, what do you want me to do with what you've given me?" Be generous, willing to share. Be loving. Put other people first. That's what love is. Be genuinely concerned with their needs. Be genuinely concerned with their feelings. Show kindness. Give help when it's needed. Love one another from a pure heart as Peter writes. That's just a few things very quickly. Things that we can do when we're the blessed person. But then I look at Jacob, Jacob who is the parent. And I wonder how, how can you and I, as moms and dads and grandparents, how can we avoid preparing and having here the soil, the fertile soil for jealousy and envy to grow in our home? How do we not have that type of atmosphere in our homes where jealousy and envy grow? Well, the first is kind of obvious. Unlike Jacob, don't play favorites. God doesn't play favorites. Neither should we for God, as Romans 2 says. God shows no partiality. Secondly, love all our kids deeply. Express it continually. Express it with our words. I love you. Express it with our affections. Kids need lots of hugs, lots of kisses, positive parental affection. Do it with our words, with our affection and also with our actions. Give our kids our attention, our time, our care, our priorities. Invest in them. Love our kids deeply. Express it continually. Thirdly, discipline your children. Discipline your children fairly. Discipline your children appropriately. Discipline your children consistently. I think it's rather telling as we read through these accounts of this family, I see that daddy Jacob, we don't know much about the young life of this family, but as the kids get older, we see several things happen, and there's no record that Jacob addressed or dealt with the sins of his kids. There's no record that he got this bad report from Joseph about the four brothers, but it doesn't say that he did anything about it. When Simeon and Levi murdered all these innocent people in their act of revenge against one person and they plundered this town, he complains, you made us a stink in the community, in the broader community, but he doesn't do anything about it. When Reuben commits incest, whether it is rape or consensual, it doesn't say with his stepmother, it says Israel, Jacob heard about it, but it never says he did anything about it. You see a pattern? And that's concerning because the reality is that proper discipline is an act of love. The Lord disciplines those he loves as a father, the son he delights in. You see, one of the ways that Jacob's sons knew their dad didn't love them is apparently he never really disciplined them. He just really didn't care. What a sad thing. One final thing for parents, a little advice to not have that soil that grows jealousy is encourage our children prolifically. One of the saddest things I have heard so incredibly frequently in my years in ministry is talking with men and hearing from grown men who will say in so many words they grew up with a hole in their life. Longing to hear from their father's words that never came, I love you, son, I am proud of you. You know what I found? You start talking about that subject and you get a whole room full of men crying because what I found is most men never heard those words and they were the words they so wanted to hear. And the really sad thing is many of those men have never said those words to their kids. Encourage our kids prolifically. They need it. Ephesians 4, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for the building up as it fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. Many parents are very quick with the criticisms, very quick with the put downs, very quick with anger and so slow with words of encouragement. It ought not be in our homes. It ought not be in any of our relationships. No corrupting talk come out of our mouth, only what builds up, period. Okay, one last group and we'll hurry with this. The brothers. The brothers, they are the group where life wasn't fair. When life wasn't fair, what do we do? How do we overcome jealousy and jealousy and envy when we're the ones who, man, I got the short end of the stick. Again, all the good stuff happens to them. Here I am. Many, many things I could say, but I'm just going to narrow it down to a couple. You know, jealousy and envy ultimately come from pride. Galatians 5 says, "Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another. The outworking of conceit of pride is envy." Because what it's saying, what envy and jealousy are saying is that they're saying, "Hey, I deserve better than what I've got. I deserve what they have and more. I deserve it more than they do. I deserve better." And ultimately, once we have thought and said that, you see, ultimately jealousy is a prideful rebellion against God. Because ultimately, the reason we don't have what we think we deserve is because God hasn't given it to us. The great problem with these brothers, while their dad was wrong in favoritism, the great problem with these brothers is that none of them at this point have a relationship with God. And sadly, at this time, they don't trust God, they don't follow Him. Because you see, the reality is life isn't random and God is in control. Are you trusting Jesus? See, because when we come to Scripture, when we trust Jesus as our Savior, we can have confidence that God is in control and that our God is working for our good in all things. He has a purpose for us. Romans 8, 28, many of you know this verse, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. You see, for the one who is trusting Jesus, not just in word, saying, "Yeah, I trust Jesus," the one who is really trusting Jesus, there's no room for jealousy, no place for jealousy, because He's in charge. There's no room for jealousy about what others have or about what we don't have, because our God is in control of our circumstances. Our God is in control of our health. Our God is in control of our blessings. He's even in control of our enemies, and He's even in control of our trials. In the next weeks, we will see in Joseph's life how His relationship with God and His trust in Him transforms Him and us and enables us to, rather than being victims of suffering, to be overcomers through suffering. And so in short, how do we overcome jealousy? It's really quite simple. Trust God. Trust that God is good, that He loves you, and He's in control, and rest in Him. Let's pray. Father, a lot of stuff here, and it probably hits home, because I'd say everybody, because all of us sooner or later, we deal with these feelings, we deal with these things, and some folks may be really struggling with that right now. I pray that as we recognize that you are God, that you are sovereign, you are in control, that you love us, that you love us so much that you sent Jesus to die on the cross, to pay for our sins, to provide salvation to anyone who will believe and trust in Him, and that if you love us that much, as the Scripture says, what else are you going to hold back? You won't hold back anything good. You as a loving Father have a reason for everything, even the trials that we are going through, even the sufferings we are going through, even the injustices that we face. May we learn like Joseph to rest in you, and may you give us victory over these insidious little sins of jealousy and envy which like to creep into our heart, and when we feel those things coming, may we remember that you are good and you are God, may we give thanks for the blessings we have instead of the things that we don't have, and may we rest in you, these things we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. May God bless you as you grow in your walk with Him this week.