1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,760 Hello everyone and welcome to Trinity Sermons. 2 00:00:07,760 --> 00:00:11,900 Here at Trinity Church, Streetsville, we want to share our weekly sermon with you so as 3 00:00:11,900 --> 00:00:16,800 to inspire and encourage you in your daily walk with Christ as together we are learning 4 00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:21,080 to love Jesus, live like Jesus and lead others to Jesus. 5 00:00:21,080 --> 00:00:25,780 Now this is our final sermon in our series of Joseph called Live in the Dream and today 6 00:00:25,780 --> 00:00:32,320 we have Justin Stratus with us where we will be looking at reunion and reconciliation. 7 00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:36,400 And before we begin, we'd like to invite you to follow our podcast, to check us out 8 00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:41,000 on social media and visit our website at trinitiestreetsville.org. 9 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:43,520 Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy. 10 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:45,520 God bless. 11 00:00:45,520 --> 00:00:56,000 Morning. 12 00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:03,920 The reading from Genesis chapter 45 verses 1 to 11 and 15. 13 00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:09,280 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants and he cried out, 14 00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:12,160 have everyone leave my presence. 15 00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:17,000 So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. 16 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:23,940 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him and Pharaoh's household heard about it. 17 00:01:23,940 --> 00:01:27,080 Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. 18 00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:29,600 Is my father still living? 19 00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:36,280 But his brothers were not able to answer him because they were terrified at his presence. 20 00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:40,480 Then Joseph said to his brothers, come close to me. 21 00:01:40,480 --> 00:01:47,840 When they had done so, he said, I am your brother, Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt. 22 00:01:47,840 --> 00:01:53,040 And now do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here 23 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:58,160 because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. 24 00:01:58,160 --> 00:02:02,800 For two years now, there has been famine in the land and for the next five, there will 25 00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:05,600 be no plowing and reaping. 26 00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:11,760 But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives 27 00:02:11,760 --> 00:02:14,880 by a great deliverance. 28 00:02:14,880 --> 00:02:18,900 So then it was not you who sent me here, but God. 29 00:02:18,900 --> 00:02:25,080 He made me father to Pharaoh, Lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt. 30 00:02:25,080 --> 00:02:31,280 Now hurry back to my father and say to him, this is what your son Joseph says. 31 00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:34,000 God has made me Lord of all Egypt. 32 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:36,820 Come down to me, don't delay. 33 00:02:36,820 --> 00:02:40,240 You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me. 34 00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:46,360 You, your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds and all you have. 35 00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:52,080 I will provide for you there because five years of famine are still to come. 36 00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:57,880 Otherwise, you and your household and all who belong to you will become destitute. 37 00:02:57,880 --> 00:03:01,680 And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. 38 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:05,240 By the words, his brothers talked with him. 39 00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:06,240 The word of the Lord. 40 00:03:06,240 --> 00:03:07,240 Good morning, everyone. 41 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:10,880 Well, I didn't want to say this. 42 00:03:10,880 --> 00:03:16,360 I don't like to say this to the different services, but the 1115 service is the coolest 43 00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:18,480 and best looking service. 44 00:03:18,480 --> 00:03:23,080 That's how you endear yourself to your audience. 45 00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:30,960 Well, today is our last of a sermon series on the life of Joseph, which we've called 46 00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:33,560 Live in the Dream. 47 00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:39,000 And it's my job to bring this sermon series in to land as a guest preacher. 48 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:44,680 So hopefully what I'm about to say matches in some sense what Rob had intended for this 49 00:03:44,680 --> 00:03:45,680 series. 50 00:03:45,680 --> 00:03:50,480 But just in case, let's pray before I do so. 51 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:54,200 Lord, we believe. 52 00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:57,080 Help thou our unbelief. 53 00:03:57,080 --> 00:04:00,100 Amen. 54 00:04:00,100 --> 00:04:07,040 So the Joseph story takes up the biggest amount of space in what is already a big book of 55 00:04:07,040 --> 00:04:10,000 the Bible, Genesis. 56 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:14,640 And as we've been learning, it tells the story about how Jacob's favorite son, Joseph, makes 57 00:04:14,640 --> 00:04:20,880 his way from the land of Canaan all the way to the palaces of Egypt. 58 00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:27,880 But it all starts back in chapter 37 with a couple of dreams. 59 00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:34,240 Dreams in which the whole world, including Joseph's own family, is depicted as bowing 60 00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:35,960 before him. 61 00:04:35,960 --> 00:04:40,520 This little guy, this little 17-year-old shepherd. 62 00:04:40,520 --> 00:04:44,740 Now at the time, no one could really guess what the dreams meant. 63 00:04:44,740 --> 00:04:49,040 Even Joseph really didn't understand, which is why he naively started telling his brothers 64 00:04:49,040 --> 00:04:50,040 about them. 65 00:04:50,040 --> 00:04:59,320 But what was clear, though, was that to most people, Joseph's dreams were extremely disturbing, 66 00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:00,320 which makes sense. 67 00:05:00,320 --> 00:05:06,000 I mean, if you met a 17-year-old kid who starts having intense visions of grandeur and dreams 68 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:10,320 about how they're going to one day take over the world, you would probably be slightly 69 00:05:10,320 --> 00:05:12,480 alarmed. 70 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:18,400 They're not the kind of person that you'd want to sell firearms to, for example. 71 00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:23,720 And so the brothers get so annoyed with Joseph that they decide to get rid of him, and they 72 00:05:23,720 --> 00:05:29,960 sell him into slavery, telling their father, or at least implying to their father, that 73 00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:34,440 Joseph was torn apart by wild animals and is dead. 74 00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:41,440 Jacob, of course, is devastated, but the brothers kind of band together and make a pact that 75 00:05:41,440 --> 00:05:47,000 they'll never speak of or tell anyone about this dark secret for the rest of their lives. 76 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:52,520 As long as they keep their mouths shut, everything will be fine and things will go back to normal. 77 00:05:52,520 --> 00:05:58,680 Meanwhile, Joseph heads back to Egypt, where he's purchased, as we heard, by an Egyptian 78 00:05:58,680 --> 00:06:01,440 official named Potiphar. 79 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:07,880 And as Rob taught us, Joseph, through his sort of grit and good work ethic, rises through 80 00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:13,780 the ranks of Potiphar's servants until he's finally put in charge of the whole household. 81 00:06:13,780 --> 00:06:19,920 And everything's going fine until, of course, Potiphar's wife takes notice of Joseph and 82 00:06:19,920 --> 00:06:22,120 makes a pass at him. 83 00:06:22,120 --> 00:06:30,960 And when Joseph refuses her advances, she gets him thrown into prison under false pretenses. 84 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:36,400 Now for years, Joseph is languishing in an Egyptian jail, but again, just like in Potiphar's 85 00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:39,440 house, he ends up rising through the ranks. 86 00:06:39,440 --> 00:06:44,080 And through a whole series of kind of crazy circumstances and events, he eventually gets 87 00:06:44,080 --> 00:06:50,800 an audience with Pharaoh, Egypt's supreme ruler. 88 00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:56,200 Now if you remember the story, at this time, Pharaoh is having some crazy dreams himself. 89 00:06:56,200 --> 00:07:02,560 But unlike his own dreams, Joseph is given the ability by God to actually interpret them. 90 00:07:02,560 --> 00:07:08,620 And the interpretation is that the whole region will face seven years of plenty followed by 91 00:07:08,620 --> 00:07:11,720 seven years of famine. 92 00:07:11,720 --> 00:07:16,760 And Pharaoh is so impressed that as we heard last week, he ends up putting Joseph in charge 93 00:07:16,760 --> 00:07:21,000 of the whole of the land of Egypt. 94 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:25,480 And that's where we find him today in the context of our passage. 95 00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:30,400 20 years have passed since that first dream. 96 00:07:30,400 --> 00:07:34,240 And Joseph is now in charge of all of Egypt. 97 00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:40,560 And he presides over their considerable food stores in a time of famine. 98 00:07:40,560 --> 00:07:42,640 He's in his late 30s. 99 00:07:42,640 --> 00:07:44,240 He's got a new Egyptian name. 100 00:07:44,240 --> 00:07:47,740 He's got a new Egyptian family. 101 00:07:47,740 --> 00:07:52,440 And he's in control of the most powerful empire in the whole world. 102 00:07:52,440 --> 00:07:58,540 And he holds the keys to the most precious commodity in the whole world. 103 00:07:58,540 --> 00:08:02,920 So this is a situation in which Joseph holds all the cards. 104 00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:08,200 He has all the power and he has all the advantages. 105 00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:14,060 So imagine how Joseph must have felt when who should come knocking on his door, literally 106 00:08:14,060 --> 00:08:21,040 begging for food, but the 10 brothers who threw him into that cistern when he was a 107 00:08:21,040 --> 00:08:25,680 teenager, which is the dream scenario. 108 00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:26,680 Right. 109 00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:31,740 I mean, this is like if you were interviewing someone at your work and the candidate walks 110 00:08:31,740 --> 00:08:38,360 in and it turns out to be the high school bully that bugs you all through your youth. 111 00:08:38,360 --> 00:08:39,360 Right. 112 00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:42,080 It's the kind of revenge scenario that we dream about. 113 00:08:42,080 --> 00:08:45,080 You know, every time someone cuts you off in the road, you're like, one day they're 114 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:47,760 going to apply for a job and it's going to be up to me. 115 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:48,760 Right. 116 00:08:48,760 --> 00:08:53,840 And I can just imagine Joseph sort of peering behind the curtain, watching his brothers 117 00:08:53,840 --> 00:08:59,840 congregating, just sort of rubbing his hands together and thinking like, oh man, this is 118 00:08:59,840 --> 00:09:03,800 just too perfect. 119 00:09:03,800 --> 00:09:07,000 But there's one thing that keeps him from getting rid of his bullies right then and 120 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:14,800 there and that's his intense love for his father, Jacob and his brother, Benjamin. 121 00:09:14,800 --> 00:09:22,520 And so from this position of power and advantage, Joseph begins to hatch a plan in his own mind, 122 00:09:22,520 --> 00:09:29,280 which I like to call operation get Ben. 123 00:09:29,280 --> 00:09:34,040 We don't have time to go through all the details, but suffice it to say that Joseph does actually 124 00:09:34,040 --> 00:09:36,520 get a little bit of revenge on his brothers. 125 00:09:36,520 --> 00:09:39,440 He puts them through the wringer. 126 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:41,040 First he accuses them of being spies. 127 00:09:41,040 --> 00:09:47,120 Then he demands to see his brother, Benjamin, and ends up imprisoning his brother, Simeon, 128 00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:50,940 until Benjamin can ultimately be produced. 129 00:09:50,940 --> 00:09:54,860 He sends them all back to Canaan where they break the news to Jacob that if they have 130 00:09:54,860 --> 00:10:01,680 any hope of getting more Egyptian grain, the price is going to be Benjamin himself, the 131 00:10:01,680 --> 00:10:09,800 last remaining son of Rachel, who is Jacob's beloved late wife. 132 00:10:09,800 --> 00:10:11,160 They don't want to do this. 133 00:10:11,160 --> 00:10:15,800 They hold out as long as they can, but eventually hunger forces Jacob to send his sons back 134 00:10:15,800 --> 00:10:19,820 to Egypt, now with Benjamin in tow. 135 00:10:19,820 --> 00:10:24,560 And Jacob is left sitting at home with nothing but a wing and a prayer that matters won't 136 00:10:24,560 --> 00:10:28,920 get worse than they already are. 137 00:10:28,920 --> 00:10:35,720 So for a second time, Joseph receives his brothers, but using a bit of sly trickery, 138 00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:39,640 he ends up maneuvering things to keep Benjamin there permanently. 139 00:10:39,640 --> 00:10:46,420 And at that point, the brothers finally crack. 140 00:10:46,420 --> 00:10:53,840 And so in chapter 44, verses 18 to 33, Joseph's brother Judah begins to rehearse the whole 141 00:10:53,840 --> 00:11:01,640 sad story before this, to him, tyrannical Egyptian ruler who seems hell bent on destroying 142 00:11:01,640 --> 00:11:06,040 Jacob's family for some unknown reason. 143 00:11:06,040 --> 00:11:09,840 And he makes his final plea to Joseph for Benjamin's freedom. 144 00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:13,520 And this is what he says. 145 00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:20,360 So now if the boy, Benjamin, is not with us, when I go back to your servant, my father, 146 00:11:20,360 --> 00:11:24,680 but if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy's life, sees that the boy 147 00:11:24,680 --> 00:11:29,680 isn't there, he will die. 148 00:11:29,680 --> 00:11:34,720 Now then, please let your servant remain here as my Lord's slave in place of the boy and 149 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:37,640 let the boy return with his brothers. 150 00:11:37,640 --> 00:11:42,120 How can I go back to my father if my brother is not with me? 151 00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:49,920 No, don't let me see the misery that would come to my father. 152 00:11:49,920 --> 00:11:57,760 And with that speech, we finally encounter the climax of the whole story of Joseph. 153 00:11:57,760 --> 00:12:03,440 It's the moment when Joseph finally reveals himself as Jacob's long lost son. 154 00:12:03,440 --> 00:12:09,920 And I think it's one of the most powerful moments in all of the Bible, emotionally powerful, 155 00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:15,320 but also theologically powerful, because it's this moment when we see that when faith takes 156 00:12:15,320 --> 00:12:23,680 a second look at the apparent mess of life, God is there, leading us towards the fulfillment 157 00:12:23,680 --> 00:12:26,880 of all his promises. 158 00:12:26,880 --> 00:12:33,280 When faith takes a second look, God is there. 159 00:12:33,280 --> 00:12:38,640 And so for the rest of this sermon, I just want to zoom in and look at some bits in this 160 00:12:38,640 --> 00:12:45,520 passage and show you three ways where I think God teaches us this truth through the story 161 00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:48,080 of Joseph. 162 00:12:48,080 --> 00:12:50,840 And here they are for those taking notes. 163 00:12:50,840 --> 00:12:56,680 When faith takes a second look, God is there, number one, in the revealing, number two, 164 00:12:56,680 --> 00:13:02,440 in the retelling, and three, in the restoring. 165 00:13:02,440 --> 00:13:03,720 Very proud of this. 166 00:13:03,720 --> 00:13:07,560 Not only do I have three points, they all begin with the same letter, right? 167 00:13:07,560 --> 00:13:11,400 Revealing, retelling, and restoring. 168 00:13:11,400 --> 00:13:17,400 So first, when faith takes a second look, God is always there in the revealing. 169 00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:23,840 At the beginning of chapter 45, after Judah's speech, the text says that Joseph could no 170 00:13:23,840 --> 00:13:29,000 longer control himself before all his attendance. 171 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:34,280 Now there were moments in this story where Joseph kind of lost it at the sight of his 172 00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:38,240 brothers, but this time is kind of different. 173 00:13:38,240 --> 00:13:42,440 In previous occasions, Joseph would kind of compose himself really quickly and run off 174 00:13:42,440 --> 00:13:47,160 to his bedroom or run off somewhere in the corridor and kind of weep quietly to himself 175 00:13:47,160 --> 00:13:52,520 before he gathered himself and put on his cool Egyptian eye makeup on again and went 176 00:13:52,520 --> 00:13:54,780 out. 177 00:13:54,780 --> 00:13:57,080 But this time, he didn't have time to do that. 178 00:13:57,080 --> 00:14:01,800 He was losing control of his emotions and the whole situation just kind of flooded over 179 00:14:01,800 --> 00:14:04,720 him and caught up with him in a moment. 180 00:14:04,720 --> 00:14:11,960 Now I can't be sure, and this might be a little bit speculative, but I have this theory that 181 00:14:11,960 --> 00:14:18,360 it was at this moment when Joseph loses his composure that he finally realized the meaning 182 00:14:18,360 --> 00:14:22,480 of his boyhood dreams right then. 183 00:14:22,480 --> 00:14:28,160 Now, I think he had an inkling of this in earlier parts of the story. 184 00:14:28,160 --> 00:14:33,640 So back in chapter 42, for example, the brothers come in and they end up literally bowing before 185 00:14:33,640 --> 00:14:34,640 him. 186 00:14:34,640 --> 00:14:39,920 So I think some light bulbs were going off in Joseph's mind. 187 00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:45,000 But that's not really the same thing as him figuring out the meaning of the dreams. 188 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:50,040 It's kind of like a literal fulfillment, but why did God give him these dreams? 189 00:14:50,040 --> 00:14:53,840 What was their significance in the story that God was telling? 190 00:14:53,840 --> 00:14:58,640 Well, the real meaning of the dream, as Joseph is going to explain later on in the passage, 191 00:14:58,640 --> 00:15:06,280 is that God puts Joseph in this incredible place of authority for a very specific purpose, 192 00:15:06,280 --> 00:15:14,140 and that is to save his family and in saving his family, to save the world. 193 00:15:14,140 --> 00:15:19,400 Which means that this whole episode that Joseph was going through with his brothers wasn't 194 00:15:19,400 --> 00:15:25,320 just about the brothers getting their sort of comeuppance, getting payback, like a giant 195 00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:30,080 lesson in, well, what goes around comes around. 196 00:15:30,080 --> 00:15:35,240 Neither was this kind of like a moral tale where it proves to us that if you do right 197 00:15:35,240 --> 00:15:39,920 and act righteously and sort of do your job well, eventually you'll get rewarded and get 198 00:15:39,920 --> 00:15:43,640 elevated to great positions of power. 199 00:15:43,640 --> 00:15:44,640 That's not really true either. 200 00:15:44,640 --> 00:15:50,280 I mean, look at the book of Job, for example, as a counterpoint. 201 00:15:50,280 --> 00:15:55,480 Now I think what caused Joseph to sort of crack under the pressure was this realization 202 00:15:55,480 --> 00:16:03,200 right then and there that his whole life and the life of everyone he knew was part of something 203 00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:08,600 that was way bigger than they could have anticipated at the time. 204 00:16:08,600 --> 00:16:12,080 And that's what makes the reveal so significant. 205 00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:16,760 I mean, think about it, put yourself in the brothers position. 206 00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:21,800 Here's this Egyptian ruler standing before them and he's just been just messing with 207 00:16:21,800 --> 00:16:26,800 them for years now, really grinding them down, treating them harshly. 208 00:16:26,800 --> 00:16:31,500 He sends them home, he abducts one of their brothers, he's messing with them, he's threatening 209 00:16:31,500 --> 00:16:33,840 to steal Benjamin away from Jacob forever. 210 00:16:33,840 --> 00:16:41,960 I mean, this man is their worst nightmare and for some strange reason, he's just out 211 00:16:41,960 --> 00:16:43,720 to get them. 212 00:16:43,720 --> 00:16:47,880 He has their number, he won't let up. 213 00:16:47,880 --> 00:16:51,600 And to make matters worse, in the middle of them going through all of this abuse at the 214 00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:58,440 hands of this Egyptian leader, it starts to hit the brothers that, well, maybe they deserve 215 00:16:58,440 --> 00:17:02,120 all of this stuff happening to them. 216 00:17:02,120 --> 00:17:07,600 And in the midst of one of their sort of hostile encounters with Joseph, the text describes 217 00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:13,600 how the brothers said to one another, quote, surely we are being punished because of our 218 00:17:13,600 --> 00:17:14,900 brother. 219 00:17:14,900 --> 00:17:20,600 We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we wouldn't listen. 220 00:17:20,600 --> 00:17:24,120 That's why this distress has come on us. 221 00:17:24,120 --> 00:17:30,400 And later on, Ruben, the oldest brother, says to his brothers, now we have to give an accounting 222 00:17:30,400 --> 00:17:32,440 for Joseph's blood. 223 00:17:32,440 --> 00:17:33,480 Right? 224 00:17:33,480 --> 00:17:35,000 This is all our fault. 225 00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:39,840 From their perspective, this was karma catching up with them. 226 00:17:39,840 --> 00:17:44,480 They tried to bury this dark secret in the past, but it was coming back to haunt them. 227 00:17:44,480 --> 00:17:47,060 The jig was up. 228 00:17:47,060 --> 00:17:50,860 Be sure your sin will find you out, as it says in the book of Numbers. 229 00:17:50,860 --> 00:17:54,820 And this seemed like it was the end of the line, that the secret was about to be spilled 230 00:17:54,820 --> 00:18:01,600 out in front of everyone and God was going to take his vengeance on them. 231 00:18:01,600 --> 00:18:04,240 But then the big reveal happens. 232 00:18:04,240 --> 00:18:10,760 This tyrant, the tormentor, the instrument in their minds of God's wrath and punishment 233 00:18:10,760 --> 00:18:16,400 looks down from his Egyptian throne at the brothers cowering in fear before them, before 234 00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:17,400 him. 235 00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:21,940 And he says, I am Joseph. 236 00:18:21,940 --> 00:18:26,680 It was me all along. 237 00:18:26,680 --> 00:18:29,640 Which is an interesting plot twist. 238 00:18:29,640 --> 00:18:38,600 Now, Joseph probably thought they would immediately celebrate and say, yay, it's Joseph. 239 00:18:38,600 --> 00:18:40,680 What an encouraging moment. 240 00:18:40,680 --> 00:18:44,880 I mean, that's not necessarily how it went initially. 241 00:18:44,880 --> 00:18:48,400 Remember, these guys are Joseph's childhood bullies, to put it mildly. 242 00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:53,120 Put yourself in the other position and imagine you're interviewing for a job and the person 243 00:18:53,120 --> 00:19:00,360 sitting across the table is the person you bullied in all of your high school years. 244 00:19:00,360 --> 00:19:04,040 I mean, surely they must have been thinking this is the moment when Joseph is going to 245 00:19:04,040 --> 00:19:07,400 drop the hammer. 246 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:12,800 But then again, when they looked again, Joseph didn't really seem angry. 247 00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:22,240 In fact, it seemed like he was crying loudly, very loudly, the text says. 248 00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:27,120 And slowly then, as Joseph continued to explain, it starts to dawn on the brothers, wait a 249 00:19:27,120 --> 00:19:28,120 minute. 250 00:19:28,120 --> 00:19:33,160 I don't think Joseph is actually going to harm us. 251 00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:34,960 I don't think he's going to punish us. 252 00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:38,560 I think he actually might be forgiving us right now. 253 00:19:38,560 --> 00:19:45,320 In fact, I think he might be saving us right now. 254 00:19:45,320 --> 00:19:49,000 And that is a whiplash moment. 255 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:55,020 I mean, in one moment, this man in front of them, this Egyptian ruler was looking down 256 00:19:55,020 --> 00:20:00,520 on them and seeming to them as nothing but an instrument of God's wrath and punishment. 257 00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:03,280 He is the embodiment of justice. 258 00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:09,760 He's about to mete out punishment for what they did to their brother all those years ago. 259 00:20:09,760 --> 00:20:15,320 And in the very next moment, they look up and who did they see but Joseph himself, not 260 00:20:15,320 --> 00:20:24,160 an instrument of wrath, but an instrument of God's love. 261 00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:26,640 Once upon a time, there was a guy by the name of Martin Luther. 262 00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:29,440 Have you heard of him? 263 00:20:29,440 --> 00:20:30,720 Big fat jolly fellow. 264 00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:33,600 Well, he's not like Santa Claus, but you know what I mean? 265 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:41,720 Big German beer drinking, loud mouth guy who God provided, I would say, to the church. 266 00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:46,080 And he started the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. 267 00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:54,300 So Martin Luther, for most of his life, viewed God as a judge. 268 00:20:54,300 --> 00:20:59,920 When he thought of God, when he prayed to God, he pictured this kind of imposing, towering, 269 00:20:59,920 --> 00:21:06,360 terrible figure whose one sort of will in the world was to just crush sinners for any 270 00:21:06,360 --> 00:21:09,800 kind of minor infraction. 271 00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:13,940 And when Luther thought of God's righteousness, he wasn't comforted. 272 00:21:13,940 --> 00:21:19,520 He thought of God's righteousness as something to fear because no one could ever measure 273 00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:21,100 up to how righteous God is. 274 00:21:21,100 --> 00:21:24,700 No one can measure up to that sort of perfection. 275 00:21:24,700 --> 00:21:28,420 And so he really struggled with his faith and he struggled with his prayers. 276 00:21:28,420 --> 00:21:31,080 He was terrified of God. 277 00:21:31,080 --> 00:21:40,420 But after years of this torment and this struggle, Luther came on a very surprising discovery 278 00:21:40,420 --> 00:21:43,960 when he picked up his Bible. 279 00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:51,280 When he looked at Jesus in scripture, it dawned on him that God wasn't actually against him. 280 00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:53,800 God was for him. 281 00:21:53,800 --> 00:21:55,640 God wasn't out to get him. 282 00:21:55,640 --> 00:22:00,760 God loved him and he gave his only son to save him from his sins. 283 00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:06,560 And that meant that when Luther thought of God's righteousness, it wasn't any more something 284 00:22:06,560 --> 00:22:07,820 to be feared. 285 00:22:07,820 --> 00:22:13,080 It was something to actually be cherished, to be grateful for because Luther realized 286 00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:16,500 in Christ, God was justifying sinners. 287 00:22:16,500 --> 00:22:23,000 He was making us righteous and bringing us home to God the Father. 288 00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:28,080 And so just like for Joseph's brothers, the face of the judge, when it was refracted through 289 00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:33,680 the eyes of Luther's faith, turned out not to be the face of punishment, but the face 290 00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:38,960 of love and forgiveness. 291 00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:47,580 I wonder if any of you can relate to Brother Martin's story. 292 00:22:47,580 --> 00:22:54,400 Maybe you've experienced God as nothing but a judge, a tyrant, someone to be feared like 293 00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:58,580 Joseph seemed to his brothers. 294 00:22:58,580 --> 00:23:07,160 What I think scripture is encouraging you to do is to just take another look, look closer. 295 00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:12,600 Because the more you look to God, the more that terrifying face of the judge is going 296 00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:18,960 to dissipate and in its place, the face of Jesus will begin to emerge, kind of like looking 297 00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:20,960 at one of those old magic eye puzzles. 298 00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:24,120 It starts to take form before you. 299 00:23:24,120 --> 00:23:30,360 Remember, as Jesus himself says in the gospels, if you have seen me, Philip, if you've seen 300 00:23:30,360 --> 00:23:33,960 me, you've seen the Father. 301 00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:39,840 And where else can we see the Father except in the cross, the very place where God loved 302 00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:44,900 us and gave himself for us. 303 00:23:44,900 --> 00:23:52,120 So again, when faith takes a second look, God is there in the revealing of his merciful 304 00:23:52,120 --> 00:23:54,400 love. 305 00:23:54,400 --> 00:24:05,660 Second, when faith takes a second look, God is there in the retelling, in the retelling. 306 00:24:05,660 --> 00:24:09,960 Three times in this passage, Joseph tells his brothers that the reason he ended up in 307 00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:17,240 Egypt, the whole point of his life and his long and winding road to where he was, was 308 00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:20,020 because God sent him there. 309 00:24:20,020 --> 00:24:28,720 As he says in verse eight, it was not you who sent me there, sent me here, but God. 310 00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:31,120 Now how can this be, right? 311 00:24:31,120 --> 00:24:35,720 We saw how this whole sequence of events played out. 312 00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:40,000 We saw his brothers throwing Joseph and the cistern. 313 00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:45,360 We saw how Potiphar's wife did Joseph dirty and how the fellow prisoners forgot about 314 00:24:45,360 --> 00:24:47,080 him until the last possible moment. 315 00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:49,560 These were things that people did, right? 316 00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:54,240 It was just people propelling the story, doing things, making choices, making decisions. 317 00:24:54,240 --> 00:25:00,840 So if anything, this was a story of how God can make the best out of a bad situation, 318 00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:06,280 how God sort of gathers up the fragments of Joseph's tragic story and make something 319 00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:10,320 good out of it in the end. 320 00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:12,720 But that's not what Joseph says. 321 00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:18,180 He doesn't say God sort of took these things after the fact and made something beautiful. 322 00:25:18,180 --> 00:25:26,640 He says that his whole journey to Egypt was God's plan all along. 323 00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:33,140 What Joseph is realizing, I think, is that God's love is so great that God can actually 324 00:25:33,140 --> 00:25:38,280 rewrite the story of his life. 325 00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:44,840 God can rewrite the story of everyone's lives so that what seems like a tragedy ends up 326 00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:53,520 being the canvas upon which God is painting his grand tapestry of redemption. 327 00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:58,440 Now for keen listeners, you might realize that what I just said opens up a huge can 328 00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:02,160 of theological worms. 329 00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:07,040 The wormiest can of all the worm cans of theological controversy. 330 00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:12,200 And that is the relationship between God's sovereignty and human responsibility. 331 00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:18,380 Now some of you might know that in my day job, I work at a theological college. 332 00:26:18,380 --> 00:26:24,040 So I have so many thoughts on this issue, but I'm not going to tell you them right now, 333 00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:26,120 which might be a relief to you. 334 00:26:26,120 --> 00:26:27,800 But I mean, look at me. 335 00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:28,800 I've got the jacket. 336 00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:29,800 I've got a beard. 337 00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:32,440 I'm like exactly the kind of person that wants to talk about that stuff. 338 00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:36,760 But anyway, we'll leave that to the side. 339 00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,160 What I will say is this. 340 00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:48,760 In some sort of mysterious way, we can look at our lives in two equal and equally true ways. 341 00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:53,720 On the one hand, you can look at your life completely naturally without reference to God. 342 00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:59,580 So I can define myself by all the atoms and molecules inside my body bumping against one 343 00:26:59,580 --> 00:27:04,880 another and maybe I'm the aggregate of all the events and people I've known and decisions 344 00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,400 and random encounters of my life. 345 00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,960 And one of the cool things that psychologists and psychotherapists and counselors can do 346 00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:16,680 is they can sort of look at all that stuff and untangle maybe some of the reasons why 347 00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:18,680 we act the way we do, right? 348 00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:23,480 By looking at sort of the natural history of our lives. 349 00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:27,240 But there's another way of looking at life. 350 00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:35,480 I can also look at my life as kind of a place, as a theater, a space where God is doing things, 351 00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:37,960 where God is at work. 352 00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:40,040 And both perspectives are true. 353 00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:44,400 This natural view and then this quote spiritual view. 354 00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:50,160 But that second view, seeing life in the light of God, it requires something called faith. 355 00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:55,620 And in particular, it requires the Holy Spirit to open our eyes. 356 00:27:55,620 --> 00:27:59,600 And this is what was happening to Joseph and his brothers. 357 00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,360 God was opening their eyes to a deeper reality. 358 00:28:03,360 --> 00:28:09,320 The reality of God's providential hand that was leading them to the promised blessing 359 00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:13,440 that was given to their forefather, Abraham. 360 00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:19,560 And once Joseph saw this, he was able to sort of go back to the beginning and retell the 361 00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:23,400 story of his whole life in a second, equally true way. 362 00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:28,440 Now through the lens of faith. 363 00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:33,400 Now brothers and sisters, as people who have been brought into Abraham's family through 364 00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:37,780 Christ, we can do this too. 365 00:28:37,780 --> 00:28:42,320 We are part of this story as believers. 366 00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:47,440 It may not be clear now, but faith believes that the final story, the final version of 367 00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:50,760 our lives is yet to be revealed. 368 00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:53,640 Of course, we don't know how all the details fit. 369 00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:57,560 We don't know how they'll look different to us at the end. 370 00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:05,240 But in Christ, we believe that our lives are always re narratable. 371 00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:12,280 And indeed are in the process of being retold in light of God's grace. 372 00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:19,120 Now to be clear, that doesn't mean that we're supposed to excuse or downplay evil and sort 373 00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:22,280 of rejoice in evil things that happen to us. 374 00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:23,660 That's not what we're talking about. 375 00:29:23,660 --> 00:29:29,900 Evil is evil and sin is sin and we should never be guilty of calling evil good or speaking 376 00:29:29,900 --> 00:29:32,720 peace where there is no peace. 377 00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:36,220 That's not what I'm talking about. 378 00:29:36,220 --> 00:29:39,020 What I am saying is this. 379 00:29:39,020 --> 00:29:45,340 As in Joseph's story, God is able to gather up the fragments of our broken lives and cast 380 00:29:45,340 --> 00:29:48,680 them in a new light. 381 00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:53,840 And this means that when all is said and done, we will look back on our lives and see that 382 00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:59,680 at no point in our story were we beyond God's reach. 383 00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:06,040 At no point in our lives had God forgotten or abandoned us. 384 00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:11,400 And that means at no point in our lives were we ever in danger of missing out on the good 385 00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:16,920 and the loving and the gracious plan that God has for our lives. 386 00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:23,600 When faith takes a second look, God is and always has been there. 387 00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:29,440 And God will retell our story in ways that will lead us to praise and glorify God's glorious 388 00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:31,480 name. 389 00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:44,280 Thirdly, and finally, when faith takes a second look, God is there in the restory. 390 00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:51,160 So after Joseph's brothers pick their jaws up off the floor, that's when the party starts. 391 00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:52,540 Right. 392 00:30:52,540 --> 00:30:55,440 Egyptian style. 393 00:30:55,440 --> 00:31:01,640 And so this group of Hebrew shepherds, the fourth generation after Abraham, find themselves 394 00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:07,320 improbably in the heart of an Egyptian palace, embracing, weeping, and maybe for the first 395 00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:12,140 time in a long time, making plans for the future. 396 00:31:12,140 --> 00:31:17,480 It's a picture of the kingdom of God in the strangest of places. 397 00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:19,560 But this wasn't just any restoration. 398 00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:25,720 It was a restoration based on this sudden realization that actually God's promises were 399 00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:29,000 still in effect. 400 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:34,840 That God's face had not turned away from his people, but was turned towards his people 401 00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:36,440 as that always has been. 402 00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:43,480 In other words, what was in danger of being forgotten, that is God's promises, were now 403 00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:45,600 being remembered again. 404 00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:50,880 And so there's no need to nurse grudges or sort of execute vendettas because the future 405 00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:52,800 of this family was not up to them. 406 00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:53,800 Right. 407 00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:55,600 They didn't have to make the right moves anymore. 408 00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:59,220 They realized that God was with them. 409 00:31:59,220 --> 00:32:03,180 And as Joseph and his brothers took stock of this truth, that God was going to bear 410 00:32:03,180 --> 00:32:07,960 them up through thick and thin for generations to come. 411 00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:14,960 They celebrate and they embrace because they're becoming a family, not a family bound by blood, 412 00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:21,980 but a community that's gathered around their mutual trust in their God. 413 00:32:21,980 --> 00:32:25,080 They're becoming a people. 414 00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:30,920 They're becoming a church. 415 00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:33,760 I've talked a lot in this sermon about individuals, right? 416 00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:39,760 About how God can rewrite your story and my story and give you faith to see his presence 417 00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:40,760 in unlikely places. 418 00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:47,360 But the truth is, God only saves individuals because he's got a larger plan at work to 419 00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:52,800 create a people, a family, a community for his very own. 420 00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:58,680 And we are a people in so far as we are in Christ. 421 00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:03,520 When God brings healing and restoration to a person, to a relationship, to a family, 422 00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:10,480 to whatever, that's not just the end in itself as good as it is. 423 00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:17,680 God heals and restores these things in order to build his kingdom, to build his church. 424 00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:22,680 And that's why we continue to gather as we are right now, because together as a church, 425 00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:30,480 we are evidence of that greater plan, of that revealed and rewritten story of God's grace 426 00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:33,100 and love for his people. 427 00:33:33,100 --> 00:33:39,000 There's no forsakenness in the household of God because there's no forsakenness in the 428 00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:43,120 kingdom of God in the age to come. 429 00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:49,060 So when faith takes a second look, God is there in the restoration of the human family 430 00:33:49,060 --> 00:33:50,060 in Christ. 431 00:33:50,060 --> 00:33:51,060 Right? 432 00:33:51,060 --> 00:33:53,000 So you catching this now? 433 00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:54,000 We got three again. 434 00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:55,000 What is it? 435 00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:56,760 Revealing, retelling, restoring. 436 00:33:56,760 --> 00:33:58,620 That's it. 437 00:33:58,620 --> 00:34:06,060 God is there in all three of those moments for those with eyes to see. 438 00:34:06,060 --> 00:34:07,920 So let's finish this up. 439 00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:13,560 To my mind, the Joseph story is all about grace. 440 00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:19,520 It's all about God's grace and God's love and God's mercy. 441 00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:21,280 Joseph is the protagonist, right? 442 00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:23,880 That's why we call it the Joseph story. 443 00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:30,480 But really, it's God who is moving things forward all along. 444 00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:35,000 What I love about the Bible, I mean, it's earned its place as the bestselling book of 445 00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:36,960 all time, in my humble opinion. 446 00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:38,180 It's a great book. 447 00:34:38,180 --> 00:34:44,960 What I love about the Bible is that it never shies away from the messiness of life. 448 00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:49,760 And the Joseph story is a story with just about as much messiness as you could stand 449 00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:50,800 from beginning to end. 450 00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:52,640 It's got family dysfunction. 451 00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:56,560 It's got these infuriating moments of injustice that happen. 452 00:34:56,560 --> 00:35:00,000 It's got vengeance, envy, sin, grief, despair. 453 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:05,800 It's got economic problems like food scarcity and natural evil problems like famines and 454 00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:08,880 lack of rain. 455 00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:12,480 It's a realistic picture of life. 456 00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:18,520 At least life as pessimists like myself see it. 457 00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:23,680 But in the midst of all that messiness, in the midst of all those trials and tribulations, 458 00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:32,960 the Bible is inviting us to look again more carefully, more deeply in faith, and especially 459 00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:36,220 in the light of the cross. 460 00:35:36,220 --> 00:35:42,260 As it was for Joseph and Martin Luther and all the other saints throughout history and 461 00:35:42,260 --> 00:35:47,360 in the lives of saints sitting here in this room right now. 462 00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:54,280 The Spirit offers us the gift of faith to see life in a new way, to take that second 463 00:35:54,280 --> 00:36:01,240 look and to see that God is there as he reveals, retells, and restores our lives in surprising 464 00:36:01,240 --> 00:36:06,760 ways, just like he always said he would. 465 00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:10,600 So we should be encouraged. 466 00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:16,880 But more than that, we need to pray earnestly that God gives us this faith, that God opens 467 00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:21,880 our eyes to see where his hand is in our lives. 468 00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:26,280 And we need to pray that God will give us the faith to say with Joseph, as he says in 469 00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:33,720 one of the greatest sentences in all of scripture in Genesis chapter 50, you intended to harm 470 00:36:33,720 --> 00:36:41,600 me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many 471 00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:43,640 lives. 472 00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:47,600 So then don't be afraid. 473 00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:49,560 Amen. 474 00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:55,920 Thank you so much for joining us today and we hope that you found the sermon positive 475 00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:56,920 and inspiring. 476 00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:01,400 And if you enjoyed the sermon, please take a minute to rate and review our podcast and 477 00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:05,440 we'll see you again next week as we begin our season of Advent. 478 00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:11,280 Today's sermon was taken from the 1115 service on November 26, 2023 at Trinity Church, Streetsville 479 00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:32,120 in Mississauga, Ontario.