God tried to kill you!

Genesis 45:4-9, 24 ESV

So Joseph said to his brothers, "Come near to me, please." And they came near. And he said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 

So it was not you who sent me here, but God. 

He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, "Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not tarry.

Then he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, "Do not quarrel on the way."

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Joseph has not had an easy life. But even though he could be full of bitterness and desire revenge against his brothers, he reassures them. There is no question that Joseph's brothers did a despicable thing throwing him into the well and selling him into slavery. And then lying to their father about Joseph's death really was evil. The brothers could have looked for Joseph since they saw the pain it caused their father. Truly Joseph and his brothers were like enemies. But Joseph became a powerful ruler of Egypt for nine years. And he held his brother in prison for one year. During that time his father could have died. Joseph for more than eight or nine years did not seem to have urgency about seeing his father. And that does not include the many more years in the house of Potiphar or in jail. Surely Joseph could have got word to his family that he was still alive.

As I've said the brothers don't go looking for Joseph and he doesn't try to contact them. So I'm not sure what Joseph was trying to do with the elaborate plan to put the money back in the grain sacks. I don't think we can assume that holding his brother in prison for a year wasn't Joseph planning revenge. But seeing his brother may have changed his mind. Now he wants to see his brother and his father. Could it be that during the meal, while Joseph sees his younger brother, God reveals to him the whole picture. It could be that Joseph knew all this all along and it was necessary that God establish Joseph as a crucial person of  importance in Egypt as the famine rolls along for the second year. I don't know how or when Joseph came to it but ultimately he hits upon the idea that God was in his brother's betrayal. In fact God used all his hardship to save him and his family. 

Could it be that like Joseph, God is the one saving you by making family members your enemies?

Could it be that you were given that promotion and the boss's wife came on to you only to put you in jail? Could it be God's plan that you have suffered slander? Could that sex-crazed liar be God's way of getting you closer to a position of salvation?

Did you ever think that being forgotten by the people you have helped is God's way of making sure you are in the right place at the right time?

Could this crisis facing the world right now God's way of saving his people?

Could it be that god tried to kill you via your brothers just to save all of you?

As the flood of emotion breaks loose with this odd family reunion, Joseph declares the purposes of God are found in the most hurtful of life situations. In the disappointments, in the betrayals and moments of being forgotten, God is working out his plan to save!

In my life I look back to these moments and I fail to see God! I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. And I'm not even sure Joseph always saw it. But here and now he does see it. He has compassion on his brothers. He loads them down with a windfall of gifts to convince his father that he is still alive! 

Put yourself in Jacob's shoes. Sooner or later you'd think he's going to know the whole real story, and who is going to blamed for the many years of deep grief. In the end he has no one to point the finger more than God.

Yet it was for his salvation. This was all God's plan. God was rescuing his people. But far more than the famine (which also came from God's hand) could it be that we can see even further? Can we see God is working out the plan to save mankind from the one thing that is of their own making? All this has been worked out by God to save you from sin! To save you and to save me from our own sin. The one thing we get a choice in, the one thing we can control is our love and recognition of God and we fail at this miserably, even when we know better. So God is going to use our sin to ultimately save us. Our murderous intentions will kill the one innocent man who will die in our place. And as Jesus dies he will say Father forgive them for they know not what they do.

Joseph's brothers have won the lotto! They are getting to move to the best land in the richest country in the world. They are loaded with royal gifts. They are riding in style. They have a royal invitation from the very people who wouldn't before sit and eat with them. They have a royal pardon for treason, treachery, and the murderous intentions they've harbored these many years. During this time of famine they have a harvest of goods unbelievable even in the best of times. And why? Because the one they intended to harm, the one they condemned to death, the one they mocked and maligned has forgiven them and blessed them beyond their wildest dreams.

We don't take to salvation very readily. We look the gift horse of grace in the mouth and we still find a way to argue with our brothers. So the man who has suffered to save us, has to still tell us to not quarrel along the way. 

Fruitful in the Land of my Affliction

GEN 41:51-52 ESV

Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. "For," he said, "God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house."  The name of the second he called Ephraim, "For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction."

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Joseph has had it hard. He was singled out by his father as the most loved of 12 boys. That's gotta hurt! The whole robe thing is embarrassing. He's sent by his Father to effectively be a nark and check up on his brothers. That's not going to make you popular. Then God gives Joseph these dreams that no one wants to hear, not even his father. He's tossed in a deep hole and then sold to his cousins as a slave and in turn sold in Egypt. Joseph does well though until a sex crazed woman lies about him. And He's tossed into another pit, jail. And again he does well and even gets a big break with the cupbearer to Pharaoh, only to be forgotten for another two years. So when Joseph is 30 he has a huge life change and comes into fame and fortune! And he is railroaded into marrying the daughter of a false religion's leader.

But Joseph makes the best of the situation and gets busy! Now he has two sons. Joseph's son's names are significant. In fact when the twelve tribes of Israel are named throughout all history you will not hear Joseph himself named. Instead you hear of Joseph's sons! Have you ever thought about the fact that built into the twelve tribes of Israel are two half Egyptian grandson's to the high priest of an Egyptian god? 

Sometimes we need another perspective. And nothing can quite give us a new vantage point like a newborn baby. All that a newborn encapsulates fills us with hope. They are needy, vulnerable, and full of possibility and still they are resilient and demanding.

Joseph sees a new future when God blesses him with sons. And the blessing erases the past and provides for the future.

Now I'd like to encourage each one of you to have sons! But I mean spiritual sons! You are not too old, too single, too afflicted to ask God to make your faith fruitful. What your church needs are new believers. What your family needs is someone who has newly come to trust Jesus. We need in the church today the hope that comes with people being born again. Wherever you are, whatever your state in life, I'm asking you to pray that God makes you fruitful! I'm asking that you hope for newborns in the kingdom of God. And I pray as they come you give them names, may be new names. In addition to brother or sister call them Hope! Name them Ephraim! 

As time goes on and God speaks of his people, he uses different tribes to refer to the whole or called them all Israel after Jacob's name change. When heartbroken over his people God's term of endearment in the book of Hosea is Ephraim. So an Egyptian boy whose grandfather was a very important religious leader for an Egyptian god and his other grandfather was a man who actually wrestled with the one true God of promise. Ephraim, the son of Joseph is a sign of fruitfulness that comes from affliction.

Mistaken identity

Genesis 21:1-7 ESV

The Lord
visited Sarah
as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised.
And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age
at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac.  And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old,
as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said,
"God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me." And she said, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."
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How many times have you heard this story? I know I've heard it many times. And it seems to me every time I've ever heard it before I've left thinking of Abraham and even more so of Sarah. And to be sure both of them are key characters. We should empathise with them. It is an exciting miracle. A very old couple have become first time parents. Sarah is ninety! Ninety year old women don't have babies!
But this is not first and foremost a story about Abraham, Sarah, or Isaac.

This is a story about God!

If you take a moment to thumb through your Bible around these chapters in Genesis. Look for the number of times the narration punctuates the action with God or the Lord. God said. The Lord said. The Lord went. God came. God caused.
And crucially in these seven verses above, God has made.

Listen to how Paul puts God the focus of Abraham's sorry in Romans,
Romans 4:19-22 ESV

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead ( since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness."

Romans 9:8-11 ESV

This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: "About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son." And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—

Later the author of the book of Hebrews sheds this light on these events,

Hebrews 11:11-19 ESV

By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

In every case the story is about God. Is your life story about God? Are you putting your faith in the promise of God to you?

When you review your past or contemplate your future is it seen though the lens of God's plan and God's promise?

Don't try to be the star of this epic saga. Trust God who, keeps giving. Expect God to enable you to fulfil his promise to you.

Do you even know God's promise to you? Here's a clue it is a promise about Jesus. Jesus is the son of promise, born out of time. Born into impossible circumstances. Born to declare God's intention to save. Born to show God to you. Jesus is ultimately the one who in every way fulfils the many promises of God.

Do you know him?
Do you trust him?
Are you expecting him to work out the promise of God to you?
Are you making sure the story of your life is a story about God fulfilling his promise through Jesus?

Is God not more just and merciful than you?

Genesis 18:32 ESV

Then he said, "Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there." He answered, "For the sake of ten I will not destroy it."
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Here in Genesis 18 God debates within himself the appropriateness of telling Abraham his plan to judge Sodom. (v.17) Abraham, most likely thinking of Lot, his nephew, begins to consider the consequences of judgement on Sodom.

Abraham like us knew Lot was wealthy and he had many employees, and some married daughters as well as sons in laws,  so from this considerable family and business surely there'd be 50 people who did not deserve to be judged. 

But Abraham reconsidered his original negotiation with God. He thought about things in Lot's town being pretty bad. So with determination and a bit of fear Abraham haggles with God down to a mere ten. Could this number represent just Lot and his immediate family?
Whatever it was Abraham had hoped there were ten! There were not ten.

But God let's Lot warn family that doesn't take heed and then let's Lot escape to a very small near by village.

I hope you read the Bible everyday and that you read it honestly.

Maybe you've followed along reading some of the passages I've been reading. If you have, you should be seeing a trend in Genesis so far.

People are given everything they need to do right and they choose to do wrong.

It starts with the curse and being driven out of Eden. Then there is Cain the murderer being driven to wander. And people go so far from God's way that during the time of Noah the whole of creation is judged for the wickedness of all the people. And Noah and his family are saved alone. Now Lot and his daughters are saved alone as fire and brimstone rain from heaven.

You should ask yourself, 'Will any one take God seriously?'

It is not like God had not displayed his power and intention. But what do we do with our free will? What do we do to our Eden? What do we do to our brother? What do we do to our neighbour or the weary travellers?

Who is faithful and who is corrupt?

And even now today you have a choice as do I. Who will I believe? Who will I serve?  Who will I fear and worship?

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Genesis 18:25 ESV

Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?"

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God's promise to you today is a resounding yes. He will indeed do what is just. And yet he will also be merciful. And for your sake his mercy is your salvation.

Romans 5:17 ESV

For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.