Wait and See

Wait and See

Elvis Presley used to visit Lil Thompson’s Steakhouse in Tennessee. He was good friends with the owner.

He went one night when he heard that the Steakhouse was holding a Elvis Presley impersonator contest. He decided it would be fun if he showed up as one of the contestants.

The owner was worried the place would go crazy when everyone realized it was Elvis. There was no need.

He sang “Love Me Tender” to polite applause and came third place in the contest!

Sometimes, we are not as great as we think we are. But likewise, we are also not as bad as we fear we are.

A bunch of brothers were just about to discover both truths in today’s message.

May we discover something, as well.

Message

In a book titled Grant, the biographer tells the story of Ulysses S Grant's meteoric rise from store clerk to Civil War hero and beyond.

By the fall of 1863, Grant had overseen successful campaigns in Vicksburg and Chattanooga.

Suddenly, national leaders and politicians who just months before would have hardly recognized his name now sought to rub shoulders with the Union's great hope.

On his way to a meeting in Louisville, Grant was approached by Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, and Ohio Governor, John Brough.

While Grant and Stanton had communicated via telegraph, they had never set eyes on each other.

Short of breath, asthmatic, snuffling with a heavy cold, the short, stout Stanton barged into Grant's car, eyed the officers present, and then began to pump the hand of a bearded man with an army hat whom he assumed was Grant.

"How do you do General Grant?" he cried. "I recognize you from your pictures." Stanton was embarrassed to learn he was shaking hands with Grant's doctor, Dr. Edward Kittoe.

The biographer explained: "Stanton later admitted that in guessing which officer was Grant, he had eliminated the real Grant because he looked much too ordinary and wasn't the striking figure he had imagined."

Go back almost 4,000 years and who will discover someone who was not quite was everyone expected. It was Jacob’s son, Joseph.

Twenty-two years had passed since Joseph’s brothers sold him as a slave. He was not a the biggest or strongest of the lot.

He had a good head on his shoulders, but he had irritated his brothers to no end by telling them of visions where he was ruling over them.

Things came to a climax when they caught their brother away from their father. In their anger, they thought first to kill him but decided instead to sell Joseph as a slave.

As far as they were concerned, Joseph was gone.

They lied to their father and buried their guilt deep inside. They would speak of it to no one, but it never left their thoughts.

When famine drove the brothers to Egypt, and they appeared to Egypt’s second most powerful man, they had no idea he was Joseph.

Twenty years had passed and becoming second to the Pharoah had changed their brother so that they did not recognize him. But Joseph had not forgotten them.

It was clear to Joseph that none of them have forgotten what they did to Joseph. The question was, “Had they changed?”

On a second visit, bringing Joseph’s brother Benjamin, Joseph decided to test them (43:1–44:34).

When the brothers appeared in Egypt to buy grain, Joseph accused them of being spies.

Joseph wanted to know if the Lord had worked any change in their character. The tests that Joseph devised showed that God had!

When they were thrown into prison, the cried out, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother” Gen. 42:18–38.

For over two decades they had lived with that memory. Now everyone in the prison knew it and so did Joseph.

You probably don’t know that on March 18, 1937, a spark ignited a cloud of natural gas that had accumulated in the basement of the London, Texas, school. The blast killed 293 people, most of them children.

The explosion happened because the local school board wanted to cut heating costs. Natural gas, the by-product of petroleum extraction, was siphoned from a neighboring oil company's pipeline to fuel the building's furnace free of charge.

The problem was no could smell when the gas was leaking.

That tragedy touches us even today. One of the outcomes of that explosion was a government regulation requiring companies to add an odorant to natural gas.

The aroma is now so familiar to us that we often forget natural gas is naturally odorless.

There is a tendency these days to classify all feelings of guilt as hazardous to our self-esteem. Yet, guilt is valuable, it is like that "odorant" that warns us of danger.

There are days that you and I sin quite easily, as if doing wrong were no great matter. But once committed, sin’s memory snaps at our heels, and burdens us with guilt and shame.

Joseph’s brother Reuben who first said they should kill their brother said, “Now we must give an accounting.”

His reaction sums up the Old Testament view of sin as (1) a violation of a known standard (2) for which one is accountable (3) and which merits punishment.

When Jacob was told they would have to take young Benjamin back with them, we can sense Jacob’s anguish at the thought of losing Rachel’s other son, Benjamin.

We sense the brothers’ terror as they faced a return to Egypt, where they were convinced, the ruler intended to “seize us as slaves and take our donkeys” (v. 18).

Only the threat of starvation in Canaan forced Jacob to send Benjamin and the brothers back to Egypt once again.

Joseph too was torn with emotion when they arrived. He could hardly control himself at the sight of his brother, and word of his father.

Yet Joseph controlled his emotions not out of necessity but out of wisdom. The test of his brothers was not complete. Joseph still needed to know their hearts.

All too often we act from emotion rather than wisdom. It is especially important in dealing with our children to do what is best for them, rather than what our heart tells us.

In the final test Joseph placed unbearable stress on his brothers (the very life of Benjamin) —but it revealed what Joseph needed to know.

How ironic it was that Judah was the one who made the offer of his life for Benjamins.

Years before Judah had been against murdering Joseph but had been more than willing to sell him as a slave and bring home evidence that Joseph had been killed by a wild beast (cf. 37:26–31).

Now Judah offers to become a slave himself in place of young Benjamin, motivated by thought that this would kill his father.

God had worked a real change in the heart of this man who was so calloused just 20 years before.

It may seem strange, but the realization that we have sinned often launches personal transformation. Guilt is not intended to drive us from God but to Him.

Judah’s reaction here offers hope to all who are burdened with memories of past sins.

Our past should notdetermine our future! We can confess our sins to God, and, like Judah, we can be changed.

Joseph finally revealed himself to his stunned brothers and then told them to bring their father back. (45:1–28).

A stunned Jacob heard the news and realized that before he died, he would see the lost son he loved so dearly.

The clan moved to Egypt, where Jacob was reunited with the son that he thought was dead (46:1–34).

The historical purpose of Joseph was that through his rise from slavery to power, God made it possible for his little family to move to Egypt where they could multiply and become a great people.

In working out His grand master plan for the ages, God never forgets the individual. He remembers each one of us and truly cares about our joys and our sorrows.

I suspect that God had some tears in His eyes as He witnessed that scene.

Ultimately, God’s most important works are not those He does in shaping history’s flow, but those He does in the hearts of human beings.

One morning Mauricio Estrella walked into the office, sat down at his desk, and was greeted with the message: “Your password has expired. Click ‘Change password’ to change your password.”

You know how, when you are emotionally raw, small things can be so frustrating? This, for Mauricio, was one of those times.

He was running late that morning, had forgotten to eat breakfast, had a meeting to attend, and then there were those nagging frustrations with his ex.

Mauricio had just gone through an emotionally brutal divorce because of an indiscretion that he could not forgive.

At his workplace, the server is configured to ask thousands of employees around the planet to change their password every 30 days.

As the empty field with the cursor awaited his input, Mauricio thought to himself, “I’m gonna use a password to change my life.” His password became: “Forgive@her.”

Each time he came back from a break or lunch, he typed “Forgive@her.” For one month, the password became a mantra. And that mantra changed his life.

Mauricio would later share: “That constant reminder that I should forgive her led me to accept the way things happened at the end of my marriage.”

Today, Mauricio holds no ill will for his former wife. In fact, they have learned to be good friends. Only God knows what may happen next.

All of us need to come to terms with the guilt that is in our lives. Only God knows what good may come by doing so.

All we have to do is wait and see.

We already know what happens when we don’t.

Benediction

God of grace, we come before as a humble people who know that we are loved by You for no other reason than You choose to love us. We take our comfort in knowing that our failings do not lessen that love. You love us now as much as you ever have. Let us not forget that in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Genesis 42: 18-23

And Joseph said to them on the third day, Do this and live! I reverence and fear God.

If you are true men, let one of your brothers be bound in your prison, but [the rest of] you go and carry grain for those weakened with hunger in your households.

But bring your youngest brother to me, so your words will be verified and you shall live. And they did so.

And they said one to another, We are truly guilty about our brother, for we saw the distress andanguish of his soul when he begged us [to let him go], and we would not hear. So this distress and difficulty has come upon us.

Reuben answered them, Did I not tell you, Do not sin against the boy, and you would not hear? Therefore, behold, his blood is required [of us].

But they did not know that Joseph understood them, for he spoke to them through an interpreter.