Meant for Good Pt 5
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Provision and Peace
● Promise: The foretaste of glory. (The taste or glimpse of glory to come.)
● Process: The reality of suffering. (The painful experience of an impossible journey.)
● Perfection: The reward of maturity. (The internal treasures of character and resilience that can be gained ONLY through the Process.)
● Procession: The unveiling of beauty. (The lived experience of victory as God "shows us off" in the world for His glory.)
● Penitence: Reckoning with the reality of our sin. (The painful process of confronting our own evil and aligning with God against it.)
● Provision: The sacrificial substitution. (This is at the zenith of mature Christian expression.)
● Peace: The joy of reconciliation. (The experience of family restoration, intimacy, knowing we are a part of God's eternal family.)
● How does God provide for his children?
● How good is God? How good are his intentions? (Theme of Peace, Intimacy, and Nearness.)
● How does God’s Gospel Provision come to us?
● What keeps us from living as loved sons and daughters, at total peace with God?
MAIN SERMON
PRAYER
“Lord, I pray that you will open hearts and eyes today to see the utter lavishness of your Provision, and to experience the heartfelt intimacy of your Peace.”
SCRIPTURE
● Genesis 45
● Romans 8:32
CRUCIAL QUESTIONS
Let’s start with the three crucial questions we’ll be answering in this sermon:
What is God’s Provision for his children? How good are God’s intentions? Too good to be true? What is God ultimately doing with His family? What keeps us from embracing the fullness of God’s Peace?
SCRIPTURE 1: JUDAH’S REDEMPTION
(Pastor: Scriptures are given in ESV, but feel free to use whatever version you want. I’ve included the scriptures, because I find it helpful to underline for emphasis. You will read the scriptures below, and then give some commentary for each section of scripture.)
This is Judah speaking...
32 Your servant guaranteed the boy’s safety to my father. I said, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life!’
33 “Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers.
34 How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come on my father.”
REFLECTIONS:
Last week we saw Judah come to a point where he was willing to sacrifice his own life for the sake of Benjamin’s. Take me…not him. In a way, we see an action like God/Jesus…the giving of a life…the willingness to give up life for someone else. Definitely different than how he acted before. Joseph has walked through suffering. Judah, it would seem has walked a path to repentance…his heart has been changed…and the evidence is in his actions.
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SCRIPTURE 2: JOSEPH REVEALS HIMSELF
1 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers.
2 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.
3 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.
REFLECTIONS:
Can you imagine being the brothers. In shock. They guy we’ve been dealing with is…Joseph. Wow...
Then…Oh no… He’s essentially the ruler of Egypt! And he 100% knows that we’re guilty!!!
What do you think? Fear, wonder, excitement … disbelief?
He has every right to punish…but it looks like he is being gracious.
APPLICATIONS:
This has a lot to do with our discipleship walk.
Have you noticed that when people throughout scripture come into the actual presence of God, or even the presence of an angel, the reaction is fear and dismay?
Even prophets and righteous men fall down like dead men in his presence.
This is the effect of the holiness of God on a sinner like you and me.
In our everyday context, we think we’re OK. We compare ourselves with “worse” sinners and find ourselves to be adequate.
It’s only when we come into the presence of God when we remember how unholy we really are.
We have much more in common with a murderer than we do with the Holy One, if we were to plot ourselves on a holiness chart.
And the response?
We don’t belong in the presence of God. We know, I think, what the outcome will be, maybe should be, for us… we’re sinners before the perfect and Holy creator.
The brothers have nothing to say in their own defense. They are the hopeless defendant standing in the courtroom after all the damning evidence against them has been presented. They are waiting for the verdict that they know is coming: Guilty, Guilty, Guilty.
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SCRIPTURE 3: JOSEPH’S ASSURANCE
4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please, come near me,” and they came near. “I am Joseph, your brother,” he said, “the one you sold into Egypt.
5 And now don’t be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.
6 For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there will be five more years without plowing or harvesting.
7 God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance.
8 Therefore it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.
REFLECTIONS:
“Come near to me, please.” Yes, you’ve done terrible things. Now come close to me. I want to be close to you. I am greater than the terrible things you have done. I will provide for you. Come close to me.
The next thing he says is, “I’m your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.” In other words, YES, the terrible things you’ve done have caused harm. They are true, and the consequences are true. But I am able to hold your wrongdoings in tension with my desire to be close to you. The fact of your guilt is not weightier than the fact of my love and forgiveness.
And now comes the mic-drop moment. Joseph says, “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.” This is EVERYTHING. When I say Provision, this is what I mean.
God did this. Yes, the brothers did this. But the greater truth is that God was also doing something; God had a plan. Joseph was in the place where he was able to see God’s purpose of healing and life and deliverance in a way that it made his brothers offense insignificant in comparison. I
In fact, God loomed so large in Joseph’s vision, that it swallowed up his brothers’ sins in love.
Joseph was God’s provision. Joseph could see, here, at last, that his story is not a tragedy. His story is a story of redemption and salvation and forgiveness and the unbelievable love of God that is above everything in life.
APPLICATIONS:
And to be sure, we can see a picture of Jesus here right? Joseph was a type and shadow of the coming atonement. Joseph suffered as an innocent man for the deliverance of his people from famine. Jesus suffered as an innocent man for the deliverance of the whole world from the power of sin.
I think what we can walk through those doors with today is this…God operates on a completely different level. His plans, His love, His forgiveness, His work to save, how he can work good into the evil we create.
And, this is just the start....
Have you ever experienced something like this? You expected A…but then B happened and you were blown away.
SCRIPTURE 4: JOSEPH’S PROVISION
9 Now hurry back to my father and say to him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; don’t delay.
10 You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me—you, your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all you have.
11 I will provide for you there, because five years of famine are still to come. Otherwise you and your household and all who belong to you will become destitute.’
12 “You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that it is really I who am speaking to you.
13 Tell my father about all the honor accorded me in Egypt and about everything you have seen. And bring my father down here quickly.”
14 Then he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin embraced him, weeping.
15 And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterward his brothers talked with him.
Genesis 50:20 (ESV)
20 ...you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
Joseph saw the big picture and that became reality.
REFLECTIONS:
God provides. God is near. He is not just giving them his things. He is giving them himself -- peace and intimacy with the most powerful man in the world.
APPLICATIONS:
If you can’t tell -- we are the brothers in this story.
I think you could reference the prodigal son of Jesus’s parable here too. That’s who we are.
We are the ones who are receiving the opposite of what we deserve. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, so we’re guilty. So God sent Jesus to absorb the penalty of our sin, so that we could live in peace with God. Undeserved peace. This is the gospel.
It’s not just not getting the infinite punishment we deserve.
It is also getting the infinite reward we don’t deserve. And that reward is not just God’s things -- it’s God himself. It’s Christ in you, the hope of glory. It’s intimacy, nearness, and perfect peace with the most powerful and beautiful being in the universe.
ILLUSTRATION:
Paul said it this way:
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Peace like this, provision like this, leads you to then live without anxiety, worry. You can then live like that.
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SEGUE
In verses 16-24, Pharoah and his household hear the commotion, and Pharoah starts handing out blessings as well. It’s this massive celebration, culminating with Joseph sending his brothers back home to retrieve the family. Send wagons, send servants, send provisions…bring them here. They won’t have a worry in the world.
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CONCLUSION: JACOB’S NUMBNESS
25 So they went up out of Egypt and came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan.
26 They told him, “Joseph is still alive! In fact, he is ruler of all Egypt.” Jacob was stunned; he did not believe them.
27 But when they told him everything Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the carts Joseph had sent to carry him back, the spirit of their father Jacob revived.
28 And Israel said, “I’m convinced! My son Joseph is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.”
FINAL APPLICATIONS
Disbelief…and then a revival of spirit.
This good news is all true, but Jacob initially can’t enter into the joy.
What’s the solution? When they tell him all the words of Joseph, and show him the wagons that Joseph sent, then he believes. And when he believes, his spirit revives. He enters into the celebration. What did it take to activate the blessing in his life?
He had to stop believing that it was too good to be true, and believe that it was true.
Here at the end, not only of this sermon, but of this series, I want you to see the display of God’s amazing gospel intentions through this ancient text. We are both Joseph, the innocent son on a rugged path to glory, and we are the brothers, who must confront their own evil to enter into their redemption story. All of these experiences have relevance to your Christian walk. God gives us the Promise, and takes us through the Process. His goal is Perfection, or maturity, and maturity comes with pain. Then he displays us to the world in the Procession. At times we must enter into Penitence, as we wrestle with the ramifications of our own wrongdoing. But through it all, we ultimately find God’s Provision, waiting to bring us into the place of Peace and intimacy.
CONCLUSION: CALL TO ACTION, HEART CALL
I want you to know that God has provided for you. Just as he provided Joseph to be the sacrificial deliverer of the fledgling nation of Israel, He has provided Jesus for you, as the all sufficient sacrifice for all of your sins, past, present and future.
His love is the exact opposite of what you deserve, and has nothing to do with what you do or don’t deserve. His love for you is the most supernatural thing in your life. And you and I might be missing out on some -- or all -- of the most powerful reality available to us, the overwhelming love of God, because we instinctively think it’s too good to be true. We are waiting for the other shoe to drop. Our hearts are numb.
God will love me when I get my act together. God will love me when I stop doing X and start doing Y.
We live in world of limits don’t we. Death being the ultimate limit. We think…there are limits. How can God act in this? How can God love like that?
And then we’re anxious about things…we try to live life out on our own with our ideas and plans and assumptions about reality.
Own the fact that you have some measure of this poverty mentality in your mind and heart, and that this is keeping you from living the life you could be living.
Jesus says…Peace I give you.
Jesus says…ask the Father what you need.
How long did the Prodigal son need to live in need to realize he had it better with his father? Father ran to him, put a ring on his finger, coat around him…planned a party for him...
We who are in Jesus, we don’t get what we deserve. And thank God, we never will. We’ve been given Jesus.
God has given us the best of Himself, which is Jesus. This is His guarantee that He will ultimately withhold nothing from us.
32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Will you believe? Are you maybe numb. I pray that our God will cause your heart to rethink what eternity and the rest of your life here could hold if you began to trust in Him.
Let’s pray together.