Genesis 45

Threads of redemption : Sermon Title

Have Fun. Be Passionate. Give Jesus

INTRO: I want to start by asking you a question. before we open our bibles I want you to ponder this for a moment and be very honest with yourself. When someone wrongs you how do you respond? Maybe on the outside you are calm and collected, but internally where does your mind go?

ExP: Genesis 45: 1-4

POINT: Our response to people that have wronged us reveals our character.

ILLU: Joseph has shown incredible amounts of character through all of these weeks we have been talking about him. But he is still human. 22 years earlier these same brothers had sold him into slavery. What if Joseph had let those facts and those old betrayals rule his emotions. This would be a very different story. Many of us would probably be on Joseph’s side. We would want justice! These are the people that wronged us! They deserve what they have coming to them. How many of us have had that sort of fantasy when someone has wronged us? Maybe it was a job that treated you poorly and fired you. A common response I hear from people going through something like this is “That place is going to fall a part now that I am gone.” Because in our heart that is what we think they deserve. Our response is to see our personal form of justice on display. But Joseph had a different response to his brothers. If anyone had a justifiable grievence with someone, it was Joseph with his brothers. But we just read that he wept before them and told them to come near to him.

APPLY: The way Joseph revealed himself to his brothers with compassion, love, forgiveness calls us to seek reconciliation over vengeance. Once he reveals who he is to them he sees past their shame and embraces them. How many times have we sought out vengeance or what we think is justice for perceived wrongs in our lives instead of seeking unity and peace?

Transition: What I love so much about Joseph’s response to his brothers is how he looks at the big picture of what God has done in and through him in Egypt. He doesn’t allow the evil things that had happened to him effect what God has called him to do.

ExP: Genesis 45: 4-8

POINT: You’re beginning point isn’t always your ending point

ILLU: Over these past few weeks reading about Joseph, have you ever thought about putting yourself in his shoes? How many of us would have endured? How many of us would have given up? This guys has been sold in to slavery, has been falsely accused of a heinous crime and has been imprisioned. Most of us when someone gets a condiment wrong on our sandwich we have a hard time dealing with that. There is a quote that I came across in my research that I wanted to share with you all. It says “In His infinite wisdom, God allows trials in order to develop perseverance in us and to cause us to fix or hope on the glory that is yet to be revealed…. Our faith and perseverance can grow only under the pain of trial.” -Jerry Bridges.

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Transition: There must have been a strong belief that kept Joseph sustained for so long

ExP: Genesis 45: 9

POINT: Joseph found his true identity in his father in God

ILLU: Joseph didn’t identify with a slave. He didn’t identify as a servant or a prisioner. He identified as a son of God. Someone made in the image of God.

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