In the World with God

Introduction

When God saves someone, he saves them from themselves and their sin, from the devil, and also from a society that is built around the lies of the devil and the worship of self-interest. God saves us from trusting in ourselves in a world full of people who trust themselves. He saves us from believing lies that everyone is bound to believe in some form or shape, and he saves us from the value of what our hand can achieve which is a value the world prizes above everything else. At the base of human sin is a prideful outlook on life that says we can do anything God can do, and we can do it better and so our world convinces itself that we are the ones who should be worshipped and adored, not God.

So if God saves us from such a world and society for another world where we will have joy in worshipping God and being blessed by his promises, why does God then lead us back into such a society? Why doesn’t he remove us right away and take us to be with him, especially when Scripture so clearly tells us of the dangers of loving the world and the things in the world? In our text, we see Jacob led to the land of Egypt, a land the represents wordly society in the ways I’ve described above, and he goes with him. Let us look at the significance when God leads his people into the world.

Israel in Beersheba

After reconciliation had been achieved between Joseph and his brother, and after Joseph’s talk on the sovereignty of God released them from their own guilt as they recognize God’s hand in all that happened to Joseph, they are free to come back to their father and declare what they couldn’t admit for so many years: that Joseph is alive. Although it doesn’t say that they told Jacob everything else, they can tell their father this with joy. When they say that Joseph is ruler over all Egypt it is not with any resentment of jealousy, but with joy and celebration. The weight of guilt and the bitterness of sin are both gone and it releases the family in such a powerful way.

One again, the author then turns from calling Jacob by his original name and begins calling him by his redeemed name again in 45:28 when he believes that Joseph is alive and he intends to come to Egypt.

But on his way down he stops at an ancient site that represents the continued relationship between God and the covenant family. Beersheba, which if you recall means well of seven and well of the oath.

A Holy Sight of God’s Faithfulness

This was the very same site where Abraham and Isaac had both made covenants with Abimelech and in both of those situation it had served as a place of worship to God for his faithfulness, protection, and provision for all of the needs of his people.

Abraham at Beersheba

Genesis 21:32–33 ESV

So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.

Isaac at Beersheba

Genesis 26:23–25 ESV

From there he went up to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham’s sake.” So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac’s servants dug a well.

When Abraham came to Beersheba, he had just been caught lying to Abimelech about his wife and was now at the mercy of this much more powerful king. But when he met with him, the King recognized the powerful God that was with Abraham and treated him as the more powerful party, seeking peace with him. Abraham was reminded of God’s faithfulness to him as he faced this Canaanite king and came away feared because of his God. So he planted a tree and worshiped God in that place, and it played a very similar role in Isaac’s time. There, he had been commanded by God not to go to Egypt during the famine that was in his day and instead to rely on God in the land of Canaan. He obeyed, and God blessed him greatly, which brought on the jealousy of the Canaanite King Abimelech, who cut off his water supply. God provided for Isaac at Beersheba, giving him both a well for him to claim as his own and a peace treaty with Abimelech so that he would stop his persecution. Like his father, he called on the name of the Lord there.

Now Jacob is at the same place, both to worship the Lord for the provision he has shown him in the return and apparent resurrection of hi son Joseph, but perhaps also to seek God’s guidance.

Heading to Egypt with the Blessing of God

Because up to this point in the story of God’s people, going to Egypt was always something that contradicted the will of God. Why would God be so careful to keep Isaac from going to Egypt, and so clear that Abraham going to Egypt was a breach of his faith in God, and yet when Jacob comes to worship him at Beersheba God clearly tells him to go down to Egypt. Why? To understand why God was okay with Jacob going to Egypt but not Abraham or Isaac, it’s helpful to look at some of the ways in which Jacob situation is different from theirs.

First, Jacob is explicitly told by God to go to Egypt. What's interesting is that Abraham was never explicitly forbidden to go to Egypt, but going to Egypt was a sign of his lack of faith because God had commanded him to go to the land he had promised him. When Abraham left that land in pursuit of a security offered by a pagan king and a pagan land he was abandoning his trust in God. His traveling to Egypt was a sin of omission because in traveling to Egypt he abandoned the promises of God that were tied to the land he had been led to. However, in this case Jacob is told explicitly by God to go to Egypt as he is worshiping God. It was God who sent Joseph to Egypt through the hands of his jealous Brothers and it is now also God who will send Jacob to Egypt. The difference is Jacob will be going to Egypt with faith and trust in the promises of God despite the fact that he’s leaving the promised Land, but this was not true of Abraham.

Second, the purpose for going to Egypt is very different, even opposite. When Abraham went to Egypt he went out of fear of the famine in the land. When Isaac was forbidden to go to Egypt God provided for him in the land of the Canaanites. However, Jacob will be going to Egypt not to find provision from the world but to actually find the provision that God has provided. The riches of Egypt are not due to the strength and power of a pagan King that God's people have to rely on rather than God, on the contrary the entire land of Egypt is dependent on the revelations that God had given to pharaoh and had interpreted through his servant Joseph. What's to be found in Egypt is not the work of the strength of man, it is a display of the power of God.

Third, to get Jacob away from his own worldliness. Ironically, Jacob must leave the promised land in order to become less worldly. In the land of the Canaanites he had begun adopting Canaanite ways which is especially noticeable when he was on the verge of creating a marriage link with the Shechemmites. Although in the promised Land, Jacob was becoming too comfortable with the land as it was in Pagan hands and wasn't relying enough on what the land would become through the conquest of the land in God’s Providence in due time. In going to Egypt, Jacob is ironically going to a land where God’s servant is ruler. Even though it is still the world and still a pagan nation, God has set his servants as the authority to even be called a father to pharaoh. Although this is far from the land God has promised, it is at the very heart of God’s global dominion.

What we see in this contrast is the emphasis on faith and submission to the sovereignty of God, and it shows us what it means to be in the world and not of the world. This morning we are going to look at what it means for the people of God to be in the world, next week we will focus on what it means for Christians to not be of the world.

It is important to recognize that God is not sending his people to Egypt because he is unable to take care of them in the land of Canaan. In Isaac’s case, God gave him a bounty even when the land around him was starving in famine. Nor is God sending them away from himself or from his promises. But look at verse 4,

Genesis 46:4 ESV

I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.”

This is not a permanent move, nor is it an exile from the presence of God. God will go with them so that they will continue being his people with his presence among them. This is proved in God’s care for them during their slavery,

Exodus 3:7 ESV

Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings,

In all their exile and time away from the promised land, God had never left them and they had never stopped being God’s people. They were not in Egypt in order to get what God did not provide for, they were there to be provided for directly from God’s hand. This is clear in verse 4 of our text,

Genesis 46:4 ESV

I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.”

Let us note two things,

God will go down to Egypt with Jacob. In other words, Jacob will not be leaving the presence of God. He is not like Jonah who fled to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord, God has promised that he will go with him away from the promised land with the hope that one day his descendants will return. Worldliness is not the state of being in the world, working in the world, living life in the culture and people we live in, worldliness in being in the world and away from God. I think of different sects of Christianity, such as the monastics or the even the Amish who wanted to make a very visible and tangible example of how different they are from the world around them. But those outward things are not what separates you from the world. You eat at the same restaurants, shop in the same stores, wear the same clothes, watch a lot of the same shows, and work at the same places as worldly people. What makes you holy in all those areas is that God goes with you. If he does not, you can visibly separate yourself all you want but you will still be worldly.

“And I will also bring you up again.” In bringing Jacob down to Egypt, in no way is God side-stepping his plan to bring the people of God into the promised land. When God leads his people away from the land of promise and into a place of exile, it is always temporary and it is understood that their end is always in the land of promise. When God goes with a Christian into the world, he goes with the understanding that it not where he belongs, that he is there while he waits for God’s deliverance to their heavenly home. A person who goes into the world with the attitude that they belong there does not go with God. The temporary nature of a Christian’s stay in the world, in the place of their exile, is something they are constantly aware of because of the presence of their God.

“and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.” another clear difference between Jacob’s trip to Egypt and Abraham’s is the purpose of their trip. While Abraham fled to Egypt to escape famine, looking to the hand of Pharoah to provide rather than the hand of God, Jacob will go to Egypt based on the blessings and promises of God. God will show Jacob just how powerful he is by bringing his son back to life as it were and Jacob, in going to Egypt, will be showing a trust in God’s faithfulness that is opposite to the worldliness of Abraham’s trip.

When God’s People are sent to the World

Throughout the book of Genesis, Egypt has been a symbol of the power and security that people think they can build by the strength of their own hands. It follows the theme of Cain building a city named after his son, celebrating the power of his own line and the tower of Babel where people thought they could subject God to themselves. Abraham was wrong to flee to Egypt because he was wrong to trust in the strength and power of men rather than the providence of God. Jacob was right to go to Egypt because of God’s explicit command and confirmation that he himself would provide for them in that foreign land.

Christians constantly walk in a balance that is seen in Jesus prayer in John 17

John 17:15–16 ESV

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

The world here is the societies and systems that we find in this time in history, before the second coming of Christ when the fullness of his Kingdom will be on display. Sin pursues the glory of the created over the glory of the creator, and so a sinful world is a world that relies on the power of man rather than the providence of God. In his prayer, Jesus asked the Father not to take us out of the world, but to keep us from the evil one, that is, the one whom the world serves when they think they are serving themselves. In other words, Jesus is praying that, although we remain in the world, we would be kept from being a part of this world “just as I’m not part of the world.” God is not bringing his people to Egypt to become Egyptians, and God does not leave Christians in the world to become wordly.

Following God into the World

There are typically two pits that Christians fall into when it comes to our approach to the world.

The pit of abandoning trust and submission to God to embrace the world’s identity, ethics, and values.

The pit of isolating ourselves from the world in order to keep ourselves from worldliness. This is the pit we’re focusing on today. It is often seen as the less dangerous of the two extremes, but this is simply not the case for several reasons.

First, just like Jacob was drawn to worldliness in the land of Canaan, we are just as likely to fall into worldliness in Christian and church settings, as well as on our own.

Second, it is an extreme that puts avoiding worldliness over trusting and following God. This becomes a round about way of serving ourselves rather than God. Instead of being concerned of his glory, we are concerned with an idea of being different from the world than being conformed to Christ.

Third, if we do not follow God into the world and glorify him where he has placed us we show a lack of faith that God’s presence will go with us like he went with Jacob into Egypt. This is a faithlessness that dresses itself in a false sense of holiness, and avoids God’s purpose for us in the world while pretending it is for some righteous purpose. We cannot pretend to follow God if we will not go where he leads.

Forth, if we do not follow God into the world, we show an empty belief in the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Obviously we are commanded not to test God by exposing ourselves to unnecessary temptations, but when we remove ourselves from the world altogether we betray the false belief that we are more effective at keeping ourselves from temptation and sin than God is.

What are some ways that we may be tempted to avoid the world in an unfaithful way?

When we redefine holiness in an unbiblical way. Some take the idea that holiness is separation to mean that we can make up the ways that we should be separated. How is a Christian to be separate from the world? The thing that makes us holy is the fact that God goes unto the world with us. Being holy is displaying that biblically.

When we ignore our missionary calling.

When we refuse to be missionaries.

When we put unnecessary obstacles in our ministry in the name of holiness.

1 Corinthians 9:19–23 ESV

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

When we remove ourselves from the opportunity to befriend those in the world. While Christ was a friend of sinners, he was no friend of sin. The Christian ought to be the same.

Dr Constant in tennis, Raphael in politics.

When we Do not follow Christ’s example of condescension.

When we express a prideful attitude in the world.

When we are not open and honest about our own struggles with sin

When we refuse to be relatable, conveying a message that the Gospel isn’t for people “like them”.

Conclusion: Going with Christ into the world, so we may go to heaven with him as well.

With all that being said, I cannot express strongly enough that when we go into the world, we either go with Christ or we go away from him.