Faithful Then, Faithful Now | Knowing God - Genesis 50(Sept 5) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Father, everything that we just gave to you in worship is everything that I desire in these next few moments, Lord, that as we open up your scriptures, which are a window through which we can gaze upon you, Lord, that you would show us a greater glory than we have ever known.

Lord, the glory of your own Son, Jesus Christ.

It's a glory that drives out all darkness.

It's a glory that is the answer to all of our suffering.

It's a glory that brings healing to all of our sin.

And so, God, it is a glory that all of us need this morning.

And yet I'm so reminded of what Satan wants to do here this morning, Lord.

He wants to distract from this glory.

He wants to lie to us about what we truly need.

And so, God, we pray for your help by the power and presence of your Holy Spirit here this morning, Lord.

We pray for your help.

Would you point our eyes to this glory, Lord?

And I know my role here as a preacher of your word.

My role here is to disappear and help point all of our eyes to the glory that you have revealed through your word.

And so, God, accomplish your work within us.

It's a work so beyond any human effort, Lord, the work that you want to do in us this morning.

God, accomplish it in us, we pray.

In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.

If you have a copy of God's word, and I hope that you do, you can open it up to Genesis chapter 50.

Genesis 50 · chapter mention

We're going to be in the end of Genesis 49 and 50 this morning.

And I just have to express before getting into it how much of a joy it is to worship with you all.

At a time like that, where I just feel like the only thing I can do is sing as loud as I can.

And part of me, my fleshly part of me, wants to hold back a little bit because I've got to preach for a few minutes here and I need a voice.

But on mornings like that, I just, it's reckless abandon.

I say, Spirit, you're gonna have to give me a voice to preach because I just gotta sing as loud as I can with these people who are proclaiming God's glory so greatly.

And so I thank you this morning for the blessing it is to worship alongside you.

Uh, I think everyone, I can speak for everyone in this room.

We love the part of the movie.

I think each of us do.

We love the part of that sports movie where it's like we're in the locker room with the coach, and it's all it's always, you know, the team's losing, and the coach has to say something to this team that will be motivating enough to carry them through this challenge they've got to overcome.

We love that.

In fact, just this week I was at the gym, and you know, you're there, and no one wants to be there, and so I'm sitting in my car and I'm thinking, man, I really do not want to be here today.

And I pulled up one of those, and by the end of it, I was ready to like not only go into the gym, I was ready to like lift the whole gym over my head, I was ready to go.

Like those those moments in our life where someone speaks something powerful to us can be so motivating for us to get through what we originally thought might be crappy, which we originally thought might be too hard.

It's an important moment.

And really, as we consider the book of Genesis, all of Genesis has been like this locker room speech that Moses has been given to Israel.

Remember, Israel's in the desert and and they're on their way to the promised land, but it's not gonna be easy.

The trip from Egypt to the promised land is gonna be incredibly hard for Israel.

And even though God's gonna be guiding them, they're gonna need something that's gonna carry them through this long, difficult road.

At times it's gonna feel impossible, at times it's gonna feel like they're never gonna get there.

And so Moses writes Genesis for this point.

What can Moses say to these people to help them endure this hard and difficult challenge?

In other words, the question for us this morning is this what are the people of God, what do they need, specifically, what do they need to hear and believe in order to be able to endure the hard things that God is going to bring them through?

And here's the answer we find in Genesis, specifically in Genesis 50 this morning, but really all throughout Scripture, that the the thing that God would say to us in that locker room if he were with us is this.

Are you ready for it?

This is important.

That if we're gonna go where God's calling us, if we're gonna respond to the difficult call that God places on our life, it requires nothing more than that we know the God who calls.

In other words, you can say it like this you will not go where God calls you without knowing the God who is calling you.

If you like rhymes, then you can say it like this: there's no going without knowing.

But the other way that we can look at that is this that when you do know God, what you see is part of like what we were experiencing this morning, where there's this glory that's so indescribable that it's like a magnet, it's pulling you where you need to go.

And so when we know God, God calls us to maybe these things that if we didn't taste his glory like we have as believers would be incredibly difficult.

But because we know God, we feel like we can overcome the world.

That's the effect of these locker room speeches, aren't they?

You know, you're watching them on a Friday night, you're at home, and you're watching that sports movie, you're in your pajamas, you're covered in popcorn, your fingers have Cheeto dust all over them, but you hear that speech and you're ready to go.

That's the response.

Let's go! I can do anything.

That's your response.

Let's go.

Let's go.

And I want you to know as as we walk through Genesis 50 this morning, that's that's all that's the only response I'm looking for.

As we see who God is, as Moses reveals a knowledge of who God is, this God who calls us, the only response I'm looking for is this response, let's go, God.

This is what the the you know, the people of God have always said to God.

Here I am, here I am.

I've seen your glory, here I am.

It's like this all throughout scripture, isn't it?

That the the knowing God comes before going for God.

You remember Moses himself, the one who writes Genesis.

You remember that he was called by God to lead people, God's people out of slavery into the promised land, and what was Moses' response?

There's no way, God.

You've chosen the wrong person.

And so what does God do?

He reveals himself to Moses, doesn't he?

The great I am in the burning bush.

Well, what about David?

You know, what was the difference between David, this young shepherd boy, and all of these mighty men who are on the front of the army and were too scared to take down Goliath?

Well, the difference we're told in 1 Samuel is that David had an experience in the wilderness where he came to discover that God would defeat his enemies so that God could get the glory.

So that when David comes up to Goliath, he's like, hey, listen, obviously none of you know who my God is, because my God can take out this giant with no problem.

I know my God.

So it was with Jesus.

Isn't it interesting that Jesus, throughout his ministry, whenever he healed people, he always said to them, Don't go.

Don't go and tell anyone what I've done for you.

Why is that?

Well, because you couldn't understand Jesus' ministry without understanding the cross.

Unless you knew what Jesus was really coming to do, you could not understand what he was doing.

You needed to know before you could go.

And then what Jesus does, as soon as he dies and he appears to his disciples, what does he say?

You know a church, this is our heartbeat as a church.

He says, Go, go, go and make disciples.

Now that you know what I've accomplished for you, now that you've experienced redemption, go.

This is what Moses is after.

He wants us to know the God who calls, in order that when God calls, looks to us and calls us to a service.

Maybe he's calling us, some of us, this morning, into a path of suffering and hardship.

Maybe he's calling some of us this morning to respond in obedience to something the Holy Spirit has been pressing in our heart.

But when we hear that call, we will respond to God.

Let's go.

Here I am.

We need to know God.

Well, here's the first thing Moses wants to point us to that we must know.

We need to know his unending faithfulness.

We need to know the unending faithfulness of God.

Now, the faithfulness of God has really been a theme of Genesis.

That's why the name of our series has been Faithful Then, Faithful Now, because part of what God has been doing as we've been working through Genesis is showing us his faithfulness to the family of Abraham and the people of God, time and time and time again, so that we can be convinced that God truly is faithful.

This is what we need as human beings, the constant reminder, because we are so forgetful, the constant reminder that God is going to do what he says he's going to do.

That's why we sang it this morning.

We've sang that song before, right?

And we're going to sing it again.

But when we sing the words, you are who you say you are.

God, God, you'll do what you say you'll do.

Because we're forgetful.

We forget the faithfulness of God.

We forget that our God is a God who, if he says he's going to do something, he's going to do it.

That's who God is.

It's his very nature.

If God, we've seen this through Genesis time and time again, and Moses again is driving this deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into our heart because we just cannot believe this enough that if God says he's going to do something, he is going to do it.

And you can bank your life on that reality of who God is because it's his faithfulness.

And so, as Jacob dies, Moses continues to reinforce this idea that God is going to do what he said he's going to do.

Remember, like you're sick of this.

Some of you are so happy it's the last week of Genesis because you don't want to hear me talk about the three promises God made to Abraham again.

And you fall asleep and you think about these three promises because we've come up to it so much.

But this is what God is doing in the world.

He promised Abraham three things: land, seed, and finish it for me, church.

Blessing.

Land, seed, and blessing.

What's the work that God is doing in the world right now?

Well, through the family of Abraham, he is multiplying their seed so that they would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, according to God's promise.

He's giving them a land that will be like the Garden of Eden, where God can again, through redemption, be with his people, and he's gonna cause the people of God to be the blessing to the nations.

God's promise this, and as we enter into, we're gonna start at Genesis 49, verse 28, we we find that God is answering it because he's faithful.

Genesis 49:28

He says he's going to do it.

He's gonna do it.

And so I want to do something really quickly here, okay?

Little, you you gotta help me out here.

Are you ready?

You guys are gonna be preachers this morning.

Uh, we're gonna walk through this text, we're gonna see God's promises fulfilled, the threefold promise he made to Abraham again.

But I want to drive this truth really home hard for us.

So I'm gonna ask you to help me with something.

Uh we're gonna walk through this text and see God fulfilling his promise.

And when I say, if God says he's going to do it, I want you to respond to me, he's going to do it.

Okay, can you you guys think you can do that?

Can we practice it right now?

Some of you are like, I'm so over this.

That's fine, you can be silent.

I'm not gonna judge you.

Not getting any marks on this, but some of you are gonna help me out and preach the gospel right now, okay?

Are you ready?

So I'm gonna say, if God says he's gonna do it, you're gonna say he's going to do it.

Okay, let's try this again.

If God says he's gonna do it, he's going to do it.

Nice, okay.

That was great.

10 out of 10.

That's perfect.

Let's keep that momentum.

Now, notice first the seed promise.

Look at chapter 49, verse 28.

All these are the 12 tribes of Israel.

Stop right there.

God has fulfilled his promise, he is multiplying the family of Abraham.

Man, it's been a long road, hasn't it?

If you know the story of Genesis, you know that this promise has been a long road.

He said it to Abraham, and then Abraham's okay, like, okay, I'm waiting, God.

I'm waiting.

And years pass, and you know the story.

By the end of Abraham's life, he has one child, Isaac, and then Isaac is given the same promise of Abraham, and he's given two children, Esau and Jacob.

And it's taken a long time, hundreds of years, and yet here we find ourselves at this place where now they are multiplied into twelve tribes, so that from this vantage point nobody can deny God's faithfulness.

And the reason for this is because if God says he's going to do it, he's going to do it.

Perfect church.

Well, well, what about the blessing, the promise that God's people would be a blessing to their nations?

Well, look at what he says after this.

This is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to them.

How many times does Moses have to say blessing?

He's driving this truth deep into our hearts that if God says he's going to do it, he's going to do it.

Well, what about the land promise?

Well, look what he says after this.

Then he commanded them and said to them, I am to be gathered to my people.

Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite.

In the cave that is in the field at Macpalah to the east of Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought.

Now, Jacob's, why is Jacob asking this?

Why does Jacob make this request to be buried in this specific field?

Well, if you don't know, Moses again wants to remind us he's he's reviewing so much here because he wants to remind us God's faithfulness, that this was the land which Abraham had bought, Moses says, with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place.

There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, verse 31 says, There they buried Isaac and Rebekah, his wife.

There I buried Leah, the fields and the cave that is in that is in it, which were bought from the Hittites.

Jacob points back to that land that God had already given in fulfillment to the promise that they that God's people would be given a land, and in his dying breath, God faithfully fulfills that promise to Jacob.

This is who God is.

This is who God is.

God fulfills his promise.

And I love that this is the end of Jacob's life.

And Jacob says something really amazing in verse 29, and Moses reiterates it again in verse 33.

Did you see what he says there?

He says, I am to be gathered to my people.

Again, Moses says in verse 33, when Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.

You know, Moses doesn't say something, it's pretty significant.

What he doesn't say there is that Jacob died.

Why doesn't he say Jacob died?

Well, because Moses is building this theology that, yeah, well, Jacob, he's drawing up his feet.

You remember that in verse uh chapter 48 that we studied last week, Jacob was ill, laying in bed, and Israel sat up to bless his sons, and now Jacob lays down his feet again, and there's this idea that Moses is like drawing out of the text here that this isn't over.

This is not over.

Jacob's gonna plant his feet again someday on God's land.

Did you notice the words there?

He's gonna be gathered to my people.

Like what kind of person thinks death is being gathered to people?

Isn't death being separated from people?

Isn't that why at funerals we're so, you know, we mourn and we weep?

Because we're we're now separated from this person, but Jacob has this idea that no, God's gonna continue to be faithful even past my death.

His faithfulness is unending.

His faithfulness even carries me through life and into eternity.

Death is just Jacob being gathered to his people because God's promise is eternal.

God's promise is unending.

Because if God said he's going to do it, he's going to do it.

That's who he is.

He's he's faithful.

I love what Spurgeon says.

This is gonna come up on the screen.

He says this God writes with a pen that never blots, speaks with a tongue that never slips, and acts with a hand that never fails.

If God speaks a promise into our life, we can take it to the bank.

It's never gonna fail.

It's unending.

He's faithful to his promise.

And Joseph and Jacob can look back on their life and see that all the things that God said he would do, he would do.

Nothing would hold him back from fulfilling his promise.

Well, well, Christian, what do you have this morning to know that God is going to be faithful to his promise?

What assurance do you have?

You know what assurance you have, it's so much greater than what Jacob and Joseph had.

We look to the cross.

We look to the cross, and you know what you see there?

That God is so committed to doing what to what he says he's gonna do in your life that he will not even stop from sending his own son to be brutally murdered, to be brutally crucified.

He's not gonna stop even with that.

He's so committed to doing what he says that he will not spare even his only son in order that he might uphold his faithfulness.

You know what that means for us?

That means that as believers, you and I, we need to take the promises of God to the bank and trust that God is going to fulfill it.

So let me just give you an example then.

You know, we sang this this morning about the promises of God finding their fulfillment in Christ and believing the promises of God.

But let me just give you one example of how we might take the promises of God to the bank, so to say.

And that's as we think about the promises in God's word about prayer.

Look at Matthew 7 7.

This is gonna come up on the screen.

Look at this promise that's given to you.

And as I read this, let me ask you if you believe this without needing to footnote this verse.

It's really interesting.

Jesus did not need to qualify this verse at all.

He just said it and he did not need to footnote it.

And for whatever reason, I think whenever we read this verse, we always feel the need to footnote it.

Look what it says.

Ask and it will be given to you.

You see that there, Church?

You see those words?

Seek and you will find.

Knock and it will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened.

And I know what's happening in you right now, this internal struggle, this yeah, but, yeah, but you you want to get all kind of theological.

Well, you know, there's something that Jesus didn't say if you read in between the lines, like that promise is not as good as it seems.

Well, let me tell you, all of the promises seem like they're too good to be true, and yet they are.

In fact, I could go to countless other places in scripture where God says the very same thing.

You know what James says?

He says, You do not have because you do not ask.

There's one reason.

You don't have because you don't ask.

You know what John says?

He says, if you abide in me, this is Jesus, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done to you.

And none of these verses does any of the biblical authors feel the need to footnote it with this idea of, like, well, God's only going to fulfill this promise in your life if you know you act a certain way or you do a certain thing.

This is a promise that you have been given as a child of God that if you ask, you will receive.

So the question is: do you live your life according to that promise?

Do you bank on that promise?

Do you see what God has said to you and take that promise and squeeze it for all of the gospel juices that are in it?

And let me say that none of us have at all.

And I I feel the conviction here myself, which is why I share it with you, so that we can be brothers and sisters in the pain of what God has been doing in me this week as I've considered this promise and just thought, I have not mind this promise for all of the depths of the treasures that are in it.

Do you believe it?

You know, our prayerlessness, our prayerlessness is really proof.

The fact that we're so quick to go to, you know, effort before prayer, it's proof that we don't yet believe the promise.

The fact that, you know, we gotta be honest with the church, like the prayer meeting attendance, even at our own church, it reveals this fact that we do not really believe this promise, that if we ask, it will be given.

That if we do things like ask God to save people through our influence, God will do it.

And so we take that promise to the bank.

But here's the question I have for us this morning how do how does how does God prove his faithfulness to us?

So we have like the the theological understanding of that, of of like, you know, through the cross and through seeing the promise.

That he made fulfilled.

He's driving this home again and again and again.

But practically, like in our lives, how can God convince us to bring us to this place where we truly believe his faithfulness?

What does God do to convince us?

Well, I think we see that in Genesis 50 at Jacob's funeral.

I want you to notice that God has worked through Jacob's life so that Jacob has left behind this rich legacy that motivates Joseph all the more to believe in the promises of God.

And we know that because look how Joseph reacts when Jacob dies in verse 50.

Read along with me there in verse 1.

It says, Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him.

Remember, we walked through Jacob's life, and there are times where Jacob is not a great man.

This is Jacob the scoundrel we're talking about.

This is Jacob the blessing thief.

And yet Jacob has been so transformed by God that when it comes to his funeral, he has left such an indelible mark on Joseph's life that Joseph just cannot help but weep and cry as he considers all that God did through Jacob and therefore all that God is willing to do through him.

And we see this in Joseph's response.

Not only does he cry, but but Joseph really takes great pains to make sure that Jacob's request that he be buried in this field in Canaan would be fulfilled, so that in verses 2 to 3 he embalms Jacob, which would it serve two purposes really.

One is that it would satisfy the Egyptian custom of embalming the dead.

And secondly, it would preserve Jacob's body for the trip that they would have to take, this incredibly treacherous long trip to Canaan in order to deliver Jacob's body to this land.

And yet, here Joseph is so willing because Jacob has left this legacy on his life in which Joseph understands he must live the foundation of the promises of God.

He must live according to the promises of God.

And I just want to point out that this is the way that Jacob would, Jacob's life would be used.

It would compel Joseph all the more to act on the promises.

The legacy that Jacob would leave would cause Joseph to go all the way, we read in verses 5 to 9, all the way to Egypt with a company of people and all their households and all their flocks.

You would go with chariots and horsemen and a very great company, we're told.

It was an incredibly challenging trip, especially while he's mourning.

And yet Joseph's so willing to do it because God has used Jacob's life to convince him of his faithfulness.

And this is what I want you to understand.

I'm more convinced of this reality now than I ever have been.

I'm convinced that the most meaningful way that God will prove his faithfulness to you, that he'll really convince you that he's faithful, is through the influence and impact of other believers in your life.

It's true whether you believe it or not, that God is faithful.

That's just who he is.

But how's that truth going to be driven deep into your heart so that you actually believe it and take those promises to the bank?

How is that gonna happen?

Well, I'm convinced that the primary way that it happens is through the influence and impact of other people.

You and I, you are in Christ, our community projects.

And these truths about who God is, they really are driven deeper into our heart as we rub shoulders with other believers.

What I'm talking about here really is the gospel heritage that as a believer you and I have.

We have this heritage of people who have poured themselves into us, and it's through this influence that we have become who we are now.

I recognize this in my own life.

I recognize that that I would not be here if it were not for three faithful Christians, my my youth pastor Rob Cripps, and two missionaries who who one day decided that they needed to explain the gospel to this kid who cared nothing about Jesus.

All he cared about was skateboarding.

We gotta pull this kid into a country style, we gotta explain the gospel to him.

And if they had not done that, I would not have heard and then believed.

It is this gospel heritage that has been passed on to me through the efforts, belief of other Christians.

And it didn't stop there because being saved, I was then mentored, and God was so faithful to always place these people, one of whom was my youth pastor, but another one of whom was Pastor Ian, who we'll be hearing from in a few weeks.

All these people that have poured into me and sharpened me.

I'm reminded of the rich gospel heritage I have from seminary as I went, and people like Dr.

Haken and Dr.

Constant taught me how to think about scripture and taught me what the Christian life means.

I'm I'm reminded of people who I've lived life with, people like Mark and Dan Sylvester and Brian Raby, who they've poured themselves into me, and I can assuredly say to you, I would not be who I am today if it was not for the mark of these people.

Now, some of you are here this morning, you're like, I don't know any of these people, why are you talking about them?

And I say exactly the point.

If God has used me for anything positive in your life, do you understand that it is a result of the work of these people who you don't even know who have been pouring into me?

And the same will be true of you.

If God is going to use your life and your legacy for his kingdom purposes, it will be because you pressed into a gospel community and these people pressed into you.

This is just how it works.

This is how growth happens, it happens in community.

I was reading through 2 Timothy this week, and I saw this so powerfully at work, and I wanted to share this with you.

These verses are going to come up on the screen.

Look at 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 5.

2 Timothy 1:5

Look at what Paul says to Timothy.

He says, I'm reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you.

I love that.

This faith that dwelt in your grandmother, it's been passed along.

So that now it's that same faith in you, Timothy, that's alive.

It can be tracked back.

What's influenced and changed your life so much that you're willing to give yourself for the ministry that Christ has called you to?

It's the faith of your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice that is now pouring into you.

And now, as Paul looks at Timothy, he tells Timothy to do the same thing, to start creating his own legacy, so that in 2 Timothy 2.2, look what he says to Timothy.

What you've heard from me, in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

You know, this is the work that God wants to do in you.

God wants to work in your life through other believers, speaking the truth in love to you.

And then He wants you to take that truth that has been spoken to you and speak it to others.

And there is this multiplication of growth that happens in the church when each of its members are committed to doing that.

You know what the problem is is that we've kind of made church so it's kind of like this individual thing.

What I just need to get to that seat, and if I get to that seat, you know, the the bless the blessing funnel is gonna pour over me.

I just need to get to the service.

And so far from what we see the true church being, we need to get into the church.

Which is a great segue to our series that's starting next week on the church.

And again, I just press you to make every effort to, if you can't be here, listen to every one of those sermons.

Because we need the church.

We need the church.

This is the way that God is working in us through the lives, legacies, the impact, and the influence of other believers.

This is how he shows us his faithfulness.

Well, the second thing we need to know then that Moses is showing us here is his unwavering goodness.

His unwavering goodness.

If we're going to respond to God's call, we must know the unwavering goodness of God.

And so after Jacob dies in verse 15 of chapter 50, we find Joseph's brothers and Joseph back in Egypt.

And it says in verse 15, when Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.

And you and I can sympathize with that, right?

Like, okay, well, well, you know, Joseph was really excited because he was reunited with his father Jacob, but now Jacob's dead.

And like, I don't I wonder if Joseph's forgotten about that whole like, you know, slavery thing.

I'm sure that the horrific terror of being thrown into a pit, left for dead, and then sold off to slavery has not left his mind.

And so his brothers, we're told, are then filled with fear, and they reach out to Joseph with this genuine request for forgiveness.

They say, it says so in verse 16, so they sent a message to Joseph saying, Your father gave this command before he died.

Say to Joseph, please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.

And now please forgive the transgression of the servants of God, of the God of your father.

Now it's interesting for us as readers of Genesis, because we know that Joseph has already dealt with the suffering and the pain, with the trauma that he experienced in being sold into slavery and then imprisoned because of what his brothers did to him.

Joseph's already dealt with it.

You remember that when Joseph had a son, he named his first son Manasseh, which means God made me forget.

And Joseph has known God in a way that it happens for each of us that when we know God, what God does is he shows us that the suffering we must endure is not pointless suffering.

There's no such thing as pointless suffering in the believer's life.

We know biblically and theologically that all suffering is producing something that God is directing in your life.

Suffering is purposeful.

And so this is often what we say here at the church that before we receive the crown, we must endure the cross.

That there is a pattern in Scripture of suffering, then glory.

And so knowing the glory that's coming, the believer walks through the suffering saying, I'm ready.

There's something good coming at the end of this.

And to experience that goodness at the end of suffering makes you forget all of the pain that you once could not get over.

See, if you truly know God, then the suffering in your life, it becomes forgettable because you recognize that God's redeeming it, He's using it.

Now, I have a way to illustrate this, and I gotta tread carefully because I could anger the one group.

Well, maybe there's multiple groups in the church you don't want to anger, but there's especially one group, and it's mothers.

You do not want to anger mothers after a sermon, you don't want mama bear coming to get you.

But I do have a way that we could illustrate this, I think, and hopefully I can tread with caution.

I want to talk about pregnancy and labor, okay?

I've done this three times, so I kind of know what I'm talking about.

Some of you are already like, okay, buddy, thin ice, all right?

Thin ice, you don't know anything.

You don't know anything.

Well, I admit that's true.

I have three kids and I was at two of the labors, okay?

So I have a lifetime of debt to make up for that third one that I missed.

But but here's what I do know.

And I know this because there's some science behind this, okay?

It's called the something in labor that happens, it's called the halo effect.

And so if you get mad at me because of this, don't get mad at me, get mad at science, okay?

That's all I'm saying right now.

The halo effect is when the mother is going through labor and it's incredibly painful.

Like, not that doesn't even describe it enough, does it?

Like it's like labor is is so incredibly hard, it's so incredibly painful, it's a suffering you never feel like it's going to end.

And then the baby comes.

And and actually, chemically, there are things that happen, hormones that that kind of I don't know what happens, they fly around in the head.

And and it makes the mother not forget, okay?

We could, you know, we could take a break in the sermon and I'm sure have some mothers come up here and share some labor stories, and you could say, Well, I wish you would forget a little more, okay?

Like, but they don't forget everything, but it certainly recolors all the suffering, doesn't it?

So that as you're holding this beautiful little baby in your arms, you you say, It's it's all worth it.

And then like months and years go by, and you're like, hey, maybe we should do that again, but in you know, in the labor, you're like, There's no way I'm ever doing this again.

You know, the the wife is mad at the husband, how could you do this to me?

And yet the precious gift that you have in a baby makes it all worth it.

And for the rest of that kid's life, you look at it and you say, like, I would do it again a million times, and I would even endure a million times worse for this beautiful child.

And so it is with suffering for the Christian.

If you understand the glory that is coming at the end of your suffering, it makes you forget all the suffering.

And this has happened in Joseph's life.

He has seen God work through his suffering, and he has seen God's goodness, he's forgotten about all this.

And the only reason he can forget is because he knows who God is and he knows what God is doing.

He knows that God is good, he knows that God is accomplishing his purpose.

And and can I ask you something this morning?

Do you know this God?

Do you know this God?

Do you know this God who can take the deepest pain and soothe it with his gentle grace?

Who can take the the worst trauma and just give you this perspective that he's using that trauma for his glory and for your good?

Do you know and do you believe in the goodness of God?

This is this is what God's doing.

He's he's drowning out our deepest suffering with his deepest mercy.

Time and time again in the life of every believer, he does this.

So that if you know Christ, you can say along with Joseph, He's made me forget.

You can say, This is my Manasseh.

He's made God has made me forget the suffering because he's produced something so amazing.

He's good.

I want you to notice that God's goodness doesn't just make us forget.

God's goodness is given to us despite what we deserve.

So we can really sympathize with Joseph's brothers who come to him and in fear ask for forgiveness.

They think Joseph's gonna lash out at him in anger.

But but here's the reality that we see with God as we sympathize with Joseph's brothers who definitely they deserve this from Joseph, don't they?

Like, if we're gonna take sides in this, it's like, yeah, Joseph, you should get like 12 punches for each brother.

You get to punch him in the face 12 times at least.

There's gotta be some sort of like redemption, there's gotta be some sort of justice.

Joseph's brothers, they sold him for slavery.

His whole life was pretty much ruined.

Where's the justice?

We can sympathize with the rightful reaction or how it would be right for Joseph to be angry, so that even his brothers acknowledge they need forgiveness.

Like they're saying, Joseph, you have every right to be angry.

But here's the reality that Joseph's pointing to us, and it's our reality as Christians with God, that no matter the depths of your sin, no matter the magnitude of how far you have fallen away from God, God's mercy is deeper still.

You have not sinned to such a great degree that God's mercy cannot cover you.

No matter how great your sin is, your savior is even greater.

There's no amount of sin that can keep us from the mercy of Jesus.

And this is the Christian life.

The Christian life is this twofold recognition that Joseph's brothers experience.

One, that we have sin, isn't that true of all of us?

That as believers, there's still the wickedness within our heart, like daily the uh the our deceitful desires are exposed.

And there's still sin within us, but as soon as sin is exposed in our life, you know what happens as believers?

You remember, but there's grace, but there's grace.

See, as believers, we see with great clarity the extent of our depravity, of our sin, but we also see with great clarity the depths of God's mercy.

I was recently reading the biography of George Mueller, who is perhaps one of the most influential missionaries of the last hundred years, and he was, before he was called into missions and pastoral ministry, he was sick and in bed, and he wasn't sure if he was gonna make it.

And he wrote these words that I find incredibly helpful.

He said, The weaker I became in body, the happier I was in spirit.

Never in my whole life had I seen myself so vile, so guilty, so altogether what I ought not to have been as at this time.

It was as if every sin of which I had been guilty was brought to my remembrance.

But at the same time, I could realize that all my sins were completely forgiven, that I was washed and made clean, completely clean in the blood of Christ.

The result of this was great peace.

And I longed exceedingly to depart and be with Christ.

You know, believer, believer, this is what God has promised you.

This is why Jesus gave us the promise.

He said, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Because of the gospel, when sin is revealed in your life, there is a moment of, oh no, and yet you remember there is a remedy.

You know, I was thinking this week that life has really changed for us.

We I don't even think acknowledge it enough, but since the invention of antibiotics, life has completely changed for us so that you and I often, you know, maybe not super often, but in our life we'll have infections that one day would have been life-threatening to people without antibiotics.

And what happens in your life where when you get sick and you start to realize that it's becoming an infection, or maybe you get a cut and it's starting to get infected?

Well, you see this for all of its grotesque horror that it is.

You see the sickness for what it is, but but you know, in our modern day, we just say, Well, I can just go and get some antibiotics.

It's like everything's gonna be okay.

We're not worried about our life because we know there's a remedy.

And the same is true in the believer's life.

When sin is exposed, you know the gospel, you know that God's mercy goes deeper.

So, so what do you do?

You run to Him.

You run to Him, you run to Jesus with your sin, and you find every time you come, your transgression is forgiven.

And this is what Joseph's brothers experience in verse 19.

Look what they say to him.

But Joseph said to them, Do not fear, for am I in the place of God.

As for you, 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.

So do not fear.

I'll provide for you and your little ones.

Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

You know, God's using Joseph's testimony to bring comfort to our souls.

Twice, Joseph says to his brothers, don't fear.

Don't fear.

There's only good news.

When you come to God with your sin, there is only good news for you.

If you are in Christ, there's no condemnation.

Never will you turn to God and find condemnation if you're in Christ.

Instead, every time you turn to Jesus, you know what you find?

Forgiveness.

You find comfort, you find the kindness of God reaching out to you.

And it's important for us this morning to just meditate for a moment on exactly what Joseph says.

You see what he said there, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.

There's such rich application to our life here.

Like we we cannot even understand 1% of how much this verse could change our life if we were truly to believe it.

Like, extract the theology out of this verse.

As for you, you meant it evil against me, but God meant it for good.

Just extract what Joseph is saying here for you.

No matter how hard your life gets, no matter what evil is done against you, no matter what sin you are currently struggling with, no matter what situation you currently find yourself in, the things that you perceive as evil, the things that you say, I would never write my story this way.

God is looking at it and saying, I am writing a story, and the story is going to end good.

That's just who God is.

This is what God is doing.

This is what Paul talks about in Romans 8 28, where he says that for those who love God, God works all things together for good.

All things.

You don't see it.

You thought that they meant it for evil against you, but God is working out this thing for good.

You know what that means?

God is uh He's a master pharmacist, and God is mixing into your life exactly what you need in order that the end product might be good.

Too much joy in your life, you know, freedom from suffering, it's actually a pretty horrific thing.

You know, some of you guys, we've met some children sometimes where it was like you needed a little less iPad in your life and a little more suffering in your life and what to solve something.

Of these problems.

So it is with us.

God knows exactly what we need.

Too much joy, and we might be distracted from God.

Too much suffering, and we might be driven to destruction and despair.

And God knows the exact amount of suffering to mix into our life in order that the end product might be good.

He's the perfect pharmacist.

Here's another illustration for you.

He's the baker who knows the recipe.

You know, I do love baking every once in a while, but I never go outside of the recipe.

I am so faithful to the law of the recipe.

If you say half a teaspoon of baking powder, I know not to add a teaspoon because then something crazy is going to explode in there, and I don't want to mess with all the chemicals going on.

I follow the recipe, and God knows the recipe for suffering in your life in order to produce the best results.

But what happens to us?

See, what happens to us is as we start to look at what God's doing, we start to see the suffering he's allowing it for us to endure.

And like Adam and Eve in moments of disbelief, we think we know better than God.

God doesn't know what he's doing.

We could write our story better than God.

God's calling us to know him, to know his overwhelming goodness.

And so we're reminded of this reality this morning that God has a better plan and that he's executing it.

And you know what's required of us?

It's up to us to believe.

It's up to us to believe that no matter what life looks like, this verse is true.

God is good.

I want to share this poem with you that I ran into this week.

I find this so incredibly helpful.

It says, Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace.

Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage, take the clouds ye so much dread are rich with mercy and shall break in blessing over your head.

You know, but Christian, that's that's so true for you.

Those clouds you see in your life are so dark that fill you with fear, so scared of having to walk through that valley, of having to endure what you have to endure right now, and still God is working it out for the good.

And so, what's our response this morning?

What do we do?

Having seen God's faithfulness, having seen God's goodness, how do we respond to God?

And I think what Joseph does in the end of his life tells us exactly what to do.

Verse 22 of Genesis 50, it says, So Joseph re remained in Egypt and in his father's house.

Joseph lived 110 years.

And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation, and the children also of Makir, the son of Manasseh, were counted as Joseph's own.

Joseph sees God's faithfulness, but look what Joseph does when he is about to die.

He said to his brothers, I'm about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

And then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.

What Joseph says to his sons is this: Take my bones.

God's gonna fulfill his promise.

I'm placing my confidence in God.

I'm entrusting myself to God.

My very bones, my very life, I'm giving to God.

And we can track through the history of God's people that he did this.

And in fact, when Joshua enters the promised land, we're told that he brought Joseph's bones with him.

And what has Joseph done?

Joseph's got on board with God's plan.

Joseph has seen who God is, and he has said to God, Let's go.

God, you're gonna do what you say you're gonna do.

If you said you're gonna do something, I'm gonna believe that you are going to do it because of your unwavering goodness.

And this is the place that we need to find ourselves in this morning as we respond to God's word.

Have you entrusted your life to this God who will faithfully accomplish in your life and through you all that He has promised to you?

And who is a God who is good?

Church has called you to a great mission.

Incredibly difficult, this mission that we've given to preach the gospel to all the nations, to pour ourselves into the lives of other believers and into our family.

Incredibly difficult.

But the question is this do you know God?

Because if you know God, you will go.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you that you've revealed yourself to us.

And God, having seen your faithfulness, having seen your goodness, there is only one response.

That is to praise you in a way in which we give you our lives and entrust ourselves to you and say, God, wherever you call us, we're gonna go.

You're too good, Lord, not to listen to.

So we give ourselves to you, God, and ask that you would accomplish this work in us.

Praise the name of your Son.

Amen.