Joseph Revealed

Morning, everyone.

Reading from Genesis forty five.

And then Joseph's good no then Joseph could no longer control himself before all of his attendants, and he cried out, Send everyone away from me.

So none of them were with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers.

But he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh's household who soon heard of it.

Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph.

Is my father still alive?

But they were unable to answer him because they were terrified in his presence.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, Please come near me, and they did so.

I am Joseph, your brother, he said, the one who sold you into Egypt.

And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves that you sold me into this place, because it was to save lives that God sent me before you.

For the famine has covered the land these two years, and there will be five more years without ploughing or harvesting.

God sent me before you to preserve you as a remnant on the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

Therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God who has made me a father to Pharaoh, Lord of his all all of his household and a ruler over all the land of Egypt.

Now return quickly to my father and tell him, This is what your son Joseph says.

God has made me Lord over all of Egypt.

Come down to me without delay.

You shall settle in the land of Goshen and be near me, you and your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and everything you own, and there I will provide for you, because there will be five more years of famine.

Otherwise, you and your household and everything you own will come to destitution.

Behold, you and my brother Benjamin can see that I, Joseph, am the one speaking with you.

Tell my father about all my splendor in Egypt and everything you have seen, and bring my father down here quickly.

Then Joseph threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin wept as they embraced.

Joseph kissed each of his brothers and wept over them, and afterwards his brothers talked with them.

When the news reached Pharaoh's house that Joseph's brothers had come, Pharaoh and his servants were pleased.

Pharaoh said to Joseph, Tell your brothers, do as follows, load your animals and return to the land of Canaan.

Then bring your father and your families and return to me.

I will give you all the best of the land of Egypt, and you shall eat from the fat of the land.

You are also directed to tell them, Take wagons from the land of Egypt for your own your own children and wives, and bring your father and come back, but pay no regard to your belongings, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.

So the sons of Israel did as they were told.

Joseph gave them wagons, as Pharaoh had instructed, and he also gave them provisions for their journey.

He gave new garments to each of them, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver and five sets of clothes.

And he said to his father the following Ten donkeys, I'm sorry, and he sent to his father the following.

So his brothers went up from Egypt and came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan.

Joseph is still alive, they said, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.

But Jacob was stunned, for he did not believe them.

However, when he had relayed all that Joseph had told them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him back, the spirit of their father Jacob was revived.

Enough, declared Israel.

My son Joseph is still alive.

I will go see him before I die.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Thanks for joining us on this Memorial Day weekend.

Memorial Day is time where we in our country remember those who died in service to our country.

And we kick off a joyful long weekend, the unofficial beginning of summer, because of it.

And there's a wonderful pattern there of the sacrifice of others allow us to have a joyful time.

So yeah, with that pattern in mind, we'll move into we'll move into today's text.

Would you pray with me?

Holy Father, we thank you for the space that we have to and the freedom that we have to gather freely and worship you.

Lord, the consideration of uh those who went before us that this space might be might be carved out for us at this time, Lord.

We thank you that our lives over overlap with this time and space in your your providential gifts that you've given us.

Lord, I pray that we would um uh savor those, Lord, as as Paul said, pray for leaders that that you might have peace.

Lord, we lift up the leaders of our nation that the church might have peace and might be able to go unfettered into the world and proclaim your gospel, that Christ is Lord.

Lord, I pray that you would open our hearts to see the joy of the reunion of the brothers of the sons of Israel, Lord, this morning.

And I pray that we would see the glory of your son, who united himself to us as brothers, and then appealed to his father on our behalf that we might be reconciled to you.

Lord, how deep is your love, and we pray that we would see that this morning in Jesus' name, amen.

So it's really a shame that we had to break up last week's chapter with this week's chapter because they go so dynamically together.

Last week we saw the act that took place that allows the reconciliation between the brothers to uh finally take place so that Joseph will reveal his identity to his brothers.

Just a little recap from last week so that we can uh put these together.

As we've been following the story of Joseph for uh really this like whole year, uh we've uh we saw that it began with Joseph being betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery in Egypt, and the brothers then uh are compelled to go to Egypt because there's a famine all over the world.

But because of Joseph's presence in Egypt, he was able to preserve enough food to supply both Egypt and to sell food all over the world.

And so the brothers are reunited under Joseph's rule, and they come and they visit Joseph two times.

And these first two times, they don't realize that it is Joseph who they're speaking to, that the one who they're buying food from, who is in charge over all of Egypt, is actually the brother whom they had previously betrayed and sold into slavery.

And there's this tension mounting.

When is Joseph's identity going to be revealed to his brothers?

And you can see why Joseph would not just come out and reveal himself, because his last experience with these brothers was of them almost murdering him and then deciding it would be more profitable to sell him into slavery.

And so it is not just a reunion of brothers, these are dangerous men.

That if they were to discover his identity, it would uncover the guilt of their lives and the lie that they had been living under before their father.

And they very well may lash out at Joseph in that moment and seek to kill him once again.

They had come so close before.

So Joseph concocts this plan, and we saw Joseph's plan last week.

He wants to discover what is the character of his brothers now.

Is it safe that he could reveal himself to them?

And could the brothers possibly be reconciled?

Could it be that these brothers could once again eat together in peace, truthfully knowing each other's identities?

So Joseph lays a trap for them.

He tells his steward to send them away and load them with the grain and give it to them freely, return their money that they would have purchased it with, but hide Joseph's silver cup in the bag of the youngest brother Benjamin.

And then the steward was instructed to follow after them, search their luggage, and he would then discover that Benjamin had apparently stolen the silver cup.

Of course, he didn't steal it, it was planted there.

Now, then what Joseph does is he puts them in a position where he says, I will keep the one brother who is guilty.

I will keep the one brother who stole the cup, and he will be sold into slavery in Egypt, and all of the other brothers are free to go.

Now, what Joseph did there is he puts them in a position that is a precise mirror to the position that they were in earlier with Joseph when they had sold him into slavery.

The offer is sell this one brother, and the rest of you will get peace.

Now that's what they thought would happen with Joseph.

They thought, this brother is the one who our father favors, he is the one who keeps reporting on our wickedness to our father.

If we sell him into slavery in Egypt, we will get rid of him, and the rest of us brothers will have peace.

It's the same opportunity.

Take Benjamin, who is guilty, sell him into slavery, and the rest of you will be able to go home and have peace.

But unlike what happened with Joseph, something new happens.

Judah, who is perhaps the most unlikely brother, he has served as sort of the anti-Joseph throughout the story.

Judah steps up before Joseph and says, Do not take the boy.

Do not take Benjamin, but take me instead.

It would break my father's heart, it would crush him, it would send my father's soul down to Sheol because of his deep love that he has for Benjamin.

So I cannot return to my father and leave Benjamin here, instead, take me.

Now that act of love is a self-sacrifice, a self-sacrificial love, where instead of saying, sacrifice him so that the rest of us can go in peace, Judah says, sacrifice me so that the others can grow, can go in peace.

That is the move that shows Joseph these brothers can be reconciled with.

It is a love that Joseph needed to see.

And now we see what happens when Joseph sees this love.

So that's the moment we're in.

The offer of sacrifice by Judah has just been made, and Judah is awaiting the response of Joseph.

And what he thinks he's awaiting is a judgment.

Do you receive my offer?

You seem to have caught us as guilty brothers, but would you receive my offer of atonement?

And so he's waiting at he's awaiting a judgment.

The judgment will be no, Benjamin is guilty, or Benjamin is acquitted, and you may go freely.

So this is the moment where Judah awaits the judgment.

But he sees something much more incredible than he could have possibly imagined.

He sees the revelation of the judge.

So here we are in Genesis 45, verse 1, on that cliffhanger.

Genesis 45:1

What will happen to Judah?

How will they be reconciled?

And this is Joseph's response in verse 1 of chapter 45.

Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him.

He cried, Make everyone go out from me.

So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.

We've seen him cry twice until this moment.

The first time that Joseph cried in this story was when he overheard his brothers talking after their first coming to Egypt.

And his brothers said, See, our guilt has been found out, because we ignored our brothers' cries when he cried to us from the pit, and we ignored him and we sold him off into slavery.

And Joseph just overheard that.

And when he overheard that, it says that Joseph hid his face and he wept.

And the second time that Joseph cries is on the brother's second trip back to Egypt, when Joseph had requested that they bring the youngest brother Benjamin.

And when Joseph first sees Benjamin and sees that Benjamin is here and is healthy and had been taken care of by his brothers and had not been treated by his brothers in the way that he had been treated, although they were sons of the same mother.

At that point, just seeing Benjamin, Joseph weeps again.

He weeps so much that in fact he leaves the room and he goes where nobody can hear him, the brothers nor the Egyptians, and then he collects himself and he washes his face and then he walks back out.

You know, each time that Joseph has cried before, he was able to control himself.

Yeah, he was crying, but he could hide his face.

And he wept at the sight of Benjamin, but he was able to find another room and compose himself.

He's the second in command of all of Egypt, after all.

Some decorum is in order.

After the offer of Judah to trade places with Benjamin, Joseph could not control himself, the tech says.

And he began weeping uncontrollably.

He tells everyone to go out, all the Egyptians, but he asks the brothers to stay.

This is an overflow of relief, warmth, hope.

Joseph could stand before them no longer as Zaphanath Penea, which was his Egyptian name, but he would reveal himself to them as Joseph.

Text goes on in verses two through three, and he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of God heard it.

Excuse me, and the household of Pharaoh heard it.

I think I'm, you know, you did you just get used to saying things?

And when I say household, when I'm standing here, I think I get used to saying household of God.

And he wept aloud so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it.

And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph.

Is my father still alive?

But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.

The translation that we heard earlier said it said they were terrified, they were fearful at his presence.

They're unable to speak, they're dumbfounded at this confession.

I am Joseph.

Joseph finally reveals his identity.

You know, Zaphanath Penea, the Egyptian name, the one given to him by Pharaoh, the one that names his title as the chief over all of Egypt except for Pharaoh.

This is composure.

This is the man who, why would he be crying over these particular Hebrews that are that are coming from the land of Canaan?

But the tears that are uncontrollable, those already unmask who's really standing there.

And so Joseph, with his tears flowing out and having seen the love that exists in the brothers, the sacrifice that Judah was willing to make, he sees this sacrifice creates the space, the relational space where I can reveal who I truly am and be received in love.

All he needed to see was that there was a sacrificial love that existed within his brothers, and now I can reveal myself.

I can make my identity known.

And with that, Joseph does.

If the tears didn't reveal him, his confession does, I am Joseph.

Now, I want to consider this from Judah's perspective.

Judah was awaiting a judgment.

He was standing before who might have been Pharaoh.

And he stood before him and was appealing for the life of his brothers.

And the judgment that he was awaiting was either guilty or acquitted.

You get to go or you have to stay.

Your brother goes or you go.

There was a judgment coming.

And Judah stood there after having pled his case, hoping for just the mercy of someone who held his fate completely in his hand.

But the strange thing is that Judah doesn't receive a judgment.

That's not the news that Judah receives.

Now I want us to see this because we don't think of our this may seem just too distant to think of ourselves as standing in a place of such immediate judgment.

Like the when do we see that happen?

Courtroom dramas or like uh American Idol or something that's not a relevant reference anymore.

The voice.

Also not relevant.

Places where there are judges.

And we don't we don't experience that very often.

Maybe maybe a review in your job.

But look, we all know that judgment is coming.

You can see it written all over our culture.

You can hear it in just our vernacular, that we act as though judgment is just around the corner.

Some people think it's just a matter of the facts being brought to bear right now.

If we could just reveal the absolute facts and the absolute truth of the world such as it is, then judgment, like a scientific formula, would be made plain.

And we would stand judged, either guilty or acquitted.

Others think that history is sufficient to be our judge.

The narrative arc of the world is such that it is one of progress.

And progress will continue.

Your decision now is will you be on the right side of history or will you be on the wrong side of history?

This is a language of judgment.

Don't you see?

That's the very language of end times judgment.

If I were to stand on a street corner and speak, end times judgment is coming for all of you.

I would gather a crowd, but it would be a strange crowd, you know.

But if I were to stand on the street corner and hold a sign, do not be on the wrong side of history, I would be completely understood.

And people would say, you're right.

In fact, I am organizing the moral values and judgments that I make and that I make for my family around that very line of thinking, to not be on the wrong side of history.

Do you not see that this is the same sentence?

End times judgment is coming.

We all know that.

We all act like that.

There's another move in our culture.

It's not just to reframe end times judgment as being judged by history, but it's to seek to, in certain areas, eliminate the concept of judgment entirely.

In our culture, we do this with our sexual ethic.

We don't do it with every part of our ethic.

We don't do it with theft.

We don't do it with taking advantage of the poor, but we do it with our Sexual ethic, where we say this is a place where there should be no judgment.

And so we seek to create some sort of safe space where we imagine there is no judgment coming.

We will never be judged here.

In fact, the one rule is no judgment here.

You cannot judge someone by their sexuality or the way that they uh, you know, sexuality themselves.

And you cannot judge somebody by the way that they uh identify their gender.

There is no judgment available in these spaces.

In fact, that's the that's the one rule is that there is no judgment.

But don't you see that when you diffuse judgment and you try and make it go away and you say there is no judgment here, that you create a subtle tyranny, one which makes more incredible demands than if the judgment were made plain.

Demands on language itself.

Where in order to make no judgment happen here, we have to shift our language.

Words like marriage.

We have to render, we have to reduce in this like like modernist, it's just the components, it's just the sum of its parts.

It is nothing more.

It is just a contract between two people.

Does it generate anything?

Doesn't matter.

Do the two people, is it, is there anything ontologically necessary?

Is there any being that is that is essential to these two people?

Say maybe that it has to be a man and it has to be a woman.

No.

No.

And if you don't adopt that language, your words, what do you face?

Now, my point is that is the clearest example in our culture where we have done the most work to eliminate judgment.

To make judgment not a part of this sphere of existence.

But you're always under judgment's thumb.

There is no eliminating judgment.

It is always coming.

One way that I've heard our culture described that I think in in terms of seeking to eliminate judgment, this phrase is just has stuck in my mind as I thought, like, that's it.

That's it.

Um, it's by this man named Jonathan Pageot.

Um he's French, so who knows if I'm saying that right?

Uh Paggio, I think is more appropriate.

He says, in our culture, everything is permitted, but the inquisitor is always behind you.

Like think Spanish Inquisition.

You know, you could be found out in it at any moment.

Isn't that a good description of our culture?

Everything is permitted.

But the inquisitor is ever behind you.

You could be found out for being on the wrong side of history at any moment.

Although you thought everything is permitted.

There is no escaping judgment.

It is a fact of the world.

Now, let's move down to your own conscience.

You know this, you know there's no escaping judgment.

Even if, like the uh the sexual revolution, the LGBTQ movement is like a pro is like a program of we can eliminate judgment if we all get together and make this agreement.

If we all agree together hard enough, we can eliminate the judgments of the world.

But you have a conscience.

And your conscience tells you you will be judged.

Consider your conscience.

Where does it tell you that you will be judged?

I think there are two correlative, you know, there's always there's always um uh strange things happening in our culture.

And there's they almost always happen symmetrically.

So like at the same time that you get the dissolution of gender, you get like strange hypermasculine freak shows on Instagram that are like not human men, but they're but they're they act, they're like this is what a man is, you know?

It's like that, it's just like some strange caricature.

But what's happening?

Gender doesn't matter.

And the the like strange hypermasculinization movement thing.

They're all they're you always get both sides of the coin, you know.

It's important to look for that in our culture.

One of the ways that you can see our consciences, our consciences testifying that we will be judged, I think, are in uh two ways.

The first is, I don't think this is as much in vogue, but it's still really present.

It's still really functional in a lot of uh in my life in some regard, in a lot of my friends' lives that I see, which is hustle culture.

You know?

Hustle culture is it that's like you you get up and you get to work and you grind, and here's the morning routine of billionaires.

And if you just emulate this and you're you're in the office before everyone else, and you work harder than everybody else, and you take risks, and you're a solopreneur, and you're the you're uh grinding, grinding, then you will be justified.

You will find success.

If you uh uh sorry, I told myself a joke, I'll tell you later after the service.

The um uh obsession with absolute efficiency, I think this can become invisible to us as Americans.

That this is a quest for justification for not being judged.

This like obsession with absolute efficiency, even with your own, with things like your morning routine and like what's you know, having everything just so.

You know who becomes a problem?

And you can see them treated like this as a problem in our culture because they're such a threat to our efficiency?

Children.

Children become a problem in this mode of thinking.

Um yeah, I mean there's there's genres of of literature.

I was in the airport two weeks ago and walked into an airport bookstore, and there's just like a, you know, like business books, they're white and they have like a piece of fruit on the front of them or like a like duct tape, like a picture of duct tape or something on the front of them.

And it's they they like teach you like the 10 most efficient ways to uh manage your mornings, you know, deep focused mornings is the name of the book.

Um that's hustle culture.

And it says there's there's salvation by by going fast enough and by get by getting enough done.

Then my life will be justified.

See, we act like judgment is coming.

The other side of hustle culture, which is still you know the same thing, is self-care.

Self-care is a way of coping with the guilt of not getting enough done.

It's in in it's a way of saying, look, I I'm so caught up in this uh uh, you know, the the rat race or the hustle of the of the world that I need to prioritize my mental health.

And I need to step back and I need to take care of myself, make myself uh more of a priority here.

This is a way of dealing with the anxiety of our hearts, the anxiety that knows judgment is coming.

And it's kind of a way of saying, it's a way of playing.

I think that the way that this manifests in our culture is a way of practicing the denial that judgment is coming.

I think that's the way that we entertain that mode of being.

Now, these are two ways in which we try to appease the conscience that says, Will you be justified?

Did you do your life well?

Did you lead it rightly so that when you are judged, you might hear the words, it is enough.

It is enough.

Now, Judah is standing before his judge, and he's considering what will the judgment be?

What did it did I do enough?

Did I make the right sacrifice?

Did I plead my case well enough?

And now here I stand, and the question, and this is the question of our hearts.

That's what I'm trying to get us to see, that this is the question of our hearts.

What will the judgment of me be?

And I've tried to tell this story in such a way where if you're trying to escape it right now, you hit something, like, oh, well, I can just ignore the judgment and try and cope harder during the day.

No, that won't work.

I can just hustle faster and then I won't be judged.

No, that won't work.

I can deny the existence of judgment and then, oh, that won't work.

Here's what I'm telling you: you will be judged.

That feeling that you will be judged is not a lie, it's the truth.

And so you stand waiting before your judge, wondering what will the verdict be?

And so Judah is expecting to hear guilty or acquitted, offer accepted or offer rejected.

Verse four.

Joseph said to his brothers, Come near to be come near to me, please.

And they came near, and he said, I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.

He does not hear a verdict.

He does not hear guilty or acquitted, he does not hear offer accepted or offer rejected.

There was something more important.

This is the news of our faith.

The more important thing that is revealed is not what the judgment is, but firstly the identity of the judge.

Judah stands waiting to hear the judgment.

And what he hears is, I am Joseph.

Your brother, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt.

Joseph is able to say, I see you, Judah, in, and your brothers, in all of your guilt.

I see you in the guilt of the worst thing you ever did in your life.

You didn't know the judge that you were standing before.

You thought that you were arguing over this petty thing about a cup that I could perhaps just get over.

But you were actually standing before the judge who knows the absolute guilt of your heart.

The worst of who you are.

Why?

Because it was against him.

It was against Joseph.

So he knew.

But here is the news.

Joseph introduces them himself to them, reveals himself to them as their brother.

Look here, this is the whole of our faith, the good news of Christianity is in this moment in the story.

Because here's what we face in our faith.

We know this.

Now that we've done all that cultural work, we can all just say this just matter-of-factly.

Judgment is coming.

It is not strange that we act like judgment is coming.

It is right that we act like judgment is coming because judgment is coming.

And we are headed towards not a diffuse judgment that's just like history making some judgment on ourselves, or it's it's it's not just our own consciences that are dependent on this judgment, but it is the judge of the one who knows everything, and the one who gave the law, and the one whom we sinned against.

His judgments are perfect for all places at all times.

And you are found in him as absolutely guilty as Judah is found before Joseph.

You sold me into slavery.

You rejected me.

And here I am, judge over you.

So, what will the judgment be?

We spend all this time wondering: what will the judgment of our lives be?

You could almost describe the development of all cultures in all places at all times throughout history as seeking to collectively answer this question: what will our judgment be?

And then adapting their lives to try and compensate for whatever that judgment might be.

But here is the news of Christianity.

The news that we have to offer is not what your judgment will be, it is who your judge is.

This is the most important factor.

What is your judge like?

This is not some weighing of goods versus bads in your life that you might be trying.

This is not some emotional distancing from the guilt that you feel and it trying to say it is the guilt that is bad.

It is not the thing itself that is bad, and trying to create some separation there from the reality.

This is not a dispassionate judge.

You see, Joseph is not a dispassionate judge.

He is the very one who is sinned against.

And he still calls them brother.

Our judge is not a dispassionate judge, but he is a judge who is the lawgiver, the absolute authority, and the one who deeply loves his creatures.

Who has a deep love and concern for the ones who sinned against them, the ones who sinned against him.

The good news of Christianity is that truth will judge us.

But that truth is a person.

It is the person of Christ.

History will judge us at the end.

As it arcs towards the glory of Christ, we will be judged by history, but history is in his hands.

This judgment is not illusory, but is as real as a person.

As the person of Christ.

This is the good news.

Jesus Christ is our judge.

He will judge us.

The most important aspect of reality, the most important, the hinge point of our faith, then, the hinge point of all of the judgment conversations in all the world is this question.

Are you in Christ?

Or have you rejected him?

This is the question.

When you're going back to some like hustle culture indulgence, and you're on your phone when you should be with your family, you know, checking things for work or something, or trying to feign some productivity, or trying to just escape from the anxious feelings that judgment is coming, that you're not measuring up in some way.

You're operating on the wrong question.

The question isn't, have you measured up?

The question is, the most important question is, are you in Christ?

Because the news that comes before the judgment is who is the judge?

Our judge is Christ.

Christ is the one who went before us, who bore our judgment, whom we sinned against, and it is Christ who welcomes us as brothers.

By his mercy and by his grace alone.

The decision is his.

The good news is who he is.

Joseph is able to join back, reconnect with his brothers because of his understanding that it is God who is at work in this.

He says this in Genesis 45, verse 5.

Genesis 45:5

And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here.

For God sent me before you to preserve life.

How is it, you know, as we switch back to Joseph's perspective, away from Judah's, Joseph is able to reconcile with his brothers here.

Why is that?

He really was sinned against.

In the most complete terms.

You know, he would have every right to the first time they came, said, don't sell them any food.

They can just go away.

Sure, things worked out for me, but I won't forget what they did.

Instead, Joseph thinks of it in these terms.

God has been working this whole time.

And there is nothing that could interrupt, divert, destroy the plans of God.

Even the sins of my brothers could not divert the plans of God.

In fact, they could only serve what God's absolute intentions are.

And because Joseph understood the absolute work of God in his life, and he rested upon that as the basis of his experience, the mode through which he interpreted his existence and all that had happened to him.

He was able to say to his brothers, God has worked for good in this.

And so do not be angry with yourselves.

There is something more important here than even your sin.

What's more important here is what God is doing.

And he's doing this for the preservation of a remnant, for the good intentions that he has for the world, for the saving of many.

And that's what God has accomplished here.

He continues on in verse six.

He says, For the famine has been in the land.

These two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest.

And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.

Because Joseph primarily sees the most important fact of life is who God is, then Joseph is able to act, even when he has the authority of judge, he's able to act in this incredible way, which is that he loves his enemies.

As he sees God is the one doing this.

You know what God is like?

God loves his enemies.

When Jesus instructs us to love our enemies, he says, you should do it because God the Father does it.

Why?

How do we know?

Well, he makes the rain fall on the wicked and the good alike.

See, he's loving his enemies all the time.

And Joseph says, this is God's story.

That's the most important thing here.

Not the sins that happened to me, not the place that I was raised to, not the grudge that I could hold, even rightly so.

Who wouldn't say, you remember the moment of crying in the pit where they ignored you and decided to sell you for profit?

Yeah, well, that is an important factor.

But you know, Joseph might say, the more important factor that I couldn't see in the pit was that God was working this for good.

That God was absolutely in control, even in the depths of their sin against me.

So what do I do?

Try and take judgment, justice into my own hands, and avenge against my brothers?

Or do I try and act like God and love my enemies?

That is the very thing that Joseph does.

Joseph weeps with his brothers, especially with Benjamin.

They just cry together as they've come together again.

By the loving sacrifice of Judah and by who the judge was, there is a mercy that flows into this family, and their sins are in a sense covered over by a gracious love.

They make a deal.

Joseph says, Go back, get Jacob, Israel, my father, bring him here, tell him what's happened.

Then Pharaoh has about the same idea.

There's a dynamic there that it that is sort of strange of how they end up in Egypt and how Pharaoh is such a large part of that.

But what I want us to see here is Joseph's words to them when he sends them away to go get Jacob.

In verse 24, it says, Then he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, Do not quarrel on the way.

That's his request.

Now, why does he say that?

You know, when they go back to get their father, they say, Great news.

Joseph is alive, and he's the king of Egypt.

You know, it begs the question.

What happened to Joseph?

You had a cloak.

Covered in his blood.

You told me he was dead.

You see, they're not just going back to get Jacob.

They're walking back into the truth of the darkest depths of their sin.

Before the Father that they all sinned against.

Why are they able to walk into the darkest depths of the truth of their sin before their father?

Because of the one Son who showed them mercy.

Because of the grace of the Son, the Son who bore their sin.

Because they walk under that grace, they are able to walk back into the truth before their father.

They explained to Jacob what happened, and Jacob has the final words of the chapter.

He's referred to as Israel in this section, as his name had been changed.

In verse twenty eight, it says, And Israel said, It is enough.

Joseph, my son, is still alive.

With your coming judgment.

You have a brother.

And because of the depth of his love, he offers you his grace.

And then when you come before your father, and our father God sees the absolute depths of our sin.

When he sees you revealed in all of the most terrifying aspects of what you fear might be brought into truth and what might be judged, he says, It is enough.

My son is alive.

He can say that because Jesus went to the cross as the righteous son.

He bore our sin on that cross, our absolute judgment.

He took our absolute judgment.

He offers this atonement as forgiveness to us.

And because he was absolutely righteous, three days later he rose from the dead to be made judge of all the universe.

When he comes back, it's on a white horse with a sword.

There will be a resurrection and a judgment day and a great white throne.

What will happen before the great white throne of judgment, which is coming?

Oh, how we wonder what will happen.

But there's news before what the judgment will be.

The news is the judge on that great white throne is Christ.

It's Jesus, the one who took on our flesh, so that he might die in our stead, who fulfilled the law on our behalf because of the depth of his love towards us, who welcomes us into his family and calls us brother, and begs begs us, call my father your father.

Be reconciled to him in truth.

You can go in truth because of the mercy over which I cover you.

And so the question of that day is: are you in Christ?

Or are you out of Christ?

This is the whole question of all our wonderings about judgment and what it will be.

The most important thing about what your judgment will be is what Christ has done.

It's a terrifying thing because it is a call to walk back into the darkest depths of the sin that you have and you know that you have, and to stand before your Father in truth of that, but you can do it trusting the grace of Christ is sufficient.

A heart transformed like that could even do things as absurd, absurd, as love your enemies.

So see Christ on the throne.

See Christ as the judge.

Do not quarrel as you go back, but recognize the Son who calls you brother.

This is the good news.

What is this God who is the judge?

He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Quit your running from his judgment.

Instead, run towards the grace that he offers you.

Are there any questions today, Tim?

All right, let's answer one question.

I'm running late, but it's uh the ND500's already happening.

I got nothing to miss.

How do we become more like Joseph in our own messy family and living situations?

Joseph became like Joseph through long suffering.

And Joseph became like Joseph, as we see here, he was able to think in the way that Joseph thought because in that long suffering, he had an absolute confidence that nothing was happening outside of God's plan.

Now, that's 50% helpful.

Because if you found out one day that we were in a simulation, and you found out nothing is happening outside of the programmer's plan, you would say, okay, what's the programmer like?

What's he like?

Does he care about us?

Does he have any love for his creatures?

See, we can become like Joseph.

How did Joseph become like Joseph?

Honestly, by a miraculous work of the Spirit.

And we require that same miraculous work, but we also get to know so much more than Joseph got to know.

He was operating off of a promise.

God has promised to be committed to us, to bless us, to care for us, and that was enough for Joseph.

It ought to be enough for us.

But we have more than just the promise.

We have the promise fulfilled, which answers the question.

Yes, God is in control, one part of the answer.

And then the other half of the question, what is God like?

What is he like?

Well, he so loved the world that he sent his only son.

What is he like?

He didn't count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but instead laid it down, humbling himself by becoming a man, even to the point of dying on a cross.

You might think, oh well, for a good man, one might die.

But no one would dare die for a sinner, and yet God shows his love towards us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

So what is God like?

What is the God like who while you are his enemy, he dies for you, that you might be reconciled to him.

There's a word that we can use to describe what God is like: good.

He's good.

He's gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

And so Joseph has these two things.

God is absolutely good.

God is absolutely in control.

And then he has his life.

And he's sitting in a pit thinking, why are my brothers abandoning me?

And then he's riding on a slave cart, thinking, where am I going?

And then he's getting betrayed by Potiphar's wife, and he's getting put in prison.

And he's got these two things.

God is absolutely in control, and God is good.

How do I square that with my life?

He just trusts.

He trusts the Lord.

We trust the Lord and what we've seen in Jesus Christ.

We know what he's like, and he's absolutely in control.

And then you become a person who does insane things like loves your enemies.

And nothing makes enemies like family.

Those are some of the realest enemies you can have.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11 23, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

We come together this morning to proclaim the death of our Lord.

And what that death means is he went there out of the depth of his love towards his people.

Come to him, be found in him at the judgment.

His grace is inexhaustible, and he's shown it to you.

Holy Father, I pray that you would bless this time of communion.

Lord, that we might receive it as the gracious outpouring of your love towards us.

Lord, that you have atoned for us to draw us to you, to make us your enemies, your family.

Lord, you are the judge.

That is good news, because you are gracious and merciful.

Lord, let us not harden our hearts today, but let us come to who you are, in who you've shown us in Christ.

Let us receive Christ and trust in him.

Lord, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.