Read Genesis 47
Sometimes, I have to work a little to
connect the scripture to our present situation.
I am always on the lookout for where the good news is connected to both
the scripture and our situation.
Sometimes—believe it or not—there is a little work involved.
Today is the exception. This scripture has 21st Century
written all over it.
Joseph saw what was coming. The Pharoah saw that Joseph was the only man
for this monumental job of saving Egypt and bringing it through this time of
imminent famine.
Joseph collected one-fifth of the
crops for 7 years. For the next 7, he
sold these crops—mostly grain—to Egyptians and to others who came in search of
food. The Pharoah was making a nice profit.
Joseph had a monopoly on food.
The problem for the people was that
they were out of money. When there is no agriculture, there isn’t much of an
economy. The people were broke and
needed food.
What to do?
How about we give you our livestock in
exchange for food? The animals were
going to die anyway. The people needed
food for themselves and their livestock.
Grazing in times of famine was not good.
So the people sold all of their
livestock to Joseph in exchange for food.
The government owned all of the livestock, except for a few owned by the
pagan priests who were subsidized by Pharoah.
The next year the people were out of
food again and out of livestock. What
did they have to barter with?
Their land and themselves. They would become the servants or slaves of
Pharoah. Pharoah would own title to all
of the land in Egypt, with a few exceptions.
Pharoah had become more powerful and
the Egyptian people had been reduced to slaves who owned nothing. They relied
completely upon the government.
They would receive seed to plant once
again when the famine passed, but the land was not theirs. They would pay one-fifth of what they grew to
the Pharoah. The rest they could keep.
This was the same amount that Joseph
assessed during the 7 years of abundance, except there was no promise of
abundance this time.
Joseph had planned well but the
Egyptian people had not. They were broke
and now without property. They had sold themselves into servitude.
They were in a mess, but still alive.
I said earlier that this scripture had
our current century written all over it.
How?
We live in a time of abundance. While we think we don’t have much, we have
plenty. We see others with more and
think we don’t have anything. We covet
and dismiss the blessing that we have.
We live in a time of abundance but we
have no savings. We have no emergency fund. We have nothing set aside for a
rainy day.
I do not think that the famine that
was coming in Joseph’s time was a secret.
I’m sure that many dismissed it as a conspiracy theory.
I’m sure that people asked why they
had to pay so much in the 7 years of abundance and likely dismissed the years
of famine to come as an excuse for the Pharoah to gouge the people with higher
taxes.
I do not think that the people were
ignorant of the facts. I think that they
did not take prudent measures to provide for hard times.
Today, most families live paycheck to
paycheck—direct deposit to direct deposit. Most have little or no savings. Most are not provisioned for a big expense.
We are not ready for trouble,
tribulation, and trials that involve our finances. For while we live in abundant times, so many
have been living as if we had 5 or 10 times the abundance that we really have.
Credit cards, payday loans, student
loans, and other easy money traps have snared so many. The money came so easily
but it was never really ours. So many
sold themselves into slavery—into indentured servitude to the lender.
Our government has surely set a
terrible example. I am not picking on
any single administration. Our
government has overspent for decades.
In Joseph’s time, the people could
have looked to their government for an example. Something’s up. I had better set aside twenty percent of my
income for my rainy-day fund or my hadn’t seen rain for a few
years fund.
But how can we do that? The government already taxes me so I don’t
have much left.
Joseph didn’t use a sliding scale. He
didn’t say bring your W2 and we will make deductions from what you owe the
Pharoah if you can’t afford it. Twenty
percent was twenty percent.
If anyone has eyes to see, you are
likely seeing a time of abundance in our nation. There may be high prices and
high taxes, but we still have much. We are blessed to have much.
What do we do? First, we stop living in this fantasy
abundance that says we can afford so much more than we can really afford. I can
get a loan. I can get another credit card. Everybody’s doing it.
We might want to set aside twenty
percent of our income for those rainy days or those rainless days. That would
be our tithe and an additional ten percent for we must not only consider
ourselves but the least of these among us.
When you think of Malachi 3:10,
consider the image of Joseph’s storehouses full of grain. Do you remember that Joseph’s managers took
in so much grain that they stopped keeping records?
Most of you did not know that for the
past 2 years, we have maintained some emergency food beyond that which we keep
in our pantry to give away. This was in
case the supply chains were disrupted beyond the inconvenience level. We never hit that point and now that food is
migrating to food baskets so it is put to use before it goes bad.
Most of you did not know this. The few
that did, didn’t really pay much attention to it. As I migrate the food into
current use, we will decide whether to replenish the storehouse. It was never enough to feed everyone for
every day, but it was enough to provide 2 or 3 meals each week to the community
while people figured out how to survive in austere circumstances.
I bring this up now because I want you
to ask yourself, did I have to pay extra for this? Were there special offerings
for this? Did I have to give money on top of my tithe for this?
The answer is no. Nothing extra was sought or required. We made do out of what we had. We are blessed
that we didn’t have to go through tough times as did the Egyptians of long ago,
but if the church could do this out of a modest budget, couldn’t you do
something that would prepare you for hard times?
What sort of preacher would say
this? I don’t need to do this. Do you know why?
The Lord will
provide!
I will tell you that you are absolutely
correct. The Lord will provide. The problem is that we are too often blinded to
the fact that he has already provided. Consider what he has already provided to
us:
· A sound mind.
· The Mind of Christ
· Knowledge, skills, and abilities.
· For the believer, Spiritual Gifts.
· Other gifts and talents.
We should be acquiring through our
faith and practice:
· Wisdom.
· Maturity.
· Patience.
· Endurance.
We should be able to handle:
· Trouble.
· Adversity.
· Trials.
· Tribulation.
Our salvation comes completely as the
gift of God but we are full participants in our discipleship. We are fully
vested in our discipleship. Our discipleship demands that we put the words of
our Master into practice.
We should have a heart to take care of
not only our own families but the least of these among us as well.
We should have the wisdom to put our
gifts and Spiritual Gifts, our knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as our
experience to work to produce good returns for the body of Christ. In so doing we bring glory to God.
We should not be deceived by the ways
of the world that call us to sell ourselves into slavery by our debt.
We should see that we have abundance
now but we must not live in opulence.
We are not too far away from our
annual journey down the Parable
of the Talents, so I won’t talk too much now about taking that which has
been entrusted to us and putting it to work to produce a good return for our
Master.
We have been following the story of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—Israel. We know
that a time of slavery and hardship is coming for them, but along the way, note
that the Egyptian people brought hardship and slavery upon themselves by living
above their means and having nothing to sustain them in times of hardship.
They did this willingly. It all seemed so natural to them.
Do not leave this place thinking that
I have said, we can face any trial on our own.
We have our part to play as part of our discipleship. We also trust in
the Lord completely and that trust in him is what should give us eyes to see
what we have already been given.
Sometimes that trust means setting
aside something in times of abundance for times of hardship. We don’t set it
aside because we don’t trust God but because we do. We see what God is trusting us with now.
Sometimes, living life to
the full doesn’t mean getting all of the worldly stuff that we can but
applying all of the gody wisdom that we have acquired.
Sometimes living the abundant life
involves putting into practice those things that God has been teaching us. Who’d
a thunk it?
Yes, the Lord will provide for you but
we should have eyes to see where he has already done that and put what he has
given us to work.
So there is your pump me up to do great
things based on a lesson we hope we learn from ancient Egypt instead of our own
mistakes, but it seldom works that way.
We know what to do and yet we
struggle. Academically, we learn the lesson but in practice, we have built our houses
upon the sand.
We must pray that God grants us eyes
to see the abundance that we have. If we
can see it, we will act upon it.
If we remain myopic in our human
vision—our ever-so-natural state—we will only see what gratifies us in the
moment.
Lord, grant us eyes to see the
abundance you have provided.
For most of a year now we have been in
the book of Genesis. Much of that time
has been following the story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Today, your main lesson comes from the
Egyptians. They had no real god and they sold themselves into slavery.
Our country seems to be headed down
the same road. We must let the Lord direct our steps. We must seek the Lord,
draw near to him, and have eyes to see what he is giving us right now to
provision us in the days ahead.
We must have eyes to see the abundance
that he has given us and be wise in putting it to work.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment