Mercy and Grace from the Beginning

 Read Genesis 45

Finally, after 9 chapters, Joseph’s brothers find out what happened to Joseph. They were dumbfounded, shocked, and in disbelief. 

Ain’t no way!

Yes, way.

Joseph could no longer contain himself.  He kicked all of the Egyptians out of the room and revealed himself to his brothers. That had to be a moment.  That had to be an emotional roller coaster ride compressed into a moment.

He’s alive!

We’re going to be slaves.

He’ll kill us!

This can’t be real.

This is real.

It’s him.

No, it can’t be him. Not with all of this power and authority and wealth.

Our brother is alive.

We’re dead men.

We have not even gotten to the part where they are going to have to tell their father.  What will he say after the story they had told him was revealed to be false? What will Israel say when he finds out that Joseph is alive?

What would he say if Joseph told him what we did to him? Maybe, Joseph will just have us all turned into slaves or killed and we won’t have to explain ourselves to our father.

What a mix of joy, anxiety, excitement, dread, amazement, and who knows what other emotions flowed into this confluence of thoughts and feelings.

Joseph was alive.  We sold him into slavery.  This can’t be good for us.

Now consider what Joseph had to say about this.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt!  And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.  For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping.  But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

Joseph personalized this even more.

So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.

Does anyone remember Flip Wilson?  The devil made me do it!

It sounds like Joseph was telling his brothers that God made you do this terrible thing.  That’s not exactly what Joseph was saying.

There was evil in the hearts of these 10 brothers, but God used it to accomplish his purpose.  Joseph was going to Egypt. Joseph would be the only person on the planet able to know what was coming and how to deal with it.  The 10 brothers were just part of the logistics.

You were just playing your part in this divinely orchestrated deliverance of Israel and his family, which would come to be the nation of Israel in Egypt.

Yes, the 10 brothers gave in to evil and should have felt remorse and regret and come to repentance, but Joseph told them that revenge would not come their way.  Joseph, who trusted God in all circumstances, had eyes to see what God had done and was doing through him, and as it turned out, through his brothers.

That doesn’t mean that Joseph enjoyed his time in the hole.  It doesn’t mean that his lifelong ambition was to be a slave.  It doesn’t mean that he had always hoped to do a bit in prison.

Prison would have been a chance to get a tat before the law said don’t get inked and the discussion about what that actually meant ensued. Prison was never on Joseph’s bucket list.

It means that through it all, he trusted God. Through it all, he grew where he was planted.  Through it all he bloomed where he was.  And through it all, he gained eyes to see his part of God’s plan. 

Joseph could have exacted revenge and nobody on the planet would have had anything to say about it. But Joseph saw that his suffering was nothing compared to the salvation he would bring to this part of the world.

Centuries later, the apostle Paul would remind us that our present suffering is nothing compared to what the Lord has in store for us and the glory that will be revealed in us.

Jesus told us to love our enemies.  When your own brothers sell you into slavery and an unknown future, they might just fall into the worst class of enemies.  They were your brothers but they did this to you.  How could you not hate them?

We are beginning to see what mercy and grace look like.  These 10 men deserved punishment.  Joseph could deliver punishment in any form or fashion he desired. No one would question him.

Instead, he delivered mercy and grace.  He did not hold his brother’s sins against them. In fact, in the worst time that the world had known since the flood, he would bless these brothers, his father, and everyone related to them.

We see mercy and grace at work in Joseph.  Those qualities could only come through God.  Human nature would have said, “This is your time now Joey boy.  Make them pay.”

Do you remember the Parable of the Lost Sheep?  The shepherd left 99 in the wilderness to search for the 1 that was lost and when he found him, he rejoiced like crazy.  That’s the first part of this story.

Then, Jesus then told those with ears to hear that there is more rejoicing in heaven over a single sinner who repents than there is over 99 who don’t need to. Okay, I’m sure that Jesus wouldn’t have ended his sentence in a preposition, but you understand the parable.

Joseph was rejoicing that his brothers who were lost to him—who had surely sinned against him—were with him again.  Yes, he had a special affinity for Benjamin, but his joy, his mercy, and his grace were for all.

We get a glimpse of our Divine Father in this encounter.

We have all been through some stuff, some suffering.

Death of a loved one.

Divorce.

Imprisonment.

Job loss.

Protracted unemployment.

Addiction.

Ridicule.

Abuse.

Isolation.

Bullying.

You might think that at least nobody was sold into slavery, but we have people who have sold themselves into slavery with significant debt.

We have all been through some stuff, but for those who believe and trust, we can be confident that God will use whatever we have been through for the good.

Knowing this, can we forgive those who wronged us.  Can be content that God will take everything that happens to us and use it for good?

Can we be content in the sovereignty of God that vengeance belongs to him alone?

Yes, what happened to us or those we love might have been unforgivable, but can we forgive?

It probably won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. Joseph is our example.  In a series of stories that have bad decisions, deceit, and being downright dirty, we get this model of mercy and grace.

Joseph showed mercy and grace. He was going to bless his father’s family with the best land in Egypt. The Pharoah said, “Oh we can do better than that.”

There should have been no forgiveness for these 10 brothers, but God was at work here not only saving people with the storehouses of food that Joseph had put together but with this revelation of mercy and grace in Joseph.

We are reading the Old Testament but we are seeing mercy and grace.

We are going to wrap up Genesis in just a few weeks.  We will then do some seasonal messages.  In 2024, we begin a series that we are calling the Words of Jesus.  I know, some of you can’t wait to get there.

Words like mercy, grace, forgiveness, and love abound in the New Testament, but we should clearly see that mercy and grace have been there since the beginning.  We know and we worship a God of love, forgiveness, mercy, and grace.

God, whom we know best through Christ Jesus, is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He has always been a God of mercy and grace. We see those qualities manifested in Joseph.

Joseph went through so much that all traced back to his brothers selling him into slavery. Who could fault him for seeking vengeance, but he did not.

Joseph realized the sovereignty of God and if God’s plan required him to be sold into slavery and thrown into prison to get where he needed to be to save those God directed him to save, then so be it.

But beyond accepting and embracing God’s sovereignty, Joseph embraced God’s mercy and grace. Joseph practiced mercy and grace.

It’s one thing to post these words online.  It’s another to practice them.

If Joseph could do this long before anyone was talking about a Savior that we know as Jesus, what is our excuse?

We should be modern-day models of mercy and grace.

That means that we can’t park ourselves in the judgment seat.

We are not to be the ones sitting on the sidelines pointing fingers at the wrongdoing of others.

We are not building a clubhouse. We are building God’s house upon the solid foundation of Christ Jesus. There is no other foundation!

We are people of mercy and grace because we have received the mercy and grace of our Father in heaven through Christ Jesus his Son.

As we face this world which can inflict so much pain and suffering upon us and those around us, let us have eyes to see how we may live by mercy and grace.

Our mercy and grace should be for all. We can start at home, but here are a few places where we might start looking to apply them as well.

With those who are broken in spirit.

With those who are hurting and mourning.

With those who are not bold in the ways of the world.

With those who have forsaken the ways of the world and truly seek to live right by God.

With those who practice mercy with others.

Those who endure the process of truly trying to resolve conflicts.

Those who are persecuted.

These should sound familiar. If you need a place to start practicing mercy and grace, look in these places. The opportunities abound.

What did we learn from Joseph this week?  Let mercy and grace be the mainstay of your life.

As you go into the week ahead, let these two words abide in your hearts and minds this week.

Mercy.

Grace.

Amen.

Getting a Nation to Egypt

 Read Genesis 45

Had Joseph exacted revenge on his brothers, he would have probably never seen his father again.  Even if he released Benjamin but enslaved or killed the 10 brothers who did him wrong, what sort of relationship could he have with his father.

Do you remember how much Jacob loved Joseph? Do you remember what we like to call the coat of many colors?  Joseph and Benjamin were Dad’s favorites, but that didn’t mean you could have your revenge on the other 10 and still have a good relationship with Dad.

Besides, Israel’s family needed to go live in Egypt.  This remnant would grow and prosper in Egypt.  They would likely die in what would be called the Promised Land if they remained where they were living at that time.

God wanted the people he would call his own to survive.  He would give them not only the land promised but laws and directives about how to live. He had already given them the sign in the flesh that separated them from many people.

God would give these few descendants of Israel the distinction of being his people, but first, he had to preserve them. They must go to Egypt.

The first half of the chapter gives us an account of Joseph revealing himself to his brothers.  The second half is about logistics—getting Israel’s family to Egypt. That’s our focus here.

Joseph told his brothers to go get his father and the whole family and return to Egypt.  He would give them some prime real estate.  He said there is no choice in the matter, you will perish with this famine which won’t run its course for 5 more years.

Joseph’s servants had heard him crying and must have been a little nosey because they found out that his brothers had come.  These men whom Joseph told his servants to put silver in their sacks and then his own personal cup were his brothers.

This had to be reported to Pharoah.  Pharoah and his court were delighted to hear this.  Think about it.

The man who had saved your bacon had been reunited with his brothers and was sending them back to get his father and the rest of the family.

Ain’t no way that Joseph was sending for his family to come to Egypt.  No!  His family would be delivered to Egypt in style.  The Pharoah would send limos.  Back in the day, those limos looked like carts, but you get the idea. Joseph’s family wouldn’t have to worry about bringing too much luggage.  Pharoah and Egypt would take care of them.

CEOs come and go, but Joseph was the CEO who couldn’t be lost to someone else.  He was the franchise player. Had the Human Resources Department put out a job description for what Joseph did—all of his knowledge, skills, and abilities—no one would have applied.  Joseph was a one-of-a-kind find.

Pharoah knew what he had in Joseph and though Joseph had not asked for more perks and benefits, the Pharoah knew to bless him as much as he could for what he had done and hoped he would do going forward.

You don’t lose a guy like this! The empires of Babylon and Persia were centuries away, but there was always somebody looking to one-up you in the political world.  Joseph was a game changer, to use our VBS syntax.

God used not only Joseph but the pharaoh as well to move the nation of Israel into Egypt.

Joseph had some awareness of what was happening.  We see that in the first half of the chapter where he told his brothers that God had sent him to Egypt ahead of them for the work that he was now doing.  God sent Joseph ahead of them, meaning that Joseph realized it was God’s plan to bring all of Jacob’s family into Egypt.

I’m sure the brothers knew that they had sinned against Joseph, their own father, and God, but Joseph told them that what they did was necessary.

Think ahead to a time when a man named Judas would betray Jesus.  Oh, how the disciples hated Judas. Oh, how necessary his actions were to get Jesus to the cross.

Joseph had acquired eyes to see God’s plan.  Joseph accepted God’s plan.  You might say he embraced it to include all the bad stuff he had to endure.

The Pharoah didn’t have eyes to see God’s plan but he had the human wisdom to know that Joseph was the best thing that ever happened to Egypt and he would do whatever he could to keep him happy.

The Pharoah likely didn’t understand this God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he understood that whoever this God was, Joseph as in good standing with him. Pharoah wanted to be in good standing with Joseph.  Here was a golden opportunity.

Israel and family would come to Egypt. God had used the evil intentions of 10 brothers, the evil intentions of Potiphar’s wife, the forgetfulness of the Pharoah’s cupholder, the ongoing trust of Joseph, and the secular wisdom of the Pharoah to make this happen.

There was some disbelief among the brothers at first.  There was some disbelief with Dad, but all came to believe and all would come to Egypt.

There is a rabbit trail you might want to chew on in those 10 unscheduled minutes that you have each month. As the brothers left to go pick up the entire family, Joseph gave them these parting instructions:  Y’all don’t argue with each other.

What would they have to argue about? Who would start an argument?

How about young Mister Innocent?  How about Benjamin?  Surely, he would ask: “What’s with this cock and bull story about my brother being eaten by a wild beast?”

We don’t have the transcripts from the trip home. I bet there was some finger pointing nonetheless. That’s a rabbit trail.

For our understanding of what happened, know that God used those in the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as well as those who were pagan to accomplish his purpose.

Israel would become a sizeable nation in Egypt.  It took many people and many actions—not all of them without some evil intent—to make this happen.

God will use everything for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.  You may hear that again before we conclude Genesis.

Amen.