Galen Call's Sermon Library
"Faith to Live... and Die" - September 6, 1998
Amen. Thank you, Clare. It's fine. If you want to give her a hand, I think she deserves it. When we all get to heaven and that fits beautifully with our text today in Genesis chapter 50 where I invite you to turn with me as we think about faith to live and die. Today we conclude our biographical study in the life of Joseph, but also the biographical series that we have been in since last February, actually in the book of Genesis, began with the call of Abram from Ur of the Chaldes to go to the land that God would show him and where God would make him a great nation and a blessing to all the families of the earth. We have learned from the lives of Abraham and his descendants that God's pilgrims walk a life of faith. We have witnessed God at work through their faith and their obedience as well as in their sin and failures. It is my prayer as we bring this series to a close that we will all live with greater understanding and obedience as pilgrims of God in our own generation. It is my prayer that we too will be a people of faith that we will trust God in our trials and grow as they did through our failures. Perhaps like me you have been encouraged to see in fact that God uses imperfect people in his purposes. I am glad that God doesn't wait until we become perfect to use us. He desires to use us as we are if we will yield our lives to him. God does not demand faultlessness but he does demand of us faith. But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. He brews 11-6. Like his fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Joseph too was a man who believed God. He also is mentioned in that great Who's Who of the Faith in Hebrews chapter 11 where it says about him, "By faith Joseph when he was dying made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel and gave orders concerning his bones." Do you find it interesting that after all that we have learned so positive about this man that what the Holy Spirit records regarding his faith has to do with this last chapter, the chapter in which he dies and gives orders concerning his bones. Joseph's faith blessed his life and gave his life a testimony even in his dying experience. His was a life that was well lived to the glory of God. He possessed an unswerving trust in the God who makes and keeps covenant with his people. It brings me to this which I trust the Spirit of God will write on my heart today and upon your heart. It is that God calls us also to live by faith. And so I exhort us all today to live by faith in the promises of God. In doing so it will bless our lives and bring God's reward to us. That's the lesson we see in Joseph's life and the life of all of the patriarchs. Now what was it that Joseph in particular believed that empowered him to respond to the tragedies and the triumphs of his life with such grace and personal righteousness? What was it that he believed? What was it that Joseph believed that caused him to provide so generously for his father and brothers during the famine after the way he had been treated? Why did Joseph give the dying words that he did? What was it that he believed that caused him to utter those words? I want us to think about that this morning. As we think about Joseph being a man of faith and ourselves becoming like him, people of faith, what was it that Joseph believed? We're going to find out in Genesis chapter 50 at least a partial answer to that question. The chapter begins with the death of Jacob. This man that we have been tracking now for almost 20 chapters of the book of Genesis. Jacob utters his last blessing. He has traveled his last journey as a pilgrim. He pulls his feet into the bed, lies down, closes his eyes, and breathes his last, and then opens his eyes in the glory of God. Joseph in response falls upon his father and weeps. He weeps as strongly as he did that occasion some years ago now when his brothers came into the court and he recognized them and he had to go out and he wept. Here again, loudly, he laments the death of his father and the elaborate funeral is arranged and they trek all the way back to Canaan to bury Jacob as he had requested that they do. And then the period of mourning for Jacob's death is over. It says in verse 15 when Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph should bear a grudge against us and pass back in full for the wrong which we did to him?" So they sent a message to Joseph saying, "Your father charged before he died and saying that did he really? We don't know for sure. It's possible that Jacob may have uttered these words, but more likely because of where it falls in the narrative they are concocting this story and putting the words in Jacob's mouth for their own use and benefit, their own advantage. But they say that Jacob said this, "Thus you shall say to Joseph, please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong." Now please forgive the transgression of the servants of God, of the God of your father, and Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also came and fell down before him and said, "Behold, we are your servants, your Joseph said to them, do not be afraid, for am I in God's place?" What do we see about Joseph's faith in these words? I believe that what we see here is Joseph's faith, his belief that God is a God who forgives failures. God is forgiving of failures. It is interesting that the issue of his brothers' crimes against him are resurrected after the death of Jacob. What this means is that Joseph has already demonstrated his mercy toward his brothers for 17 years. And now after that period of time they still feel guilty and they are worried about retaliation for the past. Notice the words that they say Jacob uses, but I really think they are using to describe their actions. They speak of it as transgression, as sin, as wrong. They are using the right kinds of words to describe what happened. No question about that. And based upon this they request Joseph now to forgive them twice. This word "forgive" is found 650 times in the Old Testament. It has many variations of meaning, but basically the idea is to lift, as one would lift a burden from another. It means to bear up or to bear away. It is used for example in Genesis chapter 18 and verse 24 where Abraham is talking with God regarding the coming judgment upon Sodom, and he asks God if he would spare the city if he could find fifty righteous people. The word "spare" there is the same word as forgive here. It is a lifting of judgment of a burden. And they say to Joseph, "Lift from us our burden." And Joseph upon hearing this report from them, "weeps." This is the last time that has recorded that he weeps. Joseph was a man who was unafraid to show emotion. He was a real man's man. When it was appropriate he was unashamed in public to cry. And here once more we see him bursting out in tears. Why does he cry at this point? Well the text doesn't tell us, so we have to use our imagination. But it seems to me that the most logical explanation is that Joseph is grieved, that after showing kindness to his brothers for these seventeen years they still do not trust him. He is hurt by this request to forgive. Because Joseph had already forgiven them. And he had done his dead level best to communicate to that. But somehow it just did not get across to their hearts. They still felt guilty. And so he reassured them. He tells them that he is not in the place of God. Now what does he mean by that? Well I think he means, particularly in the context here, that he recognizes that God is the ruler of all things. That God had arranged the circumstances of his life. His brother should not blame themselves. And to God alone would belong in a punishment or any judgment because of what had happened. Am I in the place of God? He is not in the place, says Joseph, to judge them or to condemn them. That suggests to me that Joseph had already determined that God had forgiven his brothers for their guilt and their failure. And that he could not do anything less than forgive them himself. Am I in the place of God? If there is to be blame then God will place it. If there is to be judgment then God will give it. But I believe that Joseph saw that God had forgiven his brothers for their failures. And so he likewise forgave them. There is a powerful lesson here for you and for me. And it is this. If God has forgiven us our trespasses then we ought to forgive the trespasses of others against us. Unforgiveness says, "I hold you accountable to me." It bears the grudge. It looks for the opportunity to get even. That is unforgiveness. And it holds that thing close to the heart until bitterness develops. And from that bitterness there is a root that goes down into the life. And by it warns the writer of Hebrews, many are defiled. But forgiveness. Forgiveness releases that offense to God. He is the only righteous judge. Forgiveness says, "I no longer hold you accountable to me personally." I leave that to God. I release you from accountability to me. You can't release another person from accountability to God if such exists. That is between that person and God. But you can release them from accountability to you. And in doing that you release yourself really from the defilement that unforgiveness will bring to your life and the destruction that will soon follow it. If God has forgiven us our trespasses we ought to forgive others their trespasses against us. Most of us here this morning are citizens of the United States. And today we are citizens of a nation where a president has committed grievous offense, moral offense against his office and therefore against us as people. Now we have a choice. Are we going to hold him personally accountable to us? And thus refuse to forgive him for what he has done? Or are we going to release him from accountability to us and not bear that grudge against him personally? I believe that as Christians we have no choice but to forgive him. Now he is going to say that that does not mean that he is automatically released from the consequences of what he has done. And all that he has done I presume will eventually be found out whether we want to know it or not. And the consequences for what he has done will be determined by those who are in a position under the law to determine those consequences. But I want to exhort us today on a personal level to forgive him as a sinner and to pray for him. I fear that he has fallen into the web of apostate Christian theology which is leading him astray in his thinking about sin and about God and about righteousness and responsibility and confession and so on. And what we need to pray is that those few people who sometimes have access to him who are people of the truth will be able to communicate the truth to him so that he can respond in a godly and righteous way and come to the Savior and truly find forgiveness with God. Joseph believed that God is a God who forgives failures and because he believed that it tremendously impacted his reaction to those who failed him. He could forgive. And I want to say to you today that if we are a people who believe that God is a God who forgives failures, then we can forgive. You can forgive. You can forgive if you have been forgiven by God. Not just the President, but others in your life who may have offended you or affected you negatively in some way and against whom you have feelings or a grudge. You can forgive. And I would say it even stronger than that you must forgive. You must forgive for your own sake, if not the other persons. Now as we go on through the chapter we see that Joseph's faith didn't end there. Joseph believed something else. He believed that God is greater than any circumstance. Notice how this conversation goes on in verse 20. And as for you, he says to his brothers, "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive." Joseph really believed that God is greater than any circumstance. This is perhaps the key verse to the whole story of Joseph. It tells us that God overrode the evil intentions of his brothers to achieve his divine purpose. You meant it for evil. God meant it for good. The word meant here is a word that means to weave together as you would weave fabric, or it means to scheme a plot or to contrive. His brothers had contrived one way, but all of this fit into God's greater peace of fabric. And God was weaving it to accomplish his own purpose in the design of the story of Genesis. God is greater than any circumstance. Do you believe that? Today we are faced with many uncertainties in our world. Some of you are very aware of the Y2K problem, the computer problem that some believe will bring the whole world collapsing. It may not be that severe, but it undoubtedly will present complications at the least. In the last two weeks we have seen the effect of the weakening Asian markets now causing Russia literally to collapse. Someone said on television yesterday that Russia has not been a so critical point since 1917 in the Bolshevik Revolution. That is a very serious evaluation. It's affecting Latin America and it's affecting the United States. We stand on the threshold of what could be a meltdown economically in our world, a worldwide depression, not merely recession. I'm not predicting that. There are some who are, but it is of possibility. There are so many problems in our world today that our leaders cannot possibly solve all of them. In fact, Nicholas Christoff writing in the New York Times a few days ago says this, "With the Asian meltdown spreading to Russia and undermining Europe, China, Latin America, some experts fret about the risk of a severe global downturn, perhaps another depression, with incalculable political and military risks. But just as the threats to world order seem unusually grave and complex, leaders in major capitals appear unusually enfeebled." He says, "Domestic social and economic forces are overwhelming political leaders everywhere." If one is a pre-millennialist, one could argue that the world is being set up for the coming of a very strong leader who's going to be able to bring some order to things. And that's where I'm at. We have the threat of terrorist attacks right here in Minneapolis, St. Paul. There are those who are saying that Sodom Hussein has already secreted agents across the United States with chemical and bacteriological bombs, basically in suitcases, waiting his orders for their release. We have this fabulously wealthy Ben Layden who has threatened to kill Americans everywhere. The security that we have felt as Americans in this world is quickly fading away. I wonder, do we really believe that God is greater than any circumstance? Joseph did. And because of that, he was not afraid. And you and I need not fear either. Because God is greater than any circumstance that can come against us. Verse 21 says, "So therefore do not be afraid." He says, "I will provide for you and your little ones." You need not fear because God is greater than any circumstance that can come against you. You say, "Well, I may be killed." So what? Entrance to heaven. If that's the worst that can happen to us, then it only brings the best that can happen to us. Isn't that right? If God is greater than any circumstance you need not fear. Finally, Joseph believed this, that God is faithful in each generation. Between verses 21 and 22, more than half a century passes. 54 years Joseph stayed in Egypt. He and his father's household. During that time some of his brothers may have died. The family grew. Joseph may have done great things. We're not told that, but for the next 50 years he carried out his routine responsibilities in Egypt. He saw his great-grandchildren. The text may indicate even his great-great-grandchildren. And then it says in verse 24, Joseph said to his brothers, "I am about to die. But God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which he promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, "God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones up from here." That's what he wanted them to promise. And so Joseph died at the age of 110 years, and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. The book of Genesis that begins with God's great creation of life ends with a coffin in Egypt, but it doesn't end with hopelessness. That's because Joseph believed that God is faithful in every generation. The passing of a generation is a sobering thing that occurs in one's life. Some of you have lost your last parent in recent years, as I have. It is a sobering realization when you understand that your generation is the next one. When you have generations that are before you, you think that life is going to go on and on and on, but suddenly you are the terminal generation as young as you are. It is a sobering thing to realize that you're next. You're next. We've seen a lot of emphasis this year in World War II and some of the events connected with it, and we realize that that generation that fought World War II, the courage and the devotion to country, that generation is quickly passing away. And rightfully we should honor them, but it's sobering to realize that there are fewer Americans who understand the price that one must pay for liberty. Joseph here had seen his father pass away, and when he himself, Joseph comes to die, he uses language very similar to his father's. He says, "I die, but God." You see, he had seen the previous generation. He saw generations before him down, perhaps to his great-great-grandchildren, and he himself now says, "I am dying, but God will take care of you." God is faithful in every generation. That was part of Joseph's faith. There'll be a scruff of Thomas' rights. Like Jacob, he was determined that Egypt should not be the final resting place of his body. His heart was already in Canaan, and his body was to be there too. You see, Joseph by his dying words, which is what Hebrews 11 refers to, commands that his body not be left in Egypt because the promises that God had given to his great-grandfather Abraham, and then to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to himself, and to his great-great-grandchildren, that God would faithfully bring his people out of Egyptian bondage. And one day that God, many generations later, would fulfill his promise to give that land to Abraham and his descendants, a promise that not yet has been fulfilled, but will be in the millennium. That God is a faithful God, says Joseph, and I want to be buried in Canaan so that I can be resurrected to join in the celebration when God gives us that land. God is faithful in every generation, therefore his people can trust him, and I want to say to you that you can rest in the Lord with complete confidence. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength too. Maybe like me, you are in your family the terminal generation. You and I can rest in confidence in the Lord. God is going to take care of our children and our grandchildren. Genesis ends, you see, with this coffin, which is actually a symbol of hope and a future deliverance. That coffin represents a new beginning, a beginning that gets underway in the very next page with the introduction of Genesis, or of Exodus, rather, as Joseph's body is taken out of Egypt eventually and planted in Canaan. But the new beginning that Joseph was really looking toward is a new beginning that God is going to give yet when Jesus Christ comes to reign on the earth. God is a God of new beginnings, and you can rest in confidence in him of his new beginnings in your life. What I hope you see in the text today as we bring this to a quick close is that what you believe determines how you live. It is Joseph's faith that caused him to be the man that he was, and how you and I live measures our faith. It more than any doctrinal statement that we sign tells what we believe, because what we really believe determines the choices that we make in life and how we choose to live. It determines how we live, and it determines how we die. And if today you reject the Savior or receive the Savior by faith, it makes a difference in the end. And if today is a believer, you choose to live by faith as God's pilgrim, or you decide to live by the flesh and for the world, it makes a difference in the end. And so today, what do you believe, and how is that determining your life? I hope you'll think about that as we come to the Lord's table because it was what Jesus believed that enabled him to go to the cross and there to die. What he believed determined how he lived and how he died. And it will for you too. Let's pray. Father, I pray that our faith may be biblical, and that what we believe will be right so that then our lives will be guided by good decisions. We come to this table today in gratitude for our Lord Jesus Christ, the descendant of Jacob, who in the wise and good plan of your providence offered himself for our sins, that we might be reconciled to you, and we partake of this bread with gratitude for our Savior, embracing him by faith and choosing to live as he did, believing you and being your pilgrim. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]