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 So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. –Genesis 45:4-8
Finally Joseph reveals himself in the second visit by his brothers (or third if you count the short trip away with the silver cup in Benjamin’s bag). Just after Judah’s confession and repentance and offering himself as a substitute, Joseph’s plan to reconcile the family has utterly succeeded (since the providence of God is inescapable!). Joseph cannot hold out anymore and reveals himself. The brothers are too undone by the revelation at first, so in the passage above Joseph has to take control again and force them to accept it.
Joseph begins to deliver one of the most mature answers about God’s providence imaginable. How’d he get that? He got it through suffering. One of his earliest memories probably is being saddled up on a camel and taken away from the only home he had known, Paddam-Aram, from the only grandfather he’d ever known, Laban, only to encounter his uncle Esau who would very likely slaughter his dad (Jacob), if he didn’t go ahead and slaughter the entire family. That’s followed up with his only sister Dinah being raped by Shechem precipitating his brothers to deceive, torture, and then mass murder an entire town. Along the way, his mother, Rachel, dies giving birth to his brother Benjamin. His brother Reuben tries to displace his father by having physical relations with his father’s concubine. He barely gets to meet Isaac, his other grandfather, who promptly dies. And all this before Jacob is 17 years old!
By that point his brothers hate him so much they won’t even as much as greet him, and then at 17 they plot to kill him (and nearly do!), but instead sell him to slave traders after throwing him in a grave-like hole. He is then paraded naked with chains on his feet and neck before a crowd and purchased by a guy whose wife demands sex from him, falsely accuses him of attempted rape, and gets him thrown into prison.
This has not led him to hate or even be angry with God, but to interpret all this together as God working good in his life and the lives of those around him. In other words, it was not God’s fault all this had happened, but it was God’s loving and benevolent will that all this happened. What wisdom!
Question 27 of the Heidelberg Catechism speaks to this so well:
27. Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?
A. God’s providence is His almighty and ever present power, whereby, as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come not by chance but by His fatherly hand.
Of course, this could not be true for us since God is holy and we are not unless one greater than Judah offered himself in our place and one greater than Joseph chose to forgive and receive sinful brothers. Thanks be to God that Jesus Christ, the Lion of Judah, has done both!
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord
Lead On, O King Eternal
My Hope is Built on Nothing Less
CHURCH PICNIC
This Saturday, October 2. If you didn’t get the email invitation or haven’t responded to it, please click here to let us know if you’re going to be there! There will be fishing in the pond, lots of outdoor space, and (of course) OU messing with Texas. Kickoff is 2:30 so we’ll start at 2:00. The Men’s Prayer Breakfast is postponed one more month because of the picnic.
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 “Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy’s life, as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol. For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life.’ Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.” –Genesis 44:31-34
This is Judah speaking above. Joseph had sent the 10 brothers back to Jacob and Benjamin in Canaan to retrieve Benjamin and bring him back. Simeon was kept as a hostage to ensure their swift return. Jacob completely loses it when he hears about this and forbids their return.
Then he got hungry; they all did. This famine was really bad. So Jacob consents to the 10 brothers (sans Simeon) going to Egypt. When they got there all 11 were together. Joseph then wants to send them back to get Jacob, keeping Benjamin as the hostage this time.
Judah’s impassioned reply is that his father would be destroyed by such a thing. This is interesting because Judah was the one who presented Joseph’s blood-soaked coat to their father 20 years ago and let Jacob believe all this time that Joseph had been torn to pieces. That’s not honoring your father!
But now after all these years, Judah wants to honor his father. Judah has accepted his place and begs Joseph not to keep Benjamin there for the sake of his father. Rather, Judah offers himself as a substitute in Benjamin’s place. What a beautiful story of reconciliation, self-sacrifice, and repentance!
Except, of course, that’s not the gospel. We must not miss that there is a Greater Son more concerned about the happiness of his Father and the welfare of his brothers than Judah. In fact, for the sake of them all he offers himself as a substitute in our place. That is Judah’s greatest son—not David, though he was a great one, but—Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, that his Father and brothers would be forever reconciled.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
O Father, You are Sovereign
Holy, Holy, Holy!
Thy Works, Not Mine, O Christ
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” –Luke 16:14,15
This is a fascinating two verses that follow the parable of the Dishonest Manager. It is a difficult parable involving, at least possibly, some sarcasm. While we may not have an easy time understanding the parable without some study and Spiritual discernment, the Pharisees apparently got it right off. That’s because Jesus was talking about them! They are the dishonest managers who are shrewdly defrauding less-exalted people in the name of God.
Luke makes an editorial comment that the Pharisees, “who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.” That follows up with Jesus’ summary and heart-piercing statement about their self-justification and that God knows it. “For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”
The difference between the righteous and the wicked in scripture is not that the righteous necessarily behave better than the wicked or that the wicked necessarily behave better than the righteous. The difference is that the wicked are those who justify themselves (thus exalted among men—at least in their own mind) and the righteous are justified by God (thus not worthy of men’s exaltation). But hear this: to be justified by God is to be in union with Christ, and Christ is exalted by God because God knows his heart.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name
Beneath the Cross of Jesus
Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine
VISITING PREACHER
Pastor Mark will be away on vacation this Sunday and we are thrilled to welcome back the Rev. Perry Brackin preaching on Romans 3:21-26, “Christ Died for God and for You.” Pastor Mark will be back, Lord willing, September 26 to continue in Genesis 45.
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 As they emptied their sacks, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack. And when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. And Jacob their father said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me.” Then Reuben said to his father, “Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.” But he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is the only one left. –Genesis 42:35-38
The 10 sons of Jacob, sans Benjamin, went down to Egypt (the land of sin and oppression) looking to buy food with their silver. They encounter the man in charge of the food, the Prime Minister of Egypt, Zaphenath-Paneah (AKA Joseph, the brother they had thrown in a hole and sold for silver). Zaphenath-Paneah sends them back home to get Benjamin for the return so this chosen family could be saved.
When they get home they find that their silver is back in their sacks. For ordinary people, this would be cause for great celebration. For these guilt-ridden guys, it is an unimaginable horror. Would the Egyptians think they had stolen the money? Is God punishing us? What is truly terrible is that they sold Joseph for silver and now it appears he has sold them for silver!
Jacob had twelve sons. Joseph was the favorite, but he is “no more,” as they say, and now the truly favored son is Benjamin, Joseph’s younger brother of their favored mother, Rachel. Jacob just flat-out puts his foot down: there is no way he is going to take a chance on losing “the only one left.” It seems like the other guys might have wanted to say, “Uh, Dad, I’m left too,” but apparently that’s not the way it worked around there.
Jacob could only assume that Benjamin would become “no more” by making the journey. After all, over 20 years ago the last time Jacob sent out the favored son with the brothers was when Joseph became no more. Since we can read the story ahead, we know that he was wrong. Benjamin would not be lost.
Our God and Father had a favored Son. He knew that if he sent this Son to go down to the land of sin and oppression, he would be abused beyond measure by the people there. In fact, the Son would be sold for silver and thrown in a hole. But the Son had to go down for the Chosen Family to be saved. The Father, out of his great love for the Family, sent his Favored Son that whosoever believes in him would not perish, but eat of the Bread of Life and drink of the Cup of Blessing forever and ever.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
O Worship the King
The King of Love My Shepherd Is (Psalm 23)
How Firm a Foundation
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph. What he says to you, do.” So when the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. Moreover, all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth. –Genesis 41:55-57
Who would have thought that a Hebrew would be the source of living bread to save untold numbers of people from destruction? Who would have thought this would not be just for Egypt, but for the whole world? Who would have thought this Hebrew would have to be rejected by his own people, sold, falsely accused, apparently forgotten by God, and endure manifold humiliation and disgrace to be exalted to this high position, where even the most powerful people in the world must depend on him even to live?
Hear the excellent and necessary advice of Pharaoh for all who are starving: “Go to Joseph Jesus. What he says to you, do.” Jesus has promised all who hunger and thirst for a righteousness not their own: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” –John 6:51
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise
Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart
And Can It Be That I Should Gain
MEN’S PRAYER BREAKFAST
We will not have a meeting in September because of the holiday weekend.
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said to him, “In my dream there was a vine before me…”
Then Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days. In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office, and you shall place Pharaoh’s cup in his hand as formerly, when you were his cupbearer. Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house. For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit.”
Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. –Genesis 40:9, 12-15, 23
Joseph has acted righteously but still has been condemned by his enemies. He’s confined with two other criminals who are very different from each other. One of them has been chosen for condemnation and judgment (the baker) while the other is going to be restored to paradise (the cupbearer). Joseph ministers to them even in his own great distress.
Wait a minute: this sounds familiar. Jesus had acted righteously but still had been condemned by his enemies. He’ss confined (on the cross) with two other criminals who are very different from each other. One of them has been chosen for condemnation and judgment while the other is going to be with Jesus in paradise (Luke 23:39-43). Jesus ministers to them even in his own great distress.
But that’s where the two stories divert. In Genesis it is Joseph who asks the cupbearer to remember him when he is restored to the kingdom, but it is the criminal on the cross who asks, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The cupbearer forgets about Joseph for 2 years. Jesus never forgets. We can know that he will not forget us when we are before the Judge of all the Earth. We will be restored from sin to righteousness in his Kingdom forever because he remembers the promises ensured by the cross.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
A Mighty Fortress is Our God
O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus!
Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her. But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house. And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled out of the house, she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And as soon as he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled and got out of the house.” –Genesis 39:6-15
Joseph was well-built and handsome. Mrs. Potiphar must have been one of the most beautiful, best-smelling, well-groomed women in all of Egypt. Joseph fled the temptation (and her command!), was accused of attempted rape, put in prison, eventually put in charge of the prison, interpreted the cupbearer’s dream giving him opportunity to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, which made him the Prime Minister of Egypt saving Egypt and the surrounding countries from starvation through his food program, which saved his family including Judah, who preserved the Godly line so that we could have Jesus and be saved from our sins with no fear of condemnation from God. All that happened because he kept his pants on when he must have really wanted to take them off (he was single, lonely, secluded, and young).
Good for him, and we should learn the lesson well: fleeing temptation, however seemingly private, may well change the world.
But there is One greater than Joseph who was tempted in every way, yet was without sin. He was not merely thrown into prison by false accusations of sin: he was thrown in the grave by false accusations of sin! And he wasn’t just raised to be the top official of a nation, but to be the King of all the Nations. He doesn’t just provide a region with food for the hungry, but he is the Bread of Life and the Living Water himself, satisfying all the hungry and thirsty with his body and blood. He didn’t go through all this for his sin because he was righteous, but for our righteousness because we are sinners.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing
Jesus Paid it All
Be Thou My Vision
COMMUNITY LUNCH
Our August Community Lunch is this coming Sunday following the worship service. For more information, click here.
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 About three months later Judah was told, “Tamar your daughter-in-law has been immoral. Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality.” And Judah said, “Bring her out, and let her be burned.” As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, “By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant.” And she said, “Please identify whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.” Then Judah identified them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not know her again. –Genesis 38:24-26
Judah has a first son who was married to Tamar and yet was so wicked, the Lord just killed him without explanation to us. His name was Er, which spells “evil” backwards in Hebrew. Onan, the second of Judah’s sons, married Tamar but refused to give her a child, so the Lord put him to death too. Now it was time for the third son, Shelah, to marry her. He was young, maybe 10 or 11, so Judah tells her to wait on him. Judah is not excited about this because, well, the boys aren’t faring so well with her.
At this point of course, Judah should have protected her as if he were her husband, but he just lets her go around as a widow in poverty and disgrace and then withholds the promised third son from her. He encounters her, not recognizing her because of her veil, and treats her as a prostitute getting her pregnant. He leaves his “wallet” (signet, cord, and staff) behind.
When he finds out his daughter-in-law is pregnant, he gives a quick command: “Bring her out [to the city gate] and let her be burned.” He is cruel, hypocritical, and merciless. She sends word as she’s being dragged out for him to hakker-na “recognize” the “wallet.” She is using hakker-na here, but Judah is quite familiar with the word, since, in the last chapter he presented Joseph’s goat-blood-stained robe to Jacob asking, “Hakker-na?” (“recognize this?”). Ouch! That’s the wages of sin for you.
This is a breakthrough for Judah. Instead of justifying himself, just like when Nathan the prophet confronts David, he owns up to his sin. And then the Lord uses him…a lot! One of the twins born from this union is Perez, which means “breakthrough.” And it is a breakthrough indeed, for this is the child is the 10th great grandfather of David, from whom comes our savior, Jesus Christ. Tamar is one of the four women in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, all of whom come from outside Israel and have potentially scandalous marriages.
Judah had wanted to murder Joseph his brother, then sold him, then deceived his father about it, abandoned his daughter-in-law, got her pregnant, and sentenced her to death by burning. What a guy! Now he is being restored as the bearing of blessing to bring forth the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the seed of the serpent. Sin certainly abounded, but grace abounded all the more!
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
The Beatitudes
When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.Â
Visitors are always welcome!
 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore. And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. Then they sat down to eat. And looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing gum, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened to him. Then Midianite traders passed by. And they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. –Genesis 37:23-28
Joseph wore the robe of royal adornment. He was the one on whom the favor of the blessing bearer rested. His brothers hated him for it so they mocked him (37:20), sold him for silver, stripped him of his robe, led him away to crucify him, ate to their fill while he remained empty, and sold him.
Jesus Christ wrote the robe of royal adornment (Matt. 27:28). He was the one on whom the favor of God rested (Matt. 3:17). His “brothers” hated him for it (John 15:24) so when “they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him(Matt. 27:31). He was sold to the enemy for silver (Matt. 27:15).
The next time Joseph’s brothers would eat their fill with him was when he was at the head of the table (43:32-34), and treated them not as they deserved, but with grace and mercy.
The next time we will eat our fill with Jesus is when he is the head of the table at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9,17), and he treats us not as our sins deserve since he has been crucified for them, but with grace and mercy forever and ever.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
All Creatures of Our God and King
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Lift High the Cross
MEN’S PRAYER BREAKFAST
Don’t forget the men’s prayer breakfast this Saturday (August 7) at 8:30am at the church!
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.Â
Visitors are always welcome!
 God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” –Genesis 35:1-3
God calls Jacob and his family to get up and get out of this place where (because of the events of chapter 34) they’ve gone from being peaceful shepherds to predatory warriors by killing so many men in Shechem. It’s going to take faith for them to do that because it isn’t safe anymore. That’s easy though, since we see that God terrified everyone around them and they moved on safely.
The difficult thing is the purity part. Jacob realizes they have foreign gods with them, especially referring to the household gods Rachel had stolen from Laban. They even seem to have pagan jewelry in their ears. Verse 4 says they “hid” them. It’s an unusual Hebrew word that means something like “dumped.” It’ a demeaning word to insult the gods. They had been sat upon (31:33-35) and are now denigrated to their final burial. That’s pretty much not what you’d want in your god(s)!
So then in verse 3 Jacob’s family goes from the gods to the God who answers them in the day of distress (not like the foreign gods who are themselves in distress!). They go to the God who is with them through all their travels, unlike the foreign gods who must be toted here and there. And they go to the place where the special presence of the Lord may be found.
Every day, but especially every Lord’s Day, we are called to put away the foreign gods among us and go to the place where the special presence of the Lord is found in what is Bethel for us this side of the cross: the preaching of the Word and the table of the Lord. There we proclaim publicly to all who would see that we worship the one true God and trample idols underfoot. More than any other place, because of Christ’s life, death, burial, and resurrection, it’s in the public worship of God Almighty that we are renewed in our day of distress, purified by his blood, and we have our garments changed from filthy rags to the righteous robes of Christ.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Praise Ye the Lord, the Almighty
Psalm 146 (Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah)
Jesus! What a Friend for Sinners
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
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