God Saves His People

[0:00] Today our scripture is from Genesis 44. We'll be reading the entire chapter.! Then he commanded the steward of his house, fill the men's sacks with food as much as they can carry,! And put each man's money in the mouth of his sack. And put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, with his money for the grain. And he did as Joseph told him.

[0:28] As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away with their donkeys. They had gone only a short distance from the city. Now Joseph said to his steward, Up, follow after the men, and when you overtake them, say to them, Why have you repaid evil for good?

[0:50] Is it not from this that my Lord drinks, and by this that he practices divination? You have done evil in doing this. When he overtook them, he spoke to them these words.

[1:05] They said to him, Why does my Lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing. Behold, the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks, we brought back to you from the land of Canaan.

[1:22] How then could we steal silver or gold from your Lord's house? Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be my Lord's servants.

[1:36] He said, Let it be as you say. He who is found with it shall be my servant, and the rest of you shall be innocent. Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each man opened his sack.

[1:52] And he searched, beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest. And the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they tore their clothes, and every man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city.

[2:05] When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, he was still there. They fell before him to the ground. Joseph said to them, What deed is this that you have done?

[2:20] Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination? And Judah said, What shall we say to my Lord? What shall we speak? Or how can we clear ourselves?

[2:32] God has found out the guilt of your servants. Behold, we are my Lord's servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found.

[2:44] But he said, Far be it from me that I should do so. Only the man in whose hand the cup was found shall be my servant. But as for you, go up in peace to your father.

[2:58] Then Judah went up to him and said, O my Lord, please let your servant speak a word in my Lord's ears. And let not your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself.

[3:11] My Lord asked his servants, saying, Have you a father or a brother? And we said to my Lord, We have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the child of his old age.

[3:26] His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother's children, and his father loves him. Then you said to your servants, Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him.

[3:40] We said to my Lord, The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die. Then you said to your servants, Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again.

[3:57] When we went back to your servant, my father, we told him the words of my Lord. And when our father said, Go again, buy us a little food, we said, We cannot go down.

[4:09] If our youngest brother goes with us, then we will go down. For we cannot see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us. Then your servant, my father, said to us, You know that my wife bore my two sons.

[4:24] One left me, and I said, Surely he has been torn to pieces, and I have never seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs and evil to Sheol.

[4:39] 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.

[4:54] 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.

[5:12] 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?

[5:26] I fear to see the evil that would find my father. This ends the scripture reading for today. Amen. Thank you, David.

[5:38] One of the most widespread and painful effects of the fall, and by the fall I mean Adam's fall into sin and plunging all of humanity with him, is broken relationships.

[5:54] Broken relationships are the most common and lingering effect of the fall.

[6:12] that we are able to see sometimes in our own lives and other times in the lives of those who are close to us.

[6:24] We see in Genesis chapter 3, after Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord, the Lord told Adam and Eve that their relationship was going to change.

[6:36] He said their relationship was going to be marked by conflict. He told Eve that she was going to no longer be submitted to her husband, but she was going to rebel against his leadership.

[6:49] And the Lord told Adam that instead of lovingly leading his wife, he was going to lord over his wife. And then Genesis chapter 4, we see the first murder in scripture recorded.

[7:04] It's recorded between two brothers. And as we trace our way through Genesis, what we see is this repeated occurrence of broken relationships.

[7:17] And this becomes very pronounced when we come to the family of Jacob. And we encounter Jacob's family for the first time in Genesis 29.

[7:28] And from Genesis 29 up to this point, what we see is a broken family, a family that was riddled by brokenness on multiple levels.

[7:44] And it is this broken family that God chose to use to bring his redemptive purposes to pass. And this section of Genesis that we come to this morning as we continue our sermon series, we see how God restores and reunites the broken family of Jacob.

[8:09] And I pray this morning that as we consider this account of the restoration and the reuniting of Jacob's family, that the Lord will help us to see how he places a great priority on restoring relationships, not just on the horizontal level, but also on the vertical level.

[8:43] So let's take a moment to pray. Father, we thank you for your word this morning. And we ask, Lord, that you would speak to our hearts now as your word is proclaimed.

[9:01] Lord, you know where each one of us is and what each one of us needs to hear. And may we all posture our hearts to be able to say, speak, Lord, your servant is listening.

[9:18] Speak to us individually and collectively, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Although only chapter 44 was read this morning, we are going to be working through chapters 44 and 45.

[9:36] And I want to, in our remaining time, look at three ways in which God is at work in these two chapters to restore and reunite Jacob's broken family.

[9:53] First, we see God at work in divine transformation. This account in Genesis 44 makes it clear that Joseph's brothers have experienced divine transformation.

[10:11] Since Genesis 44 and 45 happened in years one and two of the famine, we know there's been 22 years since they treacherously sold him into slavery.

[10:28] And what we see is that the transformation of these brothers is vividly seen, first of all, in their concern for their father's new favorite son, Benjamin.

[10:46] After Joseph died, and we can only imagine that this would be the case, Jacob latched on to the second son of his beloved wife, Rachel.

[11:01] And Benjamin became the center of all of his affections. And what we see is that these brothers who protested Jacob's earlier favoritism towards Jacob, Joseph, sorry, they are now in a different place where they are not preoccupied by his favoritism towards Benjamin as wrong as that actually was.

[11:33] We see their transformation in chapter 43 when they were feasting in Joseph's house and Joseph gave five times the amount of food to Benjamin than what he gave to the other brothers.

[11:51] And they were content just to enjoy that. And the narrator does it in such a way, draws attention to it, to help us to see that it was so obvious that Joseph was treating Benjamin preferentially, but it did not rile up any jealousy or contention in the hearts of his brothers.

[12:13] In this account in Genesis 44, we see how Joseph's silver cup is placed into Benjamin's sack to frame him. And it's in this account that the transformation of his brothers becomes even more evident.

[12:30] Those brothers who heartlessly sold Joseph into slavery 22 years earlier are now putting their very lives at risk for their father's new favorite son, Benjamin.

[12:44] We're told in verse 13 that when the silver cup was discovered in Benjamin's sack, all the brothers tore their clothes, which is a sign of heart-wrenching grief and sorrow.

[12:58] None of the brothers rebuked Benjamin. None of them complained about the situation. 22 years earlier, it's likely they could have said, well, Benjamin, you're on your own.

[13:11] You did that and we're out of here. But they didn't do that. Back in Genesis 37, when Joseph was sold into slavery, one brother tore his clothes.

[13:22] That was Reuben. Now that Benjamin is being threatened with slavery to Joseph, all the brothers show concern.

[13:34] All the brothers tear their clothing in grief and in sorrow for their brother Benjamin. They're united with him.

[13:45] They're standing with him, even though there was still this division in their family because of the favoritism of their father, Jacob.

[13:55] And so they all load their donkeys and they return to the city with Joseph's steward and with Benjamin. And starting in verse 14, we see Judah stepping forward in a leadership role to make a case before Joseph, to represent their situation before Joseph.

[14:18] Look at what he says in verse 16. And Judah said, Earlier they said, when the steward came in search of the cup, they said, whoever has the cup will be killed and the rest of us will be your servants.

[14:58] If you find this cup, the one in whose sack it is, he will lose his life and the others will become your servants. And here in this moment, they are all united with Benjamin and the plight that he is within.

[15:17] And now, Judah representing his brothers is saying, we'll all be your slaves. Not just Benjamin, we will all be your slaves.

[15:30] On one level, that's what he seems to be saying. You know, we all take responsibility. We all take the guilt of this situation, although it was only found in one person's sack. But on another level, Judah is confessing his and his brother's guilt concerning their mistreatment of Joseph when he says, God has found out our guilt.

[15:52] This is what we've been seeing as we work through chapters 42 and 43 last week, that they were coming under guilt 22 years later for what they had done to their brother.

[16:09] Certainly in Joseph's hearing, as Joseph listened to his brother Judah, he would have realized that they really thought he was dead. That's what Judah says. Judah says, you know, one of the brothers is dead and the other one is with his father and cannot leave his father.

[16:25] Amen. But not only do we see the transformation of these brothers in their concern for Benjamin, we also see their transformation, their concern for Jacob.

[16:40] If there was ever open hostility and disrespect and disregard for a father, it was the way that Jacob's sons related to him prior to these events that we have now come to.

[16:56] Back in Genesis 37, they thought nothing of killing their father's favorite son, dipping his robe, well, not killing him, but framing it as if he were killed, killing a goat, dipping his robe in the blood and sending it to their elderly father.

[17:14] And what they said was, look at this and see if this is your son's robe. Not our brother, but your son's robe. There's no regard for what the news of Joseph's death would bring to their father.

[17:34] And they were able to do this because Jacob was the one who divided his family. He openly loved Rachel against his wife Leah and his two slave wives.

[17:47] and he openly loved Rachel's sons against the other children. And so he brought this division into his family.

[18:00] And so his sons had no regard for him, but now they have great regard for him and they are aware of what being separated from Benjamin would mean for him and they show they are transformed.

[18:13] It would have been so easy for them to stay on that same divisive track that they were on and say, well, he created this. Benjamin, it's a Benjamin sack and they could have been selfish and not have any concern for Benjamin or for Jacob, but they were transformed men.

[18:34] And they had concern both for their brother Benjamin and for their elderly father, Jacob. in verses 18 to 32, we see Judah making this case before Joseph.

[18:53] And he starts by telling Joseph that this whole situation with Benjamin being in Egypt began when he was questioning them, asking them about who they were and they told him that they had a brother who was back home.

[19:11] And then Joseph said, I want to see him to verify your story. And that was the way that Benjamin ends up coming into Egypt and falling into this mishap that, this misfortune that he found himself in.

[19:31] Look again at how he says this to Joseph in verse 30 and 32. Now therefore, as soon as I come to my father, he's saying to Joseph now what the effect of Benjamin not going back to Canaan would have on his father.

[19:50] He says, Now therefore, as soon as I come to my, 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 the boy is not with us, he will die.

[20:10] 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.

[20:33] all my life. In this, Judah is showing that he and his nine brothers who sold Joseph into slavery, who had no concern for their father, they are now deeply concerned about him.

[20:51] And in so being concerned for their father, they're showing that they are transformed men. But they're not just transformed men. They are divinely transformed men.

[21:04] God has worked in these men's hearts. None of us has the ability to simply change our lives, turn over a new leaf, and be a different person from what we used to be.

[21:20] No amount of human effort, no amount of personal reform can bring about the kind of transformation that we see in the lives of these men.

[21:34] Hearts that were embittered against their father, hearts that were troubled by his favoritism, they are now transformed, and they're transformed because of a divine work that God has done in their hearts.

[21:51] I wonder this morning, how is it with your heart where you may have perhaps like these brothers been in a situation where in your own family or other close relationship, there has been a strain on your relationship.

[22:17] there has been strife, there has been disappointment, there has been broken relationships.

[22:36] And how has that affected you? And perhaps it has affected you in a reactionary way, in the same way that Joseph's brothers reacted to their father's favoritism.

[22:51] Only God can change our hearts. Sometimes we look to people to do it, and what we see in this account, from all that we can see, is Jacob's heart never changed.

[23:05] We see no evidence that, as a matter of fact, even as Jacob is blessing his sons, it is still very evident that he's holding things in his heart against specific sons.

[23:22] And so the point is that these brothers' hearts were transformed not because Jacob conducted himself differently and fairly, not because Jacob himself changed, but because God transformed their hearts.

[23:39] There are many people who are waiting, as it were, for their hearts to change when somebody else changes, when somebody else does what they want them to do.

[23:50] But no, brothers and sisters, divine transformation is between us and the Lord. And we must look to the Lord to change our hearts and transform our hearts towards those who have sinned against us, those who have hurt us.

[24:06] Yes, Joseph's brothers sinned against him, but their father Jacob sinned against them. He was the one who brought the division in his family because of his favoritism, his brazen favoritism between his wives and between his sons.

[24:26] Transformation only comes from God. He alone can transform our hearts and it's to him that we must look for that transformation.

[24:39] The second way we see the Lord at work in this passage is through Judas' offer to become Joseph's slave in the place of Benjamin, a brother that he would have had little regard for just because of the way his father treated him.

[25:02] And this brings me to my second point, divine substitution. We see this in Judas' words, in verses 33 to 34. Look again at what he says.

[25:16] Judas says to Joseph, 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.

[25:30] For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that will find my father.

[25:43] Judah offers to become a substitute for Benjamin. He offers to take Benjamin's place and become Joseph's slave so that Benjamin, who on the face of it, although he was framed, was the guilty one.

[26:00] He was the one guilty of the crime. he offered to do that so that Benjamin could return with his brothers to his father, Jacob.

[26:13] This account is the first account of a person offering to be a substitute for another person that we find in Scripture. And it becomes a very important point that we should not move past rather quickly.

[26:32] And the reason we should not move past this quickly is that this offer of substitution by Judah for Benjamin points us to the work of Jesus Christ.

[26:48] It points us to the work of Jesus Christ who became a substitute for sinners. It points us to one who is better than Judah the Lord Jesus Christ.

[27:06] Jesus is better than Judah because Judah merely offered himself as a substitute. Jesus gave himself as a substitute.

[27:22] Jesus is better than Judah because not only did he become a slave, he also became a sacrifice on the cross for sinners.

[27:36] The Apostle Paul reminds us of this in Philippians chapter 2 verses 5 to 8 when he writes, Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus so that though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

[28:16] And brothers and sisters, in Judah's offer of substitution, that was the unrighteous offering to be a substitute for the unrighteous.

[28:28] In Christ's substitution, it is the righteous Christ who offered himself to be the substitute for the unrighteous, you and me.

[28:42] But Christ is also better than Judah because Judah offered to be a substitute for his brother. Christ became a substitute for his enemies, for you and me.

[28:59] And more than that, he took the punishment that we deserved. I'm sure many of us have done what Judah did when he was speaking to his father, when he said to his father, let the boy come with me.

[29:16] I promise on my life I will bring him back. Because we never envision the situation that we say we will go through ever happening.

[29:29] Judah never envisioned that in any way Benjamin's life would be so threatened that he would have to actually fulfill what he promised.

[29:41] And so it was easy for him to say to his father, I mean, they needed food, he needed to encourage his father to send Benjamin, and he says, listen, dad, if you let him come with me, I promise you on my life, I'll bring him back safely.

[29:58] Judah found himself in a situation that he just never thought he would be in. Christ is better than Judah, because before the foundation of the world, he knew that he would come into this world, and he would give his life to sinners like you and me.

[30:23] Christ is the better and the more perfect substitute, and Judah's offer of substitution for Benjamin points us to that greater one, who is the greatest substitute for undeserving sinners like you and me.

[30:51] So in this passage, we see the Lord at work in the divine transformation of Judah and his brothers, and we see the Lord at work in Judah's initiative, in Judah's offer to become a substitute for Benjamin.

[31:16] And then third and finally, we see the Lord at work in the divine reconciliation that takes place between Joseph and his brothers, which we see in Genesis 45.

[31:30] And I want to read the first 15 verses. Would you follow along as I read? Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood before him.

[31:46] He cried, make everyone go out from me. so no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.

[31:58] And he repped aloud, so loud that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph.

[32:16] Is my father still alive? But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence. So Joseph said to his brothers, come near to me, please.

[32:31] And they came near. And he said, I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. saved. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here.

[32:50] 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.

[33:07] harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.

[33:19] So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

[33:34] Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me, do not tarry.

[33:51] You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children's children, and your flocks and your herds, and all that you have.

[34:05] There I will provide for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come, so that you and your household and all that you have do not come to poverty.

[34:20] And now your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see, that it is my mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt, and of all that you have seen, hurry and bring my father down here.

[34:38] Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept. And Benjamin wept upon his neck, and he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them.

[34:54] After that, his brothers talked with him. whenever relationships are strained or broken, it's very rare to see the innocent party reaching out to the guilty party.

[35:16] It's very rare that you would see the powerful taking the initiative to reconcile with the weak. It's very rare that you would see the wealthy taking the initiative to reconcile with the poor.

[35:36] And yet, in this account of reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers, all of these rarities take place. Joseph, the one who was innocent, takes the initiative to reconcile with the guilty party, his brothers.

[35:59] He's the powerful one, Joseph is. He takes the initiative to reconcile to his weak brothers. He's the wealthy one.

[36:13] He takes the initiative to reconcile with his brothers, who are on the brink of poverty and starvation. him.

[36:27] But before reconciliation can take place, forgiveness is required. There is no record in Genesis of Joseph uttering words of forgiveness to his brothers.

[36:46] There is no record of him saying to his brothers, I forgive you. but what is evident is forgiveness in all that Joseph does towards his brothers.

[37:06] Joseph's ability to forgive his brothers is evidence of God's work in his heart. Brothers and sisters, whenever we are able to truly forgive, it is a divine work of God in our hearts.

[37:24] Left to ourselves, we cannot forgive, in truth, the smallest offense against us, not even the smallest offense. And I think we can consider how much God would have had to work in Joseph's heart when we think about how we struggle with even smaller sins against us.

[37:46] the narrator is helping us to see the depth of the grief and the sorrow that Jacob, that Joseph would have felt so much, the weeping that he went through.

[38:01] You read this and you think, did he have any more tears? He's been weeping from chapter 42. He weeps so loudly that the whole of Pharaoh's household.

[38:14] Here's him. But we see God is at work in Joseph's heart with forgiveness towards his brothers because his heart is tender, his heart is compassionate towards his brothers who don't deserve compassion, who don't deserve tenderness.

[38:34] They deserve their just deserves. But his heart is tender towards them. When Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, he doesn't torture them.

[38:56] He doesn't make them stew in their guilt. And some of us have been on the receiving end or the giving end of that kind of treatment. He doesn't badger them with meaningless questions.

[39:09] Why did you do what you did? Instead, what does he do? He invites them to come near to him. He calls them to turn their eyes off of their human circumstances and fix them on divine reality.

[39:32] Look again at how he does that in verses four and five. So Joseph said to his brothers, come near to me, please. And they came there and he said, I am your brother Joseph whom you sold into Egypt and now do not be distressed angry with yourselves because you sold me here for God sent me before you to preserve life.

[40:05] Brothers and sisters, these words of Joseph are instructive for us. These words of Joseph in verses five to seven, they are instructive for us.

[40:18] they remind us of the importance of trusting the Lord, that his purposes are being worked out in our lives, even in the most difficult circumstances.

[40:36] They remind us that when we are unable to see how the sinful actions of others against us can be for our good, that we can trust that God is working his purposes out in the midst of them.

[40:58] What God did for Joseph was not unique to Joseph. He has given this promise to all of us in his word. Romans 8.28 is true for all who belong to Christ. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

[41:13] And that includes our greatest hardship, our greatest trial, our greatest injustice, our greatest mistreatment, our greatest disappointment. We may not always see it the way Joseph was able to see it.

[41:30] And we should understand this. If you talked to Joseph 13 years earlier, when he was a slave in Portipha's house and in Pharaoh's prison, if you had asked him about God working and all these things, what God was doing, and how he shouldn't be concerned about his brothers, he would not have had the same frame of mind.

[41:54] He was pleading to come out of the prison. for 22 years later, after his betrayal, and all that God did in his life, the Lord allowed him to see his purposes, but there is no promise that God will always allow us to see his purposes.

[42:16] There is no promise that we will always know how what we are going through is working for our good. God doesn't promise us that. What he promises us is that we can know that he is, even though we can't see how he is.

[42:34] And this calls us to walk by faith. Yes, maybe, like Joseph, for some of us, we might be able to connect the dots as we look back in hindsight, but there is no promise that we will be able to.

[42:47] As a matter of fact, there is no promise that even in heaven we will know. God never promises us that. And the truth is when we get to heaven, some of the things that we think we will be preoccupied and want to know, we don't want to know, we don't need to know.

[43:05] But these words of Joseph to his brothers, we need to tuck them away in our hearts. Because as long as we live on this earth, we're going to walk through circumstances that are difficult and hard.

[43:25] And we need to know that God is at work in the midst of them for our good. We need to tuck it away in our hearts and remind ourselves, God, even though I can't see and I don't understand how, you are working in this for my good.

[43:44] Take Joseph 13 years before he was able to see that. God is the good of his words. We can benefit from Romans 8 28 and we can hold on to this promise that God is working for the good of his people in every circumstance that they would ever face.

[44:08] all that Joseph experienced in the hands of his brothers, he was dealing with God.

[44:20] That was his perspective. In verse 4, he said to them, you sold me into Egypt. And then three times he goes on in verses 5, 7, and 8, and he tells them, but it was God who sent me into Egypt.

[44:38] And his purpose was to preserve life. You sold me into Egypt, God sent me into Egypt. And this is what we see in scripture.

[44:48] We see human responsibility. Joseph's brothers were responsible before God for their sins. But divine sovereignty that God was working in the midst of their sin to bring his purposes to pass.

[45:02] And the reason God can do that is because he is God. Joseph's mistreatment and betrayal by his brothers resulted in their own salvation from starvation and death.

[45:27] The brothers and sisters, Joseph's mistreatment and betrayal by his brothers that led to their salvation points us to the alternate mistreatment and betrayal which resulted in salvation.

[45:47] And that is Christ's. Luke in the book of Acts chapter 4 helps us to see this by recording a prayer that the early disciples prayed when Peter and John had been arrested, put in prison, and they were released.

[46:09] And there's a prayer that Luke records in Acts 4 verses 23 to 28. Let's listen to this prayer and see the perspective that these early disciples had.

[46:25] Starting in verse 23, when they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot in vain?

[46:58] The kings of the earth said themselves and the rulers are gathered together against the Lord and his anointed. For truly in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel.

[47:22] And look at verse 28, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

[47:34] Brothers and sisters, when Christ hung on the cross to the naked eye, all that could be seen was mistreatment and betrayal.

[47:46] But in his mistreatment and betrayal, Christ was fulfilling the eternal plan of God to save his people, some of whom were among the very ones who were mistreating him and crucifying him and betraying him.

[48:15] The picture of Joseph's betrayal, the story of Joseph's betrayal, the story of Joseph's mistreatment, the salvation that God worked in the midst of that points us to Christ and his betrayal and his mistreatment and the salvation that he brought about for his people.

[48:45] In verses 14 and 15, we see a beautiful picture of divine reconciliation. look again at those verses.

[48:59] We're told, then he, Joseph, fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept. And Benjamin wept upon his neck.

[49:11] And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them. After that, his brothers talked with him. brothers and sisters, the picture of our reconciliation is far more beautiful.

[49:29] The picture of our reconciliation tells us and shows us that in Christ God has adopted us as his sons.

[49:44] He could have treated us as his forgiven enemies. He could have simply forgiven us of our sins and let us keep our distance from him, but he didn't do that.

[49:55] He forgave us of our sins and then he adopted us as sons and daughters seated at his table. And he promises that nothing will separate us from his love.

[50:08] That he will be united to us and we united to him throughout all eternity. what a glorious salvation that is.

[50:23] What a glorious reconciliation that is. We don't know all the details of the ends and outs between Joseph and his brothers.

[50:39] As you can imagine, there were a lot of conversations to be had. 22 years had elapsed and they had a lot to talk about. We don't know how those relationships turned out.

[50:53] Sometimes in this life, we can reconcile and that relationship could be broken again. And we reconcile again and they'd be broken again.

[51:05] The glory of our salvation is that reconciliation will never be broken. never be broken. God knows no broken relationships between those whom he reconciles to himself.

[51:23] They're always reconciled because God has committed himself to that union. God has committed himself that he will always keep us and we will be forever his.

[51:38] not ever experienced when you've had a broken relationship and there's reconciliation, there is this fear in the back of your mind that this sense is not permanent, it may happen again.

[51:53] Not so with the reconciliation that we have with our Lord Jesus Christ. No matter what happens, we are his forever more.

[52:08] And that's wonderful news. That is wonderful news, brothers and sisters, that Christ is ours forever more. Let's pray.

[52:20] Lord, thank you for your great salvation that has come to undeserving sinners like us.

[52:43] And Lord, we pray that we would rest in the good of your purchase for us through Jesus Christ. Thank you that we can sing with conviction that Christ is indeed ours forever more.

[53:03] And Lord, would you help us as we walk through trials and uncertainties as Joseph did, would you help us to remember that in the midst of it you're working out your purposes and so we can trust you.

[53:28] Would you remind us, oh Lord, that Christ is indeed our wisdom to help us to understand that you are at work in our lives when we don't see it and we can't understand it.

[53:44] Would you do this, Lord, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.