My family just recently joined the modern world. We finally switched to a cable plan that gives us DVR. My first reaction was, 'Wow where has this been all my life?" The first thing I recorded was a Minnesota Vikings game I didn't have time to watch. Later I watched the game in less than an hour and a half. I was able to skip the commercials and also all the standing around that happens in football. It wasn't long after that I was recording my favorite shows and watching them when I wanted sans commercials. I also found myself clicking through the guide to find other shows I wanted to record to watch later. I mean who invented this? We should declare him king. I can watch what I want when I want and I don't have to put up with the hassles of commercials and if I want to do something else during the show I can just pause it. It has totally changed how I watch TV.
Wouldn't it be great if we could just DVR life? I don't want to go to work today, or go to school I'll just DVR it and do it later. Sorry I don't have time to talk to you right now, just stand there for a second and I will DVR you and when I have time I'll just hit play and then you can talk. A business meeting and one of my kids sport's games is scheduled at the same time, no problem I'll just DVR one and do it later. Better yet I'll DVR them both, go home pour a glass of wine, take a hot bath and tomorrow I'll deal with them, or maybe the next day. If a bunch of meetings and appointments and interruptions begin to build up in the DVR well I can just erase them. That person that always irritates me, erase, that bill collector that keeps calling, sorry erase. Oh if life could just be lived on DVR. I know that you are nodding in agreement with me right now.
Unfortunately we all know that life cannot be lived on DVR. Life happens whether we are ready or not. It doesn't ask us if we have time to participate, it doesn't happen when it is convenient for us. If you are like me life can sometimes seem like it is getting out of hand. Every morning during the week I have to get my kids out of bed, dressed, fed, teeth brushed and out the door to school. Then depending upon what day of the week it is I have to run to my office to do this or that and then off to something else, and that is just the stuff that is planned. The unplanned stuff comes out of nowhere and it is different every time. It can be that person that wants to talk, my kid's school calling about something, or a million other things. Nights can be filled with sports, meetings, emergencies, classes or family events both planned and unplanned. That is just Monday through Friday, don't get me started on the weekends. I learned a new phrase recently that is used in group therapy when someone becomes overcome. When a person reaches their emotional threshold they can yell out, "Stop and I meant it!" When they do that everything and everyone comes to a stop and is quiet until the situation is dealt with. There are times during the week that I, and am sure you, would like to cry out to the world, "Stop and I mean it!" Where is that DVR remote when you need it?!
Life has no DVR remote, therefore we have to do something ourselves to slow life down or to get ourselves ready to handle the chaos that is coming. Even though we cannot shout out, "Stop and I meant it," and then watch everything come to a stop around us we can take some time out of the day to stop and find our focus. Some people call this centering, I call it prayer. I call it prayer because for me that is what it is. The best time to do this is early in the morning before life begins. I start it off with reading Scripture and ending that with a Psalm that I pray through and then going to prayer about what I think is going to happen during the day. After that I put in God's hands the things that I don't know are going to happen during the day. It is putting God in control and putting my trust in him. God is my DVR. There are certain things during the day that I am going to have control over, and there are many others that I am not. I ask that God give me wisdom in the things that I have control over and guidance and deliverance from the things I don't. I can't DVR people or events, but I can rely on God to help me with those people and those events.
So take some time during the day to hand it over to God, give up some control and let God work through you in everything you do.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Sermon for Chapter 3 of the Story
Previous on the story we met Abraham and his family. Our story this morning is about his great grandson Joseph. Remember last week God had started his nation building thing which of course is not politically correct to do today. Remember things had not started off very well either. Abraham and Sarah took over twenty-five years to have a child and then they only had one. Isaac after twenty years well he only has two and one of them turns out to be a trouble maker. Finally with Jacob the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham we start getting a people production line going, we end up with twelve and then it’s off to the races, it just took awhile to get some momentum going. Jacob like his grandfather Abraham has his named changed by God. God changed his name to Israel and gave him the same promise he had given his grandfather and then his father Isaac. God said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase number. A nation and community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants. The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.”
Jacob, now Israel who the nation would be named after again has twelve sons. One of the youngest of those sons is named Joseph. Joseph was Israel’s favorite son. Our story this morning starts off with Joseph at age seventeen. We have all heard that phrase mom loved you best, or you were always the favorite. Thankfully most of the time that is said jokingly. But unfortunately sometimes it also true and it usually creates problems in the family as the other kids feel left out. I am the youngest in the family. My parents both had kids before they married each other and had me. My oldest brother was 18 years older than me and then I have one that is fifteen years older and one that is seven years older. None of them lived at home while I grew up, so in a sense I grew up as an only child. My brother who is fifteen years older than me, told me once that they were all amazed at how differently I was raised than them, I got everything and was treated as the center of the universe, and had a totally different childhood than they did. A couple years before Darla and I got married I was at his house in Northern California and he said, “You know mom couldn’t have cared less who the rest of us married, but man I sure feel sorry for whoever marries you. Nobody can ever be that perfect.” Fortunately I don’t think my brothers were the jealous type, they found it more funny than anything else.
Unfortunately that is not the case with Joseph’s brothers, they resent him to death. It doesn’t help that Joseph is a pretty good kid who always seem to want to do the right thing. You ever met people like that? It also doesn’t help that he keeps having dreams where his brothers and his parents are always bowing down to him. It also really doesn’t help that he keeps sharing those dreams with whoever will listen. Discretion is something that Joseph could probably learn here. Joseph’s dreams are a big part of the story. Joseph has two dreams where he sees himself in the center and his brothers bowing down to him. When he tells them this dream they are really ticked off, even his dad Israel is mad. Who do you think you are that we should bow down to you? You and your coat of many colors, dad’s special one. Joseph doesn’t mean to make them mad it’s just the dream that God keeps giving him.
Well his brothers have had enough and one day his father sends him to check on his brothers and they see the perfect opportunity to get rid of him. The story says, “But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. “Here comes that dreamer! They said to each other, “Come now, let’s kill him and thrown him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.” Boy I am glad my brothers weren’t like that, I mean with family like that, who needs enemies. Think this is a dysfunctional family, oh yeah! So they rip his coat of many colors off of him and they thrown him in the cistern while they decide exactly what they are going to do with him. As they sat down to eat their lunch they see a caravan approaching and say to each other hey instead of killing him ourselves and his blood be on our hands why don’t we just sell him into slavery, after all he is family. Gotta love that type of thinking, hey remember he’s family, he’s our brother, let’s just sell him into slavery and then we will go back home and tell dad that a savage animal tore him to shreds. Remember last week when I talked about how God was going to start a new nation that would follow him and how in our thinking this nation should be made up of all stars from other nations. God’s plan was to start from scratch, well this what you get when you start from scratch, definitely not the all star team, more like a family off the Jerry Springer show.
So that is what they do they sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites and they tell Israel their father that they found Joseph’s coat, which they cover with animal blood, and that he must have been killed by wild animals. This is overwhelming to Israel and he never gets over his grief. Meanwhile these traders take Joseph to Egypt. He is sold again as a slave to an Egyptian administrator named Potiphar. Joseph is such a good slave that Potiphar puts him in charge of the whole household. So Joseph is prospering but then Potiphar’s wife decides she wants to sleep with Joseph and Joseph refuses saying he will not sin against God. Notice what he says there, he will not sin against God; ultimately every sin is against God. Potiphar’s wife gets fed up with being rejected and so she falsely accuses Joseph of assaulting her. When Potiphar comes home he believes his wife and he throws Joseph in prison. After Joseph is thrown in prison it says that God was with him and Joseph was so liked in the prison that the warden put him in charge of everything. Do you see a pattern developing here? No matter how bad Joseph’s life gets God never abandons him. While in prison Joseph gets a reputation for being able to correctly interpret dreams. One day there were two prisoners who had dreams and they asked Joseph what he thought. After listening to their two dreams he told one that his dream meant that in seven days he would be restored to his position serving the king, he told the second guy that his dream meant that in seven days he would be hanged by the king. Both of his interpretations turned out to be true which I am sure the second guy was not too please about. Joseph told the first guy when the king restores you remember me in this prison. The guy says sure no problem, but once he gets restored he completely forgets about Joseph.
Over two years pass and Joseph remains in prison, this wasn’t some short stint in jail. Even though he is pretty much running the show, his life doesn’t seem to be turning out too well. No one wants to spend their life in prison. Even if you are the head prisoner you are still a prisoner. And who knows how long he would have remained there if God hadn’t done something in his upper story. What happens is that Pharoah the King of Egypt starts having very disturbing dreams. He knows that they have great meaning but he cannot understand them. He brings in all his wise men and magicians to interpret the dreams, but none of them can do it. They too are dumbfounded. The man who was in prison with Joseph is the Pharaoh’s cupbearer and watching this remembers Joseph. He says you know what I just remembered something I promised I would do and he goes to Pharaoh and tells him about Joseph and his ability to interpret dreams. Joseph is brought to Pharaoh and Pharaoh tells him his dream and asks him to tell him what it means. Joseph’s response to him is revealing he tells Pharaoh, “I cannot do it, but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.” He tells Pharaoh I will tell you what it means, but understand it is not me telling you but God. He is the one with the power to do this not me.
So Joseph tells him what his dreams mean. Here is where we see God’s upper story and our lower story converging. Pharaoh tells him that in the first dream he saw seven beautiful cows emerge from the Nile only to be eaten by seven ugly cows. In the second dreams he saw seven savory heads of grain on a single stalk and they are swallowed up by seven dried up, worthless heads. Joseph tells Pharaoh that the dreams mean that God is saying that for the next seven years Egypt will have seven years of bountiful harvest, but that will be followed by seven years of famine. He told Pharaoh this is God’s plan, there is no doubt this is what he going to do so you must prepare for it. He tells Pharaoh you should put a wise man in charge of storing food during the seven years of bountiful harvest so that you will have food for the seven years of famine. The Pharaoh and his official after hearing this are so impressed by Joseph they say okay well how about you? Admittedly there is bizarreness to this story. Pharaoh is like, I know you were just in prison this morning, but you’re the wisest guy I have ever met, so I am going put you in charge of this whole thing. In fact I am going to make you my deputy, the only one who is going to have more authority in Egypt then you is going to be me. Talk about a promotion. This is better than winning the lottery.
And so in this rags to riches story, Joseph after being sold into slavery by his brothers, after being falsely thrown in prison, suddenly becomes second in command of all of Egypt, and he is not even an Egyptian. Well things happen just as Joseph said they would. For seven years the harvest is huge and Joseph makes sure that a large portion of it gets stored away for use during the coming famine. The people of Egypt must of have thought he was a little crazy all they could see was all the good stuff that was happening, what famine are you talking about? But Joseph is diligent in his duties. He even gets married and has a family of his own. Well after the seven years of good times, the famine hits and there is no food. The Egyptians start coming to Pharaoh to ask for help and Pharaoh sends them to Joseph. Joseph opens up the storehouses and starts supplying the people. Now they don’t think he is crazy. A couple of years into the famine more of the upper story and the lower story come together, the famine spreads into where Jacob, Israel and his sons are living in Canaan. Israel, still grieving for Joseph who he thinks is dead, tells Joseph’s brothers to go down to Egypt to bring back some food so they don’t starve. And so Joseph’s brothers travel to Egypt and finally end up standing before their brother Joseph, now age 39, this is 22 years after Joseph had told them his dream about them bowing down to him, and they had sold him into slavery, and guess what they do, the bow down before him and ask for grain, 22 years after Joseph dreamed they would do it. They don’t recognize Joseph, but he recognizes them. Now in our lower story, what is the first thing you would think would go through Joseph’s mind? Wow, who’s laughing now? Who’s in control now? Throw me in a cistern huh, sell me to slave traders, tell my dad I was killed by a wild animal. Don’t even think about looking for me for the past 22 years? Well guess what, now its payback time! Wouldn’t this be the perfect ending to this morning story? Joseph tells them who he is and has them all thrown into prison or executed for what they did to them. That’s what they deserve right? Yes, that is exactly what they deserve. What goes around comes around. Or at least it would be nice to see them brought to justice.
But here is another reason that this is the greatest story ever told. Joseph doesn’t do that. He doesn’t take revenge. He doesn’t hurt his brothers or chew them out or hold them accountable in way shape or form. Why? I mean down here in the lower story we want to see some justice meted out, so why doesn’t Joseph do that? Why instead of that does he eventually move his entire family into Egypt with him and give them lush land to live in? Well this is that upper story lower story contrast here again. Joseph though living in the lower story understands what is going on in the upper story. He realizes that the upper story is the most important story. When he reveals himself to his brothers he says, “Come close to me. 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. God sent me here to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then it was not you who sent me here but God.” Joseph understands the upper story, he understands that like us he is an actor on God’s stage and he knows his lines and the part that God has called him to play. Once you understand the upper story, then what happens in the lower story makes sense to you, even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else.
That is why Joseph is able to forgive his brothers, and it why we should be able to forgive those around us as well. Joseph understood the grace and forgiveness that God had provided for him in his life so he felt free to do that in his own life with his own brothers. When we understand that God’s upper story is all about his relentless pursuit to get us back. When we understand just how much he has forgiven us and how much he continues to forgive us everyday then that frees us to forgive those who have sinned against us. When we do not forgive others, no matter what they have done to us, we are blocking God’s forgiveness of us. We are showing that we really don’t understand the upper story of God’s great love for us. We are called to forgive because we have been forgiven. Joseph saw that upper story, he saw God’s plan, moreover he saw God’s grace and he simply passed it on to those in his own life.
Here is some more upper story stuff. Remember last week with Abraham how we talked about how God was going to use this new nation he was building to reveal himself to the world? That this new nation of Israel, which was founded by Abraham, was going to be God’s light on the hill, the beacon that would draw others in the world to him? It was through this new tiny nation that God was going to bring salvation to the world through the Savior who would come from this nation, namely Jesus Christ. Well right now in our story this nation is still very small with all the sons and daughters there were about 70 people when they came into Egypt. They are not yet that large nation that is as numerous as the stars in the sky or the sand on seashore, they are tiny and they are vulnerable. The famine could have very easily wiped them completely out. God in the upper story had a desire to preserve this new nation of his so down there down in the lower story working through man’s sins and bad decisions he orchestrated it so that Joseph would be sent into Egypt and be able to make sure that there was food for them to make it through the famine. Understand that God saved the Egyptians through this too, but his primary mission was the save this new small nation of Israel, his nation, his people. Joseph understood that was what had happened. So even though his brothers had committed a great sin against him, which he would have been justified in making them suffer for, he knew the upper story and therefore he knew this was God’s will.
So Joseph brings his brothers and all their families into Egypt. And it turns out to be the perfect move. The Israelites were shepherds and the Egyptians considered shepherding an abomination. Therefore they were more than willing to let the Israelites do it and even gave them lush land to live in, so not only did they have land and food but also they were separate from everyone else, and that brings up another important part of the story, and this is important to remember. God strictly forbids the people in the nation of Israel to marry anyone outside of the nation. If other nations joined them and worshipped their God they would allow them to marry into the nation, but that was it. There was a reason for that. The other nations worshipped pagan gods, and God knew that if they intermarried with these other nations that his people would also began to worship these false God. It was not a racial or ethnic issue; it was purely a religious issue. God knew that if they did intermarry the nations of Israel would be destroyed as his people before they even got started. Therefore this move from Canaan to Egypt was perfect. In Canaan there was always the temptation to marry into the other nations, but not in Egypt. The Egyptians owned everything and they wouldn’t even think of intermarrying with people who shepherded sheep. The Israelites lived there for over four hundred years. During these 400 years of no intermarrying they grew to over a million people and that set the stage for them to be able to later take over the land of Canaan. Only after 400 years were they finally big enough and strong enough to drive the other nations out and claim the land that God had promised them. God’s upper story converging with man’s lower story. God does things in his time but he does them.
In midst of this story about the nation of Israel I want to take one last look at Joseph and the point of his life. I want you to look at the sheet that I passed out to you that has the timeline of Joseph’s life. Remember at age 17 Joseph is sold into slavery. At age 30 Joseph is made second in command of all of Egypt and at age 39 is when his brothers come and ask him for grain. Twenty-two years had elapsed from when Joseph was given his dream of his brothers bowing down to him to when it actually happens. Those twenty-two years of slavery and prison time and being separated from his family were very hard times for Joseph. God was always with him making him successful but they were years of suffering. But then I want you to look at the age he died, 110. So for 71 years Joseph lived in prosperity and peace with his family. And those 71 years made all the junk that happened to him in the lower story survivable. Joseph was blessed in that he seemed to always be able to see the upper story even was his lower story seemed a disaster.
Maybe you have gone through similar time periods in your life that were like Joseph's 22 years. It may have been ten years, thirty years, two months, six months where it seemed everything was over, but now you can look back and see that God used that time to train you, to make you stronger, to get you ready to handle something big that was coming later. Maybe some of you of are currently in that 22 years period. Maybe it seems that nothing is going right in your life, that it is one emergency after another, or that just when things start to go good, something else pops up and knocks you back down again. If that is the case remember Joseph, and remember God’s upper story, remember he hasn’t forgotten about you or stopped loving you. Deliverance will come, this too shall pass. Let God use this period to strengthen your faith and your resolve. Remember no matter what is going on in your lower story, God still loves and cares for you in the upper story and one day He will deliver you in the lower story.
Every week we conclude with a clue. This week’s clue is not like the previous week’s clues, which involved the shedding of blood and pointed forward to Jesus’ death on the cross. This week’s clue is about a deliverer. Joseph is a deliverer. He delivered the people of Israel from starvation. That deliverance comes by the way of 22 years of suffering. Because of him the nation of Israel is saved. Joseph today points us to another deliverer, who is promised to deliver all nations through his suffering. That man’s name would be Jesus who would deliver us from our sins. So we leave the nation of Israel in Egypt. Next week we find that all does not go well there, and now a new deliverer is needed to bring them back out of Egypt. Next week we meet a man who talks to bushes, divides water and carves tablets.
Jacob, now Israel who the nation would be named after again has twelve sons. One of the youngest of those sons is named Joseph. Joseph was Israel’s favorite son. Our story this morning starts off with Joseph at age seventeen. We have all heard that phrase mom loved you best, or you were always the favorite. Thankfully most of the time that is said jokingly. But unfortunately sometimes it also true and it usually creates problems in the family as the other kids feel left out. I am the youngest in the family. My parents both had kids before they married each other and had me. My oldest brother was 18 years older than me and then I have one that is fifteen years older and one that is seven years older. None of them lived at home while I grew up, so in a sense I grew up as an only child. My brother who is fifteen years older than me, told me once that they were all amazed at how differently I was raised than them, I got everything and was treated as the center of the universe, and had a totally different childhood than they did. A couple years before Darla and I got married I was at his house in Northern California and he said, “You know mom couldn’t have cared less who the rest of us married, but man I sure feel sorry for whoever marries you. Nobody can ever be that perfect.” Fortunately I don’t think my brothers were the jealous type, they found it more funny than anything else.
Unfortunately that is not the case with Joseph’s brothers, they resent him to death. It doesn’t help that Joseph is a pretty good kid who always seem to want to do the right thing. You ever met people like that? It also doesn’t help that he keeps having dreams where his brothers and his parents are always bowing down to him. It also really doesn’t help that he keeps sharing those dreams with whoever will listen. Discretion is something that Joseph could probably learn here. Joseph’s dreams are a big part of the story. Joseph has two dreams where he sees himself in the center and his brothers bowing down to him. When he tells them this dream they are really ticked off, even his dad Israel is mad. Who do you think you are that we should bow down to you? You and your coat of many colors, dad’s special one. Joseph doesn’t mean to make them mad it’s just the dream that God keeps giving him.
Well his brothers have had enough and one day his father sends him to check on his brothers and they see the perfect opportunity to get rid of him. The story says, “But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. “Here comes that dreamer! They said to each other, “Come now, let’s kill him and thrown him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.” Boy I am glad my brothers weren’t like that, I mean with family like that, who needs enemies. Think this is a dysfunctional family, oh yeah! So they rip his coat of many colors off of him and they thrown him in the cistern while they decide exactly what they are going to do with him. As they sat down to eat their lunch they see a caravan approaching and say to each other hey instead of killing him ourselves and his blood be on our hands why don’t we just sell him into slavery, after all he is family. Gotta love that type of thinking, hey remember he’s family, he’s our brother, let’s just sell him into slavery and then we will go back home and tell dad that a savage animal tore him to shreds. Remember last week when I talked about how God was going to start a new nation that would follow him and how in our thinking this nation should be made up of all stars from other nations. God’s plan was to start from scratch, well this what you get when you start from scratch, definitely not the all star team, more like a family off the Jerry Springer show.
So that is what they do they sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites and they tell Israel their father that they found Joseph’s coat, which they cover with animal blood, and that he must have been killed by wild animals. This is overwhelming to Israel and he never gets over his grief. Meanwhile these traders take Joseph to Egypt. He is sold again as a slave to an Egyptian administrator named Potiphar. Joseph is such a good slave that Potiphar puts him in charge of the whole household. So Joseph is prospering but then Potiphar’s wife decides she wants to sleep with Joseph and Joseph refuses saying he will not sin against God. Notice what he says there, he will not sin against God; ultimately every sin is against God. Potiphar’s wife gets fed up with being rejected and so she falsely accuses Joseph of assaulting her. When Potiphar comes home he believes his wife and he throws Joseph in prison. After Joseph is thrown in prison it says that God was with him and Joseph was so liked in the prison that the warden put him in charge of everything. Do you see a pattern developing here? No matter how bad Joseph’s life gets God never abandons him. While in prison Joseph gets a reputation for being able to correctly interpret dreams. One day there were two prisoners who had dreams and they asked Joseph what he thought. After listening to their two dreams he told one that his dream meant that in seven days he would be restored to his position serving the king, he told the second guy that his dream meant that in seven days he would be hanged by the king. Both of his interpretations turned out to be true which I am sure the second guy was not too please about. Joseph told the first guy when the king restores you remember me in this prison. The guy says sure no problem, but once he gets restored he completely forgets about Joseph.
Over two years pass and Joseph remains in prison, this wasn’t some short stint in jail. Even though he is pretty much running the show, his life doesn’t seem to be turning out too well. No one wants to spend their life in prison. Even if you are the head prisoner you are still a prisoner. And who knows how long he would have remained there if God hadn’t done something in his upper story. What happens is that Pharoah the King of Egypt starts having very disturbing dreams. He knows that they have great meaning but he cannot understand them. He brings in all his wise men and magicians to interpret the dreams, but none of them can do it. They too are dumbfounded. The man who was in prison with Joseph is the Pharaoh’s cupbearer and watching this remembers Joseph. He says you know what I just remembered something I promised I would do and he goes to Pharaoh and tells him about Joseph and his ability to interpret dreams. Joseph is brought to Pharaoh and Pharaoh tells him his dream and asks him to tell him what it means. Joseph’s response to him is revealing he tells Pharaoh, “I cannot do it, but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.” He tells Pharaoh I will tell you what it means, but understand it is not me telling you but God. He is the one with the power to do this not me.
So Joseph tells him what his dreams mean. Here is where we see God’s upper story and our lower story converging. Pharaoh tells him that in the first dream he saw seven beautiful cows emerge from the Nile only to be eaten by seven ugly cows. In the second dreams he saw seven savory heads of grain on a single stalk and they are swallowed up by seven dried up, worthless heads. Joseph tells Pharaoh that the dreams mean that God is saying that for the next seven years Egypt will have seven years of bountiful harvest, but that will be followed by seven years of famine. He told Pharaoh this is God’s plan, there is no doubt this is what he going to do so you must prepare for it. He tells Pharaoh you should put a wise man in charge of storing food during the seven years of bountiful harvest so that you will have food for the seven years of famine. The Pharaoh and his official after hearing this are so impressed by Joseph they say okay well how about you? Admittedly there is bizarreness to this story. Pharaoh is like, I know you were just in prison this morning, but you’re the wisest guy I have ever met, so I am going put you in charge of this whole thing. In fact I am going to make you my deputy, the only one who is going to have more authority in Egypt then you is going to be me. Talk about a promotion. This is better than winning the lottery.
And so in this rags to riches story, Joseph after being sold into slavery by his brothers, after being falsely thrown in prison, suddenly becomes second in command of all of Egypt, and he is not even an Egyptian. Well things happen just as Joseph said they would. For seven years the harvest is huge and Joseph makes sure that a large portion of it gets stored away for use during the coming famine. The people of Egypt must of have thought he was a little crazy all they could see was all the good stuff that was happening, what famine are you talking about? But Joseph is diligent in his duties. He even gets married and has a family of his own. Well after the seven years of good times, the famine hits and there is no food. The Egyptians start coming to Pharaoh to ask for help and Pharaoh sends them to Joseph. Joseph opens up the storehouses and starts supplying the people. Now they don’t think he is crazy. A couple of years into the famine more of the upper story and the lower story come together, the famine spreads into where Jacob, Israel and his sons are living in Canaan. Israel, still grieving for Joseph who he thinks is dead, tells Joseph’s brothers to go down to Egypt to bring back some food so they don’t starve. And so Joseph’s brothers travel to Egypt and finally end up standing before their brother Joseph, now age 39, this is 22 years after Joseph had told them his dream about them bowing down to him, and they had sold him into slavery, and guess what they do, the bow down before him and ask for grain, 22 years after Joseph dreamed they would do it. They don’t recognize Joseph, but he recognizes them. Now in our lower story, what is the first thing you would think would go through Joseph’s mind? Wow, who’s laughing now? Who’s in control now? Throw me in a cistern huh, sell me to slave traders, tell my dad I was killed by a wild animal. Don’t even think about looking for me for the past 22 years? Well guess what, now its payback time! Wouldn’t this be the perfect ending to this morning story? Joseph tells them who he is and has them all thrown into prison or executed for what they did to them. That’s what they deserve right? Yes, that is exactly what they deserve. What goes around comes around. Or at least it would be nice to see them brought to justice.
But here is another reason that this is the greatest story ever told. Joseph doesn’t do that. He doesn’t take revenge. He doesn’t hurt his brothers or chew them out or hold them accountable in way shape or form. Why? I mean down here in the lower story we want to see some justice meted out, so why doesn’t Joseph do that? Why instead of that does he eventually move his entire family into Egypt with him and give them lush land to live in? Well this is that upper story lower story contrast here again. Joseph though living in the lower story understands what is going on in the upper story. He realizes that the upper story is the most important story. When he reveals himself to his brothers he says, “Come close to me. 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. God sent me here to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then it was not you who sent me here but God.” Joseph understands the upper story, he understands that like us he is an actor on God’s stage and he knows his lines and the part that God has called him to play. Once you understand the upper story, then what happens in the lower story makes sense to you, even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else.
That is why Joseph is able to forgive his brothers, and it why we should be able to forgive those around us as well. Joseph understood the grace and forgiveness that God had provided for him in his life so he felt free to do that in his own life with his own brothers. When we understand that God’s upper story is all about his relentless pursuit to get us back. When we understand just how much he has forgiven us and how much he continues to forgive us everyday then that frees us to forgive those who have sinned against us. When we do not forgive others, no matter what they have done to us, we are blocking God’s forgiveness of us. We are showing that we really don’t understand the upper story of God’s great love for us. We are called to forgive because we have been forgiven. Joseph saw that upper story, he saw God’s plan, moreover he saw God’s grace and he simply passed it on to those in his own life.
Here is some more upper story stuff. Remember last week with Abraham how we talked about how God was going to use this new nation he was building to reveal himself to the world? That this new nation of Israel, which was founded by Abraham, was going to be God’s light on the hill, the beacon that would draw others in the world to him? It was through this new tiny nation that God was going to bring salvation to the world through the Savior who would come from this nation, namely Jesus Christ. Well right now in our story this nation is still very small with all the sons and daughters there were about 70 people when they came into Egypt. They are not yet that large nation that is as numerous as the stars in the sky or the sand on seashore, they are tiny and they are vulnerable. The famine could have very easily wiped them completely out. God in the upper story had a desire to preserve this new nation of his so down there down in the lower story working through man’s sins and bad decisions he orchestrated it so that Joseph would be sent into Egypt and be able to make sure that there was food for them to make it through the famine. Understand that God saved the Egyptians through this too, but his primary mission was the save this new small nation of Israel, his nation, his people. Joseph understood that was what had happened. So even though his brothers had committed a great sin against him, which he would have been justified in making them suffer for, he knew the upper story and therefore he knew this was God’s will.
So Joseph brings his brothers and all their families into Egypt. And it turns out to be the perfect move. The Israelites were shepherds and the Egyptians considered shepherding an abomination. Therefore they were more than willing to let the Israelites do it and even gave them lush land to live in, so not only did they have land and food but also they were separate from everyone else, and that brings up another important part of the story, and this is important to remember. God strictly forbids the people in the nation of Israel to marry anyone outside of the nation. If other nations joined them and worshipped their God they would allow them to marry into the nation, but that was it. There was a reason for that. The other nations worshipped pagan gods, and God knew that if they intermarried with these other nations that his people would also began to worship these false God. It was not a racial or ethnic issue; it was purely a religious issue. God knew that if they did intermarry the nations of Israel would be destroyed as his people before they even got started. Therefore this move from Canaan to Egypt was perfect. In Canaan there was always the temptation to marry into the other nations, but not in Egypt. The Egyptians owned everything and they wouldn’t even think of intermarrying with people who shepherded sheep. The Israelites lived there for over four hundred years. During these 400 years of no intermarrying they grew to over a million people and that set the stage for them to be able to later take over the land of Canaan. Only after 400 years were they finally big enough and strong enough to drive the other nations out and claim the land that God had promised them. God’s upper story converging with man’s lower story. God does things in his time but he does them.
In midst of this story about the nation of Israel I want to take one last look at Joseph and the point of his life. I want you to look at the sheet that I passed out to you that has the timeline of Joseph’s life. Remember at age 17 Joseph is sold into slavery. At age 30 Joseph is made second in command of all of Egypt and at age 39 is when his brothers come and ask him for grain. Twenty-two years had elapsed from when Joseph was given his dream of his brothers bowing down to him to when it actually happens. Those twenty-two years of slavery and prison time and being separated from his family were very hard times for Joseph. God was always with him making him successful but they were years of suffering. But then I want you to look at the age he died, 110. So for 71 years Joseph lived in prosperity and peace with his family. And those 71 years made all the junk that happened to him in the lower story survivable. Joseph was blessed in that he seemed to always be able to see the upper story even was his lower story seemed a disaster.
Maybe you have gone through similar time periods in your life that were like Joseph's 22 years. It may have been ten years, thirty years, two months, six months where it seemed everything was over, but now you can look back and see that God used that time to train you, to make you stronger, to get you ready to handle something big that was coming later. Maybe some of you of are currently in that 22 years period. Maybe it seems that nothing is going right in your life, that it is one emergency after another, or that just when things start to go good, something else pops up and knocks you back down again. If that is the case remember Joseph, and remember God’s upper story, remember he hasn’t forgotten about you or stopped loving you. Deliverance will come, this too shall pass. Let God use this period to strengthen your faith and your resolve. Remember no matter what is going on in your lower story, God still loves and cares for you in the upper story and one day He will deliver you in the lower story.
Every week we conclude with a clue. This week’s clue is not like the previous week’s clues, which involved the shedding of blood and pointed forward to Jesus’ death on the cross. This week’s clue is about a deliverer. Joseph is a deliverer. He delivered the people of Israel from starvation. That deliverance comes by the way of 22 years of suffering. Because of him the nation of Israel is saved. Joseph today points us to another deliverer, who is promised to deliver all nations through his suffering. That man’s name would be Jesus who would deliver us from our sins. So we leave the nation of Israel in Egypt. Next week we find that all does not go well there, and now a new deliverer is needed to bring them back out of Egypt. Next week we meet a man who talks to bushes, divides water and carves tablets.
Sermon for Chapter 2 of the Story
Last week on The Story. Isn’t that how a lot of modern TV shows start off? That’s how Desperate Housewives always started, “Previously on Desperate Housewives”, and they would give you a review of the things that had happened in the seasons past episodes, particularly those that were going to be part of the storyline that night. I could always tell what the episode was going to be about by watching what they reviewed. Sometimes it was a continuation of something that had happened four episodes before. We will have a few of those in The Story. But this week we have only had one episode, our first season is just getting started. So it is pretty simple. Last time we learned that there is an upper story and a lower story. God works in the upper story doing his divine acts, God also works in the lower story where we live working through us to accomplish things in his upper story. We discovered that we are all actors on a stage and that in the story we find God’s script. As the story started out we saw how God created the heavens and the earth. We heard that human beings are considered the highest of God’s creation. That God made us in his own image. Most importantly we discovered that God’s vision in creation in the upper story is to be with us in the lower story. Unfortunately we saw that Adam and Eve chose a different vision and that sin and the sinful natured entered the human race. Yet, God passionately pursues us at great cost. The episode continued with God doing a do over by the flooding the world and destroying every living thing, except Noah and his family and the animals in the ark. We also saw that it did not solve the problem, sin survived the flood and not long after Noah and his family find themselves in another sinful situation.
This morning we start to learn a very important lesson about God and his love and pursuit of us. He doesn’t give up. God just flat refuses to quit loving us and trying to bring us back to him. He is like that parent with a rebellious child; no matter what the child does he refuses to throw in the towel on them. Jesus many thousands of years after our story this morning would tell another story of a father who had a prodigal son that he never gave up on. But that is a story for another time. Today I want to look at one of the most amazing and most important stories in The Story. The greatest story ever told. The first thing we need to discover this morning is where The Story takes place. On your map, either in your Bible or in the handout find the Tigris and Euphrates River. In this area is where everything is happening. The people of the world had all been one, even in language and they had begun to build a tower to reach to the heavens. God seeing their arrogance confused their languages and scattered the people. Now they lived in different people groups speaking different languages, making up different nations. Obviously this took place over a very long time period, how long we don’t know, but let’s just say for the sake of the story our story takes place many, many years later. We can even get an approximate year about 2091, give or take a few decades or even a few hundred years. So around 4100 years ago. No one was marking down dates on a Calendar at the time, in fact no one could agree on a calendar at the time. So once upon a time, long, long ago, in a land far, far away.
God looks at this situation, which was very similar to the situation that existed before the flood; people were sinning and committing evil everywhere. He has promised he will never flood the world again, but he is not pleased with what he sees. God decides this time that the best way to deal with this is to create a new nation that would follow him. He would be hands on with this new nation; they would be designated as his people. He would give them his laws and they would live like people should live. They would worship him and they would live the way people who worship God should live. The plan, when the other people on the earth saw them they would want to become a part of this new nation. They would stop worshipping idols, they would stop living evil lives and they would start to worship God himself and become part of his people. God had big plans for this nation, they were going to be his light on the hill, his people that would show the others how great a God he was. So you would think, or at least we would think down here in the lower story that God would start looking for another Noah. Not to build an ark but to lead this great nation.
In fact it would seem in our lower story that God would hand pick the best men and women from the other nations to make up this nation, you know (Name a bunch of nations and people from them) and than he would find the most talented guy on the earth to lead it. That makes sense in our lower story; get the best people and the man most qualified for the job. And here in part is why this is the greatest story ever told. God does none of that. In fact he does just the opposite. He doesn’t go find the best and the brightest of the other nations. He decides to start from scratch. And as for the most talented and best equipped guy to lead it, well instead he chooses a husband and wife who are 75 and 65 years old. Not only that their parents and their grandparents had worshipped pagan gods and they had no children and the wife is barren. In the lower story it kind of makes you scratch your head and go and so this is plan, yeah like this is going to work. I mean you want to talk about finding the least qualified people for the job. Really this is the plan?
And if you think you are surprised by this twist in the story well you can just imagine how Abraham felt. Abraham sat there and thought, let’s see, I am an old man, my wife is an old woman way past child bearing years, no one is following me right now and on top of that you want me to leave where I am at right now, where may ancestors have lived for years and move to another place where I don’t know anyone and the people that do live there are known to be unfriendly. Sign me up. I think this video may capture what the story is trying to get across here, (Show video)
You know sometimes when we read these stories out of the Bible we tend to think of these people as special, we don’t really make the connection that these were real flesh and blood people like us, but they were. I want you to look at your hands and look at the person next to you. Abraham and Sarah were not any different. They were not superheroes, and God did make them superheroes, they were people just like you and I today, with all our faults and anxieties and problems. They were flesh and blood, The story is about people just like you and I. And so remembering that and remembering Abraham’s situation, listen to this next part, “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, they set out for the land of Canaan and they arrived there.” “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” That’s faith. I know that there are a number of you here this morning, who have made big moves in your life, some of you even moved here from another country. There is excitement in a move like that but there is also fear. I have made several cross country moves in my life for schooling and Darla and I have made two huge moves in our marriage, one 2100 miles East from Idaho to Indiana and then seven years later a 2200 mile move southwest from Indiana to Arizona both times not really knowing what I was getting myself into. Let me tell you there are some gut check moments when you make moves like that. What if this doesn’t work out, what if it ends up in disaster? Some of you can identify with those feelings. Abraham if he had those struggles they are not mentioned in the story. God speaks to him, he picks up and goes, and he has nothing and nobody waiting for him at the other end, that’s faith.
But back to the question of why of all people, Abraham and Sarah? This doesn’t make any sense in our lower story. God though in the upper story has a reason and a plan. God works through people, but he wants the credit. Did you hear what I just said, God works through us as people, but at the end of the day he wants the credit. So therefore he many times chooses the weakest and the most unqualified so that when it all works out people will know that it was God who really did it. It is kind of like God is saying look I am so powerful that I am going to accomplish this with one arm tied behind my back, hoping on one leg, blindfolded and chewing gum at the same time. That’s what God does here with Abraham and Sarah. God chooses an old and unlikely couple so that all people would look to God, knowing that all that happens is done by God. God wants people to see him and understand his plan.
God makes a promise here to Abraham that really is four fold plan for the new nation. You know we are in the political season, and both candidates have their own plans for the nation, well God is no different, he here offers his plan. The difference is God is not a politician you can trust him that he what he says he is going to do he will do. The story reveals this four fold plan in these words, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all people on earth will be blessed through you.” The first part of the plan. God will make the nation great. Notice it says God will make the nation great, the nation of Israel will be later become a powerhouse. Two God will make Abraham’s name great. Abraham will become the father of many nations. He will become the father of all who believe later in Christ as well. Three, God will bless all who bless Abraham and curse the one who curses Abraham. God destroys the pagan nations around them and but blesses those who chose to become part of God’s great nation. And fourth, God will bless all the nations of the world through Abraham and the new nation. God will use the new nation to reveal his heart and his plan to win us back. In the long view what we see here is that God is going to use the nation of Israel to show how great he is and to draw people back to him. He is also going to use the new nation to bring fourth the Savior of all mankind who we now know as Jesus. Out of this great nation that Abraham will be the founder of, salvation will be brought to the entire world. This is God’s plan in the story to bring man back to him. This is his grand scheme to pursue and bring us back into a relationship with him. But looking at them from a lower story perspective it wouldn’t be because they were the all star team, no most of the time they look more like the strike replacement team, or the B or C team or the spare parts team.
So Abraham and Sarah are off to start the new nation, and you would think since this is God’s idea and God’s deal it would start off with a bang, but in reality it starts off more like a slow fizz. In fact it almost seems that everything falls apart before it even gets put together. I mean if you are going to start a nation what do you need? People, and lots of them. But here’s the thing Abraham is 100 years old and Sarah is 90. Not exactly child bearing years, and things don’t seem to be working out. Sarah cannot get pregnant. The years go by and nothing happens, no children. This is a little confusing. God said that he was going to bring forth a nation from Abraham and Sarah and yet they have not been able to have children, which really should be no surprise considering their age. And so doubt begins to kick in, can God really be trusted. Abraham even has an encounter with God where he says to God, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus? You have given me no children; so a servant of mine will be my heir.” Abraham is desperate, what about that promise God? God responds, “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is of your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” Look up at the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.” And the story says, “And Abram believed and God credited to him as righteousness.
Sarah though has had enough. God’s plan sounded good but he wasn’t working fast enough for her and so she decided God’s needs some help and she comes up with her own plan to start this nation for God. Let’s pause for a moment here. Can you see the warning light go on here? How many of you at times have had that same thought? God is not moving fast enough, I need to do something. Or maybe it wasn’t God, maybe it was something else. And instead of waiting you impulsively took the reigns. How did that turn out? Most of the time it ends in disaster. In the story this sort of things happens a number of times and it never turns out good. So Sarah comes up with this idea that she will give her servant to Abraham to sleep with and maybe she can get pregnant and get this nation going. Abraham doesn’t put up any argument at all here. He is all for the idea and so Sarah gives her servant Hagar to Abraham and Hagar gets pregnant and Ishmael is born. God blesses Ishmael, but he does not begin the new nation with Ishmael, instead Ishmael becomes the father of other nations. God says nothing about this by the way, this is not his plan but he lets man do what he wants to do. Later when God talks with Abraham again about the new nation, Abraham brings up Ishmael to him and God looks at him and says no, he is not the one. Ishmael becomes a source of grief later on to both Abraham and Sarah and becomes the father of what is now known as Islam. Sometimes the consequences of taking things in our hands instead of waiting on God can have disastrous long term consequences.
Finally one day almost twenty five years after God has given Abraham and Sarah the promise God visits Abraham and promises the 100 year old that within a year he and Sarah are going to have a child. Sarah overhears the conversation and laughs’ thinking that is impossible. God hears her laugh and calls her on it. Within the year Sarah gets pregnant and has a child which God tells her to name Isaac, which means laughter, and who wouldn’t laugh that someone would have a child at that age, even God gets in the mix by telling them to name him laughter. God in the upper story even thinks it’s funny. God has a sense of humor, where do you think we get our sense of humor. Isaac is the child of the promise; he is the one that the nation will start to build upon. I mean this is crazy though isn’t it. In the lower story we would have chosen a younger fertile couple and we would have had them popping out kids every nine months like a production line. But God choose two people way past child bearing years and then doesn’t give them children for close to twenty-five years after that. Sometimes God’s thinking in the upper story doesn’t make sense to us in the lower story. But God has a plan and Abraham and Sarah learn to trust him that he knows what he is doing.
So maybe it seems like we are headed toward a happily ever after ending here right. Well just when you thought it was beginning to make sense, God throws a twist in the story, and not a minor one either. When Isaac is about 15 years old, God one day tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Yeah you heard that right. God severely tests Abraham by commanding him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. God says, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” God’s upper story continues to get more confusing to us down here in the lower story. Now as parents we know what Abraham does, he says no way I am going to do that, not happening. Well actually he doesn’t say that. Instead the story says, “Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God has told him about.” Abraham obediently does what God asks him to do. Let me show you another video that puts this situation in a modern world context. (Show the video)
What is the thinking going here? Abraham obediently replies and takes his son, his 15 year old son to the Mountain of Moriah. Now after they get there Abraham and Isaac start walking to the top and they are carrying everything with them. At some point Isaac realizes that they don’t really have everything. They don’t have the lamb for the sacrifice, and so he turns to his dad and asks where the lamb for the sacrifice is? He dad’s response, “Don’t worry son God will provide it.” When they get to the top Abraham lays Isaac upon the altar, (Pull the sheet covering the body on the altar) and he gets ready to sacrifice him. If Isaac had any doubt as to who was being sacrificed well it was gone now, he was the sacrifice, and even though he is fifteen years old and his father is a very old man he doesn’t resist. He could have probably very easily overpowered his dad, but he doesn’t even attempt to do so, he doesn’t even cry out. He trusts that his father knows what he is doing even if he doesn’t understand it. Abraham as well doesn’t hesitate, he is trusting that his Heavenly Father, God knows what he is doing even if he doesn’t understand it. Just as he is about to bring the knife down, God calls out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said, “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.
This is a story of faith and complete trust in God. In the story we read that, “Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.” In this portion of the story we also get a picture of what is going to happen later on in the story. You could say that we have yet another clue as where this story is headed. Remember last week our clue was the shedding of the blood that was required for God to provide skins to cover Adam and Eve’s same. Well today we have another shedding of blood. In this case a substitute shedding of blood. A ram’s blood is shed in place of Isaac’s. Abraham didn’t have to sacrifice his son, his only son who he loved. Here is the clue, interestingly enough most scholars believe that the hill of Moriah is most likely in Jerusalem. It is on the same hill that 2080 years later another sacrifice would be offered up. (Reveal the curtain and the man on the cross) Centuries later another son, an only son, who was loved by his father will be sacrificed on this same hill and not spared. The same place where Isaac is nearly sacrificed, 2000 years later Jesus is sacrificed on the cross for our sins. God did not stop the sacrifice that time. Instead he let Jesus be our substitute he let Jesus die in our place. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.” God will win us back at great cost to himself. That is how much he loves you. Abraham got a picture of that in the near sacrifice of his own son.
The bottom line of the story today? In choosing Abraham and Sarah to begin the new nation, God reveals a pattern. God chooses unlikely people who are not the smartest, the most beautiful and handsome with the best resumes. God chooses ordinary people like you and me. No matter who you are, you are qualified to be used greatly in God’s great story. You may reveal God, too, and reflect his plan to win us back. We have had two clues in the past two weeks of the story; they were both about the shedding of blood. Next week the story continues with an interesting character. A man who wears a coat of many colors and whose life God uses to preserve his new nation. But in the story God throws in one plot twist after another before it all comes to pass. So join us next week as we meet a man who rises from slave to deputy Pharaoh.
This morning we start to learn a very important lesson about God and his love and pursuit of us. He doesn’t give up. God just flat refuses to quit loving us and trying to bring us back to him. He is like that parent with a rebellious child; no matter what the child does he refuses to throw in the towel on them. Jesus many thousands of years after our story this morning would tell another story of a father who had a prodigal son that he never gave up on. But that is a story for another time. Today I want to look at one of the most amazing and most important stories in The Story. The greatest story ever told. The first thing we need to discover this morning is where The Story takes place. On your map, either in your Bible or in the handout find the Tigris and Euphrates River. In this area is where everything is happening. The people of the world had all been one, even in language and they had begun to build a tower to reach to the heavens. God seeing their arrogance confused their languages and scattered the people. Now they lived in different people groups speaking different languages, making up different nations. Obviously this took place over a very long time period, how long we don’t know, but let’s just say for the sake of the story our story takes place many, many years later. We can even get an approximate year about 2091, give or take a few decades or even a few hundred years. So around 4100 years ago. No one was marking down dates on a Calendar at the time, in fact no one could agree on a calendar at the time. So once upon a time, long, long ago, in a land far, far away.
God looks at this situation, which was very similar to the situation that existed before the flood; people were sinning and committing evil everywhere. He has promised he will never flood the world again, but he is not pleased with what he sees. God decides this time that the best way to deal with this is to create a new nation that would follow him. He would be hands on with this new nation; they would be designated as his people. He would give them his laws and they would live like people should live. They would worship him and they would live the way people who worship God should live. The plan, when the other people on the earth saw them they would want to become a part of this new nation. They would stop worshipping idols, they would stop living evil lives and they would start to worship God himself and become part of his people. God had big plans for this nation, they were going to be his light on the hill, his people that would show the others how great a God he was. So you would think, or at least we would think down here in the lower story that God would start looking for another Noah. Not to build an ark but to lead this great nation.
In fact it would seem in our lower story that God would hand pick the best men and women from the other nations to make up this nation, you know (Name a bunch of nations and people from them) and than he would find the most talented guy on the earth to lead it. That makes sense in our lower story; get the best people and the man most qualified for the job. And here in part is why this is the greatest story ever told. God does none of that. In fact he does just the opposite. He doesn’t go find the best and the brightest of the other nations. He decides to start from scratch. And as for the most talented and best equipped guy to lead it, well instead he chooses a husband and wife who are 75 and 65 years old. Not only that their parents and their grandparents had worshipped pagan gods and they had no children and the wife is barren. In the lower story it kind of makes you scratch your head and go and so this is plan, yeah like this is going to work. I mean you want to talk about finding the least qualified people for the job. Really this is the plan?
And if you think you are surprised by this twist in the story well you can just imagine how Abraham felt. Abraham sat there and thought, let’s see, I am an old man, my wife is an old woman way past child bearing years, no one is following me right now and on top of that you want me to leave where I am at right now, where may ancestors have lived for years and move to another place where I don’t know anyone and the people that do live there are known to be unfriendly. Sign me up. I think this video may capture what the story is trying to get across here, (Show video)
You know sometimes when we read these stories out of the Bible we tend to think of these people as special, we don’t really make the connection that these were real flesh and blood people like us, but they were. I want you to look at your hands and look at the person next to you. Abraham and Sarah were not any different. They were not superheroes, and God did make them superheroes, they were people just like you and I today, with all our faults and anxieties and problems. They were flesh and blood, The story is about people just like you and I. And so remembering that and remembering Abraham’s situation, listen to this next part, “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, they set out for the land of Canaan and they arrived there.” “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” That’s faith. I know that there are a number of you here this morning, who have made big moves in your life, some of you even moved here from another country. There is excitement in a move like that but there is also fear. I have made several cross country moves in my life for schooling and Darla and I have made two huge moves in our marriage, one 2100 miles East from Idaho to Indiana and then seven years later a 2200 mile move southwest from Indiana to Arizona both times not really knowing what I was getting myself into. Let me tell you there are some gut check moments when you make moves like that. What if this doesn’t work out, what if it ends up in disaster? Some of you can identify with those feelings. Abraham if he had those struggles they are not mentioned in the story. God speaks to him, he picks up and goes, and he has nothing and nobody waiting for him at the other end, that’s faith.
But back to the question of why of all people, Abraham and Sarah? This doesn’t make any sense in our lower story. God though in the upper story has a reason and a plan. God works through people, but he wants the credit. Did you hear what I just said, God works through us as people, but at the end of the day he wants the credit. So therefore he many times chooses the weakest and the most unqualified so that when it all works out people will know that it was God who really did it. It is kind of like God is saying look I am so powerful that I am going to accomplish this with one arm tied behind my back, hoping on one leg, blindfolded and chewing gum at the same time. That’s what God does here with Abraham and Sarah. God chooses an old and unlikely couple so that all people would look to God, knowing that all that happens is done by God. God wants people to see him and understand his plan.
God makes a promise here to Abraham that really is four fold plan for the new nation. You know we are in the political season, and both candidates have their own plans for the nation, well God is no different, he here offers his plan. The difference is God is not a politician you can trust him that he what he says he is going to do he will do. The story reveals this four fold plan in these words, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all people on earth will be blessed through you.” The first part of the plan. God will make the nation great. Notice it says God will make the nation great, the nation of Israel will be later become a powerhouse. Two God will make Abraham’s name great. Abraham will become the father of many nations. He will become the father of all who believe later in Christ as well. Three, God will bless all who bless Abraham and curse the one who curses Abraham. God destroys the pagan nations around them and but blesses those who chose to become part of God’s great nation. And fourth, God will bless all the nations of the world through Abraham and the new nation. God will use the new nation to reveal his heart and his plan to win us back. In the long view what we see here is that God is going to use the nation of Israel to show how great he is and to draw people back to him. He is also going to use the new nation to bring fourth the Savior of all mankind who we now know as Jesus. Out of this great nation that Abraham will be the founder of, salvation will be brought to the entire world. This is God’s plan in the story to bring man back to him. This is his grand scheme to pursue and bring us back into a relationship with him. But looking at them from a lower story perspective it wouldn’t be because they were the all star team, no most of the time they look more like the strike replacement team, or the B or C team or the spare parts team.
So Abraham and Sarah are off to start the new nation, and you would think since this is God’s idea and God’s deal it would start off with a bang, but in reality it starts off more like a slow fizz. In fact it almost seems that everything falls apart before it even gets put together. I mean if you are going to start a nation what do you need? People, and lots of them. But here’s the thing Abraham is 100 years old and Sarah is 90. Not exactly child bearing years, and things don’t seem to be working out. Sarah cannot get pregnant. The years go by and nothing happens, no children. This is a little confusing. God said that he was going to bring forth a nation from Abraham and Sarah and yet they have not been able to have children, which really should be no surprise considering their age. And so doubt begins to kick in, can God really be trusted. Abraham even has an encounter with God where he says to God, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus? You have given me no children; so a servant of mine will be my heir.” Abraham is desperate, what about that promise God? God responds, “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is of your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” Look up at the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.” And the story says, “And Abram believed and God credited to him as righteousness.
Sarah though has had enough. God’s plan sounded good but he wasn’t working fast enough for her and so she decided God’s needs some help and she comes up with her own plan to start this nation for God. Let’s pause for a moment here. Can you see the warning light go on here? How many of you at times have had that same thought? God is not moving fast enough, I need to do something. Or maybe it wasn’t God, maybe it was something else. And instead of waiting you impulsively took the reigns. How did that turn out? Most of the time it ends in disaster. In the story this sort of things happens a number of times and it never turns out good. So Sarah comes up with this idea that she will give her servant to Abraham to sleep with and maybe she can get pregnant and get this nation going. Abraham doesn’t put up any argument at all here. He is all for the idea and so Sarah gives her servant Hagar to Abraham and Hagar gets pregnant and Ishmael is born. God blesses Ishmael, but he does not begin the new nation with Ishmael, instead Ishmael becomes the father of other nations. God says nothing about this by the way, this is not his plan but he lets man do what he wants to do. Later when God talks with Abraham again about the new nation, Abraham brings up Ishmael to him and God looks at him and says no, he is not the one. Ishmael becomes a source of grief later on to both Abraham and Sarah and becomes the father of what is now known as Islam. Sometimes the consequences of taking things in our hands instead of waiting on God can have disastrous long term consequences.
Finally one day almost twenty five years after God has given Abraham and Sarah the promise God visits Abraham and promises the 100 year old that within a year he and Sarah are going to have a child. Sarah overhears the conversation and laughs’ thinking that is impossible. God hears her laugh and calls her on it. Within the year Sarah gets pregnant and has a child which God tells her to name Isaac, which means laughter, and who wouldn’t laugh that someone would have a child at that age, even God gets in the mix by telling them to name him laughter. God in the upper story even thinks it’s funny. God has a sense of humor, where do you think we get our sense of humor. Isaac is the child of the promise; he is the one that the nation will start to build upon. I mean this is crazy though isn’t it. In the lower story we would have chosen a younger fertile couple and we would have had them popping out kids every nine months like a production line. But God choose two people way past child bearing years and then doesn’t give them children for close to twenty-five years after that. Sometimes God’s thinking in the upper story doesn’t make sense to us in the lower story. But God has a plan and Abraham and Sarah learn to trust him that he knows what he is doing.
So maybe it seems like we are headed toward a happily ever after ending here right. Well just when you thought it was beginning to make sense, God throws a twist in the story, and not a minor one either. When Isaac is about 15 years old, God one day tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Yeah you heard that right. God severely tests Abraham by commanding him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. God says, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” God’s upper story continues to get more confusing to us down here in the lower story. Now as parents we know what Abraham does, he says no way I am going to do that, not happening. Well actually he doesn’t say that. Instead the story says, “Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God has told him about.” Abraham obediently does what God asks him to do. Let me show you another video that puts this situation in a modern world context. (Show the video)
What is the thinking going here? Abraham obediently replies and takes his son, his 15 year old son to the Mountain of Moriah. Now after they get there Abraham and Isaac start walking to the top and they are carrying everything with them. At some point Isaac realizes that they don’t really have everything. They don’t have the lamb for the sacrifice, and so he turns to his dad and asks where the lamb for the sacrifice is? He dad’s response, “Don’t worry son God will provide it.” When they get to the top Abraham lays Isaac upon the altar, (Pull the sheet covering the body on the altar) and he gets ready to sacrifice him. If Isaac had any doubt as to who was being sacrificed well it was gone now, he was the sacrifice, and even though he is fifteen years old and his father is a very old man he doesn’t resist. He could have probably very easily overpowered his dad, but he doesn’t even attempt to do so, he doesn’t even cry out. He trusts that his father knows what he is doing even if he doesn’t understand it. Abraham as well doesn’t hesitate, he is trusting that his Heavenly Father, God knows what he is doing even if he doesn’t understand it. Just as he is about to bring the knife down, God calls out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said, “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.
This is a story of faith and complete trust in God. In the story we read that, “Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.” In this portion of the story we also get a picture of what is going to happen later on in the story. You could say that we have yet another clue as where this story is headed. Remember last week our clue was the shedding of the blood that was required for God to provide skins to cover Adam and Eve’s same. Well today we have another shedding of blood. In this case a substitute shedding of blood. A ram’s blood is shed in place of Isaac’s. Abraham didn’t have to sacrifice his son, his only son who he loved. Here is the clue, interestingly enough most scholars believe that the hill of Moriah is most likely in Jerusalem. It is on the same hill that 2080 years later another sacrifice would be offered up. (Reveal the curtain and the man on the cross) Centuries later another son, an only son, who was loved by his father will be sacrificed on this same hill and not spared. The same place where Isaac is nearly sacrificed, 2000 years later Jesus is sacrificed on the cross for our sins. God did not stop the sacrifice that time. Instead he let Jesus be our substitute he let Jesus die in our place. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.” God will win us back at great cost to himself. That is how much he loves you. Abraham got a picture of that in the near sacrifice of his own son.
The bottom line of the story today? In choosing Abraham and Sarah to begin the new nation, God reveals a pattern. God chooses unlikely people who are not the smartest, the most beautiful and handsome with the best resumes. God chooses ordinary people like you and me. No matter who you are, you are qualified to be used greatly in God’s great story. You may reveal God, too, and reflect his plan to win us back. We have had two clues in the past two weeks of the story; they were both about the shedding of blood. Next week the story continues with an interesting character. A man who wears a coat of many colors and whose life God uses to preserve his new nation. But in the story God throws in one plot twist after another before it all comes to pass. So join us next week as we meet a man who rises from slave to deputy Pharaoh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
