Sermon Title: The Gospel of Jesus Seen in Joseph
Scripture Reading: Matthew 7:21-29
Introduction
This morning we will conclude our study in the Book of Genesis. As I begin our fifty-seventh message in Genesis, I am filled with sadness, joy, and thanksgiving. I praise God for what I have learned and how I have grown through prayerfully laboring over studying and teaching His Word.
On Sunday March 25th and April 1st, we will hear two needed sermons on prayer. On April 8th we will celebrate Resurrection Day through studying the implications of the resurrection of Christ. On April 15th we will begin a new verse by verse study through the Book of Luke.
I truly cannot think of a more appropriate passage to conclude our study in Genesis. In Genesis 50:15-21 you read a synopsis of Scripture’s primary theme: The necessity of the Gospel and the implications of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is absolutely necessary and necessarily has implications that flow from it. As Derek Kinder (Commentary on Genesis) rightly summarizes, Genesis 50:15-21 represents all of Scripture and its theme: God’s Glory Illustrated in His Plan of Redemption.
“Each sentence of his threefold reply is a pinnacle of Old Testament (and New Testament) faith. To leave all the righting of one’s wrongs to God (Genesis 50:19; Romans 12:19; I Thess. 5:15; I peter 4:19); to see God’s providence in man’s malice (Genesis 50:20; Genesis 45:5); and to repay evil not only with forgiveness but also with practical affection (Genesis 50:21), are attitudes which anticipate the adjective ‘Christian’ and even ‘Christ-like’.”
Genesis 50:19-21 give us a three-point outline to guide us through our text:
- Get out of God’s Chair (v. 19);
- Take God’s Perspective from the Mountain of Providence (v. 20);
- Drink from the Fountain of Grace, Be Satisfied, and Bear Fruit (v. 21).
We learn from Genesis that silence is not absence; hiddenness is not impotence (Tim Keller). Joseph’s dad Jacob just died and his brothers fearfully make a threefold plea for mercy:
- Dad said to be nice to us
- We worship the same God
- We are your slaves
- I am good, therefore God owes me (Elder Brother in Luke 15 and Joseph’s Brothers in Genesis 37)
- I am bad, therefore I owe God (Younger Brother in Luke 15 and Joseph’s Brothers in Genesis 50)
- The Gospel
- I am bad: Christ paid for my sin on the Cross.
- I am still bad: Christ lived a perfect life on my behalf and imputed to me His perfect righteousness.
- Simul Justus et Peccator (Luther): I am accepted, adopted, righteous, and victorious in Christ. I am accepted, therefore I obey.
Genesis 50:19 – Get Out of God’s Chair (Keller)
Taking God’s chair is at the heart of all our problems.
How do we take God’s chair?
- Becoming your own moral authority – Genesis 3 “You will be like God.” The fastest way to become like Satan is to take God’s chair. The fastest way to become like God (Godly) is to refuse to be Him (Tim Keller).
- Inordinate worry – Perpetually lack assurance of salvation.
- Bitterness and Unforgiveness – How many of you do this through withholding sex, silent treatment, anger, vengeance, Christian shunning; condemning yourself; The Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor
- Allowing others to view you as savior – Prosperity Gospel; Roman Catholicism; Pastors; Psychiatrists; Counselors (Reference Naaman and King of Israel)
Genesis is not romanticism or cynicism (Tim Keller) – evil is real, life is hard, but I can live with confidence and joy because God is loving, powerful, wise, and good.
Joseph could forgive because he knew their sin against him didn’t derail his life. “But what I find in the New Testament is that one powerful way of overcoming bitterness and revenge is to have faith in the promise that God will settle accounts with our offenders so that we don’t have to” (John Piper in “Future Grace”). Another way to overcome bitterness and revenge is to know Jesus dealt with the sin of believers at Calvary.
Genesis 50:21 – Drink from the Fountain of Grace, Be Satisfied, and Bear Fruit
Respond to malice not just with forgiveness but with practical affection.
Jesus has to be God or he cannot forgive sin. You cannot punch Joe in the face and be forgiven by Sue.
Piper (Future Grace):
Belief is not merely an agreement with facts in the head; it is also an appetite for God in the heart, which fastens on Jesus for satisfaction. Therefore eternal life is not given to people who merely think that Jesus is the Son of God. It is given to people who drink from Jesus as the Son of God (John 6:51). Unbelief is a turning away from God and His Son in order to seek satisfaction in other things. Pride is a turning away from God specifically to take satisfaction in self.
Covetousness is turning away from God to find satisfaction in things; Lust is turning away from God to find satisfaction in sex. Bitterness is turning away from God to find satisfaction in revenge; Impatience is turning away from God to find satisfaction in your own uninterrupted plan of action; self-condemnation is turning away from the cross to pay for your own sin; etc.Self-determination (refusing to trust God) and self-exaltation (Preferring to find ourselves what God promises) lie behind all other sinful dispositions. Every turning from God – for anything – presumes a kind of autonomy or independence that is the essence of pride.
Boasting is the response of pride to success. Self-pity is the response of pride to suffering. Boasting sounds self-sufficient. Self-pity sounds self-sacrificing. The reason self-pity does not look like pride is that it appears to be needy. But the need arises from a wounded ego and the desire of the self-pitying is not really for others to see themselves as helpless, but heroes. Self-pity does not come from a sense of unworthiness, but from a sense of unrecognized worthiness. Self-pity is the response of unapplauded pride.
Christian hedonism is the final solution. It is deeper than death to self. You have to go down deeper into the grave of the flesh to find the truly freeing stream of miracle water that ravishes you with the taste of God’s glory. Only in that speechless, all-satisfying admiration is the end of self.
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