Audio recording Sermon manuscript: The shortest creed in Christendom is this: I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord. Jesus being our Lord is a wonderful thing. He is King of kings and Lord of lords, but he is so different than all these other lords. All these other lords are very eager to “lord it over us.” That is to say, they’d like to sit at the head of the table. They’d like tributes and praises brought to them. They’d like to skim as much cream off the top as they can get away with. When we come to learn about Christ being our Lord we somewhat have to unlearn what we otherwise know about the word “Lord,” because Jesus is so different. As he himself says, “I did not come to be served, but to serve, and give my life as a ransom for many.” Luther, in his Small Catechism, penned perhaps the most beautiful words he ever wrote as he spoke about Jesus being our Lord in the second article of the Creed: I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. Why did Jesus do this? So that I may be his own. He purchased and won me so that I may be his own. “No greater love has any man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.” “God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.” In order to lift us out of all our futile idolatry, in order to save us from the corruption and rottenness that must come for every person, Christ redeemed us. Christ purchased us so that we may be his own. By Christ making us his own we are lifted above all the things of this world. When Jesus is your Lord you can sweat the small stuff. Simply being able to identify the things of this world as being “small stuff” shows that a person has made a lot of progress in their understanding as a Christian. What we are to understand as being “small stuff” is what other people would take to be “big stuff”—“huge stuff” even—where you can hardly get any huger. Take, for example, Joseph, that wonderful man. Joseph was his father’s favorite son. That wasn’t Joseph’s fault. Nonetheless, that didn’t prevent his other brothers from being jealous of him. One day, when his brothers see him coming to check up on them according to their father’s wishes, their hatred for him burns white hot. They hate him so much that they start to plan to murder him. Joseph’s oldest brother, Rueben, barely saved his life, but the end result was nothing to write home about. The brothers sold Joseph to some passing traders. He ended up being a slave in Egypt. We’ll fast forward through all the twists and turns that happened to Joseph while he was in Egypt. You can read about that for yourself. Let’s talk about our reading this morning. This is many years later. Joseph is with his brothers again, but, my, how the tables have turned! Joseph has come to be second in command in Egypt. He is rich and powerful. His brothers are poor and destitute. How does Joseph treat them? Unbelievably graciously. Joseph had every option available to him for payback. If nothing else he could have thrown them into prison to rot there for the rest of their days. And they would have deserved that. But instead of hurting them like they had hurt him Joseph comforts them. His brothers brought about unimaginable misery to him, but this wonderful man says, “Don’t be upset or angry with yourselves.” Note what has been made into “small stuff” for Joseph: attempted murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment. Joseph doesn’t wait for his brothers to be sorry. He doesn’t wait for them to ask for forgiveness. He is lord. He is the one who is working. He’s working at comforting his brothers: “Don’t be upset or angry with yourselves. God sent me ahead of you in order to preserve life. You weren’t the ones who sent me down here. God sent me down here so t