Good morning church! I want to briefly give you a Youth Update, and let you know that some of our youth leaders will be in the foyer after each service if you’re interested in finding out more information about this ministry. A few high-level facts to praise God for:First, the Gospel is being proclaimed: We just finished a year-long series on the book of Acts called, “What is the Church?” and now we’re headed into three months looking at Genesis 1-11. What we want our kids walking away with more than anything is a firm grasp of the gospel both doctrinally and experientially. Second, kids are coming to Youth Group: We usually see between 60-80 kids, and on any given night we have between 9-12 leaders, who serve every So, over the course of the next year, I would love to add 5-6 leaders who are passionate about students over the long haul both for the benefit of our kids, but also the benefit of those serving! This is an opportunity to use your gifts!Students are also showing up to Sunday morning Bible Study. We usually have between 30-40 kids.Third, and finally, I love my job, and I love this Church. If you’re visiting this morning, and you’re thinking, “Oh no, we drew the Youth Pastor Sunday. Go, go, go!” Rest assured, I have no intention of leaving my post any time soon. If you want to talk more about Youth Ministry, or are interested in getting involved, we would be happy to talk with you after the service. With that being said, let’s turn our focus to Genesis 42. I will state my main point first theologically, then practically: God the Father reveals his lavish and sovereign grace in the lives of sinners through the dramatic irony of salvation.In other words, God loves us on, through, and beyond our worst days.IntroductionGod loves us on our worst days. Dane Ortlund in his book Gentle and Lowly writes, “…when we sin, the very heart of Christ is drawn out to us.”He says, “Fallen, anxious sinners are limitless in their capacity to perceive reasons for Jesus to cast them out. We are factories of fresh resistance to Christ’s love.”He argues that we see our sins as irresponsible, moral failures for which God is fumingly angry, but while God’s wrath is against sin, God sees our sins as a disease under which we are suffering and ailing, primarily. Our sin evokes in the heart of God a compassion, an empathy, and a tenderness that “…outstrips what you are even capable of toward yourself.” Like a diseased child, we sin because we are sinners. Sin has rotted us out to the core.So then, Ortlund concludes, “The Bible is one long attempt to deconstruct our natural vision of who God actually is.”Because God is not like you (his thoughts are not your thoughts), he yearns for the real you. Because of what Jesus has done for you on the cross, God the Father can say, “There is therefore now no more condemnation for those who are in Christ.” So, the muscle group of the soul that I want to work out this morning is that of reflection, adoration, and reception. I want you to sit there and soak in the love of God for you this morning. Walking away, I want you to say with Horatio Spafford,The truth is that we will not worship God with more enthusiasm, zeal, and holiness by the application of our efforts and will-power. We will only worship God more fully if we are relieved of our burdens and sins. Our hands will not lift unless they are lifted by another. We will not change what we love unless we are changed by love himself. God loves us on our worst days. Chief among those worst days was the day that we nailed Christ to the cross in our sin. As the hymn writer says,Ashamed, I hear my mocking voiceCall out among the scoffersIt was my sin that held Him thereUntil it was accomplished But God, took that miserable day, a day for which we must take full responsibility, and completely transformed into compassion and mercy. God loves us on our worst days. His heart is so drawn to you this morning that if you were to allow him to love you the way he loves you, you would be crushed by the steadfastness, the never-stopping, never-giving-up, unbreaking, always and forever love of God for you. If you were to open yourself up to his love, it would penetrate your soul, your emotions, your physical body, and outward into all your relationships. So, for the next 25 minutes, my hope is that you will sit there and feel, know, understand, and believe that God loves you today, especially if today is your worst day. If today is a good day, I want you to look at your past and all your failures and see God’s love written over it all. If you’ve never had a bad day, I want you to look at your future failures and see God’s love written large. Please turn with me to Genesis 42:25-38 if you are not there already. To set this text in context, we need to briefly be reminded of where Jacob and Joseph come from: a long line of failures.First, despite the sin of Adam, God graciously chose Abraham and his descendants. In Genesis 12 God says, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse, and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” God then reaffirms this covenant of grace to Abram in Genesis 15, to Isaac in Genesis 26, to Jacob in Genesis 32, and again in Genesis 35. These promises were given despite failure, unbelief, and the sins of the Patriarchs. Our families are complicated. The favor and love of God bestowed on Abraham’s line was quickly dispensed as a destructive favoritism within the family. Abraham attempts to assist God, producing Ishmael. This, no doubt, left a mark on Isaac. Isaac favored Esau over Jacob, while Isaac’s wife, Rebekah, favored Jacob (Genesis 25:27). Jacob, whose very name means “cheater,” was tricked by Laban and given two wives for the price of two wives (14 years of work, go figure), and quickly the family grew with the addition of two lovely concubines (Zilpah and Bilhah), and the births of a total twelve sons, and a daughter (Dinah). We think our families are complex!To make matters worse, Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn from Leah, takes advantage of Bilhah, Rachel’s hired concubine in Genesis 35:22, and Jacob hears about it. Naturally, in Genesis 37 Jacob favors Joseph, the son of Rachel, his favorite wife. Joseph became the living embodiment of a whole history of sinful choices. Therefore, because God’s favor is translated in the family as favoritism, grace is taken as a threat. Because of Jacob’s love for Joseph “[the brothers] conspired against him to kill him (Genesis 37:18). Unrequited love necessarily turns violent.Grace exposes the unredeemed voice of every human heart, which yells furiously at God, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” (Romans 9:19). In other words, what God gives as a gift is turned back on him as a weapon. Sinful man claims that God started this whole mess. “Why have you made me like this?” (Romans 9:20). God’s favor, freely given to sinful man, is reflected in men as fool-hearted favoritism that pollutes the soul and destroys the family. God’s nearness and blessing is reinterpreted to be a threat to our personal autonomy and earning. In sin, we feel God’s presence and power as a reason to hide and cover ourselves. But God loves us on your worst days. And love draws out our sin, rather than letting us hide in it.So, this passage brings up our fallen condition as the unbending belief that we are forsaken. That God is against us. That all our circumstances are pointed at our destruction. That even our blessings will eventually be snatched away by the bitter providence of God “who gives, but more importantly, who takes away.” My argument is that this draws God closer to us, and that it ironically does not push him away. To put this plainly, when God seems furthest away, he is most present. That means that the very things that seem to signify his absence, judgment, or condemnation, are actually the means by which God is drawing near. He sees us in the secret places of our hearts, in our sinful fantasies, and in our worst moments, and he is not surprised.My contention is that what is illustrated in this text gives us light and sets our expectations for Jesus, who is the friend of sinners. Jacob and his sons will give us an anti-Gospel, which helps us to see the real Gospel with razor sharp clarity. This passage will show us the photo negative of what the whole Bible displays as a beautiful positive: that God saves sinners in Christ. To see this clarity, we will set up our outline as a kind of ironic set of contrasts. We will read the text in full, and then I will try to unpack each point, but before we do, let’s pray:Father, we come to you again at the moment before we open Scripture and ask again for your enlivening, illuminating, and helping grace. Cause us to understand your great love for us in Christ. Feed our weary souls. Give light to our darkened minds. We pray in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit, amen.Genesis 42:25-3825 And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, and to replace every man's money in his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. This was done for them.26 Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed. 27 And as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw his money in the mouth of his sack. 28 He said to his brothers, “My money has been put back; here it is in the mouth of my sack!” At this their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?”29 When they came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, 30 “The man, the lord of the land, spoke roughly to us and took us to be spies of the land. 31 But we said to him, ‘We are honest men; we have never been spies. 32 We are twelve brothers, sons of our father. One is no more, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan.’ 33 Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘By this I shall know that you are honest men: leave one of your brothers with me, and take grain for the famine of your households, and go your way. 34 Bring your youngest brother to me. Then I shall know that you are not spies but honest men, and I will deliver your brother to you, and you shall trade in the land.’”35 As they emptied their sacks, behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack. And when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. 36 And Jacob their father said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me.” 37 Then Reuben said to his father, “Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.” 38 But he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is the only one left. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.”This is God’s word.What’s dramatically ironic about this text is that we can see things that Jacob and his family could not see. So, we will find out that Jacob and his son’s response to grace exactly backwards. We will then turn three boxes right side up.First, the question that quenches grace. What has God done to us? Let’s go back to verse 25.25 And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, and to replace every man's money in his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. This was done for them.26 Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed. 27 And as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw his money in the mouth of his sack. 28 He said to his brothers, “My money has been put back; here it is in the mouth of my sack!” At this their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?” The question that quenches grace: what is this that God done to us? is at the heart of human sinfulness. It fundamentally misunderstands grace. Joseph “gave,” “replaced,” and “gave” again, seeing fit that “all this was done for them.” Meanwhile, the brothers are convinced that God is working against them. The money left in the brother’s bag will signify theft. The very gift of grace extended to the brothers will be like a hook in the mouth of the fish. The worm came at a price. To the brothers, this was not grace. This was a dangerous threat to their well-being. So much so that “their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling to one another.” What is this that God has done to us? The walls were closing in. Final payment for their sins was about to be exacted. Here was another reason to believe that God had forsaken them. Christmas morning would take on quite a strange feeling if children, after opening their presents, emptied their piggy banks to pay for them. Hands that are trained to work with clenched fists have a hard time opening to gifts of grace. These are the kind of men, who will never let you pay for them because they think its a power move. These men have been habituated to respond to happy accidents as evidence of God’s condemnation. What about us? Are our souls shaped the same way? The shape of our souls and the consequent shape of our worldview is informed by our families and experiences. Is your posture toward God closed, or open? Softened or hardened?Your family of origin shapes or misshapes your view of the grace of God. These brothers have been taught to ask this question not by the explicit teaching of their father, but by the lived embodiment of his unbelief and disobedience in his family. Jacob is predominately fearful and untrusting, nearly always playing the victim. And that fear is replicated in his family as mistrust in God. Our children, then, need to see us in trusting relationships if they are going to trust God. They must see us being cultivated like soil to receive the rain of God’s grace.Your church family ought to reshape your view of the grace of God according to the Gospel. Even if your biological family fails in this sense, the New Testament sees the Church as a replacement family. This means that we are a rehabilitation center for trusting relationships, whereby people can come in with their guard up, closed fists, and leave with their guard down. People should come into our local church saying, “What has God done to us?” and leave with a profoundly reshaped question “What has God done for us?”God will utilize skilled counselors to drive your most pressing theological questions to the surface of your heart. Sometimes we think we’re open to God, but we’re clenching our fists. We’re tightened and immobile. We’re stressed and worried. The question “What has God done to us?” was the meditation of the brother’s hearts. Even if they were hiding this from themselves, at the core, when everything went down, this was at the bottom of their heart attitude toward God. And Joseph is used as an instrument in the hands of the redeemer to bring it out. That leads us to the corollary point. There is another, better question. Reframed with a gospel lens, the family that is the church learns to ask the question: what has God done for us? This question, rather than quenching grace, unleashes grace like water flooding through a broken dam. First, and foremost, it assumes rightly that God is generous. Acts 17:25 says, “…he himself gives us life and breath and everything.” It is in the character of God to be lavishly generous. While these men didn’t know everything, they could at least surmise that God was the creator: that they would not have life without him! Even in the midst of a famine, a pandemic, or any other culture-wide crisis, God is still radically generous with his people. It is his nature. And he cannot deny himself. Second, God demonstrates his generosity at the Cross. What has God done for us? He sent his Son to be a substitutionary propitiatory sacrifice for our sins. Even though these men were blind to the gospel in Genesis 12 or Genesis 3:15, that the Messiah will crush the head of the serpent, God made these things plain. Romans 3 clarifies what the plan of salvation was all along:Jesus’ death on the cross is the persuasive evidence that God is present to bless, because Jesus took the curse for us. These brothers needed to remember Genesis 15:6, “Abram believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” The question of belief, is what has God done for us? Third, God demonstrates his generosity by his lavish grace in all of our personal stories. Once you’ve been trained to change your preposition from ‘to’ to ‘for’, watch through the stories of faith on our website. Listen to the stories of your Life Group members. Read books of the great saints of the past. Take time to survey the landscape of your own life to see all that the question, “What has God done to us?” should be rephrased as “What has God done for us?” On our mantle we have a framed verse that reads:This question, which assumes God’s generosity, releases and realizes God’s grace in our hearts and lives. If you don’t change your preposition from ‘to’ to ‘for’ even watching these videos, listening, or being around other people can make things worse! This question, what has God done for us should be asked in order to retrain the culture of our family life both in the church and in our homes. If “What has God done to us?” is let loose in our families, the hermeneutic of suspicion will suffocate all of our relationships. If we remain the victim of God’s sovereign action, everyone else will become a suspect of his totalitarian rule. That leads us to our next point. The question that kills families: siblings or spies? While Jesus sets us free to live in family communities, especially the family of the Church in trusting, God-centered, and generous relationships, this text gives us evidence that there is a false gospel running around the family relationships that is unchecked, unquestioned, and uncritically accepted: 29 When they came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, 30 “The man, the lord of the land, spoke roughly to us and took us to be spies of the land. 31 But we said to him, ‘We are honest men; we have never been spies. 32 We are twelve brothers, sons of our father. One is no more, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan.’ 33 Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘By this I shall know that you are honest men: leave one of your brothers with me, and take grain for the famine of your households, and go your way. 34 Bring your youngest brother to me. Then I shall know that you are not spies but honest men, and I will deliver your brother to you, and you shall trade in the land.’” 35 As they emptied their sacks, behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack. And when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. Siblings or spies? It’s the question of fear. We remember that spy craft is what got Joseph betrayed in the first place. Back in Genesis 37, Joseph first brings a bad report of his brothers to his father while they are pasturing their flock, and then later he is specifically sent out by his favoring father again to see what all his brothers were doing and to bring a report (Genesis 37:14). Naturally, the brothers must assume that “Dad doesn’t trust us. After all, he has to spy on us.” Now the tables have turned. Joseph is testing them by the same accusation they once made against Joseph, “You are spies, here to see the nakedness of the land.” The brothers, in their self-deceit, believe that they are honest men, and not spies. This is ironic for two reasons.First, in this collection of men are murderers, rapists, thieves, liars, cheaters, and manipulators. If they are held accountable for their past, they are not honest men, but spies of various sorts.Second, verse 35 frames their dishonesty in no uncertain terms before the father: “…behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack. And when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid.” How can “honest men” who have a history of flagrant dishonesty convince their father that they haven’t stolen the grain? This is like a recently released convict walking around with a suitcase full of cash, exclaiming, “What? I’m innocent!” It reflects an impossibility. They appear to be caught red-handed, embarrassed, ashamed, and afraid. The question of Joseph, “Siblings or spies?” reveals the relational wounds across the scope of the whole family. Even Jacob, as we’ll see in a moment, is asking the question: “Sons or saboteurs?” in reference to his children. This assumption of false motive, guilt, and shame destroys families. This is because betrayal lodges the deepest wounds in our hearts.Betrayal of this sort is toxic in relationships. Judas betrays Jesus with an “honest” kiss. Edmund Dantes of the Count of Monte Cristo is betrayed by his jealous best friend Fernand Mondego into over a decade on an island dungeon: Chateau D’if. The story ends with nothing but revenge, and the death of Fernand.Betrayal starts in the heart. And it is reflected in both big and small ways. Five more minutes at the office, is five more minutes neglecting the home. One more episode means a sleep-deprivation that sours the next day. A few more minutes on the phone means a few more dollars of relational withdrawal due to interpersonal hostility.The question, “Siblings or spies” that pervades our relationships is evidence of our total commitment to self-protection. The terrifying truth of this passage is that in our sin we are self-protective and self-deceptive. You and I are not as godly as we seem. Because the brothers believe that they are honest, justified men, they betray each other, their father, and God and themselves over and over again. These questions might help us regain our self-awareness.Could it be possible that in your service to God, you are neglecting your relationship with God? Maybe you are spreading yourself across numerous ministries, serving in countless areas, feeling pulled to attend everything that this or any other church offers, and all the while you are allowing your relationship with God himself to slowly cool because you believe that if you stopped and simply sat with him, he would move on from you. If ministry becomes a drain to you, it’s mainly because you see yourself as the bottle neck of divine grace. Ministry that is not first received as grace is not ministry. That is subtle betrayal!Could it be that while the totality of your life might be about God or Christianity, your affections for Jesus rarely surface in intimate ways. It’s easier to talk about politics, sports, the pandemic, or anything else besides our impoverished devotional life, isn’t it? While we should talk justice and mercy, and administration of our daily work, home improvement, and the like, our conversation should be fueled by walking humbly with our God (Micah 6:8). Why is it that even as a pastor, I very infrequently hear about the things that people are learning personally from Jesus? What if our foyer was filled with, “I was walking with Jesus in his word this morning and…” or, “Something in the Scripture spoke to my heart today, can I tell you about it?” Or, “I yelled at my kids again, I’m struggling with that.”Could it be that fear, and not love, is the driver of your life and decision-making? Fear is subtle, because it protects what we love. It’s anxious over love. What we are afraid of is an indication of what our soul views as most treasured. Could it be that the fear of the outcome of your children is driving your pursuits of them and your discipline of them? Could it be that fear is driving your career, your vacations, your constant retreats to places of comfort? What would it look like if your life was driven by love?That leads us to the corollary point. The New Testament reveals that we are spies, but that Jesus is our sibling. This truth rebuilds our family around the Gospel. Hebrews 2:11 says, “For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why his not ashamed to call them brothers…” and Hebrews 2:17 says,and Colossians 1 calls Jesus “the firstborn of all creation,” and “the firstborn from the dead.” Jesus, as our true older brother, is priestly in his ministry. Jesus, who reconstitutes the family in Mark 3, opens his arms to receive you as family. Psalm 27:10 says, So then, we can allow our sibling rivalries to subside: Jesus is preeminent among us. The Church is not a place of competition for spiritual gifts or attention or love. It is a place where Jesus is honored, worshipped, and beloved by all those who are his beloved. You can open yourself to serve and be served because you are no longer being measured by your performance! Jesus died on the cross to show us that all of our bags are full of stolen money. So, we can lay down our self-deceit, our belief in our competency to receive his love by grace. There’s a reason that “brothers” is used over 300 times in the New Testament. Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection means that we’re now family, for better and for worse! That leads us to our last point. Third, and finally, the Father who suffocates souls: “My son shall not go down with you.” Our text shows us one more photo negative, one more upside down response to grace. I want you to really turn and face this one. I want you to look at this text through the eyes of Jesus.Remember that Jacob is trembling with fear. Remember the long history of sin that has been translating itself from generation to generation. Remember too that God’s love is for our worst days. I think this scene is one of the lowest, if not the lowest point in Jacob’s life:36 And Jacob their father said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me.” 37 Then Reuben said to his father, “Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.” 38 But he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is the only one left. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.” In context of the patriarchal family, the chief of the tribe, the head of the family, the center of meaning, and the purveyor of prominence steps forward to make his sons the canvas of his own guilt-ridden, shame-infested soul. The question of guilt is, what have I done wrong? The question of shame is, what is wrong with me? Notice how Jacob applies both guilt and shame to his sons here. First, Jacob applies guilt. What have the brothers done wrong? Jacob finally comes out with it: They have bereaved Jacob of his children. The New Living Translation explains it, “You are robbing me of my children!” The New International Version translates it: “You have deprived me of my children.” In other words, “I wasn’t fooled for a second by your goat stained coat! You killed Joseph, I know it!” Derek Kidner in his commentary on Genesis that Jacob is “Locked in a suicidally defensive posture.”What have you done wrong? You killed Joseph; Simeon is on death row; and now you’re asking for Benjamin. He concludes with a universal statement of depression: “All this has come against me.” It’s the antithesis of Romans 8:28, “All things work together for evil, not good.” And it’s the fault of the brothers. Can you imagine how disruptive this would have been to the brother’s conscience? Dad will never let it go. We’ll never be forgiven. I imagine that this tainted every interaction around the house. One of the brothers drops a plate and it shatters, and Jacob remembers how they dropped Joseph into a pit and shattered his heart. One of the brothers loses a sheep, and Jacob remembers how he lost his favored lamb, Joseph. One of the brothers cuts the grass too short, and Jacob flies off the handle at him for being so irresponsible. This is the reality of applied guilt. And it runs rampant in our families if unchecked by the gospel of forgiveness. Second, Jacob applies shame. While Reuben attempts to assuage his guilt by the offer of his two sons as substitutionary payment for Benjamin, Jacob essentially asks in the final verses: what is wrong with you? You can feel the searing blows to the brother’s value as Jacob says, “Benjamin is the only one left.” The other 9 brothers lower their heads in shame. “If I don’t have Benjamin, I have nothing.” In other words, “You are nothing, Reuben. You’re the firstborn son of a concubine. You mean nothing to me. Your children are less than nothing.” This is worse than killing his two sons, it’s profaning their very souls. It’s writing Jacob’s own signature on their hearts: “Worthless.” To seal the deal on this guilt and shame-ridden interaction, Jacob says, “If harm should happen to him [Benjamin]…you would bring my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.” To the grave. To death.Here is the dramatic irony, this is the glimmer of hope: Proverbs 16:31 says, “Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life,” and Proverbs 20:29, “The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.” God is standing in the shadows of Jacob’s heartless tirade, whispering the Abrahamic blessing over this abusive family “I will bless you.”Jacob, however, sees his gray hairs as a sign of weakness, a reason to throw his old age, which should be honored and respected and cherished, into the faces of his sons. Jacob’s life summary statement is made to Pharaoh a few chapters later:In other words, “I never quite measured up. I’m a loser. I’m an idiot.” Jacob is a wounded man. And so he concludes, “My son shall not go down with you. He’s all I have.” This was one of Jacob’s worst days. And we’re learning that God loves us on our worst days. Even on the days that we are inclined to apply guilt and shame to the most cherished members of our own family, God loves us. When we play the victim, assign false motives to others, and do all kinds of horrible things, God loves us. He bears our shame. He takes our accusations and returns them as blessings.John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God says to us: My son shall go down for you.”Philippians 2 shows that this breathes life into our souls:Romans 8:32 confirms, God says over every Christian, “My son shall go down for you!” And, “I will raise you up with him.” This is grace. And this is the grace that extends to and through and beyond our worst days.Our Father, who is in heaven looks at Jacob, this sin-sick man in a sin-sick world, and says, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” (Luke 15:31-32). In other words, Son, I love you. I have always loved you. Receive my love. The Father looks at the shame-inducing, guilt-ridden, legalistic older son who is just like Jacob and says, Accept the love that I am showing your brother. I have the same for you! Jesus is the friend of sinners. Our story today in Genesis eventually resolves as Jacob finds out that Joseph is alive and it brings about spiritual, emotional and psychological revival: “But when they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. 28 And Israel said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.” (Genesis 45:27-28).Immediately after this, God speaks this pastoral word directly to Jacob in a vision. God comes out from the cover of whisper and absence and shows that he was present the whole time:Here, God is a wonderful counselor. Calling Jacob by his old name, God reveals Jacob’s core issue: “Do not be afraid” and he reaffirms his promise, “I will make you into a great nation” and he promises his presence “I myself will go down with you…”In other words, “Jacob, I heard what you said back there, but I’m not done with you. My name is God, and I never let go.”You see glimmers of this theology toward the end as Jacob says to Joseph’s sons: “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys…” (Genesis 48:15). Jacob sees now. God has been there all along, blessing and not cursing.You and I both know that we have not yet praised God as we will praise him. There are sections of our heart that still suffer under sin and unbelief. There are still parts of us that fail to trust God because our hearts have been broken by people. But one day, God will right every wrong. We will see the great high priest, whose name is love, and see that our names have been graven on his hands. And we will declare with all the saints and the angels in heaven:The rottenness of our regrets will be redeemed and replaced with a never-ending rest in Christ’s reward.God the Father reveals his lavish and sovereign grace in the lives of sinners through the dramatic irony of salvation. In other words, God loves us on our worst days. God says, “I myself will go down with you.” Let’s pray.
