Good weekend to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
We’ve begun our 30-day journey to Bethlehem and Christmas 2022. In some ways our world is so very different from the world of that Christmas birth in a stable in Bethlehem. But would you agree the issues facing our human race, no matter where you live today, are so very similar to what life was the year Jesus was born! In fact, so many things about our human journey have changed very little down through the millennia.
Yesterday we began our journey to Christmas ’22 in the Garden of Eden and God’s very first prophecy about Christmas and the incarnation of God in Jesus.
Today, come with me to Egypt. Yes, the very same great country which exists today, with the great Nile River and the pyramids and other remarkable structures which rise up from the Egyptian landscape, many of them constructed by slaves nearly 4500 years ago! Let’s visit Egypt in about the year 1900bc.
God is about to speak to our human race again about Christmas in a very powerful way! The story is found in the Bible book of Genesis. Genesis 37 introduces us to Joseph, the son of Jacob who was the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham. Jacob had a large family, 12 sons and one daughter, but his favorite was Joseph. Jacob’s love for Joseph was amazing and obvious, it was almost as though Joseph was his only son. Jealousy arose in the family and Joseph was grabbed one day by his brothers and sold to a traveling caravan who took Joseph several hundred miles south to Egypt where he was sold into Egyptian slavery. (Gen. 37)
Amazingly 17-year-old Joseph protected his heart from anger and bitterness toward his brothers and served his slave master Mr. Potiphar very well. Joseph was promoted to be over all Potiphar’s household but that positioned him to be seen by Mr. Potiphar’s wife who seduced Joseph. Joseph was determined to protect his reputation, his integrity and to honor his God, and he refused her adulterous appeal. She falsely accused Joseph and Joseph was stripped of his position and imprisoned as a worthless slave. (Gen. 39)
13 years a slave in Egypt and suddenly an event happened which propelled Joseph from the prison to the palace as Joesph, inspired by the God of his ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, interpreted a dream of the Egyptian pharaoh, the most powerful man on earth. That dream predicted the future for Egypt and Joseph, led by the Spirit of God, became a prophet as Joseph explained there were coming 7 years of bountiful harvests to be followed by 7 years of horrific famine.
The Pharaoh was impressed but also frightened at the prospects of famine, so he named Joseph Prime Minister of Egypt responsible to immediately develop a strategic plan for the most influential nation in the world to navigate those 14 years with economic and food supply stability. (Gen. 41)
With God’s guidance Joseph did a remarkable job and when famine struck that region of the world Egypt was the only nation not crippled by the famine. Joseph’s own family, the brothers who had sold him into slavery, were starving several hundred miles away in Canaan and they came to Egypt to buy food. Joseph had his chance for retaliation but instead extended forgiveness to his brothers and explained “God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.” (Gen. 45:7)
Furthermore, Joseph not only gave them a huge amount of food for their families and refused to take any payment for the food, Joseph urged them to pack all their belongings and move to Egypt to escape the famine and live where Joseph would be able to provide for them! (Gen. 46) Furthermore, when Joseph’s father Jacob and all their family arrived in Egypt, the Pharaoh insisted that Joseph settle them “in the best of the land of Egypt”. (Gen. 47:11) I wonder, my friends, if you can see how this remarkable story of Joseph is a foreshadowing of Christmas? Do you remember the cornerstone verse of Christmas? “For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through Him.” (John 3:16,17)
Since the days of Adam and Eve every human being born on this planet is born into a living famine… we are starving to death in our sin. We can do nothing to save ourselves from our approaching death and our eternity separated from God because we cannot enter God’s heaven with our sin! But God made a deliverance plan and sent God the Son, Jesus, to come and live in our spiritually famine-stricken world. The mandate for Jesus was simple yet complex: Live a sinless life among sinful human beings, by rejecting every evil temptation. Jesus was to teach the world about the God who made them and loves them. Jesus needed to protect His heart from anger and bitterness and resentment as He was surrounded by people God had lovingly made in His image, but who had rejected God, turned away from God, and were living sinfilled lives.
Justice of course demands punishment for sin, and death is that punishment. But God in His great mercy is willing to withhold judgment giving people time and a chance, during their lifetime, to recognize Jesus as God’s offered Savior. But God’s plan also required that Jesus would be rejected by an ungrateful humanity, die on the cross, giving His life as a sacrifice to God, paying the full price for the sins of any person who would accept God’s offer and believe Jesus to be their Savior.
Christmas of course finds fulfillment in Easter; do you understand that?
Joseph’s father Jacob and all his extended family, 70 people in all, trusted in the truthfulness of Joseph’s offer of deliverance. They believed Joseph’s promise and they moved to Egypt escaping the widespread famine. They settled in the very best of the land of Egypt and they flourished there. Had they rejected Joseph’s deliverance offer they likely would have died of starvation in the famine. But accepting Joseph’s offer of deliverance and trusting in Joseph’s integrity and forgiveness, they lived abundant lives in bountiful Egypt and Joseph lived the rest of his life with the great joy of watching those who had trusted him live safe, content, bountiful lives under Joseph’s provision and watch care.
As the book of Genesis ends, three generations of Joseph’s extended family have lived, blessed by God, under Joseph’s guardianship in the bounty of Egypt. (Gen. 50:22,23) Ponder this a moment my friends. I wonder if you can see the Christmas story previewed in Joseph’s story in Egypt. Our guiding light statement for these days is what Peter wrote in the first century: ‘Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Holy Spirit of God in them was pointing when God predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.”(1 Peter 1:10,11)
Sometimes God pointed forward to the glorious story of Christmas and the Savior Jesus, through specific words of the prophets, as we saw yesterday. Other times, as we see today with Joseph, God pointed forward to Christmas and Jesus through the remarkable life of a person who trusted God, like Joseph!
I invite you to celebrate that with me today friends, and I ask you, how much like Joseph are you? Is your life pointing people to Jesus? Here’s a tender song to help us pray about that, my friends:
Today’s Scripture is Genesis 45.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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