Sermon from February 26, 2025

“God Sent Me”

Sermon based on Genesis 45:1-15

Let us pray: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. (Psalm 19:14)

The Old Testament text that we have before us is probably one that many of us remember from Sunday School days when we were young. There was Abraham, and then Isaac, and then Jacob, who had 12 sons. Unfortunately, Jacob had a favorite son, Joseph, and he showed his favoritism by giving Joseph a special robe of many colors, which made the other sons jealous. Joseph also had dreams and predicted that his brothers and even his parents would one day bow down to him. His brothers hated him for these and other things more and more until they planned to kill him.

They took his beautiful robe and threw him into a pit, and when Midianite traders came by, they decided to sell him as a slave for some money for themselves. They then killed a goat and put the blood on the robe and convinced Jacob, their father, that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.

Joseph became a slave in Egypt and, after being betrayed by someone, ended up in prison unjustly. The Lord was with him, though, with His steadfast love, even in prison, and gave him the gift of interpreting more dreams. Joseph was able to predict that the Pharaoh’s cupbearer, in prison himself, would be released and restored to his old job.

Two years later, the Pharaoh had a dream that no one could interpret. The cupbearer remembered Joseph, still in prison, and he was brought to the Pharaoh and was able to interpret the dream. Joseph made it clear that the interpretation came not from him but from God Himself. There would be seven years of very plentiful harvests in Egypt but then seven years of bad harvests and famine. The Egyptians needed to store up much grain and other food during the very good years so that they could survive the bad years. Pharaoh then appointed Joseph to lead this food program and made him second-
in-command in the whole land, subject only to Pharaoh himself. With God’s blessings, the program worked, and when the years of famine came, the Egyptians had plenty of food for themselves and to sell to others.

Other peoples did not have this abundance, and it was during this time that Joseph sent 10 of his sons from Canaan to Egypt to buy food. It had been about 20 years since Joseph had been sold as a slave, and they did not recognize him, but he realized who they were. He questioned them carefully and found out that his father and his closest brother, Benjamin, were still alive. Joseph gave them food and took no money for it, but told them that there would be no more food for them in the future unless they also brought their brother, Benjamin, with them.

The famine went on and on, and their food ran out again. Jacob was still playing favorites, with Benjamin now his favorite. He did not want to let Benjamin go along, but finally allowed him to go so that they would not all starve to death. Joseph again meets with them and speaks with them through an interpreter, as he had done before. He gives them a hard time and even threatens to give them food only if he could keep Benjamin as his slave, as if Benjamin had done something wrong by stealing.

This is when Joseph knew that his brothers had changed. They now cared about their father and didn’t want him to lose another special son, Benjamin, as he thought he had lost his son, Joseph. One of his sons, Judah, pleads with Joseph and volunteers to be Joseph’s slave if only Benjamin is set free. (It is here that our text begins, in Genesis 45. You can read this whole story in more detail in Genesis 37-44 on your own. I am using the ESV translation for most of the quotations.)

Joseph asks everyone to leave the place where he was interviewing the brothers, except for them. Then we hear that he wept very loudly - most likely with joy that he could be reunited and reconciled with his brothers, at last, with love and forgiveness for them. He says, “Now your eyes see and the eyes of my brother, Benjamin, see that it is my mouth that speaks to you.” No longer was Joseph speaking to them through an interpreter, but as their brother, in their own language, directly to them.

And he says, “I am Joseph,” very clearly, and asks about his father, though he already knows that Jacob is still living. The brothers say nothing because they were dismayed - or more literally, in the Hebrew, trembling with fear, because they thought they were in for punishment or even death because they had sold their brother off as a slave. As a powerful leader now in Egypt, Joseph could do whatever he wanted to do with them.

Instead, he asks them to come near him and says again, “I am your brother.” (This is also reflected at the end of this text. He was accepting them again as his own dear brothers, his family, when we hear that he and Benjamin hugged and wept with each other, and he kissed his brothers and wept with them all, and they talked with each other, as friends and brothers again.)

And then, with very forgiving words, Joseph says, “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.” And Joseph says it again and again. “God sent me”… “It was not you who sent me here, but God.” Joseph could now actually see and believe the promise that was given in other Scriptures and especially much later, in the New Testament, in Romans 8:28: “We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.” It didn’t seem that way for Joseph for a long time - in the pit, sold as a slave, ending up in prison for doing the right thing and being confined there for years.

But God was working for good, providing a dream for Pharaoh and giving Joseph its interpretation, and raising him up to be like a father to Pharaoh and a lord and a ruler in all Egypt, and preserving life by his directing the storage of enough food for Egypt and for other peoples, including Jacob and his family.

There are many good lessons we can learn from this story - the importance of family and being caring and forgiving to one another, the danger of playing favorites with children, the call to be patient and trust the Lord, the value of caring for others and providing for their needs in daily life, etc. But there was something even more significant happening. God was also at work, carrying on His plan for salvation for the world through the coming of Jesus as Savior. That was the most important news in the world. Joseph also said to his brothers, “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive many survivors.”

When God called Abraham to be the beginning of a new nation, the Jewish nation, He promised, “In your Seed, in your descendant, all families on earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3). And He always kept that promise for a remnant of His people to exist, at least, for the Savior was coming through that group of people. Abraham did not have to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Jacob and his family did not die of starvation in the great famine. In fact, Joseph fulfilled another Biblical prophecy (Genesis 15:13-14) in inviting Jacob and family to come and live in Egypt, where they would be safe and prosper for a while. Eventually, they would all become slaves themselves until rescued by the Lord again, through Moses, and brought to the Promised Land - those twelve tribes, descendants from those twelve sons of Jacob.

The whole Old Testament is the history of the ups and downs of these people, but always with a remnant of them surviving and carrying on until the time was right for the coming of the Savior. A passage in 2 Kings 19:30-31 has this promise: “The surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall take root downward and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion, a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord will do this.”

And from this band of survivors finally came Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, in the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4-7). Joseph could love and forgive his brothers, but only for a time, but we read of Jesus in the New Testament, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” - which we all are - “those who were to believe for eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:15-16).

Joseph could preserve life for people for a time, but Jesus provides eternal life “through the faith and love that are in Him, in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:14). “For there is one God, and there is one Mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all” (I Timothy 2:5-6). “For Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit,” by His mighty resurrection from the dead (1 Peter 3:18). Joseph was reunited with his brothers, even after the evil they had done to him, through God’s forgiving love. Hebrews 2:10-11 tells us that “Jesus is not ashamed to call us His brothers,” either, through the “salvation” and “sanctification” He has provided for us, though we have not deserved His mercy and love. John put it this way: “See what kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are… Beloved, we are God’s children now…” (1 John 3:1-2).

Joseph was able to provide important food for this life, but Jesus is the Bread of Life (John 6:35) for eternal life for us, enabling us through His Word and Forgiveness and Baptism and the Lord’s Supper we will soon receive in this service to keep us trusting His saving work for us, too. That is our confidence in Him, now and forever. Amen.        

We pray: Now may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep our hearts and minds safe, only where they are safe, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. (Philippians 4:7)