Genesis 50:15-21 • God Meant It for Good
Listen to the audio version of this message with the player below.
Sermon Notes
-
(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
I'm going to ask that you look in your Bibles now at Genesis chapter 50.
In the last month or so, we have been going in a series through the Bible in a year, and today we come to the last chapter in the first book of the Bible, Genesis chapter 50. Though it's the first book of the Bible, the gospel story is already being told in unmistakable terms.
We have after all strike one, the family in the garden.
Strike two, the family after the flood.
And strike three, well, there is no strike three.
Instead, God makes a promise. Through the family of Abraham, he will send a Savior.
But the fact that there will be no strike three does not mean that Satan has no curveballs to throw.
There is hurt and there is pain before the redemption comes.
Genesis 50 explains one of the curveballs and what happens after. I'll ask that you look at Genesis 50 and verse 15.
When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him." So they sent a message to Joseph saying, "Your father gave this command before he died.
Say to Joseph, "Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you.
And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father."
Joseph wept when they spoke to him.
His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, "Behold, we are your servants."
But Joseph said to them, "Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.
To bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. So do not fear, I will provide for you and your little ones."
Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. We'll end the reading of God's Word there.
He was as good as dead.
There was no hope of recovery. There was no expectation that he would have victory. He was a fallen hero, damaged good with a shredded back and pain in every step.
The crowds now jeered him as they had once cheered him, or they just looked away in embarrassment
at the great achievement that had never occurred as anticipated.
I'm talking, of course, about Tiger Woods, the tiger who roared to life with his fifteenth major's title and his fifth green jacket from the Augusta National Golf Course.
I'm not the first to speak of his victory in resurrection terms as the crowds gathered around the 18th hole, hundreds deep, as they began to cheer the familiar red shirt coming up the fairway. They all knew something amazing was about to happen. They were about to see history in the making. It was going to be almost unbelievable, a resurrection of a washed up and a washed out.
After all, the resurrection wasn't just about an aging athlete given up for dead. We all knew there was a subtext.
It was the end of a story about an epic fall from grace come full circle.
What had happened, the storybook rise of the youngest ever winner of the Masters. When he won it the first time, it was by an amazing 12 strokes. No one had ever won by that much. And it was just the long stream of victories. He was the longest lasting number one ranked player in golf history, the highest paid athlete in the world, the one sure to break all of Nicholas's records. It was almost undoubtable and then it began to unravel.
November 2009.
Can you believe it?
A decade ago, he runs his car into a fire hydrant and the explanation, personal matters.
And then the story began to go public. Within days revelations of multiple mistresses and common carousing by the world's greatest athlete. The loss of millions of dollars, maybe even billions of dollars in endorsements.
The divorce from the mother of his children.
And the crowds abandoned him then as well as the sports clothes makers.
He was done and everybody knew it. What actually happened, Tiger's own words. I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted.
Instead he lost his marriage.
He lost our respect.
And maybe worst of all, as the world perceives it, he lost his game.
The one who had been ranked number one for so long was in this last year ranked 1193rd.
Not the one you expect to win the Augusta National.
And yet he won. It was an amazing story, an amazing comeback.
The problem of course was it wasn't the full story.
When Tiger's ranking fell so low, it took a toll on him.
And much more recently, the video that went viral about Tiger Woods was a wildly disoriented professional golfer being arrested for a DWI.
And the man who had said he would make up all the past by being the best father ever to his children had to apologize to the very children that he most recently hugged and crushed to his chest on the 18th green and to the mother who was weeping for him.
It was an amazing fall from grace. But now, now, he's on top again. He's got new life in that aging 43-year-old body with the fused backbone and the bad knees.
So much does he have new life that the president says he will give Woods the presidential medal of freedom.
It is a resurrection.
Is it freedom from the guilt and the regret and the what might have been?
I'll let him say it in his own words.
"As Tiger, I betrayed my wife. My dishonesty and selfishness caused her intense pain. Elin and I tried to repair the damage that I have done, but we could not.
My regret will last a lifetime."
Regret and guilt and shame.
Can you make that right with a little thing like a resurrection?
Oh, we're here on Easter, so we celebrate resurrection and new life. But it can just be a history lesson that we talk about or even believe that Jesus rose again, that he offers new life.
But if you have resurrection without redemption, what good is it if all you have is a new life
for more pain and more regret and more failure and more wondering if there's another fall out there, then what's good about that new life?
The message of Easter that we gather here to celebrate is not just about new life. That really isn't enough.
We don't just need to know that you can get your golf swing back, that you can have a do-over.
We really need to know that you can have a makeover, that things can be made right, that resurrection can somehow be linked to redemption.
And it's that message that Easter is ultimately about, and the whole Bible is preparing us to understand about new life made right by resurrection and by redemption. To understand it, we have to understand the pieces. What after all is resurrection? The Bible is getting us ready, even with an account like that of Joseph. Resurrection is going from pit to palace.
That Joseph story, whether you learned it in Sunday school or some high school theater production of Joseph and his amazing Technicolor dreamcoat, you probably know the details.
Joseph is on top, his father's favorite. And the mark of that is he gets the coat of many colors. But his brothers get enraged that he will use his favoritism to pull rank over them.
And in their anger, they throw him into a pit.
And when a caravan comes by, begin to see a way to turn their betrayal into profit. In the pit, he's as good as dead.
But if we can sell him as a slave, we make some money off of this, and so they do it. And so he is not just in the pit, he is now a slave in Egypt, dead again for all intents and purposes. And to make the point, the brothers take that coat of many colors and they dip it in the blood of wild animals to say to their father, "He's dead, dead and done."
But Joseph is a good slave.
He becomes the favorite of his master.
He also is perceived as handsome by his master's wife, who makes a play for him.
And when he rejects her, she falsely accuses him. And he goes back to the pit, in prison, dead again.
But because of his ability, by the blessing of God, to interpret dreams, he gets out of the pit and actually placed in the palace of Pharaoh, where he becomes second only to Pharaoh in favoritism and power.
He who was dead is alive again. It's the story that's repeated over and over again from pit to palace. Not bad.
He has arisen.
But not without baggage.
After all, the story of going from death to life, even though we celebrate it in some ways, has Joseph still with deep and hard things in his life. He rises from death to life, at least in people's estimation.
But he is still separated from his family.
He is still separated from his father, who thinks him dead. He is still separated from his brothers, who have his blood on their hands. And the guilt for having betrayed him on their minds, but it's not just their minds.
Joseph dreams dreams.
Can he not dream of what has happened to him? He has not forgotten, as we will soon see. He remembers the betrayal, and he knows it's evil. And the man who is separated from family because of his family's betrayal, because of those who have hurt him and sent him away and abused him, even though he has resurrection, you know there's a certain emptiness within.
Because even when we have new life, it's not made right if things are not right at home.
If our hearts are still struggling, the new life is not enough.
Jean-Jean Liew, a student at one of the seminaries I teach, heard the message of resurrection while in China. A missionary goes and says, "Here's what's happened. God so loved the world that he gave his only son, the one that he loved, and had him suffer on the cross to bear the sins of the world. And those who put their faith in him, who believe that their sin is upon Jesus, have their sin taken away. And God to prove that the penalty of death for sin had been fully paid, raised his son from the dead. And those who have faith in him are united to that Christ, and they shall have not only their sin forgiven, but their lives made right with God forever."
And Jean believed it. Not only did he believe it, he wanted others to know about it. And so he began to tell other people. He had no training, no background, no way it should work, but almost to spite himself, he becomes the pastor of a church.
And over the course of time, it has 12 different campuses and a thousand members, and then it gets the attention of the government and the police.
Who are you? And what are you doing? And for having the unregistered churches, this pastor who has celebrated the new life in Christ is thrown into a pit. He is arrested. He's under arrest for a hundred weeks.
Good is dead.
And then the government, for reasons unclear but probably involved not making him a martyr, not having his influence around, let him out of prison saying, "You and your family have hours to get the plane tickets and get out of the country."
It's new life of a sort. He comes to the United States. He does not have income. He does have means. He doesn't have recognition. But somebody at the seminary says, "We'll take care of you." And so three years later, he's graduating new life.
More than that, he's an experienced Chinese pastor. And he will be able to go to a church in the Chinese community in the United States for a secure and lucrative position. And so what he does is he says, "I'm going back to China."
What are you doing?
There is imprisonment. There is persecution there. What are you doing? He is recognizing that just to have new life is hollow if we don't have things right at home. He looks back at countrymen who do not have Christ, at family who is lost without the Savior, and he says, "My heart will stay empty. My heart will stay hurting. It's not just enough that I have new life.
I need to know there is some purpose in my calling that there is something God is doing in and through me." And John is living that reality. But he's living that reality under an understanding that we ourselves must struggle with. Because what he has said was, "I have resurrection. I got new life. I'm out of the pit.
But I still long for people to be made right with my Savior. And I'm not right until they are right with my Savior." And for that reason, we are learning not merely what resurrection is about, but what redemption is about. What does it mean to be made right?
Back to the Joseph story.
What happens? Do you remember after Joseph is second highest Pharaoh in Egypt? More drama. There is a famine back in his father's land.
And the brothers come to work out a trade deal with officials in Egypt, not recognizing the head of trade.
The second highest negotiator in the kingdom is Joseph.
And the one that they have to arrange the export contract with is Joseph.
And now we all know it is payback time.
It's actually the language the Bible itself uses. Verse 15, "When Joseph brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him." Man, is this going to be great. I mean, if vengeance is a meal best served cold, this is going to be a refrigerator feast.
I mean, they don't even know that I'm here in charge of them. I control their fate. I control their family's fate. I control their freedom and their future.
And we know what they do not know, that they are in deep trouble.
But it's not enough for Joseph to exact a little revenge.
He's been without his father, without his family, and the land of his youth.
So as he's doing the trade negotiations with his brothers, he's actually working a subplot to have his youngest brother falsely accused of theft so he can put Benjamin into prison, put him in the pit just like Joseph was. I mean, there's some revenge.
But the reason is to summon the father from the promised land to come to Egypt. He's doing work. He's far too old to get on the plane or travel in the caravan.
But he comes.
And when he comes, not only is there this reuniting, there is the revelation.
Look what the brothers did to me.
Look how they separated us. Look how they betrayed me. Look how they hurt me. But for a while, the family functions.
All is well.
But the father's old and he dies.
And now the love for all the family that has shielded the brothers from Joseph's revenge is gone. And the brothers know it's gone. Verse 16, "So they sent a message to Joseph saying, your father gave us this command before he died."
Did he?
Well, we don't know.
But this is the command they say, "Say to Joseph, please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you."
Now please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father. All you bring religion into it now.
Joseph wept when they spoke to him.
Do you find that interesting?
Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Is it manipulation that they are doing? Don't hurt us. Dad said don't.
He's gone. You can't prove it, but don't hurt us. And remember, we are servants of your God.
And if that's not enough, we'll be your slaves. Just make us slaves. Just don't kill us.
And despite their trembling and their fear and their protestations of whatever the father wanted, Joseph weeps.
He doesn't chortle. Oh boy, now.
There is no rage. There's no death sentence. There's no vengeance.
Why? You know, we don't exactly know why Joseph wept. Is it because he keeps trying to show love and they keep doubting it?
Is it because he is remembering all the hurt and the pain that has brought them to this moment?
We don't really know.
What we do know is what he said to them. Verse 21, "Do not fear.
I will provide for you and your little ones."
Whatever is the reason for the weeping, what's coming forward to make things right is mercy.
It is mercy in the very words that God himself used to show it previously. Do you remember when Abraham, that father of the family of promise, was ready to slaughter his own son Isaac upon the altar of sacrifice that he thought God had required him to give? Instead God said, what to Abraham? Hold your hand. Do not strike the child because I the Lord will do what I will provide.
I'll provide the sacrifice. And now here is Joseph taking the same words from God's mouth saying, "I will provide
for you and for your little ones after you. You betrayed me.
I will provide for you."
I know it's a Bible story, and for that reason we may not hear the reality of the pain that had to cause those words to come with such tears.
You threw me in a pit.
I was your brother, and you betrayed me.
And you sent word to my father with blood on my coat that I was dead.
And I've been a slave of that ever since or separated from my family.
I loved you.
And everything you did since has hurt my life, my future, my family.
It was a moment for you. I've lived the hurt for a lifetime.
And to his abusers, Joseph said, "I will provide for you.
I will be merciful to you and to your families after you."
It is mercy.
It's the reminder that whatever redemption is, it's not so much the circumstances around us as it is something that's happening in our hearts. What is ultimately has to be made right is what's inside here. That I am made right not because I can control the circumstances of a fallen world or the fallen people around me in my world. Ultimately, whatever is making me right that's taking life and not making it, even when new, hollow and dissatisfying is the change in here.
That my heart has been made right with my God, and that is overflowing with mercy as though having been filled up with the grace of God, seeing what God has done, what he is doing, the provision that he's making for purpose in a life, that that now becomes the fountain of mercy, filling up Joseph and fountaining over to others.
How can you do that?
How can you possibly experience such hurt and pain and a betrayal and abuse from those that you love and still show mercy that shows a healed heart inside?
The answer is what Joseph actually says in verse 20, "As for you," speaking to his brothers,
"you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today." It's not just mercy, it is the faith that gives the perspective that God has been working in all this.
It's not rose-colored glasses.
It's not it didn't really matter. It didn't really hurt. No, Joseph calls it for what it is. You did me evil. This was wrong what you did. And yet at the very same moment, he says, "But I believe I have faith to see beyond the immediate, to see beyond the circumstances, to see beyond the betrayal, to see beyond the blessing, to be on the betrayal, to the blessings that God is providing." It's profound faith.
There are those who have said we all want 20-20 vision, but what we see in Genesis the last chapter is 50-20 vision, chapter 50 and verse 20.
God meant it for good, though it was evil.
We need the evidence of a Joseph story. More than that, we need the evidence of a Christ upon the cross, where any one of us, had we stood there, we would have said, "This is wrong.
This is evil. This cannot possibly be right. It was not right."
But God meant it for good, to save many. What is he doing through Joseph? He is maintaining the covenant people, and by maintaining the covenant people, he's maintaining the nation from which Jesus will come, so that ultimately, through Joseph, many people will be saved, including everyone who sits in this church who believes in Jesus Christ. We are a direct consequence of the evil they did that God was meaning for good, to bring about the salvation of many lives, not just from the famine, but ultimately from a fallen world and fallen hearts and families that hurt and struggle as much as Joseph's did.
Maybe we don't just need a Joseph story.
Maybe we don't just need a rehearsal of the resurrection story.
Maybe we need the realities of our day to bring it all home again. Can God take what is evil and use it for good?
When Tiger raised his arms and roared after sinking the putt on the 18th green, Tom Boswell of the Washington Post summarized it this way. The young woods a decade ago, fist-pumping in victory, will be remembered with awe.
This old woods with rings of pain like those circles inside the oak trees at Augusta will be remembered with deep affection.
Why?
Because he crushed his son to the red shirt at the final green.
Yes?
Because he hugged his mom who has stood with him through all the hard years. Yes.
But maybe we saw something more as he's walking from the green to the clubhouse and he's got to go past all the past winners in their green jackets.
And all of those winners of the past who for so many years avoided or reviled Tiger Woods for his fist-pumping arrogance, this time embraced him.
And it was real affection.
Right, Spaswell, the thousands at the Masters and the millions watching will never feel Woods' golf swing or have his genius sense of touch or his imagination of how to play the game.
But we have little problem imagining his personal psychological and physical pain.
Two years ago at Augusta when Woods did not play. He addressed these same winners.
And it was at a time that the back had not been fused. He could not walk or sit or swing a club without pain. And he addressed these former Masters champions with two words, "I'm done."
Now he's on top again.
And as he put on the newest green jacket, just two words, "It fits."
As though it had been specially tailored for him as well as all the other sizes in the closet for whoever won.
But they were remarkable words for those who might see with the eyes of faith. You know that that green jacket that he puts on is really the culmination, the convergence of the many colors of his past.
The betrayals and the carousing, the DUI, the embarrassment, the promises to children not kept, all of the pain. Could it possibly be that it all fit in a way that Tiger himself would never have wanted or perceived but nonetheless was doing something? I don't have insight into Tiger Woods' spiritual commitments. But I recognize clearly the redemption of his sadness has to be something in here.
After all, when he crushed his son to his chest and when he stood before the other prose and he simply said with humility now, "It fits."
You actually wondered if after it all we were seeing a better man as a consequence of it all.
That God had been taking what was evil and using it for good as is his promise and as the resurrection is showing as possible. Not simply power of new life, but power to change us, power to make us new, a place to put the guilt and the regret and the shame and the embarrassments and believe that God can take it all to bundle up, gather it up, put it in a basket and present it to us for good.
My father's favorite Easter basket was this one, this crummy basket.
My father was a farm manager in the South, which means his great nemesis was Kudzu, the vine that ate the South.
That vine that took over forest and fields meant to stop erosion. Instead, it became an invasive species and it just took over everything.
But some artist's hand could take the twisted, ugly vines of Kudzu and turn it into a basket
of beauty and art.
And I think of what God puts in the baskets of our lives, the twistedness, the disappointments, the ugliness, the marriage that got shattered, the shot glass that took over, the sports that never really were the answer, the trophies won or not won, the retirement that came too early was forced upon us where the job lost, the test taken failed or succeeded.
God could take them all and bundle them in a basket and say, "What you meant for evil
and the evil that was done to you, I meant it for good to save your soul, to bring you before me with hope again and to say I'm not just offering you new life, I am offering you redemption, a place to put the pain and the guilt, to put the shame away because I can not only resurrect, I can redeem." What is the proof of that?
He is risen.
He is risen indeed. What is the proof of that? He is risen. He is risen indeed. New power for new lives by the work of Jesus Christ, praise Him. Heavenly Father, so work the gospel again into our hearts and lives that You have the power to give us new life, also have the power to give it to Your Son when He paid the debt for our sin, that all who place faith in Him, recognize from that point forward You are working all things together for good so our hearts, though wounded, can be filled with mercy and fountain it even to those who have hurt us that we being healed might know the blessing of being purposed by You for Christ's own sake. So fill us, Father, with the hope of Easter, but make it not just a history lesson. Make us believe what You are doing is resurrecting and redeeming us, making us right from the inside out that we might glorify You who saves many, including all who put their faith in Jesus from this moment forward and forever.
Amen.
your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son, Isaac, and he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you."
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son, and he took in his hand fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father, "Abraham, my father," and he said, "Here I am, my son." He said, "Behold the fire in the wood,
but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham," and he said, "Here I am." He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son,
your only son, from me." Abraham lifted up his eyes and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns, and Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering
instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, "The Lord will provide, as it is said to this day, on the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided." Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, take us deep into the grace of your gospel this day
by reminding us not only of what you had to provide, but your willingness to do so,
that we might by your grace know the goodness of one who claims us forever. Grant this blessing, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated.
For most of the years that our kids were growing up, we spent summer vacations in the Rocky Mountains, which means driving from St. Louis to Denver, pretty much a straight shot, and our children over time got in competition to see who could see the Rockies first as they were traveling across Missouri and Kansas and then Colorado. We weren't the first family to be in such competition. After all, if you go on old Highway 40 from St. Louis west toward Colorado, you will actually come in eastern Colorado to the little town known as First View, and you can imagine how the town got its name. Pioneers crossing the plains, egged to see Pike's Peak, the mountain over 14,000 feet tall, that was really the sign that they had gotten to at least one critical signpost in their destination.
And so even though Pike's Peak is 110 miles to the west of First View, the pioneers would hope for a clear day because they knew even though Pike's Peak 14,000 feet plus high is still just a needle of a sign off in the distance, just the the glimpse of it was enough to ignite faith that we're gonna make it, that we can get there. It would put light in your eyes, strength in your feet, and something similar is happening right here in Genesis 22. After all, in so many ways this is First View of the gospel. What happens is Abraham saddles up his donkey, puts his son on it, and they travel to a mountain. Two thousand years later, Jesus
at the behest of his father will saddle up on a donkey and will go up this same mountain. It is the path to his provision. Different trip, same mountain, as God is giving us First View of what he intends. But we struggle, even as Abraham did. Abraham's struggle was that the mountain was so far distant from his experience that he did not fully understand. Our difficulty
is that we are so far distant from Christ's experience that we sometimes struggle to make it real to us. After all, we rejoice in the children that come down with the palm fronds, and we love celebrating Palm Sunday. But after all, we're really adults, and the faith that may send children up a mountain is a little different than the faith that gets us through the world. If you've got to come down the mountain and live in the real world, what kind of faith do you need then? And it's that faith the Bible is willing to examine in terms shocking and important to us. The Bible is first willing to examine the nature of faith that is nothing but ordinary expectation. That ordinary expectation is actually apparently in the life of Abraham himself. After all, verse 1, we read, "After these things, God tested Abraham." These things God has already made clear to Abraham, "I'm going to justify you credit as righteousness your status before me on the basis of faith, not your achievement." Does Abraham get it? God tests him. Now some of your older translations actually have not the word "test," but God tempted Abraham, which is unfortunate wording. After all, the New Testament, James, the brother of Jesus, says to us, "God doesn't tempt anyone. He cannot be tempted. He tempts no one. If we are tempted, we are tempted by our own lust and desires. God cannot be tempted. He does not tempt, but he does test." And even though they may be almost exactly the same circumstance, there's a difference between a test and a temptation. A test is meant to reveal something. A temptation is meant to destroy someone. By a test, we are revealing what we rely upon. A temptation is Satan using perhaps exactly the same circumstances to tell us that we cannot rely upon God. God is saying, "I am your provider. I will make the way. Abraham, I need to test you." Not just to test your mettle, not just to see if you're adequate, not just to see if your faith is appropriate. After all, why do we ultimately test? What are you relying upon? God is going to make sure that we are relying upon Him properly. It's not just revealing the mettle of Abraham's faith, but the worthiness of his God when the father stands in the pool and says to the three-year-old, "Jump!" He's not just testing the courage of the three-year-old. He is proving the faithfulness of the Father. And so God in this test of Abraham is proving, as it were, his own worthiness to a man who is struggling to get it.
To understand the struggle, just the ordinary expectation that Abraham has despite God saying he believed God and it was credited Him for righteousness is how Abraham is responding now to the commands of God. It's almost as though God is saying, "Jump!" And Abraham is saying, "How high?"
Is it faith? Or is it just selfish fear? God says, "Leave your father's house." Abraham says,
"How soon?" "To go where?" God says, "Did you laugh at my promise of a son, old man?"
And Abraham says, "Well, whatever you're talking about, Lord." And he evades the answer. God says, "I'll make you a father of many nations."
And Abraham says, "I'll sleep with my wife's maid, just in case you forget." God says, "Make your way to safety in a time of famine."
Abraham says, "I'll do it. And if that requires turning over my wife to other men, that's okay with me." God says, "Sacrifice your son to me." And Abraham says, "We'll do."
Is it faith? Or is it just selfish fear? Is it just ordinary expectation that everybody else in the world has? If you mess up before a holy God, you got a couple of options. First, cover up your mess or pay your dues. Cover up your mess. Oh God, you didn't really hear me laugh. And if you did, it really wasn't that big a laugh. The sacrifice of my wife to other men, what else was I to do? The adultery against my wife, the doubt of God's word, the abandonment of my mistress and my biological son to die in the desert. Well, what else did you expect? I had to survive. I had to make it. Forget about it. Hide it. Cover it over. Or if you can't, pay your dues. Make it up to God. Take care of it. Do what he requires. God says to Abraham, "Take your son, your only son." We read past the word so quickly in verse 2, and don't recognize what's actually happening. "Take your son, your only son." You have waited 25 years after an adulthood of childlessness in a culture of patriarchy with no legacy because you have no son. And now he comes, and he's not just your son, but you love him. "Take your son, your only son whom you love." And just so that we will get the impact, it is said 10 times in these 14 verses. "Take your son, your son." We should hear pre-echoing the lament of David when he lost his son, Absalom. "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son! What that I had died instead of you." And now God is saying to a man who loves this longed-for son, "Take your son and give him up. Pay the price. You messed up."
Now you got to measure up, so I'll take care of you.
There should be all kinds of objection. There should be all kinds of concern. If Abraham is actually hearing from God the message, "Take your son and sacrifice him." We should hear the message. Verse 2, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love. Go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering." You know what the biblical word for burnt offering is? "Holocaust."
Make your son a holocaust for God. Abraham ought to be saying, "God, you called me to this pagan land because you said the sin of the Amorites was not yet full. What was their sin? They sacrificed their children to appease their gods. You're supposed to be Yahweh. You're supposed to be a different kind of God. God, how could you ask me to do this with my
son? I thought you said I would be right with you on the basis of my faith,
not the basis of my sacrifice of what is most precious to me, the life of my own son." The high price we have to sense, not only from the language of Abraham, but the language of the prophets themselves as they over and over are challenging us, is this what you think makes you right with God? Your sacrifice, your payment, pay your dues, measure up and then God will pay up.
The Old Testament prophets ask, "With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high?" Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with 10,000 rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? It's the common expectation. You mess up, you pay up. You make it right with God. You sacrifice what's precious to you and you hope you can do enough that he will be satisfied. But you must know that when the scriptures are asking the question, "God, should I give my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" the answer is no! God will provide. It's the message that runs through the scriptures so that we would recognize this ordinary expectation of humanity is not the expectation of those who have counted upon the God of the scriptures. And yet despite our saying it over and over in the church, our understanding of the gospel thread that runs through the scriptures, it is just so instinctive enough that we can give our firstborn to believe that the way that you're going to appease God to make things right with him is your own sacrifice of what is most precious to you. As we tend to believe if we don't provide it, God will. He will provide our sacrifice for his happiness.
Because my wife has been in the hospital this past week, she's doing great. Thank you for asking all thousand and twenty of you know. She's doing great.
But being in hospitals brings back scarring memories. I think of being a young pastor and visiting a family in the hospital where the father and elder in my church stepped out into the hallway with me and after his son was lying there between life and death because of a freak accident in a gym class, the father took me aside to say I know what God is doing.
He's punishing my son for my sin. Shocked me. Scared me. Not just because I recognize how tender is the moment, how if I answer wrong, if I don't come up with some great answer that could do so much damage. It's not just that. It's because I recognize the question comes over and over and over in the church regardless of the fact that we can sing to. We are blue in the face. Jesus paid it all. It's not what we think. It's not what we struggle with. Is God requiring the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Is that what God is now doing? I see it in the tears of a mom who questions if the birth of a special needs child is retribution for an affair long ago. I hear it in the questions of parents of adult children who are wondering if the divorce of their child is a consequence of the flaws in their marriage as they were raising that child.
I hear it in the anger of a dad that is fanned into rage by the guilt of whether the weakness of the rebellion of a child is caused by his own absences from home that his boss requires.
I hear the question in my own heart when my children struggle and I question is the struggle because of my inadequacy as a parent or a preacher or even my inconsistencies as a Christian. Is God requiring
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Are my children being punished for my sin? Is this payback until I pay up? And to all those questions we need to hear echoing again and again God saying I will provide. I will provide the sacrifice. I will provide what is needed for your sin. I am the rescuer. You are not your Redeemer. Are there consequences to sin? Of course there are consequences. But if we have trusted in Christ and and we have been counted as righteous before God because of our faith in what Christ has done, nothing is happening in the realm of our existence but God is using it to bring us closer to his own heart, closer to dependence, closer to seeking him for eternal consequences and eternal closeness to him. God is working because He needs to have us understand what the Holy Spirit gave me. Words I could not have myself derive but said to that man so long ago, "No, God is not punishing your Son for your sin because God punished his Son for your sin.
He paid it all and now what whatever comes is God's working for His glory but also for our good." Turning us back again and again into closeness to dependence to leaning upon to seeking which in itself becomes the example that our children need.
Because the expectation of I gotta provide so God will do his part is so common among us.
The writers of Scripture do not merely deal with our ordinary expectations but come right into the life of the church to make us consider even extraordinary expectations that are not true faith at all despite what we may think. Extraordinary expectation verses four and five. "On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.
Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come back to you again. Not just me, Abraham. I and the boy will come back to you." As though Abraham going to sacrifice his Son is expecting the Son still to come back. Commentators through the ages have said what Abraham was doing was expressing extraordinary faith that God would resurrect Isaac. And if that sounds far-fetched, remember that the writer of Hebrews in chapter 11 says this, "By faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac. And he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead." Extraordinary expectation. My God is able. My God is going to resurrect my Son as long as I kill him first.
Wait, what? I have an extraordinary expectation but the expectation is God can do amazing things. God can do extraordinary things as long as I do it first. When you recognize what is being said here, it's the message that is frequent in the church.
God will do his job if I do my job.
Oh, you know what? I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sin. I celebrate with children. They bring palm fronds down the aisles at Palm Sunday knowing that it's Easter week knowing that Christ is going to die on the cross. I even believe that God can and did raise him from the dead.
God is merciful and God is powerful.
And we can get his mercy and his power.
If we pay for it. You gotta earn it. After all, the resurrection here is believed. But Abraham believes he's got to earn it by the sacrifice of Isaac. We can believe the same even in the church. I believe in the resurrection. And I believe that the eternal promises are mine as long as I measure up enough to deserve the mercy of God. We're captured by the wording of a classic ad by Smith Barney. Now some of you remember, remember John Houseman in his serious suit and bow tie explaining how can you gain family security. Security. Will Smith Barney does it the old-fashioned way. We earn it.
And because he says it with such earnestness and seriousness, we tend to believe it not just for financial security but eternal security. How do we gain eternal security? We earn it. Now I can't myself bring eternal security. But I have to do enough that God will be pleased with me. We in essence seem to believe that God can do amazing things. That's my faith. God can do amazing things. He can raise Jesus from the dead. And it applies to me as long as I do enough to activate his mercy in my behalf. As long as I reach some threshold of human goodness, then God is going to provide the rest. In a recent Gospel Coalition meeting that a number of us attended, we discerned how common is that understanding in the church.
Tim Keller was preaching and he told the unusual experience of being on a church council where people were evaluating young ministers who were going to consider planting new churches. And as these young ministers were being examined one after another, one after another they said, "You know, I was raised in the church but I never heard the gospel. I was raised in the church but I never heard the gospel. I was raised in the church and I never..." And they said, "After a while, the ministers and the councilists were like, "Well, how horrible, all those terrible churches that they could raise all these kids and never preach the gospel." But then there was an older minister among them who said, "Let's be real. I was raised in the church and I never heard the gospel."
It wasn't until I was in the military and a military chaplain began to minister to me and in my life care for me in such a way that I finally understood, as though the penny dropped almost to my surprise to say that we are saved by faith in the grace of God provided through Jesus Christ. Faith alone, in grace alone, by Christ alone.
And when that penny dropped, he said, "It just surprised... I'd never heard it before. I never understood it. It's by what God provides. It's faith in that, not anything I do or accomplish. It's faith alone, in the grace of God alone, provided by Christ alone." And when the young man who'd been converted now by the chaplain went back to the chaplain, he actually said at the time, "Why didn't anybody preach this to me?" He said, "I grew up in the Lutheran church. Why didn't anybody preach the gospel to me?" He said, "What I really don't understand is why Martin Luther didn't understand the gospel." And the chaplain scratched and said, "What do you mean Martin Luther didn't understand the gospel?" He said, "Well listen, when I was in college, I read Luther's commentary on Galatians and there wasn't any gospel in it." Now you must understand that apart from the Bible itself, Luther's commentary on Galatians is the most important book in the history of the world to explain that our salvation is by faith alone and grace alone by Christ alone. But what had happened? He was so caught in the expectation that you have to measure up to some level in order for God to then give his mercy to you that he couldn't read it. He couldn't hear it. It was just the common expectation that you're extraordinary measuring up is what makes God provide his mercy to you. It's not just the young man who missed it. What the older minister on the council had to say was, "You know what? We've heard all these young ministers say, "I grew up in the church but nobody preached the gospel." The older minister said, "I have to recognize there's all kinds of young people growing up in my church who will say the same thing. I never heard the gospel." Why? Because it is so contrary to the human instinct. It is so contrary what we expect. Abraham missed it. He was believing, "Still, I gotta do this stuff to ultimately be okay with God."
It's the standard Christianity of extraordinary expectation in what we do. We believe that what we have to do is do a little bit more than other people, a little bit better than we did last week, honor the Sunday school lesson a bit more, go to prayer meeting a little bit longer, and when you reach some threshold of goodness, then grace is God providing the rest.
I'm not perfect. I know that. But if I live this good, then God in his mercy will top her off, and he'll provide the extra holiness that I need. And if that is your perspective, you would make a wonderful Muslim. People don't know, Muslims believe in grace. We believe in grace. Muslims believe in grace. But precisely what they believe is that you would follow and honor the pillars of Islam, which they would say nobody can do perfectly. But as long as I've done sufficient, then the mercy of God is finishing off the rest. If I've lived this well, then God will top her off. He will finish the rest. And that Islamic Christianity appears over and over in the church. It's almost impossible. It's almost impossible to be a 14-year-old in the church getting approval and acceptance by meeting the expectations of your parents and your teachers and your peers without believing in Islamic Christianity. You measure up and hopefully somebody will be merciful with what you mess up. It's almost impossible to be an adult attending a church that focuses on issues of politics and prosperity and moral behavior without believing in Islamic Christianity. I'm basically a good person, not perfect, but good enough that God will receive me and He'll top her off. He'll be merciful for what I cannot accomplish. It's almost impossible to be human in a church that emphasizes community service or compassionate sacrifice or radical lifestyles that bring numbers and evangelism into the church without believing that you earn grace by being just a little bit better or doing just a little bit more than the next guy. And that Islamic Christianity is what the Bible is determined to undo. Do you recognize it is shock therapy where Abraham is coming with what would seem to be the greatest sacrifice he can offer. I'll give my own son, my own son, my love, I'll do the best I can. I'll give you all. I'll give you the most precious. I'll give you what I waited years for. I'll give it away to you, God. Will it be enough? And God is saying, "That is not the point for you or anybody else, the generations that will follow you. What is going to make you write with God? It is not your extraordinary faith that God can do extraordinary things as long as you meet some extraordinary standard. Know what God has pointed to is an extraordinary provision of an entirely gracious God. It comes to us in language we can't miss if we'll put on the gospel glasses to perceive what God intends to say just beyond being a better person. Verses seven and eight, Isaac the boy says to his father, Abraham, my father, and he said, "Here I am, my son."
He said, "Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering for the Holocaust?" Verse eight, Abraham said, "God will provide for himself the lamb."
Abraham is saying more than he understands and precisely what we need to understand. God will provide the lamb. It is not our sacrifice. It's not our measuring up so God will pay up. It is God ultimately providing all that is needed. It is God providing the lamb, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It's God saying, "I must provide." Not, "You're measuring up," not, "You're extraordinary works." God ultimately will provide what He requires. Do you understand that is the core definition of what grace is? God will provide what He requires. What does He require? Not just a measured up holiness. He requires holiness. "Be holy for I am holy." There's no measurement in there. That is entirety. You be holy to be with a holy God. How can I do that? You can't. But God provides the way. By providing the sacrifice and saying to Abraham, you believe in what God provides and He counts it to you for righteousness. You hide behind the lamb. You put yourself behind the provision of God. You recognize Jesus paid it all. And when that is your perspective, then you're not trying to measure up or look down at anybody else.
You are understanding how wondrous and amazing is the gift of God. Verse 13, "And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behind them there was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son." You just have to visualize it. They have been on this three-day journey. All along Abraham is thinking, "I got to kill my son. The language of the Texas, I have to slaughter my son." And now he is so close to trying to appease God by doing this. He binds his son the way that you would a burnt offering, ties him up. He has the fire, the coals in his hand. He has the knife ready to strike. Can you imagine the pain, the hurt, the fear that is driving him? And then from heaven you hear the words, "Stay your hand." "God will provide the sacrifice, and more than that, instead of your son."
The great Old Testament theologian Bruce Waltke says this is the first explicit mention of substitutionary sacrifice in the Bible, where it is not, "You measure up and God tops it off," where God is saying, "Not you, but me. I will provide the sacrifice, not you provide the sacrifice. I will put something in your place. I will put someone in your place." It is ultimately God's provision of the sacrifice so that we now, knowing what is being said, understand with full meaning, so Abraham called the name of that place, "The Lord will provide." As it is said, "To this day, on the Mount of the Lord, it shall be provided." Do you understand the first view that we're getting here? Here is Abraham going with Isaac to Mount Moriah to the place where the temple of God would be built in centuries to come, where Christ himself would go on that donkey ride, the days before his own sacrificial giving of himself for you and for me. And what we are to perceive is that what happened was Abraham would take his son, his only son whom he loved, and at the will of his father, that son would go to his death and he would go with the wood upon his back to be slain by his father. And just as Abraham was about to do it, God says, "I will provide." And two thousand years later, Jesus gets on the donkey and he goes to the same mountain and he carries the wood on his back of a cross and at the will of his father, he offers himself for your sin and mine. And God said, "I told you I would provide." And so it is called to this day and so it is said in the church, "God will provide." It is the great message of the gospel that God says to you and to me. It's not your doing, it's not your achieving. It is ultimately God saying, "Trust me. I have paid the price in full." Because what I ultimately did was not requiring Abraham provide his son, his only son whom he loved, but God so loved the world that he gave his son, his only son, whom he loved that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. This is the provision of God. This is the message of salvation. This is the grace of God. God has provided. Praise God he gave his son. Amen. Heavenly Father, make it not ordinary expectation of compensation, not extraordinary expectation that we have to measure up for you to do extraordinary things, but faith in an extraordinary provision. You let Jesus pay it all, the fruit of your own family for the sin of our souls. And when we trust that, you not only hide us in his provision, but now every step of the way provide what is best for our eternity and the eternity of those that we love. So teach us the gospel. We confess that we trust ourselves too often. Trust our achievement to make us right. Trust payback to make you love us. Father, teach us instead that when we bow before you and say, "God be merciful to me a sinner," he will still say, "I provided my son and he paid it all. Come now child of God into the kingdom that he has prepared for you." It is the blessing of the gospel offered in Jesus name. Amen.