A woman went into a meat market and ordered two pounds of hamburger. The clerk
yelled back to the butcher, "Two pounds of enthusiasm!" "Why do you call it enthusiasm,"
she asked? "Because he puts everything he's got into it." This is certainly a description of
Joseph. He never did anything half way. He put everything he had into it, be it the task of
being a good slave, a good prisoner, a good manager of a nation, or, as we see here in Gen.
45, being a good forgiver. They don't come any better than Joseph.
The brothers knew this could be the end of the line for them, and they were speechless
when he revealed that he was Joseph. Verse 3 says that they were terrified and were not able
to even respond to him. They had visions of being taken to a torture chamber and ending
their days in pain suffering at the hands of professional sadists. It was a dog eat dog world
and they now stand like a poodle dog looking into the jaws of a German Shepherd. But thank
God, feelings and fears are not always a valid measure of reality. Joseph did not seek
revenge. He gives a speech of comfort and encouragement that makes these brothers out to
be almost heroes, for he says for them not to worry, but be happy, for their very act of evil
was used by God for their salvation. He urged them to go get their families and come back
to enjoy life in the richest part of the world where all their needs will be met.
This was like a fairy tale, for they lived together in Egypt as one big happy family. The
last chapter of Genesis can be summed up quite nicely with the words, "They lived happily
ever after." These 12 brothers lived in peace and prosperity for the rest of their lives, and
they all died in Egypt. Vance Havner says that when he was a boy he liked to read the last
page of a novel first. Then he could read through it and know that no matter how deep the
trouble of the hero he could cheer him on knowing there was a happy ending.
The book of Genesis is like the book of revelation in this way: both have plenty of sin and
suffering, but both end on a high note of victory and happiness. When you are caught in the
middle of either book, you can feel it is like hell on earth, but that is the way it is with any
play, and especially the play of life. Quarles wrote,
"My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on,
Judge not the play before the play is done,
Her plot hath many changes; everyday
Speaks a new scene; the last act crowns the play.
How can we be thankful in a world where there is one trial after another, and where bad
news not only fills the pages, but the records of life that never get into the paper? In a fallen
world where brothers sell brothers into slavery out of jealousy anything can happen to fill
life with tears. God's people escape none of this nonsense in a fallen world. But thanksgiving
can still fill the heart when tears fill the eyes because God is the author and director of the
play, and He has revealed to us how it all comes out. A little boy was petting his beagle dog
and his mother said, "That dog looks so sad." He responded, "Yeah, it has a very sad face,"
but pointing to the wagging tail he added, "But look it has a happy ending." That is the
message of the Word of God about history, and that is why when life is at its worst there is
still a basis for thanksgiving.
The story of Joseph and his brothers is not about the happy ending of heaven, but about
the happy ending to a very hard journey in time. We want to focus on three things Joseph
and his brothers could be grateful for.
I. THANK GOD FOR HIS PROVIDENCE.
He cares about the world, and he gets involved. Thankful people like Joseph see this, and
they acknowledge the hand of God in history. God was working in Joseph's life, but also in
the lives of the whole Egyptian population and many other peoples of the world. God's
providence is not limited to His people, but extends as far as His love, which includes the
whole world. The result was that the Egyptians were thankful for God's providence, and
they became a blessing to God's people, and made it possible for them to enjoy a happy
ending of these final chapters of Genesis.
If you read the autobiography of any person who is humble about their blessings in life,
you will read things like this, which is taken from the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin:
"and now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to acknowledge that I owe the
mentioned happiness of my pass life to His kind providence, which led me to the means I
used and gave them success." This is precisely the spirit of Joseph, and should be the spirit
of every person who has achieved any goal they are grateful for, for it is only by the
providence of God that there is any success.
The first English settlement in America was in Jamestown, Virginia. It was a disaster.
Nine out of every ten people who set sail for this new world colony would die the first year.
In 1610 the survivors decided to abandon the new world. They all got on their ships and
were on their way when the sails of the large ship Deliverance appeared. Lord De La Warr
had been sent to be the new governor, and he urged them to return to the abandon town. He
knelt on that land which had been so unkind and thanked God for bringing them there safely.
Had he been just a little later all of history would have been different, and all the people
would have died, for they only had food on their ship to get them a third of the way back to
England.
They had an immediate service of thanksgiving for God's providence in saving the
project. It was still a long hard struggle, but the project was saved, and the history of
America was radically altered because the hand of God intervened in history. The examples
are numerous, but let me share one more before we move on.
Benedict Arnold was in charge of West Point during the Revolutionary War. He plotted
with the British to betray his country and let the British take West Point, which would have
been a major victory. Major John Andre was their contact man. Arnold sent secret plans of
the fortification of West Point through him. He was dressed as a civilian, and the plan
should have been fool proof. But Andre had the bad luck of mistaking an American patrol
for a British patrol. He let it slip that he was a British officer, and he was immediately
searched. They found the plans in the heel of his shoe. This was not enough to foul up the
plan, however, for they sent the prisoner to Benedict Arnold to explain how he happen to
have such plans.
It just happened that Major Ben Tallmage, Washington's Chief of Intelligence was in the
area. He put two and two together, and although Arnold escaped to a British ship, West
Point was saved and General Washington saw the hand of God again in the history of our
land. He reported to the American people, and I quote, "Treason of the blackest dye was
yesterday discovered....The providential train of circumstances which led to it affords the
most convincing truth that the liberties of America are the objects of divine protection."
When the war finally ended with the British surrender, George Washington said, "The
hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worst than a infidel
that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his
obligations." The more you know of history in the Bible and outside of it, the more you
know that you have an endless obligation to thank God for His providence. Everything we
have to be grateful for in America is ours, not because we are worthy, but because of the
providence of God. The happy ending of Joseph and his brothers was not reward for their
righteousness, but it was grace, and they had an obligation to be forever grateful for the
providence of God.
II. THANK GOD IT PAYS TO WAIT.
Most of us hate to wait. We wait in lines at the store, at the bank, and in traffic. The
thing I like least about our stay in Florida was the constant waiting for the draw bridges.
The thousands of boats made it necessary for these bridges, for there was no way to get
through the channels to the ocean without them. The first two times it was a unique
experience, but the novelty soon wore off and it was a nuisance to sit there for ten minutes in
a mile long line of traffic waiting for the bridge to go down.
Life is full of such experiences, and so we all play the waiting game. There is no escape,
and so we all need to learn how to wait well if we hope to be thanking God for a happy
ending. Since endings are always at the end of a story, it takes time to get to them, and often
along time. In Joseph's case it was 2 decades. He could have been giving up and refusing to
believe God was going anywhere with his meaningless suffering. He must have prayed often,
"How long O Lord before you fulfill the dream you gave me in my youth?" He had his fill
of the nightmare, but where was the dream? Why must we always wait for the dream to be
fulfilled?
We want the story of Joseph to be the Reader's Digest version. Joseph went out looking
for his brothers one day, but he couldn't find them. He found an Egyptian Pharaoh,
however, who just had a dream he could not understand. Joseph said I could tell you what it
means, and after he did Pharaoh took him to Egypt and made him second in command and
told him to bring his whole family down with him. Here we have the whole story with a
happy ending without that long and miserable middle. Why bother with all the pitiful pit,
and prison scene? Just get to the palace and cut out all the agonizing waiting. It would not
make much of a movie, but it would certainly be easier on the nervous system on those
involved. But the Divine Director of life's movie says waiting is basic to life.
The point is, even though we don't like it, it pays to wait for God to step in and bring
about a happy ending to what seems like a horror show. Thank God that waiting is not
wasted. Isa. 30:18 says, "For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for
Him." This verse is so fascinating because in the first part of this verse the same Hebrew
word for the blessed waiters on God is used of God Himself. The verse begins in the KJV
which best brings out the double use of the Hebrew, "And therefore will the Lord wait." If
God wanted everything to go fast there would be no plan of salvation. There would just be
swift judgment and all would be over. His own people were disobedient, and often under
judgment, but God does not give up. He waits because He knows the chances to bless will
come again.
Life is not a matter of sheer power for God. He makes the rules, and He plays by them.
Man has free will and so evil is real. God does not get His will done on earth as it is in
heaven. It is not instant success. Even God has to wait for man to learn the folly of His ways
and repent, and then turn again to cooperate with God's will. If God cannot get to the
happy ending without waiting, then we are foolish if we expect to do so. Waiting is just part
of the game of life, but it is worth it just because there will be a happy ending. If you look up
weight in the concordance, you will discover that it is not easy, and it gets to be a hard and
wearisome task, but it pays in the end.
Isa. 40:30-31 sums up the subject like this: "Even youth grow tired and weary, and
young men stumble and fall, but those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They
will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be
faint." Richard Henricks wrote, "Second only to suffering, waiting may be the greatest
teacher and trainer in godliness, maturity and genuine spirituality most of us ever
encounter." Even so, how many people like what it good for them?
I was at Cub a few weeks ago and ordered one of the roasted chickens. This girl was not
a morning person obviously, for she just could not get organized. She didn't know where the
gloves were, she didn't know where the wrapping was, and she could not find the stickers to
put the price on the package. Lavonne was waiting for me at the check out, and I was getting
anxious about ever getting that chicken. This girl was running around like a chicken with its
head cut off. She was burning up calories but getting no where, and I had to start talking to
my nervous system that was suggesting I just walk away and grab a pizza.
I stuck it out to the end, however, and I was so grateful when she finally handed the
chicken to me that I even said thank you. The point is, it was hard and I wanted to not wait,
but because I did I had a happy ending to that wait, for not only was the chicken a dollar off
the usual price it was truly delicious. It was worth the wait, but I was so tempted to not wait.
This is what life is all about. It is about waiting, or not waiting.
1. It is about teens waiting for marriage before sex.
2. It is about childless couples waiting for a baby.
3. It is about singles waiting for a date and mate.
4. It is about parents waiting for the fever to break, and the child be healed.
5. It is about waiting for that job, that promotion, that raise, that break.
6. It is about waiting for circumstances of all kinds to change for the better.
7. It is about waiting for Christ to come and deliver us from a world of evil.
Life is filled with waiting, and what makes it hard is that we are always in a hurry and
God often is not. He is long suffering and puts up with a lot that we cannot stand. The result
is the constant temptation to leave the path of God's revealed will and find a short cut. The
life of Joseph is given to us so that we can see that it pays to wait for God to do it His way.
Joseph could thank God that it pays to wait because he waited.
Fortunately for us Paul lets us off the hook by making it clear that we don't have to like it,
and we don't have to wait with a smile on our face. In Rom. 8:23 he writes, "But we
ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our
adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." There is no point in pretending that
waiting is pure pleasure. It was hard for Joseph and it is hard for us all at some points, but
the fact is, only those who are willing to wait for God's best will be able to say, "Thank God,
it pays to wait."
III. THANK GOD BROKEN THINGS CAN BE FIXED.
This broken relationship of Joseph and his brothers could have been a Humpty Dumpty
type broken thing that could never be put together again. Families break up all the time and
never get reconciled. Our world is crowed with piles of broken relationships. In the ancient
world people threw out their broken pottery and this piled up, and now archaeologists are in
their glory as they dig it up and put it back together. In our modern world we are such a
throw away culture that we throw away relationships as if they were chipped pottery.
Joseph brothers did this with him. They did not like what they considered a flaw in him,
and so they threw him away, and broke up the set of 12 brothers. They lived 2decades with
this broken up family, and it seemed like it would be broken permanently, just like Jacob's
heart was broken by the loss of his son. But thank God, broken things are not all like Humpty
Dumpty. They can be fixed, and this family of Jacob, which had been broken apart
by jealousy and resentment, was now cemented together again, and never in the lifetime of
these 12 brothers to be broken again. The family circle was complete, and all 12 brothers
lived together in harmony until they died.
There are people who love to take a piece of furniture that is marred and mend it. They
love to take a car that is ruined and restore it. They love to take a garment that is ripped
and repair it. God loves to take a relationship that is ripped apart and bring about
reconciliation. This is what the Gospel is all about. God was in Christ reconciling the world
to Himself. The relationship of God and man was broken by sin, but God sent His Son into
the world to deal with sin in such a way that man can be forgiven and restored to fellowship
with God. The most broken thing in the world was fixed by God, and this is grounds for
endless praise and thanksgiving.
History is filled with what we see here with Joseph and his brothers. For 2 decades they
had no contact, and Joseph could have built up a mountain of resentment, but God helped
him see that even their evil toward him was used to get him to a place of power where he
could save his people. God helped him to test them too and see that time had changed them.
They were now brothers with love and loyalty to the family.
Joseph was touched so deeply by their loyalty to Benjamin that he let loose with a flood
of uncontrollable tears. These were not Hollywood tears, but an authentic expression of
emotions of thanksgiving that there broken relationship could be fixed. The famine problem
was being fixed, and now the family problem was also being fixed.
This same picture carries on in the history of Britain and America. They were foes in the
Revolutionary War, and there was a great break in their relationship. But then came the
threat of the Nazi's. In Joseph's day it was world famine that brought he and his brothers
together. In the 1940's it was world aggression that brought nations together. In 1941
President Roosevelt and Churchill of England met for the first time in Newfoundland. They
sat on the British battleship The Prince of Wales. They worshipped together and prayed for
God's guidance to lead them to victory over a frightening foe. They joined in the song with
thousands of sailors.
"Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep
It's own appointed limits keep.
Oh here us when we cry to thee,
For those in peril on the sea."
The President could not hold back the tears that stung his eyes, and he shot an
embarrassed glance at his companion who was also weeping tears from his eyes. Thank God
for tears of gratitude because broken things can be fixed. Former foes were now faithful
friends facing and unprecedented evil, and they were confident that by the grace of God even
the brokenness that Hitler brought to the world could be healed. Brokenness doesn't get
much worse than it did in World War II, but thank God broken things can be fixed.
The stories of broken relationships that were restored, and happy reunions after years of
separation could fill a library. What we see here with Joseph and his brothers is symbolic of
reunions that go on all through history, and fill the pages of history with tears of
thanksgiving. Just a couple of days after General Douglas MacArthur cleared the enemy out
of Seoul, Korea, he was to turn the government over to President Rhee. Fires were still
burning inside the city as he stood in the legislative chamber and began his speech, "By the
grace of a merciful providence...." He went on to give God the credit for liberating the
Korean people. President Rhee and his wife were weeping and soon all the Koreans were in
tears. MacArthur himself could not restrain the tears, and so you had a world hero weeping
with a room full of dignitaries because of being overwhelmed to gratitude to God because
broken things do get fixed.
Joseph may have never gotten to see his family again, but now he is going to see a host of
nieces and nephews he had never seen. A man isolated from all relatives for 20 years is now
apart of a large family. A branch broken off the tree is now grafted back into that tree with
more relatives than the average person would ever have. He was now a part of a people who
were saved and united by the providence of God. The broken family was not only fixed, it
was bigger and better than ever.
If God was not a God of history who got involved, the brothers would have had to break
up for survival, and the sons of Jacob would have been scattered over the earth. But God
got involved and the result was that they stayed together and became a nation of people.
The Old and New Testaments reveal clearly that God specializes in fixing broken things.
That is what the Bible is all about, and that is what the Gospel is all about. Some poet put it,
"He came to mend earth's broken things,
That Carpenter of old:
God's broken law; men's broken hearts,
And broken dreams untold.
He came to mend earth's broken things,
To rest each weary soul:
His body broken on the cross
Broken, to make us whole."
This is the paradox of the ages. Jesus was broken in order to fix up and make whole all
that was broken in this world. Not only can we thank God that the broken can be fixed, but
we can thank God that He can use what is broken for His plan. If you feel broken and of
little value at times, like Joseph had to have felt when he was in the pit or prison, do not
despair. God specializes in using broken things. Jesus took broken people with broken
health and broken relationships, and He made them whole. The woman at the well had a
history of broken relationships, but He made her whole, and He used her to touch the whole
Samaritan community.
The people that others were willing to throw away like a piece of broken pottery Jesus
treasured, and He sought to put them back together as whole persons. Psa. 34:18 says, "The
Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Jesus never
threw anybody away. Joseph's brothers said that he was worthless and a nuisance and thatthey would be better off without him. But God took this broken young man and used him to
mend a broken world. God is always using broken things.
The broken picture of Gideon that gave him a great victory.
The broken bread by which He fed the multitudes.
The broken alabaster box by which he was anointed.
The broken roof by which a paralyzed man was brought to Him for healing.
The broken piece of the ship by which Paul and others were saved.
The broken body of Jesus whereby God fixed it for all sinners to be mended.
Thank God that what is broken can be fixed, and thank God the broken can itself be used
to do the fixing. In a fallen world where none of us are completely whole, but always to some
degree still broken, this is wonderful news.
These sons of Jacob and brothers of Joseph were changed, but they were still broken,
and yet God used them to form the foundation for His people. The 12 that Jesus choose
were still full of flaws and they were broken, but He used them to form the New Testament
people of God. God uses broken people because in a fallen world there is no other kind. So
there is no basis for putting yourself down as a broken tool. Those are just the tools God is
looking for to achieve His goals.
In one the great Cathedrals of England is a beautiful stained glass window displaying the
great personalities of the Bible. It was made by the artist of broken bits of glass that had
been discarded. God is the master artist, and He can take the lives of people broken by sin
and make them a thing of beauty. The reason we can thank God for a happy ending to this
story of Joseph and his brothers is because Joseph could see that though revenge could be
sweet for a while, reconciliation could be sweet forever. That is why he choose the way of
forgiveness and the restoration of their broken relationship. If we are willing to wait on the
providence of God with a heart ready for reconciliation we will always enjoy a happy ending.
