- Exodus 1:8 is a pretty famous verse. For good reason too, it provides a nice summary of our situation as we move into the story of Exodus and the miraculous deliverance of Israel from Egypt:
a. Israel is in Egypt.
b. They are there because of Joseph.
c. When Israel got there, they were highly favored because of Joseph.
d. Now years have passed and Joseph is a distant, obscure memory.
e. Israel has grown greatly over the years and are now seen as a threat to Egypt rather than an invited guest.
- Clearly all of that is not found in that single verse, but for those familiar with the story it provides a nice shorthand of where we are, what’s behind, and what’s ahead.
- This finds us on the precipice of another great story in the Old Testament. We’ve been going through the stories of Joseph for three months now, examining his character amid crisis. If you have even a rudimentary grasp of the Bible, you know that Exodus is the story of God calling Moses to lead the Israelites out of captivity and toward the Promised Land.
- We are not going to get into that second story. We are simply going to conclude the first.
- We have in the last verse of Genesis the death of Joseph. He fought the fight and finished the course. He lived a life of faithfulness despite persistent and weighty setbacks and obstacles.
- I said at the beginning of this sermon series that I think Joseph needs to be rated at the top in thinking of great Old Testament saints. I don’t mean important – that distinction would likely go to Abraham, Moses, or David. But Joseph comes through his life as quite possibly the greatest Old Testament saint, with probably only Job as competition. He didn’t have the serious moral failings that almost every Old Testament saint seems to have on their resume.
- So here we are at the end of Joseph’s life. This provides us a good moment to talk about the legacy you leave behind.
1. JOSEPH REVEALS THE INCREDIBLE IMPACT ONE LIFE CAN MAKE.
- Genesis 50:15-21.
- I think many times we act like fate is the determining factor on how things turn out. It is a source of regular frustration for me to hear people say all the time when something happens, “Well, it must have been God’s will.” As though everything that happens is God’s will. It isn’t. We live in a fallen world and people often do things that are not in God’s perfect will. But people just presume that if it happened it must have been something God wanted to have happen.
- In truth, so much of what happens is in our hands. God has given us the dignity of consequence. What we do matters.
- As such, whether we live our lives passionately for God or with compromise and mediocrity or with a blatant disregard for the divine – all those choices impact our lives and our eternity as well as the lives and eternity of those around us.
- Just to use a simple example: we’ve all been in a meeting that is careening out of control, with personalities and agendas ratcheting up the tension. Then someone (often the most mature person in the room) steps up and helps everyone work through the problem with humility and grace. You all leave an hour later smiling and in full agreement on the best way to handle the situation. It’s easy to look at that and say, “Well, the meeting turned out great!” But you have to stop and acknowledge that the meeting turning out that way was not inevitable. It’s could have even more easily broken up with acrimony and anger. But it was one person who made the difference. Their presence made a huge impact in that moment.
- Now, we take that truth and expand it out to all of our lives:
a. The mother whose presence gives confident love to all her children, which serves as a foundation for them to go out into the world.
b. The businessman who puts what’s right before money.
c. The pastor who actually believes what he’s preaching.
d. The grandfather who pours his character into his grandchildren.
e. The friend who doesn’t give up on you when everyone else walks away.
- I know this isn’t a new truth to anyone in this room. We’ve all seen “It’s a Wonderful Life.” But the problem isn’t that we don’t know this truth. The problem is that we forget to live as though it’s true.
- We start to doubt that we matter.
- We start to discount our presence.
- We get discouraged and dejected.
- We get diverted into merely being entertained.
- We get consumed with making more money or achieving a certain standard of living.
- Let’s put it simply and directly: are you living with the belief that you can make a great impact with your life? If not, why not?
- It doesn’t take extraordinary intelligence or giftedness or personality to have a great impact. If we passionately pursue the two greatest commands – loving God and loving people – we have a great likelihood of seeing this happen.
2. JOSEPH REVEALS THAT THE IMPACT OF OUR LIFE ECHOES AFTER WE ARE GONE.
- Exodus 1:1-7.
- As we shift to the beginning of Exodus, the author provides us with a summary of the situation as we embark on the story: here are the descendants of Jacob (i.e. Israel) and they’re in Egypt.
- At one level this is routine information but at another it speaks to the lingering impact of Joseph’s life.
- Impact #1: they are all in Egypt because God set Joseph in leadership there in order to save an entire region during an enduring famine.
- So their presence in Egypt is because of Joseph.
- Impact #2: more fundamentally and importantly, they are alive because of Joseph.
- It is his leadership that enabled them to live through the famine.
- The important point for us here is that Exodus opens after the death of Joseph and yet the impact of his life lingers on.
- I have seen videos of Fred Rogers asking people to take one minute to think of someone who deeply impacted their lives. It’s a moving exercise because there are those who have sown into our lives and we know how much we owe to them.
- We all have those people and, in many cases, some of those people have passed on. But their legacy lives on through the impact they had in our lives.
- [Maybe have three volunteers picked ahead of time to offer one-minute testimonies of people who poured into them who are still impacting them even though they are gone.]
- This is awesome in one sense and terrifying in another.
- Some scenarios:
a. A father is harsh and cruel to his daughter and that emotional damage is still filtering down a couple generations later.
b. A teacher provides an inspiration to a middle schooler that they are worth something and that child goes on to have a good marriage and career because of someone believing in him.
c. A sister never gives up on a sibling when everyone else does and is the reason they don’t spiral into depression.
- Show of hands – who here is different than you would have been because the presence of someone important in your life. Everyone?
- This is important for us to remember because we forget amid the minutiae of everyday responsibilities how powerful our lives can be, for good or ill.
3. JOSEPH REVEALS THAT OUR IMPACT EVENTUALLY DIMINISHES, SO EACH GENERATION MATTERS.
- Exodus 1:8.
- And that brings us back to the statement we started with – the famous quote in v. 8 about a new king who didn’t know Joseph.
- We’ve talked a lot this morning about the impact our lives can have and those are points that we need to remember. But our impact is not without limit.
- This is the final sermon in this sermon series. I said in the first message that I think that Joseph stands tall as perhaps the greatest of the Old Testament examples. Not necessarily the most important (Abraham, Moses, or David, most likely), but the greatest. He consistently did what was right despite numerous, painful setbacks. He did not have the embarrassingly moral failure that plagued almost every one of the Old Testament characters. He is a great character and a great example.
- And yet there was a limit to his impact. Certainly there is one sense in which his legacy lives on (after all, we are studying his story), but v. 8 is a reminder that even the great character see their impact diminish. Despite the great and godly things Joseph did, there was a point not too distant in the future (a few hundred years) where his impact was mostly forgotten.
- That doesn’t mean that our lives aren’t important. They are. It just means that there is a limit.
- That means that each generation is important.
- There is an old saying that the church is always just one generation away from extinction.
- Now, we have to temper that a bit because we have the promise of Christ that His church is not going to fail. That doesn’t mean that individual churches may not close or families of believers may not see faith wane but we do have the overall promise that the church won’t be conquered.
- Having made that clarification, we do need to acknowledge the importance of each generation.
- Some dangerous practices:
a. There are lots of parents who say that faith is important in their lives but do not take their children to church consistently. They’re too busy with other things.
- Yet despite all evidence to the contrary, they somehow believe that telling their children that faith is important is sufficient to impart a love for God in their children. They are almost certainly wrong. Their children will learn from their example, not their words.
b. Churches that don’t emphasize youth and children.
- There is a stereotype of the grumpy old church member who doesn’t want any kid interruptions in the worship service. I’m not sure often that really happens.
- The more pressing matters, I think, are insufficient spending on youth and children’s ministries.
- Most pressing, I think, is the need for the adults to deliberately and repeatedly verbally encourage our kids and youth in their faith. That is something I don’t think we excel at.
c. We don’t disciple our youth.
- Youth groups need to be more than pizza and games. There needs to be discipling in faith. We want them to have something meaningful and substantial to hang onto as they go into the next generation.
