257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105
(262) 763-3021
We have purchased land on Highways A & W and are planning to build soon!
Drive by and take a look at our future home!
How Full Your Glass Is, Is Totally Up To You
Sermon 14
January 31st, 2010
Anais Nin said, “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
Have you ever noticed as we age, we’re often guilty of looking at other's aging and thinking, "Surely I don’t look that old?" One man shared his experience, “While waiting for my first appointment in the reception room of a new dentist, I noticed his diploma, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered that a tall boy with the same name had been in my high school class over 35 years ago. Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was too old to have been my classmate. After he’d examined my teeth, I asked him if he’d attended the local high school. "Yes," he replied. "When did you graduate?" I asked. He answered, "In 1967."
"Why, you were in my class!" I exclaimed. He looked at me closely and then asked, "What did you teach?"
Nothing like a good dose of perspective to keep us grounded in life. That’s true when things are going well and we’re tempted to think too much of ourselves. It’s also true when things aren’t going well and we’re tempted to become discouraged, and let our circumstances get the best of us. How Full Your Glass Is, Is Totally Up To You.
In the passage before us we see a contrast in perspectives. What a stark contrast between Joseph and his father, Jacob. What a difference in their worldviews. These two men illustrate a basic difference between people. Some get stuck in their problems, while others solve them. Some are so caught up by some immediate obstacle that they get stuck and don’t make it any further down the road. Others are able to see around and get through their obstacles. What’s the difference? It’s a matter of perspective. Your worldview determines what you see.
Most of us need a good dose of perspective. The kids are crying, the bills are due, the money is tight, the boss is grumpy, the gas is expensive, the weather is brutal, the politicians are fighting, the nations are warring, but in all of that…there’s something bigger going on. There’s something happening here, something that we’re a part of – God’s sovereign plan of grace. That’s the kind of perspective that does the heart good. I think that’s what the songwriter had in mind when she wrote, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”
For those who may be visiting today, we’ve been studying the amazing life of Joseph the Patriarch from the book of Genesis. Nearly 4000 years ago this 17-year-old boy was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery in a foreign land, and eventually thrown into prison. But God was there (as He always is), through His providence Joseph was not only released from prison but was actually made the ruler or Prime Minister of Egypt at the age of 30. When a long famine (which Joseph had personally prophesied based on Pharaoh’s dream) actually occurred, Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt seeking food. There they came into contact with Joseph, who recognized them, but they did not recognize him.
Joseph tested his brothers in a number of ways. Eventually he was satisfied that they had repented of their sin and were not the same evil-hearted men who had betrayed him, so he revealed himself to them and forgave them–more than 22 years after they had robbed him of his boyhood, his family, his country, and for all they knew, his very life.
Last Sunday, the sermon was on The Fundamentals of Forgiveness. If you were unable to be here, I want to encourage you to get a copy of that sermon. We who are a forgiven people must have a firm handle on forgiveness.
This morning though we come to the amazing story of the reunion of the entire family of Jacob. We see Joseph’s vertical perspective of faith that sustained him through those horrible years in slavery and prison, and then we see his father, Jacob’s, horizontal perspective of negativity, misery and doubt. Turn to again Genesis 45:16 (p. 35) as we work through How Full Your Glass Is, Is Totally Up To You.
1. A vertical perspective of looking at life through the eyes of faith encourages others to be generous. Spurgeon said, “Forgive and forget. When you bury a mad dog, don't leave his tail above the ground.”
Sometimes we forgive but we don’t really forget, do we? Joseph demonstrates total forgiveness in that he wants the entire family to move down to Egypt. It’s not just what Joseph does that surprises us, it’s also what Pharaoh does that’s noteworthy. “When the news reached Pharaoh’s palace that Joseph’s brothers had come, Pharaoh and all his officials were pleased. Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Tell your brothers, Do this: Load your animals and return to the land of Canaan, and bring your father and your families back to me. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you can enjoy the fat of the land. You are also directed to tell them, Do this: Take some carts from Egypt for your children and your wives, and get your father and come. Never mind about your belongings, because the best of all Egypt will be yours’” (vss. 16-20).
One idea finding great resistance regarding the relief effort in Haiti is that of bringing masses of Haitians to the US. There’s a legitimate concern about bringing more people into our country while we have double-digit unemployment in a sputtering economy.
Egypt is in the midst of a horrible famine. They’re having to break open the government barns to feed their own, yet Pharaoh generously encourages the immigration of an entire family and a lot more mouths to feed. Not only does he urge them to immigrate to Egypt, he urges them to leave all of their stuff behind.
The difference between Canaan and Egypt would have been like the difference between a 3rd world country and the United States today. If you were immigrating to the US from Haiti, it would be quite understandable if your sponsor said to you, “Bring only the clothes on your back,” because virtually nothing in those countries would be worth the cost of transporting it. Essentially, that’s what Pharaoh says to Jacob’s family. While it’s incredible that Joseph desires is to save his family rather than seek revenge, the icing on the cake is the confirmation of Joseph’s hospitality by Pharaoh himself. We need to ask, “Why?” I can think of only two reasons why Pharaoh would be so pleased to hear of the arrival of Joseph’s brothers.
a) Joseph’s graciousness is contagious. The first is obvious: Pharaoh had such great appreciation and respect for Joseph. Generosity breeds generosity. Joseph had saved Pharaoh’s kingdom and greatly enhanced his position in Egypt, so anything that pleased Joseph made Pharaoh happy. If we’re generous, those we’re generous to are often generous as well. When God is generous to us, He doesn’t expect us to hoard it but to share it.
b) Joseph’s graciousness protects even those who don’t deserve it. There’s another explanation for the generosity and joy of Pharaoh which is very instructive for us. It also helps us better understand why Joseph sent out his Egyptian servants when he revealed his identity to his brothers.
It seems very apparent that Joseph never informed Pharaoh of the injustice done to him by his brothers. While Joseph insisted to the butler and the baker of Pharaoh that he was innocent, he never revealed the guilt of his brothers. So while Joseph maintained his own innocence, he never exposed the guilt of his brothers or even of Potiphar’s wife. As a result, Pharaoh did not have to overcome any feelings of anger toward Joseph’s brothers, and could warmly welcome them as long-lost relatives who had finally found their way to their brother. Confidentiality about the sins of others makes their complete restoration a much easier process.
There’s a wonderful phrase tucked in the description of the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31, “The heart of her husband trusts in her” (v. 11). This is a family problem that Joseph keeps within the family. That should be true of our marriages, our families and even our church family. We hurt the cause of Christ when we share “family” information with those outside the family. If you trash talk other believers to the lost, why would the lost want to be part of the “family?”
I believe that Joseph’s spiritual maturity encouraged generosity on the part of a pagan king. And Pharaoh’s generosity extended far beyond even that which Joseph had indicated. The goodwill of both Joseph and Pharaoh were confirmed, so the sooner they returned to Canaan for their families and herds, the better.
2. A vertical perspective of looking at life through the eyes of faith encourages others to be peacemakers. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9). Verse 24 is an interesting verse. “Then Joseph sent his brothers away, and as they were leaving he said to them, ‘Don’t quarrel on the way’!” Joseph has discernment and understood human nature. He also knows his brothers. When we get things right with someone, we still tend to rehash things. We think of things that we wish we’d said or that they said…and we start having some second thoughts.
The brothers have a long journey home to think about what they are going to tell their father. When Joseph told his brothers to go home and tell their father, Jacob, that Joseph is alive and all of his riches in Egypt, it meant that they were going to have to come clean and admit to their father how they’d sold Joseph into slavery and deceived Jacob all these years. This could easily lead to some bickering on the way home, as they argued about whose idea it was and who was the most responsible. Joseph knew that they’d be tempted to play the “blame game.”
It’s vital that we take responsibility for our own guilt and responsibility, yet let the Lord work in the hearts of others. Our tendency though is blame shift, decreasing our culpability but increasing that of others.
Joseph also knew that they had a problem with envy. Benjamin, Joseph's full brother, had received five changes of clothes and 300 pieces of silver. The other brothers easily could have said, "This isn't fair.” Or, they could have pressured Benjamin into dividing his things among them.
Remember too that these men had become instantly rich. They went down to Egypt as starving shepherds, hoping to buy enough bread to survive the famine. They’re returning with wagon loads of provisions, dressed in the finest clothes of Egypt, with the promise of all they needed for the future.
Whenever people get rich quickly, they can easily become greedy, particularly when one gets more than another. Quarreling on the way home was a danger that could have resulted in their never returning to experience all that Joseph had to give them.
Though Joseph's admonition strikes us as humorous, there’s a warning here for us as brothers and sisters in the Lord. It's very easy to envy the possessions or the situation in life of other Christians who seem to have more than we have. It can lead to quarrels and block us from experiencing what God wants to give us.
My friend, Scott Ziegler, has always been a master at getting great deals. Currently, he’s driving a BMW. He’s had a few people though who’ve made some snide remarks because “a pastor is driving a BMW.” It’s jealousy. His Beemer is a 1999 and had 77,000 miles on it when he purchased it. It was a steal! Scott only paid $7000 for it. But people who paid a lot more for their cars were upset at him because of what he was driving, just because he was a preacher…and everyone knows that preachers aren’t supposed to drive nice cars, especially if it’s nicer than theirs.
Most of us feel sorry for those who have less but we struggle with envy at those who seem to have more. Joseph was seeking to protect his brothers from themselves.
3. A horizontal perspective of looking at life through the eyes of doubt causes us to be skeptical even in light of obvious blessing. “So they went up out of Egypt and came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan. They told him, ‘Joseph is still alive! In fact, he is ruler of all Egypt.’ Jacob was stunned; he did not believe them” (Gen. 45:25-26). Let me translate this scene into today. Last August the nation was transfixed with the case of Jaycee Lee Dugard who was reunited with her family after being abducted 18 years earlier. Imagine though parents whose child was abducted and presumed killed 25 years ago. They’ve been grieving their loss the entire time. Every birthday has been painful, every Christmas, every holiday. They grieved when his graduation date from high school passed, when his marriage would likely have occurred, when grandchildren should have been born. But then they get a call one day saying their child is not only alive but he’s the Vice President of Microsoft, with a wife and family of his own! Growing up in a foster home, he’d finally tracked down his birth parents and is sending his personal jet to fly them out for a reunion! They wouldn’t be able to eat, or sleep, and they would undoubtedly be saying over and over, “It’s too good to be true!” What takes place here obviously fulfilled what was a special revelation from God. Jacob knew of Joseph’s dreams from so many years before. While we can understand some level of skepticism and disbelief at first, this is full blown doubt.
Jacob, like so many of us, is a ready believer when it’s bad news. He has lowest form of faith. He’s the doubting Thomas of the Old Testament. He’s one of the “seeing is believing” crowd, “when he saw the carts Joseph had sent to carry him back, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. And Israel said, ‘I’m convinced! My son Joseph is still alive. I will go and see him before I die’” (vss. 27-28). Why was he so confirmed in his doubt?
a) Jacob doubted because it as was contrary to everything he had believed for the past 22 years. For years he’d thought, “Joseph is dead… Joseph is dead." The news, Joseph is alive, didn't fit into his grid. He’d programmed himself to think in a certain way, so he couldn't accept this contrary idea as true.
Many of us are like that when we see a Biblical truth. All our life we’ve believed a set of false propositions concerning God and the Bible. Then, we see truth in God’s Word, but we don’t believe it because we’ve believed differently for so long.
Do you think Christians are as worried about the economy as lost people? For the most part, yes! Why? Because we don’t really trust God’s promises to take care of us. That’s why so many Christians in the richest country in the world are some of the poorest givers. We really don’t believe that God will meet our needs. We also don’t believe that the treasures in Heaven are better than the treasures down here. There’s more of Jacob in most of us than we want to admit.
b) Jacob doubted because it sounded too good to be true. Joseph alive? That would have been the best thing Jacob could have imagined. But after all, this is the real world, not a fairy tale. Everyone doesn't live happily ever after in real life.
One area many believers struggle with is that of believing that God really forgives them. While they believe God forgives them when it comes to salvation, they struggle when it comes to a relationship. It’s just too good to be true that a holy God truly wants a healthy Father-child relationship with them. Part of that is due to the fact that so many of have never had that, so we file it in that artificial world of Leave it to Beaver or The Waltons.
c) Jacob's doubted because his tendency was to believe the bad news above the good news. Jacob, the perpetual pessimist, was more inclined to believe that all these things were against him than to believe that God was for him. When he sent his sons to Egypt, he was sure he’d never see any of them again. He was always looking for and believing the worst case scenario.
Jacob, no doubt, would have described himself as a realist. Nearly every realist that I’ve ever met is really a spiritual pessimist. Some of us are more inclined to pessimism than others. But pessimism isn't compatible with faith in our good God. We put up our umbrellas of gloom to block out His sunshine and then complain about how shady it is! Satan's original strategy with Eve was to get her to doubt the goodness of God. He still uses that ploy to keep many from experiencing all that God has for them. Friend, are you letting him do it to you?
There is a wonderful treasure here that we don’t want to overlook. Joseph prefigures Jesus Christ. Though the New Testament does not speak of this, it does with Isaac, “figuratively speaking, Abraham did receive Isaac back from death” (Heb 11:19). Jacob received Joseph back from the dead too. Joseph prefigures the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
4. A horizontal perspective of looking at life through the eyes of doubt causes us to only seek God’s face at times of crisis. Jacob determines to move the entire clan down to Egypt. Not an easy thing for a 130-year-old man to do! There was a famine in Canaan and his son Joseph had promised them the best of Egypt. Jacob desperately wanted to see Joseph, whom for 22 years, he’d thought was dead. Yet Jacob knew that his grandfather, Abraham, had gotten into trouble in Egypt. God had forbidden his father, Isaac, to go there during another famine. Jacob knew that God’s promise involved Canaan, not Egypt. So he stopped in Beersheba to seek the Lord and did not move on to Egypt until the Lord gave him a green light.
What Jacob does here is a great thing. He stops in Beersheba and “offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac” (46:1). Jacob seeks the Lord before he makes a major decision. Jacob is looking for guidance and does it through this act of consecration and worship. It’s important to understand that we can never know the will of God unless we are growing to know God Himself and have yielded ourselves totally to Him. That’s what Paul says in Romans 12:1-2, that by presenting our bodies to God as a living and holy sacrifice we’ll prove what the will of God is.
George Muller warned against rushing forward in self-will, thinking that you’re following God’s will. He said, “Seek to have no will of your own…so that you can honestly say, you are willing to do the will of God.”
Yet, as we study the life of Jacob, we discover that he primarily seeks God when he’s between a rock and a hard place. Prayer is like a spare tire for him. He runs to God when he’s out of other options. That’s what he did when his brother, Esau, was coming to meet him with 400 armed men.
That’s because Jacob has a second hand relationship with God. Look again at verse 1. It was his father’s God, not his. And Jacob doesn’t know the Word of God. This trip to Egypt had already been prophesied to his grandfather, Abraham (Gen. 15:13-16). Jacob has great anxiety because his knowledge of God and His Word are so limited.
Mark it down! We have victory over fear and anxiety in proportion to our knowledge of the Word of God. The choice is clear – either know the Word or know worry, but if you know the Word, there is “no” worry. You’re resting on the promises of God. In Hosea 4:6 God said, “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” Lack of knowing God’s Word brings despair and destruction in our lives.
5. A vertical perspective of looking at life through the eyes of faith motivates us to be respectful to those in authority. One consistent complaint often leveled against Christian employees who work for Christian employers is presumption—the expectation of special treatment because they’re members of the same spiritual family. They expect certain privileges, a higher salary, perks or other benefits, not because they’ve earned them or deserve them, but simply because they are members of the same church or serve the same Lord. We see none of that happening with Joseph, Genesis 46:28-34 (p. __).
Joseph does his homework. He doesn’t assume or just take it for granted. He knows a good spot but he gets Pharaoh’s approval first. He doesn’t take advantage or presume upon his superior, though he probably could have gotten away with it. He defers to Pharaoh.
Frank Goble, in his book, Excellence in Leadership, talks about this kind of character: “Excellent leaders have the ability to see things realistically. They are not easily deceived by others, nor do they practice self-deception.”
As believers, we’re to be submissive and respectful to those in authority over us, whether it’s an employer or the President of the United States. That’s not always easy. It demonstrates though that we take God’s Word seriously and we see ourselves honoring our Lord by honoring them.
Personally, I’m opposed to many of the policies of President Obama. I believe he’s wrong on both abortion and homosexuality. That though does not allow me to be disrespectful of him. He and I have totally different worldviews but he’s the still the leader that God has given me…and you.
6. A horizontal perspective of looking at life through the eyes of doubt sees retirement while there is still opportunity. Verse 30 is a very sad verse, “Israel said to Joseph, ‘Now I am ready to die, since I have seen for myself that you are still alive’.” While I can appreciate Jacob’s joy at finding his long lost son, he acts like this is his curtain call. Genesis 47:28 reveals that Jacob lives another seventeen years.
We despise selfishness in small children. We continually tell them, “Learn to share.” Somehow we find it too easy to excuse selfishness as we age. We still need to learn to share – ourselves. Our American culture has fed us a lie that we’ve done our time and now the world owes us. No, we owe God! And God has a retirement program but it’s out of this world!
We become like "Old Jimmy,"" an elderly gentleman George Mueller often told about. When this man was asked what he did all day since he’d retired, he replied, "I just sit and think, and sit and think…and sometimes I just sit!” That’s Jacob. It’s aging in the worst way – ceasing to live before we die. History records that many individuals made some of their greatest contributions to our world after the age of 65. The Earl of Halsburg was a spring chicken of 90 when he began preparing a 20-volume revision of English law. Goethe wrote Faust at 82. Galileo made his greatest discovery when he was 73. At 69 Hudson Taylor was still vigorously working on the mission field, opening up new territories in Indochina. And when Caleb was 85, he took the stronghold of the giants (Josh. 14:10-15).
God never intends for us to retire from spiritual activity. The Psalmist said that the righteous will “still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green” (Ps. 92:14). Even as Jesus kept the "best wine" for the last at the wedding in Cana (John 2:10), so He seeks to gather the most luscious clusters of the fruit of the Spirit from the fully ripened harvest of our lives.
Christian friend, like Jacob, you can be certain that God wouldn’t keep you on this earth if He didn’t have a worthwhile ministry for you to still accomplish. So keep on serving the Lord! No matter what our age God has not called us to be “pew potatoes,” we are to be Great Commission Christians.
7. A horizontal perspective of looking at life through the eyes of doubt causes us to be negative and a poor testimony to the lost. When I was a kid, my Dad would often embarrass me. If he didn’t get the service in a store that he thought that he was entitled to, he’d make a scene.
Let your imagination run for a moment. Picture someone that you really loved and now they’re gone. They’ve passed away. But somehow the miraculous has happened and you find out that, even after decades, that they’re still alive. Wouldn’t that make you so happy, so ecstatic…that to complain about anything, to say anything negative is inconceivable to you?
But look at Jacob before Pharaoh, Genesis 47:7-10 “Then Joseph brought his father Jacob in and presented him before Pharaoh. After Jacob blessed Pharaoh, Pharaoh asked him, ‘How old are you?’ And Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.’ Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from his presence.” Jacob has just been given the greatest gift a parent can be given – his child back. Yet, he says, “My years have been few and difficult.” It makes me want to stick my finger down my throat and retch. Not exactly a good testimony. In essence, Jacob tells Pharaoh that his life has been short and sour.
If it hadn’t been for the testimony of Joseph, Pharaoh would have thought very poorly of the God of Israel…and yet what Jacob said was true. Jacob was correct in his evaluation of his life. But most of the tough times were self-induced. There’s a significant difference between the suffering which Jacob alludes to and that which Joseph endured. Joseph’s suffering was undeserved; Jacob’s was not. Jacob suffered virtually every painful experience because of his willfulness and foolish choices. He deceived his brother, Esau. He chose to live near Shechem rather than go up to Bethel. He foolishly showed favoritism to Joseph. The suffering Jacob experienced was due almost entirely to his own sinful decisions and responses.
Jacob did not see the hand of God in his adversity, but Joseph did. Jacob became more fearful and protective, while Joseph was forgiving and eager to serve others, even at his own expense. In his adversity Joseph grew closer to God, while Jacob seemed to drift farther and farther away.
In this interview with Pharaoh all of these bitter experiences may have begun to come into focus. He’s wrong when he had concluded that “all these things are against me” (v. 36). It wasn’t things. It was him. He’d done a number on himself. Jacob’s answer reflects his lifelong pessimism, his lack of faith and his horizontal perspective. His pessimism with his own family has continually been a tragedy but now he’s a missionary of misery before a pagan king. What a tragedy! I wonder if Joseph blanched in shame.
Conclusion: As we tie this up, I want you to consider a critical question: What if Joseph had not been sold into slavery into Egypt? What if he had grown up with horizontally limited, doubting, pessimistic Jacob? Would Joseph have ever become, would he have ever matured into the man of God that he became if he’d been under Jacob’s continual influence? I don’t think so. Do you see where I’m going? Joseph was spiritually better off as a slave, than he was as a son.
Be honest in your own heart. Would your children be better off spiritually with or without your influence?
Maybe you’re here this morning and you’re children are now grown. It’s not too late. We’re going to see that with Jacob yet. The final chapter still has not been written. Confess where you’ve sinned and apologize to your children where you blew it. Then, seek to be a godly influence on them as adults and on your grandchildren.
As I was preparing this message, I stumbled on a powerful quote by Anne Franke on perspective. That little Jewish girl who died tragically in the Holocaust said, “I don’t think of all of the misery but of the beauty that still remains.”
Friend, what do you see? What’s your perspective on life? Are you like Jacob, seeing life horizontally through doubt and pessimistic eyes? Or, are you like Joseph seeing this life vertically, through the eyes of faith and trusting God? “And without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6).
God wants us to see this life through the eyes of faith! What do you see?
