Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - A Prime Minister’s Forgiveness

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

The story of Joseph tells us something awfully basic, and yet probably all of us will recognize that the problems in our lives are due to a lack of orientation to this thing that’s so basic. This story tells us God is a God both of truth and of love—equally, together. And what does he want for us? He wants us to forgive the way he forgave us. To see this, we need to look at the very end of a very long story that goes from Genesis 37 all the way to Genesis 50. This is the end of the story, and in many ways it looks back and recaps the rest of the story.  We’re going to ask two questions about the narrative: 1) Why did Joseph weep? 2) What did Joseph say? This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 28, 1997. Series: Pointers to Christ – Directional Signs in History. Scripture: Genesis 50:15-21. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. This month we're looking at directional signposts through history that point us to Christ. All through the Old Testament from Genesis to Jonah, you see signs that point us to Jesus. Listen now to today's teaching from Tim Keller on pointers to Christ. The passage on which the teaching is based this morning is Genesis chapter 50 verses 15 to 21 When Joseph's brothers saw that their father Jacob was dead They said What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?

So they sent word to Joseph saying, your father left these instructions before he died. This is what you are to say to Joseph. I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly. Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your Father and when their message came to him, Joseph wept. His brothers then came and threw themselves

down before him. Where are your slaves they said? But Joseph said to them, don't be afraid, am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then don't be afraid. I will provide for you and for your children. And he assured them and spoke kindly to them. This is God's Word. Now, this is probably the first sermon series ever based on a quote out of Matamazell magazine.

Because in the beginning of September my wife brought me something I referred to a couple of weeks ago, a great, very interesting article by Naomi Wolfen. Basically, her thesis was this. She says, you know, there is a lot more very educated, very savvy, supposedly secular, members of the cultural elite who are searching for God. Many more than most people would imagine. They're in the closet, she said, like she is,

but not now. But she said, what we're really after is basically, we want to know where is God and how do we know what he wants for us? See, where is God and how do we know what he wants me to do is what she said. And what we're doing each week is we're going to the Old Testament. Because in the Old Testament, we have got narratives. We've got stories that people have used for centuries,

have gone to for centuries to find out that very thing. What is God like and what does He want me to do? What is God like and what does He want me to do? Now, today we're gonna look at the story of Joseph, which in some ways is an extension of the story saw last week, the story of Jacob. And the story of Joseph, I'll tell you right here at the front, so nobody's in suspense. The story of Joseph tells us something awfully basic.

And yet, I just, probably everybody in this room, probably everyone, is going to recognize that problems in your life this morning are due to a lack of orientation to this thing that's so basic. This story tells us that God is a God both of truth and of love, equally, together, a God of truth and love. And what He wants for us, He wants us to forgive, the way He forgave us. Now, the best way to ask ourselves,

how do we get all that out of the story? What's the story about? If we take a look at this, this is the very end of a very long story that goes from Genesis 37 all the way to chapter 50. This is the very end of the story, and in many ways it looks back to the rest of the story. That's why I chose it, and it recaps the story.

And the best way for us to get to the nub of things is to ask two questions about the narrative. Why is Joseph weeping? Okay. Why did Joseph weep and then what did Joseph say? Why did Joseph weep and what did Joseph say? Now, the short answer, which you're not going to get, to the first question, why did Joseph weep, is because it's a lie. The commentators almost all say that one of the reasons the short answer of why Joseph was weeping is that the message

that the brothers sent to Joseph was a lie. That before Jacob died, he was dead now, and the other brothers were scared to death, that Joseph, now the father was dead, was going to slay them for, quote, all the wrongs they had done. And so they fabricated this story. And they said, Jacob, before he died,

he said, send this message to Joseph, don't you tear, touch your hair of my sons. Please don't do that. The chances that that's what Jacob would have done are very, very small. The commentators say that, no, not only does the text itself broadly hint, because it notice it says, in verse 16 it starts with the word so. You see, because they were scared, they sent this word. And not only that, and I wish I had time to go back into this, and I didn't have time

last week, Jacob was a very different man after he had wrestled with God. He limped. You know, I know the Bible says that when you meet God, you dance, It says in Psalm 30, it says, you have turned my morning into dancing. Of course, when you meet God, you dance. All the rest of your life after you've met God, you dance, but you also limp. And that means Joseph was humbled.

He had an insight that the brothers didn't have. And there's just no way in the world that Jacob, excuse me, Jacob had an insight that the rest of the brothers didn't have. And there's just no way in the world that Jacob, excuse me, Jacob had an insight that the rest of the brothers didn't have, that the rest of his sons didn't have. And Jacob had been changed. Jacob understood. Jacob had been living down there in Egypt with Joseph. Jacob did not harbor the same fear that Joseph actually was a vindictive man. Oh no. Jacob understood. Jacob knew the ways of God.

Jacob saw who Joseph was and what he had known about God. And therefore this is a concoction. And Joseph wept, why did he weep? Because ice was forming back over the hearts of his brothers, hearts, ice was forming over their hearts again, and it was the very thing that Joseph had spent so much time trying to heal. So much time trying to break. In other words, if you want to understand why Joseph's weeping, you've actually got to go back and answer the question, what were, as verse 15 said, all these things, all the wrongs. Let me tell you this story in brief. these things, all the wrongs. Let me tell you the story in brief. If you go all the way back to verse chapter 37,

you meet young Joseph 17 years old. And we're told that Jacob, because Joseph was born late in his life, Jacob loved Joseph the most. Jacob doded on Joseph, and he was the favorite, clearly the favorite. He telegraphed it to everybody. He's the favorite. And what it did was it poisoned the family.

Completely poisoned it. Because you can go back into chapter 37, verse four, let me read it, it says, and when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him. Poisoned them. But it also poisoned Joseph. Some of you know the story about Joseph's dream. Joseph had dreams in which he clearly was the ascendant one. There was a dream in which they were all out, all the brothers

were out in the field and they were binding up stocks of grain. And when they bound them up, he suddenly looked around, he saw that all the other stocks of grain of all of their brothers were bowing down to his. And then there's another dream he had in which the sun and the moon and 11 stars were bowing down to him, his star.

And so what did he do? Well, listen, did he go and ask for advice? Did he say, what did he mean? He knew what they meant. And so he went around telling everybody, why? He was an arrogant spoiled brat. He wasn't asking for advice.

He wasn't saying, gee, what does this mean? Maybe he did, you know, on the surface. Maybe that was what he feigned to be saying. But they knew, and we know from reading the story, there was a spoiled brat, he was arrogant, he was lording it over, he was pushing his brothers' nose into it, he was goding them, he was aggravating them, the whole family had been poisoned.

And then an interesting thing happened. The sons were sent out to take the sheep to graze because they were nomadic people. Jacob was the head of a tribe, and he sent out his sons to take the sheep to graze in Shechem. And Shechem wasn't very far away, and Shechem was also a populated area.

And so Jacob sent his son Joseph, who's usually stayed with him, to go check on his brothers, and then come on back and report. But it just so happened, just so happened, that the brothers had decided to move to Doathen to graze the sheep, which was much further away in a very remote area where there was no population. And it just so happened when Joseph got there and noticed they were gone, had no idea where they went, it just so happened he met a stranger in the field. And it just so happened that stranger had

overheard the brothers say they were going to dothon. And therefore all these just so happens because of two or three or four or five or six things all just happened to happen. Joseph went to see his brothers in a very remote place, very far away, and his brothers had murderous thoughts in their hearts, but under other circumstances there would have been no way to express that. But it just so happened that everything came together, and when they saw Joseph coming and they realized they were alone with him, and they realized that they could kill him, and no one would ever know how or why, or that had happened.

And they said, let's kill them. And they threw them into an empty system, a water system, and they decided they were going to leave them die there. And after they threw them in there and they said, you're going to die in there, they sat down to eat, even though he was crying out to God and to them to save him. Just imagine they sat down in eight. They sat down in eight. And it just so happened that a long was coming, Ishmaelites, they were traveling merchants and Judah, the ringleader, who had the hardest heart of all and the greatest ice on his heart said, why kill him and get nothing out of it other than the

satisfaction of the little rat's death? Let's get something for it. And so they sold him to the Ishmaelites in dislavery for 20 pieces of silver. Then they took the coat, which many people think was many colored, but probably the best translation was richly ornamented. Sorry. I don't know what that does to the musical.

But you know I just say, Andrew Lloyd Weber, study Hebrew. I don't know. What else could I say? But they took the code and they smeared it with goats, and they brought it back to their father. Most of this sermon by the way is coming to you courtesy of Derek Kidner, who wrote a great commentary on Genesis. And Kiddner points out something very interesting, and that is that when they brought the coat to the Father and the Father just was in despair. There's a coldness, they say, look, isn't this thy son's cloak? Not Joseph's, not our brothers, is this your son's.

Their hearts were that hard, they could sit down and eat while he was screaming out of the system. That he could watch their father tear his hair literally off of his scalp and follow the ground and feel no solidarity with Joseph anymore. He's not my brother, he's your son. Now, after that of course, and boy would be a great thing to talk about, but we can't go into it all, Joseph, though he sold as a teenage, foreign slave, and age of he rises up to a place of tremendous honor. It's a story of sexual integrity, it's a story of business integrity, it's a story of being a wise businessman in a pagan situation, is a very interesting story, but the key is

that because of his wisdom, because of his insight, and because of his incredible administrative acumen, he eventually became the vizier of Egypt. That's the Prime Minister. The Pharaoh raised him up and gave him basically the Prime Minister's job. It was sort of 10 downing street, you might say, because Joseph, because of his wisdom, because of his insight, got the royal ring, Pharaoh, the king, took off the ring and gave Joseph the authority, and gave Joseph the beautiful robe, interesting, and gave Joseph his daughter. So in other words, Joseph had the authority of the king and the beauty of the king, and he was in the family of the king.

And he ruled Egypt, and he saved Egypt, and the entire area from an absolute disaster. We know from archaeological evidence that when the Nile didn't flood properly, which is, you see, Egypt was just a very fertile, little strip between two deserts. When the Nile didn't flood properly, and also up in Palestine, there wasn't any rainfall, famines could be horrible.

We know of cannibalism happening several times in those regions because of droughts. And because of the famine, but because of droughts. And because of the famine, but because of Joseph's incredible insight and his wisdom from God, he had Egypt completely prepared with the storehouses filled with grain. And people's lies are being saved left and right.

And he had come to the place of power. And then in chapter 42, Jacob, and his whole group of people up in Palestine were starving to death. They heard about food in Egypt and they sent, Jacob sends his sons, not Benjamin, his youngest son, and the one that now was his favorite. But he sends his other sons to Egypt to get grain and they stand before Joseph, and they don't recognize Joseph because it's been 20 years, but he recognizes them.

What happens? And this is the thing, this is the reason, this is where Joseph starts to weep. Joseph begins to weep. Because when he first sees them, he starts to weep and he runs away, but he comes back and he hides it. And at this point, he puts them through two years of hell. The first thing he does is he says,

you're not brothers, what kind of story is that? You're spies, you're here to spy out the land, and then you're going to attack us. Oh no, oh Lord, they say. That's not true. We're not spies, we really are brothers. I mean, we're related. We're not soldiers.

We have a father, and we have one dead brother, and we have one young brother back at home with their father Joseph says Alive and throws them on to prison and that night who knows what they were thinking but the next morning Joseph opens up the Prison and says I'm a fair man. I'm gonna give you a chance to prove yourself You can have the food you can have grain so you won't starve. I'll send you back You can have the food, you can have grain, so you won't starve. I'll send you back. But I have to keep one of you, a hostage, and so he took Simeon, one of the brothers, put him in prison and said, do not come back, which means, of course, they'll starve if they

can't. Do not come back unless you bring that youngest son, that youngest brother of yours, that will prove that your story is true. So they go back and they talk to Jacob. And Jacob says, what? Never. Joseph is no more, he says, and now simm in is no more,

and now you wanna take Benjamin away from me? Says never. And for two years, he will not let Benjamin go. And somehow they survive for two years, two years. And the brothers are thinking about all this. And they wonder what it all means. Finally, they come to their father and said, we're gonna die.

We have to take Benjamin, we have to go back and get food. And Jacob, of course, in tremendous fear and anger, let's Benjamin go. Has no choice. And they come on back. And Joseph sees the Molly, sees the mall and he sees Benjamin and he's crying again. He runs away into his room, cries, washes his face and comes back and says, good, this proves you're telling the truth. I'll let Simeon out of prison and tomorrow

we will feast and the next day he feast them is huge feast at the royal table and afterwards they get their grain and they're on their way home and suddenly a messenger comes riding up. And the messenger says, someone stole our masters silver cup. Can you believe it? The nerve, the ingratitude from our feast,, someone stole our master's silver cup, and the sons, they all get up and they say, forget that, it's not us. And one of them says, if you find the cup in any of our sacks, let that one die and the rest of us be your slaves.

And so they start to go through all the sacks, and they get the Benjamin sacks, sack, and there is the cup. And what are we told? All the brothers, they tear their clothes, and they come back. And Joseph says, far be it for me to do what you had said. No, no, no, no. He says, you're not all going to be slaves. Just the one, just the one who stole it.

He is the slave. He stays here. The rest of you can go home. And at that point, Judah stands up. Remember the ringleader, the one with the coldest heart, and this is what Judah says. Now, you know, something has happened at this point that makes Judah make this speech. Derek Kidner in his commentary puts it incredibly well. It's tremendous it's tremendous narrative analysis. He says this. He says like the judgment of Solomon,

the sudden threat to Benjamin was a thrust to the heart, and in a moment the brothers stood revealed. All the conditions were present for another betrayal. At a far more compelling price, not silver, but their own liberty. And you see the incredible thing that's happened. One more time, their father is a favorite, who he loves more than any of the rest. And one more time, if they sell the boy to slavery,

they get something, but last time, all they got was 20 pieces of silver, this time, they're liberty. You see, they are in the same position they were 20 years ago. But there's been two years, something going on. And Judah stands up the ringleader, the one with the hardest heart before, and he says this, if the boy is not with us, when we go back, our father, whose life is bound up with the boy's life, when he sees that the boy is in there, He will die.

Now then, please let me remain here as my Lord slave in the place of the boy. Let the boy return. Do not let me see the misery that would come upon my Father." And at that point, Joseph looks around at all the others besides his brothers. He looks at everybody else in the court and he says, leave us. He screams, leave us. And as they're leaving, they hear Joseph weeping, aloud, so loud that everybody can hear it. When the doors are shut, he looks at them. And what do they expect? What do they expect? They expect to hear what they deserve

and what they knew they've deserved for years because slowly, slowly over these two years, they've come to realize they're being punished for what they've done. They, you see, the pit they had dug for Joseph, they were falling into now and they expect Joseph to come and say, now, back Joseph to come and say, now, you are condemned, but instead he says, it's me, it's Joseph. How's our Father doing? Now, I'll tell you what happened. Their kidner says something extremely important about that whole process, and then we're going to draw out the implications because they're vast.

He says, at first sight, the rough handling has the look of vengefulness. But nothing could be more natural, yet nothing further from the truth. Behind the harsh pose was a deep, almost uncontrollable affection. As you can see in Joseph's continual weeping, running out to cry in his room in every chapter. And after the ordeal is over, there is overwhelming kindness. Of indicative Joseph would have sent home worthless sacrilege of grain, or taunted them at his feast as they had years ago done to him at theirs. No, his enigmatic gifts were a kinder

and more searching testless. Just how well Judge was his policy can be seen in the growth of these new attitudes because as the alternative sun and frost broke them open to God, they changed. As the alternative sun and frost broke them open to God, they changed. What do we see?

And the end, Judah says not what he originally said, the kid's life so that I could profit, but my life so the boy can go free. Judah completely changed in his character. He was totally turned around. And at that point, just as good say, it's me. One of the biggest obstacles for people to believe in Christianity is that they think they already know all about it. But if we look at Jesus' encounters with various people during his life, we'll find some of our assumptions challenged.

We see him meeting people at the point of their big unspoken questions. The Gospels are full of encounters that made a profound impact on those who spoke with Jesus. And in his book Encounters with Jesus, Tim Keller explores how these encounters can still address our questions and doubts today. Encounters with Jesus is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in life reach more people with the amazing love of Christ. Request your copy of Encounters with Jesus today when you give at gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. What do we learn here? I'll tell you what we learn. All the important things you have to know in order to understand the meaning of life.

Okay? Pretty important story. That's why I told it. Number one, God is a God of truth and love. God is a God of truth and love. Derek Kiddner, I think, absolutely is right in saying that what Joseph is showing us here is actually the way in which God treats us all. Think for a minute. If Joseph had only acted in truth, what would he've done? There wouldn't have been this long drawn out process.

There wouldn't have been at all. In the first time he saw his brothers again, what would he have done? If he was just a person of truth, he would have said, not you're going to get it. Or if he was just a person of love, he would again would have just said, hey, it's me, Joseph, and let's bygones be bygones.

But he didn't do either. And do you realize how much harder that is? For everybody, if Joseph had just said, now you're going to get it, Joseph would never have wept. Do you hear me? Never have wept. And actually, in some ways, it would have been easier on the guys too.

Why is your on the guys? Oh, we're about to be beheaded. Oh, well, okay, easy. What if Joseph was a person of truth only? What if he'd come after them, pardon me, I just said that, with love only, what if he'd only come after him with love only? And so, hey, it's me, Joseph.

Well, let's buy Gonsby, buy Gons, hey, look what I've got. I have to be worried about you. Don't worry about that. Hey, you haven't taken anything off my nose. It kind of worked out good. See you later. You know, again, if he was only a person of love,

no weeping for him and no weeping for them. And if he was only a person of truth, no weeping for him but no weeping for them. But because he was the person of truth and love, he was weeping all the time. And they were weeping all the time. But if he hadn't done truth and love, there would have been no redemption.

There had been no change. There had, would have been no conversion of character. No, nothing. You can see this in regular families. In a typical human family, here's what happens. A kid, lies or steals, okay? Something like that. And when you, now there's a couple things you can do. You can just be a person of truth, in which case you just sort of take revenge. You embarrassed me, I'm just going to smack you, just like this. Or you can be a person of love, a parent

of love, and just say, well honey, you know, do better next time. In neither case will there ever be change. It would be the way, but'll tell you something both of them are far easier. No tears You know you can just you can just be a judge no tears on your part Maybe not even on this part because the kid isn't gonna cry so much as hate Or on the other hand you can just say hey, well, you know Honey just do better later and that's really what most modern parents do. And why? We don't want tears.

We don't want the kid to glare at you and say, cruel mother, cruel father. We can't stand it. Don't you see, therefore, if you're only truth or only love no tears and no transformation and no character change and no conversion, and it's the worst possible thing for the child, the child's ruined. And eventually your life will be ruined too.

But what you have is, there is no other religion with a weeping God. None. You know that incredible line that occasionally I bring out, you know, other gods, by Edward Shalido. Other gods did ride, saying to Jesus, you stumbled to the throne.

To our wounds, your wounds speak, and no God has wounds but that alone. Listen, God is the only God of all the God religious, all the religious, the word Buddhist Hindu Islam. They don't know of weeping gods. Why? Because they're gods either of just complete truth or love. Now I'm not going to get into that. But here you've got a god, Joseph points us to, who does both.

And as a result result there is transformation. Secondly, so this God is a God of truth and love. Secondly, this is a God who deals in a very difficult way since tough times into our lives not because he doesn't forgive but because he does. See, Joseph again is pointing us to God. Joseph is tough on his brothers, not because he doesn't forgive them, but because he does. And God is tough on us sometimes, not because he doesn't forgive us, but because he does. You see, look, Jerichoigner said, if Joseph was really vindictive, he would have not done the things he'd done.

When you first read the story, you start to say he's toying with them. He's gonna forgive them someday, but for awhile he's gonna make them squirm, no. No, no, no, you're not reading the narrative well. Kiddner is right. This is no tit for tat. It's no tit for tat at all.

He doesn't taunt them at the feast, he feasts them. He doesn't send, I mean, there's all sorts of things, he's like, no, the fact of the matter is he has forgiven them before they were repenting. He has forgiven them for their word go otherwise. He wouldn't have put himself through all this excruciatingness. It's because God graciously accepts us that He deals with us so harshly, not the other way around. I know that when difficulties come into your life, you say, well, if God forgives me, why wouldn't He do this?

You know, why would He do all this thing? Why would He let all this happen to me? Here's a simple answer. Think of an employer and boss. Think of a mother and child. The employees with a boss. Think of a mother and child. The employees with the boss. How long will the boss let an employee break the rules over and over and over? After a while, you'll forgive them, you'll forgive them, the boss will forgive and after a while, you said that's it.

You know, you've got to straighten up where I can't keep forgiving you. But look at a mother and a child. You've got four children. One of them starts to break the rules. You don't love their child less. You actually love them more. You're more concerned. You get more absorbed. You look at the child. You pray more for the child. You know, your heart goes out. Why? Because you see the relationship between the mother and the child, when the child acts up, the mother automatically, automatically. There's a forgiveness and there's a love and there's a commitment underneath

that is not based on performance. And it's because we believe that God saves us by grace, that we believe sometimes he can put us through two years of Frost and Sun. Why? To break us open. The reason that Joseph puts his brothers through all that is not in order to forgive them,

because he hasn't forgiven them, because he has. If he hadn't forgiven them, he never would have put himself through that or them. Never. So first of all, we have a God of love and truth. Secondly, because we have a God of love and truth, he puts us through things, not because he hasn't forgiven, because he does.

Thirdly, okay? Thirdly, God is not, Joseph is not trying to just sort of soften their hearts in general. He's trying to get them to become like him. And what's so amazing is that Hajuda becomes the same pattern that Joseph have become. And what is the pattern? If you go through the Bible and you look through the Bible, you will see that there's a pattern

to the livers. You can see it in Moses, you can see it in Joseph, you can see it all over the place, you can see it in a little slave girl in the name and story. The pattern of saviors and the pattern of delivers in the Bible is that the very people that the deliverer is sent to is not only rejected by the people, but saved through the rejection. Joseph saved his family, not in spite of the rejection only, but through it. If they hadn't sold him into slavery, if they hadn't tried to kill him, if all those things hadn't happened, they'd be dead now. And Joseph knows it. But Joseph didn't become a savior simply by being sold into slavery. He became a savior because in that slavery, he died to his own liberty and died to vengefulness and forgave

them so that when you see, if he was a bitter person, he never would have come up to the place where he was the prime minister, and not only that. He wouldn't have been in a position to bring them into this incredible character transformation when he finally met them. Do you remember the story of the little slave girl in Naaman? Do you? We talked about this a year ago. Naaman was a Syrian general and he had a little slave girl.

He had ruined her life. He had captured her and she was now a servant of his. And when he got leprosy, instead of her sitting on her bed and saying, finally, the old goat is going to fall apart. Instead, she says, if only my master would go to the prophet in Israel. And because of her advice, he goes and he meets God. And what's so interesting is, three thousand years ago, this little girl was sitting on her bed and she could have become vengeful

in all of her suffering or she could have become forgiving. And because she became forgiving, she was an instrument of redemption in his life. And not only that, she became someone so great that you and I are sitting here now, 3,000 years later talking about her. She had no idea about that. All she did was see, what did she do? She put herself in God's hands. And she became a deliverer, a mini-deliverer, okay?

A micro-deliverer, a human-scale deliverer, but a deliverer, just like Joseph. And what happened when Joseph, what was Joseph trying to do in Judah? Was he just trying to get Judah to say, I'm sorry? No. They were actually sorry a long time ago. If you read the passage, if you read the narrative close enough, they were sorry almost from the beginning. He wasn't just trying to get them to be sorry.

Joseph was trying to turn Judah into a deliverer himself to get Joseph's Judah to the place where he was saying, not the way of the world, which is your life for mine, but the way of the cross, the way of God, which is to say, my life for yours. And it wasn't until Joseph turned Judah into a little Joseph that he knew Judah really had been broken open to God. And do you see what's going on here?

I'll tell you what's going on here. Joseph doesn't just point to God in general, love and truth for giving us and trying to turn us, but Joseph points to Jesus in particular because all the deliverers, even a little slave girl, and Joseph all point to the ultimate. There was one who in the depths of heaven, many, many, many years ago, saw his father's weeping

over people that were lost, and he said, Father, I will be sold into slavery, I will give up my freedom so that they can become free. And the father said, go, it's Jesus. And when He was on the cross, you see, it wasn't enough just that He was born into this situation. It wasn't enough to see He went into the dungeon of human life, but when He was on the cross, He said, what?

Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. And because God is a God of truth and love, he had a weep and that's the reason why Jesus had a die. Just truth, if God had come down as a judge, no tears and no transformation. And if God had actually just come down as a love, but you see, God, truth of that love isn't really truth and love without truth isn't really love. And as a result, there had to be a true Joseph, Jesus, who deals with us the way he deals with us, not because he hasn't forgiven us, but because he has, and who wants to recreate the life of God in us.

And he will not let you go anymore than Joseph wouldn't let you to go until you begin to act like a mini-rendiemer, like a deliverer, and only then we would be free. Now here's the last thing we learn. The last thing we learn about from this is that they backslid. And what's so interesting here is Joseph is weeping not just simply because he points us to a God of truth and love, not just because he's working on their heart because he has forgiven them, not just because he's trying to recreate the pattern of redemption in their

lives, but he's weeping because, after all this, they've forgotten who he is and what he's done. And listen, Christian friends, when you become a Christian, you're in the same boat. You may say, I know that Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the power, just like Joseph. And that I know that the reason that we're here in Egypt is not because the Pharaoh loves me,

but because Pharaoh loves Joseph, and now because we're related to Joseph, we live here. Because, see, Joseph is not just a picture of Jesus Christ in his humiliation, but in his exaltation as the high priest at the right hand of God through whom. We now have utter confidence that we can live at the foot of the king. But you see what happens is we continually forget that. You say you're a Christian, you say you understand that we're not saved by my performance, but because of my relationship with Christ, and yet you start to worry. And what happens is Jesus weeps, like Joseph weeps, when you begin to act like that because

what you're really saying is I don't know that I'm forgiven. But what will happen if you go? Notice, these guys have made progress because this time, even though Joseph weeps, they come together and Joseph doesn't put them through another two years, he's direct. And he says, let me recap. And what's that great last verse? It says, he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

And all of us have got to go continually back to our Savior at the right hand of God and continually get reassured, He assured them. We need that constantly. Now, the only other thing we're supposed to look at, but I have to do it rather briefly, is what Joseph says is he shows them how he got a chance to forgive them. How did he forgive them? I'll show you just briefly, because you see only if you understand who you are in Christ, can you turn around and forgive. But here, if you want to know, if you're having a little struggle with forgiving, here's

how it's done. The first thing he says, let's just go down the quick list. The first thing he says is, don't be afraid, why not? First of all, am I in the place of God? Joseph had the spiritual poverty enough to forgive. Here's what I mean by that. If you are having trouble forgiving, you're forgetting that you're a sinner too.

Job says, the only way I could stay mad at you is if I considered myself worthy to be your judge. Am I in the place of God? This is a frightening thing, but what it's saying is anyone today who is bitter has said, I'm in the place of God. I have the right, you owe me, and see what is what is Joseph saying. Joseph remembers what a snot he was. Joseph remembers what an arrogant thing he was. Joseph remembers what an arrogant thing he was. Joseph remembers how he got his brothers into their sin. He remembers all that, but God forgave him,

but God came and did all these things for him. He says, am I in the place of God? I'm a sinner, I need grace. How dare I not forgive you. So he had enough spiritual poverty in order to forgive. And the other thing he had was he had enough spiritual wealth. He says, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good. And this is a great thing because what he's saying here is, on the one hand, he's been humbled enough by God to forgive. And you have to be very humbled. And if you

can't forgive, you need to humble yourself. You need to realize what things you've done wrong and how much you owe it to God. You know that place, you know that place where Jesus says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. He's not saying that God won't forgive you unless you forgive others. He's not saying that he won't forgive you because you forgive others. What he's saying is if you do not know how to repent, you won't be asking for forgiveness. He ties our humility and our willingness to repent to forgive others, to our ability to repent before God. Do you see that? When he says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

If you don't forgive other people, that shows that you are proud and you are not in a repenting position toward God. You can't see that you need to repent and hold a grudge at the same time. Am I in the place of God, but on the other hand, he says, you men for evil, God men for good. He has an emotional wealth as well as a poverty. You also have to have no this. You have to know, and there's actually two aspects.

First of all, he says, even though what you did was evil. Do you see that? He doesn't say, well, it wasn't so bad. He says, what you did was evil, evil, he admits it. But he says, I realize that in spite of the fact that what you did was evil, I have a God who's working all things out for my good. And unless you know that, and unless you recognize that because,

because God is a God of grace, He is working all things out for good for you. It's gonna be very, very difficult. You, to forgive others, you need an emotional wealth. And that's what He's suggesting. Then lastly, He says, therefore, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children,

and he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. And at that point, what is he telling us? He says, if you're having trouble forgiving, first of all, number one, remember your poverty. Remember your poverty that you owe God, that he's forgiven you. Number two, remember your wealth. And that is if you're a Christian,

God has given you everything that you need. And he will continue to do that. In the garden, Jesus Christ knew he was betrayed by human beings, but he saw the cup as from God. And he knew therefore that God was working redemptively in it. In spite of all the nasty things Judas was doing to him, and all the Romans and all the leaders,

the religious leaders, Jesus because he saw things from God and God working redemptively was not able not to be bitter. But then lastly, he repays evil with good. Joseph says, I am not going to treat you in an evil way. I'm not going to think ill of you. I'm not going to speak ill of you. I'm not going to think ill of you. I'm not going to speak ill of you. I'm not going to do ill to you. And forgiveness is granted before it's felt in human terms.

When you forgive somebody, you're not saying, all my anger's gone. What you're saying when you forgive is, I'm not going to treat you the way God treated me. I remember your sins no more. That doesn't mean I can't actually recall them. I'm not going to act on the basis of them. They're not the controlling reality in my life.

What is the controlling reality? The grace of God and the way in which out of love he controls all things. Who is God? He's a God of truth and love. No other God is like that. He is a God who weeps and therefore Jesus Christ had it come.

No other God is like that. And he's a God who weeps and therefore Jesus Christ had it come. No other God is like that. And he's a God who says, if you understand that, you can be like my son. Many redeemers, micro redeemers, filled with this astounding confidence and poverty that will enable you to go out and through grace change other people into his likeness. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would teach us how to not only recognize who you are, but become like your son. We ask that you would, if necessary, show us through alternating, frost and sun, how we need to be broken open for you. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. If you were encouraged by today's teaching,

please rate and review it so more people can discover this podcast and thanks for listening. This month's sermons were recorded in 1997 and 2017. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life Podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.