The 4^th Sunday in Lent

March 14, 1999

Pastor: Wayne C. Eichstadt

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Hymns: 43, 427(1,3-5,7); 521; 353(1-3,6-7)

WELCOME in the name of our Almighty God Who has created us, preserves us, and in all things is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal glory.

Pre-Service meditation: Psalm 56

Pre-Service prayer:

Dear heavenly Father, thank You for Your preserving power in the earth and for my life’s needs. Teach me to see Your hand working for my benefit in all things, and when I cannot see it help me to walk by faith believing that You are still causing all things to work for my eternal glory. Be with us and bless us in our worship today. Amen.

Epistle Reading: Romans 8:28-32

As God’s Elect, we know that He is using evrything in this world to serve toward our eterna good. In eternity, God chose us to be His very own and now in tiem He has ruled earthly events so that we have heard the Gospel and have been called to faith by the Holy Spirit. God will continue to guide the thigns of the earth for the salvation and prservation of His children.

Gospel Reading: Luke 9:10-17

When a multitude of people gathered around Jesus, He spoke to them about their salvation. The people’s spiritual needs were Jesus’ first concern, but He also provided for their physical needs. The people’s sickness and hunger served toward God’s glory when Jesus miraculously healed them and fed them.

SERMON

INI

TEXT: Genesis 41:25-44; 50:19-20

25 Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, "The dreams of Pharaoh are one; God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do:26 "The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good heads are seven years; the dreams are one.27 "And the seven thin and ugly cows which came up after them are seven years, and the seven empty heads blighted by the east wind are seven years of famine.28 "This is the thing which I have spoken to Pharaoh. God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do.29 "Indeed seven years of great plenty will come throughout all the land of Egypt;30 "but after them seven years of famine will arise, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine will deplete the land.31 "So the plenty will not be known in the land because of the famine following, for it will be very severe.32 "And the dream was repeated to Pharaoh twice because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.33 "Now therefore, let Pharaoh select a discerning and wise man, and set him over the land of Egypt.34 "Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, to collect one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt in the seven plentiful years.35 "And let them gather all the food of those good years that are coming, and store up grain under the authority of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities.36 "Then that food shall be as a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which shall be in the land of Egypt, that the land may not perish during the famine."

37 So the advice was good in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of all his servants.38 And Pharaoh said to his servants, "Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the Spirit of God?"39 Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Inasmuch as God has shown you all this, there is no one as discerning and wise as you.40 "You shall be over my house, and all my people shall be ruled according to your word; only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you."41 And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt."42 Then Pharaoh took his signet ring off his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand; and he clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck.43 And he had him ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried out before him, "Bow the knee!" So he set him over all the land of Egypt.44 Pharaoh also said to Joseph, "I am Pharaoh, and without your consent no man may lift his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt."19 Joseph said to them, "Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God?20 "But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.

Dear fellow redeemed through Christ Jesus,

King Balak and his people were sick with fear. Balak, king of Moab, and his people were sick with fear because they could see the Children of Israel gathering around them. This nation that had come out of Egypt was great in number and made Moab very afraid as Israel began to settle in the land surrounding Moab.

King Balak’s solution to his fear was to hire Balaam to come and put a curse on Israel—to stop Israel before they could grow any stronger and threaten Moab any further. Balak chose Balaam because, he said, "...I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed" (Numbers 22:6). Balaam’s reputation had gone before him and Balak felt he would be hiring an effective man.

God told Balaam not to go. Balaam didn’t go at first, but when King Balak sent a second delegation to Balaam—this time with more important men and an offer of even greater rewards—then it was more than Balaam could refuse, so He went.

God appeared to Balaam along the way. Also along the way, God enabled Balaam’s donkey to speak, but that is another part of the story. As God appeared to Balaam on his way to Moab to curse Israel, God told Balaam, you go but you cannot and will not say anything beyond what I tell you to say.

All the money and all the reward that King Balak offered to Balaam could not buy a curse on Israel when God wanted to bless them. So it was, that when Balaam tried to curse Israel, a blessing is what God told him to speak. King Balak took Balaam to another place and told him, "try here, maybe it will work better this time" and again Balaam richly blessed the people of God. So Balak said, "let’s go to another place" and they went to a third place and there the same thing happened all over again. Balaam could not curse God’s people when God wanted to bless them.

God is in control of the world and everything in it. He continues to rule over the world to this very day—controlling it, guiding it for the benefit of His people, even if it doesn’t always seem that way to our limited point of view. God’s power, providence, and preservation in this world are a source of great relief for us as children of God. He is in control. So Christians take heart! WHAT GOD ORDAINS IS ALWAYS GOOD I. He uses natural means to show mercy. II. He uses evil deeds to accomplish good. III. He uses insignificant events to establish greatness.

I.

If we were secular historians and looking at the events of Egypt during Joseph’s days, we could look at that history and find nothing particularly miraculous. Famines happened all the time. Years of bumper crops happened all the time. So it happened that in this era King Pharaoh had the wisdom and foresight to gather the excess and store it just in case there would be a famine.

From the outset, this all looks very normal, very natural...and it was. God used the natural means of the earth, the common sense of storing an abundant harvest to prepare for the times when there would not be grain. It looks "natural" because God used natural means, but when we look at what really happened it is far more than just the natural means. We can see God’s hand working behind those natural means.

In our text we hear that God sent two dreams to Pharaoh—TWO dreams to make sure that it was fully impressed upon his heart and upon his mind: THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN! God has established it. IT WILL BE SO! and wisdom says to heed the Word of God.

God warned Pharaoh that the famine would come. God led Pharaoh to accept what Joseph gave as the interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams. God gave Joseph the wisdom to interpret those dreams. Yes, it was all very natural how Pharaoh appointed Joseph to be second-in-command and how the grain was gathered in and then distributed during the years of famine, but God was guiding and directing every part of it. Therefore, it was ultimately God who was accomplishing this salvation and not just random chance or coincidence and the forces of nature.

Just as we can see God’s hand weaving the thread of events through Joseph’s life and His preservation of the people during the famine, we can also see that as He does this it is something that comes purely out of His mercy.

God’s preservation of this earth—His providing the things we need—is nothing He owes us. He is our Creator but we rebelled against Him in our sin, and continue to rebel against Him whenever we sin. We are the rebels going against Him, breaking His commandments. Nevertheless, He provides for us richly and daily, not because He owes us, but purely out of His fatherly divine goodness and mercy.

God warned the people that the seven years of famine were coming, but that there would be seven good years before the famine, so they should collect the grain. Did God owe the people a warning before He sent the famine? No. His mercy gave them a warning so that they could prepare. Did God have to send a dream TWICE to Pharaoh to really impress the point? No, but He did because He knows how easily human beings doubt. He knows us...very well. He knew He needed to make the point if the sinners involved were going to receive the message. God sent a strong message of what was coming to awaken the people so that He could show His mercy by providing for their needs during those seven years of drought.

There are so many different options God could have taken. He could have given three years of plenty and seven years of famine so that there would have been greater hardship. He might not have sent the seven years of good at all. He could have justifiably sent the famine and wiped out the whole nation and He would still be the just and holy God that He is...but He didn’t. God preserved the people as a result of His mercy and His grace.

Each day God continues to show mercy in His preservation and providence in our world. In Psalm 145 we hear these words, "The eyes of all look expectantly to You and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing" (Psalm 145:15-16). God continues to open His hand and provide the things which the people and all creatures on earth need to survive.

In Matthew, Jesus says, "He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45). If we as believers redeemed in Christ don’t ultimately deserve His goodness and His providence, than neither does the heathen world which rejects its Savior. We are ALL naturally wicked in His sight. We do not deserve these things but yet day-by-day He sends the spring rains to produce the summer crops to produce the fall harvests. He sends the rain and the sun upon the evil and upon the good, the just and the unjust.

Out of His mercy God continues to sustain this earth. He promises that it will be so until the very end of time. After God had destroyed the earth with the flood, He told Noah and his family, "While the earth remains seedtime and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease" (Genesis 8:22). God gives us the assurance that He will continue to preserve and provide for this earth and all of its inhabitants, until He Himself destroys the earth on the Last Day.

God could provide for our needs through miracles, and He has often in the past, and He still does from time to time. Most often in our every day lives, God sees fit to provide for us through natural means. God uses this way of preservation not out of an inability to do it otherwise; rather, God uses natural means as the best way to awaken us to a realization of His goodness and to receive it with thanksgiving.

"He causes the grass to grow for the cattle and vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth" (Psalm 104:14). This is a very simple...very natural way of doing things, but we prefer the dramatic. We would in many ways rather have God thunder down food every day from heaven and drop it to us in a miraculous way. We want the dramatic. We want the spectacular. This is not unlike Naaman in the Old Testament when he went to the prophet of Israel to be healed from his leprosy. When Elisha told Naaman to go wash seven times in the Jordan River, Naaman was frustrated and angry. Naaman wanted something dramatic. He wanted that prophet to wave his hand over him and to heal him! To wash in the dirty Jordan river just wasn’t very exciting. We, like Naaman, want the exciting. We want the dramatic but God says "No, I will provide for you through the natural means and as I do this, don’t grow impatient. Don’t grow skeptical as to whether or not I am providing for you. Look! to see how I am doing the things you need through the everyday events in your life."

Consider just a few examples...

Someone who may have accumulated a great debt prays to God asking for His mercy to provide the blessings necessary to pay off that debt and to live debt-free. The human desire is going to be to want a quick fix: "God give me a windfall of money somehow so I can pay off this debt and get going with my life." God doesn’t always do it that way, and beside that, we might have our eyes so trained to look for the miracle and easy,sudden deliverance that we fail to see the step-by-step way in which He is solving our problem—regular raises, gifts and occasionally unexpected income. God uses natural means, but if we are so focused on the miraculous, we may not see what He is actually accomplishing.

Each of us has dreams...."If I only had__________ I would be ____________." God doesn’t necessarily say that He won’t fulfill our dreams. He will fulfill them according to His will, but it may not come instantly. I may have a dream and it may not come about for twenty years. Yet this doesn’t mean that God isn’t there providing for me and controlling all things.

One of the most overlooked ways in which God provides through natural means are the "preventions" – the preventative things which God accomplishes. In our prayers we usually ask for cures. "Help me in my sickness...help me out of my debt...help me find a job...." Whatever the problem is, we are looking for solutions to problems. God is already way ahead of us, because in His providence and through His control, He is taking steps to prevent things from happening to us. He prevents things that we may never know were headed our way.

Going to the doctor because we are sick may be a way God will work so that the doctors find trace evidence of a greater illness that would lead to a more threatening disease, but when caught early can be cured. In this way God PREVENTED a greater misery. Having a heart attack or stroke early in life looks as if God has maybe forgotten me, but if He uses that to provide a healthier life through medication and change in lifestyle, He is accomplishing PREVENTION.

These and many other examples demonstrate that God uses natural means, not only to solve our problems, but also to PREVENT those things that could become problems for us -- The accidents that don’t happen because He sends His angels and gives them charge over us (Psalm 91:11ff). The disasters that don’t come into our lives.

....and all of this He does out of MERCY. "Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed because His compassions fail not" (Lamentations 3:22-23). In our epistle reading, Paul wrote, "He who did not spare His Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall he not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).

II.

It is not only sometimes hard to see God’s providence because He uses natural means and we don’t always recognize those, it may also be difficult to see His providence because He uses the evil things in our lives to work for our good. As Joseph told his brothers, "Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive" (Genesis 50:19-20).

Joseph’s brothers—actually half-brothers—had done many against Joseph. His brothers hated him. They hated him very deeply. God sent dreams early in Joseph’s life which foretold that Joseph’s brothers would bow down to him. He told the dreams to his brothers and flaunted it before them so that they hated him all the more! His own brothers were going to kill him until one brother, Reuben, interceded and suggested throwing him into a pit instead. Later, while Reuben was gone, the other brothers sold Joseph into slavery.

Joseph’s own brothers sold him to a faraway land, to be a slave, to leave his father’s house never again to return (as far as they were concerned). In Egypt, Joseph became the head slave in his master, Potiphar’s, house. Then Potiphar’s wife wanted to commit adultery with Joseph. He refused and for doing the right thing, for following God’s will, Joseph found himself in prison.

In prison, Joseph became head of all the prisoners. He had the opportunity to tell the baker and the butler what their dreams meant and he asked the butler, "when you are restored to Pharaoh’s throne tell him about me so that I may be released from prison." The butler forgot and Joseph remained in prison. Then, at the opportune time, God caused the butler to remember Joseph.

When Pharaoh had his dreams, the butler remembered and told Pharaoh "[in prison] there was a young Hebrew man...and he interpreted our dreams to us" (Genesis 41:9ff). Pharaoh commanded that Joseph be brought to him and what happened next is what we read in our text—Joseph received the royal robes and signet ring, and became second in power only to Pharaoh himself.

All the evil that Joseph experienced in his life, God worked for good, not only for Joseph but also for all the people who ate from that food and thereby survived the famine.

God’s goal concerning Joseph was to get him into Egypt to be the #2 man in the Egyptian government during that 14 year period of plenty and famine. It was a long rough way which brought Joseph to that point, yet every step of the way was one piece of the puzzle which God used to bring Joseph to the right place at the right time to accomplish His will. Can you imagine any other way to get Joseph, a Hebrew boy, into such an influential position in the great nation of Egypt? God got him there...step by step, by using all the evil things that happened.

It is absolutely mind-boggling to consider how God controls all the pieces of this earth for the good of His people. Just this last week, I was sitting at a traffic light watching the traffic go by me at a busy time of day. All of the turn lanes, the green arrows and red arrows, etc. It was all very orderly with all the cars making their way accident free. A busy Mankato intersection is still nothing compared to traffic in a big city, and traffic is nothing compared to all the events and all the people and everything else that is in the world.

We might have a hard time keeping track of all the vehicles going through a 4-way intersection, but God is controlling ALL the pieces of the WHOLE earth, EVERYBODY’s life, EVERY event that takes place. Nor are there ever isolated events: What happens here affects what happens there and there are chain reactions all the way through. We know this to be true just from reading the newspaper and finding that what happens half a world away affects our lives here.

Everything hinges onto everything else and God controls it all! It is a huge jigsaw puzzle with millions of pieces and many of those pieces will fit in any number of different places. If you put a piece here then it won’t be available to use over there—God knows exactly where to put it, when to put it there, and how to order all things. He has the WHOLE picture, the whole design working for the good of His people. God gives us that wonderful promise from our epistle reading, "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God to those who are the called according to His purpose, for whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed…whom He predestined He also called, whom He called these He also justified; and whom He also justified, these He also glorified" (Romans 8:28).

The fact that God does use evil to accomplish good does not justify the evil. Judas betrayed Jesus. God used that to provide salvation for us, but of Judas, Jesus Himself said, "The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born" (Matthew 26:24).

The high priests and other Jewish leaders sentenced Jesus to death. That death is our salvation, but this does not justify their evil and wickedness.

Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and Esau did not follow God’s will perfectly. God said that Jacob, the younger, should receive the birthright and blessing. Isaac was still going to give it to Esau. Rebekah and Jacob conceived a way to trick Isaac into giving it to Jacob. Their scheme accomplished what God wanted, nevertheless the sin involved with their lying and trickery was not excused just because God used it for blessing.

David committed sin with Bathsheba. He later made her his wife and their son Solomon became King Solomon. Did God accomplish many good things through what started as evil with Bathsheba? He certainly did, but in no way does that justify David’s adultery or murder.

Neither should God’s promise lead us to spiritual laziness as if we could say, "God’s going to work it for good anyway so it doesn’t matter what I do." Such is not the attitude of God’s children God’s promise is not an excuse. It is not a justification for sin. He hates sin and He will bring judgment against it if it is left unforgiven. It, therefore, stands as an incredible mark of His grace that He takes our sins—the ones we commit, the evil things we do—and turns them into our eternal good.

When God uses evil for good it is not only for us. Sometimes we take a limited view and say, "I can’t figure out how-in-the-world God is using this for my good." God uses all things for ALL of His children. He may be allowing something to come into your life to accomplish something for another child of God whom you may not even know. We need to keep in mind the BIG PICTURE—God works ALL things together for good. How frustrating this must be to the Devil, but how wonderful for us who are the beneficiaries of the things He works.

III.

God’s providence and the things He ordains for good are often times seemingly insignificant. Joseph’s story and the preservation in Egypt is a rather significant story in the Bible history of Old Testament Israel, but in the big scheme of things how many people did it really save out of ALL the world’s population of ALL time? Well, in a very real way, God’s providence for food through Joseph gives YOU your life and offers it to every other sinner as well.

During the famine, if God had not provided food, Jacob and his sons and their families would have died. It was Jacob’s family from which God had promised the Savior from sin would descend. God’s goal was to get Joseph into Egypt to provide food during the famine so that Jacob’s family could be preserved alive. God did this so that Jacob’s family could grow into a great nation in Egypt and one day leave Egypt and return to the Promised Land from where they would one day be carried away captive, but then again return, after which the Savior would be born.

God’s plan, His goal, His working all things together for good, didn’t end when Joseph brought his family to Egypt where there was food. God kept right on going to provide us with salvation by fulfilling His promise of a Savior through Jacob’s family. God’s preservation of Jacob’s family was the preservation of our life eternally!

During this Lenten season we are considering the Passion history of Christ and it is the same thing—step by step God directed all the events: From Caesar decreeing that all the world should be counted so that Mary and Joseph would go to Bethlehem and Jesus would be born there ~ to Pontius Pilate giving the decree that Jesus should be crucified; From the moment that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb ~ to the time that Mary stood at the foot of the cross and watched her Son die. Throughout all the events of Jesus life, God was working greater, even more significant things than anybody could see, for through it all he was working your and my redemption.

Jesus’ life for us, death, and resurrection was made possible by God’s providence during the famine in Joseph’s time. Just as surely as He has done all things well to bring about Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross to redeem us, so surely He promises that He will continue to do all things well for us by guiding and governing the big and small, even the insignificant events of this earth and so doing will work a far greater glory for all who place their trust in Him—even through the evil we are called upon to endure. Paul writes, "For our light affliction which is but for a moment is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17).

It is impossible to fully understand or comprehend the way in which God rules over all things. It is just so incredible to think of all that He does for you...for me. When we ponder upon these things we are left with no other rightful response than to stand in awe of our gracious God, to marvel at His works and to shout out all of His praise with the greatest joy as Paul did in writing to the Romans: Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are all His judgments and His ways past finding out…for of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever! Amen!" (Romans 11:33,35).

—Pastor Wayne C. Eichstadt