God is > Your Broken Relationships

WELCOME
Pastor Chris Paavola:
It’s good to be with you. Turn to the person next to you and say, it’s good to be with you, fellas. I’m trying to help you out. It’s good to be with you. Yes, it’s good to be here today. We are nearing the end of this series that we’ve been in for almost nine weeks now. This is the penultimate week of this series that we’ve been called Greater Than Where we’re journeying along a life of this man named Joseph. And discovering as he does a life greater than we know with a God who’s greater than we know. And we have talked about how God is greater than your temptation. God is greater than your betrayal. God is greater than your dreams. And today we’re talking about how God is greater than your broken relationships because man, what happens today is a pretty wild story and we’ll get into it a little bit more.
You heard it in the kid’s message, but we’ll unpack it a little bit together in our time here this morning. But yeah, so Joseph, he was betrayed by these brothers a long time ago. They wanted to kill him, but they sold him into slavery so they can make a buck. And years past, decades past, and now 25, maybe 30 some years later, he is miraculously reunited with his brothers. And he has, the question just runs through his mind of should I reconcile with an ended relationship? Should I reconcile? I mean, he has a choice here in this moment as his brothers come to him, should I reconcile? And as we read this story, if we’re active readers, if you identify with the story at all, like you would any story, you immediately start asking yourself kind of the same question, should I reconcile a relationship that is ended?
And this gets really personal, really quick. Immediately our mind goes to a hard place of people who have hurt us and wronged us. And should we enter into relationship with them again, there’s a sense of guilt and wait, I thought Christians forgive. What should I be doing in this situation? And today’s story will actually help us answer that question. And I think you’ll find it surprisingly liberating and empowering. But we got to get into it. And I don’t tread lightly here. I know this is a hard topic. There’s a lot of pain when we talk about this. I even talk about the relationship that ended and your mind goes there and your shoulder muscles tense up, your breathing gets shortened. Your pulse starts racing as you think about this person. So, I don’t tread lightly, but I think again, God’s word has something that’s very helpful for us today.
So before we get into that, since this is a little bit of a more detailed topic, let’s go ahead and pray and then we’ll get into our time together.

PRAYER
Heavenly Father, first of all, good morning. It’s wonderful to just be in your house with your people. Even the breath in our lungs is a gift from you Lord. And so thank you for we take all these gifts for granted and we forget that they are given to us by your generous hands. So thank you for the breath in our lungs this morning. Father, I commit this time to you as we talk about this hard topic. Give us open hearts and open minds to consider what reconciliation means for us personally.
Speak to us by your word. And Lord, we just commit this time to you and your care trusting in you in the name of Jesus. Amen.

BACKSTORY
So yeah, you heard that Joseph’s brothers betrayed him and it’s this crazy story that follows, it’s not even rags to riches. I mean, he ends up in a dungeon. It’s like rats to riches as he eventually is in this palace with Pharaoh as the equivalent of the vice president of the whole Egyptian empire. He’s over all of their inventory, their grain, their commerce, their department of agriculture, the Federal Reserve. I mean he is over all of it, seven years of abundance and then seven years of famine. And when these years of famine happen, the world starts coming to Egypt for grain and so do his brothers. And we read about it in Genesis 42, starting in verse six.

So when Joseph’s brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. 7 As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them. “Where do you come from?” he asked.

… 8 Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him.

Genesis 42

Joseph was the governor of the land and the person who sold grain to all its people. “So when Joseph’s brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground.” This is the fulfillment of this prophecy. If you remember in week one, Joseph had these amazing technicolor dreams and one of the dreams was all these stars bowing down to him and then another dream, all these grains of wheat bowing down to him. And here’s this prophecy fulfilled here in this moment. “As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them”. So it catches him off guard. And his wildest dreams, pun intended, he did not expect this day the brothers would be there and it caught him off guard, but the brothers didn’t recognize him. And I think we hear that and we’re like, okay, really?

JOSEPH HIDES HIMSELF
1 They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come on us.”

22 Reuben replied, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood.”23 They did not realize that Joseph could understand them, since he was using an interpreter.

24 He turned away from them and began to weep, but then came back and spoke to them again. He had Simeon taken from them and bound before their eyes.

Genesis 42

You grow up with your brother for 18 years and you don’t see him for 25 years. You would recognize him if you saw him, right? And there’s a couple of things going on here that I think explain why they didn’t recognize him. First of all, it’s seeing somebody outside of where they actually are. You ever see your teacher at a grocery store and you’re like, what are you doing here? You don’t belong here. There’s a little bit of that. Or you see somebody at the grocery store that goes to St. Mark and you’re like, I think I know that person. And then you figure out later they go, but if you saw them here, it is just the right person in the wrong place. That kind of a thing. And then also we see that they’re bowed down, right? So there’s no, okay, yeah, you can go ahead.
Go ahead Brian. You’re fine. So there’s this makeup thing going on. We have an idea of what Egyptians look like from Steve Martin, king Tut to Ka Perry or Elizabeth, what’s her name? And Cleopatra Taylor. Thank you Elizabeth. Elizabeth Taylor, all the way to Brendan Frazier and the mum. We have an idea of what Egyptians look like and there’s some kind of a thing going on, and that’s kind of pop culture. We also have sculptures. We know it’s not just like an idea of Hollywood that dignitaries in Egypt would wear these elaborate head pieces that would cover part of their head and they would actually shave their heads because of lice and hygienic reasons. And then also if priests were serving the Pharaoh, they would be, or if you served in Pharaoh’s court, you would be purified as well. So Joseph Head is shaved and then he’s wearing some type of an elaborate head covering.
And the more the wealthier you were, the more elaborate your head covering would be like this elite social status kind of a thing. And so he’s wearing a head covering. And then also Egyptians would wear really heavy eye makeup, kind of like our athletes today will put black underneath their eye to prevent the reflection. But it also was a hygienic thing. It stalled infection and stuff like that. And it was made out of soot and river roots and stuff like that. And they would put it around their eye and then they would wear other makeup like to accentuate certain features. It was this very Egyptian thing to do. So here’s Joseph shaved head wearing a headdress, black eyeshadow on, and it would make sense that you don’t recognize them. And also when they’re talking, you don’t look directly into the eye of the Pharaoh or any of the dignitaries.
You’ve seen this reenacted in movies. You look to the ground while you speak to my Lord, we request grain from you. If you would open your generous hand to us, you would never look in his eyes directly. You show your submission, you look to the floor, you expose your neck for vulnerability to just show that they are superior to you and you recognize the power imbalance. So you’ve got them not seeing the right person in the wrong place. You’ve got them bowing down their heads and looking at the floor. And then Joseph is completely dressed in a different makeup. It would make sense that you wouldn’t recognize him. But again, Joseph recognizes them. And then right after that we see that he decides he’s going to put them all in custody for three days. So, he throws them in prison for three days after he questions them and accuses them of being spies.

19 If you are honest men, let one of your brothers stay here in prison, while the rest of you go and take grain back for your starving households. 20 But you must bring your youngest brother to me, so that your words may be verified and that you may not die.” This they proceeded

Genesis 42

And then in those three days, Joseph kind of puts together a plan of what he’s going to do in the short term. On the third day, Joseph said to them, “If you are honest, men, let one of your brothers stay here in prison while the rest of you go and take grain back for your starving households. But you must bring your youngest brother to me so that your words may be verified and that you may not die.” He wants, there’s nine brothers there. Missing is his youngest brother Benjamin, who has a special spot in his heart. And so he wants to make sure Benjamin’s alive and that they haven’t harmed Benjamin like they harmed him. And so he devises this plan, keeps Simeon in prison, sends the rest of them back to Israel to go get Benjamin and he’ll release Simeon when they prove that Benjamin is alive.
This is a whole plan he put together. But what’s super interesting is a couple of things that happen here. One, the brothers realized what is happening and they kind of had this sense of justice. Go to the next slide, please. His brothers said to one another. Surely we are being punished because of our brother Joseph. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen. That’s why this distress has come on us. And “Ruben replied, didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy but you wouldn’t listen now we must give an account for his blood.” I think this is so fascinating because you guys, there’s no Bible at this point. Moses hasn’t written a word of the Old Testaments. There’s no temple, there’s no synagogue, there’s no church, and yet there is this impending sense of justice hanging over them that there’s a God who created everything.
There’s a sense of right and a sense of wrong, and it’s written into our hearts because we’re made in his image and there’s this sense that the universe is bending towards justice. We’ve done wrong. What goes around comes around and vengeance, justice, retribution is going to come and they feel that. Joseph hears them saying this, and we hear about this in the next verse. Joseph hears them. They did not realize Joseph could understand them. They’re speaking Hebrew, he’s speaking Egyptian. Since he was using an interpreter, he turned away from them and began to weep. The pain is real, man. The people who mean the most also have the potential to hurt you the most. And he’s weeping decades later weeping for what was lost and he came back and he spoke to them again. He had Simeon taken from them and bound before their eyes.
And then take a look at this,

25 Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to put each man’s silver back in his sack, and to give them provisions for their journey. After this was done for them, 26 they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left.

Genesis 42

“Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain to put each man’s silver back in his sack and to give them provisions for their journey. After this was done for them, they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left.” Super fascinating.

JUSTICE, MERCY, GRACE
And I kind of want to stop here and just point out that there’s three things going on so far in this story, justice, mercy and grace. What’s the justice in this story that we just so far that you’ve just heard, these highlights that we’ve covered? What’s the justice?
They realize they’re wrong, but how was justice enacted? They went to prison for three days. Simeon’s still back in prison. There’s a sense of justice being done. You got to come back with Benjamin. Justice is being done. What’s mercy? And for a definition, this is my definition of mercy. I say it often. Mercy is not getting the bad you do deserve. So mercy has happened. How is mercy so far in this story? Where’s mercy? They’re released. They’re being released. That’s not mercy. That’s something else. They’re being released. They’re not imprisoned anymore. They’re being released. That’s mercy. They’re not getting the bad They do deserve what’s grace? And for a definition of grace, grace is different than mercy. Grace is getting the good you do not deserve. So mercy is not getting the bad you do deserve.
Grace is getting the good you don’t deserve. What’s grace in this story so far? There’s the grain. Yeah, now they got the grain and what else did he do? Give them back their silver and petty cash for their journey home. All three are going on in this story and all three are required for reconciliation to reconcile. You need justice to reconcile. You need mercy to reconcile. You need grace. And I’ve said this often, we talked about this last year. You can forgive someone without reconciling with them, but you cannot reconcile with someone without forgiving them. You can’t. You can forgive someone without reconciling, but you cannot reconcile without forgiveness. And for reconciliation, you need justice, mercy and grace, we’ll see this play out in the story, but just keep that in mind.

JOSEPH REVEALS HIMSELF
So, the brothers go back and you guys, that’s chapter 42. There’s 43 and 44.
You can read it on your own. It’s like watching the game versus watching the highlights, but there is a ton there. It’s kind of funny. There’s a ton of human dynamics. Chapter 43, chapter 44, and then in verse 45, finally all the brothers come back to Joseph and all the brothers are standing there and we read,

1 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.

3 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.

4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! 5 And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here… God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance…

10 You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me—you, your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all you have.

14 Then he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin embraced him, weeping. 15 And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterward his brothers talked with him.

Genesis 45

“Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendance. He cried out, have everyone leave my presence. So there was no one with Joseph and he made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly the Egyptians heard him and Pharaoh’s household heard about it. Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph, is my father still living? But his brothers were not able to answer him because they were terrified at his presence.” And he continues, check this out. “Then Joseph said to his brothers, come close to me. We’ll get to that in a second. And when they had done so, he said, I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here. God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives with a great deliverance.” And he continues, “You shall live in the region of Goshen” and we’ll get to this and why that matters in a minute “and be near me, you, your children, your grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all you have. The he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept and Benjamin embraced him weeping. And then he kissed all his brothers and wept over them.” We hear this, it’s a powerful story of reconciliation and we can’t help. If you’re an active reader of this, you can’t help but think about your own broken relationships, your own missing reconciliation and the pain that you feel, the tension that gives you.
I think what’s so interesting in this is that we never get the brother’s reactions. They’re kind of passive in this story. We don’t know their reaction.

3 QUESTIONS BEFORE RECONCILING AN ENDED RELATIONSHIP
And the other thing I think we can do when we read this story is while they were away in Israel getting their brother gone for months using their grain and then they returned back to Egypt, Joseph had time to think and he asked himself the same question we started our morning with, should I reconcile a relationship that ended? Joseph had a ton of options before him and while they were gone, he had a lot of time to think, should I, should I reconcile this relationship that has ended? And I think based on the story that we just heard, we can pull elements out. We can see there’s at least three things that Joseph was asking himself in the meantime.
And I think those questions are questions that we ask ourselves with our own broken or ended relationships. And so here are three questions that you should ask before just reconciling relationship that it ended, you feel guilty, you feel obligated. Hold on, let’s pause and ask these three questions based on the story of Joseph and then apply it to our own lives.

1) DO I WANT TO RETURN TO THIS RELATIONSHIP
And the first question is kind of the most obvious one is do I want to be in this relationship? Do I want to? Joseph is sitting there and all of these are going to be yes, no questions. And that is intentional so that you can dig deeper into your yes and no. But Joseph is thinking, well, do I want this? And there could be healthy reasons or unhealthy reasons. Joseph is like, I want to reconcile with my brothers while my father is still alive.
I want to give that gift to my father. And so he thinks, yes I do. You can ask this question and you could have very unhealthy reasons to get back into a relationship with someone. I want to reconcile this person because I feel guilty. I want to reconcile with this person. I like the way they make me feel. Or for all the single people in the room, I want to be in this relationship not because I want to be with them, but because I don’t want them to be with anyone else or I want to be with this person because of how it appears to other people. There’s a lot of unhealthy reasons to reconcile or it might be family’s important. That’s the first question. And it kind of leads to a why do you want to yes or no?

2) HAVE THEY DEMONSTRATED REMORSE
And then gives us a second question, do they have remorse?
And this is a really big question that you can ask. Again, this applies to siblings. This applies to friends or a spouse at a Coldplay concert. There is, it was too easy to, I mean, it happened this week and I’m like, but do they have remorse? Is there regrets? Now, this is a dangerous question. Joseph obviously sees that they have remorse. He heard them saying, this is happening to us because of what we did. I told you we shouldn’t have done this. He hears their ree, he hears them actually saying that. And for us, before you reconcile an ended relationship, remorse, repentance, penance is an important thing to think through because if they don’t have remorse, then that should put your guard up. Now again, I think this is delicate. This is nuanced. Sometimes I don’t think remorse is required. Sometimes I think it’s a matter of going, we disagree, but I’m willing to move on.
We got to bury the hatchet. It’s not worth the fight. There’s a scripture in Proverbs that says, it is good to be slow to anger. It is to one’s honor to overlook an offense. It is your honor, when you overlook an offense and there are times it’s just not worth it. After 20 years of marriage, I can tell you if Ashley demanded an apology every time I left the cupboards open, it would be exhausted. Sometimes it’s better for her to just go, I shut the cupboard. Or for me, if I demanded an apology every time Ashley interrupted because she has something to say, sometimes it’s not worth it. Sometimes it is. Sometimes you’ve got to address it because there’s harm being caused. There’s a fence, there’s a trespass there that you need to address. Sometimes it’s not worth it. But this is a really important question. Do they have remorse? And sometimes the pain that has been caused is not something you can overlook, and that’s okay. But if they don’t have remorse, if you haven’t mended the fence that’s broken, it’s going to happen again. So do they have remorse? Yes, or no? It’s a really interesting question that you then unpack.

3) WHAT ARE MY BOUNDARIES AND CAN I PROTECT THEM
And then that leads to a third question, and this is kind of gets to that section where he says, you guys will live in Goshen and I will live near you. That’s a separate region from where the capital is. Can I protect my boundaries? We had a whole series on boundaries. We talked about last year during the life of Jacob, this idea of boundaries. But very briefly, you have boundaries in your life. And when people trespass those boundaries, that’s where you have conflict Right now, it’s not enough for you to know what your boundaries are. You have to articulate it and speak it to the people who you are in relationship with. Otherwise, they don’t know their trespassing. You have to articulate this is a boundary. And here’s the consequence.
If you trespass that boundary earlier in his life, they trespassed that boundary. They threw him into a cistern and sold him into slavery. But things have changed. Now he has the protection of Egypt. Now he has his, quite literally the law behind him. They’re coming to live in his terms, in the land of Goshen. He has defined the new boundary and he believes that he can protect it. There is a consequence attached to what happens if they betray that boundary. And same thing in your life, do you have a boundary that you’ve articulated and can you protect it? And in some relationships where there’s been physical abuse or emotional abuse, your yes or no to this question is really important, as is kind of the deeper like why and how can I protect my boundary? But those are three questions, and if you can’t answer yes to those three questions, my friends, you shouldn’t reconcile yet there’s still work to be done, prayers to be prayed, things to think through, and you can forgive them without reconciling with them. But Joseph answered yes to all three of those questions and he reconciled with his brothers. I said just a few moments ago, I said that what’s so interesting is we never see how the brothers respond. I think it’s actually, I think perhaps intentional because when we read this story, you first think of how have I been offended? But then you start to think about offense that you’ve given maybe to others or to God.

JOSEPH AS A PICTURE OF GOD
Every week in this series we’ve talked about how Jesus, we can see Jesus in Joseph. Joseph is a picture of Jesus every week, every beat. In this story, we’ve seen how there is a prophecy or a shadow or a hint at who the Messiah would be every week. It’s been fascinating and this week is no different.

For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
​​​​​​​​​​​Romans 5:10

I don’t know if you knew this, but scripture describes us as God’s enemies. We sinned against him. We trespassed the boundary. He’s put in place. You’ve probably sinned on your way here and what you think, what you say, what you do, and what you failed to do. You don’t even meet your standards for you. You don’t even meet your standards for you, let alone God’s standards for you. You don’t. You have betrayed him. And scripture is very clear that we are his enemies. And what’s so wild, what’s so incredible about that is that God took it upon himself to reconcile with us while we were still enemies and we see justice, mercy and grace.
He enacts justice on his son. His son takes the punishment for our sins and dies on a cross. He acts mercy and he does not treat us as our sins deserve. He demonstrates grace by giving us life that we have not earned a righteousness that is not our own, that we might be reconciled with him. The Apostle Paul talks about this in two Corinthians chapter five. He says, God reconciled the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s trespasses sins against them. And he has committed to us this message of reconciliation. We are ambassadors for Christ. I stand before you this morning as an ambassador for God, as though God is making his appeal through me to you. I am implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
This morning is an opportunity for some of us in this room, for the first time ever to be reconciled with God. You’ve been carrying a guilt for decades. It’s hanging over you. And this morning you can be freed from your sin and be reconciled to God and experience mercy and grace. Feel your father’s embrace that has been estranged from you for so long. You can hear him weeping over you and see his tears as you reconcile with him. I’d be remiss if we went through this story and I didn’t give you an opportunity to be reconciled to God. So let’s pray.

PRAYER
Heavenly Father, we confess that we have sinned against you by what we think, what we say, what we do, and what we fail to do. And we need your forgiveness. You enacted justice by laying on your son, Jesus, our sins, and he paid the penalty for our trespass. You do not treat us as a to serve you. Offer us mercy and grace this day that we might be reconciled to you. I pray for any person in this room who has never been reconciled to you, God, in the silence of this moment, you would hear them say, I’m sorry, their remorse and the God you would show them by your Holy Spirit in this moment that you’ve reconciled with them through Jesus, their sins are forgiven, that they may enter into a relationship with you, a new relationship.

So God by your Holy Spirit, let them feel your embrace as you weep over them. A father reconciled with his estranged child. Thank you God for this moment. We pray now the prayer your son taught us to pray, saying together, our Father who arts in heaven, Hollywood be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And let us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.