Reunited (And It Feels So Good)

First, a brief comment. I recorded Pastor Fay's teaching this morning and am in the process of uploading it to the Trinity YouTube site, which can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/trinitydavenport. We'll see how this goes and what kind of interest there is, but it will give you an opportunity to view the teaching if you can't be present Sunday morning. In addition, we're going to start sharing the duty a bit from here on out on Sunday mornings, so look for the following to do the 20 minutes of teaching for the next month:

February 6th            David

February 13th          Pastor Fay

February 20th          Scott

February 27th          Scott

Today we read how Joseph finally revealed himself to his brothers and brought about a joyous reunion for him, and a potentially frightful one for his brothers. Think about it--a common business saying states that you meet the same people going up as going down, implying that you should always be courteous to those around you, since you'll never know when the day might come when you call them "Boss." That day of reckoning arrived for Joseph's brothers, and given what he's put them through up to this point (sending for Benjamin, accusing them of being spies, planting "stolen" goods on them, holding Simeon in prison), they certainly have a right to be wary, if not downright scared. Revenge is a dish best served cold, they say, and this dish has been waiting for quite some time.

But with all this preamble, we see that Joseph graciously lets them off the hook, with some of the most amazing words you'll ever read from a man sold into slavery: "...it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you." (45:5). I'm sure we're all equally gracious and forgiving to those who have done us wrong and understand God's divine will in our moments of distress. I'll just let that one hang on its own and breathe a bit...

So the brothers go home and tell Jacob. This isn't the last we'll see of Jacob, but it's getting close--think about all HE'S done in Genesis that was described by Pastor Fay today as "devious." He stole birthrights. He stole blessings. I won't say he stole goats from Laban, because God did the work there. He WRESTLED WITH GOD. He spent his life trying to get his way, and when he finally receives his most precious possession back, one he thought had been dead for years, how did he get it back? Through ABSOLUTELY NOTHING he did. It was God's will, and he was merely the lucky recipient. So, before we finish with Jacob and congratulate ourselves for not being like him, just how are we any different?  Nothing he did was able to return Joseph to him, and nothing we do will earn us salvation and an eternity in which we can ask Jacob at length just what the heck he was thinking at times. We're all the same--he just happened to be written about in the Bible.

Scott