Good morning! It’s so good to be back with you this morning, back in worship with our “family.” We had a wonderful vacation, pretty local actually. We had quite a bit of time on Whidbey Island, shipped Jesse and Nick off to college (we thought that the second one might be easier – it wasn’t), went to our 30th high school reunion.

I also logged a lot of running miles in August. Most of you know I’ve signed up to run a marathon in October, so I was training for that. I did have a moment of hoping you weren’t worrying about me, though. The Seattle Times ran a little article in mid-August about a pastor in Frederick, Colorado…who was arrested because he was taking a pre-sunrise jog in the nude! The pastor said “I’m a heavy man, and wearing clothing while I run makes me sweat profusely.” I just want you to know, I was nowhere near Frederick, Colorado!

I’m very grateful to our wonderful staff and elders at Bethany, who covered me in any number of ways while I was gone, and for Jeff Van Duzer, Todd Holdridge and Mike Purdy who carried the preaching responsibilities so well. What fun to be in ministry with such gifted folks.

Well. Sunday, April 22nd, 2007. It was 4 ½ months ago that we started reading together the stories of Genesis chapters 12-50. 18 weeks ago. “Scoundrels, Doubters and Saints,” we called it, mainly because we anticipated finding all of those characters in these pages and we haven’t been disappointed.

Today we will finish, by looking into Genesis chapter 50, the last installment of the story of Joseph, as well as the last chapter of Genesis. Here’s just a few sentences of background to help set the context.

We’ve been walking with Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Jacob. Jacob has just died, and Joseph, who has risen to be second in command of all of Egypt, mourns for his father. Joseph leads his eleven brothers and a huge entourage of the Egyptian court out of Egypt and up to Canaan to bury Jacob according to his wishes. Then Joseph and his brothers return to their lives in Egypt.

Our sermon text this morning starts at that point.

What a story this has been. Wow. The American novelist John Gardner once said every good story has one of two plots: either a stranger came to town, or someone went on a journey. If he was right, then this really is a good story. There have been a lot of strangers in town, and almost the whole story has been a journey! We’ve had 18 weeks to read it, hear it, consider it. Whose story is this? And How does the story end? Those are the two questions I’d invite you to keep in mind this morning.

Whose story is it?

How does it end?

On the one hand, clearly this is the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the patriarchs of Israel. It’s their story, or stories. The passages read earlier from the New Testament book of Hebrews highlighted this. Abraham, the one who left home because God said it was time to go. The one God made the promise to:

• land
• family
• blessing the whole earth

...even when none of those things seemed possible. It’s Abraham’s story.

And it’s his son Isaac’s story. Isaac, the one who was nearly sacrificed by his own father. That incident that required a kind of faith, a kind of trust that the philosopher Kierkegaard called “absurd.”

It’s Isaac’s story. And the story also belongs to Isaac’s shifty son Jacob, who right up until the end seemed unable to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. was always looking to cover his own tracks. And Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Leah, and others…the wives, children, uncles, families. It’s Abraham’s, Isaac’s and Jacob’s story. Right?

On the other hand, as we come to the end of Genesis, we come to the end of the story of Joseph, one of Jacob’s sons. For 13 chapters now, this has been Joseph’s story. And here is this fascinating finale.

Remember how it started? Way back in chapter 37, with Joseph telling his brothers about the dreams he had in which all of them bowed down to him. And how they were infuriated, sold him into slavery and told people he had died. And now, here, years later they’ve been reunited, live near each other, mourn together at their father’s death.

But as they all return from their father’s funeral, Joseph’s brothers are still not sure he has forgiven them, are afraid that now that their father is gone Joseph will finally take his revenge. So they send word to Joseph (the NRSV doesn’t do it justice, it says they “approached” him…no they, sent word to Joseph). Like us when we don’t want to deal with someone face to face, they sent an email!

The message is auspiciously from their now dead father, asking for Joseph’s full and complete forgiveness of his brothers. And what’s more important, the brothers themselves ask for that forgiveness. They wept over what they had done, and they – amazing irony here - bowed down to Joseph…just like in his dreams from so long ago!

And really, in one of the most profound moments in the Old Testament, and surely one of the finer moments in the life of any human being, Joseph looks at them, also weeping, and says as though with the voice of God: “Don’t be afraid.” Over 400+ times in the Bible, God needs to reassure his people and say to them “Don’t be afraid.”

Joseph speaks that healing word to his brothers who have lived for many years with this gnawing fear inside of them, afraid that the years they had stolen from their brother’s life would be required of them later. But here, when Joseph is finally in position to get retribution, he speaks those God words: “Don’t be afraid.”

Joseph then repeats, essentially, what he had told them back when they were first reunited: “Yes, I know that you were doing evil to me, but God intended it for good, to save many people. To save life.”

Now, Joseph was referring to his rise as Egypt’s steward, his strategy of preparation for famine and the many people and even whole nations that survived the famine because of his visionary stockpiling of food.

God used Joseph to save people. Literally, physically from starvation. But I wonder if didn’t God also use Joseph to save his brothers - not just physically. Those brothers had walked around for year after year after year with the deceit and lies over what they had done to their own brother buried deep in their hearts, never going away, always there, always having to be reinforced with more lies. And now Joseph’s word of forgiveness frees them to actually live.

The family remains in Egypt, and Joseph has the great pleasure of seeing his children, his grandchildren, even his great grandchildren. Then, at age 110 Joseph realizes he is about to die, and he calls his brothers around him for a final word, really a statement of faith. “God will surely visit you. God Will COME to you, and bring you up out of this land to the land he promised to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.”

And so sure is Joseph of this promise, that he gives a final last request: “When God comes to visit you, carry up my bones from this place.” Not if God comes, but when He comes and gets you out of Egypt… “take my bones with you.” Clearly this is Joseph’s story. Right?

Whose story is this? Well...

It’s Abraham’s.
It’s Isaac’s.
It’s Jacob’s.
Or… it’s Joseph’s.

But then again, as we’ve talked about several times,

Isn’t this our story?

For 18 weeks, we have dug into it. For 2000 years the church of Jesus Christ has pondered it, Christians finding wisdom, encouragement and, more times than not, finding themselves right in the story.

Have we not seen ourselves in this narrative, over and over?

Have we not seen ourselves in Abraham, who heard God’s voice and doubted, or Sarah who laughed out loud?

Have we not seen ourselves in Esau and Jacob, fighting each other and wanting the worst for those they loved the most?

Have we not seen ourselves in Jacob, wrestling with God, struggling with how One so intimate can also seem so far off?

Have we not seen ourselves, time and again, like Jacob, looking out for #1 at the expense of those around us?

Have we not wondered, as Joseph surely must have…where is God?

It has been impossible not to find ourselves in these pages.

These many stories have convinced us, I think, that no matter how sinful we are, no matter how dysfunctional our family, no matter what has happened…we fit like hand into glove into this family. This is our story. Right? Sure it belongs to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. But it’s our story. We’re all over it, all in it.

This is our story.

And it is precisely when we arrive at this point that we are in the most danger.

We are in danger of missing the most important thing, of getting bogged down so that we miss the big picture.

The year was 1857, Lt. Joseph Ives led an exploratory expedition to what is now the western states of the U.S.. After one visit, he wrote in his journal “The region is…altogether valueless. It can be approached only from the south, and after entering it there is nothing to do but leave. Ours has been the first, and will doubtless be the last party…to visit this profitless locality.” He was talking about the area of…the Grand Canyon! Four million visitors a year!

But in looking only for economic potential, Lt. Ives missed something of stunning beauty. He missed the bigger picture. The big picture for us in Genesis is: This is a God story first.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, we are called into the story. But it is ultimately God’s story.

• It is God who chooses.
• God who sends.
• God who meets along the way.
• God who loves.
• God who acts.
• God who redeems.
• God who stays with them.
• God who is not finished with them.

At every twist and turn, often in the background, but undeniably present, we find God. God is shaping people, impacting history, calling people, and using events both good and bad to do it. Joseph himself explains to his brothers that God’s purpose was not only not defeated, but that God somehow actually used that very evil act to further His purposes, to bring life. This is what God is like.

And in Jesus Christ, God does this same thing again, only on a much bigger and more profound scale. Turning the worst thing that human hearts can conjure up- the rejection and murder of God’s Messiah- and using it for the salvation of people everywhere, for all time. “You intended it for evil…but God intended it for good.”

This is God’s story. Not just Genesis, but the very lives we are living.

As part of my vacation, Anne gave me the gift of spending 5 days during one week by myself up on Whidbey Island. It was wonderful, a chance to just be outside, to read and pray and walk and run and think. About the third day I realized that most of my thoughts involved how God fit into my plans, and I was grappling for answers to that. And on that third day, I turned this corner where I started wondering how I fit into God’s plans.

It came in the form of a question that simply said “Dan, are you living well…or just living?” Are you living well, or just living? And as I asked that question, I realized that “living well” had much more to do with me being in tune with God and aware of his presence than me dragging God along after me in my life. This is God’s story.

The biggest weakness in the church of Jesus Christ in our country today is that we have been slowly led to think that life is all about us. Some people call it “Consumer Christianity,” which is all about me, the consumer.

• I follow Jesus as long as it feels right to me.
• I pick a church that will meet my needs.
• I invest my time in other people, other countries, broken places when I can make time, and when it fits my gift package.

Consumer Christianity means I figure out how to live life the way everyone else in the culture is living, the way I want to live and then I figure out how to fit a little bit of Jesus in there around the edges.

In consumer Christianity, all of my theological questions have to do with…me.

• How could God allow this terrible thing to happen to me?
• I prayed for something, and God didn’t answer it the way that I wanted.
• I’ve lost my faith, because my life didn’t turn out the way I planned. I’m tubing my faith.
• I was a good person, and still I was hurt, or divorced, or got sick. I’m done.
• After all, what good is God if I don’t get what I want?

Consumer Christianity is dominant in our world.

But a mature faith in Christ goes far deeper. Eugene Peterson has spent a lifetime reminding us that “Jesus is an alternative to the dominant ways of the world, not a supplement to them.” That deeper faith starts by recognizing that we get the amazing privilege of being part of God’s story. And our job isn’t to try to figure out where God fits into our story, but to figure out how we might fit into His.

So how does the story end?

Properly read, it hasn’t. Oh, certainly Joseph dies.

But he dies believing in the promise of God that extends beyond his lifetime, that God will visit his people, that God will save his people. He dies with a certainty that there’s something else about to happen. Joseph’s eyes lose the spark of life and we close the book of Genesis.

And when the next book in the Bible, Exodus, begins, it will start with “Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” The story will continue. And God’s people will continue to live, work, raise children, worship, reach out to neighbors, believing in God’s promise that he will be with them.

Moses will come, and lead the exodus out of Egypt (and by the way, will take Joseph’s bones along with them), and Joshua will lead them into the promised land and David will appear and govern the high point of Israel as a nation, then it will be overrun by other nations and lots of other things happen and when the time is right…God will send his Messiah, Jesus the Christ.

The story hasn’t ended yet, because it is God’s story. We don’t always see exactly where it’s going, or how God might redeem a particular situation. Sometimes things stretch for years, sometimes beyond our lifetimes. Sometimes we’re mired in the everyday and miss the big picture, the Grand Canyon. But this story of God’s goes on, and it will until at last the final prayer in the whole bible is answered, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Scoundrels, doubters and saints. We’re all right here. We’re right in the middle of a story that isn’t ours. It’s God’s.

Let us pray.