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Patriarchs

Christmas in the Law of Moses

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Christmas in the Law of Moses

Welcome to OCBC. We’re in the midst of the Christmas season - it is getting closer. We just finished a long walk through the book of Genesis and the lives of the Patriarchs, and we ended last week with the last words of Joseph, the last verses of the book of Genesis, and one thing I remarked last week was how surprised I was that the Book of Genesis ends with a Christmas text. Here it is in Genesis 50:24-26:

24 And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” 25 Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” 26 So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

Now obviously this text sets us up for God’s deliverance of the Israelites in the Book of Exodus, the next book of the Bible, but I think it points to something more, particularly in the context of the book of Genesis, in the Pentateuch as a whole, and in the context of the whole Bible; specifically, that it is a text that points us to Christmas, for the reality of Christmas is that God has literally visited his people in the person of Jesus the Emmanuel - “God with us” - Jesus, so named because he will be the one to save his people from their sins. I was intrigued because I knew that Deuteronomy also, the last of the five books of Moses, also ended in its closing verses with a statement pointing to Christmas, and so that made me wonder - does every Book of Moses end with a statement pointing us to Christmas? And I found out, “No” . However, what I found was very interesting, and I thought it would be appropriate to share it with you this morning, especially as some of you have asked me what I’ll be preaching on after Genesis and whether I’ll just continue going through the Old Testament. Well that is not my plan, but during this Christmas season I do think that a it might be appropriate to follow the storyline a bit more, specifically as the Old Testament points us to Christmas, and the coming of our Lord to visit us. 


Its definitely appropriate to read the Old Testament this way as Jesus himself taught his disciples to read the Old Testament with Christmas in mind. After he raised from the dead, Jesus taught his disciples:

Luke 24:44   Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 

And so this morning we’re going to quickly walk through the Law of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, sometimes referred to as the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, and I think we’ll see how each Book of Moses contributes a key theme, like a piece of a puzzle that together provides for us an astounding picture of who Jesus is, why he came to dwell among us, and the nature of his ministry. Obviously we’re going to move quickly as a study like this can only be a general overview, but I hope this helps your Bible reading and that you can dig deeper into these texts and study on your own. 

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God Will Visit You

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God Will Visit You

Today we’re finishing off the book of Genesis. How’s it going to end? What are going to be the final words? The final three chapters of Genesis are filled with final words. The final words of Jacob, the final words of Joseph, but these are also the final words of Moses as he closes this book of beginnings. It is not the final final words of Moses, obviously, he wrote four more books, the five together we call the Pentateuch; however, he write them not as one book, but as five books, and here we have the conclusion to his first book, and so the final words here both sum up some of the key theme in Genesis, and prepare us for the next book and indeed the rest of the storyline of the Bible, which would to be developed out in writing over then next 1500 years by 40 different authors guided by the Spirit of God, and would be carried out in history even to this day until Christ returns. And so, what is the Spirit of God in Moses going to leave us with at the end of this first book? 

We find here the final of three sojourning principles: how are we to live in light of the fact that we are not residing in the land of promise, nor has God brought about the fulfillment of his promise, but we dwell in a nation, and among a people as citizens of another kingdom, seeking a promised land. 

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The Birthright and the Bloodline

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The Birthright and the Bloodline

Have you ever been a guest in someone’s house when they are having an intense family conversation? You know, maybe they’ve invited you for dinner, and suddenly a matter comes up and suddenly they are discussing family issues among themselves, and you suddenly feel really out of place, like maybe you shouldn’t really be there? If you felt a little like that when we were reading through these chapters earlier, I wouldn’t blame you. In Genesis 48-49 we are dropped into a really intimate family moment, as Jacob the great patriarch calls his sons to his death bed and pronounces his final words to them. It’s an intimate scene. It’s a personal scene. It is a difficult scene - difficult to understand, especially for those of us coming thousands of years later, not really familiar with this family and these customs. 

Yet amazingly, these chapters are specifically referenced in the New Testament as the one shining example of Jacob’s faith. In the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, we have the hall of faith, a list of highlights from the lives of Old Testament saints meant to encourage us and give us a picture of what faith is and what it does and what it looks like. And Jacob’s life, well, as we’ve seen in Jacob’s life, there haven’t been many highlights, as for much of his life he was more a man of spiritual failure, than a man of faith. Yet, this chapter is highlighted as an act of faith:  

21 By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. 

So the question before us this morning, that I would ask is, in what sense are Jacob’s last words an act and expression of faith? And secondly, to what do these last words point us to that might encourage and mature our own faith?

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A Pause Before Prosperity

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A Pause Before Prosperity

Imagine being offered everything you’ve ever wished for. The family you’ve always wished for. The career you’ve prepared for and always desired. Possessions beyond your dreams. Prosperity. Peace. We’ve seen a lot in the Patriarchs, especially Joseph, of how they handled suffering, yet how one deals with prosperity can be just as great, or even more difficult a test. and this is a test that it is just as important for us Christians in the West to work through our worldview, because, although hardly any of us will suffer like Joseph (like, being sold into slavery by murderous brothers and falsely accused and imprisoned), most of us in the West live daily in the most safe, comfortable, wealthy, well-fed culture - the greatest property that the world has ever known. And that’s what is set in front of Israel in Egypt. Prosperity. 

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Providence and Reconciliation

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Providence and Reconciliation

We’ve seen that the great theme that runs through Joseph’s life is the providence of God. We’ve considered how the doctrine of providence is a comfort in suffering, as Joseph learned as his brothers sold him into slavery and he suffered through unjust imprisonment. We’ve considered how the doctrine of providence can allow us to keep our composure when everything in us screams payback, as Joseph was able to do when his brothers unknowingly presented themselves at his mercy, and he had the motive, power and opportunity to destroy them.  And today we are going to consider one more benefit to the reality of God’s providential rule of the universe - the doctrine of providence can provide for us fertile soil in which forgiveness and reconciliation can bloom. 

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How People Change

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How People Change

We have in our reading today the children of Israel’s second trip to Egypt to purchase grain from the second-in-command to Pharaoh, who is actually their long-lost brother Joseph. Last week we explored the first interaction between the brothers from the perspective of Joseph, who, over the past 20 years in Egypt had come to a mature understanding of God’s providence. This mature understanding of God and his ways enabled Joseph to keep his composure when he had to be wanting payback against his brothers who had sold him into slavery decades ago. Joseph did not take immediate retribution for his brothers’ many sins against him, but allowed God time to work in their lives. Yet he did not immediately entrust himself back to his brothers who had hurt him, but tested them to see if they truly had changed. 


And that’s the question that lingers over these chapters, have the brothers changed? More broadly, do people change? How do people change? What does it take before people actually change? I have a five year old, meaning, we watch Frozen. A lot. And they sing a song, the wise rock dwarf people, the fixer-upper song, and there’s a line in it that drives my wife crazy, We’re not saying you can change him/’Cause people don’t really change. But that’s not true, is it? People do change. People change all the time, and while sometimes people may change for mysterious reasons, sometimes we can see patterns in the whys and the hows of personal transformation. It is good news, that people change. Its good for us, because we know we need it. It’s good for us, because we are impacted by the people around us, and their growth is often good, good for us, good for them, good for our relationships.

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Providence and Suffering

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Providence and Suffering

We’re starting this morning with perhaps not only a big question, but perhaps the biggest question - for many people, the only question that matters. Where is God in the face of evil and human suffering. Or as our upcoming Dig and Delve apologetics conference theme puts it this year: Life Hurts. God?

The problem is set in both emotional terms and philosophical terms. Emotional terms are what people faced this weekend. When you lose house or health or loved ones, you are not thinking in philosophical terms, you just want to know God, What’s up? Where are you? Why are you dong this? Just leave me alone! I hate you! That’s the emotional terms. To be honest, there is no good answer to the emotional terms. Time and healing are a start.

Then these are the philosophical terms: In the face of human suffering God cannot be present, good, and loving and all-powerful. If he is all-powerful, he cannot be loving or good, for he is not intervening to stop the hurt. If he loves us, then he must not be powerful enough to stop the hurt, or is not truly good. If he is good and powerful, than either he does not care enough to stop the hurt, or he is simply not there. To be honest, most modern Evangelical Christian answers do not address this question adequately, and we often give an answer that limits God’s power. Now we would never say that God is not all-powerful, for that would be explicitly against the faith that we have received. But we might say things like, God’s greatest desire is to love and be loved by his creatures, and so he submits or limits the working of his power and his divine will to preserve the freedom of our wills. This means that he will not, in fact cannot, override all the evil that occurs in the world. In other words, God is let off the hook in regards to the evil and suffering in the world because he desires human freedom over all things.  This is the most common answer given in the Western  church today - perhaps this is not surprising as our Western culture exalts radical individualism and human freedom over all things. Yet I do not believe that answer is particularly Biblical or helpful. I do not believe it to be Biblical, which I intend to demonstrate through this story of Joseph today. And I do not believe it to be particularly helpful. Imagine if that i the answer you have to cling to when your world falls apart and a tornado runs through your neighbourhood, or you are sexually assaulted, or you are accused of a crime you did not do. Does it help you to be told that since God desires to be loved by humans freely he lets us suffer as he does? God respects your autonomy enough to let your life be destroyed and the tears flow from your bed?

I believe that there is another answer to the problem of pain, and the answer is not that God is helpless in the face of human suffering, but that God actually providentially transforms our suffering to bring about our ultimate deliverance, to his own Glory and the magnification of his goodness, power, love and presence. 

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God is Faithful

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God is Faithful

We come to the last two chapters of telling the story of Jacob this morning, and, apart from the first few verses, these chapters seem pretty easy to skip over as they seem to simply record a few random stories, some deaths, and then a long genealogy. Yet these chapters, in bringing the focus on Jacob to a close, act as a summary of some of the key themes of his life. A theme that can be summarized very easily: God is Faithful. God is Faithful. If there ever was an appropriate summary to Jacob’s life, it is that God is faithful.

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Between Silence and Vengeance

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Between Silence and Vengeance

This is one of these chapters that God is not present. Of course, He is present in that he is an omnipotent God, and we are dealing with his covenant people. However, he is not directly referenced. There is no mention of him, no prayer, no intervention. And it is no coincidence that this chapter contains one of the ugliest and depraved incidents in the Bible. This chapter was written to the children of Israel who were facing hostility from their neighbours in Canaan, yet attracted to their ways of life, yet it also causes us to consider our response to the evil in the world around us, particularly as if comes to harm our own household. And its here in this interaction that we see two basic responses to evil, that to this day we go to when we are confronted with evil. One is silent passivity (moral compromise); the other is immediate vengeful retribution. Think about our day and how we a a church and how we as a society confront evil in our day, be it evil such as what has been revealed in the Catholic Church hierarchy over the past few weeks, or evil such as the #metoo movement is calling out, or evil as in the tragedy of abortion - that more lives have been ended through abortion in the past 40 years in the US and Canada than the population of Canada itself, or any of the other sins or manifestations of evil that we face daily in our lives and in our news. Either we ignore evil, or the outrage mobs take out their vengeance without due process.

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Making God My Own

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Making God My Own

Our passage today is very appropriate as after the service we will be baptizing three young ladies who grew up in the church, and are being baptized today as a big public step that the faith of their parents is their own. It’s an appropriate passage, because I really believe that this is the moment in Jacob’s life in which God truly becomes his own.

Now we know on the one hand that Jacob was marked for God, elect, from before he was born, as God set him apart for his promise before he had done any good or evil. Yet God’s election took some time to work itself out in Jacob’s life, in fact for a lot of Jacob’s life, he seems like one of the more unlikely people to be a follower of God. And when God does reveal himself to him, at a low point when he was fleeing from his brother, God’s words to him make it clear that Jacob does not yet know God for himself.

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