Sermon: Mutability and Our Christlike Response

Approach Others Like Christ
#1800

Given 18-Jan-25; 76 minutes

watch:
listen:

download:
description: (hide)

Throughout life, change is inevitable, requiring constant adjustment as to how we evaluate and treat others. We all change repeatedly throughout the stages of life, altering as we age, endure trials, and grow in spiritual insights. We must be sensitive, fair, and supportive of others, refraining from judgment. Both Joseph and his brothers grew in understanding from the time he was sold into slavery to the time Joseph revealed himself, showing compassion and forgiving them, realizing God had engineered the entire process. As offspring of Almighty God, we have an obligation to appropriate humility, love, and fellowship in relationships. If we prioritize others' needs, we reflect God's character demonstrating the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12), the guiding principle of Christ's approach, fulfilling the essence of God's Law, demonstrating true discipleship.


transcript:

Studying the book of Ecclesiastes recently has been quite eye-opening to me on many levels. Yes, the theme that comes through from the book, Solomon's insight regarding the under the sun life versus the above the sun life, really brings out a far deeper understanding of what God is doing among us in a blinded world. It is very helpful to have this perspective and it gives you a certain amount of pity for the people out there in the world because it reveals a stark contrast between the nihilism and hopelessness of the uncalled as opposed to the awesome opportunity, the future-oriented and God-centered life that we have, and the astounding hope that God gives to His elect. Those who are under the sun have not a whole lot of good things to look forward to and their lives end up after a while to seem to fall into nothing and they are remembered no more after a generation or two.

But for those who are the elect, there is hope, there is a future, there is all kinds of blessings, there is an opening of one's sight and perspective that really gives us a great deal of advantage in this life, and of course, entry, ultimately, into the world to come.

But then I read Ecclesiastes 12 and it really got personal for me. Ecclesiastes 12, especially the first eight verses, made me do some soul searching. Because 1) at almost 59, I am beginning to see some of the symptoms of old age creeping steadily upon me. I mean, I am not decrepit yet. I am not close to wearing out as Solomon describes in those first eight verses. But I feel more aches and pains now than I used to. I mean, I think about going out and playing flag football and it almost destroys me. What am I going to break this time or, you know, are my knees actually going to hold me up?

But there are other things too. I have greater limitations than I used to have. One thing I really noticed is that if I do something energetic, let us say like flag football that the two Jarod's make me do, it takes me like a week before my muscles begin to relax and I start feeling like myself again. My shoulder still hurts from last time. What has that been, 3 weeks? So I have really realized the slowness of recovery rather than the quick bounce-back that I used to have when I played volleyball or baseball or whatever. And get a bruise? Man, that thing lingers for like, I do not know, a month! Depending on where it is, I can still see it. Why is not it going away? And it is just the fact that when you get older, things do not heal as quickly. It is frustrating and it is a little alarming. It is quite shocking to discover that I have to take it easy or cannot do something with the ease that I used to be able to do these things.

Thus, Ecclesiastes 12:1-8 led me to think about human change. That is, our mutability, our changeableness, the way that our lives alter over time. We humans change a lot physically over the years. Sometimes I despair that we do not change at all spiritually. And I have said that in the past because we seem to change so slowly, it takes a long time for us to to get what God wants us to understand and actually make the change. We may understand what we need to do from the very beginning, because God reveals it through your reading of the Bible or some sermon or article or something, and so you know what you need to do, but it takes a long time to get the old human nature underfoot so that we can actually do some of those things that we know we are supposed to do.

But let us just keep it on a physical level for right now. Because we know that we do change a lot throughout our lives in our three score and ten or 80 years or so. We start as infants. I do not see a whole lot of infants, just Elara back there. You know, there are not a lot of us that still look like infants. You have changed an awful lot. Maybe if we saw your baby picture and said, "Oh yeah, I could tell. Yeah, that's you, you're just older and more wrinkly." But yeah, we change a lot. We grow, we become different as we mature. So we started as infants and we never stop changing throughout our lives.

It reminds me of Shakespeare's seven stages or seven ages of man from his play "As You Like It." It is Act 2, Scene 7. I will read the pertinent part.

All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. At first, the infant mewling and puking in the nurse's arms; and then the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace with a woeful ballad made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard [a leopard], jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble [or fragile] reputation, even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, in fair round belly with good cape and lin'd, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances [or examples]; and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon [that is he is describing an absurd old man], with spectacles on nose and pouch on side, his youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice turning again toward childish treble pipes, and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion; sans teeth, sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything.

Now, "As You Like It" is a comedy from right around 1599. So these ages of man are meant to be ridiculous, slanted, and exaggerated, but they are not altogether wrong. They are based on, like I said, exaggerated experience of how people tend to be in those various stages of life. So they are not altogether wrong. It is especially true in their general nature, that is, that people pass through stages in their lives and often the change from one stage to the next is remarkably divergent from what came before. Almost like they are a new individual. That suddenly the amorous teen is invigorated to the point where he becomes a great soldier and leader of men. And it is like, what happened? This guy was just a nothing and he went into the army and became this superman and a hero for the nation.

And of course, as you go from one early stage to a later stage, the difference is quite apparent. But on the other hand, the first and last stage tend to balance one another. You have, as he said, a second childhood when you get to the point that you have to be taken care of all the time.

But through it all, the base personality remains. And that is apparent because we can recognize people not through just facial identity but through their personalities. I mean, "Oh yeah, that's how that person acts all the time." So that goes through, but it changes bit by bit through these different stages. So, like I said, the base personality remains, but the new stage in life, as we go through them, brings out different aspects of an individual.

So behind this Shakespearean speech and frankly, behind our own similar changes—and I want you to please get this—behind the speech and behind our own similar changes are others' reactions to the individual as he or she journeys through the stages. What I am saying here is we do not journey through these stages alone. We are surrounded by family, friends, church, acquaintances in the world, and they are all going through similar changes. Yet, we are all in the mix and we have to react and respond to each other, even though all these changes are occurring to everyone.

People (I am just using that in general), do not react the same way to the puking baby, as Shakespeare put it, as they do to the romantic teen. Or to the respected pillar of society who maybe has eaten too much chicken, as Shakespeare put it. And of course, one going through the stages of life must also interact with others going through their own versions of a similar progression. And so what we have is a, I like the word mélange, of different personalities going through different stages of life and having people react differently to them based on where they are and their circumstances at the moment. And this actually makes for a very tricky and dangerous minefield of relationship problems.

If you would please open your Bibles to I Timothy 5. I want you to see here that the apostle Paul recognizes that we do indeed have different stages of life. We go through different times in our life generally and he is counseling Timothy and Titus that they cannot treat everybody the same.

I Timothy 5:1-2 Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, with all purity.

Remember, he is talking to young men here. So you have got to treat the young woman like a sister, but you make sure your actions are pure. His is much narrower a focus than Shakespeare's was. He put it out in seven ages of men, but here he just highlights two and then he splits it out between male and female. So you have older men, older women, and you have younger men, younger women, and you need to approach them where they are, he is saying.

Now we will go to Titus the second chapter, verses 1 through 8. And he is giving Titus some advice about how to run the church to make sure that everything is done decently and in order, as Paul put it in another place.

Titus 2:1-8 But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given too much wine, teachers of good things—that they may admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded, in all things showing yourself [as young men] to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.

This expands on what Paul said to Timothy in I Timothy 5 by giving Titus a curriculum, if you will, of what to teach various members of the church so that they could fulfill their roles within the church. So he should not teach the young men to be like the old men because they are in different parts of their conversion. Now there are overlap, of course, but the older men are supposed to be much more mature and act like elders, act responsible and respectable and filling leadership positions, etc. And the same would go for the women. You do not teach the older women the same thing you teach the younger women. Again, there is some overlap, but you have to recognize people where they are in life and focus your teaching upon them in that age so that they will benefit the most.

Paul's instruction to Titus and to Timothy is to help the people as much as possible where they are, what their situation is. And of course, he also intimates here that Titus, especially, get the help here specifically of the older women in teaching the younger women, and that is part of their role in helping the younger women learn what is right and good in terms of their responsibility to their family, to their husband, to their children, etc.

And so what we see here are hints of Paul telling the ministry that you need to make sure that you look at people where they are in their own situations, in their own circumstances, what their age is, their employment is, what they are going through, are they married, are they unmarried. You know, what do the people need specifically for their time of life or their particular circumstance because it is important to teach people, to help them now.

To kind of wrap all that up, they must be taught different things appropriate for their stage of life. Other places that I will not go further uphold this idea. It is mostly, actually, in the epistles of Paul, but also in Peter. That they make a differentiation between those who are babes in the Word and those who are mature in the Word. If you want to jot down I Corinthians 3:1-3, where Paul says he could not talk to them as mature because they were still carnal. You have Hebrews 5:12-14 where he said, "Hey, you guys really should have been mature, but now I need to feed you the milk because you've regressed." And then I Peter 2:1-2, where he says, lap up the milk of the Word like babes. And then he goes on and talks about some pretty deep things.

So, there was from the very beginning this idea that we have to tailor our teaching toward different groups because they are at different stages in their conversion. It is a principle, an idea, that is there in the Bible. It is not right out front, but it is something that we need to think about and that is what my sermon is about today; that we have to deal with one another in the same way.

My focus today is, how do we approach or react to others as we and they move through our lives at different points? The subject has been on my mind now for the last seven or eight years. You go back seven or eight years, that is when my mom was starting to have her problems. And it began to ratchet up when Dad said, "I think I'm going the same way as mom." And so I began to think, my life is changing. My life is going to change very much over the next few years. So I can look back and see that my life has experienced a massive transition from about, I do not know, 2016, 2017 to the present.

I have gone from father to grandfather. Lily was born in that period and all the other granddaughters. I have gone from elder to pastor. I have gone from employee to employer. That has been good because we have good employees. From son of my parents to the responsible guardian for them, at least in a legal sense. I have had help from my sisters and in doing those things for them, but at a certain point in your life, if your parents live long enough, the relationship turns over and the child becomes the parent, and the parent becomes the child. I know some of you have gone through similar things either recently or in the past and those sort of things make a big difference. They are stressors.

And I have come to realize that I could not react to my dad the same way in his last couple of years of life as I had all those 55 years or so before that. It was not the same. He was different; I was different. Some of the things that that happened were kind of funny. Like one of the times, he was walking around here and somebody asked him a question about the speaking schedule and he just said, "I don't know, that's Richard's job." And he had not told me anything. He had not turned it over to me. It was just like, "Okay, I guess I have to prepare the next speaking schedule." Suddenly, I was telling him when to speak rather than he was telling me when to speak. It is just a little thing, but it was kind of jarring, especially when I did not get any memo or whatever that that was actually the case.

But those are the things that I am talking about, when suddenly the relationship changes and you have to consider that your approach to the other person has to change because it is not the same now. Things are different. Now maybe you have authority where you had to be submissive before. That is how it was with the change between Dad and me. That over a period of a couple of months, the power dynamics changed and I did not know how to handle it. He was still my dad and he had always been the power in my life. You know, yes sir, yes sir, whatever you say, sir, and now I was having to learn a whole new role and especially in relation to him. That was the toughest thing. Because you do not want to step on toes and the way his mind was in those last few years, I did not know if he was going to pull back his authority or not. So I had to kind of approach it tentatively, and he never did change things back to the way they were. But I had to be very careful about any kind of authority I assumed once he kind of made me acting pastor without telling me I was the acting pastor. I guess I was supposed to have known that.

But I am using myself as an example because you too have to adjust to how you respond to me. Over these past seven years I have changed enough in my circumstances that it affects you. I mean, maybe the silliest thing of all is guys say, "for the sermon this afternoon, our pastor Richard Ritenbaugh," and it always kind of takes me by surprise because, "Oh yeah, he's talking about me." And it is just something that I am still not wholly used to.

But I have to also understand on the other side that with that title comes responsibilities and I have to act like a pastor. And so it is a dance. (I want to get to that metaphor in a few minutes.) But it is something that you really have to work on to do it well.

So I am not the same person that I was seven years ago. And you know what? You are not the same people that you were seven years ago. Because as much as my circumstances have changed, and I have changed, so have you. You have been along your own trail, but your own trail has been studded with frequent change. You may not have noticed each one, but you too have changed and I have to think about that when I respond to you. You are not the same people that you were, while I am not the same person I was.

Now these adjustments, these changes and the way we interact with one another, are very, very frequent. They happen all the time. They are going on almost all the time. Maybe not with us, but somebody else is changing right now for one reason or the other. We do not easily see them, many of these changes. And they are very hard for a single person to keep track of. I mean, we have about 64 people here today. Well, how do you keep track of the lives of 64 people and have to interact and respond to them but do it in love?

That is what I am getting at today. That we have a lot of changes going on within us, in our circumstances, and everybody else has a lot of changes in their personalities and character, their situations, and we have to try to keep track of all those things so that when we interact that we can interact with them in a proper way. So we find ourselves, as I intimated a few minutes ago, in a clumsily choreographed dance in which we are often unsure of the steps. That is, in our interactions with each other. But if we want to dance skillfully and enjoy the dance, we must be constantly mindful of where our partners are at each step. Because we have never been trained in this dance. We know a few of the steps, we know a few of the principles, and we have engaged in the dance.

But we are learning as we go along and the situation is changing all the time. And sometimes the music is fast, and sometimes the music is slow. Sometimes it is 3-quarter, sometimes it is 4/4, but I saw a meme that says "It's all 4/4. Don't worry about it." But that is what I mean. Can you think of yourself trying to, let us say, you are in a big barn dance and they are not just doing do-si-do's. It is the most complex square dance that you have ever heard and you are trying to dance to the caller's commands, but you do not know half the moves and he is putting them in a lingo that you do not understand, and everybody is in the same position as you. They do not know the moves either, not well. And so everybody is just in mass confusion trying to figure out how to do this dance successfully.

Maybe I am overstating this metaphor, but that is how we move and interact in terms of being in the church. Because if we are not attentive to these changes in people and the different elements of the dance, we will likely be stepping on toes, and that is something we should try to avoid. So I hope, using this metaphor, it describes the complex relationships of church members trying to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, as Paul put it in Ephesians 4:3. It is not easy. It is something that we really need to work on, and it is going to take a lot of sacrifice and submission and humility on our part to make sure that we do not get into conflicts because we are standing in a place where the other person should be standing in the dance.

Let us go to Philippians 2, verses 1 through 4. And if you want to study further later on this topic, I would recommend that you read through and study Philippians 2, because actually the whole chapter is about just this subject. But we are going to read only the first four verses. Now, this chapter is central to this endeavor of trying to make sure we get along in peace and unity within the church.

Philippians 2:1-4 Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

This is the opening salvo, if you will, to Paul's teaching here about how we can work together and have a united congregation, a united church, united churches of God. It starts with these particular principles and traits. So he says here in these first four verses that this principle that I am talking about today is founded on the traits of godly love, spiritual fellowship, compassion, kindness, mercy, and humility.

Then in the next section, verses 5 through 11, he connects this way of living, the way of getting along, with the mind and character of Christ. He says this is how Christ was. You know, He humbled Himself to come down here and fellowship with us. And He taught us a way to live and He modeled it for us in His life. And it gets on to the point where it says, for these things God has highly exalted Him because He did His job well in teaching us how to be a church, to get along.

And then after that, from about verse 12 on to verse 18, he speaks of this principle in connection to working out our salvation. He is basically saying that this dance that we are doing with others all trying to work together and do the same steps at the same time, if we possibly can, is how we grow. How we work out our salvation, how we take leaps and bounds in our sanctification. Because it is not just learning the doctrines. It is not just agreeing to the covenant. It is also loving God and loving neighbor. And it is this dance in which we practice these things.

Then in the last sections, from verse 19 onto verse 30, he gives the examples of Timothy and Epaphroditus, whom he uses as models of this within the churches because they treated others, including the apostle Paul, in this Christ-like manner.

So it is very well organized here. First give the doctrine, then give the example of Christ, then show where it works within our life and how we are supposed to make it work along the sanctification process, and then give some human local examples of people who seem to be doing it very well. Paul was a master of organizing these things and taking them on to different paths so people can understand better what he is talking about.

But overall, what the apostle Paul is doing here in Philippians 2, is setting this approach as the standard within the church of God. This is how we approach people. This is the one that we model ourselves after. This is how we grow and move further along in our holiness toward godliness. And if you want good examples, check out Timothy and check out Epaphroditus. And to to those of us today who Timothy and Epaphroditus are 2,000 year old examples, we can look to other members of the church who seem to have, I will not say perfected, but are using this approach for good effect. So, please study that, if you will. I am not going to go into it too much anymore, but I think it is something that we need to understand more fully.

Now, years ago (this may seem like a little bit of going off on a different tangent here), I encountered a few critics of our doctrinal position on sanctification. They were contending that sanctification is not a process. And one of their points of contention was that they said that trying to overcome and grow was essentially selfish. That the Christian who is using sanctification as a process that their focus was all on themselves, on their growth, on their relationship with God rather than on Christ Himself and upon the brethren. And they would say things like, are we not to love God and our neighbor at least or more than ourselves? And they would usually quote Matthew 22:37-39. Then they would say, this was their trump card, "Has not Christ already sanctified us?"

Well, we had our answers to this question, but I am not necessarily going to answer it right now. But I want you to understand here that if I squint a little I can see their point. It was not totally unbased. Because human nature can turn even sanctification into Christ's image into a selfish pursuit. It can become all about me. That is, if I put it another way, we turn sanctification into an attempt to earn our salvation. Saying to God, "Look at me. Look how much I've grown. See how righteous I've become." Now for us, I hope that that is not the case. I hope that is not how we are approaching our sanctification. But even so, like I said, if I squint a little, I can see how we could self-centeredly make our growth all about us. It is all about me making into the Kingdom of God rather than something that we are all trying to work toward together.

Now truly, in reality, God in us does the bulk of the work of sanctification. We actually do very little. We have to cooperate with Him, but He is working in us to help us to overcome through His presence. But we will actually make significant progress in putting on Christ's image if we change our focus toward others and their efforts to sanctification. Did you catch that? That our sanctification will develop more quickly, more significantly, more perfectly if our sanctification is focused on others rather than ourself.

Let us look at a scripture here, a few pages away.

I Thessalonians 3:12-13 And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.

Abound in love to one another and to all that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness.

Let us go to chapter 5, verses 14 and 15.

I Thessalonians 5:14-15 Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.

These are parts of Paul's marching orders, if you will, to the people on how that they would please God, and it is other-focused rather than personally-focused. Now I do not imply by saying one should have an other focus that you should meddle in other people's walk with God. I am not saying that at all. We are told not to meddle with other people's business. So banish that thought. One should not be meddling in other people's business. What I mean, if I can put it in our own lingo, is that we need to learn to interact with others as they are, where they are. Not either where they were or where we think they should be. This is why I went through the stages of life and all of those things that are constantly changing in our lives. And why I said this is very difficult because we have to keep up with people and where they are in their lives.

Now, we know from I Corinthians 10:13, that this is what God does with us. He works with us where we are, as we are. He is always trying to get us to move forward in our sanctification and grow closer to Him and Christ. But even in our trials, when He tests us He does not give us more than we can bear. Now, He may give us slightly more than we are comfortable with to try to move us forward, but He always gives us tempered trials, measured tests that help us see what level we are we are on, to help us see how much we can take, and try to stretch us just a little bit so that we have a little bit more faith. A little bit more compassion, a little bit more mercy, a little bit more love, a little bit more hope. Whatever He is trying to teach us. Probably all of those things.

We need to imitate Christ in this manner of approaching our brethren. That we take them and interact with them and respond to them where they are, as they are, and not try to give them some kind of guilt trip that they are not where they are supposed to be. It is a hard thing. I am actually giving you something that is very difficult to do. But I want it to be in your mind because maybe it will help as we go through our lives with one another. To help give us a bit more compassion and help one another in ways that are truly helpful and not ones that will be, say, offensive or too difficult and you know, depress the other person or what have you. There are ways to handle this to help us all grow all the time.

As I mentioned before, because people's lives and circumstances change so often, the person you knew a year ago, who may be sitting right next to you, is not the same person now. There may have been a baptism in that person's life, or a wedding, or a birth of a child. Maybe they have a new job; maybe they lost a job. Maybe they have gone through a severe trial and it has really affected them. Maybe there has been a death in the family, or several. Maybe they have had an incredible growth in understanding because something just clicked. Or some other significant change; you fill in the box. These events in life change people. They can change them to their very core. So these events certainly changed their circumstances, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Now, as their brethren, it is our responsibility to treat them appropriately in their new situation. We must be sensitive to their present position. Not judgmental, not critical, but fair and helpful. And this mandates familiarity and a great deal of forbearance, especially if they have backslid somewhat. And this is where Christian fellowship comes to the fore. Because you are not going to know these things unless you interact with them, unless you find out what is going on in their lives.

Now, they may not be totally forthcoming and so you have to respect that. Some people do not want to let certain cats out of the bag, certain information about themselves. And you know in a society like ours, we crave, covet, our privacy so there are certain obstacles that we have to get over in terms of understanding where they are. But it is our job not to necessarily seek them out but to be sensitive to them. That the person you are talking to is probably not the same person that you may have talked to just a short while earlier.

But I want to go back to this idea of fellowship and learning about our brethren. That is a good way to put it. Because we are going to talk about something that Bill [Onisick] talked about last week and that was Joseph and his brothers. Let us go back to Genesis 45 because this is an example of fellowship that we need to have in the back of our minds, because Joseph gives us a wonderful example of how to deal with this particular principle. We are going to read the first 15 verses.

Genesis 45:1-15 Then Joseph could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, "Make everyone go out from me!" So no one stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians in the house of Pharaoh heard it. Then Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph, does my father still live?" But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence. And Joseph said to his brothers, "Please come near to me." And they came near. Then he said, "I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and he has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Hasten and go up to my father, and say to him, 'Thus says your son Joseph: "God has made me Lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not tarry. You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near to me, you and your children, your children's children, your flocks and your herds, and all that you have. There I will provide for you, lest you and your household, and all that you have, come to poverty; for there are still five years of famine. And behold, your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my mouth that speaks to you. So you shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and all that you have seen; and you shall hasten and bring my father down here."' Then he fell on his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck. Moreover he kissed all his brothers and wept over them, and after that his brothers talked with him.

Now let us think about this in its context. By this time, Joseph was about 39 years old, give or take. It had been about 20 years or more since his brothers had sold him into slavery. So 20 years had passed, two decades, and both he and they had changed over those 20 years. Think about it. Joseph was no longer the annoying Papa's favorite who told them his dreams of them bowing down to him. He had gone through slavery. Prosperity under Potiphar. False accusation under Potiphar's wife. Prison. And finally, after all those years, exaltation to premier of Egypt. That is a big change from slave to number two man in the nation. Everyone in Egypt at this point obeyed his word, and even Pharaoh, it says, treated him as a father. He had Pharaoh's respect.

Let us not forget the brothers. His brothers had also changed quite a bit. You know, the years between the time they sold Joseph into slavery and their final reunion with him here had not been kind to them. They were wracked with guilt and had been wracked with guilt for a long time. They had done that dirty deed to Joseph. But then when they saw their father's reaction and how it just ruined him, after all those years they blamed themselves for years and years. Because Jacob mourned Joseph deeply and they had caused it. And then he started doting on Benjamin as he had doted on Joseph.

This time though, the brothers were protective of their father's favorite. They tried every which way to keep Joseph from doing what they thought would be something bad or keeping Benjamin in Egypt and they would have to go back to Jacob and said, say, "You lost another son." Judah especially had been put through the wringer. If you want to go read about that, just read chapter 38. His sons dying right and left and then having to go through that scenario with Tamar and she calling him on it and he having to to admit that he was the lowest form of dirt there was. And we see at the end of chapter 44 (if we want to read that), the change in Judah. He was a different man than the one who had sold him into slavery 20 years before.

In fact, it was Judah's change that finally cracked Joseph's stern testing of his brothers. Because all through these chapters, he had been trying to figure out, what are these guys like? How are they going to react to these tests? How are they going to react to my demands? And when Judah finally said, "No, keep me here, don't keep Benjamin. I'll gladly give my life for his," it broke Joseph down. And he said, "Get out of here, everyone," and he revealed himself to his brothers.

But what if Joseph not being sensitive to things? Had responded to his brothers believing they were just as wicked and uncaring as they had been two decades before? Would he have retaliated? Probably would have. He could have rounded them all up and sold them all into slavery, tit for tat. You did it to me, I will do it to you. What a disaster that would have been for Israel. For the man Israel and for the nation that was just getting started. It would have certainly perpetuated the ill feelings and conflict between them. And we might have ended up with a problem like Isaac and Ishmael. Or Jacob and Edom.

But Joseph was a different caliber of person. After Jacob died, you probably know, years after this situation in chapter 45, they sought reassurance, that is, Joseph's brothers sought reassurance that Joseph would not retaliate for their terrible act. They were still wracked with guilt and still full of fear. But let us notice what happened there?

Genesis 50:15-17 When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him." [They were still worried about this. It still weighed so heavily on their minds.] So they sent messengers to Joseph, saying, "Before your father died he commanded saying, 'Thus you shall say to Joseph: "I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin; for they did evil to you."' Now please forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father." And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

He was crushed that they still thought this way, that they had not accepted his forgiveness of them. They still were feeling guilty for something that had been done, by now it was like 37 years earlier.

Genesis 50:18 Then his brothers also went. . .

This is like what Jacob did before Esau. Remember? Esau was coming and Jacob sent people up there and said, you know, the rest of them are back there. And that is kind of what they did here. They sent messengers first with this message that we saw in verse 17.

Genesis 50:18-21 . . . and fell down before his face, and they said, "Behold, we are your servants." [That is interesting. They sold themselves into slavery.] Joseph said to them, "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. Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones." And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

So here we see Joseph responding to them as they were. Still wracked with guilt, still afraid. And he responds to them in wisdom and kindness. He does not treat them as they had been but deals with them in their present state. And notice their change, notice their present state. I mentioned a few of these as we went through.

1. They sought his forgiveness. Calling their act, they admitted that their act was a trespass, a sin, and evil. They fully confessed their sin.

2. They fell down on their knees and voluntarily humbled themselves before him, which harkens back to the dreams that he had that they would bow down before him. It is not something that happened just because he was Pharaoh's number one minister. It was also because Joseph was God's representative. Joseph was the one God had sent. It was Joseph who had become the head of the family. And they voluntarily, as I said, made themselves his servants. These were not the same brothers that threw him into a pit and sold him to the Midianites.

They had changed. What we see here is the process of repentance that had brought the sons of Jacob back into a proper relationship with Joseph.

Now let us look at Joseph. Instead of berating them and making them feel more guilty, Joseph did four things here.

1. He allayed their fear immediately. Do not fear. You do not have anything to be afraid of. It is me, Joseph. I am not going to do something like that. It is kind of like what he said.

2. He explained God's greater purpose. It was always in his mind that God was working, God was sovereign, God was making things work toward a specific end. And he explained it to them.

3. He provided for them. He gave them what they needed to live in the world of Egypt where they were strangers and sojourners.

4. He comforted them and spoke kindly to them. He did not lord it over them. He did not criticize them. He did not yell at them. He did not say, what dolts you are, you should know this. Did you not listen to dad all those years ago? No. He treated them as they were. In this, Joseph is a type of Christ as he is in many instances in his story.

Think of this. We have all sinned grievously against Christ, against our God. But He was the one that suffered. He paid for sin in our place. Yet He does not retaliate against us for what we put Him through, but instead He tells us not to fear. God allowed it for a higher purpose. It had to happen to fulfill what God wanted Him to do. He provides us, then, like Joseph provided for his brothers. He provides salvation and grace and a glorious eternal future. And then He speaks peace to us and comforts us along the way.

That is how we have got to become. We do not have opportunities like Joseph had with his brothers but that is the same spirit that we have to interact with one another in.

Let us go to John 8. This is another time when Jesus Christ showed us very clearly the way we should act. Let us start in verse 2. This is the adulteress found guilty, in the act.

John 8:2-12 Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?" This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."

So Jesus faces a similar situation as what Joseph did. Facing someone who is obviously guilty. And how does He react? Where Joseph's brothers' change occurred over many years, 37 years, her change was quicker. Did she change? I guess that is up for debate, but she does call Jesus "Lord." She obviously saw in Him a master. But it does not matter. It is Jesus' reaction that we are looking at here. Even if she did not change, Jesus' approach to her was kind and forbearing. He says outright, "I do not condemn you." He dealt with her as she was. A woman, a sinner. Someone who needed a little bit of compassion. He judged that she needed mercy, compassion, and a little bit of simple instruction. Not the hammer of the law that the Jews were trying to bring down on her. So He simply said, "Go. Sin no more."

That was the simple instruction. That was where she was. She needed a little more time, a little bit of compassion, and someone to tell her what to do in a very basic way. "Go. Don't do this any more."

Then, maybe even more important is what He preached to the onlookers of that situation. He says, "I am the light of the world." In other words, He brings the truth and He is the model of godly behavior, godly conduct. He said, "I'm the one. If you look at Me, you will see what needs to be done."

And He continues, "He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life." What does He mean? He means that if we follow His example in dealing with others, as He had dealt with the adulteress, we will also display a life of truth and godliness. He was showing His disciples what to do. Do not condemn them with the law. Help them. Give them compassion. Help them move forward. The law is still there. She is still guilty. She needs to confess. She needs to repent. But the hammer is not the answer. The helping hand is.

That is the principle of what we must learn to do in our dealings with others. If you want to, do a study in the book of Philemon about the way Paul dealt with him in a very tricky question over slavery and Onesimus running away. You could also look in his instruction to the Corinthians about eating meat offered to idols. I Corinthians 8:9:13 and I Corinthians 10:23-29. Both of his arguments in those places comes down to being sensitive to others' consciences and you not eating if it defiles their conscience. Put yourself in the other person's shoes, and even though you may have the liberty to eat that stuff, do not because of your love for the other person. It might defile their conscience.

Let us finish in Matthew 7, verse 12. Many of you may know by Matthew 7:12 what this actually is.

Matthew 7:12 "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."

The famous Golden Rule. It applies to this principle of godly living that we have considered today. We want people to deal with us fairly, knowledgeably, helpfully, lovingly, and without censure; understanding our present situation. So, our Savior says, "Treat other people in the same way. You'll get that treatment back." And that is the way it should be in the church of God. That we should all be treating each other by the principle of the Golden Rule.

But just as important is what He says at the end of the verse. "For this is the Law and the Prophets." Dealing with other people in a loving, serving kind way fulfills God's instructions throughout Scripture, not just in the law and the prophets. But in the Psalms and all the wisdom literature. In the Gospels, in the epistles, in the general epistles. Even in Revelation. The overall principle He wants us to understand, is how to treat one another in a godly way. We could say that it is the underlying theme or principle of all that God has taught through time. It is the basic kernel of godliness, trying to do for the other person as well as one can. And setting them in a better situation because of their interaction with us.

And by this, all men will know that we are Christ's disciples and children of God.

RTR/aws/drm





Loading recommendations...





 
Hide permanently X

Subscribe to our Newsletter