Category: Gospel

The Gospel for the City in Genesis 41-45

The Refining of the covenant family (42:1-45:28)

The covenant family has suffered brokenness due to their own sinful choices born out of jealousy, rivalry, and succumbing to pagan morality. If dependent alone on Jacob and his eleven sons, the covenant promise of blessing to the nations through the seed of Abraham would fail. Nevertheless, though in exile, Joseph fulfills the responsibility of Abraham’s descendants as he brings blessing to Egypt.

Reconciliation and restoration come to this broken family from an unlikely person. The one who has been betrayed and most deeply offended and hurt is the one whom the Lord uses to bring about restoration to a broken family. Joseph models the grace of one who submits to God’s sovereignty and who experiences God’s grace in the midst of his hardship.

Joseph as a model of grace in the midst of betrayal anticipates Jesus whose experience of betrayal would lead to His death on the cross and who through His suffering brings about the reconciliation and restoration of those who have rejected Him and betrayed Him.

Here in the City of Philadelphia, we are asking God to use the unlikely to bring about His purposes of reconciliation and restoration in this city. In some sense, my brother Steve and I are a lot like both Joseph and his brothers. In being like his brothers, we know what it is to betray our upbringing, to reject the grace offered to us, and to cause brokenness in the lives of others. Yet, like Joseph, we know what grace is all about. We’ve experienced God’s sovereign and gracious hand in preserving us through our arrogant rebellion and forming us by the gospel through the challenges of a life-time of ministry with all of its joys and its sorrows.

We want, like Joseph, to live out the grace of the gospel which enables us to be a part of God’s plan of reconciling and restoring the brokenness of the nations of the world.

The Gospel for the City in 39:1-41:57

Joseph in Egypt (39:1-41:57)

These chapters highlight the presence of God and His providence in the life of Joseph. Despite the injustice and betrayal of his brothers, Joseph experiences fresh grace which takes him through the trials of captivity and brings blessing to him and others in the midst of his troubles.

The Lord gives grace to Joseph to flee the seductions of Potiphar’s wife; the Lord protects him while unjustly imprisoned, and eventually exalts him to the second highest position in Egypt.

While the covenant family remains in the land of promise, they suffer internal atrocities as with Onan, Tamar, and Judah. On the other hand, Joseph, though in exile from the land, brings blessing to the nations. The Lord uses him to preserve Egypt from the devastation of famine and ultimately to preserve God’s people from the devastation of famine.

The name of the LORD is advanced and honored among the nations, as Joseph experiences the presence of the Lord in his hardship and remains faithful to his God.

What Joseph experienced in his hardship through the presence of the Lord, anticipated the future gift of the Spirit through whom the promise of Jesus to His disciples is fulfilled, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Unlike Joseph, who was banished to Egypt against His will, many believers choose to live in the urban centers of the world, believing that the Lord who preserved, protected, and prospered Joseph in Egypt will do the same for them. As Egypt was an unlikely place to play a significant role in the history of redemption, so urban centers may also appear to be unlikely places for the advance of the gospel.  

Yet, God’s grace defies human expectations. Suburban church planting often depends upon the availability of open space, plentiful resources, economic stability, homogeneous populations, etc to insure successful church plants. The demographics of urban church planting present a scenario, much like Joseph’s experience in Egypt, which calls for an amazing display of God’s grace which alone overturns all human expectation.