Genesis 47:25, “Thou hast saved our lives, let us now find grace in thy sight and we will be Pharaoh’s servants (and by implication thy servants).”
Compare, Ps31:5; Neh1:10; Lam3:58; 1Chr17:21.
Joseph, foreshadowing our Lord Jesus Christ, suffered at the hands of his own brethren. They hated him and delivered him over to their enemies. Joseph was falsely accused and imprisoned by his owner. He became a slave in Egypt. But the Lord was with him even before his brethren made their evil plans. God prophesied through Joseph's own words that one day he would be exalted to rule over his brethren, over his mother and father. While imprisoned, the Lord gave Joseph favor in the eyes of the prison-keeper. He was the doer of everything the prisoners did under his watch. He was also given understanding by God to interpret the king’s dream. Because the king favored him, because the Lord favored him, he was exalted as Lord over Egypt. Joseph’s wisdom enabled him to administer all things under the king’s dominion.
Joseph, no doubt, is a pattern of Christ. Christ was favored by His Father above His brethren. Christ was hated by His brethren. Christ is the One through whom in these last days God has spoken unto us. And Christ is both the Messenger and the Message that He preached. Christ was given the book of God to fulfill and interpret; He is the Word of God, and He is the doer of it. Christ’s obedience and death are counted as the obedience (Rom5:19) and death (1Pet2:24) of His people. All that they did, He was the doer of it. Because He was favored by His Father as the Judge of all, because He satisfied justice, and fulfilled the everlasting covenant, His God and Father has highly exalted Him. God (Eph1:7-11) has made Him administrator, the governor, over the saved and unsaved, over angels and devils, to reconcile all things to God, to restore what He did not take away, to put everything in heaven and earth in its place, and doing all of this through the death that He accomplished. He accomplished the death that God gave Him to do. For this, His Father loved Him: "Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life for the sheep." (John10:17)
The wicked evil design of Joseph’s brethren was used by God to save his brethren alive through the famine, greater than which, there never was seen in Egypt. Joseph fed them from the granaries of Egypt. He not only saved Israel, He also saved the Egyptians. The Egyptians realized this and gave Joseph this worship: “You have saved our lives.” They also acknowledged that they could only live by his grace: “Let us now find grace in thy sight.” And finally, they offered themselves to be his willing servants on account of him saving them and on condition that he also be gracious to them: “We will be Pharaoh’s servants.”
Again we see our heavenly Joseph. But as the reality is so much greater than the pattern, so it is with our Lord Jesus Christ and what we did to Him. We, as Joseph’s brethren, by wicked hands, with Gentiles and Jews, concluded that the Lord Jesus Christ, more than any man, deserved to die. Like the crowds then, we preferred Him to die over the guilty, murdering insurrectionist, Barabas. We hated Him without a cause. Like the two thieves, we hurled insults and condemnation at Him. However, though we meant it for evil, God meant it for good. All that we did in our wickedness was predetermined to bring about the eternal will of God in our salvation. God knows all of His works from the foundation of the world. He always does all of His pleasure. All things in all places will give Him praise according to the good pleasure of His will who works all things after His own counsel. (Eph1:3-11; Acts4:28; 15:18). If Christ’s death, the death of God's dear Son, was accomplished by the wicked intentions and works of men, shall not even the smallest things in life be also ordered by Him? "Even a sparrow does not fall without your Father."
Thus, it was determined by God the Father that by wickedness Christ would not only suffer as the guilty (He was made sin), but He would actually save us alive. By His sufferings, by His death, in His burial, He purged our sins, made full compensation and answered every obligation in satisfaction to God’s justice and righteousness, established for us everlasting righteousness, obtained for us eternal redemption, secured to us an eternal inheritance, an inheritance which He earned by His conquest over our enemies (our sins, our flesh, the world, Satan, death, the curse of the law) to procure for us eternal salvation as a land of eternal rest and blessedness in Him. Nothing needed to bring us to God and glory was left undone. Everything was completed by Him. All things are now accomplished and ready. He was the doer of all our righteousness. He was the restorer of an inheritance we never deserved or earned, but one that we nevertheless lost through transgression when we became debtors and in consequence were lawfully imprisoned under the sentence and condemnation of death.
The Holy Spirit arranged for our reconciliation to God. In the time of love, He shined Christ into our hearts, giving us faith and persuading us, causing us to confess Him as our only Savior: "Thou hast saved our lives!"
But not only, these were the confession of Egyptians; not Jews, but Gentiles. We are Gentiles. We are Gentiles by birth, Gentiles by nature, Gentiles in our minds and by wicked works, fulfilling both the desires of the mind and our flesh and are by nature children of wrath, even as others. Yet, He, by Himself, by His death, saved our lives. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ!" (Eph2:4-6) Oh, glorious, wonderful God-wrought task! For me, what God’s Son hath earned!!
But He not only reconciled us, not only saved us, but He has been gracious to us. “Thou hast saved our lives, let us now find grace in Thy sight and we will by Thy servants.” Grace has made us free. Liberty is being free from debt, free from obligation, freed from fear, free from all that would keep or hinder us in any way from doing what we were created and ought and want to do. But freedom to do what we want without a new heart is the greatest tyranny under the greatest tyrant: flesh, sin, death, the devil; all of these are the seven devils worse than the first to which we are given up unless Christ makes us free. If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.. When Christ saved us, He freed us from all debt, freed us from all obligations, delivered our lives from death and fear, and He raised us up to newness of life in Christ that we might serve Him without fear, all the days of our lives.
You have saved our lives, let us now find grace in your sight and we will be thy servants (Pharaoh’s ~ God’s). This is freedom: to serve the King of Love, the King of Grace, the King of Righteousness, the King of Peace, the King of Glory!!
O Blessed Jesus, we have truly found grace in your sight! You have indeed saved our lives. We ask that we would find grace in your sight and enable us by your grace to serve you and you only in life, until death, and in eternity before thy throne! Let us live and die to you, for you have saved our lives. Give us grace to come to you, to feast on you, to drink of you! Give us yourself, the Bread of life, to us that we might live and serve you all the days of the years of our lives. Let us never hunger, but continually come and eat and live on Thee!
Remember, Abigail, David’s wife? After her first husband Nabal died at the hand of the LORD, she understood that service to David (~Christ) was true liberty from her former foolish husband. Abigail said, "Let me be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord." Let us, as Christ’s wife, submit ourselves to our own Husband in everything, and live in liberty by so doing. What could be more delightful?!
Rick Warta, Pastor
Compare, Ps31:5; Neh1:10; Lam3:58; 1Chr17:21.
Joseph, foreshadowing our Lord Jesus Christ, suffered at the hands of his own brethren. They hated him and delivered him over to their enemies. Joseph was falsely accused and imprisoned by his owner. He became a slave in Egypt. But the Lord was with him even before his brethren made their evil plans. God prophesied through Joseph's own words that one day he would be exalted to rule over his brethren, over his mother and father. While imprisoned, the Lord gave Joseph favor in the eyes of the prison-keeper. He was the doer of everything the prisoners did under his watch. He was also given understanding by God to interpret the king’s dream. Because the king favored him, because the Lord favored him, he was exalted as Lord over Egypt. Joseph’s wisdom enabled him to administer all things under the king’s dominion.
Joseph, no doubt, is a pattern of Christ. Christ was favored by His Father above His brethren. Christ was hated by His brethren. Christ is the One through whom in these last days God has spoken unto us. And Christ is both the Messenger and the Message that He preached. Christ was given the book of God to fulfill and interpret; He is the Word of God, and He is the doer of it. Christ’s obedience and death are counted as the obedience (Rom5:19) and death (1Pet2:24) of His people. All that they did, He was the doer of it. Because He was favored by His Father as the Judge of all, because He satisfied justice, and fulfilled the everlasting covenant, His God and Father has highly exalted Him. God (Eph1:7-11) has made Him administrator, the governor, over the saved and unsaved, over angels and devils, to reconcile all things to God, to restore what He did not take away, to put everything in heaven and earth in its place, and doing all of this through the death that He accomplished. He accomplished the death that God gave Him to do. For this, His Father loved Him: "Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life for the sheep." (John10:17)
The wicked evil design of Joseph’s brethren was used by God to save his brethren alive through the famine, greater than which, there never was seen in Egypt. Joseph fed them from the granaries of Egypt. He not only saved Israel, He also saved the Egyptians. The Egyptians realized this and gave Joseph this worship: “You have saved our lives.” They also acknowledged that they could only live by his grace: “Let us now find grace in thy sight.” And finally, they offered themselves to be his willing servants on account of him saving them and on condition that he also be gracious to them: “We will be Pharaoh’s servants.”
Again we see our heavenly Joseph. But as the reality is so much greater than the pattern, so it is with our Lord Jesus Christ and what we did to Him. We, as Joseph’s brethren, by wicked hands, with Gentiles and Jews, concluded that the Lord Jesus Christ, more than any man, deserved to die. Like the crowds then, we preferred Him to die over the guilty, murdering insurrectionist, Barabas. We hated Him without a cause. Like the two thieves, we hurled insults and condemnation at Him. However, though we meant it for evil, God meant it for good. All that we did in our wickedness was predetermined to bring about the eternal will of God in our salvation. God knows all of His works from the foundation of the world. He always does all of His pleasure. All things in all places will give Him praise according to the good pleasure of His will who works all things after His own counsel. (Eph1:3-11; Acts4:28; 15:18). If Christ’s death, the death of God's dear Son, was accomplished by the wicked intentions and works of men, shall not even the smallest things in life be also ordered by Him? "Even a sparrow does not fall without your Father."
Thus, it was determined by God the Father that by wickedness Christ would not only suffer as the guilty (He was made sin), but He would actually save us alive. By His sufferings, by His death, in His burial, He purged our sins, made full compensation and answered every obligation in satisfaction to God’s justice and righteousness, established for us everlasting righteousness, obtained for us eternal redemption, secured to us an eternal inheritance, an inheritance which He earned by His conquest over our enemies (our sins, our flesh, the world, Satan, death, the curse of the law) to procure for us eternal salvation as a land of eternal rest and blessedness in Him. Nothing needed to bring us to God and glory was left undone. Everything was completed by Him. All things are now accomplished and ready. He was the doer of all our righteousness. He was the restorer of an inheritance we never deserved or earned, but one that we nevertheless lost through transgression when we became debtors and in consequence were lawfully imprisoned under the sentence and condemnation of death.
The Holy Spirit arranged for our reconciliation to God. In the time of love, He shined Christ into our hearts, giving us faith and persuading us, causing us to confess Him as our only Savior: "Thou hast saved our lives!"
But not only, these were the confession of Egyptians; not Jews, but Gentiles. We are Gentiles. We are Gentiles by birth, Gentiles by nature, Gentiles in our minds and by wicked works, fulfilling both the desires of the mind and our flesh and are by nature children of wrath, even as others. Yet, He, by Himself, by His death, saved our lives. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ!" (Eph2:4-6) Oh, glorious, wonderful God-wrought task! For me, what God’s Son hath earned!!
But He not only reconciled us, not only saved us, but He has been gracious to us. “Thou hast saved our lives, let us now find grace in Thy sight and we will by Thy servants.” Grace has made us free. Liberty is being free from debt, free from obligation, freed from fear, free from all that would keep or hinder us in any way from doing what we were created and ought and want to do. But freedom to do what we want without a new heart is the greatest tyranny under the greatest tyrant: flesh, sin, death, the devil; all of these are the seven devils worse than the first to which we are given up unless Christ makes us free. If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.. When Christ saved us, He freed us from all debt, freed us from all obligations, delivered our lives from death and fear, and He raised us up to newness of life in Christ that we might serve Him without fear, all the days of our lives.
You have saved our lives, let us now find grace in your sight and we will be thy servants (Pharaoh’s ~ God’s). This is freedom: to serve the King of Love, the King of Grace, the King of Righteousness, the King of Peace, the King of Glory!!
O Blessed Jesus, we have truly found grace in your sight! You have indeed saved our lives. We ask that we would find grace in your sight and enable us by your grace to serve you and you only in life, until death, and in eternity before thy throne! Let us live and die to you, for you have saved our lives. Give us grace to come to you, to feast on you, to drink of you! Give us yourself, the Bread of life, to us that we might live and serve you all the days of the years of our lives. Let us never hunger, but continually come and eat and live on Thee!
Remember, Abigail, David’s wife? After her first husband Nabal died at the hand of the LORD, she understood that service to David (~Christ) was true liberty from her former foolish husband. Abigail said, "Let me be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord." Let us, as Christ’s wife, submit ourselves to our own Husband in everything, and live in liberty by so doing. What could be more delightful?!
Rick Warta, Pastor
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