It is good to be back with you. Thanks for inviting me back, despite my ongoing debate with your pastor about the Ozarks. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. I will not litigate that this morning. I'll invite you to take your Bibles, turn to Genesis chapter 47. And I told Levi I was going to preach verses 13 through 26. I'm actually going to stop at verse 25. Before we even get to the point of reading God's Word, I need His help, so let's go to Him in prayer. Guide us, O God, by Your Word and Holy Spirit, that in Your light we may see light, in Your truth find freedom, and in Your will discover peace through Christ our Lord. Amen. I'll ask you now to give your attention to the reading of God's holy and errant Word. Genesis 47, beginning at verse 13. Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, in exchange for the grain that they bought. And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. And when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? For our money is gone. And Joseph answered, give your livestock and I will give you food in exchange for your livestock if your money is gone. So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds, and the donkeys. He supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year. And when that year was ended, they came to him the following year and said to him, We will not hide from my Lord that our money is all spent. The herds of livestock are my Lord's. There is nothing left in the sight of my Lord, but our bodies and our land. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food. And we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh, and give a seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate. So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for all the Egyptians sold their fields because the famine was severe on them. The land became Pharaoh's. As for the people, he made servants of them from one end of Egypt to the other. Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh and lived on the allowance that Pharaoh gave them. Therefore they did not sell their land. Then Joseph said to the people, Behold, I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Now here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land. And at the harvest you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four-fifths shall be your own. as seed for the field and as food for yourselves and your households and as food for your little ones. And they said, you have saved our lives. May it please my Lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh. Thus far, the reading of God's holy, inerrant, inspired word. May he bless its reading and now its preaching. Well, many of you have probably been doing a read through the Bible in a year plan. And most of those start with Genesis. So this may be, thank you. So this may be familiar to you. You may have read the story of Joseph recently. You've probably spent much of last month and much of this month in the book of Genesis. Maybe even catching up from where you've been behind. Don't give up. So let me ask you a question. Who would you say the main character of Genesis is? Don't answer out loud, that's rhetorical. But as you think about it, there are many Bible characters that we know many of their stories, but who is the main character? Well, Jesus told his disciples how to read their Bibles after his resurrection in Luke chapter 24. He said, 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. Jesus claimed that He was the central focus of the whole Bible, including Genesis. The message of all Scripture is the Lord Christ as the Savior of the world. So even when we read a historical narrative like this one this morning, Our primary focus should be the same as those Greek men that spoke to the disciple Philip in John 12. We wish to see Jesus. And I have a specific approach I want us to take with this text this morning. You see, the apostle Paul told the Corinthian church that the things that happened in the Old Testament to those Old Testament saints served as types. so that we could learn from them. The Lord, in His providence, brought about real historical events and people to fulfill His purposes, but He did so in such a way that pointed beyond themselves to something greater, to the Lord Jesus. And this is especially clear in the life of Joseph. So much so that the Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal once wrote this, Jesus Christ was typified by Joseph, the beloved of his father, sent by his father to see his brethren, innocent, sold by his brethren for twenty pieces of silver, and thereby becoming their Lord, their Savior, the Savior of strangers, and the Savior of the world, which had not been but for their plot to destroy him, their sale, and their rejection of him." So we are reading true history in Genesis 47, but the greater point is how this points us to the Lord Jesus. What may seem here merely to be a brief historical record of actions as ruler of Egypt to save the Egyptians from certain death, here I believe we see a picture of the greater Joseph, the Lord Jesus, and the salvation that He brings the entire world. And I want us to see how this text prefigures King Jesus under four Ps. Poverty, provision, purchase, and possession. That's the outline for the sermon. So first, poverty. Let's read again. Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan in exchange for the grain that they bought. And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. And when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, give us food. Why should we die before your eyes for our money is gone? A devastating seven-year famine foreseen in Pharaoh's dream had come in full force. The earth was producing nothing of substance to eat. Not in the exorbitantly wealthy kingdom of Egypt. Not in the land of milk and honey in Canaan. Those who had lived in luxury and had not planned ahead were now in real danger of starving to death. In fact, the text says the people languished. They were sapped of their strength. They were wasting away. And while the old adage is true, money can't buy happiness, there is another truth that the Canaanites and the Egyptians learned. You can't eat cash, or at least I wouldn't recommend it. So everyone came to Joseph and they traded their fortune for food. They gave up the reward of the work they had done in the past, anything they had produced through their own efforts and their own ingenuity. And they laid it at the feet of the man at Pharaoh's right hand. in exchange for grain from the storehouses. Joseph, being the honest man that he was, didn't use the opportunity to skim off the top and enrich himself. He brought the money and he put it into Pharaoh's vault. But that didn't solve the problem for long. All the money in all of Egypt only delayed the inevitable for a year. The Egyptians returned to desperately plead with Joseph for him to save them, acknowledging that they had no more money to give. Moses continues. And Joseph answered, Give your livestock and I will give you food in exchange for your livestock if your money is gone. So they brought their livestock to Joseph and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds and the donkeys. He supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year. They had no fruit of their labors left to give, but they had their livestock, the tools and potential for future rewards. So Joseph told them to bring everything that gave them hope for future self-reliance and trade it for food. Which, by the way, would have been good for the animals as well as the people. If the people ran out of food, the animals would have starved first. And then there would have been no hope, once the famine was over, to rebuild the fields, to plow the fields, to plant the seed in the fields. The land would have been devastated. So this trade provided another year of life for Egypt. But the famine was still going. So the Egyptians returned a third time. And when that year was ended, they came to him the following year and said to him, We will not hide from my Lord that our money is all spent. The herds of livestock are my Lord's. There is nothing left in the side of my Lord but our bodies and our land. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? by us and our land for food. And we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh, and give a seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate." We need to appreciate this fact. Within three years, those who lived in rich abundance, one of the wealthiest empires in the history of the world, three years, they were reduced to abject poverty. They had nothing left to give. So they gave up their homes and they offered themselves as indentured servants in exchange for food to survive and seed to plant to prevent the land from reverting to wilderness. The Egyptians had come to know true poverty. And they stood before Joseph, the only one who could deliver them from the death they faced. And we too must recognize our poverty. Regardless of how much money we have in the bank, or stuff in our house, or strength in our bodies, our spiritual destitution is far more dire than the neediness of these Egyptians. Because our money and our possessions are nothing but a slave-driving false god if we find our security in them. And because all the good things that we have done in our own power are, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, nothing more than filthy racks. And because we have no tools that can help us produce anything that can give us spiritual life, we are by nature dead in trespasses and sins. So we have nothing to offer in and of ourselves that would prove useful or good. We could search the entire world and not find anything in it to bring us spiritual life. And even worse, in our sin, we would rather swallow down sweet-tasting spiritual poison than to seek that which gives us spiritual life. We don't even have the opportunity to offer ourselves as servants to the Lord because we already have a master. We are already, by nature, enslaved to sin. Just like the famine of food for the Egyptians, God's Word shines light into the darkness of our hearts, laying us bare so that we see our sins of thought and word and deed It shows us that we have no means for providing spiritual life for ourselves. We have nothing of value to bargain with. And no hope for our future. Because the cost of spiritual life is perfect righteousness. And that is infinitely more than you or I could ever scrape together. Every person in this room, is doomed to spiritual death unless there is a deliverer who has the means and the motive to give us what we could not earn from him. And thanks be to God that the story for the Egyptians and for us does not end at poverty. For them in Joseph, All in Christ there is abundant provision. You see, Joseph had not been idle. He had been sent by God to Egypt for a specific purpose. And his sufferings led to his exaltation to the right hand of Pharaoh. Joseph saw that the ultimate reason for his descent into the lower regions of Egypt and his betrayal into servanthood was to preserve life. So during the seven years of plenty before this famine came, Joseph was active and fruitful. He stored up the grain that he knew would be necessary to sustain the Egyptians. He wasn't distracted by the trappings of wealth and power. He didn't sell off the grain to enrich himself or even Pharaoh. Instead, He Himself procured everything that would be required to save the people when their destitution came home. What good would it have been if He had sold off all the grain in the plentiful years and stored up money and possessions? He'd be no better off than the people. He knew they would need food and that He alone would be able to provide it for them. So he obeyed the command of Pharaoh to prepare and to provide the daily bread to those who came to him. And I want us to notice two things here. First, there was no other way of salvation for Egypt. There was no other food. Only Pharaoh could provide it. And there was only one way to receive the life-giving food, by coming to Joseph. Moses wrote back in chapter 41 of Genesis that when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread and Pharaoh told them, go to Joseph, what he says to you, do. There was one way to the king, his servant Joseph, who stood between the people and Pharaoh to distribute the good things they needed from Pharaoh's own storehouses. No one could bypass Joseph and negotiate with Pharaoh on their own. No one else was given charge of the grain. There were not many ways to Pharaoh and the food that would save them from death. There was one way to the life-giving food, Joseph, the designated mediator, empowered by the Spirit of God. All who came to him were filled and anyone who refused to come to him would die in their poverty. But second, notice the universality of this provision. No one was turned away. The text says all the Egyptians came and they all received food from Joseph. But it wasn't only Egypt that came to him. Again, back in chapter 41, Moses wrote that all the earth came to Egypt, to Joseph to buy grain. The provision was there for anyone who would come and ask for it. Do you see how beautifully this provision prefigures the spiritual provision of the Lord Jesus? He also was given a task. He spent His life obeying every word of the Father in His earthly ministry before laying down His life as a perfect substitute for sinners. And just as there was no other food to be had in all the land, there is no spiritual life apart what God Himself can give. We cannot make or keep ourselves spiritually alive. but the Maker of heaven and earth has exactly what our souls need. And He has made it available in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the mediator, standing between His Father and sinful, weak people. If you want to come to the Father and receive His grace and His bountiful gifts, He says, go to Jesus. What he says to you, do. And in John 6, and I love when I love it when a plan comes together. This wasn't even a plan. I love it when the bulletin comes together. I didn't talk with Levi. I gave him the sermon text. I love that our assurance of salvation came from John 6. Because in John 6, Jesus tells us that he is the bread of life for our spiritual nourishment. It's in His body that He perfectly obeyed the law of God. It's in His own body that He was subjected to death in the place of sinners. It is in His own body that He rose from the dead the third day, forever conquering death and ascended into heaven. where His resurrected body, in His resurrected body, He reigns over heaven and earth. And He will return in that same resurrected body. The provision for our souls is Jesus Christ. And He nourishes us when we come to Him in faith, believing in Him alone as He is offered in the gospel. Nothing else satisfies No one else gives spiritual life. To truly live, we must come to Him in faith, and He will give us Himself so that we may abide in Him and live with Him. And Jesus promises that He will turn no one away. All who come to Him will find the life that they seek. He pronounces His blessing on all who hunger and thirst after righteousness, because when they seek Him, they will be filled. He gives perfect provision to those in spiritual poverty. So the Egyptians recognized their poverty, and Joseph had made provision, but the exchange required a purchase. After the people had come and traded their money for food, and then come again and traded their livestock, they finally came a third time. And they offered themselves and their lands in exchange for food and seeds to plants. The text continues. So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for all the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe on them. The land became Pharaoh's. As for the people, he made servants of them from one end of Egypt to the other. Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh and lived on the allowance that Pharaoh gave them. Therefore, they did not sell their land." So with Joseph, a free exchange of goods took place. The people had something of value. And Joseph, on Pharaoh's behalf, accepted their offer in exchange for the food that would give them life. This was a mutually beneficial transaction. And on this point, the analogy between Joseph and Jesus diverges to show us just how magnificent the grace of our Lord is. Because unlike the Egyptians, when we approach the Lord to seek the nourishment that our souls crave, we have nothing to offer in return. The cost of eternal life is perfect obedience to God's moral law, which we cannot offer. The wages of disobedience is death, which each of us deserve. Unlike the Egyptians with Joseph, We are not merely good citizens of the realm where Jesus reigns. In our fallen nature, we are rebels against His righteous rule as we sin against Him and with nothing to offer Him. While we were still His enemies, at that point in time, Christ laid down His own life as the payment for our salvation. He shed His own blood to purchase us from the curse of the law. He was slain and by His blood He ransomed people for God from the whole world. Jesus paid the price for both parties in this exchange. The death our sin deserves in exchange for eternal life in Him. Since the cost has already been covered on our behalf, He can call out to us to come to Him and receive what we need without paying Him anything for it. While it was the people pleading with Joseph, why should we die? It's the Lord Himself who calls out to us. Incline your ear and come to me, hear that your soul may live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant. in the words of the prophet Isaiah. Because the price to atone for our sins has been paid, we may come with empty hands of faith and receive salvation through Jesus Christ. We receive everything by grace, apart from our good works, our possessions, our potential, and our promises. We receive eternal life by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. But just as Joseph's exchange of grain and seed procured for Pharaoh the land and the service of the people, so also Jesus' purchase means that those who come to him in faith are truly his possession. The text continues, Then Joseph said to the people, Behold, I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Now here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land. And at the harvest you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four-fifths shall be your own as seed for the field and as food for yourselves and your households and as food for your little ones. And they said, You have saved our lives. Let us find favor in the sight of my Lord, and we will be Pharaoh's slaves." The people of Egypt no longer belonged to themselves. They and their lands now belonged to Pharaoh, and they had become indentured servants in exchange for the food and the seed that they needed. The arrangement Joseph provided for called for a 20% tax on the produce they grew each year going forward. And listen, this arrangement may make us uncomfortable to read about, especially as citizens of a constitutional republic with the history of chattel slavery. But we need to understand this in its historical context. The best option for these people who were starving to death would be to put them under Pharaoh's ownership so that he would provide for them. Even the tax that Joseph levied was more modest than usual. Normal practice would have been to take 33% of the crops off the top. So in the words of the church father, Ambrose of Milan, so pleasing was this to all from whom he had taken the land that they looked at it not as the selling of their rights, but as the recovery of their welfare. As a matter of fact, they effusively praise Joseph, declaring, you have saved our lives. And then they do something amazing, which we might lose in translation here. The Egyptians say, let us find favor in the sight of my Lord. The Hebrew word translated favor is hain, a word that's often translated grace. So in effect, the Egyptians acknowledge that Joseph saved them by grace. And then in response, they affirm their willingness to live as Pharaoh's servants. Brothers and sisters, we need this perspective when we consider our relationship to the Lord Jesus. Our alternatives are not between being servants of God and being autonomous. Our options are either being slaves of righteousness or slaves of sin. It's slavery either way. And that's the perspective that helps us to navigate the waters of legalism and antinomianism. We contribute absolutely nothing to our salvation, but we are not now free to sin so that grace may abound. And like the Egyptians, our real choice is whether we will serve a gracious king who provides for all our needs, or else die of starvation fending for ourselves. The true choice is between servanthood and death. Christian, you are not your own. You were bought with a price. Christ bought us with His own blood for a purpose. He ransomed us so that we would be a royal priesthood and a holy nation. So we have no right to pursue our own sinful desires. We do not belong to ourselves. Our Master demands that we live in accordance with His rules, which is indeed a light yoke to carry, as He says. Putting our sins to death, planting the seed of His words in our heart, and producing spiritual fruit. That is our calling. So as we close, let me ask, regarding the Lord's purchase and possession, Christian, are you living in joyful submission to your Lord? Do you see your life and everything that you have as His gifts to you? How are you stewarding those things for His kingdom purposes? In terms of provision, Are you content with forgiveness of sin in Christ and the spiritual nourishment that He provides in word, sacrament, and prayer? Or are you chasing something flashier than these simple means? And are you willing to trust that if He so graciously provides for your spiritual needs, He will also give you all you need in your physical life? Can you be content in all things with the provision of the Lord Jesus? And finally, do you know your spiritual poverty? Do you recognize the depth of your spiritual need? Or do you think you're fine without what Christ can give? Are you still trying to provide for yourself and find security by clinging to your own works or your own potential or something else you can find apart from God and His Word? Please, if that's you, stop fooling yourself. Come to Jesus. Say with the Egyptians, I have nothing left. And you will receive the bread of life. So all of you, come to Jesus and be satisfied. And join in the song of all the redeemed, singing to Jesus, you have saved our lives. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please pray with me. Our God, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it points us to the Lord Jesus, and we thank you above all for the abundant provision we have in him. By Your Spirit will You now strengthen us in the faith that You have given us to live as obedient servants who belong to You. By Your Spirit would You pierce dark hearts and change hearts of stone to hearts of flesh so that if there's any here who does not know You, they would flee to the Lord Jesus and find life in Him even today. Lord, with all of the gratitude that we have for all that you have done, we thank you that we can gather as your people to express that through prayer and through praise. We ask that you would receive that as you have already done. Now receive our praise as a fragrant offering as we lift our voices to you.