20th February 2023

20th February 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - Hebrews 11:22


Message Alan Burke 


It use to be the paper you’d get to read the ‘hatches matches and dispatches’ notices. Although these days the hatches and matches seem to have disappeared and most of the dispatches notices are now online. I wonder have you ever taken time to read those, just to go threw them to see what is being said. They are often insightful, yet you only get a small snapshot of the person and unless you knew them you can be left with an impression that isn’t entirely accurate and most of them leave out the bits that the family don’t want you to know about. As we come to what is said about Joseph there have been books written about him, he was a man who had scaled to the heights of power and what is said about him, well it speaks volumes, the focus isn’t everything that he had done in his life, rather we are told what his dying wish was. “22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.” (Heb 11:22). 


This dying wish of Jospeh tells us what mattered, the dying wish of Joseph tells us the reality that Jospeh was a man of faith. We know much more of who Jospeh was than the book of Hebrews tells us, if it were today it would be too much to sum up in a dispatches notice in a newspaper, it’s going to take too long to sum up in a devotion but suffice to say this was a man who by God’s providence shaped his life in a way that he understood, for while his bothers had meant what they had done against him for evil against him “God meant it for good” (Gen 50:19). 


What we are reminded in the account of Joseph, the overarching message is that wonderful reminder that we have a God of providence, a God who governs all his creatures, actions, and things from the greatest to the least, all his creatures, and all their actions. What this means is that the Lord God is in control of everything, everything that happens in whatever situation we find ourselves in. It should be a wonderful comfort to us, God is indeed at work here and now in this place and to the ends of the earth for his glory and our good (Rom 8:28). It doesn’t mean that our lives will be a walk in the park, the certainly weren’t for Jospeh but that God is there in the midst of it, working out his purposes. 


While the writer of Hebrews isn’t concerned with all the stuff that came before Joseph’s death, he’s not concerned with the prophetic faith that Joseph had, how he was able to interpret dreams, how he had made it in the world, for the writer of Hebrews knew that none of that suff matters eternally speaking. Joseph attained what many would aspire to, power, wealth, status, fame, but what mattered was his faith and how “By faith, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones” (Heb 11:22). This request helps us to understand what Paul meant when he was writing to the hebrews to encourage them in the midst of what they faced. 


We’ll think more about that request of Jospeh as the week goes on but for now you need to know what matters is is not the list of letters after your name if you have any, it’s not the barns that you have or the stuff that you dream about, for all of it is of no eternal significance , what matters is that you have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, the one in whom we have eternal life, do you have faith? If so then know no matter what that dispatch notice in the newspaper says or what is said in funeral times that your eternal future is secure, you have gone to be with your saviour, for nothing will snatch you out of the hand of Jesus, He will loose none that the Father has given Him. For it is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone that we are saved and secure.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q81 What is forbidden in the tenth commandment?
The tenth commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, (1 Kings 21:4, Esther 5:13, 1 Cor. 10:10) envying or grieving at the good of our neighbour, (Gal. 5:26, James 3:14,16) and all inordinate motions and affections to any thing that is his. (Rom. 7:7–8, Rom. 13:9, Deut. 5:21)
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