New Horizon 2025 Bible Reading Friday 8 August 2025 John Lennox - The Test of Forgiveness and Reconciliation

 

NEW HORIZON 2025 BIBLE READING WITH JOHN LENNOX

FRIDAY 8 AUGUST 2025 

The Test of Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Genesis 42

Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams that there would be 7 years of very good harvest and plenty. And the nation ordered by Pharaoh listened to what Joseph the governor of Egypt had to say and they stored up the plenty, even though there was no indication tht there was going to be catastrophic famine to follow it. But true to his, that is God’s word through Pharaoh after 7 years the famine started to bite and its effects went way beyond the border of Egypt. And so we come now, when Joseph is in his early 40’s to chapter 42.

"When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?” ² And he said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may ^mlive and not die.” ³ So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. ⁴ But Jacob did not send Benjamin, ⁿJoseph’s brother, with his brothers, for ^ohe feared that harm might happen to him. ⁵ Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.

⁶ Now Joseph was governor ^pover the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and ^qbowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. ⁷ Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and ^rspoke roughly to them. “Where do you come from?” he said. They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.” ⁸ And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. ⁹ And Joseph ^sremembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them. ^tAnd he said to them, “You are spies; you have come to see the nakedness of the land.” ¹⁰ They said to him, “No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food. ¹¹ We are all sons of one man. We are honest men. Your servants have never been spies.”

And so the last great act in this drama begins. It’s hard to imagine what Joseph felt the thrilling sensation as suddenly he recognised the sheaves bowing to him. And yet he was astute enough to see that there was something missing from his dreams fulfilment. There were only 10 bowing he saw in his dream 11. It’s not surprising they didn’t recognise him for he would have looked every inch the clean shaven Egyptian aristocrat surrounded by guards and functionaries, he watched them bow. Where was his brother Benjamin? How was he to deal with these men who had caused him so much pain and suffering? Once they had been in a position of power over him. Now the situation was reversed and they were scared stiff when the Egyptian Prince accused them of spying.

“You are spies. He said to them, “No, it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see.” ¹³ And they said, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan, and behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one ^uis no more.” 

They are referring to the man standing in front of them so they obviously don’t recognised him. We are honest men and that’s the key. Because for years they had lived by lies, they deceived their father and now Joseph was going to test that honesty. You can imagine that Joseph’s hope of seeing his dad and his brothers Ben must have been overpowering. It also, of course, meant that they had no idea where Joseph was. But it seems Joseph was instinctively brilliant person that he knew immediately what to do. And what he does is to set in train a sequence of events to find out exactly what the brothers now felt about Benjamin, who was Joseph’s physical brother. In all senses, Joseph is gone, So now we’ll attest their honesty. And so he said that they wouldn’t leave the place until Benjamin came down and said that one of them should go back to Canaan and bring Benjamin down. And he let them stew in prison for 3 days, a lot less time than they had let him stew in prison. And then he alleviated the terms and

“said to them, “Do this and you will live, ^vfor I fear God: ¹⁹ if you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody, and let the rest go and carry ^wgrain for the famine of your households, ²⁰ and ^xbring your youngest brother to me. So your words will be verified, and you shall not die.”

What could this Egyptian mean by saying he feared God? Which God could he had some knowledge of the God of Jacob? It was cursedly thinkable, yet he was being more generous than the brothers might have been led to expect and they started to talk among themselves.

“Then they said to one another, ^y“In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.” ²² And Reuben answered them, ^z“Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen.”

So now there comes a reckoning for his blood and Joseph is standing there understanding every single word they are saying. Their long buried guilt is now bursting like an earthquake through the surface. And as Joseph listens he detects the first signs of honesty in these men. He also learned for the first time that Reuben, Jacob’s first born had tried in vain to save him, indicating that the brothers were not all equally guilty. And hearing his brothers confess their gift, guilt was too much. Overcome with emotion he turned away and wept. Now this is the first time we read of Joseph weeping. It will not be the last. And it revealed something of his heart. This is not the reaction of a vindictive person wanting to get his own back, reveling in the pain as his brother’s squirm and seeking to get maximum revenge. This is the attitude of a man who wants to forgive and be reconciled. He wanted desperately to tell him who he was but he couldn’t, not yet. Why? Because Joseph knew what many people today don’t quite know, that genuine forgiveness involves repentance. Now we need to think about that seriously for a moment before we analyse the story. C S Lewis once wrote “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have someone to forgive.” So be patient as I try to explain something that is quite difficult. Consider a newspaper report at the time of the London Tub bombings on 7 July 2005. The Reverend Julie Nicholson found it impossible to forgive the man who murdered her 24 year old daughter Jenny, a gifted musician who died in the terrorist bomb attack on the London Underground railway station. “I do not forgive them for what they did and I do not think they should be forgiven” she said. And so she resigned as a minister and later wrote a very moving book called Song for Jenny. 10 years on she said she still couldn’t forgive the suicide bombers. Should she have taken this path, or should she have responded like Gordon Wilson of Enniskillen whose daughter Marie was killed in the bombing in 1987? He said he prayed for the bombers ever day. “I bear no ill will” he wrote, “I bear no grudge.” And his tribute to his daughter has gone down as one of the most moving in all the years of the conflict in this country, his book which every one of us should read is called Marie, a Story of Enniskillen. How are we to understand all of this? Well, firstly forgiveness lies at the heart o the gospel itself. The basic terms of the gospel. Luke 24 verse 47. Our Lord tells his disciples that repentance and forgiveness shall be preached to all nations beginning in Jerusalem. So it’s therefore clear that the basis of forgiveness is repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ at the most fundamental levels. It would appear that there is no forgiveness without repentance. And Jesus said “except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.” Luke 13 verse 3. And in Luke 17 verses 3 to 4 he says “If your brother sins, rebuke him and if he repents forgive him. If he sins against you 7 times a day and 7 times comes back to you and says I repent, forgive him. Now the word translated forgive in the gospels has a range of meanings. Let go, leave, tolerate, permit, send away, release, cancel, pardon, forgive. They are reflected in the Oxford English Dictionary definition of forgiveness. One to give up, to cease, to harbour resentment, disposition or willingness to forgive. Secondly to remit or let go of debt, to pardon an offender. So that forgiveness appears to have 2 aspects – 1 the inner life of the injured party and that is an inner letting go. But then secondly the outward relation of the injured party to the one who’s committed the offence, an outward lettering go where the offender is explicitly pardoned by the person offended. Now we get both of those aspects in scripture. In Mark 11 verse 25 Jesus says “And when you stand praying if you hold anything against anyone forgive him so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” Well clearly the person who’s offended you is not necessarily there. So it cannot be a quest of publicly letting the matter go. Jesus is addressing the danger that our prayers and our lives will be damaged by harbouring resentment and an unforgiving spirit which means we are unwilling to forgive. That’s the first level of forgiveness, the inner letting go. However, saying to the offered ‘I forgive you’ is a very different matter. If I’ve been wounded, if I’m the one who has to do the forgiving, I may well have to work very hard at getting my heart right before the Lord and letting something go inwardly so that it doesn’t foster and poison me. But that is not the same thing as an active pardon or remission of the guilt of the offender, nor is it the same as my relationship with them being re-established because according to scripture that requires repentance on their part. It is very easy to forget that God himself does ot forgive those who do not repent. Except you repent you shall all likewise perish and the reason is a moral one. If God simply forgave people without repentance, it would be saying that sin doesn’t matter. But God will never say that. Martin Luther once wrote “there are 2 kinds of sin, one is confessed and this no one should leave unforgiven. The other kid is defended and this no one can forgive, for it refuses either to be counted as sin or to accept forgiveness.” Now the objections come thick and fast. But someone will say ‘didn’t the Lord Jesus when he was being crucified pray Father forgive them because they don’t know what they do?’ He did indeed. But please notice that those words were addressed to people who did not know what they were doing. To apply those to people who knew exactly what they were doing makes no moral sense. To the terrorist who shot dead Julie Nicholas they knew exactly what they were doing. And the people that murdered Marie, they knew exactly what they were doing. The Roman soldiers for whom Christ prayed here had no idead of the identity of the man they were crucifying. They thought they were simply executing a condemned terrorist. So in their hearing, the Lord prayed ‘Father forgive them.’ Because once they woke up to the fact and I expect some of them later did, that they crucified the Son of God, it would have overwhelmed them and they would have been filled with remorse and repentance and that prayer would have reminded them that there was grace for them too. We cannot apply that prayer to people who know exactly what they were doing. That is morally absurd. Now letting go of the inner heart is a completely different matter. Of course the struggles of people who struggle with that are represented in their books. The Lord notably did not pray the same prayer for those who with eyes wide open observed his deeds of miraculous mercy done through the power of the Spirit and said they were of the devil. On the contrary he roundly told them that for them there would be no forgiveness either in this age or in the age to come. There is sin so seriously that in the nature of things that cannot be forgiven. For the very simple reason that if men and women reject the power of the Holy Spirit, who is the utmost ultimate witness to the message of the gospel of the grace of God, then by definition there is no other power. No other gospel that can bring them salvation. The tragic fact is this that the Lord Jesus Christ has died for all and forgiveness is offered to all. There are people who will find themselves eternally separated from God because they are not prepared to repent. And that’s a sobering thing, even at the level of our families and our friends. When was the last time I said ‘sorry’ to someone and meant it? We know the Lord’s prayer where we ask for our daily bread. And the next thing is forgive us our trespasses. Well we notice it when we miss our daily bread. I wonder do we notice it when we miss forgiving? Now to sum this up, suppose I’ve been wronged in some way, hurt or offended. I’m faced as a Christian with the question of forgiveness. So I’ve got 2 things to think about. Firstly, inwardly I have to try to get to the stage with God’s help where I can let the thing go so that it doesn’t destroy me and to get to the stage where I’m prepared to let it go outwardly to the offending person, provided they repent. Now this was Joseph’s dilemma. This is a very surface level analysis of the question. For the sake of time Joseph could see that there never could be complete forgiveness and reconciliation unless the brothers acted according to their claim to be honest men and repented. And what we’re now going to say is something quite remarkable. It’s completely unique in all of history and literature. It’s a man with enormous power using that power with extreme sensitivity to bring his brothers to repent. And it took all of that, the famine, all of Joseph’s years of training and suffering and administering Egypt for 14 years, all of that to bring the brothers to repentance. That’s how important repentance is. It is amazing the scale of this. And we’ve just seen Joseph weeping and wondering and deciding what is the next thing to do. There are 8 chapters on the matter of forgiveness. There are 2 chapters on creation. That gives you a sense of priorities and importance. So it’s clear from this point on that thoughts of forgiveness are in Joseph’s heart. So we now realise at this point in the conversation that Reuben tried to protect him. And so although Reuben was the eldest, Joseph chose Simeon, the second oldest brother to be his hostage and bound him before the eyes of the brothers and sent the others home. But before they set out, Joseph told his servants to fill all the remaining brothers sacks with grain, together with the money they had paid for them. So they halt for the night and one of them notices that his money is in the mouth of his sack. And of course that shook them to the core, and they began dimly to perceive that God was speaking to them. It’s interesting how now the circumstances begin to break into their lives. They weren’t there yet. They came to their Father. They tell him what had happened. Jacob says straightly to them in verse 36

“ “You have ^lbereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin.”

You notice that he’s implying that Joseph’s disappearance was no accident, that it was his sons that were responsible. “All this has come against me.” And Jacob is totally full of self pity and feels that he’s losing his family one by one. It is the disintegration of a family. Jacob of course still of course is not aware that he is responsible for a lot of this because it was his favouritism for Joseph that caused the hatred in the first place. So now Reuben talks to his father …

“Kill ^mmy two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.”

What a crazy suggestion. Kill my 2 sons. Kill a few more. You’ve already lost some, now kill a few more. Absolutely crazy and consistent with the kind of labile behaviour that Reuben has shown.

“But he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for ⁿhis brother is dead, and he is the only one left. ^oIf harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, ^pyou would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.”

Joseph’s Brothers Return to Egypt

43 Now the famine was ^qsevere in the land.”

Jacob was faced with coming to his children and saying “go and buy us a little food.” And now Judah steps up, Judah who sold Joseph …

“The man solemnly warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your ^rbrother is with you.’ ⁴ If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. ⁵ But if you will not send him, we will not go down, for the man said to us, ‘You shall not see my face, unless your brother is with you.  Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?” ⁷ They replied, “The man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ What we told him was in answer to these questions. Could we in any way know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?” ⁸ And Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may ^slive and not die, both we and you and also our little ones. ⁹ I will be a pledge of his safety. ”

That is a big shift isn’t it? He hadn’t cared about Joseph. But now he says ‘I personally will be a pledge of his safety.

“From my hand you shall require him. ^tIf I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever.”

That is a huge step in the direction of real repentance. And then? Jacob caved in. He said ‘if it must be so then do this.’ Then you read a little statement that sounds almost comical.

“take some of the choice fruits of the land in your bags, and carry a present down to the man, a little ^ubalm and a little honey, gum, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds.”

In the midst of all of this, Jacob had his head firmly stuck in the ground. But he told them to take double the money and that was hard for a person like Jacob to do.

They arose and went down to Egypt and stood before Joseph.

¹⁶ When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the ^zsteward of his house, “Bring the men into the house, and slaughter an animal and make ready, for the men are to dine with me at noon.” ¹⁷ The man did as Joseph told him and brought the men to Joseph’s house. ¹⁸ And the men were afraid because they were brought to Joseph’s house, and they said, “It is because of the money, which was replaced in our sacks the first time, that we are brought in, so that he may assault us and fall upon us to make us servants and seize our donkeys.” ¹⁹ So they went up to the steward of Joseph’s house and spoke with him at the door of the house, ²⁰ and said, ^a“Oh, my lord, ^bwe came down the first time to buy food. ²¹ And ^cwhen we came to the lodging place we opened our sacks, and there was each man’s money in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight. So we have brought it again with us, ²² and we have brought other money down with us to buy food. We do not know who put our money in our sacks.” ²³ He replied, “Peace to you, do not be afraid. Your God and the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks for you. I received your money.” Then he brought Simeon out to them. ²⁴ And when the man had brought the men into Joseph’s house and ^dgiven them water, and they had washed their feet, and when he had given their donkeys fodder, ²⁵ they prepared ^ethe present for Joseph’s coming at noon, for they heard that they should eat bread there.”

Now all 11 were bowing. And he lifted up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin. Can you image that after all the years that had passed? Now his own brother is bowing to the ground. And it was too much. Even thinking about it is too much for some of us. And he now for the second time sought a place to weep. He’s desperate to reveal himself but he can’t do it yet because he doesn’t know whether they are honest men.

“Then he washed his face and came out. And ^lcontrolling himself he said, “Serve the food.” ³² They served him by himself, and them by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because the Egyptians could not eat with the Hebrews, for that is ^man abomination to the Egyptians. ³³ And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth. And the men looked at one another in amazement. ^34 nPortions were taken to them fromm Joseph’s table, but Benjamin’s portion was ^ofive times as much as any of theirs. And they drank and were merry² with him.”

Why were they amazed? Because they were sitting in order of age and of course they would have all looked essentially the same. They were men and you mathematicians can work out the chance of getting that right by accident. It was brilliant biblical example of intelligent design. Those of you who know will know what that phrase might just mean. Another way of speaking into their their consciences and getting them to face how wa sit that this household, this Egyptian household, apparently knew the order of their ages?

“Then he commanded ^pthe steward of his house, ^q“Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man’s money in the mouth of his sack, ² and put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, with his money for the grain.” And he did as Joseph told him.”

Off they went home but very soon the servant caught up with them and said

‘Why have you repaid evil for good?^1 5 Is it not from this that my lord drinks, and ^sby this that he practices divination? 

You have done evil in doing this.’”

“When he overtook them, he spoke to them these words. ⁷ They said to him, “Why does my lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing! ⁸ Behold, ^tthe money that we found in the mouths of our sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. How then could we steal silver or gold from your lord’s house? ^9 uWhichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be ^vmy lord’s servants. He said, “Let it be as you say: he who is found with it shall be my servant, and the rest of you shall be innocent.””

Now what are they going to do? Years before they had stood with Benjamin’s brother Joseph and they had decided to let him go to Egypt and go home to their father without him. Now the situation is repeating itself exactly with Benjamin, because the servants said they could all go home but he is going to stay. Now what are they going to do? Are they going to do exactly the same thing as they did years before? You see, what is being tested so clearly is their attitude to Benjamin and history is repeating itself. It’s absolutely brilliant this because they had the opportunity not only to be rid of Joseph but also Benjamin. And one of the Jewish writes on this, Robert Sachs gets it exactly right when he says “Joseph has decided to put his brothers to the final test. He will place them in a position where they are strongly tempted to treat Benjamin as they treated Joseph.” And the point of Joseph’s trial of them is that repentance is only complete when one knows that if he were placed in the same position, he would not act in the way he had acted before. The brothers come to their great decision – come what may they are not going to abandon Benjamin and they tear their clothes as a sign of despair and return with the steward to the city. Now for the final time in the story they are brought before Joseph and they throw themselves on the ground. Joseph faces them with their apparent crime. He scars them stiff. Into the awful silence Judah steps up and makes one of the most moving speeches in all of literature.

“Oh, my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ears, and ^clet not your anger burn against your servant, for ^dyou are like Pharaoh himself. My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father, or a brother?’ ²⁰ And we said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, ^eand a young brother, ^fthe child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him.’ ²¹ Then you said to your servants, ^g‘Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him.’ ²² We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, ^hhis father would die.’ ²³ Then you said to your servants, ⁱ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again.’”

And so Judah recites the story very slowly. And very carefully and brings Jacob into the picture. A little bit further down in chapter 45 he’s saying what Jacob had said to him …

 ^“One left me, and I said, ^l“Surely he has been torn to pieces,” and I have never seen him since. ²⁹ If you ^mtake this one also from me, ⁿand harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to Sheol.’

³⁰ “Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy’s life, ³¹ as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol. ³² For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, ^o‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life.’ ³³ Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. ³⁴ For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.”

He hadn’t cared before about what his father thought about Joseph, that he had sold him down the river and now he is pleading to be a substitute for Benjamin. He understands what the son means to the father and there are vast dimensions behind this.

“Then Joseph could not ^pcontrol himself before all those who stood by him. He cried, “Make everyone go out from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. ² And he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. ³ And Joseph said to his brothers, ^q“I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.the Son means to the Father?”

It was an astonishing revelation and they of course found it very very difficult to believe. He could see repentance. It was very clear. Real repentance has been reached and therefore genuine forgiveness can be offered.

“So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, ^rwhom you sold into Egypt. ⁵ And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, ^sfor God sent me before you to preserve life. ⁶ For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are ^tyet five years in which there will be neither ^uplowing nor harvest. ⁷ And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. ⁸ So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ^vruler over all the land of Egypt. ⁹ Hurry 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. ^10 wYou shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, and your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. ^11 xThere I will provide for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come, so that you and your household, and all that you have, do not come to poverty.’ ¹² And now your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see, that it is ^ymy mouth that speaks to you. ¹³ You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt, and of all that you have seen. Hurry and ^zbring my father down here.” ¹⁴ Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck. ¹⁵ And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them. After that his brothers talked with him.”

It's dramatic, isn’t it?  But repentance is a very dramatic thing when all those years of deception and lies and trickery and dishonesty and untruth broke through to the surface. That can be a very dramatic thing for any of you this morning. And to realise that there’s a greater than Joseph against whom you have lied and deceived all of us and sinned and he’s prepared. He stands there prepared to forgive you if you repent and turn to him in faith and in trust. What a marvellous forgiveness it is to reinterpret all that they’d done and point out that God was ultimately behind it in order to preserve life. And you know these men were so shaken up that eventually Jacob died and now they got scared again that Joseph hadn’t really forgiven them. It may be they said that Joseph will hate us and pay us back. Then Joseph wept again. He said ‘Do not fear for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good that many people be kept alive as they are today, so do not fear. I will provide for you and your little ones. Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. Where do you stand? Have you been running for years? Living a life of deception? Trickery? In order to create your own little paradise on earth? And has the Lord been speaking to you through the circumstance of life, that here today you’re sitting in this large crowd here in this tent? You hear way beyond my words, the words of the Lord Jesus encouraging you to be open with him and repent. That is, to admit who you are and what you have done and turn away from it. And turn and ask him for forgiveness based on the greatest sacrifice of all. He isn’t Judah, he’s the lion of the tribe of Judah who gave his life that you could stand at this moment and give your life to him and experience new life, a new beginning right today. It’s possible. If God will do what Genesis tells us he did to get these brothers to repent what do you think he’s done to get you to repent? He came to earth himself. He came to his own like Joseph and they rejected him and he went his lonely way to the cross to bear your sin and my sin. Once you understand that in the power of a new life which he will give you, you can go out to serve him with a new joy and a certainty in your heart that one day he will return and receive you to himself.