The Daily Guide. grow. pray. study. from The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Tuesday, 16 August 2016 "Joseph counted on Israel leaving Egypt"
Scripture Text: Genesis 50:22 Yosef continued living in Egypt, he and his father’s household. Yosef lived 110 years. (Maftir) 23 Yosef lived to see Efrayim’s great-grandchildren, and the children of M’nasheh’s son Makhir were born on Yosef’s knees.
24 Yosef said to his brothers, “I am dying. But God will surely remember you and bring you up out of this land to the land which he swore to Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov.” 25 Then Yosef took an oath from the sons of Isra’el: “God will surely remember you, and you are to carry my bones up from here.” 26 So Yosef died at the age of 110, and they embalmed him and put him in a coffin in Egypt.
Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened!
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Egyptian history seems to indicate that, during Joseph’s life, the Hyksos, a Semitic people who were “cousins” to the Israelites, ruled the country. But despite the success and shelter Joseph and his family found in Egypt, Joseph was confident that someday Israel would leave to return to the land God promised to Abraham. He made his confidence concrete by specifying that, when that day came, Israel was to take his bones with them.
• As best we can tell, it’s unlikely that Joseph and his family had anything like our hope for God’s eternal heavenly kingdom. But Joseph made it clear that his vision reached far beyond the horizon of his own lifetime. In what ways do your vision and hope extend
beyond your own lifetime? How do you share that with those who are important to you?
• The Israelites took Joseph’s dying command very seriously. Many decades after he died,
they carried out his wishes (cf. Exodus 13:19, Joshua 24:32). In what ways do you, in your family or your church, honor and live out the wishes of those who have gone before you in the faith? Do you believe it’s possible to do that without getting “stuck in the past”?
Prayer: Lord God, Joseph died in the confidence that you could and would work in ways that he had never personally seen. Let his faith and hope infuse my inner life, teaching me to trust you more deeply. Amen.
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Insights from Brandon Gregory
Brandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at the Vibe, West, and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
My first job was actually as a legal assistant for a law firm that primarily did bankruptcies. It sounds a lot more glamorous than it probably was–I basically plugged numbers into software for hours on end. But, without knowing anything else about these people, I got a very close-up look at their finances. Many of these people racked up over 200k in credit card debt by maxing out every card they qualified for. I probably shouldn’t be admitting to this, but I came up with little stories for each of the families I did bankruptcies for. Maybe a kid got cancer, or one of the parents was out of work for a long time. Maybe someone had a gambling addiction, or simply couldn’t stop spending more than they were bringing in. But regardless of the story (which I didn’t actually know), I doubt many of them began with, “Hey, let’s spend more money than I can ever pay back and see what happens.”
Approximately 62% of Americans have less than $1000 in their savings account. What’s more, 21% of Americans have no savings at all. Savings doesn’t seem to be a strong suit for Americans. A recent study showed that 56% of working-age Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement. When you isolate just the seniors (55+), this number shrinks… a bit. Just over 45% of seniors have less than $10,000 saved for retirement. It seems no age group is immune to this.
Wealth and debts can grow to live beyond the people that originally accumulated them. Children of passing parents are frequently surprised by either how much or how little their parents actually had–and left to them. So the problem of savings and financial preparedness is bigger than any individual person; it affects children, spouses, and anyone else who is connected to the individual person.
Today’s passage (Genesis 50:22-26) shows Joseph on his deathbed, talking about a much different kind of legacy: a faith legacy. Joseph had spent his life believing and hoping for what God had promised his ancestors: the Promised Land. On his deathbed, with no Promised Land in sight, Joseph refused to give up hope and passed this promise to his children and to their children as well.
This promise inspired a better life in Joseph, which led him to be a high-ranking official in the Egyptian government. It also led him to have mercy on the family which had sold him into slavery. For Joseph, the hope for a better life actually gave him a better life. Though he never saw the Promised Land, he knew this hope had served him well, and he was glad to pass down this hope to his children.
Much talk is given today to building up wealth for the future; but very little is given to building up hope and character. When you leave this earth, what kind of reputation will you be leaving your family with? When you leave your job, what kinds of situations are you sticking your old coworkers with? When you end a relationship, will the other person have anything good to say about you? What will our ecological choices mean for our children–and their children? And when disaster strikes, will you have enough hope and character to keep your integrity through the toughest parts of your life?
Without thinking beyond the immediate needs for your life, unforeseen circumstances may lead you to moral bankruptcy. Given a really horrible set of circumstances, you may find yourself capable of worse things than you ever thought. Make sure you’re building up a legacy of goodness in your life. You may find that you or someone else will be in desperate need of it someday.
-------
24 Yosef said to his brothers, “I am dying. But God will surely remember you and bring you up out of this land to the land which he swore to Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov.” 25 Then Yosef took an oath from the sons of Isra’el: “God will surely remember you, and you are to carry my bones up from here.” 26 So Yosef died at the age of 110, and they embalmed him and put him in a coffin in Egypt.
Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened!
-------
Egyptian history seems to indicate that, during Joseph’s life, the Hyksos, a Semitic people who were “cousins” to the Israelites, ruled the country. But despite the success and shelter Joseph and his family found in Egypt, Joseph was confident that someday Israel would leave to return to the land God promised to Abraham. He made his confidence concrete by specifying that, when that day came, Israel was to take his bones with them.
• As best we can tell, it’s unlikely that Joseph and his family had anything like our hope for God’s eternal heavenly kingdom. But Joseph made it clear that his vision reached far beyond the horizon of his own lifetime. In what ways do your vision and hope extend
beyond your own lifetime? How do you share that with those who are important to you?
• The Israelites took Joseph’s dying command very seriously. Many decades after he died,
they carried out his wishes (cf. Exodus 13:19, Joshua 24:32). In what ways do you, in your family or your church, honor and live out the wishes of those who have gone before you in the faith? Do you believe it’s possible to do that without getting “stuck in the past”?
Prayer: Lord God, Joseph died in the confidence that you could and would work in ways that he had never personally seen. Let his faith and hope infuse my inner life, teaching me to trust you more deeply. Amen.
-------
Insights from Brandon Gregory
Brandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at the Vibe, West, and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.My first job was actually as a legal assistant for a law firm that primarily did bankruptcies. It sounds a lot more glamorous than it probably was–I basically plugged numbers into software for hours on end. But, without knowing anything else about these people, I got a very close-up look at their finances. Many of these people racked up over 200k in credit card debt by maxing out every card they qualified for. I probably shouldn’t be admitting to this, but I came up with little stories for each of the families I did bankruptcies for. Maybe a kid got cancer, or one of the parents was out of work for a long time. Maybe someone had a gambling addiction, or simply couldn’t stop spending more than they were bringing in. But regardless of the story (which I didn’t actually know), I doubt many of them began with, “Hey, let’s spend more money than I can ever pay back and see what happens.”
Approximately 62% of Americans have less than $1000 in their savings account. What’s more, 21% of Americans have no savings at all. Savings doesn’t seem to be a strong suit for Americans. A recent study showed that 56% of working-age Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement. When you isolate just the seniors (55+), this number shrinks… a bit. Just over 45% of seniors have less than $10,000 saved for retirement. It seems no age group is immune to this.
Wealth and debts can grow to live beyond the people that originally accumulated them. Children of passing parents are frequently surprised by either how much or how little their parents actually had–and left to them. So the problem of savings and financial preparedness is bigger than any individual person; it affects children, spouses, and anyone else who is connected to the individual person.
Today’s passage (Genesis 50:22-26) shows Joseph on his deathbed, talking about a much different kind of legacy: a faith legacy. Joseph had spent his life believing and hoping for what God had promised his ancestors: the Promised Land. On his deathbed, with no Promised Land in sight, Joseph refused to give up hope and passed this promise to his children and to their children as well.
This promise inspired a better life in Joseph, which led him to be a high-ranking official in the Egyptian government. It also led him to have mercy on the family which had sold him into slavery. For Joseph, the hope for a better life actually gave him a better life. Though he never saw the Promised Land, he knew this hope had served him well, and he was glad to pass down this hope to his children.
Much talk is given today to building up wealth for the future; but very little is given to building up hope and character. When you leave this earth, what kind of reputation will you be leaving your family with? When you leave your job, what kinds of situations are you sticking your old coworkers with? When you end a relationship, will the other person have anything good to say about you? What will our ecological choices mean for our children–and their children? And when disaster strikes, will you have enough hope and character to keep your integrity through the toughest parts of your life?
Without thinking beyond the immediate needs for your life, unforeseen circumstances may lead you to moral bankruptcy. Given a really horrible set of circumstances, you may find yourself capable of worse things than you ever thought. Make sure you’re building up a legacy of goodness in your life. You may find that you or someone else will be in desperate need of it someday.
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