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Sunday, August 7, 2005
Rev. Dr. Harold E Kidd
Genesis 45: 1
- 15
GOD HAS A PLAN
"But God sent me ahead
of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by great
deliverance." Genesis 45: 7
If has often been said that
the best made plans can often go astray. I can remember our father (bless his
soul) telling my brother and me on more than one occasion how, while he was in
his second year at Southern University, his father became very sick, and
because there was little money, he had to quit school. Go home and get a job.
He never did finish college. Two years of study, a dream in the process of
becoming a reality, and now a plan and hope derailed.
He had grown up in a family
of 12 children, and his mother died when he was two years old, he being the
second from the baby, my uncle Shelvie. Growing up in the rural South. Money
was hard to come by, but my dad, like most men and women of his generation, had
been taught how to survive, leaning on the Lord. He been taught how to take the
little bit he had and stretch it to make it go a long way. His generation were
taught survival skills that this present generation would do well to learn.
It had been his heart's
desire to become an electrical engineer, but his father's serious illness
changed all of that. His father had made plans to send him to college, and if
he had graduated, he would have been the first of twelve siblings to earn a
college diploma. So much hope, so much planning, so much family pride riding on
this 11th child. But an unforeseen illness changed all of that. Dad
dropped out of college, moved back home, and got a job so that he could help
pay bills and take care of a sick father. Yes, the best made plans can sometimes
go astray.
As I've gotten older, one of
the invaluable lessons that life is teaching me is that of being open to
options. I believe that one should have
some options. If plan A doesn't work, go to plan B. And if plan B doesn't work,
have a plan C. We ought not become so rigid in our plans that we become
inflexible when an unforeseen event occurs that changes our plans.
Well, my dad eventually
found a plan B, some years later. After
the family moved to
Billy Jr., my older brother,
and I still talk of those wonderful times in the Kidd household, including
those evenings when dad would allow us to sit with him in his shop while he
repaired someone's television. If plan A doesn't work, develop a plan B. Amen.
I remember some years ago
stepping on the elevator in a hospital on my way to visit a church member and
happened to step on the elevator with an elderly man. In just a few short
moments we developed a conversation, and he told me how he and his wife had
worked hard, invested wisely in planning for a retirement filled with travel.
This had been their dream.
He said, "We had this
grandson who became seriously ill, and my wife and I exhausted our retirement
savings helping our son and daughter-in-law with the medical costs trying to save
our grandson." The grandson died. As he got off the elevator he looked at
me and simply said, "Life is like that; things happen, all you can do is
the best you can."
Doesn't matter what it is;
life presents us with countless illustrations and personal experiences that
teach us of how the best-made plans can be upset, sidetracked, put on hold; and
some never do reach the desired end or fulfillment we had hoped for.
One thing however we must
never forget or lose sight of is that God has a plan. Sometimes personal
misfortune, setback and circumstantial ill winds buffet us. When we have
reversals in our chosen careers, when illness and infirmity invade our bodies
or those of loved ones, when a loved one is taken without warning, God has a
plan that may help us to make sense of our suffering or misfortune.
You see, our faith affirms
the sovereignty of God. Meaning God rules. The Psalmist held this belief, that
God rules, because he declared in Psalm 24, "The earth is the Lord's and
the fullness thereof, the world and they who dwell therein."
Jesus himself taught us that
God our heavenly Father watches over us. "Look at the birds of the air;
they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father
feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Yet, somehow God
takes care of all their needs. Even though they don't have what we have, the
birds always seem to be chirping a song of praise. God is sovereign.
Even when our plans get side
tracked, God's plan for us never fails, because His plans for us are better and
serve a higher purpose than the plans we make for ourselves. Sometimes He
allows our plans to go unmet because He has a greater plan and purpose for our
living. Take the life of the apostle Paul for example. Paul always wanted to go
to Spain, that was his deepest desire as an apostle. But Paul's desire to go to
Paul wrote Romans while in
But Paul never got to
When we study the history of
the church into the third century, we find that believers were under heavy
Roman persecution. Church buildings were destroyed, many believers were
martyred, others were imprisoned, and sacred writings of the church were
confiscated and burned. The very place where God allowed Paul to make his last
stand in witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, in time became the seat of
Christianity.
For in 312 AD, the Roman
Emperor Constantine had a conversion experience to Jesus Christ, and the very
faith that had been a persecuted minority faith, became the faith of the Empire
by the end of the 3rd century. God had a plan, beyond what Paul could
see.
Genesis 45 gives details of
the reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers. You remember the story.
Joseph was one of Jacob's twelve sons. Genesis 37 informs us that Israel-Jacob
loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he had been born to him in
his old age. And he made him a richly ornamented robe, a robe of brilliant
beautiful colors. And when his brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more
than he did them, they hated him.
As time went on the brothers
decided to kill Joseph. There came a day when they were out in the fields, they
seized Joseph, stripped him of his coat of many colors, and threw him down into
an old well. They sold him to some Midianite merchants who were on their way to
In the midst of all this
chaos, the text states, "the Lord was with Joseph." Even when your
life seems to be unraveling at the seams, know that God is with you. Joseph was
said to be good looking; in time Potiphar's wife took a liking to Joseph and
eventually tried to seduce him. Joseph ran out of the house.
When Potiphar came home his
wife told him that Joseph had tried to seduce her, and Potiphar had Joseph
thrown into prison. Thrown down into a well, taken down into
But God had given Joseph the
gift of interpreting dreams. And the word began to get around throughout the
prison that Joseph could interpret dreams. Pharoah was having some weird
dreams. He sent for his magicians, but
they could not interpret the dreams. He heard about Joseph, sent for Joseph,
and Joseph was able to interpret the dreams.
Well, the seven years of
abundance did come to an end. The seven years of famine began to spread
throughout all the lands, including
To make a long story short,
when we get to Genesis 45, Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. "God
sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your
lives by a great deliverance." Yes, God had a plan. God knew that a famine
was coming, and He sent Joseph ahead of the family and in time placed Joseph in
a position where he could save his family and the people of God. All along it
was God who allowed all of this to happen in Joseph's life in order that
through Joseph, God might save the family through whom the nation of
Joseph had been thrown down
into an old well, carried down into
Jacob and the entire family
moved to Egypt, and one of the final scenes in this beautiful story is found in
Genesis 50. Jacob has passed on to
glory, and Joseph's brothers begin to fear that Joseph will now seek to take
revenge upon his brothers for their harsh and cruel treatment of him years ago.
But Joseph reassures them, "Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm
me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the
saving of many lives." Hallelujah!
Yes, Joseph's brothers had a plan A, but God had plan B. Their plan had
been to do harm to their brother, but God's plan was to use their intended harm
to Joseph in order to move Joseph to where God wanted him, in order that God
might exalt him, that through Joseph many lives might be saved at the appointed
time.
And notice that it took many
years for God's plan to take effect. He was sold into slavery at about the age
of 17 (Genesis 37:2); when he became the Governor of
Pass. Nevertheless, God has
a plan!
"Wait on the Lord: be
of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart: wait, I say, on the
Lord." (Ps. 27:14-KJV) Yes, "Those who hope in the Lord renew their
strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow
weary, they will walk and not be faint." (Is. 40:31- NIV)