Genesis 45:1-15 - Reconciliation in Egypt
Introduction: The Long Game of God
If you’re a guest with us, welcome to The Well. We are going to be in Genesis 45, continuing our journey throughout the book of Genesis. Before we get into the text, just from a high level, I am super thankful for the Word of God because it is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, so that the man or woman of God may be adequate and equipped for every good work. In it is everything we need pertaining to life and godliness.
The reason I say that is because it makes my task relatively simple. My job is not to try to be impressive or funny, or to try to be anything other than true to what the Word of God says so that we can understand what it actually means. As we read the Bible, we submit ourselves to it and allow it to read us, to begin to change us. If every story from Genesis to Revelation whispers His name, then the main character of our entire Bible is Jesus Christ. What we are seeing in the life of Joseph, and in the lives of these Old Testament saints, is really just shadows pointing us to the even better Jesus, whom we will see tonight as the great Reconciler.
We’re starting in Genesis 45, covering verses 1 through 15. I’m going to give you an alert right up front: I am going to take a long time to get to the text. Tonight is the bookend on this side of the story, and in order to understand it, we need to remember where we have come from. If you are new here, you’re going to get caught up on where we’ve been. By the time we get to verse 1, there will be a clear sense of why chapter 45 is so critical.
Throughout the life of Joseph, we have been tracing God’s faithfulness over time—watching God’s providential hand working, not just with Joseph, but with his dad, Jacob, and with these knucklehead brothers, Judah being on the forefront of that. We are tracing God’s ability to intersect in a person’s life and begin to change them into who God really intended them to be.
For a Jesus-following believer, there is a work that God is doing in our life to make us more like Jesus.
Romans 8:29 (NASB)
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined [to become] conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
Now, for most of us, that’s a lot of work God has to do, because there is a lot in us that is not like Jesus. The good news of the gospel is that He is faithful, He is patient, and He plays the long game. What God has begun in your life and my life, God will be faithful to complete. It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
The invitation into life with God is not an invitation into religion. It is not about you and me just “being good”—quit drinking, quit looking at inappropriate stuff on the internet. It is an invitation into doing life with God, where He begins to change us from the inside out.
Seasons of Consolation and Desolation
Over the centuries of church history, theologians have called this process sanctification. It means to be set apart or to be made holy. You might know it as spiritual formation, transformation, or simply spiritual growth. Theologians have pointed out two primary seasons of the spiritual life that we walk through, just as Joseph did.
One is called a season of consolation—meaning to be comforted. Spiritual consolation is when everything is new. You just trusted Christ. For me, it was when I was living at Fresno State. I was a beer-drinking knucklehead, and I came to faith in Jesus, and everything was brand new. I kid you not, I thought the book of Job was “the book of Job” for a long time! In those moments of consolation, you read the Bible and it comes alive. You pray, having never done that before, and you sense God’s pleasure. Sin issues in your life that were the size of Mount Everest begin to move, and you think, Man, I’m changing! This is awesome! That is spiritual consolation.
Those seasons don’t last forever. The other season is what is called spiritual desolation. Spiritual desolation is when you feel dry. Your spiritual life feels a little stale. The spiritual practices you used to love—opening your Bible and having it jump off the page—now feel routine, and you might even feel bored, which brings shame and guilt. When you pray, instead of sensing God’s immediate presence, you feel like you are in an echo chamber: Hello? Hello?
Historically, we don’t give ourselves permission to be in desolation very often. We much prefer consolation because it feels better. But the reality of the spiritual life is that while God gives us moments of consolation, we shouldn’t get addicted to the feeling. Times of desolation are inevitable. It is a normative expression of the spiritual life.
The danger comes when we begin to crave the feeling of consolation so much that we start needing the feeling to provide our joy rather than God Himself. We begin to love God for how He makes us feel, not for who He is alone.
Think of it in terms of marriage. If there are newlyweds here who have been married five years or less, you are likely experiencing seasons of consolation. You are experiencing oneness emotionally, spiritually, and physically for the first time. You rent your first apartment, buy your first house, go on your first vacation without parents, have your first child, or score your first minivan. Those are consolation moments.
I have been married for twenty-three years. There is not a lot of “newness” left. My wife knows me, I know her, and we get irritated about the same things today that we did twenty years ago! But there is a sweetness that comes from having walked through miscarriages together, having buried family members together, having navigated crises and bad health diagnoses together. There is an intimacy born in the hard things. There is an intimacy in morning breath, in deep familiarity, in knowing how to dance together without stepping on each other’s toes after two decades. In the same way, while our relationship with God has times of joy, real intimacy often deepens in the pain of desolation.
If a marriage is built on consolation alone, the moment the feeling fades, you might look for someone else or assume the relationship is broken. Spiritually, we do the same thing: I don’t feel close to God, so something must be wrong with me, with the church, or with Him. Or maybe God just has you in the wilderness, and that is okay. Joseph experienced that in a profound way.
As one scholar put it: “God who is everywhere never leaves us, yet he seems sometimes to be present and sometimes to be absent. And if we do not know him well, we do not realize that he may be more present to us when he seems absent than when he seems present.”
The Upper and Lower Story Collide
Look at Joseph’s life. He experienced twenty years of desolation. He was sold by his brothers into slavery, ended up in multiple places feeling rejected and abandoned, and had to learn how to wait on God.
Back in chapter 37, young Joseph was told he would rule over his brothers. He popped off about it, his brothers hated him for it, and they trafficked him to Egypt. He had to learn patience and humility.
1 Peter 5:6-7 (NASB)
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
That desolation was formative. In chapter 42, Joseph learned how to forgive. Instead of holding a grudge against the brothers who harmed him deeply, he let go of resentment, bitterness, and anger, and walked in freedom. He began to understand that two things were happening simultaneously: a lower story of painful circumstances, and an upper story where God was at work in the awful.
Then the encounter happened. A famine struck, and the brothers traveled to Egypt to buy grain. Joseph, who had remained faithful in Potiphar’s house and in prison, was now exalted. When the brothers showed up at the Egyptian “Costco,” Joseph was the one checking the cards. He recognized them, but they didn’t recognize him.
God was working on their father Jacob, too, teaching him to let go of his “precious”—his youngest son, Benjamin. Desperation forced Jacob’s hand when the famine became severe in the land.
Genesis 43:1 (NASB)
Now the famine was severe in the land.
When the brothers returned to Egypt with Benjamin, they brought restitution to make things right for the money that had previously been returned in their sacks.
Romans 12:18 (NASB)
If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.
Joseph set up a test to see if his brothers had truly changed. He planted his silver cup in Benjamin’s bag, had them arrested, and gave them an out: Leave Benjamin as a slave, and the rest of you can go home free. The old brothers—the men they were twenty years prior—would have gladly said, “Sounds great! Sucks to be Benjamin! See ya!” But they didn’t.
Judah stepped forward and got completely honest on behalf of his brothers.
Genesis 44:16 (NASB)
So Judah said, ‘What can we say to my lord? What can we speak? And how can we justify ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of your servants; behold, we are my lord’s slaves, both we and the one in whose possession the cup has been found.’
Judah confessed that God had uncovered their guilt. They weren’t guilty of stealing the cup, but their past sins were finally coming to the surface. God brought them to a point of breaking. Judah pleaded to take Benjamin’s place as a slave so the boy could return to their father. That was evidence of genuine repentance—turning away from sinful patterns and turning toward God, by God’s help, alongside others.
The Great Reveal and True Reconciliation
The stage was set. Joseph saw that God had truly transformed his brothers’ hearts. What they did was not something they could have ever done in the flesh.
Genesis 45:1 (NASB)
Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried, ‘Have everyone go out from me.’ So there was no man with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.
Joseph could not control himself any longer. He ordered all the Egyptian attendants to leave the room, and he revealed himself to his brothers. Picture that moment. Maybe he removed his Egyptian headdress and royal garments. The brothers were completely stunned. You can see the wheels turning in their minds: Wait… is that why you asked about our father? Is that why you seated us in birth order at dinner? Is that why you gave Benjamin five times as much food? Is that why you’re showing us grace instead of executing us? Because you’re our brother?
Reconciliation is the very heart of God. To conciliate means to make peaceful or restore; to reconcile means to make peaceful and restore once more.
Genesis 45:2-4 (NASB)
He wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard [it], and the household of Pharaoh heard [of it]. Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?’ But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Please come closer to me.’ And they came closer. And he said, ’I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.
Joseph was weeping aloud—ugly crying so loudly that Pharaoh’s household heard it. He told his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But they were terrified, thinking, We sold you into slavery twenty years ago. Are we dead? But Joseph told them, “Please come closer to me.” Drawing them close reflected the heart of God.
Genesis 45:5-8 (NASB)
’Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. ’For the famine [has been] in the land these two years, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. ’God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. ’Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt.
Here, the upper story and the lower story collide. Joseph gave divine perspective to their awful actions: “Do not be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life… It was not you who sent me here, but God.”
Recognizing God’s sovereignty did not erase the pain of the lower story. Joseph still lived through twenty years of slavery and imprisonment. It was hard, painful, and awful. Christians sometimes make the mistake of slapping a quick cliché on deep pain: “God is good all the time!” Yes, He is, but life can still be devastatingly difficult.
David expressed this raw honesty in the Psalms.
Psalms 13:1-2 (NASB)
For the choir director. A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, [Having] sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
Have you ever been there? You can’t explain it away, you are stuck, and you cry out, “How long, O Lord?” Yet, by the end of that psalm, David remembered God’s character.
Psalms 13:5-6 (NASB)
But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, Because He has dealt bountifully with me.
The circumstances didn’t instantly change, but his perspective did. That is what happened for Joseph. The difficulty of the twenty years wasn’t erased, but it was reframed by the eternal purposes of God.
2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NASB)
For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
We are learning how to walk out the messy process of life with God through the ups and downs, the good and the bad, consolation and desolation.
Romans 8:28 (NASB)
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to [His] purpose.
Notice the verse does not say God makes all things be good. Things are not always good. We live in a broken world where broken people do broken things, and our bodies break down. (If you are over fifty, you know what I mean! The other day, I bought my daughter a little starter car. I’m a big guy trying to squeeze out of a tiny Toyota Corolla at Sprouts, groaning the whole way, and the guy next to me just laughed out loud. That’s life in a broken body!) But God causes all things to work together for good.
Genesis 45:9-15 (NASB)
’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 delay. ’You shall live in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children and your flocks and your herds and all that you have. ‘There I will also provide for you, for there are still five years of famine [to come], and you and your household and all that you have would be impoverished.’’ ’Behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin [see], that it is my mouth which is speaking to you. ‘Now you must tell my father of all my splendor in Egypt, and all that you have seen; and you must hurry and bring my father down here.’ Then he fell on his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck. He kissed all his brothers and wept on them, and afterward his brothers talked with him.
Joseph told them to hurry home, get their father Jacob, and bring the entire family to settle in Goshen so he could provide for them during the five remaining years of famine. Then he fell on Benjamin’s neck and wept, kissed all of his brothers, and wept over them. Afterward, his brothers finally talked with him. Peace was restored after twenty years of separation.
The Greater Reconciler
Joseph is an incredible example, but he is merely a shadow of an even greater Reconciler. Joseph reconciled with his brothers after testing them, after seeing their repentance, and after making sure it was safe. But look at what our God does for us.
Romans 5:10 (NASB)
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
Ephesians 2:4-5 (NASB)
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
God reconciled us to Himself while we were still His enemies, dead in our trespasses. That is the gospel.
Many people struggle to receive this because they have a distorted view of God. When they hear “Father,” they project their earthly dad onto God. If your father was distant, uninvolved, or too busy, you assume God is in His study with the door shut, uninterested in you. Others view God like the Wizard of Oz—a powerless figure behind a curtain. In college, that was my view; I thought religion was just a crutch for weak people. Others picture an angry, punitive God waiting to pounce on their mistakes.
Through Scripture, God reveals who He truly is. When I came to faith in the spring of 1993, right before my senior year at Fresno State, I was all passion and no polish. Right after Easter, I had a conversation with my older brother. He had gone through AA, was sober, and was talking about his “higher power.” But his higher power was himself. I told him, “Mine spoke the universe into existence; yours is you!”
Reconciliation was a sore subject for us. Growing up with our family dysfunction, my brother had turned to drugs and alcohol and had severely abused me. He was seven years older, and our relationship had been deeply strained for years. As a kid, I remember chasing him with a hammer, and if he had fallen down, I would have killed him. That was the level of dysfunction.
Yet God was working in the upper story. He brought me to faith. Later, my brother came to faith in Christ. Today, he has over thirty years of sobriety, has been married for over twenty years, and is walking with Jesus. A while back, he went through a recovery ministry called Re:generation and needed a mentor. He called me and said, “Little brother, will you be my mentor?” I laughed and said, “As long as you know our personal inventories are going to look almost identical!”
God reconciled our relationship. It isn’t perfect, but God has done a miracle, and the best is yet to come. That is the heart of God: to bring peace where there was hostility.
Romans 8:38-39 (NASB)
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
John 3:16 (NASB)
’For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Romans 5:8 (NASB)
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Titus 3:4-5 (NASB)
But when the kindness of God our Savior and [His] love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,
This is the God of the Bible. He seeks and saves the lost.
Jesus illustrated this perfectly in the story of the prodigal son. A younger son essentially told his father, “I wish you were dead; give me my inheritance now.” He went off to the ancient equivalent of Las Vegas, squandering everything on reckless living. When he hit rock bottom, starving in a pig pen, he came to his senses and headed home, preparing a speech to beg for a job as a servant.
He expected wrath, but his father had been watching the horizon day after day. When the father saw the silhouette of his broken boy in the distance, he ran to him. He embraced him, threw a robe over his shoulders, put a ring on his finger, and threw a celebration, saying, “My son was lost, and now he is found.”
That is the heart of God. Joseph gave his brothers a small glimpse of that heart when he said, “I don’t hold this against you. God used it for good.” Jesus offers that same reconciliation to us, not because we deserve it, but because He loves us.
When we are reconciled to God, He gives us beauty for ashes. He restores the years the locusts have eaten. He makes all things new. What He has begun in your life, He will be faithful to complete.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for who You are. Thank You that You are the great Reconciler, and that You care about us. Thank You for the shadow we see in Joseph, whom You led to forgive and restore his family. And Lord, here we are, recipients of an even greater reconciliation through Jesus Christ that we did not deserve.
For anyone here tonight who has yet to embrace Your grace, I pray they would sense the gentle nudge of Your Holy Spirit inviting them to trust You. For those carrying fractured, painful relationships, would You give us the grace to live as reconciled people who extend peace to others? We love You, and we thank You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.