“Order Out of Chaos” – Nick

Nick’s sermon focused on the enduring power of God’s grace, using the story of Joseph from the book of Genesis as a central example. He began by acknowledging the church’s ongoing study of Genesis, inviting newcomers to join the narrative at any point, as the themes within are timeless. He emphasized that the biblical accounts of flawed families demonstrate God’s ability to work within human messiness, bringing order from chaos.

Nick highlighted the theme of God’s infinite patience and grace, illustrated by Joseph’s story. Joseph, sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, endured hardship and injustice, yet rose to power in Egypt through God’s intervention. Nick explained how Joseph’s ability to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams led to his prominence and, ultimately, to a reconciliation with his brothers during a famine.

A key point of the sermon was Joseph’s choice to extend mercy rather than seek revenge. Despite having the power to crush his brothers, Joseph saw an opportunity for reconciliation, demonstrating God’s character breaking through human darkness. Nick stressed that God’s mercy triumphs over judgment, a theme that resonates throughout the Bible.

Nick recounted the brothers’ previous trip to Egypt, where Joseph tested them by detaining Simeon and demanding they return with Benjamin. He detailed the brothers’ fear and Jacob’s reluctant agreement to let them return, highlighting the theme of light breaking through in unexpected ways.

Upon their return, Joseph hosted his brothers, showering them with hospitality and blessing, especially Benjamin. Nick emphasized Joseph’s decision to focus on the future rather than the past, refusing to be defined by past trauma. He urged listeners to embrace their circumstances and discover God’s grace within them.

Nick contrasted human nature’s tendency towards chaos, referencing “entropy theory,” with God’s ability to push back against chaos and bring order. He likened God’s action to the creation narrative in Genesis, where God brought light out of darkness. He applied this concept to contemporary situations, citing examples of spiritual growth amidst global turmoil.

Nick concluded by emphasizing that faith is acknowledging God’s presence and opening our hearts to his light. He encouraged listeners to recognize God’s work in their lives, even through difficult times, and to give thanks for his grace. He reiterated that God orchestrates events for good, and that by opening our eyes, we can witness his life force bringing order out of chaos.

Bible References:

• Genesis (general)
• Genesis 37
• Genesis 43

Transcript

Great. I just want to take a few minutes, only a few minutes, just to speak for a little
while. There’s a strong theme coming through this morning in what we’ve been doing. I want
to come back to Andy’s picture of the, you know, holding the curtain shut to keep out
the light of God, because I think that is a real challenge to us at so many different
points of our lives. I mentioned earlier the theme of living under the grace and the banner
of God, and we in our church have been carefully going through Genesis over the last year or
so, Genesis being the very first of the 66 books that makes up the Bible, telling the
story of our origins and the goings-on amongst all the families that are the ancestors of
us all. So you’ve come in in season one, episode 43, but like all good box sets, you can join
at any particular time, and you can still get something out of it. You don’t have to
go back and watch all other 42 versions first, but it’s really good to come in on this, and
one of the things that we found is that there really is nothing new under the sun. These
people and families were hugely dysfunctional, flawed and challenged, and yet in the middle
of all the mess, God was at work making himself known, and the Bible does that over and over
again, and it’s so encouraging to us that we don’t have to have everything right before
we come to him, but he’s so good at being found in the middle of our mess and creating
order out of chaos. Sometimes we are found in a heap, and God’s grace and infinite patience
leads us to life. We’ll have baptisms next week, and we’ll hear stories about people
who are coming to faith, and often the story is I was in a heap, but yet God found me and
lifted me and changed me and changed the outcome of my story, and that’s the theme that comes
all the way through Genesis and into the rest of the history of God’s Word. His infinite
patience leads us to life. And one of the stories, the story that we’ve been focusing
on most recently is one of the more well-known Old Testament stories, which you might know
as Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, but that’s not the official title of the story,
but that is how it’s become known, and we’ve been following the ups and downs of Joseph’s
life. And in Genesis 37, Joseph was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, a horrible
story, but under God’s hand, he rose to prominence and power in Egypt, which wasn’t an easy ride.
He was unjustly imprisoned, and he suffered a lot, but God was with him through it all.
He was able to interpret the Pharaoh’s dreams, and as a result, he was rewarded and became
very, very powerful. He predicted that there would be seven years of abundance followed
by seven years of severe famine, and it was that famine that forced Joseph’s brothers
from years, you know, he hadn’t seen them for years and years and years, it forced them
to come to Egypt to look for grain for the sake of their family, and God orchestrated
the circumstances whereby the family could be reconciled. It was like I’ve said from
the beginning, the outworking of the grace of God over so many years, through so many
circumstances, and you see the hand of God in it all. And so these brothers have turned
up in Egypt, Joseph knew who they were, but they didn’t know who he was. And he didn’t,
being somebody extremely powerful, you know we see power played out in the world all the
time don’t we on our TV screens and the news broadcasts and all that, people’s own interpretation
of what power means, Joseph had power, and yet he didn’t use this as an opportunity to
crush his brothers, or to wreak revenge on his brothers, but he saw it as an opportunity
for reconciliation. One of those times in the human story where the light of God’s character
breaks through the darkness, remember the curtains Andy talked about where we hold them
together and yet the light forces its way through, that God comes into our life, into
our circumstances in ways that turns the story on its head. Things don’t just go the way
of all flesh, but God is able to change the outcome, he’s able to change your story, he’s
able to change my story, and so many of us have that testimony of how he has done that.
He breaks through the darkness, this could have been a really really horrible story if
Joseph had just followed his human nature and instincts, he could have seen his brothers
before him and thought well here we go, this is my opportunity to have my way of revenge
against them, and they could have been an absolute massacre, but yet God had a different
end to the story that he wanted to bring about. Joseph’s brothers in this circumstance
as they stood before him were weak, they were vulnerable, they were afraid, they could have
been destroyed, but God’s mercy triumphs over judgment. That’s one of the phrases that comes
through the word time and time again, that God’s mercy triumphs over judgment. That we
think some often when we look with our layman’s view if you like, or our instinctive view
of God, we think well he’s somebody who might judge me, he might somebody who might be disappointed
in me, might somebody who might want to to have his say against me like a like an unjust
head teacher or whatever, but yet God’s mercy triumphs over judgment, that God prefers mercy
to judgment, God prefers grace to revenge, he prefers it and we’re the better for it.
These brothers had been to Egypt once before looking for grain and Joseph had put them
to the test. I’m going through, you can read the story yourself, it’s a, we challenged
for time this morning, but hopefully putting a synopsis to the story, but please do go
and read Genesis 43 if you can and if you’re able. He had detained one of their brothers
Simeon and insisting that when they returned they should bring Benjamin, their youngest
brother. Benjamin was Joseph’s blood brother from the same mother and he had a real interest
in seeing him and so he wanted to put them to the test, so he kept Simeon in detention
and said, you know, when you come back I’ll release him to you again, so it was a test
for them. They had no idea what was going to happen, they persuaded their father Jacob
to let them go, but he was very, very reluctant, but in the end he agreed because their survival
depended on it. Jacob’s love and affection for his family was overriding any sense he
had for wanting revenge on them. It’s just, again, it’s like that chink of light coming
through. We would think, if we wrote this story we wouldn’t imagine that there was going
to be so much opportunity for goodness and light to come out of it, but in actual fact
this is what God does. He turns things upside down and inside out. And so when they arrived
in Egypt, Joseph hosted them at his own house. They were a bit suspicious and fearful because
they didn’t understand what was happening, but Joseph used the opportunity to bless them.
We’ve talked about blessing this morning. He showed them hospitality and he lavished
it upon his young brother Benjamin, gave him five times as much as he gave anybody
else. So this reunion was a traumatic one, it was a difficult one for Joseph, but it
was also one that was joyful and held a lot of promise for the future. Joseph was actually,
by the grace of God, thinking about the future rather than the past, thinking about what
was possible rather than what had happened, drawing a line and saying actually I’m not
going to allow things to get fixed in time, a particular thing, and so many things happen
in our lives that define us. We look at them, we look at negative things that have happened,
traumatic things that have happened, and we say that defines my life from now on, but
in actual fact Joseph was saying I’m not going to allow that to happen. The future is going
to be different to the past. And so very quickly, what can we learn? The key to learning is
learning to embrace our circumstances and discover the grace of God in them regardless
of what has happened. Joseph wasn’t actually imprisoned by the bitterness of what he lost
as a result of his brother’s actions. In fact, he used it as an opportunity for life. His
dealings with them later in life, he was determined not to judge them on who they were, but he
wanted to see what they had become. There was a willingness to look at them with grace
and with kindness. They had conspired to kill him. They’d sold him off as a slave. They
concealed the fact from their father. Their father had grieved for years believing that
Joseph was dead. How was there any coming back from that horrible position? But in actual
fact we see over the course of years, somehow these men had improved. Their characters had
changed. Their outlook had become better rather than worse. They were better men over time.
Judah was a ringleader in what they did to Joseph and yet in these stories he shows that
he’s willing now to sacrifice himself to put his own life at risk for the sake of his brothers.
As I was preparing this, I thought about my education and I went back and I thought, I’m
not pretending to be an expert in science or anything like that, but there was something
niggling in my mind. I said, there’s a theory about this sort of thing. So I looked it up
on Google and found out that it’s called entropy theory. That basically says that everything
tends towards chaos. Everything tends to fall apart. Everything tends to get worse. Things
don’t get better. You don’t get good things out of bad. Bad things just become worse.
Things just unravel. It’s the natural way. It’s the way of all flesh. And yet as we read
the human story in the pages of the Bible from the beginning, even when everything has
gone terribly wrong, even when the wheels fall off, there is a force, there is a life
force that works against the chaos that makes things better even when they were worse. That
brings light out of darkness. That brings life out of death. And that is the Spirit
of God at work. Right back at the beginning of Genesis, we read that there was darkness
over the whole earth. There was chaos. There was disorder. And yet suddenly in the middle
of that, God said, let there be light. And there was light. And so the pushback began
and he started pushing back. And this natural entropy theory that says everything just gets
worse and worse and worse and unravels and the wheels fall off. God says, actually, I’m
going to make it different. I’m going to push back. I’m going to push back up the hill
rather than run down the hill and actually see that things can actually turn out. And
that’s been the story of human history because if you think about it, things went terribly
wrong from the beginning and they should be even worse now. But yet the force of God’s
life coming into our lives, mercy triumphs over judgment. Light triumphs over darkness.
Life triumphs over death. That’s the way of God. That’s what he wants to do in our lives.
Getting order out of the chaos. It’s the life force of God. And you look at our world
and you can read, you can listen to the news and you can feel so depressed because you
think where do we go from this? There’s no bounce back from this. Things are just getting
worse and worse. And yet there is order that comes out of chaos by the life. There’s almost
like a parallel life that comes out. When you hear the stories from a Christian point
of view of what’s happened in Ukraine and the terrible destruction and the destruction
of life and the destruction of hope and the destruction of buildings and everything just
looks a mess. And yet you hear the stories about people coming to life, coming to faith
in Christ, the church growing. In Iran where there’s so much going on and yet the church
is growing. There’s such a lot that is happening. The life force of God at work in this world
bringing order out of chaos. There was hope for Joseph’s family because God had been filling
the space in their lives over the years, even unseen. The grace of God is unseen so many
times but he brings order out of our chaos. We see shapes, he guides, he orchestrates
events to make himself known and to establish his purposes. And so to have faith in God
is to acknowledge his presence, to acknowledge his life, to acknowledge his light. Back to
Andy’s picture again of us being in a dark room where we’re holding the curtains shut
and yet the light is shining. The light always shines whether we acknowledge it or not but
the challenge is will we open the curtains? Will we actually say wow this is, this has
always been there, now I’m going to live in the good of it. That’s the turn in our hearts.
Our faith in God doesn’t make God real but it’s just our acknowledgement, our opening
our eyes, our recognition of what he does in our lives. And many of us could tell difficult
stories and we’ve been through ups and downs and we’ve been through pain and we’ve been
through trauma and we’ve been through difficulty and yet you’re here today hearing the word
about the light of God shining in our lives and the question will we open up our hearts
and will we open up our minds to see that God has always been shining in our lives.
Things for Joseph’s family, things weren’t easy, things were difficult, things were traumatic,
things were filled with grief but yet as we get towards the end we see actually God was
shining through it all, that he was actually working it all out. It could have been so
awful the outcome of this story and yet it ended up being so good because God was working
to bring order out of chaos. Grace is at work in our world and in our lives. The question
is will we open our eyes and see it. There’s a phrase isn’t there that we say oh but for
the grace of God there but for the grace of God go I. Where would we be but for the grace
of God? Where would we be today but for the grace of God? Think back over all the things
that could have happened to your life. Maybe things have happened to your life. Maybe you
feel lucky or blessed. Maybe you feel like there’s no blessing in your life or your circumstances
at all but either way the light of God is shining and we need to look and see and have
eyes to see and hearts to understand what it is that he’s doing in our lives bringing
our chaos into order. We can resist him but he’s real. Our resistance, our opinion doesn’t
change things but it prevents us from knowing and being able to trust God. We sang the names
of God at the beginning. Jehovah Nissi fights our battles. Jehovah Jireh provides our needs
and all the other ones that I’ve forgotten. He does them all. Continually works for our
good. And so God is calling us to open our eyes and see that maybe after a very long
time like Joseph that all the time he simply holds our lives in the palm of his hand. Wants
us to look up and understand that. Understand that actually whatever we think there is a
force that is bringing our lives into order, bringing our lives into line that is where
things could have been so different, could have been so dark, could have been so negative
and yet there is an opportunity to open up the curtains and allow the light of God to
shine and say well thank you God, to give thanks in all circumstances for the grace
of God. That was the story of Joseph. There was no human agency. There was no reason to
believe that things would work out well but yet God was able to orchestrate the circumstances.
Are we ready to open up our eyes and to see the grace of God at work in our lives and
to finally say well God in it all you do all things well. And at the end of the story we
want to be those who celebrate the grace of God and know that we could pick up any number
of things. We could say what about this and what about that and what about the other but
when we open up our eyes and we see the light of the grace of God we can always see where
he’s working. We can see this life force that is bringing order out of chaos. Amen.