· Joseph’s own commentary on this account helps to explain this chapter – and it makes sense of what would otherwise seem like just human sin and circumstance.
Genesis 50:20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people1 should be kept alive, as they are today.
· What seemed like human sin and circumstance ruling the day is in fact God’s sovereignty on display· God was the one who initiated Joseph’s call & chose Joseph
· When he was en route to Egypt acing slavery, when he was in the midst of his darkest times, he could point back to the one thing that was more sure than his own faith and the very thing that gave him faith - and this was knowing that God had chosen him.
· The reason God’s people endure is because it is God who chooses them and God who sustains them. It is God’s sovereign election that ensures that His people will remain in His hand through whatever circumstances or situations that they face.
1. God’s people endure because He chooses them
· In choosing Joseph (an unlikely choice from a human perspective), God once again chose the younger to rule over the older.· God makes His choice clear through two dreams with the same meaning (37:7 & 37:9), which signified that the thing was fixed by God.
(example: Genesis 41:32 32 And the doubling of Pharaoh's dream means that the thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about.)
· The long slow train of Joseph’s life was now firmly fixed on its track to being mistreated, hated, sold into slavery, taken to Potiphar’s house, wrongly accused and then put in jail.
· All of this was so that God could position him in the right place at just the right time – to interpret dreams accurately over several years, that eventually would lead to the rescue of his own family from starvation in a severe famine.
· But there was no way to see it all coming
· Joseph couldn’t have scripted any of this and not even Shakespeare could have imagined such a wild tale. But God was at work in the midst of evil
· Through the rest of Joseph’s life, he would need to remember the dreams that God gave him. He would need to remember that it was God who chose him and God would one day change his circumstances
· Even if he didn’t know how, Joseph could be sure that one day he would reign – one day he would no longer be a slave and stuck in jail – one day he would rule and even his brothers would bow down to him
· When Joseph’s faith started to waver, he would need to remember God’s dreams – because I imagine that at times he was tempted to feel like his life would never change
· At times, Joseph was probably tempted to think that there was no way out of the circumstances that he was in and there was no hope for deliverance
· For us, we can be sure that we will endure because ultimately, it is God who chose us and God who will give us life.
John 10:27-30 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
· When we face dark times, when we suffer and we can’t make sense of it, when sin seems too big, when our faith wavers and we aren’t sure of what is true anymore, we can rest in the fact that God’s calling is sure . · If we are following Jesus, we can be sure that He gives us eternal life and we will never perish, even if we die here on earth – no one can snatch us from His hand.
· At times, it may feel like our sin or the sins of others can keep us from enduring.
· But there is a second truth that we can hang onto – a key truth that we see through the story of Joseph and it is that,
2. God’s people endure because He’s Sovereign over Sin
· God doesn’t cause sin. But He is Sovereign over it and sinlessly uses human sin to work His purposes.
· In the story of Joseph, human responsibility is plain.
· There is no mistaking that there are very human, very real causes behind everything that happens
· At times in our own lives, it may even look like human sin is reigning supreme
· Do you ever feel like human sin – either your sin of the sin of others is what is really dictating the outcome?
· Do you ever feel like nothing good could ever come of the sin you’ve done or the sins that others have done maybe?
· I am sure Joseph was tempted to feel that way as well
· It is indeed true that Humans are responsible for their actions and that human sin has consequences and that at times those consequences are not good and they can be very painful. (We never want to minimize that sin causes very real hurt and pain for people!)
· But ultimately, for God’s people, we can trust that He is superintending those sins and making them work for His purposes, to bring about His plans. (Romans 8:28)
· Jacob’s sin of favoritism wasn’t good and it caused grievous problems in his family.
· Because Jacob hated Leah, there was family discord amongst his sons
· Before we judge Jacob too harshly though, we must remember that we are all prone to show favoritism too.
· There is also jealousy seen in this chapter – the jealousy of the brothers.
· In addition, Joseph brought a bad report of his brothers to his father. It seems very likely that Joseph in some way maligned or misrepresented his brothers and cast them in a bad light to their father, even if his report was true.
· This enraged his brothers because Jacob already hated their mother and clearly Joseph was already the favorite and now their father thought even less of them.
· They began to seethe with hatred, envy and jealousy towards him and they probable felt justified in doing so, because they were partly right to be incensed by this injustice
· Proverbs warns against jealousy or envy and says
Proverbs 14:30 A tranquil1 heart gives life to the flesh, but envy2 makes the bones rot.
· But throughout it all, ultimately, God is Sovereign· God used very human means and very common human sin, to bring about his purposes
· God knew Joseph’s bad report would have the effect that it did and we find later in the story of Joseph that God used Joseph’s mistakes and his brothers hatred as well to work His purposes
· God is the one who is using his father’s sin, his own sin and his brother’s sin to get him put into a pit and then sold into slavery, all so that one day he would be the means to rescue the Israelites from starvation.
· Joseph endured not because of his sheer determination but Joseph endured because God is sovereign over sin
· God’s people endure because He is sovereign over sin.
· We need a God who loves us, protects us, and guides us even when we sin.
· And God is just like that isn’t He?
· The story of Joseph tells us that God loves us, protects us and guides us, even when we and others all around us sin
· We need a God who doesn’t leave us when we sin, but uses our sin to change us and that is just the kind of God that we have.
3. God’s people endure because He’s Sovereign over circumstances
· Nothing just happens· Joseph didn’t just happen to be born number 11 out of 12 children
· If Joseph was the firstborn, then God’s dreams wouldn’t have been a big deal
· After all, the firstborn would have been expected to rule and reign and to take over the family eventually as the rightful heir
· But if he was the firstborn, then he wouldn’t have been hated in the same way for being the favorite
· And if he wasn’t hated for being the favorite, then the other brothers wouldn’t have sold him into slavery and he never would have made it to Egypt
· For whatever reason, this time, Joseph didn’t go to pasture the flocks with his brothers – although he had done so in the past
· So, Joseph was going far from home – on his own, away from protection, away from support, crossing through open lands of other peoples on his own at 17.
· His brothers probably saw his multi-colored robe from afar off somehow
· If the brothers didn’t happen to be separate from him to begin with, they may not have colluded together to kill Joseph when they saw him coming.
· Given human nature, it is likely that they gossiped about him and talked about him when he wasn’t there, until their mutual hatred of him grew and they all knew how the others felt
· If Reuben hadn’t happened to find out about their plan and speak up at just the right time, then they would have killed Joseph and the entire nation of Israel could have been lost in the famine that came so many years later
· If the cistern didn’t happen to be dry, he would have drowned eventually, since most cisterns were bottle-shaped holes dug into limestone in the ground full of water and up to 20 feet deep
· If the ground was too hard, the fall could have killed him
· There are so many details to orchestrate in this story to get it just right so that everything happens to get Joseph to Egypt
· When the brothers callously sat down to eat after stripping their brother of his robe and throwing him in a pit, (ignoring Joseph’s begging for deliverance as chapter 42 later tells us), they saw Ishmaelite traders.
· If the Ishmaelite traders bearing these delicacies headed for Egypt had not just happened to come by at the exact right time – not any earlier and not any later, then Judah wouldn’t have seen them as they sat down to eat
· The Ishmaelites happened to agree to buy Joseph – who would have known they were in the market for slaves and didn’t already have enough
· We don’t know where Reuben was or why he didn’t hear his brothers plans or where he was when they took him out of the pit and sold him
· He may have been out tending to the sheep, since he was the oldest and most responsible one
· But when Reuben returns to the pit intending to take his brother out and let him go, he find that his brother is gone and he is distressed
· So, the brothers covered up their sin and they conspired together to deceive their father the deceiver
· Jacob’s sin had come back to haunt him in his own children
· Jacob had once used his brother Esau’s clothes and he had slain a goat –all to deceive his own father and now, ironically, he was deceived by his sons with Joseph’s clothes and the blood of a slain goat.· Jacob drew his own conclusions about what happened and they did nothing to dissuade him from believing a lie and they never told him the truth.
· But God used all these circumstances to ensure that Joseph wasn’t rescued and to make sure that Jacob didn’t think he was alive and mount a rescue mission - because that is what any loving father would do – or at the very least, he would have bought him back for as much money as he had.
· But God was sovereign over these circumstances to allow Jacob’s suffering of grief, his brothers suffering in guilt and Joseph’s suffering through horrible, painful, lonely circumstances
· And at the end of these verses, there is an ancient to be continued… it is a cliff-hanger of sorts.
· It says, “Meanwhile, the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard”
· Joseph didn’t get sold into slavery as a common field hand as most of the slaves were - they just happened to sell him into the house of Potiphar, the trusted captain of Pharaoh’s elite personal guard
· In all of this, Joseph endured because God chose him, God was Sovereign over sin and God was Sovereign over circumstances.
· Those whom God chooses He will enable to endure even through sin and circumstance
Potential Application Questions:
1. How does it encourage you to know that God’s people endure because God chooses them?2. When are you tempted to doubt your faith or when does your faith waver? (circumstances, suffering, your sin, the sins of others?)
3. What Biblical truths can and should you combat your doubts with when they come? (Read John 10:27-30)
4. How does it encourage you to know that God is sovereign over all sin (our sin and the sins of others)?
5. How does it encourage you to know that God is sovereign over all circumstances?
6. Do you see the sins of favoritism, jealousy, bitterness or resentment anywhere in your own life? (if the patriarchs were susceptible to these sins, so are we).
7. How does the gospel give us hope to overcome these sins and put them to death?
8. How has God been faithful to use your sin or difficult circumstances in your life in the past for your good?
9. How can you help encourage one another without ignoring or minimizing the reality of life (that there is indeed sin, suffering and difficult circumstances)?
