Genesis 50:19–20

0:00 Good evening. I wonder if you are a person who's ever not seen the bigger picture. Maybe you can think of an example where you just missed something and you didn't see the bigger picture. When I think about that question, I think of those color by number sheets that we used to do when we were kids. where you have the bit of paper and it's black and white, but then you gradually color every numbered bit in until you see the bigger picture.

0:33 I also remember when I was a kid, we had these things called magic eyes. I don't know if you've come across these, but they're basically pictures that just look really strange and just have no kind of sense to them until you kind of position your eyes in a particular place and then you can suddenly see like a castle or something unexpected. I learned today that there's an actual word for these pictures and they're called autostereograms. So there's a new bit of information for you today.

1:06 But not seeing the big picture is trivial, isn't it, in cases like that. But when it comes to the things of God, it can be very serious indeed. Our text this evening is printed on the front of your bulletin It's Genesis chapter 50. If you want to follow along in your Bibles, you can find it on page 44. So Genesis chapter 50, and we're in verses 18 and 19.

1:37 Sorry, no, 19 and 20, sorry. So let me read Genesis chapter 50, verses 19 and 20. But Joseph said to them, Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. I would just give you a little bit of context here.

2:10 So this is the point where Joseph and his brothers are in Egypt. Jacob has just died, their father, and his brothers are worried that now that Jacob has died, that Joseph is suddenly going to turn on them to pay them back and get revenge for what they'd done many years earlier when they sold him into slavery in Egypt. So Joseph here talks about the evil that his brothers have done, and then he also talks about the good that God has done through the evil. And so our main idea this evening, the thing I want to convince you of tonight, is that God uses evil for good. God uses evil for good. It's a very simple truth to understand just conceptually, but it has many, many profound implications. You see, this truth that God uses evil for good draws on the complex interplay between God's sovereignty on the one

3:16 hand, his being in control over everything, but also on the other hand, our responsibility as human beings. So we see here in this text that God is in charge to bring good out of evil, but yet there is still a responsibility on the part of Joseph's brothers for the evil that they committed. So what we're going to do this evening is we're going to look at the evil, and then we're going to look at the goods. All right, so two points to the sermon. Point one is the evil, and then point two, the goods. So let's start by looking at the evil that was committed. What was the evil that Joseph's brothers committed? Well, it was many, many years earlier when they sold him into slavery. They were jealous of him. They were jealous of the favoritism of his father Jacob, and so they decided to sell him as a slave into Egypt. So as we think about this, the evil that his brothers committed, I want us to go through a few aspects of the evil and try and make some

4:20 applications from them. So first, we need to establish from this text that evil must not be committed. That sounds like a very obvious thing to hear in a church, but it's worth saying that just because God uses evil to bring about good, it does not give any of us and it does not give any human being the right to commit it in the first place. The end does not justify the means. Evil is abhorrent and must not be committed.

4:56 And I hope that we'll help each other as Christians not to commit evil. It's worth thinking about that Joseph's brothers were brought up in a good family, right? They had good parents, they had a good upbringing, and yet their jealousy led them to commit a terrible act of evil. And so we need to be on our guard, don't we? that we aren't prone to sins that can easily lead us astray, lead us to do things that maybe sitting here this evening, you think, well, I would never, ever do that.

5:30 And yet a few years down the line, we find ourselves doing the exact thing that we thought we would never do. Evil must not be committed. Secondly, evil must be condemned. Friends, it's so important that we condemn evil. We must acknowledge in this story that Joseph's brothers were wrong. They were wrong to sell him as a slave in Egypt. Again, just because God brought good eventually out of what they did, we still must condemn the evil that they committed.

6:04 I think it's a reminder too that we should condemn evil when we see it in our lives. I don't know about you, but I've been in many, many jobs in my life and I've seen a lot of evil, Even just in the workplace. I've heard co-workers use the Lord's name in vain. Even in a Christian school where I teach now, I see and hear evil on a daily basis. And I have to acknowledge sometimes I'm slow to call it out. Sometimes I'm slow to call it for what it is.

6:38 And I let things be said and be done that should not be. We must call out evil when we see it. not just in our workplaces and our lives and our schools, but also nationally. We regularly pray here that our leaders would recognize good and evil. And we must continue to pray that those who exercise authority over us will know the difference between good and evil, and that they will call out evil correctly when they see it. So I think particularly as we enter this election year, We should be mindful of that and be ready to call things evil that are, in fact, evil and things that God calls evil.

7:21 So evil must not be committed. Evil must be condemned. And thirdly, committing evil has consequences. Let's just think for a few minutes of the consequences of the sin that Joseph's brothers committed. What did it do? I mean, it had a profound effect on their dad, on their father, Jacob. He was told by the brothers that Joseph was dead. His favorite son was dead, according to his brothers. And so Jacob was grieved and was sinned against by his brothers, compounding the first sin of selling him into slavery.

7:58 What were the other consequences of the brother's sin? Well, when they came to Egypt asking for food, they had to make amends, didn't they, with their brother. Just before this in Genesis, you can read the story of how the brothers became reconciled to Joseph. And Joseph did have to teach them a lesson. And so, friends, we must be prepared for the consequences of sin. If you sin as a Christian, your sin will have consequences. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that.

8:31 Thankfully, though, we don't have eternal consequences of our sin. We don't have eternal consequences because God has forgiven our sin. He has paid the price for it. He has dealt with it on the cross in the person of his son. So we don't have eternal consequences from our sin, but our sin will still have consequences, which, friends, we must be prepared to face. I think God is very kind to Joseph's brothers in this story in Genesis when it's really clear to them, isn't it, The consequences they face in front of Joseph in Egypt are a direct result of their sin.

9:12 The relationship between what they did and what he did back to them is really, really clear. We won't always know what the consequences of our sins are. And so friends, we must avoid sin in the first place. Because it's evil and it has consequences. so evil must be must not be committed it must be condemned it has consequences and finally as we finish this first point we must not take revenge we must not take revenge it would have been wrong for joseph to have sought revenge on his brothers yes he taught them a lesson but to take revenge was not his place what does he say in our text in verse 19 he says do not fear Therefore, am I in the place of God?

10:01 Friends, it is God's place to avenge evil, not ours. And in fact, taking revenge will distract, as we'll see, from God's good purposes in evil. Taking revenge means that we're the ones defining what's happening, whereas in fact it is God's prerogative. It is his purpose that needs to be fulfilled. And so we must not take revenge. It's easy to lash out, isn't it, when we're wronged? But the Bible says clearly that that is God's right to avenge evil.

10:35 And if not in this life, then it will be done, won't it, on Judgment Day, when those who oppose God and those who are standing against God will have to account for their actions. So that's the first point this evening, the evil. But now let's consider the goods. This is our second point, the goods. Now, what was the good in this story that Joseph refers to? Well, it's, of course, that many, many people were saved. There was a great famine in the land of Canaan.

11:06 And as a result of that, Joseph's brothers had to travel to Egypt to find food. And it was Joseph being in Egypt that meant that the people had food to spare. He'd wisely come up with a plan to keep food when there was plenty, so that when there was famine, there would be enough to feed. the people. And so amazingly, this sin that Joseph's brothers committed all those years ago had the effect in God's sovereignty of preserving life. Many, many people were saved because of Joseph being in Egypt. So what can we say about the goods in this passage? Well, I think three things. First, the goods may be hidden for a time. That's certainly true in the Joseph story, isn't it? All the way through Joseph's time in Egypt, it wasn't at all clear to Joseph or to anyone else how God was going to use the evil that had been committed against

12:12 Joseph. His brothers certainly won't have thought for a second about it. But Joseph, remember, All those years when he was with Potiphar, when he was in prison, when he was with Pharaoh. How would he have known through that time that God was going to use him to deliver many people from this famine? He would have been wrestling with that, wouldn't he? Just like we wrestle with the question of evil in our own lives. He must have asked that question hundreds, thousands of times.

12:45 He didn't know God's purposes until much, much later. And I think the same, brothers and sisters, is true for us. We know general truths about God's purposes, don't we? We can probably all quote Romans 8.28, that all things work together for good. But do we know exactly what God's purposes are at every moment in time when we're suffering, when we've had evil committed against us?

13:17 Well, no, we don't. We don't know the specifics. And we must surely be careful about trying to offer full explanations of what is going on in our lives right now. Perhaps you have a medical diagnosis that you're dealing with, or you're trying to have children and you can't. We know that God has good purposes, yes, But what is the specific purpose that God is taking you through that on that path? We don't know. And only time will tell us what these things mean.

13:52 We must be careful, friends, about trying to find explanations that will satisfy us quickly. When really it's only in the fullness of time that God's purposes will be revealed. But friends, we must hold on. We must hold on to these precious truths of Scripture. Remember texts like this, that God uses evil for good and that he works all things together for good. Hold on to those, but we won't always be able to explain everything. So the good may be hidden for a time, but secondly, the good will come eventually.

14:27 That's the great truth of this text, isn't it? That the good came. It came for Joseph. It came for his brothers. It came for Jacob, and it came for God's people who were in Egypt and would eventually be set free from slavery through the Exodus. Hundreds and hundreds of lives were saved, and it includes us, doesn't it? We are here today because God's purposes were fulfilled through this part of the biblical story. And so, friends, goods will come eventually.

15:00 Maybe that's something you need to hear this evening. You're going through a tough time, a difficult struggle, and yet we need to hold on to the fact that God has promised good, and it will come eventually. And thirdly, good may be hidden for a time, it will come eventually. And thirdly, our response should be faith and not fear. Joseph tells his brothers here, doesn't he? Do not fear. Evil and its consequences can bring about great fear.

15:31 Just think about the situation around the world. Different things happening in different countries. It's pretty bad. Two years on from the invasion of Ukraine. And yet what are Christians told to do? We are told not to fear. We are not to fear the evil that's committed around the world. But we are told to put our faith in the one who is using that evil for good. And as we close, I want us to think about the time, the ultimate time in history when God has used evil for good. He certainly did in the story of Joseph. But profoundly and most importantly for us this evening, God used evil for good at the death of Jesus Christ.

16:18 You see, in the most evil act possible, when the Romans crucified Jesus, in that moment, God was doing the ultimate good, wasn't he, for his people. Because in Jesus' death, God was ensuring that our sin was paid for. He was ensuring that we could be forgiven for our sins and we could go free from the punishment that we deserve. And we, because of Jesus' death, can live forever in eternity without being punished for our sins.

16:51 And so, friends, this truth that God uses evil for good is so precious, isn't it? It's precious throughout the whole of the storyline of the Bible. It's precious in the various situations that we face in our lives. But my goodness, it's precious for our very salvation. That the most evil act committed by humans who were completely responsible for what they did, God used to bring about the greatest good imaginable. Let's, friends, revel in that truth this evening.

17:22 and continue to have faith in the God who uses evil for good. Let's pray. Father, we bow before you at your mysterious purposes, Lord. Why is it that you would use evil things to bring about good we do not know? And yet, Lord, we rest in the sure confidence that you do and that we can make sense of the evil in our world and the struggles we have in our lives by trusting in your good character and your promise to do us good.

17:58 Lord, I pray that you would encourage us this evening, remind us of these things, help us to live our lives in faith and in obedience to you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.