Trinity 4
Gen
50:15-21
6/28/26
Near the end of his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul says, “For whatever
was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that
through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might
have hope.” He tells us that what was written in the Old Testament was written
for our instruction. And he adds that this Scripture is a source of
encouragement so that we can have hope.
These words guide our understanding when we come to a text like our
Old Testament lesson for today which recounts the interaction between Joseph
and his brothers after Jacob their father had died. We are instructed about how
God works in ways that we don’t understand – ways that at the time make no
sense to us. We are encouraged that the
God who was faithful to his promises through their fulfillment in Jesus Christ
continues to be our God today. And we are instructed about the place of
forgiveness in our life as God’s people.
You will be hard pressed to find a more dysfunctional family than
that of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Some of these problems were caused by the
manner in which they disobeyed God’s ordering found in the Sixth Commandment.
When Sarah was unable have a child, she ignored God’s promise and encouraged
Abraham to try with her servant Hagar. This produced the son Ishhmael. Then,
when God blessed Sarah with Isaac there was strife because Sarah resented Hagar
and her son.
Isaac and Rebekah were blessed by God with twins. But each parent
showed favoritism toward one of the sons.
Isaac favored Esau, while Rebekah favored Jacob. In the end Jacob
swindled Esau out of his birthright. Then Rebekah instructed Jacob about how to
deceive his father and receive the blessing. In the end, Jacob had to flee
because his brother Esau wanted to kill him.
Jacob was deceived by his uncle into marrying two women – the one
he really wanted and the one he didn’t.
Once again, not following the Sixth Commandment created problems – are
you noticing a theme here? Jacob favored the two sons he had with his favorite
wife Rachel. In particular we learn that he gave Joseph special treatment over
his other brothers. For example, he gave to Joseph alone an expensive robe of
many colors. His brothers hated Joseph because of this.
And let’s be honest – the young Joseph was a punk. It wasn’t enough
that his father favored him in a way that was sure to upset his brothers.
Joseph couldn’t keep his mouth shut. When he had a dream that indicated that he
would rule over his brothers, he told them all about it. And so they hated him
even more. When he had another dream which said that his parents and brothers
would bow down to him, he shared that with his brothers as well.
Joseph led a charmed life … until it wasn’t. As you know, the
opportunity finally arose for his brothers to get back at him. They sold him as
a slave and faked his death when they reported the news to Jacob. And then
every time life seemed to be going well for Joseph, things turned bad.
Potiphar, the officer of Pharaoh, bought Joseph. God blessed
everything Joseph did, and Potiphar soon realized this. In time Potiphar placed
Joseph in charge of his household and everything he owned. But when Joseph
resisted the repeated sexual advances of Potiphar’s wife, she falsely accused
him of trying to rape her and Potiphar had Joseph thrown in prison.
In prison God continued to bless everything Joseph did, and the
keeper of the prison soon realized this. He too put Joseph in charge of
everything. Jospeh’s opportunity to get out of prison seemed to arrive when he
correctly interpreted the dream of Pharaoh’s cup bearer about his release from
prison and return to Pharaoh’s service. Joseph asked the cup bearer to help him
escape his unjust imprisonment by telling Pharaoh about his situation. But when
the cup bearer returned to Pharaoh’s service he forgot about Joseph.
Finally, two years later when Pharaoh had disturbing dreams that no one could interpret, the cup bearer
finally remembered Joseph. He was able to interpret the dreams and explain how
God was about to bring seven years of plenty followed by seven years of lack.
He counseled Pharaoh to store up food during the coming seven good years in
order to be ready for the seven bad ones.
Pharaoh perceived Joseph’s wisdom and how God was with him, so he put
Joseph in charge of the whole project. In the end, Joseph was second in charge
over Egypt.
The events in our text are a result of the fact that the years of
lack affected the whole area around Egypt. Jacob had to send his sons to Egypt
to buy grain. Joseph’s dreams came true as his brothers bowed down before him.
Finally, Jospeh revealed himself to his brothers. He brought Jacob and his
family to Egypt and settled them in the good land in Goshen.
Eventually, Jacob died. And this caused fear among his brothers
because they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all
the evil that we did to him.” So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your
father gave this command before he died: ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the
transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’ And
now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your
father.”
The brothers asked Joseph to forgive them. They fell down before him and uttered, “Behold, we are your servants. But Joseph replied, “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.”
Joseph acknowledged that they had
acted in order to harm him. But he said that in the midst of this, God had
intended it for good. He was working the outcome that was saving many people.
There was nothing new about this understanding. Joseph had described how God
had been at work when he first revealed himself to his brothers. At that time
he said, “And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth,
and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here,
but God.”
Joseph had every reason to get revenge
on his brothers. But he understood how God had been at work through what they
had done. And so he forgave them. He
said, “So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” He
comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
These words were written for our instruction, so that through
endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have
hope. God’s Word teaches us this morning that his plans and purposes for us go
beyond our understanding. He tells us that we need to trust in him because
circumstances that we consider to be a great hardship do not evade his good
purpose for us. They are still part of God’s work in our life. St. Augustine
wrote, “God is so good that he does not permit evil to be done unless he can
draw great good from it.”
The way God works is summarized by Paul’s statement in Romans
chapter eight: “And we know that
for those who love God all things work together for
good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” The apostle
says that for those whom God has called – that’s you – all things work together
for good.
Now when you are in Joseph’s
position – when you are second in charge over Egypt, and you have wealth and
power – it seems easy to come to this conclusion. God meant it for good. But
what about when you are in the midst of hardships that seem to have no end?
That is when doubt arises about whether God really is in charge. We begin to
wonder about whether God really does care. There is the temptation for anger
towards God, or despair.
And so this morning we need to take
a deeper look at what God is in the process of doing in our text. We see here
that God is in the midst of carrying out his saving work in Christ. It is his
saving work, but it takes place in ways we don’t expect.
When Jacob was fleeing from Esau he
camped at Beersheba and had a dream in which there was a ladder to heaven with
the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Yahweh said to him, “I
am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land
on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall
be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and
to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your
offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”
God promised to give him the land of
Canaan. He promised to give him numerous offspring. And he promised that in
Jacob all families of the earth would be blessed. These were the same things
that God had promised to Abraham. In the last of those promises, Yahweh said
that the Christ would be descendant of Jacob’s line.
In our text none of these things are
true. Jacob died when he wasn’t even in the promised land. He went down to
Egypt and died there. He wasn’t a great nation. His entire household was only
seventy people when they went to Egypt.
But these circumstances do not
change the fact that God was at work. When Joseph called upon Jacob to bring
the family to Egypt God told the patriarch, “I am God, the God of your
father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you
into a great nation.”
Jacob believed and trusted God’s word
as he went to Egypt. It was not in Canaan that God made Jacob into a great
nation. It was instead in Egypt that Israel developed into a numerous people.
They became a numerous people, and
because they were a later Pharaoh viewed them as a threat and enslaved them.
But Yahweh was at work in this circumstance as well. He displayed his saving
power in the exodus as he brought Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground.
In our text God is in the process of
working through circumstances that appear to be the opposite of what they are.
What was true of his work in bringing forth Israel was all the more true of the
descendant of Abraham and Jacob in whom all nations have been blessed. It was true of Jesus Christ.
Jesus was the fulfillment of all
that God had promised in the Old Testament. He was the Son of God – true God
and true man. He was the One who carried out the greatest action of God for our
salvation. Yet that action was, as Paul told the Philippians, humbling himself
to the point of death - even death on a cross.
When Christ died on Good Friday
there was nothing to see except weakness, suffering, and humiliation. As Jesus
hung in the darkness and cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
it appeared that there was nothing except failure.
But in his resurrection on Easter we
learned that in fact the cross was the most powerful action by God to save
us. God judged our sins in Christ so
that now we can be holy in his eyes. And in the Lord’s resurrection he has
defeated death and begun the life that will be ours.
Because we have seen God do this in
the death and resurrection of Christ we can now trust that God is at work in
our life even when nothing else suggests this.
Jesus Christ is the reason we trust that “for those who love God all
things work together for good, for those who are called
according to his purpose.” The risen and ascended Lord is the source of our
hope and encouragement in the midst of any circumstance.
The words of our text were written
for our instruction, so that through endurance and through the
encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. We see that Joseph
forgives his brothers. Jesus Christ is
now the reason that we forgive.
God has acted in Christ to forgive
you. Baptized into Christ your sins have been washed away. You are a new
creation in Christ through the work of the Spirit. And so the forgiveness you
have received is the forgiveness that you share. Paul told the Colossians, “Put
on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate
hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one
another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each
other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
This is the forgiveness that you
speak to your spouse, children, parents, and siblings. It is the forgiveness
that you share with congregation members and friends. It is the forgiveness
that guides the actions of your life because God has forgiven you in Christ.
The words of our text were written
for our instruction, that through endurance and through the
encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Today we are instructed about how God works in ways
that we don’t understand – ways that at the time make no sense to us. We are
encouraged in the knowledge that we can trust that God is at work because of
the way we have seen him work for our salvation through the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we are
instructed about the place of forgiveness in our life as God’s forgiven people.
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