Genesis 50:15-20 Another Look at Something Nobody Wants to Look At

Life isn’t always easy, and sometimes I think it’s harder for Christians to accept that, because we expect God to do more for us.  Imagine you were born into a really wealthy family.  Wouldn’t you expect to have nice clothes, go to a good school, and be able to apply to colleges without regard to how expensive they were?

Of course, so when we go through things we don’t like or understand, it’s easy to ask, where is God?  Why isn’t He helping me here in this?  Why is He allowing all this to happen?

We know that hard times can make a person stronger, but when we think of how easily God could relieve our pains and reverse these situations, we often wonder why He doesn’t do it more often.

Joseph, in the Bible, could have asked those very same questions. 

In Genesis 50, Joseph and his brothers had just buried their father.  Years before, his brothers had betrayed him, because he was their father’s favorite, and now with their father gone, they were afraid of payback.  They don’t think their father knew about it, but I’m really curious what Joseph told him about how he ended up in Egypt, which we’ll explain in a minute.

But I don’t want to talk here about that betrayal.  I want to look at Joseph’s life from God’s point of view as much as possible.

Before Joseph was betrayed, he had some dreams.  Dreams are important in the Bible, because they recognized that God often spoke to people in their dreams, and it wasn’t always obvious.  Dreams are not usually easy to understand, so most people today don’t even try. 

But the meaning of his dreams seemed pretty clear to him and those who heard them.  Joseph told them to his father and his brothers.  In one, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowed down to him.  (Joseph had 11 brothers.)  That didn’t make anybody very happy, but Joseph did see this as a good sign that his life would work out well.

One day, while all the brothers were together far from home, they sold Joseph into slavery.  He was later sold in Egypt to a high-ranking government official.

So where is God in all of this?  Genesis 39:2 says that God was with Joseph, and Joseph became a successful man.   And then it says that    3     his master saw that the LORD was with him and how the LORD caused all that he did to prosper in his hand.       4      So Joseph found favor in his sight and became his personal servant; and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he owned he put in his charge.

God did not prevent Joseph from being sold into slavery, but God was with him in the slavery and blessed him to the extent possible in slavery.

Later Joseph was accused of attempted rape by his master’s wife and sent to prison.  Not the ordinary prison, but where the king’s prisoners were confined. 

We don’t know how long he was in prison.  We do know that it was at least two years.  Later Joseph was released from prison, and he was around 30 years old at the time.  Genesis 37 gives a starting point for Joseph’s story here.  Joseph was 17. 

So Joseph probably spent as least ten years in both slavery and prison.  God delivered Joseph from prison, but Joseph had no idea if or when that would ever happen.  Essentially he had a life sentence.  He had no human expectation of ever getting out.  His life was over.

Except he had those dreams.  And that was all he had.  And that apparently was enough.  Because his faith in God was intact when he got out of prison.  That means that he was not bitter, angry, or sad over his predicament.  He was content, so to speak.  His life was in God’s hands, and that was enough.

So after the death of their father, Joseph’s brothers came to him and asked for his forgiveness, saying that their father wanted Joseph to forgive them. 

And Genesis 50:19     Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place?

He’s not really letting them off the hook.  He’s saying God will decide what to do with them.

But he then adds:            20      “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.

I didn’t even go into the part of Joseph’s story, where he got out of prison and became second to Pharaoh as ruler over Egypt, where his brothers came to Egypt and bowed down to him, asking him for help.

The fact is that it would have been very easy for Joseph, while he was going through all that he did, to question God, to be angry, but then he did have those dreams, what he saw as God’s assurances that everything would be all right, and that God had plans for him.

As Christians, we have the Bible where God has stories like this to encourage us.  But more than encourage us. 

One of the hardest parts of this Christian life is believing that God actually wants good things for us in our lives down here.  Many of us think of heaven as a relief from this life.  I really think God wants us to find joy and peace here first, because that joy and peace is a sign of our faith in God, faith that God really is good. 

If we think or find our lives miserable down here, then I think God thinks that we’re missing something very basic to life, believing and understanding God’s love for us.

Now I think this whole story has implications for us far beyond our own personal lives.

We have millions of people in our country today whose ancestors were slaves in our country.  That ended 150 years ago through a war that cost, they’re saying now, of about 750,000 lives. 

I don’t want to sound glib here or patronizing, but as a preacher of God’s Word, I need to be straight and tell you what I believe God would have us know.   He gave us the Bible to teach us about Him and about this life that we live.

Those ancestors were not the first or only people in the world to have been subjected to slavery.  And God Almighty, your Creator, Lord, and Savior, talks about slavery in His Word to mankind.  Slavery was even a part of His plan for Joseph and for the entire nation of His chosen people, the Israelites. 

God had made a covenant with Joseph’s great-grandfather Abraham, that God would bless him, his descendants, and the world through them.

 

Then God told Abraham:  Genesis 15:13    “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.

14      “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.

God did judge that nation that had held them captive, and Abraham Lincoln believed that the Civil War was God’s judgment on America for its slavery.

Joseph said that God intended all that happened in his life for good.  We have to ask,    if any of us say that we believe in God,     is, was, there anything good that came out of all of this?

And the first question to ask then is: what if all this had never happened?  If slaves were never brought to our country.

 

You do realize, of course, that America did not invent slavery.  The people who were brought here as slaves already were slaves.  And, no, they weren’t just enslaved, because there was a market for them in America.  Slavery was common throughout the world, but particularly in the continent of Africa.

So if someone’s ancestors were slaves here, they would have been slaves anyway, either here or there.

If there were no slavery in our country, then all the descendants of slavery who live in our country now would not be here.  They would still be in Africa. 

Now I have never been to Africa.  But the question has to be asked: would the lives of these descendants of slavery be better now if they and their ancestors had lived all this time in Africa?  Anywhere in Africa.  Is there any country in Africa today that one can believe they and their ancestors would have been better off if they had lived there this entire time? 

I will even go a step further: is there any country in the world today where we could think their lives would have been better if they had lived there all this time?

I won’t pretend to know anything about what it feels like, but I am trying to see a way forward.  I see the turmoil that racks our country, but I don’t see our country going anywhere as a result.  I don’t see any solutions being offered.

This is today.  What can we, what can I, do today?  How shall I live today? 

Joseph was sold into slavery, by his brothers, but he wasn’t angry or bitter, because he saw that God had a higher purpose in it all.  God put him over an entire nation.  Abraham’s descendants were enslaved in Egypt, and God told Abraham that that was coming and then later He delivered them and gave them a land flowing with milk and honey. 

I want to urge you, anyone who feels that their life has been all wrong, to look to God to make something good out of it.  We can’t solve all the world’s problem in a short lesson, but we can find the place to start. 

I don’t see anybody in all this ruckus turning to God, but this is where we need to start.