God's Good Plan

Good evening church. Open your bibles to Genesis 50 and we will be in verses 20-21 and if you do not have a Bible, feel free to use one of the Bibles in the pew in front of you and turn to page 38. Last week we looked at the life of Joseph in how the Lord was with him when he was betrayed by his brothers, falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, and abandoned by the butler in prison. We also saw that he is with us also and him being with us sustains us. When we left Joseph, he was still in prison. Today, we are going to fast forward after he has been raised to the “right hand” of the king of Egypt. At the end of this story, Joseph faces his brothers after his father dies and it is to this story that we will look. The brothers are fearful because of what Joseph might do to them. Joseph, however, responds with grace because he understands something about God that his brothers do not. He understood that God was in control of everything that happened to him and that he intended it all for good. Tonight, we are going to see that God’s intentions with Joseph and his brothers was to preserve their lives to eventually bring about Christ who would die for our salvation and sanctification. Let’s pray.

I. God’s Intention With Joseph and His Brothers: Preservation of Life

First, let’s look at God’s intentions with Joseph and his brothers. I mentioned that God’s intentions with Joseph and his brothers was the preservation of their lives. After all the suffering that Joseph went through, look at his response:

Genesis 50:20–21 NKJV

But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

Joseph was aware of God’s involvement in the whole matter, and this is the point that Moses, who wrote the book of Genesis makes here as well: all that the brothers intended for evil, God intended it for good. What is amazing about this story is that it is not what we would expect. After Jacob dies, and Joseph is left alone with his brothers, we would expect that the brothers, who were the bad guys in this story, to be put down. This is what we expect of all stories like this.

My mom told me that the first movie that I have ever watched in the movie theater was Lion King. If it hasn’t already, it is on its way to becoming a Disney classic. The story is classic as well. Simba, who is meant for greatness, is forced to flee after the death of his father, Mufasa, which was caused by Mufasa’s brother, Scar. Simba grows up away from his homeland, as somewhat of a hermit, only to be revisited by his lifelong friend, Nala, who convinces Simba to come back and defeat his uncle, Scar. Of course, Simba returns and faces his uncles, only to defeat him. After Scar is bested by Simba, his is surrounded by the Hyenas who finish the job. Classic, bad guy loses and good guy wins.

And we, the viewers, expect this when we watch it. We know that Simba is going to come back and clean house. We know that what awaits Scar is for him to be put down. And this is what we would expect of Joseph’s brothers. But this is not what happened. Rather than putting his brothers down, they are spared and taken care of. Their lives and the lives of their children are preserved. This is the good that God intended in the Joseph story.

Before we move to our next point, I want to take just a brief moment to define this word “good” for us here. When we think of good, we tend to think of things that are favorable to us. For the kids in here, you might think that if you were able to go to a friend’s house and hang out over there that you had a “good” day. Or for the adults, you might think that if you had the day off work that “good” happened to you. God’s definition of good goes deeper than the immediate ease of our lives. His definition of good, at least here in our text, involved Joseph being betrayed, wrongly accused, and forgotten in prison. It involved separation from his family for a large portion of his life. It involved these things, but the end of it all is what was God’s focus, namely the bringing about Christ.

II. God’s Intention With the Preservation of Life: Christ

God’s intention with Joseph and his brothers was to preserve their lives. God’s intention in preserving their lives was to bring about Christ. In Genesis 45, Joseph first reveals himself to his brothers and he says something quite interesting:

Genesis 45:4–8 NKJV

And Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come near to me.” So they came near. Then he said: “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

In verse 5 Joseph tells his brothers that he was sent by God and not his brothers to preserve life, and reiterates in verse 7 that the purpose was to preserve a posterity for his brothers. Now look at Genesis 50:20-21 again:

Genesis 50:20–21 NKJV

But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

The good was the preservation of Joseph’s brothers so that their posterity, or “seed,” would be preserved. I know that the word “seed” isn’t seen here in the text, but this is the theme of Genesis: God preserving a seed. After Adam and Eve sinned, this was the promise given by God: to bring about a seed from the woman. Genesis 3:15:

Genesis 3:15 NKJV

And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

God preserves this “seed” through Seth, Noah, and Abraham. With Abraham, God promises to provide a seed that will bless the nations.

Genesis 22:15–18 NKJV

Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

God continues to preserve this seed who would not be a blessing to the nations through Isaac, Jacob, and then to Joseph, who God uses to preserve the lives of him and his brothers, and their children. God continues to be true to his promise even in the life of Joseph through the things happen to him. This is the point in Genesis 45 and Genesis 50. God preserved the seed of the woman through the life of Joseph, and then to Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and David. God promises David that his seed would inherit his throne and it would be established forever.

2 Samuel 7:12–13 NKJV

“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

God has preserved the seed of the woman all the way to David and continues to do so until the coming of Christ. Christ is the seed that was promised to David in 2 Samuel 7, and the seed promised to Abraham in Genesis 22, and the seed promised to the woman in Genesis 3. And like Joseph’s story, Jesus’s story is not one that we would expect either. Rather than asserting himself to the throne in Jerusalem and taking out Herod or Caesar, Jesus, the hero, dies. He died so that we can be forgiven of our sin.

III. God’s Intention With Bringing About Christ: Our Salvation and Sanctification

God’s intention with Joseph and his brothers was to preserve life to bring about Christ who would die so that we could be saved and sanctified. Jesus brought about our salvation in a way that we wouldn’t expect, by dying. He also brings about our sanctification in a way that we don’t expect: through our trials and tribulations. Look again at Genesis 50:20-21

Genesis 50:20–21 NKJV

But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

It was not the mercy towards Joseph’s brothers that was the ultimate good of God’s intentions. It wasn’t Joseph’s exaltation, or his wife, or his reunification with his father. These things are all good, but they weren’t the “good” that was intended by God as his ultimate intent. It was the preservation of life during the famine, that was God’s good that he intended. God’s good intentions in the life of Joseph was different than what he originally expected and God’s good intentions in our lives are different than what we expect as well. Paul tells us:

Romans 8:28–30 NKJV

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

The good that God intends for us is to look like Christ. Paul has similar language in this passage like that in Genesis. Moses writes that God intended the evil in Joseph’s life for good. Paul writes that God works all things for good in our lives. And the good that God works is for us to be conformed into the image of Jesus. Jesus, the writer of Hebrews tells us, is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his nature and God intends for us to look like him, for his own glory. This means that everything that happens to us is intended for that end.

And he will do this in ways that we normally don’t expect. In our lives, like in Joseph’s, God allows evil to happen to us and then uses it for our sanctification. We have financial issues that God intended for us to learn to trust him to provide what we need. We experience family strife that God intended for us to learn to lean on our church family or learn patience. We experience loneliness that God intended for us to find our comfort in God and to learn how to spend our time serving others. We experience depression that God intended for us to find our sole delight in him. These experiences seem evil at the time, but like Joseph, we can look back at these experiences and see how God intended it for good because we can see how we are more like Christ. If you’re experiencing something difficult now, you can still look back at past experiences that God intended for good and trust that he will do the same for what you’re currently going through.

In Joseph’s life, when we look at everything that happened to him, the conclusion that we are meant to reach is the one expressed at the end of the story, tat God intended it all for good. If we reach that conclusion at the end of Joseph’s story, then we understand it. This is the same for our lives. When we can look at our situations and come to the conclusion that God is intending it for good, looking like Christ, then we can say that we understand why all the things happen to us. God intended good for Joseph and he intends good for you.

Perhaps you’re here tonight and you are not a Christian. You have never been forgiven of your sins. Listen, the only way you can be forgiven of your sins is by believing that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died and rose from the grave. I have talked about how the story of Joseph and his brothers ended in a way that we wouldn’t expect because we expect the bad guy to lose like in Lion King. If you aren’t a Christian, in this story, you are the bad guy. In the end, like Scar, you will be put down. You will receive what is coming to you, which is death and torment.

The scary part is that you as an unbeliever may not expect that you will lose in the end. You might be riding on the faith of your parents, or you are trusting in all the good that you have done, or that you go to church, or that you are in AWANA. Listen, Jesus is the only way to the Father. You have to place your faith in him and be forgiven and to be spared. You can do that tonight. Talk with a pastor. Talk with your parents. Confess your sins and repent and be forgiven. Turn to Christ and believe in him today.

God’s intention with Joseph and his brothers was to preserve their lives to bring about Christ who would die so that we would be saved. This is God’s Good Plan in the life of Joseph. Let’s pray.