The road to heaven is paved with bad intentions
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Have you ever had an enemy? Someone who hates your guts and is trying to harm you? Maybe some of us have, but perhaps many of us can’t think of anyone we would put in that category - enemy. It’s interesting isn’t it, that at the core of Jesus teaching was the radical call to love your enemies. Maybe you find that hard to do because you just don’t have anyone you’d call an enemy. If that’s you, thank God!
But if you’ve ever had an enemy, someone who is intent on hurting you, and who has hurt you, chances are you’ve wondered, why doesn’t God do something? We only have to flick on the news for a moment to see that people are capable of doing unspeakable evil to one another. But if it’s not just on the news, if it’s in our lives, that question becomes almost unbearable - where are you God? Why don’t you do something?
This last section of Genesis, the last 13 chapters of the book all centre on this question, explore through the life of Joseph. Joseph is a boy, then a man whose life is far from easy. His brothers hate him, throw him in a well, sell him into slavery, his Father ends up thinking he is dead, he is fasley accused, wrongfully imprisoned, and left to rot in jail completely forgotten about for years but eventually becomes PM of Egypt - second only to the Pharoah himself.
Joseph is someone who knows how to make enemies. He rubs people up the wrong way, but he really doesn’t deserve what he gets. He is qualified to speak on the topic of what God is and isn’t doing when people are intent on hurting him.
And yet, at the end of his life as he looks back on everything that has happened, he has this remarkable, transformative, beaufitul realisation - look at Genesis 50:20. This is what Joseph says after experiencing some of the worst this world has to offer:
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
And this is really the answer to the question - what are you doing, God? Joseph, at the end of his life has figured out the answer to that question most if not all of us have asked, when we are in the firing line, what is God doing?
And God in his kindness caused this part of the bible to be written so that we would learn it too.
The answer involves holding three things together
evil is evil
but God intends good
for many
Evil is evil
Evil is evil
State
As we’ve been going through Genesis, we’ve seen some pretty messy families. As we looked at Jacob and Esau over the last few weeks we saw favouritism, jealousy, scheming, parental passivity, lying and cheating. It would be nice to find a family where everyone loved each other and got along.
But as I said a few weeks ago, the bible doesn’t give us nice morals or neat heroes to follow. It gives us a realistic picture of what life is like, because that is where God comes to meet us.
Show
Genesis 37 starts, and we expect to hear about Jacob’s children - from oldest to youngest.
But instead we just zoom in on Joseph, a boy of 17, he’s almost the youngest, and something is up with him. Being a teenager has never been easy - in 3500 years not much has changed there, but something is going on with Joseph.
For some reason in verse 2 he decides to bring back a bad report about his brothers.
Now, this is not a report about their bad conduct no this is a bad report, it’s dodgy. He’s made up something about them.
Why has he done that?
There’s a good chance it has something to do with Jacob. See Jacob has poisoned his relationship with his sons.
Verse 3 we learn that Jacob loved Joseph more than his other sons. And he gives him this ornate robe - it’s not actually technicolour, it’s more likely that it has long sleeves and jewels on it - the kind of thing that would make it impossible to do any actual work.
This is not just a gift, it’s a gift that makes Joseph unable to do life with his brothers, even if he wanted to.
possible aside here about Mimi speaking about Grandpa’s mother and sister, and the hurt still 70 years later
This is so obviously wrong - in 3500 years nothing has changed here either - you’re obviously not supposed to play favourites with your kids. And of all people who should know that, it’s Jacob right? How much pain did he have to go through because of his own father’s favouritism!
SLIDE
And yet, as my friend put it, Jacob has given Joseph a Ferrari and told his other sons to suck it up!
Explain
He really does set Joseph up to fail here. He idolises Joseph. Puts Joseph on the throne of his heart. Sets his hopes for life and happiness on Joseph. This is a terribly cruel thing to do to his sons.
You’ve got to feel for the brothers don’t you? They hate Joseph, mentioned 3 times, verse 4, 5 and 8. they can’t speak a good word about him, literally, they can’t speak ‘peace’. But boy have they been provoked.
And Joseph for his part, is telling tales about them. This is the family that is supposed to show God to the world, but anyone looking on would surely think - this is just messed up.
What is God doing here?
But then the dreams come. Joseph goes to his brothers and says
Show
He said to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed.
It’s funny, even the way he talks makes it sound like he thinks everything he says is just so important.
There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.”
They don’t need Freud to work out what the dream means, it’s obvious and they hate him even more. But then Joseph has another dream and this one has the Sun, moon and stars bowing down to him.
Given the reaction to the last dream, you’d think he’d keep his mouth shut.
He goes and tells his brothers this new dream, then when all the brothers are together with Jacob he tells it again - so the brothers have heard 3 times how Joseph think’s he’s litearlly the centre of the universe, and even this gets a bit much for Jacob who says, slow down there son.
You can just feel the simmering resentment can’t you?
You almost know what’s coming next before you read.
In verse 13 Joseph is sent to see after the peace of his brothers - there’s that word again. Jacob says, go check up on you brothers. Again, Jacob is still playing favourites.
So Joseph goes and he can’t find them, but there happens to be a man there who sends him off to Dothan. And in v18 as he approaches his brothers they seem him, and filled with hate they say ‘lets kill him’, throw him down a well and tell Dad that a wild animal killed him.
Rueben says, no let’s not kill him, let’s just throw him down the well - to his credit he plans to come back later and rescue Joseph. His plan wins the day and they figure out the next steps.
We’re not told this but presumably Reuben left them.
They sit down in v25 to eat a meal. It’s a strange detail to include. Nothing is made of it here, but it hangs over them for their entire lives. Much later in Gen 42, we learn the horible truth: as they were eating, they could hear Joseph screaming out, begging them to help him.
They said to one another, “Alas, we are paying the penalty for what we did to our brother; we saw his anguish when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this anguish has come upon us.”
But after lunch, they spot some traders, and decide to sell their brother for 20 pieces of silver.
Reuben comes, he tears his cloak when he realises he is too late. Then they rip up the robe, cover it with the blood of an animal and show it to Jacob.
Now let’s be clear, the brothers don’t just make up a story, they go out of their way to present Jacob with the object of their resentment, the cloak, now desecrated.
It’s like you know when the mafia arrange for someone to have a car accident. Make it look like an accident. But we all know what it is. This is the brothers arriving home with the mangled Ferrari on the back of the tow truck saying, gosh Dad, I guess Joe crashed his car. It’s a horrific story.
Meanwhile in v36 the Midianites have sold Joseph to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.
Apply
But here’s the first gift of Christian faith, we get to call it evil.
And brothers and sisters, this is so important. Being able to call something evil, with no whatabouts, no hedging, no victim blaming - this is a supremely good gift.
When Joseph looks back on his life and at everything that has happened he is willing to say clearly, what you did was wrong. Evil. Full stop.
And this is a good gift because as anyone who has ever had real evil done to them knows, a huge part of the pain is self-blame. We think, well I must’ve done something to deserve it. I must’ve provoked them. Or I must’ve done something to bring it on myself. Worse - maybe God is punishing me for something.
Sometimes we think that because being a Christian means owning our own failures and the way we contribute to the evil in the world, it meeans we can’t say, what that person did to me was wrong, evil. Or we think that because we are people who forgive, it means acting as if they didn’t really hurt us. Or perhaps, because we want to acknolwedge that everyone has a context, we think that somehow, it wasn’t entirely their fault, they had a rough upbringing, they’ve been hurt themselves, or that we somehow deserved it.
But brothers and sisters let me say clearly - that is not a biblical view. It’s not a Christian view.
The beauty of the gospel is that it allows us to call evil, evil - with no caveats or escape clauses.
Yes, we are called to forgive, as Joseph does, yes we should acknolwedge when people have had a rough trot, but the first step is acknowledging that we were sinned against. As Joseph also does. ‘You intended it for evil.
To do anything less is to sweep things under the carpet. To say, throwing me down a well, telling Dad I was dead, and then selling me into slavery in another country - ehh we all make mistakes - that is to make what they did even worse!
But maybe we know that. Maybe we know deep down that what that person did, they meant it for evil, but we don’t want to acknowledge it. Because it’s too painful. Better to be stoic. Stiff upper lip and all that. Nothing can hurt me if I don’t care. If I don’t really want anything, I can’t be disappointed.
Restate
The beauty of the gospel, is it allows us to say clearly, when we are wronged, ‘you meant it for evil’.
Transition
But that still doesn’t anwer the question, where was God?
If we’re to avoid hopelessness, or revenge fantasies, we need to go further.
Because Joseph, after everything goes on to say, ‘but God meant it for good’
But God intends good
But God intends good
It’s hard to see that on the surface isn’t it? In the middle of the mess, when Joseph was in the pit, calling out to his brothers while they ate lunch, there’s no way he could see this could he?
In fact, just like the story of how Isaac ends up with a wife, God doesn’t speak at all in this chapter. But it’s worse than that, because God isn’t even mentioned in Genesis 37. It’s eerie. A chapter in the bible, but God seems totally absent. Where is he? What is he up to? Why doesn’t he do something?
The only way to hold on, the only way to see how God is at work when others intend us harm, is to learn to see as Joseph sees.
Because as we keep noting in Genesis, often it’s only as we look back that we can see how God is mysteriously, but deliberately drawing things together for our good.
You could call them coincidences, or you could see them as God intending things for Joseph’s good.
Joseph goes out to look for his brothers, but they aren’t there. He could’ve gone home, but wouldn’t you know it, there’s a guy who finds him and directs him to them.
Rueben is there and saves him when the brothers want to kill him, but he’s not there when they sell him into slavery.
Joseph just happens to be sold to the Potiphar, the head of the Egyptian Army.
Just because we can’t see God at work, doesn’t mean he’s not. Just because it looks like all that is happening is someone trying to harm me, doesn’t mean that God cannot also be working things out for my good.
We need look no further than the cross itself! The NT says over and over again, although the cross is the place where God seems most absent, we never see God more clearly than when Jesus - God incarnate, is dying for his enemies.
Illustration
Charles Spurgeon knew this. Spurgeon was a Baptist minister in 19th century in London. Even at the very start of his ministry, his church was often packed with people. In late October 1856 several thousand people had crammed into the church when some prankster yelled “Fire!”. The resulting panic left seven people dead and twenty-eight seriously injured.
Zack Eswine writes, ‘Charles was only 22 years old, embracing the 10th month of his young marriage. He and his wife were wading diaper deep into the first month of parenting their twin boys in a new house full of unpacked boxes. Now, with so many people dead, newspapers across London cruelly and mercilessly blamed him. The senseless tragedy and the public accusation nearly broke Charles’ mind, not only in those early moments but also with lasting effects. These days we’d likely diagnose him with PTSD.
Spurgeon was someone who knew what it was to have someone intend to harm him. He is well qualified to ask the question - why doesn’t God act?
And yet here’s what he said later in his life:
God is too good to be unkind, too wise to be mistaken, and when we cannot trace his hand, we must trust his heart.
Notice, he didn’t say, ‘thanks God for the prankster’. He didn’t say, I can see how this led to that led to that. We may never be able to work out how, but we can know for certain that God is working, mysteriously, to bring good in spite of evil.
Apply
See, if all we are able to say is ‘you intended it for evil’, what hope do we have? Justice perhaps? Anyone who has been through even the best of our human justice systems will know that it falls far short of what we hope for. Don’t get me wrong, good legal systems help. But they can’t heal, not fully.
The danger in a world where we assume that if we can’t see God at work, he isn’t, is that we may conclude, the only thing that will heal our aching hearts would be to remove the perpetrators. Erase them.
But Christian faith calls us to recognise that our status as victims is never final.
Corrie Ten Boom was someone else well qualified to ask that question, ‘God why don’t you do something.’ Corrie was daughter of a Dutch watch maker when WWII broke out. She and her family hid many Jews from the Nazis before a neighbour betrayed them and they were sent to a concentration camp. Her father and her sister died in the camp. She survived.
Years later she reflected on her life and described God’s work like this.
God’s work is like a tapestry - on one side is order and beauty, on the other is all the mess.
You don’t have to know the purposes of God in any given moment in order to trust him.
You intended it for harm, God intended it for good, to save many -
For many
For many
Remember who this family is. They’re the covenant family. They are the family that are supposed to bring God’s blessing to the world. And yet it seems like they are about as Godforsaken as it gets. But God is at work, in the mess of their lives to bring about good - good for Joseph, good for his brothers, good for Jacob, as we’ll see. Without all of the events in this story, Joseph never becomes PM of Egypt, he never uses his intelligence to prepare for famine, and everyone starves.
As people who are part of God’s new covenant family, you and I know that the same God who was at work in Joseph’s life, will be at work in ours too.
Because Joseph is a shadow of Jesus. Jesus is the true and better Joseph. He is treated poorly, stripped naked, beaten, abandoned, left for dead, crying out, sold for silver, left for dead and thrown into a hole in the ground. They meant it for evil. Full stop. Jesus knows what that is like. He knows what it feels like when someone intends us harm, when they get away with it, when they gloat over it! He knows what it’s like to be the victim and be blamed for his own vitimisation. He has felt that!
And yet, when it looks like Jesus is about as Godforsaken as it gets, he knew that the Father was intending good in this moment. He knew, trusted, that God was preparing to raise him up to the very highest place and in the process, was saving a multitude that no one can number, let alone count from certain eternal death.
Conclusion
Conclusion
I don’t know your story. I know some of it. But I don’t know all of it. I don’t know the ins and outs of what has happened to you, the things people have done intending to harm you. We all have our own stories. But what I do know, is that God can take even the darkest, evil act intended to harm you, and somehow mysteriously redeem it to your good. I don’t know when he’ll do it, but I do know he’ll do it. Because that is the kind of God he is.
