Remembering God's Goodness in Darkness

Scripture Reading/Prayer

Tonight’s passage of Scripture is going to start in Genesis chapter 39, and we are going to jump around a couple parts of chapter 40, and then finish at the start of chapter 41. The verse we will start on is 39:20, which is page X of your Bibles. I will tell you when we are skipping ahead in the text

English Standard Version (Chapter 39)

20 And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. 21 But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. 22 And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. 23 The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge, because the LORD was with him. And whatever he did, the LORD made it succeed.

English Standard Version Chapter 40

Some time after this, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker committed an offense against their lord the king of Egypt. 2 And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, 3 and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard appointed Joseph to be with them, and he attended them. They continued for some time in custody.

5 And one night they both dreamed—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison—each his own dream, and each dream with its own interpretation. 6 When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled. 7 So he asked Pharaoh’s officers who were with him in custody in his master’s house, “Why are your faces downcast today?” 8 They said to him, “We have had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them.” And Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell them to me.”

English Standard Version (Chapter 40)

20 On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. 22 But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23 Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. After two whole years, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile

Let’s pray: Our Father in Heaven, we thank you that you have given us the story of Joseph. We thank you that you are the God who remains with us even in our darkest days, and that you walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death. As we continue to look at the story of Joseph, and as we continue to learn about your providential control over all things, may the Spirit open our hearts to behold your glorious and mysterious goodness to us in Jesus Christ. I ask this in his name, Amen

The Plot

Tonight we are continuing our survey of the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. The story of Joseph is an incredible story, full of ups and downs and surprisingly plot twists, that all serve to emphasize one singular point: the providence of God over all themes. We continue to start with this verse every night because it’s the climax of the whole story and the biggest takeaway you could have for this entire story: “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.” We believe that “God is powerful over all things and uses all things to accomplish his purposes.”, and we believe the story of Joseph is a story of the providence of God.

Last week we looked at the second major injustice in Joseph’s story. The first injustice he experienced is that his brothers sold him into slavery out of jealousy and hatred of him. The second injustice is that his master’s wife abuses her power over him and falsely accuses Joseph of a crime Joseph did not commit, which results in Joseph being put in prison. Tonight we are going to pick up with Joseph in prison and the third major injustice that Joseph will receive in this story: he is forgotten and abandoned in prison. We aren’t going to do a super deep dive into the narrative of this part of the story tonight - I am saving that for next week, where we look at Joseph’s rise to power and a change in his circumstances. Instead, I am going to give a super brief overview of what happens here, and then we are going to press pause and talk about something important that’s worth bringing up at this point in the story.

Like we just read a bit ago, Joseph is put in prison, but even in prison the Lord is with him and gives him favor in the sight of the prison administrators. One day, two more prisoners join Joseph - Pharaoh’s cupbaker and baker offend Pharaoh and he puts them in prison. We don’t know how long Joseph had been in prison at this point, but the text says the three of them remained in custody together for some time. But one night, both men dream dreams, and are really scared and upset by them. If you’ll recall, what gets Joseph in trouble with his brothers in the first place is that Joseph also has dreamed some weird dreams, and has been given understanding of those dreams. The two men talk to Joseph about their dreams, and long story short, the cupbearer’s dream was about his eventual restoration to his position, and the baker’s dream was about his eventual execution. Both dreams come true; the cupbearer is honored and put back in his position, and the baker is hanged. But when Joseph interpreted the cupbearer’s dream, he asked the cupbearer to do one thing when this dream came true: he asked the cupbearer to remember Joseph and help Joseph get out of prison. Yet we read at the end of the chapter that, surprise, the cupbearer forgot about Joseph, even though Joseph interpreted his dream for him. At the beginning of chapter 41, we read that for however long Joseph had already been in prison at this point, he stayed in prison and forgotten for another two whole years.

Joseph doesn’t know it, but this stint in prison is going to be the lowest point in his story. He doesn’t realize yet that the Lord is already staging his rise to power and the total reversal of his circumstances. But in the meantime, what is Joseph supposed to do while he waits in prison? When we are walking through dark chapters of our lives, what are we supposed to do while we wait?

Remembering God’s Goodness in Darkness

Let’s start with a couple things that we are prone to do that aren’t good for us. When we are walking through dark seasons in our lives, we can try to block out our painful situations and numb ourselves with distractions and entertainment to forget what’s going on. We can pour ourselves into our studies, our hobbies, our extracurricular activities to avoid those moments of silence and solitude. We can also focus exclusively on the bad things that are going on in our lives, to the point we become self absorbed in our pain and suffering and lose care or concern for anyone else. Whether through social media or just among our friends and family members, we can get hooked on the attention we receive in our suffering, and we can keep focusing on all the bad things in our lives because we like the attention we receive for it.

Now here’s the thing: none of these are bad by themselves. Distraction can be helpful at times. Our work and studies can keep us moving forward. There is nothing wrong with feeling at times that our lives are falling apart, and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the comfort you receive when people who care about you try to comfort you. Those are good things by themselves, but we can also take those to extremes. But there is another thing we can do that will actually be healthy and beneficial for us: we can remember the goodness of God, and meditate deeply on his love and care for us. Especially in the midst of asking the question “God, I know you are good, but why are you allowing these awful things to happen to me?”, we can comfort ourselves of the truth of God’s providence - and how God’s providence is an extension of God’s character.

God’s Providence and God’s Character

The providence of God is this heavy and mysterious doctrine, but Scripture gives us a lot of information about how we should understand this topic. There are also so many misconceptions about the doctrine of providence and how it relates to God, and so I want to focus on some of those misconceptions so that we can have a better understanding of God’s providence and recall those truths when life gets hard.

We can summarize everything we are about to talk about in one sentence: “God’s providence is an expression of his perfectly good, wise, and loving character”. When we talk about the providence of God, what we are talking about is an expression of who God is. Who God is in his character and nature determines his providential control, not the other way around. This is such a simple idea but it’s so important for us to understand and remember that God doesn’t just have power over all things and uses all things to accomplish his purposes, he is goodness, love, grace, justice, mercy, and kindness itself, and his use of all things to accomplish his purposes are an expression of his goodness, love, grace, justice, mercy, kindness, and more. And because God does not change, we can have confidence that his providence doesn’t change just as his character doesn’t change.

We also need to understand that God’s providential control of all things is something he has in and of himself. The providence of God is not a “part” of God, it is just as foundational to his character as his goodness, love, grace, justice, mercy, kindness, and more. God’s providence is not something that exists outside of God, or something that God has to safeguard from abuse or misuse by others. Nothing else in creation, including Satan himself, can “take control” of God’s providence, because God’s providence is fundamental to God’s being himself.

That seems lofty and confusing, but here’s an illustration that will help us understand what God and his providence are not. Who is this on the screen? [Thanos!] Thanos is a pretty awful dude, right? [Yes!] Thanos is self-absorbed and thinks that he has the right to rule the universe, right? [Yes!]. Thanos is fundamentally not good, not loving, not just, not merciful, and not kind right? [Yes!]. Okay, next photo: what is this? [The infinity gauntlet!]. Thanos had to fight pretty hard to get this, right? [Yes!]. The Infinite Gauntlet doesn’t care about who wields it and what purpose that individual has, right? [No!] The Infinity Gauntlet is something Thanos has to wear to use it; it’s not a fundamental part of him, right? [Yes!].

God is the total and polar opposite of Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet. Unlike Thanos, God is good. Unlike Thanos, God is the actual king and ruler of the universe. Unlike Thanos, God is goodness, love, grace, justice, mercy, and kindness itself. Unlike Thanos, God doesn’t have to fight for control of providence the way Thanos fought for the Infinity Gauntlet. Unlike the Infinity Gauntlet, God’s providence is entirely concerned with God’s purposes. Unlike the Infinity Gauntlet, God does not “wear” his providential power as a part of him; it is fundamental to his very being. He can’t lose it, he can’t have it taken away from him, and at no point can it be used for anything other than his good, loving, gracious, just, merciful, and kind purposes.

God’s providence is an expression of his perfectly good, wise, and loving character, and when we hit rock bottom in our lives, God’s providence ought to be the first thing in our minds. God’s providence doesn’t mean our pain is insignificant or that our circumstances aren’t unimportant; God’s providence doesn’t take bad events or bad actions by others and turn them into “good” things just because God will use them for good purposes. But even in the midst of our pain and difficulty of our trials of life, we can comfort ourselves with the truth about who God is and how God’s providence is an expression of his perfectly good, wise, and loving character. When we say that God is powerful over all things and uses all things to accomplish his purposes, there should be no doubt that his power is good, and his purposes are good, and that he uses all things in our lives because he loves us, even when we are waiting in dark seasons of our lives.

But what is God’s purpose? We can talk about God’s purpose in individual situations, but what is God’s biggest purpose? What does the grand-scale providence of God hope to accomplish? All of the small-scale purposes of God’s providence is connected to big-picture purposes of God’s providence, which is found in Jesus Christ. In Christ, we see the story of Joseph and all the other numerous threads of Scripture providentially lead to the coming of Jesus Christ, and his life, death, and resurrection for our salvation. God’s grant purpose for the universe is that all of creation know Jesus Christ and that people from all over the world worship him, and to prepare for when Jesus Christ returns and makes a new creation. When we place our faith in Christ and believe that he alone can save us from our sins, we receive more than just our salvation - we join in the story of God reconciling all things to himself as we wait for the coming of our Lord, who will wipe away every tear from our eyes and will no more lead us through dark seasons or dark chapters of our lives.