Reject Victimhood

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Lord God, we thank You for giving us the holy scriptures, and we know that the center of the holy scriptures is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Jesus, we thank You that You lived the perfect life on our behalf, fulfilled all of the commandments of God, all the will of God perfectly, and then Lord, You went to a cross, so You were crucified on our behalf, burying the wrath of God that we deserve for our law-breaking. Then, Lord, we thank You that You didn't stay dead, but You rose victoriously over Satan's sin and death, and because of Your resurrection, You offer us salvation, You offer us both mercy and grace. Mercy in that, You do not give us the condemnation we deserve. Grace in that, You give us the righteousness of Christ, and we thank You, Lord, for Your grace.

We thank You that we are saved by grace through faith. If there's anyone here who's not yet a Christian, has not had their sins forgiven, I pray today, Lord, draw them to Yourself. By the power of the Spirit, convert them, and, Lord, use this sermon series to teach us that we will never graduate from needing grace, and at some seasons in life, we do need a graduate-level grace, and if there's any one season like that now, a season of suffering, trial, tribulation, I pray be especially close to them. Show us that because of what You did with Christ, You took the greatest evil ever in the crucifixion of Christ, and You turned it into the greatest good ever, the resurrection of Christ. You can turn our evil into good as well.

Bless our time in the holy scriptures, and we pray all this in the beautiful name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Today, we're excited to start a new sermon series through Genesis 37 through 50. We're entitling it Graduate Level Grace: A Study In the Life of Joseph. The idea behind this text and behind the series is we come to know the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ when we're saved by grace through faith, but that's just a start of our relationship with the Lord, a walk with the Lord, and then often, the Lord does take us through seasons in life where it seems like we're about to embark on the next level, and with the next level, we need next-level grace.

The title of the sermon today is Reject Victimhood. Why this series? It's a story about a young man, who goes from just a shepherd to a Prime Minister in 13 years, but those 13 years include a lot of suffering. We're going to learn many lessons, Lord willing, glean much wisdom about the most important things in life, the most important parts of life, family, relationships, work, prayer, vision, godliness, influence, authority, leadership, integrity, rejection, betrayal, reconciliation, forgiveness, adversity, and prosperity. A quick recap of where we find ourselves, Genesis is the book of beginnings.

In the beginning, we see a personal, loving, sovereign God, who creates the universe and rules over it, and God creates humanity in His image and blesses them with the mandate, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and govern it, reign over it. Love God," He tells them, "And love one another, have a family, raise your children to do the same." That was God's vision for humanity, but in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve, man, humanity, wickedly rebels against God. They seek to be equal with God, and so sin introduces the reign of death in the world, but God is a good God and He doesn't leave us in our sin. To save humanity, God promises to send a Savior, who will come from the seed of Abraham to save the world.

The Lord chooses a family, chooses Abraham and says, "Abraham, I'm going to bless you with a family, and through your family, I'm going to send a Savior that will bless the families of the world." Abraham, Isaac, and then Jacob. We find ourselves here in the story of Jacob. He takes us Genesis 25 through 50, half the book. He is Israel after all, the direct ancestor of the nation of Israel and the father of the 12 sons from whom would come the 12 tribes.

The thing that we notice about the life of Joseph is he comes from a big, dysfunctional family, a family that's riven by jealousy and hatred. They're a covenant family with God's blessing upon them, but they're torn apart by conflict, through intermarriage with pagans, et cetera, but we see that the Lord uses Joseph and his suffering to bring this hate-filled family together, and at the end, we see the family reconciled, purified, and preserved in safety in Egypt. Look at the stories of redemption in scripture. One of the greatest is the apostle Paul. He goes from being a terrorist of the Church, a persecutor of Christians to being the apostle, the evangelist to the Gentile's incredible redemption, story of redemptive arc, but ultimately, this story of Joseph is arguably even greater of a redemptive story.

The story is about how God intervenes despite the brokenness, despite the sin, despite the folly, we see His grace intervene, and He takes all of the evil, the sin, the brokenness, and He brings it all together for the good of both this family and us. Toward the conclusion of the great narrative, when Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, this is what he says in Genesis 45:7, "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. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over the land of Egypt." What a God He is, because He's not just a God of the extraordinary, but a God of the ordinary.

He takes the ordinary actions of people despite their folly, despite their sin, and He turns it all around to fulfill His perfect plan. Three points to frame up our time as we walk through the text in Genesis 37. The first is for those who love God, all things work together for good. Second, beware the soul-rotting sin of jealousy and covetousness, and three, replace a victimhood mindset with a sovereignty mindset. So first, for those who love God, all things work together for good.

We get this from Romans 8:28, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose, and this, we see over and over in the life of Joseph and his family. The story begins in Genesis 37:1. "Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan." In the previous chapter, Jacob's older brother, Esau, forsakes the land of the promised Canaan, and he goes to the land of Seir, so this acknowledges that Jacob has a right to the promised land, so Jacob settles down. In verse 2, "These are the generations of Jacob.

Joseph, being 17 years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the songs of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father." Joseph was the second to last son, so he's number 11. Benjamin came after. Joseph lived 17, and this is a fun fact, but I think it's important for parents, in particular.

The first time my oldest daughter made me an omelet, I said, "Oh, my. Finally, a little ROI. A little return on investment," but you look at Jacob, and Jacob raises Joseph for 17 years, and then he doesn't see him again until the end of the book, and then, Jacob, when he and his family moved to Egypt, he lives with Joseph for 17 years, the last 17 years of his life, but here, we see conflict between the sons of Joseph's older sons. The fact that there were bad things to report on shouldn't come as a surprise. We've already learned that they had significant behavior issues, sin, et cetera.

Reuben, the oldest, slept with his father's concubine. Simeon and Levi slaughtered the Shechemites because of their sister's disgrace, so these were hard, rough, and reckless men, that were the older brothers of Joseph. Would this endear him to his older brothers, that he's bringing a bad report about them to his dad? No. Of course not.

They would consider him a tattletale or a snitch. The word for brothers here is used 21 times in the text keyword, but there's dramatic irony every time the word's used because though outwardly, these men were brothers, but inwardly, spiritually, they were the furthest from the truth, so Joseph's bad report reflects badly on all of them, the brothers because they were bad things to say, and Joseph because he chose to say them. So we see resentment smoldering in the hearts of the brothers of Joseph, and we're only at verse 2. In verse 3, "Now, Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a robe of many colors." Favoritism had been a generational sin in Jacob's family. If you remember Isaac preferred Esau over Jacob, and if you remember, Rebecca loved Jacob more than Esau, and recall that Jacob loved Rachel and her children more than Leah and her offspring, and Jacob probably could not even help his feelings of favoritism because Joseph was the son of Rachel.

She had passed already, but she was his never-forgotten first love, and Joseph had been born late in life after many years of frustration. Also, along with all of this, Joseph seems to be free from the sins of his older brothers, which was a source of solace and joy to his father. Nevertheless, Jacob's blatant favoritism was unconscionable. The lifelong hurt inflicted by his own father's favoritism should have made him weary even a hint of not being even-handed with his children, and he made him a robe of many colors, so not only did everyone already know this, but now, everyone sees that Joseph is the one who's loved most, through this public mark of Jacob's greater affection. So it doesn't surprise us that his brothers hated him, even more after the father lavished his gift on them.

Quick word to parents, fathers in particular, fathers, don't be as stupid as Jacob was. Very simple lesson here. "Don't exasperate your children," the apostle Paul says. One of the ways that children can be exasperated is if you love one more than the others. How do I do this?

I do it like this. I equally favor each of them, so I tell them when they're one-on-one, I was like ... I have four daughters. I tell them, "You're my favorite. Don't tell the others," but it's okay 'cause I say it to all four, so that's fine.

The point is we got to love our children equally, uniquely, yes. We, uniquely, parents need to know our children's hearts, how they're wired, et cetera, but equally, we are to love them. Genesis 37:4, "But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him." So young Joseph's sudden appearance, in his distinctive robe, ignites their hatred, so he's alienated from them. They can't even speak civilly to him. The robe inflames their burning rage. They loathed his presence.

Insult to injury, Joseph gets a few dreams, and he decides to share them. Verse 5, "Now, Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, 'Hear this dream that I have dreamed. Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright, and behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.' His brothers said to him, 'Are you indeed to reign over us, or are you indeed to rule over us?' So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words."

So fuel here is added to the relational strife in the form of these Joseph-exalting dreams. Was he excited about the dream? Of course, he was. He was so full of the dream. He was compelled to pour it our to his brothers, tactless, insensitive perhaps.

The brothers had no difficulty interpreting. They know exactly what he's trying to say. They don't believe it, of course, and what was the expected reaction from him? What did he expect from them? We don't know, but they respond with hatred.

Verse 9, "Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, 'Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars were bowing down to me.'" Repetition here in the book of Genesis when it comes to dreams, repetition is a sign of certainty, so Joseph, when he interprets the dreams of Pharaoh, later on in the book, in Genesis 41:32, it says, "And the doubling of Pharaoh's dream means that the thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about." So Joseph knows this God communicating to him. In the second dream, for him sealed the matter.

God would sovereignly bring this to pass, and that perhaps was the reason why he found the audacity to share with his family the content. His father loves him, and his father has been doting upon him, but even his father rebukes him at this point. This is verse 10. "And when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, 'What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?' And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind."

To his credit, even though Jacob rebukes his son, he didn't dismissed the dream, as the brothers did. He knew Revelation when he saw it and when he heard it, so he keeps the matter in mind. Without the dream, there would be no Joseph story. Without the dream, his brothers just hate him for the robe, but God does send the dream, and He sends two of them, and because of the dreams, Joseph can't, but share the dreams with his brothers, which sets the whole story in motion, that God sovereignly sealed and ensured the rejection of young Joseph. Do you see what that tells us?

It reveals that any of us, who follow God, will live a life that will sometimes get very tangled. At times, complications will arise from our own sin, as with Joseph, or from the sin of those around us, and we live in this world that is fallen. People around us are fallen, and this world is caught in a web of sin, and it constantly casts you webs, but we know that amidst life complexities, God's creative power is at work to do us good. This is true when we get sick. This is true when we have trouble with our children, our grandchildren, when professional problems engulf us.

We have the providence of God, a God who sustains our souls and all of life, perpetually working good. This is a truth to learn because life is not going to get easier, from this moment, friends. Your life is not going to get easier. With every coming day, as you get older, as we get older, with every day, it seems sometimes that the crosses that God entrusts to us get bigger, and God promised us, "If you want to follow Me, you got to deny self and take up your cross?" In fact, the more you follow God, the more complicated life will become, because your life's cores will buck against this world.

So what are we to do here? Take heart that God is at work in our lives to do us good because we belong to Him, so rest your soul in that and submit yourself to Him in great processes of life and follow Him. Second is, "Beware of the soul-rotting sin of jealousy and covetousness." This is Genesis 37:11. "His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind." This entire story of the 12 sons and their animosity and eventual reconciliation begins with God, making a clear distinction between Joseph and the other brothers, thus, the significance of the dream.

Joseph got the dream, the others did not. Here's a fact of life, and one perhaps that we struggle with in one way or another as the brothers struggled with. God does not treat us all the same. No. He does not give us all the same things.

He does not give us all the same favor. He does not give us all the same blessings. Some Christians are smarter than others. Some are better-looking, more athletic, more successful financially, marry to lovelier and more impressive spouses, some have better jobs than others, some have higher-achieving children, some have better health and live longer lives. Some people seem to step from one victory, one triumph to another, and others never seem to be able to escape the long reach of trouble, only sometimes of their own making.

Even among Christians, for someone it seems they're just naturally wired to be better Christians. Some are naturally sweeter, some are naturally more patient. The rest of us got to work a lot harder, so you look at this and you're like, "It's not fair. This isn't fair." Well, we learned this through Jonah, we learned this last week.

"No, no, no, grace isn't fair." Of course it's not fair because no one earns grace. Grace is unmerited favor. Samuel Eliot Morison, the American historian and writer, he puts it like this. He says, "Life is like a card game.

God deals a deck, and He gives some a strong hand and some a weak hand, and some people with a strong hand, they squander, and some people, the weaker hand, they play to the best of their ability and do well," but if a great hand is dealt and a great hand is played well, it's unbeatable, and Joseph was dealt a great hand, a mom and a dad that absolutely love him, and his father, I think made a lot of mistakes with the older sons, and by the time he gets to 11, he's like, "I think I got this," but then, he messes up with the favoritism part, but God chooses Joseph for prominence. He chooses him for power. He puts him in the position of the Egyptian core, and so the brothers have some ... They got to decide what to do. Clearly, this younger brother is blessed in a unique way.

How are we going to respond? And they respond with jealousy and covetousness, and they respond with the resentment and bitterness at Jacob, at Joseph, and even at God, and they tried to resist God's will, which obviously is futile. In fact, everything they did, every evil motion, every evil act only served to fulfill God's plan. We must recognize that the way in which the Lord gives to others things that He has not given to us is an opportunity for us to step back and say, "What is grace? What is the principle of grace?"

Paul would later ask, "What do you have that you have not received? Who makes you to differ?" Well, it's God, of course, who gives us what we have. If God wishes to give one of His children something He has not given you, what is that to you? Everything He gives, He gives in defiance of the fact that we don't deserve anything, except for His punishment. And who are you to tell the Almighty and your heavenly Father how to run His own family?

We're called to put on humility, right? The root of all sin is pride, and I will say that if you have been given less than others, entrusted with less to steward, well, then your path of humility is a little easier than theirs. Listen to some of the wisest Christians before us about goals. Thomas A. Kempis says, "Desire to be unknown." Jeremy Taylor says, "O, teach me to love to be concealed."

Archbishop Leighton says, "Be ambitious to be unknown." Augustine says, "if you ask me what the first thing in religion is, I should reply the first, the second, and third thing is humility." Alexander Moody Stuart, "There is not a humble heart in all the world that the high God is not dwelling in." Pascal, "Without humility, all our other virtues are but vices." Joseph, you do get a little hint of arrogance here.

Yeah, he's dressed better than everyone else. By the way, when you're dressed nice, you know there's something there, and so you walk on a ... There is a little arrogance. There's arrogance in his speech, the dreams he could not wait for the brothers to hear. Gentlemen, do you see what's ... And how long did the Lord take to humble Joseph?

His path to humility was so much harder, in many ways, than his brothers. If God wishes to exalt Joseph, that was God's doing, and it's our duty to acknowledge that it's His right to do so, and so adore God's wisdom and sovereignty. Verse 12, "Now, his brothers went to pasture their father's flock near Shechem, and Israel said to Joseph, 'Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.' And he said to him, 'Here I am,' so he said to him, 'Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock, and bring me word.' So he sent him from the Valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem."

A path, a journey of about 50 miles, or it definitely took a significant time, and so he gets to ... By the way, before he gets to Shechem ... I'll give you a little backstory. So you know the backstory where his brothers can't stand him, but the other backstory about Shechem is the Shechemites can't stand the sons of Jacob, because his two older sons went in after their sister was disgraced, and they slaughtered a bunch of the Shechemites, so they're in peril and the father wants to know, "Okay, how are they?" By the way, this is a tall ask for Joseph.

Joseph knows, "My brothers hate me. I'm going to a dangerous place. This is going to take a long time," and all we hear from him, when his father gives him this duty, all we hear is, "Here I am," so he's presented as diligent, as hard-working as an obedient son, even doing an unpleasant bidding. Verse 15, when he's at Shechem, "And a man found him, wandering in the fields, and the man asked him, 'What are you seeking?' 'I'm seeking my brothers,' he said. 'Tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock,' and the man said, 'They've gone away, for I heard them say,' 'Let's go to Dothan,' so Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan."

So Dothan is another 14 miles that he's got to travel further, and here too, is a hidden hand of divine providence of the careful reader, is to know and to ponder Joseph, it says, "Is wandering in the fields." How long was he wandering? I don't know, but probably a significant time for it to even be mentioned he's wandering around. Perhaps, he feels like he's wasting time. Perhaps it feels like it's all aimless. "What am I doing here, Lord?"

"Why am I stuck in this field?" Well, this is how the providence of God often works in our daily lives. You'll have a job to do, you'll get to a place, and here, he knows he's wasting time. It's a waste of time. It's aimless, and it's brought from the perspective of the story had he not taken this little hiatus at Shechem, had he not paused there, he would not have gotten to Dothan in time to coincide with the caravan of the Ishmaelite traders.

So we see God pauses him on purpose. If he were not paused, the brothers would've killed him, instead of selling him into slavery, and this is what the scripture teaches, that often, in our lives, God works through the ordinary details, and if we are not paying attention, we miss the lessons. Scripture teaches that every single moment of life is supercharged with significance, because every piece of it is falling through the fingers of your heavenly Father. One of the biggest fallouts of living in a secular society, where people just don't acknowledge that there is a transcendence, supernatural, sovereign God over us, who cares about us and cares about the details of our lives, one of the things that we miss in this culture, where we don't believe that God is over all and in all and through all, we miss the purpose of just everyday life. We miss the purpose-filled infusion of God in everyday life, and I think that's why a lot of people are bored.

Perhaps you in your daily walk with the Lord, you feel this boredom, this ennui sometimes, because you don't realize that God is working every single detail for your good, so we are to pay attention to the details of our lives, knowing that God is sovereign. Verse 18, "They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him." They recognized him from his distinctive robe, and now, they hatch a plan. Verse 19, "They said to one another, 'Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then, we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we'll see what will become of his dreams.'"

Dreamer here obviously is used sarcastically. They would prove his dreams wrong by killing him. They want to throw him into a pit, which was a cistern hewn out of rock for the storage of water, found all throughout. Israel served as an excellent dungeon, and they wanted not just to kill him, but to kill him in the most dishonorable way to kill him, and throw his body in the cistern, where he would not be buried. Genesis 37:21, "But when Reuben heard it, he rescued him out of their hands, saying, 'Let us not take his life,' and Reuben said to them, 'Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him, that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father.'"

Reuben, now, we learned in the previous chapters, if you read, he had fallen from his father's favor, because he had an affair with Bilhah, and he couldn't further afford anymore animosity or from his dad, so he knows he's going to have to bear the responsibility, so he steps into rescue his brother seemingly. In verse 23, "So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore, and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty, there was no water in it." We're only left to imagine Joseph's response. How did he respond?

Did he scream? Was he terrified? On Genesis 42:21, the brothers recollect exactly how Joseph responded. "Then, they said to one another, 'In truth, we are guilty concerning our brother. In that, we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us, and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.'"

By God's grace, their posture of heart changed toward the end, but what was their posture of heart at this moment, after beating him, stripping him, mocking him? It says in verse 25, "Then, they sat down to eat, and looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites, coming from Gilead, and their camels bearing gum, balm, and myrrh on their way to carry down to Egypt." We see callousness, we see heartless barbarity as they sit down to eat the meal that Joseph had brought them from their father. Verse 26, "Then, Judah said to his brothers, 'What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh,' and his brothers listened to him."

So Judah is right after Reuben, and was he trying to save his brother placate his own conscience, make a little profit? We're not told, but we see that God does use this situation to save Joseph's life. Verse 28, "Then, Midianite traders passed by, and they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. They took Joseph to Egypt." So Joseph was sold to a non-covenant people.

The brothers had disposed of Joseph and his dreams, or so they thought. Verse 29, "When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes and returned to his brothers and said, 'The boy is gone, and I, where shall I go?'" Oh, Reuben knows the agony that his father is going to experience. He asked his brothers, "What do we do? What do I do?"

And the only response from them is silence. Verse 31, "And they took Joseph's robe and slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood." This real irony here, Jacob had deceived his father by taking his brother's clothes and used a goat in order to deceive his dad. Jacob's youthful sins come full circle, his deceit. His deceit comes back to bite him.

In verse 32, "They sent the robe of many colors and brought it to their father and said, 'This, we have found. Please identify whether it is your son's robe or not,' and he identified it and said, 'It is my son's robe. A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.'" Verse 34, "Then Jacob tore his garments and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days, and all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, 'No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.' And thus, his father wept for him."

Conventional grieving lasted a week for a child or a parent. For Moses, it was a period of a month. Jacob refused to be comforted and promised here to continue mourning. We see the titanic hypocrisy in the sons. They're attempting to comfort their father in the death of his favorite son when they knew very well he wasn't dead and what had happened.

Verse 36, "Meanwhile, the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard." Narrator reminds us that while Jacob struggled to adjust to the tragedy, Joseph was beginning a new life in Egypt at the age of 17, and this brings the point, three, replace a victimhood mindset with a sovereignty mindset, and I say it because that's the only way to understand what happened with Joseph. For this next 13 years of suffering, this is a man of God that pressed into the suffering, instead of blame-shifting and being immobilized by a victimhood mindset. Scripture teaches that God is sovereign, therefore, we are responsible. Look at Joseph.

He's dragged naked from the pit, tethered to a beast of burden. He himself is probably carrying stuff all the way to the Nile, and he began the story as a robe prince in Israel, and he ends as a slave. He, of all people, had a massive case for victimhood. Why not pity himself? He was indeed pitiful.

He had done nothing to deserve this. His biggest sin was he had a big mouth and he didn't know to keep it shut when he should have. And where was God in all of this? Why didn't God intervene? "God, why didn't You protect me from my brothers?"

"God, why didn't you protect me from this caravan bound for Egypt? Why, why, why?" What's fascinating is Joseph takes absolute responsibility for himself in Egypt. He knows who he is, he knows who's he is, and he lives his life as you and I live ours. He had God's word guiding him, and he had God's Spirit with him, he had an imperfect understanding of life around him, he had his own besetting sins, but he knew that he was with the Lord.

Joseph had ample reason for self-pity, for rage, for anger with God and revenge, and he doesn't do any of it. It's as if he forgets what lies behind, and he's ready to lean into what God was teaching. I say that because in this family, you see the victimhood mindset arise every once in a while. Jacob. Jacob had ...

He could blame everybody. "Laban, you weren't righteous to me. Esau, you weren't righteous to me. My parents, you weren't righteous to me. It's all your fault."

"It's all your fault," even with the brothers, Reuben. Reuben could've said it to Jacob, "My dad didn't love me." Judah could've said the same thing, "That's why I am the way I am. It's all their fault." That's a victimhood mindset. "I'm a victim of someone else's sin."

Joseph could have done that. He does not. He rejects it because he believes in the sovereignty of God. "God allowed this in my life, therefore, God has purposes for it." He knew Abraham, of Abraham, his great-grandfather.

He knew that God had spoken to him. Joseph believed that same promise that was handed down from Abraham and Isaac, and he knew that God is with him, that God will bless him, that God will use him. He had an immense view of God, and thus, reason that God was doing his will throughout the inscrutable drama that we see. Friends, no one will escape the will of God. No one will escape the hand of God, the rule of God, the plan and purpose of Almighty God, for children of God that comes as a great comfort, and no matter what, God is going to use all of these things in my life to bring about good, but for enemies of God, or for those of you, you're not sure if you're a child of God or an enemy of God, well, the fact that God is sovereign, no one will escape His reach or His plan should send a shiver down our spine, so what are we to do? We are to seek mercy and seek grace.

As Dante puts it, "In His will is our peace." Yes. Can you say, "God, thy will be done," because thy will is good, because you are loving? Our heavenly Father orchestrates our lives moment by moment, we know His love, we know His wisdom, we know His faithfulness because we know His Son, Jesus Christ and what Jesus did for us. The love of Jesus Christ, the kindness of Christ, that's what separates Christianity from every other religion, it's that God offers us grace, and how does God offer us grace?

Through both the sacrifice of Christ and His suffering that comes to us. Also, as an example, 1 Peter 2:21-25, "For to this, you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return, when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His Body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness."

"By His wounds, you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." If there was ever a victim, it's Jesus Christ, but even Jesus turned that tragedy into a great victory. In Christ, we see that we can be more than conquerors. The story of Joseph is incredible in many ways, but it does point to the greater Joseph, Jesus Christ. Many ways, Joseph's life is a type, a typology of Christ.

Joseph was rejected by his brothers, sold into captivity, and it is through that, through the fat that he was enslaved through his suffering that his brothers are freed in the end, his brothers are saved, that reminds me of a story where Pilate has Christ right before him, and they had this traditional Passover week, where he would release a prisoner, and he says, "Do you want me to release Jesus to you?," and they said, "No." The text is clear that they had brought Christ to be crucified because they envied Him. Matthew 27:15-23, "Now, at the feast, the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd, any one prisoner whom they wanted, and they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas, so when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, 'Whom do you want me to release for you, Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?,' for He knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered Him up. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, 'Have nothing to do with that righteous Man, for I have suffered much because of Him today in a dream.' Now, the chief priest and the others persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus."

"The governor again said to them, 'Which of the two do you want me to release to you?,' and they said, 'Barabbas.' Pilate said to them, 'Then, what shall I do with Jesus, who is called Christ?' They all said, 'Let Him be crucified,' and he said, 'Why? What evil has He done?,' and they shouted all the more, 'Let Him be crucified!'" We worship a God who took the greatest evil that was ever done, the crucifixion of the Son of God, and He turned it into the greatest event, the greatest good that could ever be, and that's the resurrection of Jesus Christ, through which we have forgiveness of sins.

So if God can take the greatest evil and turn it into the greatest good in the life of Christ and the death, burial, and resurrection, well, He can do the same thing in the life of Joseph, and we'll see He does. He takes what they meant for evil and turns it into good. In the same way, when we entrust ourselves to the Lord, He can take everything in our lives, the good, the bad, the ugly, even the sin, even the evil, and He brings it all together, and He works out His good purpose. I'll close with Romans 8:31-39, "'What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?'"

"'He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?' It is God who justifies. 'Who is to condemn?' Christ Jesus is the One who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of the God, who indeed is interceding for us."

"'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?' As it is written, for Your sake, we are being killed all the day long, we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Now, in all of these things, we are more than conquerors through Him, who loved us, for I'm sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Amen.

Let us pray. Lord, we thank You for this incredible word, and we thank You for You sovereignty, and we thank You for Your grace. We thank You for taking this really miserable account of brothers who hated one of their own, sold him into captivity. We thank You for the story, where You showed that You can override even our greatest acts of evil. Lord, we come to You and we come to the cross of Christ.

We repent of sin of pride, of folly. Continue to lead us in the ways of sanctification and continue to produce much fruit through us, and pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.