Family Matters - Genesis 37-38
Can you recall a time you went through a painful or disappointing experience but later saw good come out of it? Difficult circumstances take many forms, and sometimes they’re directly the results of sin in the lives of others and ourselves. The Lord acts graciously when He brings good out of the hard and messy situations we find — and sometimes put — ourselves in. Of course, this does not excuse our sinful actions.
On Sunday, we returned to our series through the book of Genesis. As Pastor Michael preached on Genesis 37-38, he told us that God is at work in our suffering and sin to accomplish His plan.
In Genesis 37, we see Joseph sold into slavery by his brothers. Jacob favored Joseph above his eleven other sons, and he displayed this favoritism by making Joseph a robe of many colors. This drew the ire of Joseph’s brothers, and their hatred of him only grew when Joseph received dreams indicating his family members would one day bow down to him. When the brothers encountered Joseph in Dothan, they intended to kill him — though, at the request of Reuben, they stopped just short of doing this. Instead, they cast him into a pit, then sold him to a caravan of Ishmaelites. Joseph was taken to Egypt, and the brothers sent a bloodstained robe back to their father to indicate the death of his beloved son.
We might read the passage and have a few different responses. Perhaps we respond in anger: How could those brothers do such a thing? Or perhaps we know the story and resolve the tension in our minds: Had Joseph not been sold into slavery, many would have died in the coming famine. I don’t mean to say either of these responses are invalid. Injustice should anger us, and we should remember that God had great purposes for Joseph’s suffering.
At the same time, there is an appropriate response we might be slower to adopt. That is to see ourselves in Joseph’s brothers.
These brothers acted cruelly — their hatred led them to sell their brother into slavery and intentionally deceive their father. Both Joseph and Jacob suffered greatly because of their actions. Still, we should be slow to distance ourselves from them. We, too, have sinned, and we would be foolish to minimize our own sins in comparison to theirs. All sins are offenses against a holy God, and all sins deserve punishment.
As we will see in Genesis, Joseph’s life pointed to Christ in many ways. Joseph suffered something he did not deserve in order to bring about a great salvation. If we’re in Christ, let’s be on guard against self-righteousness as we read the story of Joseph, and let’s praise the Lord Jesus, who took the punishment for our sins to reconcile us to God.
Resources:
The Dreamer — Ligonier Ministries
Where Is God When Things Keep Getting Worse? — Vaneetha Rendall Risner
Reflection Questions:
Why is it important for us not to minimize our own sins?
Are there any sins in your life you’ve become comfortable with?
How might you wage war against those sins this week?
Listen to the Sermon: