Sermon Tone Analysis

So you've heard the story so far.

Joseph was sold into slavery, and ever since then we’ve seen God’s hand at work in seemingly impossible circumstances.

Despite being sold into slavery, unlawfully accused and imprisoned, he has now ascended to power in Egypt and is second only to the Pharaoh himself.

God gives him a vision that a famine is coming to the land, and Joseph shows engenious social planning by saving enough food to feed all of Egypt and the surrounding countries during that time.

And of course, among those coming for food are Joseph’s own family: his brothers, who sold him into slavery.

He plays a kind of game with them: they think he’s just an Egyptian higher-up, so he keeps sending them back and forth with food and finding ways to make them come back over and over.

It seems like he’s toying with them, threatening punishment for things they did not do.

But whatever his motivations were for these games, he has reached a breaking point.

There are two main sections to this text: we have v. 1-15, which deals with Joseph’s interaction with his brothers, and v. 16-28, which deals with the aftermath of that conversation.

We’re not going to be able to see everything, so I’d like to concentrate today on v. 1-15.

V. 1-15 contain the best summary we’ve seen so far of all of Joseph’s story.

There is one repeated refrain that we can see here which encapsulates an incredibly profound—and, frankly, hard to swallow—truth about the way in which God works in the world he has created.

"God Did This.”

V. 1:

Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him.

He cried, “Make everyone go out from me.”

So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.

2 And he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it.

3 And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph!

Is my father still alive?”

But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.

He cried, “Make everyone go out from me.”

So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.

2 And he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it.

3 And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph!

Is my father still alive?”

But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.

It’s pretty obvious why they didn’t answer him—this was a man they were terrified of before.

He held all the power in Egypt; he could have them killed at a simple order; and he had accused them of stealing from him, of being spies.

They were already quaking in front of this guy.

Anon, 2016.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

And now they find out that not only is this man they’re afraid of very powerful and seemingly out to get them—but he is the brother they sold into slavery so many years ago.

Who knows what he had to go through to get to this point?

And it was all because of them.

But Joseph, although he has been actively frightening them so far, finally lets his guard down and lets them in on what is actually going on in his mind.

V. 4:

4 So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.”

And they came near.

And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.

5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here...

So he doesn’t deny the wrong they did to him; he says it blatantly and honestly: you sold me into Egypt.

But he tells them not to be distressed about it; not to beat themselves up about it.

Anon, 2016.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

Now, in order to really feel the weight of the weirdness of this forgiveness, think about how we usually forgive people.

(And let’s not imagine that only Christians know how to forgive; unbelievers do it too, all the time.)

How do we do it?

We forgive when enough time has passed for it not to hurt so much anymore; when we realize that holding on to bitterness is actually hurting us as much as the person who hurt us to begin with.

So when we finally come to the point where we want to let that go, and move on with our lives, we say, “I forgive you.

Don’t be distressed or angry with yourself because you did this to me; I’m okay.”

Whether we realize it or not, that is usually the only way people can truly forgive; we forgive when we have incentive to forgive, when we realize that holding on to our anger is actually doing us more harm than the initial wrong done to us.

Joseph could say that.

He could say, “Don’t feel bad; it all worked out in the end.

I ended up here, in a position of great comfort and authority.

I’m okay.”

But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t say anything like that.

What Joseph says is so shocking that most people are incapable of seeing it for what it is, at least in a first reading.

Here’s what he says (v. 5 again):

5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.

6 For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest.

7 And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.

8 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 all the land of Egypt.

Anon, 2016.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

What’s shocking about this is not that God would wish to preserve life.

Most people know , which says that “God is love.”

It’s not surprising that a loving God would want to prevent the death of millions.

Anon, 2016.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

What is surprising is Joseph’s affirmation that everything that had happened to him at the hands of his brothers came from God.

What did Joseph’s brothers do to him?

They were jealous of him; they threw him down a well; they destroyed his father’s gift to him; they sold him into slavery; and they lied about it, telling their father that his youngest son had been devoured by wild animals.

In a word, they sinned.

Grievously.

They did not sin merely against themselves; they sinned against someone else—someone younger, and weaker, and defenseless against them.

This man suffered for years because of their actions against him.

If these men were living today in France, and they did this and were caught, they would go to prison for the rest of their lives for kidnapping and human trafficking.

They sinned.

And yet Joseph says, GOD did this.

It was not you who sent me here, but God.

Point 2: God’s Sovereignty Over Sin

That does not square with the way we see God, does it?

We know, for example, what the Bible says about God’s holiness, his moral purity.

When Isaiah had his vision of God in the temple, the angels were singing (Isaiah 6.3):

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

the whole earth is full of his glory!”

We know what the apostle James said about God ():

13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

And yet, if we read the Bible carefully, we see that God is sovereign over all things—even sin.

Sometimes people imagine that when we talk about God’s sovereignty, we mean that he could intervene if he wanted to, but stays at a distance.

But tells us that God works all things according to the counsel of his will.

ALL THINGS.

Everything that happens, and everything that could happen but doesn’t.

And we don’t need to limit ourselves to any one text to see this: it’s clear from the entire story of the Bible.

We see this in the story of Joseph, obviously, as Joseph affirms that God was the one who sent him to Egypt, sovereign over the sins of his brothers.

We see this in the story of the Exodus, as Pharaoh hardens his heart to God, and God, in turn, hardens Pharaoh’s heart and prevents him from letting the people go ().

We see this in the story of Saul and David, when the Lord sends a “harmful spirit” to torment Saul, of which David soothes him with his music ().