Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How God Works For Your Good | Torah | Genesis 50:15-26

Episode Date: May 2, 2022

Why does God let bad things happen? How can you know if God is working in your life? Does God actually want was best for you? Keith shares what you can learn about God's plan for your life in today's episode on Genesis 50:15-26. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Genesis 50:15-26 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're going through the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Okay, so today is the last day we're in Genesis here on 10-minute Bible Talks. Tomorrow we're starting in the book of Exodus. If you've enjoyed following God's story from creation to Egypt, I hope you'll stay with us to find out how the Israelites get out of Egypt, and just as importantly, what we can learn from it. Genesis is a fantastic book, but so is Exodus. Today we're going to focus on one verse that is intellectually and theologically deep, but also enormously practical and helpful in our day-to-day life.

I just want to read the verse and then put it in context and then apply it to our lives. Okay, so here's the verse. And by the way, this is Genesis chapter 50, verse 20. Joseph is talking to his brothers. He says, you intended to harm me. but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. That's a remarkable verse.

It's got a lot to teach us, but in order to see what it has to say to us, we've got to briefly put it in context. Joseph's brothers hated him because he was his father's favorite, and I'm sure it's the favorite, he got extra attention and privileges. So for whatever reason, they sold them into slavery. Those slave traders eventually dumped Joseph in Egypt where he starts to rise up through the Egyptian system. That's when Potipher's wife lies and says that Joseph was trying to seduce her when the truth was very, very different. But because she lied about him, Joseph gets sent to an Egyptian prison, which I have to think was an incredibly horrifying experience.

While Joseph is in prison, he helps a fellow inmate that turns out to be Pharaoh's cup bearer. As a thank you for his help, Joseph asked the cup bear to remember him when he gets out of prison. But when the cup bear is released, he forgets about Joseph. So just in case you're keeping score at home, Joseph was treated poorly by his brothers. He was treated poorly by Potiphar's wife and the cup bear. All three sinned against him. So we followed the story here on 10 minute Bible talks of how Joseph reconciled with his brothers and saved Israel and Egypt from the famine. But now their father, the family patriarch, Jacob, has died, and Joseph's brothers are afraid that he will carry out vengeance on them.

Since dad is gone, maybe it's time for a little payback. At least that's what they're worried that Joseph's thinking. Here's how it sounds. In Genesis chapter 50, we'll pick it up in verse 15. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him? So they sent word to Joseph, saying, your father left these instructions before he died. This is what you were to say to Joseph.

I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and wrongs they committed in treating you so badly. Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father. When their message came to him, Joseph wept. Look, I want to give credit to the brothers for recognizing that they really had sin against Joseph in a really serious way. Their sins of jealousy and envy led to years of significant hardship. I wonder if there's someone we've wronged that we need to apologize to, maybe ask them to forgive us. We at least need to admit that what we did was wrong and it was really costly to them. Well, how does Joseph respond to all this?

Verse 19. Joseph replied, Don't be afraid of me. Am I God that I can punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended to harm me. but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. No, don't be afraid.

I will continue to take care of you and your children. So he reassured them by speaking kindly to them. Joseph didn't want to play God and get revenge, although I'm sure that was really tempting. But Joseph knew that it wasn't his responsibility to punish his brothers for how they'd personally hurt him. He refused to play God in their lives. Now, there's a little nugget in there for us, isn't there?

It's not up to us to get even with those who hurt us. Jesus tells us to love our enemies. Paul tells us to never avenge ourselves, but instead to leave that to God. But there's more to what Joseph told his brothers. He said that they intended to harm him, but God intended it all for good. Joseph saw through the eyes of faith that he'd gotten to Egypt and risen to his position of power by God's work. there's so much here i don't want you to miss any of it joseph acknowledged that his brothers made choices with the intent of harming him he doesn't absolve them of their moral responsibility he doesn't say what you did was no big deal

no what they did was wrong and they are rightly held accountable for their choices but in his brother's actions god was at work but with a very different motive a very different intention joseph said god intended it all for good. One thing we learn is that God works through sinful choices to bring about something good. Joseph goes on to say that God brought him to the position he was in. But how did God do that? How did God get him to the point that he was second command in all of Egypt? Well, let's work backwards. Joseph was second command to Pharaoh, but how did he get in that position? Well, by interpreting Pharaoh's dream. Why was he as a foreigner ever asked to interpret the dream of the Pharaoh? Well, because the cupbearer Joseph met in prison told Pharaoh about him. But how did Joseph end up in prison? Well, because

Potipher's wife lied about him. How did he become a servant in Potipher's house? Well, because the slave traders sold him in Egypt. How did he end up in the possession of the slave traders? Well, because his brothers hated him and sold him to the slave traders instead of killing him. See, at the end of Genesis, we learned that God was directing this entire process. It wasn't chance or fate or luck or even Pharaoh who put him in that position. It was God. God is working behind the scenes in our life and he's always working for our good. He even works through the sinful choices of other people.

Do you see how crazy applicable this is to our life and how it changes our perspective on everything that happens to us? This verse says that God isn't work in our life even when it doesn't look like it. And again, he's always working for our good. Let's get specific. Maybe you lost your job, or maybe an important relationship to you just ended, or maybe you got bad news from a doctor, or maybe it was all three of those things that happened to you. You could be confident that God is working in them and through them and for your good.

Does it feel good? Well, no, I'm sure it didn't feel good for Joseph to be sold or lied about it. or put in prison or double-crossed, but your feelings don't determine what's true. Maybe you lost your job because you were treated unfairly, or maybe you lost your job because you didn't do it well, or maybe it was because of some of both. Either way, God is still working in and through those choices that you made, that others made, and the consequences that came with it. One more thing, wherever you are, recognize that God has brought you to that place. just like God brought Joseph to Egypt, just like he put him in that government job.

So God has brought you to your neighborhood, to your family, to your school, to your team. God has put you in the job that you're in. That means you can trust that God has the big plan figured out and you're freed up to focus on being faithful in the moment. That's what Joseph did. He was faithful when he was in Potiphar's house. He was faithful when he was in prison. He was faithful in interpreting the dream to Pharaoh.

He was faithful in his government job. He was faithful to the way that he treated his brothers. You are not the victim of other people's sinful choices. Yes, people sin against us. But God is working even there and always and only for our good. Even when we can't see it with our own eyes, we can see it with the eyes of faith, that God is redeeming the bad things. He's bringing something good out of it. Therefore, put your hope in God.

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