“Under The Sun” Week 2 June 21, 2020
Pastor Tim Patoka Good from Evil Genesis 37:3-11
1) God Works All Evil for Good 2) God Assures Us He Will Always Do This When bad things happen to us, we usually try to find a silver lining in them. Something that helps us see the hidden good in the midst of a sea of evil. When we were under stay-at-home orders two months ago, one silver lining I often heard from our church’s young families was the extra time they had together as a family. Just as their schedules were about to be overrun by end-of-school activities, the coronavirus shut everything down. And at least for the few first weeks, they had found a silver lining. But silver linings don’t make everything roses and daisies; they don’t change the fact that evil is still happening. Instead, silver linings mostly help us grin and bear the reality of our situations. But the Christian has something else, another tool to help them endure evil. They find it in God’s Word where God promises to work good from evil. That’s exactly what we’ll see happen with our Old Testament account of Joseph through whose evil God worked immense good. And God will continue to do exactly that for he works all evil for good and assures us that he will always do this. 1) God Works All Evil for Good Joseph was no stranger to evil and its devastating effects. He came from a dysfunctional family with at least 1 brother, 10 half-brothers, and 1 half-sister. As their father Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph’s half-brothers could not even be civil with him in casual conversation. Joseph didn’t help the situation at all when he, insensitive to the wedge he was further driving down, told his half-brothers the two dreams he had about their sheaves of wheat and the sun, moon, and stars all bowing down to him. We hear their father Jacob correctly interpret both dreams saying, “What kind of dream is this that you have dreamed? Will I and your mother and your brothers really come and bow down to the ground in front of you?” (Genesis 37:10) While it seemed preposterous to them at the time, this bowing down is exactly what would happen 20 some years later! And as we’ll see in a little bit, it’s when this dream was fulfilled that God reveals the good he worked from Joseph’s evil circumstances.
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“Under The Sun” Week 2 June 21, 2020 It’s in Genesis chapters 37 through 40 we see what these evil circumstances are. His brothers initially conspire to murder him and, at Reuben’s request, settled by selling him into slavery in Egypt. Joseph is falsely accused of making sexual advances against Potiphar’s wife and gets thrown into prison where he remains, largely forgotten, for 2 whole years. Talk about a sad situation that Joseph found himself in. And it wasn’t his fault! By and large, he was the innocent victim of evil circumstances that were entirely outside of his control. Pastor Tim Patoka
Joseph is not unique to such evil circumstances. We simply need to look around our own lives to see how the same is true for us. When we stop to think about it, have these same evils tempted us to doubt God in some way? Perhaps more so now than ever before, we are reminded of how little control we have over the viral, natural, political, and economic forces our world. We struggle to understand what is currently happening, let alone make changes for the future. Might we be tempted to wonder if all this is happening because God finally lost control of this world? If we still hold to the Bible’s teaching and reject that notion, then maybe our doubt shifts to another area, to wonder if God is still here. Thinking back to your days in school, what would happen if the teacher left the room for all of 5 minutes? Maybe it was just my experience, but it would take longer than 5 minutes to make things right again. Maybe the reason why we are suffering such evil circumstances is because God has temporarily left us? But if we hold to the Bible’s teaching and also reject that notion, then we are left with the same question that Joseph himself probably asked: what good can God bring out this evil? Is a simple silver lining the best we can hope for? Is there nothing left to do than grin and bear our current evil until we reach our next? That’s not the case at all. Even though it may seem impossible, God will work good from every evil. That’s exactly what he did with Joseph. After spending 2 years in prison, God changed Joseph’s fortunes for the better. Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream about the coming 7 years of harvest and following 7 years of famine. Pharaoh promoted Joseph to be #2 in all of Egypt and gave him the authority and luxurious lifestyle that came along with it. God worked good from evil for Joseph. God also worked good for countless people through Joseph. Because of Joseph’s success in collecting grain during the 7 years of harvest, God preserved the lives of countless people in and around Egypt from dying of starvation. God 2
“Under The Sun” Week 2 June 21, 2020 worked good for the people of all time by keeping the cradle for the Savior alive through the Jewish people. God also worked good for Joseph’s dysfunctional family by fulfilling those dreams from long before. His father, mother, and brothers bowed down to him to receive life-sustaining grain and soul-sustaining forgiveness so that peace and joy could once again fill all their hearts. And as close out the book of Genesis, we see the happy picture of Joseph reunited with his entire family and living in the land of Goshen. Pastor Tim Patoka
This good which God worked through the evils that troubled Joseph’s life is not an exception. We see it happening again and again in the pages of Bible history. But no one account best shows it than that of our Savior Jesus Christ. He was a truly innocent victim of evil circumstances. His family fearfully moved from Bethlehem to Egypt and finally to Nazareth while he was still young. He was chased out of his hometown by friends and family because of his divine identity. He was criticized by the respected leaders of his day for standing up for the truth of God’s Word. He was betrayed by one of his twelve closest companions. He was falsely accused of crimes he never committed. He died an unjust death that Pontius Pilate knew he was not worthy of. If you think Joseph had it bad, or if we have it bad, Jesus had it all the worse. But still God worked good from evil. Jesus stayed true to his Messianic mission despite the hardships he endured. God laid on him the full punishment of every sin you and I have and will ever commit. And Jesus paid that price with his very own life so that he could win and give salvation to whoever comes to him in faith. And whenever we come to Jesus in repentance, this is the good we receive – forgiveness for the wrongs we have done, peace with the one above, and joy that is ours in every evil time. These good things are not only ours during our time on Earth, but will increase all the more when we enter our eternal home in heaven. 2) God Assures Us He Will Always Do This As God worked good from evil through Joseph, through Jesus, and through so many more in the Bible’s history, so he will for us. We heard God promise this very thing in our Second Lesson from Romans chapter 8, “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) Before we go any further, I first want to make clear that God is not to blame for the evil that happens in our lives. As you’ll see in your worship folder, in the side margin next to our Gospel reading, evil is “a result of sin in the world.” When Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, it was their decision that set Joseph on his path fraught with trouble; not God’s. When 3
“Under The Sun” Week 2 June 21, 2020 Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, it was his choice to do so; not God’s. While God cannot be blamed for these or any other evil act, he certainly can and does work good from them. Pastor Tim Patoka
This includes the evil in our lives. Sometimes we’re able to see what that good is. Think about that failure you had earlier in life which propelled you to be a success later on. Or that defeat which equipped you with resilience for today’s uncertain times. Or that misstep which taught you to trust in God and not in yourself. But it’s more often the other way around. We don’t immediately see the good which God works from evil. What good can come out of a global pandemic that’s spiking again in our area? What good can come from historically high rates of unemployment? What good can come from people who feel they have to resort to violence because of their frustrations with the system? What good can come from the crosses you personally bear in life? We can speculate what God’s good may be. We may learn later on in life. Or we may have to wait until we enter heaven and ask God himself. But no matter what the case may be, our response now is the same – we remain assured that God will work good from every evil. After all, as the Apostle Paul reminded us in our Second Lesson, if God was willing to give up his own Son, elect us to be children through faith, and declare us just-as-if-I’d (pun intended with the term justification) never sinned, will he fail on this promise? Of course not! Even if we don’t understand how, God will assuredly work good from every evil for his believing children like you and me. It’s because of this assurance that we have more than mere silver linings to help us grin and bear our present evils. We have God’s promise that he will work good from evil. Joseph’s life is proof of that which started with a dream and ended with its fulfillment. When we likewise suffer from evil, we can be tempted to doubt if God is in control, if he’s there, or what good he can possibly work from the evil. But there is no reason to doubt God. He will do what he has said as evidenced through the evils that Joseph and Jesus faced. It’s because of all this that we can assuredly say with the Apostle Paul in our Second Lesson, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation [including whatever evils we may face], will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39) Amen. 4