Our suffering can bring glory to God and help others who are experiencing difficult circumstances. Our life isn’t always going to be fun and games. We will experience suffering. God doesn’t say that life will be perfect. He says though, that it will end well.
20 But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.
Genesis 50:20 NKJV
In order to get to this point we have to go through preceding circumstances. Joseph’s character changes throughout the story, just as ours does through what we experience. Our experiences are actually character builders. We go through suffering so that God’s glory will be seen.
When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him.”
Genesis 50:15 NKJV
The brothers feared that perhaps Joseph would turn on them after Jacob’s death. Knowing human nature, this was certainly possible.
16 So they sent messengers to Joseph, saying, “Before your father died he commanded, saying, 17 ‘Thus you shall say to Joseph: “I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin; for they did evil to you.” ’ Now, please, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father.” And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.
Genesis 50:16-18 NIV
18 Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face, and they said, “Behold, we are your servants.”
Joseph probably wept because it seemed that his brothers thought so little of him and they doubted his character so greatly.
19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
Genesis 50:19-20 NIV
Joseph first understood he was not in the place of God. It wasn’t his job to bring retribution upon his brothers. If the LORD chose to punish them, He would have to find an instrument other than Joseph. From a human perspective, Joseph had the right and the ability to bring retribution upon his brothers, but he knew God was God and he was not. Such retribution was God’s place, not Joseph’s.
No matter what evil man brings against us, God can use it for good. Every Christian should be able to see the overarching and overruling hand of God in their life; to know that no matter what evil man brings against us, God can use it for good.
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28 NIV
Ultimately, our lives are not in the hands of men, but in the hands of God, who overrules all things for His glory. The glory is not ours – this is important.
21 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. 22 So Joseph and his brothers and their families continued to live in Egypt. Joseph lived to the age of 110. 23 He lived to see three generations of descendants of his son Ephraim, and he lived to see the birth of the children of Manasseh’s son Makir, whom he claimed as his own. 24 “Soon I will die,” Joseph told his brothers, “but God will surely come to help you and lead you out of this land of Egypt. He will bring you back to the land he solemnly promised to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”
Genesis 50: 21-24 NLT
His long life was further evidence of God’s blessing on Joseph’s life, as was seeing Ephraim’s children to the third generation. The hardships of his life did not diminish God’s ultimate blessing upon him.
25 Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath, and he said, “When God comes to help you and lead you back, you must take my bones with you.” 26 So Joseph died at the age of 110. The Egyptians embalmed him, and his body was placed in a coffin in Egypt.
Genesis 50: 25-26 NLT
Joseph was never buried. His coffin laid above ground for 400 or so years until it was taken back to Canaan. It was a silent witness for all those years that Israel was going back to the Promised Land, just as God said.
Even in his death, Jacob was still trusting God’s promise. God’s faithfulness remains and his goodness remains. This was faith, because it proclaimed God’s faithful promise in any way possible – even through a dead man’s bones!
Some promises of God take a long time to fulfill, we must persevere in trusting God.
