Scripture: Genesis 50:4-21
I want to make three points in today’s sermon. Point Number One: God’s favor. Number Two: God’s perspective. And Number Three: God’s transforming power.
But first Point Number One: God’s favor.
The most famous celebrity I’ve ever known personally is a former Major League All-Star pitcher from the ’70s and ’80s named Rick Rhoden. If you’ve seen the Tom Hanks movie Big, there’s a kid at the beginning of the movie who’s playing pitch with a friend, and he’s pretending to be New York Yankees pitcher Rick Rhoden. I’m like, “Oh! I know him!” But my family’s best memories of Rick were earlier, from the ’70s, when he was a two-time All-Star pitcher for the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers. This is back when the Braves were in the National League West, where they belonged—along with the Dodgers… and come to think of it, also the Houston Astros, who are now in the American League. That’s just not right!
Anyway, Rick was the nephew of some of our closest family friends—and whenever the Dodgers came to town, he would visit us. We even went to Stone Mountain one time. But I remember walking up to the ticket counter with my family at the old Fulton County Stadium, and my dad would say, “We’ve got reserved tickets… they’re in the name of Dodgers pitcher Rick Rhoden.” That was nice! That felt like we were very important people. You know? “We’re with him… He knows us! And he’s close enough to give us free tickets! And they’re good seats, too, not in the upper deck where we usually sat!”
This very important and, at the time, famous person was showing us his favor. And I liked it. It felt good!
Now imagine how Joseph must have felt. He was the closest, most trusted advisor to the most powerful man in the world: Pharaoh. And look what he receives in today’s scripture. Pharaoh doesn’t just permit Joseph to bury his father—he sends an enormous royal procession.
Verse 7: “So Joseph went up to bury his father. With him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt…”
Verse 9: “And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen. It was a very great company.”
This was a state funeral. Think Queen Elizabeth II a few years ago. Think Princess Dianna 25 years before that! Pharaoh gave Joseph’s father Jacob the royal treatment.
And earlier, Pharaoh had welcomed Joseph’s entire family into Egypt and given them the best land on which to graze their livestock. When Jacob died, Egypt observed an unprecedented seventy-day national mourning period.
Why? Verse 4 tells us: “If now I have found favor in your eyes…”
Joseph found favor with Pharaoh. But that’s not the real story. The real story is that Joseph found favor with the sovereign Lord of all creation. And because Joseph had God’s favor, Pharaoh showed him favor.
When we review Joseph’s life in Genesis 37 to 49, we see this everywhere. God’s favor rests on him so strongly that pagan people are blessed simply by being near him. The entire nation of Egypt and surrounding nations are saved from the devastating effects of famine. I talked about this in the church birthday video that was posted last Wednesday. God’s favor in Joseph’s life gets things done. It opens doors. It radiates outward and changes lives.
Joseph enjoys God’s favor.
And friends—this is the part some of us struggle to believe—if we are in Christ, if we have been born again through faith in Christ, we enjoy God’s favor too.
That truth should stagger us.
I felt starstruck that a Major League pitcher showed us his favor by giving us free baseball tickets. Big deal! The Lord of the universe shows us his favor.
Remember Luke 2. The angels announce Christ’s birth and sing:
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”[1]
Who are these people on whom God’s favor rests? Through Christ, that’s us. We are the favored ones. We are adopted into God’s family as his beloved children.
Think about what this means!
A few years ago, I was talking on the phone in my backyard. And I like to walk while talking, and since there was a sidewalk across the street from our backyard, I mindlessly crossed the street and began walking on the sidewalk. The problem was, I forgot about my beloved English springer spaniel, Ringo, who was also in the backyard with me. We installed an invisible fence to keep Ringo in the yard and safe from traffic on a relatively busy street. So if Ringo tried to cross the boundary into the street, he would get shocked. But that wasn’t really a problem with Ringo, because he just wanted to be where we were… all the time. He’s not going to run away from us!
And herein lies the problem. I was so distracted by this conversation I was having, I didn’t notice, when I crossed the street, that Ringo—who so badly wanted to be with me—was willing to cross the invisible boundary, endure the electric shock that followed, and walk onto a busy street in order to be with me. And by the time I noticed what he was doing, there was a fast approaching car! And Ringo is dumb! He doesn’t know to look both ways when crossing a street. He trusts me to keep him safe. And so I saw this car coming, and without thinking I ran out into the street and put myself between the oncoming car and this dog whom I love—and I held my hands out like this—as if to say, “If you’re going to run over my dog, you’re going to have to run over me first!”
I’m not saying this was wise. I’m just saying I didn’t give it a second thought.
And some of you are like, “There you go again, talking about Ringo! Don’t you love your kids more than Ringo?” And I do! But I’ve never come that close to getting run over for my kids! I’ve never come that close to laying down my life for my kids! I certainly would if I had to!
To say the least, Ringo enjoys my favor…
And just think: Our Father loves us like that… except infinitely more so…
Do we believe this?
Maybe we could use a refresher on our Father’s love for us, his children? Maybe we could be reminded again of what the gospel is? Because literally everything I’m about to say comes from God’s Word… Are you ready?
The gospel means that through the atoning death of Christ on the cross—in which Christ suffers and dies for your sins and gives you his righteousness in return[2]—God has done everything necessary to bring you into a right relationship with him—as you receive this gift of eternal life through faith in Christ.[3]
The gospel means there is now therefore no condemnation for those of you who are in Christ Jesus.[4] It means that all of your sins—past, present, and future—are “nailed to the cross” with Christ; they are now completely forgiven.[5]
It means God has bought you with an infinite price—the precious blood of his Son Jesus.[6] It means you are adopted into God’s family, as God’s precious and highly favored sons and daughters, and you call God, “Abba, Father,” just like Jesus did.[7]
It means that God is now on your side—so you have no need to fear.[8] It means that God is now for you—and if God is for you, who can be against you? No one and nothing![9]
The gospel means God now loves you as much has he loves his only begotten Son Jesus.[10] It means God shows you his favor constantly.[11]
It means God is now working out everything in your lives for your ultimate good. It means he is transforming all of the bad stuff in your lives, all of the evil stuff that the devil throws your way, into something that will ultimately be good for you.[12]
The gospel means that God knows the plans he has for you, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”[13] It means that “no weapon that is formed against you will succeed; And [God] will condemn every tongue that accuses you in judgment.”[14]
The gospel means you are the apple of God’s eye;[15] you are beautiful to him; you have captured his heart; and his banner over you is love. It means that God now treasures you![16] That God loves you with a love from which literally nothing in the world, nothing out of this world, can ever separate you![17]
Lord, may we have the “strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that [we] may be filled with all the fullness of God.”[18]
Can we comprehend how much we’re loved by our heavenly Father… how precious we are to our heavenly Father… how highly favored by God we now are… because of what Christ has done for us?
And that’s Point Number One… We who are in Christ always enjoy God’s favor. How could we not, when all of these gospel promises are true?
But Point Number One raises a problem: if we are so highly favored by God, why is life often so hard?
To answer that, I’m tempted to jump straight to verse 20—one of the most beloved verses in the Bible. We’ll get there. But first look at verse 19. Joseph tells his brothers: “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God?”
Why does Joseph say this?
Because his brothers are terrified. Now that Jacob is dead, they assume Joseph will finally take revenge. After all, he suffered slavery and imprisonment for thirteen years because they sold him into slavery in Egypt. They are guilty—and afraid. And frankly, we don’t even know whether they’re telling the truth in verses 16 and 17 about Jacob commanding forgiveness. If Jacob was worried about it, why wouldn’t he have have talked to Joseph about it directly?
Regardless, Joseph answers: “Am I in the place of God?”
He knows vengeance is not his role. As Paul later writes in Romans 12:19: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’”
Joseph understands something crucial: human beings are not in a position to judge hearts the way God does. We cannot see motives the way God sees motives. We can’t see the hidden histories that shaped a person. We can’t see their wounds, their fears, their regrets, their longings. We can’t see how God has been at work in their life—or how he intends to work in the future. Only God sees the whole story at once. Only God sees beginnings, middles, and endings in a single glance. And because we don’t see what God sees, we are in no position to take his place and judge other people.
Jesus, you may recall, had something to say about that!
And if we are not qualified to judge other people from God’s vantage point, how much less are we qualified to judge God himself?
When Pharaoh was honoring Joseph, we look at that and think, “Now that’s a great example God’s favor!”
But what about those thirteen years of slavery and prison?
Was God showing favor to Joseph then?
Yes.
God’s favor is not limited to the moments when life feels like it’s going our way. What we call “things going our way” is only the final visible link in a long chain of often invisible links. Every step along the way was necessary—even the painful ones.
I’m not minimizing suffering. Evil is real. Pain is real. And our sovereign God does allow it. But Scripture insists that when God allows it, it is never meaningless. He is working out a good plan that we cannot yet see.
We are called, in the meantime, to trust him.
Imagine seventeen-year-old Joseph being offered a choice: “You may endure thirteen years of hardship and save a millionlives… or… to live comfortably at home tending sheep and arguing with your older brothers.”
Which would he choose? It’s obvious.
From God’s perspective, Joseph’s suffering was not wasted. It was preparation. It was purpose. It was preservation of lifeon a massive scale.
And the question Joseph asks—“Am I in the place of God?”—is the question we must ask when trials come our way. We may say, “I don’t understand this, but am I in the place of God? I can only see the tiniest fraction of what God can see. I can’t begin to know what God knows. So of course I don’t understand.
“But what I can do in the meantime…?
“I can trust him.”
And now we arrive at the heart of Joseph’s testimony: Point Number Three… God’s transforming power… And the key verse here is verse 20: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”
When I was a kid there was a Christian radio show called “Nightsounds with Bill Pearce.” Some of you may have listened to it. Pearce has been dead for years, but he was an accomplished professional trombonist, and he would share songs and stories that connected to our Christian faith in some way. And he spoke very softly and played gentle music because his show came on late at night. You’d drift off to sleep listening to him, I guess. Anyway… one time he told this story. He said:
Some years ago… I was ushered into the beautiful, spacious home of a local, wealthy, Christian businessman. As we sat in his spacious living room, beautifully appointed, awaiting dinner, I was sort of ‘ooh-ing’ and ‘ahh-ing’over the appointments, and the house, and the luxury. He sat down in an overstuffed chair across from me, looked me right in the eye, and said, “You know, this whole scene is God’s second best for me. He called me to be a missionary when I was in college many years ago. And I turned him down… because I went after the big bucks.”[19]
But that phrase, “God’s second best,” stuck out to me!
Is it true that God was giving this man his “second best”?
I was reminded of growing up in a Baptist youth group in metro Atlanta and being warned not to “miss out on God’s will” for your life… As if God’s will for our lives were one thing. Like, God had one Plan A that he wanted us to follow, and if we got that wrong… “Sorry, Mister… I’m afraid you’re going to be stuck with “Plan B”… or “Plan Z”… At best, you’re going to be stuck with “God’s second best”… Or worse… Given how much I’ve sinned and gotten off course in my life, I should now be on God’s “Three-thousand-two-hundred-and-thirty-second best” plan for my life. According to the logic of God’s second best…
But if verse 20 is true, there is no Plan B with God. There is no second best…
Because if you are in Christ, the evil done to you—and the evil you yourself have done—does not have the power to derail God’s plan and purpose for your life.
God’s plan for you already accounts for every wrong turn, every sin, every regret, every wound, every hardship. He doesn’t discover them after the fact and then clean up the mess—as if to say, “On to the next plan…” No… He transforms the messes. He weaves them in. He uses even the broken threads as part of a design that serves your ultimate good.
Joseph was never living out Plan B. And neither was his father Jacob, by the way—who, as we saw last week, lied and cheated and stumbled his way through life. Yet through Jacob came Joseph—and the saving of a million lives… and through Jacob’s family line came Christ himself. To say the least, Jesus is not Plan B!
Even Jacob’s sin could not derail God’s plan.
And if we are in Christ, the same is true for us.
What God did through Joseph is a preview of something infinitely greater.
Joseph suffered evil… and through that suffering, many lives were saved.
Does that sound familiar?
His story points straight to the cross.
But with one crucial difference. Joseph said, “I am not in the place of God.” Jesus, by contrast, was in the place of God—because he is God. And yet Philippians 2 tells us:
[Jesus], who was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.[20]
The greatest evil ever committed—the murder of the Son of God—became the greatest good ever accomplished: the salvation of the world.
If God can transform that, he can transform anything in your life.
Anything!
No sin too great.
No failure too final.
No sorrow beyond his reach.
No evil beyond his power to redeem.
There is no Plan B in Christ.
Only a sovereign God who takes what was meant for evil… and transforms it for good.
Only a Savior who turns crosses into resurrection.
Only a Savior who turns graves into gardens.
Only a Father who loves us like we love our children—only perfectly and infinitely more so.
Only a Father whose good purposes for us cannot be stopped.
That is not second best.
That is not Plan B.
That is not God’s consolation prize.
That is victory.
That is grace.
That is the gospel. Amen!
[1] Luke 2:14 NIV
[2] 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 3:18
[3] John 3:16
[4] Romans 8:1
[5] Colossians 2:14
[6] 1 Corinthians 6:20
[7] Romans 8:15
[8] Psalm 118:6
[9] Romand 8:31
[10] John 17:23, 26
[11] Luke 2:14
[12] Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28
[13] Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
[14] Isaiah 54:17 NIV
[15] Psalm 17:8
[16] Song of Solomon 4:1, 9; 2:4
[17] Romans 8:38-39
[18] Ephesians 3:18-19 ESV
[19] Bill Pearce, “Lure of the Big Bucks,” 21 June 2022. From the “Nightsounds” app.
[20] Philippians 2:6-8 ESV