Genesis chapter 50 and verse
15. You remember that old Jacob has
died and he has been buried in the land of Canaan and now the
brothers of Joseph and Joseph are returning to Egypt and this
is what we read in verse 15. And when Joseph's brethren saw
that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure
hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did
unto him. And they sent a messenger unto
Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive I pray thee now, the
trespass of thy brethren and their sin, for they did unto
thee evil. And now we pray thee, forgive
the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father.' And
Joseph wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren also went
and fell down before his face, and they said, Behold, we be
thy servants. And Joseph said unto them, Fear
not, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought
evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass
as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear
ye not, I will nourish you and your little ones. And he comforted
them and spake kindly unto them. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. When Jacob was buried, Joseph
and his brothers and their families all went back to Egypt, but there
we discover a fear arose in their minds. A fear that Joseph might
avenge the wrong that they had done him years before when they
sold him into slavery. And now that Jacob was gone,
they felt that Joseph might feel at liberty to show his anger
against them. So they sent a message to Joseph
saying that it was their father's will that when he died Joseph
would continue to be kind to them. I think from reading this
message that it is much more likely that they made it up than
that it was really a message from Jacob. Because what had
happened here was that all that old guilt and all that old fear
of their sins returned to them and returned upon them. And they
pleaded for Joseph's forgiveness, even to the point of coming and
bowing down to him for mercy. Perhaps, like me, you'll remember
those dreams that Joseph dreamed so many years ago when all the
sheaves of corn bowed down to his sheave and the stars bowed
down to his star. Well, here perhaps we see again
the picture of fulfilment in the brothers bowing down to Joseph. But Joseph didn't feel like that
at all. And indeed we find that he was
distressed at this because he has no ill will towards them
and in fact he seems disappointed that they still fear him and
they still no longer trust him. So he reassures his brothers
and he promises to protect and to provide for them and for their
families. But do you see how hard it was
for them to believe Joseph? See, these brothers knew that
Joseph was just a man. And they knew how men thought,
because they were men. as well. They knew their own
hearts and they realised that this was an opportunity for Joseph
to seek revenge. They knew how fickle and contrary
people can be. Joseph comforted his brothers
once again and he spoke kindly to them. We must remember that God is
not like us. When God promises forgiveness,
when God promises mercy and help, we are to believe him. Joseph's
brothers had heard Joseph's expressions of goodwill towards them, but
they still retained a doubt in their heart. God is not like
men that he should lie. And we are to trust the Lord
when he promises to do us good. He will not change his mind.
He will not alter his ways. Faith is taking God at his word
and trusting that what he says is true. Trusting in all that
he says. But perhaps there was something
else at work here as well. The brothers had some doubts
about whether Joseph had really forgiven them. But perhaps another
part of the problem was that the brothers could not forgive
themselves. And I just want to take one point
today. from Joseph's words here in this
passage, his words to his brothers, which I hope will be helpful
to us all, either now or sometime in the future. You see, sometimes
believers find it hard to forgive themselves for the sins that
they have committed, for the trouble that they've caused or
the hurt that they have inflicted on those that they love. Even
although they believe that God has forgiven them, they still
have this fear that there is some problem and something that
they will be answerable for. They believe that God has forgiven
them. They believe that their sin has
been taken away. They believe that their guilt
has been removed because of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
but they still hold on to their own sins and it seems as if they
can't let them go. Joseph realised that his brothers
were still distressed about their sin, even although he had forgiven
them long, long ago. And so his words of comfort to
them might also be words of comfort to us if we still have this residual
anxiety and concern for the sins that we have committed. He says
to them in verse 20, But as for you, ye thought evil against
me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass as it is this
day, to save much people alive. Now it is true that the brothers
both thought and did an evil thing against Joseph. And when
the Holy Spirit convicts a believer of sin and convinces us of righteousness,
we hear and we receive the promptings of the Holy Spirit humbly and
sorrowfully. We confess our sin, we acknowledge
our evil ways, we repent of our sin, and we ask for God's forgiveness. And the Bible tells us in 1 John
1 verse 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God forgives when we confess. But what happens when we can't
forgive ourselves? Joseph explains to his brothers
that despite their evil act, God has nevertheless brought
good out of their evil. While that in no way approves
of our sin, what this little verse tells us is that God will
bring better outcomes from our sin than had we not done the
thing that we are now so very much ashamed of. Is that not
amazing? Is that not an amazing thing
to think about? It doesn't excuse us from doing
wrong. Nor can knowing that this is
how God uses sin in this world ever justify us doing something
that we know to be wrong. But it does show us the glorious
overruling goodness of God towards the tender consciences of his
repenting people. God comforts us with such beautiful
reassurances of his overruling grace and mercy. We did do evil. But God, without being a cause
of our sin or complicit with us in it, takes our failures
and brings good from them. He brings our sin into subjection
to his will and causes it to praise him. We all do things that we are
ashamed of. But we need to remember that
there are three things to be borne in mind by every believer
with respect to all the sin we ever commit. The first one is
this, the Lord Jesus Christ has paid for all our sin and carried
it all away. It will never be charged against
us. Remember that. Remember this
also. God has already forgotten about
our sin. He does not know it happened.
Christ carried it out of God's sight. You know it happened. I know it happened. But God will
never remember it against us. And here's the third thing. Bad
as our sin is, hurtful as it is, destructive as it is, shameful
as it is, God has promised to make the consequences of our
sin redound to His glory. What does that mean? It means
simply this. Our sin will bring Him more glory
and bring to us more blessing than if the sin had never been
committed. Now that might sound crazy, but
it's true. These truths never justify wrongdoing,
but they comfort us when we find it difficult to forgive ourselves. It comforts the mourners in Zion,
It helps to bind up the broken-hearted. We have a sovereign Heavenly
Father. We have a loving and tender brother. We have a soul-healing comforter
in the persons of the Blessed Trinity. We sin against God and
we sin against one another and God forgives us and by his grace
and his goodness he will teach us to forgive ourselves. That
was the experience of Joseph and his brothers and it shall
be our experience too. You thought evil against me but
God meant it for good to bring to pass as it is this day to
save much people. to us.