Lessons from Joseph: Betrayal, Redemption, and God's Providence

It's a tough passage we are dealing with this morning. But I thought the words of that beautiful song, Prone to Wander, Lord, I feel. It kind of sums up the atmosphere of this passage that we've been thinking about this morning where the brothers get embroiled in this wandering so so far away from God. The story of Joseph is actually one I've known my whole life because and at the age of about 11, I was in primary seven. We did it as a school play. So the song and the soundtrack literally goes round around my head most days, particularly now that we're doing it up the stairs in Sunday school as well. [00:00:14]

This passage is where sin runs riot and the consequences are so farreaching. I have to admit, I got sucked into watching a program called The Traitors quite recently. Sorry. It's a game show where a bunch of strangers live in a beautiful Scottish castle up north for about three weeks with the aim to complete challenges along the way to win money. But each person is given a secret role of playing either a faithful or a traitor. And the role of the traitors is to get rid of the faithful players so that they can get the biggest share of the prize money at the end. [00:01:32]

But the reality of our actual lives is that betrayal is deeply hurtful and it's something each of us will have already experienced or will at some point face in our lives. We might be the ones betrayed or we might be the ones who betray because at the heart of our sinful natures lies betrayal of God and betrayal of others because betrayal is the opposite of the greatest commandment to love to love God and to love others and it comes in different forms doesn't it? [00:03:09]

So today, we're going to listen to the different voices we hear in this story of betrayal. We're going to listen to them. We're going to examine our own hearts as we allow God to put a finger on our motivations, our possible hurts, and our sin. We're going to get to explore where we're at, whether we're remaining faithful to God in our hearts and others, or whether we're allowing our hearts to be deceived and allowing unhelpful thoughts towards others perpetuate. We'll also look at what it looks like to be on the receiving end of betrayal. [00:03:50]

But in all this, we're also going to keep in mind that God sees where we're at. Our struggles, our wounds from having been betrayed or the struggles we have being the position that the brothers were in struggling hugely with their sin. And in all of it, we're going to lean on the grace and the providence of God who we can trust in all of it. just like Joseph and his brothers eventually do. So, let's dive in. [00:04:32]

His voice was key in the brother's betrayal of Joseph because his favoritism cost Joseph friendship with his brothers. You'd think he would have known better considering Jacob himself knew what it was felt like to not be the favorite because it was his brother Esau who was the favorite of his dad Isaac. And that led to Jacob deceiving his dad Isaac into giving him the blessing instead of his brother. History is repeating itself. You would have thought Jacob would have seen it. But as the stage show sings it, and I won't sing, Jacob couldn't see the danger. [00:05:37]

It's easy to do, though, isn't it? It's a reminder to us that grief can actually lead us to cling to the past at the cost of living well in the present. Jacob had effectively made Joseph into an idol. It challenges us to beware of making idols out of the people we love the most because we really don't love them well when we do that. We need to always ask ourselves where are our eyes fixed? Who are they fixed on? Who are our idols? What or who are we putting before God in our lives? [00:06:52]

Here comes that dreamer showing their contempt for both Joseph and his dreams and contempt for God because the dreams were in fact God-given as we know. But the brothers weren't in a place to hear anything from God or from Joseph because they had let their hearts become so consumed with jealousy and hatred to the point that they were now prepared to kill their own brother. Such was their partnering with the sin in their hearts. Guard your hearts. This story is a wakeup call to guard our hearts against sin, isn't it? [00:08:17]

To guard our hearts is also to guard our thoughts. Because what thoughts we choose to chew over and ruminate on really matters. That's why Paul tells us to take every thought captive. Because our thoughts have power to direct our hearts and our motivations and then our subsequent actions. Guarding our hearts keeps us in step with and being faithful to God rather than being sucked into the power of sin. Jealousy and envy are particularly powerful emotions, aren't they? And we know they tear relationships apart. [00:08:51]

But can we ever say that these circumstances justified or excused their behavior? Can we? They were so fixed on blaming Joseph for his dreams, they justified their hatred. Each one of them, we know, had absolute responsibility for guarding their hearts against the sinful thoughts, and they were completely responsible for their subsequent actions. No one made them attack Joseph. And we too need to take responsibility for our thoughts and for our actions. It's no one else's responsibility except ours. [00:11:35]

Admitting that we've done something seriously wrong because of where our minds and our hearts were at and taking responsibility from that can actually move us forward toward freedom, recovery, and rehabilitation. If the brothers had only recognized how ill their hearts have become and taken responsibility for that, they might not have been so ready to justify their actions towards their own brother. Taking responsibility over our thoughts and actions is the key to keeping healthy relationships and stopping us betray each other. [00:13:36]

It's sometimes easier to pretend to go along with what the rest of the crowd is doing rather than risk a backlash or rejection. When we did the Easter story with primary school children called the Easter code, Jack Graeme, our pastor friend from the congregational church, had this little game for the kids to play. And we ought to walk around in a circle. And then he got one of the eight of us to turn in the opposite direction and try and go against the crowd. It's kind of carnage, a bit violent. [00:15:12]

We are called as God's people to be the voice that goes against the crowd to in love speak God's truth to wrong and to evil. Reuben tears his clothes and anguish over not being able to save Joseph. He would have to live with the truth that he didn't do enough sooner to save his brother. Beware of the crowd when the crowd is moving against others. Proverbs 31:es 8-10 says, "Speak out on behalf of the voiceless and for the rights of all who are vulnerable." [00:16:41]

If we've allowed hate or jealousy or greed to rule our hearts, then we become at best indifferent and cold towards the needs of others. And at worst, we are directly involved in their suffering and betrayal because we dismiss their cries for help. And I get that as we sit here today, this kind of drama and the level of hatred we encounter in this passage might thank thankfully feel not very possible for us right now. But if you think about it, every atrocity committed against someone else began with a thought about them and then a heart attitude towards them which can then lead to a hatred and an indifference to their cries for help and to their humanity. [00:21:00]

But we know in the story of Joseph that Joseph was seen and was heard by God because we have a God who knows firsthand about betrayal. Jesus knows betrayal. Jesus heard the crowd shouting hosana and then a week later crucify him. And even more than this, he received a kiss of betrayal from one of his closest friends, Judas, and then was abandoned and disowned one by one by the rest of his closest of friends at the point where he needed them most. [00:23:21]

Despite the sin and betrayal of the people that took Jesus to death, God's plan, providence, and purposes were greater than the sin of those who wanted God defeated. The biggest betrayal of all time, the betrayal of the son of God was turned into the greatest victory over sin, betrayal, and death. The cross has the cross became a symbol of victory, not of death. It leads us to this sort of precipice of the great mystery of God's providence and human freedom, his care for us, his working through our lives, and our free choice to choose whether we work with him or not. [00:24:16]

Knowing that God has been before us through betrayal and is with us in the midst of our stories of betrayal gives us hope for every circumstance that we face. In the midst of our sin, the sin done against us and the midst of dire and impossible circumstances. It's God's plan and purposes for good that will prevail because he alone is able to bring it about. Tim Mackey from the Bible project says this about this chapter of Joseph. This narrative focuses on moments in our lives when we can't see how God could be active in our stories. [00:26:08]

There isn't a moment of your life, there isn't a moment of my life that isn't heard and seen by God and woven into God's plan for good. We've looked today at this difficult passage of the voices in betrayal in the story of Joseph. Those who were the betrayers, those who were betrayed. And we can learn so much about our hearts and our responsibilities before God and remaining faithful to him. But most of all, take encouragement from the fact that God in his grace is working in all our circumstances today as he always has been. [00:27:10]