He Took Your Evil And Gave Eternal Good :: Genesis 50:20-21a
Thus he comforted them and spoke to their hearts.
There is no relationship in all of creation more adversarial than the one we have with God. From the very beginning, God chooses good; we chose evil. God chooses light; we chose darkness. God chooses love; we chose hate. God chooses mercy; we chose vengeance. God chooses to come to us; we chose to run from him. God chooses life; we chose death.
With every step we take and every move we make, God longs for us to live free ... free from guilt ... free from shame ... free to love ... free to live ... free to forgive and be forgiven ... free to nourish and be nourished ... free to be one with him and each other.
God gives us everything we need for a fulfilling life, but all too often we assume there’s always something more fulfilling apart from Him. God sets before us life and good, but in a twisted effort to transcend Him, we continue to choose death and evil.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
Throughout our lives ... no matter if we are 1 or 89 ... each of us have given God more than enough reason to turn His back on us, to abandon us, and to leave us to our own devices. Yet he continues to take pity upon you, showing mercy to you as he forgives you over and over again. We, in turn, harbor grudges against each other, vowing to never forget what someone said, what someone did. God continues to nourish, feed, and clothe you. And we think he’s just going to drop the hammer on us any time now.
But thanks be to God, on account of Jesus, there is nothing to fear.
You, the baptized children of God, who confess your sins and believe that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. He who is faithful and just will forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. And he will provide for you and your little ones ... not just in this life but the life to come.
He has promised ... over and over and over.
4. Won’t you now take comfort in confessing your sins, too?
Brothers and sisters in Christ, do you hear what I am telling you? This is the bottom line coming to us from our Old Testament reading in the final chapter of Genesis.
Joseph wept when they spoke to him. ... Then Joseph said to them, Do not fear! Am I in the place of God? You all had planned evil for me, but God used it for good so that many people will live this day. So do not fear. Your sins are forgiven.
They have been nearly as long as most of you have been alive.
Thirty nine years ago, the sons of Israel ... Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulan; Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher; and Benjamin ... became jealous of their youngest brother Joseph because their father Jacob had given Joseph the title of favorite son and the so-called coat of many colors. Then Joseph began having dreams in which he saw his brothers and even his father bowing down before him.
This irritated the brothers all the more. Who does he think he is, the sons of Israel began telling themselves. What makes him so special? Oh, I hate him!
Their hatred grew so much that they actually conspired together on getting rid of Joseph. They said to one another, here comes the dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits near Shechem. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him. What a horrible thing to do!
Although they didn’t quite go that far ... Reuben did at least talk them out of murder ... but it doesn’t make their sin any less heinous, any less evil. They wanted to murder their own brother. Instead, they sat down to eat with their enemies, sold Joseph into slavery, concocted a lie to tell their father, and then smirked as they watched their father cry at the news.
What a bloody mess! They covered their sin and kept it to themselves ... for decades.
3. Brothers and sisters in Christ, how long have you been bearing a sin from your past?
How many years have you kept it quiet? The little white lies? You don’t really think it will go away, do you? How many times have you let something in your past haunt you? How many times have you been reminded of a sin and felt the guilt and the shame.
Adultery? Pornography? Deceit? Hatred? Gossip? Divorce? Lust for more? It was only once I didn’t get caught, we think.
You have your secrets, don’t you? And it’s haunting you, isn’t it?
Father, we cry, please forgive me! Over and over.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
For 39 years, Joseph’s brothers wallowed in their sin. You’d think that, over time, the sons of Israel would accept forgiveness, that they’d put it behind them. Although Joseph showed them forgiveness on multiple occasions before our reading even begins ... welcoming them to a feast of forgiveness ... setting them up with choice land during a great famine ... Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulan; Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher; and Benjamin never forgot what they did and, worse, they didn’t accept forgiveness. They wallowed in those sins against their own brother, believing they had to bear them for the rest of their lives.
Joseph will never forgive us, they convinced themselves.
Then their father died. And couldn’t bear their sin any longer.
When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, It may be that Joseph will resent us, hold a grudge against us, and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.
Isn’t that what we all think? Eye for an eye, right? Tooth for a tooth, right?
And now ... with their father gone and Joseph with so much power given to him by the Pharaoh of Egypt ... what would stop him from finally extracting vengeance?
So the sons of Israel did the only thing they could do, they sent a message to Joseph, saying, Your father gave this command before he died, Say to Joseph, Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you. ... And they came and fell down before him, and declared Behold, we are your servants.
We are at your mercy. Lord, please forgive me.
So Joseph wept.
2. Brothers and sisters in Christ, your sins are forgiven. Please, for once in your life, Believe it! You confessed and they were absolved. Won’t you believe it?
In the Large Catechism, Luther urges us to treasure private confession. We are taught that we should highly prize absolution as being God’s voice. Let us lift our hands in praise and thanksgiving to God for having graciously brought us to this understanding that the forgiveness of sins actually belongs to you.
The devil has a way of using sin to keep us in fear and guilt. He does not want us to receive the full and free forgiveness that Christ offers us. He works diligently to make us doubt that forgiveness is real. The devil wants us to believe that God is out to get us, to make us pay for what we have done. The devil wants you to believe that God will employ scales of justice against each of you ... The devil wants you to believe that if you do more good than bad you are off the hook. The devil wants you to believe that you can receive the forgiveness of sins too often, that it will lose its specialness if you do.
For the love of God, if you believe any of that ... in the name of Jesus, Repent!
None of that is true. Instead, hear the words of Joseph again. Don’t fear.
GOD HAS TAKEN YOUR EVIL AND GIVEN YOU ETERNAL GOOD
1. God does not deal with us according to our sins but according to his mercy.
Our Lord Jesus Christ ... the author of life ... the maker of heaven and earth ... has taken all of your evil ... all of you sins ... upon himself not because of anything good in you, but because he loved you so much.
He was pierced for your transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. The evil of your sin killed Jesus. But the goodness of God gives you life. Through his death and resurrection, God has redeemed you in Christ.
This is the whole purpose and plan for our good and his glory.
In the story of Joseph and the sons of Israel, we see a reflection of our Lord Jesus Christ and ourselves. Through this we can now take the words of Joseph to heart. There is no reason to fear any longer. You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, so that many people will live. So do not fear, I will provide for you and your little ones. Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
God, who is holy and just and righteous, does indeed provide for you and your little ones ... pouring out his life in Christ upon you in a shower of baptismal grace that drowns the sin in your life and raises you into eternal life.
God comforts us through this incredible Good News that Jesus lived for us, died for us, and rose from the dead for us ... overcoming all the evil intentions of the world. We have been united with Christ in his crucifixion and resurrection. And now he is preparing a place for us in heaven where we will live eternally with him.
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
Take confidence in your confession forevermore. God hears your confessions and has declared your absolution. Thus, now you can sing with certainty ...