The Sovereign God in the Midst of Human Betrayal
Genesis 37 opens the final major movement of Genesis—the story of Joseph. The chapter reveals a family marked by favoritism, jealousy, deceit, and escalating hatred. Joseph, loved uniquely by Jacob and gifted with prophetic dreams, becomes the target of his brothers’ resentment. Their hostility grows from irritation to murderous intent, ultimately culminating in Joseph being sold into slavery. Yet beneath the human sin and fractured relationships lies the quiet, sovereign orchestration of God. Every detail—from Joseph’s dreams to the caravan’s arrival—moves the story toward God’s redemptive purposes. This passage exposes the darkness of the human heart, the cost of sin, and the unstoppable nature of God’s plan. It also foreshadows Christ, who was likewise rejected by His own, betrayed for silver, and yet exalted according to God’s foreknowledge. Genesis 37 invites us to see both our guilt and God’s grace.
Genesis chapter 37, if you want to open your Bibles to there and read along with me, or you can just listen to me, whatever you want. So, ah yeah, Genesis 37. Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. This is the account of Jacob's family line. Joseph, a young man of 17, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhar and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he had been born to him in his old age and he made an ornate robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. Joseph had a dream and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, listen to this dream I had. We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright. while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it. His brothers said to him, do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us? And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. Then he had another dream and he told it to his brothers. Listen, he said, I had another dream and this time the sun and moon and 11 stars were bowing down to me. When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?' His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. Now his brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, as you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them. Very well, he replied. So he said to him, go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks and bring word back to me. Then he sent him off from the valley of Hebron. When Joseph arrived at Shechem, a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, what are you looking for? He replied, I'm looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks? They have moved on from here, the man answered. I heard them say, let's go to Dothan. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothurn. But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. Here comes that dreamer, they said to each other. Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams. When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. Let's not take his life, he said. Don't shed any blood. Throw him into the... throw him into the cistern here in the wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him. Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the ornate robe he was wearing, and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty, there was no water in it. As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, what will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood. His brothers agreed. So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and told him, sold him for 20 shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites who took him to Egypt. When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. He went back to his brothers and said, the boy isn't there, where can I turn now? Then they got Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, we found this, examine it to see whether it is your son's robe. He recognized it and said, it is my son's robe. Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces. Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son for many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. No, he said, I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave. So his father wept for him. Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard. This is the word of the Lord. Dear Father. We know that you go before us. Lord, we know that you have a plan for this Sunday. And so Lord, we are asking that you may be faithful to your plan, that you may work in our hearts and may transform us by your spirit. would you bless us through your word and all things help us to hear and help me to speak it clearly. We pray in Jesus name, amen. All right, so obviously a few things for starters. One, I have to apologize. I know some people really like the devotions with the newborn. I kind of got backtracked and now I've run out of space and I've caught up and I still don't have any time. So there might be a few weeks where we don't have any devotions, but they will start again at some point. Hopefully just a couple of weeks. But anyway, beyond that, we are now starting up in Genesis again. We finished up at the end of Jacob's story, right? We had followed, well, as he was called, Israel, right? And he's finally now settled in the land. He settled there, he's content. Now we move on to the story of his three sons, particularly focusing on the youngest one, least the youngest at this point before Benjamin comes along, called Joseph. And as you will have all gotten from that beautiful video that we had up before, he was Jacob's favorite, right? Because he came from his favorite wife of the four he already had, and he was also the only, I think the only son he got from her. And so you see, all these different things made him, well, you know, I was a last born child. I was the one of four, the last born. Do you think that I was the one that was told all the rules and had to be obedient all the time? No, right? I was the spoiled brat. I never did anything wrong. It was great. Especially when I was the only boy out of three other girls. Your mom's gonna love you. So. inevitably this is the same thing we have with Jacob, sorry, not with Jacob, with Joseph here. So want you to pay attention to the first 11 verses here. You'll read through it and you get an introduction to Joseph and basically his relationship with his father and with his 11 other brothers. So the first thing you have, inverse three. I believe it says, sorry, no, I'm missing it here. Sorry. Oh, there we go, verse two. He says, Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. So now, understand, right? So Joseph is a very special child, last born, and his other 11 brothers, though, what is their work? It is to tend to the livestock of their father. One day it's gonna be their inheritance, so he says, take good care of it, one day it will be yours. Sorry about that. You're awake now, I guess. But obviously Joseph was given the job of on occasion going and checking in on his brothers and then reporting back to his father. He was his father's favorite messenger. And one day he comes, he sees his brothers and obviously maybe they're not doing very well with the sheep. Maybe they're doing something their father wouldn't like. So what does he do? He brings it back and he tells his father. Now, okay, maybe it's a bit of a tattle tale. Maybe he shouldn't be dibba-dobbing and stuff like that. But the reality is here in this moment, it's actually not a bad portrayal of him. He's simply doing what has been told. Give me a report of what my sons are doing. And it was a bad report at that. But of course, what is any good brother going to think when you go and tell mum what they did wrong? No one likes you, all right? So he takes a step down. They don't like him. But then two things happen after that, two dreams. So it says, now Joseph had a dream when he told to his brothers they hated him even more. then you go down to verse 8, he tells them his dream. So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. And then you go to verse 11, and his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind. So you see, as you go, he keeps continuing to get these dreams. He has this coat given to him, and you see this coat, was made of many colours. If you look in your footnotes in the Bible, it's also says long, it possibly translated long sleeves. Basically, it kind of means the same thing. What it was is it was a coat given to someone who didn't do a lot of manual labor, right? Back in that day, if you were working with sheep, what'd you do? You roll your sleeves up, maybe you're wearing a tank top or something like that. You're not a guy that wears long sleeves. If you wear long sleeves, that means you're inside. You have a place of prestige. You're more important than the rest. And so all these things, just feeding his brothers. but the greatest offense that he caused them was these dreams. All of them pointing to this one fact, all of you, including mum and dad, will bow down before me. All of you. Now, why doesn't that make any sense? Because he's the youngest, right? I did not get to tell my sisters what to do. They got to tell me what to do, but I had no hope. I was not the one to do that. But He was telling them, you shall bow down before me. Now, what we're gonna be seeing today is that there are a number of parallels with this story that also connect to Jesus. Because who was also someone who had many dreams given about them? Jesus. But they weren't given to Him, they were given to His parents, Mary and Joseph. You read here in Matthew 1.20. But as He considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Him in a dream. Joseph son of David do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. And then you have the same angel that visits Mary as well in Luke 1.35 and the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you. The power of the most high will overshadow you therefore the child will be born to be born will be called Holy, the son of God. Now you have Joseph, right? Yes, he's the favorite son but also he has to be humble. He's still the lastborn. He doesn't have the authority, the inheritance, the firstborn right. He doesn't have any of those things. He is not the de facto leader. Now, while Jesus might be a firstborn, is he not too also born in a humble situation? They literally say, this is the son of the most high God that we'll be born through. This is the Messiah and where is he born? In a stable. He's not born in the great city of Jerusalem, he was born in the town of Bethlehem. you have all of these revelations given about them. Here is this humble lastborn of yours, Joseph. He will be the one before whom you will bow down. Then you have also Jesus, born in a stable yet the King of the world. And yet they also share another similar commonality. In John 1-11 about Jesus, He came to His own and His own people did not receive Him. What happened to Joseph? This revelation was given about who Joseph would be and what did his brothers say? Well, let's see if we can't get rid of this dreamer. They rejected him. They didn't want him. He might be our brother, but we're happy to sell him off for 20 pieces of silver. And so also, Israel rejected Jesus. They were maybe okay with him when he was a baby, he looked kind of cute. He gets a bit older, he gets lost in the temple for three days. The religious leaders are there, they're like, wow, this child is amazing. Look how he can speak. But then when he becomes a man, then as he continues to reveal the depths of who he is, do they love him more? No, they hate him. Because you even think about it, right? As Jesus walked into Jerusalem on the donkey cult, right? They were trying, the triumphal entry, they loved Him. He was the greatest. They were so excited the Messiah was here. But then He spends a week in Jerusalem teaching, revealing Himself, who He is, what happens. The same crowd is yelling, crucify Him. That is what always happens as Jesus reveals more and more of Himself. The sinful heart can only hate Him more. You see? They just wanted a brother who would just stay and be the lastborn. Yeah, okay, maybe he's the favorite, but look, he's not going to get everything. He won't have us bow down to him. And so also, the Israelites, they wanted a king who would come in and conquer the Romans. Wow, this mic is not doing very well today. Do want me to switch to this one? Yeah, we'll switch. They wanted a king who would conquer the Romans, right? They wanted someone who was powerful and mighty and then what does he do? He walks in humbly with no army, no sword and then when accused in his trial, stays silent. Not like a lion, like a sheep. So see, but this is the reality. That we will always reject the people God sends. Always. Every time. If we had left simply to our own sinful hearts, we will always reject the message of God because that's what a sinful heart does. So what we're going to do now is we're going to go through the second half of the passage and we're going to look at the different plans. All these brothers, they have different plans for what they want to do. This revelation has come they all have different ideas as to what they do but each and every single one of them is a way that they choose to reject Joseph and then we'll also in turn see how we reject Jesus in the same way. So the very first point we have today is plan one. We hate him so we're going to kill him. So, of course the story continues. Jacob again sends off Joseph, his favorite messenger, go find out what my sons are doing with the sheep. See where they are, see how they're going. Sends them off, he goes to Shechem. His brothers have moved on, a mysterious fellow comes along and says, oh, they're that way. Oh, thank you for pointing me to my imminent death. And he heads off that way, obviously unaware. And then it has it, Genesis 37 verse 18. They saw him from afar. before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him. And I want to see if you can see the parallel here. John 11 53. So from that day they made plans to put him to death. Who was they? The religious leaders. Who was him? Jesus. And so you see, the same thing continues. Just as I said before, when Jesus came in, when he was a boy, as he comes into Jerusalem for the first time, people loved him at the start. But ever more as it grows, as our revelation of an understanding of him, as we see more of who God is, our sinful heart opposes it. Genesis 3, right? You are God. You can be like God. You don't need God. When God... shows himself for who he really is, we say, yeah, you're right, I don't want him. And so what do we do with people we don't want? Murder. Simple, right? When you don't like someone, just kill them. Don't do that, please. But the reality is, that is where a sinful heart takes us. And so I want you to look now, Acts 2 22, we're gonna be reading a lot of passages today. Acts 2 22 verse 23. Because this murder would become the main rebuke of Peter, our murder of Jesus on the cross. says, of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst as you yourselves know, this Jesus, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Now I want to ask you a question. This sermon was preached 50 days after the resurrection. Now, not everyone can stay in Jerusalem. Some of them had jobs they need to go back to and people would have been coming into Jerusalem as well. Sorry, this is picking up okay, isn't it? Yeah? Good. All right. Now, I want to ask you, would everyone in that crowd have been present at the crucifixion of Jesus? Would they have been the ones crying out, crucify Him, crucify Him? Some of them would have, but many of them wouldn't have. So, how can he say you crucified Jesus. Is that just something? Was he only talking to the people in the crowd who were there? No. He's talking to all of them. How can that be? 1 Peter 2, 24. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. Did the crowds put Jesus on the cross? They might have asked. They might have got what they wanted. But they couldn't make him stay there. What made him stay there? Our sins. Our sins were the things. They might have had nails in his wrist, but that was not the thing that held him up there. He could have ripped those out any time he wanted. He voluntarily stayed there for every single second. Because it was our sin. So you see, the cross inevitably is the most unjust murder in all history. And it is committed by those whom he loves. He made us in love. He's our creator and we put him on a cross. Our sin put him on that tree. And so you see, we have to understand that we cannot distance ourselves from the guilt of the cross, that we are actually the ones that put Jesus on that cross. It's not the Jews who did it alone. It wasn't Pontius Pilate alone. We have to be ready to accept that it is actually us who said, don't want Jesus. That actually we were there in that crowd. Every single person left Jesus, every single person rejected Him. You have to understand that every time we sin, what is it declaring? Not just, oh, I'm not a perfect person, I just grew up every now and again. There are two choices in this world, follow God or follow sin and Satan. And every time we sin, we say, I will not submit to you, Jesus. I am my own God. I would rather you die than me give up my sin. That's what we're asking, right? Every time we since, you see, it's so funny because we sit here nowadays and we can live in this world where it's, I can live with my sin, I can actually be happy in my sin, but yet I can call myself a Christian. Isn't that amazing thing? Because that is only the grace of God that allows us to do that. Then I could sit as a sinner, I can have lustful thoughts, I can have anger in my mind, and yet I'm not smited instantly, not because God can't see, not because God owes me anything. but because he is gracious to us every day. I've already done 1300 things before I walked in this door that should have made me drop dead. But yet I stand here today because he bore my sins on that cross, but I must not remove myself from the fact that I am the one that put him there. The pastor by the name of C.G. Mahaney puts it this way, before we begin to see the cross as something done for us, leading us to faith and worship, we have to see it as something done by us, leading us to repentance. Only the man or woman who is prepared to own his share in the guilt of the cross may claim his share in its grace. You see, we have to reject this idea of good people. It does not exists. Do you not remember what Jesus said when he spoke to the rich young ruler? When he says good teacher and Jesus rebukes him, why do call me good? Yes, of course we knew Jesus was good, but was that his understanding? No, the rich young ruler thought good is... well, I'm good enough. I'm kind of there. But we need to get rid of this idea because we're continually feeding this narrative to the world. That you can actually be a good person apart from Christ. That you can actually be good enough for heaven. You can't. The declaration of the gospel is that, you know, we often wonder, how can murderers be in heaven? You know, it's the funny thing. Every single one of you guys are murderers. Isn't that... We can all be in this. We should all be in prison. We're all horrible. Literally, you go through the Bible and it's hard because some of the worst sins are ascribed to us. Okay, I've never committed adultery. But do you know what the spiritual equivalent is? Idolatry. And I do that all the time. So I'm a murderer, an adulterer. The question is, how am I getting led in the gates of heaven? I shouldn't be. But you see, it is as I accept the fact that I am the one that put Jesus on that cross that I am able to partake in the grace that it offers. It is only when we accept that, when we think we are good enough for God, when we think we don't really need the cross. I didn't really put him on that tree. then we do not understand the gospel. And so you see, that was the first plan of the brothers. They said, let's just kill him. Let's just do him off. Then he'll be removed from our side. He's not a problem anymore. But then you come to the second plan. This was from the firstborn, Reuben. So Reuben, he had a great responsibility. He was a de facto leader of the brothers. He was the one who had to keep them in check. If something went wrong for the livestock, he was the one that copped it. Right? As all first borns do, right? You're the one that normally copps it the most from your parents because you're the one that's got to get it right. You're the role model for the rest of the kids. If the other kids are screwed up, then it's all your fault, right? Get it right. And so obviously in seeing this, he saw the murderous intent of his brothers and he said, no, this is wrong. And so he came up with another plan. said, hey, why don't we just throw them into the pit? We don't kill them. Because know, he's in a pit, he can't get out, you know, he'll just die of natural causes or something like that. But of course in his mind he says, oh, but I'll come along later and then I'll reach him out. And you see at this moment in time, he's not in a very good place with his father because he's slept with his concubine, his father's concubine. Bit weird technically, his mother-in-law, ill, sorry, stepmother. But you see, what the real thing is here is what should he have done? Was this the right plan? Was this the right course of action? Or should he not, as the leader and de facto of his brothers said, hey guys, this is wrong? Does Jesus come along and say, well, I'm not really going to tell you guys what you're doing wrong. I'm just going to secretly manipulate you so I can get all the benefits. No, he tells you. And as so, we are told to confront one another. And so he should be confronting his brothers, but why doesn't he? As the second point says, he fears them. And now, how often are we driven by this as well? Just think about it. How often? I have such great images in my head of the one day when I'm finally going to share with my family members who aren't saved the gospel. I think one day I'm going to get up the guts. I'm going to sit there with them and I'm going to lay down, going to be, you're a sinner. You need Jesus. I hope I get there someday, but I think inevitably when I get there all the great images in my head are gonna suddenly be, hey, so have you heard about Jesus? It's not gonna quite have the roar of the lion to it, right? I'm gonna be timid because I'm gonna be scared, right? How often do we not have greater images of wishing that we would live more godly lives in front of our coworkers and our friends? All the time. We don't wanna be scared by the fear of other people, right? I know some of you are probably like, I could care less what other people think. All of us have it a little bit. Some more than others. But we have to be very careful, reminding ourselves of Jesus warning about this. Matthew 10, 32 to 33. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my father who is in heaven. You know what's most interesting thing about that passage? in the same book in Matthew. Do you know anyone who denied Jesus? Who, um, in front of people? Jesus told them, Matthew 26, 33, as Jesus was saying that all of you will deny me, Peter then says this, though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away. But then he says in the next verse, truly I tell you, this very night before the rooster crows, you'll deny me three times. You see, in the safety of the upper room, in the last supper, He's not worried. He has these images. I'm going to stand up. I will never leave you, Jesus. And then what happens when he's sitting in the courtyard around the fire? A little girl comes up to him says, aren't you one of the ones with Jesus? And he says, no, no, that wasn't me. He cowers before a little girl. You see what fear does to us. We start with this initial confidence, but then what happens? This lie of the devil comes in. where he says, if you stand up for this, you are gonna lose something of true value. You are actually gonna lose something you cannot live without if you stand up for this. Don't do it, it's not worth it. Lies. Because you see, Paul puts it like this in Romans 8.15. You see, he's saying, you don't need to fall back into fear. That's the devil going at you saying, you're gonna lose something. You're gonna lose something of value. Don't do this, it's not worth it. But the first thing he says is, no, you don't cry out, ooh, I don't wanna do that. You cry out, Abba, Father, help me, right? We're weak, we're helpless, no doubt about that. We are scared, we should be. But we take comfort and peace in the fact I have an all-powerful Heavenly Father. He's always going to help me. And better yet, he's offered me this eternal security from Colossians 3.3. He says, you have died already and your life is hidden with Christ in God. So just think about this. What can the world actually take away from you? Your identity? No, you're a child of God, can't be taken away. Your purpose? No. That's given to you by God. Can't be taken away. That's not going to change. Your purposes will be achieved. They cannot take your destiny, your eternal life, your inheritance. They really can't take anything from you. We may suffer temporary loss in this world, but that is the end of it. If it even gets so bad as, I say, they kill you, you fall asleep, and enter into blissful awesomeness, what can you really lose? You see, fear is an instrument of the devil. Fear is something that should not exist in the Christian. It does, because we're still people. We still have a sinful nature, we still wrestle. and also take comfort in the fact. Just as Peter denied Jesus, so too he was forgiven, so too his sin was covered. And better yet, it is that very gift of grace that he showed him that actually then later empowered him to speak up in Acts 2, where he delivers his first sermon. And so you see, it is the gift of forgiveness that gives you the eternal inheritance, that covers all your doubts and your fears, that actually enables you to no longer fear anymore. And so you see, that was the problem with Reuben, right? He didn't... He was like, no, I can't, I might lose something if I stand up to these brothers of mine. I might lose my own life. Us Christians, we're not scared about that. Yeah, I might lose my own life. I'm not looking forward to the pain of dying. No one is. But I look forward to the death part. That's going to be awesome. Because I get heaven and I get Jesus afterwards. And then you come to the third and final plan. That is the plan of the fourth born, Judah. And so he comes up with this idea. Coincidentally, some merchants coming along. He says, hey guys, rather than leaving him in a pit, know, first we were gonna kill him, but his blood would be on our hands, not a good idea. Throw him in the pit, that gets rid of the murder part. But hey, if we sell him off, we get some money as well. It's just like going to the pawn shop or going to cash converters, just swapping a brother for a couple coins. Isn't that great? He's just a shrewd guy. And so look, there is wisdom in this. He gains some money. He avoids the blood guilt, right? He avoids, knows, you know, you murder someone, someone's probably gonna come back to bite you. Not a good idea. and then he sells his brother for 20 pieces of silver. Now I ask you, can you see any parallel at all in the New Testament? Someone closely related to Jesus, a brother of his, not an actual brother but a close brother? If this helps, Judah, when you translate it into Greek, is translated Judas. who also traded his brother, but he had his savior for 30 pieces of silver. Why 20 and 30? Because they were just the amounts that were given for, that you would give for a slave in that day, right? And so what did Judas trade Jesus in for? These 30 pieces of silver, which would have been about $12,000 nowadays. So, I want to ask you guys, would you trade Jesus in for $12,000? That's a nice used car. You could probably get like a, I don't know, a fifth of a Land Cruiser for that. Probably not even, right? Anyone want to take it? No? Okay, deal was on the table, it's gone now, I guess. There you go. Yeah, okay, none of us think we'd do that. I wouldn't know, $12,000, he's my savior, I get eternal life, I wouldn't do that. There's this song that I listen to every now and again by an artist, he's Josiah Queen, but the song's called Judas. And there's this line in there, a couple lines, that always convicts me quite a bit. He said, yeah, maybe I'm like Judas, maybe I'm that thief, maybe I'm that sinner that put you on that tree. For 30 pieces of silver, but he ain't worse than me, because he betrayed you for money, and I did it all for free. Right? We sit here every day and you say, well, I wouldn't trade in Jesus. Sorry, I'm not used to the microphone. I wouldn't trade in Jesus for $12,000. No, that's just silly. But yet every day we trade in for worthless items. I sit there, I'm meeting up with a friend and, you hear the new juicy goss going around town? I just can't help myself. Goodness, the thing's going on in this church. You just have to hear what is going on in everyone's personal life. We've just given up Jesus. to have a little giggle. Man, you seen some of the women walking down the footpath here? I just want to trade in Jesus just for a fleeting fantasy of another woman. I've traded my Savior. Or better yet, one of the worst things we can do is I can trade Him in for my own righteousness. I can sit here and I say, look God, man, I have been to church for two months straight. That is pretty good. That's going to put me in your good books, right? I've done this for you, Lord. I've done that. I've given this much money. I serve in this way. You have just traded Jesus for yourself. That is the dumbest thing in the world. Because if you knew what your own works were like, even your good works aren't good enough. But you see, we are trading Him in all the time for these little ego boosts, these cheap pleasures. This is what we always doing with Jesus, you guys. We crucify Him. We don't speak up, we don't stand for Him, we leave Him. And we trade Him in because we think there's something better. Stupid. But now we come to the fourth and final plan. Gods. I want you to look at all these coincidences, right? Joseph, if you rewind before he's encountered his brothers, he has to go to Shechem because that is the last known location of his brothers. He happens upon there and his brothers aren't there. What's he to do? Well, this random stranger appears out of nowhere. Oh, perfect, and points him in the direction. Your brothers are that way, as I joked before, pointing him in the direction of his imminent death, possibly. And better yet, after all their plans, why is it Judas that prospers? Because there just happens to be traders going past, whom they can sell their brother to. And then better yet, the whole passage finishes with Genesis 36 verse 37. Meanwhile, the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the Ga. Now, most of you will be familiar with the story of Joseph. This is part of the plan of God. If he did not end up in Potiphar's house, he would not end up in prison. And if he didn't end up in prison, he would not have interpreted those dreams, which inevitably led him to interpret Pharaoh's dream for him to become the prime minister essentially of Egypt and to then fulfill the dream from chapter 37. See, this is all part of the plan of God. And so it is most important thing to understand that there are human schemes going on in all this. Satan's doing all his best work right now, but he cannot stop the purpose of God given in this dream. As it's said in Proverbs 19, 21, many are the plans in the minds of men. We've just seen all the different plans of the brothers, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. Just even look at Jesus' life, all these different things we've covered. They hated him. Isaiah 53 verse 3, he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Everyone left him. Matthew 26 31. Then Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because of me this night for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. We will also trade him in. Then what was fulfilled was spoken by the prophet. Sorry, Matthew 27. the prophet Jeremiah saying, and they took 30 pieces of silver, the price of him or whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter's field as the Lord directed me. You see how each of those is either a quotation from the Old Testament or references one. What does that mean? So the whole crucifixion, all these details, all this betrayal, all this evil was prophesied hundreds of years before. All of it. And so we wrestle with this fact of all the evil in the crucifixion, every single part of it was ordained by God. Not just the grand purpose at the end, but even the plans and the evil intent of the men who crucified him. Even the crowds were ordained by him. For this is the thing we wrestle with, Acts 2, 23. From the same passage we read from before, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. So see there, this is one of the hardest things to grapple with in scripture. Every 12 year old asks this question, how can God be all powerful and yet not be responsible for our sin? Do you want to know the answer? I actually don't know. The hard thing is the Bible teaches it everywhere. God is sovereign over everything, including evil and you're still responsible for the evil you commit. me personally, struggled to understand it, still really happy with it. Because again, I don't want the other guy to be in charge of the evil. I much prefer God being the one in control. And now why this matters is because again, we've gone through all these plans. We've seen the many ways in which we betray Jesus. But I want you to understand you can actually have hope in the fact that it is actually part of the plan. You will betray Him. You will fail Him. You will reject Him. Not all the time, but many times every day. But you see, all the time, we have so little peace in this world. But what did Jesus promise us? In John 16, 33, I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Who of you doesn't have worry, doesn't have anxiety, doesn't have fear about something? doesn't wonder why God are you doing this? I don't get it. And so we grow in fear, worry, anxiety, all these different things, we're scared. But yet that only happens because either we have deliberately refused to accept the truth of God's sovereignty over every aspect, what the Bible teaches us, or we just refuse to remind ourselves of it every day. You see, it is a constant fight that we must come back to. Especially as we're sitting in the darkest days, looking at the hardest parts of our lives and just saying, God, you're sovereign. God, you've got this in control. Right? Because inevitably when everything's going well, it's fine. But suddenly when I'm walking and my marriage is on the rocks and things aren't going well, I'm saying, God, is this really part of the plan? When I sit there, I've lost my job. Farms about to foreclose. I get a terminal illness. All these kind of things that rocks, that rock our boats, right? That make us feel uneasy. We suddenly realize that we're on an ocean, there are waves and they can topple us over. we must remember, so too Judas was ordained by God. So too the cross was ordained by God. So too all of them falling away. All of that sin was ordained by God. I don't understand how, but it was. But they give me the greatest comfort because that knows that even as I walk in situations, that may be my fault, that may not. God is in control. He has all of it planned out. Even my mistakes. One of the most comforting things I once heard someone say was always remember, the devil is God's devil. Right? The devil can't do whatever he wants. Have you read the book of Job? He has to go to God. He can't do anything unless he's permitted. Everything is controlled by God. And so we understand that if God can orchestrate the greatest evil to ever have occurred, a perfectly innocent man, the son of God upon a cross, he can bring good out of anything. He brought salvation out of something horrendous. There is nothing he cannot redeem. And so what I'm really saying to you today is, yes, I want you to see the plans of all these brothers, because I want you to see that in all their wickedness and all their evil, the same evil and wickedness that's in all of you, it all works into the plan of God. We need a bigger view of God's sovereignty, because then we might have more peace, we might be more settled. I'm not saying it's always going to be easy, but we come back to it, we remind ourselves of it. We hold fast to the sovereign love of God. He has a plan, he's in control and most of all, he loves you. That is the most important thing. So, we'll finish now in prayer and then we'll go into a time of communion. Father. You're in control. Father, you have it all. Father, we don't understand. Not even a smidge of it. There's things that go on every day that I sit and wonder, why would you do it that way? We all wonder that. But Lord, would I rather be in control? Who is a better person to be in charge? There is no one. So Lord, you have said you have a good plan. You have always been faithful to your word. And so help us to believe it. Help us to trust it. and better yet grant us the peace that comes from knowing it and believing it with our whole hearts and help us to fight against the devil when he shall try to bring doubts into our hearts. Let us not give in to him. Let us have your peace. We pray in Jesus name, amen.