Sermon: Genesis 44:18-45:9 - Joseph Series, October 25, 2026
Scripture: Genesis 44:18-45:9
Preacher: Ryan Slifka
Sermon: Genesis 44:18-45:9 Woven into God’s Purposes - Joseph Series,
Here we are, back in our sermon series on Joseph from the book of Genesis.
So far, Joseph was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, endured prison in Egypt, and rose to become Pharaoh’s second-in-command through his gift for interpreting dreams. After saving Egypt from famine, he tested the brothers who had betrayed him, requiring them to return with his youngest brother, Benjamin. When they did, Joseph planted his silver cup on Benjamin, apparently sentencing him to slavery.
Now, you’ll remember that, thanks to t fancy Egyptian makeup and fashion, his brothers have had no idea that this guy they’d been dealing with was their long-lost brother.
After being moved by a long, pleading speech by his older brother Judah—the very same Judah whose idea it was to sell Joseph into slavery to pocket some extra cash—we get what we might call the “big reveal.” The hard-nosed Egyptian bureaucrat they’ve been dealing with was their brother all along.
Barely being able to keep himself from weeping, Joseph admits his true identity. “I am Joseph,” he says. “I am Joseph… Is my father still alive?”
Of course, things get a little tense. After all, this is the guy his brothers threw in a pit then sold to some Arab traders. They’re not crazy to expect at least some hard feelings. They stand there with a little terror in their eyes, just waiting to see what the most powerful man in the kingdom’s gonna do to them. Waiting for the knives to come out.
Rather surprisingly, though, there are no knives. Amid a flood of tears, he draws them closer. “I am your brother Joseph,” he says, “whom you sold into Egypt. Now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here.” His brothers had robbed him of home and freedom setting in motion years of imprisonment, servitude, and shame. Joseph’s response? Forgiveness.
Pretty incredible, isn’t it? He tells his victimizers not to be worried, or even feel guilty about what they did to him. Rather than receiving their just desserts, when Joseph finally drops the mask, they are met with mercy instead. It’s as close to “fuggeddaboutit” in ancient Egyptian that one can get. Forgiveness. It’s pretty incredible.
Having said that, though, there’s one more thing that I think is even more incredible than Joseph’s forgiveness. And it’s what he says next.
“Do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves,” he says. “Do not be distressed because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life… God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.”
He’s been able to see that everything that happened to him was not only for his good, but for the good of his people. To save his family from famine. Not only has Joseph forgiven them for what they’ve done but he’s come to see everything they’ve done to him—the slavery, the imprisonment, the years of humiliation, servitude and shame—all of it as part of the work of God. To put it in terms that are a bit less theologically precise, Joseph is able to forgive, because he’s come to see it all—the good and the bad, all of it—as part of “God’s plan.” It’s incredible.
It’s incredible.
Now, there is, of course a danger when we speak of “God’s plan.” Because not only can it sound sort of glib in writing off the true extent of our real hurt and pain and injustice—like stop feeling so bad, because this is part of God’s plan. Stop crying already.
A danger is that it can make God look kinda bad. Like God set the chessboard of the universe, and the only way she could do some really good things over here was to traumatize, brutalize these people over there. It makes God look kinda bad because it turns God into the author of evil. Which is the opposite of what the scriptures teach—that “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”[i]
That’s not the case with Joseph either. Sometimes things hinge on just a little word or gramma. Notice that when Joseph reveals himself he says “Do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here.” The “you” being his brothers. Note that he doesn’t say “God sold me here,” but “you” his brothers. God preserves life, God makes him Pharoah, all for a great good. But it’s still his brothers who authored the evil, still his brothers who committed the sinful act.
The late Old Testament scholar Terrence Fretheim puts it like this:
“God has ‘taken over’ what they have done and used it to bring about this end. Their actions have become God’s by being woven into God’s purposes.”[ii]
The church word we use for this is providence. Providence. To have our actions taken over by God, and woven into God’s good purposes.
Again, the cross says it all. The betrayal, arrest, torture, and execution of Jesus—the murder of God, the greatest evil human beings could perpetrate—could not stop God’s purposes. God took that evil and brought from it the forgiveness of sins, the reconciliation of God and humanity, and a whole new creation. The tree of death became the tree of life; a symbol of most brutal torture became our greatest source of hope. That’s what we mean by something being part of “God’s plan.” Providence.
You see, we assume that when evil is done, whether it’s done by us, to if it’s done to us, that really that’s the end of the story. If it’s what we’ve done, the world is tainted forever and there’s no going back. If it’s done to us, we’re tainted forever, and there’s no going back. Or if a crushing tragedy befalls us—like the death of a loved one, life is over. Even if we live, life is effectively over. Or if the wrong political party is in power, or if there is a great disaster ecologically or otherwise, there’s no turning back. That’s it—history is done for.
But the gospel says differently. It says that though terrible things may befall us, that catastrophe will hit the world, there is a God in heaven, that there is a power above all earthly powers. Not that God causes evil to happen, but it says that though humans cause great evil and wickedness, God is always at work, and God is still greater than all of them. God is so great, even, that God can turn even our worst towards the good. They can be, they are woven into God’s purposes.
And believing this makes a huge, positive difference for us. Seeing as how it’s Reformation Sunday, why not bust out the Heidelberg Catechism, a reformation era summary of the Christian faith.
Question 28 puts it like this:
Q: “What does it profit us to know that God created, and by his providence upholds all things?”
A: “That we may be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for what is future have good confidence in our faithful God and Father, that no creature shall separate us from his love, since all creatures are so in his hand, that without his will they cannot so much as move.”[iii]
Believing in providence, that everything that happens to us is woven into God’s story. It gives us patience, when times are hard. It gives us gratitude when the good times roll. And it gives us confidence to face the future. Come what may.
Now, believe it or not, one of the best affirmations of providence I’ve heard was about ten years ago on CNN, of all places. And it came out of the mouth of a comedian.
You might recall an interview given by the late night host and comedian, Stephen Colbert, to then CNN news personality Anderson Cooper.[iv]
Most of the conversation was about how Colbert had just been hired to take over the Late Show that he’s now stepping down from. Things took a very interesting turn, however, to matters of faith.
Cooper’s mother had just died, so his grief was clearly on his mind. And Colbert is not only a well-known Roman Catholic Christian, but he had himself experienced a great family tragedy. When he was ten years old, his father and two brothers died in a plane crash. The kind of thing that might totally ruin your life.
When asked how he dealt with it, Colbert turned to what we might think a strange place. He turned to gratitude. “It’s a gift to exist,” he said.
“It’s a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that.”
What makes this kind of suffering and loss a gift?
“We’re asked to accept the world that God gives us,” Colbert says. “We’re asked to accept the world that God gives us. And to accept it with love. If God is everywhere, and God is in everything, then the world as it is is all just an expression of God and his love. And you have to accept it with gratitude…
You can’t pick and choose what you’re grateful for. So, what do you get from loss? You get awareness of other people’s loss, which allows you to connect with that other person, which allows you to love more deeply and to understand what it’s like to be a human being, if it’s true that all humans suffer…
I’ve become grateful for the thing that I most wish had not happened.”[v]
Sounds kind of like Joseph, doesn’t it? Joseph surely wished he could have escaped the suffering and slavery his brothers inflicted, just as Colbert still wishes death had spared his family. He didn’t think God brought down that plane for the greater good. Yet, seeing his tragedy as part as part of God’s providence—helped him become grateful for the thing he most wished never happened. The worst thing that happened to him was redeemed for good, woven into God’s purposes. It not only made him the more forgiving, person he’d become, but it gave him patience in adversity, gratitude in prosperity, and confidence for the future. Just as the catechism says.
Providence made that difference for Joseph and Stephen Colbert. It makes that difference for us, too.
In the end, to see our lives as part of God’s “plan” doesn’t mean that God causes evil to fall on us for the greater good, but that that nothing in this life, good or bad exists outside the grace of God, that nothing in heaven or on earth can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. It means that that nothing we do, nothing that has been done to us, nothing will ever frustrate God’s good purposes, for you, for me, for all of creation. With the Apostle Paul we can say that “all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”[vi] Even the things we wish never happened at all.
Knowing this, may you be given patience in adversity. Knowing this may you be made thankful in prosperity. For what ever is future may knowing this give you good confidence in our faithful God. And on his account, may you see all things in the light of God’s providence, learning to be grateful, even for those things you most wish had never happened… knowing that in Jesus Christ, God is still guiding all things towards good.
I offer this to you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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[i] 1 John 1:5
[ii] Terence Fretheim, “Genesis,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, vol. I (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 644.
[iii] Quoted in R. Scott Clark, The Heidelberg Catechism: A Historical, Theological, and Pastoral Commentary (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2025), 187.
[iv] Stepen Colbert and Anderson Cooper’s Beautiful Conversation about Grief, Youtube, uploaded August 17, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB46h1koicQ
[v] With help from Marshall Segall, “What Punishments of God Are Not Gifts?” Desiring God https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-punishments-of-god-are-not-gifts and “Stephen Colbert’s Deeply Moving Conversation About God and Grief” Relevant Magazine https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/stephen-colberts-deeply-moving-conversation-about-god-and-grief-is-required-viewing/
[vi] See Romans 8:28-29.