Meant It

What’s it called when a comedian finishes their set by referring back to a joke at the beginning of the set? A callback. A callback is a clever technique that lets you know when the time is up, it frames the set along a common theme, demonstrates unity, continuity, and intentionality, and leaves an impression. It shows you that even when the jokes might have felt disconnected and random at times, the comedian ultimately knew what they were doing and where they were going. If done well, it really elevates a set from a collection of jokes to real performance art. Well, that’s pretty close to what’s happening here in Genesis 50. But when it’s done in ancient literature, it’s typically called an “inclusio’ because that sounds way smarter. But it’s the same thing. It’s when you bookend a story by circling back to the theme you started on. It does the same things as a callback because it lets you know when the story is ending, it frames the narrative along a common theme, it demonstrates unity, continuity, and intentionality, and most importantly, it leaves an impression. It’s telling you what the story was actually about the whole time, whether you realized it yet or not. It’s the point at which the common thread that was tying everything together the whole time gets clearly revealed and tied into a nice bow on top for emphasis. This is what structure does - it takes unformed material and gives it meaning.

Think about those cardboard tubes at the center of a roll of wrapping paper or paper towels. What are those cardboard tubes mainly good for? As any four-year-old or parent of a four-year-old will tell you, the answer is clearly using them as telescopes. You take one of those tubes and you can look through either end of the tube, right? I don’t know why you have to do that, it’s just sort of the rule. It’s like picking up a pair of kitchen tongs - you have to do a couple test clicks. Something about the structure of those cardboard tubes makes my brain wanna look through it. Well, framing a story with an inclusio, meaning the same major theme at the beginning and the end, does something to our brains that makes us need to look through them. You just have to think about the book from beginning to end with that theme in mind. You want to turn it around and look the other way, working from the conclusion to the beginning with that theme, you want to use it to spy on your siblings from across the room… Maybe the metaphor is breaking down.. But you get the idea. This book is begging you, enticing you to look at the whole thing through this major theme: God makes good things.

That was a real easy pill to swallow when he was making good things out of nothing… But to think that even now, after 47 chapters of pain, and suffering, and brokenness, you’re telling me that has been the organizing theme this whole time? Yeah. Because God makes good things. And he doesn’t just make good things out of nothing, either. Genesis 50 takes it to a whole other level, by teaching that God also makes good things out of bad things. Let me show you why that’s true in Joseph’s life in three points: 1) How You Meant It, 2) How God Meant It, and 3) How You Do It.

Point 1: How You Meant It

Now ever since the fall, remember, Genesis has been training us to look for something. Or specifically, for someone. We have been looking for the serpent crusher. Ever since the Curse, we have been looking for the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. Ever since Cain, we have been looking for the one who would rule over the sin that was crouching at the door of his heart. Ever since Noah, we have been looking for the one who would be faithful not just through the flood, but to the very end. Ever since Abraham, we have been looking for the child of the promise. And ever since Jacob, we have been looking for literally anyone who could even remotely get his act together. And as you’ll recall, it’s gotten increasingly hard to find the good guy in the story. Each generation is a little worse off, it feels like. Moses goes above and beyond to show the patterns of sin, not just continuing, but expanding down through the generations. And as the sin expands, so does the suffering. We begin to see generational consequences of sin working their way out into the lives and communities in the story. It becomes painfully obvious that sin makes life harder. And then you get to Joseph, and wow… This guy… This guy is different.

All things considered, Joseph has the best track record of any major character in the bible. Typically, the more information there is about someone in the bible, the more likely it is that you will eventually find them messing up. But not Joseph. Early on there’s that one part where he has a dream of his brothers bowing down to him, and in what is perhaps not the most emotionally intelligent decision in the Bible, he decides to tell them about it. They are, predictably, unenthusiastic about this information. All the more given that Joseph is the second youngest in the family, and their father has openly treated him as the favorite from the beginning. And I’m not talking about just giving Joseph the bigger half when he splits the ice cream sandwich, I’m talking about giving him a very fancy and expensive coat that might as well have “Dad’s Favorite” written on the back. Emotional intelligence may not have run in the family, it turns out.

But the favoritism thing wasn’t Joseph’s fault. And as for telling his brothers about the dream, who among us has not posted something stupid on social media when we were 17? Cut the kid some slack. Maybe it was unwise, maybe it was just the earnest naivete of a teenager. Either way, I’ll tell you what it wasn’t. It wasn’t worth being dropped down a hole, left for dead, and later sold into Egyptian slavery over. Which is what his brothers did to him. And as the story progresses, and you learn more about Joseph, you see two things emphasized repeatedly: 1) this guy is something special. And 2) this guy’s life just is not fair.

After arriving in chains in Egypt, Joseph is bought by a wealthy man named Potiphar, who was an officer of Pharaoh. And as Joseph works for Potifer, Potifer realizes that God is with Joseph and that he is a man of immense integrity and wisdom. So Potifer eventually appoints Joseph as head over his house, puts him in charge of everything, and his house prospers like never before. Sadly, Potiphar’s wife intends to change his life for the worse. First, she tries to seduce Joseph by inviting him to a Coldplay concert… And after he refuses, she falsely accuses him of trying to assault her. So Joseph is thrown in prison. But in prison, the same thing happens, the guard and the other prisoners realize what kind of guy Joseph is, and soon enough he’s literally running the prison.

While he’s running the prison, he prophetically interprets two of his cellmates’ dreams, which later come true. One of them is hanged, and the other is restored to service as Pharaoh’s personal cupbearer, just as Joseph had said would happen. But the cupbearer forgot about Joseph and left him in prison for two more years. Until, eventually, Pharaoh himself is troubled by some nightmares, and his cup bearer mentions to him that he’s got a buddy back in prison who interpreted his dream. And you can tell how desperate Pharaoh is because very rarely does a good suggestion ever start with “hey man I got a buddy back in prison who can take care of that for you.” But Pharaoh goes with it, Joseph interprets the dreams correctly, and Pharoah is so impressed that he literally puts him in charge of all of Egypt. 13 years of mistreatment from others, and consistent integrity from Joseph, and now he’s in charge of Egypt by the age of 30. And I’ll just make one brief observation here: If you trust God enough to act with integrity in the face of mistreatment and temptation, then whatever “detours” God sends you on may very well be a faster and better road to a bigger plan than you ever would have imagined. That’s not the prosperity gospel. You might very well end up broke. But you won’t end up wasted or forgotten.

But up to this point, Joseph’s life is standing out in a major way compared to the Genesis story so far. For one, look how great this guy is! Like, we’re seriously gunna go from Jacob, to him? The contrast is significant enough that you really start to wonder if maybe this guy might be the guy. All the more when you think about the royal symbol of Pharaoh, the animal that he literally walked around with a gold carving of on his crown, was a serpent. The serpent, called the Ur-eeus, was used as far back as 3,000 BC by Pharaohs in Egypt, and it symbolized the Pharaoh’s sovereignty, divine authority, and his supposed role in maintaining cosmic order. And here’s Joseph, being put in charge of Egypt. Come on now, you have got to wonder if this is the guy.

But the other thing that you kind of have to wonder about is why Joseph is suffering so much? Like, obviously God is being with him and delivering him out of the pit, out of slavery, and out of prison, but the guy is not doing a thing wrong the whole time. Other characters in Genesis tend to contribute at least some obvious sinfulness to the situation, so when suffering comes out of it, at least there’s a little bit of context that makes the world feel at least sort of fair. And if not, then they get spared from the flood in a giant boat or something. But here’s Joseph, not doing anything wrong, being instead very faithful, and his life keeps going from bad to worse for 13 years. Largely because other people are mistreating and neglecting him at every turn. It’s like everyone has it out for Joseph. Even those closest to him meant evil towards him. And he might have been saved out of the pit, slavery, and prison, but he wasn’t saved from those things.

And all this underlines how the world is clearly not working the way it’s supposed to. Biblical Wisdom literature like the Proverbs is pretty clear, if you do the right thing, your life is generally supposed to be easier. That has not been Joseph’s experience. So Genesis gives us a loud and clear message that the rest of the world is not following the rules, even when you do. Maybe after all these consecutive stories of sinful people, you can start to feel some of God’s frustration and lament when he looked out at creation back in Genesis 6 and saw that, except for one guy, all of the intentions of man’s heart were only evil continually. After God saw that the first time he sent a flood. So the story has set us up to look at this situation, with one righteous guy, and everyone around him intending evil continually, meaning to do him harm, and we are set up to ask “Well, is he the serpent crusher or the next Noah? Is Joseph going to crush Satan, or is God going to destroy everyone but him and his family and start over again?” And the answer is neither. That is not the outcome God has intended. And so Joseph died. And that’s the end of the book.

Point 2: How God Meant It

So we got to the end of the book, but where’s the callback? Where’s the fancy inclusio? Is it with Joseph dying? I mean, Adam and Eve died in chapter 3, everybody has been dying ever since, and now Joseph does the same, meaning he’s not the seed of the woman. So we went the whole book without ever finding the promised seed, and what we did find was a guy who was probably more righteous than any of us - only to watch him get mistreated by everyone he ran into and then die, not in the promised land, in Egypt. What. Gives?

I would suggest to you, that the inclusio is not, in fact, in the dying. For one thing, the dying didn’t happen at the beginning of the book. That started later. Early, but still later than the beginning. What happened in the beginning? God made the heavens and the earth. And then what happened? He filled them with life and he called it good. So God made the world good, then it fell and now it’s bad. And now people are doing bad things, and not just accidentally, they are meaning to do bad things for bad reasons. The evil has gotten all the way down into the deepest part of our hearts where our true intentions are. And somehow, according to verse 20, that has not managed to change the fact that God is still meaning everything for good. The trajectory of the world is still, somehow, aimed at good. And I have to be honest with you here, this is gunna be a real hard pill for some folks to swallow. And I’m going to sound like a crazy person trying to explain this. But look at what it says in verse 20. As for you, you meant evil against me, but iGod meant it for good, to bring it about that many people2 should be kept alive, as they are today.

So what does that mean? Maybe that they meant to do evil, but then God took over and redirected it for good? I don’t think so, because it’s the same word. “Meant.” “Intended.” “Purposed.” So it’s not that they meant it and God worked with it. Both they and God meant it. Ok, well maybe we are only talking about outcomes. His brothers meant one outcome, and God meant a different outcome. We can probably include that in our interpretation, but that can’t be all it is. Because “it” is in reference to something particular - the evil that they did against him. That’s the “it”. You meant “it,” “the evil you did” for evil purposes. But God meant “it”, “the evil you did”, for good. Exactly parallel phrasing. “You meant it,” “God meant it.” Not just the outcomes, it. The thing you did. God meant, intended, planned and purposed that thing you did. And when you did it, it was evil. Because you meant it for evil. And God meant it for good.

Now some people want to look at that and say that this is just Joseph’s opinion. The Bible is recording him saying it, but it’s not necessarily endorsing that idea. That’s a real natural way to end a story, right? With the main character summing up their big ethical takeaway from their life, right as the screen fades to black, and it’s something you don’t want the audience to think you’re endorsing… Plus, this is the second time Moses records Joseph saying this to his brothers. This is years after the first time. So Moses skips over years of events in a verse, doesn’t think they are worth including, but he chooses to circle back and mention Joseph talking about this a second time? At the very end of the book? And look at how he said it the first time back in chapter 45: “And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God.” God “sent.” Not you, God. You meant it for evil, but you were not the one fundamentally in control. Meaning you bear responsibility for the actions, because you meant them, and you did them, but it didn’t ultimately happen because you meant it, it happened because God meant it, and that’s why it ultimately has the effect that God meant and not the one that you meant.

Let’s go further. Remember that Psalm we opened the service with during the Call to Worship? Of course not, most of you weren’t here, take my word for it. We read the opening of Psalm 105,

Oh give thanks to the Lord; ucall upon his name; vmake known his deeds among the peoples! Sing to him, sing praises to him; wtell of all his wondrous works! Ok, so sing praises to the Lord. Why? Because of what he’s done. Well, what has he done that we should praise him for? The Psalm starts to list the things God has done so that you may praise him for them. Skipping down to verse 16: When [God] qsummoned a famine on the land and rbroke all supply1 of bread, he had ssent a man ahead of them, Joseph. Ok. Praise him because he sent the famine on the land. Praise him for his sovereignty over natural disasters. And praise him that he sent Joseph to help. But it doesn’t just say we should praise him that he sent Joseph… it also talks about how he sent Joseph. Keep reading. Verse 17, “he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave.[18] His feet were hurt with fetters; his neck was put in a collar of iron;[19] until what he had said came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him. (ESV)

So God sent Joseph. Why? Because God also sent a famine. How did God sent Joseph? With a painful collar and fetters, sold into slavery. God sent him that way and he meant it for good.  According to Psalm 105, that’s what God did, he sent famine into the land and he sent Joseph into a pit, into slavery, and into prison, and we should praise him for it. Why? Because he meant it for good. Listen, you may not like it, and you may not believe it, but one thing we aren’t going to do is pretend the bible doesn’t teach it. Genesis isn’t scared of this question. It puts it front and center. It doubles down on it and circles back to it. If you don’t get this, I promise you won’t understand Genesis: God meant it for good. And by putting this idea in parallel with God’s creation of all things, Genesis is not so subtly implying that God’s intention of bad things for good purposes is as broad as his original creation was. What did he create? Everything. All the variables. All the materials. All the intentions. And it was good. But even now, when it’s all fallen to bad, it’s still meant for good.

The rest of the Bible isn’t shy about this either. Proverbs says the lot is cast into the lap but it’s every decision comes from the Lord. Isaiah 46 says God is the one who declares the end from the beginning and accomplishes all his purposes. Ephesians 1 says "In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will." Romans 8 says all things work together for the good of those who are called according to his purpose. The rest of the bible understands the message of Genesis, but do you? So that’s how God meant it. For good. But even if that’s true, how are we supposed to bear this reality?  Which brings us to point three:

Point 3: How You Do It

There is a truth woven throughout the entire Bible, that God is totally sovereign over everything, and as we just saw from Romans and Ephesians, that he is working all of those things, even the painful ones, even the horrible ones, together for good. This means nothing is accidental. Nothing is arbitrary. Nothing is wasted. And from Joseph’s story we see that the particularities of the suffering correspond to the particularities of God’s purposes for it. Look back at Genesis 50, verse 20 with me: As for you, you meant evil against me, but iGod meant it for good, to bring it about that many people2 should be kept alive, as they are today. 21 So do not fear; jI will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

The word “provide” is the root of the word “providence.” In other words, Joseph is saying that his suffering was an act of God’s providence, so that Joseph would then be able to provide for others. Joseph saw his suffering as an act of God’s providence to and through him, so he then used the particular results of that suffering, namely his authority in Egypt, to provide for both his family and all the people of Egypt. They survived the famine, and Egypt had so much grain stored up that they were even able to share with the nations around them. Now some of you will say to me, “Ok, fine, that’s all well and good for Joseph. He suffered for a bit, but after a few years he was in charge of the wealthiest country in the world, and his comparatively brief suffering literally meant the saving of millions of lives. I can handle that kind of math. But what about what happened to me? I’m not in charge of Egypt. I’m not saving lives. I’m just hurting. What about that?

Listen, brothers and sisters, I know you many of you. Quite well, in fact. I know your stories. I know your suffering. I know your diagnoses, your addictions, your regrets, and your trauma. I don’t know all of it, but I know enough of it to know how serious a thing it is to stand here and tell you what I’m about to tell you. There are pastors on YouTube who can say it better than me, but they don’t have the privilege and the weight of having to look you in your face while they say it. And here it is. The people who hurt you, at least some of them, meant it for evil. Satan meant your suffering for evil, and even now, he and his kind are planning more evil against you. You, yourself, meant your worst sins for evil. And then there’s all the pain and suffering you have experienced that just looks absolutely meaningless. The storm that wrecked your house, that disease that stole your life before you even died, that accident that stole your loved one, and even those mistakes that you didn’t mean but just… happened. Regardless of the human intention or lack thereof, I’m telling you that the persons who love you more than anyone, including yourself, has ever loved you… He meant it for good.

Now, how can I say that? Well, for one, because the Bible says that. We saw some of that already, and we’ll see more in a minute. But for another thing, if you think about it, this is the only possible reality in which your suffering is not wasted. If God had wanted to prevent it but he couldn’t, then it was pointless, and he’s powerless. But if he meant it for your highest possible good, and his maximum glory, then your suffering is in fact an essential part of what makes this the most meaningful life you could possibly have ever lived. And that’s exactly why Paul says, “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” How much good is God going to draw out of your suffering? An eternal weight of it. Paul only uses the words “light and momentary” in comparison to eternal weight, not in comparison to what it feels like when it happens. He’s not making light of your pain, he says the weight of glory is so heavy that it will make the pain feel light by comparison. You know how suffering feels heavy? Like a hundred-pound weight just pressing down on your chest and your shoulders so that breathing is exhausting? There is a glory that is heavier yet - so heavy that this suffering is actually preparing you to bear it. It is so heavy that it’s beyond comparison with anything except your present suffering, which looks light by comparison. And look back at the context, he’s not talking about any simple or easy suffering here:

We are rafflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but snot forsaken; tstruck down, but not destroyed; ualways carrying in the body the death of Jesus, vso that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh… So we do not lose heart. fThough our outer self4 is wasting away, gour inner self his being renewed day by day. 17 For ithis light momentary affliction is preparing us [for] an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,

Joseph could look back on his own life and trust God to make good things out of bad things because he had seen little glimpses of deliverance. But Paul says that you and I have such a greater deliverance to look back on. Such a bigger proof. He says this is how you do it, this is how you are bearing it, this is how you are struck down and not destroyed: you are carrying around the death of Jesus so that you might experience the life of Jesus. What that means is, even if you don’t see any deliverance in the circumstances of your life yet, you have another life to look at and see ultimate, total deliverance from suffering and death. Jesus died, but it didn’t kill him, he lived again. And in doing so, he proved that God is not going to cause you to suffer for good purposes in any way that he himself was not willing to suffer. He did it first and he experienced the worst, and it happened because God meant for it to happen. Jesus prayed for it not to happen, but he said “not what I intend, not what I want, but what you intend.” And after he was raised, Peter left no room for wondering here. Look at what he said in Acts 2: this Jesus,3 hdelivered up according to ithe definite plan and jforeknowledge of God, kyou crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 lGod raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because mit was not possible for him to be held by it.” You meant it for evil, God meant it for good. And it was not possible for the evil you meant to overcome the good he meant.

And so Peter, like Joseph, applies this idea to the daily lives and the real suffering of normal believers. He said this wasn’t just true for Jesus, it wasn’t just true for people like Joseph, it’s true for you. “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by pvarious trials, 7 so that qthe tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes rthough it is tested by sfire—may be found to result in tpraise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” He said that in chapter 1 but he comes back around to it again in chapter 4:

“Beloved, do not be surprised at zthe fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice ainsofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad bwhen his glory is revealed…”

“Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will lentrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.”

God is a faithful creator of good things. Not just out of nothing, even out of stuff that is worse than nothing. Your hope in this life is not in doing the right things or avoiding suffering, it’s in your relationship to the God who means all of it for your good, and who sends his Spirit to walk with you through it so that you have the power to not waste your suffering, but use it for the good of others, that you might be like him. It doesn’t matter how they meant it, only how he meant it. That’s how you do it.

Silent reflection: prepare to praise the Lord, ask “help me see it”

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