Hear now the word of the Lord from Genesis 45:1-15.

45 Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him. He cried, “Make everyone go out from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. 3 And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.
4 So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 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. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. 9 Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not tarry. 10 You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children's children, and your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. 11 There I will provide for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come, so that you and your household, and all that you have, do not come to poverty.’ 12 And now your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see, that it is my mouth that speaks to you. 13 You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt, and of all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.” 14 Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck. 15 And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them. After that his brothers talked with him.
Genesis 45:1-15, ESV

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. For the past several weeks, I have spent a great deal of time at the Children's Hospital visiting an infant who has been in their care. And it's been extraordinary to see the way all of the various staff members, all the specialists, all of the general physicians, all of the army of nurses that work through there, that they have worked literally around the clock, night and day to care for this child. Now, they were not the cause of his condition, but they are doing everything in their power to care for him.

Here's what's so interesting to me is I've considered this in the course of caring for him, and providing just top tier care, but in the course of this, they have very frequently had to cause him pain. They've had to draw blood several times to run tests. They've had to insert an IV so that he could be fed from the IV. Or there were many other times where they've just done various checks and there have been little pains or discomforts along the way.

Now, if you didn't know what they were doing, or if you didn't know why they were doing it, they're very good to explain to you exactly what they're doing and why they are doing it. But if you didn't understand this and certainly this child that doesn't understand this, if you didn't know any of that, you might be tempted to think that they were being very cruel toward him. But even if you didn't know what they were doing or why they were doing it, if you just watched them work, if you watched how they were doing it while they were doing it, you see nothing but the deepest level of compassion and concern that's just sort of radiating from them toward the child. Every person we've interacted with has been this way, just a tremendous amount of compassion and concern from them. The one thing that is absolutely clear is that whatever they are doing, it is aimed at caring for him in his condition and helping him and not at harming him.

Now in our lives, when we experience our own pain and suffering, it's very easy to fixate on what has gone wrong in our lives. Furthermore, as we're fixating on all of those events that are piling up around us, the evil that piles up against us, it's very easy to swirl in a round of questions of why would this have to happen? Why would it happen to me? What's frustrating about this is when we turn to the Bible for answers, is that we go to the Bible and the Bible doesn't quite answer those questions. The Bible doesn't tell us exactly what God is doing. It doesn't spell out exactly why God is doing this or that in our life, or at least not in the time frame that we would like that answer. We don't immediately know what God is doing or why He is doing.

Instead God gives us His Bible with a very different purpose in mind. God wants us through the ages of his people, think of all the people who have consulted the Scriptures and especially read of this deep suffering in the story of Joseph, to turn to this story time and time again to catch a glimpse of the care and compassion that is radiating from God in the face of Jesus Christ. We don't know what He's doing, we don't know why he is doing it, but as we look to God's character in His Word, the one thing we know for certain is that in the midst of evil, God accomplishes good.

That's our big idea for today. In the midst of evil, God accomplishes good. Now there are three parts to our study this morning in this passage in these 15 verses. Number one, the crisis. Joseph's brothers are faced with a crisis when the man whom they believe long to be dead comes back to life. The second part of this is the clarification, as Joseph clarifies how he has been thinking about all of this, the clarification. Then third, the call. Joseph doesn't simply reveal himself; he gives them a mission. He calls them to a mission.

1. The Crisis
2. The Clarification
3. The Call

The Crisis

So start with the crisis in verses one through three. Remember as we set the context for this, before reading the passage we talked about Judah had just given this impassioned plea where he had pleaded with Joseph to let him be kept as a slave so that Jacob's beloved son, Benjamin, can return to his father. And it's at this moment where Joseph can no longer control himself. Every question that he has had about the character of his brothers after these long periods since he last met them, has been answered. So Joseph finally wants to reveal who he is to his brothers. We read here that he forces everyone to go out of the room so that he can weep aloud before his brothers alone. This is a private moment of family reconciliation. He doesn't want these Egyptians to be around for it.

Now Joseph has wept twice during his interactions with his brothers back in Genesis 42:24, and Genesis 43:30. But both of those times he went away and hid himself so that no one could see him weeping. Well, now, after he sends the Egyptians out, it doesn't really quite work because he weeps so loudly in verse two that all the Egyptians hear it, even the household of Pharaoh. He's weeping loudly and uncontrollably in the presence of his brothers and in the hearing of everyone around him. But then in verse three, Joseph presents his brothers with a crisis, and it's a very real crisis. He declares to them, I am Joseph. The brother whose life they had stolen from him, the brother whom they had left for dead by selling him into slavery, the brother they hadn't heard from over these past 22 years. He is standing in front of them, declaring to them, I am Joseph.

Now, this is an extraordinary story in its own right. We've been waiting for this since Genesis 37, when the brothers were first split apart. We've been waiting this, and it's an extraordinary story as we see this in its own right. But as we read this story, we have to understand that this story is setting up a much bigger story.

Remember, these brothers here are the heads of the tribes of the nation of Israel. Their father is Jacob, who is renamed as Israel and all of these children are the heads of the tribes of Israel. After them, many, many years later, the men who are descended from these men who are standing here will also betray their own brother, the Lord Jesus Christ, someone who is also from the household of Israel. And Jesus will be sent into a tremendous amount of suffering at the hands of his fellow Israelites.

Now, we've talked about the way in which Joseph's suffering foreshadows of the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. But in this part of the story, we are seeing the way that Joseph's story foreshadows the resurrection appearance of Jesus Christ. Joseph, like Jesus, did not only suffer, but he was also lifted up from the pit, not the pit of death, but lifted up from the pit of the prison. And he was exalted to the right hand of Pharaoh to be the second most powerful person in all the world. And here he is confronting those who are responsible for his suffering to declare that he is now alive. Joseph didn't actually die and rise from the dead, but figuratively speaking, his life was stolen from him and he was abandoned to death by his brothers. And now he stands in front of them, declaring that he is alive.

This is foreshadowing in many ways what Peter preached to a crowd of Israelites, that people descended from these very brothers on the day of Pentecost, where he declares that all the house of Israel, the descendants of these men, "Let all the house of Israel, therefore, know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." This was a tremendous crisis. You're responsible for it, and he is the Lord and the Christ. What are you going to do about it?

Well, what do Joseph's brothers do? Joseph says, I am Joseph, and he asks them a question, is my father still alive? And we read at the end of our story that they can't even answer him. They can't respond to him because they were dismayed at his presence. This word dismayed is a word that speaks of very deep, visceral fear. They were controlled and gripped by this fear so much they could not even respond to him.

In the same way on the day of Pentecost, when Peter declares that Jesus has become both Lord and Christ by His resurrection and ascension, we read that that House of Israel was cut to the heart. They, too, were dismayed. They too were terrified. So they asked brothers, what shall we do? In Acts 2:37, they felt the weight of their crisis and they were dismayed. They were terrified by it. When we face our sin for what it is and we recognize the ways that we have offended others and the ways that we have affected, especially a holy God that is a crisis and that dismays us, should terrify us.

You know, many years ago. This is long before I was ever at Harvest. I spoke with a man who told me of how he had confessed to besetting sins to the woman who was now his wife, but then at the time his fiancée. He had confessed multiple times to his besetting sins again and again and it became increasingly serious until he realized that there was increasingly little room for him to sin in this way again, the stakes had become higher. Well, one time then he fell back into this besetting sin and he was terrified. He didn't know what he was going to do. The way he described it was he said it was like playing a game where you have this deck of cards and you keep playing them and you keep hoping the game is going to turn around, then finally you have the last card and you're hoping for the best because it's all you have left and it comes up and does nothing for you. The game was over. There was no card left to play. He realized that he was entirely, entirely without hope. In this relationship, the stakes are much higher than a bragging rights over a board game. This was the woman he loved. So what could he do? What could he say? Well, he realized that he was entirely dependent on grace, entirely dependent upon the grace of God, entirely dependent on the grace of this woman.

And as the story goes on, she did forgive him, and that it was that grace shown to him by God and through this woman, that was what finally transformed his heart, to realize that he couldn't continue in the way that he was carrying on with. But what he learned from that, what we must learn from this is that if we are guilty, there's no more wiggle room. There's nothing left to play. There are no more cards left in our deck. When we play that last card, there comes a time when we see our sin for what it is and realize that we have no hope before God and in this world.

It's a crisis that Joseph's brothers face. It's a crisis that the Jews on the day of Pentecost faced as they realized what they had done to the one whom God had made both Lord and Christ the beloved eternal Son of the Father. And it's a crisis that we face as we confront our sins.

So here these brothers, what are they going to do? They're confronted with Joseph. What can they say? What can they do? They've played their last cards. They are at the mercy of an Egyptian ruler. But this brings us to the second section, the clarification and verses for to the beginning of verse eight.

The Clarification

How will Joseph respond? He responds with kindness. The first word he says after they are unable to respond to his question of how their father is doing. He says, come near to me, please. Now this word, please. This isn't a command, a demand this is a petition, it's a kind word. Come near to me, please. And when they come near, he speaks to them again and says, "I am your brother, Joseph". He identifies himself again, but then he adds this, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt." Joseph is here putting his finger on the elephant in the room. If maybe they were hoping that he had forgotten about all of this and had amnesia about what had happened, even that's dispelled. He knows exactly who they are. He knows exactly what they have done. They are entirely at his mercy.

In verse five, though, mercy is exactly what Joseph gives them. Verse five, he says, "Now, do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here." And then he explains why. How could anyone respond after what Joseph has suffered? How could anyone respond this way? Don't worry about it. Don't be distressed. Don't be angry. How could he respond in this way? Well, he explains, here's how I can say this, "For God sent me before you to preserve life."

They were the ones who sold Joseph. I am Joseph, your brother whom you sold into Egypt. But God is the one who sent him. Joseph is recognizing that everything that has happened to him has come from essentially two sides. There have been two agents in this work. There have been two causes behind this. Joseph knows exactly the reasons and the motivations of his brothers for selling him into slavery. But he's saying now he also understands after 22 years have passed, this wasn't a quick answer. Now, he also understands the motive and the purpose behind God's sending him. It's to preserve life, specifically life in the context of this famine. In verse six, he says, "For the famine has been in the land these two years and there are yet five years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest."

Now, what's really interesting about the way that this famine is told, we were told at the beginning earlier in this story that there would be seven good years of plenty followed by those seven harsh years of famine. Well, in the story and the narrative, the seven years of plenty, they rushed by across seven short verses. There's only seven verses where we read about those good years. But then the seven years of famine stretch across seven long chapters from chapter 41 through 47. And the way that this the heaviness of this famine feels is reflected in the fact that we're five chapters deep and we're only two years into the course of this famine. Jacob has had to send his sons twice to Egypt to get more food to feed the family and we're only two years into a seven year course of famine.

Joseph is reflecting on this and he's saying there was a purpose behind God's sending me here. I know what your purpose was, your purpose was evil, but God had a purpose here to protect and to preserve life. Now, in the beginning, Joseph knew what was happening to him, he certainly could not have known why it was happening to him. But as we've seen him through the course of his life at every turn, he's shown that as he is looking to the face of God, trying to make some sense of this. He has always understood that whatever God's purposes are, they must be for good. Joseph's faith through all of this has never flagged. He has continued moment by moment, to trust God. And this isn't something that's just a question of abstract philosophy or theology. This question of how God is working in the midst of this evil isn't a question for academics in ivory towers. This is his life and it's filled with suffering. So, as Derek Cordner writes in his commentary in this passage, "Joseph is able to forgive because of his applied theology. He takes his theology about who God is and God's character and his purposes, and he applies it to the deep suffering in his life. And as he wrestles with their part and God's part, he's able to trust in God's purposes to the degree that it frees Him to then turn to his brothers and forgive them in this moment."

Joseph goes on. He says in verse seven, "And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on Earth and to keep alive for you many survivors." Like Noah Joseph is commissioned to preserve a remnant of God’s people so that God's redemptive purposes can continue on the Earth. And then as if to sort of underscore this, to put a punctuation mark at the end of it in verse eight, Joseph says, "So it was not you who sent me here, but God." It was not you who sent me here, but God.

Now, sometimes as we think about this, as we wrestle with where does evil fit into God's sovereign, his kingly control over everything that happens? How does this all work together? Well, sometimes people try to put these two together by saying, well, you know, maybe God wills only the good things. God only wills for the good things to happen. And he controls and sort of guides those good things. But then when the evil things were, they happen, but maybe God sort of steps back and simply permits those things to happen.

Well, Joseph, who suffers more than most. More than I have suffered. Certainly I won't speak for you, but Joseph, who suffered tremendously over the course of his life, he rejects that idea entirely. He says it was not you who sent me here. It wasn't that God permitted you to do something to me. You didn't send me here. God is the one who sent me here. God didn't merely permit this to happen. God willed this to happen. And yet we have to acknowledge that there's a tremendous amount of evil in what happened to Joseph to bring him here.

Now, there's a deep mystery in all of this. This isn't something that we can very easily answer and identify which part belongs to which about how God can exercise control over evil without being corrupted by evil or guilty of evil. But if you take the whole counsel of God in the Scriptures, if you try to wrestle with everything the Bible says about this, I think the best summary of this is written in our Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter five, paragraph four. And if you have the sermon worksheets that we've started to put out, I've written that they're for you. You can look at it. I'm not going to read that aloud right now because it's hard to listen to. It's better for you to go home and look at it. But Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter five, verse four. But there's one part of it that I want to zoom in on as it tries to explain, as it looks at all that the Scripture says about what God is doing, about how He works in and through evil without being guilty of that evil.

And it says that God's work is to give boundaries and to give order and to govern over evil so that he channels evil according to his holy ends toward his holy purposes. But in this God didn't start the evil. He is not the author or the approval of evil. Sinfulness does not come from God, for God is light and in Him there is not darkness at all.

The Bible talks about God's control over evil in the way that we might think about the way that civil engineers work to channel floodwaters. I've used this illustration before. It's the best way that the Bible talks about this to illustrate this. Flood waters, as we learned a couple of years ago in this state, and we're still recovering from in many ways. Flood water will go anywhere that it can. It'll just go as far as it can spread and it will destroy everything in its path.

So to mitigate this, civil engineers try to build up levees. They try to build up borders, boundaries on either side of where these flood waters might go, so that as the waters rise, they don't cross those levees and flood over into other areas. But not only do they build those levees, but they also work to channel where this flood water goes. They give boundaries to it, they order it, and they govern where it goes, especially so that they can bring something constructive and good out of it by trying, especially when they can channel these floodwaters toward hydroelectric dams. They take the water that would destroy homes, and instead they channel it in order to become electricity that can power those same homes.

Now, the engineers are not the ones who cause the floods. They don't instigate the floods. The floods doesn't come from the engineers, but the engineers work through this great evil of raging floodwaters to bring something good out of it. And that's how the Bible talks about evil. God is not the author or approver of sin. But whenever there is sin, whenever there is evil, it's never out of his control. It's never chaotic. God isn't sort of standing back hoping it doesn't go too far. God is always working to give boundaries and order and to govern evil, to channel it toward his holy ends, to accomplish good in the midst of evil.

The great example of this, the ultimate example of this is in the cross of Jesus Christ. Again, Peter preaching on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2:23, declared, "This Jesus, who was delivered up according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God", none of what happened to Christ happened apart from the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. But then he says, "You crucified and killed him by the hands of lawless men." The evil came from them, those who betrayed Jesus and demanded his crucifixion, and the lawless men who nailed him to the cross. But all of this came about according to God's perfect and righteous and holy plans. And God brought all of that, all of that great evil, when the Lord of Glory was crucified, God channeled all of that to the end, that we might be saved through what Jesus Christ did for us.

In the midst of our suffering, this is the compassion that we see, the compassion that radiates from the face of God and the face of Jesus Christ toward us as we see what God has done in and through His only son. We don't always know what God is doing. We don't always know why God is doing it. But the Bible is given to us so that we know that through all of this, God is channeling evil for a purpose. He did it at the cross and he is doing it in our lives.

Well, Joseph's response is grounded in his theology and his grappling with this, wrestling with understanding that even though his brothers were the ones who sold him into slavery, God is the one who sent them, and it was for good to preserve life. That doesn't excuse his brothers from what they have done, but it does provide Joseph the ability and the grounds for forgiving them. Not only does Joseph forgive and pardon his brothers who've sinned against him in this way. Joseph then turns into gives them a mission. He gives them a call. A charge. This last section is the call.

The Call

In Genesis 45:8b-15, we read there that Joseph says not only at the beginning of eight, "So it was not you who sent me here, but God has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, 'Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me Lord of all Egypt, come down to me, do not tarry.'"

Now stop there for a moment. There are a couple of things that are super interesting about this. Again, this passage is interesting in its own right, but this is given to us to foreshadow, to give us an example in the Old Testament, to inform the way in which we understand the resurrection and the resurrection appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, the first thing, what he said to his disciples, actually the last time he met with them before ascending into heaven, was to say, "All authority in Heaven, on earth has been given to me." Just as Joseph says, "God has made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house."

Again, Peter, preaching on the day of Pentecost about the significance of Christ resurrection, says, "This Jesus whom you crucified God has made Him both Lord and Christ." Just as Joseph became Lord in a smaller sense over all of Egypt, so much more Jesus Christ became Lord over all of Heaven and earth.

But now Joseph sends them on a mission to go to their father. And he says in verse nine, Hurry and go up to my father. Then at the very end of his speech, in verse 13, he says the same thing, hurry and bring my father down here. It's hard not to think about the angels at the tomb of Jesus, where when the first people to visit the empty tomb that the angels said, "Go quickly and tell His disciples that he is not here. He is risen from the dead." Joseph is saying, bear witness that I, who is dead, am now alive to my father and tell my father to come down here to Goshen.

Now, think about what he's saying. He's saying, come to Goshen, look at verse ten, "You shall dwell in the land of Goshen and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children's children and your flocks, your herds and all that you have. There I will provide for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come so that you and your household and all that you have do not come to poverty." Joseph is ensuring that his family will be provided for not just his father and not just his father's children, his brothers, but even their children's children. So the whole household of Israel, the entire nation of Israel is brought to Goshen. Goshen throughout the rest of the course of this family will be a place of plenty, surrounded by a world filled with famine.

Now in this way, Goshen is foreshadowing what God had promised to bring his people into in the land of Canaan. They're going to have to come from Canaan in the short term to the land of Egypt so Joseph could provide for them there. But eventually God is going to bring them back to the land of Canaan, which would be a land where God will provide richly for his people, a land flowing with milk and honey. But in the same way, Goshen then foreshadows the church, this place that is a refuge surrounded by a dry and weary and famine stricken world, spiritually speaking. Joseph here is foreshadowing Christ. That Christ brings us into the church, the place where He can provide for us and ensure that we are provided for, spiritually speaking, by his word and the sacraments. As we are told, of the Gospel of John until the day when He comes again, until the famine will be put to death forever, when Christ returns.

So Joseph says in verse 12, you're going to be eyewitnesses of this. Your eyes see, and the eyes of your brother Benjamin see that it is my mouth that speaks to you. In the same way Jesus will commission His disciples as eyewitnesses. You are witnesses of these things to declare that I am alive, Jesus says. In verse 13, Joseph says, "You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt and of all that you have seen, hurry and bring my father down here. Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept. And Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them. After that, his brothers talked with him."

What's so interesting about this is that Joseph is taking his fiercest enemies and sending them on an absolutely critical mission. It's critical that the people of God must come down to Egypt. And Joseph is entrusting his brothers with this mission, knowing that Benjamin is going to be with them as they make their trek back down to Jacob. What's to stop his brothers from murdering Benjamin and covering over the evidence of what they did to Joseph so many years before? They were willing to do it with Joseph, would they do it with Benjamin now? But Joseph is taking his fiercest enemies and turning them into his most trusted servants.

That's exactly what God loves to do. God loves turning his enemies into his most trusted servants. God knows that those who have been forgiven much will also love and much. The classic case of this is when Christ converted his chief persecutor, a man named Saul, who was on his way to Tarsus to arrest and drag off a number of Christians to persecute them again, to put them to death again. When Jesus Christ appeared to him to stop him from what he was doing and to turn him around. And after that, that man, Saul, was renamed Paul. Paul began one of the greatest eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus in the history of the church, because nothing glorifies God so much as converted sinners.

Application

Well, as you think about your life, as you think about your faith, as you think about your doubts, your fears, your sufferings. Here's our application today. Trust Christ to accomplish good out of this world's evil. Now, part of what that means is that we have a crisis in front of us, a crisis that confronts us with our sin. Evil is not something that is out there. Evil is something that is in me and that is in you. All of us born following after Adam and Eve, who first sin are born into sin so that it's something in which we are conceived and born into, it's a part of us. And out of that evil arises a number of sins where we have offended a holy righteous God. We're sinners before God Almighty. It's because of us, we are responsible for the crucifixion of the Lord of Glory. He went there for our sin.

So what do we do? How do we respond to this? Well, it Pentecost, when the Israelites, the House of Israel, asked what they should do, Peter responded with the promise of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Acts 2:38 and 39, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off. Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself."

Have you trusted in Christ this morning for your salvation? Have you recognized the crisis that faces you because you are guilty and have you look to the only refuge you have? You don't have a card to play on your own. Have you looked to Jesus Christ who died in your place so that you could be forgiven? That's the crisis. We have to face that.

The next part is probably the hardest part, that clarification. It's so hard for Christians to wrestle with where is God in the midst of my suffering? It's one thing to sit here this morning and to admire Joseph's faith, to admire how he discerned God's work, to bring good out of the evil that had been perpetrated against him. It's one thing to recognize on the basis of that faith, that Joseph forgave his brother. That's a wonderful thing that we could admire. It's a far different thing to apply that as applied theology to my life. It's a far different thing to trust that God is working good when I suffer evil and it's a far, far greater thing to forgive others on the basis of that applied theology.

What this story is getting at is the deepest expression of what faith is. It's to entrust ourselves to God's goodness and his good purposes, even when all we can see is evil. We are told that we walk not by sight, but by faith. We walk by faith and not by sight. We don't judge what's happening based on what we can see. We judge based on what God says in His Word. And even if you don't know what God is doing or why God is doing it, when you look to His Word, His Bible tells you that compassion and concern to root out your problem of sin is radiating from God in the face of Jesus Christ. Right now, in the horrors of what you are enduring, do you trust Christ to bring good out of that evil?

But God doesn't just give us this for our reflection. They're marvelous things that Christ takes his sworn enemies, sinners like you and me, converts them and sends them back into the world to bear witness to his resurrection life. Brothers and sisters, Christ knows better than you do how wicked this world is. Christ knows better than you do how much this world hates him and hates his people. But Christ nevertheless sends us into this world to bear witness that Jesus Christ is the one who died and who is alive forever more. Do you trust Christ to redeem evil people out of this evil world for good, just as he did with you?

This story, it's something that we read and admire, but there is much more going on here as God is bringing us into the story, the depths of the story, the fabric of the Gospel itself. This is about you and me as we respond to the Gospel of Jesus, as we wrestle with the evil perpetrated against us, and as we respond to the call of faith to bear witness to God in the world. So as you think about your life, trust Christ to accomplish good out of this world's evil.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we acknowledge that you are the good God who does bring good out of evil. We don't understand it, we struggle with that, but, Father, we pray that you would give us faith to believe it. Faith to trust and faith to entrust ourselves to your goodness, even when we are surrounded by great evil. We pray this for the glory of Jesus Christ, your son, our Savior, which is all to your glory, Father. We pray that the Holy Spirit would lift us to do this as he lifts our eyes to Christ, who is seated at your right hand. We pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen.