Comfort for the Fearful Heart

COMFORT FOR THE FEARFUL HEART

An Exposition of Genesis 50:15-21

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: September 22, 2024

Series: The Book of Genesis

Note: Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

Good morning. I invite you to turn to Genesis chapter 50. Duncan, it's good to see you back there up from Florida. I really appreciated the words that Ben had shared because we really do find ourselves in the same boat as sinners and we sin and we're sinned against and that's the boat we find ourselves in. And we really need high doses of the grace of God. And as we come to this text this morning, my desire for all of us is that we would be overwhelmed by the grace and mercy of a holy God.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

So I'm going to go ahead and read From Genesis chapter 50, just seven verses, verses 15-21.God's holy word says,

¹⁵ When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” ¹⁶ So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: ¹⁷ ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. ¹⁸ His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.”¹⁹ But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? ²⁰ As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. ²¹ So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. (Genesis 50:15-21)

This is the word of the Lord and it is for our good. Let me pray:

Heavenly Father, we come before your word as men and women and children who need to hear your word, who need to encounter your comfort and grace one more time to sustain us and transform us. So Father, I pray that through the words that are spoken from this pulpit that you would do a deeper work which only you can do in the hearts of the people, that you would speak into our hearts and minds and shine your light there and bring transformation to us. In Jesus’ name, amen.

THE TROUBLED HEART (v. 15)

The first thing I want you to notice as we survey this passage is I want you to notice the troubled heart. Looking at verse 15, obviously the hearts of Joseph's brothers are troubled, and we'll get to that in a moment. But the hearts of many human beings are troubled. The hearts of all human beings are troubled at some time, past, present or future. And many cven in this present moment have hearts that are troubled. And our hearts may be troubled for any number of reasons. And I hope that if your heart is troubled this morning for any reason, that God conveys grace and help and comfort to your soul this morning.

But thinking of this passage in particular, sometimes our hearts are troubled because of the lingering impact of past sins. And the lingering impact of past sins brings present anxieties and fears and uncertainties into our minds. Just think about what Joseph's brothers are experiencing here. Their evil, which they call evil, the evil that they did to Joseph – this evil was committed 39 years earlier. Almost four decades ago. But here they are troubled. Of course, they had sold their brother Joseph into slavery and then covered it up with deceit. And I'm sure that they hoped that the whole thing would just be forgotten. But they stumbled upon something else when they began to make their trips to Egypt during the days of famine and discovered that their brother Joseph was alive.

And when they were reunited with Joseph, when Joseph revealed himself to them, Joseph had enormous grace and care and compassion for his brothers. He obviously had a tender heart of forgiveness toward them. He wept over them. He was glad to see them. He was resolved to care for them. And that's what he had done. He had taken care of them for the last 17 years.

But Joseph's brothers had a doubt in their mind. And the doubt was that just perhaps Joseph really doesn't have a heart of forgiveness and kindness toward us. It's just possible that Joseph really has hate toward us. It’s just possible that only because our father was still alive these past 17 years, that Jacob's presence hemmed in Joseph's hate, and that, you know, Joseph kept up good behavior on account of his father being around. But now, as we looked at last week, now Jacob has died. The father is now out of the picture. That restraining influence is gone. As the brothers are thinking about this, and they think that now with dad out of the picture, it just may be that Joseph will now give vent to anger and retaliate and pay us back for the evil that we did to him.

Joseph's brothers were not 100% convinced that Joseph had forgiven them. And thus they were not able to rest in the comfort of full forgiveness. And I wonder how many people, even perhaps here, how many people are troubled by the lingering impact of past sins. Maybe it was 39 years ago, maybe it was 39 months ago. Maybe it was 39 days ago. Who knows what the sin might have been that troubles you? We fill the world with all kinds of evil deeds. The evil deeds that Joseph's brothers did were the kind of crime that was met with capital punishment in the law of Moses that would be given later in the book of Exodus. That was a serious violation of God's character. But people may be troubled by an abortion in the past or by some sexual sin, pornography, fornication, adultery. People may be thinking back to outbursts of anger, violence, abusive speech, great harm that they have done, stealing in large or small quantities, lying, maybe simply having regrets about the way that you've conducted your life and certain decisions that you have made. And now, many years on, you realize that, boy, you got a little bit off course many years ago, and look where it's gotten you. And you know that you did evil. Just like they did in verse 15. You know that you did evil, and it was sort of dealt with. You know, you might say, I think that maybe I was forgiven by the other person or by the Lord. Gotta think in both terms. But I have doubts. I'm still concerned that it's gonna come back to haunt me. I'm still concerned that I'm gonna be paid back in kind for the evil that I have done.

And a lot of people live there. We ought to be living in the good of the gospel. We ought to be living in the freedom of God's grace. And it's so easy to say that, like some formula, you know. It's so easy to say, live in the good of God's grace, mercy and peace. But a lot of people, a lot of the time, spend time looking over their shoulder. They wonder what's around the corner. A lot of people inside the church are devoted to managing their anxieties and managing their guilt feelings. And it results in all kinds of bad fruit.

So we've noticed the troubled heart.

THE TROUBLED HEART TRIES TO MAKE PEACE (v. 16-18)

Now, the second thing that I want you to notice is that the troubled heart tries to make peace. And you see this in verses 16 to 18. Since troubled hearts are troubled, and since no one likes to go around troubled, the troubled heart has no choice but to try to fix it – try to fix the problem, try to patch things up, try to make peace.

And a common way to try to make peace is to multiply apologies and promises. That'll work, That'll bring appeasement, that'll bring peace. Now, you might ask me, isn't it a good thing for people who have done wrong to make peace with the person that they have hurt? And the answer, of course, is yes, of course. Those who have caused harm should seek to make peace with those that they have hurt.

But that's not exactly what's going on here. You've got to understand the context. For Joseph's part, Joseph has been at peace and had a gracious, forgiving and generous disposition toward his brothers for at least the last 17 years. And presumably the Lord brought about a peace in Joseph before that time, before he was reunited with his brothers. And so Joseph, he doesn't need to be appeased. He doesn't need to be placated. He doesn't need to be won over. He already has a heart of love and kindness and generosity toward his brothers. But the brothers are not resting in Joseph's gracious disposition toward him. They have their doubts.

And so the brothers do three things on their side in order to try to make peace. What are those three things?

The first thing: they share a word reportedly from Dad

Well, the first thing that they do there in verses 16 and 17 is that they bring forth an exhortation reportedly given by their father before their father died. They say in this message to Joseph, “Your father”, emphasizing his personal relationship with his father. “Your father gave this command before he died: ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’” (v. 16-17) They bring the weight of their father and their father's relationship with Joseph – they bring the weight of that to bear in order to, you know, encourage Joseph to be graciously disposed to them. Now many people think that the brothers are making this up. Many people think that Jacob never said such a thing or issued such a command. And honestly, I kind of lean in that direction myself. But the text doesn't clearly tell us one way or the other. It is possible that these troubled brothers did seek counsel from their father Jacob before they died. And perhaps they obtained some word of exhortation from their father. But in any case, they pass this message along to Joseph, whether they're making it up or not.

The second thing: they request forgiveness

The second thing they do to try to make peace with Joseph is that they themselves issue an apology, right? They say, “And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” (v. 17) Again, those words are carefully chosen. You know, the God of your father. The God of your father, we're his servants, okay? We got some good, strong relational connections here. Now, please forgive us for the transgression that we did.

The third thing: they fall down before Joseph

And the third thing that they do is that they come and fall down before him and they say to Joseph, “Behold, we are your servants.” (v. 18) This is full of irony. You know, the whole dramatic Joseph narrative kicked off with Joseph having these dreams in which he would be exalted over his brothers, and his brothers would bow down before him and honor him. And his brothers wanted nothing to do with that. They wanted nothing to do with Joseph and his grand visions and dreams. In fact, they wanted to eliminate him. They wanted to kill him, but they ended up selling him into slavery. And they certainly hoped that selling him into slavery would bring about an end to Joseph and to Joseph's dreams. They wanted nothing to do with Joseph ruling over them. And yet now, now they realize in this act of desperation that for their part, their whole well-being, their whole future well-being now depends upon them being in good graces with Joseph, who holds a superior position over them. And so they come and fall down before him. 

Joseph wept

Now notice I skipped over those words at the end of verse 17 where it says that “Joseph wept when they spoke to him.” Now, the text doesn't tell us exactly why Joseph wept, but we know that Joseph had a tender heart for his brothers and for his father. And Joseph was apt to weep. I mean, the Joseph narrative here in Genesis 37-50 tells us over and over again that Joseph wept. Just think about this.

• In Genesis chapter 42, when the brothers visited Egypt the first time, they confessed their sin in Joseph's presence, although they didn't know it was Joseph. And at that time, when Joseph heard their confession, Joseph “turned away from them and wept” (Genesis 42:24).

• And then in Genesis 43, when the brothers visited Egypt the second time, and it was Benjamin's first visit to Egypt, and when Joseph saw his dear brother Benjamin, “his compassion grew warm for his brother, and he sought a place to weep. And he entered his chamber and wept there” (Genesis 43:30).

• And at the end of his brother's second visit, when Judah was making this impassioned appeal to take Benjamin's place, they still didn't know that they were talking to Joseph. But Joseph could not control himself (Genesis 45:1) and his heart broke forth with great emotion and “he wept aloud” (Genesis 45:2). And after speaking to his brothers, then Joseph “fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he [Joseph] kissed all his brothers and wept upon them” (Genesis 45:14-15).

• In Genesis chapter 46, when the brothers came to Egypt the third time, and this time with their father, Joseph finally got to see his beloved father, and Joseph “presented himself to him and fell on his neck and wept on his neck” (Genesis 46:29).

• And then at the moment his father died, we saw this last week in Genesis 50, verse 1, “Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him.” (Genesis 50:1).

You can see a pattern. Joseph was a man of God, a man of tender heart, a man who knew how to weep with longing and love for his brothers. I have no doubt that his weeping here in verse 17 reflects the tenderhearted love that he has for his brothers. It's also entirely possible that mixed in with his tears is a sorrow at his brother's unbelief and how slow of heart they are to trust him who truly has compassion and grace. His tears seemed to say something like, I have nothing but love for you. I forgave you a long time ago, and now all I have toward you is compassion and kindness.

Were the brothers’ efforts effective?

Now you might ask, were the brothers’ efforts at making peace effective? Well, in one sense, they were not effective at all because they were completely beside the point. Joseph didn't need to be made peace with, didn't need to be pacified, didn't need to be appeased, didn't need to be won over. And so in that sense, they didn't accomplish anything on Joseph's side in terms of bringing about a change of disposition from Joseph. He loved them and did not hate them. He was gracious to them and did not hold a grudge against them.

That said, the fact that the brothers reveal their troubled heart does give Joseph an opportunity to address their fear, which in fact he does in verses 19 to 21.

THE TROUBLED HEART IS MET WITH GRACE (v. 19-21)

And so let's move to this third section here. I want you to notice that here in verses 19-21, the troubled heart is met with grace. I want us to ponder Joseph's gracious words on two levels. First of all, I want us to see Joseph as a model human being who demonstrates grace to troubled hearts. And then secondly, I want us to see Joseph's gracious words as a window into the divine grace that comes to us through Jesus Christ.

Joseph as a model human being who demonstrates grace

So first of all, I want us to see Joseph as a model human being who demonstrates grace to troubled hearts. Listen, troubled hearts need grace. And we, as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are called to be conduits of forgiveness, right? We know how important forgiveness is. Joseph had forgiven his brothers a long time ago, and he had a forgiving and gracious disposition toward them. But in the New Testament, we hear instructions like, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32)We'll hear instructions like, “forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37) In the Lord's Prayer, we pray, “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). And right after the Lord's Prayer, Jesus instructs his disciples that if you withhold forgiveness from your brothers and sisters, then your Heavenly Father will withhold forgiveness from you, but if you forgive your brothers and sisters, then you will continue to enjoy the forgiveness and grace from your Heavenly Father (Matthew 6:14-15). “For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:38)

So Joseph had already forgiven them. But now in this passage, these brothers are expressing their own doubts. And notice that even in the way that Joseph responds to their doubts, he is gracious. He doesn't berate them, belittle them, shame them or lecture them. He doesn't say, what in the world are you talking about? Don't you understand what I did 17 years ago? He doesn't take their doubts personally, but instead he is resolved to bring forth comfort and encouragement that they need.

And so I just want to encourage us to walk in a continual attitude of forgiveness toward one another. And Joseph's reasoning process can help us cultivate forgiveness. So right now I'm speaking to us as those who need to forgive others. I'll eventually speak to us as those who need to be forgiven. But for a moment, I want to speak to those of us who need to be forgivers, okay? Notice the thought process that Joseph goes through starting in verse 19.

Joseph knows his place

Joseph knows his place. He says, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God?” (v. 19) Joseph knows his place. And he knows that his place is not the place of God. There is one God, there is one Judge, There is one Searcher of all hearts, there is One who will make all things right in perfect judgment on the last day. And Joseph knows that that's not his role. His role is to be a servant of God and to be a messenger of grace.

Joseph knows God’s plan

But Joseph doesn't only know his place, he also knows God's plan. Look at verse 20: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” (v. 20) Now, Joseph is talking about something very specific, of course, and let's recall that before we get to the general principle. But the specific thing is that, yeah, his brothers meant evil against Joseph. That's what the selling into slavery was all about. They were trying to get rid of him and harm him and exclude him from the family and send him into exile and be done with him forever. They intended evil against him, “but God meant it” – the very same events, the very same dynamics that were unfolding – “God meant it for good”. In those events and dynamics, the brothers had one purpose, one narrow, narrowly focused, selfish, evil purpose. But God, in the context of those same events, had a big, glorious purpose in mind by which he meant to do good to many people – not only Jacob's family, not only Joseph's extended family, but also to the Egyptians and indeed many people throughout the Ancient Near East in the days of famine. So that's very specific. And remember, Joseph is not speaking about these things clinically, okay? He suffered greatly right in the middle of this. He is the one who was sold. He is the one who was taken away. He is the one who was exiled. He is the one who spent all this time away from his family. And it was eventually in that foreign context where he was falsely accused and thrown into prison as well. So this isn't just some kind of clinical answer that Joseph is giving. He lived and suffered and was afflicted greatly in the middle of this. But he was able to get perspective where it wasn't just him and his own experience responding to his brothers, but he was able to see, wow, God has a big picture, glorious and gracious plan here. Joseph was able to see, ‘I'm included in this good that God has intended to do and has done. And that sets my heart at ease.’ Okay?

Now this principle is clearly set forth in the New Testament as a general principle that we should place the totality of our lives and the totality of our experience under, you know it, right? Under Romans 8:28, which says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) All things work together for the good of God’s people, because God sees to it that all things do!

And so, the fact of the matter is, like I said before, everyone in here is a sinner. Everyone in here has sinned against God, everyone in here has sinned against other people, and everyone in here has been sinned against by other people. That is life in this fallen, sinful world. Yeah, there are varying degrees depending on our exact experience, but we're all in that same boat. And if we are just focused on me, my comfort, my immediate experience, my short-term prospects for prosperity and ease, then we could get very embittered that someone has done something to seemingly ruin that. But if we can understand that a gracious God overrules all of that in such a way that he is bringing about sanctification, spiritual growth and transformation in the life of his people and that the goodness of that will never end, but we will enjoy the Lord now and forever.

Again, these things are not to be said clinically or as kind of a cliche like, hey, just, you know, snap out of it and get your act together. But rather these are things that we really have to go deeply into and that have to go deeply into us so that we can come to a place of showing grace and actually doing what Jesus said when he said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” (Luke 6:27-28).

Joseph is submitted to God’s gracious purpose

Finally, in terms of understanding the reasoning process of Joseph, he knows his place and he knows God's plan. If you know your place that you are not God, but you are a servant of God, and if you know God's plan, which is a gracious plan, even working through and overruling evil, then you know what your job is. Your job is to align yourself under God's gracious purpose. In other words, Joseph is resolved to act in accordance with God's plan. God's plan is to do good.

I, as a servant of God, must get underneath the will of God and then be a conduit of good. That's what he says in verse 21: “So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” That is Joseph submitting himself gladly, graciously and eagerly to the plan of God, which was to preserve life and do good to the many. “Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.” (v. 21)

By the way, when it says he spoke kindly to them, it literally says that he comforted them and spoke kindly to their inner man or to their minds or to their hearts. Again, he's not just throwing words in the air. He loves these men who were standing before him and he is speaking to their hearts. He wants comfort and kindness and grace and encouragement to get into the depths of their inner man so that they would be set at ease.

Joseph as a window into the divine grace that comes through Jesus Christ

I mentioned that I want us to see Joseph not only as a model human being who demonstrates grace to troubled hearts, but also as a window into the divine grace that comes through our Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what I want us to ponder now. I want us to see ourselves as sinners who are prone to have anxious and troubled hearts, even sometimes over past sins. And we might wonder, Am I really forgiven? Is God maybe holding out on me because of what I did. Maybe I'm a second-class citizen in the family of God. And people compensate for their doubts by multiplying apologies, promises, acts of penance.

Roman Catholics talk about acts of penance, but it is the nature of sinful human beings of every stripe to do acts of penance. We try to do things, to do the right thing, check the right boxes, go through the right motions in order to somehow get God on our side. But our own apologies, our own repentance, our own resolution, our own track record is never enough to bring about God's forgiveness, and it's never enough to assure us that we've been forgiven. And so what I want to declare to you is the Gospel according to Joseph.

And when I say the Gospel according to Joseph, what I mean is the Gospel of Jesus Christ told through the lens of the narrative about Joseph. I'm not going to go back and make all the explicit points of connection, but if you've been tracking with us through these sermons, or if you're familiar with the Joseph narrative, then you should have lights going off in your head, okay?

So I want to tell you about our Savior. He is the Father's beloved Son, uniquely clothed with the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, who came into this world in order to be exalted as Messiah and King. He came to his own people. He came to his own brothers, as it were, but they rejected Him. They didn't want him to rule over them. So he was sold for 30 pieces of silver and handed over to the Gentiles. Throughout his life, he faced a variety of temptations, but he never yielded to sin. He was familiar with suffering, acquainted with grief, and knew what it meant to occupy a low position without grumbling or complaining. He was falsely accused and sentenced to a punishment that he did not deserve. For Joseph, it was as if he had died from the perspective of those who rejected and sold him. For Jesus, he actually did suffer and die upon the cross.

But the rejected one was raised up. The Father exalted his Son to his right hand as Messiah and Lord so that he might provide living bread for all the world, to as many as come to him and believe in Him. Those who rejected him spit upon him. Those who plotted against him and sold him, those who mocked him and abused him, they meant evil against him. They meant to get rid of him and his message. They meant to suppress the truth forever. But God meant it for good. God sent Jesus ahead of us, bearing our sins through judgment and death, in order to vanquish the power of sin and death and bring us safely into fellowship with the Father. Joseph was not in the place of God, but Jesus is in the place of God.

The Father has entrusted all judgment to his Son. And he, the Lord and Judge of all, gently says to every troubled heart, every bruised reed, every faintly burning wick, every trembling sinner who looks to him with mustard seed faith – He says, ‘My son, my daughter, your sins are forgiven. As for you, you meant evil against me, but my Father meant it for good to bring it about that many people would look upon me and be saved to the uttermost and be raised up on the last day. So do not fear, I will provide for you and your little ones now and forevermore.’

Listen, brothers and sisters, many have troubled hearts. And you need to understand that our attempts to make peace, our attempts to appease and placate, our attempts to exercise repentance and make resolution to do better, our apologies and prayers in some sense are really lame and they will never secure our peace. You need a rock-solid foundation for your peace, joy and hope. And it is not in anything that you do. It is in what God has done through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in the shed blood of our Lord.

And perhaps this very day, you, my fellow believer, need to see and understand that some sin of your past is under the blood and that that is God's definitive and final word. You see, for Joseph's brothers at that moment when they were going to Joseph with troubled hearts, the grace of God that was being expressed in and through the life of Joseph, that grace was not definitive to them. They were still concerned that their evil was going to be paid back. But evil has been addressed fully and finally upon the cross for everyone who believes. One hymn writer wrote these words: “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.” Earlier we sang the hymn entitled “The Old Rugged Cross”. And I was thinking about that hymn and what I was about to say up here. And I was thinking along these lines: I am clinging to the old rugged cross. I believe, but I am not clinging to my belief. I am clinging to the old rugged cross. I believe myself to be repentant, but I am not clinging to my repentance. I am clinging to the old rugged cross. I desire to live a holy life and love the people around me, But I am not clinging to my holy desires which evaporate all too quickly anyway. I am clinging to the old rugged cross.

And I just want to tell you my brothers and sisters do likewise: Cherish and cling to the old rugged cross. Believe in the great love that the Father has for you. If you're in Christ, he's not counting your sins against you. He's put his sins behind his back. He's separated them as far as the east is from the west. He's buried them in the sea of forgetfulness.

If you're here this morning and you're not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you need to understand that outside of Christ, outside of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be paid back for your sins. Look to Jesus. Jesus was paid back, as it were, for your sins, so that you don't have to be, and so that you could be forgiven and justified and reconciled to God and enjoy being part of God's family forever.

Let's pray:

Father, I pray that you would do what only you can do, which is to communicate your grace, mercy and peace to our hearts. Father, for all of the anxieties and hang-ups and guilt feelings and shame that is represented in this sanctuary, and there's a lot of it because it's full of sinners, I pray that you would have mercy upon us, that you would comfort and quiet our hearts under your almighty gracious hand and that you would give us the ability, the capacity to demonstrate grace and kindness to each other. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.