The Other Suffering Servant

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

How would it feel to look back on your worst personal tragedy… your worst moment of pain… or betrayal… only to realize that it was the means by which God did something incredible? Would it change your perspective on suffering? That is the story of Joseph. It forces us to wrestle with the mystery of suffering and the beauty of redemption.

And if we’re going to do a sermon series on finding Christ in the Old Testament, we have to cover the story of Joseph. One third of the book of Genesis is devoted to Joseph and one third of Stephen’s sermon in Acts chapter 7 is also devoted to Joseph. He is one of the most important Christ figures of the Old Testament.

But when the story begins, Joseph is not a likeable guy. He’s kind of a spoiled brat. Joseph was the youngest son of Jacob, the grandson of Abraham. And he was his father’s favorite child, which earned the resentment of his older brothers. We will begin reading in Genesis 37, verse 3:

3 Now Israel (also known as Jacob) loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors.

The Hebrew phrase is unclear. It could be an ornamental robe or simply a long robe with sleeves, but it was likely the robe of a manager, suggesting that Joseph had been given some authority in the household even though he was the youngest.

Parents, how would that go over with your kids? Not well, right?

4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.

And there’s a tension here, because this favoritism is sinful. Jacob should not love one son more than the others. And Joseph is not innocent. He takes the opportunity to brag about his status in the next few verses.

But the brothers also respond in sin. One day, Joseph goes looking for his brothers while they are tending sheep and his brothers conspired to kill him. They took his robe, threw him in a pit, and discussed a plan to murder him when this happened. It escalated really fast, but thankfully God intervened and provided another option.

28 Then Midianite traders passed by. And they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. They took Joseph to Egypt.

It’s not difficult to see the connections to Christ. Jesus is the beloved Son of the Father. He came into the world seeking lost sheep. He also was rejected, conspired against, and betrayed for silver. Right?

And as the story continues, Joseph is taken to Egypt where he becomes a servant in the house of a man named Potiphar. He faces pressure from the man’s wife to commit sin but refuses the temptation. He’s then falsely accused and imprisoned anyway. He spends about ten years in prison and then God orchestrates a plan to have Joseph exalted to Pharaoh’s right hand. He becomes the second most important person in Egypt.

Again, this has Jesus written all over it! We have a suffering servant resisting temptation. He is falsely accused and punished before being exalted to the right hand of God. How did the people of Israel miss this?!

And then Joseph used his position of power and authority to save his family from a famine, which required forgiveness and reconciliation with his brothers – the ones who betrayed him! Again, that’s Jesus right?

During the time of Genesis, there are no prophets, priests, or kings formally – but Joseph is the first person to demonstrate some of the characteristics of all three. He experiences prophetic dreams. He mediates God’s blessing to his family. He governs and protects his people with authority.

This makes Joseph a very special character. He’s not perfect, but he grows and matures as the story develops.

There’s also a powerful connection to the sovereign plan of God found in the story of Joseph. After Jacob dies, the older brothers are afraid that Joseph will finally punish and condemn them for their betrayal. But listen to what Joseph said to them:

19 “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.

Joseph recognized that the suffering in his life was for a greater purpose. He was humbled by it, and in the end, God used the evil actions of his brothers to save his whole family.

Peter says something very similar about Jesus in Acts 2.

23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

In other words, God used the evil actions of men to accomplish salvation through Christ. The greatest injustice in history – the crucifixion of Jesus Christ – was also the means of God’s redemption.

And so, very early in the Old Testament, we start to learn that suffering is a necessary part of the Gospel. We already know from Genesis 3 that God does not owe humans life, health, or prosperity. But He has promised His people a great future that would be provided by a great King.

We have learned through Abraham and Isaac that this future will require blood and sacrifice. And now in Joseph we learn that it will require suffering. Mostly, this points us to the life and work of Jesus. But it has implications for us as followers of Jesus as well.

First, it’s important to understand that God is sovereign, but He is not responsible for sin. Humans are still responsible for their moral decisions. God may use our bad decisions for his glory, but that isn’t an excuse to willfully choose sin when we are presented with the option. Joseph’s brothers didn’t know God was going to use their sin in this way. What they did was still evil.

Very often, God uses our biggest failures to reveal his grace. He never excuses our sin or ignores it; he forces us to come face to face with it. But in the middle of the wreckage we created, He may draw us closer to Him through repentance and faith. That doesn’t make our sin okay… it makes His grace amazing.

Second, I think it’s important to understand that God often uses suffering in the life of Christians to bring about his good purposes. The New Testament repeatedly promises that we will endure suffering for the sake of the Gospel. It should not surprise us.

In fact, we should be the only ones in the world NOT surprised or overly discouraged by suffering because we trust God with it. Expect it. Press into it. Let it push you more deeply into God’s Word to cling to His promises. As Peter says,

10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

If you’ve ever suffered a serious injury or needed surgery, you probably did some sort of physical therapy. It’s slow, painful work with someone pushing you to do what you mentally don’t want to do. In fact, the therapy is often worse than the injury itself. But your therapist isn’t being cruel. She’s committed to restoring your movement and strength.

This is suffering from the perspective of the Christian… we live in a world where sin is breaking everything down. God is committed to restoring this world, but suffering is part of the process until Jesus returns. And Revelation 21 says that when He does, God Himself will wipe away your tears.

Finally, if you’re struggling with this concept of suffering being part of the Christian life or if you are presently going through something difficult and you don’t see the purpose in it, I want to encourage you that Christianity is the only religion in the world that tells us about a God who embraced human suffering Himself.

Every other “god” sits in judgment, distant and removed, waiting for people to pull themselves out of suffering by their own efforts. Only the God of the Bible wrote Himself into the story to suffer like we do.

Three times in Genesis 39 – while Joseph was suffering in slavery and in prison – the text says, “The Lord was with Joseph”. He was not distant. He was right there.

And so, God’s providence in the story is not cold fate… it’s personal care. Unlike the gods of other religions, our God is personal, He is purposeful, and He is present throughout the story of the Bible and in your story. He’s not above the pain… He’s in it with us, most powerfully proven in the life and death of Jesus. … …

One last thing. There’s another important detail that is often missed in the story of Joseph. Joseph doesn’t use his authority only to bless his family. Look at the last verse of chapter 41:

57 Moreover, all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth.

God promised that Abraham’s offspring would be a blessing to the nations. God used Joseph to provide bread for hungry people all over the earth!

And what did Jesus call Himself? The bread of life. From the very beginning, it was God’s plan to bring spiritual nourishment to people all over the earth. It was never meant for the Israelites only. They were always meant to understand themselves as a people who had received blessing from God in order to distribute that blessing to the world.

In the story of Joseph, we see a foreshadowing of Christ, who was betrayed and broken so that He might feed the nations with the bread of life—and we learn that suffering is not the end of the story, but the place where grace does its deepest work.

Joseph forgave his brothers, but Jesus took it further. He didn’t just forgive the ones who betrayed Him—He died for them. Joseph gave them bread; He gave His body as the bread of life. Joseph was exalted to Pharaoh’s right hand, but Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God.

At the very end of the story, we find the brothers humble and grateful to be receiving forgiveness and blessing from the brother they betrayed. Judah in particular demonstrated deep and lasting repentance, which is significant because Jesus was born in the line of Judah.

We also should find ourselves humbled and grateful to be receiving forgiveness and blessing from Christ this morning.

And we should ask, who is our ‘brother’ that we still haven’t forgiven? Joseph had every right to be bitter—but grace made him whole. Jesus forgave you at your worst. Can you now withhold forgiveness from the person who has wronged you?

We should also be eager to share the bread of life with everyone. As one preacher said, “Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.” You don’t have to be a theologian to share the gospel. You just need to be someone who has tasted the bread of life. All it requires is a willingness to tell others what God has done for you personally.

And finally, for those who may be suffering this morning, your story may not look like Joseph’s. You may never get the vindication or the apology you hoped for. You might not live to see what God does with your suffering. But your story is being woven into Christ’s—and in Him, the end will be infinitely better than the beginning.