Galen Call's Sermon Library
"When Life Isn't Fair" - July 12, 1998
Father, that is our prayer that we might know you more, but often we do not want the experiences of life that in fact become the answers to that prayer. As we look at the life of Joseph beginning today, I pray that you will indeed help us to know you more and to understand how and why you are working in our lives as you are. In Christ's name, amen. Eight-year-old Danny Dutton lives in Chula Vista, California. For his third grade class, he was given a homework assignment to "explain God." This is a third grader now who is attempting to explain God in his own language. One of God's main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die, so there will be enough people to take care of things here on earth. He doesn't make grown-ups, just babies. I think because they are the smaller and easier to make. That way, he doesn't have to take up his valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to mothers and fathers. God's second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times besides bedtime. God doesn't have time to listen to the radio or TV on account of this. Since he hears everything, not only prayers, there must be a terrible lot of noise in his ears, unless he has thought of a way to turn it off. God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere, which keeps him pretty busy. So you shouldn't go wasting his time by going over your parents' head asking for something they've said you couldn't have. Atheists are people who don't believe in God. I don't think there are any atheists in Chula Vista. At least there aren't any who come to our church. Then he makes some practical applications to his beliefs about God. He says you should always go to church on Sunday because it makes God happy. And if there's anybody you want to make happy, it's God. Don't skip church to do something you think would be more fun like going to the beach. This is wrong. And besides, the sun doesn't come out of the beach until noon anyway. I love that. If you don't believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely because your parents can't go everywhere with you, like the camp. If God can, it's good to know he's around you when you're scared in the dark and when you can't swim very good and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids. But you shouldn't just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and he can take me back any time he pleases. And that's why I believe in God, isn't that great? If you were given the assignment, explain God, how would you go about that? Well, obviously, the first thing that most of us would think of, ideally at least, is that we ought to go to the Bible. God's word to see what it says about God. But I wonder if, practically speaking, too often we don't interpret God by the experiences of our lives. So that if our circumstances are unpleasant, we would explain God one way. But if our circumstances are disagreeable, we might tend to interpret God another way. It is really a big mistake to paint a portrait of God with a pallet and brush that are formed by the happenings of our lives this past week or in the week ahead. We will create a likeness of God if we do that that is distorted and untrue. What we need rather to do is to let God interpret our circumstances instead of letting our circumstances interpret God. Joseph did this as we're going to see. But although his life was not fair in many respects, the result of Joseph knowing God through his experiences is the life of a man who was unblemished as far as the Bible is concerned. Joseph became a preeminent example of a man of faith. There are four men who dominate the last 39 chapters of Genesis. Abram, Isaac, Jacob, and now, as we're going to see, Joseph. Nothing about Joseph is recorded that is immoral or unfavorable. He stands unique as an example of a man of sterling character, but his life was not easy. In fact, in many ways, he was the victim of the hatred and jealousy of others. His circumstances were unfair, and so today I want us to think about when life is unfair. Life's circumstances may in fact be unfair. God does not promise it otherwise, as a matter of fact. Life was unfair for Joseph, and we're going to see that in the narrative today. In fact, we're going to see that Joseph is hated unfairly. I'll begin reading in verse 1 of Genesis 37. Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned in the land of Canaan. That brings to an end the section of Genesis that we've been working our way through, and now we pick up a new section where it begins by saying these are the records of the generations of Jacob. So now he is going to tell us about Jacob's family, and Joseph is going to be the preeminent one on display. Joseph, when 17 years of age, was pastoring the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Billah and the sons of Zilpa, his father's wives. And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph. Israel, as you know, is the new name for Jacob, God's new name for his new man. Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a very colored tunic. And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and so they hated him, and could not speak to him in friendly terms. And Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. And he said to them, "Please listen to this dream which I've had." And behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect and behold your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf. And his brothers said to him, "Are you actually going to reign over us? Are you really going to rule over us?" And so they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Now he had still another dream and related it to his brothers and said, "Lo, I've had still another dream, and behold, the son and the moon and the eleven stars were bowing down to me." And he related it to his father and to his brothers and his father rebuked him and said to him, "What is this dream that you've had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?" And his brothers were jealous of him, but the father kept the saying in mind. Joseph is the son of his father's old age as we read here. He had ten older half-brothers and one half-sister who was older. Why did they hate this young man of seventeen years of age? He is a fine young man. And yet three times in this chapter, as we've read, they hated him. They hated him. Joseph summarizes it by saying that they were jealous of him. Well, notice some things that we can point to in this chapter that help explain why they were jealous and therefore hated Joseph. In the first place we see the issue of their father's partiality in verse three. He favored Joseph above all of the rest and was not embarrassed at all to proclaim this openly by giving to Joseph a very special robe. This robe or this coat, which is probably best understood as one that had long sleeves in which reached down to his feet, rather than as being many colored, was a special coat. It symbolized his exaltation above the others in their father's mind. This robe was one that marked him as a man of distinction. It was a robe that would be worn by the prince or by the primary heir in an eastern clan or family. Joseph's brothers understood very, very well what this coat symbolized in their father's mind and that he was indeed the primary heir and considered to be the prince of the family, although they were older. We see this word for the robe used one other time in 2 Samuel 13 verses 18 and 19, where it is there said to be the dress or the apparel of the child of the king. And so that gives you the idea of what this robe symbolizes to Joseph's brothers. Their father's partiality was one reason that they hated him, but there is another. It is this bad report that Joseph brought back to their father. Joseph disclosed to Jacob some evil in his brother's conduct. The word evil here is a rather general word, but it suggests some kind of moral evil in their conduct. And so Joseph came back home to dad and told dad about it, and as a result of that his brothers hated him. Now this raises an issue that is a problem for some people, and especially for younger people in life, and that is when is it right to tell someone that another person has done something wrong? To grow up with the idea that being a tattle tale is wrong. You remember the little rhymes that you had in grade school regarding tattle tales? I remember one which I will not repeat this morning. But I grew up not wanting to be a tattle tale, didn't you? And in fact the book of Proverbs warns us that we should not be tale bearers. The idea there being gossips. But when is it right to tell on someone? I think it's good to ask three questions of myself before I decide to tell. In the first place is the tale true? Is it accurate? Is it verifiable? Am I sure of the authenticity of what I'm considering telling? Is it true? Secondly, are my motives pure? Are my motives with concern and love or with malice and jealousy? Am I doing this for the good of the person who needs to be told on? Or am I doing it to make myself look good? Am I doing it to gain some personal advantage? Are my motives pure and third, who needs to know? Not everybody does. But if somebody is in trouble, somebody has done something wrong, they are endangering themselves, then someone may need to be told. So if today you are the possessor of information about somebody, you need to ask those three questions at least before you decide exactly what you're going to do. I believe that Joseph could have asked each of those questions of himself and passed the test. But whatever it was, it was some kind of conduct that jeopardized Jacob's flocks, Jacob's reputation, and therefore Joseph was concerned about it. His motive was pure. We see in this young man a certain innocence, almost a naivete. There is a purity about him. And as I have said twice now, the Word of God never says anything bad about Joseph. And so we would merely assume that his motives were right. And he told the right person. He told his father, who was in charge of everything in that Eastern clan. But that bad report got him into big trouble with his brothers. There were consequences because he told and sometimes that is the case when we tell. They were jealous of him and they hated him all the more. And then there is the matter of the dreams, thirdly. Joseph had two of them, both of them, indicating that he was superior to his brothers. Now we can wonder about his wisdom in telling the dreams to his brothers. And yet again the Word of God never says that he was wrong in doing so. And indeed as the story plays out over the coming years we see why he did tell them. But at this point they misinterpret what he is saying. And they hate him even more deeply because he seems to be arrogant and proud. And is saying that he is going to rule over them. There are other reasons why they might have hated him, well, undoubtedly there were. Perhaps even his moral uprightness brought a certain conviction to their hearts because of their corrupt behavior. And they hated him for that. Was this fair? No it was not. It was not fair. But Joseph nonetheless was hated. Then we see that Joseph has rejected it, verses 12 to 28. Jacob sends Joseph on an assignment to check on the welfare of his brothers. And so he begins a rather long journey actually. The total of the journey is about a hundred miles. This was not go over to the next valley or go to the mountaintop that you can see there in the distance. He traveled a long way to find his brothers. They saw him coming in the distance. They knew him, perhaps from the coat he was wearing. And it says in verse 18 that they plotted against him to put him to death. My how they hated their brother. They said we are going to kill him. And they said to one another, here comes that dreamer. Now then come and let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. We will say a wild beast devoured him. Then let us see what will become of his dreams. Well you can see what's sticking in their craw, can't you? But Reuben, remember that Reuben is the first born who blew his privileges as the first born. But nonetheless the first born of the family. He heard this and he rescued him out of their hands and said, let us not take his life. Reuben further said to them, shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in this wilderness. But do not lay hands on him. Then Moses notes that he might rescue him out of their hands to restore him to his father. So Reuben did not really go along with this plot to reject and to kill Joseph. He had another scheme in mind and so it came about when Joseph reached his brothers that they stripped him of his tunic, the very colored tunic that was on him. And they took him and threw him into the pit. Now the pit was empty without any water in it. This pit is to be thought of as perhaps a water cistern that was empty and was deep. He could not get out by himself. And so their brother is in this pit and it says in verse 25, then they set down to eat a meal. Isn't that amazing? Their brother is in the pit. They can hear him yelling and screaming and yet they sit down to eat a meal that tells you the hardness of the heart that is infected by hatred. As they raise their eyes and look behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead with their camels bearing aromatic gum and balm and murr on their way to bring them down to Egypt. And so they were very near one of these trails, these caravan routes. And Judah said to his brothers, "What prophet is it for us to kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh, and his brothers listen to him." Then some Midianite traders passed by, these are the same people as the Ishmaelites, and so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver, thus they brought Joseph into Egypt. So Joseph is not only hated, Joseph is rejected. He came to do a good deed, he came to fulfill the assignment of his father. He came on a mission to his brothers, but was rejected by them. And they rejected him with a particular cruelty. It wasn't that they merely said, "Go away from us, go back home to your father." Whether they initially intended to kill him, then threw him into a pit and ultimately sold him as a slave. Joseph is rejected. Is this fair? I should say not, but it happened. The chapter concludes telling us that Joseph is lost. Verse twenty-nine, Reuben returned to the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit. So Reuben had not been a part of this whole thing up to this point. He did not know of the plan to sell Joseph as a slave. He came back to the pit, saw his brother was gone, and he tore his garments, an evidence of the grief and the sorrow and his heart. And he returned to his brothers and said, "The boy is not there. As for me, where am I to go?" It is he felt responsible as the oldest of them, for this the youngest of them. And so they took Joseph's tunic and slaughtered a male goat and dipped the tunic in the blood. And they sent a very colored tunic and brought it to their father and said, "We found this. Please examine it to see whether it is your son's tunic or not." And he examined it and said, "It is my son's tunic. A wild beast has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces." And so Jacob tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his loins and mourn for his son many days. Then all his sons and all his daughters rose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, "Surely, I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son." And so his father wept for him. Joseph is lost, he's gone. Jacob doesn't know the truth. His sons have schemed against him as he's schemed against his father, Isaac. But Joseph is lost. He greatly grieved the death of his beloved son. And the screen fades there in Cain and at Hebron with this old man dressed in sackcloth weeping day after day after day that his son Joseph is gone from him. But as the screen fades there, there's another screen that lightens up. It's down in Egypt, verse 36. Meanwhile the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh's officer, the captain of the bodyguard. And so the story is going to go on from there and we'll see what God is doing. But I ask you, in this chapter where Joseph has been demoted from prince to slave and is lost to his family, he will not return to Canaan in his lifetime. He is lost to his father. Is this fair? Did this young man deserve this? Are the circumstances of his life such that we would say this is fair? No. Everything in this chapter is unfair. And I'll tell you it would be a big mistake, a big mistake to interpret God with these wrongful and unfair circumstances. Joseph might have done that, but he didn't. Joseph might have tried to explain God by the unfair experiences of his life. And he'd done so, his explanation of God would have been distorted and untrue. Life may be unfair, but I want to close by saying God is faithful. Life may be unfair, and it often is, but God is faithful. That's the young couple who have been married for ten years and whose peers have all had children, and they themselves are childless and they long for children. Ask them if they feel that that's fair. Ask the person who works for a company where he deserves a promotion or she deserves a promotion, and because of the policies of the company, they're looked over in favor of someone else who has less seniority, less ability because of perhaps affirmative action. Is that fair? Ask the senior adult who is just struggling to make it on social security, and then the health care doesn't come through in some way that it should. And they're plunged into increasing poverty because of that month by month. Is that fair? Because life is unfair, but one thing I want to write on your heart this morning is this. God is faithful. We must let God interpret the circumstances in Joseph's life as well as ours. We might think ourselves that God has somehow missed Joseph, but he's overlooked Joseph, and he's perhaps turned his back on Joseph in the events of chapter 37. But that is not the case. In fact, in the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit says through Stephen in the chapter 7 verses 9 through 10, "And the patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt. And yet God was with him." God was with him. The hymn writer William Cooper writes and stands in one of his hymns that says, "Blind unbelief is sure to err, and view God's work in vain. God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain." How big is our mistake when we allow our circumstances and our experiences to interpret what God is like? Let God be his own interpreter. Let him interpret your circumstances and experiences, and he will make it plain. I would be remiss this morning if I did not point out some of the ways in which Joseph wonderfully prefigures the life of the son of another father, the Father in heaven. Warren Wearsby puts it succinctly when he states, "Joseph was greatly loved by his father, hated and envied by his brothers, plotted against, sold as a slave, arrested unjustly and made to suffer. But he went from suffering to glory, and became the Savior of the people who had rejected him." How well that paragraph summarizes how Joseph was like Jesus. In fact, there is no other Old Testament character that more completely foreshadows Christ than does Joseph. It was life fair to Jesus, of course not. Like Joseph and like Jesus, you too can expect that life is going to hold its share of unfair experiences, but like them also you can trust that God will be faithful to you. That's why I want to close with that familiar text in Proverbs chapter 3. That seems to be such an exhortation to us in light of the fact that life is unfair. It begins by saying, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." What is it saying? Number one, depend on his name, the Lord's name, and not your own understanding. Now remember that a name in the Bible stands for the character of someone. Jacob means deceiver and schemer. His name was changed to Israel, which means a prince with God. The name represents character. Here we are told, "Trust in the Lord." That is his name. It means that he is the eternal, covenant keeping God. Trust in the Lord. That idea of trust says Dr. G.R. Driver, that idea of trust is lying helplessly, face downward. So that when you and I are trusting in the Lord, it means that we are giving ourselves up to depend entirely upon him. We are as it were on our faces before him. He says, "Do not lean on your own understanding." That is, do not support yourself with how you interpret things. Do not lean upon your own explanation of your circumstances, but trust in the Lord. He keeps his word, therefore you can live on his promises, but don't live under your circumstances. Place your entire confidence in his wisdom and his goodness, in his power to keep you, even when life is unfair. Secondly the verse says, "In all your ways acknowledge him." Notice the second all there, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, in all your ways acknowledge him." What is he saying? Number two, discover him in your circumstances. Acknowledge him. That is, know him in all your ways. Learn him. Learn of him by your experiences. Learn to know him by reflecting upon what you are experiencing and thinking about that. Be aware of him in all of your circumstances. Fellowship with him when life is unfair. Cry out to him. Seek his face when your life's circumstances are pleasant then give thanks and when your life is weary some submit. But discover him in all your circumstances. And then number three, he says, "He will make your path straight." That is, divine direction is assured. You see the process? Depend on his name, his character, not upon your own understanding of your unfair circumstances. Over him in all of your circumstances, divine direction is assured. He will direct your paths. He will make them straight. Did God do this for Joseph? He did. He did. God was faithful to Joseph. We're going to study about that in weeks ahead. But he will direct you to your destination as we were driving back from Kentucky a couple of weeks ago. We got just outside of Madison, Wisconsin and came across one of those summer expectations of road construction on Highway Interstate 94. And there was this sign blinking that said, "One hour delay ahead." That's enough to pull off to a motel as far as I'm concerned. But then it said, "Take detour." So we took the detour and we went out of our way so it seemed to Stoughton, Wisconsin. And we drove and we drove behind this line of trucks that was infinite in front of us. We went through this small town with two stoplights and backups for two miles at each one of them. We finally got out of the town and drove further behind this long line of trucks in the south part of Madison until we saw another sign that finally said, "Interstate 94." We got back on the interstate and went without a hitch. No one hour delay. It seemed rather frustrating unfair after all I've been driving all day. Hours had passed since we had our last meal and now I'm going to be delayed. Life is so unfair but you know what can you do? We followed the directions. We got right back to the interstate. There are times when detours come into our lives too. And we say, "This isn't fair. I've been doing this a long time. I'm tired. I'm weary. This is delay. What is the purpose in this?" But if we will do what Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 tells us to do, to trust in him, his character, and lean not to our own understanding, if we discover him in all of our circumstances then divine direction will be assured. And eventually we will see that the road, where the road resumes and we'll understand why the detour was there. When I got home, I got out my atlas, I always bring my atlas, not this time of course, when I need it. So I got out my atlas and I looked and you know something? It was hardly a detour at all. It was a slower highway. It was a two-lane highway but the mileage was almost the same on the detour. Let God be your foundation when life is unfair. Let God interpret your circumstances. Let him do that this morning. Let's pray. Are you being tempted to explain God out of your unfair experiences of life? Friend, if you do that, you will have a distorted picture of God. Rather today you need to lean not any longer upon your own understanding. But lie face down helplessly before him and say, I place my confidence alone in you. Try out to him, discover him in your circumstances. He will give you his divine direction. Will you do that today? I hope you will. Let's sing together with our heads bowed, "Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take him at his word, just to trust upon his promise, just to know. Thus saith the Lord, let's stand. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him, how I've proved him more and more. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, oh for grace to trust him more." Lord Jesus, you know that life is unfair. You have lived in this world. Forgive us when we strive and fret and misunderstand you, misinterpret your hand in our lives. Today we lay aside those fleshly human tendencies and determined by your grace to trust you more in your name we pray, amen. God bless you, we're dismissed. 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