Suffering Grace
Genesis 37:12-36
In 2004, Christopher Booker came out with his book (one that he worked on for 34 years) The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. His premise states that there are only seven basic story plots for every fictional story ever written. Now, it is a theory, but it makes sense, and it is mind-boggling.
What fascinates me is that every plot has one thing in common and that one thing is conflict. Why conflict? You don’t have a story if you don’t have conflict. In every story or plot, there should be some obstacle to overcome or some conflict. Otherwise, you don’t have a story.
Every love story has conflict. As a lover of everything Hallmark, I can assure you that every Hallmark movie will have a conflict before you arrive at a happy ever after ending.
Ironically, this is true of the life of Grace. The life of grace in Christ Jesus is a love story. As a result, the love story will experience conflict. As a follower of Jesus, the story your life is telling will be characterized by conflict, suffering, struggles, and the like. No suffering, no story. No struggle, no story.
Human tendency is to separate grace and suffering. We live in the best life now culture. The best life now is one of blessing and favor, but not suffering. Right? What if I told you that the life of grace you are living would experience suffering?
When Jesus arrived in time and history, he came full of grace and truth (John 1:14). He is the life of grace, and he lived the life of grace, and his life experienced suffering. Think about this: God’s greatest act of grace consisted of his Son suffering for our sins. If God’s Son does not suffer for our sins so that we can have eternal life, and not condemnation, there is no story.
The life of Joseph, whom many believe is a type of Christ, recorded in Genesis is not a story if it doesn’t have suffering and struggle. Furthermore, the work of grace in Joseph’s life isn’t a work of grace if suffering does not characterize it. Grace and suffering go hand in hand.
The signs of suffering show up early in the Joseph narrative. Mainly, with the brothers, whom it says that they hated and were jealous of Joseph, more than once (Genesis 37:4,5,8,11). And somewhat with Jacob, the father of Joseph, after Joseph shared his dreams with him (Genesis 37:10).
Joseph’s dreams (Genesis 37:6-7,9) are the work of God. Without the dreams, you have no story, because the story is the unfolding of the dreams. The dream is God’s call to Joseph to live the life of Grace, and it is the dream, or shall I say the life of grace, that invites trouble and conflict. Without the dreams, you don’t have suffering grace.
Joseph’s grace journey unfolds with suffering because suffering accompanies the life of grace.
1. Suffering accompanies the life of grace
Joseph had a dream, a God-sized vision for his life and destiny. The dreams that God gave him emboldened him and most likely fed his ego. His pride rubbed his brothers wrong, hence, the growing hatred they had for him. The coat that Jacob gave Joseph set him apart as the heir, even though, he was not the rightful recipient. Joseph did not have to give himself to the mundane work of the family, so it is no surprise that Joseph is home with his father, and not tending the flock with his brothers in Shechem.
Jacob became concerned for his sons. As a result, he sends Joseph to check on them, “Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” And he said to him, “Here I am.” So he said to him, Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock, and bring me word. So he sent him from the Valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem” (Genesis 37:12-14). Nothing about this conversation, nor the trip to Shechem is unusual. However, this is the beginning of a series of events in the chapter revealing how suffering accompanies the life of grace.
The search for the brothers in Shechem proved to be empty for they were no longer in Shechem. Fortunately, there was a man that Joseph met who overheard the brothers talking about going to Dothan. The whole trip took about five days, but Joseph finally found his brothers in Dothan, “And the man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan” (Genesis 37:17). Upon his arrival the life of grace encounters suffering.
First, we notice Joseph’s rejection by his brothers, “They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him” (Genesis 37:18). Again in verse twenty, “Come now let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits” (Genesis 37:20). Bitterness has taken root and is now blossoming in the hearts of Joseph’s brothers. The verb “kill” in verse twenty is the same verb used when Cain kills Abel. This form of rejection results in a plan to commit ruthless violence.
Second, we notice Joseph’s abuse by his brothers, “So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore. And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it” (Genesis 37:23-24). The verbs used in verses 23 and 24 reveal a brutal assault by the brothers. They were planning on leaving him for dead, but God had a different plan.
Third, we notice Joseph’s insignificance from his brothers, “Then they sat down to eat” (Genesis 37:25). Sadly, the brothers were probably eating food that Joseph had brought for the brothers. As Joseph lay in the pit crying and groaning and pleading, the brothers sat around the fire laughing and joking, doing all they could to drown out the sounds of the dreamer.
Joseph’s rejection, abuse, and indifference are consequences of living the life of grace. Suffering will accompany the life of grace. It was true of Joseph, and it is true of every follower of Jesus Christ.
Our suffering and trials will vary because of sin and sinners. Trials will come through rejection, abuse, indifference, jealousy, hatred, sickness, and the like. At times the suffering seems cruel and brutal, especially when you understand that God allows suffering to accompany the life of grace. And it would be cruel and brutal if God did not use suffering to accomplish the plan of grace.
2. Suffering accomplishes the plan of grace
What is interesting about the story of Joseph is the absence of God, or so it seems, and yet God is still the hero of the story. The only indication of God in the story are the two dreams that Joseph received from the Lord; divine dreams that set the narrative of Joseph in motion. The story is God fulfilling the dreams. God is at work bringing the plan of grace to fulfillment. The suffering and disaster experienced by Joseph move beyond cruel events to works of grace.
Everything that happens in this chapter reveals the providence of God. Every event that happens does so to accomplish God’s plan of grace revealed in the dreams. Every series of seeming coincidences are the handy work of God, even though God never speaks, is never referred to, and seems completely absent.
God is working out every detail of the dreams in this chapter. If these things didn’t happen the way they did, then everybody dies because of the famine that was coming to the land. Not only does the whole family die, but the whole world dies because the messianic line dies in the famine.
Here is the point that is important to note. God’s plan of grace for you is completely compatible with the terrible discouragements, disappointments, and situations happening to you. In other words, God uses sin and suffering to fulfill his plan of grace.
The greatest example of this is Jesus Christ. God predetermined before the foundation of the world that he would send his Son to die for our sins. God would accomplish this through the sinful actions of religious leaders of Jesus’ day. When they yelled, “Crucify Him,” they were in tools in the hand of God, fulfilling the eternal purposes of God in Christ Jesus. Peter, in his Pentecost sermon, declared, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). Man’s evil fulfills God’s plan.
Back to you and me. God can use the failure, disappointment, discouragement, and suffering in our lives to bring about his plan of grace. It’s why Paul wrote these inspired words, “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). What’s the purpose? In a nutshell, “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29).
There is great comfort in knowing God’s working out his plan even though you feel like God is absent, or has abandoned you. We are more than conquerors, even when we don’t feel like it. I’m sure Joseph had his moments of total despair, as do all who are living the life of Grace.
Satan hates this valuable truth. He hates it when God takes what is evil and uses it to serve his righteous purposes. He hates the fact that God uses wicked people as his tools, allowing us the freedom to choose evil, while God uses his freedom to create goodness out of that evil.
God uses suffering to accomplish his plan of grace. Therefore, in the long run, God always wins. However, in the short run, the suffering in our lives can be uncomfortable. Fortunately, God uses suffering to accentuate the experience of grace.
3. Suffering accentuates the experience of grace
Suffering and grace go hand in hand. I know this truth doesn’t’ fit well with prosperity gospel people, but it is a reality. God uses suffering in the lives of his children to highlight his grace. Suffering becomes a means for experiencing more of God’s grace.
The apostle Paul fleshed out the theology of suffering and God’s grace well with his own life experiences in 2 Corinthians. In the fourth chapter, he wrote, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is waisting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal glory beyond comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:16-17). God uses suffering to showcase the power of his sustaining grace. Again, in chapter twelve, Paul speaks of his “thorn in the flesh” and how God would not remove it. Instead, the Lord would use Paul’s suffering to highlight his grace, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9). In suffering, God demonstrates his powerful grace.
No greater example of this truth than the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of God’s grace. We can have eternal life, and avoid eternal damnation. It is a gift that we must receive by faith. However, what accentuates and makes the gift of grace possible is the suffering Christ did on our behalf.
There’s a story, not sure how accurate it is, of a missionary who served many years working with an African tribal people. When it came time for him to retire and go back home to the states, many of the African people brought gifts to him before he departed. One of the men brought him a shell, one attained by several weeks journey from the village. The missionary commented on the journey it took to get the shell. The African tribesman said, “The journey was part of the gift.”
We don’t like to think of suffering as a gift, but God’s uses suffering in the journey of grace for his glory. Therefore, don’t waste your suffering. Don’t waste your cancer. Don’t waste your unemployment. Don’t waste your divorce. Don’t waste your failure. Realize that God uses suffering to accomplish his plan of grace, and accentuates the experience of grace in the midst of suffering.
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