Hey Carpool Crew! I'm Pastor Justin, and today we're back for episode 5 of our journey with Joseph. This is the last one. We made it. And I'm telling you, you're going to want to hear how this story ends because the ending is the kind of ending you don't see coming. Quick recap. Episode 1, Joseph got betrayed by his brothers and sold into Egypt. Episode 2, he became a slave in Potiphar's house and the Lord was with him. Episode 3, he got falsely accused and thrown in prison and the Lord was still with him. Episode 4, after thirteen long years of waiting, Pharaoh elevated him to second-in-command of Egypt. Today, the brothers come back into the picture. And what Joseph does with them is going to teach us something we'll all need for the rest of our lives. Let me ask you something. Is there anyone in your life who hurt you and you've never been able to fully let it go? Maybe a friend who left you out. Maybe a family member who said something cruel. Maybe somebody who lied about you and you can still feel the sting when you think about it. Forgiveness is one of the hardest things human beings ever try to do. And it's one of the most important things Jesus ever asked us to do. Joseph is about to give us a master class in it. Here's where the story picks up. The famine that Joseph predicted has hit. It's brutal. And it's not just hitting Egypt. It spreads all the way across the region, including Canaan, where Joseph's family still lives. Jacob, the dad, is now an old man. He's still grieving the son he thinks died years ago. He hears that there's grain in Egypt, and he sends his ten older sons down to buy food. Just ten. He keeps Benjamin, the youngest, home because Benjamin is the only full brother he has left of Joseph. The ten brothers travel south. They walk into Egypt. They go to the official in charge of distributing grain to bow before him and ask for help. They have no idea that the official is Joseph. He's now in his late thirties. He's clean-shaven Egyptian-style. He's wearing royal clothes. He's speaking through a translator in Egyptian. He looks nothing like the seventeen-year-old kid they sold to traders twenty years ago. But Joseph recognizes them. I want you to feel the size of that moment. Think about how many times Joseph must have imagined his brothers in his head over those twenty years. How many times he wondered if they ever felt sorry. How many times he wondered if they ever asked his dad about him. How many times he wondered if they were even still alive. And now, here they are. Bowing before him. Just like the dream said when he was seventeen. Joseph could have crushed them right there. He had the power. He could have arrested them. He could have killed them. He could have sent them home with empty bags and let his family starve. He had every legal, political, emotional, and practical reason to make them pay. He doesn't. What Joseph does is wise and surprising. He puts his brothers through some tests. Not to torture them. To see who they have become. He wants to know if they're still the kind of brothers who would sell a kid for twenty pieces of silver, or if they've changed. He sets up a situation where they have a chance to leave Benjamin behind to save themselves. And this time, they don't do it. Judah, the same brother who came up with the plan to sell Joseph in the first place, steps forward and says, "Take me instead. Don't let our father lose another son." That's when Joseph breaks. Genesis 45 says Joseph could no longer hold himself back. He sent all the Egyptians out of the room. And then he told his brothers in their own language. "I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?" Imagine the silence in that room. The brothers couldn't speak. They were terrified. The kid they sold was now the most powerful man in Egypt and he was standing right in front of them. And listen to what Joseph says next. He says, "Don't be grieved or angry with yourselves that you sold me here. God sent me ahead of you to preserve life." Read that twice. Joseph doesn't deny what they did. He doesn't pretend it didn't happen. He doesn't say, "It's no big deal." He says clearly, "You sold me here." And then he says something only somebody who has been walking with God a long time could say. "God sent me ahead of you to preserve life." Joseph could see what God had been doing the whole time. He brings his whole family down to Egypt. Jacob, his dad, gets to see his son alive again. The whole clan settles in a region called Goshen. Joseph feeds them through the entire famine. Years go by. Jacob eventually dies, and that's where this last twist comes in. After Jacob's funeral, the brothers get scared. They start whispering to each other, "What if Joseph has been holding a grudge this whole time and was just waiting for dad to die before he got revenge?" So they send Joseph a message basically saying, "Please forgive us. Please don't punish us." When Joseph reads it, the Bible says he wept. He weeps because they still don't get it. After all these years, they still think he's keeping score. Joseph calls them in. And here, in Genesis 50:20, comes the line that has changed lives for thousands of years. He says, "You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result, the survival of many people." You planned evil. Joseph names the truth. They did mean it for harm. He doesn't pretend. God planned it for good. God was at work the whole time. The survival of many people. The whole point was bigger than Joseph. It was bigger than the brothers. God was preserving His promise. God was keeping a family alive that would one day produce a Savior. Then Joseph says one more line that makes me tear up every time. "Therefore don't be afraid. I will take care of you and your children." And the Bible says he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. Now I want to look back at the whole arc with you, Carpool Crew. Step back and see what God did. A teenage boy gets sold by his brothers. He ends up in slavery. He gets falsely accused. He sits in prison for years. He waits. He stays faithful. God elevates him at exactly the right time to be in the exact right place to save the exact family God had been building since Abraham. Without Joseph in Egypt, his family doesn't survive the famine. Without his family surviving the famine, the nation of Israel doesn't grow. Without Israel, no Bethlehem. Without Bethlehem, no manger. Without the manger, no Jesus. The whole story Joseph went through was holding open the door for the bigger story God was telling all the way to Jesus. You see it? God was never wasting Joseph's pain. God was using it. The cistern, the slavery, the lie, the prison, the forgotten years, the hard rooms. All of it was preserving something bigger than Joseph could see while he was in the middle of it. That's the One Thing today. What people meant for harm, God can turn into healing, even years later. Here's where I want this to land for you, Carpool Crew. Two things. One. If somebody hurt you, you don't have to pretend it didn't happen. Joseph didn't pretend. Forgiveness isn't lying about what happened. Forgiveness is naming what happened and choosing not to let it run your life. Forgiveness is trusting that God can do something with the pain you didn't ask for. Two. The God who turned Joseph's pain into healing is the same God walking with you. He doesn't waste anything. The hard chapter you're in right now is not the end of your story. God is up to something bigger than you can see from where you're sitting. So if somebody asked you, "What did we learn from Joseph?" here's what I want you to be able to say. God uses real people, with real pain, in real time, to do real things. Joseph wasn't perfect. His family wasn't perfect. But God was faithful. From the cistern to the throne to the family reunion, God was always with him. And He's with you, too. Thanks for riding along with us through this whole journey on Carpooling with Heroes of the Bible! Joseph's story showed us five things we don't want to forget. People won't always get you, but God does. When everything around you changes, God doesn't. The hard rooms are where God does some of His best work. God's promotions come at God's pace. And what people meant for harm, God can turn into healing. Hold onto that. We'll see you back here next month for a brand-new five-episode journey with another hero of the Bible. And remember, real people. Real God. Real story. Always. I'm Pastor Justin. Thanks for riding along.
