Article by Chris Gibbs, Pastor of Denver Baptist Church, Denver, NC

(original source: https://missionbeforeme.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-man-found-him-there.html

In Genesis 37 we read about the well-known story of Joseph, who is the 11th son of the old patriarch Jacob, whose father was Isaac, whose father with Abraham. We are told that Joseph is Jacob’s favorite son, which doesn’t sit well with his brothers. In fact, the text says that after Joseph was given a “robe of many colors” that his brothers “hated him and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him.” 
Joseph didn’t help improve relations with his brothers by telling them about a couple of dreams he had. The first involved seeing all these sheaves of grain bundled up and laying in a field. Joseph’s sheaf stood up, and his brothers sheaves bowed down before it. His brothers clearly understood the message–Joseph thought that one day he would rule over them.
The second dream didn’t sit any better with them. Joseph told them that he saw the sun, moon and eleven stars bowing down before him. Eleven stars represented his eleven brothers, the ones who already hated him (except for the youngest, Benjamin). This dream even upset dear old dad, who “rebuked him” for elevating himself as someone that even his parents would bow down to. 
If you know the rest of the story, then you know that it was to be true. What Joseph saw in those dreams actually happened. One day Jacob sent Joseph out to visit with his brothers, who had traveled some distance away to pasture the flock and herds. He wanted to know how things were going, so he sent Joseph to get a report and bring it back to him. When Joseph showed up the anger of his brothers showed out and they threw him into a pit. They debated whether or not they should kill him, but eventually decided to sell him into slavery when a caravan of Ishmaelites passed by. Say goodbye, Joseph, to your robe, your dreams, and your spot as dad’s favorite. 
The brothers watched Joseph ride off towards Egypt, then returned home with a mangled robe that they smeared with goat’s blood. Jacob mourned the “death” of his son, thinking a wild animal had torn him to pieces. 
Years later a severe famine would hit the land, and Jacob’s family would find themselves in a dire situation. Word had come that there was grain in Egypt, so off the boys went. You know how the story plays out–Joseph had been favored by God, risen to second in command, and put in place a savings plan that allowed there to be plenty of grain stored up when the famine hit. One day he notices his brothers, hoping to buy grain, and guess what? They eventually bow before Joseph, who in time reveals that he is their brother. Instead of killing them for their betrayal, he forgives them and  says, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.”
The small band of Israelites are saved from destruction, eventually move to Egypt and grow into a flourishing nation. From there they make it to the Promised Land, which God had promised their father Abraham when He made His covenant with him earlier in Genesis. Fast forward a few thousand years and another covenant promise is kept when Jesus, the “offspring” of Abraham comes on a mission to save sinners from another kind of destruction through His death and resurrection. In Him, Jesus, all the nations would be blessed, just as God had promised. 
It is a familiar story. But there is one event in Genesis 37 that is easy to overlook or quickly read past without thinking much about it. As I re-read this chapter, I sat on these words for a while, pondering them and wondering why they made it into the story. Here they are, from Genesis 37:15-17…

15  A man found him [Joseph] there, wandering in the field, and asked him, “What are you looking for?”
16  “I’m looking for my brothers,” Joseph said. “Can you tell me where they are pasturing the flocks?”
17  “They moved on from here,” the man said, “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.” So Joseph set out after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

Right in the middle of the story an unnamed man shows up and points Joseph in the right direction. Apparently he had been around his brothers earlier, close enough to hear them discuss their travel plans. 
Why is this little, seemingly insignificant event a part of this story? Who is this nameless man? What is the point? Those were the questions I rolled over in my mind as I read this chapter. I think I found the answer by asking some other questions: what if Joseph gives up looking for his brothers and goes back home? What if he is never sold into slavery and never winds up in Egypt? What if his family perishes during the future famine? What if the young band of Israelites is destroyed?
See, that little random, nameless man matters. He reminds us that the God we worship is a God who keeps His promises and accomplishes His plans. He had made a covenant with Abraham and He intended to keep it. There is young Joseph, wandering around in some field. Then suddenly this man shows up and points him in the right direction. It is possible that Joseph may have been sitting in the bottom of that pit, which his brothers overhead eating their lunch and plotting his demise, thinking, “I wish I had never met that man in the field.”
That encounter in that field wasn’t some random, lucky meeting. It was a weapon of war. Ever since Genesis 3:15, when God promised the serpent that he would be crushed by the seed of the woman, who is Jesus, that serpent had been trying to derail the redemptive plan of God, to wipe out God’s people so that the One promised never arrives. This happens over and over again in the Old Testament. Pharaoh orders all the Israelite baby boys thrown into the Nile. Goliath, dressed in armor that looks like snake scales, threatens to rip apart young David, from whom the true King would come. Haman tricks the king into passing a law that all the Jews should die, which sprung Queen Esther into action for “such a time as this.”
You really can summarize the redemptive story of the Bible with three phrases: Satan rages, God laughs, and Jesus wins. 
Satan doesn’t want God to keep His covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because he knows that means his ultimate defeat. He wants God’s promises to fail, so he rages against God’s people and wars against them. So, see Joseph scratching his head in that field as a pivotal moment in this spiritual war. “Go home Joseph,” the snake may have whispered. 
But God laughs. “He who sits in the heavens laughs…” (Psalm 2:4). He laughs in the face of anyone who thinks that they can diminish His glory or thwart His plans. Everything is under God’s control, including every little detail in the universe. Satan can rage and plot all he wants to against Jesus. He can stir up kings and generals to plot against those who follow Jesus. He can convene councils, lead rebellions, even possess people and lead them to act against the glory of God. He who sits in the heavens laughs. Why? Because nothing can stop Him from fulfilling His plan to rescue sinners, to defeat the devil, to exalt His Son Jesus Christ in all the earth. Nothing and no one can derail the sovereign plan of our all-powerful, all glorious, all gracious, holy, righteous, just, magnificent God!
In the end, Jesus wins. Like Joseph, Jesus was uniquely loved by His Father. He was also hated by His brothers, who rejected the idea that He would rule over them. Like Joseph, Jesus was also sent to His brothers by His Father, and those brothers conspired against Him, falsely accused Him, and handed Him over to Gentiles. Like Joseph, Jesus is sold for the price of a slave. He, too, is stripped of His garments and condemned to die. Like Joseph, Jesus is numbered with transgressors even though He was faithful amid temptation and was innocent. And also like Joseph, Jesus is exalted through humiliation, forgives those who betrayed Him and uses His power to save them.
But Jesus is unlike Joseph in one important way–his brothers only threatened to kill him but instead sent him away. Jesus’ brothers made good on their threats and actually put Him to death. Joseph can only offer grain to hungry people, that they may go and make bread; but Jesus is the bread come down from heaven. His body, represented at His table by bread, was broken for us. The blood of a goat is sprinkled on Joseph’s garment and presented to his father, which was a cover-up for their sin; but Jesus, the Lamb of God, presented His own blood to the Father as an offering for our sin. 
Just as people bowed before Joseph, the Bible says that one day “every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.” Joseph’s brothers found favor with Pharaoh because of their relationship to Joseph; today we find favor with God because of our relationship to Jesus. Joseph was called a “savior” in his day for saving his people from physical death; but Jesus has done something greater–He has delivered us from spiritual death in His cross and resurrection and has been given a name is the exalted above all names. Jesus wins.
Be encouraged that if God has gone to great lengths to keep His promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, He will keep His promises to you. Nothing can stop His plans from coming to pass. He is orchestrating every event of this universe to accomplish His desires–whether it is sending a nameless man to a field to direct Joseph, or some other event of history. 
So, fill your heart with hope today! Rest in His promises to you! Rejoice in the victory of Jesus! Be faithful to Him and His mission until He comes for you. Endure suffering, knowing that a day of deliverance has been promised for you. Stay the course, knowing that one day you shall see Him. Though Satan may rage, Jesus will not fail.