Lessons in the Midst of Adversity Genesis 43:1-10

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In addition to my sermon preparation each Sunday, I have my own Bible reading time where I just sit down and I don't have an agenda.
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I'm just reading through the Bible. And what I've been doing for a couple of years is slowly reading through Scripture.
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I'm always amazed when what I read from Scripture in personal time lines up with what
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I am preaching from Genesis. That happened this week in my reading. This morning in our sermon, we are going to see one of Joseph's brothers change from pure evil to good.
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He is going to go from selfishness to selflessness. Now in my own personal
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Bible time, I was reading Jeremiah 13. The context of this passage is
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Judah, the southern part of Israel, where Jerusalem was located, has been very sinful.
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They've forgotten the Lord and gone after other gods. The wickedness of the people was so rampant in the whole land.
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And the prophet Jeremiah prophesied that because of their wickedness, they were going to be destroyed and they were going to be taken away out of the land into exile by the
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Babylonians. Now what he tells the people, when he tells them that they're going to go into exile, is that the people are being described.
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In Jeremiah 13, 22 and 23, the Lord says through Jeremiah about the people, and if you say in your heart, why have these things come upon me?
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It is for the greatness of your iniquity that your skirts are lifted up and you suffer violence.
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Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to doing evil.
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What the Lord is saying is the likelihood of you changing, these wicked people, is the same as a man changing his skin color or a leopard changing his spots.
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In other words, it's very unlikely that you will change for the better in the future.
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In fact, it's impossible, unless, and that's the important word here, unless something happens.
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Unless God brings you to your knees in repentance. Today, we are going to see one of Joseph's brothers who was very accustomed to doing evil, do something much different from his old way of doing things.
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I'm going to argue this change occurs because the Lord produced this true change in him.
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Now today's sermon is once again a two -part sermon. We're going to look at part one today and that's verses 1 -10 of Genesis 43.
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And then next Sunday, we're going to look at verses 11 -34 of Genesis 43.
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So I encourage you to turn with me to Genesis 43. And if you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on pages 43 and 44.
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This two -part sermon is titled Lessons in the
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Midst of Adversity. Lessons in the Midst of Adversity. And our big idea, our proposition, is the challenges of Joseph's family provides us key insights about the life of faith.
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The challenges of Joseph's family provides us key insights about the life of faith. These are treasures that we're going to see over the next two
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Sundays, and I can't wait to unfold this to you. So these three faith lessons, the first faith lesson that we'll see this morning is that you can change for the better.
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You can change for the better. Now before we jump into the text, let me give a little recap of last week's sermon.
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We looked at Joseph's encounter with his brothers as he accused them of being spies.
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He took this opportunity to prick their conscience. Twenty years had passed since they committed the horrible sin of plotting to kill him, throwing him in the pit, and selling him into slavery.
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And as we saw the last several weeks, a great famine came over the land of Egypt and the whole earth.
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Pharaoh dreamed that this would happen. Joseph interpreted his dream to him. Pharaoh was so impressed with Joseph that he appointed him to be the one to manage the crisis in Egypt.
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Pharaoh gave Joseph so much power that only Pharaoh had more power than him in all the land.
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And as Joseph's brothers stood before him to get food because of the famine, their sin of the past was brought to the surface as they were accused of being something they were not.
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Of course, we know they weren't spies, but Joseph told them that they were spies.
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And Joseph did this to bring their guilt upon them so that they would have to deal with the egregious sin that they had been hiding for 20 years.
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And the application for us was this. To continue to cover an egregious sin is never worth it.
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To continue to cover any sin is never worth it. And in this one big sermon from chapter 42 that took two weeks to get through, we saw two reasons why it's never worth it to cover sin.
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The first reason is that your conscience will never stop haunting you. And the second reason is that God will deal with your sin either now or later.
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For anyone who does not have a relationship with Christ, the application is this. Believe in Him so that you no longer carry the weight of your sin with you.
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And when you believe in Him, not only do you not carry the constant burden of your sin, but you will not face punishment in the future.
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On the other hand, for believers, we should be those who strive not to sin. With the Spirit's help, you can pursue righteousness and live a holy life.
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But we also know the Bible says you will not be completely free from sin until you enter God's glory.
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So while we should strive not to sin, when we do sin, we should be quick to repent. Don't carry your sin with you, but acknowledge it before the
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Lord and say, Lord, I have sinned in this way. And I'll even confess to you right now, before I even came up to preach here,
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I was thinking, Lord, I need to bring something before you right now, before I come up there to preach. And I did that.
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And I was thinking, I have to do it right now. And we need to be in the habit of doing that. Now, this leads us to our text today.
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We saw last week that Joseph's brothers returned to Canaan to tell their family what
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Joseph told them, namely that he was testing their honesty. And to prove it, they had to bring the youngest brother,
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Benjamin, back to Egypt with them. Now we will see them go back to Egypt this morning, but Jacob needs to be persuaded.
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And we know why he needs to be persuaded. Remember, all those years before, he sent his beloved son,
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Joseph, his youngest son, out to meet his brothers to check on them.
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And what happened? He came back. Joseph, Jacob didn't think he made it back. His brothers lied to him and said that this beautiful coat that he made for him was torn to pieces by this wild animal.
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And of course, he doesn't want to send Benjamin out with them because this is what happened last time.
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But let's first get a little background here before they have this conversation together. Verses one and two of chapter 43.
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Now the famine was severe in the land. And when they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, go again, buy us a little food.
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Let's stop right there. So what we see at first is the grain they received from Egypt is running out.
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And they're faced with this crisis once again. And of course, probably their only option here is to go back to Egypt to get more food.
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But they're in a difficult position here because as we're going to see, Jacob is not ready just to send his son, his beloved son
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Benjamin, into harm's way. So Jacob's sons have some persuading to do for them to be able to take
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Benjamin with them to get more food. So let's look at verses three through five. And one of the brothers steps up in a big way.
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But Judah said to him, the man solemnly warned us saying, you shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.
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If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. But if you will not send him, we will not go down.
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For the man said to us, you shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.
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Now we've already seen that Jacob does not want his son Benjamin to depart from him.
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This is his beloved son that came from Rachel. Remember Joseph came from Rachel and Benjamin came from Rachel.
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So these sons are so precious to Jacob. So let's see what he says in verse six, what
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Jacob says. Israel said, I forget the name, why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?
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Now the brothers replied to this in verse seven by defending the man that they brought up Benjamin in the conversation.
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Verse seven, they replied, the man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred saying, is your father still alive?
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Do you have another brother? It just randomly says that like he doesn't know this to be true.
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What we told him was in answer to these questions, could we in any way know that he would say, bring your brother down?
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So as their brothers defend bringing Benjamin into the conversation and therefore putting him at risk, that's why
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Jacob is so upset here. One brother steps up to the plate in a big way and it comes from an unexpected one,
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Judah. So let's look at verses 8 -10. And this is what
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I want us to see today. I want us to zero in on Judah today. And I know it's warm in here, so we're just going to focus on him and I'm praying that we get out of this what we need to get out of it.
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Verses 8 -10, And Judah said to Israel his father, send the boy with me, and we will arise and go that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones.
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I will be a pledge of his safety. From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever.
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If we had not delayed, we would have returned twice. So we're going to stop right there for this morning.
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So Judah tells Jacob in verse 8, we have to go.
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If we don't go to Egypt to get food, we're going to die.
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So losing Benjamin should be the least of your worries. Then in verse 9, he does something very noble.
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What he tells his father is that if he does not come back safely, the blame is on me.
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Not on all the brothers. Not on my children. Remember Reuben? Reuben said this in chapter 42 -47.
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Reuben told his father that if I do not bring Benjamin back to you, that you can kill my two sons.
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Judah is different from Reuben. Judah takes the responsibility on himself alone.
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Now Reuben may have said that in chapter 42 because he was the oldest son and he might have felt obligated saying, well, I'm the oldest.
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Being the oldest child brings certain responsibilities. And so therefore, I should step up to the plate here and put the blame on my children.
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But Judah has no such responsibility. He's not the oldest son.
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And yet, of the ten sons here, only one of them steps up.
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And it's Judah. And he says, if something happens to Benjamin, the blame falls 100 % on me.
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So as Judah steps out for his family in order to persuade Jacob, it's important for us to remember his background.
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Up to this point, we've only seen negative from him. Joseph's brothers have an ugly history as we have seen as we've gone through Genesis.
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And Judah is one of the key culprits. You might be able to argue that he's the worst of them all.
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In 3726, it was Judah's idea to sell Joseph into slavery. He was willing to give up his brother in order to make a little money.
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I mean, you can't go much lower than that. In chapter 38, we looked at the story of Judah and Tamar.
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And you might be thinking, I thought that was in the past. Well, I'm going to talk about it here again just to give you a little recap. Let me explain that to you.
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Remember, Tamar was Judah's daughter -in -law. She was married to Judah's first son who died and then given to his second son who died.
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Now Judah did not want to give his third son to Tamar because he thought this woman is cursed.
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Every son I give to her dies. So what happened is he promised that he would give his third son to her and he sent her away to her father's house for a little while.
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But what happened is he never did. He made this promise to Tamar, never planning on keeping the promise.
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So Tamar was disappointed that Judah didn't keep his promise. She was a widow.
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She wanted to have a spouse. She wanted to have children. And so what happened is that out of her anger, she disguised herself in order that she would lie with Judah.
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And this is, of course, what happened. And what happened is that two children came out of this,
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Perez and Zerah. Remember, Judah didn't recognize that this was his daughter -in -law, but it was.
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That was such an important narrative because through Perez, not Zerah, but through Perez, the firstborn, would eventually come the line through which
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Jesus Christ would come. So that's why that story is so important in Genesis 38. But what
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I want to emphasize here is the ugliness of what Judah did. Judah was not only a liar in chapter 38, in that he did not give his third son to Tamar, but much worse, he was willing to sleep with a prostitute.
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And he did this and it ended up being his daughter -in -law who disguised herself. And this brought great shame upon him when this hidden sin was brought to his attention.
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And I bring these stories up to show that things have changed drastically for Judah.
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Things have changed drastically. Maybe this guilt of the past that Joseph brought to the surface is changing him.
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We saw that last week. They've thought for themselves. We're being accused of being spies and we have this money in our bags that we thought we paid for the grain and now he's gonna think we're thieves.
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These bad things are happening to us because of what we did to our brother 20 years earlier. So these things happening to them in the present made them think how horrible what we did in the past.
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And they're starting to feel guilty about it. That the sin is being brought to the forefront.
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Sin leads to a guilty conscience and you can't run from your sin forever. You either need to deal with it now or later.
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And how much better to repent, bringing it before God and changing, than facing
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God at the judgment having never dealt with your sin. And so as I pointed out last week,
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God is being gracious to Joseph's brothers by bringing the sin through his providence.
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Providentially, he's bringing the sin right in their faces and they can't run from it anymore.
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Now I mentioned last week that at the end of this narrative in Genesis, it appears that there is true repentance that takes place for Joseph's brothers.
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We'll see this down the road later on this summer or maybe fall, depending on how long it takes us to get there.
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But in Genesis 50, 17, this is what the brothers say to Joseph. They say, please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you.
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They sent that to a messenger on their behalf. And they say, and now please forgive the transgression of the servants of the
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God of your father. So this repentance may be starting in Judah right here.
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This once wicked son. Years earlier, he was willing to sell his younger brother
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Joseph into slavery. And now he is pledging to protect his younger brother
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Benjamin. You see the opposite happening here? And if something goes wrong, he will bear the blame.
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This is quite a change that has taken place in Judah. Brianna and I were talking about this yesterday as we were driving in the car.
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And I was explaining to her what I'm gonna talk about today. And she even finished what I was gonna say because she's been following the story closely.
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And she's like, wait, Judah is treating his younger brother Benjamin, the beloved son well when before he sold his younger brother
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Joseph into slavery. I was amazed reading some commentaries this week.
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They didn't see this. And I think, I mean, you can see it, right? You can see it with me.
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As we've been following this narrative closely. And it goes to show by the way, sometimes scholars are the stupidest people of all.
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They miss the most obvious things. It's right there for us to see. Let's just see it together. So this was repentance that's taking place.
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This repentance is taking place in Judah. That's what I'm arguing based on what we see in the text.
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Now, how is this a faith lesson to us? The answer is quite clear. We may wonder how much we can change in order to move in the right direction toward more godliness.
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What's amazing is that God changes people from the most wretched sinners to be very holy people.
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He does this. And everyone here who knows Christ knows this. And we just need to be reminded of this.
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You are a sinner whom God has set apart for himself. And as the spirit has worked in your life, you have seen some growth.
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And God's design is that you would see more growth as you go through the life of faith. Drastic change takes place from unbelief to belief.
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And also in your walk with the Lord. When Jesus told the parable of the sower, he described the fourth seed.
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The first three seeds that Jesus described either were snatched away or they didn't grow at all.
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And by the way, what the seed represents is the seed describes different people.
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And the way that the word of God works in people's lives. So some people wither right away, but the fourth seed is the one that actually produces a crop.
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We know this, right? We're surrounded by crops all over the place here. And it's a farmer's desire when they plant those seeds is that they wouldn't get snatched away and that they wouldn't wither quickly, but that they would produce.
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And in Mark 4, 8, when Jesus described the seed, he says, and other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding 30 fold and 60 fold and 100 fold.
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So what happened with the fourth seed is that lasting change took place. Some bear a little fruit, others bear some more and still others bear much.
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And that's neat how you can see that. Not everybody grows the same, right? Some are 30 fold, some are 60 fold, some are 100 fold.
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And that's encouraging, right? Because we're not, we may not all grow to the maximum amount we can in this life.
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But the point is that there should be some growth taking place if you're a follower of Christ. There should be some growth.
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Now, you may be here and you never trusted in Christ for your salvation.
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And if that's the case, then you are in bondage to sin. But in Christ, you can be set free from that bondage.
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And I shared John 8 36 last week that says, if the son has set you free, you will be free indeed.
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And this is true conversion that takes place when that happens. And this seems to be what's happening to Judah right here in our texts here in Genesis 43.
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To bring a true drastic change to your life, a relationship with Christ must happen.
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It must. Now, it is true that people can have some superficial outward change.
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We saw that with Esau in chapter 32. He went from plotting to kill his brother
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Jacob to 20 years later treating him so well. And what I made the argument in that sermon many months ago is that this was not a true conversion because we know that because the
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Bible says that Esau was an unsaved person. However, there was some outward superficial change that took place in him.
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And you see this happen in our world, right? Someone goes on a 10 step program or whatever it might be.
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And you know what? They might bring some superficial change, but that's not the change that we're talking about here. We're talking about true lasting change where the
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Holy Spirit breaks into your life and he makes you a completely new person.
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The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5 .17, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
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The old has gone. The new has come. So for true spiritual change to happen, one needs to believe in Christ and the
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Holy Spirit needs to be given to that person. And according to the parable of the sower that I referenced above, there is no truly significant lasting change unless Jesus produces it in you.
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This true change produced by the Spirit appears to be what's happening to Judah right here.
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He has a genuine care for his brother that he did not have before. That doesn't just happen to someone.
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And you add to the fact that in Genesis 50 .17, the verse I just read above, that true repentance later takes place in these brothers at the end of the book.
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So we have a good indication that true change is taking place in a man who was very dark not too long before this.
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He lived like a pagan. And his conscience didn't bother him because he was so deep in his sin.
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And what we saw the last two Sundays is that this sin has forced him to deal with it.
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And now he's thinking differently. He's thinking, well, you know what? I'm not going to treat Joseph or Benjamin like I treated
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Joseph. I'm going to step up to the plate here. And if something happens to Benjamin, I'm bearing the blame for that.
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When we think about people who are deep into their sin, and that's anyone who does not know
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Christ. My dad once told me that before he came to Christ, he was a beast that was unleashed on this earth.
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And then the Lord changed him. It was interesting that Mark and I, we had a soda at the bar the other day.
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And I try to keep a presence there because I want to point people towards Jesus.
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And I know Mark has that same desire. And we shouldn't be those people who just say, okay, those people over there, we're over here.
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If Jesus was pastoring this church, you know where He would be a lot? He would be at KJ's. He would be hanging out with people trying to point
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Him towards Himself so that they would be freed from their sin and become followers of Christ. And that's what we should aim to do as a church as well.
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We want people to be given new life in Christ. And we're surrounded by unbelievers all over the place in our community.
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And they don't even know what they're missing. And yet we have the answer to what they are missing.
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And so we need to go out to them because they're not going to come to us. We need to go out to them and give them the good news of Jesus Christ.
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Now, for every Christian in this room, we should be grateful for the change the Lord has done in our life, bringing us from darkness to light.
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And we should pray and strive for growth in the life of faith. Because when you first come to faith, you're a baby
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Christian. You're just out of the hospital. And we see Isaiah right now, right? He's growing fast. And imagine the
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Christian life like that. You're just a baby. He can't do anything by himself. Hardly at all.
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And so we get to the point where eventually he becomes stronger and more mature.
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And that's the way the life of faith is. We want to be people who are growing a little by little, day by day.
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And not just to be okay just being a baby, but to grow.
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And I say this because this is for your joy. There's great joy in knowing the Lord. People in this room can testify to that.
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Reading the Bible and seeing the influence that it has on your life and the relevance that it has for your life.
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There's so much joy in that. And so when we see the change in our lives too, what a testimony that is to people who don't know
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Christ. And so that's one of the most powerful ways we can witness to the surrounding community as well.
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And you can think of the least likely person to become a Christian. And you might say this person really needs to change.
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And the Lord may be pleased to save that person and bring true and lasting change to his or her life.
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Think about the Apostle Paul. We hold him in high regard. Some people call the Apostle Paul the greatest
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Christian who ever lived. And yet in 1 Timothy, you know what he says about himself?
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He says, I was the chief of sinners, which is so true.
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And we might say that and we say, oh, Paul's just being humble. You know, he's actually making a quite accurate statement there.
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When Stephen was martyred, Paul approved of his death. And Paul was on his way to persecute more
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Christians when Jesus appeared to him on the Damascus road. And then that's when his conversion suddenly happened.
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And to say that a change happened to Paul would be an understatement. He became a completely new person.
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And that's what happens when Jesus intervenes in your life. There's a line from the hymn,
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Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. And sometimes we sing that hymn. It's written by Charles Wesley in 1739.
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The line says that his blood can make the foulest clean. Isn't that wonderful?
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He did that with Judah right here. His blood can make the foulest clean.
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This is so true. We see the Lord bringing this change to Judah and he's also done it to many in this room.
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Praise God for that. And when he rescues us and brings us to live a holy life, what we do is we glorify his name.
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He's pleased with you. He looks down upon you and says, that is my child. That is my son.
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That is my daughter. So what we've seen here today is a man whose life has been changed.
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As we followed him, as we traced this narrative, as we've seen the sins of his past and we see what happened to him today, he's willing to do the opposite of what he was willing to do before.
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He's willing to help his younger brother, this precious son whom his father loved so much.
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And so I hope you see this in the text today, like I saw it. Now, next
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Sunday, we're gonna continue with this two -part sermon. So the first lesson from the life of faith that we've seen here today is that you can change for the better.
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And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you the second lesson and the third lesson here to give you a little bit of an appetizer for next
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Sunday's sermon. So the second lesson of the life of faith is that you will be brought to the point of helplessness.
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We'll see that in verses 11 through 14. And I look forward to unfolding that to you.
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And then the third lesson is your story includes facing your sin. And so what
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I want us to see, not only today and next Sunday, is that everything that happens in this story happens in your life.
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It's either happened in the past, it's happening now, or it'll happen in the future. And so my hope is that this will be encouraging to you and it'll prepare you all the more to live the life of faith pleasing to the
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Lord. With that, let's close in prayer. Father in heaven,
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I thank you for the word of God that is sharper than a two -edged sword and is able to go to the deepest thoughts and intentions of each of our hearts.
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And so Lord, I pray that we would take this to heart today, that we would see that true change happens when you intervene in one's life.
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And it happens to an unbeliever when he becomes a believer or when she becomes a believer. And it happens to a believer when he or she is growing.
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We go from a baby to a mature Christian. And Lord, that's our aim here at Eureka Baptist, to grow in Christ together.
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And I pray that by your power through the Spirit, that we would see that take place in our midst more and more.
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And we pray for those who were not able to make it today too, Lord, that they would hear your word, that they would even listen to this sermon and hear what you have to say and be back with us next