Genesis 44 Paying the Price

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service. This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filseck and is a part of the series Beginning with God, Walking Through the Book of Genesis.

If you would like to contact us, please visit us on the web at recastchurch .com. Here's Pastor Don.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Recast Church. We're gonna go ahead and get started. So if you can find your seats, that would be great. Just a couple of announcements, though, before we get started. Be sure to fill out the connection card that you received when you walked in.

You've got one of these and those can be turned in in the black box back there. There's a place to put any prayer requests or comments that you have on the back there. If you're willing to share your email address with us, just so that you know, we do send out a weekly email that we call it the connection card because it is the primary way that you get connected to events and activities of the church.

And so if you've been here for a while, we want you to have the freedom to not fill one of these out the first time that you're here. We recognize you might just be checking it out and you're kind of like, I don't want to commit to that.

I don't want to put my name down, whatever. But if you're here and you've been here for a while and you're kind of starting to say, man, I want to know what are the next steps. What should I be doing?

Then fill this out and then you'll be able to get some further information about what's going on here. And then any offerings you would choose to give, an envelope's been provided for you. We don't pass an offering plate here.

Again, just that same black box that's back there underneath the clock. And if you choose to give, great. If not, then you can just recycle this envelope back there and these can be reused the next week.

And then any offerings that are marked expansion fund go to a specific fund specifically designated in the direction of building and expansion for our ministries here. And as many of you know, we've already purchased property out on East McGillan.

We own 12 acres out there and it's our goal to eventually build a building on that property out there. So that is what's going on. How many of you had a good holiday weekend last week? Did you, did you have a good time?

How many of you that seems like it was a long time ago? I find that the week before a vacation or holiday and the week after a holiday or vacation can tend to be some of the most stressful weeks. Can you relate to that?

Like just it's like, okay, I got to get back in the swing of things and stuff. So hopefully as we gather together and worship this morning that you're able to kind of shift gears and really get your focus and attention towards God.

That's our goal and that, that stems from everything. And I want to point out that when we talk about worship in America, oftentimes we are thinking songs. But our lives are to be worship. And so worship is something that extends so much further than just singing a song on Sunday morning together with God's people.

But worship is something that extends to the work that we do for our employer throughout the week, raising kids, the way we drive our car. There's all different kinds of aspects and elements to worship that is living a life unto God and that's our goal here.

And so it's not just that when we strictly focus together. So when I say worshiping God this morning, I'm thinking of the conversations that happen during the connection time that we're about to have.

I'm thinking about singing the songs. I'm thinking about hearing from God's Word and then going out and applying that in our lives. And so we're gonna start off by, by explaining, by thinking, getting our minds thinking about God through his Word in this next text that we're gonna look at, Genesis 44.

We're walking again, you know, through the book of Genesis. We're making a mad dash for the finish line here with 50 chapters and we're on chapter 44 right now. And it's been about a two-year process with some other books of the Bible interspersed in there and a couple of breaks over the holidays and stuff, but we're on our way to the end here.

I want to start off by saying this, making a statement that humanity is capable of the heights of glory and self-sacrifice. Humanity, and I know when I say that I'm not talking about just Christians, but humanity is capable of some amazing acts of self-sacrifice.

We have examples of people who have laid down their lives for others, and Jesus said, greater love has no man than this, that he lays down his life for another. An example like Corporal Kyle Carpenter, who was on a rooftop position with his platoon in Afghanistan on November 21st of 2010.

When an enemy combatant threw a grenade up on that roof, Kyle Carpenter moved to the grenade, where most of us, most of us would run the other way. We would tuck our head, we would kiss our tail goodbye.

He moved to the grenade, shielded the other Marines on that rooftop, and took the full force of that grenade and saved his fellow Marines. He survived. He survived that blast. He is missing an eye. He has a glass eye.

He has some mechanical parts to his body now, and just a few weeks ago, actually in June, he received the Congressional Medal of Honor. So we know that people are capable of amazing acts of kindness, right?

Some of us have been the recipients of amazing acts of kindness. Some of us have given amazing acts of kindness, certainly not to the level of jumping on a grenade for people that we know. But I think what we struggle with most, what is most confusing to the human experience, what is difficult for me to wrap my mind around, is that those people who are capable of great glory are also capable of great evil.

And we don't need to turn further than our own chest and our own mind to go into our own heart and recognize that we are simultaneously a conundrum of possibilities. We know it in our own heart where we are capable of moving, being moved to great love.

I mean, you don't need to move outside of your closest intimate relationships. Think of those of you who are married, how you have at times shown love and deep commitment to your spouse, and at times have lashed out at them in anger and hostility.

If you're married, you know what I'm talking about. How you're capable of these two opposite responses, sometimes within minutes of each other, or seconds of each other. And so it gets confusing. We see that conundrum on the faces of neighbors when they're interviewed on the news after finding out that it was a monster that lived next door, and he just mowed his lawn like normal people.

I mean, he was just out there. I mean, we get to know him. We talked over the fence, and he was, and he did these things. And we see it, as I said, in our own hearts. When we recognize our own issues and problems, and we recognize our own depravity.

I think the fact of the matter is, we like to think of ourselves as primarily good people. And when it comes to Judah, in the text that we're looking at, Genesis chapter 44, we know that he is not a role model.

I must remind you, as we dive into chapter 44, it's very easy for us, if we're reading through the Bible in a year, we read isolated chapters, or it's very easy to just grab something, or we teach in Sunday school an isolated story, and it's like, oh, that's awesome.

It's kind of like teaching Noah and the ark without teaching what he did after he got off the boat, right? We can listen to just a part of the story. So just a few weeks ago, I had to put a PG disclaimer out on my sermon, because I was going to be talking about some of the behavior of.

Judah, this guy,.

Because of his actions. In that text, in chapters 37 and 38, we saw him as a highly sexualized character. And aside from that, he also eventually hatched a plan, his idea, to sell his brother into slavery, to get rid of his younger brother.

And so, as I read this text this morning, I want you to pay special attention to Judah. I know that our minds are naturally gravitating towards Joseph at the end of the book of Genesis. The story, Joseph is like the main character, but in this text, I want you to pay attention to what Judah does.

Think about him in this text. Consider, who is this guy that was capable of horrible things, and now, here in our text, shines out as an illustration for Jesus Christ himself. How can a person have these kinds of highs, and these kinds of lows, wrapped up in one soul?

I think we have some indication of that by looking at our own lives. I want you to open to Genesis chapter 44. Again, paying attention to Joseph. You can, obviously, if you have a Bible app, you can open up to that.

You know, turn on and navigate over there. If you don't have a Bible with you, can you just raise your hand, and somebody's going to just bring around Bibles. There's a couple people here, and remember that if you don't own a copy of the Bible, if you raise your hand, and you just don't have one to bring with you, please take that one with you.

We want everybody to have a copy of the Word of God they can read. But follow along as I read Genesis chapter 44 in its entirety for us here at Recast Church. Then he commanded the steward of his house, he being Joseph, fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man's money in the mouth of his sack.

And put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest with his money for the grain. And he did as Joseph told him. As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away with their donkeys.

They had gone only a short distance from the city. Now, Joseph said to his steward, up, follow after the men, and when you overtake them, say to them, Why have you repaid evil for good? Is it not from this that my Lord drinks, and by this that he practices divination?

You have done evil in doing this. When he overtook them, he spoke to them these words. They said to him, why does my Lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing. Behold, the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks, we brought back to you from the land of Canaan.

How then could we steal silver or gold from your Lord's house? Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be my Lord's servants. He said, let it be as you say. He who is found with it shall be my servant, and the rest of you shall be innocent.

Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each man opened his sack. And he searched, beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest, and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they tore their clothes, and every man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city.

When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, he was still there. They fell before him to the ground. Joseph said to them, what deed is this you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination?

And Judah said, what shall we say to my Lord? What shall we speak? Or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants. Behold, we are my Lord's servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found.

But he said, far be it from me that I should do so. Only the man in whose hand the cup was found shall be my servant. But as for you, go up in peace to your father. Then Judah went up to him and said, oh my Lord, please let your servant speak a word in my Lord's ear, and let not your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself.

My Lord asked his servant saying, have you father or a brother? And we said to my Lord, we have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother's children, and his father loves him.

Then you said to your servants, bring him down to me that I may set my eyes on him. We said to my Lord, the boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die. Then you said to your servants, unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again.

When we went back to your servant, my father, we told him the words of my Lord, and when our father said, go again, buy us a little food, we said, we cannot go down if our youngest brother, if our youngest brother goes with us, then we will go down, for we cannot see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us.

Then your servant, my father, said to us, you know that my wife bore me two sons. One left me, and I said, surely he has been torn to pieces, and I have never seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to Sheol.

Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant, my father, and the boy is not with us, then as his life is bound up in the boy's life, as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant, our father, with sorrow to Sheol.

For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, if I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life. Now therefore, now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my Lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers.

For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father. Let's pray. Father, as we have an opportunity to sing praises to you and worship you in that way, corporately gathered together, I pray that we would see you as you are.

Not see you as some figment of our imagination, who is just the big guy in the sky, or just like us. But Father, you are holy, you are righteous, you are worthy. And we recognize that humanity is capable, because we're bearers of your image, we are we are capable of these awesome acts of self-sacrifice.

But no act of self-sacrifice is enough. Because when we die, when we sacrifice ourselves, it is just the right judgment on us. Death is what we deserve. And so we rejoice, and as a people who recognize that there is one who did not deserve death, that paid that price for us, that he himself bore your wrath on the cross in our place.

And so I praise you for Jesus this morning. I praise you for substitution, for the instead that we see in this text that reflects Jesus Christ. That one is willing to step up and die in our place, and he did so for us.

So I pray that you would loosen us in our hearts and in our spirits this morning, and in our emotions, to worship you with joy and with enthusiasm, because you are the one who has saved us. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Amen. Thanks a lot for the band leading us this morning. Very grateful for them helping us to come before the throne in worship. Be sure to make yourself comfortable. I'd encourage you to have your Bibles open to Genesis 44, as that's the that's the text we're gonna walk through, and that's my outline, and it's helpful for you to just kind of be able to keep your focus there.

If you need to get up and get more coffee, or juice, or donuts at any time, you can feel free to do so, or get up and stand in the back if you need to stretch out, or whatever it is. And then restrooms, we ask that you use the restrooms out the hall, and at the end of the hallway going this way.

There are some restrooms down here, those of you that are familiar with the building, but we reserve those restrooms for the children's ministry. So we do want you to make sure that you use the bathrooms that are labeled on this end, men's upstairs, women's downstairs.

Joseph’s Test of His Brothers

So we left off a couple of weeks ago, and where we left off, there was a worldwide famine mentioned in the book of Genesis. Joseph, remember, had been raised up to second-in-command over all of Egypt, and that was ultimately through God-given wisdom in the form of a prophetic dream, in which Joseph helped to prepare the land of Egypt for this famine that we find in our text they are currently experiencing.

And ultimately through Joseph being able to interpret Pharaoh's dream, the ruler of all Egypt, Egypt ends up during the famine being the only nation that not only has grain for their own people, but grain to sell to other nations.

So they become a significant player on the world scene during this era and during this time. We know how Joseph got to Egypt. His brothers were going to kill him. They beat him up, they threw him in a pit, and then they were debating back and forth on whether to take his life or not.

And Judah steps up and says, why should we, why should we let his blood be on our hands? Why don't we make some money off of them? So the next group of traders that comes through riding camels, they see them off in the distance, they wait for them to arrive, and they sell their brother for 20 pieces of silver to this wandering group.

As of this point, it's important for us to understand that Joseph's brothers have sold him into slavery, and they have no reason to believe that he's still alive. They have every reason to believe that he's gone the way of most slaves.

Most slaves do not last long in this era and during this time. And so they, when you see the brothers say things like we think that he's dead or he is no more or whatever, it's not that they're just trying to pull a fast one.

It's that they probably literally believe that he is no more. They literally believe that he has gone. But last week we saw, or a couple of weeks ago, we saw all 11 of Joseph's brothers came down to Egypt to buy grain.

They all bowed down before him as had been revealed to him in a dream in his childhood that his brothers, all 11 of them, would bow. And at the end of last week, Joseph had them all over for a feast in the middle of the famine.

And the brothers still do not know, as of the start of our text this week, that the man in Egypt that they've been interacting with is none other than the brother that they betrayed, is Joseph. So this whole section of Scripture, several chapters of just deep dripping irony, that they are interacting with the brother that they betrayed and they don't even know that that's the case.

But Joseph has been toying with his brothers. We've seen that for a couple of chapters now. He's been stringing them along. He has been testing them to find out if the past 20 years have transformed their character at all.

Are they still those kind of guys who could beat their brother up, throw him in a pit, and while they're debating whether to kill him or not, sit down for their packed lunches. And they literally, it says in the text earlier in the book of Genesis, that they literally sat on the edge of the pit and ate lunch while he's down there weeping, saying, please don't sell me, while they're awaiting the caravan to arrive, to sell him off into slavery.

And right away in verse 1, we see that Joseph continues the test that he began a while ago. Joseph orders his steward, one of his servants, the chief steward of his house, who we've seen interact with the brothers a little bit here and there.

He orders his steward to fill their grain sacks with as much grain as possible. Not with just as much as they bought, you know, they brought in an amount of silver and they deserve a certain amount of grain for what they brought.

But he says, fill it to the brim, max it out in regard to what they're able, got weird, didn't it? Max it out in regard to what they are able to carry. Is that going to keep doing that or are we all set?

We're good? Okay, sounded like I was in a bottle there for just a second. So, fill the sack with as much grain as they can carry, max it out. And then, also he goes a step further and says, give them their money back.

Put the money that they bought the grain for and put it back in the mouth of the sack. This is the second time he's done this, by the way. This is not just a repeat of last week or another telling of the same event.

But this is with different intention. And lastly, he says, take the youngest man's grain sack and he doesn't mention him by name, but he says, take the youngest one and put my silver cup, my special cup, put it in the mouth of his sack and then send them off.

At the break of day, I mean, this must have happened in the night. At the break of day, the brothers saddle up their donkeys, load up the grain and take off for home. The author doesn't give us the freedom to feel the relief that the brothers would have felt.

During this time.

But I hope you can understand that just because the author clues us into the events that we know that Joseph is plotting, that doesn't remove the fact that the brothers would have felt an intense level of relief as they load up their donkeys and head out of town.

How many of you know that the moment that they are free of the gates,.

They're thinking, we're out.

And not only are we out, but think about from their perspective, they just got to go over to the highest dignitary's house in Egypt, aside from Pharaoh himself, and have a feast. How many of you think that they're like on cloud nine?

They're thinking this trip has been a success. Are you getting what I'm saying in that? Does that make sense to you? I mean, if you're in their shoes, how many of you are thinking this has been a success?

Okay, they are now free and clear. They've got grain to last them a long time. They have their youngest brother, Benjamin, who they were terrified when something was going to happen to, and he's with them.

And not only that, but Simeon. Remember, Simeon had been imprisoned there. Simeon is now returning with them. So all 11 brothers are together. They have huge bags of grain to go sustain their family, and they are on their way.

The fact that they have Benjamin with them is important. Remember that their father didn't want Benjamin to go with them at all because of his deep favoritism. Benjamin was his favorite and youngest son, born of his favorite wife, Rachel, who died in childbirth, giving birth to Benjamin.

But on this morning, things are looking up. Everything is upbeat in their departure. But verse four comes in quickly to shatter their false peace. They don't get very far away from the city, and Joseph commands his stewards to pursue the brothers, overtake them, and accuse them of evil, of theft.

Now, what Joseph does here is not justifiable. I want to make sure that you are clear that there are descriptive things in Scripture telling us what happened, and then there are prescriptive things in Scripture telling us what to do.

And this is not one of those cases where this text is telling you to act like Joseph. Do you understand the difference in that? That Scripture records actual historical events that are not good. They are not, you know, you can't read Scripture just with a mind that I just will do whatever Noah does, I will do whatever Joseph does, I will do whatever Judah does.

But you need to have your thinking cap on and recognize when Scripture is telling you to do something versus when it's describing what actually took place. We know that his motivation is to test his brothers, but I want to suggest to you that just simply because we know his motivation doesn't make it justifiable, doesn't make it right what he does in this case.

Just because you're doing it as a test doesn't mean that you are doing okay. He has in this text already, we're only a couple verses in, he has planted evidence. He has framed his brothers. He will bear false witness as to their guilt.

How many of you know that there might be a couple of passages throughout Scripture that condemn bearing false witness?

There are a few.

We tend to think, oh, what Joseph's doing here is just a trivial minor thing. Let's just, you know, he's just toying with his brothers a little bit, and he, but it's all going to end up okay because you know the ending and all of that, but this is not good.

He knows, this is very important, Joseph knows that they have not done anything wrong here at all, but he's going to accuse them anyways. And no amount of trying to explain this makes it okay. Don't do what Joseph does in this text.

But Joseph even takes it a step further and he feeds verbatim to his servant what he is to say when he confronts his brothers. Now think about this text from the perspective of the steward, the guy who is told to return their money.

He is told to frame the brothers, and then he is supposed to go and accuse them of stealing the thing that he placed in the mouth of the sack of Benjamin's grain sack. Would you be a little confused if you were that steward?

But you just do what he says because this is the second most powerful man on the face of the planet that's commanding you. You're a servant, yours is just to do what he tells you to. So the steward is told verbatim what he is to do, he is to go pursue them, to confront them.

And he has to accuse the brothers of stealing the silver cup of Joseph. And two times in the text it stated that this is the cup that Joseph used for divination. There was a process used throughout the Middle East in which oil and water were poured into a cup and the way, have you ever seen oil and water poured together?

Do you see how there's like a pattern and swirls that happen and stuff like that? And a magician, a paid magician would actually read the patterns in that and be able to tell, or supposedly tell things from the future or tell things that are true or tell the reality of things as a result of seeing the way that that would separate out.

And so that was pretty common in the Middle East during this ancient time and even in Egypt. But it's unclear in the text,.

I'm gonna point this out,.

It's unclear in the text whether Joseph actually practiced this divination or not. It seems to indicate later, as we'll see in the text, that Joseph wanted his brothers to think he was more powerful than he actually was.

And he doesn't even, he's never once recorded as using divination but he says that he can. It's almost like he wants to say, I know your every move. I know what you're doing and I know what you do and all of that kind of stuff.

And so from that perspective, either way, whether he practices the divination or not, it's a blight on Joseph again because either he used superstitious magic that is condemned in the Old Testament or he lied about using superstitious magic which is condemned in the Old Testament.

So either way, I just want to point out, Joseph is not held up as the perfect model and the perfect example. And the fact of the matter is, as you go through the pages of Scripture, you're gonna find that these heroes of the faith are made out of the same stuff as us.

There is only one hero of the faith and we're gonna talk about him. A little bit later. But when the servant accuses the brothers, he catches up with them. The brothers are so sure, there is such assurance in their hearts that none of them, I mean, they're speaking on behalf of one another, there's no way any of us would steal the silver cup.

And in that, they pledge death to the one who has found to have the silver cup in his possession. They are so sure that none of them have done this that they say that. And this is not the only rash oath ever taken in Scripture.

You could actually thematically pursue the concept of rash oaths throughout the pages of the text of Scripture. And there are many of them to recount where somebody says something just on the cuff. And it's a caution about our words, isn't it?

How we can quickly state something and need to backtrack on it pretty quickly. We know that as they lower their grain sacks to the ground, and as they lower them to the ground to submit to being searched, we know because the narrator has told us that the silver cup is going to be found in the grain sack of their father's favorite son.

So there's drama in this. He starts with the oldest. He starts down with Reuben, and he moves on to Simeon, and he opens the grain. And what does he find, by the way, when he opens Reuben's grain sack?

He finds grain. Does he find anything else? He finds the money.

Now, it doesn't say it in the text.

Because he is on pursuit of one thing, this cup. And they've talked about this cup, and that's the big thing that Joseph told him to pursue. And so he's looking for the cup. He's doing what his master has told him.

But you gotta recognize that every time he opens a grain sack, the money is right there for him to see that they have the money returned to. He already knew that. So is his job to act surprised or what?

He's the one who put him in there. Remember that. But he goes down, and he goes from Reuben to Simeon to Levi, opens the grain sack of Judah. The suspense builds until he finally opens the very last one, Benjamin.

I assume that everybody's already feeling uncomfortable in this situation. You know, the brothers are sitting there, and they're recognizing, how did the money get there? I'm sure there's confusion in the moment.

But as the steward opens the grain sack of Benjamin, boom, reaches in and holds up the silver cup. And what do you think the brother's response.

Would be at that time?

Benjamin, what did you do? What have you done to us? What have you done to our father? What are you thinking? Do you imagine that for a second, they thought that he wasn't guilty? The silver cup is right there.

I mean, come on, what is happening here? They tear their robes in mourning,.

A sign of mourning.

He's counted dead now, right? What did they pledge to the one who was found with the cup?

They said death.

He's at least a slave, according to verse 10. So they are, they immediately move to a sign of mourning, and they tear their cloak and cloaks, and then they pack up, and they head back to the presence of Joseph.

It's pretty amazing that they return, by the way. That in itself should be shocking to those of us who know these brothers, who have gotten to know them throughout this text. It demonstrates a significant shift and change in their hearts that they return to Egypt with Benjamin.

In verse 10, they were offered a free pass. They were actually declared innocent. Only the one with the cup I will take as a servant, and the rest of you are declared innocent, free to go. You're not bound to anything.

But they willingly return to face Benjamin's fate together. And now in Joseph's presence, they do not just merely bow in deference like they did last week, or a couple weeks ago. They bowed in deference, but they fall on their faces in terror and fear, groveling, terrified.

There's a different word for bowing. One was just a polite way of entering the presence of a ruler or a dignitary. This is abject terror.

You own us.

We are yours. You can do whatever you want with us now. And they fall in terror before. Who? Who are they talking with?

Their brother.

The brother that they betrayed. So Joseph moved to compassion for his brothers. They're there on the floor, groveling in his presence. He's like, get up guys, just a joke.

Just kidding.

I mean, come on, I'm your brother. It's all good. Is that what the text says? At this point, he shows no compassion on them.

He asks, what have you done?

Who do you think you are? Stealing my cup. Do you not know who you're dealing with here? The irony is, of course they don't. But do you not know the power.

And the authority that I possess?

Do you not know that I have the power of knowledge? I have the power of divination. Joseph's being a tool, okay? If I could just say that. He is like just pouring it on thick to them. We know that he has orchestrated these events.

We know that he has used no divination to uncover who had the silver cup because he planted the silver cup. So at least in this situation, he's faking it. He's acting as though, and I wonder if he's not, if not in one way,.

God through orchestrating these events,.

Isn't making somewhat of a mockery of divination in the way that this is unfolding. In the time of Moses, remember, this is an ancient document that was written to a time and an era. And it's kind of poking fun at divination to some degree here.

Kind of like, well, yeah, he planted this stuff and then took credit for it by mysterious supernatural powers. But we know how that really works. People fake it and act like they're magicians and they're really not.