One Dream Down One to Go

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Don Filcek; Genesis 43 One Dream Down One to Go

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.
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This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filsack and is a part of the series Beginning with God, Walking Through the
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Book of Genesis. If you would like to contact us, please visit us on the web at recastchurch .com.
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Here's Pastor Don. You'll find on the back a place to put prayer requests, suggestions, comments, all of that kind of stuff on there.
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And you can turn those in in the black box that's on the table below the clock back there.
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And so if it's your first time with us and you fill out one of those connection cards, then please take a free coffee mug off the table back there.
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Just our way of saying thanks. We know that sometimes coming to a new place for the first time can be a little intimidating, and so we just want to make sure that you feel welcome and know that we're glad that you've gathered together with us this morning.
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And then for those of you that call this your church, most of you already know that there is an offering envelope that was provided for you.
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All offerings go in the black box back there. If you would choose to give, we don't pass an offering plate here. We really ultimately desire for your offering to be between you and God and not something that you feel that pressure as the plate goes past you.
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And so if you choose to give, you can use that envelope and put it in back there. But then if you don't use that envelope, it does help us.
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I know that usually what happens at the end of the service is that those just end up getting thrown away or they end up on the floor of your car or whatever.
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And so if you're not going to use that envelope, there's a place to recycle that over there, and then we can just reuse that again next week.
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Every single one of those has to have the sticker put on the face of it and all that stuff, so it's helpful to our office staff if you just are willing to recycle that.
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And then lastly, remember that any offerings that are given that mention the expansion fund either in the memo line of the check or on the actual envelope goes towards our eventual desire to no longer be in the elementary school here meeting in this situation, but to build on the property that we purchased over on East McGillan.
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So anything marked expansion fund goes into a specific account that is being escrowed and held off to the side for the purpose of eventually building.
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And so that is available for you as well. So that's all the announcements this morning, but we are going to just dive into an introduction to Genesis chapter 43, our text, and we are just walking through the text of the book of Genesis.
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We're going to be wrapping that up here in a few weeks, as you can kind of tell, there's 50 chapters, we're on chapter 43, and we've been just marching through this.
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It's taken us a couple of years with a couple of other series in the middle just to kind of break it up, but we're going to, we can kind of see the finish line and we're making a mad dash for there.
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But as we walk through the pages of the book of Genesis together, you probably identified some common themes. Those of you that call this your church and you've been here consistently and you've been seeing this, you've been seeing the theme, a really prominent theme of the plan of God a
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God who keeps his promises, the faithfulness of God, all of those types of things. And now the closer we get to the end of the book, the more we focus in on the life of Joseph.
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And the more we focus in on the life of Joseph, the more we see things slow down. So there are entire chapters of the book of Genesis that cover like a hundred years, okay?
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Now we're slowing down to the life of Joseph and it's like a chapter can cover a morning, a chapter can cover a couple of weeks, and so the chapter that we're in now is going to cover just a short time.
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But remember that the author of this book was a man born in Egypt. So as we get near the end of the text, we're starting to see the purpose and the function of this book in the time and the era in which it was written.
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The entire book was written in that ancient context by a man that was born in Egypt, a man named
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Moses. Most of you are familiar with his name. And it was written in that ancient context to show the history of God that led his people to Egypt so that Moses was born in Egypt and is called out to lead them away from Egypt.
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And so if you can understand that where we read Genesis and we go, oh, it's got creation, oh, it's got the fall, oh, it's got all of this history about Abraham and his descendants.
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But think about being a person that lived in Moses' era reading this. What would you have been getting from it?
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What would you have been gathering from it? We are a called out people. We are holy to the Lord and called out to be a nation that is set aside for his purposes.
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And he has a purpose to bless all the nations through us. And that's the main theme that we're seeing in the book.
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And so we're looking at circumstances that are the culminating point of the book to the original readers when we're talking about Egypt here.
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And the author has been clear in communicating that it was God who led his people to Egypt. God, the one who is faithful.
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God, the one who is sovereign. God, the one who is almighty. And he has been carving out of the sinful lump of humanity a people for his own name.
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A people that will reflect his glory, a people that will reflect his grace, a people that will reflect his justice, a people that will reflect his patience, and ultimately a people that were intended to reflect his love.
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And Joseph proves to be a very significant tool that God uses to preserve his people in the midst of a famine, a dark time, a dark time in human history where there is famine and there is death.
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And I think sometimes we read and we gloss over, like you can see all of the little pictures of Noah's ark, right, and all the little crib things and the nursery things and all that stuff, but you never see dead people in those, right?
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Like in the nursery when you're decorating for your kids, you don't include. But the fact of the matter is there is gruesomeness in some of these things where you actually see famine and famine, what do you have in your mind when you realize what the earth is going through during the era, during the seven years of devastation and famine?
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Is it just like all we follow along is that Egypt has some grain, but what's going on around the world at the time of the era?
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What is necessary for God to preserve his people? They need to get to Egypt. Egypt is the place where there is grain and so this is a significant time and God is using
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Joseph as a tool to preserve his people. One night in Joseph's childhood, he had two dreams, fell asleep, woke up and remembered his dreams.
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In the first, all of his brothers bowed before him. The image was actually they were harvesting grain and they bundled it all up and their bundles bowed to his bundles.
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So he had this dream where his brothers bowed to him. The second dream, not only did his brothers bow to him, but his parents bowed before him too.
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But before any of that came to pass, his brothers were having none of that. How many of you, if you're sibling, how many of you have siblings?
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Just raise your hand if you have some siblings. How many of you, if your sibling said, you're going to bow before me someday, you'd be like and like headlock or something.
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I mean, especially you older brothers, like you're having none of that, right? It's like you're going to teach him where he belongs and that's what they did to Joseph.
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That's exactly how they responded. They put him in a headlock, threw him in a pit, and ended up selling him to slavery.
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Yeah, you think we're going to bow before you? Yeah, right. We'll teach you a thing or two, young man. And so they sold him off into slavery.
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He was falsely accused as a slave. He was imprisoned unjustly. He had a very rough 13 years, a balance in those 13 years.
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We don't know what the mix was, but part of those 13 years he was a slave. Part of those 13 years he was in prison. It doesn't really matter that much.
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How many of you kind of look at that lot in life and go slavery or imprisonment? I don't know what, you know? I mean, it doesn't really matter what the makeup is, 13 years of that.
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And then one morning, they came and knocked down his jail cell, said, get up and shave and shower.
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It's time to go. You're going to Pharaoh. He interprets Pharaoh's dreams. And in one morning before lunchtime, he goes from the pit of prison to second in command over the most powerful nation on the planet.
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Pretty big rags to riches story in the story of Joseph. And part of that dream that he interpreted was that there were going to be seven years of plenty and they needed to store up grain in Egypt during that seven years of plenty because there were seven years of devastating famine in which the years of plenty were going to be completely forgotten.
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The good times were going to be no more and people wouldn't even remember that because things would be so devastating during this famine.
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And as that famine hit the land, 10 of Joseph's brothers came before him, hearing, catching wet wind that there was grain for sale.
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They came and they bowed last week. We saw in his presence what we saw last week was merely a partial fulfillment of that first dream of Joseph.
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Only 10 of his brothers came and bowed before him. But as we dive into the text this week, that first dream is going to be taken care of by God.
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It's going to be completely fulfilled. All 11 of his brothers will come into his presence, will bow with their face to the ground, not knowing that they are bowing to their brother.
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So let's open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 43. You can follow along in your Bible. If you didn't bring a
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Bible with you, you can use a Bible app, obviously. Or if you don't have a paper copy, you could just go ahead and raise your hand and there's some copies available for you.
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If you just raise your hand so you have one, there's a couple guys in the back looking for that. And if you don't own a copy of the Bible, you can take one of those paper back
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Bibles with you. We want everybody to have a copy of the word of God. Particularly to be able to follow along as I'm going to read a pretty lengthy section of scripture here,
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Genesis chapter 43. The very words of God to us this morning recast. 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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But Judas 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, for the man said to us, you shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.
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Israel said, why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother? 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? What we told him was an answer to these questions. Could we in any way know that he would say, bring your brother down?
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And Judas 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 now have returned twice. Then their father Israel said to them, if it must be so, then do this.
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Take some of the choice fruits of the land in your bags and carry a present down to the man, a little balm and a little honey, gum or pistachio nuts and almonds.
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Take double the money with you, carry back with you the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks, perhaps it was an oversight.
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Take also your brother and arise, go again to the man. May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man and may he send back your other brother and Benjamin.
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As for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. So the men took this present and they took double the money with them and Benjamin.
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They arose and went down to Egypt and stood before Joseph. When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, bring the men into the house and slaughter an animal and make ready, for the men are to dine with me at noon.
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The man did as Joseph told him and brought the men to Joseph's house and the men were afraid because they were brought to Joseph's house and they said, it is because of the money which was replaced in our sacks the first time that we are brought in so that he may assault us and fall upon us to make us servants and seize our donkeys.
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So they went up to the steward of Joseph's house and spoke with him at the door of the house and said, oh my Lord, we came down the first time to buy food and when we came to the lodging place, we opened our sacks and there was each man's money in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight so we have brought it with us again and we have brought other money down with us to buy food.
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We do not know who put the money in our sacks. He replied, peace to you, do not be afraid.
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Your God and the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks for you. I received your money.
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Then he brought Simeon out to them. And when the man had brought the men into Joseph's house and given them water and they washed their feet and when he had given their donkeys fodder, they prepared the present for Joseph's coming at noon for they heard that they should eat bread there.
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When Joseph came home, they brought into the house to him the present that they had with them and bowed to the ground or bowed down to him to the ground and he inquired about their welfare and said, is your father well?
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The old man of whom you spoke, is he still alive? They said, you're serving our father as well. He is still alive.
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And they bowed their heads and prostrated themselves. And he lifted up his eyes and saw his brother
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Benjamin, his mother's son and said, is this your youngest brother of whom you spoke to me? God be gracious to you, my son.
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Then Joseph hurried out for his compassion grew warm for his brother and he sought a place to weep and he entered his chamber and wept there.
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Then he washed his face and came out and controlling himself, he said, serve the food. They served him by himself and them by themselves and the
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Egyptians who ate with him by themselves because the Egyptians could not eat with the Hebrews for that is an abomination to the
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Egyptians. And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth and the men looked at one another in amazement.
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Portions were taken to them from Joseph's table but Benjamin's portion was five times as much as any of theirs and they drank and were merry with him.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, we come to this place gathered together and this place is no different than the car ride on the way here, our own homes and there's nothing mystical or magical about this place that you are more present here than you are in other places along with us.
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That when we go for a morning exercise or when we're on our way to work or when we're
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Throughout our day, Monday through Friday, you are present there with us as you are present here. But Father, there is something awesome and glorious about gathering together with your people.
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There is something awesome and glorious about us recognizing that we are not alone, we are not islands, we are not called to this life of isolation but you have called us into community with one another.
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And Father, I pray that that would be reality, that we would be a community gathered together in the name of Jesus Christ our
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Lord with the power of your spirit present here with us. And I pray that Father, if you do not convict, what hope is there for us?
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If you do not counsel us, what hope is there for us? If you do not give us encouragement, what hope is there for us?
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And so Father, I pray that you would be present here with us in the power of your spirit through the singing of songs and through the discussion of your text,
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Father, that you would be present to convict, you would be present to correct and Father, you would be present to encourage us in our hearts today in Jesus' name, amen.
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Amen. Thanks a lot to the band for leading us in worship. That's appropriate. That's okay. Glory to God in that.
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I encourage you to get comfortable as we dive into this text that we've already read together, Genesis chapter 43.
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It's good for you to have your Bibles open. I assume that you probably kind of lost your place a little bit there. So if you can open your Bibles back up and just follow along as we go through this text.
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We usually go kind of verse by verse and thought by thought as we walk through and hear from God's word what he has for us this morning.
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Just to set the stage just a little bit, I know I did in my introduction, but a little bit of the immediate context. Remember that God had revealed to Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, that a massive famine was on the way and the famine would be worldwide.
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It would be global in its scope and just as promised, we find out in verse 1 that the famine was severe throughout the land.
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The verse is pretty clear about that and particularly the land of Canaan where Jacob and his sons live.
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Remember that 10 of Jacob's sons had taken off for Egypt last week to buy grain.
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Only 9 of them returned. So how many of you, if all of your kids left on a journey and all of them but one returned, you'd go good percentage there, great.
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We got 90 % back, awesome. Okay, probably not so much. That would be a tragedy for all of us, right?
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So that would be difficult. But 9 returned. One was kept back in prison by Joseph.
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Now it's important to understand at this point in the game, they don't know that it's Joseph that has held
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Simeon in prison. They don't know who they interacted with. They think it's just some guy in Egypt.
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But only 9 of them returned. And at the end of last week, we saw that Jacob basically counted
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Simeon as a loss. And they demonstrated absolutely no intention of going back for Simeon.
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As a matter of fact, at that time, Reuben, the oldest brother said, when are we going to get back there? When are we going to go back and take care of this?
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And they demonstrate no intention of returning for him.
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He says, you can't take Benjamin, the youngest, and that's the main thing that the man in Egypt said.
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You need to come back with your youngest brother to prove that you are who you say you are. And Jacob did not give them permission to take
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Benjamin back to retrieve Simeon. But now, in our text, they come to the end of their grain.
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Now they come to the end of the food supply. Okay, remember that they had gone there to buy grain. They came back with loads and loads of grain, but it's all expended.
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We don't know how much time has transpired. Remember, however long this is, the text doesn't tell us. Where is
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Simeon? In prison in Egypt. He's back there living a life of confinement while they're out here eating this grain.
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But now, the nature of a famine, just to understand, because we don't relate to famine very often. We're like, okay, they ran out of my favorite cereal in the grocery aisle.
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We can just go to another store and buy it, right? Or we can get it on Amazon .com and buy it, for goodness sake. What is a famine?
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What does that really mean? I think it's important for us to understand that the nature of a famine is that it becomes progressively more severe unless the climate shifts dramatically in the midst.
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Once a famine cycle begins, it gets worse and worse. Think about it this way. There are two types of grain.
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There is grain that is used for seed, and there is grain that is used for food. And there comes a tipping point when the grain that is used for food is outpacing the grain that is being used to sow as seed, and you begin getting less and less grain for food.
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Are you getting what I'm saying in this? And so, you end up sowing seeds, planting them.
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There's no water. There's no rain. The rivers are drying up. Everything's going bad, or the crop is destroyed.
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And now, not only has that not produced, but you've wasted that seed that you could have made bread out of.
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Are you getting what I'm saying in that? And so, it becomes a cycle that ends up coming to a tipping point where it is tragic, and it is very hard to get out from underneath that cycle.
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And that happens throughout the world today, by the way. In agrarian cultures where they are dependent on the ground, specifically, you're growing your own food.
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How many of you know that that could get pretty dicey if there's not much water? And so, that still happens, particularly in parts of Africa and around the world.
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Canaan, apparently, by this point in the text, is past that tipping point. There is no grain to be found anymore.
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It's been eaten, or it's been wasted trying to sow it, and it hasn't produced anything. So, Jacob calls his sons together, and he politely asks them to run down to Egypt for a little something -something to eat.
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Okay, could you just head down and get me a little something? That's kind of what he says. And there's a little bit of a humorous notion in this, in the midst of famine.
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He's like, could you just run down and get a little something? Because we need some food here. But from verses 2 through 10, there's an extended discussion between Judah, one of his sons, and his father,
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Jacob, about going back to Egypt. He wants to shake his dad into reality for a second. Hey, you're acting like nothing has happened.
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You're acting like you don't know the circumstances. But to this point in the story, remember, the family doesn't know that Joseph is alive.
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They don't know that that's who they were interacting with. All they know is that there was this Egyptian man down in Egypt.
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He was the one who was responsible for selling grain. He interviews everybody who comes in, and he took them for spies.
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He demanded that they prove that they were who they said they were by going back and getting their youngest brother,
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Benjamin. And obviously, he acted like he didn't know his name. He played a game with them.
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He toyed with them a little bit. And in the end, sent them away with their grain, with the money that they had already paid for the grain in the mouth of their sacks.
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They didn't know that it was there, and he sent them back on a mission to come back with their youngest brother to prove that they weren't spies because they told him they had a younger brother.
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Now, if you want to prove to me you're not spies and that you're truthful men, come back with your younger brother. It's interesting that Judah is the one who negotiates with his father.
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This is significant in the broader scope of Scripture in that those of you who have been around the church for a while, you probably have some notion that Jesus comes.
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He is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He comes through the lineage. The promise of God comes through the lineage of Judah.
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Now, many of us, probably if you just have some fuzzy notions of Sunday school classes and you maybe attended a church when you were a child, you might just kind of think,
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I thought it was Joseph, right? Because how many of you know Joseph is a pretty prominent figure? He is probably the most prominent figure of the sons in the book of Genesis.
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And so it would be natural, logical, but that needs to be corrected. It's actually Judah that's the one. So what's going on here? Why is he the one?
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He's not the oldest, and so why is he the one that is negotiating with his father?
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Well, Reuben has fallen out of grace with his father, and that's been clear through the book of Genesis. He's done some really bad things earlier in the text that we don't need to review, but he did some horrible things to his father.
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And so because of that, Reuben is not in his father's good graces. Levi and Simeon both actually slaughtered a whole village and defamed his father's name, and so they are out of their father's good graces.
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And not only that, but where is Simeon again? He's locked up in Egypt, so he can't negotiate with his father for his own release.
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So that makes Judah the oldest child in the family, fourth born, who is in the good graces of his father.
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So I picture the brother sitting around and saying, you talk to him. No, you talk to him. No, you talk to him. And it falls to Judah. He likes you at least a little bit.
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Why don't you talk with him? So that's the way I picture that kind of going down. But Judah is the one who has his father's favor still at this time.
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At the end of the text last week, Jacob absolutely refused to allow his youngest and most favorite son to risk the trip to Egypt.
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We talked a lot about favoritism and how there is an issue of favoritism in this family. And it spread all throughout the family of God that there's this issue.
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And he's truly fearful that something bad is going to happen to the only son he has left from his favorite wife, favorite wife,
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Rachel. Remember that she had two sons, Joseph, who he considers dead. He believes was torn up by wild animals.
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And then Benjamin, his youngest son, who his favorite wife died in childbirth, giving birth to.
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And so all he has in his mind is Benjamin. And he said as much at the end of the text last week, I don't even have any other sons.
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It's just all about Benjamin. To his own kids, to the other nine sons that return.
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He's like, it's as if I have no other kids if you take Benjamin from me. That's the kind of favoritism and the kind of ugly messes that happen in families.
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And some of you have been the recipients of some of that ugliness. Some of you have been the givers of some of that ugliness. And you need to seek repentance, and you need to seek forgiveness, and you need to offer forgiveness, and all of those kinds of things.
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And that's really kind of for another message. That's not the main point of this text. But in verse 6, we find the petty cry of a man who feels like he's caught between a rock and a hard place.
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You ever felt like you were caught in a no -win situation? I know I have at times. I felt like I was kind of caught in the middle.
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And like, well, if I send Benjamin, maybe he's going to die. If I keep Benjamin here, maybe he's going to die because we're in the middle of famine.
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We're not going to have anything to eat. The only hope is that I send my sons to go to Egypt. But my goodness, it's likely that this guy was angry at them.
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Maybe he's going to kill them. Maybe he's going to keep them for slaves. Maybe I will never see Benjamin again. Can you imagine a father's heart?
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Those of you that are men, those of you that are fathers, can you imagine this decision that he has to make? Send your only son away where you think he might actually never come back?
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I mean, people are doing that all the time, right? Just in regard to war, and sending people away in the military, and things like that.
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And yet, that's exactly, he's between a rock and a hard place. And so what does a person say? What kind of petty cries come out of a heart that is caught between a rock and a hard place?
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He says, I love what Jacob says here. He says, why did you even tell the man you had a younger brother?
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Why did you even say that you had a younger brother? You put me in this situation. He says that to his sons. To question past events,
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I would suggest to you, is not always helpful when trying to solve a current problem. Have you ever done that?
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Why did they even do this? Why do they even do it this way? Why is there even this rule? Why is there a traffic light there?
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I'm late for my appointment. Why did they put a traffic light there? Oh my goodness. There doesn't need to be a traffic light there.
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I should have the right of way anyways. There's a lot of first world problems that I think if we're honest, we kind of have this petty notion.
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Why did they only make the charging cord that long? Why is it only that long? Why didn't they ship with one a couple feet longer?
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You can think of all kinds of petty things in life that lead us to this kind of questioning what's happened in the past to try to bring us some kind of feeling good about the present or something.
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But these questions, these why questions, filter into the deeper problems of life, don't they?
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And Jacob models the human tendency to look past, look to the past and blame what happened rather than seek to solve the problem in the present.
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We naturally cast blame. You can watch news footage of a catastrophe, and someone is going to be blamed.
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It doesn't matter if it's a natural occurring event like a hurricane. Somebody is going to get the blame. It's your fault for your warning system not working.
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Or it's the fault of someone in the nuclear power plant that it actually melted down. Or it's somebody's fault.
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It's always something that we like to cast blame. And in essence,
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Jacob is here in the text blaming his sons. Why have you brought this trouble on me? But in verse 7,
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Judah gives us some new information we didn't have last week. So he answers his father. His father says, Why did you even tell him that I have a younger son?
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But Joseph had pressed them for more information, and they were not as quick to volunteer as I suggested last week.
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He definitely asked them for further questions because later in the next chapter it's going to come out again that he pressed them for answers.
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He was curious. He wanted to know how things were back at home. Even though he didn't let on that he was their brother,
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Joseph, he's asking questions about their father. He's asking questions about their, Do you have any other brothers?
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What's the situation? And so in the situation in which they were in where they're being accused of being spies, how many of you know that you might want to just honestly answer the questions that are posed to you?
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If you get pulled out of line on the way back into the United States, you might just want to answer honestly the questions that are asked of you, right?
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And so that's what they did in this context. They just answered honestly. But Judah shows some growth here in this text.
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And he stands in the gap for his family. All of them will die if they do not get grain, if they do not get food.
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And so he pledges himself and all of his wealth towards the protection of his younger brother,
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Benjamin. This is a huge step for Judah. We've seen Judah do some horrible things in the text. But he is taking it on himself and on his shoulders to stand in the gap for his family and work to save them.
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He is willing to, he says in the text, I am willing to bear the blame forever if you trust
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Benjamin to me and I lose him and don't bring him back. He's such a precious little guy. I'll take care of him.
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Unlike Reuben, Reuben can be a bit of a doofus at times. Last week, he was willing to put up the life of two of his sons as a pledge to keep
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Benjamin safe. Judah lays himself on the line. Do you hear the difference? One says, oh, you can take two of my sons if I don't bring
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Benjamin back alive. And the other says, you can take me. I'll be the one who's responsible. Do you hear the difference there?
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And then Judah, speaking to his father, makes a bit of a snarky comment, a little bit of a snarky retort.
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If we weren't standing around talking about this, we could have been to Egypt and back twice. Come on,
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Dad, let's get busy. Let's get this going. Just give me Benjamin. We'll take care of this. And Jacob caves in to Judah's request and sends them off with a present.
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Sends them off to take a present to this guy. Obviously, you're not in his good graces. He doesn't like you very much. Take him a present.
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Take him honey, gum, myrrh, pistachios, and almonds. Now, some of you are thinking like me.
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Honey? Pistachios? Almonds? Famine?
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Like, do they have anything to eat? Why are they going for grain if they have all this other stuff to eat?
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But it does say, take a little. And I would suggest to you that it would take an unreasonable amount of pistachios and honey to sustain a family.
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A whole lot of pistachios. A whole lot of honey. They have some, but it's not enough to sustain their family.
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They are not going to survive this famine on pistachios and honey. So he also sends them away with double the money to return the money that they should have paid for the grain from the previous trip.
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And last of all in the text, reluctantly, Jacob gives them his most prized thing in the world.
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The thing he loves most, he hands over to his sons. What is that thing? His son,
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Benjamin. He hands to them the one that he loves.
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And he sends them off with a blessing in verse 14. We've never seen him send them off with a blessing before, but now his precious, dear, favorite son is with them.
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And now he's going to bless them as they depart. And he says, may God Almighty grant you mercy before the man.
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May he send back what's -his -name and Benjamin. Do you see that in the text?
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May he send back what's -his -name. He doesn't even call Simeon by name. Do you see a problem with that?
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He mentions Benjamin. May he send back Benjamin and that other guy, that other kid. Get them confused.
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That's the image that you have here in the text. And then he adds this statement at the end of verse 14.
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If I'm bereaved, bereaved means your kids are torn from you. If I'm bereaved, then
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I'm bereaved. I can be kind of hard on Jacob. Some of you might have gathered that from time to time in the text.
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I can be kind of hard on him. I think he brings a lot of his hardship in life on himself by his decisions.
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And I think the truth is that we could say the same for us if we really analyze and look at the difficult situations we get in.
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A lot of times it's the situations that we get ourselves in, right? I think he whines.
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I think he complains a lot. In just a few chapters, we're going to see him stand before Pharaoh and say, many and difficult have been the days of my wanderings on this earth.
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And, oh, poor me. And he's got that kind of attitude. But I do believe he's had a very tough life.
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I believe that to walk in Jacob's shoes would be a difficult road. It's hard. And here's a great opportunity in the text to commend
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Jacob. He sends his sons off with a blessing of faith coupled with a statement of resignation.
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First, he acknowledges the one who is in control. He petitions the almighty God, the all -powerful one, the one who is sovereign over all things.
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And he petitions him for what? What does the text say he asks for? Mercy. May the almighty
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God be merciful to us. That's a good thing to ask for. May we not get what we deserve from the almighty.
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That's what mercy is. You don't get what you deserve. But his final comment makes it clear that he is settled with whatever
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God brings his way. He petitions God and asks him for something good. He says, may you show mercy, but whatever comes, comes.
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If I'm bereaved, I'm bereaved. This is a model of the prayer of faith played out many times in the pages of Scripture.
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Many times we see a person speak faith and then act on it by resignation.
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I'm resolved that whatever comes is going to happen, and yet I'm asking you, God, to do something good in this situation.
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This is like Esther. Some of you are familiar with the Old Testament story of Esther. Esther saying,
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I will enter the presence of the king on behalf of my people, and if I perish, I perish.
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A statement of faith, God can save me. God might be calling me up and raising me up to this position for this time, but if I perish,
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I perish. My trust is in him. It's up to him how this works out. Or like three young Hebrew men standing before the king of Babylon.
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The fires of the furnace have been stoked. The idol is there, and the king of Babylon is saying, bow now.
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When the music plays, ready? The music plays. You're not bowing. And they respond, our
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God is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, but listen to this, but if not, we will never bow down to your idol.
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You hear that? A statement of faith. Our God is able. But if he chooses by his will and by his grace and by his desire, he can choose what he wants, and if he chooses to let the flames burn us, and for every single fiber of our being to experience that flame and die, we will still not bow, but we will serve him.
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Do you hear that resignation? And do you hear that in Judah's statement? I will give to you the most precious thing on the earth to me.
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Please be merciful, God. Be merciful to me. But if I'm bereaved?
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Okay. If you choose to take him? Okay. Can you say that?
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God, take the most precious thing from me. It's yours to have. I trust you with him, with her, with it, whatever it might be, and if you choose to take it,
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I will still worship you. I will still honor you. I will still love you.
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A tough call? Is that tough? Go ahead and raise your hand. I know it's getting hot in here.
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I just kind of want to see some interaction. Is that a tough thing that I'm asking of us? That's difficult. That's not easy.
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Thirty percent of that was not in my notes. It's going to take me a second to get back here. Well, the conclusion statement of all of that is that we have a model in Jesus Christ.
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The point that all that drives for is that there in that garden, the night he was betrayed, Jesus knelt and sweat huge drops of blood and prayed,
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My Father, if there is any other way, let this cup pass from me. I do not want this cross thing.
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I do not want to be crucified. But not my will, but yours be done.
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A prayer of faith in his Father and a prayer of resignation. I will do it.
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And I will give it up for you, Father. So the entire trip, this entire trip happens in verse 15.
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All of a sudden, they're in Egypt. They don't know anything about the week -long transit there. And they're back in Egypt.
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And all of a sudden, boom, he sends them away. They've got the gift. They've got double the money. They've got
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Benjamin with them. And all of a sudden, they are standing in his presence. And as soon as Joseph sees Benjamin across the way with his brothers,
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Joseph arranges and says, Hey, to one of his servants, Hey, can you see that ragtag group of people back there? Can you take them to my house?
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They're eating lunch with me today. They don't know what's going on. They just know that Joseph's servant walks up to them and says,
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Hey, come with me. You're going to go eat lunch with the dude. Okay?
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So that's all that they know. Joseph arranges to have the servant take them over for lunch.
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He has an animal slaughtered in the midst of a famine. He has an animal slaughtered for them in order to feed the ones who have betrayed him and taken everything from him.
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Isn't there something significant about his grace and his mercy towards his brothers here? So they're brought to Joseph's home and they immediately assume the worst.
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I love this because it's just, it's so awesome how Scripture is so real to the way that we feel and the way that we interact with humanity and the way that we understand ourselves in light of others and things.
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And even a blessing like an invitation to lunch can look to the guilty person like a chance for the hammer to fall.
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Oh no. Oh no, they invited me to lunch. Lunch, really?
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I'm sure this is a confrontation. I'm sure they want to have it out with me. I'm sure they found out. I'm sure that the, and you see how in the guilty conscience how some of us have been there where it's just a simple meeting and you just assume the worst.
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Oh great, oh great. They want to meet with me for lunch. Here we go. Here we go again. You've already got your defenses up.
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You've got your arguments planned. You're already ready with a counter punch. And that's human nature.
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He just invites them to lunch. Come on over to my place. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to live it up in the midst of a famine.
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We're going to have a little party here. The brothers think that this anonymous man from Egypt is
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God's judgment on them and he is going to fall on them and enslave them. And there is such delicious irony in this.
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In verse 18, it is intentionally, thoroughly dripping with irony that the very thing that these brothers fear, look at what they fear.
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Look down at verse 18. They fear that he's going to assault them, fall upon them, and enslave them.
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What did they do to Joseph? What did the text earlier say when he approached them in that field to check on them from daddy 20 years prior to this?
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They assaulted him, they fell on him, and they sold him into slavery.
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What is it that we fear? We often fear the pain and anguish that we cause on others.
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Right? Isn't that often the case? And that when we have wronged others, we have reason to fear.
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We live in a state of fear. They had assaulted him, they had fell upon him, they had made him a slave.
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I think it's funny too in the text that they did that around lunchtime. And that's what they're fearing here.
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They're going on their way to lunch, he's going to fall on us, assault us, and enslave us. At lunch. They don't know this is
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Joseph yet. So in an attempt to gain trust, while they're on their way to the house, they get to the door, they're waiting for Joseph, they speak to his servant and explain how the money they had paid for the grain the first time they came to Egypt had been returned to them.
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I mean picture that you get home from Myers, you've done your grocery shopping somewhere, or wherever you go you do your shopping, and you show up and you've got your bags and you go to open them and the money is like wrapped up in the receipt.
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You're like, did I pay for this? How is that possible? I mean the receipt is there,
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I can see how much money I was supposed to pay for these groceries and there's the money in there. Now are you in a quandary?
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Are you like, God, you know, he's giving me food. Or is it, you know, do you go back to Myers and make it right?
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What do you do in that situation? And that's what their quandary is. Myers isn't going to be happy because it's looking a lot like I shoplifted right here.
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Okay? So that's kind of what's going on here. And so they offer now to pay for the first round of grain as well as telling the servant, and we brought money to buy more grain.
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They confess honestly that they don't know how the money got back in their bags. They're like, I don't know how it got there. I mean
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I got home and there it was. But seeing their distress, this Egyptian servant calms their fears with the phrase, peace to you.
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He says, calm down. More so in the Hebrew language, the word shalom or peace means all is well or another way to say it, things are the way they should be.
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The word shalom is a beautiful word. It is not the absence of war. It is not the absence of conflict.
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It is the presence of blessing and benefit and good. And things being ordered correctly is the notion of shalom.
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Hey, we're all good here. Everything is fine. Don't be afraid because your
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God has given you this treasure you found in the bags. The money for their grain had been received.
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Now whether the servant was in with Joseph and knew how this whole thing had gone down and is just kind of in a tricky way implicating
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God in this and saying, I really know who put the money in your sacks, or maybe Joseph actually paid the money into the coffers for the grain on their behalf.
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Some have suggested that that's possible. And then Simeon is returned to them before lunchtime.
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The author gives no information about Simeon's imprisonment, how long he was locked up, but how many of you think that maybe he was a little glad to see his brothers?
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However long he was there, I'm sure he's glad to be out of the slammer and hey, why didn't you come a little sooner?
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They wash up, their donkeys are cared for, and they prepare the gift they have brought for this Egyptian ruler. And finally, the suspense comes down to the point that he shows up from work, comes home for lunch, and in verse 26 and verse 28, the first dream that God gave to Joseph as a youth is fulfilled.
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Just like he said. All 11 of his brothers get down on their faces before him.
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They literally get down on their knees, foreheads to the ground, and they present him with the gift from back home.
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Now, I don't know how often he got honey or pistachios or whatever, but the produce from back home would be pretty cool.
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That's like getting Werners when you're in South Carolina. When I was in college, people from Michigan were always asking me to bring them back
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Werners. That's a Michigan thing, by the way. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Ginger ale? Okay, three of you, five of you like it, are excited about it.
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But people down there that were from Michigan were like, hey, anytime you go back home, bring Werners.
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It's a big deal. But he gets this gift. They bow, and they still don't know that this is their brother.
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He asks about the condition of his father. I wonder if the wheels aren't spinning. One dream down, one to go.
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I gotta get mom and dad now here. I gotta get my parents here to bow to make this whole thing complete.
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He asks how his father is doing, and as Joseph's gaze falls on his full -blood brother,
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Benjamin, who would have been at most a toddler the last time he saw him. By the words that are used for Benjamin, we know that he's still considered a youth.
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We know that he can't be much over 20 in order to be declared, that phrase to be used for him, and yet we also know that by this time,
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Joseph has been gone 20 years. So he would have been very young, maybe even an infant, the last time that Joseph saw him.
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He's moved to tears. He weeps. He runs out of his private chamber. He runs out to his private chamber.
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And I wonder what these Hebrew guys thought of this strange behavior of this Egyptian ruler who is obviously moved emotionally and has to dismiss himself.
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But he regains his composure, comes out, declares the start to the meal. He eats separately from his brothers, but only after arranging them according to age, assuring that Benjamin, the youngest, is last in line, but gets five times as much food.
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I want to suggest to you that favoritism is learned. Your kids can learn that from you. And I believe
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Joseph has learned that. And he favors his brother Benjamin, so he gives him five times as much. But all the brothers are amazed that Joseph has accurately arranged them by age.
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With kids, this is usually not so astonishing. You've got young children. It's a little bit easier to put them in age order.
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But with Benjamin being around 20, a huge gap between him and the next youngest, and Reuben pushing 40, all bets are off for any of us getting 11 strangers in age order correct in that age group.
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Any of you, there came an age where you just couldn't hardly tell the age difference between people younger than you?
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There came a point like that for me where I was like, all of a sudden, I have no idea if that dude is 20 or 16.
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You know what I'm saying? But at this point, he puts them all in order, and they're astonished. They're amazed. They're like, oh my goodness.
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He must just be divine or something. How does he get them in age order? And here for possibly the first time in their lives,
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I want you to see this. Maybe for the first time in their lives, these 12 brothers sit down to a happy, joyful, merry meal together.
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They don't even know it. But it said earlier in the text that they couldn't even speak decently to each other when they were in the same household.
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But here they are having a feast together. There's no indicator of any jealousy over Benjamin's favored treatment.
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I'm assuming they all had sufficient amount to eat. They're all travel -worn, and I'm sure that the meal was great for them, whatever it was.
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As a matter of fact, it's very clear that there was more than enough for all of them to eat and drink because the word for merry is literally in Hebrew drunk.
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Now all of a sudden you go, whoa, wait a minute. Did he just say that? The word is that they actually got drunk here. Now everybody,
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ESV, NIV, all the different translations want to translate that, and they push that away towards the word merry.
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And then some commentaries are like, well, the main reason we don't want to say they got drunk is because people like this don't get drunk.
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Well, that's not necessarily a great reason for not translating the word the way that it should. We know that these guys are not always great role models.
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Have you already identified that in the text? They're not the perfect role models. You don't want to do everything that these guys do, okay?
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And by the way, back in these days, they hadn't invented the phrase drink responsibly yet at the end of their commercial, so who knew how?
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I mean, nobody even knew to drink responsibly because it wasn't on the commercial, right? So, duh.
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But let me just encourage you to drink spiritually. Like, don't get drunk, okay?
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Just say that outright. Scripture says don't get drunk. The entire chapter connects the first trip to Egypt with the final trip to Egypt that we're going to see in a couple of weeks.
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And it shows that the movement of the family of God to Egypt happened over time and with some pretty amazing events,
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God working, orchestrating things for Joseph, bringing him through slavery, through imprisonment, all the way up to the highest position possible aside from Pharaoh himself over the most powerful nation on the planet in order to preserve his people.
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But this is meant to be more than just a history lesson for us. In this text, I want to point out four lines of application.
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I encourage you, even as I talk through these, to just open up your heart to what the Spirit of God is telling you in regard to these things in your lives.
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Sometimes I throw out a smattering. I'll throw out four. My goal in my heart in throwing out four applications is not that you go and you work on all four.
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It's that you listen for what God wants you to do this week, okay? What is He speaking to your heart?
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Because the fact of the matter is, it might not be one of these four things that I'm saying to you.
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I want to make sure that you're clear on that. These are things that God pointed out to me, so I'm identifying them.
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But there might be other things that He has for you. But first, I took the application to go along the lines of the characters that we see in Scripture.
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So the first is for us to all consider the faith of Jacob this morning. Faith is not the complete knowledge of the future.
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He did not know how this was going to end for Benjamin. When he gave away his most prized possession, he did not know that it would ever return to him.
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Faith is also not just assuming everything is going to work out. It's not like, well, I just have enough trust and everything is going to work out.
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If he has enough faith, Benjamin will return to him. But faith is the belief that what will come to pass comes from the
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Almighty God, who is indeed good. Therefore, the object of our faith is not some outcome.
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It is not that we would become wealthy. The object of our faith is not that we would be blessed with health, that we would be healed of cancer, that we would never contract cancer, whatever it might be.
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The object of our faith is meant to be the Almighty God.
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Believing the two most important things we can believe about Him, that He is powerful, almighty, sovereign, and that He is good.
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Where those two meet is the intersection of faith. That's where we learn to trust
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Him for the future, that He is good and He is powerful. And so faith is more than just a mental exercise, but it is in essence a resignation to act.
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Faith doesn't look like Jacob sitting back and saying, yeah, I believe that God could save Benjamin, but never sending him out.
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It looks like sending Benjamin out and entrusting him to God's care, asking
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God to be merciful, and then recognizing that he could indeed be bereaved.
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And so my question, I kind of posed it a little bit earlier, but hopefully you've had some time to think it through.
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What are you holding back from God? What are you unwilling to release to Him?
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For Jacob it was his son, Benjamin. For you, equally, it might be a family member.
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It might be a job. It might be a material possession or even something immaterial like a reputation.
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What is keeping you from trusting God by faith? I've heard it said that we should consider,
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I may even have said this from time to time, that we should consider what is the one thing that you cannot live without and then confess that as an idol.
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But I'm going to backtrack on that just a little bit because I'm not suggesting that everything that you enjoy in life is an idol, but I would ask us this morning to do something different.
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Consider what you think you cannot live without and then thank
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God for it. Acknowledge that it comes from Him. I think that's step one.
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Give it over to God, then thank Him for it, hand it back to Him, ask for His mercy, but resign yourself to accepting whatever
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God chooses to do with it. It's a high calling. The second application is to consider the fear of the brothers, their fear in this text.
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You see them terrified that this guy has invited them over to lunch. Hidden sin is, I would suggest to you, the most dangerous type of sin.
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I met with a former pastor friend who had lost his ministry due to an affair and I had an opportunity to talk with him for quite an extensive time and his comment was chilling and powerful and I want to share it with you.
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He told me to never trick myself into thinking that I can handle the small sins on my own. Don't fool yourself into thinking that you can manage your sin.
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Manageable sins is an oxymoron. Those two do not go together. You cannot manage sin.
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Sin is meant to be repented of. It is meant to be fled from. It is meant to be warred against. But it is not meant to be managed, to be controlled.
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What we find often, and that's what this guy suggested, is that manageable sins, the things we think we've got well in hand and under control, will slowly and imperceptibly, to our own eyes, grow into larger sins that eventually we will find we don't manage them, they manage us.
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And I think we know that. So get accountability even in the small things. How does a,
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I mentioned last week, I mean how does a radio DJ go from where he was at in a position in West Michigan to doing the things that he is allegedly committed?
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And I would suggest to you that it wasn't one afternoon. It was imperceptibly slow, incrementally slow in small things that he thought he had under control.
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I can take care of this. I can take care of this. I've got this under control. And eventually he was being owned and controlled by his sin.
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Get accountability even in those small things. Bring those worms. Picture, just a word picture, maybe not a real pleasant word picture, but it's like bringing the worms out of your heart, exposing them to the light on the pavement that they can begin to die and dry up.
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But that's what accountability ought to be for us, is getting those things clear with others and actually exposing the darkness that's in our heart to allow the light to begin to dry up the sins that are in us.
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The third application is consider the life -giving power granted to Joseph in this text. He was granted the power to bring peace to those who had no peace.
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And God calls out his people to be instruments of peace to those without it. Joseph would have been justified in this text to imprison them all.
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Just on the spot, they show up, they bow, you're in jail for the rest of your lives. But instead he orders up a feast.
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These men who threw him in a pit and proceeded to eat lunch at the rim of that pit are now treated to a royal banquet in the midst of a famine.
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My question to you is, who do you need to return good to? It may be someone who has wronged you.
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It may be even this morning God is pointing in your heart toward a person that needs to hear words of peace from you.
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And lastly, consider the faithfulness of God. He has been with Joseph all throughout the book of Genesis.
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He has brought the first of his two dreams to completion here in our text. He is saving his people in the midst of this famine.
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He is faithful to carry his good, righteous, and merciful plan forward.
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Because he is the Almighty God. And his faithful mercy is the very thing that motivates me to want to take communion every week.
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I recognize the risk of this becoming a routine part of every week. But when we consider what we are doing, it should be anything but routine.
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But even if we grant that it might sometimes be experienced as routine, I think that coming back to the foot of the cross is a great routine.
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It's a great thing for us to do every week. To come back to a recognition of what God has done for us.
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Every Sunday it is my goal to bring us back to the cross. With a cracker, we take to ourselves a reminder that Jesus, the promised descendant of Judah, was broken on the cross for us.
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We take the cup of juice to remind us that Jesus shed his blood for us. He is the only hope that we have to a restored relationship with God.
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So if you're trusting in the faithfulness of God to save you from yourself, then come to one of the tables, you see four tables in the corners, come to one of the tables during this next song, and feel free to take communion in remembrance of what
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Jesus Christ has done for you. If you're here and you're still kind of questioning what
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Jesus has done for you, you're not sure about that, I would love to talk to you after the service. I'll be standing by the front door and you can just pull me aside and talk with me.
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But I'd also ask that if you're still figuring out who Jesus is and what he's done for you, then that you just remain in your seat, take in the song, and just think and contemplate on this message, that Jesus Christ loves you and died for you.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your grace and your mercy.
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I thank you even just for the model and the example that we have in Joseph, who could have been vindictive and yet in his heart chose to bless and offer peace to others.
58:15
Father, I confess and I just think through just the hidden sins in my heart and the things that I don't stand up here and say, and yet simultaneously,
58:23
Father, I pray that you would help us all to seek accountability because we're all broken, we're all cut of the same cloth, and we all have brokenness and messed up family relationships.
58:33
Father, in all honesty, we're in good company, and I pray that we would never take solace and comfort in the fact that, hey, everybody just sins, but that we would do war with our sin and we would be engaged in this battle together of bringing our sin back to the word and identifying it and confessing it and forsaking it and warring against it, but never just in a moderate way trying to manage it.
58:54
Thank you for the work of Jesus Christ that has dealt decisively with our sin so that we can have forgiveness because of what he has done for us.
59:00
And as we celebrate this through the Lord's Supper, I pray that you would help us to reflect on the cracker that reminds us his body broken for us, where we deserve to be punished, he was punished, that where our blood deserved to be spilled out, his blood was poured out for the sins of many.
59:18
Father, be with us and be present with us to apply this text to our lives this week. In Jesus' name, amen.