A Time for Testing Genesis 44

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One thing every apprehensive about is taking exams
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I Remember in college and seminary we would typically have a midterm test and a final
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Taking this test would show if you really understood what you were being taught
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And when you take more difficult subjects, you cannot bluff your way through. I Works Then I'm going to sink.
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I'm gonna get a poor grade since I can't fake that. I understand it So teachers in school give tests during the course of the semester to see if their students truly understand the material
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Now what is interesting is that God does this with his people also? He tests us
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His concern is not so much what we know, but how we are living in light of what we know
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Every truth we learn from Scripture the Lord expects us to have this bear on our lives and that we would live it out
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Now you may be wondering. How does the Lord test us? first Peter 4 12 says that we are tested when a trial comes our way and James 1 3 says that when trials of different kinds come upon us the
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Lord is testing us To lead us to perseverance which leads to spiritual maturity
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The Lord tests his people all the time and he uses different means To do so and he always does it for the good of his people
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Today we are going to see Joseph's brothers as we continue our sermon series through Genesis We are going to see them tested once again by the brother who they sold into slavery many years before We've seen
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Joseph the second most powerful man in Egypt testing his brothers to bring to their attention
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The grievous sin they committed against him all those years before over 20 years earlier
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The sin of selling him into slavery and he's been trying to prick their conscience to bring this back To their attention so that they would feel guilty
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So that they would repent We are going to see him do this once again this morning as we look at Genesis 44
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So I encourage you to turn there with me If you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on pages 44 and 45
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The sermon is titled a time for testing in our big idea our
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Proposition is the Lord tests you in order to grow you and as I mentioned we're gonna see two ways
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How in this text the first is by using others to show you your sin
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And we'll see this in the first 16 verses of this narrative But before we jump in to this text today
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Last week Rob preached on John chapter 3 and I've heard very good reports from it
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And I'm sure you were blessed by it Two Sundays ago the last time we were in Genesis.
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We looked at Genesis 43 And I took two Sundays to get through that chapter and there was three main points that we looked at The sermon was titled lessons in the midst of adversity and the big idea
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Was the challenges of Joseph's family provided us key insights about the life of faith
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We saw three faith lessons. The first faith lesson is you can change for the better and I honed in on Judah remember
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Judah was the one who sold Joseph into slavery. It was his idea and Now we see that we see this transformation in Judah where he was willing to take the blame if Benjamin was not brought brought back safely to his father
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Jacob remembered Benjamin Jacob's beloved son He didn't want to send him out and Judah sold told him
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If something happens to Benjamin and he doesn't come back with me and my other brothers to each to Canaan Then I will bear the blame
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For it and that was a huge Change that we saw in Judah's life and the application for us is clear
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Unbelievers have a major change when they come to faith in Christ because they cross from death to life and Believers, there's these steps you take throughout the life of faith in the growth process known as sanctification where you
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Gradually grow in holiness over time and change happens as the
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Holy Spirit Brings the Word of God to bear on your life and change happens over the long haul
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So that was the first faith lesson we saw the second faith lesson we saw from chapter 43 the chapter 43 narrative is
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You will be brought to the point of helplessness as you walk with the Lord What we saw in this narrative is
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Jacob was was truly left with pretty much no choice It was either stay and keep his son
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Benjamin and all the brothers back in the Canaan and die or it was send them away To Egypt on a risky mission to face a situation where he wasn't sure if anyone was going to return
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But he had to do it because the Lord brought him to the point of helplessness
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And what I explained to you is that this is what scripture teaches us We saw it in this narrative and we see in the rest of scripture as well
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The Lord brings us to the point of helplessness to show us how weak we are and how strong he is
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The Lord desires that we live our life in complete reliance on him the third faith lesson we saw in chapter 43 is
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Your story includes facing your sin It includes facing your sin
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What we saw in the second half of this chapter is the Lord was the one who? Providentially put the money back in Joseph's brothers sacks in chapter 43
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The brothers came to the realization that God did this and as they sat at the table eating with Joseph The text told us that that they were alarmed because they're thinking
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God is going to judge us for the the evil sin that we committed against Joseph all those years before And all of us in our lives have many sins that he plans for us to turn from and he will use providential means to bring this about Now this leads us to today's text to give you the setting of where we are they just finished eating the meal in Joseph's house in Egypt and Joseph's brothers are heading back to their father's house in the land of Canaan with food in hand
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So let's start there Genesis 44 verses 1 & 2 Then he
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Joseph Commanded the steward of his house 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
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With his money for the grain and he did as Joseph told him now we see
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Joseph do something he's done before in 4225 we saw Joseph put the money the brothers used to buy grain back in their sacks
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And what I've been what I've explained is he did this to prick their conscience Joseph is once again testing his brothers by putting his silver cup in the sack of the youngest brother
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Benjamin this whole time Joseph has been putting his brothers in these situations to bring this guilt
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Upon them to bring conviction upon them of the sin they committed against him in the past and remember
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Earlier Joseph had them leave one brother behind to see if they would leave if they would leave him in Egypt This was a test as well and that that lucky brother was
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Simeon and now he's about to parallel even closer What happened over 20 years before and he's going to parallel by having them?
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Face a situation where Benjamin the beloved son Might be left behind and you might wonder.
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Okay. Why is Benjamin the beloved son? well, Benjamin is the youngest son just like Joseph was the youngest son and Benjamin is from the beloved wife
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Rachel just like Joseph is from the beloved wife Rachel So Joseph is going to put them in a parallel situation that he faced before When of course all those years before they failed the test by selling him into slavery
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Okay, so the brothers head en route back to Canaan, but they are about to be accused once again verses 3 through 6 as Soon as the morning was light the men were sent away with their donkeys
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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.
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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
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We overtook them He spoke them these words.
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Okay, let's stop right there So the brothers head off to the land of Canaan with their food and probably feeling pretty good about themselves
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They're thinking we're going back with food and everybody is with us just as planned But then the unthinkable happens the worst case scenario happens
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Joseph's servant runs them down and accuses them of stealing Joseph's silver cup Up to this point.
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They were already accused of being spies we saw that a few chapters ago and Remember money was also put back in their sacks and they they were they thought they were accused of being thieves
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Now they are thinking not this again Joseph's servants their servant says to them in verse 4.
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Why have you repaid evil for good? In other words Joseph treated you so well in his house.
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And and this is how you've repaid him Then Joseph's servant tells them in verse 5 the cup they supposedly took is the cup from which
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Joseph drinks and from which he practices divination Now you might be reading this and saying what is the one in the world is divination?
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One author defines this activity as the practice of foreseeing the future or discovering hidden knowledge
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This practice would later be condemned in Israel in the law of Moses Leviticus 1926 says you shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes
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Now it's obvious that Joseph does not practice fortune -telling No, no faithful follower of Christ practices fortune -telling obviously
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Joseph wasn't following Christ, but I'm just saying that for the modern context here He's following the
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Lord and he doesn't practice fortune -telling and what we've seen throughout The Joseph narrative is he is a godly man who is an who is an excellent example of one who relies?
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Wholeheartedly on the Lord. So why does the servant say this concerning Joseph? The answer is simple
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This is a tactic used by Joseph once again to get his brothers to spill the beans or to repent
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Concerning what they did to him over 20 years before if this powerful man in Egypt knows
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Their hidden secrets through supernatural means then they should not hide their sin anymore
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Now the brothers knew their God Yahweh the God of their fathers is The one true
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God So why would they be fooled by a supposed pagan? Who believes in false gods?
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What why would they be Persuaded to think that he actually got knowledge from a god that didn't even exist
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False gods, and that's a good question. And the answer is They would have believed the
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Lord the one true God the God of their fathers Revealed this to Joseph even if they thought
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Joseph did not know it was the Lord Sometimes we see in the Old Testament. The Lord does things we might not expect him
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Do like for example Saul the king Saul was able to talk to Samuel after Samuel had died
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So he was able to talk to the dead and that's that's not something that scripture mandates But in that one situation the
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Lord let it happen and this would be one of those examples here, too where the brothers might be thinking the Lord is using this supposed pagan powerful man in Egypt Joseph to be able to Get this information and the
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Lord was the one who gave it to him Now after Joseph Stewart accuses the brothers of stealing the silver cup as you might imagine the brothers here respond sharply
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Defending themselves. Let's see this in verses 7 through 9 They said to him
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Why does my Lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing
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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
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Lord's house? Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die and we also will be my
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Lord's servants. Okay, let's stop right there The brothers respond by saying we wouldn't do such a thing.
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This is a false Allegation or accusation they offered proof saying
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When that money when that money was put in our sacks When we went back to Canaan, you know what we did we returned the money back to you
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So why in the world would we steal the cup? From you we have proved ourselves to be honest men
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But the proof is in the pudding as they say There's only one way to find out if they're telling the truth and that is does one of the brothers have the cup
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This is what Joseph's servant says in verse 10 He said let it be as you say he who is found with it shall be my servants and The rest of you shall be innocent
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Okay, we could see here Joseph setting the table here for Benjamin the youngest son to be to be busted and For them to be tested in a very serious way.
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Okay, so the search follows in verses 11 and 12. Let's see this here Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground and each man opened his sack and he searched
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Beginning with the eldest and any with the youngest and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack
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You can imagine the suspense That would have been felt as the steward was going from person to person from oldest to youngest and they're thinking
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Please don't let Benjamin have the cup. Please don't let that Benjamin have the cup and of course we read here
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Benjamin is found with the silver cup and We see the dreaded response of the brothers in verse 13 then they tore their clothes and every man loaded his donkey and they returned to the city
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In ancient times and throughout scripture what we see is that when people grieved they tore their clothes
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It was an outward way for them to express the sourful Emotions that they felt and we are told that each man loaded his donkey and returned
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To Egypt and this would have been a depressing trip back as we might imagine
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Maybe if you were on a sports team growing up and your team had a heartbreaking loss and the bus ride home Everyone was quiet. Nobody talked.
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This might be like that here. They're going back thinking. Oh boy. This is this is depressing Now the brothers are about to meet
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Joseph and they are terrified as you might expect in verse 14 When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, he was still there
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They fell before him to the ground Okay, so they fall before him here and we've seen them fall before Joseph before But but when they fell before before it was it was they were bowing to him because he was a powerful man
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And they were saying we are lower than you and and they were showing him deference and respect Here, that's not the case here.
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They're bow. They're falling to the ground in desperation pleading mercy
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Before him and this is how Joseph responds in verse 15 Joseph said to them
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What deed is this you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice?
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divination So Joseph says to them what you've done and he says
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What the servants said in verse 5 that he knew? That they had the cup from practicing divination
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Once again, as I mentioned, he didn't read an omen. He didn't do fortune -telling. He doesn't do those things
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But he's doing this to make them think this so that their conscience would be would be pricked all the more remember
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He's still playing the pagan Even though he's not a pagan. He's still playing that role, even though they think they don't know this is their brother they don't know that he is a
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Hebrew and and the son of their father the one that they Betrayed although you all those years before and what we've seen over the last few chapters is these tactics by Joseph have been highly
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Successful, wouldn't you agree as we've been going through this the the brothers feel the weight of their guilt and we've already seen
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Joda Judah almost all the Yoda Judah. We've already seen him respond well by seeing the change in his life and They were first accused of being spies then accused of being thieves and now third
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They are being accused of stealing the silver cup And what we must note here is that all of these are false accusations
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Joseph knows that his brothers didn't do any of these things But he's using these tactics to bring to their attention the darkness of their past Now in verse 15
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Joseph asked them. What deed is this you have done? Joseph is referring to the cup, but in the back of his mind
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He's thinking about what they did to him selling him into slavery all those years before you we need to put ourselves into shoes here
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He's thinking that what what deed is this you have done and he's thinking about look what you did to me How hard that was?
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How how tragic that was that you were willing just to give me up you're willing to kill me and then you're willing to sell me into slavery and In verse 16
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Judah responds to Joseph But what Judah has in mind is not the stealing of the cup, but the sin he and his brothers committed against Joseph all those years before Judah knew they didn't steal the cup.
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This is how we know that he's thinking about what they did to him verse 16 and Judah Said what shall we say to my lord?
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What shall we speak or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants behold
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We are my lord's servants both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found
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What Judah says is? God has found out the guilt of your servants
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Once again, Judah is not talking about the silver cup He's talking about this horrible thing that they did to them all of those years before And if you think about that They probably felt that guilt a little bit over the years as they saw their father
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Jacob mourned the loss of Joseph the supposed loss Of Joseph and now they're feeling this like a ton of bricks this guilt that is upon them and they can't take it anymore and We once again see here the
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Lord brings the sins of his people to their attention in his time He uses providential means to do so and the point
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I want to hone in on here I already mentioned this point the first way how here
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The point I want to hone in on is the means the Lord uses uses to show us our sin Specifically the
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Lord uses people to show us our sin You may be you may be able to think of a time where the
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Lord brought to your attention a transgression And he used someone to show you this.
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I Remember a time. Well, I was at a Bible study at my old church and One of my friends in the in the group we had a disagreement on a theological issue
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And I was kind of you know, I was kind of being playful with them and poking at him You know, it's sometimes when you do that.
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It's okay I do that with Mark all the time and he could take it I'm grateful for that, but sometimes you can go too far and I went
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I crossed the line I went too far with this with this this friend of mine and another brother in the group noticed it
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And it was so in this friend left he and I was still there with him He said, you know what Seth you crossed the line there and and and you need to apologize to him and and repent of this
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And and it hit me like, you know, I hit me right between the eyes and I was like, you know what you're right I did cross the line and and I'm not kidding when
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I read this verse I was going through Proverbs in my Bible reading at this time and I and I did in minutes later
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I'm telling the truth here minutes later I sit down and I read Proverbs 9 8 and 9 and as you might imagine what he said to me stung
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But hearing these words helped me out a lot It says do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you
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Reprove a wise man and he will love you and he will increase in learning
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I Miss part of the verse there He says give instruction to a wise man and he will still be wiser
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Teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning. So isn't that a wonderful verse those two verses from Proverbs?
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The Lord was teaching me something that evening not only did he not want me to do this sin again but he was also teaching me that when someone reveals your sin to you listen to it and Turn from it.
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The Lord is saying I'm using this person in your life to do this Humbly consider whether it may be true.
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It's certainly possibly it might not be true But if it's coming from a righteous person Probably is true and you need to consider it and you need to turn from that sin now
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None of us are perfect in this life Until we get the glory, of course the scripture teaches us so we should not be surprised if someone brings sins
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We are committed to our attention. We are going to sin. The question is are you teachable?
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Are you willing to turn from your sins? The Lord is typically going to use other
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Christians to point out your sin and my sin But he may even use an unbeliever never thought about that He will use whatever it takes to get the attention of his people when
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Peter denied Jesus in the Gospels He used a little servant girl to say to Peter Didn't we see you with Jesus and and you have to think that God did this just to show how weak
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Peter was, right? He was afraid of a servant girl. He wouldn't even admit to her that he was with Jesus But what we read in Matthew 26 75 is that once he realized that he was acting cowardly denying the
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Lord Jesus he wept bitterly this burden of guilt that Peter carried of denying
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Christ was brought to his attention and Thankfully, he felt sorrow for it and repented My old pastor often used the saying the
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Lord delivers straight licks with crooked sticks Which is very true in numbers 22 the
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Lord used a donkey to point out Balaam's sin Imagine if you're hunting one night one day and a deer comes up to you and says, you know
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I know you're trying to kill me but You need to focus on this sin in your life You need to turn from that a donkey actually spoke to Balaam.
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I believe that by the way we believe in the inerrancy of scripture and the Lord could do it if he wanted to and We don't know how he did it, but he did it
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So the Lord will get his point across to you for sin present in your life and he uses people
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To show us now in our narrative today The Lord is using Joseph to do this to his brothers.
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Now. Joseph does not bring their sin to their attention directly But everything he has done over the past few chapters as we have seen is to bring their sin to their attention to make them
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Feel sorrow for it and to bring them to repentance and this is done for their good
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Lovingly because what we see at the end of Genesis and we'll see this down the road is that they do Repent they are brought to a sorrow for what they did to him and this brings up an important application for our church
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If we observe sin in one's life We should not be afraid to bring it to their attention
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Or if someone brings a sin to our attention, we should not be afraid to receive the correction
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And as I say this, I know that our culture would say to us doesn't the Bible say?
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Do not judge you you too will be judged. Well, it does say that but we need to understand what it says in context
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When we offer judgment toward another we should be very careful Matthew 7 1 through 5 says that we should first look to see if there is a speck in our own eye
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Before we point out the speck in a fellow believer. So examine yourself first And if we are quick to point out another sin, but never feel sorrow for our own.
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That's a huge problem Then you're being a hypocrite So examine yourself first But then offer gentle loving correction to another and if you offer correction to another in the right manner a godly person
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Will by God's grace receive it well and grow in that area When my godly friend brought that to my attention, it stung.
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Yeah, it hurts But the Lord used it for my good and I'm grateful for that last week
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Bri and I and the kids were in mound and my I mentioned my old pastor just a second ago.
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I mentioned him again He said this quote he said it's not the presence of sin, that's the problem it's the absence of repentance
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That's the problem. There's two types of people in this world repentant people and Unrepentant people that's the difference.
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These people are turning from their sins. These people are Continuing to live in their sins without any sorrow for it toward toward the sins against God And so we need to understand that and and we want to model this we want this to be the culture here at Eureka where We we aren't afraid to point out.
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Maybe it's an area where someone can grow But at the same time we recognize our own sins and we're and we're more sorrowful for our own sins than we are for other sins
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That's the kind of culture we want to have here So the Lord is testing us
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By using other people to see if we will turn from sins and we need to recognize that the
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Lord does this in his providence as we go through the life of faith and to resist his
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Providential means of showing our sin through people is foolish. Remember that verse I just read from Proverbs 9
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The foolish person hates the person who offers correction, you know You can really tell a lot about a person by how they respond to criticism
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They were they hate that person and we don't want that Now when the Lord tests you in order to grow you that's our big idea and the first way how is by using others to show you your sin because that's the first way how and the second and final way how the
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Lord tests you in order to grow you is Seeing that you follow his example in keeping your word and we'll see this in verses 17 through 34
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And I thank you for staying with me here. This is a longer sermon today a bigger text We're covering but let's let's dive into this here
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Now as we transition to the next part of the narrative We are going to again see Judas step up in a big way
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And we are going to focus on how what he said to his father. He fully intended on carrying out as I mentioned above Joseph is putting his brothers in the parallel situation that they had with him all those years before Over 20 years before they cared nothing for him and sold him into slavery
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And now right now the question is are they going to care for the other beloved son of Jacob the youngest son?
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Benjamin let's see verse 17 here But he said far be it for me that I should do so only this is
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Joseph talking 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.
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Okay, so Joseph is really digging in his heels here. He's saying okay I just want Benjamin not all of you the rest of you go and The brothers would rather stay there with him.
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They don't want to go back to their dad like this Joseph gives his brothers the worst possible scenario
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If you can remember in 42 38 Jacob said this if he lost Benjamin He said if harm should happen to Benjamin on the journey that you are to make you would bring down My gray hairs with sorrow to show
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They cannot imagine Facing their father in Canaan having left to Benjamin as a slave in Egypt What we are going to see here is
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Judah steps up to the plate Again, we've already seen him do this and now we're going to see him do it again
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Now I mentioned Judah was the one who sold him into slavery over 20 years Before and then
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Judah tells Jacob as we saw two Sundays ago Judah tells Jacob if anything happens to Benjamin all of the blame falls on me.
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I will take responsibility for it So listen, this is quite he's putting himself on the line here now
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The question is is he going to keep his word? Is he going to live up to this?
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We're about to find out Now before I start reading this I Need to explain that Judas responds to Joseph here.
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This is the longest speech in Genesis. It's verses 18 through 34 so I'm going to read these verses all at once and Then I'm going to explain
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What he did and then why this is so important for us to see and how we should respond as well in our lives
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Okay, so let's look at this verses 18 through 34 Then Judah went up to him and said oh my lord
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Please let your servants speak a word in my lord's ears and let not your anger burn against your servant
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For you are like Pharaoh himself My lord asked his servants saying have you a father or a brother and we said to my lord
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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
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Then you said to your servants bring him down to me that I may set my eyes on him we said
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To my lord the boy cannot leave his father for if he should leave his father his father would die
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Then you said to your servants unless your youngest brother comes down with you You shall not see my face again and 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.
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We said we cannot go down 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
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Then your servant my father said to us, you know that my wife bore me two sons
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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
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Also from me and harm happens to him. You will bring down my gray hairs in evil to show
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Now therefore as soon as I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us
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Then as his life is bound up in the boy's life as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us
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He will die and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant Our father with sorrow to show
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For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father Saying if I do not bring him back to you
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Then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life now, therefore Please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord and let the boy back with his brothers
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For how can I go to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.
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Okay. There we go. Let's take a deep breath Okay So if there's any question about Judah's earlier sincerity with his father that is put to rest right here when
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Judah Told Jacob if Benjamin does not return home with us. I will bear the blame.
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He meant what he said Before this some may have accused
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Judah of telling his father what he wanted to hear Judah knew that they needed to leave
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Canaan to go to Egypt so their family could survive and So naysayers may have said
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Judah was just telling his father what he wanted to hear and if something happened to his brother
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Benjamin He would not bear the blame but blame all the brothers and not just him alone
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But Judah is keeping his word to his father if Benjamin does not return home all the blame falls on his shoulders
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Since he knows the blame would fall on him alone. He makes this offer in verse 33 to Joseph He says please let your servant remain
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Instead of the boy as a servant to my Lord and let the boy go back with his brothers So Judah saying
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I will stay everyone else can go back We would do well to follow
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Judah's example in this narrative The Lord expects his people to keep their word to him and to others
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When you come into a relationship with Christ You are making a commitment to follow the
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Lord fully and the Lord expects you to keep that the life of faith is a test
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Where you have the opportunity to show your allegiance to Christ and the Lord's gonna give you plenty of opportunities to show that as You go through the journey
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Remember Peter was given that opportunity and he failed But thankfully the
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Lord restored him and then later on he succeeded in showing his allegiance to the Lord Jesus said in Luke 9 23 and 24 if anyone comes after me
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Let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me for whoever would save his life will lose it
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But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it What am
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I one of my favorite heroes from history is a man by the name of Eric little that may ring a bell
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It may not But he was the one of the main characters in the in the well -known movie the chariots of fire
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Which was a British film from 1981 but Eric little he competed in the 1924
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Olympics in Paris France and He's well known because he was a devout
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Christian who refused to race on Sunday His best event was the hundred meter dash and he said
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I'm not I'm not gonna run on Sunday I'm not gonna do that event because the preliminary rounds are on Sunday, so I can't do that and so instead
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He put himself in a different event that he was good at but not quite as good at the 400 meter dash which is one lap around the track and The neat story about it is that he won the race he won he won a race that wasn't even his best he won he won the 400 meter dash and of course he became well known from that and But what
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Eric little showed with his life is complete submission to the Lord After his Olympic triumph instead of going for a gold medal in the future four years later
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Instead he went to the mission field in China And he lived 20 years there serving the
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Lord before he died of a brain tumor In a Japanese internment camp this was during the period of World War two when he died in 1940
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I think was 1943 or so when he died or somewhere around there but the pastor who presided
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Over little's funeral said this concerning him Concerning his commitment to God.
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This is a neat quote listen to this The most noteworthy feature in Eric's life was the regular and rapid progress of his spiritual development
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It is as phenomenal as the speed with which in a hundred yard yard race After being yards behind at halfway.
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He would catch up and pass the winning post and easy first Leaving the other competitors standing in the athletic world no one knows how he did it it remains a mystery
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But for his progress in the spiritual race there is a very clear and definite explanation first of all absolute surrender to the will of God Absolute surrender those words were often on his lips the conception that was always in his mind
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That God should have absolute control over every part of his life it was toward the attainment of that ideal that he directed all his mental and Spiritual energies it was no more easy for him than it is for us
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Let no one think that he did not have his temptations just as we have temptations to indolence slackness compromise devotion, that's right slackness compromise and whatnot
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But he won his way through by persistent study regular times of devotion constant meditation insistent prayer
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Getting up early in the morning and spending one hour two hours in a constant traded search for God's will as Revealed in the teaching of Jesus and the
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Bible generally end quote What a remarkable life he lived and the
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Lord expects you to live a life fully surrendered to him This is a life not of perfection
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We won't be there until glory But the big picture of your life is not sorry is one of living fully
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For him you are you are keeping the commitment you made when you made the choice to follow the narrow path that leads to eternal life
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The Lord also expects us to keep our word to others okay, so we're keeping our word to him
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But we're also keeping our word to others when you make a promise he expects you to keep it Your marriage vows right he expects you to keep that I know there are there are biblical grounds for divorce
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But he expects you to keep that till death And what
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Jesus said in general when we talk about keeping our word to others and in Matthew 5 33
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Jesus said you shall not swear Falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn So are you a person who keeps your word like we've seen
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Judah Keep his word today by putting himself on the line like he said He was going to do
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I I know that life can get frustrating sometimes when people don't keep their word or when we don't keep our word to someone else
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But that's the way the Lord expects us to do and in this way We are modeling and following the
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Lord's example what we've seen throughout Genesis is the Lord is a covenant keeping God He's a promise keeper and he wants us to reflect him in every area of our life and one of the ways he wants us to reflect him is by People who keep our promises we keep our word when we say it.
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It's done and that's the kind of people that God calls us to be reflecting him and And to not do this is to lie, which is vile before the
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Lord so The big idea here again is the
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Lord tests you in order to grow you and the second way how in this text that we've Seen this morning is by seeing that you follow his example in keeping your word and wait and may we do that by his grace
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Okay, so to summarize our sermon this morning and and thank you for staying with me here
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The Lord tests you in order to grow you We've seen two ways how the first is by using others to show you your sin and he does that providentially
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Through our life. The second way how is by seeing that you follow his example in keeping your word
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As we've gone through this narrative, I'm Joseph's brothers you might be saying we're hearing a lot about facing sin and the reason we do that is because we always when we preach here we always go where the text goes and It's been talking about facing your sin.
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And so that's what we're doing here What we need to remember is a life free from sin is always for our joy
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It's hard to turn from sin But when we are able by the Lord's power a wonderful freeing result is produced in our life
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Remember Jesus presence in our life sets us free from sin. Jesus said in John 8
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The truth sets you free and you will be free indeed the truth of following him He frees us from the bondage that keeps us from deeper pleasure with God deeper intimacy
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With the Lord next time we're tempted to sin we should be thinking you know what this is keeping me from deeper intimacy with the
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Lord and that's a tragic thing and We should run from that We were created to know and to enjoy
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God So yes, we should feel convicted of our sin, but also see this an opportunity
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To turn from it and have deeper intimacy with him So that wraps up today's this morning's sermon
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Now next week we are going to look at Genesis 45 Joseph finally reveals that the man who has accused them and shown them their guilt all this time is the very one
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They committed this egregious sin against many years before so he's gonna finally reveal himself
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To them and I look forward to opening that up with you next Sunday. Let's pray Father in heaven,
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I thank you for the Word of God The Word of God is sharper than any two -edged sword it pierces
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The heart it shows us the thoughts and intentions of the heart Every text in Scripture does including
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Genesis 44 as we've seen today Lord is as the Holy Spirit inspired this writing he wants us to see what is here and To have this bear on our lives
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That we would be people Lord who will live lives fully surrendered to you facing our sin keeping our word and May we do that by your help and Lord you test us as we go through the life of faith.
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And so I pray Lord that we would see your tests not as a I Got you a moment.
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You don't do that Lord. You always do it in love You do it to test us for our good. And so may we see that and may we grow as a result may we grow in deeper intimacy with you as a result of Responding well to the tests that you send our way and I ask this in Jesus name.