The Grace of Guilt

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis chapter 42, and hold your place at verse 1.
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The title of today's message is The Grace of Guilt.
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Often we think of God's grace as blessings, abundance, prosperity, salvation.
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In fact, just think of it this way.
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The last time you talked to a person and you said, how are you doing? And they said, oh, I'm blessed.
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They probably did not mean they were suffering anxiety, guilt, depression, or any of those things.
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They meant that something good was going on, or their life was good.
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I'm blessed.
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But there are times when God's grace comes to us in the form of difficulty.
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And today we are going to see that even guilt, when properly understood, can be a grace of God, because guilt will lead us to repentance.
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So let us stand and look at the Bible together.
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We're going to look at chapter 42.
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Now chapter 42 has 38 verses.
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Last week we did 50-something, so I think we can do 38 together.
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But as I said always, if you have trouble standing up and you can't stand for this time, it will not offend us at all if you need to sit down.
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When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, Why do you look at one another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt.
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Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.
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So ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.
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But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him.
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Thus the sons of Israel came to buy, among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.
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Now Joseph was governor over the land.
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He was the one who sold to all the people of the land.
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And Joseph's brother came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground.
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Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them.
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Where do you come from? He said.
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They said from the land of Canaan to buy food.
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And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.
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And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them.
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And he said to them, You are spies.
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You have come to see the nakedness of the land.
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They said to him, No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food.
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We are all sons of one man.
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We are honest men.
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Your servants have never been spies.
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He said to them, No, it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see.
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And they said, We are your servants, twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan.
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And behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more.
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But Joseph said to them, It is as I said to you.
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You are spies.
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By this you shall be tested.
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By the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here.
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Send one of you, and let him bring your brother while you remain confined, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you.
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Or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies.
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And he put them all together in custody for three days.
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On the third day, Joseph said to them, Do this, and you will live, for I fear God.
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If you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined, where you are in custody, and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households.
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And bring your youngest brother to me, so your words will be verified, and you shall not die.
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And they did so.
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Then they said to one another, In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, and that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us, and we did not listen.
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That is why this distress has come upon us.
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And Reuben answered them, Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen.
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So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.
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They did not know that Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them.
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Then he turned away from them and wept, and he returned to them and spoke to them.
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And he took Simeon from them, and bound him before their eyes.
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And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, and he replaced every man's money in his sack to give them provisions for the journey that was done for them.
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Then they loaded their donkeys and their grain and departed.
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And as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw his money in the mouth of his sack.
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He said to his brothers, My money has been put back here in the mouth of the sack.
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And this their hearts failed them.
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And they turned trembling to one another, saying, What is this that God has done to us? When they came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, The man, the lord of the land, spoke roughly to us, and took us to be spies of the land.
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But we said to him, We are honest men.
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We have never been spies.
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We are twelve brothers, sons of our father.
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One is no more, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan.
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Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, By this I shall know that you are honest men.
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Leave one of your brothers with me, and take grain for the famine of your households, and go your way.
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Bring your youngest brother to me.
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Then I shall know that you are not spies, but honest men, and I will deliver your brother to you, and you shall trade in the land.
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And they emptied their sacks, and behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack.
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And when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid.
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And Jacob their father said to them, You have bereaved me of my children.
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Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin.
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All this has come against me.
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Then Reuben said to his father, Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you.
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Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.
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But he said, My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is the only one left.
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If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.
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Let us pray.
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Our Father and our God, we come to you in Jesus' name, and I pray, O Lord, that you in this moment where we seek to open the word together would keep me from error.
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For the Lord, you know that I am fallible and capable of error, and I do not want to preach what is wrong.
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And Lord, I pray for all of the hearers, Lord, that their ears would be opened, but more importantly, their minds and their hearts would be opened, and that your Holy Spirit would take your word and apply it to each of their hearts.
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Lord, for the believers, that they would be conformed to the image of Christ, and Lord, for those who have not yet bowed the knee to Christ, that today would be the day, the day of reckoning.
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May it even be, Lord, the day of guilt, where the weight of sin is laid upon them, and they understand that there is only one way to deal with sin, and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross.
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Father, we pray for this time.
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Have your way among us, in Jesus' name, Amen.
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I know that we have some folks with us who are not normally here today, so I welcome you visitors, and I want to just bring you up to speed.
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I want to bring everyone up to speed as to where we are.
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We have been doing a lengthy study of the book of Genesis, and we are, for the last few months, we've sort of been doing a chapter-by-chapter overview, and each week we look at the chapter and we break down that chapter.
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And it's important to understand the context of where we are.
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If you're very unfamiliar with Genesis, or unfamiliar with the Joseph story, or the narrative of Genesis in the last 20 chapters or so, then this may seem confusing.
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The sons of Jacob, the sons of Israel, Jacob's other name is Israel, have sold their youngest, well, second-to-youngest brother, Joseph, into slavery.
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And they did so because they hated him.
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They said very clearly, we hate him.
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We hate his dreams.
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We hate that our father loves him.
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We hate him.
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And they hated him so much that they decided to humiliate him.
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They threw him into a pit, sold him into slavery.
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He was then taken into slavery into the house of a man named Potiphar.
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Potiphar's wife made an advance towards Joseph.
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Joseph rejected her advance.
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She was offended, and so she accused him of rape.
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He was cast into prison.
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He was in prison and forgotten, even though he had helped out two of his fellow prisoners by interpreting their dreams, one of them being uplifted back to the house of Pharaoh.
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But throughout all of this humiliation, Joseph was also exalted.
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He was exalted every time he was put into a position of humiliation.
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When he was put into slavery with Potiphar, he was the head of Potiphar's house.
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When he was put into the prison, he was the warden, as it were, of the prison.
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And when he's taken before Pharaoh, he is exalted in the house of Pharaoh, second only to Pharaoh himself.
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Now it's easy to forget the time period in which these events took place.
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When we read the text, it's like a couple of pages.
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You go from chapter 35, 36, 37, 38.
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It's only a couple of pages each.
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It's quick to go through.
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But understand, we're talking about 20 years of events.
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From the time Joseph was first put into the pit when he was 17 years old to the time when he was brought before Pharaoh and he began to work in Pharaoh's service, the Bible tells us he was 30 years old.
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And I'm not real good at math, but that's 13 years if I'm right.
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So we have 13 years that he's in slavery.
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And then when he's exalted to Pharaoh, well, slavery and prison, then he's exalted to the right hand of Pharaoh, he goes through seven years of plenty.
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Because remember, that was the prophecy, that there would be seven years of good and seven years of bad.
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Well, we're at the end of the seven years of good, so we are now at the 20-year mark.
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He has been away from his family.
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He has been presumed dead by his father, though his brothers knew that he had been sold into slavery.
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When we get to chapter 42, we don't know how long the famine has been going on, but we know that it's been going on for a little while.
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In chapter 45, verse 6, it tells us the second time the brothers come to Egypt, the famine had been going on for two years.
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So it's somewhere between 20 and 22 years is where we are at in the time frame.
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And his brothers are now with their father in Canaan.
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If you remember just a few weeks ago, we looked at chapter 38, and in chapter 38, it told the narrative of Judah.
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Remember Judah had three sons, and the first son had a wife, and he died before he was able to give him any children, so he commissioned the second son to give the wife, and then he died, and so the third son was kept from him.
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Remember that whole sordid details about Tamar dressing as a prostitute and taking a pair of children for Judah herself? That all had been happening in the background.
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This 20-year period of Joseph's life, all that's happening in the background too.
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But at some point, Judah has now come back to be with his family.
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The text does not tell us why.
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I have an idea, but it is just my idea, and my idea is that the famine has driven people back together who may have been separated.
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Because Judah had separated from his family, he had done his own thing with the Canaanites, he had a Canaanite wife, he had children, but now as we begin chapter 42, he's back with his family, back with his father, and that takes us to the beginning of the narrative in chapter 42.
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Now I have an outline for you, it will be on the screen, and the outline is this.
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We have the brothers before Jacob, Jacob is their father.
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We will see that in chapter 42 verses 1-5 and verses 29-38.
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We have the brothers before Joseph, that's verses 6-17.
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We have the brothers before one another, that is verses 18-22, and we have the brothers before God, verses 23-28.
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So let's begin first with the brothers before Joseph.
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I can speak, I promise.
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Let me try that again.
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The brothers before Joseph, before Jacob.
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It says, when Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, why do you look at one another? Now a lot of this story we don't know.
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We don't know why Judah's back, we can conjecture that, I already did.
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We don't know what's going on in their family, but we do know a few things.
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One we know this, the father is still very sad about the loss of Joseph.
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He is still broken over that.
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In fact, he said when he lost Joseph, I'm never going to get over this.
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If you go back to that chapter where he lost, he said I'm never going to get over this.
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And so there is still this sort of disconnect in the relationship.
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There's still this pain and this loss that is there.
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And what we're going to see between Jacob and his sons is he speaks to them in a way that is sort of accusatory.
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Now it never says that he blames them specifically knowing what they did, but it does at one point later in the chapter, he says it's you're the reason I'm bereft of my sons.
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You're the reason I don't have my...
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You're the reason Joseph's not here and you're the reason Simeon's not here.
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So even though he doesn't know what happened, he's laying some guilt on these guys.
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And he looks at them and he says we're starving, why are you looking at one another? Why don't you go to Egypt and buy us some grain? That's where they have it for sale.
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And this phrase here where he says why do you look at one another in our colloquial modern term is why are you standing around here? Ain't no food here.
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Go to where there's food and bring it back.
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Why are you looking at one another? Go to Egypt.
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Now just for a moment, I want you to think of this.
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Sinclair Ferguson, one of the great preachers who often is at the Ligonier conferences, wonderful godly man, Sinclair Ferguson said this.
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He said we all have guilt words.
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He said it's words that when we hear them, they remind us of things that we have done.
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Like maybe for you it's a person's name or maybe it's a place or maybe it's a year in high school or maybe it was a couple of years.
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Maybe it is your high school.
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There's something that brings into your mind things that you've done wrong.
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And Sinclair said those are guilt words.
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We hear them and they automatically drum up into us things we really don't want to think about.
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So when the brothers of Joseph say to him, why are you looking at each other? Go to Egypt.
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What do you think their guilt word is? Egypt.
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What have they done? They know very well what they have done.
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They have a brother who they despise, they hated, they wanted to murder, but instead of murdering him, they decided, hey, he's worth a few shekels of silver, why don't we do that instead? And so we will sell him to these traitors who are going to take him to Egypt.
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You have to be thinking.
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The guys are going, can't we go somewhere else, dad? Isn't there someone else? Isn't there someplace else we can get grain? Isn't there someplace else? I don't want to run into him.
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Can you imagine they just walking along and there he is, bent down, fixing someone's wagon as his slave.
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They don't want to see that.
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They don't want any part of that.
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But there's no other place to go.
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There's no other place to go.
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There's no other place in the world with food.
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And that by God's design.
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God has designed, he's forcing their hand to go to the one place they don't want to go.
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Verse 3 says, so ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain.
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Again, I'm not super good at math, but there were twelve, they lost one, Joseph.
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There's eleven left, right? But only ten are going? You understand why, don't you? Because as far as Joseph is concerned, he had twelve sons, but two of them mattered the most.
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A lot of parents today, oh, I don't have any favorites.
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And I hope we don't.
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Maybe I should have said that back, I don't.
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But, Joseph was, or Jacob had no problem being very clear as to who was his favorite.
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He gave him a special outfit, put him ahead of the house, everybody else went out to work, he got to stay home.
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He was very clear that Joseph was his favorite.
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You wonder why? You shouldn't wonder why.
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He had four women who gave him children, but only one of them did he love.
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In fact, Leah had child after child after child for one reason, the text tells us what the reason was.
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Because she wanted him to love her, maybe now he will love me, remember that? And as many children as she, and she gave him the lion's share.
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As many children as Leah gave, he never had the same affection for Leah that he had for Rachel.
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Rachel gave him two children, and the second one she died while having him.
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She gave him Joseph, his favorite child, and Benjamin.
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Joseph is now lost.
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So there's one child left.
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From his perspective, he's got one child that matters.
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So you ten, you ten, y'all go on and get some food, but me and Benjamin are going to stay at the house, and we're going to stay here and be safe, and he is going nowhere.
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Because the last time one of them went off with you, he didn't come home.
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We ain't doing that again.
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I've been broken for 20 years, I ain't getting broken again, he's staying home.
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So off the ten go.
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Now the brothers are outside of their father's sight, and they enter into the sight of someone they did not expect.
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Beginning at verse 6, the brothers come before Joseph.
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Says in chapter 42 verse 6, now Joseph was governor.
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The term vizier, or the one who is essentially the head of state, he is the prime minister.
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We might say he was the head of the department of agriculture.
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And he was the one who was selling the food to all the people who came.
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And I've got to say this from the outset, Joseph is real harsh, real fast.
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And there's a lot of conjecture about why he is really harsh so quickly.
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Some people and some commentators actually assume that Joseph is here being intentionally vindictive.
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That he's being intentionally harsh because he wants to pay his brothers back for their sins.
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When he saw them, his anger rose, and he just wants to pay them back, and he knows how to do it, he's going to make them miserable.
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I don't see it that way, but I get it.
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I don't understand it exactly that way, but I do get how somebody would arrive at that conclusion.
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Because right away, he's accusing them of being there to spy out the land.
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He says, you've come to see the nakedness of the land.
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The word nakedness in Hebrew means the hidden parts.
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You know, when we get naked, our hidden parts are exposed.
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So the idea of the nakedness is, you've come here to see the parts that we're hiding.
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You've come here to see the parts that nobody else gets to see.
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You've come here as spies so that you can come overtake what we have.
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Now I have a, this is a thought that's been running through my mind because my mind works a little weird.
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As I go through the text all week, I'm swimming in it, I tell you guys, I spend the whole week in this text, and I've been thinking, you've got to wonder what Joseph's flunkies were thinking, and I don't know what else to call them, his entourage, his guys.
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Because he's, it doesn't tell us that he ever accuses anybody else of this.
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People come for food, he sells them food.
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People come for food, he sells them food.
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These guys come up, and he freaks out.
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You are spies! And his people beside him are going, what? They're spies! And the brothers are going, no, no, no, no, we are honest men.
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You've got to think about immediately what Joseph thought.
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Liar, liar.
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Thank you, Hope.
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It's interesting that they say we are honest men.
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Because when they say they're honest men, do they realize the guilt they are heaping upon themselves? Just consider their track record for just a moment.
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Reuben attempted to steal his father's authority by sleeping with his concubine.
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Not an honest man.
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His brothers, Simeon and Levi, lied to the Shechemites about their circumcision so they could murder everyone in the town.
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Not exactly honest men.
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And all of the brothers knew that they had sold him into slavery and lied to their father about him being attacked by an animal.
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These are not honest men.
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You know what the Bible says in the book of Proverbs, it says almost every man will proclaim his own goodness.
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But you know what the Bible also says in Romans chapter 3? There is none good, no not one.
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There is none who does what is right, not even one.
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So, they're willing to proclaim their own righteousness.
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Now I did miss a part I want to go back to just for a second.
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Because if you go back to verse 7, it does say this.
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It says Joseph saw his brothers and he recognized them, but he treated them like strangers.
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And it says again in verse 8, he recognized them but they did not recognize him.
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Anytime you see that type of superfluous nature in the text, it's sort of emphasizing something.
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And what we're seeing here is he recognizes who they are.
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They don't recognize who he is.
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And I never want to be too allegorical, but it is interesting that the Bible says when Jesus came into his own, they didn't recognize him either.
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When Jesus came into his own, his own received him not.
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But to those who did receive him, he gave the power to become the children of God.
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And we say Joseph is a type of Christ.
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But something else we see here.
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It says that Joseph remembers the dream.
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Isn't that interesting? That Joseph remembers the dream that he had.
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What dream did he have? That his brothers would do what? Would bow down before him.
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He had two dreams.
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He had a dream about his sheath and their sheath and the sheaths bowed down.
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And then we had another part where there was 12 stars, or rather there was a sun and moon and 11 stars and the 11 stars and the sun and the moon bowed down to him.
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And Joseph recognizes not only who they are, but he recognizes that he is about to see the fulfillment of the prophetic dream that he had 20 years ago.
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He's about to see them come and do the very thing that they said they would never do.
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Remember what they said when he said, hey your sheath bowed down to my sheath? Are you saying we're going to bow down to you? We will never bow down to you.
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Be careful what we say.
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Be careful what we say.
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Verse 13, we are your servants, we are 12 brothers, the son of one man, the land of Canaan.
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Behold, the youngest is this day with our father and one is no more.
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Don't you think those words cut him deep? Because you know what they just said? Remember they just said we're honest men.
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By the way, we've got a brother who died.
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No, you don't.
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You don't have a brother who's no more.
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You got a brother that you don't even know is standing right in front of you and you're here acting like you don't know what happened to him.
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You know what happened to him.
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You sold him.
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It's not that he's no more.
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It's not that he's dead.
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It's that he was a slave and he was a slave for 13 years because of you.
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Again, I get it.
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If he's a little hot, I understand.
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But I said earlier, I don't think he's doing this out of spite or hatred.
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The reason why I say that, I'm not trying to build Joseph up as a perfect character.
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Even though I do believe he's the type of Christ, Joseph is a sinner and Joseph certainly probably had to deal with his own sinful inclinations and proclivities.
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But what I think Joseph is doing is exactly what God wants Joseph to do because Joseph is driving these men to their knees and he's driving them to the recognition of their sin.
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Imagine this story.
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Imagine Joseph sees his brothers in the distance.
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And he says, Judah, Simeon, Reuben.
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And he throws up and says, hey, it's me.
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And they see Joseph come a running.
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Do you think that they would be broken with repentance? Or do you think that it would just be surprised and weird? I thought about that too.
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Again, I've been thinking this whole week.
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Why is he doing this? What he's doing is he's driving them to the end of themselves.
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Sometimes for us to come to the place of repentance, God has to take us to the very end of ourselves.
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And that's what Joseph is doing.
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He's being used as an instrument of God to drive these men to the end of themselves.
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We're going to see over the next three chapters, he is going to push them to the brink of utter desperation before he finally takes off his garment and says, it is I.
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He's going to drive them to the point that even Judah is going to stand up and say, I will give myself as a slave in the place of Benjamin.
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I will sacrifice myself for my brother.
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Let me tell you something, that ain't where Judah was at the beginning of the story, is it? He was the one who sold his brother originally.
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He was the one who had the idea.
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Okay, here come the traitors.
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We can make some money.
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See, God is changing these men through this hard act of grace.
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See, again, going back to the beginning, we always think grace is going to come to us in balloons and cake and blessings, but sometimes grace comes to us as a smack in the face.
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And sometimes that's the best grace because the grace that puts us on our knees is the sweetest grace.
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And that's what God's doing.
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God is bringing these men to their knees so that he can raise them up as the men they are called to be.
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So, verses 18 to 22, I called this the brothers before one another.
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The reason why I called it that is because it says, beginning of verse 18, on the third day, Joseph said to them, do this and you will live for I fear God.
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By the way, I know I've jumped through some.
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I'm kind of taking for granted that you've already read this.
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Maybe you kind of can follow the narrative.
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But what Joseph has done, he said, I'm going to put you in prison for three days.
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And on the third day, I'm going to let one of you go home and bring your brother back so that you can prove to me that you're not spies, that you actually are the sons of one man.
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So, now the three days are over.
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Beginning at verse 18, it says, on the third day, Joseph said this, do this and live.
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And he says something interesting.
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He says, for I fear God.
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The Hebrew word here is Elohim.
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But at the same time, I'm not exactly sure that the brothers even understood what he was saying in the sense that he's saying, you can trust me because I fear God.
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You can trust that if I tell you, if you go home and bring your brother back, I will do this.
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And he says, I fear God.
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I fear Elohim.
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How do the brothers understand that? It doesn't tell us how the brothers understood it.
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But that's what he says.
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He says, I fear God.
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If you are honest men, let one of the brothers remain confined where you are in custody.
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Let the rest go carry grain for the famine to the households.
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Now, think about this for a moment.
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The first time he says this, he says, I'm going to make 11 of you stay.
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I'm going to send one of you home.
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Now, he says, I'm going to let one of you stay and send 10 of you home.
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Why? Why is he changing his mind? The text doesn't tell us, but here's an idea.
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Joseph is doing this as an act of love for his family because one man can only carry so much food.
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He needs to keep one at least as collateral.
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But if he keeps 10, he's going to perpetuate the hunger and the famine of the people back home.
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So he says, I'm going to let all of you but one go.
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And he lets all but one go.
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He changes the arrangement, as it were.
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But look at verse 21.
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The brother said to one another, in truth, we are guilty concerning our brother.
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In that we saw the distress of his soul when he begged us and we did not listen.
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That is why this distress has come upon us.
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Notice what they're doing right now, recognizing their guilt.
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Why is it? They don't know that's Joseph.
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As far as they're concerned, that is just some Egyptian viceroy.
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That is just some Egyptian head of state.
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They don't know that that's their brother, but they know they're guilty before God.
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And they look at one another and they say, I know why I'm suffering this.
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Because I have sinned against God.
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I've sinned against my brother.
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And they even remember, in the guilt, they remember...
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And by the way, this is the first time the text tells us anything about the way Joseph responded.
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Because if you go back and read, when Joseph was put into the pit and when he was sold to the Egyptians, nothing is said about his response.
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But remember when I preached there a few months ago? I said, you can hear the cries of Joseph from the pit.
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Brothers, don't do this to me.
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And then as he's being led away in chains about his neck and his wrists and being sold into slavery, he's crying out, don't do this to me.
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They've had that in their ears for 20 years.
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And now it's come home in their heart and mind.
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They look at each other.
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We know why this is happening.
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Everybody else got to buy food.
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Nobody else got called a spy.
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But we did.
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Everybody else came up, put their money down, got their grain, went home.
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We came up, put our money down and got accused of being spies.
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And now we're in jail.
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And good old Reuben.
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I told you not to do it.
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Don't you love the I told you so guy? What's interesting is if you go back to the narrative, the narrative of the story where he's put into the pit, Reuben does try to keep him safe, but he does it subversively.
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He doesn't do it out in the open.
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He tries to do it quietly.
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He says, I'm going to come back later, get him out and take him home.
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When he comes back and he's not there, he freaks out.
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But now we get a little more of the story.
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And apparently Reuben was a little vocal.
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I told you not to touch the boy.
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Look at what you've done to us.
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Hey, listen, Reuben, man, you had 20 years.
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You could have came clean.
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Oh, well, they would have killed me, too.
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Which is more important, your life or your virtue? Good question.
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Had 20 years.
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He's guilty along with them as virtuous as he may be.
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And something else about Reuben we're going to learn later in this story.
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Reuben is the head brother.
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He's the eldest brother, but he's not a leader.
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He tried to convince them not to sell him into the pit.
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He got put him in the pit and sell him into slavery.
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He got sold.
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When he goes to his father later in this story and he says to his father, Hey, send me with Benjamin, and I will make sure he comes back.
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In fact, I'll give a guarantee.
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If I don't bring your son back, you can kill your two grandchildren.
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Just for a moment.
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Thanks? I mean, what kind of awful, like, here's the promise.
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If I let your son die, you get to go kill your grandchildren.
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I don't know what was up with those kids.
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But Reuben's not a leader.
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Reuben doesn't have the trust of his father.
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We're going to see Judah's actually the one who takes Benjamin back.
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Judah's the one entrusted with that.
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And then much later in the story we're going to hear a little very important statement from Jacob when he says the scepter shall not depart.
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Not from Reuben, because he ain't no leader.
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Not from Simeon and Levi, because they are violent men.
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The scepter will not depart from Judah.
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Now, we see the guilt of the brothers' hearts.
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And now we see them having been released to go home.
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And I called 23 to 28 the brothers before God.
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And the reason why I called this section the brothers before God is because as they're going, they stop in a lodging place for the night.
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They open up their food to feed their animals.
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And one of the brothers notices he's still got his money.
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Which means something bad has happened.
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Because they gave money for grain.
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They got the grain back.
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And they got the money back.
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Which means somebody's going to possibly accuse them of being thieves.
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They were already accused of being spies.
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Now they're going to be accused of being thieves or cheaters.
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Right? And so they're scared to death.
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And I want you to look with me at verse 28.
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He said to his brothers, My money has been put in my sack.
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Here it is in the mouth of the sack.
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At this their hearts failed them.
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And they turned trembling to one another saying, What is this that God has done to us? Understand this.
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In all the time that we have read about these brothers, this is the first appeal to God that they have made.
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And what do they recognize? Their guilt.
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God has done this to us.
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Consider this for a moment.
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Joseph's actions have all worked together to increase the guilt and memory of their grievous sin.
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They can find him in the pit.
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He can find them in the prison.
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They had two plans.
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First they were going to kill him.
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Then they decided to sell him.
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He had two plans.
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I'm going to let one go home.
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No, I'll let ten go home.
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He sends them home with the silver in their sacks.
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What did they go home with the first time? The silver that they used to sell him.
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And he leaves them one brother short.
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How did they go home the first time? One brother short.
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Joseph knows what he's doing.
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He is putting their sin before them so that they have to face their guilt.
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Now verses 29 to 38 really tie into next chapter.
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And I'm going to look a little bit at that next week.
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So even though we've read it and talked a little bit about it, when we get to the next chapter where they finally do make their way back, we'll look at this a little bit more.
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But today I want to draw to a close with a few applicable thoughts from what we've looked at.
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Because as I said, today's sermon is entitled, The Grace of Guilt.
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And I do truly believe that what these men are experiencing is a grace from God as they face their brother and experience the guilt of their sin.
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We live, hear me on this, this is so important.
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We live in a culture today that is a guilt-denying victim culture.
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We live in a culture today where everyone has someone else to blame rather than themselves, whether it is for their sins, whether it is for their socioeconomic status, whether it is for their abilities or lack of their so.
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Whatever it is, it's always someone else's fault.
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Since the advent of Freudian psychology, there has been an obvious attempt to rid ourselves of the concept of guilt and shame.
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Because Freud told us that those things are not good, they are part of how the, I'm just going to read this, guilt was not an objective reality for Freud.
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In the strictest terms of right and wrong, he pushed that aside and said that all it is is a conflict between our higher moral part of our subconscious, which he called the superego, and the lower primitive part of our subconscious, which he called the id, and that which makes the mediator between the two, which is called the ego.
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And he said what we are experiencing is not objective guilt, but rather we are experiencing motivationings, conditionings, social expectations and intentions, which are all really just no objective right or wrong, it's just how we feel about the current situation.
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And that's given birth to things like relative morality.
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It's right for you, not right for you, good for you, not good for him, and it doesn't matter because there's nothing true and there's nothing objective.
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That's where we live.
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And no one has any guilt anymore.
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You understand? No one is responsible for anything.
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How can you be responsible when there's no such thing as guilt? We make everyone a victim.
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This is why so many in the world and in the church have given up the idea of divine punishment.
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How could you possibly believe in God's wrath if you don't deserve it? And nobody deserves it because there's no guilt anymore.
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We no longer see ourselves as sinners created in the image of God and having violated that, but rather we see ourselves as the victims of circumstance.
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Challenge anyone about their offense.
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What do they say? They begin automatically to find someone else to blame.
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It's always someone else's fault.
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Whatever you've done, you can blame it on something or someone else.
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It's because of your childhood.
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Your dad didn't hug you enough or he hugged you too much.
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It's because of the patriarchy.
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It's because of your skin color.
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It's because of your parents.
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It's because of your lack of prosperity.
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Whatever! We blame it on something because we do not want the blame for ourselves.
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We do not want guilt.
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It can never be me.
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I have to lay it at the foot of someone else.
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That type of thinking may be popular in our culture, but it is foreign to the Bible.
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The Bible tells us plainly that we are guilty before the God of the universe, that we have sinned against Him.
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No matter how much we make ourselves the victim, the Bible is clear we are responsible for our own sin.
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And you will not on Judgment Day get to point a finger at mom or a finger at dad or a finger at the government or the finger at the pastor or the finger at the deacons, but you will have your fingers pointed directly at yourself.
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And if you are not in Jesus Christ, it will be the fingers of woe is me.
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This is why we say the gospel is good news.
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But to understand the good news, you have to understand the bad news.
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The good news is Jesus died for sinners.
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But if you don't recognize yourself as a guilty sinner, you are never going to appreciate the good news.
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You understand the very thing that I am saying in the title of this sermon is an affront to modern culture.
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Because I am telling you that guilt is a grace.
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Because it causes us to recognize our sin and our need for repentance.
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We see the brothers of Joseph sin grievously against their brother and now they are beginning to have their consciences awakened to their sin.
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Let me ask you this question.
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Has your consciousness been awakened to your sin? Have you recognized your sin before a holy God? Have you recognized your desperate need for a Savior? Or are you still holding vainly into some idea that you are righteous in and of yourselves? You know Jesus' biggest problem was with the Pharisees.
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Why? Because they saw themselves as righteous.
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Two men went to the temple to pray.
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One man was a Pharisee.
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The other was a publican.
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And the Pharisee stood and he said, I thank Thee, O Lord, that I am not like other men.
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I give a tithe of all of my income and everything I do I do for this or for that.
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I am not like that tax collector over there.
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And the tax collector would not even lift his face to heaven but rather instead he beat his breast and he said, Have mercy on me, a sinner.
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You are in one of two conditions today.
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You either recognize your guilt and sin before a holy God or you think yourself good enough to pass His standard and you're not.
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You're guilty before God.
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You might say, Well, wait a minute, I'm a Christian.
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I don't need to feel guilt anymore.
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Well, let's talk about that for one moment.
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That is true in this sense.
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I'm not telling you to walk around feeling this weight of guilt all the time because if you have come to the Lord Jesus Christ and received His forgiveness, your guilt is paid for.
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And if you come to me telling me you have guilt and you need counseling, you know what I'm going to tell you? You don't need counseling.
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You need Christ.
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Now that doesn't mean that I'm not going to counsel you but you don't need Freudian psychology to tell you to feel better about yourself.
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You need to take all of your sins to the foot of the cross and trust Christ with them.
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That's what you need to do.
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And if you come to me or Mike or Andy, we will all point you to the same solution and it is Jesus Christ that is the only way to deal with your guilt.
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If you are trying to deal with your guilt through anything else, it is not going to be enough.
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We're going to sing in just a few moments Amazing Grace.
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And I want you to think about the words, not of the first verse, but I think it's the second verse that says this, It was grace that caused my heart to what? To fear.
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And grace my fears relieved.
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What do you think he meant when he said grace caused my heart to fear? Because guilt is grace.
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Guilt causes us to recognize our position before God.
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Grace taught my heart to fear.
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And grace my fears relieved.
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Beloved, if you're here today and you're under the weight of guilt, I can't give you anything else but Christ, but know this, He's enough.
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We already sang today, Our sins they are many, His mercy is more.
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He's a greater Savior than you are a sinner.
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As I said earlier, we all have guilt words.
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And when I said that, you probably thought of a word or a place or a person in your mind that brought guilt into your heart.
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Understand, if you're in the Lord Jesus Christ, that has been paid.
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Your sins they are many, but His mercy is more.
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But if you're not in the Lord Jesus Christ, I urge you, turn from your sin and run to the cross.
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Run to the only one who can save you.
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The only one who can assuage your guilt.
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The only one who has paid the price for your sin.
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The only one.
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People always say, I don't like Christians because they only believe in one way.
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Let me tell you something, God didn't have to give you a way at all.
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And He didn't just give you a way, He gave you the best way.
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For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
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Have you believed in Him? Is your guilt laid at the foot of the cross? Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the promise that though our sins are scarlet, You are washing them white as snow in the blood of the Lamb.
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And Lord, so much for us to consider today about guilt and grace and to understand that You break us to restore us.
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You drive us to our knees that we may be seated in heavenly places with Christ.
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And Lord, for those who are here who are believers, I pray that this has been to them a balm for the soul, reminding them of their guilt, but that their salvation is in Christ and their guilt has been paid for.
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The punishment has been taken.
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Lord, for those who are not yet in Christ, for the urgency of the moment that You would draw them in, whatever their sins may be, Lord, Your Word tells us there is nothing that You cannot pay for.
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His blood is that powerful.
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And Lord, if there's anybody in here thinking I'm too bad, I've done too much, I've done things that no one would want to know or hear about, Lord, help them to understand that if we confess our sins, You are faithful and righteous to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
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Lord, give us that grace today.
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In Jesus' name, amen.