Reconciliation – Part II

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 44:1-34

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Well, this morning we look to work through chapter 44 together. If you remember from last week, we began a several -part series on reconciliation.
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I think it'll end up being three parts, although it won't exhaust all that we have to say about the matter of reconciliation.
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Up to this point, as we begin the second part here in chapter 44, we're reminded that Joseph has been restraining himself from revealing his identity, revealing everything that he has done to bring his brothers before him in repentance so that there may be true reconciliation.
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All 12 brothers were around his table at the Merry Feast. Five times the serving were given to his full -blood brother, their step -brother, the least among them,
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Benjamin. And it seems that Joseph was testing his brothers to see whether they would be envious of this favor that was shown to the youngest among them, the least among them, whether the old paths of bitterness and envy and jealousy would lead them down the same road that Joseph had trod 20 years before.
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But we've begun to see significant changes in the lives of these brothers. They did not resent the fact that Benjamin was so honored in their presence.
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They enjoyed the feast together with him, certainly relieved from the crisis that they had felt on their way to Egypt.
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Now they feel relaxed. They feel as though the storm has passed. All is well.
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Now they can go back to their father in peace. But as we begin chapter 44, we find that all is not well.
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And all is not well because though there has been tremendous progress in their lives, there has yet to be true repentance and therefore there has yet to be true reconciliation.
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Beginning in verse 1, Joseph commanded the steward of his house, saying, 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.
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Also put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest and his grain money.
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And so the steward did according to the word that Joseph had spoken. As soon as the morning dawned, the men were sent away, they and their donkeys.
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You've got to love it. These donkeys have been sort of stars of the show between chapter 43 and 44.
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Joseph continues his strategic plan to test his brothers and to bring out repentance.
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Even here we're getting some beautiful gospel imagery with details like he put each man's money back in the mouth of the sack.
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You can see that as far as Joseph is concerned, as Lord of the land, reconciliation will come about by his grace, his abundant blessing, not by indebtedness, not with money nor with price.
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Their money is no good before him. Joseph's own silver cup, his own special cup.
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Anyone have a favorite coffee mug? This maybe would be the equivalent. I have a few favorite coffee mugs.
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Well the silver cup that Joseph drank from is planted with Benjamin. Once again, Benjamin is singled out because Joseph is creating a reenactment of the envy and the hatred and even the scapegoating that his brothers felt toward him.
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So there is now perhaps opposition that Joseph is trying to create between the ten brothers and Benjamin, the youngest.
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Would they condemn him when this cup was found? Would they abandon him? Hey, you made your bed, you got to sleep in it, we're going back to dad, there's nothing we can do to help you.
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Would they forsake the youngest brother as 20 years prior they had forsaken
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Joseph? Verse 4, when they'd gone out of the city and were not yet far,
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Joseph said to his steward. Little details and narrative. Are we making too much of it?
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Perhaps, but every word is spoken for a reason. There's no reason to say when they were not yet far off.
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I think that's a way of saying they're not far off from the revelation and the reconciliation.
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We're getting closer and closer to the great reconciliation. Little details like that.
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They're not yet far off in more ways than one. Joseph said to his steward, get up, follow the men, and when you overtake them, say to them, why have you repaid evil for good?
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Is not this the one from which my Lord drinks, that is the cup, and with which he indeed practices divination?
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You have done evil in so doing. So the steward is brought into Joseph's plan, likely with more information than we have here.
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He likely is aware of what Joseph is up to. I think we can say that because he negotiates down the fatal vow that the brothers make.
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He seems to have a little more understanding of what Joseph's desire is. This little phrase, the cup with which he indeed practices divination, has sometimes been a thorn in the side of interpreters because Leviticus 19 .26,
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Deuteronomy 18 .10, passages like this condemn Israelites who practice divination.
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Indeed, Israel is not to practice divination, so what do we do with this? Well, some say this is simply
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Joseph creating the pretense. Most Egyptian court magicians would have some sort of vessel or instrument by which they would divine things.
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We've already seen Laban understanding that he had been blessed in his household by divination, so this seems to be something that was understood in the family and even in the time.
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Derek Kidner points out, the phrase could be translated, about this he could or he would have certainly divined.
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So rather than saying this is the cup by which he divined, saying this is the cup about which he would have divined.
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Either way, whether we're trying to protect or better understand what
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Joseph is doing with divination and the cup, the law comes with its demands later and the text simply doesn't pronounce on it in either direction.
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Verse 6, the steward overtakes them, speaks to them the same words, and they said to him, why does my
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Lord say these words? Far be it from us that your servants should do such a thing. Look, we brought back to you from the land of Canaan the money which we found in the mouth of our sacks.
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How then could we steal silver or gold from our Lord's house? With whomever your servants it is found, let him die and we also will be my
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Lord's slaves. So they're pushing for the death penalty and they're voluntarily binding themselves to slavery in Egypt.
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That's how convinced they are that no missing cup will be found among them. The charge has been laid, this would be the height of offense, the height of insult.
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To take a hospitable act of mercy, to go to your host and steal from him would be something horrific to the ancient mindset.
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We see it even in Les Miserables with Jean Valjean when he steals from the priest who houses him as a convict.
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The accusation of course is completely unjust and so the brother's outrage is warranted.
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Why would we have brought back the money we supposedly steal the first time if we're coming back just to steal more?
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What kind of thievery is that? Notice that they trust each other, another mark of a changed life.
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It's not every man for himself. Well I know that I didn't take it, I have no idea about these guys. Apparently the crisis of famine and the work of God's grace has been such that the change has been noticeable.
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The desire has been there. They want to be shown to be men of honesty and integrity. We are honest men they said in the last chapter.
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So they are trying to clear their name. They of course have absolute confidence that none of them would have stolen the cup and they trust each other.
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They're willing to say, I trust my brother so much I'll become a slave. That's how convinced
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I am that neither I nor he would have stolen this silver cup. That says a lot about a changed life, the ability to trust one and to see evidences of God's grace in the lives of others.
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Verse 10, and he said, now also let it be according to your words. He with whom it is found shall be my slave but you shall be blameless.
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So the steward says we don't need to go to the death penalty and you all don't need to be slaves. The only slave will be the one with whom it is found.
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So he negotiates down again. Likely he understood Joseph's design. Each man quickly drops their sacks.
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They're eager to show their innocence. They're not gingerly about it or hey look over there and trying to squirrel things to the side.
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They throw their bags down. They immediately open them up and the steward one by one begins to walk, poke, pour, inspect each bag.
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You can picture the brothers there with no sense of anxiety or nerves. Yeah, I know we're going to be vindicated, right?
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This is just sort of a border inspection and we can be on our way. He begins with the oldest,
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Ruben. There staring confidently you're not going to find anything. One by one as he works down the line according to birth order and then he comes to the youngest.
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They're probably already picking up, loading, getting ready to go. Yeah, you didn't find it. We knew you wouldn't find it. Come on Benjamin, let's go.
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Clunk. There's the silver cup. They all rip their clothes.
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They're so consumed by grief and despair. This ancient action of tearing, rending one's garments to show complete distress, complete grief.
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Of course as they're tearing their clothes, there's nothing they can say. Benjamin is perhaps more shocked than any of them are shocked.
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We read each man loaded his donkey and returned to the city. What are they going to do about this crisis now?
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Abject horror, abject despair, thoughts of their father Jacob back home, thoughts of how that merry feast the previous night where they were filled with such calm and peace and joy had now opened up to a nightmare the next morning.
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And yet, we see the wisdom of Joseph again bringing about a reenactment of their brother's sin from 20 years prior.
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When the silver cup is found among Benjamin, the favorite son, their step brother, not their full blood brother.
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When the cup is found among Benjamin, they're brought to the very place where they can choose to abandon him to slavery to Egypt and go back to the home as the bearers once more of devastating news to Jacob.
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Or if they've changed by the work of God's grace in their lives, they can stay and they can fight and they can somehow find a way to free
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Benjamin. Have these men changed? Will they send their brother to slavery in Egypt, save their own skin and devastate their father the same way they had 20 years prior?
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But their actions confirm the fact that God's grace has not been idle in their lives.
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He has been changing these brothers, giving them hearts of flesh by removing their hearts of stone.
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And just as they were unified in their presumed innocence, they're unified in the guilt.
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That is a profound change. All of the brothers return to the city.
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Not one of them abandons Benjamin, even though he alone would have to pay the consequence of appearing guilty.
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The brothers ironically tear their clothes. The last time we read that phrase was when they came with the bloody garment of Joseph and they said, see, is this
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Joseph's robe, that dreamer? Is this his robe, Father? Do you recognize it? And Jacob was the one that tore his clothes.
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Now they begin to sympathize and understand something of the heartache of their father. Ironically, the last time they had torn clothes in the text was when they were tearing
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Joseph's clothes off of him as they sent him away to an uncertain fate into Egypt.
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These are changed men. Verse 14, Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house and he was still there and they fell before him on the ground.
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And Joseph said to them, what is this you have done? Did you not know that such a man as I can certainly practice divination?
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So they all come before Joseph bowing prostrate, once again fulfilling the dream of Genesis 37.
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And Joseph provokes them, how could you have done this evil against me? Don't you know that I practice divination?
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Again, this is tying the silver cup into this practice of divination. The Hebrew is emphatic there.
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It's an infinite of absolute and that's a way of showing emphasis. It could be translated, don't you know I am fully able to divine?
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Now that's significant. And I think the brothers see it as significant because Joseph is almost provoking them.
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If he knew our birth order at the table the night before and we were all awestruck wondering how is it that he knows who is the oldest and who is the youngest from beginning to end?
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If he knows that, what else does he know? If he knows that the cup would be found among us, what else does he know?
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How far back does he know? Joseph's provoking them. I'm fully able to divine.
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Don't you know I'm a dreamer of dreams? Don't you know the interpretation belongs to God?
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That's what he's beginning to express to them. Judah, verse 16, steps forward.
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By the way, it's significant that Judah is the one that steps forward. Without any ceremony, we've seen
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Judah take charge really as the leader among these brothers, though he was the fourth born,
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Talaiah. We see not the order of birth, but rather by morality and integrity and grace, there's now a reworking of the hierarchy among the brothers.
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Reuben apparently has lost his headship and leadership. He made that valiant effort to throw away his sons in order to save Benjamin, but apparently his life was not so full of integrity and evidence of grace as Judah.
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Levi and Simeon are mass murderers of the Shackamites. They also have not been able to outpace
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God's work through Judah. No one among the brothers apparently questioned that Judah was the right man to lead them, the right man to guide them, because he had the moral authority of God's work in his life, something that they saw was deficient in their own.
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So though he was younger to them, his older brothers followed his lead. That's just a good application to keep in mind, you siblings of multi -sibling families, that you may be youngest, and yet if you have a life of integrity, a life filled with the evidence of God's grace, you may well lead and guide and save your family.
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Verse 16, look at Judah's plea. What shall we say to my
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Lord? What shall we speak? How can we clear ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of your servants.
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Here we are, my Lord's slaves, both we and he also with whom the cup was found.
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Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought the steward already made this clear. Only the one with whom the cup was found would need to serve as a slave.
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Why all this guilt? Why all this spontaneous confession? But look at what Judah's saying. What can we say?
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What shall we speak? How can we clear ourselves? This is corporate confession.
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God has found out the iniquity, the sinfulness of us all.
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Here we are, my Lord's slaves, both we and he also with whom the cup was found.
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You see, it wouldn't be as the steward said it must be. No, if Benjamin is guilty, we are guilty.
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If Benjamin is to be a slave, then we must be a slave. Judah is not confessing to have anything to do with the silver cup.
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He and his brothers know they had nothing to do with the silver cup. So then why this corporate confession?
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Judah was confessing a far greater crime. Judah was confessing a far greater guilt.
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He knew that he was innocent regarding the silver cup, but he could not come with a clean conscience before the
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Lord of the land, especially when he considered the details and he attributed it to God's providence.
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Not the steward, not Zaphnath -Paneah, but God has found out my guilt and I can't help but see the way that he has moved has shown me that now retribution has come.
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And though the sin was 20 years buried, now God is beginning to deal with it. And if I hope to have any mercy before him,
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I must face the consequences of that sin. So Judah confesses what
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God has revealed to him. And that guilt goes across not only Judah, but all of his other brothers as well.
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These 10 brothers recognize that they stand guilty. And if Benjamin must be a slave in Egypt because he stole a silver cup, then they must be slaves in Egypt because they had once sent their brother as a slave to Egypt as well.
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He cannot escape the similarity, the parallel of God's providential outworking.
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He could not help but see that he stood guilty, that God had uncovered that guilt, that now it was time to deal with the consequences of sin.
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This again is an evident change of heart, an evident mark of grace in the life of Judah and all of his brothers.
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Remember that they had been driven by famine to come out of desperation to the Lord of the land, the very last thing they wanted to do.
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And why did they do it? Because in their hearts becoming flesh, they began to have sympathy for their father.
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And when he said, go get us food, though it was the last thing they wanted to do, they marched down to Egypt and they had mouths to feed of their own.
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They had wives and families, sons and daughters. Joseph is 40, 41.
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Benjamin's half that. These brothers are old. They have established households of their own.
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They have people that are depending upon them every day. Their little girls and their little boys look over the horizon.
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Is daddy coming back yet? But here they are when the guilt is opened up from God, they say, we'll never see them again.
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We don't know how they'll be fed. We will be slaves in Egypt.
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How striking that must have been to Joseph. These were not the brothers he had known 20 years before.
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Joseph wants to clarify. He doesn't want to leave their households destitute. He doesn't want to jeopardize the safety and the security of their families.
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He's seen that they're changed men. He's seen that the marks of grace are evident in their lives.
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For him, it's enough. He just wants his youngest brother. Perhaps that's really his plan.
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Perhaps he's still moving forward toward true reconciliation. I could probably be convinced either way.
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The fact that he doesn't reveal himself fully makes me think he has more runway for what he's trying to see and accomplish in these tests.
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Far be it from me that I should do so. The man in whose hand the cup was found, he alone shall be my slave.
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But as for you, go up in peace to your father. So Joseph is twisting the knife a bit.
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How could they go up in peace to their father? This was the one thing they knew that would break their father.
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Pick any other brother, and they would grieve, and they would pray, but they wouldn't be broken by this.
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Their father wouldn't go down to Sheol with gray hair, but if they come back without Benjamin, that will shatter him.
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So here now, again, is the essence of the brother's test. Joseph has given them a second out, just like the steward gave them an out.
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You're free to go. I've seen the change. I understand where you're at. You can even go back to your father and say, we pleaded with him.
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We actually were willing to trade our lives into slavery. We tried to make a sacrifice, Dad. We really did, but the steward rejected it, and then the
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Lord of the land rejected it as well. He just would not receive it. We did everything we could. I'm so sorry that you'll never see
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Benjamin again. That's the test that Joseph has put before them. Will they once again care only for themselves and return without having faced the consequences, or did the way that God opened up this guilt from their past bring them into a place where they were completely submissive to God's will, completely willing to yield their own lives, surrender their safety and security into God's hands that they might plead for mercy?
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Well, they have no intention of leaving. Judah once again steps forward, verse 18, and he comes near.
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He doesn't do this in a public way. It's a very intimate way. He comes near to Zabnat Paneah, not knowing it's his brother
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Joseph, and he says, oh my Lord, please let your servant speak a word in my
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Lord's hearing. Don't let your anger burn against your servant, for you are even like Pharaoh, meaning you have all authority.
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My life is in your hands. All of our lives are in your hands. My Lord asked his servant, saying, have you a father or a brother?
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And we said to my Lord, we have a father, an old man, a child of his old age who is young.
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His brother is dead. He alone is left of his mother's children, and his father loves him.
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Just taking a step back, what do you notice about how
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Judah is communicating to the Lord? First, he comes near and he says, let not your anger burn against your servant.
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Anger? He never even touched the silver cup. He's almost pleading, as it would seem to the
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Egyptians, to a crime he never committed, and yet his conscience is bound to this conviction, and so when he comes before him, he says, please don't let your anger burn hot against me.
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And what I'm about to plea for, please receive that plea, and do not turn against me in your wrath.
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And then he goes back to their dialogue, and he reports it very accurately. It was you who asked if we had a father or a brother.
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Again, a testimony to his integrity. We were honest. This is what we said to my Lord. And now he's using the own pain of his past to express this testimony to the
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Lord. We have a father, an old man, a child of his old age. His brother is dead, as far as he knows.
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He alone is left of his mother's children, and his father loves him.
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Twenty years ago, it was because Joseph was the son of Jacob's beloved that caused all the envy and the hatred when every day they saw how much their father loved
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Joseph. It was the reason they didn't feel any sense of remorse when he cried out to them from the pit while they were eating a dinner.
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But now, Judah has been so transformed by God's grace that he's able to say, our father loves
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Benjamin. It's his favorite son. And you've got to understand, it was only two sons that were born to this man's mother, and it would devastate our father.
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It's like it's his only son. That's how he reports it. All the things that were so painful and devastating to Judah, now he treats as matter of fact.
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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 to my Lord, he cannot leave his father.
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If he should leave his father, his father would die. But you said to your servants, unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall see my face no more.
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And so it was when we went up to your servant, my father, that we told him the words of my Lord. And our father said, go back, buy us a little food.
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And we said, we cannot go down. If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down, for we may not see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us.
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And then your servant, my father, said to us, you know that my wife bore me two sons.
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And the one went out from me, and I said, surely he is torn to pieces, and I have not seen him since.
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Can you picture how Joseph would have felt hearing this report? But if you take this one also from me, and calamity befalls him, you shall bring down my gray hair with sorrow to the grave.
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Now therefore, when I come to your servant, my father and the lad is not with us, since his life is bound up in the lad's life.
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He recognizes that there's a relationship between Jacob and Benjamin that does not exist with any of the other brothers, including himself.
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It could not be said that Jacob's own life was bound up with any one of them, and yet he's pleading for the one to be spared, even though the same dynamic 20 years ago was the reason he persecuted
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Joseph to death. Your servant became a surety for the lad to my father, saying, if I do not bring him back to you, then
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I shall bear the blame before my father forever. Now therefore, please, let your servant remain instead of the lad as a slave to my
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Lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers, for how can I go up to my father if the lad is not with me?
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Lest perhaps I see the evil that would come upon my father. This plea is so radically transformative that as we'll see next week, and it's very hard to stop here at the end of chapter 44 without going to 45, verse 1.
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It's so radically transformative that Joseph cannot contain it any longer. He completely explodes.
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This plea was not a maneuvering or a negotiation to say, well, how can we work this out?
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What can we do? What agreement can we reach? This was not, well, if I'm going to be a slave, at least all my brothers are slaves with me.
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It's like, you know, all for one, one for all. This is Judas saying, let everyone go but me. Let everyone go hug their wives, sons and daughters, but me.
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Let my father have his favorite son and forget all about me. Let Benjamin be restored, that my father might be spared, that I wouldn't have to return and see him fall apart and see him in grief in his old age.
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Let me bear the brunt. Let me take the hit. Let me stand in the place. Let me receive the punishment.
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The one who had acted in innocence, the one who had not touched the silver cup takes the place of the condemned, the one who appears to be guilty.
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He had pled his life as a surety for Benjamin, and that was no hollow pledge. Take my life for his is essentially what
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Judah is pleading. God, through Joseph, is testing the work of grace in these brothers.
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And these brothers are chiefly represented by Judah. We've seen God test His work of grace in the lives of the patriarchs.
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Testing the work of His grace in Jacob's life, when he wrestled with God and limped away to be reconciled to his brother
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Esau. We've seen it in Abraham's life, and for that matter, Isaac's too, when they were bound to the sacrifice, waiting the angelic halt before the ultimate sacrifice was made.
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God here is testing the work of His grace in the lives of these brothers. A test that has been designed to see whether these men have changed in twenty years.
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Whether they were still the cold -hearted murderers willing to abandon the favorite son and shatter the heart of their father.
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The cruel brothers that cared only for themselves and had no thoughts toward the misery and degradation of the beloved son in the pit of death.
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Judah's speech is essentially the answer to the test.
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Have these men changed? Judah's speech, Judah's plead,
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Judah's sacrifice is the affirmative answer, yes. These are different men.
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These are new men with new hearts. These are works of God's redemptive grace.
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Changed men. No doubt the entire attitude of the rest is contained with the sentiment in the heart of Judah.
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But Judah himself would rather be torn from his family and torn from his home to be in bondage as a slave, rather than go back and see his father wilt away under the shadow of grief.
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The same man that twenty years prior was thrusting a bloody robe in front of his father and saying, do you recognize that?
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H .C. Leupold, the Lutheran commentator says, what makes this speech so remarkable is the fact that it comes from the lips of one who was at one time so callous that he cared nothing about the grief of his father and now all he cares about is the grief of his father.
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This is change. Change, if we're using change to speak of the transformative effects of God's reconciliation through repentance, change in the words of John Knox is going from loving things and hating other things to then hating the things we once loved and loving the things we once hated.
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Judah was no longer a man who was willing to thrust his brother into a pit out of jealous rage and indifference.
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He was no longer a man who raised two sons that their lives were so abominable
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God just took them away and it didn't even seem like Judah was grieved. He was no longer the man who refused to allow his daughter -in -law the survival needed of having a leverage marriage, of having offspring unmoved, willing to use her as a prostitute but not treat her as a father -in -law.
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And now we understand why Genesis 38 was just thrust into the middle of Joseph's narrative. It was so that we could see the difference of a changed man.
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We could see the difference between Genesis 38 and Genesis 44. We could see the work of God's grace, what kind of man
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Judah had been and what kind of man by God's grace Judah had become.
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This is change. Judah has a new heart and it manifests itself not only in standing before God.
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God has revealed my guilt but also in his standing with men. I can't see my father grieved so take my life.
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I'm going to stand in Benjamin's place. Take me instead of him. He's restored, he's reconciled to his father, to his neighbor.
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J. I. Packer writing on John Flavel's Keeping the Heart. I think we're past summer reading now so fall reading, great reading,
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John Flavel, Keeping the Heart. His exposition of Proverbs 4 .23.
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The salvation that God gives us in Christ is rooted and created and a creative change of our hearts.
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Let me say that again. The salvation that God gives us in Christ is rooted and created and a creative change of our hearts.
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And this is described by Ezekiel in chapter 36, the great prophecy of the new covenant. I will give you a new heart says the
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Lord, a new spirit I put within you. I remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
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I put my spirit within you and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and obey my rules.
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So this new renewed heart becomes on the one hand the source of faith in Christ and in the gospel promises whereby we enter in a new relationship of acceptance with God.
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And on the other hand, it's the source of love to God and man.
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Please note, a new heart that's created by God and given by God.
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The new heart in place of the old stony heart, the spirit dwelling within man is the source of love to God and to man.
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The grateful, responsive, resolute purpose of honoring and pleasing
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God in all things, seeking the best for whoever is around us, whoever may cross our path.
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This new heart acting in these ways becomes the very sign of our salvation.
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The change that God has brought about in the life of Judah is a change marked by repentance.
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Now the etymology of repentance, meta -after, nous is
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Greek for mind. It's like a changing of the mind. That's the etymology.
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It doesn't mean we reduce it to that or pretend that etymology equals definition. That's not how language works.
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But it helps you understand that one significant aspect of a biblical portrayal of repentance is change.
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And so we use concepts like turning around or forsaking or abandoning.
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The point is that something has to change. It can't be just a mental ascent. You can't say,
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I feel bad about it, therefore I've repented. That's not what biblical repentance is. It's not feeling bad.
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It's not wanting to change. It's actually changing, beginning to have evidences of God's grace, having gifted you repentance, and gifted you the faith that takes you through repentance unto salvation.
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And so we see between chapters 44 and 45, without genuine repentance, there can be no reconciliation.
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Without chapter 44, there's no chapter 45. Without genuine repentance, there can be no reconciliation.
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That's true for these brothers and Joseph as Lord of the land. That's true for us. Without genuine repentance, there can be no reconciliation with God our
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Father. I was reading an article just several months ago in the Boston Herald. Nicholas Goldberg was writing on remorse and how that plays a role in parole board hearings.
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You figure a convict's looking for leniency to be released early to have his sentence turned down, and he has to go before a parole board and make a case as to why he's served his time, he's met the requirements of the legal system and should be considered for release.
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This is what Goldberg says, admitting guilt and showing remorse in parole hearings has become part of a performance demanded by the system.
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And so lawyers routinely coach their imprisoned clients that displaying both are essential, displaying remorse, displaying penitence, or we could almost say repentance.
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And so lawyers coach them on how to present their arguments before the board. They say things like, right,
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I killed my victim, instead of saying the victim was killed. Use active words to show that you actually understand your role and aren't minimizing your own responsibility.
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And then Goldberg asks this question, what's the value of insincere, coached, or scripted penitence?
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And the article goes on to make the argument remorse, penitence should not factor into how parole board hearings are utilized.
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Pretty striking argument to make. It's like no longer do we need to punish in our legal system, we don't even need remorse.
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That's how far we go with rehabilitation. It's a good question for a Christian to ask. What is the value of insincere repentance?
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What's the value of insincere repentance? Paul would describe the difference between genuine repentance and insincere repentance,
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I think, in 2 Corinthians chapter 7. He uses the term godly sorrow to describe genuine repentance and then the sorrow of the world to describe insincere, coached, scripted penitence.
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Godly sorrow, he says, produces repentance leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.
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What's the value of insincere repentance? Nothing. There's no value to it.
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What does it lead to? Death. Observe this very thing, he writes to the
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Corinthians. You sorrowed in a godly manner, and look at the results. What diligence it produced in you.
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A clearing of yourselves. What indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication.
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So Paul's essentially saying, if you have not changed, then you have not actually met with the offense of your sin.
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You've not reckoned with it. It's insincere. You might feel bad about it, you might acknowledge it, but you don't feel the weight of it.
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It's not gripping you. It's not a crisis. It's not something that you must deal with. You've not actually saturated the nature of the offense.
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If you're not changed, then you have not reckoned with the true offense of sin.
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And if you've not reckoned with the true offense of sin, then you are most likely walking in the sorrow of the world rather than in godly sorrow.
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What does worldly sorrow produce? Death. But if you have changed, it's because you've come to reckon with the true offense of sin.
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It's because you've been brought to godly sorrow. And what does godly sorrow produce?
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Repentance leading to life, leading to salvation. So reconciliation is based upon genuine repentance.
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It's not enough to say it's an ascent of the mind, a bare acknowledgment. I know that what I did was wrong.
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But aren't we all like this? Don't we all struggle in various ways? It's not an intellectual element alone.
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It's also an emotional element. There's a change in feeling. It's manifested in a sorrow, in a hatred for sin and what it's done and what it's caused.
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And more than that, there's a volitional element, as Louis Burkhoff would say. It has to do with the will.
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There's a change of purpose, an inward turning away, a new disposition, a desire to be pardoned, to be cleansed.
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And so acknowledgment moving through the affections into the will. It's a changing of the mind that has reverberations in your life.
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It changes not only the way you view yourself, but the way you approach God and therefore the way you approach your neighbor.
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And all of that we see in Judah. Judah demonstrates genuine repentance at every level.
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He's a changed man. And he can move forward to reconciliation because of his repentance.
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Well, application. Last week, we talked about Joseph really presenting four keys from chapter 43 by which we can understand reconciliation.
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We talked about Joseph's awareness that there must be trust. He's trying to build trust, trying to produce hope and faith in the lives of his brothers to move them toward reconciliation.
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We talked about grace, how there was charity and forgiveness and merriment, how there was desire.
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So trust in grace moving toward desire. And then communion. We closed with the feast.
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Well, that was Joseph and four aspects of reconciliation. Let's look at Judah and talk about another four aspects of reconciliation.
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The first is conviction. Conviction. What we see in Judah and his brothers is a genuine weight of the offense of their guilt.
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I don't know if they've ever reckoned with it like they did at this very moment for 20 years. I don't know that they've ever stared it down and felt the weight of it.
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But they essentially cry, God has found out our iniquity. We are guilty.
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And as Judah begins to express this testimony to Zaphnath -Paneah to try to gain
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Benjamin back, you get the sense that he's really still feeling the weight of what he's done, how it's devastated his father, brought a dark cloud over the family, continued to disrupt their relationship, and therefore their calling to be in the land of Canaan according to God's revelation.
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You see it in how he responds. What can we say to my Lord? What can we speak?
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How can we clear ourselves? Rhetorical questions that are saying we're hopeless. There's nothing we can do because we're completely guilty.
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There's nothing I can say. There's nothing I can bring. There's nothing I can demonstrate. Even my desire, even my integrity, even my hope is not enough to cleanse me from this guilt.
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I am guilty, not of stealing the cup, but of something far worse.
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Notice that true repentance, true conviction, the kind of conviction that leads toward reconciliation.
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It doesn't make up a defense by pointing to some small area where you're innocent and ignoring the larger area where you're guilty.
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He doesn't even address the cup. At least I didn't do this. I just want to really spend some time talking about how I definitely did not steal the cup.
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He's just like, add that on. You know, just put that on my account. Silver cups and theft, that's small potatoes.
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My conscience goes a lot deeper. How have we shown conviction that does not deny, dodge, deflect, flatter?
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Have we really come to godly sorrow if we only acknowledge our offense and then immediately qualify it by how it's not that bad compared to other people we know or other things that people have done, even
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Christians in church, and how really, look at all the good things I have going for me. Look at what
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I have done, where I've made progress. Is that really godly sorrow? We don't see that in Judah at all.
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And because he's come to that conviction, secondly, he makes a plea. It's a plea for mercy.
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You feel the depth of that remorse. You feel the weight of all the guilt of 20 years now flooding out into the spotlight.
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You see that he's been humbled, and humbled's not even the word. He's been rocked to the very core. He's come to the one who is the
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Lord of the land, and he's pleading now for mercy. Let not your anger burn against your servant.
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What would the content of a plea be for one who's been truly convicted? Psalm 51 is sort of the go -to, isn't it?
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It's the classic example. Wash me thoroughly, David says, from my iniquity.
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Cleanse me from my sin. I can't wash myself. I can't cleanse. I can't clear. I can't vindicate.
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There's nothing that I can do. But you can wash me. You can clear me. You can show me mercy.
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I acknowledge my transgressions. My sin always before me. Against you and you only have I sinned.
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God has found out my sin. I've done this evil in your sight so that you may be found just when you speak, so that you may be blameless when you judge me.
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And when God sees a plea like that, born from true conviction, how does
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God respond? Isaiah 30, I think, so fitting, as he's bringing judgment upon his people, and he's telling them,
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I will be gracious to you if you will but cry out to me from true conviction. The Lord will wait so that he can be gracious to you.
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You've seen Joseph waiting for two years of this famine, waiting so that he can be gracious to his brothers.
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And therefore he will be exalted that he may have mercy on you. The Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait on him.
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You shall weep no more. He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry. When he hears it, he will answer you.
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The Lord knows it all. The Lord of the land is standing and he's over with all authority inside.
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He knows every secret sin among these 10 brothers. And it's not until they come to that conviction of what he already knows and they begin to own it and feel the weight of it and the horror of it and the pain of it.
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And then their heart begins to move toward flesh. They realize, look what I've done to my father.
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How could I ever go and look at him again? I'm not interested in sparing my life. How could I enter another 20 year segment of guilt?
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He begins to consider everyone around him but himself. He looks. How can I save my brother Benjamin? How can
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I bless my father? How can my life be given as a sacrifice for theirs? And he begins to cry out.
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And as we see moving into chapter 45, when the Lord hears a plea like that, he responds.
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When the Lord hears a plea from a guilty conscience that acknowledges its sin, when he sees godly sorrow doing its work, he hears it and he responds to it.
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Repentance leads to reconciliation. Third, notice empathy.
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We've already described this. We see Judah's empathy. He acknowledges his guilt, not only for himself, but the way that it impacts everyone around him.
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Clearly, the only person he doesn't reference in his plea is himself. Unless it's, how can
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I lay my life down? His heart is with his elderly father.
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He mentions his father 14 times in this speech. 14 times.
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If you didn't have it in such a composed, illustrious way, it would just be in his mind circling, what about my father?
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My father, how could this happen? What about my father? That's where his heart is now.
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He even emphasized the very last thing he says is still about his father. Lest I see the evil that would befall my father.
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That's where his heart is now. It's completely off of himself, his skin, his comfort, his security.
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He's moved to sacrifice because God has moved him toward reconciliation. So the question for us is, how have we shown empathy?
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That's befitting the reconciliation we have with God. Can we truly sympathize and empathize with others?
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Do we care about the grief that befalls them, the hopelessness they feel, even when it's the consequence of their own sin?
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Jacob feels this way because he's sinfully favoritized the sons of Rachel as opposed to all of his other sons.
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But that doesn't build a root of bitterness in Judah's life. He's able to look past that and still have a desire for his father to see good and not ill.
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He doesn't say, yeah, well, we know how that all went down. He's willing to sacrifice himself for a less than ideal relationship.
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I think we all need to hear that, knowing how the sword of the gospel cuts through families.
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And we often pray about that, don't we? Between unbelieving or semi -believing family and how we're so often at odds and there's pain and there's baggage and there's frustration because we know it's not how it ought to be.
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We know we're not being winsome or sultan -like like we could be, but there's just at times so much frustration and so many wounds and it's hard to lay down your life when people have wronged you.
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It's hard to put yourself in their place, to empathize with them and make sacrifices for them.
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And that's what Judah does. And then fourth and last, he yields.
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He's willing to face the consequences. He yields. So there's conviction, there's a plea for mercy, there's empathy.
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And all of that working together leads to a yielding of his life. If this is the path
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God has put before me, then I will pick up my cross and I will walk down this path. If bondage in Egypt and never seeing my homeland or my home and my family members again is the cost of laying down my life and atoning for the consequences of my sin, then
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I lay down my life and I will face the music. And when you get to that place, you'll find that God's never interested in your self -atonement.
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He's not interested in binding you as a slave in Egypt. He's just brought you to the place of blessing and reconciliation.
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Are we yielding to the Lord for the sake of reconciliation? That's our ministry.
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We've been entrusted with the message of reconciliation. God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself.
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Are we yielding our lives, our wills, our ambitions for the sake of reconciliation?
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Judah has a new heart. And as we've described, it's manifested in a new standing before God and a new standing among men.
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He submits himself to God's providence. He submits himself to God's justice. It's Psalm 51 read aloud in his life.
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He offers no questions, no excuses, no deflections. And because of that, he shows the power of a new heart to bring about reconciliation.
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It's a mark of grace when we turn away from ourselves for the good of another, especially one that's the least, especially one that has perhaps caused us bitterness or envy or content.
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It's Christ -like when we bless those who persecute us. And this is apparent in all of the brothers, this heart change wrought by God.
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It's especially in Judah. Notice that when God changes a heart, he's the one orchestrating all that will happen to bring that about.
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This is not something Judah produced on his own. It's not like the brothers just said, you know, guys, it just dawned on me.
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We really need to take a look at our lives and really think through confessing and being sacrificial and yielding to God's will.
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This is the work of God's grace. And Joseph, representative of the Lord, is orchestrating and moving their lives and their hearts and their circumstances to bring them to a place of genuine acknowledgment of their guilt and in repentance to find the way of godly sorrow that leads to salvation.
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This opens the door to reconciliation. God is the one most offended by our sin, and yet God is the one who undertakes the work of reconciliation.
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We never see that more clearly than here. Joseph alone is the victim of the sin of his brothers, and yet Joseph alone is the one who worked for reconciliation.
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One last thing I'll say as we move toward a close. I love what
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A .W. Pink points out about the steward. We've seen this before with Abraham sending the servant into the far country to retrieve the bride, and we talked about that imagery of the servant being sent as emblematic of the
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Holy Spirit, winning, preparing, bringing the bride to the
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Son of Promise. But then there's also something to say about the steward here in chapter 44, and A .W.
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Pink does a great job of showing this, and I can't resist but sharing it with you. Joseph's brothers at last, he says, find their place before God.
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They had been in the presence of Joseph even though they didn't know him. They had been merry with him, and now they were going on their way lightheartedly until Joseph sends his steward after them and saying, up, follow after them, and when you overtake them say, why have you rewarded evil for good?
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And this is how the Lord sends His Holy Spirit to overtake us and His work in our heart,
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His work of awakening. The steward brought back the brethren into the presence of Joseph again, and this is what the
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Holy Spirit does to a convicted sinner. He brings us back into the presence of the Lord. And mark the sequel,
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Judas says, how can we clear ourselves? God has found out our iniquity. What change
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He shows from His earlier attitude. They had said we're honest men, true men.
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Now they recognize we're guilty men. God has found out all of our guilt, and this is the very goal of Joseph's work all the way through.
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In the same way, this is the design and work of the Spirit among us. Not until he ceases to vindicate himself, not until he comes out into the light, not until he owns his guilt and is unable to clear himself can he be reconciled and blessed.
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Once the sinner acknowledges before God that he is undone, it will not be long until Christ is revealed to him as the one who he can be reconciled with.
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You see the revelation that comes as a result of the conviction. How can we justify ourselves?
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That's the central question. It's a vindicated. How can we be cleared?
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You can't. You're utterly dependent upon the mercy of the Lord of the land. And to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
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His faith vindicates him because Jesus is the Lord who, though he by no means clears the guilty, he by all means justifies the ungodly.
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Like Joseph with his brothers, the Lord already knows about your sins. We're seated here this morning sitting before him.
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He knows it, the true guilt of it, the true depth of it better than we do. We have rose -tinted glasses on our sins.
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We're a little better at seeing other people's sins, but no one can see the offense of sin like God sees it.
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We stand before him and the only hope we have of being reconciled to him is if we turn to him in godly sorrow, a repentance leading to salvation.
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If we forsake every effort we make to cover, to subvert, to distract, to hide, to beautify, to put makeup on our sins unless we own it and we abandon it and we forsake it and we plead to him for mercy.
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That is the only way he will reveal himself. It's the only way Joseph will reveal himself to these brothers.
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It's the only way the himself to you. May he help you to do that.
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Let's pray. Father, we're thankful for your word.
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We're thankful for the truths of the gospel that are pregnant in this chapter. We see so many ways,
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Lord, that the greatest story, the whole presentation of your redemptive work and through your
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Son by your Spirit is here in microcosm. We thank you for the encouragement,
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Lord, that you give to us to not hide from our sins lest we waste away internally, but to acknowledge our sin before you.
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The one who already knows all that we've done, who knows the guilt and the offense far greater than we can, and yet who undertakes to bring about reconciliation, gives us the gift of faith, brings us along the path of godly sorrow.
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We thank you. It's the evidence of your work of grace in our lives. We thank you,
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Lord, that it's not of us, but of you, you who calls, you who condescend, who stoops down to our every weakness and every fear.
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Our imaginations, our anxiety, Lord, it gets the best of us. It keeps us in bondage. If only we could see on the other side of your wrath, you have a desire to bless.
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That though we look through the cross, we see it's a design of everlasting mercy.
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I pray for anyone in this room this morning, Lord, who perhaps has a guilt, has something hidden,
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Lord, has some hold, some grip on their life, that you would bless them with conviction of that sin.
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Give them the dread and the horror of not being reconciled to you. May they be so moved and throw off anything that would easily entangle them.
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In confessing their sin and pleading for mercy, may you reveal your presence to them, your saving presence, and take out their heart of stone by giving them a heart of flesh, that your spirit might be within them.