Realizing Your Dreams

Well, it's a great privilege for me this morning to be able to share the Word of God with us as a church family.

We're continuing in the book of Genesis. We've made it to chapter 42, and we will read that together. I'll read it if you would read along with me as I read it out loud.

So if you're able, in honor of God's Word, would you stand for the reading of chapter 42 of the book of Genesis?

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. Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.

So ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt, but Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with his brother.

For he feared that harm might happen to him. Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.

Now, Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land.

And Joseph's brothers came and bowed down before him with their faces to the ground.

Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them.

Where do you come from? He said.

They said,

From the land of Canaan to buy food.

And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.

And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them.

And he said to them,

You are spies.

You have come to see the nakedness of the land.

They said to him,

No, my lord.

Your servants have come to buy food.

We are all sons of one man.

We are honest men.

Your servants have never been spies.

He said to them,

No, it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see.

And they said,

We, your servants, are twelve brothers,

the sons of one man in the land of Canaan.

But behold, the youngest is this day with our father,

and one is no more.

But Joseph said to them,

It is as I said to you,

You are spies.

By this you shall be tested.

By the life of Pharaoh,

you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here.

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,

or else by the life of Pharaoh,

surely you are spies.

And he put them all together in custody for three days.

On the third day,

Joseph said to them,

Do this,

and you will live.

For I fear God.

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 to your households.

And bring your youngest brother to me,

so your words will be verified,

and you shall not die.

And they did so.

Then we said to one another,

In truth,

we are guilty concerning our brother,

in that we saw the distress of his soul when he begged us,

and we didn't listen.

That is why this distress has come upon us.

And Reuben answered them,

Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy?

But you did not listen.

So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.

They did not know that Joseph understood them,

for there was an interpreter between them.

Then he turned away from them and wept.

And he returned to them and spoke to them,

and he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes.

And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain

and to replace every man's money in his sack,

and to give them provisions for the journey.

This was done for them.

Then they loaded their donkeys with the grain and departed.

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 the sack.

He said to his brothers,

My money has been put back.

Here it is in the mouth of my sack.

At this their hearts failed them,

and they turned shrembling to one another,

saying,

What is this that God has done to us?

When they came to Jacob the 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.

But we said to him,

We are honest men.

We have never been spies.

We are twelve brothers, sons of our father.

One is no more,

and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan.

Then the man, the lord of the land,

said to us,

By this I shall know that you are honest men.

Leave one of your brothers with me,

and take grain for the famine of your households,

and go your way.

Bring your youngest brother to me,

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.

As they emptied their sacks,

behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack.

And when they and their father saw their bundles of money,

they were afraid.

And Jacob their father said to them,

You have bereaved me of my children.

Joseph is no more,

and Simeon is no more,

and now you would take Benjamin?

All this has come against me.

Then Reuben said to his father,

Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you.

Put him in my hands,

and I will bring him back to you.

And he said,

My son shall not go down with you,

for his brother is dead,

and he is the only one left.

If harm should happen to him

on the journey that you are to make,

you would bring down my gray hairs

with sorrow to shield.

Let's pray.

Father,

we thank you for your powerful word,

the word that shines light,

that we might know you.

And Lord, I pray this morning

as we look at this word,

as we examine it, God,

that you would move our hearts

through the power and truths of your scripture.

I pray in your name.

Amen.

Have a seat.

So as we read through this section of Genesis

that shares stuff about Joseph,

we get to know Joseph.

Did you notice, though,

that we're only getting small tidbits of his life?

We know about the time he was 17

and when the brothers sold him into slavery.

And then we hear this one story

while he's in prison

about the cupbearer,

about the chief baker.

And we're told about that.

We're shown a dream that he interprets.

He actually has the chance to be before Pharaoh.

And so you understand there's years go by

and we don't know much information.

And here we are again,

we're learning something new about Joseph,

that he is the head of all the land of Egypt

minus Pharaoh.

We see this more information about Joseph.

But you know the story is not truly about Joseph.

Joseph mostly is about God.

So we ask the question,

Moses, why did you write this?

Why did you share this story with us?

What we want to see this morning is Joseph is,

I mean, Moses is making us aware of who God is.

Who is this great God that we serve?

And so the main portion of our time this morning

will be spent from verse 6 to verse 25.

That's the main meat of our time together.

But we have these verses that precede it,

these five verses that are intro

to where we'll spend the most of our time.

So I'm going to use South Carolina country

interpretation this morning

as I read these five verses

and just add a little bit of insight

into what's going on here.

And then we'll dig in to verse 6.

So when Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt,

he said to his sons,

why do you look at one another?

Why are you staring at each other?

Don't you realize we need some food?

We're about to die.

All of our stores are about going.

Get up and quit looking at each other.

Go to Egypt.

Man, haven't you heard that there's grain in Egypt?

I'm too old to travel.

But I need y'all to go get us some food

so that all of our children don't die.

He said, behold, I've heard that there's grain for sale in Egypt.

Go down and buy grain for us

that we may live and not die.

So 10 of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.

So you might ask, why did 10 go?

Well, we might know already that it's a dangerous road.

This road that goes from Israel to Egypt is not a safe place.

You might know that there's slave traders that ride through there.

That's how Joseph ended up in Egypt.

And so the brothers look at each other.

I'm not going.

I'm not going.

You're going?

I'm not going.

Why don't we all go?

So all 10, they're safer numbers,

safer as they travel in numbers.

And so all 10 go down to the land.

But they, Joseph, I mean, excuse me,

Jacob did not want to send Benjamin.

Why?

Because Benjamin is now his favorite

because his other favorite, he made the coat for,

is no longer around, supposedly dead.

And so he says, this is my only link to my beloved Rachel.

You cannot go.

You're going to stay here.

This protectiveness he had for Benjamin is real.

And thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came for the famine in the land of Canaan.

Among the others who came.

If we look back in 41 at the last verse, it said,

all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain.

This famine was wide.

This famine was severe.

This morning, as we look at 6 through 25,

there's going to be three main points that I want to make this morning.

Three main points.

We'll look at three main topics that I want you to see.

The first of which is this, is the providence of God.

We will see the hand of God absolutely in control of all of this.

We saw that last week, right?

We saw that God will accomplish his plan no matter what.

Well, this week what we're going to see is that God is in control of all the world

in his providence for his people.

Let me say it again.

God is absolutely in control of the whole world in his providence for his people.

Now, underline the word for.

Why does God choose to control the whole world?

Or better said, how is it that God chooses to control the whole world?

Here it is.

It's for his people.

He has a plan for his people.

And he's working that plan, and we'll see that this morning.

You might ask, well, where do we see in this passage the providence of God?

Let me say this.

If we were to understand in verse 6 that Joseph was the governor,

and because of last week we understand that the position he was given,

Pharaoh said, you have every rule in all this land.

There's nothing you can't do save sit on the throne.

I hand you my signet ring.

I put gold around your neck.

I clothe you in royal garments.

I allow you to get in my chariot and walk down so that everybody recognizes who you are.

There's no one except for Pharaoh that tells Joseph what to do.

He has that kind of authority in the land.

And so you might ask this question, well, why is it then,

if he's got this high position, why is it that when the brothers arrive, he's the one that meets them?

You know, isn't it interesting how God causes these things to come to pass?

In my mind, I'm thinking like this is that do you realize that in our business culture that the CEOs don't make all the sales for their company?

They have many people that they hire to make the sales.

Our CEO at my company doesn't sell a thing.

He tells us that we better work a little harder.

And he encourages us, he puts in these systems so that we can go out and do what we've been hired to do, that is to sell.

And in this case, there's no chance that he's meeting every single individual that comes to Egypt to buy grain.

But by the providence of God, he happens to be at the very place where these sons arrive.

You know what's interesting too?

Is what's happening between Joseph and the Lord here.

Do you see the interaction that's going on?

So if you can picture this, there's people coming from all over the place.

Joseph happens to be at one of these locations, these grain locations at that time.

And these brothers come walking up.

And the scripture says twice, it says this, he recognized his brothers.

He recognized his brothers.

Now, we might say, of course he recognized his brothers.

I mean, good grief.

He was born in the same family.

He was 17.

17 years he lived with them.

Why would he not recognize his brothers?

Do y'all realize how long it's been since he was in Canaan?

If you do a little quick math, what you're going to add up is add up from 17 years old when he was sold to 30 years old when he was placed in power.

Add another seven years for all the good years when they were collecting grain.

Add at least one more year for the famine to hit Canaan really bad.

And if you add all that up, guess what?

You've got 25 years there.

I think he looked a little different.

Maybe a little heavier.

Maybe a little broader.

Maybe his hair wasn't the same.

And I know that for sure.

Why?

Because Egypt didn't like hair.

They shaved their heads.

They shaved their body hair.

They'd like to be smooth skinned.

I don't know why, except there might have been a little bug and lice problem in Egypt.

Maybe that's the reason.

But for whatever case, he's in his garb.

He's in a position.

The brothers would not expect that.

Matter of fact, the brothers probably thought he was dead.

And yet he saw all these people flowing through, flowing through, flowing through.

And then he saw these ten.

And these ten caught his eye.

And by the providence of God, he recognized them.

And not only that, but we see the providence of God in verse 9.

He says,

And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them.

He remembered the dreams.

Where do you think that memory came from?

Does God ever do this in your life?

Do you, at moments that you don't expect, have memories that flood up into your mind?

And I believe that this case, that dream came fully to life.

25-plus-year-old dream.

It came to life in his mind.

And he said,

Oh, yeah.

Look at what's happening.

And what is happening?

It says,

Joseph's brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground.

You remember the dream in 37?

Briefly,

I will share this.

He had not one dream, but two.

You remember?

He had two dreams.

And ultimately, the dream said this, as a paraphrase.

In my dream, he's sharing his dream with his brothers.

In my dream, you won't believe what happened.

In my dream, man.

Here it is.

And he shared his dream.

And this concept of him being stood up and all of them bowing down before him.

And, of course, in that day is the favorite son with the really nice, colorful jacket he was given.

He was his dad's favorite.

Everybody knew it.

He sounded very arrogant here, didn't he?

We know you're the favorite.

We're sick of hearing about it.

And now you're telling us this stupid dream?

That one day we're going to bow down to you?

That's comical.

But in the moment,

God brings this memory up of this dream and he says,

Whoa.

I've forgotten about this.

Wow.

God, what are you doing here?

What are you about to do?

I can't believe it in a sense that this has come to pass.

Had no idea when and if and ever this would come to pass.

But in the moment, don't you know that he recognized the hand of God in this situation?

Because the dream was confirmation that God's doing something.

God told him through the dream that it was going to happen at some time in the future.

And now he's living in the moment.

Didn't expect to see these guys.

But we see the providence of God that God would accomplish the dream that he had given to this 17-year-old boy.

What is the chance that this radical dream would take place roughly 25 years later in a foreign country?

Who could predict it?

Third, I'd like you to see the province of God in this respect.

Do you see irony here?

It is so ironic.

Can you remember 37?

Chapter 37 said this.

As we read it and we lived that story.

The story was that they got so mad with their brother.

They were so full of hate for their brother.

That they put him.

They were going to kill him.

And then they decided, well, let's just put him in the pit.

And then some of them wanted to kill him.

Reuben said, no, no, no.

We don't want blood on our hands.

And luckily, by the province of God, a traitor came by.

And they said, ah, let's do that.

Let's take him and give him to them.

And he ended up in Egypt as a slave.

But you see that at that moment, in a sense, they controlled the fate and the destiny of Joseph.

Whether he was going to die or whatever was going to happen to him, they had taken him captive, in a sense.

And they chose his fate.

Do you see how 37 has been reversed in chapter 42?

Do you see whose fate is in whose hands now?

Isn't that ironic?

That God would reverse that whole situation.

And now here they are standing in front of this brother.

They do not recognize.

He's been given power that can't be explained except the hand of God is upon him.

And what is his mindset toward these men?

We will look at that shortly.

But you see the providence of God that he would reverse it.

Now the fate of these brothers is in the hand of the one that they betrayed.

How God has turned the tables so that he can do what he desires to do.

It's so much so that if we look in verse 18, as he's interacting with the brothers, you know what he says?

He said, do this and you will live.

As if he had power to kill them, did he?

Of course he did.

He's the most powerful man besides Pharaoh in the whole land of Egypt.

Could he kill them?

Yes.

He calls them spies, right?

He's got grounds to kill them.

But by the providence of God, God turned the tables and God had a purpose in it.

There's a reason that God turned the tables there.

Fourth, I want you to see this as the providence of God.

Do you recognize that the famine is not a by chance thing?

It's not a random act.

It's not circumstance that just happened.

Do you all recognize that this is actually the hand of God that's causing and sending the famine?

The providence of God sent the famine for a purpose.

What's the purpose?

We'll see.

We saw it last week and we'll see it again this week that God is doing this.

He's controlling all these things for a grand purpose.

And along the way, he's got multiple other things that he's accomplishing in his sovereignty, in his providence.

Isn't it amazing that God can today, in your life and my life, he can be actively doing something in each of our lives.

And God is so grand that it can be different every single life in this place.

And not only that, but he's doing something in the life of the people in Ghana.

And he's doing something in the life of the people that we prayed for this morning in East Cooper Baptist Church.

God is so great that he can touch each of us in different ways at the same exact moment.

And we see that there's multiple things happening in this text through the providential hand of God.

And we'll see a couple of those.

There's three main points this morning.

This first point is the providence of God.

And we're looking at the fourth item.

The fourth item is this, is that God sent this famine for a purpose.

And if you are questioning whether that's true, let's turn back to the last chapter.

Here's what he, here's, you remember the interaction with Pharaoh.

Pharaoh's got this dream.

He can't understand what it means.

Nobody in the whole land can understand.

He hears about this guy in prison that's somehow able to interpret dreams.

He calls him and sits him in front and says, hey man, I got a dream.

Can you tell me what it means?

Yep, sure can.

It's not me, but God can.

And what does he say?

What does Joseph say to Pharaoh about this dream?

Let me just remind us by looking at a couple of verses back in the previous chapter, 41.

Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, the dreams of Pharaoh are one.

He had two dreams.

They're one.

God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do.

You hear that?

Who's in control?

God has revealed to Pharaoh what God is about to do.

And what is God about to do?

He's about to send a famine.

How do we know?

Well, let's look a little further down here in verse 28.

It is as I told Pharaoh.

God has shown to Pharaoh what he is about to do.

There will come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt.

But after them, there will arise seven years of famine.

And all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt.

The famine will consume the land.

And the plenty will be unknown in the land by reason of the famine that will follow.

It will be very severe.

And the doubling of Pharaoh's dream means that this thing is fixed by God.

And God will shortly bring it to pass.

Did you catch that?

The power behind the famine, the calls behind the famine,

is the God who is sovereign in all things and who has a plan and will accomplish it.

Fifth, do you see what God is doing here?

Do you see this theme that's woven into the pages of chapter 42

that God is pressing these people, his people,

that are mostly in Canaan, he's pressing them where?

To Egypt.

As if God has his finger and he's pushing.

He's saying, I'm going to do this in your life and you aren't going to have a choice.

I'm going to cause you to land in the nation of Egypt.

Now, they don't know how God's going to do that.

And they don't even know that God's behind it all.

But the word of God declares he's behind it all.

And so he sends this famine and he knows there's coming a time when they ain't going to have no food.

I'm using that South Carolina lingo again.

They ain't going to have no food.

And they're going to have to go all the way down to this other country.

It's not safe to go.

They've got a whole family that's going to be going.

There's a fear factor involved.

And yet, what's God doing?

He's providing a way.

Not only a way, he's forcing them to go to Egypt.

Why would God do that?

Why do you think God wants them in Egypt?

What's the big deal with Egypt?

Well, I don't know.

Matter of fact, it's kind of hard to figure out why God does what he does.

But we see that the word of God declared he's doing it.

And we know it's his hand.

But I do find it fascinating that God shared with Abraham something that was going to happen in the future.

He shared it with him back in Genesis 15.

Do you all remember what he said after this dream?

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram.

And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.

Then the Lord said to Abram,

Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that's not theirs,

and will be servants there,

and they will be afflicted for 400 years.

Do you realize that God already pre-told what was going to happen to his people out in the future somewhere?

And that future just arrived.

This chapter and the next couple of chapters are giving us a picture of the hand of the God

who is providential in all things, who's sovereign in all things.

And what is he doing?

He's accomplished what he said was going to happen.

He's accomplished his plan.

Do we know why he's doing it?

Not a clue.

I don't have any idea.

I do have a little.

I don't know if it's accurate.

Just me trying to interpret.

God, why would you send your people to Egypt?

Why would you want them to be slaves for 400 years?

What are you trying to do?

That's a big question.

We will not answer that question this morning.

Number six.

This is beautiful to see.

God is doing a work in the heart of these brothers.

Do you see it?

If we look at the passage, God is pushing the brothers too.

He's pushing the family to Egypt, but he's pushing the brother.

What is he pushing the brothers to?

Repentance.

He's pushing his people to repentance.

We'll look at that in a minute when we look at the third point this morning.

But I want you to see that it is the hand of God that's doing this.

That God has a purpose, and that purpose is to lead these brothers to repentance.

I will take a second to talk to us in this present day.

Do you realize as the people of God, all of us who are in the kingdom, all of us who are

Christians, all of us who are born again, all of us that by faith trust in Jesus as our

Savior, do you realize God is doing a work in your life too?

That he's pushing you or drawing you to repentance?

God is in control of all things for his people.

Point number two this morning.

Point number two.

I want you to look at the heart of Joseph.

In order to understand the heart of Joseph in this passage, we have to understand what

he's gone through.

Do you remember what he went through?

If we go back to the events in chapter 37 when he was betrayed by his brothers, when they

hated him so vehemently.

And if you've forgotten that hatred, let me just read just a couple of phrases out of

37.

It said, the brothers, after he received his coat from his father and he knew that the

father loved him, said they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.

He had a dream and he shared his dream and they hated him even more.

He said, are you indeed over us?

Are you going to rule over us?

And it says they hated him even more for the dreams and for his words.

And it says his brothers were jealous of him.

And so as a result of that, he's hated by his brothers and his family.

Certainly not his dad.

He's given a coat.

He's a favorite of his dad for crazy reasons.

They threw him in a pit.

They wanted to murder him.

They sold him to slave merchants.

And as a result, what happened?

Listen, can you imagine being in a privileged family, in the family of a wealthy man with

all of this, these possessions, with the idea that he's set for life?

And what happens?

He's sold as a slave.

He becomes, instead of a favored son of a wealthy man, now in a day, in a moment, he becomes a

slave.

Can you imagine that change in the emotion that goes along with that?

He's a slave.

Sold as a slave.

He's endured much suffering.

He ended up in prison.

He's accused falsely.

He's separated from everything he had.

Let me ask this question.

There's two questions I want to ask you in reference to the heart of Joseph.

Question one is this.

How would most people respond if they were in the shoes of Joseph when his brothers were

up?

How would you respond?

If you're Joseph in this role as governor and you have all the power to do whatever you want

to do in the nation of Egypt and these brothers who did all that to you and caused all this

suffering, how would you treat them?

How would you respond to this situation?

How did he respond?

You know, it is hard to forgive, isn't it?

and yet i believe that joseph recognized the hand of god and by the way

i want us to see a nice little caveat in chapter 41 that we may have missed from last week and it's

this in in verse 51 i'll start in 50 before the year of famine came two sons were born to joseph

asenath the daughter of potipharah priest of onan bore them to him joseph called the name of the

firstborn manasseh why did he use that name it tells us for he said god has made me forget all

my hardship and all my father's house do you hear that god has done a work in my heart

to make me forget all the difficult suffering and affliction that i had and he's even made me

forget all about my father's house i don't it doesn't even register in my mind anymore i don't

want to go back i don't have any interest the fact that i'm here and i may never see my family again

that's good i'm fine i've gotten to the point joseph would say where i'm past it

and then the name of the second he's called ephraim for he makes this statement for god has made me

fruitful in the land of my affliction do you hear how something has changed in the perspective of joseph

that god has done a work in his heart so that when his brothers show up he is not ruthlessly bitter

towards them and yet i would ask this question why did joseph treat them like strangers

why did he treat them like strangers we see that in verse 7 and he spoke roughly to them why if he's

past all that and his heart is not bitter and god has is made him joyful and has prospered him and

given him this position of authority why does he treat them like this you know what it's hard to know

some of these things isn't it but in his humanness i suppose that he would wonder if these brothers still

have the same evil intentions that they've always had i would wonder that i think that as a result

it's almost like god was saying do you not see that i'm doing something here do you not see that i'm

using you in the lives of these brothers i want you to follow my lead and here's what i want you to do

i want you to test them i want you to test them what does he mean he we see in verse 15

he says by this i you shall be tested

in essence he's saying we're gonna see if what you're saying is true

god is stirring up something in the lives of these brothers that needs to be purged

a sin and an attitude and a tendency that needs to be purged and he's choosing to use joseph as a

vehicle to do it he put joseph in that position partly for this moment this moment that was going to be

happen that god knew was going to happen that god orchestrated for the sake of the hearts of these

brothers that they would be purged of this and what did god lead him to do call them spies

and do you notice what they said i find it comical these brothers we're honest men

we're not spies he's like oh you think you're honest man well isn't it interesting that joseph

they don't know he's joseph they don't know he's his brother and joseph has this omniscient view in a

sense to know i know your past at least when i was 17 i know it and you say you're honest man

ha i call you bluff you're not honest man matter of fact what you just said isn't him honest

they said one of our brothers is no more well he's right in front of you what he means no more

you're making a claim based on your assumption which is not even true and yet you're saying

we're honest men well you're honest enough to tell your your dad that that i was killed by some animal

and you took back a coat with fake blood on it and you told him that i was dead yeah you're honest

all right sure i believe that right and so god is leading him to test these men he puts them in jail

for three days well he's in jail for a lot longer time than that and he's tested if you will so do

you see the picture joseph was tested by betrayal and in this case these brothers are going to be

tested by accusation so he's accusing them of not being honest he's accusing them of being spies and

lying and so we see this played out that god would use them but i want you to see this point

is that if we look forward in this chapter what we what do we see that happens that reveals the heart

of joseph well the brothers started talking their their native language they weren't speaking through an

interpreter or they were speaking through an interpreter but don't you know that joseph heard

every word they spoke and when they said this this thing in in verse 21 in truth we're guilty

considered our brother and that's him he's sitting there listening to him he he hears something that at

least is leading toward repentance see we are guilty this is a 25 year old sin that's

hung out in their heart for this long and he hears that what does he do he he immediately turns around

and leaves why does he leave because his emotion is just bubbling up this compassion in him is bubbling

up and he weeps why does he weep because he sees what god's doing in their heart that god is revealing

their sin and that there's a fondness that is regrowing itself toward these brothers

i love what god has done in the heart of joseph and let me just say this brothers and sisters church

has he done that in your heart

let me ask it this way is there a single person on the planet

in your life that has caused you to hold on to anger bitterness or resentment

are there people in your life that have mistreated you deeply

are there people that have wounded you

are there memories in your mind about how you were treated in the past that you've not let go of

and you've not talked to god to heal you about

but they still are a cancer

that's inside of you that's eating away

what will it take for you to finally get to the place where you say god i release them

and i forgive them and no longer to hold any bitterness

brothers and sisters i beg you to deal with those things

and to get them out of your life

god has called us to live a life of forgiveness

even towards the person that's hurt us the deepest

it's wounding us it's causing us to

suffer and so the third point this morning

third point that we really looking at is this path to repentance for the brothers

what is it going to take to get these brothers to the point where they actually deal with their sin

what is it going to take for them to finally recognize their sin

and finally not only admit it but deal with it

what will it take to change the heart of these men

who sold him into slavery

can you imagine selling your own brother or sister into slavery

well we see it

for sake of time i'm not going to read the whole thing

but if we start at verse 9 and worked our way down to 22

we would see what's happening

is that they're claiming to be honest men when they're not

and now they're being tried and they're being told you're not honest at all

i don't believe you

and by the way in order for you to prove it you got to go get your youngest son

well joseph knew that that youngest son was a treasure to his dad

and his dad wouldn't in no wise let him go

and sure enough if we work through the passage we see that i am not letting benjamin go until 43

next week you're going to see that they're going to be so hungry

that he changes his mind

because they said this is the only hope so what happens in this heart

so they're in jail three days

and ultimately all of them are going to have to stay in jail until one of them went back

and got this youngest son to prove they were true

and so all of this is coming on them and they don't know what the outcome is going to be

but what they see is

man we're done

here we did we told you we shouldn't have come to get grain

we're in here to get grain and now we're about to be locked up for the rest of our life

they didn't know they'd get out

they assumed that he said go get that younger brother

they didn't know how that would go down

they didn't know if that would get them out of jail

they really didn't know

and so that tension

that unknown

it led to verse 21

then they said to one another

i wrote i read this a minute ago

listen at it from the perspective of the brothers

what do we hear in the heart of the brothers

in truth we're guilty concerning our brother

in that we saw the distress of his soul when he begged us

and we didn't listen

this is why this distress has come upon us

and reuben answered them

did i not tell you not to sin against the boy

but you didn't listen

so now there comes a reckoning for his blood

you know what they're saying

the wrath of god

has come upon us

because of our sin

the wrath of god

has caught up with us

we knew we shouldn't have done that

and we did it anyway

and it's been eating

eating

eating on us for 25 years

and now look what's happened as a result

how gracious is god

that he points out our sin

do you see it that way

do you tend to run from being exposed

you tend to hide

in your sin

and not want anybody to know

do you hold on to secrets

that you know don't honor god

and do you keep them in your life

let me just say that

god is gracious enough

to push you

to do a work in your heart

to bubble all that junk out

do you believe that

do you believe god's doing a work in your life

where he's exposing your sin

he sure is

it's called sanctification

and he's doing that

every life of every believer

on the planet

i don't know how he does it

all at the same time

he's sovereign

and that he's able to do that

i want you to hear

a beautiful

beautiful

picture of the reason

that god is doing this

and it's from

john

the apostle john

in his epistle

first john

chapter one

listen to the truth

about how god

treats his

people

and listen

to it

through the

mouth

of john

who by the way

was placed on patmos

on an island

by himself

lonely

out the wazoo

he had a vision

a dream called

the book of revelation

a guy who suffered

a guy who knew christ

i mean there's a lot

we could say about john

but here he is

sharing this

john had gotten to the point

in his later life

where he said this

he said i'm writing this epistle

here's why i'm writing it

so what we've seen and heard

jesus jesus

what we've seen and heard

we proclaim also to you

here's why

so that you may have fellowship

with us

and truly our fellowship

is with the father

with his son jesus christ

do you hear the beautiful picture

of an abiding relationship

john had gotten to the point

where the

the

the idols of this life

meant nothing

you know why

it's because he had tasted

something that's so much

greater

and this thing that's great

is called fellowship

and he's saying to the people

he said i'm sharing these things

that you might enjoy fellowship

and look at verse 6

if you're there

you don't have to be there

i'll read it

if we say

john's saying this to the church

to this epistle

to these christians

if we say we have fellowship

with him

while we walk in darkness

we lie

and don't practice the truth

did y'all hear that

we can claim

that we have fellowship

with god

and yet we've got

all this stupid

sin in our life

and we're letting it

stay in our life

and we're stepping into it

willingly

on a regular basis

and you know what

we're missing out on

we're missing out on fellowship

we're missing out on intimacy

because we want to

some reason we treasure

this sin

I don't know why we treasure it

what is it that

entices us so much

if we say we have fellowship

with him

while we walk in darkness

we lie

and do not practice the truth

but if we walk in the light

as he is in the light

we have fellowship

with one another

and the blood of Jesus' son

cleanses us from all sin

you know it's not by being good

that we're cleansed

you know how we're cleansed

by the blood of Jesus

have you been cleansed

by the blood of Jesus

do you know him

as Lord and Savior

oh it's my prayer to do

and the beautiful possibility

of fellowship

listen to what he says

see he's going to show you

your sin

verse 8

if we say that we have no sin

we're deceiving ourselves

and the truth is not in us

but

look at this

if we confess our sins

he is faithful

and just to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us

from all unrighteousness

brother and sister

have you confessed

is it true for you

that at this moment

there's no

conscious

sin

in your life

that you've not confessed

and by the grace of God

by the power of God

you can repent

and when we do

guess what we receive

we receive

an intimate

powerful

fellowship

with God

you know there's nothing

greater on the planet

why does God love you

why would God love you

you know what

he wants you

to enjoy him

you know the greatest gift

you could ever receive

is to enjoy him

is to be in his presence

to see his glory

to be in fellowship

to be in union

with God

you know there's a day

coming for believers

we have this hope

in the future

whenever it is

that we're going to be

with him

where he is

that is Jesus

and we're going to see

the father face to face

we're going to enjoy

him

in a way we can't imagine

you know he wants us

to start now

you know how we start

repentance

and we see the effect

in the life of Reuben

he was willing to say

alright

enough's enough

I see what this is

God's revealing our sin

God I openly confess

that I'm guilty

and I deserve your wrath

God I see that

because I've walked in the sin

and I'm guilty

but what he did

was he changed

so much so

that he said

listen dad

you can have

my first two sons

and you can kill them

if I don't come back

trust me

that I'm going to do

what I'm telling you

I'm going to do

he went from being dishonest

to a changed heart

God's doing some work

we don't know

if he's all the way there

but we see Reuben

making statements

that reveal

that this is having

an impact in his heart

brother and sister

let's chase

the father

and let's be

open to confessing

our own sins

amen

let's pray

father I see

your hand

your sovereign hand

that's in control

of all things

father even the trials

that come in our life

you're absolutely

in control of

and God you say

in your word

that you're causing

all things

to work for our good

for the good

of those who are

called by your name

God

even the difficult

times in our life

are sent by you

that you might

accomplish your plan

and do a work

in our lives

and God

I pray that you

would change our

hearts so much

so that we would

not hold bitterness

towards those

who mistreated us

God that we would

have a divine

mindset

that understands

that you love us

you have a plan

for us

and you're absolutely

sovereign in control

of all things

God you say

not to worry

about a single

thing

but in all things

through prayer

and supplication

with thanksgiving

let our request

be made known

to you

to release

all control

to you

and you say

the peace

of God

your peace

which is beyond

our understanding

will guard our hearts

and our minds

so God

help us to get

to the place

where we trust

you in that way

Father help us

to be diligent

about confessing

the sin

that's so real

even the stuff

that's hidden

that you gradually

are making us

aware of

God would you

give us

through your

Holy Spirit

a willingness

to confess

and repent

and turn away

from it

and serve

and worship

and enjoy

you

I pray in your name

Amen

Amen