Joseph’s Test For His Brothers

Good morning, Good News Church. Good to see you. A little over a year ago,

we began preaching chapter by chapter through the book of Genesis.

We preached the first half of the book of Genesis from April to September of

last year, and we took a little break, and then we restarted back up with the

back half of the book of Genesis,

and we have been in the back half for, well, we started in March of this year,

and we have continued until now.

And if the Lord permits, we will finish up the book of Genesis next Sunday.

Today's text is Genesis 42 and Genesis 43 and Genesis 44 and part of Genesis 45.

If you are new around here, I can't review all of Genesis because it's just,

you know, we've been doing it for a long, long time now, but I can review the

story that we are in right now

so that these chapters that I'm about to read to you make sense to you.

So the first half of Genesis is about God creates the world and there's stories

about the earliest humans and

you've got Tower of Babel in there and the flood and Noah and all that.

And then the second part of Genesis, we've been calling it from Abraham to Joseph

because it really focuses on a particular family and four generations of that

family that becomes the nation of Israel.

And so it's Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

And so that's why we called it from Abraham to Joseph. And the reason it's called

from Abraham to Joseph is Joseph is the final major character in the book of Genesis.

It ends on him. Joseph is the last person to talk in the book of Genesis.

So we're in this story about our final major character in this book,

he's about 17 years old when we first find him in this story.

He is loved by his father. He is his father's favorite son, and his father has 11 other sons.

He has God-given dreams of being in power. Do you remember that?

And God-given dreams, I don't mean like God-given aspirations to be in power.

I mean literally like when he goes to bed at night, he has dreams where his

family is bowing down to him.

He is hated by his brothers. His brothers can't stand him.

Part of that is because he is his father's favorite and they don't like that

they're not the father's favorite.

And then part of it is he tells them about these dreams where they're bowing

down to him and that doesn't make anything better.

So one day they're all hanging out and dad's not around and they decide to sell him into slavery.

There are slave traders that go by and so they sell Joseph into slavery.

And then when they go back home, of course, they can't say like,

hey dad, we decided to sell Joseph.

So they tricked him into thinking that Joseph died by getting attacked by a

wild animal. And so that's what,

that Joseph's father, Jacob, thinks has happened.

Meanwhile, he's sold into slavery in Egypt. He is a slave there.

He is accused, in the midst of the slavery, he is accused of sexual assault

and is thrown into prison.

And then by God's power, he comes out of the prison.

By God's power, he interprets dreams. And one of the people that's in the prison

with him has a relationship with the Pharaoh of Egypt.

And so because he's able to interpret this guy's dreams, eventually,

it takes a few years, but eventually he has an audience before Pharaoh.

And then when he's talking to Pharaoh, he interprets his dreams in such a way

that it becomes obvious that God is with him and has given him supernatural wisdom and knowledge.

And so he gets, he basically becomes the vice president of Egypt.

Like God through his power causes Joseph to become the second in command of

a nation that is perhaps the most powerful nation in the world at that time.

So it's definitely a rags to riches story as far as he's in slavery and he's

in prison. And then suddenly he is the second most powerful man in the whole area.

And so that's where we're at now. That's what we've learned so far.

So here he is, prime minister of Egypt, and we are picking up the story in chapter 42 of Genesis.

Because our text is three and a half chapters long, or 121 verses long,

however you want to categorize it, I'm going to go ahead and read excerpts and

sort of summarize parts of the story rather than reading every single verse

in order to get through all these chapters in one sermon.

So Genesis 42, starting with the first verse, it says this.

When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons,

why do you keep looking at each other?

Listen, he went on. I have heard there is grain in Egypt.

Go down there and buy some for us so that we will live and not die.

Okay, so what's going on here? Jacob is Joseph's father.

Just want to remind you that. So when I say that Joseph was his dad's favorite

son, this is who he's talking, this is who I'm talking about, Jacob.

And at this point, he is not thinking about Joseph at all.

Joseph, in his mind, died like 20, 22 years ago.

And so he's never gone to look for him because he doesn't have any reason to believe he's alive.

And so he's just continued to live, not in Egypt, but in Canaan,

the promised land, all these years.

The brothers, the 11 brothers, all still live with their dad as well,

or they live near him in the promised land. They've never gone to Egypt or really

thought. I don't think they've thought a whole lot about Joseph.

Maybe they think he's dead by now. But it's been like, if you add up all the

numbers in the story, it's been about 20 to 22 years since they last saw him.

So they're not thinking about him either.

But what they are thinking about is the fact that they're hungry, okay?

And so Jacob learns there's grain in Egypt when there's not grain anywhere else?

Now, this is an important question.

Why was there grain in Egypt at this point and not grain anywhere else?

Do you remember from last week? Yes, last week's story answers that question.

If you weren't here, the dreams that Joseph interpreted for Pharaoh was basically

that there's going to be seven years of agricultural good.

It's going to be seven boom years where there's plenty of food.

And then there's going to be seven terrible years of famine.

And the only way that you're going to survive the seven terrible years of famine

is if you save up extra food during the seven years that are really good.

Well, apparently that prophecy was not simply for like the borders of Egypt,

but that seven good years and seven bad years happened to that whole region.

And so the reason why Egypt has food when the other nations or the other people

groups do not is because they are the only nation that God tipped off.

That God, through Joseph, told Egypt ahead of time that the famine is coming.

So they prepared when no one else did.

So Joseph's father and brothers are all there in Canaan.

And they probably, I'm assuming they had seven great years where things were

going really well. And they didn't know that bad times were coming.

And then they hit and now they're hungry and nobody has any food.

So this thing that I'm reading to you obviously takes place after the seven

good years, but toward the beginning of the seven bad years.

And he goes, somebody's got to go to Egypt.

They're the only people that have food around here.

And so the brothers say they'll go. So verse six, same chapter.

Joseph was in charge of the country. He sold grain to all its people.

His brothers came and bowed down before him with their faces to the ground.

What is the significance of the bowing? Yeah, it was the dreams.

We learned this a few weeks ago, but for those of you that know the story,

those of you remember, that's exactly what he dreamed would happen,

is that his family would be bowing down to him.

So at this point, as this happens, I think he's realizing like,

oh, the dreams were a prophecy.

The dreams are coming true right now.

So they bowed before him. Verse 7. When Joseph saw his brothers,

he recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke harshly to them.

Where do you come from? He asked. Okay. He knew.

Where do you come from? They said, from the land of Canaan to buy food, they replied.

Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him.

Okay. Now, how did Joseph recognize his brothers, but his brothers didn't recognize him?

The story doesn't say, but I have three theories. that I'm going to give you.

And it could be like any combination of these.

One idea is this. Joseph being the youngest of the brothers is probably the

one who has changed the most in the intervening 20, 21, 22 years.

He was 17-ish the last time they saw him. He's probably about 38 now.

And you change a lot between 17 and 38.

However, the brothers were older. They were probably in their 20s when the last time they saw him.

And you don't change as much from your 20s to your 40s as you do from your teens

to your 30s. So that's one thought I had.

Another one is that they, the brothers are part of the same culture that they've

always been a part of, whereas Joseph has gone to a place where things have

changed for him a lot, including probably his appearance.

So when the brothers show up, what do they look like?

Honestly, in that culture, they probably look the same as they did 20 years ago.

Like there weren't even, you know, nowadays people's clothes look different

than they did 20 years ago because it was fashion.

Like fashion wasn't even invented yet. Like people usually look the same.

You look the same as you did 20 years ago, right? You just put on this little

burlap sack looking thing and you've lived your life.

And so they show up here wearing the same clothes they were wearing 20 years

ago or clothes that are like them and they have the same beard that they had

it's probably a little grayer it's probably a little bigger but they probably

look roughly the same as they did but not joseph he's been in a whole other culture.

Right? He's wearing, first of all, not only is the difference Egyptian versus

Canaan, but also like he's now the prime minister of Egypt. So he's probably

got very fancy clothes on.

He's looking whatever they look like, which might be that his face was shaved.

It might be that his head was shaved. He might have a big headdress on.

He might have a big elaborate wig on.

He might have some like what we would now call makeup on. Cause sometimes Egyptian

men in the ancient cultures did that with their eyes.

He's going by a different name at this point. His name is Zaphonath Pania.

That's what he goes by. Yeah, you sound impressive that I could pronounce that.

I was also impressed. I can't believe it came out that way.

So this was in last week's text, but Daniel last week was the preacher.

And last week when Daniel preached the sermon, he did the same thing I'm doing

right now, which is he didn't read every single verse.

So he didn't read this verse, but I'm just letting you know,

in last week's text, there was a point where it talked about how when Joseph

became the prime minister over Egypt, he took on an Egyptian name.

So what I'm thinking is, They walk in, he's there, they're there,

and he says, I'm Zaphonath-Paneah, right?

And what are they going to say? They're going to say, well, I'm Reuben,

and this is my brother Judah, and this is my brother Simeon,

and I think he's going to be like, well, I know who you are,

right? He's going to recognize their names. They're not going to recognize his.

Also, I think it's easier to recognize people in groups than when they're as

individuals. Have you ever thought about that before?

You know, sometimes if you just see someone like out of context,

you're at Walgreens or whatever, and you're like, I know that person from somewhere, you know?

I don't know who they are. Is it from school? Do I know you from church, right?

But sometimes when it's a group of people, it's real easy. Like if you recognize

one person in the group, then you suddenly kind of know everybody in the group.

So I think they're not going to recognize him out of context,

but there are 10 brothers speaking Hebrew coming from Canaan with the names

of his brothers, right? So I think he's going to figure it out before they do.

Now, the reason I'm pointing all this out is because they're not recognizing

him as a significant part of this story. All right, verse 9.

Joseph remembered his dreams about them. Why? Well, because they were coming

true in front of him. He's like, whoa, this is it.

He remembered his dreams about them and he said to them, you

are spies you have come to see the weakness of the land no

my lord your servants have come to buy food they said we are

all sons of one man we we are honest your servants are not

spies no he said to them you have come to see the weakness of the land but they

replied no we your servants were 12 brothers the sons of one man in the land

of canaan the youngest is now living with our father and one is no longer living

now that's interesting isn't it so they're sitting there going no no we're not

spies we're all related to each other we're just one family right?

We're just 12 brothers. And then I guess they realized, I guess we've got to

explain why there's only 10 of us here if we're 12 brothers.

We were 12 brothers, but one of them died.

And one of them, the youngest one, is back home with dad.

Now, when Joseph hears one of them died, what do you think he realizes?

That's him. Like he realizes, like, I'm the one that died that they're talking about.

And then he would also realize when they bring up the youngest one that's back

with dad, that he would realize, oh, that's Benjamin. That's my little brother.

My best assumption here is that Benjamin was probably a baby when Joseph was sold into slavery.

So he would have been, you know, he would have saw him as a baby and now he's maybe 20, 21 years old.

So he missed his whole life. You know, his whole childhood, all the way growing up.

So verse 19, he's accusing them of being spies.

I mean, back then he had all the power. Like they didn't have like even the

courtrooms and let's do justice and all that.

Like he could just say, you're spies and put them in prison. And he did.

And then he pulls them out. And then he says this, and this is interesting.

Look at verse 19 of Genesis 42.

He says, if you are honest, which remember that was the claim they made.

We're all honest. We're from the same family.

If you are honest, let one of you be confined to the guardhouse while the rest

of you go and take grain to relieve the hunger of your households bring your

youngest brother to me so that your words can be confirmed

and then you won't die and they consented to this okay which of course because

that's better than dying so what is he saying to them well he's trying to come

up with a way to get benjamin,

there right so he says i want you to go back and i want you to get him and so

he says hey you say you're not spies. I say you're spies.

You say you're part of a family and there's one brother's dead.

I guess you can't produce the dead brother, but you could produce the alive brother.

Why don't you go get him and bring him here, right? So he says,

I'm going to do that. And I think you can tell he cares about his family.

He says, in fact, I'm going to give you food, right?

You're suspected spies, but I'm going to give you food for you to take back

to your family so you don't starve to death.

And then you're going to get that brother and you're going to bring him here.

And so he says here, but one of you needs to be confined to the guardhouse.

Essentially, he's going to throw one of you in jail, right? And you're going

to be there until the youngest one is brought here. Why?

I think because he's thinking that's collateral, right?

That's the idea here is if I just give you some food and let you go and say,

just bring back the youngest one when you get a chance, right?

I think he realizes I will never see you again. So we're going to keep one of

you back here so that you have to get the youngest one and you got to bring him here.

And then if I see, yep, turns out your story's true, then we'll give you your brother back.

So that's what they do. So the rest of the chapter explains this.

The one who gets chosen is Simeon.

Simeon gets put into prison or into the guardhouse or wherever it is.

And that's where he gets kept until they come back with Benjamin.

So they now have to go get their youngest brother. They got to convince him to come to Egypt.

And probably more importantly than that, they have to convince their dad to let him come to Egypt.

So they're trying to figure out how to do this. So they go home and they ask

dad like, hey, you know, you notice there's one less of us.

Simeon's back there and they're not gonna let him out unless we bring Benjamin.

They explain this whole story. Well, we told him there's 10 brothers and there's

one more brother and we told him and we gotta bring him now.

It's okay. What does Jacob think of this idea?

Let me read it to you. Genesis 42 verse 38.

Genesis 42:38

So they made their pitch. But Jacob answered, my son will not go down with you,

for his brother is dead and he alone is left.

If anything happens to him on your journey, he will bring my gray hairs down to Sheol in sorrow.

He says, there's no way I'm going to take a chance that anything would happen

to Benjamin. If that happens, I will be depressed until I die.

That's what, right? Bring my gray hairs down to Sheol. That's the realm of the

dead. We've talked about that before. I will go to the grave in sorrow.

No, you cannot have Benjamin.

Now, why does he say this? Well, Benjamin's his favorite, right?

In fact, you can see that, right? He says, my son will not go down to you for

his brother is dead. Who's that a reference to?

Joseph, right? And he alone is left. Isn't that interesting?

Because there's 10 of them. It's like, Dad, we're standing here.

Like, we're right here when you said, I have no one else but Benjamin.

Like, all of the rest of us are here.

And so Benjamin is the new Joseph. He's the new favorite. Remember,

Jacob had multiple wives, and Rachel was his favorite.

And the two children from Rachel, Joseph and Benjamin, were his two favorite.

You can clearly see that Jacob loved Benjamin more than Simeon.

I mean, he knew the whole story. Like, they explained the whole story.

So, like, they're like, if we don't bring Benjamin, Simeon just stays in jail forever.

And Jacob's like, yep, I got all that. The answer's no.

I mean, it stinks for Simeon, but no.

Chapter 43, verse 1. Now, the famine in the land was severe.

When they had used up the grain they had brought back from Egypt,

their father said to them, go back and buy us some food.

But Judah said, the man specifically warned us. Now keep in mind,

the word the man here, that's Joseph.

The man specifically warned us, you will not see me again unless your brother is with you.

If you will send our brother with us, we will go and buy food for you.

But if you will not send him, we will not go. For the man said to us,

you will not see me again unless your brother is with you. Like,

dad, this guy wasn't playing.

Right? We were in prison for a little while. Simeon's still there now.

Like, we can't do that. he made it very clear that if we come back,

Benjamin better be with us or else he's going to consider us to be spies.

We can't go get more food unless we bring Benjamin.

Now what's interesting is this whole story happens.

It says when they had used up the grain they had brought back.

Isn't that interesting? So it's not like they said, hey dad,

we needed to be, like they went back to their normal life and started eating again.

And then once they ran out of food, Jacob goes, well we're going to have to

go get more food from Egypt.

And then the whole conversation comes back up again, which hopefully you're

thinking what I'm thinking now, poor Simeon, like he's not there like,

oh, we'll get Benjamin and come back. And then they went and ate every bit of

it and then got hungry and then said, well, I guess we can go back.

And so then they ask dad and he's like, no. And they're like, but we got to.

And they have this whole conversation and Judah has this whole,

like, I swear up and down, I promise I won't let anything bad happen to him

and we will bring him back alive.

Dad, you gotta trust us and we gotta do this. And dad finally says yes. Jacob says yes.

But it took a while. And I think the reason might very well be that not so much

that he had changed his mind, that he wanted to risk Benjamin's life,

but just there came a point where he realized Benjamin's gonna starve to death

here if we do nothing. So I guess I have to let him go.

So they go. So Benjamin goes with him this time, and they go back to Egypt.

They get to Joseph's house this time, and then they actually get to Joseph's

house before he gets there.

So I'm going to jump in at that point of the story, chapter 43, verse 26.

When Joseph came home, they brought him the gift they had carried into the house,

and they bowed to the ground before him.

He asked if they were well. I remember you guys. How are you doing? Yeah, yeah, we're fine.

And he said, how is your elderly father that you have told me about? Is he still alive?

Now, he has to phrase it that way, right? You told me you had an elderly father.

Is he still alive? But what's he really asking?

How's dad doing? Like, is my father still alive? He's still alive.

They answered, your servant, our father, is well. He is still alive.

And they bowed down to honor him.

And when he looked up and saw his brother, Benjamin, his mother's son,

he asked, is this your youngest brother that you told me about?

Keep in mind, he's like 21 years old. Last time he saw him, he was probably an infant.

Then he said, may God be gracious to you, my son. Joseph hurried out because

he was overcome with emotion for his brother and was about to weep.

He went into an inner room to weep.

There comes a point where it's just he's thinking about dad.

He's thinking about this brother that he never got to know and just the whole

thing is so overwhelming and it's going to give away the thing if he cries in front of all of them.

So he goes in another room, cries it out, then comes back in.

And it looks like what happens next is basically all is well, like a deal's a deal.

You brought Benjamin, we'll give you back Simeon, you know, and you can go on

your way and you can even buy more food and you can go take the food back to your families.

And then he does this. This is chapter 44, verse 2. As they pack coming up everything

Isaiah 44:2

in there to go, Joseph says to one of his servants these words.

This is chapter 44, verse 2. He says, put my cup. This is Joseph talking to his servant.

Isaiah 44:2

Put my cup, the silver one, at the top of the youngest one's bag,

along with his grain money.

So he did as Joseph told him, right? So he says, as you're doing all this stuff,

I want you to take the money that that guy paid.

I want you to put it back in his bag for him. And in fact, I want you to take

my cup, like my big fancy cup that nobody messes with.

I want you to put that in the youngest one's bag and let them go.

So the guy does what he says, you know. Verse 3, at morning light,

the men were sent off with their donkeys.

They had not gone very far from the city when Joseph said to his steward, get up, pursue the men.

And when you have overtaken them, say to them, why have you repaid evil for good?

Isn't this the cup that my master drinks from and uses for divination?

What you have done is wrong.

And when he overtook them, he said these words to them. And they said to him,

why does my Lord say these things? Your servants could not possibly do such a thing.

Oh, what is going on here? So Joseph says, yeah, put the cup in there and then

send them off, right? And then they go off and he goes, all right,

now go get them and press charges.

And so he goes after them and he says, you stole my master's cup.

And they, of course, didn't do it. So they go, we didn't do that.

We would never do that. Okay. Verse nine.

If any of us is found to have it, this is the brothers talking to the messenger

that comes out there and finds all this.

If any of us is found to have it, he must die.

You need to be careful what you say.

He must die and we will also become my Lord's slaves.

Like that's how sure they are that nobody stole this cup. Well,

we'll all be your slaves and whoever's bag you find it in, you can kill that one.

And he doesn't realize he's talking about the one that he just said,

dad, I promise, I promise, I promise I'll bring him home alive.

The steward replied, what you have said is right, but only the one who is found

to have it will be my slave, and the rest of you will be blameless.

And when he says my slave, I think he's speaking on behalf of Joseph.

Like whoever it is that we find the silver cup, that person will become Joseph's

slave. Well, Zappanathonia.

He'll become his slave, and the rest of you will be free to go.

Well, they're like, well, it doesn't matter. We don't have it, right? So, verse 11.

So each one quickly lowered his sack to the ground and opened it.

The steward searched, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest.

Like they stretch it out to be as like dramatic as possible,

right? Because he knows which one it's in.

But he says, well, let's look at the oldest. So he looks at that. Oh, no, it's not there.

And then looks at the next one. Nope, it's not there. Looks at the next one.

Nope, it's not there. Looks at the next one. Nope, it's not there.

Look at the next one. Nope, it's not there. And of course, they're sitting there

the whole time going, we know it's not there. We told you we didn't take anything,

you know? And so he keeps looking, keeps looking, he keeps looking.

Ending with the youngest, and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack.

And then they tore their clothes.

And each one loaded his donkey and returned to the city. I mean,

can you imagine how their hearts must have sunk?

They were like, Dad, we promise, we promise we'll get him back.

We promise we'll get him back. And then of all people, for the cup to be in

his sack, I mean, the rest of them, they might have been like,

well, we can do without that one. But not Benjamin.

This is terrible. I'm sure they are so upset.

So they go back.

I guess at this point, I want to ask the question, what in the world is going on here?

Like, why isn't Joseph just revealing who he is?

Why doesn't he say, I'm Joseph, and this is the whole deal? What is he doing here?

And particularly, why is he setting this up so that it looks like Benjamin is the thief?

Like, you could imagine, if he's still angry about what they did to him years

ago, you could imagine he might go, okay, well, I'm going to,

now it's time for payback, right?

I'll get some revenge on my brothers. But what does he do?

He frames Benjamin.

If you remember the story from earlier, who is the only brother that didn't

sin against him? Benjamin.

Every single one of the other brothers sinned against him. So like from his

perspective, he is doing what?

All of the brothers that have wronged him, he's saying, no, you all can go.

And the person he's framing is Benjamin, the one who hasn't done anything to him.

So this is not this is not some sort of revenge plan. Something else is going on here.

I believe that Joseph was testing them. There is something important that he

wants to figure out, and he thinks if he lets them know who he is,

it will not work, so he's got to figure it out another way. So here's what happens.

Chapter 44, verse 16.

What can we say to my Lord, Judah replied. Judah was fourth oldest.

What can we say to my Lord? How can we plead? How can we justify ourselves?

God has exposed your servants' iniquity, which they hadn't done anything wrong.

So I wonder if he was thinking like about other things he's done wrong before this.

God has exposed your servant's iniquity. We are now my Lord's slaves,

both we and the one in whose possession the cup was found. Now look at this.

Then Joseph said, I swear that I will not do this.

The man in whose possession the cup was found will be my slave.

The rest of you can go in peace to your father.

Do you get it? Like that's the test. Joseph is using his power to set up a situation

so that he can see how his brothers are going to treat Benjamin, the new Joseph, right?

See, he's saying like, why don't you just hand him off as a slave?

Just make him be a slave, hand him off to Egypt to be a slave.

And then you just go back to your dad and tell him whatever.

Does that sound familiar? That's the same thing they did to him 20 years ago.

So he's setting this whole thing up to figure out, will they do to Benjamin what they did to me?

But I don't think he could just say, well, I'm Joseph and I was thinking about reconciling with you.

But I wanted to ask you first, do you regret what you did to me?

Do you think what you did to me all those years ago was wrong?

Would you do it all over again if you had a chance?

He's not going to ask them that straightforwardly because they would say back,

like, yeah, oh, that was wrong.

We're really, we feel real bad about that, right? No, we'd never do it again.

No, so he's trying to figure out for real. So he sets up this whole situation,

not to take revenge on them. He sets this whole situation.

So he's able to ask them, will you treat Benjamin the way that you treated me?

Are you the same guys that you were? will you do it all over again?

So what happens? Judah responds, and there's a big, long speech he does.

I'm just going to read the last paragraph of his speech.

This is Genesis 44, starting in verse 30.

Judah says, So if I come to your servant, my father, and the boy is not with us.

So he's saying, if I go back to Jacob and Benjamin is not with us,

his life is wrapped up with the boy's life.

Like you don't understand how much he loves Benjamin you don't

understand but my dad can't his whole life is about this kid

when he sees that the boy is not with us he will die like we can't what you're

asking for we can't do my dad will die of a broken heart he almost did when

we lost the first one right he will die and then your servants will have brought

the gray hairs of your servant,

our father, down to Sheol in sorrow.

Your servant became accountable to my father. Your servant here,

he's referring to himself.

Like, I became accountable to my father for the boy, saying,

if I do not return him to you, I will always bear the guilt for sinning against you, my father.

Now, please let your servant remain here as my Lord's slave.

He's talking about himself.

Like, I will trade places with him. I will be your slave. You let him go back.

Let your servant remain here as my Lord's slave in place of the boy.

Let him go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father without the boy?

I could not bear to see the grief that would overwhelm my father.

Do you see what he's saying? He's essentially saying like, I will do whatever I've got to do.

I cannot do that to dad again.

And he didn't say again because he doesn't know he's talking to Joseph.

But that's what he's saying.

I can't do, I will become a slave to avoid doing that to dad again.

I will value Benjamin's life above my own this time.

And so Judah passes the test. Judah passes the test by offering himself in the

place of his brother, which is interesting because Judah had a great,

great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson that

did that for the whole world.

At this point, Joseph sees that Judah has passed his test and he finally reveals

himself. Genesis 45 verse one.

Joseph could no longer keep his composure. Could you? I mean,

once he saw this, he goes, oh.

He could not keep his composure in front of all of his attendants,

which makes you realized there's a whole bunch of other people that were in

the room, not just him and his brothers, but he sends all of them out.

So it's just him and his brothers.

So he called out, send everyone away from me. No one was with him when he revealed

his identity to his brothers, but he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it.

And also Pharaoh's household heard it.

Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. Is my father still living?

But they could not answer him because they were terrified in his presence.

They were already terrified of him because he was like, I could kill you.

But then they realized what they had done to him and the situation that they're in.

And then Joseph said to his brothers, please come near me. And they came near.

I am Joseph, your brother, he said, the one you sold into Egypt.

And now don't be worried or angry with yourselves for selling me here. What?

Can you even imagine that? Don't be too hard on yourselves. Everyone's got a bad day.

Don't be worried or angry with yourselves for selling me here.

Look at this. Because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.

For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there will be five

more years without plowing or harvesting. This is the point, people.

God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to

keep you alive by a great deliverance.

Therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God.

And so then he invites his dad and the whole family to come live there.

And he says he's going to take care of them.

And then verse 14, it says, Then Joseph threw his arms around Benjamin and wept.

And Benjamin wept on his shoulder.

Joseph kissed each of his brothers as he wept. And afterward,

his brothers talked with him.

What a story. Thank you.

Now that's where we're going to end our reading for today. But as we close out,

I wanted to point out a couple of things to you.

The first thing I want to point out to you is this. Joseph believes in God's sovereignty.

Do you see that in the story? Like Joseph believes in God's sovereignty.

Three times in this chapter, not even just chapter, like the little section

of the chapter I read to you, three times he refers to the decision that his

brothers made and then says, it was God. God sent me here.

God arranged all of this so that we wouldn't starve to death.

And when you factor in everything else in the rest of the book about like how

God has made a covenant and the people and the promised land,

and they're going to become a great nation and all these promises,

I think this is Joseph's way of saying like, hey, God made promises to our family,

and this is the way he's keeping those promises.

We would have all starved to death if he had not sent me ahead of you.

So please notice, Joseph appeals to his belief in God's sovereignty in order

to make sense of the pain and suffering in his life.

Sometimes we do the opposite of that. The pain and suffering comes in and we

say, well, God is good, so he had nothing to do with that, right?

But that's not what Joseph does. Joseph appeals to God's sovereignty to make

sense of the pain and suffering in his life.

And as he thinks back of the good things that God has done, made me Lord,

and he's head of Pharaoh's household and all that, father to Pharaoh,

and when he thinks about the pain and suffering and everything that took him

to get here, like he does not accuse God of wrongdoing.

He accuses God of rightdoing.

The second thing I want you to notice is that Joseph forgave his brothers.

Joseph forgave his brothers of a terrible crime.

It's interesting that he tested them to see if they were repentant first before

he revealed himself to them and before he forgave them or officially extended

forgiveness, however you want to phrase it.

It seems like it was important to him to confirm that they would not do it all over again.

But then he forgives them.

And it's interesting the way he forgives them because he had a lot of options.

He was the second most powerful man.

He could have had them all killed. He could have enslaved them all.

That would have been very easy. I mean, they literally came back from silver

cup travesty and they come back and they say, we are all your slaves.

He could have said, yes, I accept.

In fact, booyah, I'm Joseph, right?

You're all gonna be my slaves for the rest of your life because of what you

did to me. He could have said that. He didn't, he didn't kill them. He didn't enslave them.

And not only does he not take revenge on them, He goes further than that,

and he is kind to his persecutors.

Can you imagine a situation where he chooses not to take revenge,

but decides not to be particularly kind to them and just kind of sends them

back empty handed that he goes, hey, I'm bigger than this.

You know, I'm not going to take revenge on you. I'm not going to hurt you.

But I mean, I don't like you. You guys are really mean to me.

Like, just go home and let's, you know, just, I don't want to see you anymore.

Go home and we'll be done with all this, but I won't take any revenge on you. Can you imagine?

I mean, I could imagine him doing that. A lot of us do that.

Do you guys do that? I feel like this is a common thing. A lot of times as Christians,

somebody will do something to us and it is wrong and it is wicked and it offends us, right?

And they do it. And at some point we go, all right, I am not going to take revenge

on them because I'm a Christian, right? And that's not what we do.

I'm not going to repay evil for evil, okay? I'm going to be Christian about

this and I'm not going to do anything mean back to them.

But I'm not going to be particularly nice to them either.

Have you ever done that? I have. I think God brought to my mind this morning

a person that I think I was doing that with. I'm like, I'm going to have to change that.

So in this particular case, what if Joseph had chosen no killing,

no enslaving, just sends them back home?

What would have happened? They'd have starved to death.

And that would have affected the rest of history. if they would have starved

to death there would be no nation of Israel and if there was no nation of Israel

there would be no rest of the Old Testament without Joseph's kindness there

would be no exodus no Leviticus no numbers no Deuteronomy no Joshua no judges no Ruth,

without Joseph's kindness here there would be no Matthew Mark Luke or John,

This act of forgiveness is connected to the most significant happenings in history

and the salvation of the world.

So I think this text can remind us of New Testament teachings that say not only

to not take revenge, but to be kind to our persecutors.

And the story also is a reminder that God is sovereign over his people's sins.

Joseph clearly believed that, sovereign even over his brother's sins.

And God is sovereign over his people's righteousness. right?

Like Joseph's forgiveness and his kindness and how that changed everything.

That's powerful to think about, isn't it? God is sovereign over his people's

sins and over their righteous acts.

All right, Lord willing, we will finish up next week by seeing how all of this

in this story led to the nation of Israel being embedded in Egypt for hundreds

of years, just as God said would happen back in Genesis 15.

So come back for that. Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you for World Family Kids Camp and that it's Commissioning Sunday.

I thank you for these missionaries that we're going to send out today.

And so I pray that you'd bless them and I pray that that would go well.

And I pray for those of us who stay behind and that we would be faithful to you back here at home.

I pray that wonderful ministry would happen this week. I thank you for this story.

I thank you for the reminder of how we are to treat others. I thank you for

the reminder that you are sovereignly in control.

And there are times where we go, oh, I don't really like this.

And Joseph said, you were in it and you were doing good.

So I thank you for being sovereign and in the midst of our lives,

in the midst of the deserts and the gardens and the ups and the downs and the

good and the bad, and that you are trustworthy in all of that.

And so we worship you because you are trustworthy in all of that.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.