Now, friends, I do invite you and encourage you to turn in God's Word to Genesis chapter 44. Genesis chapter 44 begins on page 47 in your pew Bibles. We beginning at first verse of chapter 44 and reading through verse 15 of chapter 45. God has freely chosen to reveal himself to us, to speak to us. It is our duty. and our delight to listen, to heed his word. So indeed hear it now from Genesis beginning in chapter 44 in verse one. Then he, Joseph, commanded the steward of his house, fill them in sacks with food, as much as they can carry and put each man's money in the mouth of the sack. and put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest with his money for the grain. And he did as Joseph told him. As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away with their donkeys. They'd only gone a short distance from the city. Now Joseph said to his steward, up, follow after the men. And when you overtake them, say to them, why have you repaid evil for good? Is it not from this that my Lord drinks and by this that he practices divination? You have done evil in doing this. When he overtook them, he spoke to them these words. They said to him, why does my Lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing. Behold, the money that we found in the mouths of our sack, we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. How then could we steal silver or gold from your Lord's house? Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die. We also will be my Lord's servants. He said, let it be as you say. He who is found with it shall be my servant, and the rest of you shall be innocent. Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each man opened his sack, and he searched, beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest, and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they tore their clothes, and every man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city. When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, he was still there. They fell before him to the ground. Joseph said to them, what deed is this that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination? And Judah said, what shall we say to my Lord? What shall we speak or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants. Behold, we are my Lord's servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found. But he said, far be it from me that I should do so. Only the man in whose hand the cup was found shall be my servant. But as for you, go up in peace to your father. Then Judah went up to him and said, oh my Lord, please let your servant speak a word in my Lord's ears. Let not your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself. My Lord asked his servants, saying, Have you a father or a brother? And we said to my Lord, We have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother's children, and his father loves him. Then you said to your servants, Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him. We said to my Lord, The boy cannot leave his father. If he should leave his father, his father would die. Then you said to your servants, unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again. We went back to your servant, my father. We told the words of my Lord. And when our father said, go again, buy us a little food, we said, we cannot go down. If our youngest brother goes with us, then we will go down. For we cannot see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us. Then your servant, my father said to us, you know that my wife bore me two sons. One left me, and I said, surely he has been torn to pieces, and I have never seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs and evil to shale. Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant, my father, and the boy is not with us, then as his life is bound up in the boy's life, as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. that your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant, our father, with sorrow to Sheol. For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, if I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life. Now, therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my Lord. And let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father. Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him. He cried, make everyone to go out from me. So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud so the Egyptians heard it and the household of Pharaoh heard it. And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. Is my father still alive? But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence. So Joseph said to his brothers, come near to me, please. They came near. And he said, I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here. For God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years. And there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for your remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to the Pharaoh and Lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, thus says your son Joseph, God has made me Lord of all Egypt. Come down to me, do not tarry. You shall dwell in the land of Goshen and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children's children and your flocks, your herds and all that you have. There I will provide for you. For there are yet five years of famine to come so that you and your household and all that you have do not come to poverty. And now your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see, that it is my mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt and of all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here." Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them. After that, his brothers talked with him. This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray and give him thanks for this word. Father, indeed, we do give you praise and thanks and honor that you have spoken to us these inerrant and fallible and unchanging words. We pray that your spirit would take them as the sword that they are and drive into our hearts these truths that we may be cut that we may be known as you know us, we may know our own sin, that we may know our savior, that we may be taught and instructed in how we are to follow after him. I pray this in Jesus' name, our savior. Amen. Church of Christ, if you were here last week, you may have heard me say that there are no happily ever after stories in the Christian life this side of glory. We saw in the previous really two chapters of Genesis, Joseph putting his elder brothers to the test. And we saw in the previous chapter that it seemed as if the brothers were passing those three tests. But tonight in our text, you probably noticed that they have one more final exam. The brother Judah gives a surprising answer to this final exam, one that puts their life seemingly in jeopardy. We'll see it actually leads to reconciliation with Joseph and the reunion of brotherhood that had been disconnected for 20 years. As we look at this text this evening, we'll consider three points. We'll begin by considering this costly cup in the first 13 verses of chapter 44. Then we'll consider a born-again brother in verses 14 to 34. And then we'll conclude with a remarkable revelation in the 15 verses of chapter 45. A costly cup, a born again brother and a remarkable. Revelation. But our text begins in chapter 44, verse one with this costly cup. As you caught the end of chapter 43, say things seem to be going well. The brothers are feasting. They were, they were drinking freely. They hadn't yet realized who Joseph was. Joseph had not revealed himself to them. They had not yet reconciled, but they seem to be on the path toward that destination of reconciliation and reunion with their brother. But now that the next thing they know, As they're making their way back to their father, they're getting pulled over, as it were. Joseph has sent his steward after them to challenge him about this silver and this cup that he has left and their sacks. You kind of want to get them to kind of pay attention. Why haven't they noticed now this is the second time that their sacks were a little extra heavy, a little extra clanging in their ears as they hauled them onto their donkeys. The last time they were going back, they were with fear of capture. They discovered the silver. They were afraid, but they weren't captured. This time they're not afraid, and yet they are captured. And the steward confronts them and says, there is silver that has been stolen and that is in your sacks. And they immediately, as you notice in verses eight and nine, claim their innocence, do they not? But if you notice, they don't merely claim innocence, do they? They in fact condemn anyone who would have done such a thing. Before they realize where the silver has been placed, they condemn themselves. They say, whichever of your servants is found with it shall die. How could we steal, they ask in verse eight. How could we steal silver or gold? If you were their lawyer, this would be the time where you say, stop talking. Don't say anything else. You want to put your hand over the mouth. Guys, do you realize what you're saying? Do you realize the position that you're getting yourselves into? I mean, you gotta love their gumption. I mean, last time the silver was in their sacks, have they not learned anything? Shouldn't they think twice about condemning anyone who happens to have silver in his sack? But as I pointed out, not really do they condemn and say, yeah, maybe someone else stole it. They say what? That such a person should die. Verse nine, they condemn to death anyone who would merely steal silver. But what about someone who stole something even more valuable than silver? The penalty for stealing silver is death. What's the penalty for stealing a brother? And then the New Testament, when Paul wants to condemn the slave trade, he refers to it as man stealing. This is exactly what these brothers have done to their own brother. They have stolen his life and given it into slavery for what? For silver. They are so quick to assume their own innocence. But by condemning anyone who stole simply silver or gold in verse eight, they're actually even more so condemning themselves. Are they not? They're far more guilty of theft than someone who made off with silver or gold. They stole the life of their younger brother, Joseph. Friends, let this be a warning to us, that we not be so quick to condemn others and to assume our own innocence, that we do not therefore condemn ourselves by the same standard that we hold to others. One commentator put it this way, we are all ready to condemn people who commit sins we cannot conceive of committing ourselves, yet when it comes to our sins, we're much less eager for swift justice. We condemn ourselves by the standards to which we hold others. And we don't need an extra biblical commentator to tell us this. The apostle Paul himself, what does he say in Romans chapter 2? He says, therefore, you have no excuse, O man. Every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another, You condemn yourself because you, the judge, practice the very same things. The brothers, when they are claiming their own innocence, are actually demonstrating a self-righteous smugness, could we call it. They are sure that they are innocent. They are sure, on the other hand, that anyone who had stolen something is liable to death. This incidentally is one reason why reconciliation is often so difficult, isn't it? Because whenever two people are at odds that has been caused by sin, it always seems to be the other person's sin that is worse, doesn't it? You see, we understand our own sin because we committed it. We knew the rationale. We knew the desire that gave birth to it and why we thought it would be better at that point to sin than to obey. The other person, we don't know those things, and so we condemn them by the standard that we don't even hold to ourselves. The Church of Christ, that's why I love my Savior. If there's one person in the history of the world who had, think about it, who had the right to be self-righteous, who had the right to rest in his own righteousness, and to be smug around everyone else he came around, knowing that he was more righteous than they, knowing that whatever standard he held them to, he himself far exceeded that standard. And yet, what did our Savior do? He condemned the self-righteous. He fellowshiped with the sinner. He welcomed those who understood their own sin. He was castigated by the self-righteous. He was loved and clung to, anointed with oil by the sinners, because they understood something the self-righteous did not. They understood that this righteous one, this truly righteous one, the one who could hold himself to any standard, and in fact did so, instead of condemning those centers around them who were cognizant, who were aware, who are not self-righteous. Instead, he died for them. He, he gave them that righteousness that far exceeded their own. Isn't this true? Isn't this true moral duty? This is utter perfection. One who was allowed, who had all within his rights to be self-righteous. Unlike these brothers, though, he did not condemn those who were guilty of other sins if they repented, if they understood their sinfulness, if they understood their need for him. He actually died for them. He took that unrighteousness. And as the righteous one shared that with them. contrast with the brothers that we see here in the 44th chapter of Genesis. Well, you can imagine the brothers' feelings, can't you, as the steward opens the bags? First bag, opens it up. What does he find? Silver. Second bag, silver. Second bag, third bag, silver. And you can imagine this sinking feeling because he hasn't found the cup yet. Yeah, he's going by age. They know who's there at the end of the line. They know it's Benjamin. They know, as Judah points out later, that if Benjamin were to be detained, that it would kill their father. Silver itself perhaps reminded them of another time that the clanging of silver was in their ears. when they sold their brother Joseph into slavery, the full brother of the one who now has a target painted on his back with this costly cup in his sack. I mean, speaking of Joseph, do you wonder what his purpose is in this? Why does he plant these things in the bags? Why does he send his steward after his brothers? And as I suggested in my introduction, it seems to be that he's giving them one final test. Will they try to save their own skin? They've brought Benjamin against their father's wishes. Will they now be faithful to that brother? If you're going to name this technique, you might call it the reverse sell Joseph into slavery. 20 years prior, when they had the choice of rescuing their brother, their father's beloved son, or keeping silver, they kept the silver, sold the brother. But now, the test is putting them in that exact same situation. It is the one who is sold who is doing it. But I want you to observe how the brothers respond this time. This is what I'm calling the born-again brother, beginning in verse 14. And this is dominated by the speech of Judah. And I don't use that word lightly. This is the longest speech in the entire book of Genesis. It's so remarkable. You notice that it actually makes their brother cry. Joseph is brought to tears. We remember in our previous time together that Judah had told his father that he would willingly take the place of Benjamin. It's one thing to say that in the comfort of your own tent, but now that they're before the prime minister, the vizier of Egypt, the second most powerful man in the land, to again be willing to take the place of his brother shows that these weren't merely words coming out of Judah. This shows that his heart indeed has been changed. Let's look a little closer at what he says. Look with me at verse 16. When speaking to Joseph, Judas asks, what can we say? What shall we speak? How can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants. He tells Joseph that God has found out their guilt. What does Judah mean by this? Because remember, they are guiltless of the sin of stealing the silver, are they not? They didn't put that silver in the sack. They didn't put Joseph's prized, costly cup in the sack. So when they stand before Joseph and admit that God has found out our sin, he must be referring to something else. I would suggest to you, it's gotta be the sin of selling Joseph into slavery. They realize that they previously sold their brother into slavery, and now they are sure that they themselves will be made slaves of Egypt. They realize that the same sentence of condemnation of slavery that they placed their brother under is now being placed on them, or so they think. They are recognizing, finally, the sin, admitting, finally, the sin of selling their brother slavery. And do you remember in Genesis chapter 37, which brother was it who suggested, hey, slave traders, let's sell Joseph. What does it gain us? What, what do we earn from just killing the boy? It was Judah. Judah, who, who, who knows how many times in his life, those words have bounced around his brain that he spoke. Now he was before that brother unwittingly confessing that sin. How is this possible? Isn't it clear, brothers and sisters, that the Lord has changed this man's heart? That's why I labeled this point the born again brother I've talked before, I don't need to totally repeat how we see even in chapter 38, Judah and his wickedness with his sons and his daughter-in-law Tamar, how the Lord used that to change his heart. And over the last 20 years, it's clear the Lord has been sanctifying, has been changing, has been purifying the heart of this brother. How do you know, friends, that the Lord has changed your heart? One way you do is a radically different take on your own sin. One that is a take of conviction, of repentance, of sorrow, of looking to the Lord as the only source of forgiveness. Go back to why they sold Joseph. You remember that it was because they hated him. But now they're with Benjamin, who's, in some sense, a second Joseph, the other son of Rachel, the one whose birth caused the death of Rachel, Jacob's beloved wife. But now, as much as they hated Joseph, do they express any hatred toward Benjamin? Do they express any disgust that it's his fault that had gotten themselves into this pickle. Do they ever seem to question his innocence? You notice that Joseph goes out of his way in verse 17 to give them a chance to throw Benjamin under the bus. Right there in verse 17, Joseph says, no, I will, I will condemn all of you. Just give me the one who stole the cup and the rest of you can go free. Joseph's setting them up. He wants to see how will they respond to the, all they had to say is, you're right. It was son number 12. Let's get back home. But that's not what they do. how they once treated their hated brother, the son of Rachel, is changed 180 degrees to how they now treat this son of Rachel. Friends, how do you know that God has changed your heart? A radically different take on those whom you previously hated. Where there was once enmity and strife and jealousy and backbiting and fighting, the Lord has taken those sins away from their hearts and replaced in the heart of Judah, a heart of sacrificial love, a heart of one who is willing to go to his death for the sake of his brother. Now we know, as Pastor Schrock just preached last week on why Jesus can be called the Lion of Judah. He is truly the one who roars in the example of his great ancestor Judah, because he is the lamb of Judah. the one who willingly gave his life for his brothers. That's why Jesus, when he says, greater love hath no man than this, and one lays down his life for his friends, he is speaking primarily of whom? Of himself. You see how Judah has changed and how he considers his own sin, how he considers one of whom he once hated. I see a third way in which he's changed. Did you notice in verses 30 to 34 the bulk of his concern in this situation? Verse 30, he worries, as soon as I come back to my father, that the father, verse 31, will die. He talks about in verse 32 how he was a pledge of safety to his father. How he wouldn't not have to bear the blame for his father all his life. Verse 34, he asks, how can I go back to my father? His burden is for Jacob. Remember, he's gone back to his father before with news of the beloved son. He went back to his father once with that multicolored coat, a spackled with sheep's blood to pretend that that brother had died. Now his only concern is going back to that same father with news of the other favorite son of Benjamin. What incredible concern he has for Jacob. Compare that to their hatred of the father for his favoritism towards Joseph. You can compare that to this regard he had for his father in verse chapter 38, which tells us that he left his father to go live with the Canaanites. Now his only concern is for his father. How do you know the Lord has changed your heart? By how you deal and how you have love and concern for your family, your friends, for those whom the Lord has given you to care for. Once there was enmity, once there was hatred, Judah demonstrates with his actions that the Lord has changed his heart. And Joseph sees it. Joseph recognizes it. Joseph's heart, he says, the text tells us in the first verse of chapter 45, Joseph couldn't control himself any longer. Brings us to our third and final point this evening, this remarkable revelation. First 15 verses of chapter 45. You realize, of course, don't you, that Joseph has the perfect opportunity for revenge. It's been dropped right into his lap. This is where the Hollywood film would give us the revenge montage. This is like in the Godfather part one. when Michael gets down to business while his son is being baptized. This is that scene. Joseph has the chance. The brothers are right right before him. All he has to do is tell his servants to do the deed and the brothers are enslaved or worse. Yet he responds not in that way. But with mercy. With grace towards these brothers who have estranged themselves from him and the most hateful of ways, selling him to Ishmaelite slave traders. He delights at the fact that his brothers have changed because as we see, he delights in the God who has changed their hearts. He has tested his brothers. They had shown themselves to be men whom the Lord has changed. So Joseph needed to worry about revenge or retribution. Rather, he delights at how the Lord has brought them to this place. Did you notice that overriding emphasis in Joseph's words to them in verses five to nine of this chapter? What does he say in verse five? God has sent me before you. What does he say in verse seven? God sent me before you. What does he say in verse eight? It was not you who sent me here by God. Now we think what? Of course it was the brothers. They saw the camel train headed towards Egypt. They sold their brother willingly knowing where he would end up. But Joseph sees the deeper reality. He sees ultimately it's not up to us. Anything that happens in this life that ultimately it is the Lord's providence. who's guiding the every element of this universe towards one end. His glory as revealed in the salvation of his people. God has sent me here for this purpose. For seven, he mentioned a remnant. God has sent me here so that his promised seed would endure. Joseph looks, he doesn't ignore the sin of his brothers. That's why he's been testing them. That's why he's been seeking to know if they have changed. But beyond that, above that, he sees the provident hand of a good and merciful and saving God. He actually says it twice in verse eight. If not only was it you, not you, but God who sent me here, but it's God who has made me a father. Again, in verse nine, for the fifth time in these verses, tell your father that God has made Joseph Lord of all Egypt. What links all these verses? What links this entire 14 chapter narrative in the book of Genesis? Whether it's the sale, the lie, the famine, the trips, the reconciliation, the forgiveness, this is one thing. The Lord has been weaving it all together, according to his plan. My wife loves to do cross stitches. The children love to look at the cross stitches. The problem is, all they see is what's in the little circle, the sewing circle. And it just looks like, who knows? And they want to know, what's it going to be? What's it going to be? What's it going to look like? Becky knows she has a plan. She has the whole picture. She knows where things are going. She knows the beautiful scene that will result because of her work. Joseph, as it were in this chapter, shows us that God knows the scene. God knows the beautiful picture that he is weaving, even through the most abhorrent of Sins, selling your brother to slavery, lying to your father, pretending that he is dead. That's where Joseph's hope lies. That his Lord is in control, that it is not Pharaoh, it is not Joseph who is pulling any strings. It's Jehovah, it is the covenant God. of his ancestors, of Abraham and Isaac, the promise-making God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Friends, there was, as I said, there was a son of these sons who was also betrayed. Think of how Jesus was sold by a brother, a brother in arms, a disciple, one who'd walked with him for three years, Judas, Think how Jesus was sold for pieces of silver. Think how Jesus had the chance for retribution. Jesus had the chance for revenge. Peter pulls out his sword. It was time to go to town against those who had arrested Jesus. Jesus says, what are you doing, Peter? I could call out legions and legions of angels. But rather than slaying those people, Jesus prays for their forgiveness. Father, forgive them. And how can one pray for forgiveness unless he is going to provide it in that very act of death? But when Jesus says, Lord, into your hands, I commit your spirit. When Jesus back into the garden and says, not my will, but yours be done. He's just like Joseph. He knows the one who has the plan in his hand. That's why Jesus says, I won't take revenge. Into your hand, Father, I commit my spirit. Into your will, I place my trust. And so doing, Christ won salvation for self-righteous people like me. Self-righteous people, perhaps, like you. If we realize our sin, we realize our rebellion that hung us, that hung him there, if we like, The brothers come before the Lord. Bow. Say Lord, you have redeemed us. You have given me life even in death. Christ was submitting himself not to revenge. But to the God who had placed him there for our that purpose. Of securing for us salvation. Securing for us life. securing for us eternal redemption. Let's pray and give him thanks for that salvation. Oh Lord our God, we are so sure of ourselves at times. Give us the faith of Joseph to be sure in you. But all of our trust, all of our confidence in the one who knows the end from the beginning, purposed all things for your glory, for the goodness of those who love you. Lord, give us that love. Breathe into our hearts deeper and deeper the love that we may be your disciples, that we may demonstrate to this world that there is a God on the throne who rules all things, has made a way of salvation to all who would come to him, and will return again to rule. We ask this in Jesus' name, our Savior and King. Amen.