When you think of Joseph in the Bible, one of the key thoughts that comes to your mind or key words is integrity. The guy had a lot of integrity. When you think through the Bible about Joseph, he's one of those guys nothing bad is said about him. Only good things are said about him. So he just is a man of integrity. So today we're going to do an integrity test. You see Joseph in our story today is going to put pressure on his brothers. He's going to do an integrity test with them. What I believe what's going to happen here in our lives is that we're going to do our own integrity tests of our own hearts. How are we doing in the integrity area is the question I think we want to ask ourselves today.
In order to do that, I want to define integrity for you a bit. I want to illustrate it by talking about a bridge. If we say “that bridge has integrity,” what we mean is that the bridge has the ability to stand up. In particular, it's not corroded on the inside, ready to collapse. Secondly, it can withstand the pressures from the weather, and from the trucks and the cars, and the vibrations of life going over it. It gives a good analogy because as we look at our own hearts and evaluate our own integrity, I think we want to look at three areas. So young people, I want you to listen to what I have to say here because your integrity is very valuable and you want to be able to strengthen that in your own heart. There are three things that we can draw upon integrity in our own lives.
One is that we're able to deal with the internal challenges, that is the temptations that we face. Do we have enough internal strength to deal with the temptations that come our way? Temptations like the temptation to immorality, or anger, temptation to bitterness, or to being dishonest. Do we have the integrity to face the temptations that we experience? That's number one.
The second thing that I think integrity does is it gives us the strength to deal with pressures from outside the challenges of life. When things don't go the way we expect, when we're disappointed when bad things happen, when we're surprised by problems in our lives, do we have the strength to deal with those and to face those in our lives? That's number two.
Number one was temptation internally. Number two is external challenges. And three is honesty. When we think about integrity, honesty is usually the first thing that comes to mind. Honesty is that ability to speak the truth, even when it's difficult, when you're challenged about something and you would rather get something and you know you have to lie to get it, then that's the test. Do you have the integrity to do what's right in a difficult situation? Integrity is very important.
We see Joseph experiencing all three of those already as we've gotten to know him a little bit. He had the temptation to immorality with Potiphar’s wife, but he said no to that. He had the internal strength to deal with the temptation. We don't know a lot about his experience. But I imagine he had the integrity to deal with the temptation toward discouragement, given his plight that he had many times, the temptation to become bitter against his brothers. He had to deal with all of those things, the temptations.
He also had that second component, that ability to face challenges. We see him over and over again facing challenges that he didn't expect that were unfair for him. So he finds himself spending a lot of time in prison. Can he handle that? Well he appears to have that internal strength to do that. And that's one of the reasons we admire him.
Is he honest? Well I remember when the baker said, “Well tell me my dream. You gave such a positive interpretation to the cupbearer. Mine must be positive too,” Joseph didn't water down the story at all. He told him the truth, that you're going to die. That's what he told him. When Pharaoh said to him, “I heard that you are an interpreter of dreams, that you can interpret my dream,” Joseph didn't pretend. He didn't lie and say, “Yes, I could do it.” He says, “God is the one who interprets dreams.”
So in each case, we see Joseph having that internal strength. I want to ask ourselves the question, do we have that internal strength? But not just that question. I want to ask an additional question at the end of the sermon: Where do we get it? And how do we have that? If you want to develop more integrity in your life, how do you develop it? What's going to happen inside of you in order to do that?
But today in our story, we're not going to look at Joseph's integrity, we're going to look at integrity test that Joseph puts on his brothers. Because in the story, as we open up Genesis 42, we're going to see that this is the time we just ended the last chapter where Joseph is said to be heading up the kingdom and that the famine is now severe in all of the land and even the surrounding countries, setting the stage for what's about to happen. So as we open up the passage to Genesis 42 and start reading there, that's where we see one family back there in Canaan who's suffering because of the famine – that's Jacob and his now eleven sons that are with him now. Watch what happens as we open up this story in Genesis 42.
It says this – 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.”
I love those words that the dad says to his sons. “Why are you guys standing around looking each other? You need to do something,” because I think the tendency for children is that we tend to as children be comfortable, we want to take the easy route, we want to be entertained. And sometimes parents come along and say, “Hey, what are you doing sitting around looking at each other? You need to do something,” I just really like that. That idea that Jacob is saying to his sons there.
But it's not just kids, is it? I mean, there's some times when we as adults find ourselves gravitating toward comfort, gravitating toward ease or entertainment. Change is difficult. And so the pressures start rising around us. You see in the passage he says so that we live and don't die. You know, he's feeling the pressure. And sometimes our children don't feel the pressure, they need a little prodding from dad in the story here to get up and start doing your chores. There's something that happens in a family when parents are teaching their children how to be responsible, get their homework done. Don't just sit around; get up and do it. Do your chores, contribute to this family, look for ways that you can help around here. That is what Jacob is saying to his son. I think we ourselves often need our heavenly Father to come along to us and provoke us a little bit, to prod us and say, “Scott, you need to get up, stop looking around here, and do something about it.” Maybe today God is going to say something special to you in your heart. The Holy Spirit may just come to you today and prompt you and say, “It's time to stop just looking around. It's time to start doing something about it.”
I was over at the Barn. John was working in the Barn this week and we were laughing about this verse because John's a supervisor. He was telling the story about how he was on the roof of a fire. He's a fireman. He's on the roof. A fire is going there and one of the firemen up there, one of the new guys is just standing there while everybody else is working. So John starts yelling orders. “Get over here.” He draws a line with the tool that he has. “Saw that off and then saw this off.” I think that's what we need sometimes. I was saying to John, “You don't have to tell anybody what to do anymore. I'll just say ‘go read Genesis 42:1.’” That's your cue now, Genesis 42:1. Just tell that to your kids. Go read 42:1. What does it say? Why are you looking around at each other? Get up and do something. I think that's what Jacob is saying to his sons. And so they're going out there and verse 2 says – so they may live and don’t die.
Verse 3 says – So ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with his brothers, 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.
Verse 6 – 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 themselves before him with their faces to the ground. I imagine that there's some kind of a line up somehow for people so that they could arrive there and buy the food and approach Joseph in the midst of this. So 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.
It's been over twenty years now since Joseph has seen his brothers and Joseph now speaks Egyptian. That's what he's doing, speaking in Egyptian to everyone. He's speaking through an interpreter in order to talk to these boys in Hebrew. He doesn't speak Hebrew to them.
He says – “Where do you come from?” They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.” Verse 8 – 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.” And some of your translations read the weaknesses in our land. That's what it means. You've come to see the vulnerabilities of the place. You are spies looking to attack us. You're seeing these things in 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.” So that's part of why I say and I called this sermon an integrity test. Because the word honest is used here. Actually five times in this chapter the word honest is used. They say here – “We are honest men. Your servants have never been spies.”
What we're going to see here is that Joseph is going to test these men. He's going to see if they're the same brothers that he left twenty years ago. Are they the kind of guys that are going to be so self-centered that they're going to leave their brother and send him off into slavery? He's going to set up another test like that by leaving one of the sons back and sending them away. Are they going to leave him there? Are they the same brothers who would lie to their dad and say, “Hey, we found this robe with blood on it. Is this your son's blood?” Oh and Jacob was deceived by them to believe that Joseph was killed by a wild animal. Are these the same boys? He's setting up this test for them. We're going to see that take place as we go forward.
Verse 12 says – He said to them, “No, it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see.” You are finding the vulnerabilities in our land. And they said, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan, and behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more.” You know who the one is no more is. That's Joseph himself. They're passing the first part of the test. They're being honest and saying, “Yes, we had twelve brothers and one is no more. And our other brother is back home with them.”
Verse 14 – But Joseph said to them, “It is as I said to you. You are spies. By this you shall be tested.” Now the word tested there is describing what we're talking about today. There is this testing that takes place of their integrity. That's why I titled this sermon Integrity Test. I think we can take from this idea in this passage that we can all step back and look at our own integrity. How are we doing in that area of our lives? He tested them. He says – 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.
So what he tells them is this. He says, “I'm going to send one of your guys back. All of the rest of you are going to be right here. And you're going to stay right here with me, but I'm sending one guy back to get your brother.” Now that's not what's going to happen in the end, but that's what Joseph says to them at this point. He's going to change his mind. So right now what's going to take place is that you see that they're in place for three days.
They're in custody for three days.
What do you think's going on during those three days? See, I think what God is doing here and Joseph is doing is using this concept of time to allow God to work on their hearts, a very important part of what God does. Sometimes it's time. You know how sometimes when you have to wait for something – you have to wait for the diagnosis from the doctor, or you've got to wait for finances to be resolved, you've got to wait for the resolution of a problem, or you've got to wait because it looks like your boss is laying people off. You don't know whether you're one of those people. There's a waiting time. And in the waiting time there's some thinking that goes on, some pondering. In this case, these guys are all thinking about what's going on. We're actually going to see what they're thinking and what's going on in their hearts. It’s fascinating in this passage to learn about what's going on in them.
So in verse 17 it says – He put them in custody for three days. Verse 18 – 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 of your households, and bring your youngest brother to me. So your words will be verified, and you shall not die.” And they did so.
So what he’s saying is now I'm not going to keep all of you and just send one off, I'm going to keep one and send the rest of you back. I wonder why he did that. We aren't told. But he does say I want you to take back the grain to your starving households, which gives me the impression that he's having mercy on them. It's going to take nine guys to carry enough grain to get back to Canaan to take care of the family there. So he changes his plan, keeps one son back. He’s going to keep Simeon back in the midst of this story. So it says – And they did so. But they didn't leave yet because we got some more dialogue.
Verse 21 says – Then they said to one another… Listen to the dialogue. Jesus said it's out of the heart that the mouth speaks. So we can go backwards. We can listen to a person talking and we can see what's going on in the heart. Verse 21 – Then they 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 did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.” So they're thinking about their past sins. And now when they're experiencing some bad things they’re wondering, “Oh no, am I being judged because of my past sins?” 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.
Here these guys are fearful. They're wondering, they're worrying because their past sins now were catching up to them. So I want to stop for a moment and I want to ask a theological question. What do you think about this? Should people today be afraid of their past sins, that God or life is going to somehow punish them in the process? Do you think that people should live in fear because of past sins, imagining that God or life is going to punish them? What do you think about that? Well, let me suggest the answer to the question depends on which of three groups of people you're in. There are three groups of people that are going to help us answer this question.
If you're in group number three that means you're a Christian and you are serving the Lord, then you do not have to fear the past punishment for sin that you've committed. That God is not coming after you because of something that's happened in the past. Why? That's because when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He died for the punishment for us. He took that punishment. We don't take that punishment. It was given to Jesus and He died for us so that we could have the freedom and the forgiveness and the peace inside. We can be forgiven and we live in that beautiful, beautiful forgiveness that God has given to us. Now it is important for us to understand the wrath and the justice and the holiness of God. It is powerful and it is real. But when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He died to satisfy the wrath and the justice and the holiness of God. So we are free. We are free, we are forgiven, and we can look forward. We might have consequences from some bad thing in the past, yes. But even when that takes place, we can trust that the Lord is using those things in a positive way. Group three – no, you do not have to be afraid of past sins that God will judge you for them. That's group number three.
Let's go to group number one. Group number one are those people who don't know Christ yet. These are the people who are living their own way. And they have a problem, just like everybody else, just like everybody in group three and group two and group one. We all have a problem and the problem is we all have sin. It's pretty clear. We've all sinned. We've got a problem, a sin problem. But if you have not accepted Christ in your life, then you live in fear. You live in fear that something's going to happen to you to judge you or something. And that's not even a bad thing. I think there are some people who come to Christ, they're motivated because they recognize their own sin. They recognize that in no way should they be getting on in life. They're in great danger, especially when they start thinking about hell. Oh man, I am destined for hell. I need Jesus. I need a Savior. And so group one – yes, they should be afraid that life or God are going to punish them because they are not protected under the blood of Christ. But they could be if they choose to move into group three and serve the Lord.
Group two is the most dangerous of all the groups, I just got to tell you, Group two are Christians who are living in sin. Because the Christian who's living in sin, God loves you and wants to discipline you. He disciplines you so that you can change and you can be motivated to repentance. And so yes, you can expect some bad things are going to happen in your life, not because God is trying to punish you, but because God lovingly wants to discipline you to move you forward. I think the most difficult, the scariest place for any of us is to be a Christian who's not repentant and who is doing the wrong thing. That is just plain dangerous. And we should be afraid to move to the side.
So the answer to the question has to be, which side of repentance are you on? If you're past repentance and you're moving forward and you have this attitude of repentance, you don't have to fear that God is going to punish you, that God is after you, that God is going to judge you. You can move forward in the midst of that.
Now these boys are wrestling with all this stuff in our story.
Last Sunday I talked to a man and I just said him, “How you doing?” And he says, “Well, you wouldn't believe it. Lots of good things are happening in my life, but I'm afraid of the next bad thing that's got to be happening soon.” I'm thinking what a terrible way to live, that someone would be going… Oh this guy is not a believer, but he lives in this fear.
It's kind of like this Hindu karma idea that says it's going to come back on me if I'm doing the wrong thing. And yes, it's likely to do that, not because of any Hindu religion, just because that's life. We need the freedom that God provides for us. It comes through the blood of Jesus Christ that rescues us from the condemnation that takes place internally.
These guys are still wrestling with that condemnation. It's a difficult thing for them that they're experiencing.
One verse I really, really appreciate in God's word is this one in Isaiah 41:10. It says – Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. But do you see that? Don't be afraid. That's a command. Don't be afraid. Several times in the Bible it says do not be afraid. We don't have to live in fear because of what God is doing in our lives.
Well let's go back into the story. Verse 24 says – 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. So what happens is he puts the money that they paid back in their sack, ties up the sacks. They don't know. They think they're taking grain alone back home. That's where they're headed.
Verse 26 – Then they loaded their donkeys with their 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 his 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 trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?” They’re going to blame this on God. That God must be involved here, creating this problem. Do you see what's happening? You know when you have a guilty conscience and you live that way, then you look at things like this and you say, “Wow. Oh no, I'm in trouble now. I'm going to be perceived as someone who stole some money here.” “What is this thing that God has done to us?” they say.
Verse 29 says – When they came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened. I just wanted you to see here, they're passing the first part of the test. They're telling him everything that happened. They're not coming back with a lie and saying, “Well your son Simeon died and we're just here to report that he died.” They're not doing that like they did with Joseph.
They reported 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.’”
What Joseph has done is given them an integrity test. Now sometimes I work with parents whose children have lied or been dishonest or snuck out in the middle of the night or done something bad on the internet, and they're doing things in secret. So they need some therapy in this area of integrity. Integrity therapy is what they need.
One of the suggestions I say to them is in the midst of teaching and sharing and talking about all of these things (right and wrong and conscience, all of those things), one of the things you want to do is you want to send this child on a mission. An integrity mission. You're going to say to this child, “I want you to go into the bathroom, and I want you to get the trash can and bring it in and dump it in the kitchen. Let me know when you're done.” And when your child's done, you go check in. Did he really take all of the trash from around the trash? Or did he leave some there? Did he do the whole job? Or did he just throw the trashcan back in the bathroom? Does he have integrity to do the right thing when no one is watching? You send them on integrity missions. And these integrity missions are designed to test him, not so that he'll fail, but so that he could prove his integrity, prove his honesty. That's what Joseph is doing, sending them down in this particular way.
Verse 35, let's pick it up there. It says – 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.” In other words, the way I value and love my sons, I value my brother as well. Passing, I think, the second part of the integrity test – do you love your brother?
Verse 38 – But 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 Sheol.” He's saying this is the only one I have left. Because remember Joseph is one of the children from Rachel, the favorite of Jacob. And so Joseph and Benjamin were the only two sons of Rachel. And so Jacob’s saying no, I'm not sending them down there. No way.
Well let's pick it up with just the first part of the next chapter, the first few verses. Verse 1 says – Now the famine was severe in the land. And when they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go again, buy us a little food.” But Judah said to him, “The man solemnly warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. But if you will not send him, we will not go down, for the man said to us, ‘You shall not see my face, unless your brother is with you.’” Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?” They replied, “The man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ What we told him was in answer to these questions. Could we in any way know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?” And Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones. I will be a pledge of his safety. From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. If we had not delayed, we would now have returned twice.”
Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then do this: take some of the choice fruits of the land in your bags, and carry a present down to the man, a little balm and a little honey, gum, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds. Take double the money with you. Carry back with you the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks. Perhaps it was an oversight. Take also your brother, and arise, go again to the man. May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man, and may he send back your other brother and Benjamin. And as for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.”
And so Jacob says, “Okay, we're going to do this, but we're going to call on…” So you see the name he uses? God Almighty. El Shaddai. This is the name for God that is often associated with the fulfillment of His covenant promises. That God is the one who's going to carry the line down in this. And so He’s saying, “Lord, based on your character and who you are, God all powerful, I want you, Lord, to oversee this. God Almighty, El Shaddai.” Oh, that's powerful.
Well I think the boys are passing the integrity test, which allows us to ask the question about ourselves. Are we passing the integrity test in our own lives? And in what basis are we doing it? Because if we're just going to say, “I'm going to be more determined to be more honest, I'm going to be more determined to fight the battle of temptation,” then we're relying on human strength. That's not good enough, folks. As Christians, we are not humanists. So we're not just relying our own strength to have integrity. We're relying on the Lord, El Shaddai.
Jesus was trying to explain this whole idea to His disciples. Let me just show you the one verse in John 15:5. He describes it this way to His disciples. He says – I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. You see when Jesus says He's the vine and we're little branches coming off the vine, what He’s saying is our strength comes from the vine. Our strength doesn't come from… You don't take a branch and the branch is strong in and of itself. It's attached to the vine. In fact, its ability to be tied into the vine is the determining factor of whether it can produce fruit or not. And in our lives we want to have integrity.
I would suggest that as we come before the Lord and He says, “Hey, you need to work on this area of your life, you need to work on this area of your integrity,” that we want to say, “Okay, God. Help me do that. Lord, I want to be tied into you. I want to understand your word more. I want to pray more. I want to fellowship with believers more so we can encourage one another. Lord, I want to be attached to you so that you can feed me my integrity so that I can be strong enough to do what I need to do.” It says in that verse – for apart from me, you can do nothing. Not just you could do a little bit. You can do nothing. That's what it says. Our integrity has to be tied into the Lord.
I trust that this will be a motivation for you to say, “Boy, I need the Lord in my life. I've got to get closer to the Lord. I need to be walking with the Lord more.” I think we all need that.
You know I was pondering this integrity test in my own heart this week. Just saying, “Lord, what are you saying to me? What do you want me to do? Lord, if there's an area where I'm out of place, would you please just show that to me?” Because see, I think as Christians we live a continual process of repentance. That we say, “God, show me and I'll change right away. I'll respond to you. I'll do what you're calling me to do.” As we do that, we receive then this internal integrity that God wants us to have to meet the temptations that we have inside, to meet the challenges of life, and then have the ability to be honest in situations that we find ourselves in. That's integrity.
These boys are passing the integrity test. We'll see the rewards of that as we continue on in this passage. You can read ahead. It's a great story as we continue on in Genesis.
Heavenly Father, we ask that you would work in our hearts in a special way. I ask, Lord, that you would teach us, grow us, strengthen our inner hearts. Help us to be the kind of people that you want us to be so that we can be a light to others, we can represent you in this world, and we can share who you are with others. We want integrity, not just to strengthen our own selves but to be a witness for others. Lord, I ask now in these moments as we sing a song that you would speak to us in ways that touch us deeply. Lord, put your finger on areas in our hearts that we need conviction, we need to change. Lord, we don't want to be afraid of punishment. But we do want to repent and we do want to follow you and everything. So Lord, we come to you now and ask for you to work deeply in our hearts. In Jesus’ name, amen.
