No Ordinary Joe: The Big Reveal
Genesis 44-45
Pastor Jefferson Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
01-23-22
Pig Hearted?
Fifty seven year old David Bennett Sr was dying. He needed a heart transplant but was deemed ineligible for a normal transplant or a heart valve. So the University of Maryland medical team treating him suggested a first - transplanting a genetically modified pig’s heart into Mr. Bennett’s body.
Before the surgery, he jokingly asked the doctor if he would oink after he woke up.
The surgery was a success and they are monitoring Mr. Bennett’s progress a month later.
Isn’t that a feel good story. But what if I told you that there are many people that believe that Mr. Bennett didn’t deserve the opportunity to live because of his past actions?
We’ll come back to that in a minute.
The Bible states that we all need a heart transplant. The prophet Ezekiel wrote of God’s promise to change our hearts from the inside out:
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)
Joseph’s brothers needed their hearts changed and, this morning, we will see evidence that God did just that in their lives.
Feast not Fear - Review
Last week, the brothers finally convinced Jacob to allow Benjamin to go with them back to Egypt in order to buy more food.
When they arrive, they try to explain to the steward that they paid the money for the grain but somehow the money was put back into their sacks.
The steward tells them to be at peace, “Shalom,” and that the God of their father had blessed them.
The brothers are invited to dine with Joseph and they are terrified and fear that they will be attacked and taken as slaves.
Joseph arrived and the brothers give him the fruit basket that Jacob had suggested.
When the brother’s were seated, they looked at each other in astonishment. They were seated in birth order. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin. The odds of someone guessing that is 1 - 40 million!
When the food is served, Ben is treated as the favored guest and given five times more than everyone else.
But instead of being jealous, the brother’s finally relax and feast without fear. It was a party. The wine flowed freely and the brothers drank…a lot!
That brings us to our text for today. We have been building up to this point for weeks. This is one of the most amazing texts in all the Bible.
Turn with me to Genesis 44.
Prayer.
The Set Up
Now Joseph gave these instructions to the steward of his house: “Fill the men’s sacks with as much food as they can carry, and put each man’s silver in the mouth of his sack. Then put my cup, the silver one, in the mouth of the youngest one’s sack, along with the silver for his grain.” And he did as Joseph said.
As morning dawned, the men were sent on their way with their donkeys. They had not gone far from the city when Joseph said to his steward, “Go after those men at once, and when you catch up with them, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid good with evil? Isn’t this the cup my master drinks from and also uses for divination? This is a wicked thing you have done.’”
The brothers awoke with pounding headaches and a hazy recollection of the night before. Did someone have a lampshade on their head? Although they were hung over, they were happy about how the trip had turned out.
But Joseph had one more test for his brothers to endure and this one will give them the opportunity to finally come clean and show evidence of changed hearts.
Joseph directs his steward to put their silver back in their sacks. Again, this is Joe showing kindness to his brothers. But he also directs the steward to take his royal silver cup and slip it into the youngest brother’s sack.
The ten brothers loaded up their donkeys. They had come to Egypt wondering if Simeon was still alive or if he had been sold into slavery. They were worried about how this Egyptian official would respond to their return, especially with their little brother in tow.
But everything had gone far better than that could have imagined. Simeon had been released, Ben was safe with them, they had dined with the second in command of Egypt and they were returning with sacks loaded with grain.
But then they saw a group of of men on horse back coming up quickly behind them.
It’s like when you and I look in the rearview mirror and see the flashing red lights.
Their hearts sank. What now?
The Accusation
When he caught up with them, he repeated these words to them. But they said to him, “Why does my lord say such things? Far be it from your servants to do anything like that! We even brought back to you from the land of Canaan the silver we found inside the mouths of our sacks. So why would we steal silver or gold from your master’s house? If any of your servants is found to have it, he will die; and the rest of us will become my lord’s slaves.”
“Very well, then,” he said, “let it be as you say. Whoever is found to have it will become my slave; the rest of you will be free from blame.”
Once the steward accused the brothers of stealing the silver cup, they were absolutely indignant.
They protest their innocence and tell the steward that it doesn’t even make sense. They returned the silver they found in their sacks. They are “honest men.”
Then their hubris gets the best of them and they make a statement they would quickly come to regret.
If any of us are found to have the cup, that man should die and the rest of them will be slaves.
But the steward changes the score. Only the person found with the cup will be a slave. The rest can go free.
This is the last, most intense, test that will face the brothers.
The Cup is Found
Each of them quickly lowered his sack to the ground and opened it. Then the steward proceeded to search, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest. And the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack. At this, they tore their clothes. Then they all loaded their donkeys and returned to the city.
Notice that they quickly lower their bags. They are confident that this accusation is uncalled for and unfounded.
The steward knows were the cup is but starts with the oldest Rueben and works his way down the list.
After the steward searched his bag and didn’t find anything, I can imagine Simeon huffing and saying, “See, I told you!”
The last brother’s sack to be searched was Benjamin. They knew they were in the clear because Ben had no reason to steal the cup.
But the steward pulls the silver cup out of Benjamin’s sack. ?
“You are honest men? Then what’s this?”
All the brothers tore their clothes, which was a sign of deep anguish and mourning.
They could have abandoned Ben and gone home without him.
They could have made up a lie, like they did with Joseph, and escaped with their freedom.
But something is different about these men now. They all loaded their donkeys and returned to the city.
One pastor I read this week, pointed out that God using a variety of different means to get people’s attention.
He used a burning bush to get Moses; attention. (Exodus 3)
He used a taking donkey to get Balaam’s attention. (Numbers 22)
He used a still, small voice to get Elijah’s attention. (I Kings 19)
He used a rooster crowing to get Peter’s attention. (Matthew 26)
And He used a silver cup in the mouth of Benjamin’s sack to begin the process of repentance, restoration and reconciliation in this messed up family.
Guilt Uncovered
“Joseph was still in the house when Judah and his brothers came in, and they threw themselves to the ground before him. Joseph said to them, “What is this you have done? Don’t you know that a man like me can find things out by divination?”
“What can we say to my lord?” Judah replied. “What can we say? How can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered your servants’ guilt. We are now my lord’s slaves—we ourselves and the one who was found to have the cup.”
But Joseph said, “Far be it from me to do such a thing! Only the man who was found to have the cup will become my slave. The rest of you, go back to your father in peace.”
When they entered the house, they threw themselves down at Joseph’s feet.
Before, they had bowed and even prostrated themselves. Now, in total desperation, they throw themselves to the ground.
Joseph, still playing the part of Egyptian ruler, tells them that a “man like him could find things out by divination.” This doesn’t mean that Joseph was peering into the cup and watching the reflections to tell the future.
Then Judah spoke up for the whole group. I want us to look at what he says closely.
“What can we say to my lord?” Judah replied. “What can we say? How can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered your servants’ guilt. We are now my lord’s slaves—we ourselves and the one who was found to have the cup.”
Judah repeats twice, “What can we say?” He is overwhelmed by the circumstances.
How can we prove our innocence? Yes, they are innocent of stealing the cup. In fact, the brothers assume that they were set up but not by the Egyptians but by God Himself.
God has uncovered your servant’s guilt. In Numbers, Moses wrote that “…you may be sure that your sin will find you out.” (Numbers 32:23)
Solomon wrote:
“Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13)
They are not guilty of stealing a cup. Their guilt is far worse. Twenty two years ago, they sold their brother into slavery while he begged them not to. For two decades, they have kept a secret that had been eating away at the souls.
And, as I’ve said many times before, we are only as sick as our secrets.
Judah says that they will all be his slaves. But Joe sets them up to search their hearts.
Only the one with the cup will be the slave. The rest of you, go home to your father in shalom.
It’s at this point that Judah makes what Dr. Donald Barnhouse calls the “most moving address in all the Bible.”
Judah’s Plea
Then Judah went up to him and said: “Pardon your servant, my lord, let me speak a word to my lord. Do not be angry with your servant, though you are equal to Pharaoh himself. My lord asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father or a brother?’ And we answered, ‘We have an aged father, and there is a young son born to him in his old age. His brother is dead, and he is the only one of his mother’s sons left, and his father loves him.’
“Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me so I can see him for myself.’ And we said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father; if he leaves him, his father will die.’ But you told your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.’
Judah begins with deference and respect and asked for a favorable hearing and then reminds him that it was his idea to have his brother brought down. All they wanted was to buy grain.
When we went back to your servant my father, we told him what my lord had said. “Then our father said, ‘Go back and buy a little more food.’ But we said, ‘We cannot go down. Only if our youngest brother is with us will we go. We cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’
“Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. One of them went away from me, and I said, “He has surely been torn to pieces.” And I have not seen him since. If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in misery.’
Judah says this as fact. He understands that his father really only loved two of his sons, the sons of his favorite wife Rachel.
I’m sure that throughout Judah, and the other brother’s lives, this was a source of deep pain. But he seems to have come to terms with it here.
Joseph’s heart must of skipped a beat when he finally learned what they had told his dad about what happened to him. So you told him that I was eaten by a wild animal?
Without Benjamin, Jacob would die.
“So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father, and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy’s life, sees that the boy isn’t there, he will die. Your servants will bring the gray head of our father down to the grave in sorrow. our servant guaranteed the boy’s safety to my father. I said, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life!’
“Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers. How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come on my father.”
Even though Jacob plays favorites, Judah has learned to deal with it and doesn’t want to cause his dad anymore pain. Just as Judah proposed all those years ago, that Joseph should be sold into slavery, he now has another proposal.
Take me instead. I will be Ben’s substitute.
Joseph’s heart exploded in joy. This was undeniable evidence that the hearts of his brothers have been changed by El Shaddai.
The Big Reveal
Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.
Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.”
I’m sure the brothers were afraid when he yelled something in Egyptian and all the servants scattered.
They they were probably speechless when he began to weep loudly.
But nothing could have prepared them for what came next.
In perfect Hebrew, the second in command of Egypt said,
“I AM JOSEPH! Is my father still living?”
The brothers were terrified. Wait, what?! You are who?
“You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that it is really I who am speaking to you. Tell my father about all the honor accorded me in Egypt and about everything you have seen. And bring my father down here quickly.”
Then he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin embraced him, weeping. And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterward his brothers talked with him.
I can imagine the brothers, “Hey Joseph, wow, it’s been…a long time. No hard feelings, right?”
But there is no hard feelings. There is one of the most incredible displays of forgiveness in all the Bible.
Isn’t it interesting that Joseph wants his dad to know about all his honor? Is he being prideful? I don’t think so. I think Joseph just wants his dad to be proud of him.
After all the weeping and kissing, then the brothers talked with Joseph. I can imagine catching up after 22 years. And Joseph whispering in the ears, “It’s okay guys. God has a bigger plan than you can imagine!”
And that how we will end the series next week - right where we started, with the providence of God.
But for now, let’s see what we can learn from text.
Applications
How do we forgive those that hurt us badly?
Maxine and I have gotten into a Netflix documentary called “Cheer.” It follows two cheerleading squads in Texas that are number one and two in the national rankings. We are amazed at the athletes these girls and guys are and how much we didn’t know about cheer. ?
The coach, Monica, puts an enormous amount of time and emotional energy into these students, many of whom come from broken homes. One such student was LaDarius.
LaDarius is a super talented, emotionally unstable, uber athlete who Monica took under her wing and treated as her own son. Half way through the season, LaDarius left the program and then started bashing Monica and the program on social media.
Monica was speechless. When they tried to talk to her about it, all she could was cry. She felt confused, betrayed, angry, and a deep longing to sit down with him and figure out what went wrong.
Have you been there?
This isn’t just theoretical for me. All week long I’ve struggled with this. The day that my dad and stepmom died, a person that I love deeply decided to hurt me in a way that is almost incomprehensible to me. I still can’t wrap my head around it. My heart still hurts and I still wake up mad, sad, and overwhelmed.
At nationals, LaDarius showed up and he and Monica were able to talk. She wept. He wept. He asked for forgiveness and she said she already had forgiven him but he hurt her terribly. The camera lingered as they hugged and cried together.
How did Monica forgive LaDarius before he ever asked for forgiveness? How do we forgive those who have torn our hearts in two?
Thomas Watson, the old Puritan, wrote this definition of forgiveness:
resisting revenge,
not returning evil for evil,
wishing them well,
grieving at their calamities,
praying for their welfare,
seeking reconciliation so far as it depends on you,
and coming to their aid in distress.
Some of you, like me, hear those seven steps, and your heart immediately says, “Nope! No way. They don’t deserve it! Not going to do it. Wouldn’t be prudent.”
First, we need to have big picture view of life like Joseph did.
“Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.” (Genesis 45:4-8)
Joseph doesn’t pretend like they didn’t sin against him. He reminds them that they sold him into Egypt.
You sold me but God had a bigger plan. God sent me ahead of you to save lives and to preserve for you a remnant on earth and save your lives by a great deliverance. You didn’t send me here but God did!
Joseph understood the providence of God, something that we will talk more about next week. God was working out His will behind the scenes to not only save Jacob’s entire family but to sustain the family line of the coming Messiah!
That doesn’t mean that there weren’t days that Joe woke up and didn’t want to get out of bed or times that he looked to heaven and said, “Really?!”
But there was an overarching belief that God was working all things for good, even when he couldn’t see it in real time.
Do you trust God with his plan and timing? Do you believe that God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, although, at any given time, you might be able to understand three of them?
If we call ourselves Christ Followers, then we have to submit ourselves to what Scripture says.
We are commanded to forgive. It’s not optional. It not wishful thinking.
“And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:32)
Paul writes nearly the same thing in Colossians:
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Colossians 3:13)
I remember being a large youth conference and students could stand up and ask the speaker questions. I’ll never forget a girl, probably around 14 years old, standing up and saying, “My father did terrible things to me when I was younger and you are saying I have to forgive him?”
The speaker responded, “Honey, what your dad did is terrible. But, if you are a Christian, you’ve been forgiven far worse.”
There were 5,000 students there and it went dead silent. All you could hear was this girl crying.
That felt uncaring, even mean. But it’s the truth.
Anything that someone has done to you pales in comparison to what God has forgiven us for.
When we were cosmic rebels and spit in God’s face, God initiated a mission to rescue us from ourselves.
Forgive others, just as God in Christ, has forgiven you. We have been forgiven such an incredible debt, that we can extend forgiveness to anyone.
But let’s face it. Forgiveness ain’t easy. It’s been said that the hardest three words in the English language are “I forgive you” and “I am sorry.”
But we are commanded to do this, then how do we actually do it?
First, forgiveness is a one-time decision of the will. You choose to forgive. You choose not to hold it over their heads.
Dylann Roof, attended a prayer meeting at Mother Immanuel Church in Charlestown, South Carolina on June 17, 2015. At the end of the meeting, he shot eight of the nine people in the room, leaving one alive to tell the story. He had hoped to start a race war.
In the courtroom, the family members one by one had the opportunity to speak directly to Dylan, who sat stone faced, showing no remorse.
“I forgive you,” Nadine Collier, the daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance, said at the hearing, her voice breaking with emotion. “You took something very precious from me. I will never talk to her again. I will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you. And may God have mercy on your soul.”
A relative of Myra Thompson, echoed the forgiving sentiment, calling on Roof to repent.
“I acknowledge that I am very angry,” said the sister of DePayne Middleton-Doctor. “But one thing that DePayne always enjoined in our family … is she taught me that we are the family that love built. We have no room for hating, so we have to forgive. I pray God on your soul.”
These family members were living out their faith, making a decision of the will. But that’s just the beginning. God will take you on the journey of forgiveness that may take years.
What are the consequences of an unforgiving spirit? Ray Pritchard gives us a list:
* Fellowship with the Father is blocked
* Your prayers will not be answered
* The devil gets a foothold through your bitterness
* You waste time nursing a grudge
* You become enslaved to the people you hate – they live rent free inside your head
Pritchard continues:
“You are never closer to the grace of Jesus than when you confess your sins to Him. You are never more like Jesus when you forgive those who have sinned against you. You will never fully enter into freedom in Christ if you choose to live in unforgiveness.”
John Stott wrote:
“Forgiveness is indispensable to the life and health of the soul as food is to the body.”
It’s been said that unforgiveness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
What are some steps on the forgiveness journey?
Face what they did. Don’t minimize it. Don’t sweep it under the rug. Say it out loud. And then choose to forgive.
That doesn’t mean you will forget what happened. It simply means that you choose not to hold it against them anymore. That’s what God does with our sins:I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). God is omniscient, which means he knows everything, so He doesn’t forget our sins. He chooses to not hold them against us anymore.
We don’t bring it up anymore to anyone. We refuse to speak evil of them. We pray for them. We ask God to bless them. We don’t dwell on it anymore. We let it go and move on.
Here’s an important thing to remember. When someone hurts us, we can forgive him or her but that doesn’t mean we have to trust him or her.
If you walked into my office, and then hit me with a bat breaking my leg. I could forgive you for that. But the next time you came to my door, I’m going to want to see your hands to make sure you don’t have a bat.
Let me ask you some questions:
Are you up to date on your forgiveness? Are you keeping short accounts?
Are you holding a grudge against anyone? Let it go.
Do you harbor bitterness against anyone? Let it go.
Are you talking too much about what others have done to you? (Remember, from Matthew 18, if someone hurts you, you go directly to him or her) Let it go.
Are you living out Romans 12:18?
“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” (Romans 12:18)
Charles Spurgeon wrote:
“To be forgiven is such sweetness that honey is tasteless in comparison with it. But yet there is one thing sweeter still, and that is to forgive. As it is more blessed to give than to receive, so to forgive rises a stage higher in experience than to be forgiven.”
Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah, is our substitute.
Judah interceded on Ben’s behalf. What is Jesus doing right now?
"Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.” (Hebrews 7:25)
Judah willingly offered to take the place of Benjamin. But, in the end, that didn’t have to happen. But many years later, a descendant of Judah, who actually was called the “lion of the tribe of Judah” Jesus Christ, did what Judah offered to do.
Jesus died in our place, to pay the penalty of our sin, in order to give us something we didn’t deserve at all - an eternal home with God in heaven.
What if I told you the man who got the pig heart transplant stabbed a man seven times leaving him paralyzed in 1988?
Would that change the way you feel about him being chosen over thousands of other possible recipients?
Did he deserve it? A professor of bioethics at NYU, made this comment concerning the choice of Mr. Bennett.:
“The key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are…We are not in the business of sorting sinners from saints.”
Scripture says that we were hopeless, helpless, and hellhound but God, in his mercy and love, gave us the heart transplant we needed.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6,8)
We didn’t deserve it, we couldn’t earn it, but God, in his amazing love, gave it to us freely. All we have to do it receive that gift.
Ending Song: “I’m forgiven (Amazing Love)
