The Potter's House of Camdenton
Beginnings Part 30 – Genesis 42-43 The Beginning of Intrigue
So there's a little cooler at our house this morning than it's been, and that was kind of refreshing, but a reminder of what's coming and heating and all of that other stuff that's going to be going on. We'll soon be complaining that it's too cold, which is the response, God's response, I think, to us complaining that it's been too hot, but we don't need to go there. This morning, we'll be continuing our journey through the book of Genesis in this series entitled beginnings, and this is part 30, and as you can see up there, as you can see up there, we'll be, you can't see up there, can you? As you can see up there, sorry, we'll be considering part 30, this is part 30, and this morning's title is the beginning of intrigue, and we'll be unpacking Genesis chapters 42 and 43. Last week, we looked at one more installment of Joseph's story, which told us how his last night in prison was followed by his first night in the palace, what a remarkable transition that man made all in one day. The story last week told us how he went from favorite son to favorite slave to favorite prisoner to the favorite of Pharaoh the king. And we can reconsider our assessment of Joseph's life, I hope you're remembering this, and if you weren't here, you could listen. We reconsidered our assessment of Joseph's life and decided to stop evaluating it based on consequences and began evaluating it based on results instead. In other words, we decided to drop the whole favorite thing we had going on because the idea of favorite is based on consequences, favorite son to favorite slave to favorite prisoner to favorite forgotten prisoner, those were all consequences if we look at it that way. And we decided instead to focus on God's plan, the results of God's plan in Joseph's life by looking more closely at the fact that Joseph had actually gone from second in command in his family to second in command among his fellow slaves to second in command there in the prison until finally he was second in command in all of Egypt. His being second in command of all of Egypt when that finally happened was not a consequence of how good he had been. It was a result of God's plan for his life. And as we review, I want us to consider how much more elegant it is to look at life that way and how much more sense it makes to see Joseph's life in the results of his life rather than the consequences of his behavior. Joseph ended up as a slave and a prisoner even though he did what was good and right. So we said that the bad things that happened to him didn't fit with the good things that he had done. One did not follow the other naturally. Then without changing his lifestyle, you remember this, and still being committed to doing the right thing, he found himself second in command of all of Egypt. Now if he'd been doing bad things before he became an imprisoned slave and then started doing good things before he became second in command in all of Egypt, then something in that process would have made sense. That would have clicked. I think we would, you know, and that would have preached too. I mean, that would have made a good message. We could have said, "Yeah, you do bad stuff. Bad stuff happens. You do good stuff. Good stuff happens." But that's not how Joseph's life went, and in fact, that's not how it goes in God's life. He might have made us think that we could get good things if we do good things, and that's not Christianity, that's Buddhism, that's Hinduism. But since Joseph's life changed without his changing his lifestyle, Joseph was the same guy all the way along. Joseph's life changed without changing his lifestyle. He took time to wonder if what happened to Joseph had less to do was less connected to Joseph's choices and Joseph's behavior and more connected to God's plan. Maybe it was God's plan that was the source of all the things that, and I keep saying maybe, I hope that you've reached the conclusion like I have personally in my life, there's no maybe about it. That's the way this thing went down. That's what happened. That was the only thing that makes sense. God must have had a plan for his life, and in that plan, Joseph had to have some really bad experiences to prepare him and to train him for the responsibilities that he would have later. And if God had a plan for Joseph's life, that included hardship. We wondered back then a whole week ago, we wondered if God might have a plan for our lives as well, and if perhaps that plan that he has for our lives might include some hardship as well as he gets us ready for other things that are coming along. And of course that led us to think that perhaps the flat tire in the rain when I'm late for a meeting, maybe God's way of preparing me for how he intends to use me in the future. The difficulties we encounter along the way, both small difficulties and big ones, might be, let's just say it that way, might be part of God's plan to prepare us for what he intends to bring into our lives in the days that lie ahead. It might be that God is getting us ready to serve him in larger ways just like he got Joseph ready to rule Egypt by planning that he would serve first as a slave and a prisoner. I hope our time in the word last week prompted you to think and perhaps have a conversation or two. I hope as a husband and wife or brothers and sisters that you sat together and talked about this. I'm trying to say that what God did to and with Joseph should prompt us to ask a simple question, are there habits that we can develop that will help us see past the dire and difficult consequences and see God's plan for us instead? Are there habits that we could pull into our lives that would keep us from focusing on how crappy things are right now? And help us to see instead, God's up to something. This is part of his plan and this must mean that he has bigger things in store for me, things that things that I need to be prepared for before I go. And as we put those, what can I be doing? Are there habits that I can have in place? And as we put those habits in place, is it possible that we might be experienced, the same kind of glorious unfolding that Joseph experienced when he stood with Pharaoh there in the throne room? What an incredible moment that was. Can you imagine what it would have been like for Joseph when Pharaoh invited him to leave the prison, if he cared to, invited him to leave the prison and rule Egypt as his second in command in the palace, leave the prison, move to the palace. It sounds like a pretty good deal. Sounds like upscale to me, but can you imagine what it would have been like for Joseph as he had that experience? Joseph was not the victim of his circumstances. We felt sorry for him at first, but I'm losing that. I really, truly am. God's getting Joseph ready for something and we didn't know what it was. Joseph was not the victim of his circumstances. He was a victor over his circumstances and was rewarded with the right to rule Egypt. And that reminds me of something that we've looked at in the past, Revelation 3.21 says to the one who is victorious, this is Jesus speaking, to the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my father on his throne. That's what happened to Joseph, that glorious unfolding. In Revelation there, Jesus is saying that if any of his followers is victorious, including everyone in this room, if any of us are victorious, he will give you, he will give that person, that one, the right to rule the universe at his side. That's his word, the word that he chose. He didn't choose the word privilege. He chose the word right. I will give you the right to rule the universe at my side. And we can't even begin to imagine what kind of a glorious unfolding that's going to be. I'm reminded of Faith's mom, Rosemary Etherton. I don't know how many of you knew her. She was a remarkable lady by all measures. In February of 2012, she fell and broke her pelvis and her shoulder, and it took a long time for her to recover, which we expected since she was 85 when she fell. By August of that same year, she had developed difficulty breathing and some other symptoms that didn't seem related to the fall that she had taken. So we took her back to the hospital tests. They did an x-ray and found several large nodules, large growth surrounding her esophagus, and the doctor came back into the emergency room to tell her what they had found. He said that they needed to do some more testing, and she asked right away if it was possible. She was a nurse. She asked right away if it was possible that the nodules indicated cancer. The doctor paused her moment and said they couldn't know for sure, but then added that his experience told him that cancer was a likely diagnosis. I'll never forget that moment, because without pausing for a breath, the next words out of her mouth were, "Thank you, Lord." The first thing that she said, having gotten that news, they ran the test and confirmed the diagnosis, and the doctor came back in and said that it was indeed cancer. I expected sadness or shock, perhaps, from fate's mom, but there was none. There was only a settled peace, as God unfolded for her, how she would die. After a few minutes, the doctor left, and I went and stood beside her bed in the same place where the doctor had so recently stood. There was something that I needed to know. So I asked her why she had been so quick to thank the Lord when she received a diagnosis that would likely be devastating for most people. She said, "Well, I've been wondering what God's plan is for the end of my life." Now, it seems that I know. So I told her I still don't get it, and asked her to explain what she meant. She smiled and told me years ago when she and her husband Ken were still young, they began to believe that God always had a plan, no matter how difficult things became. She went on to say that since they were confident that the things good and bad that happened to them were a result of God's plan for their lives, they decided to honor God and His plans by giving thanks for everything, even when things hurt. It was their way of recognizing that God's always up to something. God's always doing something. And they wanted Him to know that they knew that and that they were thankful for His plans in their lives, even when His plans brought pain. And I wonder this morning if we could learn that same habit of giving thanks in all circumstances. I'm not saying that it would be easy, but it would be a significant way of being obedient to God's Word. Look at what 1 Thessalonians, and this is the verse that Mom quoted to me that afternoon. Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in most of your circumstances. Give thanks in some, what does it say? Give thanks in all circumstances. Well, why would we do that, Paul? For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. This is what God wants. Giving thanks made a difference in Rosemary's life and her decision to always be thankful prepared her for the news that she received that day in the emergency room. God unfolded for her, His plan for her there in that hospital bed, and three weeks later she was gone. Now, I know that might not sound like much of a glorious unfolding, but there's more to the story. I talked with her often during those three weeks when her health was rapidly declining, and I spent as many hours I could at the hospital because I was determined to walk her home. I knew that her husband would have loved to have that privilege, but he was already home, so I felt that that privilege fell to me as her son-in-law since she didn't have a son. It so happened that I had a trip planned to the Philippines about two weeks after the diagnosis, so I sat down with mom again and I told her I wouldn't go on the trip because I wanted to be by her side, but she quickly responded, "Oh no, you have to go. This is a very important trip." I tried to change her mind, but she wouldn't hear of it, so I went on the trip as planned. Took about 30 hours or so to get there in the phone rang within hours of my arrival there. In the guest house, it was my daughter Bethany saying that faith, her mom, had said that I should return as quickly as possible because Rosemary's health was failing rapidly. I flew out of Manila that next morning, and by the time I arrived at the hospital, all three of faith sisters and faith and the husbands had arrived. Mom had been fighting off unconsciousness, and we were confident that she was doing that because she was waiting to make sure that we were all there. She did that every holiday season when we were traveling. She waited for all of us, so we got together, we went into her room and we stood around her bed, and she was barely conscious at the time, but we said, "Mom, we talked about it, and we think you ought to go find Ken. It's okay. We're ready to let go." There were tears in her eyes. As a few minutes later, she slipped into unconsciousness and remained that way for 30 hours or so. Her breathing gradually became more haggard, and as her heart began to slow, we gathered around her bed to pray and sing to walk her home. Her breaths were shorter and shallower. We began to think that she might just slip from unconsciousness into the presence of the Lord, but then it happened. Suddenly, she opened her eyes wide and was clearly fully awake and fully aware. For the first time in more than 24 hours, she looked off into the distance, passed all of us that were gathered around her bed, and saw something that none of us could see, and then she said out loud, "Oh, I didn't know it would be like that." She closed her eyes. She breathed her last and stepped into the throne room of the King, where he invited her, where he gave her the right to rule it his side. All of that was because she trusted Christ as her Savior and decided along the way to give thanks for everything. That's where that glorious unfolding came from as God opened the last bit of the map for her. For the sake of the review, remember that this is not a mindless giving of thanks for everything. We give thanks because we realize that God's up to something in our lives. This is not just a run of bad luck. He's planned these circumstances to change our hearts, and we don't feel like we need the trial, and I would agree with you. I don't feel like I need the trial, but I do know that my heart needs to be changed. I do know that there's room for movement there, and I hope you know that as well. We don't feel like we don't need the trial, but we do need the change, and so it only makes sense. When God starts to do things that will change your heart, you should thank him for whatever he's doing. I should thank him for what he's doing even though it hurts. That would be a great habit for all of us to develop in our lives, and I hope you caught the gist of that story that I just told, because it was an amazing thing to watch firsthand in my mother-in-law's life. It's time to start unpacking the passage for this morning, and as always, we'll begin the process by reading a portion of the passage aloud together. So if you're able, would you please stand with me and read aloud of Genesis, chapter 42, verses 1 through 13. When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, "Why do you just keep looking at each other?" He continued, "I've heard that there's grain in Egypt, go down there, and buy some for us, so that we may live and not die." Then ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt, but Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother with the others, because he was afraid that harm might come to him. So Israel's sons were among those who went to buy grain, for there was famine in the land of Canaan also. Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the person who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph's brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them. "Where do you come from?" he asked. From the land of Canaan they replied, "To buy food." Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. When he remembered his dreams about them and said, "You are spies! You've come to see where our land is unprotected." "No, my Lord," they answered, "Your servants have come to buy food. We are all the sons of one man. Your servants are honest men, not spies." "No," he said to them, "You've come to see where our land is unprotected." But they replied, "Your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man who lives in the land of Canaan. The youngest is now with our Father, and one is no more. Before you take your seat, take a moment to ask God to speak to you this morning from his word. Father speak to us this morning, open our eyes to see the truth and changes by what we hear and understand we pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen." Let's get back to Joseph who is now in charge of all Egypt. The story last week took us from the time that Joseph got out of prison at thirty years old to the end of seven good years when the harvest in Egypt were plentiful. Then it took us to the end of two more years of famine during which time food was running short all over the world. So at the beginning of this story this morning, Joseph is about thirty-nine years old. He hasn't seen his brothers since he was about seventeen, so it's been twenty-two years since they threw him in the pit. I want to ask you this morning, do you suppose it's really true that time heals all wounds? What does Joseph still have an axe to grind with these boys? Remember that Joseph had a dream in which his brothers bowed down to him, but that hasn't yet happened, at least as the story began, that hasn't yet happened. Everyone else in Egypt and around the world has been bowing down to Joseph these days because he's in charge of Egypt, but his brothers still haven't shown up. Given his dream, Joseph must have expected that a moment would come when his brothers would come walking in off the street because the famine was severe all over the world. So his brothers had to be getting hungry and Joseph had to wonder when his hungry brothers will show up needing his help after what they had done to him. With that background, this is the story from God's word from Genesis, chapters 42 and 43. As we mentioned the last time we discussed this story, the famine of Joseph's day spread throughout the known world, including Canaan, where Joseph's father and Joseph's brothers were living. As Joseph's family began to run low on food, Jacob heard that grain was available in Egypt, so he gathered his sons, and I love his question, "Why are you all just standing around looking at each other?" I heard that there's grain in Egypt, so get your butts down there and buy some food to survive this famine. Ten of the brothers packed their stuff and headed for Egypt, but there were only ten of them because Jacob didn't want to risk sending Benjamin the youngest of his sons. Jacob had already lost his second youngest son years ago when he had been killed and torn apart by a wild animal, or so he thought. That may Jacob afraid that something would happen to Benjamin, his twelfth son, if he let him go to Egypt with his brothers. Of course, Joseph, his eleventh son, was already in Egypt, but neither Jacob nor any of the brothers had any way of knowing that. Joseph was the second in command of all Egypt, and according to Pharaoh, Pharaoh actually says this about him, he had become like a father to Pharaoh. So Joseph's brothers packed up their stuff and headed for Egypt, not knowing what they would find there, and when they arrived in Egypt's capital, Joseph's brothers entered the Great Hall where the grain was allocated and saw Joseph presiding over everything. Remarkably, they didn't recognize him, and I love this part of the story. This intrigue gets beginning. They only saw that he was a man of great importance, so they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. He was dressed as an Egyptian. He probably had some type of makeup on his face, decorating his face. He was speaking Egyptian, and so his brothers had no call, no reason to suspect that it's his, their brother, their long dead brother. They only saw that he was a man of great importance. They may not have recognized Joseph, but Joseph recognized his brothers immediately. Everywhere they were, the scoundrels, the jerks that had thrown him into that pit and sold him to slavers. Joseph decided not to play his hand right away, and I love that about this story too. So even though he still knew his native tongue, he spoke to them in Egyptian through an interpreter into Hebrew. In a gruff voice, he said to them, "Where did you come from?" Translator translated the question into Hebrew. "We've come from the land of Canaan to buy food," they answered again through the interpreter. Joseph thought for a minute about the dreams he had had about these men, and something about the dreams that he had had prompted him to say, "You guys are spies. You're spies. You've come here to see where our land is unprotected." No, no, sir, no, no. Not at all, they protested. We've come here to buy food. That's why we're here. We're 10 brothers, the sons of one man. We are entirely honest and trustworthy, they're saying this to Joseph. We are entirely honest and trustworthy, and we are not spies. I'm not buying that for a minute, Joseph says through the translator. "I am confident that you've come here to see where our land is vulnerable and undefended." "Sir, please, you have to believe us," they said. We were 12 brothers, all sons of one man who lives in Canaan. The youngest of us is with our father in Canaan, and one of our brothers is no longer alive. "Well, I'm still convinced your spies," Joseph said, "but I want to give you a chance to prove to me that you're not. If you're willing to," he said, and then continued, "I, here's what we'll do. You will promise to return to Canaan and retrieve your youngest brother. In fact, nine of you can stay in prison, and the remaining one will return to get your youngest brother. If the one who goes back to Canaan fails to return to Egypt, then I will know that your spies and the rest of you will never leave your prison in Egypt." Joseph followed up on his threat by taking his 10 brothers into custody for three days. They're spending time in prison now. On the third day, Joseph told him the time has come, and I promise to let you live. If you can produce your youngest brother, I'll allow nine of you to leave, but I will keep one in custody while the rest of you return to Canaan, bring your youngest brother to me, and I'll just forget this whole thing. Joseph went on to threaten them with death if they didn't retrieve the youngest brother. Now, remember, Joseph's pretending not to be able to speak Hebrew, so the brothers didn't know that they understood everything they said to one another as they discussed this. This is the option that's open to them. Joseph is standing right there, speaking Egyptian. He looked at one another and said, "Surely we are being punished by God for what we did to our brother Joseph. We all saw how distressed he was, and we heard how he pleaded for his life when we threw him in the pit and sold him into slavery, but we wouldn't listen. We were not hearing him that day. That's why all this distress has come upon us," they said to one another. Reuben, being a true big brother, took a hard line with his brothers and said, "Didn't I tell you not to sin against the boy? Didn't I tell you that, but you wouldn't listen, and now we're being held accountable by God for his death?" Joseph understood the entire conversation, but they had no idea that he did because he was still speaking through an interpreter. Broke Joseph's heart to hear them talking like they were, and he had to leave the room and regain his composure before he was able to return. He then returned to where they were and had Simeon tied up and escorted from the room and still speaking Egyptian. Joseph ordered the men who were working for him to fill the men's bags with grain and put their money back in the tops of their sacks. Joseph then instructed his people to give the men provisions for their journey and send them on their way so they loaded their donkeys and left and later when they stopped for the night, one of the brothers opened his sack to get some feed for his donkey and he found the silver in the mouth of his sack. He got all of his brothers' attention and told them what he had found. This got everyone worked up wondering what was going on. "What has God done to us?" They asked each other. When they finally got back to Jacob, their father, they told them all that had happened to them. The men whose lord over that entire land spoke very harshly to us and accused us of spying on the land. They said, "But we assured him that we are honest men and not spies." We told them that we're all sons of the same father and that one of our brothers is still there with his father and another is dead. That's when they told them about the demand that they bring their youngest brother back with them and the fact that the man was still holding Simeon against that idea. The brothers then began emptying their sacks and the money that they had traded for the grain was back in each sack and this frightened them even more. Jacob got really upset and said, "You've deprived me of my children. Joseph is dead and Simeon is no longer here and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me." He shouted. Reuben, the oldest tried to negotiate with his father to allow Benjamin to go to Egypt but Jacob wouldn't hear it. He wouldn't even have the conversation. Jacob told Reuben that losing Benjamin would kill him so he couldn't agree to it and that it seems was that. Of course the famine continued and it wasn't long before Jacob's family had eaten all the grain that they had brought from Egypt and bought from Joseph. So Jacob called his sons and said, "Go back and buy us some more grain." Judah spoke up this time and said, "The Lord and Master of Egypt told us that we cannot buy grain if we don't bring Benjamin." So Benjamin doesn't go with us. We are not going. That's when Jacob said, "Why did you cause me all this trouble by telling the man that you had a younger brother?" "Oh, come on, Dad," they replied. He asked us if we had another brother and we answered his questions. How were we supposed to know that he would insist that we bring him back with us? Judah spoke up again. "Dad, if we'd not delayed in going back down there, we could have been there and back twice by now. I will personally take responsibility for Benjamin and do everything I can to make sure that he's safe and I'll take care of him." "Well, then go," Jacob said. "And then he told them to take a large gift to the man in Egypt and twice the silver that was needed to buy the grain. Maybe we got our silver back the first time by mistake," Jacob said. And then added, "Take Benjamin with you and I will pray that El Shaddai, all might he God, will grant you mercy before the man so that Benjamin and Ruben can come back here with you. And if I lose him, I lose him," Jacob said. The brothers left for Egypt with Benjamin and Toh and when they arrived, Joseph met them again. But once again, they didn't recognize him. Joseph told his attendants to take them into his house and set out a meal for them. And this frightened them all the more because they wondered if he was just kind of getting them off to the side so that he could ambush them and take them into custody or maybe have them killed. He's aware that we left with the silver in our sacks. They said he no doubt plans to attack us and overpower us and then take our silver and donkeys and keep us all his slaves. Confident that this was what was happening. They went to Joseph's steward and they said, "We beg your pardon, sir, sir, please, please." We found this silver in our sacks after we left last time so we brought it back with us with additional silver to buy more food. We don't know who put the silver back in our sacks last time. We have no idea. Don't worry, the steward said, "Your God, the God of your Father, has given you treasure in your sacks. I received your silver last time and I returned it," he said. Can't imagine the looks that must have been on the faces of the brothers. This was becoming more and more curious all the time. They got cleaned up and got ready to eat by preparing the gifts they had brought for this ruler of Egypt and when Joseph arrived, they bowed to him once again, this time with Benjamin present. Joseph spoke through an interpreter again and asked, "You told me about your aged father, is he still alive? And if so, how is he?" They answered that their father was still living and as they said this, they lay flat on the ground. Their face is to the ground out of respect for this Egyptian official. Joseph looked at Benjamin and said, "Is this your youngest brother? The one you told me about?" They said that it was and Joseph lost it. The dam that was holding his emotions back broke and he left the room to weep. He regained his composure, washed his face and came back into the room. He told the steward to serve a meal to the men from Canaan and as the food was served, the brothers were surprised to see that the steward had seeded them from oldest to youngest, which put Benjamin down one end. They're also surprised to see that Benjamin was given five times as much food as anyone else and they were left to ponder that while they ate. And that's the story from God's word. Spent a lot of time over these past couple of weeks wondering what God's up to in Joseph's life. And I think we've discovered some of God's plans for Joseph, so I hope it was worth the time we spent on it. I hope we've caught the image of God unfolding his plans for Joseph as Joseph walked step by step through them. Think of how a GPS, a global positioning system works. You probably have one in your car. You input your destination and the GPS calculates the route. You then punch the go button and what's the first thing that you see? You see where you're starting, right? 87 out back loop is the first thing that shows up on the screen and it tells me how to get to 54. I know how to get to 54. I just don't know how to get to 4 Lake Isle Way in Orman Beach, Florida. That's where I went, but it's step by step and unfold step by step. You see the map of your location as you start the trip and the GPS unfolds the map step by step with each location that you pass through along the way and the moment finally comes when you see on the screen your destination, the place that you're going to and you know you've arrived. But we all know, and this is the tough part, in order to arrive at our destination we have to trust the GPS at every turn. I can't tell you how often my GPS sits there and goes recalculating, recalculating, because I've taken the wrong turn either intentionally or otherwise. That's how Joseph's GPS has worked up until now. With one exception, Joseph didn't input the destination. He didn't get to do that for himself. It was God who entered the destination, but he didn't tell Joseph where he was going. Joseph's GPS led him from the pit to the slave charges to Potiphar's house to prison and all along the way. Joseph chose to trust the GPS, God's positioning system. It's a good thing that he did, because God's positioning system finally led him to the glorious unfolding there in Pharaoh's throne room and because of the story we got to share in that moment when it all worked out. That's when Joseph learned what God was up to and what he was doing in his life and now we know it too. In the story that we looked at this morning, Joseph has been the second in command in Egypt for about nine years and we're two years into the famine. I hope that you notice that Joseph's brothers arrived looking for food to buy and they found themselves in the presence of an Egyptian man who is in charge of the food distribution and they naturally bowed down. They've done it more than once. They've bowed down in his presence even to the point of being face down on the floor which fulfilled the prophecy that Joseph received in that dream so long ago. When Joseph started playing, I don't know, a cat and mouse game with his brothers and suddenly after all the time we spent trying to figure out what God is up to, we have to shift to wondering what Joseph is up to, what's he doing? All this intrigue, all these accusations he made of his brothers, all the returning of the silver and talking to his brothers through an interpreter, all the insistence that they prove that they're honest men by bringing their youngest brother back to Egypt with them leads me to one question. What's the boy done? What's Joseph up to right now? Well, I'm no mind reader so I guess just like you, I would have to guess but probably the best way to guess would be to use the means that we used when we were trying to figure out what God was doing. We based it on the results, remember, and that's when we understood so perhaps it makes sense to look at the results of what Joseph is up to, to try to discover what he's doing to his brothers. We can't get inside Joseph's head so I don't know how successful we can be conjuring up the feelings Joseph had on the day when they walked in. I just cannot imagine that moment. His brothers just came walking in off the street. He knew they would but let me ask you this, have you ever been in a situation where someone who is important to you has hurt you in some significant way? Is that ever happened to you? I know that's a little bit like saying how many here are residents of planet earth, right? Because we'd all raise our hands, and thankfully the three who always raise their hands. But we're all residents of planet earth and if I'm going to ask how many here have been hurt by someone that's important to them, hands are going to go up. And well, if you're anything like me, once you've been hurt by somebody that's important to you, you begin conversing with that person while you're mowing the lawn, washing the dishes, driving to work, clipping your fingernails. It doesn't matter what you're doing. Of course, that person isn't really there when you're having those conversations with them. You're just talking to yourself while you mow the lawn or wash the dishes, but you're thinking through what you're going to say to them next time you see them, aren't you? Boy, oh boy, are you going to give it to them? Are you going to let them have it? And if you're anything like me, when you do see them, the conversation doesn't go quite as you plan, you know, where the other person ends up groveling at your feet, begging for your forgiveness. That's how it was going to go down, but well, it just doesn't work like that truthfully. I usually only succeed in making things worse if I actually say the things to the person that I said to them while I was mowing the lawn. But having said that, we have to remember that Joseph is just as human as you and me. He knew the famine was everywhere, so his brothers would have to show up one day looking for food. We talked about it earlier. We talked about imagining the conversations that never really take place where you stick it to the person who's wronged you and they end up groveling at your feet, asking for forgiveness, and that's where Joseph found himself. He knew from his dream that his brothers would show up and bow down before him a gesture that looks an awful lot like groveling. And let's not forget that Joseph had spent several years in prison and had plenty of time to think through what he would do to his brothers when they showed up. Of course, in prison, he's powerless, right? And maybe the only thing he could conjure up is that they would bow down and say, "Oh, we're so sorry for what we did to you, little buddy." You know, we're so just so sorry that maybe that's the best he could have expected. But now, now he's in charge of Egypt and he has the authority and the latitude to refuse to give them food or to execute them if that's what he wants to do. So I have to ask, what would you do in the same situation? You were in Joseph's shoes and you have this prime opportunity to get that person who got you so badly. What would you do? There you go. Just like a grizzly bear, right? Bear hug. Would you devise a plan? Would you devise a plan to at least make them feel the way they had made you feel? Would you ice your heart and say to yourself, "Revenge is a dish best served cold?" Would you want to make them pay? Would you ponder that? Just remember that Benjamin is Joseph's youngest brother and he was born to the same mother and Benjamin had played no part in what the older brothers had done to Joseph. So maybe we would want to find a way to isolate Benjamin from the rest. Save Benjamin's life, send the other boys there to die in prison while getting the revenge on the others. And that sounds delicious. I mean, how cool would that be? Story for this week with all its intrigue didn't really answer those questions. So at this point on the story, we don't know exactly where Joseph's heart is. But can I just say this out loud? I am wonderfully glad that when they walked in off the street, Joseph didn't go be bopping over and say, "Hey, surprise, I'm Joseph. I forgive you." I'm really thankful that he didn't do that because that would have seemed, I don't know, superhuman to me. It would have seemed like something that I would not be able to do. Maybe we'd want to do that. The story for this week with all its intrigue didn't answer those questions. So at this point, we don't know exactly where Joseph's heart is. But here's what we do know. When Joseph's brothers finally walked through his door, God managed to throw Joseph another curveball because Joseph in his dream had seen all of his brothers bowing down to him. And when they walked through the door, Benjamin, the one brother that he did want to see is not there. God's thrown him another curveball. Joseph had wanted to see Benjamin when Benjamin, when he wasn't there, Joseph began to scramble. He told his brothers at first, "I'm going to keep all of you, all of you in jail and let one go back to get Benjamin." But having said that, Joseph did something that was incredibly wise. He took some time to think about it, knowing Joseph he took some time to pray about it. He actually took three full days. He thought about his plan for three days and then he told his brother, his brothers that he would keep one and let all of the rest of them go to get the youngest brother. And after reading that, it seemed to me that God had already begun to soften Joseph's heart. Joseph does a knee-jerk reaction with all of them and then suddenly says, "Okay. I'll keep one of you and let the other nine go." So it seems like Joseph's heart is already beginning to move towards his brothers. And I think that you'll be amazed where Joseph's heart toward his brothers will end up as he continues to follow the spirit's lead in this situation. So what are the results in all this intrigue that Joseph is employing? It doesn't take much to sort out that he wants to see Benjamin again. And that's one of the results of this plan that he puts in place. He gets to see Benjamin again. But there's an even more profound result, I believe, by pretending that he didn't understand their language, Joseph discovered how his brothers really felt about what they had done to him. Remember, he'd been pretending not to speak their language so that he could understand everything they said to one another without their knowledge. And in the end, Joseph's strategy paid off. The brothers talked to one another about Joseph without realizing that Joseph was standing right there listening, hearing and understanding everything that they said. And they end up expressing their regret. See, this is because of what we did. You remember his broken heart when we sent him away like we did. This is because of what we did. They regretted it and it was clear. And they regretted it not knowing that Joseph was listening to them regret it. Do you see the irony there? If they had discovered it, if they'd recognized him right away, "Oh, that's Joseph. Oh, we are so sorry. We regret so much what we did to you." I think he would have had reason to doubt their motives in apologizing and regretting. But the fact that they're in this situation and they don't know that it's Joseph, they regret it. They say that to one another and that made a difference to Joseph. You see, he could have had them executed for what they had done to him. It would have been human nature. You have a right to be angry. We all would have said it to him, right? We would have validated his anger. Anybody that's been in an experience like this would be angry we would have said. Without being too unromantic, I hope, I have to say that relationships are like bank accounts. We make deposits to our relationship bank accounts when we do kind, generous and selfless things. We make withdrawals from our relationship bank accounts when we do unkind, thoughtless or selfish things. And truth be told, we all make regular deposits and regular withdrawals in all of our relationship bank accounts because sometimes we do good things for other people and sometimes we need other people to do good things for us. Most of the time we try to keep a positive balance by depositing more into the relationship than we withdraw but it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes people withdraw far more than they deposit. And if other people do that over a long period of time, we're inclined to just close the account. Just close the account, kind of like when Joseph seems ready to close the account with all of his brothers except Benjamin. That's because Joseph's brothers made a huge withdrawal when they threw him in the pit. And now they've made a deposit by being sorry for what they did but I think you'd agree that that's not enough to cover all of Joseph's expenses, doesn't cover all his losses. If Joseph is truly going to forgive his brothers, it'll take a whole new method of accounting and more importantly, more importantly, it'll take a significant work of grace in Joseph's life. And so what's Joseph going to do? Well he's going to expect you to come back here next week to hear the rest of the story. I can't take you there because it's not my chapter. But in the meantime, I wonder if there's someone in your life on whom you've closed the account, somebody you've decided not to forgive. I don't want to put you on a guilt trip this morning, I really don't because I know you've been through enough but I do want you to understand that an unforgiving heart is like a cancer in your bones. So I'd like you to begin thinking about thinking through what forgiving that person would mean. And as you think it through, ask God to do a work in your heart. Forgiving that person, I'll stand up on here and say it if I need to, to emphasize the point, forgiving that person might not mean spending time with them in the days that lie ahead. Some relationships are truly toxic. So it might not mean spending time with them but forgiving that person will certainly mean dropping the need that you feel to cause them harm, to hurt them the way they've hurt you. So think about it and ask God to prepare your heart for a serious discussion about forgiveness one week from today. In the meantime, will you stand with me in the presence? Father in our God, we bless your name for the humanity that we've seen and the godliness. Thank you for this journey that you continue to take, Joseph, and thank you for the way that you're continuing to shape his heart and God as we look at Joseph's life, teach us. Help us to understand that he, Joseph, understood our journey in the same way that you, that Jesus understands our journey. He was here, he was abused, he was taken advantage of, he was belittled, he was mocked. And yet his words were, "Father, forgive them." They don't know what they're doing. But open our hearts to that idea and then teach us next week as we're together, what forgiveness really, actually, truly is. And Father, we'll thank you for that in the name of the Lord Jesus, amen. Just one more word from Hebrews chapter 13, "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that openly profess his name and do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices, God is pleased." Hey, Potters House, go make disciples. [BLANK_AUDIO]