Reconciliation Or Retaliation?

Take your Bibles this morning. Let's turn to Genesis. Again, Genesis chapter 44. Let's continue the narrative, this story that we began just a bit ago. As I was listening to Brian read this, I thought, wow. If you didn't know what was going on, you'd say, this is a great story.

What's going to happen next? Well, let's see. We'll begin reading where Brian left off in verse 18. Genesis chapter 44, verse 18. Then Judah went up to him and said, O my Lord, please let your servant speak a word in my Lord's ears, and let not your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself. My Lord asked his servants, saying, Have you a father or a brother?

And we said to my Lord, We have a father, an old man and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother's children, and his father loves him. Then you said to your servants, Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him. We said to my Lord, The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.

Then you said to your servants, Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again. When we went back to your servant, my father, we told him the words of my Lord. And when our father said, Go again, buy us a little food, we said, We cannot go down. If our youngest brother goes with us, then we shall go down, for we cannot see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us.

Then your servant, my father, said to us, you know that my wife bore me two sons. One left me, and I said, Surely he's been torn to pieces, and I have never seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs and evil to show. Therefore, as soon as I come to your servant, my father and the boy is not with us, then as his life is bound up in the boy's life, as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father saying if i do not bring him back to you then i shall bear the blame before my father all my life now therefore please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord and let the boy go back with his brothers for how can i go back to my father if the boy is not with me.

I feared to see the evil that would find my father. And Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him. He cried, make everyone go out from me. So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud so that the Egyptians heard it and the household of Pharaoh heard it. And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. is my father still alive?

But his brothers could not answer him for they were dismayed at his presence. So Joseph said to his brothers come near to me please. And they came near and he said I am your brother Joseph whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here. For God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing or harvesting.

And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, Thus says your son Joseph, you. You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt and of all that you have seen.

Hurry and bring my father down here. Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept. And Benjamin wept upon his neck and he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them After that his brothers talked with him Let pray Father now open this text to us We know that this is not just written for people long ago and far away It was written for us, upon whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

You intend to change us by this story. We pray now, Lord, that you would do that. May your spirit work in us as we see you at work in this passage. and conform us to Christ and to look to Christ as our only hope. God, do that as we look at this passage today. In Jesus' name, amen. You know what it's like to be going down the road and suddenly you look in your rearview mirror and you see those flashing lights and you hear the siren and suddenly a patrol car is right up on your rear end and you stop. do you panic because you've been caught?

Or maybe you're confused and asking yourself, what in the world have I done wrong? Imagine the confusion that overtook Jacob's 11 brothers. Here they are, heading northeast, hopefully to get out of the land of Egypt, back to Canaan with the grain that they had. They have a ton of grain with them. And all of a sudden, they look behind them to see some chariots approaching, And in one of those chariots is the prime minister's steward.

That is his chief of staff. And you say to yourself, now what? What is this all about? The chief of staff jumps down from his chariot and says, you've gone as far as you're going to go, boys. You've got the prime minister's cup in your possession. And frankly, you are the most ungrateful bunch of wretches I've ever met.

Let me see your grain sacks. Now, if I were you, if I was there, I bet we could hear them muttering to themselves, oh no, not again. Well, let's look at the previous scenes that have occurred before we get to this part of the drama. God has promised a seed. Here's the overarching main point of all the story. God has promised a seed that will bless all the nations, and that seed is going to come through the chosen family of Abraham.

But that promise is threatened. It's threatened by starvation A famine has overtaken the known world including Canaan in which the chosen family lives If they starve the promise will not be fulfilled It's threatened by hatred and dysfunction within that chosen family. If they cannot come to grips with that, the family will disintegrate and the promise nullified.

So Jacob sends his sons to Egypt where, unknown to them, God has engineered through his lost son, Joseph, this incredible abundance of food through the famine. Now, they don't recognize Joseph, and he puts them through some tests. You see, because Joseph recognizes that life and covenant cannot go on unless the family is reunited. He knows that. The first test reveals an awakened conscience.

In the first test, you remember, they confess we have sinned against God and we have sinned against our brother, Joseph. That was a horrible thing we did. The second test reveals their maturity as they respond with love toward Benjamin, the favorite son of Rachel. And instead of responding, when he is treated with favor by this powerful man, instead of responding with envy, you saw last week they responded with love.

But one more test remains, and we'll read of that in our text this morning. Here's the third and the final test. As we explore this text, again, we need to remember that the overarching story here is God's intent. God is determined to fulfill His promise of a seed. And how does He do that? First, He does it.

You see, God fulfills that promise, first of all, by promoting reconciliation. And then you see God fulfilling that promise by preventing retaliation. So he fulfills the promise by promoting reconciliation and preventing retaliation. And that is how he accomplishes that purpose. Let's look at it together. From chapter 44, verse 1, to chapter 45, verse 3, you see God fulfill his promise by promoting reconciliation. fulfilling his promise by promoting reconciliation.

The curtains opened with Joseph setting up his brothers by having his chief of staff put their money in their bags and his official chalice, his official silver crown up in the bag of the youngest, that is Benjamin. They don't get very far before the steward catches them and makes the accusation. If they've stolen the cup, it will not just be a case of thievery.

It will be a case of stupendous, stupendous ingratitude because he has treated them so well. No sooner does he speak and the brothers protest their innocence. How can you possibly accuse us of this? Did we not bring the money back that was not rightfully ours? It was yours. Didn't we bring that back?

We are honest men. How can you even make that accusation against us? And they are so convinced of their innocence that they make this rash vow. They say this, if you find the cup amongst us, then kill the man who has it and make the rest of us your slaves. Now, that's how convinced they are of their innocence. If you find the cup, fine.

Kill the man who has it. The rest of us will go back as your slaves. The steward raises his hand and says, Look, I'm not a cruel man. The only thing I'm going to require is that the guilty party return with me and be my slave, and the rest of you can go home. That's all I'm saying. And their hearts surely sank as he proceeded down all those donkeys coming to the very last one, to the donkey of the youngest son, Benjamin, opening that sack and finding that chalice.

I cannot imagine. Well, we don't have to imagine how they felt. They are so overcome by grief, they tear their clothes. But note, they all head back to the palace. Now, what's so important about that? Benjamin, according to the steward, was the only one required to return as a slave.

That's all. He said, whoever has the cup, that one comes back with me. He's my slave. What? The rest of you can go free. What happened?

They all went back to the palace. Every single one of those brothers returns with Benjamin to the palace. They appear before Joseph now. And again they fall to the ground before this powerful man The third time the dream has been fulfilled that all of them were going to bow down before Joseph Here they are again prostrate in front of them He accuses them of the crime, of course, that he has set them up with.

Who steps up as the spokesman? Judah. Judah steps up. And in his plea, he recognizes that they have no defense at all. I mean, what are you going to say? They found the cup on us.

The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. There's no way out of this. And what does he do, though, at that point? Look at verse 16. 44, verse 16. And Judah said, What shall we say to my Lord?

What shall we speak, or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants. Behold, we are my Lord's servants. both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found. They confess their sin. Not the sin of stealing the cup. They confess the sin of what they did to their brother Joseph.

One writer has said this, that true confession consists of giving God glory by acknowledging your sin and God's right to punish it. And that's what they do here. That's what Judah does, and that's what Joseph hears. He hears a clear acknowledgement of their sin against him. And he adds, Judah adds, that if the prime minister takes Benjamin, then they all will remain in the land as slaves.

If you take Benjamin as the slave, then know this, we are all going to stay here then as slaves. Joseph then responds that only Benjamin will remain as a slave and the rest of the brothers have the freedom to return home to their father you see that? Joseph says no I don't want all of you I'll take that one I'll take the youngest he will be slaved the rest of you are free to go home to your father now again you've got to see what Joseph does here he recreates something of the original situation that involved him his brothers are in control of the life or death of a favored son of Rachel just like they were with him They in the same spot again Here the favorite son His life or his death is in their hands.

What are they going to do this time? Judah again steps forward and he makes this impassioned plea for Benjamin as you read it in verses 18-34. Now, as you read that you see that the heart of his plea for Benjamin is this incredible concern for his father. I don't know if you noticed it but the term father is used 15 times in the span of 17 verses if you want to see that just take a highlighter one of those bible highlighters and highlight father in those 17 verses and you look at the page like I did and you will see all the way through 15 times in the course of 17 verses he talks about his father.

He talks about his dad. And you also have to note that Judah does not sidestep the issue of Jacob's favoritism. In fact, in verses 20, 22, 27, 29, he makes a reference to his father's favoritism. He's concerned about his father, but he still mentions things like this. Verse 20, and his father loves him. Verse 22, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.

27, you know that my, now he's quoting his dad here, you know that my wife bore me two sons. Now there's no getting around that one. Right? My wife bore me two sons. What are we, chopped liver? What's that all about?

We've got moms too. And we are your children, right? So he's quoting his dad here. And then, again a quote, verse 29. If you take this one also from me and harm happens to him you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to Sheol Verse 30 as his life is bound up in the boy life So even as he pleads for Benjamin, he does it out of concern for his father while not ignoring his father's favoritism.

The point is, such favoritism doesn't make any difference at all as far as Judah is concerned. That favoritism doesn't make any difference at all. We are concerned, verse 31, we are concerned that if we do not bring Him back, your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our Father with sorrow to Sheol. I don't want this misery to befall my Father.

So even though he recognizes his favoritism, The favoritism doesn't make any difference anymore. They love their dad. And then his closing argument. I will remain, this is Judah now, I will remain as a slave in place of Benjamin and I also will take the place of my brothers for I cannot bear to see the misery that will befall my father if he does not return. with this Joseph sends all the Egyptians out and he breaks down in weeping he makes his identity known to his brothers who the text says are what? dismayed why would they feel that way? simply because retaliation for their brutal treatment of him is sure to follow why else would he have done this to them? why else would he have planted the evidence?

There's only one thing he wants, and that's revenge. But by the way, to the Egyptians it looks differently. His weeping identifies him with the despised shepherding brothers rather than the sophisticated, proud culture of the Egyptians. Pharaoh's house heard about it. It's not saying, it's worded funny here, but it's not saying that he cried so loud that three blocks down the street where the king lives, he heard him crying.

It means that they all heard about the fact that he's crying. When the story comes out, they understand that his emotional... Outburst is saying, I care about these despised shepherds. They're mine, you see. The bottom line is, the ruse is over. They are now fully aware of the fact that the man that they had treated so badly is now the second most powerful man in the empire.

Now, don't miss what happens here. this story up to this point has shown us the revelation of changed hearts it's the revelation of changed hearts you see it in a number of ways number one you see the solidarity that the brothers have with benjamin as they all return to the palace when they're first accused the steward said to them i only take the one who has the cup the rest of you are free to go home. And what did they do? They returned to the palace with Benjamin, the favored son.

There's a solidarity now between them and this favored son. God has done something in their lives. They did not do that with Joseph. Right? They sold Joseph and went home. They're not going to do the same thing to Benjamin.

Here's the second thing. You have to certainly see their open confession of their sin. Of what they did to Joseph. They recognized it as sin. They couldn't care less about it, what they did to Joseph, remember? When they first, what did they do?

They took some blood, put it on some garments, took it back in total indifference to their father and said, hey, he got killed. They don't care. They don't care about that at all. Now they're confessing it as sin. Certainly hardships that God brought into their lives awakened their conscience, but they, as a result, confess their sin. When Benjamin's life is in their hands, they stand with him.

Do they not? They're ready to sacrifice themselves for him. They did not do that with Joseph, the other favored son. Fourth, these brothers were once angry and indifferent towards their father. But now they show an intense love for him. Judah talks about his father in very moving terms.

You see, before they hated him for his favoritism They hated him They couldn care less for his feelings as is evidenced by the fact that they throw this bloody garment at his feet and says ah your son got torn up by animals They couldn't care less how he felt at that point. But now, at this point, we do not want to see this misery visit on our father. We can't let that happen.

And so they beg for his well-being. They are concerned for the welfare of their dad. And they feel this way about him even though he's playing favorites. Still. Notice that even though Judah makes it clear that Benjamin is the obvious favorite, they don't care about that anymore. Something more is at stake.

So what? He's playing favorites. Something's more at stake than dad's playing favorites. What's at stake is his life. that care about the man. Even though he's playing favorites, they don't care. There's something more important here.

You know what it is? It's the fact that we be a unified family. Even if he's playing favorites, so what? We still love him. By the way, what about your family? Does someone treat members with favoritism and does it affect your relationship?

There's a lot more important things for Christ than how someone treats you in the family. all right you know favoritism it's a sin but look there's something more important than making sure that you're treated just right you get it they got it and here's the last thing and most important thing and the thing that just rises above all the others judah is transformed from the one who sells his brother as a slave to the one who's willing to be a slave for his brother. It is Judah that came up with the idea of selling him. Remember?

It is Judah now who stands in the same place and he is willing to be a slave for his brother as opposed to selling his brother as a slave. That's the point. There has been a sea change here. the family is emerging now as a family. You see, God is on the march, fulfilling His promise by bringing this family together You see Now, even though they've been changed, what about Joseph?

What about Joseph? Oh yeah. As far as they can see, he's moved. He weeps, but they don't know what that's all about. Right? They don't know what that's all about.

As far as they're concerned, he may now bring them to full justice. And frankly, there's nobody in the entire land who can restrain him from pouring out as much revenge as he wants. Because he's a powerful man. No one's going to hold back his hand and say, oh, don't do that. No one's going to do it. He has absolute power of life and death over these 11 brothers.

What do we see here now? The rest of the story. I think what we see here is God fulfilling his promise by preventing retaliation. He fulfills his promise by promoting reconciliation. Now he fulfills his promise by preventing retaliation. Joseph beckons his brother to come near and says once again, I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt.

Don't be distressed or angry or afraid because you may have sold me here, but it was God's plan to bring me here. You sold me, but God sent me. The good news is that God, through all of that misery, intended to save a remnant of people in order to fulfill his promise. That's why he went through all the misery that he did. For all those years in prison and as a slave, it was to save them.

That was God's purpose. One writer put it this way, I love it. From a worm's eye view, his narrative reads like a nightmare. A cacophony of outrageous excesses unjustly inflicted upon Joseph. That's the worm's perspective, isn't it? But heaven's perspective is, God orchestrated a marvelous symphony called Rescue And then what does he do He offers to minister good to them even though they brought great misery into his life.

Don't miss what he says in the rest of this chapter when he says to them, go home, get dad, bring everybody down here, I'm going to put you in Goshen. What's he doing? He is returning good for evil. He is giving them. He's ministering good to them. He's going, he's heaping upon them good things.

Go home and tell dad all that's happened and what you've seen. Now, you know, that's just one verse there, right? Go home and tell your father all that you've seen here and what's happened to me. I would love to be in on that conversation, wouldn't you? And they're all the way back to Canaan. Okay.

All right. Who's going to tell dad that we sold Joseph into slavery to begin with and that he is where he is now. I mean, man, what a conversation that's going to be. Dad, we lied 20 years ago. Right? We did a very cruel thing to you.

You know, so it's just interesting to hear that. And then he says to them, look, I'm offering you my rule. You come and live under my gracious rule and I'll give you the best land for your flocks. I'll give you the best land for your children and for our father. Come under my rule and I will give you much. And then he weeps over them and he kisses each one of his brothers.

Look, if you think you've been through something so badly that you can never forgive, you just look at this man right here. This is not a cartoon story. this is a man who suffered for years because of his brothers. And now he weeps over them and kisses each one of them as his dear brothers. That is what frees them from their stunned silence. That's the only thing that brings them back is the fact that he weeps over each one of them and kisses each one.

And then as if to make the reconciliation complete. Do you notice this little thing in verse 15? But it says volumes. After that his brothers talked with him. You know what? It's drawing a picture of these guys who did such horrible things to him. are now sitting down with them, and he with them, and they're talking as if they're the best of friends.

They're talking as brothers, with no hindrances, no obstacles. They're sitting down, just like you would with your brother and sister, if you're on good terms with them. Sitting down and talking. Now, what you see in these verses, I believe, is God preventing retaliation and promoting good in order to bring about the completion of his plan. You see that Joseph's belief in God's providence represses his desire for revenge.

It represses his desire for revenge. This is the very heart of this part of the story. When you read verses 4 through 8, Okay? And Joseph said to his brothers, Come near to me, please. And they came near and he said, I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now, do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here.

For God sent me, God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors. He has made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

Who is responsible for saving the family? The brothers who sold him? Joseph who planned for the famine? Or God? Now some people would say, well, we can't have God responsible for that. Why?

Because he got there by his brothers doing evil, wicked things. We can't have God there. But that's exactly what he says. They sold him. God sent him. In their selling, they're accomplishing what God wanted done.

It is God who brought him to Egypt. someone might say to me Pastor Tim why did you go to OSU hospitals in order to get that heart ablation Why didn you just let God heal you You know what my response is to that? God did heal me. He used some means to do it. He used Dr. Agostini. He used some stuff going up into my heart to burn some nodules.

But it was God who healed me. You see what he's saying here? He's saying, all this happened, but it was God at work. It's God at work. It's the providence of God. This doctrine recognizes that men sin.

And they're still responsible for their sin. What does he say to them? You sold me. There's no way around that, is there? And yet, God used those wicked means to accomplish his good purposes. God's providence does not mean that God foresees and reacts.

Right? He looks ahead and goes, oh no, they're going to do that. What am I going to do with this? Okay. That's not what providence means. It's like Joseph knows.

It's not God foreseeing and reacting. It's God planning and executing. It's God planning and executing, using the actions of men, even those that are evil. He uses to accomplish his purposes. and notice this, God's providence always has a good end in view for his people. Always has a good end in view. Here it was the saving of their lives.

What's happening in your life that's really difficult right now? Maybe you're on the verge of getting fired. Maybe your boss is demanding too much. Maybe you have a spouse is done with you. Maybe it's some health issues. What is it?

What is it that's going really hard in your life right now? You need to understand, God's using that for a good purpose. God's using that for a good purpose. Maybe family members are making accusations against you. Maybe this last Thanksgiving was a total disaster, right? Because you had some family from the other end of the political spectrum from you.

Whatever. Whatever's going on. know that God's providence always has a gracious view in mind for his people It always working for their good And because Joseph believes that he doesn feel any necessity to wreak revenge on his brothers. Because he believes that, he doesn't give in to revenge. You see? If you believe that, you don't have to get revenge. You know God has used that wickedness in your life for good.

You don't need to take revenge. In fact, what did we read in Romans chapter 12? When someone does you bad, what are you supposed to do? Heap burning coals upon their head of good deeds. There's no need for you to take revenge. That's God's business, right?

That's God's business, not yours. So do good to those who treat you badly. And that's exactly what Joseph does. you see and you also see that joseph's belief in god's providence not only represses the desire for revenge but fuels the desire to do good to those who misused him since god's providence always works for the benefit of his people he offers a gracious rule that will bring good into their lives he can rebuild his relationship with his brothers so because god works all things for your good in his providence, you can restrain your vengeance and give yourself to doing good to those who misuse you.

You know, often as you read this story, you identify with Joseph. And you should. All of us have experienced horrible things at the hands of other people. You are victims. You've suffered abuse, misuse, and hatred. And so you should identify with Joseph.

But let me suggest to you as well that you're not just a victim. You're a perpetrator. Right? One of my sons coined this phrase. We're victims and at the same time perpetrators. We're victims of sin and perpetrators of sin.

You ever think about that? Not only should you identify with Joseph, you ought to identify with his brothers. Right? Identify with his brothers. because just like those brothers, you sinned against people and you sinned against God. And justice demands your death. And justice as it presses its claims upon you and shows you the injustice of what you done to other people you feel dirty and defiled as well Guilty deserving of death and dirty Who's going to step forward in your place to be your Judah and reconcile you to your brothers and to God?

Well, you know what? An actual descendant of Judah does the very same thing. His name is Jesus. And what's interesting is that Jesus willingly became a servant, a slave. To do what? Just like this Judah was going to do.

He became a slave. Willingly. In order to free you from the bondage of sin and death and hell. Jesus died to save the lives of his people right? not just to save the lives of many so that there would be this remnant God saved died to save the lives of his people through a great deliverance and to create a harmonious community of brothers and sisters and people at peace with God and how did God accomplish that? he did it through the acts of wicked men did he not?

He did it the exact same way. By wicked men as in hatred they nailed him to the tree. He too was betrayed and sold and suffered because of it. Men betrayed and sold him. God sent him. But by those wicked acts God accomplished the saving of many lives.

Lives that glorify him now. And lives that will glorify him throughout all eternity. That's the real story of Joseph and his brothers. That's our story. Father, thank you for your word and how it drives deep into our hearts. Father, help us not just to identify with Joseph, but to truly identify with his brothers as well.

Father we thank you for this marvelous story of your work in men's lives that draw them together and your work in Joseph's life that instead of wreaking revenge and pouring out retaliation He instead does good to those who mistreat and misuse Him. Father, would You please help us to be that way. Help us to have the faith of Joseph in Your providence so that we do not take revenge, but return good for evil.

And Father, help us to have the faith of the brothers who trust in One who takes their place. God help us we pray give us light in our lives through this story in Jesus name Amen