Well, open up your Bible this morning with me to Genesis chapter 42. Genesis is the first book of your Bible. We have Bibles underneath the chairs, and you'll find this passage on page 43 of that Bible. We are in a series right now of messages, of studies, about the life of Joseph in the Old Testament. I've called this series from prison to palace. We've seen Joseph grow from being a spoiled, pampered teenager into a man of wisdom, of character, and of faith and patience. And last week we looked at Genesis chapter 41, and we saw Joseph is now the prime minister, if you will, of Egypt. He's the number two man in Egypt, second only to the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Joseph is loved and admired by everybody. Thanks to Joseph, Egypt got prepared for a horrible seven-year-long famine that hit the ancient Middle East. Well, now when you reach chapter 42, which we're going to look at today, Joseph is nearly 40 years old. A lot of time has gone by, and he's about to face the greatest challenge of his life. So I've got a challenge. My challenge this morning is to cover three chapters in one sermon. Think I can do it? All right. Let's dive right in. Let me tell you what's going on in Genesis 42. The scene is Jacob's home up in Canaan, Canaan, what we today call the Holy Land, north of Egypt. They have no food because of the famine that Pharaoh had dreamed about back in Genesis 41. Food's gone. So Jacob sends 10 of his 11 sons, you remember he thinks that Joseph is dead. So he's now left with 11 sons. He sends 10 of the 11 sons he's got left. The only one that he keeps back at home with him is his youngest son, Benjamin. So he sends them down to Egypt to buy food. There's lots of grain in Egypt. So off these 10 sons go to Egypt to buy food. They arrive there in Egypt and guess who they meet. They meet their long lost brother Joseph. Only they don't know as Joseph. They haven't seen Joseph for over 20 years or so. The last time they saw him, he was being led away and changed to become a slave in Egypt. They figured that Joseph had died years and years ago. So they didn't recognize him. Besides it's been so long and Joseph's been in Egypt, I'm sure he's got a great tan. He's wearing Egyptian clothes. He doesn't look like the young teenager they used to know. They bow down before this man, Joseph. Just as Joseph had dreamed that they would back in Genesis 37. They ask Joseph to buy some food from him and the Egyptians. But Joseph in verse 7 of chapter 42 speaks harshly to these young men. He accuses them of being spies. Well, they deny it because they're not spies. Joseph is just playing with him here. But Joseph acts like he doesn't believe them. He insists that they're spies. So in verse 15 of chapter 42, he's going to test their story by holding nine of the men hostage while one of them goes back to Egypt, I mean to Canaan, to get Benjamin and bring him back to Egypt. Joseph throws these ten men in prison for three days. And meanwhile, he changes his mind. He changes his mind. He says to them, okay, I got a new plan now. One of you can go take your grain back home, but one of you, one of you has to stay here in Egypt with me as a hostage. So Joseph puts simian, one of his brothers, in prison and tells the other nine to go to Canaan and go get Benjamin and bring him back there. Joseph gives them the grain that they had bought. But you know what else he does secretly. He puts their money back in their bags. They don't know that he did that. He puts their money back in their bags. Well, when the brothers get home, they open up their sacks and there's the grain, but what else is there? Their money. The money they thought they'd given Joseph. Now they are in triple trouble. Not only is simian back in Egypt and not only must they tell their father, Jacob, that they have to go back to Egypt and take Benjamin along, but now they believe that their faces are on wanted posters back in Egypt. They tell their father, Jacob, they have to go back to Egypt with Benjamin or else, you know what would happen? Simian, the one that's in jail, would be put to death. Jacob says, no way are you going to take my youngest son, Benjamin, the son of my wife Rachel away from me. If harm comes to him, says Jacob at the end of chapter 42, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in sorrow. Well then we come to chapter 43, so turn your page over there, chapter 43, months have passed since chapter 42. Let me read verses one through nine of Genesis 43, listen to God's word, says now the famine was still severe in the land, so when they had eaten all the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, go back and buy us a little more food. But Judah said to him, the man warned us solemnly, you will not see my face unless your brother is with you. If you will send our brother along with us, we will go down and buy food for you, but if you will not send him, we will not go down because the man said to us, you will not see my face again unless your brother is with you. Israel asked, why did you bring this trouble on me by telling the man you had another brother? They replied, the man questioned us closely about ourselves and our family, is your father still living? He asked us, do you have another brother? We simply answered his questions. How are we to know he would say, bring your brother down here? Then Judah, Judah's the fourth son of Jacob, Judah said to Israel his father, send the boy along with me and we will go at once so that we and you and our children may live and not die. I myself will guarantee his safety. You can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life. Well, let me tell you what happens next. When Jacob hears this from his son Judah, he relents. He agrees to let Benjamin go to Egypt with his 10 older brothers. So they leave Canaan again, second time now, and they come to Joseph in Egypt and lo and behold Joseph tells his steward to prepare a feast for his brothers. The brothers are shaking in their boots. They are afraid that Joseph is going to punish them for doing what? Feeling the silver that they have given him earlier. When Joseph arrives in his home where the feast is going to be laid out, the brothers bow down before him again, just as Joseph had dreamed they would do 20 years earlier. When Joseph sees Benjamin, this is his natural brother, his full-blooded brother because both Benjamin and Joseph were sons of Jacob and Rachel. When Joseph sees Benjamin, the text tells us that he is deeply moved with compassion. He rushes out of the house and just melts in tears, tries to get himself back in order again and comes back into the home and they feast and they drink together at the end of chapter 43. That brings us to chapter 44. All right? Flip over to chapter 44. The feast is over. The men are ready to return to Canaan so Joseph orders his steward to fill his brothers sacks with grain once again and to once again put their money back in their sacks. But this time he also tells his steward to put his silver cup, the cup he drinks out of in the sack belonging to his brother Benjamin. The brothers leave for Canaan and a few hours later Joseph sends his steward out after them. The steward catches up with the men and he accuses them of stealing Joseph's silver cup. What do they do? They deny it. They said, what? We didn't take that man's silver cup. They even say that if the silver cup is found in the sack of one of those men, that man will be put to death. That was a rash unwise thing for them to say. So the steward looks in each man sack, beginning with the oldest brother and moving down to the youngest. He's got it all laid out. There it is. Joseph's silver cup is hidden away in Benjamin's sack. So they go back to Egypt. They throw themselves before Joseph. They beg him for mercy. They pledge themselves, all of them, to be Joseph's slaves. And you know what Joseph says? Joseph says no. I don't want all of you. I just want one of you to be my slave. I want Benjamin. The rest of you, you can go back home. And this is where Judah steps up and delivers one of the most moving speeches in all the Bible. I hope later this afternoon you'll read the whole thing. It's really great. But I want to read the speech beginning in verse 27 of Genesis 44. Look at that. Verse 27. This is Judah speaking to his brother, Joseph. He says, 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've 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. So now this is Judah speaking. 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. Your servant guaranteed the boy's safety to my father. I said, if I don't 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 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. Don't let me see the misery that would come upon my father. Genesis 42 through 44. Okay, here's what I want to talk with you about this morning. Forgiveness. Forgiveness. Let's talk about forgiveness. Forgiving people who have heard us because this story is surely, if nothing else, a story about forgiveness. You've been there, right? You've been there. Somebody's hurt you. Someone has said something to you that hurt. Someone has said something about you that hurt you. You've been rejected. You've been betrayed. You've been lied to. You have been disrespected. Perhaps you've been cheated on. Everyone in here has been hurt by another person in some way. And it's killing you. It might have happened years ago, but it still stains. You can't look that person in the eye without the same old pain. Those old feelings of resentment are still there. What do you do? What do you do? You know you're supposed to give. You know you're supposed to let it go. You know what the Bible says. It says, forgive as God in Christ forgave you. The question is, how? How do you do it? Well, the Joseph story gives you some great pointers on how to move toward forgiveness. And I want to show you three things this morning before we have the Lord's Supper. And the first thing I'd like to show you from this passage is the difference between forgiveness and payback. Look with me at the difference between forgiveness and payback. You know some people when they read this story that we've highlighted this morning, they say that Joseph was trying to pay his brother's back. All of this game playing that he did with them, putting the money back in the sacks, putting the silver cup in Benjamin's sack, all of that stuff. Some people say that Joseph was trying to get him back. He was trying to get even with his brothers. I mean, here they show up after 20 years and instead of saying, guys it's me. It's your brother Joseph. I know I don't look the same, but it's me. It's Joseph. It's great to see you again. Look at that. What does Joseph do? He speaks harshly to them. He accuses them of being spies. He throws them in the slammer. He plays this game of cat and mouse with them. It's like he's taunting them. It's like he's humiliating them on purpose, making them pay for what they had done to him. And if that were true, you and I can understand that, couldn't we? When we're hurt by somebody, our natural bent is to get revenge. To make that person suffer like he or she made us suffer. That's our natural way, our sinful inclination. But it might look like that's what Joseph is doing in this story. But when you look more closely, he's not paying his brothers back. If it were strict justice that Joseph was after, you know what he would do? He would put him all in jail and throw away the key. Or he would sell them all into slavery just as they had done to him 20 years earlier. Now, Joseph is not after justice. Joseph is after reconciliation. Joseph is after reconciliation, which is what God calls us to do. So first, the difference between forgiveness and payback. Secondly, the difference between forgiveness and cheap grace. There's a big difference between forgiveness and cheap grace. Let's think about that. Many Christians think that forgiving somebody means saying something like, okay, it's no big deal. Let's just forget about it. Rodney King philosophy, let's all just get along. It really is not a big deal. Come on, let's just move on. And so a lot of people, what they do with their feelings of hurt and resentment, is just try to stuff it, just try to deny it and forget about it and cover it up with niceness. But Joseph didn't do that either. No, he didn't get payback from his brothers, but he also wasn't just nice to them either. See, if Joseph shows us anything in these chapters, it is that sin has to be dealt with in some way for reconciliation to take place. God doesn't just give us cheap grace when we sin. He doesn't just say, it's no big deal that you just lied. It doesn't matter to me that you just committed adultery. It's not a huge deal to me that you just murder somebody in your heart. Come on, it's not anything. That kind of thing doesn't bother me. See, that is cheap grace. Some people believe that about God, don't they? Some people believe that God just sort of winks at our sin and say, oh, OK, I love you anyway. No, God takes every infraction of his law seriously, no matter how small it might appear to be to us. That's why he sent Jesus to die on the cross. But right here is the key to understanding why Joseph did the things that he did to his brothers. Listen to this carefully. What Joseph did was he gave them neither payback nor cheap grace. He treated them with a perfect balance of discipline and love, limits and compassion. Let me show you what I mean. One minute, he is putting them in prison and the next, what is he doing, throwing them a feast. One minute, he's accusing them of stealing his cup. The next minute, he's washing their feet. One moment, he's threatening Benjamin with slavery. The next moment, what's he doing? He's blessing Benjamin and giving him five times the amount of food he gave everybody else at the feast. What is Joseph doing in here? Joseph is giving his brothers the same thing God gives us, truth and grace, discipline and love in perfect balance. You parents, you know what I'm talking about because you face this challenge every single day. You know that if you give your children all truth and no grace that is all discipline without any love, all boundaries, you know, all no, no, no, no, never, yes, yes, yes. What's going to happen to them? You're going to break their spirit. You're going to harden their heart and make them either bitter and angry on the one hand or on the other depressed and despondent for the rest of their lives. That's all control, no love, all discipline, no compassion. But on the other hand, parents, you know the opposite problem is true too, if you give your children all grace and no discipline, all love and no truth, you'll turn them into self-centered, irresponsible people who don't know how to work and they don't know the meaning of the word no. Jesus Christ, what did he do? He came into this world bringing both grace and truth, John 17. And in Joseph's treatment of his brothers, we see Jesus. Joseph is a type of Christ. He is revealing to us the way God in Christ deals with you and me on a daily basis. I ran across a commentary by Derek Kidner on the book of Genesis and here's a masterful quote and it's on the screen. I want you to listen to this. Derek Kidner says, at first sight, the rough handling by Joseph of his brothers has the look of vengefulness. But nothing could be further from the truth. Behind the harsh pose was deep, almost uncontrollable affection seen in Joseph's continually running out of the room to weep. Joseph's inigmatic treatment of them, his brothers, was a kinder and more searching test. Just how well judged was his policy, can be seen in the growth of new attitudes in the brothers as the alternating sun and frost broke them open to God. Notice that last line. The alternating sun and frost broke them open to God. I lived for about seven years with my family up in St. Louis, Missouri. St. Louis is one of those places where they say, if it's not hot enough for you, just wait around a little while. If it's not cold enough for you, just wait around for law. It's the both extremes, both ends of the thermometer are in St. Louis, Missouri. And that explains why the streets and the roads up there are so horrible. They always get cracked because of the alternating sun and frost. The extreme cold, the extreme heat, back and forth, back and forth. When that kind of phenomenon happens, hard things break. Different things like rock and concrete break by the alternating swing of temperatures back and forth, back and forth. I love how Tim Keller opens this up. I listen to a sermon by him on this. It's as if God gives discipline and love, truth and grace back and forth so that our hearts begin to break open. One moment, God is what, comforting you with promises of His love and blessing. And the next moment, He's convicting you at a very deep level of some heart idolatry that you have in your life. One moment, you feel God very, very close, don't you? Almost like a daddy, you can crawl up in His lap. And the very next moment, you feel like He's very, very far away with drawing His blessings. Am I right? You've experienced this, right? God has got to do this. He does it because He's being our father. He's treating us like a son or like a daughter. He's disciplining you with love and He's loving you with discipline. God is the hound of heaven. He's always messing with you. He's always getting your attention. He's always pursuing you because He loves you. He loves you. That's how God treated Joseph. Is it not? He's been learning through this study how God treated Joseph. The swings that Joseph took up and down, up and down, the sun and the frost in Joseph's life. Joseph went from the mountain top of being Jacob's favorite kid to the valley of betrayal and slavery. He went from the peak of influence in Potiphar's house to the pit of injustice and imprisonment. One minute, the cut-bearer promises to get him out of prison. The next minute, the cut-bearer, what, forgets him. The sun and frost, the sun and frost, heat and cold, breaking open Joseph's heart. God is pursuing Joseph not letting him go. He wouldn't let Joseph grow comfortable and complacent. And what was the result in Joseph's life character? Maturity, patience, compassion. And now Joseph is doing the same thing for his brothers. He's giving them the same treatment God had given him, truth and love, conviction and encouragement. He's messing with them. He's pursuing them. He's haunting them. He's not letting them go. And the effect is brokenness, repentance, reconciliation. If you go back home today and read carefully, chapters 42 through 44, you'll see it. The brothers are broken over their sin. They're remorseful about what they did to Joseph. They own their guilt. They admit they're wrongdoing in these chapters. Kidner says, the alternating sun and frost broke them open to God. And they're ready to reconcile. Now, let's bring this full circle. What does this mean for you?
When you are hurt by somebody, as we've all been hurt before, the goal is reconciliation. But how are you going to get there? See, how you get to reconciliation is really, really important. You don't get to reconciliation by demanding payback and grabbing revenge. Nor do you get to reconciliation by cheap grace, by just saying, okay, no big deal. I'm going to get over it. Instead, you get to reconciliation on the hard path of forgiveness, biblical forgiveness. Forgiveness is a two-pronged process. The first thing you've got to do is acknowledge the debt that somebody owes you. That is the hurt that you've been dealt. And the second thing you've got to do is then absorb the cost of that debt yourself. You get it, frost, and sun. Acknowledging the pain and then paying the debt off yourself. Not demanding that he or she pay it for you. Joseph did both of those things, you see. He acknowledged the debt that his brothers owed him. He didn't just say, oh, well, it's no big deal that you sold me into slavery. I love those years in prison. Now, that's not what he did. Nor did he demand payback. What Joseph did was he absorbed the debt himself. He paid the cost of the brother's sin himself two times. It's no accident that two times Joseph filled their sacks with grain and two times he put the money right back. That's almost like a metaphor for what he was doing in here. Paying the brother's debt himself. See, when you're hurt, you've got to acknowledge the hurt. It's real. It hurt you. You've been wronged. And in all probability, you need to go talk to the person who wronged you and confront him or her with the pain that they brought into your life. But then rather than get even, you release that person from your need for justice. You let him go. You let her go. Sun and frost, truth and grace. Love and discipline. What does letting go of that person look like? Well, it's been said you will his or her good. You will his or her good. You pray for that person. You refrain from speaking evil of that person. You are as courteous as possible to that person. You believe the gospel for that person. You hold out hope for that person's change. You stop playing the recording of the incident over and over in your own mind. And you may need to do those things. I'm not going to fool with you. You may need to do those things again and again and again for years. If you don't, you know who suffers the most? You, you. We've seen this morning, the difference between forgiveness and payback and the difference between forgiveness and cheap grace. Let me end with the difference between our forgiveness of others and God's forgiveness of us. The turning point in today's story comes when Judah, remember this when I read it earlier, when Judah, the fourth son of Jacob steps forward and offers himself as a substitutionary sacrifice for Benjamin. At the very end of chapter 44, if you're still there, look at verse 32. Joseph has just said to his brothers that Benjamin would become his slave. Judah knows what that would do to their father, Jacob. He knows that it would kill him. It would absolutely kill him. So he comes up to Joseph and he says this, he says, he doesn't know he's Joseph. He says, sir, Lord, I guarantee the boy's safety to my father. I said to my father, if I don't bring him back to you, I will bear the blame all my life. Now then please let me remain here as your slave in place of the boy and let the boy go back with his brothers. After that speech to Judah, to Joseph by Judah, Joseph reveals, this is a preview of next week, Joseph reveals his true identity to his brothers and there's reconciliation. Don't miss this. Joseph was reconciled to his brothers by the offer of Judah to be a substitute. You were reconciled to God by the death of Jesus as your substitute. Judah offered, he offered to take the blame for his brothers, Jesus Christ on the cross, he did take the blame for his brothers and his sisters. See the cross of Jesus is the perfect, perfect blend of truth and grace. Truth all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Grace, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. If you are so sinful, Jesus had to die for you. Grace, you are so loved, Jesus was glad to die for you. Has Jesus taken your blame? If not, ask him to. And if he has, forgive, as God in Christ has forgiven you, let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you so much for being Judah for us. In fact, it's interesting that you descended not from the line of Joseph, but from the line of Judah. Thank you, Jesus, for stepping in the gap between us and God. Thank you for taking the blame. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for absorbing in yourself the debt that we owed you. And now as we prepare for communion, Lord, we pray that we will truly know what it is to come around this table and feed off of you because, Lord, we so need your grace today. Every single one of us in here continually needs your grace. We have failed you, we have sinned against you, we have broken your law, we have not loved you with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, nor have we loved our neighbors as ourselves. Some of us have even been holding grudges against people and we need your grace and mercy. So Holy Spirit, we pray now that you will prepare our hearts for what we're about to do. We ask you that you will wash our sins away again in the blood of Christ and that as we come to the table, we will realize that we have been forgiven. We have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. We ask that Holy Spirit, you will take these ordinary elements of bread and wine and separate them for the special use of being means of grace for us, tokens of love, covenant love, and may we meet with Jesus together as your body today. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.