Faith Tested, Faith Refined
Genesis 42-43 brings us to a pivotal moment in the story of Joseph and his brothers. After years of hidden guilt, the brothers are forced to confront both the consequences of their past actions and the God who has been at work behind the scenes all along. As famine drives them to Egypt, Joseph tests them, not merely to expose their sin, but to reveal whether genuine change has taken place in their hearts. Through this narrative we see a pattern that continues throughout the Christian life: God tests the genuineness of faith. These tests are not designed to showcase our strength, but to expose our weakness and teach us deeper dependence upon Him. The sermon explores four common lies believers face during trials and contrasts them with the truth of God's character, His sovereign purposes, and His grace in Christ. In every hardship, God is refining faith, drawing His people to trust Him more fully and preparing them for the eternal joy He has promised.
Genesis, today we're just going to start at chapter 42. When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, why do you look at one another? And he said, behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die. So ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him. Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan. Now Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land and Joseph's brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. Joseph saw his brothers and recognised them but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. Where do you come from? He said. They said from the land of Canaan to buy food. Joseph recognised his brothers, but they did not recognise him. And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had had of them. And he said to them, you are spies. You have come to see the nakedness of the land. And they said, no, my lord, your servants have come to buy food. We are all sons of one man. We are honest men. Your servants have never been spies. And he said to them, no, it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see. And they said, We your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. And behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more. But Joseph said to them, It is, as I said to you, you are spies. By this you shall be tested. By the life of Pharaoh you shall not go from this place unless your younger brother comes here. send one of you and let him bring your brother while you remain confined that your words may be tested whether there is truth in you or else by the life of Pharaoh surely you are spies and he put them all together in custody for three days on the third day Joseph said to them Do this and you will live, for I fear God. If you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody, and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households. And bring your youngest brother to me, so your words will be verified and you shall not die.' And they did so. Then they said to one another, in truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul. when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us. And Reuben answered, did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood. They did not know that Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them. Then he turned away from them and wept. And he returned to them and spoke. and he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes. And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain and to replace every man's money in his sack and to give them provisions for the journey. This was done for them. Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed. And as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw that his money in the mouth of the sack. And he said to his brothers, my money has been put back. Here it is in the mouth of my sack. At this their hearts failed them and they turned trembling to one another saying, what is it that God has done to us? When they came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan they told him all that had happened to them and saying, the man, the lord of the land spoke roughly to us and took us to be spies but we said to him, we are honest men, we have never been spies. We are twelve brothers, sons of our father. One is no more, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan. Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, by this I shall know you are honest men, leave one of your brothers with me and take grain for the famine of your households and go your way. Bring your youngest brother to me, then I shall know that you are not spies but honest, and I will deliver your brother to you and you shall trade in the land. As they emptied their sacks, behold, every man's bundle of money was in the sack. And when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. And Jacob, their father, said to them, You have bereaved me of my children. Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more. And now you would take Benjamin? All this has come against me. Then Reuben said to his father, Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. put him in my hands and I'll bring him back to you. But he said, my son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead and he is the only one left. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, would bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to Shoal. and we'll keep reading into chapter 43, so we thought we'd just break it up a bit. So the fanman was severe in the land, and when they had eaten the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, go again, buy us little food, a little food. But Judah said to them, the man summarily warned us, saying, you shall not see my face unless your brother is with you. If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy food. But if you do not send him, we will not go down. For the man said to us, you shall not see my face unless your brother is with you. Israel said, Why do you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother? They replied, the man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred and saying, is your father still alive? Do you have another brother? What we told him was in answer to these questions. Could we in any way know that he would say, bring your brother down? And Judah said to Israel, his father, send the boy with me and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also the little ones. I will be a pledge for his safety. For my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you, and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. If we had not delayed, we would now have returned twice.' Then their father Israel said to him, if it must be so, then do this. Take some of the choice fruits of the land in your bags and carry a present down to the man. A little balm and a little honey, gum, myrrh, pistachio nuts and almonds. Take double the money with you, carry back with you the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks. Perhaps it was an oversight. Take also your brother and arise and go to the man. May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man and may he send back your other brother and Benjamin. And as for me, if I'm bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. So the man took this present, and they took double the money with them and Benjamin. They rose and went to Egypt and stood before Joseph. When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of the house, bring the man into the house and slaughter an animal and make ready for the men are to dine with me at noon. The man did as Joseph told him and brought the men to Joseph's house. And the men were afraid because they brought to Joseph's house and they said it is because of the money which was replaced in our sacks the first time that we are brought in so that he may assault us and fall upon us to make us servants and seize our donkeys. So they went up to the Stuart of Joseph's house and spoke with him at the door of the house and said, oh my lord, we come down the first time to buy food and when we came to Lodge, lodging place, we opened our sacks and there was each man's money in the mouth of the sack, our money in full weight. So we have brought it back, brought it again with us and we brought other money down to buy food. We do not know who put the money in our sacks. He replied, Peace to you, do not be afraid. Your God and the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks for you. I received your money, then he brought Simeon out to him. And when the man had brought the men into Joseph's house and given them water and they washed their feet, And when they had given Donkeys fodder, they prepared the present for Joseph coming at noon. And they heard that they should eat bread there. And when Joseph came home, they brought into the house to him the present that they had with them and bowed down to him to the ground. And he inquired about their welfare and said, is your father well? The old man of who you spoke, is he still alive? They said, your servant, our father is well and he is still alive. And they bowed their head and prostrated themselves. And he lifted up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said, is this your youngest brother of whom you spoke to me? God be gracious to you, my son. Then Joseph hurried out for his compassion grew warm for his brother. And he sought a place to wait. and he entered the chamber and went there. He then washed his face and came out and controlled himself and said, serve the food. They served him by himself and them by themselves and the Egyptians who ate with them by themselves. And the Egyptians came not to eat with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination of the Egyptians. And they sat before him. the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to the youth. And the men looked at one another in amazement. Portions were taken to them from Joseph's table, but Benjamin's portion was five times as much as any of theirs, and they drank and were merry with him. How is everyone going this weekend? Fine? Good? Beautiful. Alright, sorry, just give me a second to sort myself out. Alright, so we are, sorry again for the very long passage, but again, we're going through Genesis and some of the passages are very long. And obviously, inevitably some of you guys, well all of you will forget portions of what we just read. It does obviously help to have it in front of you, but... really just helps. Just think of it in three different stories, right? So they've run out of food in Canaan, the famines spread throughout the whole world. So where's all the food at? It's in Egypt. So Joseph's brothers have to go down and they don't know it's their brother, but basically come before their brother. things happen, then they go back to Canaan, and then when they run out of food again, they have to go back, because Simeon's been taken. Anyway, we'll get into the details as we go through it. Beautiful. All right, so why don't we begin in prayer? Dear Father, you have given us this day. that we might remember the joy of our salvation. You have given us this day, that we might enjoy you, that we might know you, Father. And so we ask that you might reveal yourself to us now, that we might see who you are, know you. And Father, that you would just reveal yourself to our hearts, that we might be changed from one degree of glory to the next. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Beautiful. All right. So. What we are seeing here, there's so much in this passage. So many different things to cover that I wish we had four weeks to cover it, but we don't. So what are we gonna be focusing and looking at today? It connects back to the community message, right? I was talking about faith, right? That we have to go out and live in faith. We're people of faith. That's why we call it the faith, right? Every day we are walking around believing in things we cannot see, believing in a God that we can't hold on to. He's there, we know He is because He's been revealed to us in His Word, but we can't see Him. So we have to believe in faith, not because there's no evidence. He's given us all the evidence, but we still must have our hope in Him. And so, the same thing is about to happen for these brothers as they come to face Joseph. But a more particularly important thing, it's not just about their faith, but it is about their faith being tested. That is really what we're looking at today. We are looking at being tested. So while it's a story about Joseph and a story about his brothers, it is specifically about his testing of them. to see if after 20 years, have they changed? Has anything happened? Has God been working in their hearts? Is it truly genuine? And so this is something that as we're gonna see, regular part of the Christian life, right? Hopefully you guys have comprehended now, Christianity, following Christ isn't just, well, I made a decision once and now I'm set for the end, right? Well, yes, you made a decision, you are set for the end, but there's all this, what are you doing in all the years between? What's happening? Our faith is growing. The salvation is being worked out in our lives as we seek to follow Jesus more. And a regular part of this is being tested. Do you guys know the parable of the sower? Some of you will, some of you won't, so good. So right, the story of this, Jesus is there and he talks of a farmer who's out there planting seeds. He's just throwing it everywhere. This farmer does not care. He must be rich. He's just throwing seeds wherever. Some land on a rocky path. Do seeds grow in rocks or on a concrete path? No, some weeds do, but this is just normal seeds. Some lands in the rocky soil, some lands in shallow soil, and some lands in the good soil. But you see, the interesting thing, the stuff that lands on the concrete path, nothing happens to it. Those people just hear the word and nothing happens. But then there are these three other soils where things do happen. Something actually sprouts out, there's actually action. The Word of God is touching people's lives and they're actually being changed. But what happens later on? It talks about that in the shallow soil. The sun comes, beats down on it, it doesn't have roots. It can't handle it. It's being tested, right? The other one comes along but it's been planted among thorns. So it gets choked out. It talks about the cares of the world, riches. The things that we love in this world, they take our eyes off Jesus and we... We stopped loving Him. So you see, there are tests in this world. Just because things are happening in our life doesn't mean, you know, we just slap the label Christian and we're all good. Jesus wants to see the genuineness of our faith. You'll see this in 1 Peter 1 verses 6 and 7. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while if necessary you've been grieved by various trials for this reason so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So again, take notice, what is being tested here? Our faith, right? We have to take note that this is important because what do we often think when we think about a test? When you take a test in school, it's testing what? Your knowledge. Maybe you have... a test to be able to get into districts or state or something like that. It's a test of your athletic ability. We often think when God tests us, he's saying, well, are you loving enough? Are you patient enough? Are you caring enough? What do we always know? The old adage, right? Never pray for patience. Why? Because God will send you an opportunity for you to be patient. That's why you don't pray for But notice there, the focus is on our ability to be patient. That is not actually what God is in the business of. God is not in the business of testing our inherent strengths and weaknesses. When we're before God, we're all weakness. There is nothing good. So what might He be testing? He's testing our faith in Him. So you see this, when you pray for patience and the test comes along, this isn't actually about you saying, well, I've got it in me. I can be patient enough, you know? I'm gonna hold it all together, I'm gonna be stoic, I'm gonna get through this. No, if we're looking into ourselves during the test, we failed the test. What the question really is, is I'm asking, do I trust that this annoyance, that this inconvenience that came into my life is here for a reason, that God sent it for a reason? See, is the knock at the front door a distraction from my work or is it a part of God's plan? You see how it has gone from being a test of your ability to a test of your belief in God. Do you actually trust Him? So you see, the test is about proving that you trust him, that you have faith in him, not about you. So we understand that when we go through the test, God is engaging, can you do this on your own? All of us think it, every time we're being tested. And we think, know, sinful temptation arises in our lives, say, can just, I can grit it out, I can get through this, if I just don't pay attention to it, it'll be fine. Jesus didn't say, turn away from your sin and look at nothing. He said, turn away from your sin and look at me. So He's gauging, will you actually trust Him to handle this? Will you actually trust that He has what you need? make it through, not can you do it on your own. And so this leads to our main point today. If faith is the goal, that is what we're aiming for. Unbelief is the enemy. That's what the devil wants, right? He wants to take us away from God. He doesn't want us to have faith. And so what is his tool? Lies. Unbelief isn't just you not believing God, it's you believing something else. You believing something not true. And these lies are really easy to deal with when everything's going well in life. When we feel God's presence, when we know He's walking with us, we're like, you're saying God's not with me? I don't believe you're saying. I can feel, I can see Him working in my life. I'm so grateful for the things He's done. But then God tests us. For God to test you, He has to withdraw His presence. Not that He's actually gone, but His felt presence from your life. That's why it's called a test. That's why it's faith, because you can't see it, you can't feel it. Will you still believe the truth though? Will you still hold to it? And so then those lies of the devil on the surface become a lot more plausible. So today we're gonna look at some of those lies that we face as we face these tests, that we might spot them, we might know them, we might overcome them together with the truth. So four lies we're gonna look at today. Our first one, you don't need God, you've done nothing wrong. Sorry, there won't be slides up today. You guys are good listeners, right? So there you go, our first one. You don't need God, you've done nothing wrong. So let's look at the start of our story. These brothers, for some time they have been living comfortable in Canaan, right? Life has been going well for 20 years, they haven't thought about their brother. But now this famine sweeps across the entire world. They've got two years worth of grain stored up, they're doing well, but after two years, no good, they've run out. So they must go to the land of plenty where it has been stored up because it was revealed to someone, Joseph, that their famine would come. So they've stored up and they become the storehouse for the whole world, right? There is literally one Woolies in the world at this time and it is in Egypt. So they must all go there. Big road trip down to acquire food for them to be able to live. Completely unaware that their 20 year old deception that they brought against their father is about to be exposed. They come before their brother. They're completely unable to recognize him. It's been 20 years, 22 years since they've seen their brother. He was 17 at the start. He would have been like in his late 30s by now, right? And better yet, Egyptians, they didn't grow beards, whereas people from Canaan did. So he would have been freshly shaven, right? They would not have recognized him at all. He then accuses them of spying out the land for Egypt's enemies. He locks them up for three days, and then one brother has to stay behind. Now this is just poetic irony. He's actually making them relive exactly what he had to go through, right? Just as Christians, right? We don't just get the life of Jesus. We also have to experience the death of Jesus. We suffer just as He did that we might have the life that He now has. But then focus now on verse 21. Where it says here, That is why this distress has come upon us. You see, they're currently in limits. They've just come down. They just want some food and now this man is accusing them of treason. They're fearing for their lives. They're saying, why is this happening to us? People back in that day, they weren't atheists. They didn't just believe in a world of random coincidences. Things happened for a reason. So they said, why is this happening to us? This must be some form of divine punishment. What great sin have we committed? And God... in his wisdom brings this thought to their mind. How about that brother that you sold off 20 years ago? It has finally come to revisit us. Now, this is the hard thing about God's tests. You notice here that He is bringing back their greatest sin to them. They've been trying to hide it down, push down their guilt for 20 years and God says, sorry, not gonna let that happen. So God often in His tests, He doesn't give you a test of something that you're probably gonna do quite well at. He wants to make you weak. So we're going to send the test against a thing that you struggle with, right? If you've got all the money in the world, he's not going to say, I want you to give $10,000, this person. He's going to say, hey, I actually want you to stop working for a while and give some time to your family, to your church. But I need time to make money, right? He's going to put the pressure on something that you actually idolize, that you actually can't just depend on yourself for. He's exposing sin, wrong inclinations, habits. And now the devil hates this. because it's exposing what He wants us to love. It's exposing the truth because you see, when we're in our sin, we think, this is actually all right. When we're not facing the punishment, when we're not looking at the endpoint, which is our death on a cross, we're like, sin's actually all right. I kind of like this. But then... it is exposed, right? Your conscience brings guilt into your heart. You're feeling, I don't like this feeling. I gotta get rid of it somehow. I gotta suppress it. I gotta push it down. But the devil hates when it is even brought up because when the guilt comes into our heart, we look for a way to deal with it, right? These things that I've done. So how do we deal with it? Some people, well, you can drink it away. You can try and suppress it. You can say, but I'm good in these areas of my life. So this one, that covers for that. None of it works in the end. There is only one thing that works and it is going to God. And that is why the devil hates it because that is a possible option. When guilt is brought into our hearts, we might actually turn to the one that we've wronged. We might turn to God. And so the devil, what does he do? He stares you up. He said, you've done nothing wrong. Don't listen to God. Don't listen to this guilt, right? He's just tripping. That's just those Christians with all their rules. Don't trust them. They don't know what they're talking about. You're not really a bad person. Because then we start to see ourselves as innocent. We can't understand, why am I suffering like this? God shouldn't do this to me. I don't deserve this. And so we get angry at him. But look at the brothers. Did they see their consciences? Did they come up with all kinds of excuses why it was okay, why they've done nothing wrong, how they're better people now? No. They bear their guilt and they accept it. They don't minimize it. Hallelujah, praise these men have actually changed. They're not looking for a way out. They've realized there is no way out. So what do they say? This must be our fault. We should not have done what we should have done. And so you see, one of the greatest tests that we have to face every day, and this is such a good thing for us to be doing, is to remember who we are. One of the most important things that Jesus put into the Lord's prayer, when the disciples asked, how should we pray? He says, pray like this, right? Our Father who art in heaven. And then as you go further down, do get? Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. So what does that mean? He's saying, when you pray, pray like this, which means every time you pray, you should pray like this, which means every time we're praying, for forgiveness. Every time you must confront the fact that you're actually not good enough for God, that you actually have done something wrong in life, that we actually have screwed up, that we actually deserve the cross. So we have to continually affirm the fact and remind ourselves of the truth. I am in the wrong. I am deserving of nothing good, but I trust in Jesus to save me. We look at the cross because when we look at it, you can't think that you've never done anything wrong. Because what does the cross say? The cross reveals what the destiny of all humanity is, right? Who deserves to be on a cross? Hitler does. Who deserves to be on a cross? Ivan Molat does. Who deserves to be on a cross? You do. You see, we can all have many different walks in life, but we all end up at the same point and it's at that cross. You can't avoid it because we have all done wrong. We might not like it, but that is the truth. It does not matter how good, how respectable our lives have been, we shall hang on a cross. And so you see, we remain blind to how evil we are unless we just look at it. Stop looking at your life. Stop thinking what you think about yourself. Sin will blind you. It won't let you see how truly evil you are. When you look at that cross, you see yourself as you really are. And that is what we have to face every day when we ask for forgiveness. When we repent, when we accept like these brothers do, the blame is mine. It falls on me. And when we do this, most of all, remember how I said we're not praising our own abilities. The most important thing about repentance is it glorifies Jesus and not us. It shows right, I'm weak, I don't have it in myself. I don't have the things I need to get to heaven. I'm weak, I need you Jesus. And so he enters into our hearts and saves us. So also look at our need later on. In this story, as the brothers continue, he gives them three days in prison. Then he brings them out. And he says, right, okay, I will give you the grain, you go back. But to prove that you are truly innocent, that you aren't lying to me, you must leave one brother here. Almost like they sold one brother off last time. So they leave Simeon behind. He's locked up, he stays with Joseph and they go back. But then something happens. They open up their bags with all their grain and they see on top the money. Now, hey, hallelujah, isn't it great when you find $5 note that you didn't know you had? A little bit of money is always great. But not for these brothers, they're in horror, they're despairing, they're so afraid. Why? Because there's only two possible ways that that can appear. especially to their father. One, they've stolen and lied to Joseph. Or they just got money for selling off their brother again, right? There's no way in which it looks good. And so they're looking at their circumstances, they're looking what's around them, they look at what they have in their control and they say, they just have fear. And then what do they do? They say, why has God done this to us? He's done this to me. And so you see, this is exactly what happens when we attest. When we suffer, we look inward, right? When we suffer, we look at the things we can control, right? Our kids are being absolutely just rat bags and we can't control anything, but you hold on, you're like, but you know, at least I read my Bible this morning. They might be rat bags, but you see, we hold on to the things we control. We hold on to the things that we have because we hate to feel out of control. No one likes feeling out of control like they have no control over their destiny. But that's not human nature, it's our sinful nature that is doing that. Because in that moment, what we're saying is, I need to be God, I need to be the one in control. You see, look at these brothers, right? They thought they were in control. were, okay, we've left Simeon back, we'll go back, we have a plan, but then something gets introduced that ruins their plan. Now they're saying we have no options and what do humans do when they have no options? They get scared and they get angry. That is what happens. Because we need to be the ones in control. But these brothers, and God will do this in every test, He puts us in places where we can't have control. But we just, you know, let go and let God as they say. You have no other option. They can't find anything to control, so they pity themselves, they blame God. And that is what happens when we think that we are the ones, that we are all we need. When we think we don't need anything outside of ourselves. Suffering makes us look inward. Our sinful nature doesn't want us to look to the one that we might need in our suffering. then look at this. When you read on the next chapter, God later reveals through Joseph what that money actually was. In verse 23, he replied, peace to you, don't be afraid, your God and the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks for you, I received your money. So, the money was actually a blessing, right? It was actually given to them to provide for them. Joseph was doing them a blessing and God was doing it through him. But They looked at their circumstances. They didn't know about their brother. They couldn't see everything. They didn't have the bird's eye picture. And so what do they do? They freak out because they don't have everything in control. They're looking at their present circumstances. They can't imagine possibilities which aren't in their grasp. but we have to understand there is a God working at all times. See, right, in these trials, we want something that we can hold on to. I decide what happens here. I am the main determiner of what happens. But God doesn't want us to hold on to that truth. He wants us to hold on to this truth, that He decides what happens and He has a good plan for us. You see, this is the test of your faith. Do you believe God? Do you believe He loves you? Do you believe He's in control? The Bible says it. Will you believe it? Shall we be like the brothers unable to look beyond themselves? Or will we compel ourselves to look at the bigger picture? Or at least to know that there is one who does see the bigger picture and that he loves us. When we do that, we destroy that lie of the devil that says you don't need Jesus and you don't need God, right? Remember your suffering pulls you inward, but all the time we need to be looking outward. It is incredibly hard to do in the midst of suffering, but we need to remember and constantly talk to ourselves. There is a bigger picture. There is a God who sees and he is working and he loves me. And when we hold to that truth, that we need him for everything, then we might have hope and our faith will continue on. And so we go on to the second lie. Always look out for number one. So now our story continues on, right? These brothers have found the money in their bags, they continue on, and now they have to come to their father. They have to... Show him the money that they took with them and now they've brought back. Now Jacob fears for the life of his son and better yet they say the only way to get Simeon out of his predicament is for you to give us Benjamin. The only brother who didn't go down. The only surviving son of Jacob's favorite wife, Rachel. He's already lost Joseph, who came from Rachel. He's not willing to lose the other son. So he says, you, you have done this against me, you boys. I will not give you my son. And so he's willing to sacrifice Simeon for Benjamin. Benjamin's the new favorite now. but then Ruben speaks up. He's the first born, remember? He handed over his birthright because he sinned against his father by sleeping with his concubine, right? And so God said, you're not worthy of the inheritance. So what does Reuben do? He offers up a grand gesture. He says, I will give you my two sons as a pledge of Benjamin's safety. If I do not return with him, then you may have my two sons. Now that's a grand offer. That seems like, he must be pretty sure of himself. Would you trust your son to someone who was willing to just sell out both of theirs? I wouldn't. So again, it looks like a grand gesture, but we actually see Ruben is just as selfish as he always has been. He wanted his firstborn privilege back and he was happy to do it at any cost, even the cost of his own two sons, but not at any cost to himself, his own life. He wouldn't take it upon himself. Now we say, man, he's just a bad egg. Every single person in his family appears to be just like that. Go back to Abraham, right? He's a man of faith. But what did he do when he went through Egypt? He said, oh, this wife of mine because she's so good looking on her. She's just my sister so that he didn't face death. So someone might not kill him for his wife. He didn't trust God and God redeemed him from that situation, right? But he was a man of unbelief. Isaac did the exact same thing in Philistine. And Jacob, if we know the story, you know he is definitely not a man who trusts God. He is selfish to the core, right? He cheated his brother Esau out of everything he had. Took everything. And all these brothers have shown to do the same. They wanted to kill their brother Joseph. Judah has sold him out. And especially look at Judah, he sells out his brother. He leaves the rest of them. He goes and lives among pagans. He has all these problems come into his life. What does he do? He blames his daughter-in-law, Tamar, right? She is the reason all this has happened. See, he is at the center of his own world. He could do nothing wrong. But now we encounter a different Judah. You see it at the very start of chapter 43. Sorry, yeah, 43. When they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, the father said, go again, buy us a little food. But Judah said to him, the man solidly warned us, saying, you shall not see my face unless your brother is with you. If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. But if you will not send him, we will not go down. For this man said to you shall not see my face. meaning he would kill them unless your brother is with you. Israel said, why do you treat me so badly that you had to tell him that he had another brother? And it continues on. Sorry. And then he says in verse 9, I will be a pledge of his safety from my hand you shall require him if I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. Now, if you're someone who's at the center of your world, if you're a selfish person, you don't offer up yourself, right? Because you love yourself. You're not going to put yourself in harm's way. You look out for number one. But we see a brother here who is ready to lay down his life for the sake of his brother. If Benjamin comes into harm, if harm comes into his way, Judah will lay down his life for him. This is a very different brother than the one that we have known from previous chapters. And he is defeated, seemingly the most powerful lie of the devil. This generational curse that has continued to follow his family, that all of them have just continued to fall into. that they should always look out for number one. Right? That's just common sense in today's age, right? No one else is looking out for you, so you gotta look out for you. You gotta take your needs, your considerations as the first and foremost priority. But who's actually meant to be number one in our lives? Jesus, God, right? The one who made us, the one who made everything. If someone made everything, that means they're the center of everything, okay? That is how it is meant to be. You see, it seems to make sense to put ourselves first in this day and age, but the one inclining you towards it, the one telling you to do that is your sinful nature, the one who hates God. Of course, it's not gonna tell you center your life around God, because it hates him. but we were made to operate. This whole universe was made to operate because it was made by God with Him at the center of it. The reason we have so much brokenness in this world is because we have tried to become our own gods. We have tried to make ourselves at the center. We have become selfish and prideful and then everyone suffers because of it. But Judah is different. He has changed. He says, I actually trust in the way of God. God says, do not consider yourself most important. Do you not consider your needs more significant than others, but rather lay down your life for your brothers? That is what Jesus tells us. Now that doesn't make sense in this day and age. Look out for number one, but might we trust God? Might we trust that actually He knows the best way, that actually He has made this world and He knows what is best? see it as hard because as we walk in obedience to God, we suffer. We already suffer in this world, but we invite more in as we follow God because we live in a world of enemies. Satan doesn't like it when we follow God. And so we suffer in this life in order to obtain blessing, right? To know that we have an eternal inheritance. But the hard thing, where faith comes is sometimes we can't see the other side. What do we look to? Again, look to the cross. Jesus suffered, but for what? Why did He suffer? Hebrews 12 verse 2, we look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross. His joy was to know the salvation of all His people, that His people would be brought before their Father and not have to fear for their sins, to know that all was covered. He has purchased a people for Himself. So we know that if he goes through suffering, there is joy on the other side. For all of us, as we suffer, God has promised there is joy on the other side. The suffering is worth it. The pain will result in gain. But the devil is going to tell you, look out for yourself. Don't sacrifice too much. But when we understand that our joy is to be found in God, that His way is the way, well, I trust Him. Despite the suffering that may come, despite the hardship, I'm not going to trust the lie of the devil. Looking out for number one isn't actually the best road, but actually to humble myself and put Him as number one is the best way. Where do we end up if we look out for number one? You might enjoy some pleasures here, but you end up in a place of internal displeasure. There are other words for it, doesn't sound quite so nice. But the way to pleasure, the way to enjoy eternal life is to sacrifice ourselves at the foot of Jesus. At times it will not seem pleasurable to follow God. That is why it is called faith, because it won't seem like the way of blessing. But we have to trust on the other side there is joy. Judah put God as number one. And what did he get? He got the blessing of the inheritance. From him came the Messiah, Jesus. Reuben was the firstborn, but he put himself first and he did not receive the inheritance. So we understand, we defeat that lie. Don't look out for number one. Don't go your own way. Follow the commands of Jesus, though they may lead to suffering, on the other side is joy. And so lie number three. God hates you, most importantly, for no reason. So now, Jacob, he capitulates. He says, right, you take Benjamin, take him with you, but you must return to me. So they go down with Benjamin, their brother, all the brothers go down, but inevitably they're scared. Of course they'd be scared. You just look at them as they come before Joseph, they're just begging, they're prostrate before him, please don't do anything to us. Why are they scared? Well, because all they've seen is this harsh governor, this governor who has accused them of so many things, who has their life in his hands, and who seems ready to kill them at a moment's notice. But if you take notes several times throughout these chapters, something happens with his brothers, sorry, something happens between Joseph and his brothers, and Joseph turns away and weeps. He weeps at the idea that he might be reconciled with his brothers. He weeps as he sees that they're acknowledging their guilt. They've actually changed, but they don't see that. There is the disguise between them, right? They see only the harsh governor of Egypt. They do not see... the inner loving heart of their brother. And this is exactly how it can feel when we are being tested by God. See, remember I said, for it to be a test, God has to withdraw some of the evidence of His goodness towards you. He'll make it feel as though He's not being good to you. That's why He puts you through suffering. Will you trust that in this suffering, there's actually good? Will you have faith? Will we trust in what we can see? Will we trust in what we've been told? So at times God feels distance, but we know what He is really like. But the hard thing is when God tests us, our sinful nature goes into overdrive. It looks at everything in your circumstances, it says, God's responsible for that. God did that. You don't deserve this. God did that. God must hate you. What? You're a deserving, but you're a good person. How could you invite such suffering into your life? You must have done something. Better yet, you probably haven't done anything. God probably just hates you, just because he can. But we need to remember who He is. He is a God who loves us. He sent His Son to die for you, right? For God so loved the world, He sent His one and only Son. That is the, you don't need any other marker. You don't need any evidence of it in your life that God loves you. You just need to look at that. That should be all you need. He gave up His only Son that He might have you an enemy of God. Why? There's no reason He should love you. He should hate you for every reason. but yet he has chosen to love you for seemingly no reason at all. So we understand that. so too the brothers shall come to see it as well. They see only the harsh exterior, but what do the brothers receive when they come before their judge? He brings them in. They lie prostrate and beg and he says, come and eat. They receive massive portions of food from Joseph's table. Benjamin receives five times as much food. He must have really liked eating or something like that, right? He's... abundantly blessed. These brothers are being abundantly blessed by a man that they've seemingly cheated. They have done nothing good for Joseph and yet he blesses them abundantly. Just think about it. Do we not also receive a portion that we don't deserve from the King's table? Does it not speak of one day that we shall one day dine with Jesus at a feast as well? That we shall drink and eat with Him and enjoy food for all eternity that shall taste so much better than anything else here. And we didn't do anything to deserve it. God doesn't hate you. God loves all of us who believe in Him, always and forever. So we understand He is not the God who has left you. But remember this 2 Corinthians 4 17, for this light and momentary affliction, this suffering, this test, this trial is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Just think about it right. We're about to enter into a feast, a heavenly feast. But this feast is gonna be so good that your stomach needs to be ready for it, right? Your stomach isn't ready to handle just how good this feast is gonna be. So God is putting you through this suffering to somehow give you the stomach you need to be able to handle such delicious food. This suffering is preparing you for heaven. So he is not the God who has left you, he's not the God who hates you, he is the God who is preparing you to receive eternal joy. Eternal joy you do not deserve. So like I've said before, God has every reason to hate you. But the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Jacob, they weren't perfect men, far from it. Have all the 12 brothers changed? No, Reuben is still just as selfish as he was the day he was born. But yet through Joseph, even Reuben's offspring shall be saved and blessed. You don't deserve salvation, but yet He continues to love you anyway. In Jesus, every reason for you to expect that the reason for your suffering is because you have done something, or because God hates you, it's been taken away. God loves you, and any reason for Him to punish you has been taken away as well, because you've been forgiven in Jesus. All it has taken away. We are only now His children. That is all you are when we put our faith in Him, His children that He loves. And so now I finish with one final lie. This be a quick one to wrap it up. God expects better. That's our last one. God expects better. Because you see, sometimes maybe we look through our lives and we feel that guilt and we say, actually, I have done some things wrong. You I have screwed up. Maybe that's why God is bringing this trial against me, because I'm not good enough, which I hope we've dealt with enough in the last passage. But you see, we love to view these tests as pass or fail, right? Either I pass the test or I fail the test. Why? Because again, we love to rely on our own strength, right? And that's how we can do it. We love to look at, well, I was patient enough. I was loving enough. I was a good enough parent to my children. I worked hard enough for God. I gave enough money. Or maybe I failed at that. Therefore, see, I'm still looking at me. And so we sit there and think, God just must expect better of me. That's why He's testing me. He wants me to be better. I'm not denying He doesn't want you to be better, but how does He want you to be better? God isn't asking you to be more patient. What was the test? Your faith. He's asking that you might rely on Him more. God's greatest desire, isn't that you're strong in and of yourself? The test is actually for the purpose of weakening you. Faith is about relying on Him, being dependent on Him. So, most definitely, he wants us to rely on his grace, to trust that he's always going to show it to us when we seek him. You want to know sometimes the greatest blessing of a test? It is actually realizing how weak and sinful you are. What have these brothers realized when they came before their brother? When they face all of this, they feel guilt, they feel sinful. When they go through the test, they don't feel triumphant, they feel guilty. They feel under the condemnation of God. They feel the only one who can save us from this is God. So you realize God loves it when we realize we actually can't be perfect. That's what God is trying to teach you with every test, that you need Him. He's not trying to say be better. You actually become better by relying on Him. That is the definition of better, relying on Him in everything. God loves it when you realize you cannot be perfect, or at least you can only be perfect through Him working in you. And so I want to give you one final encouragement, that you do not need to be perfect in this life, just look at Jacob. When you read about it, he prays for his children. He prays that God might go before them, that God would show mercy to them. I'm sorry, I should have written down the verse here. I just need to find it. If anyone knows where it is, you could yell it out where he prays for them. Anyway, sorry, I'm unable to find it. I should know that down. But I do know the prayer. He prays, God Almighty, would you go before them? Would you please bring my son, Benjamin, back to me? Right? You see him there, he's trusting in God. This is not the same Jacob that was cheating his brother out of all that he had. No, he's a different Jacob, right? He trusts in God. But then as he gets to the end of his prayer, he says, I am bereaved. I am filled with grief. In one moment, he has hope that God can work. In the other, he says this situation is hopeless. I have no hope. I despair of life itself. I may as well just die. in the same prayer, hope and hopelessness, faith and unbelief. Can such a thing be allowed, condone in a Christian? Can we be people like that? I will challenge you to read the Psalms. You'll read some things in there you don't think Christians are allowed to say, but yet they say them. David himself says them. It is to be expected. God's tests are not about getting 100%. It is actually about realizing you would get 100%, sorry, you would get 0 % without Him. Therefore, we aren't ashamed to rely on His grace. We don't fall for the lie that He expects better, because we know we never can be without Him. So we are mixed people. You trust in God, yet there is a sinful nature that fights against you. We say things God should smite us for, but He shows us grace. He would rather you talk to Him about them than say nothing at all. And so also we must show the same grace to others. People will say things we don't think Christians should be able to say because they're going through a test. But the whole point is that they might realize the depth of God's grace. So show them that same grace as well. So, as we bring it all together, realize the purpose of these tests is to glorify God. It's to make much of Him, not much of your strength. That is why there's a test of our It is a test of our belief in the faithfulness of God. And this faith is more precious than silver or gold. Be ever eternally grateful for the faith you have. But what does it say? Silver and gold can never purchase for you an eternal inheritance. For we sang that song just before. If the whole realm of nature were mine, it would be an offering far too small. It would be not enough to get you into heaven. There is only one thing that can, faith. Faith in Jesus. So it is most important we must cling to it and we must never let it go. So that we might celebrate at the end of our lives, not look at my bank account, not look at how good a Christian I was, not look at all that I did for God, but instead this. Like Paul when he said in 2 Timothy 4, 7, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. That is the one thing that he had left on his deathbed and is the only thing he cared for. That I continued to remain believing in Jesus, that he sustained me and I still believe as mixed as it may be. So let us conclude in prayer now and then we will have our final song. Father. We are utterly mixed creatures. Father, there is an arsenal of lies before us as we walk through these tests, as you test the genuineness of our faith. Father, we pray that we may not fall for these lies, that through your cross you might expose them, that you might show us the truth, that we might continue to have faith in you. Father, if it is up to us, ourselves, our faith will fail. But Lord, grant us faith. Grant us that we might continue in this faith and that on our deathbeds, there might be fear and unbelief in our hearts. There shall also be faith in you and a certainty that you shall save us, redeem us and bring us into our internal inheritance. Help us to face these tests and to rely on upon you at all times and to know the point of the test. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.