Following God's Path Towards Repentance

All of the praise team, turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 42. We're slowly going through the life of Joseph. And this is a foundational message. This is a message that you can almost pick up anywhere in the Bible and read. And on the front cover, it talks about God's cycle of conviction and repentance. But it's not just in the Bible, but it's been reflected in different places. In the Beatitudes, in 12-step programs, Henry Blackaby's Fresh Encounter. The cycle that we go through when we go through difficult times. And at Grace Point,

We're emphasizing God's saving grace. And His forgiveness. We're the Grace Point We want to talk about that. But in celebration of that forgiveness, we often forget. And we even fail to practice that we need to repent from the sins that put Jesus on the cross. We need to think about sin in the same way Jesus thought about sin. We need to feel in our hearts the way that God feels in His. we feel towards sin. And so we're going to talk about conviction. Now, you've heard from almost day one, one of my catchphrases. And that is, guilt is from the devil. Conviction is from the Lord. This is not a message to make you feel guilty.

Restitution and reconciliation, restoration takes time. And we'll talk about that next week about the restoration, restitution and reconciliation. But it's also shown in testings. If you look at that cycle on the front, we go through that. The testing is not so God will find out what's in your heart. Joseph had to find out what was in their heart. God knew Jacob even knew he didn't trust him with Benjamin yet. Had to wait for them to run out of the grain, run out of the food. And we'll see next week about that. But I want to say, if you're going through testing, if you're going through a crisis of faith, God's not trying to find out what's in you.

He's trying to show you what's in you. And he wants you to pass this test. You can clap out of it. Never have to take that test of patience ever again. I hope you read through some of these because it talks about Peter and how he was restored. It talks about David,

Even the shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd and he restores my soul. Let's pray.

We are. Whether we feel it or not, we are guilty. That's not my goal. Conviction is from God. What's the difference? Guilt is saying how bad you were in the past. Conviction is how good you can be in the future. Amen? We can glorify God in the future. And we need to come to a conviction that would do it. How ridiculous would it be for us to ignore the seriousness of sin that put Jesus on the cross? We can admit we're a sinner. We're not perfect. Sometimes we don't even want to talk about that word sin.

But that's what brought us to Christ. It's our shame, our guilt in the past from the devil. But also to bring conviction that we can walk and experience the trials and challenges of this life. And endure that. Whenever Jesus had to endure the agony of the cross, we have to die ourselves.

There's been nearly two years. There's been famine. And we see now today Joseph's brothers coming to Egypt and unknowingly bow down before Joseph. The king wasn't necessarily in a room. And it wasn't the king of Kings. It wasn't Jesus. But he is a type of Christ. And last week we saw that he went around and said, bow the knee. Pharaoh said, bow the knee. That Joseph was at the right hand of all power. Bow the knee.

And we need to bow before Christ. And his brothers came and bowed their knees before him. So turn, as I said, to Genesis 42. We're going to read through the first eight verses. I didn't give the words back to the people on the PowerPoint. But they're so good. They're just so professional. They can do it. But 42. I'm going to ask you to stand with us. We're going to go through the entire chapter. But I won't make you stand for the entire chapter. Just the first eight verses. I'm preaching out of the New King James Version.

Has that familiar ring to it that most of us grew up with in the King James. But just takes out all the these and thous and keeps that main thought. But whatever Bible you read, it's the sword of the Spirit. It's the Word of God. It's powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. Verse 1 says this. And Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt. Jacob said to his sons, Why do you look at each other, one another? He said, Indeed, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down to that place and buy for us there, that we may live and not die. So Joseph's ten brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.

But Jacob did not send Joseph's brother, Benjamin, with his brothers. For he said, Lest some calamity. Befall him. And the sons of Israel

Among those who journeyed there. For the famine in the land of Canaan was great. And Joseph was the governor over all of the land. And he who sold to all of the people in the land. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed down before him. and their faces were low to the earth. And Joseph saw. And his brothers recognized them. But he acted as a stranger to them and spoke roughly to them. And he said to them, Where do you come from? And they said, We come from the land of Canaan to buy food. So Joseph recognized his brothers. But they did not recognize him. Father God, we come before you. And we ask you to bless the reading of your word.

And Lord, may we apply it. Father, there are foundational principles that we're going to see today. Straight from your word. Father, while other people may preach one thing or another, we preach the word of God. And Father, whenever you repeat it so many times as you do, this cycle of conviction and repentance, far be it from us that we should not follow your word. So Lord, open our hearts. Open our ears. Let us follow you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. I hope you got a bulletin. I put some flowers on there. The spring has sprung. It's coming about quickly. But there is a cycle to life. There's a cycle of things that are happening to us.

And every one of us are going through this cycle. We're at different stages, perhaps. But each this path to conviction and repentance. And it's going to be a circular path. We're not going to get to all of it today. We're going to get to a majority of it. But there's going to be something that, first of all, if you look on the back of your sheet,

We're each going to have a crisis of faith. Each one of us are going to have something that's going to happen that's going to cause us to either choose to obey or not obey, to choose to follow or go our own way. For Jacob, it was the famine. I thought it was interesting how many times, even though God changed his name way back in the 36, most of the time, he's called Jacob. It's kind of like whenever Jesus calls Peter, Simon, son of Jonah. He's kind of emphasizing his imperfection. He's emphasizing how he's not living up to the name that the Lord God Almighty gave to him. And Jacob is not living up to his name that he gave him, he who wrestles with God and prevails.

Jacob means deceiver. He's manipulative. He is not grown in the 20 years that Joseph has been gone. He's gone through cycles, surely, but he's not been recorded as exemplifying the growth that God wants him to be. He has to wait or has been waiting because he hasn't grown in respect to where God has brought him. Only in one place, in verse 5, does it say the sons of Israel, that they went down. Why? It's part of God's providence. God, through Israel, was sending his sons down to buy grain from Egypt because there is a crisis of belief. Have you ever gone through a crisis?

Something that was difficult and you began to wonder, God, are you even in this? Something that challenges your faith, challenges your belief. We talked last week about trusting God. That's where they were. They were wondering, God, are you.. Are you here with us? Emmanuel, God with us. Whenever we look at this crisis of faith, we saw that that famine was there. Sometimes it's the famine that causes us to turn to God. Sometimes the famine in our life, the problems that we have in our lives, cause us to look to God because we can't trust in ourselves. It's a long process. It runs in cycles. But we see it not just there. But for your readings this week, and I hope you're doing this on Monday, I hope you turn over to 1 Samuel chapter 12.

There's a whole passage where they go through this same crisis because they wanted to choose a king instead of God. They asked God to send them a king and they had to follow.. God said, you better be careful what you pray for. You just might get it. And they sure enough did. There is a cycle. They had a crisis of faith. A crisis of belief. I don't know what yours is, but here's the best way to handle whenever you're going through a crisis. And Jesus started off the Beatitudes this way. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, impoverished in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. The first thing that we need to do whenever we encounter a crisis, whether it's an ongoing crisis or it's that very biggest, the first crisis that we have whenever we're confronted with our own sinfulness and our need for a redemption for a Savior, we need a deliverance from

God in salvation is to impoverish your spirit. And so as we go through this cycle, we're going to see that the steps of the Beatitudes are part of that cycle that we have to go. We're broke and we can't fix ourselves. We're impoverished. And we're powerless to fix. We need God. We need a Savior. As I've mentioned before and was heard in Sunday school today, each one of us have a God-shaped void and emptiness that only God can fill. Alcohol won't fix it. You know, sin won't fix it. Money won't fix it. We need to impoverish our spirit and say, God, we are in need of a Savior.

And that's the way it was with Jacob. But he thought, the answer was in Egypt, was in grain. He didn't even know Joseph was there. He thought Joseph was dead. But God can be in the crisis of your faith. He unbelief to bring you to a point where you come to faith. Well, then there's five R's that I have in your bulletin. I hope you go with those. Because after Joseph sent down the sons, we need to, first of all, recognize that God is the one who can provide for us. The brothers of Joseph, and I think it's also interesting there, they call them the brothers, Joseph's ten brothers. Twenty years he's been apart from them.

Anybody ever was a kid brother of somebody else? Oh, you're Ronnie's brother, is what they'd always say to me. Or you're so-and -so's brother. sister. I mean, twenty years, they thought he was dead. They called him Joseph's brothers. He was coming down there. But there's a reason for that. That the emphasis is on Joseph, who is a type of Christ. He is a foreshadow of Christ. God, in his taking up the pen for the script of not only our lives, but the lives of the sons of Israel, the sons of Jacob, is going to say, you need to recognize Jesus. They didn't recognize Joseph. Now, why wouldn't they recognize him? One, he's been gone for twenty years.

Two, he was seventeen. Whenever he left. Do you look like you did when you were seventeen? Don't answer that, you seven teenagers. God bless you. But also, they shaved in that day. And he also probably put on makeup. They probably put on a headdress. They had him look. And he didn't even speak the language that he knew that he grew up in. He had learned over the years the language that they spoke there. But they didn't recognize him. Now, it's.. It is kind of.. You know, hindsight is twenty-twenty. We're looking back at this from, really, fifteen to, no, twenty-five hundred to maybe even twenty-eight hundred years later. Two thousand years after all this. No, I'm not even going to say it's more than that.

Thirty-eight hundred years. It's been two thousand years since Christ. This is probably about eighteen hundred years before Christ. But we can look back at that and say one of the most marvelous stories about this cycle is that they could have recognized him. I mean, they knew they sent him down to Egypt. Couldn't it have happened that they would have recognized him? No, because they were veiled. It was veiled from them. Whenever they came up, even if they could have recognized his voice or recognized his face, God veiled Joseph. Just like sometimes God veils himself in your problems, in your crisis, the things that happen. We need to look at every situation that we go through and say, God, how are you going to..

How yourself in this? glorify yourself in this? We need to be looking and watching and seeing what God is going to do. That reminds me of how it says also in the Beatitudes, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. We need to mourn and say, God, I'm going to praise you in the sorrow. Praise you in these hard times. They call it in the 12-step program of taking.. a moral inventory. Admit your wrongs. See how you're powerless, how you need God. And they came and they said to him, we are in need of food. And they didn't recognize that the provider was right there among them and that he was their brother.

We need to come to God with some confession. You remember that word I taught you a couple of weeks ago? Homo logeo. To say the same things whenever we confess our sins, we are saying the same thing about sin that God says. He hates it. He hates our sin. He hates what we're doing. He doesn't hate us, but he hates that. You ever think of that? I hate the sin, but I love the sinner. I hate the things that people are doing that somewhere deep down inside, we're all made in the image of God. And we need to love that person. God commands it. He doesn't say just love the lovable. He doesn't say love the loving.

He doesn't even say that love the people that love you. He says love those whenever they hate you. There's a phrase that I was quoted that someone had told him. It was me. You just got to love them. people. We have to love people. They're made in the image of God. And we need to love them. And if we're not loving, then we are sinning. And we need to mourn over our sins. One more thing that I've said to you today. I've said before. What's the biggest sin there ever was? My sin. I can't do anything about your sin. The only sin that I have to be responsible for,

Answer need to say the same thing that God says is the sin that I've committed. And your biggest sin is your sin. Everybody say my biggest sin is the biggest sin. There is no sin bigger than my sin. And we're, yeah, say it.

We're truly guilty. Look at verse 21. Whenever his brothers came down there. Well, I'm going to go ahead and read this because this is in the second part already. We need to have a remorse. We need to say the same thing. Well, the recognition is about what God says. But we also need to have remorse. We need to feel the way about sin that God feels. You know, sometimes we jokingly say something about sin and we kind of laugh or smile about it. I do it because one of the most socially acceptable, in fact, one of the sins probably that we've all committed is speeding.

Another one is gluttony, but I don't like talking about that one because I'm guilty of it. It's obvious. But speeding, you know, we try to obey the law of the land, but every once in a while, we feel like we can, we can do something, get away with it. But, you know, we smile about some sins. They're socially acceptable. There is no socially acceptable sin in God's eyes.

And there are sins that are far more remorseful. Sins that we need to feel the way God feels. We need to think the way God thinks about it, but

Let's read beginning in verses 22. Well, I stopped at verse 8. Let's go ahead and go back to verse 9. And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had about his brothers, verse 9, and said to them, you are spies. You have come to see the nakedness or the exposure of our land.

Verse 10. But then they said to him, oh, no, my Lord, but we are your servants and have come to buy food. We are the all one man sons. We are honest men. No, they're not. Your servants. We're not spies. But he said to them, no, but you have come to see our nakedness of our land. And they said, your servants are 12 brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. And in fact, the youngest one is still with our father today. And one is no more. But Joseph said to them, it is as I spoke to you saying, you are spies. And in this manner, you shall be tested by the life of Pharaoh.

You shall not, you shall not leave this place until unless your youngest brother comes here. Send one of you and let him be bring your brother and you shall be kept in prison that your words may be tested. And this is going to be crucial

To see whether or not there's any truth in you or else by the life of the Pharaoh, you are spies. Verse 17. And he put them all together in prison for three days. This was his first plan. He was going to do to test them. He'd keep them all in prison and then send one of them back to go get Benjamin to see whether or not he was one. Okay. And two,

They were faithful and honest men. He put them in there and free prison prison for three days. Each one of us needs to go to the cross and for the three spiritual symbolic days to die to our own way of life. Three days. He could have said five or two or 15 for that matter. But to draw the point about Jesus to point towards Jesus being in the tomb for three days, he kept them in prison. And he came up with this as he released them. Verse 18. Joseph said to them on the third day, do this and live for I fear God. If you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined to your prison.

House. But you all go and carry the grain and famine of your house and bring your younger brother to me so that your words will be verified and you shall not die. And they did so. Now I kind of looked that up. I said, did they do it? No, they they said, okay, yes, sir. Yes, sir. We're going to do what you say. Yes, sir. We're we'll do this. So they agreed to that. Then verse 21, it says they said to one another, we are truly guilty concerning our brother talking about Joseph.

20 years of guilt, 20 years of shame, 20 years of sorrow, 20 years of secret that they never told their father, maybe never even discussed among themselves. But whenever they're confronted with Joseph, whenever we're confronted, confronted by Jesus, we see that we are truly guilty concerning our sin.

But we saw the anguish of his soul. Speaking about Joseph, when he pleaded with us and we would not hear, remember when we were going through that, they sat down and ate, they ate lunch while he is crying out, brothers don't do this. We heard his pleas Therefore, this distress has come upon us. First 22 and we'll stop there for a second. Reuben answered and said to them, did I not speak to you saying, do not sin against the boy and you would not listen? Therefore, behold, his blood is now required upon us.

Remorse guilt. They remembered Joseph's cries, their conscience, maybe after 20 years was awakened. Maybe it had been secret. Maybe they never talked among themselves, but here for the first time in Scripture, they're convicted. Maybe there's a sin in our lives that we need to not only think the same way that, God thinks we need to feel feels about sin. That would help us in our repentance, not to make us feel guilty, not to, we can never, we can never change the past.

The past is the past, but we can be convicted to say we can do better. The future is ahead of us. We need to not only mourn, but it says blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Just be humble about our sin. We need to take that inventory. And then we need to admit wrong. And if necessary, maybe the Bible says, confess your sins to one another. You'll find out that your sin may not be my sin, but we are all centers. You may struggle in a certain area that I don't even struggle with. Then you may struggle with a cot with a chocolate chip cookie, the way I do, or that cheesecake that I found frozen in my, my freezer from Thanksgiving.

And I thought it out and I ate it all or that peanut. No, I won't keep going, but that blue bell ice cream, peanut butter, brownie that I bought a pint to share with Melissa, but I knew she didn't like it. She's lactose intolerant. I ate the whole thing, went out to the trash outside and threw it away. So she wouldn't see the empty carton.

But I tell you, can I tell you this? And we, we smile. I'll add it, but it's a sin to be a glutton. It's not Cindy that I screamed, But I will tell you, it's kind of funny. I put that carton down somewhere and I do this a lot. Like some of you do with your phones. You put something down. I was looking all over that house. Where's that carton? Is it in the bathroom? No. Is it in the closet? Where's that carton? She's going to come home and find this empty carton. And I left it right there and couldn't find it. Finally, I found it and I did throw it away, but I'm confessing to her right now in the presence of all these witnesses,

I ate the whole pint of Blue Bell ice cream and we may need to confess our sins. You know, that's the joy of Weight Watchers. She go, I mean, seriously, that is the power of Weight Watchers. They go and they confess with other people. They say, this is what my struggle is. That's the power of 12 steps. And that's the power of the Bible. Confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

We need to be meek and humble. And confess those things, admit wrongs and you'll find the other people, they may not struggle with your struggle, but they struggle with something.

We should have that remorse, but then we should also turn. That's the word repent. We should have a repentance. And whenever you're doing your readings, you'll read those things. But also there's times whenever people have remorse. But it's a worldly remorse, not a godly remorse. And that's going to be on Second Corinthians. Seven, nine and 10 on Wednesday, I hope you read that. Read about also, you'll see this pattern, this cycle. Think about Simon Peter. He went through this cycle and there'll be readings every day for you to go through the remorse that he had. Bible says his eyes met Jesus and he felt convicted and he went out and wept bitterly.

But number three, there's a repentance that we need to go through. God uses kindness or calamity for change. You say he uses kindness. Yeah. Bible says in Romans 2, 4, for it's the kindness of the Lord that leads us to repentance. God's repentance is there. He will use honey or he'll use a stick. But the brothers, I don't know if Joseph, the human side of him got a little bit of joy out of using the stick, but he didn't use the honey. He put them in jail for three days. He was doing it as a type of Christ because God will use calamity. You know, when you're at rock bottom and there's no other place to look but up.

That's why jail ministry is such a wonderful thing. Because whenever people are at rock bottom, they are the most open to the Gospel. Foxhole conversions. If that's what it takes to make somebody convert, do it. Whatever it was to cause them to repent. The brothers of Joseph felt the conviction. And the guilt. But here's what the beatitude says. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. You got a desire to change. You got to be ready for God to remove the defects that you have and ask him. He'll cleanse you of all unrighteousness. Celebrate recovery. He says, ask God, ask God, come to him, ask him for power to repent.

But I've asked him before. Jesus is in the forgiving business. He will forgive you over and over. He uses an analogy up to seven times. No, Jesus said 70 times seven. He forgives us. He will do it sometimes out of his kindness. And sometimes out of his calamity. Let's look at verses 24. Let's look at verse 23.

They, the brothers, did not know that Joseph understood them. For he spoke to them through an interpreter. Just think of the strategy that that is. He was speaking in Egyptian and they were hearing a translator. But whenever he heard them saying and seeing the repentance in Reuben and seeing their anguish, he had to turn away to weep. As they were speaking down. Maybe down below. And he returned to them again and he talked with them and he took Simeon. Now, Simeon was one of the worst wicked. He was the one that was instrumental in slaughtering the whole area in Shechem. And he took Simeon and bound him away. Reuben had already been compromised. Judah had already repented.

He took Simeon and let him stay bound before them. And before their eyes. Sometimes God will use a stick to bring about repentance. There's a reason why there's a hell. Because some people would never choose heaven. If there is no hell, we just cease to exist. Jesus talked more about hell than he talked about heaven. And there's a reason why God created heaven hell and it wasn't for you wasn't for me as for the demons who fell. But if we choose to reject Christ, there's only one place in all of the universe that does not have the presence of God and that's hell. Oh, it has the presence of God because God's everywhere. But it has all of his judgment and none of his mercy.

But you know what heaven makes heaven? mercy and none of his judgment. When you come to Christ, he gives you an absence, a deliverance from judgment. You'll never be judged. You'll again, John 5, 24 says. We can walk in that freedom. That's why we believe once saved, always saved. That's why we say that because Jesus' blood cleanses us from all sins. We need more amens in this church. Maybe you've not been forgiven like I've been forgiven, but it's a glorious thing and whenever we turn from that, we can almost weep like Joseph wept because he knew what he was going to do. He didn't know for sure if they had repented. He heard them bickering.

He heard Reuben, but he didn't hear from everyone. And I think Jesus sometimes looks at us and he weeps and he says, have you truly repented? Do you truly have salvation? The Bible says test yourself to see whether or not you are saved. But you know, there is another verse and I just want to turn there and then we're going to save restitution and reconciliation. So next month, because it's in chapter 43, but we're going to finish the chapter, but turn a little bit over to Romans chapter two.

And I know you'll be studying on Thursday, right? Say yes. Yes. Pastor Tim, we're going to be studying this all week long. We will look it up. Say that. Go ahead. Yes. Pastor Tim will promise. Well, don't promise if you don't mean it. So Romans chapter two, just in case for some of you guys that are just not going to do what I asked you to do. But it's what you will be so blessed for. I'm going to read this to you because this is the honey part. You know, you attract more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

It says, or do you despise the riches of his goodness? Romans two, four, in case you're still turning there, his forbearance and his long suffering, his patience. God has patience with you, knowing not that it's the goodness of the Lord. It's the goodness of God. It's the goodness of Jesus Christ that leads you to repentance.

But some of you are so hard hearted, you won't take the honey. Some of us are so hard hearted, we'll take the blue bell and we'll deal with the consequence. Why is it a sin to be overweight? smoke or why drink or hurt the body? Because this is the presence of the holy temple of God. If we came in this morning, there was spray paint on the walls, we'd say how terrible for someone to do that. But this is the We are the body, not this. Not this building. We are the body. Whatever we do that hurts our testimony and telling others about Christ. But can I read to you a little bit about this rest as a foreshadow, as the concluding portion of the Scripture?

After Joseph turned away and he bound Simeon before them, verse 25 says, and Joseph gave a command to fill their sacks with grain. To restore every man's money in his sack and to give them provisions for the journey and he did so for them. That's the loving kindness of God. He gives you so much. Have you seen how much God has given you? Bible says in heaven, eye has not seen nor has ear heard what God promises for those who love him or called according to him. Verse 26, and they loaded up their donkeys in the grain, they departed, but as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey feed. At the encampment, he saw his money and there it was in the mouth of the sack.

And he said to his brothers, my money has been restored. And that is there in the sack and their hearts failed because they were afraid and saying to one another, what is this that God has done for us? He's blessed them, gave them their money back. But only a hardened sinner would look at that and see it as a curse.

God has blessed you with every blessing. Amen. And yet we turned away and we'll see that next week.

So then they went to Jacob, verse 29, in the land of Canaan and told them all that had happened. This man is the Lord of the land. He spoke roughly to us and took us as spies for the country, either sweet or sour. Verse 31, and we said to him, we are honest men. We're not spies. We're 12 brothers, sons of our father. One is no more. And the youngest is with our father this day in the land of Canaan. Now that would have been a good time. They could have confessed to their father. They didn't do it. They hadn't repented. 33, and this man, the Lord of the country said, by this I will know that you are honest men.

Leave one of your brothers here with me. That was grace. They could have just sent one person back with one sack of grain. He sent nine of the 10 back. Take food with the famine in the households and be gone. And bring your younger brother to me and you will know that you are not, I will know you're not spies. And I'll grant you your brother to you and you may trade in the land. He promises heaven. He promises, bring somebody who's your one, each one reach one, bring your brother, bring someone to Christ. 35, and it happened that whenever they emptied their sacks that surprised on him, not just one, every one of those brothers had in their money, their sack bundles of money and they were afraid.

It's your kindness that brings us to repentance. Jacob, their father's father said, you have bereaved me. Joseph is no more. Simeon is no more. And you want to take Benjamin away. Oh, wah, wah, wah. Jacob, man up. You're Israel. No wonder God calls him Jacob. Then Reuben said to his father, kill my two sons. Well, that's a sacrifice. If I do not bring him back to you, and it is, it is. Put him in your hands. But I think it was a vain cry. They would do that a lot. They would say, I'll do anything.

I'll But he said, my son shall not go down with you for his brother is dead. They're letting him believe that lie that he is left alone.

If any way that you should go with you, that you would bring me down my gray hair with sorrow to the grave. Even Joseph didn't trust him. What's the conclusion part?

That sometimes. Restoration and reconciliation takes time. We have to wait. How many of you have been waiting? praying for a lost family member? How praying and doing it? God says, keep praying.