20240225 Genesis 44: Joseph’s Abrahamic Crisis
Genesis: Looking Back in Order to Move Ahead Spiritually • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Call to Worship - Psalm 119:1-8
1 How blessed are those whose way is blameless, Who walk in the law of Yahweh. 2 How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, They seek Him with all their heart. 3 They also do not work unrighteousness; They walk in His ways. 4 You have commanded us, To keep Your precepts diligently. 5 Oh may my ways be established To keep Your statutes! 6 Then I shall not be ashamed When I look upon all Your commandments. 7 I shall give thanks to You with uprightness of heart, When I learn Your righteous judgments. 8 I shall keep Your statutes; Do not forsake me utterly!
Scripture Reading - Genesis 44
1 Then he commanded his house steward, saying, “Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man’s money in the mouth of his sack. 2 “Now put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, and his money for the grain.” And he did as Joseph had told him. 3 As the morning light broke, the men were sent away, they with their donkeys. 4 Now they had just gone out of the city and were not far off when Joseph said to his house steward, “Arise, pursue the men; you shall overtake them and say to them, ‘Why have you repaid evil for good? 5 ‘Is not this the one from which my lord drinks and which he indeed uses to interpret omens? You have done evil in doing this.’”
6 So he overtook them and spoke these words to them. 7 And they said to him, “Why does my lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing. 8 “Behold, the money which we found in the mouth of our sacks we have brought back to you from the land of Canaan. How then could we steal silver or gold from your lord’s house? 9 “With whomever of your servants it is found, let him die, and we also will be my lord’s slaves.” 10 So he said, “Now let it also be according to your words; he with whom it is found shall be my slave, but the rest of you shall be innocent.”
11 Then they hurried, each man brought his sack down to the ground, and each man opened his sack. 12 So he searched, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest, and the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack. 13 Then they tore their clothes, and each man loaded his donkey and returned to the city. 14 Then Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house, and he was still there. So they fell to the ground before him. 15 And Joseph said to them, “What is this deed that you have done? Do you not know that such a man as I can indeed interpret omens?”
16 So Judah said, “What can we say to my lord? What can we speak? And how can we justify ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of your servants; behold, we are my lord’s slaves, both we and the one in whose possession the cup has been found.” 17 But he said, “Far be it from me to do this. The man in whose possession the cup has been found, he shall be my slave; but as for you, go up in peace to your father.” 18 Then Judah came near to him and said, “O my lord, may your servant please speak a word in my lord’s ears, and do not be angry with your servant; for you are equal to Pharaoh. 19 “My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father or a brother?’ 20 “And we said to my lord, ‘We have an old father and a little child of his old age. Now his brother is dead, so he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him.’
21 “Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me that I may set my eyes on him.’ 22 “And we said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father; if he should leave his father, his father would die.’ 23 “You said to your servants, however, ‘If your youngest brother does not come down with you, you will not see my face again.’ 24 “Thus it happened that when we went up to your servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. 25 “And our father said, ‘Go back, buy us a little food.’
26 “But we said, ‘We cannot go down. If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down; for we cannot see the man’s face if our youngest brother is not with us.’ 27 “And your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons; 28 and the one went out from me, and I said, “Surely he is torn to pieces,” and I have not seen him since. 29 ‘If you take this one also from me and harm befalls him, you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in evil.’ 30 “So now, when I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us—and his life is bound up in the boy’s life—
31 so it will be that when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. Thus your servants will bring the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow. 32 “For your servant became a guarantee for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the sin before my father all my days.’ 33 “So now, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a slave to my lord, and let the boy go up with his brothers. 34 “For how shall I go up to my father if the boy is not with me, lest I see the evil that would overtake my father?”
MacArthur - “Some of you may have read of a certain Danish religious philosopher who lived in the 19th century by the name of Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard has said many things in terms of Christianity and religion that we would not necessarily accept but on the other hand, every once in a while he says some pretty profound things, too. And one of them, I thought, was this statement that I’d like to read to you. Listen to it. “Too often in their church life people adopt an attitude of the theater. Imagining the preacher is an actor and they his critics, praising and blaming the performances. Actually, the people are the actors on the stage of life. The preacher is merely the prompter reminding the people of their lost lines.”
Rc Sproul in The Consequences of Ideas - What we can learn from Kierkegaard today?
(1) The crisis of Abraham
1 Now it happened after these things, that God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 Then He said, “Take now your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go forth to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.
8 And Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together. 9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood and bound his son Isaac and put him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
Never before had this been done.
(2) The Abrahamic crisis of Joseph
4 Now they had just gone out of the city and were not far off when Joseph said to his house steward, “Arise, pursue the men; you shall overtake them and say to them, ‘Why have you repaid evil for good?
(3) The crisis of Joseph’s family
34 “For how shall I go up to my father if the boy is not with me, lest I see the evil that would overtake my father?”
(4) The crisis of Jesus
44 And being in agony He was praying very fervently, and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.
During a moment of existential decision, have you ever passionately committed yourself to the Christ of Scripture?
This is probably not a question you have heard before, yet it is critical that we understand it correctly.
Have you taken the existential leap of faith?
Does this leap defy reason and rational decision?
Christian philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, didn't mince words when he addressed the lack of passion that marked the church of his day.
Now may the Lord, who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and rich in steadfast love and mercy, keep you from despair in all your troubles and keep you from idolatry in all your joys. Amen.
