Introduction
Romans 2:4
Big Idea: It’s God’s work to produce guilt and ownership in reconciliation.
The complete repentance passages
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If this is your first morning at Faith Bible Church, you're stepping into a very famous Bible story, the story of Joseph. It's it's been made into a Broadway musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor dream coat, which is totally a misappropriation of the Joseph story, but you've probably heard of it. Where we are today in chapter 42 is in the middle. We're just about to get to the part where Joseph's brothers come to some important realizations about their life. 21 years earlier, Jacob was the father of 12 sons. He had elevated Joseph, the 11th of 12, to the status of first born, therefore, the coat of many colors, God gave Joseph dreams, visions that one day he was going to rule over his brothers and the father and mother, the brothers could only speak harshly to him before The dreams, after the dreams, they envied him. They conspired to sell him to slave traders in Egypt. They lied to their father about what happened. Joseph had been enslaved and then imprisoned. God helped Joseph interpret a couple of other dreams, Pharaoh's dreams about a coming famine, and he was exalted to Prime Minister. So here we are in chapter 42 the 10 brothers show up to buy grain during the famine. This chapter is a story about what God is doing to preserve and transform the 10 brothers, God is at work. We put our attention on God's chosen people who God then transforms. Because the chapters are long. Normally, we stand for this, but you can remain seated. I want you to hear the story. We're going to read all of chapter 42 another riveting story for for us to consider Genesis. 42 verse one, 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, buy grain for us there that we may live and not die. So 10 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 all the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brother came and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the ground. Joseph saw his brothers and recognized 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. And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them, and he said to them, you are spies. You have come to see the nakedness of the land. They said to him, 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. 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 12 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 youngest 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. Why, 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 them, 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 to them. He took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes. Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain and to replace every man's money in his sack 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 money in the mouth of his sack. He had 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 this 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. The man, the Lord of the land, spoke roughly to us and took us to be spies of the land, but we had but we said to him, we are honest men. We have never been spies. We are 12 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 that 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 men, 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 his sack, and when 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 will 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, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol. This is the word of the Lord God, we look at another of these incredible chapters from the story that you have given us about getting Israel, the nation, down to Egypt, so that you could grow them you needed and you did accomplish a heart transforming work. And this is the beginning. Every sinner needs to come to recognition of guilt from the past, and these brothers needed it. And I pray that You would help sinners who come in today recognize what we need, forgiveness, reconciliation, recognizing what our past has brought us to. We are all riveted by these stories, because sometimes we're a Joseph and sometimes we're the brothers, and we need you to do restoring work. Everybody here has probably got somebody in mind as they read this story, and so show us your glory and your sovereign work and help us trust you in it. Father, there are things that we want to understand. Help Us by the power of your spirit, see what's in your word and apply it to our hearts. Father, we have members who are suffering and sick. Stacey OTT is in her cancer treatment, and you are helping her, continue to encourage her, give her strength, keep her from illness. I pray for Dan and Kelly Ian this week as they're going to teach and train in important biblical counseling principles. I pray for all of us who are going to Shepherd's conference where we reconnect with the seminary so that we can adequately serve our seminary students here and be built up by your word. Pray for that as well. We pray for our churches across our city that you would help us by the power of the Gospel be better at reconciliation and peace and hope in our homes, in our city. And I add my prayers to John's prayers that you would work out your glory and good across Ian and all the surrounding situations. I pray for there to be a Ian. A trust in you that would build throughout that region, that there would be people who had turned from idols to serve the true and living God and found peace and reconciliation in your name. Amen.
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One other addition, we sent out Evan and Emily Jarms, my son and daughter. We ordained Evan a few years back, and he's at Highlands Community Church in Renton, Washington, and they have just worked on another collaboration of Highlands hymns. And one of the songs God is our refuge is the verse that John just finished with about God being our refuge. So if you know somebody in the Armed Service who's got a loved one going to serve, that'd be a great song for them. God is our refuge. So Highlands hymns, you could search it, and whatever the new releases are, that's, that's what's coming out. The full album will be be away. So God's producing fruit in the people that we send. We're grateful for that, and I'm a proud dad, yep, not ashamed. It's very encouraging to see what God is doing in their lives with it. Let's take a look here at our passage. Somebody noted in the conversations this week how similar Charles Dickens Christmas Carol is to what's going on in this passage. If you think about the Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three ghosts, four, technically, but three help him understand his past, present and future goes to Christmas past goes to Christmas present Ghost of Christmas Future. That's the shape of the next three chapters. Here, Joseph needs to stir his brothers to deal with their sinful past. Unlike the Scrooge story, though, Joseph the victim has become Joseph the victor, and he is now in a place where he is looking to God to work in his family. When we read these stories, at times, we've been to Joseph in the story, wronged, lamenting, embittered. At other times, we have been one of the 10. I mean, because how we tend to read passages, we always read them as heroes of the story. Remember God called Abraham Isaac Jacob, Jacob's sons to be His people and covenanted with them, he chose them, and they are a collection of sinful blockheads. When you think about everything that's going on in the family, it's a it's a mess, and God is working to transform the rest of the story of Joseph and his brothers is really about the rebirth and preservation of Israel God's chosen people. So as we look at this, we want to give God the credit for what he's doing, what's going on in the story. Here's the big idea for this morning. It's God's work to produce guilt and ownership and reconciliation. It's God's work. Joseph has his part in God's work, but God's working, and we're entrusting, he's entrusting all of this to God. And there's a couple of places that we want to put this first with with himself, second, with the fractured relationships in our lives. As you study the passage, maybe we think about it this way, you might want to write these down in order of priorities when we read these passages, the first thing is my relationship with God, who is the sovereign mover. Remember, Jesus teaches us to pray forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. So there is something about us and our reconciliation to God and our relationships that has to be dealt with. So first, my relationship with God, second, my opponent's relationship with God. Joseph is first concerned about his brother's right relationship with Yahweh, and then third, my relationship with my opponent. Like, get that order right, my relationship with God, you might be a Joseph, or you might be a gad. Gad one of the six unnamed brothers in the whole story, Gad Asher Naphtali, like one of these unnamed people, they're there. You might be one of those, or you might be a Joseph. And the first thing God wants you to deal with is recognizing your relationship with him. You. A second, the other person's relationship, relationship with him, and third, your relationship with each other. You're going to get to chapter 50 as we go through a bunch of chapters, and you won't be fully satisfied with the level of reconciliation between the brothers and Joseph. There's no nobody is walking through the seven A's of confession, which we often help people in in achieving reconciliation. There's those things aren't here, but you're going to look back and say, look what God did in these people. Look what God did. Would that God do with my relationships? What he would do in Joseph, Joseph's relationship? So there's four components as we follow the story. Joseph needs to patiently wait for God to work, and he does. Joseph needs to trust God to flesh out guilt. He has a role in it, but God's got to do an inward convicting work. We need to wait and allow God to prompt true confession, which is what happens, which starts to happen in this story. And finally, we need to wait for God to prompt the ownership. And we're going to get to that there's a confession of sin, and then there's ownership of sin, meaning I'm going to do what is appropriate as a result of seeing it. So we're going to walk through the story and see these powerful situations, what God is doing. So number one, would God heal broken relationships in your life? Number one, patiently wait for God to work out the circumstances. All stories of redemption and reconciliation are marked by God's directing of circumstances. It's both supernatural and ordinary you have supernatural things. Here you have ordinary things. There were three sets of prophetic visions that Joseph was part of back in 37 he was said to be, sometime in the future, going to rule over his brothers, and then he interprets the dreams of the baker and the cup bearer that set him up to interpret Pharaoh's dreams in the chapter we just went through, they're all set up with a specific result to get Israel into Egypt and transformed. 4157 gives us the result of both the supernatural and the ordinary. All the earth came to Egypt. God's been up to something 42 one. When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale, he sent 10 of the 11 brothers and kept back Benjamin. I mean, I love the statement, why do you look at one another? And apparently they had all heard the news and they didn't know what to do. And classic father fashion, like, Come on, get moving. But he didn't send he didn't send Benjamin. He could have been saying, I'm not sure I can trust him with you all. Might have a point. He could have just been over worried. His fears could have been overblown. We don't know, but it does say this, thus, the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came for the famine was in the land. God is working. God is working the situation. God is working the situation so that Benjamin is not there. It's all part of the plan. Now, on Joseph's part, he had to let go, let go of the hope of being reunited with his father and justified before his brothers, he had to arrive at contentment. If you look back at 4151 it's a really important place to be as the famine came, he had had two sons, and the names are really important. 4151 Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh, for he said, God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house in the birth of a son and in his role in Egypt, God had shown such lavish grace that his heart released its bitterness. He looks at Ephraim, the second. God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.
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If you're the victim, God is at work to help you arrive at a place of contentment. How do you arrive at a place of contentment? As the victim, you observe the grace of God, and therefore you're content. Joseph saw all that God had graciously given them, given him. Is that you? Is that you on the Joseph side of the story, the victim side of the story? Can you see the grace of God? That's how you wait for the timing. Joseph had very practical grace. He was elevated. He was given to sons. What was missing in his family life before has now been being filled by these sons. But we have something even better, don't we? What do we have that's even better, the grace that God has extended, not through Joseph, but through Jesus Christ. How do you recognize the grace of God in your life? You recognize it through the gospel of Jesus Christ, for you were and you were like all of Joseph's brothers, sinners of some kind or another, and the grace of God appeared to you in the gospel of Jesus Christ, you saw your sin, and you saw Jesus' death on the cross. For you, you cried out to Him for forgiveness, and he has granted you forgiveness, and not just forgiveness, but but lavish blessings. If you can't look at your life and say, there's a lot of grace here, you can look at Jesus Christ and say, there is Grace here, and in that you can be patient and content while God sorts out the other parts of your life. Much is dependent on God's timing. You seek forgiveness from God if you're the offender, you relinquish bitterness. If you are the offended, you initiate where you can, and then you wait. The only time we're going to guarantee all wrongs will be righted is the final judgment day when we recognize all that Jesus did forgiving our sins, and He deals with every injustice in the world. We have to be patient for God's timing. Number two, we need to trust God to flush out guilt. Guilt is a gift of God. Guilt is a prompting of the Holy Spirit when we do wrong according to God's laws and statutes. God's given us a conscience and there should be guilt. Joseph gives a master class of exposing the hearts of his brothers. It's a master class. He interrogates their character. You see how the story unfolds. Verse seven, Joseph saw his brothers because they had shown up. He recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. Was Joseph harsh? Remember the last words they had with him. He is matching some of what happened, and for a reason, where do you come from? He said, they said, well, from the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph had this privilege. Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him, and Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them. Now, what were those dreams? There were two dreams. The first, his brothers bowed down to him, grain bowing down to grain stalks, this bizarre dream. The second one was the brothers and father and mother bowing down the whole family, and that's what's going to happen. First the brothers will bow down, then Jacob and the family will come and bow down. What is the privilege of being exalted as a leader, to be an instrument to help others recognize and trust Yahweh. I find it interesting that he's exalted to Prime Minister. He never sends a delegation or sends a messenger to Jacob to say, Ian. Am alive, he could have he had the resources. He had to trust God's timing. Here, he recognizes that as the leader or the future leader of his family, there's something more important at stake than his revenge or justice. And so he seeks the greater good. Verse 10, they said to him, oh. He says, You are spies. This is verse nine. You have come to see the nakedness of the land, which is just another way of saying the vulnerabilities. They said to him, No, my Lord, Your servants have come to buy food. True, we are all sons of one man. True, we are honest men. Not true. Your servants have never been spies. Not true. Remember what Simeon and Levi did to the people of Shechem, having them get circumcised, coming up with a false pretense, slaughtering in genocide, genocide, revenge, and then the rest of the Brothers came and pilfered the spoils. We're honest men, we've never been spies. Lies, lies. He responds again, no, it's the nakedness of the land. You're spies. He maintains that for four different times, verse 15. By this you will be tested. He's come up with a plan. Remember, this idea of testing is one of those great Biblical words about refining circumstances that proving if somebody is trustworthy, kind of like the silver and gold, is refined. Let's, let's find out. Let's put you through some fire and see what you will be. You have to bring your youngest brother back, send one brother back to bring Benjamin here. And of course, this would strike at the core of Jacob's heart. This is the last thing Joseph's brothers want to do. It's the thing that Jacob would resist most. I and then he puts them in custody for three days to think it over. Who's in a pit now? What is Joseph doing? He is directly addressing his brother's sins, Simeon and Levi committed genocide. The older brothers plundered. He had they had been lying about Jacob. Would his other brother coming here? And were, were they really here for good? How would he treat Benjamin? How would they treat Benjamin? They had brutally treated Joseph. What are they doing to Benjamin? He's searching for the integrity of their heart, and they still hadn't told the truth about Joseph. They still perpetuated the lie to their father that you are spies, four different times, four different in three different ways. Was just saying to them, I don't trust you. In his heart, he's wondering, have you really changed? So now here is the opportunity. Real reconciliation requires a search for truth and guilt, and Joseph wants his brothers to turn to God. Ultimately, what did the brothers do when they threw Joseph in the pit, they rejected God's sovereign plan for God's leader. And if they're going to be right with God, they have to come to grips with God's choices. So real reconciliation requires a search for truth and guilt. Number three, we need to allow God to prompt the confession. Offending parties have to admit their guilt. Joseph has come up with a plan. He takes a different tactic. Verse 18. On the third day, Joseph said to them, Do this and you will live for I fear God, Joseph is declaring his faith in the One True God. The do this and you will live. I won't kill you as spies, and you won't starve to death as a family. You. He says to them, 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.
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Let's give you three days to think all this over. Let God start working in your heart. Let's just keep one brother and see what you'll do. Remember, last time they interacted, they had left him in the pit. Let's see what happens now, will you will you have any problem with leaving a brother behind? You didn't have a problem leaving me behind. Has anything changed?
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Bring your youngest brother to me so your words will be verified and you shall not die. Later on, we're going to find out, and you're going to be able to trade in the land. Verse 21 it's the center of the whole passage, 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, they are sensing the sovereign justice of God unfolding upon them. Remember back to that story. Joseph shows up in the coat. They grab him, beat him, strip him of his cloak, throw him into a cistern to starve to death. They changed their mind because there was a way to make some money off the situation. And they sat down to eat lunch while he was crying out from the bottom of the pit, and they turned a hard heart to him, and it's all flooding back. Now. We're in the distress. We're going to have to leave somebody behind. We're going to have to go face dad. We know what he's going to do. He's going to overreact, and they recognize it. Reuben gives the classic I told you so Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy, but you did not listen. I told you so. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood. This goes back to Genesis nine, where, after the flood, if someone murdered or killed another, they would be liable for his blood. There is a reckoning. It points ahead to Exodus. 2124 the principle of an eye for an eye, and they could tell what was happening. He's going to keep one brother because they had betrayed one brother, justice is falling on them. Joseph adds to the test. He returns the money in the grain bags. He also graciously gives them provisions for the journey. And on one hand, this feels like a set of misdirections. I'm going to keep you all send one home. No, I'm going to let all of you go home. I'm going to keep one now. Here's what you need to do, bring Benjamin back. And then he orders the money put in their sacks. He gives them provisions they're in a dizzying, convicting time, all to force them to face the truth. They stop for the night, first day out, and they need to feed the animals. So they open one of the sacks to feed the animals. One of the brothers finds the money. Verse 28 my money has been put and 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 this that God has done to us? Why are they not rejoicing at Joseph's generosity? Wow, they gave us back the money. Can you believe it? Wow, he fed us. Can you believe it? No, because it looks like they stole the grain, kept the money, and left their brother in prison. What else is Jacob going to think? I. Their father would be heart broken and furious, and they come to the realization that their guilt is before the Lord and God is exacting justice. When they get to Jacob, they relay the story, but sadly, the guilt and conviction only come out within the brothers. There's a lot more to the story. They unpacked the rest of the bundles. Indeed, all the money had been put back in the sacks and it. You might even get the idea that Jacob here saw God's hands of Justice on his own life of deceit. Verse 36 Jacob, their father, said to them, you have bereaved me of my children. Joseph is no more. Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me. The brothers have to stand and watch the agony of their father because of what they did 21 years before to Joseph I
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you know it's not unusual, not unusual in reconciliation, if there's a massive rift in the family or a massive rift in the church, that admission of guilt comes in stages, God often must orchestrate circumstances. Hearts must be interrogated. Joseph, at least knows this. His brothers have a guilty conscience. Notice how he responds to this verse 22 when Reuben answers, 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. Why did he weep? Is there a crack in the hardness of my brothers? Is there some hope for their repentance? Is there some hope for me seeing my father again
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when Joseph remembered the dreams and understood his role was to rule over his brothers. It was not to dominate them, but to lead them. And the most important way Joseph could lead his brothers was by seeing their heart turned back to the Lord I
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God he needed to get his father to Egypt, see his brothers repent before God, and often in our life, we have to allow that work to happen. God to show us, God to show others. And then we wait for in the outline, there's a patient waiting at the beginning for God's timing. And then there's an interrogation of their hearts, a way to expose who they really are, confront their sin. There has to be an allowance for God to do the work. What would have happened if Joseph would have stepped forward right here and said, No, it's me, Joseph, they would not have had to own to the same level their responsibility before the father Joseph would not have known whether they were rid of their envy. He needed to allow God to work. And so Joseph and the rest have to wait for God to prompt the ownership of wrongs, which is a key part of repentance. Reuben shows the first signs of ownership. I mean, it's off base, like, just think about this, dad. I know what you can kill my sons. Reuben said to his father, probably sincerely, kill my two sons. If I do not bring him back to you, put him in my hands and I will bring him back to you. I. Will do it, dad and you could take my two sons. You've lost two sons. You could take my two sons. What grandfather would agree to this situation? Oh, I know it will help me. I lose two grandsons. This is a horrible idea. It was like lot saying to the townsmen of Sodom have my two daughters instead. Horrible idea that didn't go well for him and his family either. But Reuben shows for the first time, an ownership of the problem. Jacob's not ready to take any solution. Yet he said, My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead and he is the only one left. Wow, there's a lot of work in Jacob too. Really, the only one left, dad, really, that's all that's left. You know, there's been a problem stemming all the way back to Jacob. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you were to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol, and they believed it. So there's still much to be done in the hearts of Jacob and his sons, but the ghost of Christmas past had to come. They had to deal with their sinful past. There's much more to go. Remember, this is essentially a long rebirth story, and first they need to recognize their sin against God, and they are starting to do that. There are several things to think about with guilt. True. Guilt is good. It's a gift of God. Romans, 424, said, it's the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. God makes us with a law in our heart. We have consciences. When our consciences are pricked because we have sinned against him or sinned against others, we have guilt. And guilt is the pain of remembering that you have done something wrong, you have a fault, and you need to call it what it is, something sinful. It needs to produce deep sorrow and regret, which hasn't yet happened here. Joseph's brothers were just now one critical step away, but they're closer than in chapter 37 let's step back from this in a very practical way, we should ask this question, is there someone you need to reconcile with? Is there someone you wronged? It's usually best to start with a wise friend, a counselor or elder. In both cases, we have dozens of people who could help you in the process. Sometimes the hurts against you are so big that a quick I forgive you is inappropriate. That was the case here with Joseph's brothers. He could have revealed himself right away, and they could have pretended like all of us now fine or gone from there and made the best of it. So a quick I forgive you might not be appropriate. Sometimes, the hurt that you have given against someone is so big that a quick Forgive me is not appropriate, not that you aren't willing or eager. Joseph took a lot of time interrogating. Remember, some people with a guilty conscience just want to stop feeling bad about the guilt. They're really not looking for true repentance or reconciliation. John, I don't think there are really any overt statements. They might have happened, but they're just not recorded here of what we would consider true reconciliation. So I think usually, very often, it's important to get good counsel. But there's another picture here about Joseph that we can't miss. Joseph is much more like Jesus than he is like the average human being, and the situation is much more like man's treatment of Jesus than it is in the average rift in a family, there is nothing we can do to make restitution to Jesus, since everything that we could give him in restitution already belongs to him. I. I All we can do is admit and own and trust. I mean, think through this with Jesus, God the Son left. God the father left his presence on a rescue mission to save sinners by His death and resurrection. That's what Jesus came to do to pay for sin. Remember, a paralyzed man was brought to Jesus, his friends dropped him down through a roof, and Jesus looked at him and said, Your sins are forgiven. We don't think he was asking for forgiveness, but he looked at him in faith, and what Jesus saw is a man who turned from trusting some something false to trusting him, and he was forgiven. I given. In fact, if we're honest, we recognize our sin and guilt before God. We confess Jesus as Lord, believing that God raised Him from the dead, that means forgiveness was made. I'm a sinner, and he forgives. There would be so many sins in your life you could not put them on a list to individually own them.
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And yet, Jesus forgives them all. I mean, the only time we're ever going to know how many sins Jesus forgave is at the judgment, when even believers will stand before God giving an account for all that they've done in the body, whether good or bad. That Jesus will look at us and say, these are all the ones that I died for. These are all the ones. I think it's really important in looking for reconciliation that you give up the demand that everybody owns every individual specific thing. It's not that they don't need to own up. And what about us? Zacchaeus in Luke 19 is the best example of repentance in the Bible. Upon turning to Jesus, when Jesus says, I'm going to come to your house and eat, he has faith in him. He gets down from the tree and he offers full restitution for all his financial wrongs, as many things as he could think of. I mean, that's the goal for you, sinner. You you would want to own as many things as you could, but you won't remember them all. And so I would say, if you're here today and you recognize a sinful past in which you have caused grave consequences for others, turn to Jesus for your forgiveness and let him start sorting out the business with the others. I've given a short list of other references, other places to go to learn how to confess sin to God. Psalm 32 Psalm 51 second. Corinthians 710, through 13 shows the heart of godly grief that leads to repentance. Joseph's brothers' hearts are opening up here. In almost every strife, ridden, ridden relationship, there will need to be an overlooking of an offense. Joseph had every right to throw his brothers in jail. He could go retrieve Jacob and Benjamin and force the brothers to stand trial. But he didn't do that, because revenge and his personal justice weren't the most important thing. His brothers needed to be born again, God works a process to do that. It was a change of heart that he was after, and God had to produce that, and he was willing to wait and to be an instrument for that.
49:17
Let's pray God these stories we marvel at. You are the sovereign mover of really specific things like repentance, guilt, faith, forgiveness and reconciliation. You were doing a work in that family. You're doing a work here. I pray that You would help us all recognize the grace that you've given where we are the victims. Help us be like Joseph, who saw your grace satisfied in what you did and we're no longer in. Embittered, but ready to be instruments in helping the people we love. Trust you. We've all been we've all been the offender, and Lord Jesus, we pray that you would forgive and we trust that because of the work that you did on the cross, once for all, sins are paid and now work out peace reconciliation in our lives. We ask this in your name.
Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.
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