Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is God Changing You? | Torah | Genesis 44

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Does your life look different than it did before following Jesus? Is it a dramatic difference? In what areas of your life do you see spiritual progress? In today's episode, Keith looks at Genesis 44 to share how God used their entire lifetime to change Joseph's brothers. How is God changing you? Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Genesis 44 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're going through the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Before and after is a powerful sales pitch. This is what your kid's white t-shirt looked like after they got done playing football in the mud. It's gross, and you should probably just throw it away. But not if you use our detergent. Because after using our product, now that shirt is.

bright and white and looking new. Or think about a show like the Biggest Loser. This is what you looked like before you did our workout program, before you started following our meal program. But now look at you after you followed our advice. Or think about the show Extreme Makeover. It's the same show as Biggest Loser. It just uses your house instead of your body.

Look at this shack. No one would want to live there. But now that we've remodeled it, It's beautiful. The more dramatic the change, the more powerful the sales pitch, the more powerful the story. What about your before and after story when it comes to following Jesus? Wouldn't we like it to be impressive? Wouldn't we like it to be noticeable?

We'd like to say that our change when we started following Jesus was quick and dramatic. We weren't a shocking before and after story, but that's not usually how it works, is it? When we become Christians, the changes aren't as quick and dramatic as we'd like. Our spiritual growth isn't as impressive as we wish it was. Some things in our life might change quickly, but many things take a long time, maybe a lifetime. The important thing, though, is that we see spiritual progress. Thus far in Genesis, we've seen some pretty pathetic behavior, but the encouraging thing is that we really do see change happening in people's lives.

Hopefully you're current where we are in Genesis because you've been listening to the other episodes of 10-minute Bible talks. But if you just randomly pick this one up or just need a brief reminder, let me give it to you. Joseph's brothers have gone down to Egypt looking for food during a famine. In Egypt, they've encountered Joseph, who is second in command only to Pharaoh. While Joseph knows he's dealing with his brothers, they don't recognize him, which isn't surprising since they think he's either a slave or dead. Joseph wants to know of his brothers have changed since they sold him into slavery approximately 20 years earlier. So he sets up a little test for them. Here's how he does it.

He begins by hosting them at a big dinner party. And after the party is over, the brothers are getting ready to head back to their father. Joseph tells one of his Egyptian workers to fill his brother's sack with food and money. But he also tells him to secretly put his silver cup in the sack of the youngest brother, whose name is Benjamin. A silver cup was, of course, very valuable, but it serves an additional role in this story. You might remember that his brothers had sold Joseph into slavery for 20 pieces of silver. Now Joseph tests them with silver. So the brothers set off for home, but hadn't gotten very far, when Joseph ordered his men to pursue his brothers and accused them of stealing his silver cup.

The brothers are stunned by the accusation and categorically deny they stole anything from the Egyptians. They were so certain of their innocence that they volunteered an extreme punishment on themselves. Here's Genesis 44, verse 9. Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be my Lord's servants. The Egyptians had secretly put the cup in Benjamin's bag, so they knew it was there. Verse 10. They say, let it be as you say. He who is found with it shall be my servant, and the rest of you shall be innocent. So the search proceeded. So the search proceeded, with Joseph's soldier calmly overseeing it as if he had no idea about what was to happen. The brother's swift compliance conveyed their confidence.

Verse 11. Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground and each man opened a sack. And he searched, beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest. See, as each brother's bag is checked and no silver cup is found, you can imagine the smug, self-righteous looks they had on their face. But all that changed when the Egyptians searched. Benjamin's bag and found the cup. All that Genesis says about their reaction is in verse 13.

Then they tore their clothes. Remember that when Joseph was sold into slavery, it was only Jacob, their dad, who tore his clothes. Now all the brothers do. That's the first sign that something important in them has changed. But what would the brothers do now? Would they surrender Benjamin and save themselves? No, not this time.

They wouldn't abandon their father's favor. favorite son. They were not the same men who once sold their favorite brother Joseph into Egypt. Together, they all returned to Egypt to deal with the problem. Verse 14. When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, he was still there. They fell before him to the ground. Remember that Joseph had dreamed that his brothers would bow before him? Well, they're doing it right now. Joseph's dream was fulfilled. With his brothers groveling before him, Joseph maintained his stern pagan persona. Remember, these guys don't know they're speaking with their brother. So Joseph asks if they realize the seriousness of what they'd done. The brothers, they were an impossible fix. There's absolutely

nothing they could do. And it's in the midst of this despair that Judah steps up and says, God has found out the guilt of your servants. Judah is saying that all this is happening now, Because a long time ago they had sinned against their brother Joseph. Now God is exposing their sin. So Judah tells Joseph they will all bear the punishment together. While Joseph was listening to Judah, he inserted a twist. Joseph says in verse 17, Only the man whose hand the cup was found in shall be my servant.

But as for you, go up in peace to your father. Do you see that Joseph has reconstructed the original position they'd been in with him years earlier, they could abandon Benjamin in exchange for their freedom. At this critical point, Judah steps forward and at great personal risk, and he asked Joseph if he can speak further to him. Judah proceeds to tell Joseph the story of how their father, Jacob, how already had one son he loved die, and how they can't possibly return without Benjamin. To do so, which surely caused their father to die from sadness. So Judah was admitting, look, my dad has favorites, Joseph and Benjamin.

Judah had come to terms with that. Not only that, but all these brothers loved Benjamin. They didn't resent him. They were standing up for him. Joseph saw that his brothers really had changed. Gone was the petty selfishness. Gone was the rivalry. They were truthful, loving, and sacrificial.

So Judah steps away from his brothers, and he's just kind of, is speaking for himself. So he says to Joseph, and this is verse is 33 and 34, he says, now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father. Judah has been transformed by the love of God. Judah's personal transformation was extraordinary. He had participated in the near murder and sense. He had participated in the near murder and sale of his brother Joseph into Egypt. His sexual behavior with Tamar was completely wrong. But God was at work in Judah's life, and here we see him as a man with great character.

Here we see a man ready to sacrifice his life on behalf of his brother Benjamin. As God would have it, Judah's willingness to suffer as a substitute for his brother foreshadowed the substitutionary atonement of his son Jesus, who was of the tribe of Judah. God changes people. No, that change doesn't happen as quickly as we'd like, but God does change us at his pace. So that should encourage us. Don't give up on what God is doing in your life. Don't give up on what God is doing in your friend or your family member or your kid or your spouse.

It's true that God loves you as you are, but he loves you too much to allow you to stay as you are. God is changing you. God is transforming you. Be patient. Wait on God. Hey, thanks for listening. If you want to go deeper, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talk newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week. It'll challenge you to grow in your faith, give you interesting background on today's passage, and a lot, lot more. Just click the link in the show notes to sign up. You help you deepen your journey with Jesus.