“Conscience is thus explained only as the voice of God in the soul.” ― Peter Kreeft
Question: How is your conscience a good thing? (indicates a desire to follow God and live according to his desires) How is it a bad thing? (It means we are sinners, have to live with yourself)
Freedom in Christ comes as we let go of the burden of our past guilt and reconcile with God and others. May we learn to overcome our personal demons of past sins, poor judgment, wrong behavior and accept the cleansing forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Amen!!!
Today we continue the story of Joseph. it’s been 20 years since Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers…. in today’s scripture the brothers unknowingly face Joseph. It is clear as the brothers face Joseph they have never forgotten the depth of their sin in selling Joseph into slavery. One of the great themes of Joseph is to show us how God takes a broken and fractured person and creates something even more beautiful.
Question: How is your conscience a good thing? (indicates a desire to follow God and live according to his desires) How is it a bad thing? (It means we are sinners, have to live with yourself)
Freedom in Christ comes as we let go of the burden of our past guilt and reconcile with God and others. May we learn to overcome our personal demons of past sins, poor judgment, wrong behavior and accept the cleansing forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Amen!!!
Today we continue the story of Joseph. it’s been 20 years since Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers…. in today’s scripture the brothers unknowingly face Joseph. It is clear as the brothers face Joseph they have never forgotten the depth of their sin in selling Joseph into slavery. One of the great themes of Joseph is to show us how God takes a broken and fractured person and creates something even more beautiful.
A famine is the reason the brothers are thrust face to face with their long lost brother. Jacob and his family run out of food; grain is available in Egypt… often in the Bible a famine is a time of renewal… when you face a crisis that is most often when you confront your demons… the desert is a place of healing.
How often did the brothers think about the time they sold Joseph into slavery…. For 20 years they probably never completely forgot… we may look/live “normal” but past secrets haunt us….
The reconciliation of Joseph and his family is awkward. When the brothers meet Joseph, Joseph recognizes them, but they don’t know Joseph… why does Joseph go through an awkward dance of testing them…? The usual answer is because the brothers needed to confront their demons slowly... On trip #1 Joseph puts them in jail for three days… is it for their own good? or maybe it’s a taste of revenge… Joseph secretly gave them their money back, causing them to worry the Egyptians would conclude they’d stolen the grain… Simeon is kept behind in jail… they are told not to return without Benjamin…. Why this awkward dance?
A generation earlier (Gen. 32-33) their father Jacob had a falling out with his brother Esau because he had stolen the birthright (Gen. 27). After decades of separation, Jacob returned home, fearful of how Esau would respond… Jacob sent waves of lavish gifts/ his family ahead of him as a way to soften his brothers heart… when at last Esau confronts Jacob all is immediately forgiven and the two are reconciled READ Gen. 33:4… Much like Uncle Esau, Joseph could have skipped the awkward dance and immediately told his brothers who he was, but he doesn’t… why?
The brothers are forced to confront their past… that could be the reason, everyone is different and God knew that is what they needed. I’m personally not ready to let Joseph off the hook, we aren’t given feelings of the characters in the Bible story so we can only imagine; my guess is that Joseph isn’t ready to trust the brothers. His world has been turned upside down. Maybe Joseph harbors bitterness. Maybe he is enjoying his position…maybe he want to see the brothers squirm…
We’ll never know about internal motives, but this I know, there is no formula for how we best face our personal demons and find peace/reconciliation with ourselves and others… in today’s scripture observations of the process of facing personal demons…. I don’t know why Joseph put his family through a crazy maze of testing, but God can take our imperfect motives and turn our hearts and minds to His glory… “you meant it for evil but God meant it for good” is the caption to the Joseph story in Gen. 50:20…
I hope when somebody has hurt me I can be more like Uncle Esau and immediately forgive unconditionally, but I find hope that if I am more like Joseph and make those who have hurt me jump through a few hoops to prove they are repentant, then God will work with me in my imperfections as well. The Esau example or the Joseph example, God is patient… Amen!
What we have before us is Joseph and his brother’s example in how to face personal demons. What we find in this story are common principles that might color our journey of overcoming personal demons.
Joseph recognizes his brothers in Gen. 42:8-9 and accuses them of being spies… Joseph doesn’t know if they have a conscience or not. The awkward dance begins… the brothers protest and say they are honest and innocent…. They probably have been hard working sons and husbands for 20 years… Joseph throws them in jail based on a fabricated suspicion…
“On the third day…” (Gen. 42:18) a loaded phrase in the Bible. There’s a great life principle: wait three days… Good things seem to happen on the third day… the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the 3rd day…
Joseph continues, “I am a God-fearing man…” he used the same word for God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… from the brothers perspective it must be surprising this Egyptian official does not testify to faith in the chief God of Egypt… How would it possible for this man to use the name of their God, Elohim? How to overcome your personal demons? Sometimes it takes and outsider to remind us… Can God use non-Christians to hold Christians to Christian standards?
A turning point for the brothers is Gen. 42:21: READ. Confession is good for the soul… Our actions have consequences, but I am not ready to agree the brothers are being punished directly by God is correct. But this is their mindset… When I was in school I faced a theological dilemma. I was an intern as a chaplain in the hospital. I was give names of people to visit …. I went into the room of a young man in his 20’s. He had a patch over his eye. He told me about his accident. He was changing a bicycle tire and I’ll say it less graphically than he did, the screwdriver got away and…. So far so good. Then he added a caption to explain why his eye got poked out that shocked me: “God did it to punish me for my sins.” I could not accept that is the way God works, and I feebly tried to change his thinking, but I didn’t know what to say… and he was convinced. As the visit progressed I also heard this young man speak of getting his life right with God, I heard him say about going to people he had wronged… I so wish I could have followed up with him but I never saw him again. The brothers may or may not be correct in their thinking of Gen. 42:21, but they are thinking about God. Overcoming personal demons begins with recognition of God’s hand in our lives…
As the story continues in Gen. 42, Simeon is chosen to stay in prison; the grain is loaded on the donkeys while the money is secretly placed in each grain sack. The brothers head home. Down the road they discover the money! Gen. 42:28 is instructive…one of the brothers says, READ. This is the first record in Genesis that the brothers use the name of God: “God is punishing us.” They are a long way from getting rid of their past demons. It is still about them! I could argue with their theology, but this is their mind.
When facing personal demons often we have to work through blaming God, feeling sorry for ourselves, thinking we deserve whatever happens to us. The irony is we do deserve death, that’s what is so hard about grasping grace, Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The rest of 42-43 is a wresting match with God as they don’t understand why. They are sure God is punishing them, they know they deserve what is happening…
Months later the grain is gone and the drought is severe. The brothers confront their reluctant father for his blessings to return to Egypt… hunger is a driving force. So is spiritual hunger. Reuben even makes a crazy promise in Gen. 42:37 READ. Wow… desperate promises, ever find yourself bargaining with God? The only thing God ultimately wants from you is your heart! He wants us to find peace, let go of past demons, and reconcile with others and himself…
Gen. 43 is the return to Egy… they have a bad case of the if only’s… READ Gen. 43:6. A huge step forward in getting rid of the demons is when Judah is willing to pay the ultimate price. READ Gen. 43:8-9.
Jacob, the father, doesn’t share the same demons as the brothers, but he does become a model of faith for the brothers: READ Gen. 43:11-14. Examples of faith are huge in helping us to overcome our own demons.
Step by step, unknowingly, the brothers are inching closer to overcoming their demons…as they face Joseph one more time they are still afraid, thinking the worst (who isn’t guilty of that?) but if they open their eyes just a bit there are also signs of grace: The household manager tells the brothers there is no problem with the missing money in Gen. 43:23. They were invited to dinner. In a strange turn of events when they were seated at the dinner table they were seated in birth order. How do you overcome personal demons? Even when you are overwhelmed with a guilty conscience, look for signs of grace, the small things that go right. When we get flooded with negative thoughts we easily fall into the trap thinking God is against us, God is punishing us and EVERYTHING is wrong. It’s not. You woke up this morning. It is another day. God’s hand us upon you. Look for God’s presence in the details…. Gen. 43 ends with an unexpected feast. There is more heartache in Gen. 44, the old demons are not yet exorcized, but this feast is a prelude that the best is yet to come.
In Gen. 44 Benjamin is falsely implicated in betrayal, Joseph is the judge READ Gen. 44:17. (sidenote: for those that think Joseph is purely a Christ figure, I personally cannot imagine Jesus making such a false judgement!). In any case, now it is decision time. Judah speaks for the brothers. He is a broken man, willing to pay the price for his past sins. READ Gen. 44:30-34. No longer is it about himself. Judah’s only concern is for his father, for Benjamin, for the other brothers. How do you overcome personal demons? It will only happen when you are ready to pay the price for the consequences of your sins. God is a God of grace, but if we ever assume grace then we do not understand grace, if we ever ask God to overlook our sins as not being so bad, if we conclude others are more rotten than we are, therefore _____ … grace is the gift you don’t deserve….
Joseph and his brothers are now at the doorstep of reconciliation (next weeks message). The old demons have been exorcized. What a crazy process Joseph and his brothers endured. A famine is often the reason we face our past, Common principles of overcoming past demons: When overwhelmed wait three days. God will often use non-Christians to hold Christians to Christian standards? Confession is good for the soul. When facing personal demons you may have to work through blaming God. Hunger is a driving force. Examples of faithful saints in our lives are huge in helping us to overcome our own demons. Even when you are overwhelmed with a guilty conscience, look for signs of grace, the small things that go right. Restoration will only happen when you are willing to pay the price for the consequences of your sins. God desires that we overcome past demons, restore the broken, and find wholeness in Him. Amen.
How often did the brothers think about the time they sold Joseph into slavery…. For 20 years they probably never completely forgot… we may look/live “normal” but past secrets haunt us….
The reconciliation of Joseph and his family is awkward. When the brothers meet Joseph, Joseph recognizes them, but they don’t know Joseph… why does Joseph go through an awkward dance of testing them…? The usual answer is because the brothers needed to confront their demons slowly... On trip #1 Joseph puts them in jail for three days… is it for their own good? or maybe it’s a taste of revenge… Joseph secretly gave them their money back, causing them to worry the Egyptians would conclude they’d stolen the grain… Simeon is kept behind in jail… they are told not to return without Benjamin…. Why this awkward dance?
A generation earlier (Gen. 32-33) their father Jacob had a falling out with his brother Esau because he had stolen the birthright (Gen. 27). After decades of separation, Jacob returned home, fearful of how Esau would respond… Jacob sent waves of lavish gifts/ his family ahead of him as a way to soften his brothers heart… when at last Esau confronts Jacob all is immediately forgiven and the two are reconciled READ Gen. 33:4… Much like Uncle Esau, Joseph could have skipped the awkward dance and immediately told his brothers who he was, but he doesn’t… why?
The brothers are forced to confront their past… that could be the reason, everyone is different and God knew that is what they needed. I’m personally not ready to let Joseph off the hook, we aren’t given feelings of the characters in the Bible story so we can only imagine; my guess is that Joseph isn’t ready to trust the brothers. His world has been turned upside down. Maybe Joseph harbors bitterness. Maybe he is enjoying his position…maybe he want to see the brothers squirm…
We’ll never know about internal motives, but this I know, there is no formula for how we best face our personal demons and find peace/reconciliation with ourselves and others… in today’s scripture observations of the process of facing personal demons…. I don’t know why Joseph put his family through a crazy maze of testing, but God can take our imperfect motives and turn our hearts and minds to His glory… “you meant it for evil but God meant it for good” is the caption to the Joseph story in Gen. 50:20…
I hope when somebody has hurt me I can be more like Uncle Esau and immediately forgive unconditionally, but I find hope that if I am more like Joseph and make those who have hurt me jump through a few hoops to prove they are repentant, then God will work with me in my imperfections as well. The Esau example or the Joseph example, God is patient… Amen!
What we have before us is Joseph and his brother’s example in how to face personal demons. What we find in this story are common principles that might color our journey of overcoming personal demons.
Joseph recognizes his brothers in Gen. 42:8-9 and accuses them of being spies… Joseph doesn’t know if they have a conscience or not. The awkward dance begins… the brothers protest and say they are honest and innocent…. They probably have been hard working sons and husbands for 20 years… Joseph throws them in jail based on a fabricated suspicion…
“On the third day…” (Gen. 42:18) a loaded phrase in the Bible. There’s a great life principle: wait three days… Good things seem to happen on the third day… the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the 3rd day…
Joseph continues, “I am a God-fearing man…” he used the same word for God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… from the brothers perspective it must be surprising this Egyptian official does not testify to faith in the chief God of Egypt… How would it possible for this man to use the name of their God, Elohim? How to overcome your personal demons? Sometimes it takes and outsider to remind us… Can God use non-Christians to hold Christians to Christian standards?
A turning point for the brothers is Gen. 42:21: READ. Confession is good for the soul… Our actions have consequences, but I am not ready to agree the brothers are being punished directly by God is correct. But this is their mindset… When I was in school I faced a theological dilemma. I was an intern as a chaplain in the hospital. I was give names of people to visit …. I went into the room of a young man in his 20’s. He had a patch over his eye. He told me about his accident. He was changing a bicycle tire and I’ll say it less graphically than he did, the screwdriver got away and…. So far so good. Then he added a caption to explain why his eye got poked out that shocked me: “God did it to punish me for my sins.” I could not accept that is the way God works, and I feebly tried to change his thinking, but I didn’t know what to say… and he was convinced. As the visit progressed I also heard this young man speak of getting his life right with God, I heard him say about going to people he had wronged… I so wish I could have followed up with him but I never saw him again. The brothers may or may not be correct in their thinking of Gen. 42:21, but they are thinking about God. Overcoming personal demons begins with recognition of God’s hand in our lives…
As the story continues in Gen. 42, Simeon is chosen to stay in prison; the grain is loaded on the donkeys while the money is secretly placed in each grain sack. The brothers head home. Down the road they discover the money! Gen. 42:28 is instructive…one of the brothers says, READ. This is the first record in Genesis that the brothers use the name of God: “God is punishing us.” They are a long way from getting rid of their past demons. It is still about them! I could argue with their theology, but this is their mind.
When facing personal demons often we have to work through blaming God, feeling sorry for ourselves, thinking we deserve whatever happens to us. The irony is we do deserve death, that’s what is so hard about grasping grace, Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The rest of 42-43 is a wresting match with God as they don’t understand why. They are sure God is punishing them, they know they deserve what is happening…
Months later the grain is gone and the drought is severe. The brothers confront their reluctant father for his blessings to return to Egypt… hunger is a driving force. So is spiritual hunger. Reuben even makes a crazy promise in Gen. 42:37 READ. Wow… desperate promises, ever find yourself bargaining with God? The only thing God ultimately wants from you is your heart! He wants us to find peace, let go of past demons, and reconcile with others and himself…
Gen. 43 is the return to Egy… they have a bad case of the if only’s… READ Gen. 43:6. A huge step forward in getting rid of the demons is when Judah is willing to pay the ultimate price. READ Gen. 43:8-9.
Jacob, the father, doesn’t share the same demons as the brothers, but he does become a model of faith for the brothers: READ Gen. 43:11-14. Examples of faith are huge in helping us to overcome our own demons.
Step by step, unknowingly, the brothers are inching closer to overcoming their demons…as they face Joseph one more time they are still afraid, thinking the worst (who isn’t guilty of that?) but if they open their eyes just a bit there are also signs of grace: The household manager tells the brothers there is no problem with the missing money in Gen. 43:23. They were invited to dinner. In a strange turn of events when they were seated at the dinner table they were seated in birth order. How do you overcome personal demons? Even when you are overwhelmed with a guilty conscience, look for signs of grace, the small things that go right. When we get flooded with negative thoughts we easily fall into the trap thinking God is against us, God is punishing us and EVERYTHING is wrong. It’s not. You woke up this morning. It is another day. God’s hand us upon you. Look for God’s presence in the details…. Gen. 43 ends with an unexpected feast. There is more heartache in Gen. 44, the old demons are not yet exorcized, but this feast is a prelude that the best is yet to come.
In Gen. 44 Benjamin is falsely implicated in betrayal, Joseph is the judge READ Gen. 44:17. (sidenote: for those that think Joseph is purely a Christ figure, I personally cannot imagine Jesus making such a false judgement!). In any case, now it is decision time. Judah speaks for the brothers. He is a broken man, willing to pay the price for his past sins. READ Gen. 44:30-34. No longer is it about himself. Judah’s only concern is for his father, for Benjamin, for the other brothers. How do you overcome personal demons? It will only happen when you are ready to pay the price for the consequences of your sins. God is a God of grace, but if we ever assume grace then we do not understand grace, if we ever ask God to overlook our sins as not being so bad, if we conclude others are more rotten than we are, therefore _____ … grace is the gift you don’t deserve….
Joseph and his brothers are now at the doorstep of reconciliation (next weeks message). The old demons have been exorcized. What a crazy process Joseph and his brothers endured. A famine is often the reason we face our past, Common principles of overcoming past demons: When overwhelmed wait three days. God will often use non-Christians to hold Christians to Christian standards? Confession is good for the soul. When facing personal demons you may have to work through blaming God. Hunger is a driving force. Examples of faithful saints in our lives are huge in helping us to overcome our own demons. Even when you are overwhelmed with a guilty conscience, look for signs of grace, the small things that go right. Restoration will only happen when you are willing to pay the price for the consequences of your sins. God desires that we overcome past demons, restore the broken, and find wholeness in Him. Amen.
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