Sermon

Big Idea: Despite our history of misplaced love and envy, there’s hope for those who trust and grow in Lord Jesus, who is full of mercy.

1.     Jacob’s misplaced love has dangerous consequences

2.     Judah’s growth from an envious boy to a responsible man

3.     Joseph’s mercy foreshadows Jesus’ overflowing mercy

Happy Mother’s Day!

It’s great to see so many mothers and their families with us this morning!

We are especially thankful to God for all the mothers today!

A few days ago, Jenny and I saw several videos on a feed about mothers who have just given birth to new babies and were introducing their babies to their older brothers and older sisters.

These older brothers and sisters were just toddlers themselves.

They were used to being the centre of attention.

Now, they must share their parents’ attention with these new babies and they weren’t responding well.

They were upset that their mother was carrying the new baby when their mother should be carrying them instead.

Have any mothers experienced that here?

Hopefully, the parents in these videos would teach these toddlers to learn what it means to love their little brothers and sisters, and for these little babies to love their older brothers and sisters.

For if they don’t, it’ll have a horrible impact on the family in the future.

In the passage that was just read to us, we read about a family where one of the parents showed outright favouritism, which led the children to be envious of the favourite child.

The family was torn and anxious; they were physically living together but relationally far apart.

And it’s one of the most famous families in the Bible.

I love how honest the Bible is with its history and how relevant its message is for us here today.

This passage from the Bible has so much to offer us today.

What does God want us to do with our imperfect and broken families?

Please open your Bible with me to Genesis chapter 43, beginning from verse one.

We’ll see three things in today’s passage:

1.     Jacob’s misplaced love has dangerous consequences

2.     Judah’s growth from an envious boy to a responsible man

3.     Joseph’s mercy foreshadows Jesus’ overflowing mercy

Before we look into it, let’s pray, “Father, your Word is living and effective, penetrating deep into our souls and our spirits. By your Holy Spirit, please let your word penetrate deep into our hearts today. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.”

1.    Jacob’s misplaced love has dangerous consequences

Look with me at verse one, “Now the famine in the land was severe”.

This wasn’t just an inconvenient food shortage.

This was a severe famine; they couldn’t grow any food to eat.

They would’ve experienced about two years of famine already.

According to Joseph’s interpretation of Pharoah’s dream, they had five more years to go.

It was a bad famine. It was so bad that Jacob changed his mind about not going to Egypt.

Look with me at verse 2, “When they had used up the grain they had brought back from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy us a little food.” Jacob said it almost too casually, “Buy us a little food”.

It’s like him saying, “Go to the supermarket and grab some groceries.”

But there was nothing casual about what they were experiencing.

They were about to die from hunger; they have no food left.

They could’ve gone down a lot earlier, if Jacob had allowed them, but Jacob delayed it until the very last moment, he waited until they had used up the grain they brought back from Egypt, before telling his sons to go get a little food.”

Now, I don’t need to tell you that Australia, as well as many countries around the world, have been experiencing fuel shortage.

A few weeks ago, there were even bulletins on the news telling us about where the cheapest fuel was.

The government was telling us how many days of fuel we have left in the country.

Why? Because many of us use cars and we don’t want to have an empty tank.

Now imagine someone who has a car, a petrol car, or better still, a diesel car, and they let the fuel tank go empty until the car tells you that you have 10km left to go.

Has anyone gone down to 10kms? 1km? 0km?

Jacob had left his food gauge gone down to as low as possible, possibly with only days of food left for his 66-strong clan of a family.

Why did he leave it until so low on food?

It’s because he didn’t want to lost the second son he had with his favourite wife, Rachel.

He didn’t want to lose Benjamin.

Judah reminded Jacob that the man who was in charge of the food in Egypt had one condition for the brothers.

They must bring Benjamin down with them.

Look at Jacob’s response in verse 6.

Remember that God gave Jacob a new name, the name Israel: “Why have you caused me so much trouble?” Israel asked. “Why did you tell the man that you had another brother?”

God gave Jacob the name Israel because he had struggled with God and man and he overcame.

However, here, he was clearly not struggling well.

For the sake of his new favourite son Benjamin, he was willing to risk the lives of the rest of his family.

And more than that, it seemed like he was going back to his old ways.

Remember that in his younger days, Jacob was known as a liar.

Now as an old man, he was blaming his other sons for causing him trouble because the sons were telling the truth about Benjamin.

It looks like Jacob would’ve rather his sons have lied about Benjamin, than to tell the Egyptians the truth.

Jacob loved Benjamin because he loved Rachel, his favourite wife.

While his love for his wife and his son was a good thing, ultimately, it was a misplaced love.

It was love, but it was a love that had lost its direction.

It was a love that had lost its way. Jacob loved Rachel but he despised Leah, his first wife.

Jacob loved the two boys he had with Rachel but despised the rest of the children he had with other women, including Leah.

It was a love that played favourites, which always bring pain to the family, whether those who were not the favourites expressed their pain or not.

It was Jacob’s misplaced love that was probably the main reason for Jacob’s other brothers to be envious of Joseph.

It was Jacob’s misplaced love that led his whole clan of a family down the deadly path of starvation.

The word ‘love’ gets thrown around quite a lot in our society today.

It seems a bit dated now, but there was a time when people used to day, “Love is love”.

You don’t need to explain love; you can’t explain love.

Love is just love.

Many people will say that they love somebody, but their actions show otherwise.

I’ve heard men who say that they love their wives, but their actions show otherwise and their wives say otherwise.

I’ve heard mothers who declare their love for their children on Facebook, and children’s declaration of their love for their mothers on Instagram, but their actions seem to tell a very different story in the real world. 

While I’m sure that they might believe it when they say that they love somebody or something, is it possible that their love is misplaced?

Is it possible to have a love that has lost its way?

Contrary to what many people might think, the Bible has a lot to say about love.

In one of the most famous descriptions of love, the Bible says this, in 1 Corinthians 13:3-4, “And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast  but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient,  love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant”.

The Bible teaches us what true love is.

Yes, the Bible does teach romantic love, but the love the Bible talks about is even bigger.

The Bible takes our understanding of love back to God himself.

1 John 4:16, “God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.”

Just as a compass always points North, the Bible always points us to God, the true fountain and the true destination of love.

The love of God, his love for us and our love for him, stops us from having misplaced love.

One of the most influential Christian thinkers for nearly the past 1600 years is Augustine.

Some people refer to him as Saint Augustine, but he wasn’t always a saint.

When he was young, he was a rebel.

Later on, Augustine would write that his mother Monica, who was a Christian, would weep for him “more than mothers weep when lamenting their dead children”.

Augustine had a misplaced love and did many rebellious things, including lying to his mother to go to Rome, and having a son he didn’t want with a man he wasn’t married to.

However, Monica didn’t give up praying for her wayward son and eventually God answered her prayers.

Augustine eventually became a Christian.

God replaced Augustine’s misplaced love with the everlasting, heavenly love that can only be found in Jesus Christ.

Augustine loved his mother and thanked God for her, but he confessed that, and I quote, “her debts have been forgiven by him to whom no one can repay the price which he, who owed nothing, paid on our behalf”.

No matter who you are, you will love. As humans we are made to love.

But examine your love.

Is that thing that you love the most a love that points to God, or is it a misplaced love?

In Jacob’s case, his misplaced love almost led to the death of his whole family clan.

His misplaced love also led to boys who were driven by the deadly sin of envy

2.    Judah’s growth from an envious boy to a responsible man

When Joseph was still a young boy, Jacob showered him with abundant, yet misplaced, love.

This led to his other brothers, including Judah, to be envious of him.

They were so envious of him that they thought about killing him. However, rather than killing Joseph, Judah decided that he would sell Joseph, his own brother, for twenty pieces of silver. The brothers’ envy had led to one of the earliest record of human trafficking. That’s what envy can lead to. What is envy anyway?  

The Philosopher Cornelius Plantinga Jr contrasts the sins of covetousness and envy in this way:

“Envy is a nastier sin than mere covetousness. What an envier wants is not, first of all, what another has; what an envier wants is for another not to have it. . . . To envy is to resent somebody else’s good so much that one is tempted to destroy it. The coveter has empty hands and wants to fill them with somebody else’s goods. The envier has empty hands, and therefore wants to empty the hands of the envied. The envier moreover, carries overtones of personal resentment: an envier resents not only somebody else’s blessing but also the one who has been blessed.”

Judah and his brothers didn’t want their father to shower them with gifts just like he did with Joseph.

Judah and his brothers just wanted to destroy Joseph’s clothes, and really, to destroy Joseph’s life.

That’s envy. If you have envy, you will not celebrate the success of the person you envy.

The envier will only celebrate the failures of the person they envy.

Envy is like a rot. It rots the envier and it rots the community that the envier and the envied lives in.

Envy is utterly demoralising and destructive and Judah envied his brother, Joseph.

But now, between thirteen to fifteen years later, we see a change in Judah’s attitude, which probably also reflected his brothers’ attitude also.

Now, for most all of their lives, Judah and his brothers were treated as the non-favourite, perhaps even despised sons of Jacob.

They weren’t the sons their father was proud of, not necessarily because of what they’ve done, but simply because of who they were, not the sons of their father’s favourite wife.

It was because of Jacob’s misplaced love, that they were in a dilemma.

They were on the road to starvation because this man would not risk Benjamin going down to Egypt.

But rather than losing his cool with their father, Judah gave Jacob a respectable but a firm choice, in verses 4-5, “If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy food for you. ⁵ But if you will not send him, we will not go, for the man said to us, ‘You will not see me again unless your brother is with you.’”

In other words, the choice was Jacob’s, but Judah and his brothers must comply with the Egyptian’s command as well (not knowing that the Egyptian was really Joseph, of course).

Envy is by nature a self-centred attitude, but here, Judah showed an other-person centred attitude.

He was letting his father make the decision.

When Jacob asked why they had to tell the truth about Benjamin, Judah and his brothers showed that they were not going to lie; they were honest men.

A person who is envious has little to no concern for the welfare of others.

They would blame the one they envy and not take any responsibility for others.

However, Judah, even though he didn’t need to, took the responsibility of making sure Bejamin was safe.

Look with me at verse nine, “I will be responsible for him. You can hold me personally accountable! If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, I will be guilty before you forever.”

Literally, Judah was saying that Jacob could seek from his hand, if anything should happen to Benjamin.

While the precise translation is not clear, it seems to mean that if Jacob wanted to, he could take Judah’s life if he couldn’t keep Benhamin safe.

Judah was taking responsibility for Benjamin because he wanted to help Jacob take responsibility for the clan.

He said to Jacob in verse 8, ““Send the boy with me. We will be on our way so that we may live and not die—neither we, nor you, nor our dependents.”

As the head of the clan, it was Jacob’s responsibility to keep the clan alive, and Judah was going to help him do that.

What a transformation from the envious brother who sold Joseph for twenty pieces of silver!

We don’t know exactly how old he was back then, but really, Judah was a boy, even though he might have been old enough to be a man.

A boy doesn’t want to take responsibility for other people.

A boy foolishly lets his envy dictate his harmful and destructive actions.

But not a man.

Now again, it’s not about the age, but about the maturity.

A mature man, of any age, would stop just thinking about himself but to look after those around him, those who are in clan, especially those who are dependent on him.

Judah was once an envious boy, but now he was a mature, responsible man.

He didn’t begin life as a mature, responsible man.

He made some terrible, terrible mistake in his life.

Not only did he sell Joseph into slavery, he messed up his own little household badly as well.

However, God in his mercy, made Judah grow through these mistakes, so that now, when his family needed him, Judah stepped up to become a man of responsibility.

Jacob eventually agreed with Judah and told them to bring gifts to Egypt and to bring twice the silver back with them.

He also prayed for them in verse 14, “May God Almighty cause the man to be merciful to you so that he will release your other brother and Benjamin to you. As for me, if I am deprived of my sons, then I am deprived.”

When Jacob himself was a young man, he prayed a similar prayer as he headed to the unknown, in Genesis 28:20, “Then Jacob made a vow:  “If God will be with me and watch over me during this journey I’m making, if he provides me with food to eat and clothing to wear, ²¹ and if I return safely to my father’s family,  then the LORD will be my God.”

In Genesis 43, he prayed that the same God, the God almighty would be merciful to his family, by making the man in Egypt merciful, for the safety of his family.

Jacob was facing the prospect of losing the new favourite son, and maybe even the rest of his sons as well.

There was nothing that Jacob could do except to trust in God and to step out in faith.

Jacob didn’t pray that God would provide a miracle to stop the famine, or to miraculously send the sons back.

Jacob prayed and he put his faith into action.

Jacob really didn’t want to do this; he delayed it for as long as he could.

Eventually, he knew that for the sake of his family, he needed to pray and put his trust in God.

Of course, his family was no ordinary family, since God has said that the world would be blessed through his family.

And since God had promised to bless the world through his family, Jacob should’ve known that he could trust God even when there are risks involved.

We can be like Jacob at times, can’t we?

We know what God wants us to do, and yet we postpone it for as long as we can.

God had made so many promises in the Bible to those who put their trust in him, and yet we still would rather do things our way.

And God would sometimes, according to his mercy, allow situations to happen which are clearly impossible for us to fix or resolve.

He allows these situations to happen so that we can learn to trust in him, so that we can learn to depend on him.

And as we grow in our trust in him, we will grow to be more mature in Jesus, not seeking our own good, but the good of others, not seeking our own glory but the glory of God.

It’s as we go through these trials that we pray to God more, that we trust God more, so that, as the Bible reminds us in James 1:4, “And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.”

Last year, our KOGMen group had been going through a book called, ‘The Manual’. It was written by Al Stewart, who served as the bishop of Wollongong and had been a great Christian speaker for many years.

In the Manual, Al talks about what it means to be a mature man. What makes a man a mature?

Al said that, “The difference between men and boys is that boys care about themselves and men care for other people.”

Of course, the same applies for girls too. I’ll add a little twist to the girl quote.

“The difference between Queens and princesses is that princesses care about themselves and queens care for other people.”

How would we describe ourselves? Boys and princesses who are envious of other people’s things? Or Men and queens who step up to care about other people?

I thank God that there are mature brothers and sisters who stepped up while Jenny and I were away to take of others around the Church.

May our God provide more mature men and women who care for others and may God get rid of any hint of envy among us.

Remember Jacob’s prayer for his sons? ‘May God Almighty cause the man to be merciful to you so that he will release your other brother and Benjamin to you.’

In context, Jacob’s reference to the other brother was Simeon, who was imprisoned in Egypt.

But there was another brother that was in Egypt at the same time.

It was none other than Joseph.

3.    Joseph’s mercy foreshadows Jesus’ overflowing mercy

Judah, along with Benjamin, and the other brothers, went down to Egypt once again.

Joseph saw them from a distance and ordered and animal be slaughtered for them.

They would eat with Joseph, the 2ic, the second-in-charge of Egypt. It would be like eating with the Deputy Premier. It would be exciting right? Wrong!

They were terrified. Look with me at verse 19, “But the men were afraid because they were taken to Joseph’s house. They said, “We have been brought here because of the silver that was returned in our bags the first time. They intend to overpower us, seize us, make us slaves, and take our donkeys.”

It would be like a group of foreign men, lining up at customs and then asked by the officials to take all their luggage to the State Parliament House to meet with the Deputy Premier.

Except these foreign men knew that last time they were in this country, someone had put money in their luggage without them knowing.

They knew that something dodgy happened last time and it wasn’t their fault, but the evidence strongly suggested otherwise.

They could be in a lot of trouble.

And so, they took the initiative and explained to the Joseph’s steward that they had extra money in their luggage but it wasn’t their fault.

An unknown person had put the money in their luggage without them knowing.

The people at Sydney’s Border security probably would’ve sent them back, but Joseph’s Steward said, “May you be well. Don’t be afraid. Your God and the God of your father must have put treasure in your bags. I received your silver.”

Joseph’s steward pointed out that it was their God who made it happen.

He then he brought Simeon out to them. He was ok.

The brothers, all eleven of them, reunited.

They were afraid that they would be forced to become slaves and that they would lose their donkeys, but they were being served with water and their donkeys were fed.

They prepared the gifts for the arrival of Jacob.

 When Jacob arrived, they bought him the gifts and they bowed before Joseph, all eleven of them.

The dream that Joseph told the brothers about were being fulfilled.

Joseph asked about his elderly father and the brothers said he was well.

Finally, Joseph looked up and saw Benjamin, his brother and the son of his mother, Rachel. J

Joseph still didn’t want to reveal his true identity yet and so he said, ““May God be gracious to you, my son.”

However, Joseph was barely keeping it together at this point.

Look with me at verse 30, “Joseph hurried out because he was overcome with emotion for his brother, and he was about to weep. He went into an inner room and wept there.”

Literally, the verse says Joseph grew warm with mercy for his brother.

There was a swelling of compassion, an overflow of mercy for his brother.

Remember what Jacob prayed for?

Jacob prayed for God Almighty to cause the man in charge to be merciful to you so that you will release your other brother and Benjamin to you.

Simeon was released to the brothers, but Joseph himself was right there with the brothers as well.

God had answered Jacob’s prayer in even more wonderful ways than Jacob could possibly imagine.

God in his mercy made Joseph full of mercy towards his brothers.

This was the Joseph who was sold as a slave by some of these brothers.

These were the brothers who were so envious of him that they were ready to kill him.

Joseph had lost more than a decade of family time, worked as a slave for most of that time, because of these brothers.

And now, Joseph had the authority to punish, to destroy, and even to kill these brothers.

He could’ve given them what they deserved, but he didn’t, because he was merciful.

That’s what mercy is.

Mercy is not giving the guilty what they deserved.

Mercy is a free gift for the receiver but it’s often costly for the person showing mercy.

To have mercy is to not demand the price of what’s been lost, and to forgive the charges of the guilty ones.

By his merciful deeds, Joseph was beginning to restore unity in his family broken by misplaced love and envy.

From the world’s point of view, Joseph had every right to give up on this dysfunctional, selfish, envious family.

But Joseph could not bring himself to sin against God.

He knew that God had shown him mercy and it’s God’s will for him to now show mercy to his brothers.

Joseph’s acts of mercy are but a prelude, a foreshadow of the mercy that God shows to those who are in Christ Jesus.

In Jesus Christ, God offers his mercy to dysfunctional sinners like us.

We might think we’re ok in God’s eyes, but we’re not.

We misplace our love on things and people, rather than on God himself.

We don’t love God with all of our hearts, souls, minds and strength.

We get envious of others and want to see them fall and don’t want to see them rise, especially if they rise above us.

We’re no better than Jacob and his family.

And yet in Christ, God showers his mercy on us.

We receive God’s mercy freely, but it’s a mercy that’s costly for God to give.

Just as Judah pledge for the safety of Benjamin, God pledged our eternal safety by giving Jesus Christ as the price for forgiving us.

Our eternal safety is guaranteed by the death of Jesus. And our hope for eternal safety is guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus.

That’s what Christians mean when we talk about the gospel.

We’re talking about the mercy of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

And for those who know the mercy of God, who have tasted the mercy of God, we can’t help but be merciful. Like Joseph, Christians mustn’t withhold mercy.

Instead, we are to be merciful, in all circumstances, as Jesus himself has taught us, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

A few Sundays ago, Jenny and I took a group of youths to KYCK.

Over three Sundays, thousands of youths heard about the mercy of the Lord Jesus.

And God has had mercy on many of the youths and saved hundreds of them.

Praise God! Many youths have freely received gifts of mercy at KYCK but to make KYCK happen takes a lot of people who generously give of their time and their money to make this happen.

As a Church, we’ve allocated money and we raise money so that youths can continue to go to KYCK and other youth training events year after year.

Why do we, and many other Churches do it?

It’s because we’ve been shown mercy.

God has been merciful to us and other Christians before us have been merciful to us.

And we know that God’s mercy mustn’t terminate with us.

Others have laboured so that we can enter into Christ’s mercy.

Our prayer is that through our labour, others, too, will enter into Christ’s mercy.

Those of us who are Christians have received mercy from God.

Will God’s mercy now terminate with us? Will God’s mercy terminate with you?

Never! Instead, may God’s mercy continue to flow through us.

May we be blessed because we’re merciful, for we will be shown mercy.

What does God want us to do with our imperfect and broken families?

God doesn’t want us to abandon our imperfect and broken families, whether they are our families by blood or our spiritual family.

Instead, He wants us to show them mercy, just as we’ve been shown mercy.

Who does God want you to show mercy to?

Friends, despite our history of misplaced love and envy, there’s hope for those who trust and grow in Lord Jesus, who is full of mercy.

Here are three questions for us to think about in our Growth groups in the coming week:

1.     What does misplaced love look like in our lives today?

2.     What would happen if we don’t turn away from our envious ways?

3.     What does God’s mercy look like in your life today (whether it’s through your words or your action)?

Friends, despite our history of misplaced love and envy, there’s hope for those who trust and grow in Lord Jesus, who is full of mercy.

Let’s pray, “Father of all mercies, thank you for your mercy on a people like us. Please forgive us for our misplaced love, please forgive us for our envy. Please be merciful to us and let us run to Jesus, who is full of mercy. By your Holy Spirit, make us grow in the Lord Jesus and make us merciful. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.”