Have You Been Changed

• as we come to the end of Genesis chapter 42. we come to a a very interesting passage of scripture as it relates to preaching and teaching because In this passage of scripture we have Joseph testing his brothers the question is how how does Joseph’s testing of his brothers fly or relate to me to which I would respond just wait because it absolutely does because all of us need to answer the question that Joseph is basically asking of his brothers and that question is this have you been changed that’s that’s what he’s trying to figure out have you been changed
• or are you the same men that you were who sent me to this place that’s very interesting and challenging question for us have you been changed because you can take that question to an extreme and completely misunderstand and misapply the gospel if you ask some people how do you know if somebody’s a Christian they will answer you you ask them questions and see if they believe the right things however others would argue if you want to know somebody’s a Christian you you watch their lives and see if you live
• the right way well which one of those is right the answer yes Christians believe the right things and behave the right way but they behave in accordance with what they believe and oftentimes if we’re not careful we will fall into the ditch on either side of this road we will fall into the antinomian ditch that says it doesn’t matter how you live as long as the information to which you give mental assent is the right information and then you can fall on the legalism side of the ditch that says well all that information is just information what matters is that we do
• the right things but as we look at Joseph and these seven tests that he gives his brothers I believe they correspond to some tests that we ought to give ourselves and if you will remember we’ll make several references to it this morning but if you will remember when we were in first John first John is a book filled with a number of tests three main tests in particular and so when we read in first John 5 13 that that famous verse everybody knows first John 5 13. I write these things to you who believe on the name of the son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life
• when you get there and that sounds really good until you ask a question what are these things and that’s the question we tried to answer when we read the first John says I write these things to you who believe in the name of Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life what what are these things well a couple of them will look at here but when we went through first John we saw that John is basically making the argument that right belief will lead to right behavior and that we need to examine ourselves based upon what is being produced in our lives
• difficult to juxtapose those things at times but today we will try to do so look with me if you will Genesis chapter 42 beginning at verse 12. and there are seven tests test number one verses 12 to 16. that test is is Benjamin still alive look at verse 12.
• and you have to back up and remember at verse 11 that very profound statement that they made in verse 11. We Are All Sons of one man we are honest men your servants have never been despised and again they’ve never been spies however they’ve been murderers and slave Traders spies not a tough leap amen so he asks them a few questions since they have made an assertion about their character look at verses 12-16 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 that’s that’s interesting we’re we’re there’s there’s actually 12 of us okay we’re we’re good guys we really are good guys and there’s actually 12 of us except the one that our daddy wouldn’t let us bring because of the other one that we kind of got rid of but other than that you can trust us verse 14.