July 28, 2002 Genesis 42:21-24
They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come upon us.” Reuben replied, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood.” They did not realize that Joseph could understand them, since he was using an interpreter. He turned away from them and began to weep, but then turned back and spoke to them again. He had Simeon taken from them and bound before their eyes.
When you leave church this morning, I want you to look at the front lawn of the church. There are two kinds of grass there, bermuda and fescue. One kind is green, and the other is brown. When we go through dry streak like we have been going through, the fescue goes dormant while the bermuda stays green and plush. It looks pretty right now, but it tends to turn brown earlier in the fall and green up later in the spring. Although the fescue doesn’t look as pretty right now, we had intended only fescue to be planted. The bermuda started as a very small patch, and several members tried to get rid of it several years ago. But much to their chagrin, it came back. Since it is a vine-like kind of a grass, it spreads and takes over not only other grass but also weeds as well. So it is starting to cover our whole front yard. There’s not much we can do about it, so I guess we’re just going to let it go. It reminds me of a clover like weed that came up in my yard when I was back in Norton. No matter how much I tried to keep it out of my yard, it just kept on popping up.
Like a weed in our hearts, guilt does the same thing to you and me, popping up at different times and places. Your face turns red when an old friend reminds you of how drunk you got in high school once. Your eyes close and you shake your head when you happen to think about how you lost your cool with your daughter once and yelled at her when you really shouldn’t have. You hang your head and kick at the floor when you come face to face with the fact that you didn’t respect your parents last night by talking back to them. Like a weed in a yard, we have a hard time dealing with all of this guilt. But what do we do?
In God’s Word this morning, Joseph’s brothers also had guilt. Twenty years had gone by since they had sold their own brother into slavery for twenty shekels of silver. But what could they do? That’s the question we’re going to answer today -
How Do I Deal With Guilt?
I. Man’s way
Twenty years is a long time. In the last twenty years, many of us have gained wrinkles, bought houses, changed jobs, had kids, grown into adults, and lost our youthful vigor. It’s amazing to think about the amount of change that has taken place in the past twenty years. Twenty years had now gone by since Joseph had last seen his brothers. Things had changed. He now spoke fluent Egyptian. His face was changed. He had gone from being a young 17 year old slave to a 37 year old governor of a mighty nation. Joseph had changed. What about his brothers. Had they changed? According to their own description, they were different. They said, “Your servants are honest men, not spies.” 12 “No!” he said to them. “You have come to see where our land is unprotected.” 13 But they replied, “Your servants were twelve brothers, the sons of one man, who lives in the land of Canaan. The youngest is now with our father, and one is no more.” Looking at this response positively, it appears that his brothers were more humble at this point, no? They referred to themselves as “your servants.” They told the truth about once being 12 brothers. Those were positive signs.
But was this being completely “honest,” as they said they were? Not exactly. Instead of telling Joseph that they had sold their brother into slavery, all they said was that “one is no more.” For twenty years, they had kept SILENT about the fact that they had sold their brother into slavery - that he hadn’t actually died. Therefore, for twenty years they continued to be liars - lying to themselves, their father, their mother, and their God. They hadn’t changed much at all. They were selfish liars to begin with, and still twenty years they continued to lie with silence and half truths. In order to keep their “good reputations” with their father, they tried to deal with their guilt by being SILENT about it, and not saying a thing. Even though they felt guilty about it, and even though their father had to live twenty years in sorrow, they never said a thing. And what happened in the end? Their guilt carried on with them, throughout the silence. Whenever something bad happened to them, they thought for sure they were being punished for something they had done.
How many of you are silent liars? Do you have a marriage that isn’t going very well, but take extra efforts to make pretend everything is going well so no one will find out? Are you having sex outside of marriage, but pretending to your church and your family that you are living a pure lifestyle? Have you ever said something really mean to someone, and then just tried to gloss it over the next day and not bringing it up again? Did you ever go somewhere that your parents told you not to go, but were never caught? Or did you do something years ago that you just can’t seem to forget about but just don’t want to talk about?
You may think for the short term, “I’m lucky I got away with that one!”, or “It’s just too embarrassing to tell anyone about that,” but my friends, that guilt is not going to go away by staying silent about it. I know it won’t. It reminds me of when I knocked over a plant in the living room when I was young. My parents asked us who did it. Nobody said anything, including myself. As a result, all four of us were paddled, but not quite as badly as I would have been if I had fessed up. I thought my silence would save me pain. But instead, I had to live with that guilt for a long time. That’s what silence does to you. It will keep on gnawing at you. You might tell your conscience to be quiet. You might even forget about it for a while. But sooner or later, something will trigger your memory, and you will feel guilty again. Like a noxious grass or plant that keeps coming up again and again, your guilt will spread over the years and keep on telling you, “I shouldn’t have done that.” Silence is not the answer. It is only another lie. There are so many people living with that kind of guilt, and the more they are silent about it, the worse it feels.
Silence wasn’t the only answer to the guilt that Joseph’s brothers felt. Reuben had another way of dealing with his guilt. What was it? Reuben replied, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood.” Reuben is an interesting character to try and figure out, isn’t he? He seems from the surface to have been more responsible and loving toward Joseph. Being the oldest, he at least tried to take on the responsibility for his little brother. When he returned and found Joseph sold, he tore his clothing in sorrow over what had happened. It seems he genuinely was trying to look out for Joseph’s welfare. You could imagine that he tried to soothe his conscience by saying to himself, “I tried to talk them out of it.” In today’s text, he tried to deal with his guilt by angrily blaming his BROTHERS for what they did. THEY wouldn’t LISTEN to him. But when the issue of selling Joseph was brought up by one of his brothers, Reuben still said that HE was still accountable for Joseph’s blood. He still felt guilty. Why? As the eldest, HE was the one chiefly responsible for Joseph, and even though he spoke up and wasn’t the instigator, he still could have done MORE. It didn’t make him feel any better that he was LESS guilty.
Does this excuse sound familiar? I can recall standing around a campfire while a man was being harassed by his co-workers for having an affair. His response was, “you know my wife, she deserves it.” The only response we come up with is being angry with the other person who “forced me to do it.” “But he hit me first! . . . I wouldn’t have cheated in school, but how can we be expected to know so much for the test . . . Everybody does it. . . At least I didn’t get drunk, I only had a few beers at the party. . . I’m just too busy to have devotions - at least I take my kids to church. . . I would come to church more often but I’m just so busy with my KIDS . . . I would spend more time with my spouse, but he’s just such a jerk. . . ” American society is raised with a blame game society. Parents blame the teachers if their child doesn’t study. Criminals hire defense lawyers trying to pass the buck and or plead the 5th to maintain their innocense. But just like with Reuben, even if you are “less guilty” or were somewhat “forced into the situation,” does it make you feel any better? It still doesn’t get rid of the guilt to blame others for our faults. Like Reuben, we realize that whether we are more guilty than someone else or not, something tells us that WE still must give an accounting for the sins that WE have committed. No matter how much we try to roll it off or ignore it, we still have guilt. And more often than not, the more we try to hide it, the worse it gets.
II. God’s way
God has a different way of dealing with guilt. We can see this in the way that Joseph dealt with his brothers. Throughout this sermon series Pastor Koch has been comparing Joseph to Jesus - and in a lot of ways that’s true. At first glance when you look at this story for today, it might appear that Joseph was applying some mild vengeance on his brothers for what he did to them. Instead of just giving them grain and telling them, “you’re a bunch of spies - looking for a weak spot to attack!” And when he plied them with who they were, he found out that his younger brother and father were still alive. Yet he still didn’t give up the charade. At first he told them he was going to lock them all up, but after three days in prison he decided to just keep Simeon bound and send back the rest to get Benjamin - all the while pretending to be angry with the brothers as he spoke through an interpreter. Augustine seemed to feel that Joseph was being dishonest in the way that he dealt with his brothers. “He should have told them right away,” many would say.
However, would a vengeful man start crying in the midst of his anger? Would an angry man reassure his brothers that he too “feared God” and only wanted to do what was right? It doesn’t fit the bill. So what was Joseph trying to do? Joseph was trying to make them sweat and expose them for what they were - not honest men - but dishonest liars. He was trying to bring their guilt out in the open - to get them to be TRULY honest men by facing up to what they had done. The best way he felt this could be done would be to put them to the test - stress them out - make them sweat. You can see how his plan worked, as in today’s text Joseph’s brothers finally spoke about their sin to one another. But he wasn’t done. Just after that, he still had Simeon (the likely instigator of the sale of Joseph) bound before their very eyes. Later on after Joseph returned the money they had spent for their grain, they went so far as to say, “what is this that God has done to us?” You can see their defense mechanisms unravel layer by layer with the more trials they are put through.
This is how God deals with guilt. He doesn’t try to hide it. He doesn’t make excuses for it. He doesn’t say to you, “you’re not as guilty as your neighbor, so don’t worry.” None of that. God says in plain in clear language, “if you dare to stand before me with a sin behind your back, thinking that I won’t see it - I will throw you to the deepest depths of hell. If you dare to try and do the blame game before me - it won’t fly.” God knows what each and every one of you have done. Every thought you’ve thought. Every word you’ve spoken. You can’t hide it from God. You must be held accountable for it. He knows when you disobey your parents. He hears when you use dirty language. He reads your mind when you think vengeful thoughts about your spouse or boss. Don’t even try to hide it. Don’t try to make excuses for it or blame someone for “forcing you to do it.” Just say it. You’re a filthy sinner.
Why? What’s the purpose? Why was Joseph so intent on exposing his brothers and making them sweat? Because God is a physician. And the only way a physician can cure a wound, is if he first exposes it. Imagine if someone stepped on a rusty nail, put on a shoe, and then went to the doctor and said, “doc, I’ve got a real bad pain in my foot, but I don’t want you to look at it.” Would not the doctor say anything he could to get you to expose your wound? Even if it hurt your feelings? Otherwise the doctor would not be able to help you then. He would have to take the shoe off and expose the nail for the purpose of pulling the nail out and applying salve to the wound. That is the job of a doctor. You have to expose your body to him - no matter where it hurts or how embarrassing it may be. But in the end, after the exposure and treatment, the doctor can then provide a CURE.
Joseph wasn’t trying to hurt his brothers by exposing their sin. It was hurting him, as he was brought to tears. God is not trying to hurt us when says to us, “admit your sin. Show me what a worthless person you are!” Not at all, he is trying to help us.
But how does exposing our guilt help us? When the brothers exposed their sins to Reuben, he made them feel worse by yelling at them. But when we confess our sins to God, what does Jesus say? “I see you have heavy burdens - things bothering you. Throw your guilt on me! Throw your sins on me! That’s what I’m here for - that’s why I went to the cross - to take the blame.” Jesus went to the cross to TAKE THE BLAME for what we did - to go through the hell that we deserved. And so our Lord tells us through the prophet Isaiah, “Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” Jesus once said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
We come before God often like terrible burn victims. With many years of guilt bleeding from our skin, we have tried to cover ourselves up before the world with fashionable clothing so they can’t see our ugly side. But that clothing of lies and deceit is uncomfortable. It sticks to our guilt, instead of protecting it, it makes it fester and get worse. But when God’s law finally breaks down our excuses, and exposes us for what we are - nothing but filthy sinners, it’s as if the Holy Spirit takes our clothes of excuses off, and we stand before Him naked. But the good doctor doesn’t laugh or gasp in horror at our ugly wounds. Not at all. Instead, the Good Doctor takes a wonderful healing balm - the blood of Christ and applies it to our gaping and bleeding sins. And then he covers our guilt with a wonderfully sterile bandage called the robe of Jesus’ righteousness. With faith in Jesus Christ - God makes us look holy in His sight, and covers our guilt and shame.
Just deal with it. It’s easier said than done. Twenty years had gone by since Joseph first went into slavery. Jacob lived in sorrow for twenty years - thinking his favorite son was dead. The brothers had to live every day knowing that had done a terrible thing to Joseph. If only they had confessed their sin to their father right away, maybe they could have gone down to Egypt and bought him back. But instead, they lived in misery for twenty years. They couldn’t deal with it - until Joseph finally forced them to.
It isn’t fun going to the doctor. We often hem and haw. But when the doctor can find the right remedy, it makes us wonder why we waited so long to go. God has the right remedy for your sin. God doesn’t want you to live in misery. So deal with it. If you’re committing a sin you feel guilty about - don’t hide it - expose it. If you’ve been getting drunk, admit it. If you’ve lied to your parents and you feel guilty about it, confess what you’ve done. It’s not easy. There may be temporal consequences. It may embarrass you. It may cause disappointment. But when you are able to expose that sin and throw it on the cross, and the Lord and your fellow Christian friends will say, “I still love you, and I forgive you.” Those words will take your guilt away. They will make you feel so much better. They will enable you to start a new life today. That’s how you deal with guilt. Amen.
