Go ahead and turn into Genesis 44 in your Bibles. If you'd like to follow along, go ahead and open up to Genesis 44. We are gonna take the whole chapter this morning, so one through 34. Genesis 44. Just a few page turns and we'll be done with Genesis. And always, or as always, once again, before we go to God's word, let's have a prayer for the Holy Spirit's elimination. Heavenly Father, as we approach your word this morning, we ask for the illuminating power of your Holy Spirit. We want eyes to see the true meaning of this passage. Lord, help us to learn, understand, apply, the teaching that you have given us. This is your holy and infallible word, it's your revelation. It's your disclosure given to us. So Father, please give us the eyes to see and the ears to hear your truth this morning. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. There were a couple of high schoolers playing basketball at the local community center one Saturday morning during open gym time. And they were each doing their own thing. There were lots of baskets around the gym, but this was the only one that was open. The rest had games going on. And they were practicing their layups and jump shots and doing some dribble work. And one of them turned to the other and said, hey, do you want to play one-on-one game to 15 or something like that?" And I said, sure, yeah, why not? So the one wearing a white t-shirt kind of bounced past the ball to the other one who was wearing a red t-shirt, and he said, all right, you take it first. And so red t-shirt went up top, and he decided to go right a little bit, and then he worked back, and then he went in the middle, and then he worked back, and then he went to the left, and then he hesitated there. And then he made like a juke move, he did like a little fake move, and he did something with his eyes and his head, and he went to lunge left, and White Shirt went for it, but at the last minute, Red Shirt spun around and made a shot without any kind of resistance because White Shirt had overcommitted and couldn't get back in time. And so the boy in the white t-shirt, he knew he'd been beaten, he knew he got him, but he decided to keep playing and not let it get in his head. Well, sure enough, after a few more turns back and forth, red shirt again. This time he started in the middle, worked back, went over the right, worked back, went over the left, and he did that same fake move, same spin and shot, and white t-shirt got really upset at himself because he fell for it again. Same thing happened a couple turns later, red t-shirt had the ball. He started going right, he started going left, and this time, white t-shirt thought to himself, I know what's coming. I know what he's going to do. I've seen this. And sure enough, Red T-shirt did the old fake move with the eyes and the head and everything. But this time, White T-shirt did not overcommit and lunge left. This time he just followed him. He went up. And as he was in the air swatting it, he said, not this time. He slapped it out of the air. And the ball went bouncing over several baskets away. And Red T-shirt had to go get it. And it felt good. It felt good. In fact, White T-shirt, for him, that was a moment he was having. It was a not this time moment. It felt good to finally not fall for that trick. It felt good finally to not get scored on by being faked out with the spin move that this opponent had unleashed. Now, it's one thing to have something unpleasant happen to us once. but it's increasingly frustrating to have something unpleasant or something negative happen to us repeatedly when it can be avoided. That's really frustrating. On the other hand, when we finally do figure it out, when we, on the other hand, when we finally do make some adjustments, we make some course corrections and we gain the upper hand, it's a good feeling. Not this time. It's a not this time feeling. It's this idea that I've been here before, I know what's coming, I'm not going down that road again, not this time. In Genesis 44, Joseph's brothers are having a not this time moment. When we look at this passage this morning, we're gonna see that they are presented with a very similar test, except this time it's even more high pressure than it was before. They're gonna be faced with a test. Will they cut their youngest son loose in order to save themselves and go free? Will they allow another brother, the only other favored son of Rachel, to be taken into slavery while they themselves go free? It's a test, and it's high pressure. But this time, they come back with a not this time response. This time they swat the ball. away very hard. They do not give in to the pressure. They pass the test. So when we read through this passage, I want us to be on the lookout for that. I want us to be a lookout for the not this time response. We're also going to see Jesus in this passage. And then finally, we want to apply it by taking all this and looking at what it looks like for us to have a not this time moment and what it looks like for us to respond to one of Satan's more common temptation practices. So let's take a look at this passage. This is chapter 44 in its entirety. Then he commanded the steward of his house, fill the men's sacks with food as much as they can carry and put each man's money in the mouth of his sack. And put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest with his money for the grain. And he did as Joseph told him. As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away with their donkeys. They had gone only a short distance from the city. Now Joseph said to his steward, follow after the men. And when you overtake them, say to them, why have you repaid evil for good? Is it not from this that my Lord drinks and by this that he practices divination? You have done well in doing this, or excuse me, you have done evil in doing this. When he overtook them, he spoke to them these words. They said to him, why does my Lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing. Behold, the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks, we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. How then can we steal silver or gold from your Lord's house? Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die. We also will be my Lord's servants. He said, let it be as you say. He who is found with it shall be my servant, and the rest of you shall be innocent. Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each man opened his sack, and he searched, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest, and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they tore their clothes, and every man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city. When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, he was still there. They fell before him to the ground. Joseph said to them, what deed is this you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination? And Judah said, what shall we say to my Lord? What shall we speak? Or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants. Behold, we are my Lord's servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found. But he said, far be it from me that I should do so. Only the man in whose hand the cup was found shall be my servant. But as for you, go up in peace to your father. Then Judah went up to him and said, oh my Lord, please let your servant speak a word in my Lord's ears, and let not your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself. My Lord asked his servant, saying, have you a father or a brother? And he said to my Lord, we have a father, an old man, and a younger brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother's children, and his father loves him. Then you said to your servants, bring him down to me that I may set my eyes on him. We said to my Lord, the boy cannot leave his father for if he should leave his father, his father would die. Then you said to your servants, unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again. When we went back to your servant, my father, we told him the words of my Lord. And when our father said, go again, buy us a little food, we said, We cannot go down. If our youngest brother goes with us, then we will go down. For we cannot see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us. Then your servant, my father, said to us, you know that my wife bore me two sons. One left me, and I said, surely he has been torn to pieces, and I have never seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to shield. Now, therefore, as soon as I come to your servant, my father, and the boy is not with us, then as my life, as his life is bound up in the boy's life, as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. And your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant, our father, with sorrow to shield. For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, if I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life. 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. Well, if you recall, this is a couple weeks now since we had our Easter message last week, but a couple weeks ago, we left off at the end of chapter 43 And things looked really good at the end of chapter 43. There was feasting and drinking and Simeon was returned and they all had money and grain and they were good to go for the foreseeable future. For some odd reason that seemed like they had found favor with this number two man in Egypt and things were going really well. They may have been thinking, you know, and to think we were afraid to come down here. This worked out great. That's how well it was going. when we left off, but Joseph has one more test in store for them, and he wanted to see if under pressure that they would fall into that same temptation. Would they release another favored son of Rachel, but in this time with increased pressure? Because this time they have the option of either remaining there or escaping with their life, So the plan was to accuse Benjamin of stealing his silver cup. It says, put my cup, the silver cup, and this seems to be a rather, not just kind of like a little thing that you'd hold, but this seems to be a rather large cup, a large silver, bigger than a goblet type of object, and it was used, it says, for divination. Now this was a thing in antiquity. Those that didn't believe in Yahweh God would look to other things. So they would practice divination by pouring it with water or some other liquid and then oil and they would look into the cup and watch the swirling motions and they would try to tell the future or get answers or just in general look for counsel. So this is something that an Egyptian ruler such as Joseph would have practiced, but we need to be clear here, Joseph was not practicing divination. Joseph was not into magic or witchcraft or pagan idolatry or anything like that. He didn't have to look in a cup for answers, he looked to the Lord for answers. But this was part of what was being told to the brothers as part of the test. So the brothers are going to be presented with this charge of stealing. But this cup, I mean, if you had to steal anything, this was the wrong cup to steal. Not only was it a valuable object because it was made of silver, but it was also the cup that this pagan ruler would practice divination in. So as such, it was priceless. It also doesn't seem to be an accident that it was made out of silver. Remember when the brothers sold Joseph into slavery, they sold him for silver. Now when he's testing them, he's testing them with silver. In addition, the penalty for stealing such a sacred object would have been either slavery or death. And you remember what were the options they were considering? Death or slavery. So I don't think either of those things are a coincidence. We've got a lot of parallels to the first time that they cut one of the Rachel's sons loose. So this is one last test to see if the brothers would, under pressure, save themselves and get rid of a favored son. So verse three through five, the next morning the brothers are sent on their way and Joseph gives instructions, detailed instructions to his steward. He gives him specific language to use, confront them, tell them you have done evil, make this charge of the cup being used for divination. And of course, Joseph didn't practice divination. This was part of the test. And then in verse six, he spoke those exact words that Joseph had instructed him to say. And then in verse seven and nine, we see the brothers responding. Now, they're innocent. None of the brothers took the silver cup, and they know it. They know they're innocent. So they respond very confidently, very confidently. They immediately take a defensive posture. They give their best kind of like a, We are offended type of response. I can't believe you would charge us with this. How dare you accuse us of stealing? And then they point out a fact. Hey, we brought our money back the last time. Does that sound like thieves to you? Somebody who brings money back? I mean, they are in the steward's face with their confident response. So confident in their innocence that they pronounce on themselves the ultimate penalty. The person who has it will die, and we'll all be your stewards. How about that? That's how confident we are. Now the steward, knowing what Joseph's plan is, responds with a less severe counteroffer. He says, no, no, no, no, how about this? The one that holds the silver cup, that person will be a slave, a servant. The rest of you can go free. Let's do it that way. Well, it is a test. And it's a real test. Well, they allow their half-brother, this favorite son of Rachel, to go into slavery, and they themselves go free. So verses 11 and 12, it's decided then, agreed, the guilty one goes to Egypt, everybody else gets to go free. Okay, everybody, lawyer Sacks is prepared to be inspected, and so the steward starts with the oldest and works to the youngest. Now, he knows where it's at, okay? This is all for increased drama and effect. So he's going to the oldest, And we can almost imagine, as he's going down the line, the brothers becoming even more confident, becoming even more indignant. Like, yeah, did you find it there? Okay, how about the next one? Did you find it there? I mean, they're just, they're really very confident in their innocence until, of course, they get to the last sack, and it is found in Benjamin's sack. the impossible has happened. Now, look at the brother's response. In verse 13, it says, they tore their clothes. This is a sign of mourning and distress and pain and confusion. They may have been wondering, what is happening? I mean, this has been a rollercoaster ride. Remember, from one extreme to another, they've been going up and down as they've gone back and forth to Egypt, and the response, the ruler, one minute he's speaking harshly, the next minute he's whining and dining us. I mean, what is happening? They're probably thinking, our father's gonna die. First he's gonna kill us, then he's gonna die. They can't understand what's happening. But they did tear their clothes, which is a good sign. If you remember when Joseph was taken, who was the only one to tear their clothes? When Joseph was taken, Jacob. Yeah, the brothers were not mournful. They're the ones who had done it. They're the ones who had sold him off to slavery. So the fact that they're tearing their clothes, all of them, as a sign of emotional distress and distraught, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. It shows that they have changed. God has been working on their hearts. They're not the same men they used to be. As they loaded their donkeys and head back to Egypt, they're probably wondering, now what? They've probably guessed by now it's not going to be feasting and drinking. This time it's going to be a different experience. On verse 14, Joseph is waiting for them. They come and bow down before him, and we notice that the dream is fulfilled again. Remember, your sheaves are going to bow down to my sheave. Here it is. And verse 15, this number two ruler in Egypt, he's back to speaking harshly again. Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination? And once again, and I can't stress this enough, he's not practicing divination. This is part of the persona that he's giving off to them. This is so that they will believe that there's this really powerful pagan ruler in Egypt, and this explains how he knew that the cup was in their sack, and how he knew to send his steward after them, when in fact, He knew the cup was in the sack because he had put it there. He knew to send his steward out because this was part of a test. He doesn't need to practice divination and know these things, he did it. But this is part of the persona he's projecting. Verse 16, Judas says, what shall we say and what shall we speak? God has found out the guilt of your servants. Guilty of what? Stealing the cup? No, they hadn't stole the cup. God has found out the guilt of your servants, plural. What are they all guilty of? Selling Joseph into slavery. God has found out the guilt of your servants conspiring to kill Joseph, but ultimately selling him into slavery. Yes, they are guilty. And Judah is taking all this and saying, okay, God has found us out. It's come around. God has exposed our guilt, and here we are. And because we're all guilty, Judah says we should all be taken into captivity. They all took part in that, so they should all be servants. But verse 17, Joseph again counters and says, no, no, just Benjamin, just the youngest. You all go in peace. I'll keep the youngest one. Do you see what he's done here? All the pieces are in place now. He has recreated this test. Very high pressure test, though. Different from the first time. The first time, they were in control. The first time, they had them in the pit, and they were having a picnic outside the pit, wondering, what should we do? Should we kill them? Should we sell them to slavery? And they could have done whatever they wanted, and then after they were done, they return and go about their lives and business as usual. This time, it's a little different. This time, they're not gonna be able to just go about their business. They're not in control here. They have a choice to make. Will they cut their youngest son loose to save themselves or not? What will they do? Verse 18, Judah speaks, and from this point forward, if you look at verse 18 to the rest of the chapter, this is just one long speech by Joseph. This is one all-connected segment here, and it's leading up to a take me instead of him. type of request. Oh my Lord, please let your servant speak a word in my Lord's ears. You are like Pharaoh himself. This is a polite address. This is a respectful, polite address. It's also hinting at the fact that this number two ruler guy, which they don't know is Joseph, has a position of authority. And you are like Pharaoh himself. In other words, I know you can do something here. As I make my appeal to you, You can't act, you will be able to set us free if you choose to do so. And then verses 19 through 29 is a review of what has happened. Now it's a selected review and it's in his own words, but it's a review of what happened. So we're not gonna go through that verse by verse. I think we can get the summary of that as we've read it already and as we know what happened. But verses 19 through 29 is a review. And then in verse 30, Judah presses his point. If they return home without the youngest brother, our father will die. His life is bound up in the boy's life. So this is Judah in closing arguments, coming before this number two man saying, look, we're guilty. There's nothing we can do here. We stand before you at your mercy, but so that you know, if you go through with this, if you release us and if you keep Benjamin, our father will die. So this is a not-so-veiled attempt to communicate, hey, if you do this, our dad's gonna die, and that's gonna be on you. That's what he's telling this Egyptian ruler. In verse 32 and 33, Judah reveals his role as the one who pledged Benjamin's safe return and the one who would accept the blame. Therefore, in verse 33, Take me instead. Here it is. Do the exchange. My life for his. Let everyone else go back. Now Judah has a little bit of an extra incentive to offer himself as the one to be kept in slavery because if you remember, it was his idea to sell Joseph into slavery, Genesis 37, 26. Then Judah said to his brothers, what profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Israelites. Remember that? So he's feeling it. And he's stepping up and he's trying to take responsibility as best as he can. He recognizes his guilt as the one that offered to sell Joseph into slavery or that suggested the idea. So now himself, now he himself is willing to go into slavery. Verse 34 concludes the passage 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 out my father. Judah's saying, look, I can't go back. I pledged that Benjamin would come back safely. If he doesn't come back, then I really can't come back. I can't go back to my dad. I can't go back to my father with yet another fantastical story that results in another one of his sons being lost. I just can't do it. I'm not going back. When Judah is put to the test, facing the second opportunity to leave a son of Rachel behind, he steps up. He responds with, not this time. Not this time. This time I'm going to offer myself in place of my brother. This time I'm going to try to protect him rather than cause harm to him. Well, I said at the beginning, I want us to see Jesus in this passage, and I want us to see Judah as a foreshadowing, a type maybe, if you will, of Jesus in the sense that he's giving his life for his brother Benjamin, or offering his life for his brother Benjamin. Jesus, as our brother, as our kinsman redeemer, has given his life for us, you know, Jesus of course has the blood of Noah and Adam and Abraham and Judah running through his veins, as do we, we're all related, we all have come from the same origin person, ultimately Adam and then also again from Noah. So Jesus as our kingdom and redeemer, as our brother, offers himself as a substitute on behalf of his elect. We stand before the ruler-judge guilty. Like Judah, all we can utter as guilty sinners is, what shall we say to my Lord? What shall we speak? How can we clear ourselves? We have nothing to say. As guilty sinners, our mouths are stopped. The Bible teaches none is righteous. We all stand before with nothing to say. We are guilty. We need a savior. And God has provided one. God has provided the Savior and Jesus. Jesus is the one whose blood can make atonement for sin. Salvation is not within us. There are not multiple paths to God. God has provided one path, one door, and that door is Jesus Christ. If you have never believed in Jesus Christ, I encourage you to do so today. We're not guaranteed tomorrow. We will all find ourselves standing before God. We are all moral creatures created in his image, morally accountable to him, and we will give an account. We will either stand before him under the shelter, clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ that is imputed to us by faith because we've repented and believed in him, or we will stand before him without the shielding, without the clothing of Jesus Christ, and we will have to answer for our own sins. the wrath of God will be poured out on guilty sinners. He's a just God. If you have not repented and believed in Jesus Christ, do so today. Don't delay. Salvation is through faith alone and Christ alone. And when we look at Judah, he serves as a forerunner, as a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, the one who makes a substitution, his life for ours on the cross. So we see Jesus in this passage. We also see, when we look at this kind of the brothers and how they had changed, we see this not this time response. They no longer are thinking evil and acting evil and thinking of themselves. They sought to make things right. Judah steps up, not this time. I'm not going down that road again. Even if it means me remaining here for the rest of my life, I'm not going to go down that road. When faced with this high-pressure test, they give a not-this-time response. This time it was different because they were different. They were different. God had changed them. God had been at work in their hearts. It's been 20 years. This is not the same group of brothers that plotted to kill Joseph. Envious of his favorite status, stripped him of his clothes. Threw him into a pit, sat down to have a picnic, and then decided to sell him, and then went back and lied to their father. This is a different group of brothers. They've changed. They're thinking of others. They're seeking the benefit of others. They were humble, repentant. They changed because God had changed them. Likewise, God changes us. We are given new birth, we're justified in Christ. When we come to Christ, and I know this is a review for all of us, but when we come to Christ, we're justified. That's a one-time event. God declares us righteous. The gavel comes down, and because of that imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, by faith, he says, I'm declaring you righteous. We're really sinners, but he declares us righteous. and we're immediately given new birth, new life, and we're assimilated into his body, the church. We become part of this covenant community. Now, that's a one-time event. That happens, he changes us, but then also, from that point on, that's called sanctification, and he gradually, progressively changes us. We become more Christ-like as the years go by. This is how this works. There's a one-time positional change, Our status before God, when we come to Christ, changes from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, to a guilty sinner, hell bound, with no hope, to one who is saved and will be with God forever. That changes immediately, but then the rest of our life is this progressive sanctification process. And we understand how that works. He changes us. He changes us so that more and more When it comes to sin in our life, when it comes to spiritual battle, we are able to respond with a not this time response. As was Joseph's brothers. Now, we all engage in spiritual battle from time to time. We all do. We all have spiritual battles. And I know sometimes it's tempting to look around and gaze at all our brothers and sisters and say, well, they're certainly not going through what I'm going through. Don't be so sure. Or you look at someone and you think, well, they're just a child, what kind of spiritual battles are they going through? You don't know. Or maybe some kind of very sweet, grandmotherly type, and we look at a person like that and say, well, their spiritual battles are pretty much over, they're in the clear. No, we all fight spiritual battles. Now, it's not a game of basketball. We're not playing a one-on-one game on the court, but it is a battle with an opponent, and that opponent is called the devil. And he has mastered the spin move. He is a deceiver. He's a master at making the eye movement and deceiving us with a spin move. So when it comes to spiritual warfare and deception, I want us to be aware of one of the most common spin moves that Satan likes to unleash Christ's elect. So when temptation comes, as it always does, and Satan lunges one way and then spins, I want us to be aware of what the spin move is. As he does that, he's whispering in our ears, just this once. Just this once. That's a very common spin move that Satan uses to deceive Christ's followers. Satan says, don't worry about it. What harm can it do? Just this once. Go ahead and give in to temptation. Just this once, Jesus will forgive you. You're in Christ. Here's a couple of examples. Go on, give in to covening. Go ahead. Go ahead, desire things that aren't yours and that don't belong to you. Go ahead and spend a couple hours Internet researching something that you really want, would love to have, but you don't need. It's dreaming, not coveting. Go ahead, just this once. Go ahead and give in to that. Go on, give full vent to your anger. Let it rip, just this once. Find somebody that you can unleash on and then just let them have it. Unload, it's gonna feel so good, just this once. Let it out. You always bottled it up. Go ahead and flirt with that person who isn't your spouse. You know you're not gonna take it any further, right? Go ahead, just this once. Test the waters, see if they're into you. You don't want your boss and your coworkers to know about that mistake you made? I mean, come on, they'll never let you down. Just lie about it, just this once. They'll never find out anyway, right? So what's the harm? Just this once, go ahead and lie. Go ahead, it's okay to grumble a little. Express some discontent with where God has you right now and the circumstances in your life. I mean, come on, you've been going through a lot. You are going through a lot. Wouldn't it be nice just to look up in heaven and say, give me a break, God? Come on, just this once. Can't expect to be perfect all the time, you're only human. Spin move, just this once. He uses it all the time. Insert your specific temptation, wherever your spiritual front lines on the battle is, insert that temptation, and you're gonna find Satan right there doing the spin move, saying just this once. Except, we've encountered this before, okay? This isn't the first time he's made the spin move. We've seen him do the same thing, and we know it's not just this once, is it? It's again and again. It's never just this once. If it's just this once next time, the next time it'll be just this once again, which means it's not. The more we grow in Christ, the more we're gonna be able to withstand these spiritual attacks, including the common spin move. And when Satan entices us with just this once, the response is, not this time. Not this time. I've been down that road before. I'm not doing it. I know where that road leads. I've been there. Not this time, Satan. I'm not doing it. The more we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, take action steps towards growing in our discipleship, the more God's Spirit will be at work in us. The more likely we are, the more equipped and prepared we will be to respond with not this time. There was a man who lived down south and he played the violin, but they didn't call it the violin in the South, they called it the fiddle. So there was a man in the South that played the fiddle. And every year, this was a thing that they did, it was a giant family reunion. I mean, second, third cousins, they had over 150 people. And they met outdoors in a park, in a public park. And so they would meet there once a year. One of the highlights of this family reunion every year was that this man would pull out the fiddle case and he would take it out and you'd hear him tuning it up and then he'd strike in and he'd just play something. People would call out requests. Oh, do you know this? Sure enough, he'd rip into that and he'd play it and his fingers would dance and the bow would move back and forth. Somebody else would call, hey, play this for us. Of course, he would play it and he'd be very skillful and then he'd just make things up or do little runs. It was a very pleasant experience to listen to him. And after it was all done, he started putting his fiddle away in the case, and another man came up to him and he said, boy, that is just fantastic. I love the way you play it. Thanks a lot. He said, you're welcome. I would just love to be able to do that. I would love to be able to just pick up the fiddle anywhere, anytime, and just play songs and take requests. And the old man said, yeah, a lot of people would like to do that, but not a lot of people want to put the hours in to get there. See, do you know how long I've been playing the fiddle? Do you know how many hours I've put in practicing? That's the only reason I can have the freedom to just pick it up and play whatever I want, whenever I want. The more we work towards discipleship, the more we work and cooperate with the Holy Spirit towards our sanctification, the more likely it is we're going to be able to respond with not this time when faced with temptation. It's a cooperation. It's a both and. These are held in tension. Is it God ultimately working in us? Yes. Do we also cooperate with the Holy Spirit? Yes. Yeah. Can you imagine being an expert fiddle player and never practice? No, that doesn't happen. Can you imagine being very spiritually mature and never taking any steps towards discipleship? No, I can't imagine that happening either. It's a both and. When we think of ourselves, this has been 20 years for the brothers, when we think of ourselves 20 years ago, Has there been spiritual progress from where we were 20 years ago? I sure hope so. If there's not, if we're in a worse, if we're in the same spot or a worse spot spiritually than we were 20 years ago, this is more than a red flag. This is wigwag strobe red lights with sirens going off, okay? Something's wrong. It's a both and, though. God has promised to work spiritual change and sanctification in us, and he calls us to toil and persevere and act on our faith by pursuing growth and discipleship as well. I can't remember the quote. I wish I could reference it, but it went something like this. The more we see spiritual growth, the more we see progress in our sanctification, the more we can be sure that God has been at work in us. leading us to take steps towards sanctification. I think that's a good way to describe the balance that's going on. Judah and the rest of the brothers had changed. God had grown them spiritually. He had humbled them. He had performed some serious hard work on them over the last 20 years. So when they were faced with this last test to either to cut Benjamin loose and save themselves, they were able to respond, not this time, not this time. We're not going down that road again. I'd like to close in a prayer, and I'd like to ask God to sanctify us, that he would grow us more and more, that we'd be able to more and more respond to temptation, to Satan's just this one spin move with a not this time response. Let's go ahead and pray. Heavenly Father, we are your people. And we know that our salvation is secure. There is nothing that can threaten or take away the Holy Spirit that you've given to us as a deposit and a guarantee. And Father, we want to honor our calling by, as much as humanly possible, with your grace, cooperating with the Holy Spirit, Father, would you show us some action steps we can take to pursue spiritual growth? Would you allow us more and more to respond to temptation with a not this time attitude? And Father, even though we know we're acting on faith and taking real concrete steps, we are doing that, but Father, at the same time, we ultimately acknowledge it is your Holy Spirit at work in us. You deserve all the credit. Thank you for saving us and thank you for sanctifying us. In Jesus' name, amen.