Light In The Pit VII

Sunday, February 21, 2021

Genesis 44:32 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.’ 

These are the words of Judah. He’s the brother of Joseph who: 

• was the instigator of the plan to sell Joseph to a group of Ishmaelites traveling to Egypt.

• spoke these words, probably in earshot of Joseph sitting in a pit awaiting his fate, “Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him” (Gen 37:27). 

• the Bible devotes an entire chapter to within the narrative about Joseph detailing a pile of Judah’s disobedience, departure, and family disarray of his own doing (see Gen 38).

• who was very much copying the sins of his father, Jacob.

This is the brother that now speaks to Joseph with a fullness-of-heart pledge — please, let me take my brother’s place! This is the brother that now is doing whatever it takes to be a pledge of safety for someone else. This is the brother that now demonstrates before Joseph what God does best — new creations!

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Cor 5:17)

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezek 36:26)

I wonder what it must have been like for Joseph to be in earshot of Judah’s words now — I became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father. Scripture gives a hint of what it was like for Joseph. For in the short moments that followed Judah’s statements, Joseph reveals his identity with a flood of tears. What an amazing transformation!

How does someone go from self-absorption to ‘it’s not going to be about me’?
How does a person go from departure and disobedience to arrival and availability?
How does a person get out of the pit and into newness of heart and life?

Certainly not by their own doing!

You see, there is One who has ‘become a pledge of safety’ not just for one brother, but for all who will receive Him.   

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12)

Jesus makes a difference of a lifetime — let Him be your difference-maker!

Pastor Brad Mann

Genesis 44
Light in the Pit

brad@claycentercovenant.com