Sermon passage: Genesis 41-42
Matt Dirks
It takes a lot of work for a group of people to cover something up for very long. You’ve got to get the story straight, continually make up new stories to patch the holes in the old story, then stay vigilant to make sure nobody in the group suddenly grows a conscience. That’s how I know Oswald really did shoot JFK and Alan Shepard really did play golf on the moon: there’s no way the hundreds or thousands of people supposedly involved in those conspiracies could stay that quiet for that long.
Somehow, though, Joseph’s ten brothers held their murderous secret close to their chests for twenty years. It could be that they told the story so many times they even started to believe it themselves. They probably stopped feeling guilty after about ten years, and never even thought about it after fifteen. Until their secret was suddenly staring them in the face.
God has a way of doing that to his kids. Just when we’ve pushed down our guilt so we don’t feel it anymore… just when we’ve plastered over the ugliness of our sin with some convenient justification… that’s when God shoves it back in our face.
In Old Testament times God liked to use prophets to bring his people back to himself, like when he sent Nathan to say to King David, “Uhhhh… last time I checked, adultery was still a sin, harp-boy.” These days I can rely on the Holy Spirit to be my personal prophet, constantly convicting me of “sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16). Constantly pointing out the ways I’m grieving God, and constantly encouraging me that change is possible.
That’s when I have a simple choice: listen to what the Spirit’s saying or put my fingers in my ears and shout, “La-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you!” (I actually saw a middle-aged guy doing that to his wife in the mall last week. It was somehow disturbing and hilarious at the same time.) Which choice I make hinges on one simple question: at that moment who do I love more, God or myself?
Next time you hear the voice, ask yourself the same question. Then either love God boldly or sin boldly!