Transcript
All right, destination. We've been in one of my favorite message series so far. , I hope you know, especially if you've been here for any of this message series, which by the way, if you haven't, we'll catch you up, but I hope you know that it was a good decision to come to church today. , we have been in this message series called making good decisions. And really, we're not just making good decisions.
We're making God- centered decisions. Because all of your lives are just an accumulation of different decisions, right. Every yes, every no, every big decision, even to the smallest decisions have the ability to kind of change the course or direction of your life, right.
Those small meetings or those small moments or even those big monumental ones can change the direction of your life. And so we believe that one of the things that we can do is grow in this in grow in making good decisions, but not just good decisions, but Godhonoring decisions, those that bring him glory and that everything else works out for our good. And so that's kind of where we've been in this series. We've been following this guy. His name is Joseph.
And this isn't Joseph like Mary and Joseph in the Christmas story. This is Joseph in the book of Genesis. And just to kind of get us all on the same page, just a quick re really quick recap.
We met Joseph when he was just 17 years old. He was a boy with a dream and a really cool coat. , and he all he wanted to do was tell his brothers his dreams. Well, his brothers got really upset about this and they made an emotional decision. So, week one, we learned that emotions are real, but they make real bad decision makers.
Okay, ask anybody who drives out on the road that one. They can make a really bad decision really quickly, right. And then week two, we looked at Joseph being sold out by his brotheries brothers into slavery and into prison.
And you might look at these terms and think, how can you be successful at being a slave and a prisoner. Well, what we saw is that Joseph had all of these decisions to make in tension. And in those tensions, he chose integrity.
He chose making the God-honoring decision in every tension. Week three, we looked at Joseph interpreting dreams. He interpreted dreams for three people.
And we saw at every turn, Joseph had this temptation to almost brag himself up and to show his resume, but instead he points all the glory to God. And what we learned in that is that trust in our decision-makings, trust begins where control ends. Last week we looked at Joseph's coming face to face with his brothers.
And we saw that moment where Joseph could have done a whole bunch of things to the people that hurt him and that caused him pain. And we learned that justice seeks restoration, not retaliation. But the story is not over yet.
And so we get to have almost the conclusion of the story. Next week we get to enjoy the epilogue of the story. But today we're going to see Joseph's brothers come to Egypt again.
And why do they come to Egypt again. Because there is a famine. Everybody is starving, right. And today or even last week I should say, we talked about this idea of justice. And Justice kind of brings us head-to-head with, man, if I could have just preached last week and this week into one week, it would have been so good because it's like a continuation of this idea that happens in Joseph.
Because what we're going to look at today is this tricky thing. Don't get up and leave your seats when I tell you what today is about. Forgiveness. We're going to learn that forgiveness releases the past and moves towards purpose. And let me tell you what I mean by that.
, last week I shared about a a bully that I had. Anybody remember the story. If you if you'd missed last week, I shared about this bully that I had in middle school that quite frankly kind of ruined my life in middle school.
He would prank me. He he would do a lot of really terrible things, but the worst thing is he started a rumor that I was dating my cousin. Okay, it was a rumor, not true, but it got me the nickname, please don't call me it. I'm still a little sensitive, cousin kisser.
Okay, not a good nickname, right. And that followed me for almost 4 years afterwards. Okay, but the cool thing about the high school that I went to is it was rather large.
So, for years and years, I didn't have to run into this person that really really hurt me in in middle school until my senior year. In my senior year, I get put in this projectsbased class. And I find out that here is Matt, the guy who called me the cousin kisser originally is here and he's going to make my senior year, the last year that I'm here, the worst year ever again, right.
All of those. Do you ever have that happen where you like run into somebody that hurt you and you're like, ", woo, Lord, help me. Like, and that's kind of the the moment that I'm having here. And so, not only did was this a projectsbased class, but you guys, this was the class that involved my senior trip, okay.
The only trip that I ever took in high school had to be with this kid, okay. And I get sat next to him on a bus ride, a 45minute bus ride. And for a solid 25 minutes, we are sitting in absolute silence.
We're not saying a word to each other, okay. , if my Walkman that dates me, my Walkman wouldn't have been dead, I would have been listening to it, okay. , but , he did something really unexpected. He turned to me and he said, "Hey, , I don't know if you remember all of the stuff that I used to do to you in middle school.
" I'm thinking, "Yeah, I remember. " , he's like, "I just want to say that was a really crappy," He didn't say crappy, he said a different word. "It's a really crappy thing to do.
And I just wanted to say I'm sorry. " And it totally caught me off guard. And here's why. Just months before this is when I gave my life to Christ. So, I am faced with this decision in this moment, right.
This decision of, okay, I don't know the New Testament from the Old Testament, but I know that there is something in my spirit that says Jesus forgives and maybe I should forgive Matt. But there was a part of me that was a little still in the flesh and like, man, let him have it. Like, this is the moment, right.
He set you up. You could tell him how much he hurt you, how much he destroyed your reputation, all of the things, right. And this is where we sit in the tension of forgiveness, is so often we want to say and do and and and pretend like everything's okay, but on the same token, we want to we just want justice.
Like I said last week, we just want that person to feel the hurt that we had and to feel the hurt that we experienced. And so I left with a very hard difficult question that we all have to wrestle with, which is this question. What does love and forgiveness require of me.
And to do that, we're going to open up the word of God to Genesis chapter 43. It's on page 39. If you are new or visiting here, we open up Bibles every week. It's something that we believe that the word of God is the answer to the big questions in life.
This is a big question. And so, we look at the word of God. I'm going to tell you, keep your notebooks, keep your Bibles open today, okay. We got a lot of scripture to get through and we're going to actually get through it all. But you're going to have to track with me cuz I'm going to be summarizing some of the things that are repeated here.
So, are y'all with me so far. Find our place to to page 39 here. And I'm just going to tell you, we're going to start in verse 15. So, if you follow the numbers down to the number 15, but I want to premise again what is going on before we dive in because context is so important. And so where we left off is that the the brothers, they made their trip to Egypt to get food.
And what happened last week is it resulted in an unplanned diamond and dash. So the brothers come, they bring silver and they get the food, but then they get back and they see the silver is in their bags and so is the food and they're like, "Oh no, what did we do. And so that's how we left it off last week.
And now everybody's starving. And the only way that the brothers can go back to Egypt and get food is if they take their youngest brother Benjamin with. And dad Jacob is so against it.
He doesn't want his precious Benjamin to go all the way across and and and potentially get thrown into prison or something might happen. And so Judah, this is a really important name for today. Remember the name Judah.
So Judah speaks up and he says, "Dad, I you can hold me personally responsible for Benjamin. If we don't get food, Benjamin and the rest of us are going to die. " And so his dad kind of comes up with this plan. He says, "Okay, bring double the silver. Bring double the gifts and just plead plead for the governor to to release your brother and to to give you food and to provide here.
" And that's kind of where we kind of where we pick up this story. So verse 15, it says this. So the men, that is the brothers, took the gifts and the double the amount of silver and Benjamin also. They hurried down to Egypt and presented themselves to Joseph.
Now remember, they still don't know that this is Joseph, their brother. When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to a steward of his house, "Take these men to my house, slaughter an animal, and prepare a meal. They are going to eat with me at noon.
They the man the man did what Joseph told him and took the men to Joseph's house. Now, the men were frightened when they were taken to the house. They thought we're being brought back because of the silver, because of the diamond dash, basically, right. That they put back into our sacks the first time. He wanted to attack us and overpower us and seize us as slaves and take our donkeys.
Okay, so they're terrified and they want to clear the air before they even get up there. Okay, so this is what they do. So they went up to Joseph Stewart and spoke to him at the entrance of the house. We beg your pardon, our lord, they said. We have come down here the first time to buy food.
But at the place where we stopped for the night, we opened our sacks and found silver the exact weight in the mouth of the sacks. So we brought it back with us. We have also brought additional silver to buy us food. We don't know who put the silver in our sacks. Listen how the guard responds.
It's all right, he said. Don't be afraid. Your God, the God of our father, has given you treasure in your sacks, and I receive your silver.
Then he brought Simeon out to them. Okay, I'm going to stop here. What's the significance of that. Now, if you remember, they traveled as a group of brothers to Egypt and they seized one of the brothers, Simeon. And now, Joseph and his team not only say, "Hey, we did that on purpose.
We we gave you silver and we gave you food and I we want you to come up and feast with us. And by the way, here's your brother that's been in prison since the last time that you were gone. Here's what I want you to see. And if we kept reading the exchange here in this chapter, you would see this very same theme come up.
That hearts are beginning to change, but the relationship still hasn't. Hearts are beginning to change and the relationship still hasn't. And how I know this is because Joseph's brothers are and Joseph are still in the same relationship as they were last week.
Nothing changed between last week when we talked and now. But there is some kind of clarity in actions happening here. And so for the brothers, this is the first time we're seeing them outright about their emotions, their thoughts, their feelings, their worries, their intentions with with the people that they encounter.
And for Joseph, oh man, for Joseph, he's taking steps towards forgiveness in a way where he's showing them before they even have a conversation that I I'm moving towards forgiveness. Like, let me say it like this. I wouldn't have invited Matt into my house, gave him money, and , you know, said it was and invited him to a feast, right.
Like, that's what Joseph is doing. He's taking these people and bringing them into his house. The point is that hearts have changed, but the relationship hasn't. And what that teaches you and I about forgiveness is something so important.
That forgiveness is an inter it's an internal transformation but reconciliation is a relational process. People often times will blur the lines of forgiveness and reconciliation and they are really two different things. You see forgiveness starts with a decision here in our heart and the actions come out as a reflection of the decision.
But that doesn't mean the process of reconciliation has started. So there's actions happening with Joseph and his brothers, but the actual conversation has not taken place yet. See, I ultimately decided that I was going to forgive Matt. But that didn't mean that I was like, "Hey, you're my best friend now.
It's all water under the bridge. Let's have a conversation and I'll tell you all the ways that I was feeling about when you, you know, ruined my life or whatever, right. I didn't do that because the relationship needed the reconciliation part. The way that we might say this is that forgiveness is given, but trust and reconciliation is proven. And that's okay because sometimes I think what the goal becomes is this cliche that maybe you've heard before.
Forgive and what. Forget, right. Forgive and forget. And I'm just going to be real here.
Sometimes we don't want to forget. And so that means we don't go towards forgiveness. And that gets increasingly just really scary, a really scary place to be in.
But we don't want to forget. And maybe it's because of bitterness and anger, which we'll talk about in a second. But maybe it's also because psychologically speaking, this is how you and I are wired. That when somebody or something hurts us, then we want to do our best to protect ourselves. And how do we protect ourselves from getting hurt again.
Well, I don't want to forget about this, right. It's like when you put your hand on the stove top and it's hot. I don't want to forget about that. I have a burn mark to prove it.
And that's the idea here about forgetting. It's the psychologically safe thing that we think that we need to do. But I don't think forgive and forget is actually the goal.
I think the goal is this. So, here's my new term. You guys ready. You want to coin it with me. >> Forgive and release.
Because you can forgive without forgetting as long as you don't remain in the anger and bitterness towards that situation and towards those people. You see, you don't need anger and bitterness and all of the feelings associated with that in order to establish healthy boundaries. We talked about h healthy boundaries a lot last week, but these are feelings that you need release from. And so forgiveness actually is setting you free first, right. There's a great pastor who says it like this.
He says forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free and realizing you were the prisoner. And so when you forgive, as much as it feels like, oh, I'm just letting that person off the hook. Oh, they just get to get away with this.
It's not about that. Because forgiveness for Joseph and his brothers are all starting right here. And so this is what happens. Okay, can we get like really like I'm going to get really excited and really dramatic. I'm just going to warn you because this part of the story, it just like fires me up.
We're not going to read it, but look at chapter 44. Okay, I need I need you to bear with me and just kind of like get into the drama of this scene. So this is what happens.
The brothers come up and they are eating a meal with Joseph. Okay, they finish the meal and Joseph decides, "We're going to fill them up with food again. Enough food to last them.
" And he's like, "But I'm going to give them one more test. " And so he gives one of his guards his silver cup. Okay, this is a big deal back in ancient Egypt that you would that the governor that somebody would take the governor's cup.
And so Joseph slips his cup into a bag of one of the brothers and they get about, you know, just a distance away and Joseph goes, "Go get them. They took my cup, right. " And so they go after the brothers.
This sounds like a brother sister kind of setup here. And so they go and they show up and they're like, "Hey, one of you has stolen from the governor. One of you has stolen the silver cup. " And they're like, "Not me.
We haven't stolen anything. We learned our lesson last time. Like, we're we're not going to steal anything. We know better cuz you took our brother into prison and why would we want to do that.
" And so they they come up with this deal. They say, "All right, if you're lying, whoever has the silver cup in their bag, if they if someone does, then they have to come back with us and be a slave and a prisoner in the palace. " Sounds kind of like Joseph's story, right.
>> And so they go through the bags one by one by one. Guess whose bag has the silver cup. >> Benjamin. Benjamin has the silver cup. The one that everybody was trying to protect has the silver cup.
Now, if you remember at the beginning of this message, I said a very important detail. Judah, remember Judah, >> he said, , to his father, I'm going to stand in the place of Benjamin. I'm going to I'm going to make sure that no harm comes of Benjamin.
Can you think about how he was feeling in this moment. They got him, you know. But here is what's amazing. I don't want you to miss this because they go back into the palace, all of the brothers together, and Judas starts pleading.
He starts pleading. He says, "Please, please don't take my brother. We This is the situation. " He spends verses just explaining the last couple of trips that they've had to Egypt and all of the things that have happened. And then he says something so unexpected in verse 33.
And I want you to see this because many people will tell you that Joseph's story has this climactic moment that's going to happen in a little bit. I think the climax is right here in verse 33. Look at what Judah says. He says, "Now then please let your servant," that's me.
He's talking about himself. Please let Judah remain here as my l as my lord's slave in place of the boy and let the boy return with his brothers. I want you to hang out here with me for a second. Judah offers himself as a willing sacrifice for something that he didn't do in place of his brother.
He offers himself as a willing sacrifice for something that he didn't do. And what is the significance. Why is this the climax. Well, you could say, well, this is just Judah's story arc, right. In the beginning, we learned that Judah was one of the brothers that was really responsible for selling out Joseph.
He said, "What gain is it to us if we just let him die. Let's sell him into slavery. " And so you can make an argument that wow this is a significant point because Judah is having a character arc here.
It's like every movie we've ever watched like he's having some kind of awesome growth like character development but it goes so much deeper than that. You ready to Bible nerd out with me. This is so good. Do you remember what I said in week one that Joseph is not the main character of this story.
Okay, he is the main character of this story that we're reading. But remember throughout the Old Testament, we are following the family bloodline of Jesus. And did you know Joseph is not in that family bloodline. Do you know who is Judah.
Judah is the great great great great great great great great great great we could keep going grandfather of Jesus. And this shows us something so cool that Jesus has been revealing his character to you and I before the foundations of the world and even woven into everything throughout scripture and history. And this teaches us something so huge about forgiveness.
Not just from the perspective of Judah, but from the perspective of Jesus. That forgiveness requires sacrifice. Think about it. For Jesus, forgiveness costed everything. What was the cost.
The cross, right. And that forgiveness was given freely to you. He He didn't He didn't pause for a moment to walk willingly to the cross so that you could have forgiveness from everything that you've done, are doing, and have yet to do.
That is a good word, right. That's good news, right. That we are forgiven.
Because some of you, the forgiveness question is not, "Can I forgive others. " For some of you, it's can I forgive myself. And what's awesome is through a relationship with Jesus, the answer is yes. It's yes because Jesus paid the sacrifice for that. He wants to forgive you.
He wants to forgive everything that has ever happened. And he wants you to walk in that freedom. I want you to hear that this morning. For some of you that are wrestling with the guilt and the shame that you've carried for years, Jesus is saying, "No more. That's what I went to the cross for.
That's what I said I loved you for. And that's what I say I love you present tense for. That is the Jesus that we worship.
But Jesus also knows like I said in my first point that forgiveness also releases you. Jesus wants to set you free from those relationships that have hurt you. And so it's also true that Jesus wants us to forgive.
Now, we have a really easy time sometimes accepting, oh, Jesus forgives me. That's awesome. But then when we have to do it oursself, h it's a different game, right. CS Lewis says it like this. I love this quote.
Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive. Until like we would love forgiveness for all the things that we do wrong, but then when somebody hurts us, it's like, "Oh man, now I got to forgive. And we can't deny this.
If forgiveness requires sacrifice, here's where my train of thought goes sometimes. Why forgive. If it requires sacrifice, if it requires emotional energy, if I have to process through hard emotions or pray or check in with myself, like why do the work. Isn't it easier just to like get rid of it, right. But it's never actually gone.
But we still wrestle with this. What is the point of even forgiving. Let me show you what the point is. You're going to see it in a second in this story. Okay, go to chapter 45.
And now we get to this dramatic moment. Now, remember where we just left off. Judah had just offered Judah, the same person that sold Joseph off, just offered to sit in the place of Benjamin.
And Joseph and Benjamin are like this. Okay, they're the only ones in this blended family that are related. And Joseph is so moved by this. Look at this chapter 45.
It says this. Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all of his attendance. And he cried, "Have everyone here leave my presence. " So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him and Pharaoh's household heard about it.
This note is just a way of saying everybody had their ear pressed up to the door and they're like, "What is going on in there. " That's what's happening right here. Joseph said to his brothers, now I'm going to pause.
Oh man, Bible nerd. Do you remember in week two of this story that Joseph has been using an interpreter this entire time. They have not heard his voice until this moment. He has been pretending like he does not understand his native language until right now.
The first thing that his brothers here out of his mouth in their native language, I am Joseph. And then he follows it up with a very important question to him. Is my father still living. But his brothers were unable to answer him because they were terrified in his presence.
You can imagine, right. Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Come close to me. " When they had done this, they he said again because it was like they were in disbelief, "I am your brother Joseph. " You remember the one that you sold into Egypt. That's what he says.
But now look at how he follows this up. This is beautiful. And now do not be distressed. Do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years there has been a famine in the land and for the next five years there will be no plowing or reaping.
There's going to be no food. But listen to this. Verse seven.
But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant of the earth to save your lives by a great deliverance. Verse eight. Verse eight. So then it was not you who sent me here, but God.
It was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh and lord over his entire household and ruler of Egypt. I really hope you guys are cap capturing the drama of this moment. Because this shows us something so vitally important about forgiveness.
That forgiveness trusts God's purpose beyond the pain. That has been a huge theme throughout this entire story and throughout this entire series. Because here is what Joseph reassures his brothers of.
He says,"Do not be distressed. " He says, "Don't be don't be afraid. Don't be stressed.
" He says, "Don't be angry with yourselves. This happened so that it could save lives. This happened so that I could save your life.
This wasn't because of you, but God made all these things work out for good and for his glory. " Do you trust God in that way the way that Joseph trusts God there. Let me just like flip the script here for a second.
Okay, I want you to imagine for a second that none of this ever happened. That Joseph instead of being sold into slavery, his brothers weren't jealous of a coat. They didn't care, right. They treated Joseph just the same. And none of this ever would have happened.
You know what would have still happened. A seven-year famine. Okay, it was coming, right. But if all of this pain would have never happened to Joseph, then we wouldn't have the family line of Jesus. We wouldn't have any of the brothers because they would have starved to death.
So God can take something so detrimental. God can take some of the worst pain in your life. God can take your mess and turn it into a message. He can take your pain and turn it into a purpose.
And do you trust that God has a purpose beyond your pain. Because Joseph did. And here's the rest of the story.
He got to save his brothers. He got to reunite with his brothers. He got to reunite with his father.
He got to save his entire family line because of the bad things that he had to endure. He got to save them. Not only that, but he got to save thousands of people within this land who did not have food, who didn't have anything. There was a pain for Joseph. But there was also a purpose that worked its way out.
There was a purpose beyond that pain. And forgiveness was the key to moving past that pain. I want you to hear that forgiveness was the key to moving past that pain. I'm going to give you my my pastoral heart for you and I'm just going to tell you this might hurt a little bit.
Especially if you're in your chair and you're a little restless, okay. I know I've worked through a lot of these, okay. , some of you are just one forgiveness away from a breakthrough. Some of you have been holding on to the person or the situation or the thing that hurt you so tightly that you can't see that purpose. And God is here right now.
And he's inviting you into this place where you can come into that forgiveness, where you can release that pain and see God working all things together for your good and for his glory. Because that is what he does for Joseph. And that is why your forgiveness releases the past and moves towards purpose in God's future. Can I just can I just keep you here just for a minute. Okay, I know we're we're running long, but I I just really feel like I I want you to see this whole thing.
I want you to picture that there is all of the ingredients for a cake. Okay, right up here on this table. I want you to picture that for a second. I want you to picture that I taste each ingredient one ingredient at a time.
If I taste flour, what's going to happen. It's going to be nasty, right. If I just take vanilla extract and just go for it, like it's going to be nasty, right.
All of those ingredients together have bitter tastes and they don't really make sense. But when you combine them all together, what happens. Something beautiful, something sweet, something delicious, right. That works the same in your life. All of these ingredients that you have to go through, they may taste bitter, they may deal with anger, you may deal with all of these different things, but they are all to work out for one big decision.
Are you going to forgive. And so I want to just invite you to stay in this place here for a minute. I want to invite you to bow your heads and close your eyes.
This is something that we do at Destination as just a way of reflection of slowing down and and and just evaluating our hearts of how God might be speaking to us this morning. And for some of you, I believe I fully believe that the Holy Spirit is doing a work in your heart that today you are going to walk out those doors and you are going to walk towards forgiveness. That doesn't mean you're having a conversation.
That doesn't mean you're forgetting about it, but it means that you are walking in to forgiveness in your heart. And so if that's you, if you are in that place, I want to just recognize this that that is a difficult place to be in. And you might feel like you're alone.
The enemy might trick you into feeling like it's too much to bear or that you're alone. But let me remind you, Jesus is with you. Jesus knows what it means to forgive and to be forgiven. And he is walking with you, before you, behind you, beside you, saying, "I see the pain.
I see the hurt that that situation caused you, that that person caused you. And I want to meet you there. I want to meet you with my unconditional love.
And so if you're carrying that today, I just want to invite you to give it to Jesus. Whatever that looks like, maybe it's starting a relationship with Jesus. By the way, it's the best decision you will ever make when we're talking about good decisions.
But so is this decision of forgiveness. And so, let me just pray for you. God, I thank you so much for everybody in this room.
God, this is a tough topic. We are so fragile sometimes, God. And God, there are situations and things that I will never understand that people have walked through in this room, but you understand and you see them and you know them, and they are fully known and fully loved by you.
