Genesis 45:3-15
What does it take to forgive?
[Pain.]
The neighborhood bully steals your lunch money. What is the hurt he inflicted when he pilfered your brown bag lunch? And what does it take to forgive?
A table of your peers cracks a few jokes about your appearance and your shoddy clothes. Those words - they sting; what’s the pain that must be addressed before you forgive? What does it take to forgive?
Your boss cuts you to shreds in front of the whole crew and knocks your performance. What does it take to forgive? Or let’s go deeper: someone acts in malfeasance or there is some malpractice that snips a dozen years from a loved one. What does it take to forgive?
This week as we look at the powerful Word of God we see that it has power to help us do the supernatural. It can help us to forgive. God‘s Word is our great heritage and let’s discover the power of this heritage as it helps us to forgive.
Our outline for this week
What does it take to forgive?
Honesty
sovereignty
equity
OK, so we are jumping in deep into Genesis 45. You’ve heard me say it before but you must, at least, get a glimpse of the context. The context is so necessary to understanding the meaning of what we read in the Bible. AIG link
In Genesis 45 Joseph is in Egypt and is second in command in all of Egypt, right underneath Pharaoh. How did he get here? We have to go back a number of years to Genesis 37 and see the context.
Context: A coat, two dreams, 12 brothers and seven years
Coat
Joseph is loved by his father and his father Israel does not hold back in showing this love for Joseph. The problem is he does not show equal love to Joseph’s brothers. Joseph is the favorite of 12 sons. Israel shows it by purchasing him a coat of many colors.
Joseph is loved by his father and favored over his brothers and that’s not right for any of them. That’s painful for the brothers. But they have such a dysfunctional family. I’m not sure they know how to deal with this pain appropriately. I’m not sure they know how to forgive their father for this wrong, for this pain.
Two dreams
Genesis 37:6-11
6 He said to them, “Hear this dream that I have dreamed: 7 Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” 8 His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
9 Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10 But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?” 11 And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.
To make the situation even more difficult, Joseph shares two dreams with his family that they immediately recognize as arrogance on the part of Joseph. “Are you indeed [going] to reign over us?“ So their hatred grew toward Joseph even more.
Indeed his father rebuked him for the dream that God had given Joseph. But his father also pondered the dream - “he kept the saying in mind.”
12 brothers
With the family of 12 brothers, Joseph and Benjamin were the two favorites. The other 10 we’re barely acknowledged. The other 10 let their hatred and jealousy build.
One day Joseph was out searching for his 10 brothers as they shepherded the family flocks. Once they discerned his figure in the distance, they made full use of this opportunity. Initially, their hatred brought them to the conclusion that they were going to kill him; but the chance to turn a profit by selling Joseph to an approaching caravan led to a selfish shift in the plan. They soldl him and he was carted off as a slave - bound and headed to Egypt.
They even concocted a story to explain his loss. They “slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood” (Genesis 37:31). The favored son’s coat soaked up the sacrificed blood and their father assumes the worst: “Joseph is dead“ said Israel.
In Egypt, God blessed Joseph to the point where he climbed the ranks and was put in charge of other servants in Potiphar’s household. But Potiphar‘s wife had a thing for Joseph and she tried to seduce him. He wanted nothing to do with this sin and her jealousy got Joseph tossed into prison.
Two more dreams
Now in prison he eventually met two of the king’s men who also had dreams. Joseph properly interpreted both of their dreams; they both came true. But Joseph’s youthfulness withered two more years in the prison.
Seven years
Then Pharaoh had two dreams that created great anxiety; the first plot involved seven fat cows and seven thin cows. The second contained seven fat heads of grain and seven thin, scorched heads of grain. He was exhaustively worried about the twin visions but didn’t have any interpretation.
When this dream came to light, the chief cupbearer remembered Joseph and shared Joseph’s skill with Pharaoh. . . someone who could help. They brought Joseph out to meet Pharoah and he interpreted the dreams by God's design.
God used Joseph and Pharoah to show what God had already planned: seven very abundant years and seven years of famine.
Joseph created a plan. God had skilled him in administration and leadership. Joseph knew exactly what to do because of the dreams and interpretation of those dreams.
Pharaoh put Joseph at the head of all Egypt. He started working the plan. After nine more years his unsuspecting brothers come down to Egypt to buy grain.
This is where we pick it up in Genesis 45. His brothers had come down to purchase grain so that the family could survive. Joseph had them exactly where he wanted them. He possessed a profound opportunity to compensate himself for all the pain he had experienced. But he didn’t . Why?
What does it take to forgive?
Honesty
Sovereignty
Equity - justice according to natural law or right
Genesis 45:3
And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.
This is the perfect opportunity for Joseph to seek some repayment for all the pain but he chooses a different path.
Genesis 45:4-5
So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.
What does it take to forgive?
Honesty
Sovereignty
Equity
Joseph has come to a place of resolve on this issue of forgiveness. HOW? Honest boldface Truth. Joseph doesn’t sugar coat what he experienced.
And you, the victim of some atrocious behavior, need to be honest about the hurt that you have endured. Forgiveness means assessing the hurt! AND it means seeing the sovereign nature of God.
Honesty: you sold me here - He is honest about the pain; he tells the truth about the debt they owe him; he does not diminish the hurt.
This is the place where we each need to land. What is the honest truth about the pain, the debt, the hurt that we have suffered under someone else’s neglect. Whether that is intentional or unintentional, someone has hurt you. There is some kind of pain, trauma, loss of work, loss of enthusiasm . . . there is some kind of hurt.
One of the worst things to do is to try and gloss over what really happened to you. Honesty. Joseph is brutally honest with him. He says it like it is. “You sold me here.” This is what you did.
What does it take to forgive?
Honesty
Sovereignty
Equity
Sovereignty - “God sent me before you to preserve life.” (Genesis 45:5) God is sovereign: He is all-powerful, He is all knowing, He is Ever present everywhere, and He is all loving. Cognizant of Our Almighty Loving God, Joseph is empowered to utter a truth that triumphs over the pain by showing God’s even bigger purpose. “God sent me before you to preserve life.” (Genesis 45:5)
What life was God preserving? Was it only Joseph’s life? Our damaged lives and hurt feelings might want ONLY the victim to be rescued. But God thinks bigger. God’s sovereign love extends beyond the “Joseph hero” to all of humanity. God’s omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence and All-loving nature extends to every man, woman and child.
The Egyptians will benefit from this plan. Jacob’s life is extended even though he has parental responsibility for the hurt of his other sons. Benjamin’s life, the other brothers’ lives, the servants, and on and on - God has such a strong love of life even for those who take life. His love endures forever.
The brothers were willing to kill Joseph - Yet God was willing to save them. This is Extreme. Why would God do this? How could God do this? Because God knows the depth of hurt in the human heart. Sin has messed up our human hearts to the point where we do inflict pain on each other. We are hurt and the natural impulse of our troubled hearts is to lash out at others. We create trails of pain and lives filled with debris and destruction.
Our Father in Heaven knows that His extreme willingness to help each polluted heart is the answer.
Genesis 45:6
For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest.
7 And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.
Joseph, the favored son of Israel, was sent into Egypt by God’s love and God’s design in order to preserve life. We know a greater son, a perfect son, who was sent to a parched and dry world in order to preserve life. But not just temporal life - eternal life. Jesus God's own Son was sent into the world to save, to forgive, to remove the pain and to remove the need to retaliate for any hurts we have endured.
What does it take to forgive?
Honesty
Sovereignty
Equity
God forgives. . . here comes the “Equity”
God is honest about the pain. He goes through the pain of betrayal. He goes through the pain of denial and the loss of life and the unjust treatment, the abuse.
Equity = “justice according to natural law” (Merriam-Webster.com). In his full knowledge and with all power and with greater love than we can imagine, he knows this alone: his own gracious exhaustion under the honest hand of justice, will remove the grip of guilt and pain from humanity‘s throat.
And in equity he didn’t choose a form of justice that was quick and painless. He didn’t choose lethal injection or a bullet to the head. That was too quick. The pain would be too limited. Because God had to pick an implement of justice that, in equity, equals the pain inflicted on his holy, righteous divinity, he picked the cross. And then he placed himself in the criminal's seat to receive that judgment.
In a few minutes we will see the words, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors“ (The Lord’s Prayer). That’s speaking about equity. That’s speaking about justice that’s already been carried out. Do we see the debt we owe God? If we are not aware of the pain we daily inflict on His divine perfection, then we downplay and sugarcoat our own sin.
But let’s be honest, we are more inclined to focus on the pain by which our character has been impaled. We are more blind to God's pain but often demand that another would suffer for the wrongs experienced by our humanity - wrongs to our human self!
And that’s where God brings in the cross and his son, whom He loves: Jesus. The only way God can forgive me my debt is because the debt that I owe him gets paid at the cross.
He will not diminish or downplay the pain that has been suffered by him; the cross is a vivid reminder that each of my sins inflicts horrible pain. And in his honesty, in his sovereignty and in his equity all has been paid by Christ Jesus the perfect son.
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