Thank you so much for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.
Riverbend Church exists to bring people to Jesus, grow
generations in Jesus, and send disciples for Jesus.
We hope that you enjoy this message.
We're in the midst of a series on the life of a man by the name
of Joseph, and his story is given to us in the book of
Genesis, the very first book in the entire Bible.
And we've been walking through the life of this man by the name
of Joseph. And that's where we're going to
be picking things up in just a moment.
But before we jump back into the life of Joseph straight out of
the gate, let me ask you a quick question just for reflection.
What is the hardest, most difficult thing that you have
done in your life? What is the hardest, most
difficult thing that you've ever done in your life that you've
had to do in your entire life? Or maybe the the the hardest,
most difficult things that you that you chose to do?
And I know that that answer is going to going to going to vary
because we have a wide spectrum of backgrounds and ages and,
and, and experiences in here, right?
So for you, maybe the hardest thing, most difficult thing that
you chose to do is actually mustering up the courage to ask
that girl out on a date. For others of you, the the
hardest, most difficult thing that you have done to date is is
disciplining yourself to train for that marathon.
I don't know why anybody would do that, but some of you like to
do that. My whole take is if God intended
for us to run, he never would have invented cars.
But maybe for you, maybe, you know, and and I hear people say,
Ben, you got to try running it. There's just this euphoric
feeling. And I was like, yeah, I get that
on my couch. But, but maybe maybe the most
difficult thing that, that, that you have done, maybe the most,
the hardest, most difficult thing that you have done today
is making the, making the painful decision to, to, to, to,
to uproot and to move away from family or friends or, or
everything that you knew to be familiar.
Maybe, maybe it was, maybe it was because of a job, maybe it
was because of a relationship. It could be a variety of
reasons. Maybe the most difficult, the
hardest thing that you've ever had to do today is saying
goodbye to a loved one. And those are really tough,
aren't they? Remember when Julie, Julie and I
talk about this often? Remember when we were young and
we thought that life was as hard as and as complex as it was ever
going to get when we were 19? So what, what is today, what is
the hardest, most difficult thing that you've ever had to
do? You know, like I said, that
answer, because we have a variety of backgrounds,
different backstories, different experiences, There's going to be
a lot of different answers to that, right?
And, and, and it's not about comparing at all or, or to stack
up in some tier tiered order. It's basically just to bring us
all together to the same table and to look at the fact that
we've all had to go through some very difficult things and we all
will go through very difficult things.
But I think universally, one of the things that I think is the
most difficult and one of the hardest things that any of us
will ever have to do and that we have had to do is to offer
forgiveness to someone who has legitimately, legitimately
wronged us, who has legitimately does not deserve it and
legitimately has never asked for it.
That's hard. That's so difficult.
But I also believe, I also believe that when we harbor
unforgiveness in our hearts, when we harbor unforgiveness
towards someone who has legitimately wronged us and
caused pain and hurt and trauma, that in a way we cap.
When we harbor unforgiveness, we cap what God wants to do in our
lives. In other words, when we hold on
to unforgiveness, that unforgiveness slowly but surely
and subtly begins to break us. And if you've been with us over
this past series, you know that one of the things that we've
been talking about and that that that series big idea is going to
flash up on the screen if you're if you're taking notes with us.
But the thing that we've been talking about together is what
can easily break you. God turns into breakthrough and
church. This is what we desire for you.
This is what I desire for you as your pastor is that you live in
the breakthrough, that you live in the blessing of God, that you
live on the other side of unforgiveness and experience the
blessing and the breakthrough that God offers on that other
side of unforgiveness. So this morning we're going to
be holding 2 truths simultaneously #1 forgiveness.
True, full forgiveness is incredibly, extremely hard #2
nothing will set me free like offering true and full
forgiveness. We're going to hold on to those
truths simultaneously and to help guide us and to explore
those truths and to help us navigate those truths and how we
get from unforgiveness to experiencing the breakthrough
and the blessings of God on the other side of forgiveness.
We're going to go back and we're going to look at the life of
this man by the name of Joseph. And this morning we're going to
be picking it up in Genesis chapter 42.
Genesis chapter 42. If you have a Bible with you, it
can be a hard copy. It can be a digital copy, but
Genesis Chapter 42 is where we're going to be hanging out.
That's where we're actually, actually we're going to be
starting. You may look at the top of your
at, at your bulletin, at your, at your note sheet and sit there
and go, man. Genesis Chapter 42 through 47,
we're going to be here for a long time.
We're going to be summarizing most of it, but you'll get where
we're going as you're making your way there.
If you're new to Riverbend, maybe just new to the series,
let me go ahead and fill in some background info that's going to
be really helpful for you. This guy by the name of Joseph,
we're first to introduce to him back in Genesis chapter 37.
So if you want to pick back up at the very beginning of this
guy's life, you go to Genesis chapter 37.
There we meet a 17 year old by the name of Joseph, who by far
is his dad's favorite. His dad is a guy by the name of
Jacob, but God changes his name from Jacob to Israel.
But throughout the book of Genesis, it kind of flip flops
back and forth. It's going to become important
for us, in case you're wondering, throughout the rest
of the Old Testament, throughout the rest of the Bible, that
whenever we read about the 12 tribes of Israel, what we're
talking about and what the Bible is referring to are the 12 sons
of Jacob, whose name is actually changed to Israel.
But most of Joseph's narrative, he goes by the name of Jacob.
Joseph's dad goes by the name of Jacob.
And like I said before, Joseph was his dad's favorite.
And because he was his dad's favorite, it wasn't like it was
a secret. It wasn't like, you know, Jacob
slipped extra grilled cheese sandwiches under the table to
Joseph. Oh, no.
Jacob gave Joseph a coat, a robe of many colors that was only
reserved for him. So it was very much out in the
open. And it calls massive animosity
from Joseph's other brothers, from Jacob's other sons, so much
so they hated Joseph because of their dad's favoritism towards
Joseph, that they actually beat him.
They ripped the robe from his body.
They threw him into a pit. They sold him into slavery.
And then they took that robe. They killed a wild animal,
dipped the robe in the blood of the wild animal, ripped the robe
just a little bit, and then took the robe, the blood soaked robe,
back to their dad, Jacob, and made-up a story about how Joseph
was attacked by a wild animal. And apparently eaten by this
wild animal and that his favorite son is now dead.
That's the back story of where Joseph came from.
Meanwhile, in Joseph's world, he's carted off 300 miles away
from home to the nation of Egypt, sold as a slave to a man
by the name of Potiphar. He's falsely accused of sexual
misconduct by Potiphar's wife. He's thrown into prison.
He's forgotten about in prison. And then he's ultimately called
up to Pharaoh's palace because Pharaoh has two dreams that are
very concerning to him. And Pharaoh gets wind that this
guy in his prison can interpret dreams.
And Joseph goes on to interpret these dreams of Pharaoh.
And in true God fashion, God always being faithful and true,
the interpretation of the dreams actually comes into reality.
The interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams was, hey, Pharaoh, for
the next 7 years, there's going to be a lot of overabundance of
grain and crops. You're not even going to know
what to do with them. So listen, you need to store
them up. You need to put them away.
You need to preserve them. You need to store them up.
Because after those seven years, they're going to come seven
years of severe famine all around the region.
That's going to be felt all around the world.
It is going to be a met. There's going to be a mega
drought all around the world. So you need to stockpile
reserves from the seven years of plenty so that your people don't
starve during the seven years of famine.
And that's exactly what ends up happening.
But that sets the stage for where we pick it up in Genesis
chapter 42, verse one. Check this out.
It says when Jacob, again, Joseph's dad, when Jacob learned
that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, this
is such a deadline, right? Why do you look at one another
like, what are y'all doing just staring at each other?
And he said, behold, I've heard that there's grain for sale in
Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us
there that we may live and not die.
So 10 of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.
So for the first time in five chapters, for the first time in
five chapters, the narrative and the setting shifts back to
Joseph's hometown and his own family, to Canaan.
And there you got Jacob the dad saying, hey, listen, we're about
to starve to death. He's going to send ten of his
sons to go get grain. Check this outlook over with me
at verse 6. Now, Joseph, he was the governor
over the land, and he was the one who sold to all the people
of the land. And Joseph's brothers came and
bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground.
Verse 7 Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he
treated them like strangers and he spoke roughly to them.
Where did you come from? He said, and they said from the
land of Canaan to buy food. You ever run into anybody at the
store or a restaurant that they are 1000% convinced that they
know you, but you have no idea who they are.
And there's nothing worse than like, you see somebody, they're
like waving and you're like, and then you look back and there's
somebody actually that they're waving at and you're the one
that looks like a like a goon. But, yeah.
You ever been there, like at a store?
They're like, hey, man, how's it going?
You're like, good buddy, you know?
And you, you, you know that they know you.
You just have no idea who they are.
Yeah, this is, this is like a lot worse than that.
Joseph recognized his brothers. They had no idea who he was.
He recognized them probably the moment that they came in the
room, but they had no idea who he was.
Now let me go ahead and Fast forward.
Let me summarize and you can I would highly encourage you to
read Genesis 42 through 47 in your time with God this week.
But let me go ahead and summarize what what what goes on
here, just for the sake of our time together, is Joseph is
going to accuse his brothers of being spies.
He's going to accuse him of being spas.
And he's going to hold, he's going to hold 9.
He's going to hold 8 of them in custody and he's going to let
one of them go back home. He's going to hold one in
custody, let one of them go back home, but then after three days,
he's going to release or he's going to hold none of them in
custody, let one of them go back home because there were ten that
came together. He's going to let none of them
go back home with grain and he's going to give them their money.
He's going to hide their money in their saddlebags that they
came to to buy the grain with. He's going to hide their money,
but he's going to keep one of the brothers behind a brother by
the name of Simeon. And basically, this is what
Joseph tells the brothers, that he releases the eight.
Hey, go back to your dad. Go back to your dad and tell him
to bring the youngest son with you.
And unless you bring the youngest son with you, I'm not
going to release your other brother.
I'm going to keep him in custody, in prison.
Now, here's what you need to know.
We've already established the fact that Jacob, Joseph's dad,
he played favorites after Jacob was convinced that his favorite
child, Joseph was killed, was slaughtered by by a wild animal
20 years prior. His favoritism didn't go away.
It just shifted. It shifted to Joseph's younger
brother, a guy by the name of Benjamin, a young man by the
name of Benjamin. And Benjamin was, was Jacob.
He was, it was Jacob's prized possession that he was so
protective and, and some would even argue overprotective of
Benjamin to where he wouldn't let Benjamin like go anywhere
because he was so fearful that something might happen to
Benjamin like it happened to Joseph.
So when the eight brothers returned home to Jacob and said,
hey, listen, the guy, the governor that's selling us a
grain in Egypt, he said that. He said that we can't get any
more grain and we can't get Simeon back until we bring
Benjamin. And that just like struck such a
deep chord, struck at the heart of Jacob.
And after a lot of convincing, one of Joseph's brothers, a man
by the name of Reuben, tells his dad, Dad, if anything happens to
Benjamin, you can hold my life accountable.
If he does, then you can take my life.
It was that serious. So Jacob finally relents and he
allows Benjamin to travel back to Egypt.
Now, what Joseph truly wanted is he wanted the entire family to
be reunited. And he was hoping that Jacob
would come with them, but he didn't.
Jacob stayed home. He he's, he's an old man at this
point in time and probably wasn't deemed healthy enough to
make the 300 mile trek through the desert.
So brothers bring Benjamin to Joseph and Joseph basically
accuses them of being spies again.
And then he tells them, listen, I need you to go get your dad
Jacob. I'm going to load your donkeys
down. I'm going to load your caravan
down with, with grain to take back.
But what they didn't know is Joseph instructed some of his
chief advisors and officials to sneak Joseph's royal silver cup
into Benjamin's saddlebags. And he allowed them to get a
little bit ways down the road. And then Joseph's like, hey, I
need you to go get them. Search the search the
saddlebags. And sure enough, when they
search the saddlebags in Benjamin's saddlebag, they found
the royal silver cup. And his brothers are just beside
themselves because they know that their dad is going to die.
This something's going to happen to Benjamin.
So they they're brought back to the court of Joseph.
And this is where we pick it up. Genesis chapter 45, verse 4.
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 slavery.
And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because
you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.
So when Joseph was getting ready to to basically leverage the
situation to get Jacob to come to town, come back into town,
come to Egypt, he breaks down, he begins to weep.
Can you imagine, again, remember what I said like this is 20
years since Joseph, over 20 years since Joseph's been sold
into slavery? Can you imagine over the course
of those 20 years, what Joseph had convinced himself if he ever
had the opportunity to meet his brothers again, what he would
say to him, how he would just let him have it?
How could they? They were his brothers.
They were his older brothers. He looked up to them and they
were the ones that beat him and betrayed him and sold him.
Do you know how many questions he must have had?
And yet it seemed to all dissolve into a softened heart
and forgiveness towards them. How in the world can that
happen? How in the world can that happen
to where there's so much pent up animosity and even justified
animosity? How in the world can it all
dissolve into a softened heart into offering forgiveness to
help us discover the answer to that question?
If you've been with us throughout this series, you know
that we've been kind of riding on this natural rhythm and
cadence to where we've been asking 3 questions or the
passages that we read together and that we unpack together.
And the three questions are, what does this tell me about
God? Or what does this tell me about
Joseph? What does this tell me about
God? What does this tell me about me?
So let's start with that first one first.
What does this passage from Genesis 42 through Genesis 47,
what does it tell us about Joseph?
If you're taking notes with us, here's the first thing that we
should know. Forgiveness was not Joseph's
default. Forgiveness was not Joseph's
default. One of the things that I need to
stress to you and remind you of is Joseph was a real man with
real hurt, with real emotions that endured real trauma.
He wasn't some fictitious character.
He he wasn't the invention of screenwriters that, that that
gave him the character attribute of just forgiveness for some
emotional twist in a Hallmark movie.
I mean, we know that this wouldn't be a Hallmark movie
because it's set in the desert and we know that all Hallmark
movies are set in the Northeast and there's snow involved,
right? But he was a real man that
endured real hurt, real pain, real trauma.
And then what was Joseph's initial reaction?
Remember back in Genesis 42, verse seven, he treated them.
He spoke roughly to them. He treated them as strangers and
he spoke roughly to them. You see, that was Joseph's
initial reaction. But here's what we know about
Joseph. Joseph did not allow his initial
reaction to become his lasting response.
You see, his initial reaction toward them was treating them
like strangers and speaking roughly to them.
But by the time we see God playing out in Joseph's heart,
that wasn't his lasting reaction.
Or that wasn't his lasting response.
His initial reaction did not have to be his lasting response.
Let me put that on the personal Your initial reaction to things
do not have to be your lasting response to things.
But make no mistake about it, this is not some fairy tale
character. Joseph's natural reaction,
Joseph's natural default was not forgiveness.
You see, if we wrongly assumed that his natural default was
forgiveness, we sit there and go, well, that's just one of
those Bible superheroes. And I'm not that, you know, this
is a real man that went through real hurt, real harm, real pain,
real trauma, had real emotions. He had a real first reaction,
but he chose, and that's a mark of maturity by the way, is
choosing for his emotions not to become his main driver, that his
initial reaction didn't have to be his lasting response.
Second thing that we see about Joseph is Joseph's greatest
temptation came when he was in a position of power.
As you jot that down, I encourage you circle that word
power. Circle that word power.
Here's why. Power.
The power dynamic, it changed everything about everything.
For the first time in Joseph's life, he is in a position of
power. No longer is he the 17 year old
boy, the runt of the family that can be kicked around and thrown
into a a pit by his brothers. No longer is he a slave in
Potiphar's house. No longer is he a voiceless
victim of Potiphar's wife's lies.
No longer is he a prisoner who's more known by his number than by
his name. He is Zephaneth Penaea, which is
the name that Pharaoh himself gave Joseph, which means God
sees and God lives. That name was given to Joseph by
Pharaoh, and for the first time, Joseph is sitting in a seat of
power to where, at the very snap of his fingers, the very command
of his voice, he had the power to exalt or to execute.
He had the power to to to, to harass or to help.
And yet, what did Joseph do with this power?
We read at the end of or at the beginning of chapter 42.
We read how Joseph broke down and he began to weep and he all
his heart was softened and he offered forgiveness towards his
brothers. And in other words, Joseph chose
with this power and with this influence, Joseph chose to
extend grace to his brothers. Grace is giving them something
that they did not deserve and he chose to extend mercy to his
brothers. Mercy is get is not giving them
what they do deserve. And he chose to give them
forgiveness, to offer forgiveness to them, which is
giving up his right to execute punishment and judgment against
them. Joseph knew Joseph had an
eternal perspective that God used what they did for evil, and
he turned it for the good. Speaking of God, what does all
of this tell us about our God? Again, if you're taking notes
with us, here's the first thing. God will use our triggers to
bring about his healing. God will use his triggers to
bring about his healing. Let me unpack that for a second.
An emotional trigger. An emotional trigger is a name,
is a face, is a place, is a smell, is a memory in the now
that takes us back to a hurt, a pain, and a trauma in our past.
That's an emotional trigger. Like for example, it can be a
building that you drive past. It can be something that you
smell it, it can it can be like a similar name that you hear.
It can be a song that you hear. It can be pretty much anything
and everything. You ever been riding down the
road, minding your own business or or maybe just like taking a
shower. And then like you have an
emotional trigger and you start to be transported from the now
to something that happened in the past.
And before you know it, you're having an imaginary argument
with people that aren't even there.
Anybody with me on that or are you just all liars?
I hate that. That is so frustrating.
Emotional triggers are so frustrating and here's why.
I like to think that once I've dealt with something that I've
dealt with it and now it's time to move on and I don't have to
deal with it anymore. Anybody else with me on that?
Man, we would love it if that were true, right?
So why does God allow emotional triggers?
Why does God allow emotional triggers?
I need you to lean in really close on this one.
God allows emotional triggers in our lives to remind us that
there is a deeper healing that needs to take place.
I heard of, I heard a very wise veteran Christian counselor
several years ago make this statement Emotional triggers in
the now. Our Holy Spirit nudges that
there's a deeper healing that needs to take place.
You see, whatever pain and hurt and trauma that you have already
gone through and that you've already healed, you're probably,
chances are very good you're not completely and fully healed.
You're healed to the degree in which you can be healed right
now. But guess what?
God doesn't want to leave you in that state of being completely
and fully unhealed. He will bring about emotional
triggers in our lives as Holy Spirit nudges that there's a
deeper work that needs to take place.
You see, God will use our triggers to bring about His
healing. Don't hate the triggers.
Turn to the Savior whenever you come, whenever you pass that
building, and you're immediately transported from the now to the
past. Whenever you hear that name, and
you're immediately transported from the now to the past.
Whenever you smell that smell or hear that song and you're
immediately transported from the now to the past, don't hate the
trigger. Turn towards the Savior and
understand that there is a deeper work of healing that
needs to take place. And that emotional trigger is a
Holy Spirit nudge that He can do what only he can do because he
can go where only he can go. Because what we're talking about
with hurt and pain and trauma and unforgiveness is this is
deep soul stuff. That's why God allows emotional
triggers and uses emotional triggers.
Second thing that we're reminded about God is God's healing is
not about erasing the memory of pain, but transforming my
response from cursing to blessing.
I need you to trust me on this. Just jot that down and then
we'll unpack it. We'll walk through it.
God's healing is not about erasing the the memory of pain,
but transforming my response from cursing to blessing.
What we mean by that is we live in a day and an age that
basically is about just suppressing.
Do what you got to do just to get through it.
Suppress it, push it deep down, let somebody else deal with it
later on or hey, listen, you just need to move on.
You just need to get over it. You need to move on.
God will never, God will never approach your pain and your hurt
and your trauma as like, hey man, you just need to get over
it. Move on.
But God will also never call you to erase the memory of that
trauma. He doesn't want to erase the
memory of the trauma. He wants to redeem the trauma.
He doesn't want to erase the memory of the pain.
He wants to redeem the pain. Let me kind of explain what what
I'm talking about. When you and I have been
legitimately wronged or hurt by someone, there are two very
natural, very, very accepted responses to that hurt and pain.
We can either. It's not in your nose, but you
may want to jot down. We can either seethe.
We can seethe to where like we just grit our teeth.
We hear that name, we see that stupid face on Facebook.
Like we just seethe. It just makes us mad.
Like basically, I never want to hear that name again.
I never want to see that face again.
I never want to hear about that church again.
I never want to dot, dot, dot. We just seethe.
Listen, that's accepted by our culture.
Second option, this accepted and I would even say celebrated by
our culture. It's even more celebrated than
the seething option. It's the option to ignore.
Like if you want to put some
2025 or twenty 20s verbiage around it, cancel.
We just cancel people Like hey man you did me wrong.
You said something about me or my family or you just did US
wrong. You disrespected us like you
hurt us. You have no idea the level of
pain and trauma you caused. Man.
I'm just going to forget about you.
You might as well be dead to me. I'm just going to ignore the
fact that you even exist. We cancel that is so celebrated
because we have people around us that sit there and go.
You are such the bigger man. You're choosing not to take
vengeance on them. You're just choosing to walk
away, to cancel them out, to ignore it all.
You are such the bigger woman in this.
Do you know God gives us the third option?
And what I'm about to tell you is incredibly difficult, but
will bring about the deepest level of healing that you and I
will ever experience. When we are encouraged by people
around us to sieve and when we are patted on our backs to
cancel people out and to ignore them, and we actually even think
highly of ourselves to ignore them, God gives us the option to
jot this down. Bless them, You may say.
I'm out. You have no idea what he or she
did. You have no idea what I've gone
through. Hang with me, because in just a
second you're probably going to be even madder.
Do you know what it means to bless those that curse you?
It's to pray for them. It's to desire good for them as
God defines good. You must say I don't like that.
Yeah, me neither. But Jesus is very clear that,
listen, it's easy to to love those that love you and it's
easy to hate those that hate you.
But a mark that you're a follower of me is that you bless
those that curse you. Listen, you don't have to be in
close proximity to somebody to bless them.
You don't have to be in close proximity to somebody that to,
to pray for them. Let me tell you, let me tell you
what I'm talking about. Let me put some like real
tangible feet on this. Maybe I'm the only one and I'm
just like working out some therapy in front of y'all this
morning. You ever had somebody that hurts
you so deeply and you've endured pain and trauma so deeply that
in the middle of the night you wake up for some unknown reason
and that name or that situation is at the forefront of your
mind. What do you do with that other
than getting frustrated? I think that's an opportunity
for us to make a choice. We can wake up in the middle of
the night. We can sieve and probably not go
back to sleep. We can wake up in the middle of
night. We can ignore, probably struggle
to go back to sleep, or we can acknowledge maybe God woke us up
and maybe God placed that name or that face for that entity on
our mind for us to pray for. And here's the prayer.
God, I desire that you do your work through this person's life.
I desire you're good for this person.
God, I desire that you bless them, not bless what they have
done. Do not get that twisted or
confused, but I pray that you would bless them once they are
in accordance with you. You see, God will never call us
to erase the memory of our pain. He actually wants to redeem it
from cursing to blessing. So what does this tell us about
us? Very quickly on the on the home
stretch, Two things that this tells me about me.
My forgiveness of someone else sets me free.
As lovingly and as compassionately as I possibly
can, let me be very, very clear on something.
This morning is not about anyone else.
This morning is about you. This morning is not about anyone
else. This morning is about me.
Nothing will set me free. Nothing will set you free like
offering forgiveness to someone who is legitimately wronged.
You legitimately does not deserve it and may never ask for
it because listen, it is not about them.
It's about you. It's about me.
Now we have to be very, very clear on what forgiveness is and
what forgiveness isn't. Forgiveness is not saying what
they said or what they did was OK.
Forgiveness is not letting someone off the proverbial hook.
Forgiveness is not just stuffing it down and moving on and
getting over it. Forgiveness is giving up my
perceived right to take vengeance on someone else
because I understand. Listen, what is true for me is
true for you. No one is going to stand at the
end of their life. No one is going to stand before
me and give an account of their life to me.
As a matter of fact, I'm going to stand before God and all of
us, every single person, once we die, we will stand before God
and give an account of our lives to a holy God.
And I don't know about you. I've got more than enough to
deal with. No one's going to give an
account of their life to me. So forgiveness is not letting
somebody off the hook. It's not justifying what they
did, saying that it was OK, not ignoring it and stuffing it and
just deal with it later on. Forgiveness is going, God, I
know that you know it and I know that you've got it.
So you take it. And when I offload unforgiveness
and give it over to him, guess what?
I am lighter and I am freer. Second thing this tells me about
me, not only is my forgiveness of someone else setting me free,
but nothing will draw me closer to God than releasing someone
through forgiveness. Nothing will draw me closer to
God than releasing someone through forgiveness.
Let me give you, let me arm you. Please search.
Let me arm you with a passage of scripture that has helped me so
much that I hope will help you. Flip back to that last one right
here. If you want to know the main
theme of the life of Joseph, here it is.
Genesis 50, verse 20. You meant evil against me, God
meant it for good, Praise God. You meant evil God meant it for
good, Praise God. You see, nothing will draw me
closer to God like offering forgiveness of someone else,
releasing someone else for my unforgiveness.
Here's why is whenever we come to our senses and we realize
that there is something stay in our life, a mountain that is way
too high, a giant that is way too imposing in our life that we
stand no chance against that we come to our God and we say God,
this is too big for me, but it's not too big for you.
This is a problem for me. It's not a problem for you.
And guess what that is, that posture of prayer is surrender
and dependence. And nothing will draw us closer
to God then surrender independence.
This isn't in your notes, but this is for free.
If you want to know, if you want to know what habits you need to
instill in your life, what habits to practice, to regularly
practice in your life, that will fast track and that will super
grow your relationship and your love for God and your
understanding of His love for you.
It is the practice of regular confession, which means that
when I recognize that there's something in my life that is
against His will, His word, and His ways, that I confess that to
him as sin and ask Him to forgive me.
A mark of Christian maturity is the distance between my sin and
my confession starts to shrink. So practicing regular
confession. But the second thing is offering
forgiveness of someone else, releasing other people through
forgiveness, because it reminds us of how much we have been
forgiven by God. And it reminds us that, listen,
God, I don't want to carry this anymore.
God, I want to give it over to you.
You're the only one that can do anything with us to begin with.
And if you've been with us over the past several weeks over this
series, you know that the way that we have ended is by walking
through several key questions this morning.
This morning, we're not going to walk through several.
We're just going to walk through 1.
And you probably have already figured out what it is.
Here it is. Who do I need to release through
forgiveness? Who do I need to release through
forgiveness? It can be a spouse.
It can be a former spouse. It can be a sibling.
It can be a Co worker or a former Co worker.
It could be a boss. It could be a former boss.
It could be. It could be.
It could be a church. It could be.
It could be anything, everything.
It could be a parent. It could be an abuser.
It could be somebody who has taken it as their mission to try
to wreck your life. You may say, Ben, I hear you.
And I have offered that forgiveness before, but here I
am. You throw this question up.
And if Ioffer forgiveness to that person, why am I still
dealing with this? Perhaps this is a Holy Spirit
nudge. It's a Holy Spirit nudge.
Do you know our our ultimate act of worship is surrender
independence to God. God, you can do what only you
can do because you can go where only you can go into the hearts,
into the minds and into the souls of me and the people
around me, the people that I'm harboring unforgiveness towards.
So God, I freely, I pray that you would help me to forgive
this person. I pray that you would help me to
forgive this person. And if you're one of the people
that says Ben, I've already forgiven them, forgive them
again. You see, what you're going
through right now is one of those emotional triggers.
That is a Holy Spirit knows that there's a deeper level of
healing that needs to take place.
Here's what I would tell you is the invitation of God to bring
about healing in your life. It is offered.
You're the one that has to accept it.
So that's what we're about to do.
We're going to give you the opportunity to accept God's
invitation to you, to set you free.
Because as your pastor, one of the things that I desire most
for you is that you leave freer here this morning and that you
live holier once you leave here, then when you came and you leave
lighter than you did because and, and, and you live closer,
you leave closer to God than you did.
Like I said, nothing, nothing will draw you closer to the
heart of God then freely releasing somebody through
forgiveness. So what I'm going to do is I'm
going to pray our band, they're going to come back out leading
us and lead us in another song. You can stand or you can choose
to stand and sing, or you can choose to come and kneel and
take up God's invitation to you. If you want to talk to a pastor,
I'll be over here. Pastor title will be over here.
We would love to pray with you. We'd love to talk with you.
My hope, my prayer is that you be obedient to what God calls
you to this morning. God, we love you and we thank
you. God, we love you and we thank
you for the fact that you love us not based off of anything
that we have done or not done, but based off of who you are.
God, we also love you and thank you for the fact that you know
everything that we have been through.
God, you know how our heart breaks and you know how our
heart has been broken. God, you know the pain that we
have endured and you know the pain that we are going through.
God, you know the trauma that we have walked through, and God,
you know the trauma that we are walking through.
God, it is not just a knowledge of all of that that we are in
awe of. It is your invitation to us for
us to freely give that over to you.
God, I believe that if you could speak anything to any of us in
this moment, in this space and in this place, you would quietly
whisper in our ears. You know, you don't have to
carry that anymore. I can take it.
But God, you love us so much that you will never force or
coerce your goodness on us. God, you wait for us to give it
to you. So God, whatever we give to you,
whatever we bring to you this morning, got to pray that you
would receive it, that you would use it, that you would transform
it, ultimately, that you would redeem it.
It's in Jesus name that we pray, Amen.
Thank you for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.
To find out more about this message or Riverbend Church,
connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.