Mailing Address: PO Box 797 Molalla, OR 97038 Phone: 503-829-5101 Fax: 503-829-9502 Pastor Dale Satrum People Just Like Me Joseph: The Keys To His Amazing Forgiveness (Part 2) Intro: Summarize story of Joseph 4 principals why Joseph was able to forgive. What was his secret? I. Joseph Never Blamed God For His Pain There s no verse that says Joseph never blamed God, but there is a phrase that is repeated over and over again about Joseph s life. Gen. 39:21 But the Lord was with Joseph there, too, and he granted Joseph favor with the chief jailor. (NLT) Would Joseph be experiencing the Lord s favor if he was shaking his fist at God, and blaming Him for all of his misfortune? No! A. Blaming God will hinder you from experiencing the presence of God 1. Why do I say this? Basic truth of human nature is that you don t want to be around people you re mad at. Therefore, if you re mad at God because of the hurt in your life, you don t really want to spend time with Him! 2. Works this way in your marriage: If you re frustrated with each other, the last thing you want to do is go snuggle on the couch together. Don t touch me! It ruins the intimacy. You don t want to be close. 3. A lot of people go through life blaming God for their pain. It s as if at birth there came some kind of contract from God to eliminate pain and suffering from their existence in this life. Like God didn t keep up His end of the deal 4. Therefore, people get mad at God and cut themselves off from His presence. Spiritually we can say to God, Don t touch me! Leave me alone! 5. As a result, we may not want to read His word / go to church / pray / worship / be in ministry / Holding God responsible for our wounding kills motivation for all these things. 6. Maybe some of the spiritual barriers you may have in your life simply come from the fact that you feel God has let you down. You ve been blaming Him for things that He never promised to do. Maybe today you need to let those things go. Page 1
B. Blaming God will hinder you from experiencing the favor of God 1. God will show you that He loves you even while you go through some of the most difficult situations in life. He will show you that He hasn t abandoned you. He did with Joseph. 2. I know it s difficult to think in terms of God s Favor when we are going through pain, but this is exactly what we see from Joseph s life. Potiphar / Chief jailor / favor in the midst of pain. 3. When we blame God, we will miss seeing His hand still involved in our lives. We focus so much on the pain or the offense that we miss everything else God is doing around us. We become myopic in our perspective. Heb. 13:5 I will never fail you. I will never forsake you (NLT) II Cor. 4:8-9 We are persecuted but not forsaken (NASB) Rom. 8:31 If God is for us who can ever be against us? (NLT) 4. I can t tell you how many times over the years God has let me know He was still concerned about my life; still loves me, even while I was going through painful situations; dark times. Dale, I m still here! A note of thanks / a word from a life you touched / specific scripture He guided you to / a situation you saw Him work in / A song on the radio at just the right time / All this while we re in the dungeon. 5. Even though Joseph was experiencing some horrible consequences at the hands of others, he still was able to see the goodness of God working around him. How about you? 6. Are there some things you just need to stop blaming God for so that you can once again experience His presence and favor in your life? Joseph was able to forgive his brothers because he wasn t blaming God. II. Joseph Remained Faithful To God Despite His Pain Gen. 39:9 How could I ever do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God. (NLT) In response to Potiphar s wife. Joseph could have thought, Hey, what does it matter. My life is messed up forever. I ve been wronged; now I m just a slave. God doesn t care about my life anymore. A. Pain can cause us to question our allegiances 1. Many people only demonstrate allegiance to God when everything is going fine. Then, when the hard times come, they question God / His goodness / His plans / and quickly fall away. 2. Satan loves to use our pain to get us to question God. If God loves you so much, then why is He letting so much pain happen in your life? This is pretty unfair. Look what trusting God has gotten you? Ever heard that voice before? Page 2
3. It s the voice that says, It s not worth it. The price you re paying exceeds the benefits you re experiencing. It s the voice that tells you to quit. It s in these times we have to decide who we will be loyal to. 4. Will I pledge my allegiance to my fears and disappointments / to this world and its values / to myself and my own desires / OR, will I pledge my allegiance to Jesus no matter what! II Cor. 4:8-9 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed and broken. We are perplexed, but we don t give up and quit. We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going. (NLT) Great statement about his allegiances. I m going to follow Jesus no matter what! B. Pain can cause our allegiances to be strengthened 1. This is what it did with Joseph. After every trial, his allegiance to God never wavered. Obedience to God still mattered even though he was a slave. 2. Pain has a way of maturing us from being fair-weather Christians to faithfulno-matter-what Christians. From being weak to strong. 3. The pain we go through in this life is a lot like the tempering process for metal. Tempering is a heat treatment technique for metals. In steel, tempering is done to "toughen" the metal. The steel is then tempered by heating it in the range of 400-600 degrees Celsius. 4. I believe this is what God desires for us to be like. He wants us to be like tempered steel; made stronger by the fires of life. Life will just create its own heat. God wants to use that heat to temper and strengthen our faith. 5. Every time we pledge our allegiance to Jesus in the fires of life, our faith gets a little bit stronger. Our convictions go a little bit deeper. We get a little bit tougher spiritually. 6. If you re in the midst of some painful circumstances maybe even circumstances that have come from the hands of others. Will you let God temper you? Will you pledge your allegiance to Him and His ways no matter what? 7. Joseph was able to forgive his brothers because he was more committed to His God then committed his pain. Being faithful to God still mattered even though the circumstances were terrible. How about you? III. Joseph Never Took Revenge On His Brothers For Causing His Pain Can you imagine the temptation it would have been? The people who wronged you and haven t seen for 22 years are now cowering in fear before you. It seems that Joseph understood this principal. Rom. 12:19 Dear friends, never avenge yourselves. Leave that to God. For it is written, I will take vengeance; I will repay those who deserve it, says the Lord. Page 3
(NLT) Why doesn t God want us to take our own revenge? Getting even is just so appealing to the flesh! It just feels so good! A. Taking your own revenge will just increase your resentment 1. We can take revenge in a lot of different ways passively or aggressively. Explain: avoiding people / gossip and slander / letting the person know you are angry with them and have no desire to change that. / bringing up past offenses / being uncooperative / Whatever you do to inflict pain or discomfort on another person is a form of revenge. 2. Anytime we give into our anger / resentment / hatred / or revenge it only magnifies that emotion in us, never satisfies it. It feeds it rather than quenches it. 3. When God tells us not to take our own revenge, I believe He is trying to protect us. He is trying to protect us from becoming an emotional prisoner to another person. 4. Joseph could have harbored his bitterness for 22 years. He could have mentally played out hundreds of scenarios of how he would like to get even with his brothers. (Ever done that?) And all that time, he would not just be a physical slave, but an emotional slave as well. 5. Even if you are passively taking your revenge, it s not satisfying you; it s only keeping things stirred up inside. Your revenge is just reminding you of the offense and making you a prisoner to the one who hurt you. B. Taking your own revenge means that you get to play God 1. The Bible tells us that there is only One Lawgiver and Judge. (James 4:12) And that is Jesus. James 4:12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy; but who are you to judge your neighbor? (NASB) 2. Anytime we assume a role that should be God s we get ourselves in trouble. Handing out retribution to those who deserve it is just not our job in this life. 3. BUT, Rom 12 should give us a lot of hope for those who have been wronged by other. God promises to repay those who deserve it. It s a promise! It s going to happen. Consequences are inevitable! 4. Consequences for greedy oil companies / for criminals who get free with good lawyers / for evil governments who abuse their people / for terrorists who kill innocent people / 5. Honestly, this brings me a lot of comfort. This world is unfair! BUT, God promises to settle all the scores. There will be consequences. 6. This truth actually helps me be to able to forgive. Forgiveness isn t letting someone off Scott free. It is setting your emotions free from them, with the satisfaction that God will take care of the rest. He will take care of what is fair. He will settle all scores. Page 4
7. Joseph was able to forgive his brothers because his heart wasn t filled with taking his own revenge. IV. Joseph Acknowledged God s Sovereign Plan Over His Pain Gen. 45:5,7-8 God sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives God sent me here to keep you and your families alive so that you will become a great nation! Yes, it was God who sent me here, not you! (NLT) Gen. 50:20 As far as I am concerned, God turned into good what you meant for evil (NLT) Joseph saw that the hand of God was involved in the entire process. He was able to see that God even used the sinful behavior of his brothers to accomplish His good purposes. A. God s sovereignty is bigger than my pain 1. The painful events of this life cannot rob me of what God has in store for my life. God s sovereign purpose for my life takes into account that pain and suffer are part of the journey. 2. Sometimes we can conclude that because of problems / pain / wounding we must be out of the will of God. Certainly God s will wouldn t include being placed in an Egyptian prison unjustly? Yet, this is how he met the cupbearer who was the one who remembered Joseph and brought him to pharaoh. 3. God uses adverse circumstances to get us where He wants us to go to accomplish His great purposes. God is in charge even when it looks like life is a complete mess! 4. God, I don t know what You re doing; and it makes no sense to me at all; but I put my trust in You! I don t see how anything good can come out of this, but I put my trust in You. 5. B. God s sovereignty is bigger than people s sin against me 1. Other people cannot rob me of God s purpose for my life. Now, I can let them rob me. I can act like a victim / I can blame people / I can use my pain as an excuse for the way I m living my life. OR, I can put my faith in God! 2. 11 years ago I was rejected by the denomination I belonged to. They were not supportive of me / they didn t believe that God had spoken to me / they made fun of me and actually ridiculed me for it. I was a joke at the state office. Then, they even wanted to send me to another church down by the Oregon / CA. border. (Get me as far away as possible.) 3. I could have allowed them to rob me of everything God had told me / everything I believe He promised me / His sovereign purpose for my life I could have walked away from. 4. Just because you re in the dungeon, doesn t mean you re not right where God wants you. You see, it just might be God s path to the palace! Other people s Page 5
sin can t rob you of God s plan for your life. God s way too big and way too good to allow that! 5. Now, 11 years later, I can say with Joseph, that what some people meant for evil, God has used for good. When we re in the midst of it, we have to put our faith in God s sovereignty and keep trusting so that eventually we can see the fulfillment and in hindsight, say with Joseph the same thing. 6. Trusting in God s sovereignty allows me to forgive people. Joseph s story is an amazing story of forgiveness. What story of forgiveness do you need to write? Who are the people who have wronged you, and will you trust God enough to forgive them? Remember, forgiveness is a choice, not an emotion. BUT, that choice will be possible to make if like Joseph you Stop blaming God for your pain / Remain faithful to God despite the pain / Don t take revenge on those who caused the pain / Acknowledge God s sovereignty over your pain. Page 6