Much has happened since my last post, my computer has been down twice and is still down (I'm on our other computer which does not have MS Word to do my spell and grammer check), Thanksgiving came and went, I was ill for two weeks, and a tragic suicide occured in the family. I apologize for not writing, but, for the most part, it was definitly not one of the top ten on my priority list. There still is much on my mind but little I am ready to talk about.
Yesterday, in church, the sermon was thought provoking. We have been going through the book of Genesis. Currently we are near the book's end, and have reached the part of Joseph's life where he is reunited with his brother's after being separated from them in Egypt for 22 years. Our pastor, Dr. Rick Goertzen, continued his morning message in his evening sermon. It was one of those messages you don't want to miss, you don't want to end and you can't wait to get back to. In the morning the point of his focus was "why bad things happened to a good Joseph" and in the evening the heart of the message was forgiveness. Here, in this blog, I have neither the time nor the space to go into everything that he said, but concept of forgiveness keeps popping up in my mind so I've chosen to write about that. Let me give you a little background.
Two years ago, I took a class on how to teach, ("Blueprint for Teaching," by John MacArthur and staff at Grace Community Church) offered by one of the pastors of our church.
At the end of the course, our assignment was to choose a passage from preselected passages and teach a ten minute lesson on that passage. Silly me, my memory is so faulty, I have to write everything down or I forget it. I looked through the passages and chose several passages I thought I would like to teach and listed them on a piece of paper. I listed more than one just in case some of the other students chose the same passage, thinking it would be rather boring to listen to all 12 students teach on the same passage. I had also written down the one passage I absolutely didn't want to do, Matthew 18:21-31, marking beside it in big, bold letters "DON'T TEACH. This passage is often called the parable of the wicked servant and I knew it would be difficult, as it is a parable and I hadn't dealt with parables much in my own personal studies. The day we were to officially announce our passages, I forgot to bring my paper with my chosen passages, so I tried to select one from memory. As it turned out, which one do you suppose I picked? You guessed it, the one I didn't want to do. I was totally dumfounded when I got home and looked at my list. The next two weeks, As I worked though the verses of Matthew 18:21-35, I realized why the paper had been left at home, the passage choice was not mine, but God's. God had much he wanted to say to me about forgiveness and he chose this passage to begin my training. I had thought I understood all I needed to know about forgiveness, but I soon became aware that there was much that I needed to learn. So I began, what now seems, to be my life-time study of forgiveness.
As I said, that was two years ago. Yesterday's message acted as an evaluator, a check on how I was doing. From the Genesis 45 passage, Dr. Goertzen, our senior pastor, made three points about forgiveness:
- Forgiveness extends full favor
- Forgiveness withholds no emotion
- Forgiveness begets forgiveness
Just so we are clear, since I cannot remember his exact words, what follows below is not an exact quote, it's only a paraphrase that I've constructed of what I remember he said. If you're interested in an exact representation, in time, this sermon will appear on the Grace Bible church's website either on the radio broadcast or in the sermons.
http:/www.gbc-hutchinson.com
Forgiveness extends full favor
Forgiveness shows no limits whatsoever on any earthly goods. This is take from verse 9 of Genesis 45. Joseph has fully forgiven them. He intends to put them in the land of Goshen which is in the northeast of the land of Egypt, near him. He pledges complete care and safety, and he promises to sustain them for five years. He is making every provision for they safety and their care. He withholds nothing.
Forgiveness withholds no emotion
When the forgiver does not withhold his love and his kindness toward the person he is forgiving, it eases the relationship and a there can then be a full and free exchange of emotion with no barriers whatsoever. In verses 9-15, Joseph is in no way pretending to forgive, keeping up airs, so that his brothers will think that he has forgiven them. He has truly forgiven them. He holds no ill will toward them. He has used the last 22 years to draw close to God. Drawing closer to God is what allowed Joseph to forgive his brothers. If you can't draw close to God, you can't forgive. If you can't forgive, you can't draw close to God. During those 22 years, God was sufficiently enriching his soul. Only a sufficiently enriched soul can forgive. Love melts the heart and Joseph's love of God melted his heart toward his brothers. In order to forgive, we must love God first. If we've chosen bitterness over forgiveness, we are withholding from God. God forgave us when we were his enemies. How dare we not forgive someone else. We must forgive them as God forgave us. We must love them as God loved us.
Forgiveness begets forgiveness
In the story, Pharoah takes his cue from Joseph and extends favor to his brothers as a direct result of his affection for Joseph and as a result of Joseph's forgiveness of his brothers. When others see you forgive, they will forgive as well. Ephesians 1:3 says we "have received every spiritual blessing." God has withheld nothing spiritually, we have every spiritual blessing there is. God has shown favor to us, not because we have a natural claim, we were his enemies but because we are in his Son. We don't have a claim on a portion of his blessing, we have a claim on every spiritual blessing.
Forgiveness has to begin with our release. We have to be willing to forgive and willing to release our bitterness towards the other person. We also have to trust God. We have to see him as the primary source of everything that happens in our life, even the hurt or pain inflicted by the person we have chosen not to forgive. We have to trust that it was God who has allowed it in our life for good (Rom. 8:28) to conform us to the image of Christ. As we relinquish our anger and bitterness toward those who have wronged us, we must trust that God, who loves us and allowed these circumstances in our life, will continue to work his good purpose in us until we are raised in glory.
I can't begin to relay the impact with which he deliverd this message. It was spell-binding. However poorly I conveyed it to you, I hope you gain something from it. Along side of that, I want to say, I am convinced forgiveness is a major requirement of the Christian faith. We could not be saved without God's forgiveness. It is one of his attributes and a closely connected to his love. We cannot love without forgiving. We are commanded both to love and forgive. We cannot exemplify Christ without forgiving and it is Christ's example we are to follow. Unforgiveness permeates every part of our natural self. It's closely related to selfishness and pride. It's a deceptive and an ugly foe we must fight to overcome every single day that we live on this earth.
