3 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?”
But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at
his presence. 4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.”
When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold
into Egypt! 5 And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves
for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of
you. 6 For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the
next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. 7 But God sent
me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives
by a great deliverance. 8 “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but
God.” 15 And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them.
Afterward his brothers talked with him.
- Galatians 45:3-8a, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House) 1984.
Intro: Parents have many words of instruction for their children. In a child’s interaction with the road: "look both ways before crossing the street." In a child’s interaction with strangers: "don’t talk to them." In a child’s interaction wit domestic life: "clean your room". In a child’s interaction with nature: "Put something on your head and zip up you coat."
But when a child interacts with his or her siblings, 3 words seem to come out of parents’ mouths most often: "say you’re sorry". As siblings interact with one another, events often take place which bring about a need for forgiveness – a push is given, a name is called, a toy is taken. When such things happen, it’s often difficult to get one sibling to admit his guilt and ask the other for forgiveness. And it’s often equally as hard to get the offended sibling to forgive. That sibling will want to bring up the wrong time and time again – to hold it over the head of his brother or sister. Children often struggle with forgiveness.
But if we’re honest, we’d have to admit that adults often struggle with this problem as well. Marriages dissolve as one spouse can’t forgive another; friendships are weakened as one friend can’t put behind the wrongs that the other has done.
Today we will look at the proper way to forgive. We will see the example of one sibling forgiving his brothers. This sibling is none other than Joseph. As we examine his actions toward his brothers, God will encourage us by his example to FORGIVE OTHERS AS JOSEPH DID.
1. Motivated by God’s saving love.
2. Removing every wrong from the record
I. Joseph was a man motivated by God’s saving love. To realize the power of God’s saving love, I invite you to take a walk in the shoes of Joseph.
A.1. You were a 17-year-old boy, the second youngest among 12 brothers. Your mother died giving birth to your younger brother, so your father Jacob was your only parent.
Your father loved you very much. In fact, he gave you a very expensive robe to wear. When your older brothers went out to tend to your family’s flock of sheep, your father kept you back to make sure nothing bad happened to you.
At 17, you were still fairly nieve to many things in life. You didn’t realize your brothers growing hostility to you when your father showed you special treatment. You didn’t realize that it maybe wasn’t such a good idea to share with them some dreams you had: that they were bowing down to you.
As a nieve 17-year-old, you didn’t realize the danger in store for you as you journeyed 50 miles from home to check up on them at a place called Shechem. When they saw you coming in the distance, your robe shining in the sun, their hostility became too much for them to handle. When you reached them, they tore off your robe and threw you in the bottom of a cistern – a deep hole used to catch runoff during the rainy season. They only brought you out to sell you as a slave to some merchants passing through. They took your robe home to your father, covered in animal’s blood, which they said was your own. To your father and your brothers, you were as good as dead.
The merchants sold you to a man named Potiphar, an official of the Egyptian royal guard. As you went about your work as a slave in this distant land of Egypt, the Lord was with you. In fact, everything you worked at prospered. Potiphar let you live in his house, then made you his personal attendant, then put you in charge of his whole household, and then made you manager of everything he owned.
A.2. Your life had made quite a turnaround. That is, until Potiphar’s wife began making advances to you. You continually refused her, not wanting to dishonor your master and more importantly your God. Unable to possess you, Potiphar’s wife became enraged. She made up the story that you had tried to force yourself on her. As a result, you were exiled from Potiphar’s home and placed in prison.
As you sat in prison, the images of your home and your father must have seemed like distant memories. Yet you continued to trust in God for help. And he again helped you. The Lord made the warden of the prison impressed with your intelligence and work. In fact, the warden was so impressed with you, that he put you in charge of the rest of the prisoners.
Two of the prisoners that came into the jail one day were rather significant. One was the cupbearer for Pharaoh – the person who tasted his drink to make sure it wasn’t poisoned, and the other was Pharaoh’s baker. One night they each had strange dreams. After you listened to them, the Lord gave you their meanings: in 3 days the cupbearer would be restored to his position, while the baker would be executed. 3 days later things happened exactly as you said. The baker was hanged, while the cupbearer got his old job back.
Though you asked the cupbearer to remember you after he was freed, it was 2 years before you heard from him again. This time, Pharaoh was having some dreams that he didn’t understand. You were brought before Pharaoh to give the interpretation.
A.3. As you stood before one of the most powerful men in the world, the Lord was with you again. He provided you with the interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream: the land of Egypt would experience 7 years of plenty, followed by 7 years of famine. Pharaoh believed what you said. He made you in charge of gathering food during the seven years of plenty to support the land during the seven years of famine. When he did this, he made you ruler of the whole land of Egypt, second only to himself.
As the famine spread to the lands surrounding Egypt, your father and brothers ran out of food. They were forced to go to Egypt to seek grain. When they did so, you found yourself face to face with those who had wanted to kill you 13 years earlier. Now a man of 30, they did not recognize you. You kept your anonymity for a time, but finally the emotions grew too strong. You revealed yourself to your brothers and gave them all the food they could ask for. But more importantly, realizing how God had worked to save you, your brothers, and thousands in the surrounding lands, you forgave them for the past and embraced them in love.
B. 1. This would be your story if you were Joseph. When we walk in his shoes, we realize the power of God’s saving love: God was with Joseph in the cistern, he was with him in Potiphar’s house, he was with him in prison, and he was with him in Egypt. Though Joseph had been hated and abandoned by his own brothers, sold into slavery, and imprisoned, God worked his saving plan through him. God not only preserved Joseph through these events, but his brothers as well. And from the line of Judah, Joseph’s brother, would come Jesus our Savior.
B.2. When Joseph considered all these saving acts of God, he could not help but be motivated to forgive his brothers. He could not help but proclaim the words of verse 5, "And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you."
C. 1. Joseph’s actions are a wonderful example for us to follow. Just like Joseph, we too can rejoice in the saving plan God has for us. Realize that the same God who saved Joseph and his brothers is working his plan of salvation for us as well. This God always works for our good, no matter what happens in our lives.
That’s right, I said always. Even when we come home from work exhausted, even when we have to wrestle with that class in school that seems too difficult to handle, even when we encounter people who don’t like us, or say things about us that aren’t true; even when we get old, or when we get sick, or when we die. In each and every circumstance in our lives, God is working to keep us on the path of our salvation – the path that leads to our home in heaven.
Let us realize that God is with us in every moment of our lives. It is a truth that the devil would have us forget. Many times we may be faced with the temptation to view God as some kind of distant and disinterested deity. An impersonal being who couldn’t really know or care about all the events in my life. A God who is out there somewhere, but not really with us in every step of life.
C. 2. Friends, may such lies be gone from our hearts and minds. If we ever doubt God’s great love and care for each and every one of us, look to the revealing of his plan of salvation on the cross. It was here that God showed us and every person who ever lived just how much he cares for and is interested in us – for it was here that he gave his Son to die for our sins. Jesus died on the cross for each and every one of us. Because of this, we have been saved from the eternal death that our sins deserved and given eternal life. This is the rescue plan that God made for each and every one of us. He has rescued us from death and given us life. And he continues to work in our lives, even through the most difficult and painful events, to bring us to the completion of his rescue plan – the day we join him in eternal paradise.
D. When Joseph looked at God’s great rescues plan in his own life, he was overwhelmed with joy and could not help but forgive his brothers. When we look at God’s great rescue plan in our lives, as revealed in Jesus’ saving work, we too can be filled with joy and forgiveness for others. When we consider what an awesome rescue God made for us, how we have been saved from death and given life, we just can’t help but show love to others.
Imagine that you had a severe heart attack. You went downhill and knew that death was near. But at the peak of your desperation, you received a heart transplant. You were rescued. You were brought back home to an almost normal life.
What would you do when you got home? How would you act to a person who wronged you before? Would you spend your time remembering all the ways that he/she had harmed you? Plotting revenge? No. You would be so happy to be safe again – so filled with joy to be alive after knowing how close you were to death – that you probably couldn’t help but tell this person what God did for you and forgive them. The joy of being saved would be evident in your life.
Now realize that you have been saved in a great way. Not just from an earthly death, but from eternal death. So what is our reaction? Will we still focus on all the wrong that others have done; pondering how we can pay them back? No. The joy that comes from realizing the great saving plan that God has executed in our lives fills our hearts with love. It is this great love that God has shown in saving us that allows and motivates us, like Joseph, to forgive others.
Transition: The actions of Joseph show us the proper motivation for forgiving others: look away from what others do to God’s saving love as seen in his saving plan. But the actions of Joseph also show us another important aspect of forgiveness: the extent to which to forgive others. In Joseph, we see a forgiveness which removes every wrong from the record.
II. Take a walk in the shoes of Joseph’s brothers to realize the need for removing every wrong.
A. 1. You had despised Joseph as a boy. It burned you up to see how much your father cared for him and loved him and gave him expensive presents. While you spent long days and short nights trying to provide for the family’s flock in a land scarce with water, this boy remained in the shade of the tent with your father. While you worked in the rugged clothes of a shepherd, he went about in a rich robe. And those dreams that he spoke of – you and the others bowing down to him – were just too much to bear.
A. 2. You went along with selling him into slavery. You sat quietly to the side as your other brothers exchanged your own flesh and blood for 20 pieces of silver. It seemed OK at the time. The boy who didn’t know his place was getting what he deserved.
A. 3. But as the years wore on after this event, you realized the guilt of your actions. You and ten other men joined forces against a boy who had never raised a fist against you. You just couldn’t seem to remove from your memory the sound of his desperate cries for help at the bottom of the cistern. You sold him, your own brother, like a worthless object. And if you ever started to forget the events of that day, your father’s frequent lamenting for the loss of his son would remind you of your guilt.
And now, after 13 years time, you found yourself looking face to face with this very boy. Though now the boy had become a man; and not just any man – the man who ruled over the land of Egypt. The man who could have you put to death in an instant.
B. And yet it is this man who now addresses you with the words "I am your brother." It is this man who embraces you, and kisses you, and weeps in joy to see you again. It is this man who gives you the finest part of Egypt to settle in. It is this man who bids you to realize the saving plan of God for your lives. It is this man who forgives every wrong you ever committed against him. It is this man who makes you realize the joy of having every wrong removed from your record.
C.1. These would be some of the thoughts and feelings of a brother of Joseph after having every wrong removed from his record. But friends, these are thoughts and feelings much like the ones we may have as well. You see, we too, have had every wrong removed from our record.
Before God, we deserve death. God commands us to be perfect as he is perfect, yet that is not what we have been. Inside of us is a sinful nature that has coveted what is not ours, that has not always put God first in our lives, that has not always honored those in authority like we should. That has not kept every thought, and word, and action absolutely pure. Each of us is a sinner. Before God, sinners deserve death.
C.2. But that isn’t what we will get. You see, every wrong we have ever committed has been removed from our record, because Jesus has paid the price for our sin. We heard in the words of our Psalm this morning, "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." We have been forgiven. Jesus removed every sin from our record. Instead of experiencing God’s wrath, we receive his love. God says to you and to me, "Come close to me, my child. I have forgiven you all your wrong. Not because of anything you have done, but because of what my son has done for you."
D.1. Friends, we can forgive others completely, as Joseph did to his brothers, because God has forgiven us completely. It is true that our sinful nature doesn’t want to forgive. It wants to hold the sins of others against them. It doesn’t want to let go of the memory of how others have harmed us. And it doesn’t want those people to forget how they have harmed us. But when we stop and consider the wrong that our perfect God has removed form our awful records, we are motivated to freely forgive others.
Imagine that you owed a great debt that you could never repay. But the person you owed the money to said, "Forget about it. The debt is gone. I have removed the debt you owe me; it is erased from my records."
But then suppose that someone else who was very poor owed you a much smaller debt but could not repay it. Would you force him to pay it? Sue him if he didn’t? No. Such actions would show that you learned nothing from the person who forgave you the larger debt you owed him.
D.2. In our lives, God has forgiven us the tremendous debt we owed him. We have sinned against him countless times, and yet he has removed every wrong from our record. The sins that others commit against us pale in comparison to the sins we have committed against God. God’s tremendous love in removing all our wrong from the record is the example and motivation for us to completely and freely forgive those who have sinned against us. Because of God’s love and forgiveness to us, we can follow the example of Joseph and freely forgive others.
Conclusion: Joseph provides a wonderful example of removing every wrong from others records while being motivated by God’s saving love. As we seek to forgive those who have sinned against us, may we also take this same attitude of free forgiveness, being motivated by the forgiveness of all of our sins as seen in God’s saving plan for us. As we focus on what God has done for us instead of the wrong that others have done to us, let us forgive others as Joseph did.
Amen