Joseph's Forgiveness and Ours

Forgiveness: A Chance To Live Again
I. The Story
a. The story of Jacob: Genesis 37:2 NASB “These are the records of the generations of Jacob. Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.”
b. The story of Judah: Matthew 1:3 “and to Judah were born Perez and Zerah by Tamar; and to Perez was born Hezron; and to Hezron, Ram;” Ancestor of David and Jesus.
c. The story of Joseph: Gen. 50:26 “So Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.”
i. Joseph survived being sold as a slave, life as a slave, betrayal by his brothers and slave-owners.
ii. God intervened in the looming regional famine by warning Pharoah in a dream and revealing the meaning to Joseph.
iii. Joseph’s humble wisdom was rewarded with his management of the agricultural system and then the entire kingdom.
iv. Joseph recognized his brothers as they came to buy food early in the famine.
1. He did not reveal himself to them, though his emotional outburts show that he longed to be reconciled to them.
2. Rather than pursuing vengeance, Joseph set up his brothers to reveal their current state-of-heart.
3. The brothers show their new attitudes toward one another.
4. Joseph reveals himself and welcomes them as their benefactor.

II. The Meaning of the Story
a. The story of Jesus:
i. as Joseph wept (Gen. 42:24; 43:30; 45:2; 45:14-15; 46:29; 50:1; 50:17), so Jesus wept (John 11:35—over Lazarus’ death; Luke 19:41—over Jerusalem)
ii. as Joseph went to Egypt, so Jesus went to Egypt (Matt 2:14)
iii. As Joseph forgave his brothers, so Jesus asked the Father to forgive his executioners, (for they don’t know what they do: Luke 23:24).
iv. The message of Jesus:
Dictionary of Biblical Imagery: Forgiveness
Jesus’ command that people forgive their fellow humans “seventy times seven” times (Mt 18:22; Lk 17:4), buttressed by a parable involving the canceling of debts (Mt 18:23–35).
The imagery of an equation appears in Jesus’ statements about God’s forgiving people as they forgive others (Mt 6:12, 14–15). The parable of the prodigal son and the forgiving father is a picture of human forgiveness but also a metaphor of God’s forgiveness (Lk 15:11–32).

b. The story of our lives, there is enough blame to go around:
i. Jacob created the circumstance whereby his other sons hated Joseph: broken families always have a cause; there is REASON to be fractured.
ii. Joseph added to the family tension by his lying about his brothers’ behaviours, by actually wearing the coat-of-favoritism in front of his brothers, and by arrogantly relating the dreams God had given him.
iii. Reuben, the eldest brother, could have taken Joseph aside and explained to him how family dynamics work, how life together functions.
iv. Judah betrayed his brother, selling him to the slave-traders.
III. We take away…
a. Motivation for Forgiveness.
i. We forgive because we have been forgiven.

Col. 2:13-14 ‘He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross’

C. S. Lewis--If God forgives us, we must forgive others. Otherwise it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than him.


ii. We forgive so that we might EXPERIENCE FORGIVENESS.
IVP—Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels
God’s forgiveness cannot be effectively received except by those who are ready to forgive others. This is given special emphasis in Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer by being made the subject of a unique comment: “If you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive the wrongs you have done” (6:15). The same thought is expressed positively in the previous verse, and in different words in Luke 6:37. There is even a scale of gratitude: the greater the forgiveness, the greater the love (Lk 7:47).

iii. We long for trusting community.
iv. We are wounded and grow numb when we do not forgive over time.
v. We experience less of God and less of one another when we cut ourselves off from the wounding person.

Illus: We may think, “I’m still angry with Fred or Mary, so I’ll just enjoy the smaller circle of my friends more richly.
Then you learn what CS Lewis learned: you need an entire circle of friends in order to truly know one another, to bring out the best of each person. True Friendship requires many in the circle, not just one other person. We cannot spare the loss of a friend to an offense, ours or theirs.

b. Means of Forgiveness.
i. We take the initiative.
Matthew 5:23–24 NASB
““If therefore you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.”

Matthew 18:15 NASB
““And if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.”

ii. We forgive because we were forgiven before we confessed!

Ephesians 2:1–6 NASB
“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus,”

Ephesians 2 teaches that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. Once we are born again, we are alive. Dead men can't confess sins. Only God can initiate this process. Augustine, Luther, Calvin, etc. were all clear on this point.


iii. We can forgive because we have experienced forgiveness.
Refusal to forgive others until they have repented and asked to be forgiven would mean that we would grow angrier and angrier throughout our days, because many of the people whom we know will hurt us and will not repent or ask to be forgiven in thoroughly genuine ways. Waiting for their confession, we would be left with a deepening, burning rage.

The mechanism of forgiving…
c. Mechanism of Forgiveness.
i. Forgive with the mind: We know TO DO that.
1. Remember my own BROKENESS.
2. Remember my REDEMPTION: what Christ has done for me.
3. Even though I can’t FORGET, I FORGIVE.

Colossians 3:13 “bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.”

ii. Forgive with the will: We CHOOSE to do that;
1. We ACT AS IF WE HAVE FORGIVEN the other person.
2. Repay evil with good.

1 Thessalonians 5:15 NASB
“See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all men.”

3. What we think, say, or do, we ACT as if we have forgiven.
a. We may REMEMBER THE SIN AGAINST US.
b. God says that He “remembers our sins no more.”
i. He means that He does not take our past into account when He thinks of us, speaks to us, acts toward us.
ii. We DO NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT WHAT THE OTHER HAS DONE AGAINST US WHEN WE THINK OF THEM, SPEAK TO THEM, OR ACT TOWARD THEM.


C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, chap. 3, para.10, pp.24-5
"There is no use in talking as if forgiveness were easy. We all know the old joke, 'You've given up smoking once; I've given it up a dozen times.' In the same way I could say of a certain man, 'Have I forgiven him for what he did that day? I've forgiven him more times than I can count.' For we find that the work of forgiveness has to be done over and over again."

iii. Forgive with the emotions.
Forgiveness on an emotional level requires rebuilding trust. Full forgiveness means that a relationship has been reconstructed, following the proof of trustworthiness.
THAT REQUIRES BOTH PARTIES TO BE ACTIVE, and it REQUIRES TIME TO RE-EARN, TO RE-BUILD TRUST.
That is what the Kingdom of God entails. We will trust one another. It begins here, today.