"Rest, Relationships, and Healing" - Lesson 7 - Pastor Fred Dana

[Music] [Music] though the nice deeper [Music] he has written me and i am his child under his wings [Applause] [Music] wings [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] under his wings under his wings [Music] [Music] [Applause] is be saved forever under his wings oh my precious enjoyment there will i hide till [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus [Music] [Applause] from his life [Music] [Applause] hey man let's borrow heads for prayer heavenly father thank you for singing and joining your angels to sing with us as we prepare our hearts to hear your word may we put aside any distraction anything that can take be between you and us father we ask that your holy spirit can stay with us as well as pastor fred dana that's gonna share his your word jesus said pray amen this morning lesson will be by our pastor fred dana may you'll be blessed and study the word together happy sabbath [Music] so let's go right to the lesson lesson seven rest relationships and healing our memory verse uh is from kind of the high point of the story where joseph says but now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here for god sent me before you to preserve life genesis 45 5 and we'll come back to that in one of the later pages now the the lesson begins with a story that really captures the essence of this story of joseph in the essence of forgiveness it tells us about a man who was accused of sexually assaulting a woman she identified him in the police lineup there was evidence that didn't seem to go along with it but she was so sure he was the right man that he went to prison wrongly and for 14 years he was in prison for a crime he didn't commit until dna evidence finally exonerated him and he was set free the woman heard about it and realized she must have made a terrible mistake and she felt so bad about it and she didn't know what to do but she wanted to meet the man she she wanted him to know how sorry she was and so as the story goes [Music] she was waiting in a room for him to come and when he came they just looked at each other for a minute eye to eye and the woman just burst into tears thinking about what she had caused to happen to this man and the man his name was johnny he leans down she said and he took both of my hands and he looked me in the eye and said i forgive you i forgive you and she says i couldn't believe it here was this man whom i had hated and whom i had only wanted to die and yet here he was telling me telling me who had done him so much wrong that he forgave me and she said that only then did she begin to understand what grace was really about and she said only then that i begin to heal and have true rest so this week is about forgiveness and what it can do for restless human hearts you know the forgiveness has a power to it but forgiveness also raises questions sometimes people struggle with forgiving because there's confusion about what it is you know so one of the questions that raises well what actually is forgiveness that sounds like a simple question right but sometimes people have this question in mind if we forgive someone who has deeply wronged us before he or she repents of the wrong are we justifying their behavior sometimes people think that if they forgive somebody they're saying it's okay is that what forgiveness is no uh if we forgive an individual does that mean that we need to establish or re-establish a close relationship with that person hopefully it can but it doesn't necessarily mean that that's going to be the right thing to do right does forgiveness always rebuild relationships it doesn't always do it fortunately it often does so joseph's life illustrates the power of forgiveness you know he could have easily cherished anger toward his brothers he could have easily had bitterness toward the slave traders he could have easily harbored resentment toward potiphar and yet in the story of joseph there is not a hint of any of these negative qualities in his life yet he would have only been human if he struggled with them but we don't see it coming up at all so he's a sterling example of forgiveness so throughout this week's lesson we will see how forgiveness releases us from the poison of bitterness forgiveness changes us it frees us from the bondage of resentment forgiveness fatil facilitates healing and broken relationships now before we go any farther uh there's not a really good time to fit this in but this is great i can't skip it because jesus and joseph have some striking similarities and of course their the forgiveness they gave is like the greatest examples in the bible forgiveness but joseph is a type of christ a symbol of christ you know think about it both jesus and joseph went to egypt both of them went where the alternative was dying you know joseph brothers were going to kill him they said let's sell him the slave to egypt jesus escaped to egypt was to not be killed by herod soldiers both were betrayed by those closest to them in one case brothers another case a disciple both were unjustly condemned and falsely accused both suffered the consequences and both forgave gloriously and both were exalted by god joseph to be prime minister of egypt and jesus to be the one lord intercessor for the whole human race lord of the universe you know jesus said for god father forgive them for they do not know what they do see we can forgive others because jesus forgave us and really that's the theme of this week's lesson so let's go to sunday's page facing the past you know we've got to catch up to where we left off where we left off joseph was finally called up after the baker remembered about the dreams because pharaoh had dreams so j after interpreting pharaoh's dream or dreams joseph not only got out of prison he was also made prime minister of egypt and he married he married as an ass he had two children ephraim and manasseh and in the seven years of plenty the storehouses of egypt were full and the predicted famine had begun for seven years joseph life was on top of the world and then one day joseph's brothers turned up in egypt so let's go to genesis 42 for the first encounter genesis 42. and we see in verse 2 that jacob hears there's corn in egypt and he tells his sons to go down and buy and verse 3 says 10 brethren went down and verse 4 tells us that jacob refused to let benjamin go because he was just afraid something bad would happen and so verse 6 tells us that joseph was the governor of the land and the last part of verse 6 says joseph's brethren came and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth significant right yeah and verse 7 says in joseph saw his brethren and he knew them but made himself strange unto them and spake roughly unto them and he said to them whence come ye and they said from the land of canaan to buy food verse 8 says joseph knew his brethren but they knew knew not him and joseph remembered the dreams which he had dreamed of them joseph realized he just saw the prophecy of his dreams come true right before his very eyes and and then he accused him of being spies so how come they didn't recognize him how come he recognized them well you know it's possible if only one of them had come he wouldn't recognize him but when ten come and they all kind of all have a familiarity to him it wasn't hard for him to realize right away these are my brothers these are those guys who sold me as a slave and were merciless and of course he's by himself and he you know time has gone by so um they don't recognize him besides he's in the garb and you know whatever the getup is for a prime minister he looks like an egyptian and so they don't realize it's him he's not a little kid anymore he's a he's a a man and he's an important one so they don't even have a clue it's not even in their minds all right so uh let's continue um verse 13 after he accused him of being spies verse 13 they said thy servants are twelve brethren the sons of one man in the land of canaan and behold the youngest is this day with our father and one is not have you ever wondered why they bothered to mention one is not how could that help them there you know i think that they they're in there they're kind of fearful and for some reason they just feeling like an open book there so they just spill their guts and then he tells them their spies again and then verse 16 he says send one of you and let him fetch your brother and you shall be kept in prison that your words may be proved verse 17 says he put all of them in prison for three days but these guys they get in the message this is serious and verse 18 joseph said unto them the third day this do and live for i fear god joseph realized he's maybe doing too much he got to let more than one go if they're going to bring all that food back right to for his family to survive so during those three days joseph is thinking this through and he says no i don't i don't want to overplay this and so he says if you do this you'll live because i fear god that must have puzzled them because do you think he was talking about the gods of egypt i think they knew what god he was talking about and they said that we weren't expecting to find prime minister of egypt fearing our god so verse 19 if you be true men let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison go ye carry corn for the famine of your houses but bring your youngest brother unto me so shall your your words be verified and ye shall not die and they did so all right so the question here is what was joseph trying to do with this first meeting he's putting stress on them isn't he he's putting stress on them to see what comes out to see what they're like after 20 years are they still these bickering guys ready to beat each other up or be or whatever and so he's testing them to see if they've told the truth about a son at home but what he really really wants to know is how are things at home you know he's worried about his father was is my father still alive and he's thinking about his brother benjamin you know benjamin was uh the only other son of rachel joseph jacob's favorite wife and so joseph would realize that benjamin would have replaced him as his father's delight and joy like a favorite son and he's wondering have my brothers transferred their dangerous jealousy and hatred toward me on to benjamin had they abused i mean they had abused joseph had they also abused benjamin so the author says practicing biblical principles in our relationships will not mean that we ever can or should accept abuse so you understand this whole thing is going to lead to joseph forgiving but in no way is it ever going to be excused as it was okay but it can be forgiven do you understand the difference all right so then um we have a question here why does jesus take abuse or neglect of others so personally so let's go to matthew 25 see what the author's getting at here matthew 25. and we start with verse 41 you know this is um where jesus is telling the parable the sheep and the goats or the dividing of the sheep and the goats and the sheep are put on the right hand of god because they took care of strangers they fed the hungry and so on but then in verse 41 he says then shall you say also unto them on the left hand depart from ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels i was unhungered and you gave me no meat i was thirsty you gave me no drink stranger and you took me not in naked and he clothed me not sick and in prison you visit me not then shall they also answer him saying lord when one saw we thee and hungered or a thirst or a stranger or naked or sick or imprisoned and did not minister unto thee he goes when verse 45 then shall he answer them saying verily i say unto you and as much as you did it not to one of the least of these you did it not to me and these shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous unto life eternal so why does jesus take so personally the neglect of others the author says we have all been bought through jesus blood and legally we are his and it says anyone who is abusive is attacking jesus property jesus said if you've done it to the least he's my brethren you've done it to me so this is really important because how we treat one another in the end is how the sheep and the goats are divided in the end people are not divided by how accurate their theology is it's by how kind their behavior is and it's an important thing to remember now theology does affect those things but a person could be wrong in their theology to be more christ-like than someone who has it all down and the christ-likeness is what matters the most that's what this parable brings out so you got to remember that whenever you're in theological differences because you could be right in a theological difference and be a goat on the left-hand side hand of god because you don't treat people right all right so so abuse strife is never good and the author goes on to say this sexual abuse and emotional or physical violence are never to be a part of family dynamics this is not just private family business to be resolved internally this will require outside help and intervention if you or someone in your family is being abused please get help from a trusted professional and that is sadly needed a lot more often than we probably believe even among adventist people so abuse of god's children is abuse of christ when you talk nasty to somebody you're talking nasty to christ when you accuse somebody you're accusing christ okay that's what we've got to remember to take this seriously jesus said in as much as you did it unto him least of these my brethren you've done it unto me now in the teacher's helps there's this note says the inability to forgive those who have wronged us limits god's ability to heal us had joseph not forgiven his brothers a spirit of bitterness would have carried over in his relationships with others and kept him from fulfilling god's purpose for his life do you understand how serious that is if he couldn't forgive his brothers early on the whole story couldn't have developed the way it did because joseph wouldn't have been the joseph we know if he had been harboring bitterness it would have stunted him it would have made him a difficult person instead of a person who everything he touched made pot of her prosper because god could bless him freely all right so let's go to monday and this thought continues with the author on monday under setting the stage said joseph had forgiven his brothers we don't know exactly when joseph forgave them but it was obviously long before they showed up joseph probably would never have thrived in egypt if he had not forgiven because most likely the anger and bitterness would have eaten away at his soul and damaged his relations with the lord now the author points out that several studies have been done on on people that have gone through terrible tragedies and unjust treatment and it says that it was a fact that for victims of the most horrible suffering forgiveness was a key factor to find healing and to get their lives together again and then this next sentence it really is if this sentence doesn't hit home you got to pray that it will without forgiveness we remain victims and our life cannot go on it stunts us says forgiveness has more to do with ourselves than with the person or persons who have wronged us when we forgive wrongs it often does more for us than it does for them well even though joseph had forgiven his brothers he was not willing to let the family relationships pick up where he had left them off he had to see if anything had changed you understand there's a lot of dynamics at play here so so what did joseph over here so going back to genesis 42 genesis 42. my fingers get real thick all of a sudden all right genesis 42 and let's pick it up verse 21. all right genesis 42 verse 21 and they said this is joseph has just told them to to go he's going to keep one and they can go back to and bring their food back and then to come back with their brother and verse 21 you get their response to this they said one to another we are verily guilty concerning our brother and that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and we would not hear therefore as this distress come upon us can you imagine they're having this difficulty they've been in prison for three days and now joseph is saying i'm gonna let you go back and you can bring all the food and everything so your family won't starve but i'm gonna keep one of you here and when you come back bring your younger brother and then they look at each other it's because of what we did to joseph they're like they're just wreaking in guilt and and they can't they can't even help talking to each other now they don't know joseph understands because joseph has been talking to them through an interpreter instead of in their own language because that would have been too much of a giveaway but then verse 22 wrote reuben sounds almost a little self-righteous here he says and reuben answered them saying speaking unto you saying do not sin against a child and you would not hear therefore behold also his blood is required reuben's kind of saying you remember i wasn't for all this i wasn't a part of this rumor that just for the record all right verse 23 says and they knew not that joseph understood them for he spake unto them by an interpreter and now here's joseph's response and he turned himself about from them and wept and then he returned to them again and communed with them and he took from them simeon and bound him before their eyes so what did he learn about his brothers that's the question the the author is asking in their confession to each other of what they had done to joseph he could see how guilty they felt and that they feared god's retribution for what they had done joseph's blood's been required of us we know we sold him as a slave to egypt and now here we are in egypt and god is bringing it upon us so 20 years earlier you know when they sold him the brothers had thought if we get rid of joseph we'll be free from him reporting everything to our father you know every family has a family reporter our family only had two kids but my daughter was a family reporter my son was always getting mad at her but here's there's 12 and one's the reporter at joseph they just feel duty bound to make sure the parents know but it really annoys the others so they thought we get rid of joseph that'll be a gone we won't have to put up with his dreams anymore if we get rid of joseph we won't have to watch him with his smug little smile revel in his favoritism but instead of finding rest getting rid of joseph had only brought them a plague of guilty conscience for 20 years and fear paralyzing fear of god's retribution and constant restlessness to kind of bring into the theme of our quarterly they weren't finding rest joseph actually felt sorry for their suffering and had to turn aside and weep he could see the damage it had done to them so who was damaged more by the brothers selling joseph to slavery joseph was damaged pretty bad but at this point joseph's a thousand times better off and they're in great distress their lives are not happy even though we will learn in the story they have changed a lot because of the grief god used that grief to do some changes in them well joseph knew the famine would last several more years so he insisted that they bring benjamin back the next time they came for grain and you know it's a long story about how they finally got jacob to go along with it probably a year later or so and so when they finally return he sees a benjamin is still alive and he organizes a feast so let's pick it up in genesis 43 verse 16 tells us that joseph saw benjamin with them and and they had the ruler of his house prepare a feast to dine at noon where the brother is happy to get special treatment and bring him brought to the governor's house verse 18 says the men were afraid because they were brought into joseph house here they are they're being favored they're being invited to eat at the governor's house and all they can think about is joseph's blood's on our hands we're in trouble see that's what guilt does you can't have peace when you don't treat others rights you can't folks when you don't treat other people right you're the one who loses and this is a perfect example they can't even enjoy the favor of being in this prestigious place and being fed this great meal so verse 26 says joseph comes home and says they bowed themselves to him to the earth again and then joseph begins to ask about their father is he alive is he well and they bowed and verse 29 says he looks and he realizes he all hears benjamin i think he so he asked is this benjamin he's playing the role of well how would i know right is this your brother that you spoke of yes this is benjamin and then he just looked at benjamin said god be gracious unto thee my son the brothers must have thought that was a strange response and then joseph had to tear out of the room quick before they saw him just break down and cry and then before we go to verse 33 they're being seated to eat the meal i always just love this this that joseph did verse 33 and they sat before him the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth and the men marveled at one another they're like looking at one another says how could he know the order of our birth you think they would have caught on right no they're so scared they're so guilty that they can't think of anything oh maybe that would be too hard to believe i don't know and then verse 34 tells us that benjamin was being served five times as much as the rest of them were but notice the last part and they drank and were merry with him when they saw him being treated well they were happy that must have been interesting for joseph all right so let's see uh oh yeah let's um okay so the the the author talks about the obvious show of favoritism to benjamin with five times of food he's testing to see if those old patterns of jealousy were still there and the brothers didn't show any signs of being jealous not a sign not a hint joseph must have been very happy about that he probably was kind of surprised all right but joseph also knew how cunning and how deceptive his brothers could be because you remember you remember when they made that deal with the people of shechem you know you get circumcised and we'll all be one you know people and have one god and then when those men were circumcised who was it that went and killed them all levi and simeon and so because he knew they must have given a big lie to their dad about what happened to him he thinks these guys are very practice deceivers i need to do another test and that other test is in genesis 44. so let's just go to genesis 44. um for the sake of time i'm just going to hit some highlights real quick but you know joseph tells the steward to take his silver cup and put it in the younger son's younger brother's bag and then send them on their way with all their stuff and you know they're real happy we got out of egypt alive and and we actually got favored and and uh the governor liked benjamin so we were all going home safely they were probably praising god on the road and then a horse comes up halter and this man the steward is doing what joseph told them to he's wherefore have you rewarded evil for good and he accused them of stealing the governor's golden uh silver cup and of course they deny it they're so sure none of them would do it that verse 9 they say with whomsoever thy servants it be found both let him die and we also will be the lord's bond men he said whoever has it you can execute him and we'll be your slaves now that's pretty certain it's not going to be found you would think that that first time when money was put back in their bags they'd be thinking this through a little better you know that part of the story right well then it says the cup was found in benjamin sack and they all came back and then joseph says what deed is this that you have done that's verse 15 and then judah makes one of the most amazing speeches in the bible judah says behold we are my lord's servants both we and he also whom the cup is found and um joseph says in verse 17 god forbid that i should do so but the man in whose hand the cup has found he shall be my servant and as for you get you up in peace unto your father so judah was saying we're all going to be your servants joseph says no only the one who took the cup the rest of you can go free now was that a test 20 years ago would they been happy to leave joseph behind they would have been thrilled they were viewed as providential we got rid of this rat and now here they won't accept it you can all go free just leave benjamin you know we can't do that and so judah gives this speech from verse 18 to the end of the chapter and he starts talking about how much it's going to kill his father if they don't come back with benjamin and verse 30 says now therefore when i come to this come to thy servant my father and the lad is not with us seeing that his life is bound up in the lads life it shall come to pass when he seeth that the lad is not with us that he will die he'll go with sorrow to the grave they remembered his grief when he thought he lost joseph but verse 33 is one of the greatest verses in all of scripture judah says now therefore i pray thee let thy servant abide instead of the lad abondment to my lord and let the lad go up with his brethren judah was willing to be in his younger brother's place let me be the slave let him go and in this sense judah's a type of christ isn't he yeah do you think this was very moving to joseph because joseph knows his father joseph knows what judah used to be i think it really moved joseph in fact chapter 45 verse 1 says then joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him and verse 2 you know not being able to refrain so he burst out and he wept aloud he's been ready to explode all through this whole thing because he has so many motions and then verse three says i am joseph does my father yet live and his brethren could not answer him for they were troubled at his presence they were terrified because they think oh no we're all done for well except benjamin in verse 4 joseph said unto his brethren come near to me i pray you and they came near and he said i am joseph your brother whom he sold into egypt and then verse 5 was our memory text now therefore be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither for god did send me before you to preserve life and then he tells them that the famine is going to last five more years and verse seven he says and god sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance so it was so now it was not you that sent me hither but god and he hath made me a father to pharaoh and the lord of all his house and a ruler throughout all the land of egypt that's quite an attitude there you didn't sell me into slavery god sent me and then verse 13 he tells them now you should tell my father of all my glory in egypt and all that ye have seen and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither and then he fell upon his brother benjamin's neck and wept and benjamin wept upon his neck moreover he kissed all his brethren and wept upon them and after that his brethren talked with him so at the bottom of the page there's a question after looking at these these highlights in genesis 45 says what does this tell us about how joseph felt about his brothers and the forgiveness he had given them didn't he see that they were changed men didn't this fill him with tremendous joy and and he's ready to reveal himself he wants relationship back with these brothers and and joseph also what the story tells us that it shows that he saw god's larger purpose in sending him to egypt and that made it easy for him to say don't worry my brothers yes what you did was wrong but god oversaw everything and because god oversaw everything i'm good with it so there's another question at the bottom it says what lessons should we take away from the story for ourselves there's quite a few things here but you know what hit me you know it says he fell on his neck and and kissed him it means they're hugging and so i thought hugs go well with forgiveness don't they maybe they can't always work but they help give it a solidity or something all right so there's probably a lot more we could discuss there let's go to tuesday forgive and forget now the author says forgiveness has been defined as the willingness to abandon one's right to resentment condemnation and revenge toward an offender or group who acts unjustly that's pretty big does that seem like a pretty good definition it covers quite a bit and then the author mentions a dr marilyn armor a family therapist who spent some time working with holocaust survivors to find out um what they did in order to make sense out of their own lives and she found that forgiveness was the key and so she wrote this the whole idea of forgiveness is an intentional act by the victim it's not something that just happens now that's interesting this is a result of her talking to many many people that survived the holocaust and not a single one said one day forgiveness just came over my heart it never worked that way and it never will folks they had to when you can't wait to feel right you have to decide forgiveness has to be decided it never just overwhelms you that you have to do it or somehow it's easy to let go you actually have to decide and so i have a question can you just decide that once and that's it probably not maybe in some cases once will do it but um one thing however you got to understand that there the author brings us out forgiveness doesn't mean that there will be no consequences you know there still may be consequences forgiveness doesn't mean letting an abuser continue abusive patterns you don't forgive and let them keep doing it forgiveness means instead that we turn our resentment and our desire for revenge over to god then the author says if not the anger the bitterness the resentment and the hatred will make whatever that person or persons did to us even worse you know there's a discussion question on friday's page number one someone said not forgiving is like drinking poison while hoping the other person will die it says what does this statement mean and think about it not forgiving is like drinking poison while hoping the other person will die i think what it means is that not forgiving hurts us more than it hurts them holding on to bitterness the resentment poisons us and it robs us of joy in life so in the middle of tuesday's page says what does forgiving others do for us and it has the parable of the unforgiving servant it's there in matthew 18. and for the sake of time i'm just going to sum up that parable the terribly unforgiving servant you know he was forgiven a debt that was impossible for him to pay but then he wouldn't have mercy on another servant who owed him a small debt but cast him in the prison and in the story jesus made it clear that the unforgiving servant lost his own forgiveness for his huge unpayable debt because he wouldn't forgive a smaller debt to somebody else so being willing to forgive others shows that we have received forgiveness of god right now on friday's page there's a spirit prophecy quote from christ object lessons 251 that really words it well says nothing can justify an unforgiving spirit he who is unmerciful toward others shows that he himself is not a partaker of god's pardoning grace in god's forgiveness the heart of the airing one is drawn close to the great heart of infinite love the tide of divine compassion flows into the sinner's soul and from him to the souls of others the tenderness and mercy that christ revealed in his own precious life will be seen in those who become sharers of his grace see when we won't forgive others all we're proving is we have not yet accepted or received god's forgiveness even though we may have gone through the motions many times if we don't let god change our heart we are not open to his grace so the author says no question one of the keys in learning to forgive is to understand that we have been forgiven in christ you know there's been times when i've been tempted to not have a forgiving attitude toward somebody when i was teaching at great lakes house academy sometimes i thought some of these teenagers they're just nasty to me and then i would remember that when i was a teenager i called the teacher a jerk once in front of the whole class i said man nobody's done that i was worse but god forgave me i guess i guess i could forgive these kids and they really weren't that bad but you just you know you have your moments where it's hard to appreciate some people unfortunately the next day is better or maybe later that same day so it says in jesus we can claim total forgiveness for all those sins not because we deserve it we don't but only because of god's grace toward us and so we forgive not because others deserve it but because it's what we have received from god and what we need ourselves so joseph you know the author points out that joseph was giving his family a second chance to become a new family he wasn't holding grudges there was no falling back to hash out the things of the past in fact it seems like joseph was willing to put the past behind them and move ahead with love and acceptance you know had joseph had a different attitude this story would have had a different ending right it wouldn't have been so happy all right let's go to wednesday's page making it practical some really good stuff here the author says in order to forgive i must admit that i've been hurt this can be hard to do as we are sometimes more inclined to try to bury our feelings rather than work through them i remember one time i went to somebody i knew i had wronged and i asked them to forgive me and they looked at me like i didn't do anything they couldn't even acknowledge that they had been hurt and i felt like i want i need to be forgiven and they won't even they can't even deal with the fact that i hurt them they're in denial or something like well i wouldn't be a christian if i was hurt come on you know sometimes people have a hard time admitting that they feel hurt sometimes people have a hard time admitting i am angry yes i am a christian and i got to deal with this but i am angry that wasn't right and so the author says acknowledging unchristian feelings of resentment and even anger before god is fine he's the one we take it to have you read some of those psalms some of those psalms david is just angry and he's he sounds like he's even accusing god and yet god allowed those psalms to be in the bible because god's big enough for us to go to him like that and just tell him how we feel and help me deal with it i'm really ticked i don't even i don't even like this person you know god already knows you don't like him so you're not you know informing him of anything and so he says look i'll help you with that so i can feel god feel free to tell god that i didn't like what happened or how i was treated good thing i brought water up here okay now the question here is what does jesus declaration of forgiveness on the cross tell us about the timing of forgiveness you know this is when jesus said forgive them for they don't know what they're doing he forgave them while the abuse was still happening that's pretty tough and what it tells us is that the sooner one can forgive the better but it also shows that jesus didn't wait for other people to be sorry for what they had done jesus didn't wait for an apology jesus didn't wait to ask to be forgiven he forgave now the question here says what do luke 6 28 and matthew 5 44 teach about how we relate to those who hurt us luke 6 28 says bless them that curse you and pray for them which despitefully use you matthew 5 44 has all the exact same lines but it starts out by love your enemies and has the additional line do good to them that hate you so what do these verses teach us about how we relate to those who hurt us we must choose to forgive right you must choose you pray for those who have hurt you you pray for god to put his love in your heart for them see forgiveness the author says it's like love it begins with a choice rather than a feeling we can make a choice to forgive even if our emotions may not agree with this decision and this is one of the problems people have if they don't feel forgiving they feel like they can't do it you choose to do it whether you feel or not and then you ask god to just help you keep working through it right it says here god knows that in our own strength this choice is impossible but with god all things are possible amen you know and it does say that in some cases a person that you need to you know make things right with may have died how do you make it right when they're dead well you can pray for the ability to forgive anyway sorry so then we have this paragraph says no question forgiveness isn't always easy the pain and the damage done to us can be devastating leaving us hurt crippled and broken healing will come if we allow it but holding on to bitterness and anger and resentment will make healing much harder if possible at all question at the bottom who do you need to forgive if not for that person's sake than for your own you know forgiveness should lead to reconciliation it should lead to a restoration of relationships but that isn't always possible it doesn't always restore relationships there are times that a relationship is so shattered that although forgiveness is healing for the one who has been hurt it still can't restore the relationship and maybe it shouldn't yet when god forgives us and we experience his grace we long to do everything we can if possible to restore the broken relationship sometimes that means reaching out to others we have hurt asking for their forgiveness it may be a phone call it may be a letter it may be a text it may be an email something to get the conversation started is there someone you have offended recently is there a broken relationship that needs to be repaired is there someone who has hurt you whom you need to forgive if you have offended or hurt someone why not ask god to help you know how to repair the relationship pray about doing something very specific to restore the relationship if someone has hurt you deeply ask god to give you the grace to forgive that person whether you need to ask for forgiveness or whether you need to forgive you will find god's grace sufficient for you let's go to thursday obviously i'm going to be out of time here but um and joseph's family has no more dark secrets because they got to explain how joseph ends up prime minister in egypt and uh so the father learns the truth and but then genesis 50 15-21 tells us that when jacob died joseph's brothers were afraid joseph might decide to get revenge this is 17 years later now and they sent a messenger to joseph seeking his forgiveness again and joseph wept because he sees they can't forgive themselves and he sees that they don't trust him enough they don't believe in his forgiveness because see they're realizing again as they're thinking about it now that their fathers died how much they hurt joseph joseph reassured them of his forgiveness again and now after their father's death and then the author puts in this sentence this refresher was probably good for joseph as well as his brethren because he says if the wound is deep we will probably have to forgive many times is that true yeah if you don't know that's true you're naive when memories of the wrong come to mind we will need to go to god immediately in prayer and make the choice to forgive again in verse 20 joseph explained to them again that in god's overruling providence he arranged all this so they should not be angry with themselves for what they had done so joseph firmly believed that his life was a part of god's big plan to help save the then known world from famine and then to help his family fulfill god's promise to become a great nation knowing that god had overruled the evil plans of his brothers to bring about good help joseph to forgive and see when we look at you know at the end of time we might say everything's going to be fixed and we'll have our happy ending and maybe we can't get a happy ending now before then maybe we can but knowing that all wrongs will be in some sense fixed corrected can that help us let go of pains and hurts now at least some knowing that god is in control and we can trust our lives to him amen right amen so i want to again say that if you would like to receive a cd or dvd of this lesson call 916-457-6 or email us at csh sac central dot org ask for offer c22133 thank you so much for joining us today and may god bless you and guide you

Channel: Daily Hymns

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Id: vYejw2r4V-I

Length: 54min 52sec (3292 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 04 2021