Series: Christmas is For-Giving
Message: Christmas is For-Giving
Topics: Forgiveness, Pain, Hurt, Joseph, Peter, Jesus, Grace, Blessing, Prayer
Text: Genesis 45:1-3, 14-15
Date: January 8, 2011
Pastor: David McBeath
(Based on an outline from lifechurch-tv.)
INTRODUCTION
Today we begin a new sermon series called Christmas is for giving. Let me start by saying my family had a great Christmas! We went back to Indiana last week to celebrate with family. Here is what was so great about Christmas. Giving! It is great to give and watch people enjoy the gifts we give. Parents you know what I am talking about don’t you! When you see you child’s eyes light up and they dance around the room because the love their present!
Christmas is for giving! Why because God gave us the greatest Gift—Jesus—who came to forgive us of our sins. So Christmas is for giving and its message of forgiving or forgiveness lasts all year long.
Now even though Christmas has incredible potential to be great, it has the same potential to be hurtful. Doesn’t it? That’s what we are going to talk about this morning, how do we deal with the hurt the Christmas often brings to our lives?
It is this hurt that that causes many of us to say “I hope we just survive the holidays” or to say “We’re planning on having a “cordial” Christmas.” We will be cordial than watch out. We’ll get into the car, drive away, and talk bad about our family the rest of the ride home! Anyone been there?
So how does all this hurt come about? Well for many of us it is caused by what family members or others have done to us in the past.
Christmas Shuffle
Here’s an example. You all know what the holiday shuffle is right? If you don’t, it is the process where you spend 2-10 days going from family gathering to family gathering celebrating Christmas. Now the shuffle is hard enough when there is no divorce and there are just two sides of the family to visit. Throw in a divorce or two and it gets a whole lot more hectic. In the back of everyone’s head are the questions:
• Who went where?
• How come they couldn’t have come to our house?
• Why do we have to go there?
• How much time did they spend with them compared to us?
• Why didn’t they come home this year?
Inevitably feelings get hurt! And arguments arise over where to go and what to do? [No one here has ever had this argument with their spouse, right? Judging by the smirks on your face you all know what I am talking about.]
The Present Pile
How about this example? I was talking to a friend. He knew he had ticked off his family by going to your wife’s relatives last year instead of his. He and his wife are at his Mom and Dad’s the next year while the extended family is sitting around the Christmas tree. Presents are being passed out and he notices a huge pile of presents in front of his brother and sister in laws. …His wife …has 1 present. Ouch! Can you believe that? I mean it is so bad everyone is uncomfortable! Sad but true and I am sure there are a few of you here this morning that can relate!
The Psycho Relative
Now factor into all this what many people call the psycho factor. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? I imagine it like the book of Job. Satan is walking around the families of the earth then going to God to get permission to drop 1 Psycho, hard to deal with, lunatic, in every family. You know the person. …That family member that says and does the wrong thing at the wrong time all the time or who is just a royal pain in the backside! ….There is one in every family. Isn’t there?
Now just to prove this little illustration, everyone that has a psycho in their family, raise your hand. Put it up high, don’t be afraid. Leave them up … don’t put them down…cause this is important. Now look around! Those that don’t have their hand up…they might be the Psycho one in their family! You thought you family was normal, but they are all talking about you! Now I’m just kidding! Don’t get mad at me or you’ll have to apply this message to me this morning.
JOSEPH
Now we aren’t the only folks who have been hurt by family members. The bible tells us the story of a guy named Joseph a young guy who is Daddy’s favorite. He got the best present from his Dad—a designer jacket made of many color. It was probably Ralph Lauren.
We are also told that he is guy with great visions and dreams from God, but wasn’t smart enough not to rub it in. He told his brothers, “Hey, God is going to do this and that in my life,” and his brothers are like, “You’re a cocky little punk. We don’t like your attitude. You think you’re all that and you’re not. We need to put you in your place.”
So his brothers decided to rough him up and throw him in a pit to die. But the nice brother had second thoughts and said, “No. Let’s not kill him. Let’s just sell him into slavery.” …Like that is much better!
And here we see a man’s life, a man who feared God, who hadn’t done anything significantly wrong, endure years and years of pain caused by the hand of his own family members. Even though his life was outwardly spiraling out of control, God was still inwardly doing a very powerful work. God was taking him and positioning him in the right places, at the right time, and by the right people to surprisingly elevate him one day to be second in charge over all of Egypt.
Years passed by, and one day, Joseph found himself face-to-face with the brothers who had betrayed him. In Genesis 45:1-3, you can see just a snapshot of the pain that this guy faced, and maybe some of you can relate to that kind of pain as well. Look at verse one. The Bible says this when he saw his brothers, “Then Joseph could no longer control himself.”
Read into this. Here is a guy who loses it! The Bible says he “could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cries out, ‘Have everyone leave my presence!’” “Go away! I don’t want you in here. I don’t want to see you me like this. Have everyone get out of here. I can’t handle this.”
The Bible says, “There was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers.” And check this out. “And he wept so loudly,” wailing with pain. “He wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.” Here, we see a guy behind closed doors just letting it loose. Years of questions, of pain, and hurt just pouring out of his whole body.
Letting Loose to Paula
Let’s be honest. A lot of us have that potential, don’t we? It’s happened to me. I was dating Paula. I knew she needed to know some things about my family. We went to a park around the Campus of Indiana University and there I let it all out. I told about all the hurt and pain in my family, and I lost it like Joseph did! After she had seen me like that and didn’t freak out—I knew she was the girl I was going to marry.
Hurt People …Hurt People
It’s amazing that those that we love the most can often hurt us the most, and we can hurt them as well. Many of us, if we were to deal face-to-face with some family issues, the fact that maybe we are not close to a father or mother or sibling or child, many of us, if we dealt face-to-face with some of these real family issues, we could do nothing but just weep loudly, like Joseph did. But the sad thing is this: It is easy to slip into a cycle of continuing the hurt. Someone said that hurt people, …hurt people. When we are hurt, oftentimes we continue this unhealthy cycle of causing pain and hurting others.
So how do we deal with family members that hurt us at Christmas or any other time of the year for that matter? Well there are three things we should do.
CHOOSE TO PRAY
The first thing we should do is choose to pray. We need to pray for those who have hurt us. That what Jesus did. Consider his example.
The Jesus Example
He grows up in Nazareth, starts his ministry, his neighbors—the people he grew up with—reject him and want to throw him off a cliff. All his life he is rejected over and over again. He takes 12 guys befriends them, teaches them how to change the world and one of the 12 kisses him on the cheek to betray him. At his crucifixion only 1 of his 12 buddies shows up. Pilot can’t find any wrong with him, but condemns him to die. The crowds yell out crucify Jesus and let a Barabbas the murder go free! And while he is on the cross after being betrayed by people like you and me, what does he do? Look at Luke 23:34. It says he prayed, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Can you believe that? He prays Father forgive them!
That is not what I would want to do! How about you? When we’ve been hurt, even though we don’t feel like it, what should we do? We should pray! And we shouldn’t pray what we are tempted to pray. …You know what I’m talking about. …The revenge prayers, “Dear Father, please make their care slide off the road in the next snowstorm.” Or my personal favorite, “Dear Jesus, please give them the worst case of itchy burning hemorrhoids possible.” No one here would pray that, right?
What to Pray
No, the first thing we should pray is for God to heal their hurt! Pray for God to heal their hurt. Hurt people, hurt people. Come on you know this is true! When you are hurt, it is easy to lash out at those around you. The family members that lash out at you are only lashing out because of the hurt and pain they’ve experienced. We need to pray that God will heal their hurt so they won’t hurt others!
The second thing we should pray is for God to forgive them. I mean if Jesus can do this on the cross, can’t we do this for the family member that dissed our family gathering this year?
The third thing we should pray is for God to bless them. OUCH! That is usually the last thing we want to pray isn’t it! But Jesus tells us that this is what we should do. Look at Luke 6:28. Jesus says: “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
If we pray like this, our prayers may or may not affect them, but they will affect us! This type of prayer will change and soften our hearts toward the people who have hurt us!
CHOOSE TO FORGIVE
The first thing we should do is make a choice to pray for those who have hurt us. The second thing we should do is choose to forgive! Why should we choose to forgive? Why is this so important? Check out what Jesus said about forgiveness in Matthew 6:14-15:
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. [Now get this] But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Now that is tough! If we don’t forgive others then we are out of luck according to Jesus. Why? Well I don’t know for sure, but I think Jesus is saying that if we can’t find it in our hearts to forgive others, we may not have experienced his forgiveness.
Why is this so tough? Well if you are anything like me, you’ll forgive someone once, and maybe even twice, but after that—watch out. Your getting revenge, or your writing that person off.
Your question is probably the same question Peter had for Jesus in Matthew 18:21-22. Listen to their conversation: "Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” [I bet Peter felt pretty good about himself for thinking he could forgive someone 7 times.] But look at how Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Jesus is saying there should be no limit to the number of times we forgive those who have hurt us.
This is hard for us to do, isn’t it! It’s not just hard to forgive our families for the hurt they’ve caused. It’s hard to forgive our friends, our co-workers, even the Christians we go to church with. Here is a cartoon I cracked up at the other day. Take a look:
Isn’t that great! This is funny because a church shouldn’t be a place that needs an amnesty month. Amnesty means pardoned or forgiven. Pardon or forgiveness should be what we are about as Christians, as the church of God. That is what Jesus is saying when he says we need to forgive an unlimited number of times. People leave churches all the time because they can’t forgive someone in the church that hurt them or because they’ve hurt someone in the church who will not forgive them. This lack of forgiveness gives God’s people, Christians, the church, a bad name!
Who Do You Need to Forgive
Ask God who is it in your life that you haven’t forgiven? Write their names on you note sheet this morning. (Now if you had a fight with your spouse on the way here this morning—probably not wise to write their name down and elbow them. That is sure fire way to end up in the doghouse or on the couch.) Who is it you haven’t forgiven. Make a choice to pray for them and forgive them today!
How Do We Forgive
Now how in the world do you forgive that person that keeps slighting you, hurting you? How do you forgive someone when you really don’t fell like it, when you don’t want to and they don’t deserve it? How can you get to the place where you choose to forgive that person? Here’s how: Focus on how God has forgiven you.
Filing Cabinet Illustration
If you are anything like me you can probably relate to the idea of having a filing cabinet full of records about the sins you’ve committed against God. I imagine my filing cabinet of sins is something like the drawer Jim Carry pulls out when he meets God in the movie Bruce Almighty. Anyone seen this movie? If you haven’t here’s a clip of what I’m talking about.
CLIP
All of us have a filing cabinet drawer full of the ways we’ve hurt God and others. And, you know what God has forgiven everything in each of our drawers, …if we’ve accepted gift of Christ that was given to the world at Christmas. When we take the time to consider how we’ve been forgiven it gets a lot easier to forgive those who have sinned against us! Colossians 3:13 say: "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." How do we forgive? As the Lord forgave us!
CHOOSE TO BLESS THEM
What do we do when a family member, friend, church member hurts us? 1. Choose to pray for them. 2. We choose to forgive them, and 3. We choose to bless them. We choose to bless them.
Paul’s Command to Bless Enemies
That is what Paul tells the Roman church to do. Look at Romans 12:20-21. Paul says:
" On the contrary: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
Paul says if they’ve hurt you…Bless them!
Joseph Blesses His Brothers w/a Kiss
Back to the story of Joseph! Joseph was the second in command of the world’s largest super-power when his brother who tried to kill him and sold him into slavery showed up. What would you have done if you were him? I probably would have had them locked up for the rest of their life or killed. His brothers know this is what they deserve. Genesis 45:3 says they were terrified of what Joseph might do. But Joseph doesn’t do what I would have done. Let’s see what he did. Take a look at Genesis 45:14 and 15. The text says:
"Then he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin embraced him, weeping. And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterward his brothers talked with him."
Joseph forgives his brothers and blesses them with a kiss. He does something good to them instead of putting them in jail. Notice what happened next. They talked. There is reconciliation. There is a restored relationship. I don’t think there is a person here this morning that deep down doesn’t want their relationships to be restored.
Jesus Command: Bless Those Who Hurt You
Now look at what Jesus has to say in Luke 6:27 & 28. Jesus says: “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
What do we do to those that hurt us? We bless them! We do good to them and for them! Because that is the Jesus way! It is the way that changes the world. It is the way that that breaks the cycle of hurt and pain! It releases us from the cycle and it releases others.
But more importantly it points people to the person where true forgiveness is found. It points people to Jesus! It points people to the good thing he did for us, the way he blessed us when he died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins.
This is what we celebrate each Sunday morning. This is what we should recalibrate our lives to each week. …So we can give those that hurt us the forgiveness that is found in Jesus Christ. …So they can be reconciled to him and so they can be reconciled with those friends and family members who have hurt them. That is why our top 2 values as a church are to be One or reconciled with God and One or reconciled with others, to love Him and to love them. But we can’t do these two things if we don’t: 1. Choose to pray for those who hurt us. 2. Choose to forgive those that hurt us. And, 3. If we don’t choose to bless those that hurt us like Jesus did.
