Title: Joseph-Revenge
Place: BLCC
Date: 12/3/17
Text: Romans 12.17-19
CT: Leave vengeance to God.
[Screen 1]
Matt Woodley told this story. My friend Steve warned me that he didn't believe in forgiveness. "God could never forgive me," he said. "Okay, maybe he could forgive 70 percent of my sins, but not all of them." When I tried to explain that when we trust Jesus he forgives 100 percent of our sin, Steve interrupted, "Yeah, fine, but you don't know the stuff I've done." Then he told the following story:
Nineteen years ago this guy stole my wife away from me. They got married and moved to Florida while my life unraveled. After I was arrested for assaulting a police officer, this guy smirked through the entire court hearing. When I was convicted, he flipped me the finger. I've hated him for nineteen years. He's coming up here next week, I have a 32-caliber pistol strapped around my ankle, and when I see him I will kill him." Then he chillingly concluded, "I've thought all about it. I'm 63-years-old. I will get a life sentence, but I'll also get free medical and dental and a warm bed and three meals a day. All of this bitterness and resentment feels so right; forgiveness seems weird.
Steve was right about one point: forgiveness often feels like an unnatural act. So what should followers of Jesus tell Steve? Why forgive?
After Steve told me this story, I paused for a long time before I finally stammered, "Well, I guess it doesn't matter if you go to jail, because you're already in jail. The guy who stole your wife and smirked at your hearing isn't in jail. You are. That guy is free, but you're a prisoner of your own hate; and you're slowly killing yourself. And unless you forgive, you'll remain trapped for the rest of your life."
A week later he called me and said, "You know, I get your point. I put the gun away. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in jail or enslaved to my own hate. Will you pray for me that Jesus will release me?"
Forgiveness, like every other aspect of following Jesus, involves a long journey. As we consistently receive Jesus' forgiveness for our sins, it will soften our hearts towards those who have wounded us. Then, as we continue to trust and grow in Christ, slowly, by God's grace, we'll find more freedom to forgive than we ever imagined.
Matt Woodley, Chicago, Illinois
[Screen 2]
In 1882, a New York City businessman named Joseph Richardson owned a narrow strip of land on Lexington Avenue. It was 5 feet wide and 104 feet long. Another businessman, Hyman Sarner, owned a normal-sized lot adjacent to Richardson’s skinny one. He wanted to build apartments that fronted the avenue. He offered Richardson $ 1,000 for the slender plot. Richardson was deeply offended by the amount and demanded $ 5,000.
Sarner refused, and Richardson called Sarner a tightwad and slammed the door on him. Sarner assumed the land would remain vacant and instructed the architect to design the apartment building with windows overlooking the avenue. When Richardson saw the finished building, he resolved to block the view. No one was going to enjoy a free view over his lot. So seventy-year-old Richardson built a house. Five feet wide and 104 feet long and four stories high with two suites on each floor. Upon completion he and his wife moved into one of the suites.
Only one person at a time could ascend the stairs or pass through the hallway. The largest dining table in any suite was eighteen inches wide. The stoves were the very smallest made. A newspaper reporter of some girth once got stuck in the stairwell, and after two tenants were unsuccessful in pushing him free, he exited only by stripping down to his undergarments.
The building was dubbed the “Spite House.” Richardson spent the last fourteen years of his life in the narrow residence that seemed to fit his narrow state of mind.
The Spite House was torn down in 1915, which is odd. I distinctly remember spending a few nights there last year. And a few weeks there some years back. If memory serves, didn’t I see you squeezing through the hallway?
Revenge builds a lonely house. Space enough for one person. The lives of its tenants are reduced to one goal: make someone miserable. They do. Themselves.
[Screen 3]
Hebrews 12.15, See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
God will heal. He will move us out of the house of spite. He will move us from a cramped world of grudge and toward spacious ways of grace. He moves us from hardness to forgiveness. He moves us forward by healing our past.
Can God really heal the hurts we have in our past? What about the sexual abuse that messed up a family. What about the hurt that is left after a dad or mom leave? What about the way you feel every time you see the one who treated you so badly before. Can God heal my heart from all these kinds of things?
[Screen 4]
Joseph knew about this. Think about if your brothers had sold you and sent you away not caring if you lived or died. That is tough but that is what they did. They left him and never went to try and find him. They told his father he had been killed.
Let’s look in on Jacob and see what he is doing now that Joseph has so much power in Egypt. Remember Jacob thinks Joseph is dead.
Genesis 42.1-9, When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you just keep looking at each other?” He continued, “I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us, so that we may live and not die.”
Then ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt. But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with the others, because he was afraid that harm might come to him. So Israel’s sons were among those who went to buy grain, for there was famine in the land of Canaan also.
6 Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the person who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph’s brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. 7 As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them. “Where do you come from?” he asked.
“From the land of Canaan,” they replied, “to buy food.”
8 Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. 9 Then he remembered his dreams about them and said to them, “You are spies! You have come to see where our land is unprotected.”
Joseph remembered his brothers. These guys were the reason he was where he was. They had given him the kickoff that got him sold into slavery. When he saw them he gave them a bit of their own medicine. He yelled at them and called them spies.
Isn’t it good to know Joseph was human? He has been so good it hurts. He endured slavery, succeeded in a foreign country, mastered a new language, and resisted the advances of Mrs. Potiphar. He was the perfect prisoner and became the counselor for Pharaoh. I bet if you stuck him he would bleed holy blood. We expect him to say, “Father forgive them for what they did.” But he didn’t. He was having a hard time forgiving them for what they had done to him. Joseph knew he was supposed to forgive but he was struggling. He would have done anything for God but forgiving his brothers was a tough one. He put them in prison for three days.
But God says: Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Ephesians 4.31
Or how about: Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Col. 3.13.
A young girl was only six years old when her mother ran off with a salesman. She left the girl to be raised by a good-hearted dad who knew nothing about dolls dresses or dates. But they stumbled through life and made the most of it.
Recently the mother appeared, like a brother out of Canaan, requested to meet with the dad and said, “I’m sorry for abandoning you.” She wanted to reenter her daughter’s life.
The dad’s first thought was that’s it? I’m supposed to forgive you? That seems awful easy. Doesn’t the mom need to experience what she gave? A few years wondering if she would get to see her daughter again. How do we reconcile the pain the daughter had experienced with God’s command to forgive. Isn’t there some vengeance in order?
Of course there is. God cares about justice more than we do. The Apostle Paul said, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.”
But don’t we feel like the evildoer will slip off unpunished.
Not to worry. God says, “He will repay those who deserve it.
Joseph releases all but one of the brothers and sends them back to Canaan to report to Jacob. They told Jacob how Simeon was kept in Egypt to assure they would return with Benjamin. Jacob said, “You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!”
Such a fool. Jacob played favorites, refused discipline and upon hearing of his son’s imprisonment he had a pity party for himself.
But lets look ahead and a light breaks through. Genesis 43.8-9, Then Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy along with me and we will go at once, so that we and you and our children may live and not die. I myself will guarantee his safety; you can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life.
Is this the same Judah who helped negotiate Josephs selling? Yes it is but Judah has had his own problems. He had three sons after Joseph’s abduction. He arranged for the elder to marry a girl named Tamar. The son died. He arranged for the second son to marry Tamar. He didn’t do any better and died as well. Tamar was seen as jinxed. Judah left Tamar without a husband.
Later Judah’s wife died. Tamar heard that Judah was coming to town. She disguised herself as a prostitute and made Judah an offer he didn’t refuse. I didn’t say couldn’t I said didn’t. He exchanged his necklace and walking stick for sex. He was sleeping with his daughter in law and didn’t even know it. Tamar became pregnant and she came to him as Tamar. Judah first demanded she be burned, but she presented the necklace and walking stick and Judah realized the child was his. He was caught in his own sin, disgraced in front of his own family.
Judah had received his coming due. He had deceived Jacob and now was deceived. He had trapped Joseph and was now trapped. Judah who had helped to humiliate Joseph was now humiliated.
I often wondered why the story of Judah was placed right here with Joseph’s story. But for anything good to happen to Jacob’s family someone had to grow up. If not Jacob than one of the sons would have to mature up and take charge. God activated the change in Judah. He gave him a taste of his own medicine and it worked. Judah took charge of Benjamin’s safety and would bear the blame if he failed. Judah got his wakeup call and Joseph didn’t have to lift a finger to get it done.
Vengeance is God’s. He will repay. Either on the Day of Judgment or intermediately in this life. God handles all the Judahs out there. He can discipline your abusive boss, soften your angry parent, He can bring your ex to his or her senses.
Forgiveness doesn’t diminish justice; it just entrusts it to God.
God knows what to give. We give too much or too little. But the God of justice has the precise prescription.
Unlike us, God never gives up on a person. Never. Long after we have written them off, God is still there trying to orchestrate their redemption. He loves all people. Even the ones you think he couldn’t. We talk about fixing our enemies.
That is God’s job. [Screen 5]
Forgive your enemies? That is where you and I come into the picture. We forgive.
Ephesians 4.26, In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
Anger gives ground to the devil. Bitterness invites him to come into your heart and take up residence. He loves to move in and stink the place up. Gossip, slander temper---anytime you see these the devil is there.
Evict him. Tell him he is to go. Do it in the name of Jesus. Begin the process of forgiveness. Keep no list of wrongs. Pray for the one that hurt you instead of against him. Hate the wrong without hating the wrongdoers.
Turn your attention away from what they did to you to what Jesus did for you.
Always remember the gospel. Jesus came to this earth to save us. We were lost as could be. We were in darkness but Jesus was the light that came to bring us out.
Jesus chose to die on the cross to take our sins from us. To guarantee us a positive outcome that will never perish, spoil or fade. Just like Joseph we can know that God is with us. May not seem like it sometimes. We have to let him into our hearts. We have to forgive. God says so.
The brothers returned to Joseph’s. Genesis 43.26-30, When Joseph came home, they presented to him the gifts they had brought into the house, and they bowed down before him to the ground. He asked them how they were, and then he said, “How is your aged father you told me about? Is he still living?”
They replied, “Your servant our father is still alive and well.” And they bowed down, prostrating themselves before him.
As he looked about and saw his brother Benjamin, his own mother’s son, he asked, “Is this your youngest brother, the one you told me about?”
And he said, “God be gracious to you, my son.” Deeply moved at the sight of his brother, Joseph hurried out and looked for a place to weep. He went into his private room and wept there.
Joseph ate with them and made merry with them. Joseph loaded their sacks with food and hid his personal cup in the sack of Benjamin.
The brothers headed back to Canaan, but they hadn’t got very far before Joseph’s steward stopped their caravan, searched their sacks and found the cup of Joseph’s. The brother’s were distraught and tore their clothes. They found themselves back in front of Joseph fearing for their lives.
Joseph couldn’t make up his mind! He welcomed them, wept over them, ate with them and then played a trick on them.
His battle was now with himself. These brothers had peeled the scab off his oldest and deepest wound. And he would be hanged if he let them do it again. But on the other hand these were his brothers, and he would be hanged before he lost them again.
Forgiveness works like this. We move forward and then slip back again.
Anger mingled with love.
Irregular mercy.
When it comes to forgiveness all of us are beginners at it. No one has the secret formula on how to do it. Just try to forgive. Didn’t say it was easy. It’s when you stop trying to forgive that bitterness sets in.
But God says: Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Ephesians 4.31
Stay the course. Never give up. You will spend less time in the spite house and more in the grace house of God.
It is time to forgive. Not just others but yourself as well. Come forward and be forgiven by God. Receive his Holy Spirit that guides you in all you do by being baptized.
Bibliography: Lucado, Max; You’ll Get Through This, Chapter 11, Thomas Nelson, Nashville TN, 2013
