The Long, Hard Road of Forgiveness

2:03The remarkable story of Louis Zampurini is told in the book Unbroken that was made into a movie a couple of years ago. Louis Zamparini was born in 1917. He had a very difficult childhood before he got into running. He was so proficient at running that he made the 1936 Olympic team and went to the Berlin Olympics. And though he placed eighth in that race, he ran at the time the fastest quarter mile that had been run and impressed Adolf Hitler himself, who asked to meet him after the race. In 1941, at the outset of World War II, he was commissioned to serve in the Air Force, where he served as a bombardier with the B-24 Liberators in the Pacific. During what would be considered a fairly routine search and rescue operation, his plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean, and of the 11 crew members, only he and two others survived the crash.

3:00Sadly, they drifted at sea for 47 days before finally being captured by the Japanese. And over the next two years, Zamparini and the other men were held in awful conditions. They were mistreated. They were severely beaten until they were finally liberated in 1945. Well, after the war, he returned to a hero's welcome and married a woman named Cynthia Applewhite. They had a couple of children together during this time. And unfortunately, he dealt with what would now be called PTSD. He was very bitter. He became an alcoholic during this time, and his wife Cynthia nearly divorced him. But during this time, Cynthia was invited and more or less forced to go to Billy Graham's first major crusade in Los Angeles. And it was at that crusade that she heard the gospel, and she became a believer. And so a few days later, though he was not very happy to go, he reluctantly attended, and Louis also came to faith in Christ at this Billy Graham crusade. His life was forever changed, but now he faced a very difficult decision.

4:04Could he forgive the Japanese captors that had mistreated him and severely beaten him for so many years when he was in prison during the war? Well, Joseph, the main character of these final chapters of Genesis, has now been in prison and in slavery for the past 13 years. And God has humbled him during this time only to acknowledge. Exalt him, to raise him up to the second most important position in all the land of Egypt, the most powerful nation of the day. Now, remember, he doesn't expect to see his family, certainly not his brothers, ever again. But if he did see them, would he be able to forgive them?

4:47We think about ourselves. Every one of us has been sinned against. Some of us, many times in small ways, some of us have been sinned against greatly. And we all know what a long and hard road the road of forgiveness is. And so today, as we go through the rest of chapter 41 and Genesis 42, we're going to learn that forgiving sin is a difficult choice that honors God and brings lasting peace. So let's look together at chapter 41, starting in verse 46.

5:22We see here that God's word comes to pass just as Joseph said that it would. If you remember last week, he told Pharaoh when he interpreted his dreams that there was going to be these seven years where the crops produced abundantly, followed by seven years of famine. And I want you to note, if you remember last week, Joseph had a very good plan. The plan was to take one-fifth of the crops during each one of these seven years of abundance and set them aside so that when the years of famine came, there would be plenty of food for everybody in the nation of Egypt as well as any other nations that needed to come and buy food for them.

5:58So it wasn't just a good plan. For survival for the nation, but it was a good economic plan to ensure that their nation continued to prosper during those very difficult times. Now, this is just an observation that I make from the text, but for most of us, planning is not the problem. Execution is the problem. Isn't that right? We come up with great plans, we just fail to execute those plans. And it seems to me that execution is always hardest in times of prosperity.

6:29So, college students, you know better than anyone, when you have an abundance of time, it can be very hard to budget that time well. For anyone in the position of having an abundance of money, not most of us, but for anyone who's in that position, you can know that if you have plenty of money, it's hard to budget that money out. It's a lot easier to budget time and money when you don't have hardly any of it. You have to budget it. You have to not only plan, but execute well if you're going to survive.

6:57But execution is often hardest when we have an abundance of things. And so, in this particular instance, you see that Joseph not only has a good plan, but they actually put it into place. How easy would it have been during these years of plenty to just say, this is fine? We have more than enough. Maybe it was just, maybe we're wrong, maybe a famine isn't coming, we can just go on as usual, but they don't do that, they execute the plan. And so, friends, just a reminder here in May, all of us tend to come up with great spiritual resolutions in January.

7:27And so, it's a great time to just assess. How are we doing on those things? Did we only just come up with good plans, or are we also executing on those plans? Now, you see here in the text, before the famine, Joseph's wife bears two sons. The first he names Manasseh, meaning forget, and the other he names Ephraim, meaning twice fruitful. And I want you to look at verse 51 and see what Joseph says when his children are born, especially Manasseh.

7:57He says, God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house. Well, I don't know what that sounds like to you, but when I read that, that sounds like a man who's trying to bury his pain. That sounds like a man who's been badly hurt and is trying to bury that pain. And if you've lived long enough, you've experienced plenty of pain, plenty of heartache in your life, failed relationships, unrealized dreams, the hurt of being sinned against.

8:33And you want to forget those things, and so you try to bury the pain. And people do that in different ways. Some people try to bury the pain by doing things that, at least according to the world, are positive. So you throw yourself into academics or you throw yourself into your career. And to everybody else, it looks like you're just simply trying to give your best effort, but really, you're studying all the time, you're working 80 hours a week. Really, because you're trying to bury the pain that you've experienced in your life. For others, you try to bury the pain with buying things, eating, drugs or alcohol, hooking up with others. I mean, all of these things can be attempts to forget, to forget what's happened to you, to forget how you've been sinned against. And I came across this quote this week by Don Whitney that I thought was so good. Look at what he says: Be careful that you do not think you have forgiven just because you have forgotten.

9:38Be careful that you do not think you have forgiven just because you have forgotten. Friends, the old adage, time heals all wounds, is simply not true. Time does not heal all wounds. And forgetting is not the same thing as forgiving. Forgetting and forgiving are two different things, but forgiveness is the only way to honor God and to experience lasting peace. So, this famine hits, and you have to remember that back in the ancient world, nearly perfect conditions were required to grow crops. They didn't have chemical fertilizers, they didn't have chemical pesticides, there was no way really to refrigerate or to store crops, to transport them quickly. So, any kind of a famine was a catastrophe. Was something that they really couldn't do much about. But notice that Egypt is ready, and Egypt is ready because God graciously warned Pharaoh about what was to come. And not only did God graciously warn Pharaoh about what was to come, Pharaoh heeded the warning. That's critical.

10:52In the same way, Jesus was very clear after his resurrection from the dead that he was coming again to judge the world. In each one of the synoptic gospels, in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, you have these long sections that spell out in great detail that Jesus will return and that he's going to return at an hour that no one expects, that you cannot plan for. And yet, look at what Peter wrote in the first century in 2 Peter chapter 3.

11:25This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them, I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning. Beginning of creation. For they deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the Word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

12:29I think for so many people today, we think that scoffing at the Word of God is something new. That for thousands of years, people respected and regarded and held with reverence the word of God. But friends, you see here that even in the first century, 2,000 years ago, people were scoffing. They were mocking. They mocked up until the day that the flood came in Noah's day. They mocked in between the flood and Christ's coming, and they mocked ever since Jesus said, I'm coming back. That continues today.

13:04But Peter's argument here is that it follows logically that if everything else God has ever promised has come to pass, then the things that he has promised that have not yet come to pass are going to happen. Even if they haven't happened yet, they're going to happen. And so this Pharaoh wisely heeded the warning that God gave to him in his dreams. But as you know, especially if you were with us years ago and went through the book of Exodus. There is another Pharaoh that will come along years later who does not heed the warning of God, and his nation is destroyed by ten plagues. And so I want to urge you this morning: don't make the same mistake that that Pharaoh made. Follow in this Pharaoh's footsteps. He heard the word of God. He received it. He was ready for what was to come. In the same way, we need to be ready for what is to come, and that is the second coming of Christ. Jesus has said that he's coming back. Are we ready? Are we trusting in him through faith? This Pharaoh trusted the word of God.

14:08So Joseph thinks that he's buried his pain. He thinks he's forgotten his family and his past, and he's moved on. Little did he realize what God was about to do. Look with me now at chapter 42, verse 1. When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, Why do you look at one another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.

14:41So ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him. Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan. I love Jacob's question. This is the most dad thing ever. I say this all the time. Why are you staring at one another? Do something.

15:13We're going to die if you don't go and buy the grain. So he sends ten of his sons down to Egypt. He withholds Benjamin, and he withholds Benjamin, of course, because his beloved wife Rachel only had two sons, Joseph, who he thinks is dead, and Benjamin, his younger brother. And keep in mind, if you did not know this or weren't with us earlier in the year, Rachel died as she was giving birth to Benjamin. And so Benjamin is the last remnant of this part of his family. He's scared that he's going to lose him, and so he doesn't want to put him in harm's way. So he holds him back and sends the other ten brothers to Egypt. Let's pick up in verse 6.

15:57Now Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. Where do you come from? He said. They said, from the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them. And he said to them, you are spies. You've come to see the nakedness of the land. They said to him, No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food. We are all sons of one man. We are honest men. Your servants have never been spies. He said to them, No, it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see. And they said, We your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. And behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more. But Joseph said to them, It is as I said to you, you are spies. By this you shall be tested. By the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here. Send one of you, and let him bring your brother while you remain confined, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you. Or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies. And he put them all together in custody for three days.

17:26So Joseph's brothers finally arrive in Egypt, and just as he saw in the dream about the sheaves of wheat, isn't this remarkable? They come and they bow down before him. I mean, remember, all those years earlier, he had this dream that his sheaf stood upright and the other sheaves bowed down to him. And now, in the midst of this famine, where he stored up all this grain, the dream comes to pass. Now remember also, back in chapter 41, Joseph proclaimed at the birth of his first son that God had made him forget all of his hardship and all of his father's house.

18:00Well, not exactly. Because as soon as he recognizes his brothers, he treats them like strangers. He speaks roughly to them. He accuses them of being spies. Now, I can't blame him. If it were me, I'd come out dressed like Toby Keith, start singing, How do you like me now? Look at the glory of the 90s. Don't you still wish you owned a turtleneck? It's as we said, friends, time does not heal all wounds. Time doesn't heal all wounds. It's been over 20 years since this happened to him. 20 years have passed, and yet Joseph is obviously still hurt, obviously still wounded by the way his brothers sinned against him all those years before.

18:51And the brothers try to explain that they're not spies, but they're all sons of the same man, and they add this: we are honest men. Yeah, not so much. You remember back in chapter 37, verse 31. Look on the screen. Then they took Joseph's robe and slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. And they sent the robe of many colors and brought it to their father and said, This we have found. Please identify whether it is your son's robe or not. And he identified it and said, It is my son's robe. A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.

19:28And so they were not, in fact, honest men. Men. They had lied to Jacob about what happened to Joseph. They tried to get him to think that he was dead, even though they had sold him into slavery. And so Joseph puts all ten of them into custody for three days. He gives them a taste of what he went through for many years. And it seems clear at this point that Joseph is exacting some revenge on his brothers for what they did to him. He could have had them killed, so he is exercising some restraint, but it's obvious that he has not forgotten, as he said, his father's house or what they did to him. He certainly is not ready to forgive them for their sins.

20:07And this is a good reminder to us. Joseph is not perfect. Joseph is a human being just like you and me. And he struggled to extend forgiveness. And friends, when we've been badly hurt by other people, we struggle to extend forgiveness as well. It's hard for us to forgive, especially when people we love sin against us. And so perhaps today you're struggling to forgive someone in your life for something that they did to you. Might have been a family member, might have been a friend, a co-worker, it may have even been someone who is a fellow member of your church.

20:49And you're struggling to forgive that person. And the result is you're withholding your forgiveness, and you're even trying to punish them in some way. Maybe Joseph. By withholding the forgiveness, but maybe there's other ways that it looks too. Maybe you're avoiding them. You turn the other way when you see them. Maybe you're avoiding their texts or their phone calls. You might be gossiping about them. Maybe it's just in your heart, in your mind, you're wishing ill for them.

21:25I think, you know, one of the things that is a great indicator is what people often refer to as the grocery store test. You see that person walking down the aisle with their cart at the grocery store. What do you do? If your first instinct is to whip your cart around and to duck around another aisle, chances are good that there's some unforgiveness there. And so remember what we learned back in Genesis 34 with Dinah? She was sinned against gravely, worse than many of us will ever be sinned against. And her brothers decided to exact revenge. And what we learned in Genesis 34 is it doesn't matter what we do, nothing can make a wrong like that disappear. It doesn't matter how much revenge you take. It doesn't take away the fact that you were sinned against. It doesn't make it go away.

22:20You know, we use a lot of Google documents here at the church, and those are shared things where many people can contribute. They can put different things, they can edit the document, and sometimes some. In the group makes a mistake. Well, when that happens, you just hit undo, and all of it goes back to the way that it was. But, friends, you can't undo sin. You can't withhold forgiveness long enough to make it go away. You can't exact revenge deep enough to make the pain go away, to make everything right again. That's not how it works.

22:52Extending forgiveness means that you have to absorb the cost of what they did to you. And you have to choose not to hold it against them. That's a choice that you don't just make one time, you make it again and again. And that's why the sermon is called the long, hard road of forgiveness, not the long, hard road to forgiveness. Forgiveness is not a destination. There is a moment, just like with salvation in Christ, where you make the choice to forgive someone, and you actually extend it by saying, I forgive you.

23:30But it's a long, hard road that continues after that moment because when the scripture speaks of God not remembering our sins anymore, he's omniscient. He doesn't forget things. What that means is God chooses not to hold our sins against us anymore. He doesn't remember them against us anymore. And that's the same thing that we are faced with every single time that wrong is brought back into our minds. Every single time we see that family member, that friend, that church member, it's brought back up. And so again and again on the long, hard road of forgiveness, we have to make the choice, I'm not going to hold that against them. That's what it means. And that's the only way to honor God and to experience lasting peace.

24:15And I think that Joseph began to realize this based on what happens next. Look at verse 18. On the third day, Joseph said to them, Do this, and you will live, for I fear God. If you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody, and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households, and bring your youngest brother to me. So your words will be verified, and you shall not die. And they did so. Then they said to one another, In truth, we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us. And Reuben answered them, Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood. They did not know that Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them. Then he turned away from them and wept. And he returned to them and spoke to them, and he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes. And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, and to replace every Man's money in his sack and to give them provisions for the journey. This was done for them.

25:38Well, after these three days where his brothers have been in prison, it seems that Joseph starts to gain some clarity about the situation. And he offers to let nine of them go free. Well, why does he do this? You look back at verse 18, he says there, because I fear God. You see, friends, if you're a Christian, your faith is not one small part of your life, confined to certain events or only certain days of the week. Your faith is not one small part of your life if you're a Christian. Your faith in God and His Word is the lens through which you view all of life. And it's the lens through which you evaluate everything, including your own actions.

26:26When you are a Christian, you don't just look at the world and everybody else and what they're doing through the Word of God. You have to look at yourself. You have to look at your own thoughts and your own actions and evaluate those things through God's Word as well. If you are a Christian, that is, if you have confessed your sin and trusted in Christ, you've been forgiven a debt that you could never repay. And if you've been forgiven, staying on the road of unforgiveness is not an option for you. You're going the wrong way if you're on the road of unforgiveness. Forgiveness. As a believer, the only option open to you, if you are on the road of unforgiveness, is to make a U-turn and to get on the long, hard road of forgiveness.

27:13But, friends, at this point, it's really critical that we make a distinction that the Bible makes. Because the Bible makes a distinction between being ready to forgive and actually forgiving someone. You see all the time in our lives people extending forgiveness to people who have not asked for it. You see this especially in times of tragedy where there's somebody on the news, maybe there's been some kind of a shooting, a terrorist attack, and people will proclaim, I forgive those people. Well, I, probably like you, definitely appreciate the sentiment, especially if it's connected with the presentation of the gospel in some way. But we have to understand that we are not called to forgive regardless of whether the person ever asks for it.

28:01God does not forgive every single person on this earth, he only forgives people who come to him and ask for forgiveness. Listen again to what Don Whitney says about this. He says, yes, we ought to release our sinful bitterness and hatred whether the offender ever seeks forgiveness. Some equate this decision with forgiveness. Itself. In reality, though, this is only getting ready, being willing to forgive. Then, if the offender repents, we are prepared to complete the process by saying, I forgive you. The one who announces forgiveness where it hasn't been sought not only discounts the importance of repentance, but misunderstands the requirement of Scripture. But the one who is not willing to forgive is contradicting the scripture, and for the moment, at least, is putting the reality of his salvation to the test.

29:08Now, just so you don't think that that's Don Whitney making up this distinction between being ready to forgive and actually forgiving, look now on the screen at Luke 17, verses 3 and 4. This is what Jesus taught: pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times saying, I repent, you must forgive him. So there's two really important lessons here. Look on the screen right there. One, it says, if he repents. When do you forgive somebody? If he repents. You have to get ready to forgive no matter what. That's the only Christian response. You have to release bitterness. You have to release hatred. You have to be ready to forgive the second they come and say to you, I was wrong. I sinned. Will you forgive me?

30:07But look at what Jesus says. If this happens, if they come to you and they repent, you must forgive him. It's not a choice. It's not an option for a Christian. And so Joseph here is putting his brothers to the test. He's trying to discern whether they're truly repentant. Have these people changed since they sold him into slavery some 20 years ago? Are they any different? And I think here in the text, his answer comes pretty quickly, long before they bring Benjamin to Egypt. You see, the brothers are speaking to one another in Hebrew because Joseph, to keep up this appearance that it's not him, has an interpreter between them. They think he can't understand Hebrew. And so they're talking amongst themselves, and they confess that they're guilty for what they did to Joseph. Reuben then adds his own rebuke. Remember, Reuben, the oldest brother, he wanted to let Joseph go. He didn't want to enslave him. He certainly didn't want to kill him.

31:00Well, all this is just too much for Joseph. He hears these things, and he has to leave the room to cry. And friends, this is a very important part of the process. A very important part of the process on the long, hard road of forgiveness is admitting that you were hurt. You have to admit that you were badly hurt. You know, many people seem to think that extending forgiveness. Means that you have to get over it. Or that you have to pretend that what happened to you really wasn't that big of a deal. And so that's not to say that every single time we feel hurt that we've been sinned against. That's not true. Just because you feel hurt, or just because I feel hurt, doesn't mean that someone sinned against us. But it is to say that in nearly every case, when we have been sinned against, we do feel hurt. And the first step in this process of extending forgiveness is admitting that to ourselves and to others. And so this is something that we work on in our family all the time. When somebody sins against somebody else in our family and asks for forgiveness, we train one another not to respond with, it's okay.

32:19So somebody says, will you forgive me? And then somebody else says, it's okay. We try to not do that. It's not okay. That's the whole point, isn't it? The whole point is that it's not okay. Instead of saying, it's okay, we train each other to say, I forgive you. Because when we say, I forgive you, what we're saying is what you did or what you said actually did hurt me. There is a cost here that has to be absorbed, and I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to absorb the cost of your sin against me, and I'm willing to choose not to hold that against you anymore. That's very different, do you see? Than simply saying, it's okay. It's okay, says, I wasn't really hurt, or it wasn't really a sin, or it wasn't really that big of a deal. I forgive you, says, there is a cost to be absorbed. I'm willing to do that.

33:14Now, it seems from the test and the exchange that they have afterward that his brothers are at least remorseful. They at least feel bad about what they've done, if they're not repentant. And so, Joseph at this point, he binds Simeon in front of all of them, the second oldest brother. And this is probably hard for all of them. This is a reminder of what they did to Joseph some 20 years earlier. But you see that Joseph also deals very graciously with them. He lets the rest of them go. He fills their sacks with grain. He gives all of their money back and even provides provisions for the journey. Joseph treats all of his brothers better than they deserve. They don't deserve any of this. And that leads us to believe that maybe when they come back, Joseph is going to be ready to forgive them when they return. And so let's conclude with the final section. Look at verse 26.

34:12Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed. And as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw his money in the mouth of his sack. He said to his brothers, My money has been put back. Here it is in the mouth of my sack. At this, their hearts failed them, and they turned. Trembling to one another, saying, What is this that God has done to us? When they came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, The man, the Lord of the land, spoke roughly to us, and took us to be spies of the land. But we said to him, We are honest men, we have never been spies. We are twelve brothers, sons of our father. One is no more, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan. Then the man, the Lord of the land, said to us, By this I shall know that you are honest men. Leave one of your brothers with me and take grain for the famine of your households and go your way. Bring your youngest brother to me, then I shall know that you are not spies but honest men, and I will deliver your brother to you, and you shall trade in the land. As they emptied their sacks, behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack, and when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. And Jacob their father said to them, You have bereaved me of my children. Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me. Then Reuben said to his father, Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you. But he said, My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is the only one left. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to Sheol.

36:02So, when the brothers stop to take a break at this lodging place, one of them realizes that his money is still in his sack. And immediately they're all afraid. Joseph had been so harsh with them. What if he found out that they had not fully paid him for all of the grain that they took home? The brothers see this as from the Lord. Perhaps it's an act of discipline for what they did to Joseph. And so they come home and they tell Jacob everything that happened. And as they empty their sacks, all of the money is there. And this looks really bad. I mean, it looks like they either sold Simeon into slavery. It would be hard to escape that conclusion. Or it looks like they stole the grain. And in either case, it just doesn't look good. And so Reuben, remember, the oldest son, he offers to escort Benjamin and he promises on the life of his two sons to bring him back. You can see how badly he feels about this whole situation. And yet, this is where chapter 42 ends. We have these great cliffhangers. What's going to happen to Simeon?

37:10Are his brothers ever going to return for him? Will the brothers seek forgiveness from Joseph? And even if they do, will Joseph ever extend forgiveness to them? We're left with all of that at the end of this chapter. And friends, as you reflect on what's happened, the Past few chapters in Genesis, you reflect on the cycle of sin and revenge, sin and revenge. It's hard to break that cycle. And you see it going on all around the world in history and today. Someone sins against someone else, or a nation sins against another nation, and so that person or that nation takes revenge, and it's just a never-ending cycle of sin and revenge. The only way to break that cycle is for someone to absorb the cost of that sin and to choose not to hold it against them any longer. The question is: why would anybody do that?

38:09The only reason to forgive someone who has wronged you is because you yourself have been forgiven. That's the only reason. I want you to remember back to Matthew 18, the passage that we read at the beginning of the service today, the parable of the unforgiving servant. Now, remember, this servant's master had forgiven him a debt of 10,000 talents. I mean, hundreds of lifetimes would not suffice to repay that kind of money. A talent was like a year's wages, 10,000 years' wages. And the guy is sitting there before the master, like, hey, give me more time. I'll pay it back. No, you won't. He was forgiven all of that, and yet when he found a servant that owed him just a little bit of money, a few weeks' worth, he wouldn't forgive him. Look on the scripture. At the conclusion again of that passage. Then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

39:33Now you read those words of Jesus, and some of you think, now hang on, I thought God's forgiveness was unconditional. I thought there was nothing that we had to do in order to earn God's grace and forgiveness. Well, that's exactly right. There is nothing that we can do to earn God's grace or forgiveness. But friends, Jesus' whole point in the parable here is that if we refuse to forgive others, it shows that we do not understand and appreciate all that we have been forgiven. If we have been forgiven such a monumental debt, how could we not forgive anyone else when God has forgiven us so greatly?

40:14Now you remember at the beginning of the sermon, we were talking about Louis Zampurini, how he came to faith in Christ when his life was falling apart. This man was an alcoholic. He had terrible nightmares every night. He was on the brink of divorce. But he came to a point in his life when he went to that Billy Graham crusade where he knew that he had been forgiven. And if he had been forgiven, he could not continue to go on holding on to bitterness and unforgiveness himself. He had to forgive. And so the very next year in 1950, Louis Zamporini traveled to Japan and he tried to meet with every one of the guards who had tortured him and mistreated him for years. He didn't get to meet with all of them, but he did get to meet with many of them. And some of them even came to faith in Christ because of him extending forgiveness to them. And his life was so drastically changed by this whole experience that he said, even though I had a nightmare every night from 1945 to 1949, that he never had another nightmare until 2014 when he died.

41:21What an incredible story of forgiveness. But friends, you have to understand for Louis Zamporini and for every one of us, the road of forgiveness is long and it is hard. It requires acknowledging that we have been sinned against. It requires grieving that we were sinned against. And then it requires making the choice to absorb the cost of someone else's sin and to choose not to hold it against them any longer. I mean, some of us are in the exact same position as Joseph at the beginning of chapter 42. We're trying to bury the pain. We're trying to forget what's happened to us, but we have. Not extended forgiveness. In fact, there are some of us we may not even be ready to forgive at this point in our lives because we're so holding on to bitterness. We're so holding on to resentment.

42:12And so, friends, if that's you, I want to ask you to consider some difficult questions this morning. Some questions that will be uncomfortable to consider, but are necessary for you to move forward. And the first question is this: Are you certain that you have confessed your sin to God and have trusted in Jesus for forgiveness? Are you certain that you have confessed your sin to God and have trusted in Jesus for forgiveness? Now, I want you to notice, I didn't ask, are you a Christian? That's what I mean.

42:52But that word is so watered down today that almost anyone who has ever attended a worship service in their life thinks they're a Christian. So, I'm not asking you, have you attended a worship service? I'm not asking you, have you been baptized? I'm not asking, what is your preference for religion? I'm not asking any of those questions. I'm asking, have you personally acknowledged your sin to God? Have you turned from it and received the grace of Jesus through faith in him?

43:24If that's true, then all of your sin, past, present, and future, has been forgiven. God has absorbed the cost of it in the person and work of Christ. And he has chosen never to hold that sin against you ever again. And so if you are holding on to bitterness and unforgiveness, the first question you have to ask yourself is: Am I really a Christian? And the second question is this. If you are a Christian, do you believe that the sin committed against you was so great that it can never be forgiven?

44:03If you are a Christian, do you believe the sin or sins committed against you are so great that they can never be forgiven? Friends, all of us have been sinned against, some of us in unthinkable ways. But we have to remember that no matter how often, no matter how gravely we've been sinned against, none of us has been sinned against in the way that we have sinned against God. We have offended God much more greatly than we could ever be offended. And yet, Jesus bore all of our sins on the cross. He took all of them onto himself and he forgave us. Christians forgive because we have been forgiven.

44:48And so Joseph was sinned against greatly, just like you and me. And just like us, he struggled, didn't he? He struggled to forgive his brothers. But we see, even if we only get a small glimpse to That God was helping him to release his bitterness and his anger so that he could be ready to forgive his brothers if and when they came back to ask for forgiveness. And I want to tell you today that no matter what you've been through, God can help you get to the same place where you are ready to forgive, where you can actually extend forgiveness. Forgiving sin is a difficult choice, but it honors God and it's the only way to experience lasting peace. Let's pray.

45:40Father, as we read this historical account this morning, we can only imagine how difficult it was for Joseph, not just emotionally, but just the temptation to take out all of his years of frustration and anger, the pain of that betrayal, on his brothers. I mean, any one of us would have been tempted to put them to death. Any one of us would have been tempted to sell them into slavery. And yet, by your grace, because he feared God, Joseph dealt graciously and kindly with them. It seems in this text that you are bringing him to the point where he's ready to forgive his brothers.

46:26And God, I know because I've been in pastoral ministry now for. Over a decade, how many of us struggle to forgive? I have seen people avoid one another. I have seen people leave churches. I have seen people talk around, turn around, and walk out of restaurants because people were there. Unforgiveness is a real struggle, and it's understandable, but it's not excusable. And so, Lord, I just want to pray for myself and for all of us who have been sinned against.

47:15I pray that you would help us to meditate on the gospel and the reality that we have been forgiven because Jesus, the one who never sinned, never disobeyed, never hurt anyone, took all of our sin upon Himself so that we could be forgiven. I pray that as we meditate on the truth and the beauty of the gospel, that we would come to the place that, yes, through tears, we would be willing to extend forgiveness to anyone and everyone who asked.

47:58And, Father, I know there are many here today. Thinking maybe even right now, there's no way that person is ever going to come and ask for forgiveness. That may be true. But I pray that we would be ready to forgive them and that we would get ready to forgive them by releasing all the sinful bitterness, all of the sinful anger that we have toward those people so that we will honor you and experience the peace that's eluded us for so long because we refuse to do that.

48:30Thank you, God, for your word, and thank you for the priceless gospel. In Jesus' name, amen.