Set Free | JOSEPH: From Pit To Palace (Part Seven)

Thank you so much for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.

Riverbend Church exists to bring people to Jesus, grow

generations in Jesus, and send disciples for Jesus.

We hope that you enjoy this message.

We're in the midst of a series on the life of a man by the name

of Joseph, and his story is given to us in the book of

Genesis, the very first book in the entire Bible.

And we've been walking through the life of this man by the name

of Joseph. And that's where we're going to

be picking things up in just a moment.

But before we jump back into the life of Joseph straight out of

the gate, let me ask you a quick question just for reflection.

What is the hardest, most difficult thing that you have

done in your life? What is the hardest, most

difficult thing that you've ever done in your life that you've

had to do in your entire life? Or maybe the the the hardest,

most difficult things that you that you chose to do?

And I know that that answer is going to going to going to vary

because we have a wide spectrum of backgrounds and ages and,

and, and experiences in here, right?

So for you, maybe the hardest thing, most difficult thing that

you chose to do is actually mustering up the courage to ask

that girl out on a date. For others of you, the the

hardest, most difficult thing that you have done to date is is

disciplining yourself to train for that marathon.

I don't know why anybody would do that, but some of you like to

do that. My whole take is if God intended

for us to run, he never would have invented cars.

But maybe for you, maybe, you know, and and I hear people say,

Ben, you got to try running it. There's just this euphoric

feeling. And I was like, yeah, I get that

on my couch. But, but maybe maybe the most

difficult thing that, that, that you have done, maybe the most,

the hardest, most difficult thing that you have done today

is making the, making the painful decision to, to, to, to,

to uproot and to move away from family or friends or, or

everything that you knew to be familiar.

Maybe, maybe it was, maybe it was because of a job, maybe it

was because of a relationship. It could be a variety of

reasons. Maybe the most difficult, the

hardest thing that you've ever had to do today is saying

goodbye to a loved one. And those are really tough,

aren't they? Remember when Julie, Julie and I

talk about this often? Remember when we were young and

we thought that life was as hard as and as complex as it was ever

going to get when we were 19? So what, what is today, what is

the hardest, most difficult thing that you've ever had to

do? You know, like I said, that

answer, because we have a variety of backgrounds,

different backstories, different experiences, There's going to be

a lot of different answers to that, right?

And, and, and it's not about comparing at all or, or to stack

up in some tier tiered order. It's basically just to bring us

all together to the same table and to look at the fact that

we've all had to go through some very difficult things and we all

will go through very difficult things.

But I think universally, one of the things that I think is the

most difficult and one of the hardest things that any of us

will ever have to do and that we have had to do is to offer

forgiveness to someone who has legitimately, legitimately

wronged us, who has legitimately does not deserve it and

legitimately has never asked for it.

That's hard. That's so difficult.

But I also believe, I also believe that when we harbor

unforgiveness in our hearts, when we harbor unforgiveness

towards someone who has legitimately wronged us and

caused pain and hurt and trauma, that in a way we cap.

When we harbor unforgiveness, we cap what God wants to do in our

lives. In other words, when we hold on

to unforgiveness, that unforgiveness slowly but surely

and subtly begins to break us. And if you've been with us over

this past series, you know that one of the things that we've

been talking about and that that that series big idea is going to

flash up on the screen if you're if you're taking notes with us.

But the thing that we've been talking about together is what

can easily break you. God turns into breakthrough and

church. This is what we desire for you.

This is what I desire for you as your pastor is that you live in

the breakthrough, that you live in the blessing of God, that you

live on the other side of unforgiveness and experience the

blessing and the breakthrough that God offers on that other

side of unforgiveness. So this morning we're going to

be holding 2 truths simultaneously #1 forgiveness.

True, full forgiveness is incredibly, extremely hard #2

nothing will set me free like offering true and full

forgiveness. We're going to hold on to those

truths simultaneously and to help guide us and to explore

those truths and to help us navigate those truths and how we

get from unforgiveness to experiencing the breakthrough

and the blessings of God on the other side of forgiveness.

We're going to go back and we're going to look at the life of

this man by the name of Joseph. And this morning we're going to

be picking it up in Genesis chapter 42.

Genesis 42 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 42. If you have a Bible with you, it

Genesis 42 · chapter mention

can be a hard copy. It can be a digital copy, but

Genesis Chapter 42 is where we're going to be hanging out.

Genesis 42 · chapter mention

That's where we're actually, actually we're going to be

starting. You may look at the top of your

at, at your bulletin, at your, at your note sheet and sit there

and go, man. Genesis Chapter 42 through 47,

Genesis 42 · chapter mention

we're going to be here for a long time.

We're going to be summarizing most of it, but you'll get where

we're going as you're making your way there.

If you're new to Riverbend, maybe just new to the series,

let me go ahead and fill in some background info that's going to

be really helpful for you. This guy by the name of Joseph,

we're first to introduce to him back in Genesis chapter 37.

Genesis 37 · chapter mention

So if you want to pick back up at the very beginning of this

guy's life, you go to Genesis chapter 37.

Genesis 37 · chapter mention

There we meet a 17 year old by the name of Joseph, who by far

is his dad's favorite. His dad is a guy by the name of

Jacob, but God changes his name from Jacob to Israel.

But throughout the book of Genesis, it kind of flip flops

back and forth. It's going to become important

for us, in case you're wondering, throughout the rest

of the Old Testament, throughout the rest of the Bible, that

whenever we read about the 12 tribes of Israel, what we're

talking about and what the Bible is referring to are the 12 sons

of Jacob, whose name is actually changed to Israel.

But most of Joseph's narrative, he goes by the name of Jacob.

Joseph's dad goes by the name of Jacob.

And like I said before, Joseph was his dad's favorite.

And because he was his dad's favorite, it wasn't like it was

a secret. It wasn't like, you know, Jacob

slipped extra grilled cheese sandwiches under the table to

Joseph. Oh, no.

Jacob gave Joseph a coat, a robe of many colors that was only

reserved for him. So it was very much out in the

open. And it calls massive animosity

from Joseph's other brothers, from Jacob's other sons, so much

so they hated Joseph because of their dad's favoritism towards

Joseph, that they actually beat him.

They ripped the robe from his body.

They threw him into a pit. They sold him into slavery.

And then they took that robe. They killed a wild animal,

dipped the robe in the blood of the wild animal, ripped the robe

just a little bit, and then took the robe, the blood soaked robe,

back to their dad, Jacob, and made-up a story about how Joseph

was attacked by a wild animal. And apparently eaten by this

wild animal and that his favorite son is now dead.

That's the back story of where Joseph came from.

Meanwhile, in Joseph's world, he's carted off 300 miles away

from home to the nation of Egypt, sold as a slave to a man

by the name of Potiphar. He's falsely accused of sexual

misconduct by Potiphar's wife. He's thrown into prison.

He's forgotten about in prison. And then he's ultimately called

up to Pharaoh's palace because Pharaoh has two dreams that are

very concerning to him. And Pharaoh gets wind that this

guy in his prison can interpret dreams.

And Joseph goes on to interpret these dreams of Pharaoh.

And in true God fashion, God always being faithful and true,

the interpretation of the dreams actually comes into reality.

The interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams was, hey, Pharaoh, for

the next 7 years, there's going to be a lot of overabundance of

grain and crops. You're not even going to know

what to do with them. So listen, you need to store

them up. You need to put them away.

You need to preserve them. You need to store them up.

Because after those seven years, they're going to come seven

years of severe famine all around the region.

That's going to be felt all around the world.

It is going to be a met. There's going to be a mega

drought all around the world. So you need to stockpile

reserves from the seven years of plenty so that your people don't

starve during the seven years of famine.

And that's exactly what ends up happening.

But that sets the stage for where we pick it up in Genesis

Genesis 42 · chapter mention

chapter 42, verse one. Check this out.

It says when Jacob, again, Joseph's dad, when Jacob learned

that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, this

is such a deadline, right? Why do you look at one another

like, what are y'all doing just staring at each other?

And he said, behold, I've heard that there's grain for sale in

Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us

there that we may live and not die.

So 10 of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.

So for the first time in five chapters, for the first time in

five chapters, the narrative and the setting shifts back to

Joseph's hometown and his own family, to Canaan.

And there you got Jacob the dad saying, hey, listen, we're about

to starve to death. He's going to send ten of his

sons to go get grain. Check this outlook over with me

at verse 6. Now, Joseph, he was the governor

over the land, and 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.

Verse 7 Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he

treated them like strangers and he spoke roughly to them.

Where did you come from? He said, and they said from the

land of Canaan to buy food. You ever run into anybody at the

store or a restaurant that they are 1000% convinced that they

know you, but you have no idea who they are.

And there's nothing worse than like, you see somebody, they're

like waving and you're like, and then you look back and there's

somebody actually that they're waving at and you're the one

that looks like a like a goon. But, yeah.

You ever been there, like at a store?

They're like, hey, man, how's it going?

You're like, good buddy, you know?

And you, you, you know that they know you.

You just have no idea who they are.

Yeah, this is, this is like a lot worse than that.

Joseph recognized his brothers. They had no idea who he was.

He recognized them probably the moment that they came in the

room, but they had no idea who he was.

Now let me go ahead and Fast forward.

Let me summarize and you can I would highly encourage you to

read Genesis 42 through 47 in your time with God this week.

But let me go ahead and summarize what what what goes on

here, just for the sake of our time together, is Joseph is

going to accuse his brothers of being spies.

He's going to accuse him of being spas.

And he's going to hold, he's going to hold 9.

He's going to hold 8 of them in custody and he's going to let

one of them go back home. He's going to hold one in

custody, let one of them go back home, but then after three days,

he's going to release or he's going to hold none of them in

custody, let one of them go back home because there were ten that

came together. He's going to let none of them

go back home with grain and he's going to give them their money.

He's going to hide their money in their saddlebags that they

came to to buy the grain with. He's going to hide their money,

but he's going to keep one of the brothers behind a brother by

the name of Simeon. And basically, this is what

Joseph tells the brothers, that he releases the eight.

Hey, go back to your dad. Go back to your dad and tell him

to bring the youngest son with you.

And unless you bring the youngest son with you, I'm not

going to release your other brother.

I'm going to keep him in custody, in prison.

Now, here's what you need to know.

We've already established the fact that Jacob, Joseph's dad,

he played favorites after Jacob was convinced that his favorite

child, Joseph was killed, was slaughtered by by a wild animal

20 years prior. His favoritism didn't go away.

It just shifted. It shifted to Joseph's younger

brother, a guy by the name of Benjamin, a young man by the

name of Benjamin. And Benjamin was, was Jacob.

He was, it was Jacob's prized possession that he was so

protective and, and some would even argue overprotective of

Benjamin to where he wouldn't let Benjamin like go anywhere

because he was so fearful that something might happen to

Benjamin like it happened to Joseph.

So when the eight brothers returned home to Jacob and said,

hey, listen, the guy, the governor that's selling us a

grain in Egypt, he said that. He said that we can't get any

more grain and we can't get Simeon back until we bring

Benjamin. And that just like struck such a

deep chord, struck at the heart of Jacob.

And after a lot of convincing, one of Joseph's brothers, a man

by the name of Reuben, tells his dad, Dad, if anything happens to

Benjamin, you can hold my life accountable.

If he does, then you can take my life.

It was that serious. So Jacob finally relents and he

allows Benjamin to travel back to Egypt.

Now, what Joseph truly wanted is he wanted the entire family to

be reunited. And he was hoping that Jacob

would come with them, but he didn't.

Jacob stayed home. He he's, he's an old man at this

point in time and probably wasn't deemed healthy enough to

make the 300 mile trek through the desert.

So brothers bring Benjamin to Joseph and Joseph basically

accuses them of being spies again.

And then he tells them, listen, I need you to go get your dad

Jacob. I'm going to load your donkeys

down. I'm going to load your caravan

down with, with grain to take back.

But what they didn't know is Joseph instructed some of his

chief advisors and officials to sneak Joseph's royal silver cup

into Benjamin's saddlebags. And he allowed them to get a

little bit ways down the road. And then Joseph's like, hey, I

need you to go get them. Search the search the

saddlebags. And sure enough, when they

search the saddlebags in Benjamin's saddlebag, they found

the royal silver cup. And his brothers are just beside

themselves because they know that their dad is going to die.

This something's going to happen to Benjamin.

So they they're brought back to the court of Joseph.

And this is where we pick it up. Genesis chapter 45, verse 4.

Genesis 45:4

Joseph said to his brothers, come near to me, please.

And they came near. And he said, I am your brother

Joseph, whom you sold into slavery.

And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because

you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.

So when Joseph was getting ready to to basically leverage the

situation to get Jacob to come to town, come back into town,

come to Egypt, he breaks down, he begins to weep.

Can you imagine, again, remember what I said like this is 20

years since Joseph, over 20 years since Joseph's been sold

into slavery? Can you imagine over the course

of those 20 years, what Joseph had convinced himself if he ever

had the opportunity to meet his brothers again, what he would

say to him, how he would just let him have it?

How could they? They were his brothers.

They were his older brothers. He looked up to them and they

were the ones that beat him and betrayed him and sold him.

Do you know how many questions he must have had?

And yet it seemed to all dissolve into a softened heart

and forgiveness towards them. How in the world can that

happen? How in the world can that happen

to where there's so much pent up animosity and even justified

animosity? How in the world can it all

dissolve into a softened heart into offering forgiveness to

help us discover the answer to that question?

If you've been with us throughout this series, you know

that we've been kind of riding on this natural rhythm and

cadence to where we've been asking 3 questions or the

passages that we read together and that we unpack together.

And the three questions are, what does this tell me about

God? Or what does this tell me about

Joseph? What does this tell me about

God? What does this tell me about me?

So let's start with that first one first.

What does this passage from Genesis 42 through Genesis 47,

what does it tell us about Joseph?

If you're taking notes with us, here's the first thing that we

should know. Forgiveness was not Joseph's

default. Forgiveness was not Joseph's

default. One of the things that I need to

stress to you and remind you of is Joseph was a real man with

real hurt, with real emotions that endured real trauma.

He wasn't some fictitious character.

He he wasn't the invention of screenwriters that, that that

gave him the character attribute of just forgiveness for some

emotional twist in a Hallmark movie.

I mean, we know that this wouldn't be a Hallmark movie

because it's set in the desert and we know that all Hallmark

movies are set in the Northeast and there's snow involved,

right? But he was a real man that

endured real hurt, real pain, real trauma.

And then what was Joseph's initial reaction?

Remember back in Genesis 42, verse seven, he treated them.

He spoke roughly to them. He treated them as strangers and

he spoke roughly to them. You see, that was Joseph's

initial reaction. But here's what we know about

Joseph. Joseph did not allow his initial

reaction to become his lasting response.

You see, his initial reaction toward them was treating them

like strangers and speaking roughly to them.

But by the time we see God playing out in Joseph's heart,

that wasn't his lasting reaction.

Or that wasn't his lasting response.

His initial reaction did not have to be his lasting response.

Let me put that on the personal Your initial reaction to things

do not have to be your lasting response to things.

But make no mistake about it, this is not some fairy tale

character. Joseph's natural reaction,

Joseph's natural default was not forgiveness.

You see, if we wrongly assumed that his natural default was

forgiveness, we sit there and go, well, that's just one of

those Bible superheroes. And I'm not that, you know, this

is a real man that went through real hurt, real harm, real pain,

real trauma, had real emotions. He had a real first reaction,

but he chose, and that's a mark of maturity by the way, is

choosing for his emotions not to become his main driver, that his

initial reaction didn't have to be his lasting response.

Second thing that we see about Joseph is Joseph's greatest

temptation came when he was in a position of power.

As you jot that down, I encourage you circle that word

power. Circle that word power.

Here's why. Power.

The power dynamic, it changed everything about everything.

For the first time in Joseph's life, he is in a position of

power. No longer is he the 17 year old

boy, the runt of the family that can be kicked around and thrown

into a a pit by his brothers. No longer is he a slave in

Potiphar's house. No longer is he a voiceless

victim of Potiphar's wife's lies.

No longer is he a prisoner who's more known by his number than by

his name. He is Zephaneth Penaea, which is

the name that Pharaoh himself gave Joseph, which means God

sees and God lives. That name was given to Joseph by

Pharaoh, and for the first time, Joseph is sitting in a seat of

power to where, at the very snap of his fingers, the very command

of his voice, he had the power to exalt or to execute.

He had the power to to to, to harass or to help.

And yet, what did Joseph do with this power?

We read at the end of or at the beginning of chapter 42.

We read how Joseph broke down and he began to weep and he all

his heart was softened and he offered forgiveness towards his

brothers. And in other words, Joseph chose

with this power and with this influence, Joseph chose to

extend grace to his brothers. Grace is giving them something

that they did not deserve and he chose to extend mercy to his

brothers. Mercy is get is not giving them

what they do deserve. And he chose to give them

forgiveness, to offer forgiveness to them, which is

giving up his right to execute punishment and judgment against

them. Joseph knew Joseph had an

eternal perspective that God used what they did for evil, and

he turned it for the good. Speaking of God, what does all

of this tell us about our God? Again, if you're taking notes

with us, here's the first thing. God will use our triggers to

bring about his healing. God will use his triggers to

bring about his healing. Let me unpack that for a second.

An emotional trigger. An emotional trigger is a name,

is a face, is a place, is a smell, is a memory in the now

that takes us back to a hurt, a pain, and a trauma in our past.

That's an emotional trigger. Like for example, it can be a

building that you drive past. It can be something that you

smell it, it can it can be like a similar name that you hear.

It can be a song that you hear. It can be pretty much anything

and everything. You ever been riding down the

road, minding your own business or or maybe just like taking a

shower. And then like you have an

emotional trigger and you start to be transported from the now

to something that happened in the past.

And before you know it, you're having an imaginary argument

with people that aren't even there.

Anybody with me on that or are you just all liars?

I hate that. That is so frustrating.

Emotional triggers are so frustrating and here's why.

I like to think that once I've dealt with something that I've

dealt with it and now it's time to move on and I don't have to

deal with it anymore. Anybody else with me on that?

Man, we would love it if that were true, right?

So why does God allow emotional triggers?

Why does God allow emotional triggers?

I need you to lean in really close on this one.

God allows emotional triggers in our lives to remind us that

there is a deeper healing that needs to take place.

I heard of, I heard a very wise veteran Christian counselor

several years ago make this statement Emotional triggers in

the now. Our Holy Spirit nudges that

there's a deeper healing that needs to take place.

You see, whatever pain and hurt and trauma that you have already

gone through and that you've already healed, you're probably,

chances are very good you're not completely and fully healed.

You're healed to the degree in which you can be healed right

now. But guess what?

God doesn't want to leave you in that state of being completely

and fully unhealed. He will bring about emotional

triggers in our lives as Holy Spirit nudges that there's a

deeper work that needs to take place.

You see, God will use our triggers to bring about His

healing. Don't hate the triggers.

Turn to the Savior whenever you come, whenever you pass that

building, and you're immediately transported from the now to the

past. Whenever you hear that name, and

you're immediately transported from the now to the past.

Whenever you smell that smell or hear that song and you're

immediately transported from the now to the past, don't hate the

trigger. Turn towards the Savior and

understand that there is a deeper work of healing that

needs to take place. And that emotional trigger is a

Holy Spirit nudge that He can do what only he can do because he

can go where only he can go. Because what we're talking about

with hurt and pain and trauma and unforgiveness is this is

deep soul stuff. That's why God allows emotional

triggers and uses emotional triggers.

Second thing that we're reminded about God is God's healing is

not about erasing the memory of pain, but transforming my

response from cursing to blessing.

I need you to trust me on this. Just jot that down and then

we'll unpack it. We'll walk through it.

God's healing is not about erasing the the memory of pain,

but transforming my response from cursing to blessing.

What we mean by that is we live in a day and an age that

basically is about just suppressing.

Do what you got to do just to get through it.

Suppress it, push it deep down, let somebody else deal with it

later on or hey, listen, you just need to move on.

You just need to get over it. You need to move on.

God will never, God will never approach your pain and your hurt

and your trauma as like, hey man, you just need to get over

it. Move on.

But God will also never call you to erase the memory of that

trauma. He doesn't want to erase the

memory of the trauma. He wants to redeem the trauma.

He doesn't want to erase the memory of the pain.

He wants to redeem the pain. Let me kind of explain what what

I'm talking about. When you and I have been

legitimately wronged or hurt by someone, there are two very

natural, very, very accepted responses to that hurt and pain.

We can either. It's not in your nose, but you

may want to jot down. We can either seethe.

We can seethe to where like we just grit our teeth.

We hear that name, we see that stupid face on Facebook.

Like we just seethe. It just makes us mad.

Like basically, I never want to hear that name again.

I never want to see that face again.

I never want to hear about that church again.

I never want to dot, dot, dot. We just seethe.

Listen, that's accepted by our culture.

Second option, this accepted and I would even say celebrated by

our culture. It's even more celebrated than

the seething option. It's the option to ignore.

It's the option to ignore. Like if you want to put some

2025 or twenty 20s verbiage around it, cancel.

We just cancel people Like hey man you did me wrong.

You said something about me or my family or you just did US

wrong. You disrespected us like you

hurt us. You have no idea the level of

pain and trauma you caused. Man.

I'm just going to forget about you.

You might as well be dead to me. I'm just going to ignore the

fact that you even exist. We cancel that is so celebrated

because we have people around us that sit there and go.

You are such the bigger man. You're choosing not to take

vengeance on them. You're just choosing to walk

away, to cancel them out, to ignore it all.

You are such the bigger woman in this.

Do you know God gives us the third option?

And what I'm about to tell you is incredibly difficult, but

will bring about the deepest level of healing that you and I

will ever experience. When we are encouraged by people

around us to sieve and when we are patted on our backs to

cancel people out and to ignore them, and we actually even think

highly of ourselves to ignore them, God gives us the option to

jot this down. Bless them, You may say.

I'm out. You have no idea what he or she

did. You have no idea what I've gone

through. Hang with me, because in just a

second you're probably going to be even madder.

Do you know what it means to bless those that curse you?

It's to pray for them. It's to desire good for them as

God defines good. You must say I don't like that.

Yeah, me neither. But Jesus is very clear that,

listen, it's easy to to love those that love you and it's

easy to hate those that hate you.

But a mark that you're a follower of me is that you bless

those that curse you. Listen, you don't have to be in

close proximity to somebody to bless them.

You don't have to be in close proximity to somebody that to,

to pray for them. Let me tell you, let me tell you

what I'm talking about. Let me put some like real

tangible feet on this. Maybe I'm the only one and I'm

just like working out some therapy in front of y'all this

morning. You ever had somebody that hurts

you so deeply and you've endured pain and trauma so deeply that

in the middle of the night you wake up for some unknown reason

and that name or that situation is at the forefront of your

mind. What do you do with that other

than getting frustrated? I think that's an opportunity

for us to make a choice. We can wake up in the middle of

the night. We can sieve and probably not go

back to sleep. We can wake up in the middle of

night. We can ignore, probably struggle

to go back to sleep, or we can acknowledge maybe God woke us up

and maybe God placed that name or that face for that entity on

our mind for us to pray for. And here's the prayer.

God, I desire that you do your work through this person's life.

I desire you're good for this person.

God, I desire that you bless them, not bless what they have

done. Do not get that twisted or

confused, but I pray that you would bless them once they are

in accordance with you. You see, God will never call us

to erase the memory of our pain. He actually wants to redeem it

from cursing to blessing. So what does this tell us about

us? Very quickly on the on the home

stretch, Two things that this tells me about me.

My forgiveness of someone else sets me free.

My forgiveness of someone else sets me free.

As lovingly and as compassionately as I possibly

can, let me be very, very clear on something.

This morning is not about anyone else.

This morning is about you. This morning is not about anyone

else. This morning is about me.

Nothing will set me free. Nothing will set you free like

offering forgiveness to someone who is legitimately wronged.

You legitimately does not deserve it and may never ask for

it because listen, it is not about them.

It's about you. It's about me.

Now we have to be very, very clear on what forgiveness is and

what forgiveness isn't. Forgiveness is not saying what

they said or what they did was OK.

Forgiveness is not letting someone off the proverbial hook.

Forgiveness is not just stuffing it down and moving on and

getting over it. Forgiveness is giving up my

perceived right to take vengeance on someone else

because I understand. Listen, what is true for me is

true for you. No one is going to stand at the

end of their life. No one is going to stand before

me and give an account of their life to me.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to stand before God and all of

us, every single person, once we die, we will stand before God

and give an account of our lives to a holy God.

And I don't know about you. I've got more than enough to

deal with. No one's going to give an

account of their life to me. So forgiveness is not letting

somebody off the hook. It's not justifying what they

did, saying that it was OK, not ignoring it and stuffing it and

just deal with it later on. Forgiveness is going, God, I

know that you know it and I know that you've got it.

So you take it. And when I offload unforgiveness

and give it over to him, guess what?

I am lighter and I am freer. Second thing this tells me about

me, not only is my forgiveness of someone else setting me free,

but nothing will draw me closer to God than releasing someone

through forgiveness. Nothing will draw me closer to

God than releasing someone through forgiveness.

Let me give you, let me arm you. Please search.

Let me arm you with a passage of scripture that has helped me so

much that I hope will help you. Flip back to that last one right

here. If you want to know the main

theme of the life of Joseph, here it is.

Genesis 50, verse 20. You meant evil against me, God

Genesis 50:20

meant it for good, Praise God. You meant evil God meant it for

good, Praise God. You see, nothing will draw me

closer to God like offering forgiveness of someone else,

releasing someone else for my unforgiveness.

Here's why is whenever we come to our senses and we realize

that there is something stay in our life, a mountain that is way

too high, a giant that is way too imposing in our life that we

stand no chance against that we come to our God and we say God,

this is too big for me, but it's not too big for you.

This is a problem for me. It's not a problem for you.

And guess what that is, that posture of prayer is surrender

and dependence. And nothing will draw us closer

to God then surrender independence.

This isn't in your notes, but this is for free.

If you want to know, if you want to know what habits you need to

instill in your life, what habits to practice, to regularly

practice in your life, that will fast track and that will super

grow your relationship and your love for God and your

understanding of His love for you.

It is the practice of regular confession, which means that

when I recognize that there's something in my life that is

against His will, His word, and His ways, that I confess that to

him as sin and ask Him to forgive me.

A mark of Christian maturity is the distance between my sin and

my confession starts to shrink. So practicing regular

confession. But the second thing is offering

forgiveness of someone else, releasing other people through

forgiveness, because it reminds us of how much we have been

forgiven by God. And it reminds us that, listen,

God, I don't want to carry this anymore.

God, I want to give it over to you.

You're the only one that can do anything with us to begin with.

And if you've been with us over the past several weeks over this

series, you know that the way that we have ended is by walking

through several key questions this morning.

This morning, we're not going to walk through several.

We're just going to walk through 1.

And you probably have already figured out what it is.

Here it is. Who do I need to release through

forgiveness? Who do I need to release through

forgiveness? It can be a spouse.

It can be a former spouse. It can be a sibling.

It can be a Co worker or a former Co worker.

It could be a boss. It could be a former boss.

It could be. It could be.

It could be a church. It could be.

It could be anything, everything.

It could be a parent. It could be an abuser.

It could be somebody who has taken it as their mission to try

to wreck your life. You may say, Ben, I hear you.

And I have offered that forgiveness before, but here I

am. You throw this question up.

And if Ioffer forgiveness to that person, why am I still

dealing with this? Perhaps this is a Holy Spirit

nudge. It's a Holy Spirit nudge.

Do you know our our ultimate act of worship is surrender

independence to God. God, you can do what only you

can do because you can go where only you can go into the hearts,

into the minds and into the souls of me and the people

around me, the people that I'm harboring unforgiveness towards.

So God, I freely, I pray that you would help me to forgive

this person. I pray that you would help me to

forgive this person. And if you're one of the people

that says Ben, I've already forgiven them, forgive them

again. You see, what you're going

through right now is one of those emotional triggers.

That is a Holy Spirit knows that there's a deeper level of

healing that needs to take place.

Here's what I would tell you is the invitation of God to bring

about healing in your life. It is offered.

You're the one that has to accept it.

So that's what we're about to do.

We're going to give you the opportunity to accept God's

invitation to you, to set you free.

Because as your pastor, one of the things that I desire most

for you is that you leave freer here this morning and that you

live holier once you leave here, then when you came and you leave

lighter than you did because and, and, and you live closer,

you leave closer to God than you did.

Like I said, nothing, nothing will draw you closer to the

heart of God then freely releasing somebody through

forgiveness. So what I'm going to do is I'm

going to pray our band, they're going to come back out leading

us and lead us in another song. You can stand or you can choose

to stand and sing, or you can choose to come and kneel and

take up God's invitation to you. If you want to talk to a pastor,

I'll be over here. Pastor title will be over here.

We would love to pray with you. We'd love to talk with you.

My hope, my prayer is that you be obedient to what God calls

you to this morning. God, we love you and we thank

you. God, we love you and we thank

you for the fact that you love us not based off of anything

that we have done or not done, but based off of who you are.

God, we also love you and thank you for the fact that you know

everything that we have been through.

God, you know how our heart breaks and you know how our

heart has been broken. God, you know the pain that we

have endured and you know the pain that we are going through.

God, you know the trauma that we have walked through, and God,

you know the trauma that we are walking through.

God, it is not just a knowledge of all of that that we are in

awe of. It is your invitation to us for

us to freely give that over to you.

God, I believe that if you could speak anything to any of us in

this moment, in this space and in this place, you would quietly

whisper in our ears. You know, you don't have to

carry that anymore. I can take it.

But God, you love us so much that you will never force or

coerce your goodness on us. God, you wait for us to give it

to you. So God, whatever we give to you,

whatever we bring to you this morning, got to pray that you

would receive it, that you would use it, that you would transform

it, ultimately, that you would redeem it.

It's in Jesus name that we pray, Amen.

Thank you for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.

To find out more about this message or Riverbend Church,

connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.