Healing from Life's Hurts // Healing Through Forgiveness

People said, Amen, amen.

We are finishing up a series we've been in the last several weeks called Healing from Life's Hurts.

Healing from Life's Hurts.

And we've been talking about how do we heal from experiences that we've all had in our lives.

And often when we're trying to heal, our healing can be hindered because we leave something out that's really important in the healing journey.

We leave out, we could call it a missing ingredient.

I don't know any of you like to cook.

Anybody like to cook or bake in the room?

Cook okay.

Baking, it's it's that time of year, right?

It's that time of year, the baking time of year.

I don't know if you've ever cooked or baked something.

And in the process of cooking or baking, you leave out an important ingredient.

I don't know if you've ever done that before.

Maybe uh maybe you you put the cookies or you put whatever in the oven.

Or if you're like me, the air fryer.

Any air fryer people in the room?

Come on, thank God for the air fryer.

Somebody say amen, right?

You put it in the air fryer and then you then you take it out, and it's like the first bite, you just know something is not quite right here.

Because you left something out.

Sometimes I make smoothies and I really like strawberry banana smoothies.

Strawberry banana smoothies.

So good.

So a while ago I was making one and I was in the process of making it, and I realized I didn't have any bananas.

And who wants to go to the store?

That just takes too much time.

So I thought, here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna make a strawberry banana smoothie without a banana.

But I'm gonna put everything else in there.

I don't know if you've ever tried to make a strawberry banana smoothie without a banana, but doesn't exactly work out the best.

In fact, what I what I was decided to do is I thought, if I just put like extra strawberries in here and I put a little extra stevia, it would make up for the for the banana not being in there.

I'm thinking, I'm gonna be innovative, innovative, make this smoothie, you know?

So my my innovation of making a strawberry banana smoothie without a banana.

Will anybody want to guess how that turned out?

Not very good.

Not very good.

It uh it was the worst smoothie I've ever had in my life.

I'm like, that's why every smoothie in American history, that's a strawberry banana smoothie, contain bananas.

They're an important ingredient in a strawberry banana smoothie.

And sometimes when it comes to our healing, our healing can be hindered because we leave out an ingredient.

And some of us, we've gone to therapy, we've read the Bible and read the Bible and read the Bible, we've listened to worship music and listened to worship music and listen to worship music.

But it seems like our healing is still hindered.

We've prayed, we've asked God, but there's still this missing ingredient, and what the missing ingredient in our healing is often the ingredient of forgiveness.

And today what we're gonna talk about is we're gonna talk about healing through forgiveness.

And I want to say this forgiveness doesn't always heal you overnight, but your healing doesn't move forward without it.

You know, sometimes preachers like me, we make all these like strong absolute statements like if you'll just forgive, you'll be healed overnight.

Maybe.

But just being real, it doesn't always heal you overnight, but your healing will not move forward without choosing to forgive.

Sometimes we can even, as Jesus followers that know spiritual language, sometimes we can even spiritualize our way out of forgiving.

Like we can use Christian language and we can say, okay, well, I'm not gonna forgive because of Phil and this spiritual reason, and we can completely justify our lack of forgiveness.

And what what we don't realize is when we justify our lack of forgiveness and we spiritualize our lack of forgiveness, what we're doing is we're spiritualizing our lack of healing.

And we're hindering our healing because we don't choose to forgive.

This week in this series is actually a week that I was not planning on talking about.

This week was, or this in this six-week series, it was scheduled to be six weeks.

But just honestly, in my heart, I'm like, I cannot do a series about healing from life's hurts without talking about this.

And I even kind of wrestled with God about it.

I'm like, God, I don't know if I want to talk about this.

Like, should we talk about this?

And and sometimes God just has a way of just like, you know, letting me know, hey, my way's better than your way.

And and I really sense this morning that God has something for some of us this morning, because if you can choose to forgive, you can move forward in your healing journey.

We go back six weeks ago, seven weeks ago, when we started this series, we we started talking about, we talked about a guy named Joseph.

Everybody say Joseph, ready?

Joseph.

Joseph.

And Joseph is somebody we find in Genesis.

And we started talking about the beginning of his story and some of the hardships that he experienced.

And today, at the end of this series, what we're gonna do is we're gonna go to the end of Joseph's life.

There had been people, his brothers, that had intentionally destroyed his life.

There had been situations that caused him to suffer unthinkable things.

And now Joseph gets to the end of his life, and Joseph chose makes the choice to forgive.

But more importantly than that, Joseph found the power to forgive.

You know, some of us in our lives, we want to forgive, but we just can't seem to do it.

We just can't quite muster up the power to forgive the terrible things that's been done to us.

And what we're gonna see from Joseph's lives today is the same power that allowed Joseph to forgive is the same power that's available to you that can allow you to forgive the people that have hurt you.

And that's what we're gonna see today.

We're gonna pick it up at the end of Joseph's life in Genesis chapter 50.

Genesis 50 · chapter mention

If you're ready for it, would you say, Amen?

Here it is, Genesis chapter 50, verse number 15.

Genesis 50 · chapter mention

It says, When Joseph's brothers, anybody got any brothers in the room?

Anybody got any older brothers in the room?

Okay, older brothers in the room.

Joseph has some older brothers.

When they saw that their father was dead, they said to one another, If Joseph is holding a grudge against us, he will certainly repay us for all the, what's that word?

All the suffering he caused him.

Now let's remember the suffering that Joseph's brothers caused him.

They sold him into slavery.

They lied to their dad about what happened to him, and because they sold him into slavery, he ended up being in prison for a number of years.

They intentionally destroyed his life and made his life hard.

What do you do to somebody that intentionally destroys your life?

What do you do to somebody when you have the opportunity to get back the person that destroyed your life?

I tell you what I want to do to somebody that does that.

I want to make them suffer twice as bad as I suffered.

That's my reaction.

Then I remember I'm a pastor.

Joseph can make their life miserable.

You see, the tables have turned now.

Joseph is second in command of all of Egypt.

He's one of the most powerful and influential people in the entire world.

Joseph says one word, these guys, they're dead.

And they go to Joseph and they're like, hey, if he's holding a grudge against us, he can kill us now because their dad was dead.

Their dad wasn't around anymore, he wouldn't know.

So look what they do in verse number 16.

They kind of make up a little story.

So they sent this message to Joseph.

Before he died, your father gave a command.

Now here's what's funny: it's never recorded at all that their father, Jacob, actually said this.

Like they're fearful, they're scared.

That Joseph gave a command.

Say this to Joseph.

Please forgive your brothers' transgressions and their sin, the suffering they caused you.

Therefore, please forgive the transgressions of the servant of the God of your father.

And Joseph wept when their message came to him.

These brothers are fearful for a good reason.

Joseph, he can destroy them right now.

And Joseph's response, it's so interesting.

It's so interesting.

His response is weeping.

And his weeping did not come because he was angry.

You ever been so mad at something you cried?

These tears are not tears of anger.

What these tears are, these are tears of compassion.

You see, five chapters earlier, Genesis 45, Joseph had already expressed forgiveness to them.

He'd already expressed forgiveness to them.

And now Joseph is hearing what they're saying to him, and he has compassion in his heart.

Compassion in his heart towards his brothers.

And what this reminds us of is that godly strength is not emotional numbness.

Godly strength isn't, oh, I'm so tough.

I'm, you know, I'm, oh, I got myself together.

I'm not going to be moved with passion.

I'm not going to be moved with emotion.

No, you know what godly strength is?

Godly strength is having compassion on people.

And godly strength is having compassion about the things that God is passionate about and letting the truth of God move your heart.

You know, sometimes I'll talk to people and they're like, oh, I'm just not emotional.

And then they watch a football game.

I'm not emotional.

And then they start playing video games.

It's like, what?

You're almost just like through the remote against the TV, right?

See, here's the reality.

Here's the reality is that godly people allow the truth of who God is to move their hearts.

Singing songs that God is holy, who God is, I will trust him.

And when you're going through a hard time and you are declaring with your lips, God, I still trust you, that should move your heart.

That should move you.

Something is inside of you that says, Lord, man, I am moved with emotion because of your goodness to me.

Joseph here, he weeps because he has compassion towards his brothers.

And his brothers, they were scared because they thought some bad things were going to happen to them.

It says in verse 18, his brothers also came to him, bowed down before him, and said, We are your slaves.

Joseph is the younger brother.

Hey, uh, older siblings in the room.

Can y'all imagine going and bowing down before your younger sibling?

I am bowing down before my sister, I'll tell you that.

Bowing down, and they said, We are your slaves.

Try that line.

We are your we are your slaves.

Why why would they say that?

Because they knew with their intentional, deceitful, evil actions, for Joseph to forgive them, that did not make sense.

And here's the reality about forgiveness.

Forgiveness doesn't make sense, number one.

Forgiveness, number one, it does not make sense.

When I am wrong by somebody, when I'm wrong by somebody, it doesn't make sense for me to forgive them.

I mean, look at the text.

The brothers are like, why would he forgive us?

We're gonna like get on our knees and we're gonna say, we are willing to be your slaves.

Because they thought, I'm gonna have to earn the grace from Joseph.

I'm gonna have to earn the forgiveness from Joseph.

He's not just gonna extend forgiveness.

I don't know if if you've ever been deeply hurt by somebody.

Chances are, if you're human, the answer's yes.

And I'm not talking about a misunderstanding.

We all have those.

I'm not talking about somebody handles a situation wrong with we all do that from time to time.

I'm talking about when somebody deeply, deeply hurts you, and their actions cause you to suffer.

In those moments, what makes complete sense is to have vengeance on them.

In fact, in fact, in fact, forgiveness almost feels like I'm letting them off the hook.

Something in all of our hearts screams for justice.

You did this, justice should be enacted on you.

And now Joseph's brothers who did him dirty are before Joseph, and Joseph has the power to enact justice on them, get revenge on them, which by the way, I think they deserved it.

I know I'm unspiritual, but I'm like, you sell your brother into slavery, you lie to dad about it, he gets thrown in prison innocently, his life is destroyed, bro.

You got something coming for you.

That's me.

And if I'm Joseph, I'm gonna watch you suffer and I'm gonna enjoy it.

Because now I have the ability to do to you what you have the ability to do to me.

But Joseph said, Joseph said, Joseph said, no, no, no.

Actually, actually, I'm gonna choose to not enact revenge on you.

I'm gonna choose to forgive.

Friends, that is unthinkable.

How does he do it?

Well, the next two verses are two of the most powerful verses in all of scripture.

It says in verse number 19.

Joseph said to them, Joseph said to them, Don't be afraid.

Am I in the place of God?

You planned evil against me.

Now I want to unpack something super quick.

Okay.

I want to unpack number two.

The first one, the first one's this.

Forgiveness doesn't make sense.

Here's number two, okay?

Number two, forgiveness does not excuse sin.

Forgiveness does not excuse sin.

Can we get that on the screen?

This is really important.

Family, this is really important.

This is what Joseph tells them.

You planned evil against me.

Sometimes, as a means of coping, what we try to do is we can downplay what's happened to us.

Ah, they they were just confused.

They had a rough childhood.

They were just going through a lot.

So, you know, they just they just kind of did this.

And we can downplay what's been done to us.

Joseph doesn't say here, you know, brothers, we just had a little sibling rivalry.

The fact that you sold me into slavery, no big deal.

No, no big deal.

Joseph says, You planned evil against me.

And part of experiencing healing from our past involves facing up to the fact that people have sinned against us and people have wounded us.

For some of us, we can't really admit that.

We're like, no, I'm okay.

I'm good.

What they did to me didn't affect me.

Then why are you angry all the time, bro?

Are we talking about Pastor Right?

I'm at the 10 a.m.

service.

I'm in church service on a Sunday morning.

I could be watching football right now.

I'm good.

Then how come you try to control everything?

It's because you're wounded.

It's because you're wounded and you've never dealt with it.

And you're macho and your ego, and you think that you're strong, but ain't fooling nobody.

And we can never heal until we realize that we've been hurt and we've been wounded by somebody else.

And until the macho fades, until we get real with ourselves for one minute, we're not going to be able to move forward in our healing.

And the people that it affects is the people that are closest to us.

And the people that it affects are the people that we love the most.

And the people that it affects are the people that our stories, when we heal, can impact.

But we have to be real and say, I have been wounded.

And what forgiveness is not doing, forgiveness is not acting like that was okay.

Because it wasn't.

This is what forgiveness is.

Forgiveness is choosing to cancel the debt.

They have done me wrong, and I'm canceling the debt that they owe against me.

What gave Joseph the power to do it?

This is what it was.

It was Joseph's view of God.

Look what he says in verse 19.

Joseph tells them, Am I in the place of God?

Joseph realized that if he was putting himself in a place where he was going to enact vengeance on them, he was trying to be God.

Because of how he viewed God, he realized that that was God's place, not his place.

Look what verse 19 says of Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Friends, don't avenge yourselves.

Instead, leave room for God's wrath because it's written, vengeance belongs to me.

I will repay, says the Lord.

Now, forgiveness doesn't automatically mean that you restore trust.

Forgiveness doesn't mean that you remove boundaries and it doesn't erase consequences for people's actions.

This is all forgiveness means.

You're giving up your right to revenge on that person.

Joseph understood that that wasn't his job.

And Joseph also understood something powerful about God is that God is a God of redemption.

I want you to go back to verse 20.

I want us to see this.

You planned evil against me.

God planned it for good to bring about the present result, the survival of many people.

Okay, let's think about something.

The nation of Israel had survived because Joseph was in second in command in all of Egypt.

Couple thousand years later, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is gonna come through the line of the nation of Israel.

The reason why Joseph was in second command of Egypt and was able to feed his brothers the nation of Israel is because his brothers had sold him into slavery and done evil to him.

And Joseph says, okay, okay, okay, what you plan for evil, God planned for good.

Let me let me share the Pastor Nate version of this verse.

Very simple.

What others mean for evil, God can use for good.

What others use for evil, God can use for good.

That's in the PNV, the Pastor Nate version.

What others mean for evil, God can use for good.

Sometimes what we think is we think, God, how can you use this for good?

And until, until, until we choose to forgive, we mentally, we mentally, we mentally will have these things replaying in our minds all the time.

We emotionally will have all these feelings time and time and time and time again.

And what forgiveness does is forgiveness allows us to take a step back, to remove ourselves from the situation and say, God, how can you use this for good?

It's an honest prayer.

It's a painful prayer.

It's a prayer for those that have been hurt.

It's a prayer for those in brokenness.

It's a prayer for those that have gone through the unthinkable things.

It's a tearful prayer.

It's an honest prayer.

God, how can you bring something good from this?

Some of us don't believe that.

We don't think that God can bring something good from it.

And I understand.

And I also want you to know that something beautiful about God is that He is a God that redeems.

God is a God that redeems.

Let me explain.

The most evil, heinous thing that's ever happened in the history of the world, the sinless Son of God dying on the cross for our sin.

He died on the cross.

He was innocent.

That was evil.

Because of that evil thing, our sins can be forgiven and we can have eternal life.

That is a good thing.

Something evil from something evil came something good.

And in our lives, something good can come from something evil.

Now here's the challenge.

For a lot of us, when we think of good, we always think of material things.

So if it's gonna be good, then I'm gonna have more money.

I'm gonna have a bigger house.

I'm just gonna have a house at all.

I'm gonna have a nicer car, I'm gonna throw another zero, or maybe two on my bank account.

That is what good is.

But look at what God says is good.

In Romans chapter 8, verse 28, it says, We know all things work together for the, what's that word?

Romans 8:28

For the for the good.

For the good.

To those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

So then what is the good?

Well, let's go to verse 29.

For those he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

What is good?

It's our lives looking more like Jesus.

It's us having the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

It's us being more gracious.

It's us being more compassionate.

It's us having love and joy and peace and what God can do from those evil things, God can bring something good come in your life.

Yes, the betrayal wasn't good.

Yes, the abuse wasn't good.

Yes, the sickness wasn't good, but God can bring good from what wasn't good.

He can bring good from what wasn't good.

And Joseph says, Yes, you destroyed my life.

But because you tried to do that, the nation of Israel is going forward because good is coming from something evil.

And then he tells them in verse 21, he says, Therefore, don't be afraid.

I will take care of you and your children.

And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

He reminds them, hey, I'm not just gonna I haven't just forgiven you, but I'm gonna take care of your kids too.

I'm I'm gonna feed them.

I'm gonna do this for them.

He may be thinking, okay, Pastor Nate.

I get the good can come from evil, but I can't get to the the forgiveness part in this situation.

Like I'ma hold on to the good, that God can bring something from good because that's about God.

But as far as the forgiveness part, that's about them and like what they did.

And I would say that if forgiveness is the missing ingredient in your healing, it's because forgiveness may be the missing ingredient in your gospel.

The gospel, it doesn't just save us, it shapes us, it strengthens us, and it guides us.

That's the value here, okay?

Look what look what Ephesians 4.32 says.

It says, Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another.

What are those next two words?

Forgiving one another, just as just as God also forgave you in Christ.

And when I don't forgive, it's because I have forgotten how much I've been forgiven.

Now here's what here's what I tend to do, and I don't know if you're like me, but I tend to minimize my sin.

I'm like, yeah, like I kind of mess up here, I kind of mess up there, but I don't do that over there.

I mean, that's real bad.

That crime doc?

Woo!

That's a bad dude.

But me?

I just kind of like mess up a little here, a little there.

Bring a person! It's isn't it always interesting that we compare our goodness based on somebody that's worse than us?

And when it comes to our goodness, the standard is perfection before a holy God.

And my sin and your sin, what it really is, it's rebellion against a holy God.

You know, 2,000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross for our sin, it wasn't the Jews that nailed him to the cross.

You know what nailed him to the cross?

My sin.

Your sin.

And when Jesus died on the cross and we put our faith and trust in Jesus, we repent from our sins, we believe in Jesus.

I surrender my life to him.

This is what happens.

All of his righteousness comes on to me, and all of my sin gets put onto him.

So now I am forgiven because I have been forgiven of all of my sin.

And those that have been forgiven much are people that should forgive much.

Because if forgiveness is the missing ingredient in your healing, it's because it's the missing ingredient in your gospel.

Because you have been forgiven if you've trusted Christ as your Lord and as your Savior.

I want to ask the worship team to come up and I want to share a story that's very personal to me.

I remember walking with a with a Christian therapist for for months and months, and she was an incredible Christian therapist, and and kind of we came to the end after several months meeting, and she said, Nate, you're doing really well, but there's one other thing you need to do for your healing.

She said, You need to take a piece of paper and you need to do this on your own.

You need to write out all the things that have been done to you, all the things that have been taken from you, all of your unresolved feelings, all of them.

She said, You can be honest.

Every single one of them, write them down.

Could be a page, could be 10 pages, doesn't matter.

Write it down.

Then at the end, I want you to write, but I'm choosing to forgive because I have been forgiven by God.

And she she said, Hey, if you want to do this, you can, you don't have to do this, but I think you need to do this.

So I did what mature Jesus followers do when God asked them to do something hard.

I put it off.

And I remembered I had another meeting with her coming up, and I just knew I needed to do this.

And I sat on my couch, and I took out the notebook, and I began writing all the hurts, all that have been taken from me, all the unresolved emotions in my heart.

And then at the end, I'm choosing to forgive.

Because God has forgiven me.

And healing didn't happen overnight from that experience.

But here's what it is: healing moved forward from that experience.

And here's what I'm gonna invite you to do this morning.

I'm gonna invite you to choose to forgive.

Not just because it's part of your healing journey, but because if you're a Jesus follower, you have been forgiven by God.

And I'm gonna choose, I'm gonna invite you to say, hey, today is the day.

Because I've been forgiven.

And if you will do this today can be the next step in your healing journey for some of us, today can accelerate your healing journey because you just said, hey, I am choosing to forgive.

I'm gonna invite our prayer team to come to the front right now.

Maybe you need have somebody pray with you.

Maybe you're carrying a burden.

You just walked in here with the burden.

Maybe it has nothing to do with forgiveness, but you need somebody to pray with you.

I wanna say, our party is available to pray with you.

Let's all stand to our feet right now.