Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Forgive | Torah | Genesis 45

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

Is forgiveness ever impossible? What if someone really hurt you? Why is forgiveness important? In today's episode, Tanya looks at Genesis 45 to share what the Bible says is the key to forgiveness. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Genesis 45 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. Right now, we're going through the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Our knee-jerk response when someone does something to hurt us is to hope they get what they deserve. I see this in myself. You talked about me behind my back. I hope people know you are a gospel. Or you cancel plans with me. I hope you experience what it feels like to have plans canceled. But that's ridiculous. You know why? Well, mostly because I'm guilty of gossip and I cancel plans. And I don't want to be punished for it or experience the pain that comes from it. So why on earth would I want that for someone else? True forgiveness involves not wanting people to get what they deserve.

True forgiveness comes from knowing what we deserve. This is why people who draw near to God are burdened with the need to forgive. As we draw near to God, we come face to face with our own sin, our own brokenness. And with bigger eyes, we see the depths to which we are forgiven in Christ. In Genesis 45, we see a beautiful scene of forgiveness unfold between Joseph and his brothers, and the scene is filled with emotion and language. Let's look at it together. So the brothers have made the journey to Egypt, with their youngest brother Benjamin, to buy grain from Joseph's storehouses, because the land is in a famine. And the brothers have changed from the people

who cast Joseph in a pit and sold them into slavery. Now, they're united in their love for their father, and they're even willing to risk their own lives to save their younger brother Benjamin's life. When Joseph sees how much they love their father and their younger brother, he's not jealous or angry, but he is moved. Genesis 45 opens,

then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by his, him. He cried, make everyone go out from me. See, Joseph spent two decades praying about what his brothers had done to him, two decades of thinking and rethinking. This was not a quick or a shallow forgiveness. This was forgiveness forged through the torture of the heart and mind. And then he told his brothers to draw near to him and he said, I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into slavery. Now, can you even imagine how you would have trembled in fear? If you were one of the brothers. This was Joseph. This was the one you tried to get rid of. This was the brother

you mistreated and lied about. This was the brother you've spent 20 years living in guilt over. Some days, you might have been able to forget, but here, here he is. And he is your hope for survival. But Joseph wasn't there to make them tremble or grovel because he'd already forgiven them. Not because they asked for it or deserved it, but because in his 20 years of talking to God about it at some point, God enabled him to forgive. He says, you sold me here, but God sent me before you to save lives. It was not you who sent me here, but God, who made me a distinguished member of Fiveror's household so I could prepare Egypt for famine and save your lives.

Joseph called in the name of the Lord four times, but he didn't use God as a teaching moment or finger-pointing moment. He talked about God to encourage and comfort his brothers. He wasn't trying to make them feel worse about what they'd done to him. He was trying to show them what God had done for him. This wasn't a shallow forgiveness of forgive and forget. This was deep redemptive work that involved honesty, reflection, and love. Only God could have known what would happen in Egypt and gotten Joseph there to take care of the grain.

And only through the power of God could Joseph truly forgive his brothers. After Joseph forgave them, there was true reconciliation. as he explained that there would be five more years of famine and then instructed them to go to Goshen, where he would provide for them and make sure they didn't fall into poverty. And then he kissed all of his brothers and wept on their shoulders and talked with them. The reconciliation is beautiful, and it has two parts that are important. First, their brothers came back to Egypt and humility. They admitted their guilt and repented.

They were changed. We see this in part because Judah, the one who lied to their father and told him that Joseph had been eaten by wild animals, while Judah offered to make himself a sacrifice to spare their younger brother Benjamin. The other important part is that Joseph's heart was completely softened by forgiveness. Not only did he accept his brother's apologies, but he wanted a better future for them. He wanted the opposite of getting what they deserved. I don't know about you, but this is something only God can do in my heart. But let's stop and ask a big question, probably one you're already thinking, what if the brothers didn't come in humility? What if the brothers didn't come back

with repentant hearts? It does take two parties to reconcile, but you don't need two people for forgiveness to happen. It was God who informed Joseph's heart of his goodness. It was God who gave him the grace to forgive. There was no reproach when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, only encouragement and restoration. The forgiveness had already happened in the quiet of his heart. I think Joseph understood that we don't have to keep the pain alive to keep the truth alive. He said, I'm the one you sold. He still recognized the truth of what had been done, but he was free from the pain. He'd given that part over to God. When I was thinking about forgiveness, I remembered a book I'd seen in the New York Times bestseller list by Catherine Schwarzenegger

Pratt called The Gift of Forgiveness. And in that book, she digs into the lives of some of our most well-known stories of injustice and grief. And she talks to people who've been able to forgive against all odds and all cultural norms. She interviews them, she tells stories, and there are some extraordinary moments of forgiveness in that book. Elizabeth Smart. Kidnap from her bedroom when she was a young girl and held captive by her kidnappers and abusers for several months.

When she was discovered, the world, which had assumed the worst, was in collective shock, relief, and anger. But being discovered was only the beginning of a lifetime of healing for Elizabeth. We can't even begin to imagine the depth of trauma and pain she experienced from kidnapping, captivity, and abuse. Today, Elizabeth talks about forgiveness and the active and conscious choice to forgive instead of living in resentment and hate.

We can't help but be in awe of the courage it must require for her to take that path. In her interview with the author, Elizabeth talks about how important it has been to love herself. And she says the key to her forgiveness is self-love. I can't imagine how hard it was to get to that place, to love yourself after what happened. I can't imagine what it's like to walk in her shoes. That's amazing and restorative that she can love herself again. But I know I can't fully love myself all the time.

So what happens when self-love crumbles? There's a love even greater than love for self that becomes our rock. There's a love from Abba, father, the one. Jesus called on in the garden when his very soul was grieved to the point of death. There's a love that never fails and never forsakes, knowing how loved we are in God, how unceasingly and unwaveringly we are loved, is a rock that is strong enough to hold up an active and conscious choice to forgive. Christ didn't walk away from us, but became on the cross every act of hurt that has ever

and will ever be done. And then he came to dwell within those whose sins put him on the cross. We've talked about big acts of evil and injustice today, but the reality is that if you have relationships, you're going to have problems. You're often going to be the problem. You're going to need forgiveness and you're going to have opportunities to forgive. And this is true. In the Bible, there are messy people, but there are people who are aware of their own need

for forgiveness and their need for forgiveness. for Jesus. And these are people we see forgive, like Joseph. He fell on his brothers and wept. Probably over all the years they'd missed out on together, probably over all the lies and doubts and sin each had committed and encountered. By grace, they were restored. By the cross, we are restored. Thanks, be to Jesus. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes, and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.