Turn to your Bibles, if you would, believe it or not, to the Old Testament, Genesis chapter 50.

We've been in the New Testament primarily with Matthew 18, which is basically an ancient text on the issue of forgiveness.

And we're in a very crucial series.

And we've said numerous times, there are many of us who really do want to forgive someone, but find it incredibly difficult.

And so what we're doing, we're making our way.

through this journey and talking about the difference between forgiveness and justice and how they're actually no difference but are interdependent while at the same time we kind of build these foundations in order that when we get to that point where we ask the question specifically what is the process of forgiveness that will have all these things in play and I promise you this journey would have been worth it.

One of the illustrations I always use, and I was able to use it last weekend, but only on the broadcast version, not on the weekend, was going back to a famous book by Simon Wiesenthal.

It's a book called The Sunflower.

It sold millions of copies.

And the reason is the subtitle was The Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness.

And the entire book was a story about a German soldier who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of men and women and children.

He actually had gone into a town and gathered the Jews together, which was the practice, put them into a church building, and set the church building on fire, and heard their screams as literally they burned to death.

So now we come to a time in the book and the story when there is this German makeshift hospital, and this German soldier responsible for the deaths of all these people has now suffered a fatal wound and is in the last days of his life, and he makes a request, and this is what the book is about.

He requests that a Jewish person, any Jewish person, be sent to him.

And we discover in the course of the story, he wants to get forgiveness for what he has done.

So he says that he can't sleep at night, he hears the screams of the women and the children, and he needs forgiveness.

He needs a respite from the guilt that is actually eating him alive, also preventing him from physical healing.

Wiesenthal was sent to him.

And when the German soldier told him the story, Wiesenthal refused to forgive.

He said, no, I will not forgive you for what you have done.

The rest of the book is about the fact that Wiesenthal wrote some of the most famous people all throughout the world.

We're talking about Nobel Prize winners, professors, teachers, lawyers, priests, even the Pope, to ask them if he had done the right thing by refusing forgiveness.

It was 50-50, almost right down the middle.

Some said, yes, you should have forgiven.

Others said, you did the right thing in not forgiving.

And there were many reasons given on both sides.

Every time I reread the book, because you can't get everything the first time through, it takes a couple of reads, I asked myself the question, if I had been in Wiesenthal's position, would I have forgiven?

And the more I studied the issue of forgiveness, the more this problem has become apparent.

At least to me and in the church, that we tend to separate love and justice as if they are mutually exclusive.

But God's justice and his love, as revealed on the cross, are interdependent.

Justice occurs on the cross because sin is punished, and love occurs on the cross because God takes our payment, takes upon his own shoulders, on his own being, the ramifications, the penalty our sins are due to us.

So what does all that mean?

Well, we're trying as Christ followers, now that we know the justice and the love of God are interdependent, we're trying to figure out how we can then apply what we learn at the cross into our everyday lives.

Because the fact of the matter is most of us know how to exhibit justice.

We have no problem with that.

But as I look back in the story, Wiesenthal, I believe should have forgiven the soldier because you can forgive individually while Still, the German soldier, as he receives the forgiveness from an individual, pays the penalty that justice demands, and that's the key to forgiveness.

The key to forgiveness is not foregoing justice, but that you refuse to enact your own retribution upon the person, and you actually wish them well.

And that's why we quoted from the gymnast Rachel Denhollander, who was sexually abused by Larry Nassar.

When she stood in court and made this statement, I pray you experience the soul-crushing weight of guilt so that you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God, which you need far more than forgiveness from me, although I extend that to you as well.

So what you have is love and forgiveness from the individual, actually wishing the person well, while at the same time you have justice and accountability.

So here is the question.

What does individual forgiveness require?

What does it look like?

Again, we know what corporate justice looks like, but what does individual forgiveness look like?

Next week, we're going to go step-by-step through the process, because we cannot finish this series until we've done that and what that looks like.

And in reality, folks, let me just give you the good news ahead of time.

We don't have to guess.

We are told in no uncertain terms the steps Christ requires after having been offended.

how to forgive and restore and to receive forgiveness when we've offended someone else.

But before we do that, there is one more perspective with which you must come to terms because it will help you forgive someone.

This one thing right here is the one thing that some people, it's all they really need.

Now, most of us, we need more than this, but this is so crucial.

It's crucial not only in theory to me, It is an objective truth that you find in the Word of God, but it's also crucial in my individual life and the way I've dealt with people who have wounded me and the people that I've wounded.

I'm sure you have as well.

There's a famous story in the Bible about forgiveness, and we can't go past this series without dealing with this primary passage of forgiveness that we find in Genesis 50.

So let me see how well you know your Bible just quickly.

Let me see if you can identify.

the story that I'm talking about with some clues.

Number one, this person was loved and adored by his father.

Number two, he was mistreated by those who were supposed to love and care for him.

Number three, the more he did the right thing, the more he suffered.

Four, his name means the same thing as the name Yeshua, Messiah, Jesus.

He will save his people.

He was his father's favorite son, which caused a lot of problems.

His father was Jacob, you might know it already by now, who was later called Israel after he had wrestled with God.

And he wore, here's the clincher, a coat of many colors.

We know we're talking about Joseph.

Now, I think personally that as we go and read the Joseph story, that we kind of read it with saint-colored glasses.

We automatically assume the best about Joseph, and we kind of elevate him to sainthood, forgetting that he's human just like you and me.

and that this whole process of pain and suffering he endured would have shaped and molded him eventually into who he became.

But there's no way he was that on the front end.

So the story goes something like this.

So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan.

I'm in Genesis 37.

Now we'll get to 50, but you got to back up in Genesis 37 verse 17.

When they, the brothers, saw him at a distance and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

Good brothers, huh?

Here comes the dreamer.

They said to each other, Joseph was a dreamer.

He had big vision for his life.

His brothers didn't like that.

Come now, verse 20, they said, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him.

Then we'll see what comes of his dreams.

But when Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands.

Let's not take his life, he said.

Don't shed any blood.

Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him.

We're told that Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.

So he was going to come back later when his brothers weren't around and rescue him.

Verse 23, so when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the ornate robe he was wearing.

They took him and threw him in the cistern.

The cistern was empty.

There was no water in it.

As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead.

Their camels were loaded with spices, balm, and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.

Judah said to his brothers, What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?

Come, let's sell him.

to one of the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him.

After all, he is our brother.

Hey, the only reason he thought about blood brother right now is because he stands to gain some finance from all of this.

Our own flesh and blood, his brothers agreed.

28.

So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for 20 shekels of silver, not an insignificant amount, to the Ishmaelites who took him then to Egypt.

When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, He tore his clothes.

He went back to his brothers and said, the boy isn't there.

Where can I turn now?

Then they got Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in blood.

They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, we found this.

Examine it to see whether it is your son's robe.

They know it's Joseph's robe.

And of course, Jacob recognizes it and said, it is my son's robe.

Some ferocious animal has devoured him.

Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.

And then Jacob tore his clothes.

put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days.

All of his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted.

No, he said, I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.

So his father wept for him.

Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard.

Now, step into this story with me just for a moment.

Everything that happens to Joseph, After his brother sold him to the passing Ishmaelites, everything is a result of some atrocity or abuse that's been committed upon Joseph by his brothers.

Everything is a result of that.

So for nine years, because of what Joseph's brothers did to him, he's going to be a slave in Potiphar's house.

He was 17 years old.

when his slavery begins.

I mean, that's a time when young men are dreaming dreams and they're trying to discover their place in the world.

Joseph's brothers killed his dreams.

Now, you and I think, we read this, we think of how, well, you know, that's true, but Joseph was in Potiphar's house and he's been entrusted to Potiphar's entire household, so his life wouldn't have been that tough.

Make no mistake, Joseph was a slave, not an employee.

He's told when to eat, when to sleep, when to work, when to rest.

He has no rights other than those given to him by his master.

He has no weekend passes or the enjoyment of other things that young men enjoy in this stage of life.

He is owned.

He is the property of someone else.

Now, if that's you, how bitter do you think Joseph is becoming toward his brothers?

You don't think there are times in those long nine years where he says, you did this to me, you ruined my life.

And I'll show you how he was thinking this later in the text.

You sent me away from the house and the home of my father that I love.

I have no hope and no future.

You robbed me.

My brothers, my own brothers robbed me of my life.

I also wonder, and I'll meander here, I wonder if it's possible that part of the reason Joseph worked so hard to find favor with Potiphar is that he had hoped one day he'd be set free so that he could exact revenge on his brothers.

Revenge is a powerful motivator.

Did you see the movie or read the book, The Count of Monte Cristo?

Edmond Dante is betrayed by his best friend.

He is sent to the prison, the French prison, Chateau Yves.

He's beaten every single day.

Imagine you're in jail and you know at some point every day that they come in and tie your hands around a pole and they're going to strike, they're going to whip you and just beat you every day, part of the process.

You're deprived of food.

He was deprived of sleep, sleeping on coal stone.

No pillow, no bed, no windows.

Darkness and isolation.

Yet in the movie and the book, Edmond Dante is determined to survive.

He is driven to survive for one reason, revenge.

That is the only thing that kept him alive.

Now I wonder if at least in the early stages of Joseph's experience, that he is driven that one day he might take revenge on his brothers who've done this to him.

How bitter could Joseph possibly become?

His own family, his own brothers.

And by the way, his brothers already had a brutal reputation.

You only have to go back a few chapters in Genesis 30.

And when their sister, the brothers of Joseph, which would have been his sister too, Dinah, was raped by Shechem, son of Hamor, the Hittite, who's the ruler of the land.

The sons of Jacob went to the Hittites and they were cleverly cruel as part of their revenge.

So they love punishing people.

And what they did, they went to the Hittites and they said, look, Why don't we join our peoples together?

Now, obviously, God had told them not to do that, and they had no intention of doing that.

But they said to the Hivites, let's combine our people and our flocks and our herds and even our women, because you men find our women attractive.

And let's combine again, this was popular and common in Jacob's day, and Israel would have done it had God told them not to.

It's significant because in those days, if you combined with other nomads, you had a greater chance of survival.

So you can combine your resources.

Joseph's brothers, Jacob's sons, would have known that the Hivites would have been attracted to this.

Because not only would they prosper, but once again, they were attracted to the Israelite women.

And then if you read the story, here comes the punchline.

They said, OK, we'll combine.

But first you have to be circumcised.

Now, you think about this.

These are grown men.

And Jacob's son said, yeah, we'll combine.

You can have our you can marry our women.

Fine.

But first you have to be circumcised.

And surprisingly, I mean, the Israelite women must have been gorgeous because they said, OK.

That's it.

Okay, we'll be circumcised.

Now, they all go in and circumcision is something most men don't like to talk about in their adult age, right?

While they're still recovering in their own makeshift hospitals in their tents, then Jacob's sons come into the tents while they're going, oh, they're recovering, and they slaughter them all.

So not only did they force them to be circumcised, they end up murdering them anyway.

So Joseph's brothers are notorious for their cruelty.

And now they've turned their cruelty toward their own brother Joseph.

I want you to think about this.

Even though Joseph is most probably bitter toward his brothers, at least at this stage, he's not yet bitter toward God.

He doesn't blame God and remains faithful to God.

His commitment to God is so real that he even refuses the advancement of Mrs.

Potiphar, who evidently was a beautiful woman.

When he refuses to engage in this kind of sinful activity, the reason he gives in Genesis 39, 9, my master has withheld nothing from me except you, his wife, because you are his wife.

How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?

So Joseph, bitter toward his brothers, is loyal toward his master and ultimately loyal to his ultimate master, God.

Now, here's the question.

For those of you who have suffered tremendous heartache in your life, I cannot...

See if you can juxtaposition your life with Joseph's.

Where does all this faithfulness to God get him?

Well, Potiphar's wife just won't give up.

She pursues him again and again until Joseph is so desperate, he flees the scene of temptation so quickly that he leaves his cloak behind.

Mrs.

Potiphar grabs the cloak, takes it into her possession, and uses it as exhibit A to prove to her husband that it's actually Joseph trying to seduce her.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

She shows the cloak to Mr.

Potiphar, makes up a story, and this spells the end of Joseph.

In verse 19 of chapter 39, when his master heard the story, his wife told him, saying, This is how your slave treated me.

He burned with anger.

Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.

Now, if you'd been Joseph, would your bitterness Decrease or increase?

It's going to increase toward your brothers because you're still thinking, they did this to me and it's unfair and unjust and look at where I am.

And I have a suspicion that perhaps at this point, a little bit of bitterness toward God would start to seep in because, wait a minute, God, I did the right thing and I'm in a worse prison now than I was as a result of my brother's betrayal.

My brothers are the evil ones and they're prospering.

And I keep trying to do what is right and good, and I'm suffering.

And so Joseph will spend the next four years underground in the most severe prison in Egypt.

This is another thing that we don't talk about often when we tell the Joseph story.

We seldom talk about what the prisons were like during the reign of the Egyptians.

Prisons were basically large dugout holes in the ground or enclosed underground areas in bordered fortresses.

prisons included daily torture.

Beginning on the day of arrival, typically they would cut your nose off.

On day one, in case you escaped, you could easily be identified.

Food rations were small.

Most prisoners died, and if they did, so be it.

That was the point.

Only the young, strong, and healthy typically survived.

Most died.

The survival rate was somewhere around 10 percent and not more than three years.

Joseph is going to be in this type of situation for four years.

Now, In the prison, he continues to act with character and integrity.

As a result, chapter 39, verse 23, the warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.

Okay, you would think that Joseph is bitter toward his brothers because they betrayed him and sold him into slavery.

I think that there's a growing bitterness.

Toward God because he keeps doing the right thing and his life doesn't turn out the way he thinks it should.

But there is no indication in the text that I could find where Joseph doesn't have some bitterness toward both God and man.

Now, he continues to act with integrity and character.

But part of the reason is because when you act with integrity and character, when you focus on the task at hand rather than on...

the bitterness that you may have deep inside your heart and soul for somebody who's wronged you, then success still tends to come your way.

So Joseph has learned, when I act with great integrity and character that I've learned from God, then I tend to get promoted and life becomes somewhat easier.

What is evident is that no matter what Joseph thinks, you and I know the upper story.

God has never left Joseph.

He has been with him even Though God allows this whole prison thing, which is horrible, God's hand is never away from him.

It is heavy upon him, continuing to grant him success in the middle of all the suffering and the abuse.

So make no mistake, what is happening to Joseph still stinks.

Hunger, abuse, slavery.

He's a respected slave now, yes, but he's still a slave.

And then we come to Genesis 40.

The king's cupbearer and the baker, or another name, butler, have a falling out with the king, and they're thrown into prison, and it just so happens they are thrown into the prison in close proximity to Joseph, probably placed there by God, because God's got this much bigger plan in operation right now.

So because of all this shifting and moving, part of God's bigger plan, Joseph now finds himself in the presence of people who've been in the presence of the Pharaoh.

So the baker and the cupbearer, or again the butler, have dreams.

The dreams were huge, no need to go through those dreams, simply to say that dreams were big in the days of Joseph, because what was going to be played out eventually in practicality was often first played out in dreams.

The problem is most people didn't know how to interpret their dreams, and there was never a dream interpreter around when you really need one.

But it just so happens in this particular prison that these two men who worked for the Pharaoh, the president, so to speak, the one who's in charge, find themselves in the presence of Joseph.

And it just so happens that God has given Joseph this uncanny ability through divine revelation to interpret dreams.

So they speak to Joseph because Joseph is kind.

So in chapter 40, verse 8, we both had dreams, they said to Joseph.

But there is no one to interpret them.

And then Joseph said to them, do not interpretations belong to God?

Tell me your dream.

So Joseph still believes in God and he knows the power of God, but he's probably struggling with God right now.

Like you and I, why is God allowing all these horrible things to happen to me?

Nevertheless, God gives Joseph special insight into the dreams.

And while it's bad news for the chief baker, it's good news for the cupbearer or the butler.

Because one day, According to the dream, he's not going to rot and die in this prison.

He's actually going to be restored to his original position.

And there's going to be a reconciliation with the king.

And so if you were the cupbearer or the butler and you heard Joseph tell you this dream, and Joseph has great character and integrity, you would be happy.

You would know that you're going to be released and restored to your original position.

And when Joseph interprets the dream, He asked for one thing and one thing only, and this tells you his state of mind.

Genesis 40, verse 14 and 15.

But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness.

Mention me.

Mention my name to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison.

Isn't this what he says?

I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I've done nothing to deserve being put in this dungeon.

Joseph is still struggling with a lack of justice.

I did not deserve to be carried away from my people, and I did not deserve to be placed into this prison and suffer because of wrongful accusations.

So, Pharaoh has a birthday party, and just as Joseph said, Pharaoh restores the butler and hangs the baker.

Now, if you're the butler, you found a friend in Joseph, wouldn't you experience incredible gratitude?

Well, yeah, and yet look what happens in verse 23 of chapter 40.

The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph.

He forgot him.

You know, I looked up the Hebrew in this, and what's interesting is I thought there'd be some play on the word forgot.

What do you mean forgot?

You mean like...

refused to remember or didn't want to mention Joseph's name?

No.

Very simple.

It's like Joseph had been erased from his mind.

He literally forgot.

And you have to wonder, did God do that?

Because he needs Joseph in prison just a little longer.

Who knows?

But Joseph remains in prison.

Now, if you're Joseph, what are you thinking right now?

What are you thinking?

Man, God, how hard would it be for you to jog his memory?

How hard would it be for you to remind the butler of the name of Joseph and what Joseph had done for him and get me out of this prison because you know I'm here unjustly.

Now all of this, by the way, happens before Joseph's 30th birthday.

So he's been in prison, what, 13 years.

What would his view of God, do you think, be at this point?

Now come on, don't over-spiritualize Joseph.

If you think Joseph is not experiencing an internal struggle with God, you're reading a fairy tale.

Every one of us in this room has a burden to bear.

Every one of us has been wounded, betrayed, and abused.

And every single one of us has wounded, betrayed, or abused somebody else.

All of us.

And there's this tendency when bad things, when our world starts coming apart, we start thinking if bad things happen...

To good people, what chance do I have?

Bad things we think should happen to bad people, not good people who try to do the right thing.

But the problem is, if you keep thinking through this, you'll begin to recognize there are no good people.

Everybody's bad people.

Yeah, Jeff, but what I've experienced, you don't, it's really bad.

And I'll tell you, it's horrendous and I'm stuck and I'm mad at God for not stepping in and preventing this.

This has ruined my life.

Now.

Can I tell you something that has helped me forgive those who have wounded or betrayed me?

And it's right here.

You find it in the story of Joseph.

Because two years later, that's right, two more years in the prison.

Almost as if God needed the pit and the prison to prepare Joseph for the palace.

Pharaoh now has dreams of his own and they trouble him.

And wouldn't you know it, suddenly the cupbearer did remember Joseph.

And these dreams of Pharaoh are intense.

And Joseph is called to the Pharaoh and interprets the dreams.

And he says to the king, Egypt is going to experience seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine.

So you need to store up crops now so that it doesn't destroy the people in the land.

Pharaoh is so impressed with Joseph that he puts Joseph in charge of all Egypt.

Listen to this verse, it's amazing.

Chapter 41, verse 42.

I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt.

Then Pharaoh took his signet ring.

from his finger and put it on Joseph's finger.

He dressed him in robes of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck.

That's like the president giving you signing power, veto power.

And so now Joseph is managing the entire economy of all of Egypt.

And in doing so, most of you know the story because that famine is gonna hit the Israelites too.

And because Joseph is in charge, he is able to provide enough food for his own people in Israel.

so that the people of Israel don't become extinct, so that the line of Abraham continues, so that the lineage of the Messiah is not stopped, so that you and I, lost in our sins, will not be separated from God forever, because now the Messiah will come through the line of David, through the line of Joseph.

God saves an entire nation through the obedience of one man.

And I know that's a familiar story.

But the definitive part of the narrative and the thing that we all have to grapple with, Joseph, listen now, Joseph has indeed become the prince of Egypt with power and authority.

Man, does he have the power and authority to take revenge on his brothers.

Oh, could he make them suffer.

Their abuse caused him a lot of pain and suffering.

There's no denying that.

But somewhere along the line, and I don't know exactly when, Joseph began to connect all the dots.

Something that you can't do while you're in the prison, usually only after you're outside of it.

So through the course of a few events, Joseph's brothers are forced to return to him to get the food that Egypt has saved.

And they recognize through the course of a few other events who Joseph is now.

The first time they don't.

Now they know who Joseph is and they come back into Egypt and they are terrified.

Man, are they scared.

They're so scared.

It's quite humorous.

They bring a note from their daddy and the note basically says.

Joseph, this is the will of your father.

Be nice to us.

Please forgive us.

And at that point, the Bible says that Joseph wept.

And now here's that definitive verse.

In Genesis 50, 19 through 21.

But Joseph said to them, don't be afraid.

Am I in the place of God?

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

So then don't be afraid.

I will provide for you and your children.

and he assured them and spoke kindly to them.

Now, I want you to notice, Joseph makes one statement.

Actually, he asked one question and then follows that up with two powerful statements that I believe is the key.

Not the only, but it is a major part of you and I being able to forgive people who have significantly and severely abused and wounded us.

Here's the question.

Joseph asked, am I in the place of God?

Now let me tell you what he means by that.

Do I get to determine what God chooses to allow into my life and what God chooses to prevent?

Do I have an exhaustive understanding of all the things and all the moving parts to know what should be stopped and what should be allowed to accomplish God's ultimate good?

Folks, as moms and dads, you and I put this, well, if you are a mom and dad, we put this into practice every day.

How, and I know it's a, I know it's not a minimize, it's a mini scale here.

But how many of us as fathers allow our children to experience bad in order to accomplish the ultimate good?

Think about it.

Would you ever allow your child to go to bed hungry?

As a father, I can tell you, yes.

When your son refuses to eat anything but chocolate.

and sugar and will not eat his dinner until you give it to him, there are going to be times that you allow your son to go to bed hungry that he may learn a more valuable lesson of ultimate good.

Why do coaches put their players through physical torture sometimes?

I can remember times in my basketball career I wanted to quit.

I thought the torture was just too much.

That's bad.

This is a coach putting us through physical torture.

But the good is endurance, patience.

Intestinal fortitude, the kind that leads to ultimate victories.

So the point I'm making, we understand the relationship between temporary pain and ultimate victory.

How much more does God?

Now stay with me, because if you don't stay with me, you'll head down the wrong path.

I'm simply saying that God knows all the moving parts of what needs to be caused, allowed, and prevented in order to achieve His ultimate good in this world.

So He gives freedom to choose to all.

In order to maintain the integrity of love and free will, so that there may be a legitimate, genuine relationship between God and the Creator, which requires free will to receive or reject God, justice will come in, justice will row like a river when we use our freedom for injustice or to run from God.

And ultimately, God's plan will overwhelm everything.

Free will is given to all, justice will come to all, God's plan will overwhelm all.

So we must consider two things when we ask the question, am I in the place of God?

You and I have no idea.

Listen now, those of you who think you're deep thinkers on this issue, you and I have no idea how much evil God does prevent and has prevented in your life.

My grandmother taught me this lesson as a very young boy.

My grandmother used to pray for us every day on our walk to school and back.

She was always afraid something might happen to us as we're walking to school or walking home.

Now, isn't it amazing?

How many days did nothing happen to us?

Now, there were a couple days something did happen.

But can I ask you something?

You don't know how many times God has prevented something from occurring in your life because it never occurred.

You have no idea how many times God has said, this far, no further.

You may say, well, if I were God, I wouldn't have allowed that.

Well, that's the point.

You're not God.

And you don't know how to connect all the dots.

And you don't know how many stories God is weaving together at the same time.

The second thing is...

Isn't it true that there's nothing that God allows from which he cannot recover?

I have tried to speak this over the last 15 years.

The resurrection shows us that whatever we lose in this life will be replaced to an infinitely greater degree.

So if God causes us to lose something here, it's not lost forever.

The resurrection tells me that whatever I lose will be gained and it will be to an infinitely greater degree.

That's why the Apostle Paul in 1st Christians 15 uses the example of a seed that goes out down in the ground and then it resurrects and it's far more beautiful than it was when it went in the ground.

So an apple seed becomes a beautiful apple tree with lots of apples.

Multiply that again and again and again.

He who made life the first time can make it again and the latter is far more glorious than the former.

In the first question, he says, am I in the place of God?

I would have never allowed my slavery.

I would have never allowed my imprisonment.

I would have never allowed the butler to forget me so that I would have to spend two more years in this dungeon.

But God did allow.

Why?

You and I know the answer.

For ultimate good, to save the world from its sins.

To save Israel, the Messiah comes so that salvation may be offered to the world.

God was positioning Joseph in the right place at the right time to save his people.

And what did Joseph learn while he was...

You have to ask this.

What did Joseph learn while he was in charge of Potiphar's house that equipped him to take charge in the prison?

What did he learn in the prison experience that equipped him to deal appropriately and successfully with the baker and the butler?

And what did he learn from God, from the pit, from Potiphar, and the prison that made him ready for the palace?

Am I in the place of God?

Second is a statement, and you find it in verse 20.

You intended to harm me, but God intended for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

The Hebrew word for intended is job, and it means to weave.

So Joseph is saying, you thought you could weave your plan of destruction, but while you were doing that, God was weaving his plan of salvation.

God wants to weave.

and plan to get Joseph to Egypt to become the Pharaoh to save the people of Israel.

And God is doing that.

Now, if you're like me, in your youth, the question I always ask is, well, here's a novel idea, God.

I've got a plan.

Why go through all of this?

Just send some rain.

Send some rain on Israel.

Why do you have to go through all of this roundabout way?

And then over time you learn, well, two mistakes are made here.

First, you think that God is one dimensional, is only working on one plan at a time.

But God is doing much more in the world and in this time than just saving Israel.

He's got to get all of Israel to Egypt so that ultimately he can get them to the promised land to model to the rest of the world his love for his people and his power to protect.

There's not just one story happening here.

And if there's two, there might be a thousand.

And God is connecting all the dots.

so that God is often working various plans together at the same time.

Here's the second mistake.

Thinking that God can prevent all the evil in the world while allowing men and women to express their free will to respond to his calling and compelling into relationship.

You've heard me explain this from different angles, but to me in my mind, this is essential.

Rather than God just forcing everybody to do what he wants them to do, he maintains the integrity of our free will, because free will is essential to respond to God and to enter into a loving relationship.

In the meantime, he takes all the evil intentions of the world and still weaves them together to accomplish his ultimate good.

That's God.

Man is always weaving his evil plans.

God is always taking the events man exacts and weaves his own plan.

that the final product is ultimate good.

Now here's where you come back and say, wait, Jeff, are you saying that what this person did to me was ordained by God?

No, no.

Go back to Romans 8.

We've looked at this numerous times.

And we know that in all things, God works for the good for those who love him, who've been called according to his purpose, for those whom God foreknew.

He also predestined.

Those are two different ideas and two different words, and that's why Paul uses two different Greek words.

Pro gnosko, God knows every event that's going to happen, but pro orizo, God is going to determine some of those events.

So God foreknows and works all those events together, but free will is still in play.

But there are times when God predetermines.

One of the things He predetermined was that those whom He foreknew would come to Christ and receive salvation.

He has predetermined beforehand that you will be, whether you like it or not, whether you go kicking and screaming, conformed to the image of His Son.

Because He's going to put His Holy Spirit in you.

Did God cause the evil that happened to you?

Is he the source of it?

No.

How do you know that?

Because of something Jesus said in Matthew 12.

Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.

If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself.

How then can his kingdom stand?

God does not do the work of evil.

That would be a house divided, and that house can never stand.

What applies to Satan applies to God.

But Jeff, God could have stopped this.

Yes, he could have, but not without removing free will from the universe, which in turn would remove the potential for love.

Well, what is the answer in?

Verse 20, you weaved it together to harm me.

God allowed you to do your weaving, but God weaved it together for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Let me tell you something.

The grand weaver, listen, almost finished.

The grand weaver is always working.

He's always working to bring what men mean for evil into ultimate good, which must frustrate the heck out of Satan.

Someone's raped and abused.

They end up becoming an advocate for women who have suffered abuse and opening ministries for the healing.

That must really tick the devil off.

Someone who suffered abandonment as a child ends up opening orphanages.

After orphanage, as a child needs...

someone to care for them and the homeless find a home with love parental type love and the love of god satan must get so angry and frustrated when someone who was betrayed and abused by their spouse or by their own father and then they go to university and they gain a degree in psychology and counseling and then they open up a center for counseling and psychology to love and care for those who've experienced the same the devil must feel the same way he felt when he thought he had Jesus nailed to the tree, only to discover God had been weaving this plan for salvation of the world, to reconcile the people that he loves back to himself.

How many times does the devil look around at the demons in frustration and say, what on earth do we got to do to turn these people?

Think about what's been done to you now.

I'm telling you, it's either going to make you bitter or make you broken.

It's going to make you bitter or it's going to make you broken.

You're either going to become so bitter and you're going to be driven to prove to the world that you matter, to prove the world that you can be successful, because somewhere down deep inside is a little boy or little girl that's been betrayed or abused and somehow they're fighting against this idea that they don't matter and they're going to step on everybody they can and end up becoming like the very abusers who abuse them.

Or you're going to be broken.

You're going to realize that the only one that can put you back together is God.

And in fact, God has been weaving things together your whole life.

What men meant for evil in order to use it for good, in order to make you somebody that is a world changer.

Don't you realize the people who have changed the world the most have suffered the most.

It's just the way it works.

Which is worse?

Which is worse?

Temporary suffering or eternal separation from God?

And I've said a thousand times, is it?

Is God loving if he sits by and watches you destroy your life without injuring a little pain in there to wake you up to the truth of what he's trying to do in your life and the world?

In 2023, I went up to the mountain called Mammoth and I prayed this prayer.

I prayed, God, do whatever you have to do in me and to me to equip me.

to lead your people into renewal and revival.

That was my prayer.

Do what you have to do in our church.

Do what you have to do among our staff.

Do what you have to do in me.

And let me tell you, his response was painful.

And I complained.

And here's what my wife said.

Jeff, you can't ask God for glorious, wonderful, indescribable results and then complain about the way he does it.

I immediately thought of something I'd heard from Chuck Swindoll back in the 70s.

And to this day, I looked it up again, it's still anonymous.

We don't know who said it, but it's so good.

When God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man, and skill a man, when God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part, when he yearns with all his heart to create so great and bold a man, that all the world shall be amazed, watch his method, watch his ways, how he ruthlessly perfects whom he royally elects, how he hammers him and hurts him, and with mighty blows converts him into trial shapes of clay which only God understands, while his tortured heart is crying, and he lifts beseeching hands, how he bends but never breaks when his good he undertakes, how he uses whom he chooses and with every purpose fuses him, by every act induces him to try his splendor out.

God knows what he's all about.

A question, am I in the place of God?

A statement, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

And third and finally, he says, Here's the result.

So then don't be afraid.

I will provide for you and your children.

And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

Joseph forgave him his brothers and wished them well.

How was he able to do that?

Remember, they tried to ruin his life.

And I'm saying to you that Joseph was able to forgive because he realized that God had never abandoned him, that God was most present during the most difficult times.

He was taking what was meant for evil and using it not only for Joseph's ultimate good, but for the saving of a nation.

Jeff, what are you saying?

Did God cause this atrocity to happen to me?

Listen to me.

No, God hates injustice just as much as you do.

Should I be?

Are you saying I should be thankful for the evil that happened to me?

Absolutely not.

It was evil.

Well, then what are you saying?

I'm saying that God deserves to be praised because he takes what men means for evil and shapes it and molds it and uses it for good.

God, his forte, is bringing beauty and pattern and design out of the chaos of your life.

Do you know why that's going to help you forgive somebody who's offended you?

When you see that you too have offended them or many others, yeah, but not to this degree, okay, hold on.

It's going to help you forgive the one who's offended you when you see that God has forgiven you so much and continues to do so.

When you begin to identify with the perpetrator and you ask, what influences did this person have in his or her life that contributed?

to such dysfunction and evil when you see how god used all of it as bad as it is to bring about ultimate good when you consider that maybe just maybe god allowed this into your life to shape you skill you and even save you man that's so hard for us because we're all about convenience and we have this sense of entitlement that nothing bad should ever happen But the world is not egocentric.

It's not about me and it's not about you.

It's theocentric.

It's about God and his ultimate purposes.

And like Isaiah, how many of us would say, here I am, Lord, send me.

And as soon as you raise your hand, watch out.

I'm going to close with something, a story that I've read numerous times, only in bits and pieces.

Jeremiah Denton, we've talked about, wrote a book called When Hell Was in Session.

He was the highest American ranking officer captured by the North Vietnamese.

Man, he struggled and struggled.

He fought for his country.

He loved his country.

And in some ways, they abandoned him.

he was starved to death he's the guy that i told you was starved to death and then finally when he was almost at his wits end they would slide a plate of human feces under the door just when he thought he was going to receive help And yet, he survives the prison camp, and he writes something amazing in this hellish hole.

He says if it was not for God, or if it weren't for the love of God, of Christ, we could never have survived.

Every boy I related to who was able to conquer this persecution had one thing in common, faith in God's ability to bring about good.

Oh yeah, that's the key to your survival too.

And then in Vietnam on Easter of 1969, this POW writes a wonderful poem.

And he says, as Mary looked up to Jesus on the cross, she began to speak.

And he writes, The soldiers stare, then drift away.

Young John finds nothing he can say.

The veil is vent, the deed is done, and Mary holds her only son.

His limbs grow stiff, the night grows cold, but naught can lose that mother's hold.

Her gentle, anguished eyes seem blind.

Who knows what thoughts run through her mind?

Perhaps she thinks of last week's psalm, with cheering thousands offering alms.

Or dreams of Cana on that day, she nagged him till she got her way.

Her face shows grief, but not despair.

Her head, though bowed, has faith to spare.

For even now she could suppose his thorns might somehow yield a rose.

Her life with him was full of signs that God writes straight with crooked lines.

Dark clouds can hide the rising sun, and all seem lost when all is one.

Father, I thank you for the truth of your word and for a reminder that in some ways the only way that we may ever find the capacity to forgive someone who significantly wounded us is to see the injustice in it, yes.

But to be able to forgive may require us to look at it.

And even though it is unjust and evil.

At the same time, we look at the cross and remember that God is able to take the most evil, atrocious activity of man and save the world.

He can save us.

In Christ's name, amen.

We hope you enjoyed today's message.

If you decided to follow Jesus or just want a little more information about this walk with Jesus, I want to encourage you to go to oneandall.church.com and so that way we can help you along this journey.

We have a couple resources for you for your walk with Christ.

And one of them is the daily podcast.

And you can listen to it wherever you listen to podcasts, whether it be Spotify or Apple Music.

And it's just a two to three minute daily devotional so you can have time with Jesus and reflect upon your day.

The second one is our Conversations podcast.

This is where we get to sit down with our speakers, authors, theologians, and just get to dive deeper into Christianity.

You can watch those on our YouTube channel.

And we'll end as we always do with one hope, one life in Christ.