Christ Lutheran Church: Welcome

Let 'Em Have It! - October 14, 2007

Let 'Em Have It!

Genesis 50, Matthew 18:21-35

October 14, 2007

Rev. Dave R. Garwick

I hope you caught that last line that you read there.  It was Jesus himself who said, "this is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

That is because in ten or twelve minutes you will ask God to forgive your sins the way you forgive others.  If you will not give to others the forgiveness that God has given to you, then He will give you the condemnation that you have given to them.  It's God's way of saying that what goes around comes around.  If you refuse to forgive others, then God will refuse to forgive you.

Those are pretty big consequences for something that is a lot easier said than done.  I'll tell you what makes this so hard to do and what you can do to make it a lot easier.

What makes it so hard to forgive someone from your heart is when you're looking at the offender.  When you do that, all you see is someone who is guilty, someone who does not deserve to be forgiven, who probably has not apologized and who needs to be taught a lesson.  When you lock your attention on the offender, you have just about made it impossible on yourself to forgive.  And since you have asked God to forgive you the way you have forgiven others, you are not giving yourself much of a chance for survival.

THAT is what happens when you focus on the offender.  Here is how to give yourself a better chance.  Do NOT focus on the offender - cast your eyes instead on Jesus.  Why?  Because HE is the One who put you in this spot:  HE is the One who taught you to ask our Father who art in heaven to forgive our sins the way we forgive others.

The natural voice in us objects, "If my best friend just betrayed me, why in the world would I look at Jesus?  HE's not the one who hurt me."  Exactly.  If you keep your eyes on the friend who betrayed you, you will focus on what SHE did TO you and you almost certainly will not forgive her and YOU will be the one who pays the never ending consequences.

But if you cast your eyes on Jesus, notice what HE has done FOR you - how He has forgiven you and not just once or even a few times, but countless times and time again, how He even gave His LIFE to forgive you.

When you have been badly hurt, your instinct is to "let 'em have it."  The question is, let 'em have WHAT?  The answer is that you will let 'em have whatever you're filled up with.  If you look at the offender, you will be filled up with what he did to you and THAT is what you will let him have:  payback.  If instead you look at Jesus, that is REALLY look at Jesus, you can be filled up with His forgiveness, and THAT may be what you will let 'em have:  forgiveness.

Take the incident we heard about in the Bible Focus where Joseph meets his brothers.  The date:  twelve hundred years before Jesus.  The place:  Egypt.  Joseph had been the next to youngest son of Jacob who had been the youngest son of Isaac who had been the youngest son of Abraham, who was the founder of Judaism, if you will.  So back to Joseph:  when he told his brothers that he discovered in a couple dreams that he was going to be head honcho, they faked his death and sold him as a slave.  He winds up in Egypt and through a fascinating series of events, he becomes second in command to Pharaoh over all of Egypt.

Meanwhile, back home in Palestine, his family is starving in a massive famine (and in Adult Bible study this morning, I will discuss my theory of how that came about).  Anyway, as heads of their tribes, his brothers travel south to Egypt which had not yet been affected by the famine.  They wind up having to appear before the Pharaoh's chief official to negotiate for grain.  When they finally realize that this was their long gone brother, they know they are good as dead.

But Joseph forgives them and convinces the Pharaoh to allow the brothers to go back home to Palestine and bring all their families back down to Egypt to live.  Not only does Pharaoh give permission, he even grants them the best land in all of Egypt!

So how was it that Joseph was able to bring himself to forgive his brothers after all they had done to him?  Listen to what Joseph said:  "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."

In other words, Joseph focused not on what the brothers did but on what God did.  He said, "Am I in the place of God?'  He COULD have said, "I speak with the authority of Pharaoh," and could have had them executed.  But instead he said, "Am I in the place of GOD?"  For Joseph the issue was not his brothers:  the issue was God.

And then Joseph said, "YOU intended to harm me."  If Joseph had focused on how his brothers had tried to harm him, THAT is very likely what he would have given back to them.  But as soon as he said that, Joseph goes right on to say, "but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."

THAT is what Joseph focused on - not that his brothers intended to harm him, but that God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.  So THAT is what Joseph gave to them - forgiveness for the saving of many lives.

So when somebody hurts you, go right ahead and let 'em have it.  But remember that it all depends on what the meaning of "it" is - what is it that you're going to let them have?  Since God is going to give you back the same thing, you might want to give them something good, even though they do not deserve it, even though they have not apologized, even though they need to be taught a lesson.

And if you want to give yourself a chance to pull off that kind of forgiveness, then do what Joseph did:  look not on the hurt which that person did to you, but on the grace and forgiveness which GOD did FOR you.  No matter what happens from day to day, always look for Jesus, to SEE Jesus in the midst of any circumstance.

Amen - may it be so.