No longer living in the past part four

Maybe your sitting there saying you have no idea what I have done I walked in such a way that I don’t deserve the love of God. First off let me say this no one deserves the love of God, but God is offering it He is offering us freedom from our lives, from our pasts.  He says come and drink of the water of life.  How awesome is that.  The creator of this plant of all things, the God who created us, and we spit on Him, we mocked Him we turned our backs on Him and even denied Him, all while He hung on a cross so we no longer needed to be condemned.  How dare we, not forgive.  How dare we not accept that kind of Love.

God is saying I want you to stop living in the past, and come live in my Kingdom.  Let go of the past and don’t worry about what you have done, your forgiven I love you.   Christ told a story of a son who wanted his money so he could go and live in the world and he left lost all his money was sleeping in the gutters and eating food meant for animals.  He then woke up one morning and went said I can go and be a servant at my father’s house.  He got home and his father accepted him back.  Give him back all the rights of being his son.  We are all that son we should only hope to be servants in God’s house, yet He says come and be a part of my family.  It is time to stop living in the past and start living for God. 

No longer living in the past part Three

Maybe it’s not that anyone done anything to you maybe there is something in your past that you did, you let a friend or you feel you failed your spouse or children.  Maybe you said some hurtful things to someone.  Now you are carrying it around with you wonder to yourself, how could I have done that.  If only I could go back and have a due over.

This is not only unhealthy for you it also keeps you from being free to move forward.  We see Joseph he is not allowing to past to control him one bit.  But his brothers, all sudden remember what they have done. Now they are saying we are being punished for what we have done in the past, we sold Joe into slavery to die and know look at us.  They believed that God was punishing them for what they had done.  I’m going to tell you this, they were not being punished for what they done.  God does not punish us on this earth.  In fact what they didn’t know was what a blessing they were about to receive.  The only thing they could see was there past they were living in the past.

Let’s open our bibles to genius chapter 45 and lets read beginning with verse one.  I love this part, this whole time Joseph has been testing his brothers, he can no longer hold in all the emotions and says I am Joseph your brothers. Then he tells them to come close to him and has this to say to them. “But don’t be angry with yourselves that you did this to me, for God did it. He sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives.” What a relief for the brothers, forget about living the past Joseph just released them of their past.

You see when we forgive people it one allows us to stop living in the past, and two it frees the person who wronged us to stop living in the past.  Realize that the person who wronged us may not realize what they have done or may not want that releasing and that there decision not ours.

Maybe right now you are sitting there saying that sounds really nice Scott but you have no idea what I have been through, no idea what has been done to me.  Let’s pick up our bibles and turn to John chapter eight and we will begin our reading at verse one. Let me give you a background information on what is happening here, the leaders of the church did not like Christ and what He was preaching so they thought they would try to trap Him and discredit His ministry so let us see how this plays out.

You see what happened there at the end, here is a woman who is condemned has no right to live by the law. Christ tells her I forgive you go and sin no more.   We have no right to ever not forgive someone and let go of our past.  God almighty the God who has never sinned, who came to earth and died on cross for our sins says your forgiven come follow and sin no more.

No longer living in the past part two

^10 And they said to him, “No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food. ^11 We are all one man’s sons; we are honest men; your servants are not spies.”

^12 But he said to them, “No, but you have come to see the nakedness of the land.”

^13 And they said, “Your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and in fact, the youngest is with our father today, and one ⁱis no more.”

^14 But Joseph said to them, “It is as I spoke to you, saying, ‘You are spies!’ ^15 In this manner you shall be tested: ^jBy the life of Pharaoh, you shall not leave this place unless your youngest brother comes here. ^16 Send one of you, and let him bring your brother; and you shall be ³kept in prison, that your words may be tested to see whether there is any truth in you; or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies!” ^17 So he ⁴put them all together in prison ^kthree days.

^18 Then Joseph said to them the third day, “Do this and live, ^lfor I fear God: ^19 If you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined to your prison house; but you, go and carry grain for the famine of your houses. ^20 And ^mbring your youngest brother to me; so your words will be verified, and you shall not die.”

And they did so. ^21 Then they said to one another, ⁿ“We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear; ^otherefore this distress has come upon us.”

^22 And Reuben answered them, saying, ^p“Did I not speak to you, saying, ‘Do not sin against the boy’; and you would not listen? Therefore behold, his blood is now ^qrequired of us.” ^23 But they did not know that Joseph understood them, for he spoke to them through an interpreter. ^24 And he turned himself away from them and ^rwept. Then he returned to them again, and talked with them. And he took ^sSimeon from them and bound him before their eyes.

I find this to be interesting because we know that Joseph has already forgiven his brothers, he isn’t living in the past.  So why all the games, why throw them prison?  I first believe that he’s making sure that they are his brothers, two he knows that they are not the most honest people out there.  He wants to make sure they return, and do what he tells them to do. 

Joseph is no longer living in the past, he is living in the now.  Let us not get confused about what remembering the past and living in the past is.  When I graduated college I left campus and took some great memories with me, the next year when School started up I maybe stepped foot on campus four or five times and that was to see friends who were still in school.  And the years to follow it got fewer and fewer, but one guy I went to school with couldn’t stop living in the past.  He went almost every day to campus to see people and hang, three years after we graduated he was still going to campus two to three times a week, he couldn’t let go of the past, he wanted to stay there.

While the rest of us moved forward he stayed there.  We all have pasts that may haunt us that we have been wronged by people.  Some of  us maybe put our hope and trust in a spouse and they betrayed that trust, maybe it was a parent or a close friend, maybe you were made fun of by others.  These are things that can if we allow them to control our lives, we can sit and ponder on them for hours, and instead of moving forward we are suddenly stuck in the past, we find ourselves going back and thinking if only I had done this or that.  I would be a different person if it wasn’t for so and so.

No longer living in the past part one

As we have been studying Joseph we have seen this man go through a lot, we discussed last week how He loved God. That he never went anywhere without God, and was not ashamed of or afraid to tell others about God.  He named his children names that’s praised God, Manasseh: “For God has made me forget all my toil and all my ^ufather’s house.” ^52 And the name of the second he called ²Ephraim: “For God has caused me to be ^vfruitful in the land of my affliction.” Today we come to a part in Josephs life where we see what happens when some old faces from the past show up. 

We see a new scene unfold in Joseph life, along with his brothers.  The Last time we heard from Joe’s brothers they were ready to kill him, but instead they sold him into slavery.  This was the last time they saw him and most likely never spoke of what they did that day.  But because of the famine they are forced to go to Egypt and get Grain. 

So here we are, the famine is getting bad for the whole world, Jacobs tells his sons stop sitting around here I have heard that there is food in Egypt go and get us some food.  So off they go, they get to Egypt and are buying their food, Joseph is taking care of all the sales of grain and they bow before him not recognizing who he is, you must remember that they think he is a slave and he would have a Egyptian head dress on.  But Joseph knows who they are right away.  We read about this encounter in Genius 42, we are coming in the middle of a conversation; Joseph has excused His brothers of being spies.