Emotions Get in the Way

Emotions Get in the Way Genesis 45:3-11,15; Luke 6:27-36 Have you ever felt betrayed by people you trusted? Totally let down and kicked around? Did you grow to dislike them, hold them in contempt? Where do you stand with them today? Did your emotions run high? Our Scripture talks about an immense betrayal of a man who was sold by his brothers into slavery to a caravan that came along that would carry him to a foreign land, far from home. His father was shown a bloody shirt as proof of his son’s death (though the blood was from a wild animal). He was relegated to being a house servant; was accused of raping his master’s wife, after he had refused her overtures, and thrown in jail; but because of his faith in God, he was found innocent and through it all, became a leader in the affairs and prosperity of Egypt. It would be easy to feel a sense of betrayal if something like this happened to you; but with Joseph, he handles all of this betrayal in a quite different way, contrary to human nature. How could Joseph embrace his brothers after what they had done to him? Well, he understood that God had another purpose, a reason for all the pain and hurt, and that God was still in control of Joseph's life. Because of Joseph and his willingness to trust God, his people were brought to a safe place from the drought in his homeland, Israel, and were welcomed, nourished and provided for in their time of need. Grace - it was all part of God's plan. Many of us have been unable to forgive, someone for something, though we have had far less happen to us than Joseph did. I have read a multitude of stories about the atrocities of war and how people were able to forgive. Corrie ten Boom, a devout Christian, in her most famous book, The Hiding Place, recounts the story of her family's efforts to help many Jewish people escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust and how she found and shared hope in God while she herself was imprisoned at the concentration camp for her efforts. On one occasion, she looked into the eyes of a prison guard who had beaten and abused her and her sister in the Jewish prison camps, but then, he asked her to forgive him. Anger had rushed through her for what they had done, not only to her but to the millions of Jews and Christians elsewhere. Yet, when she took his hand, she knew that God had given her the power to forgive this guard. Through her forgiveness, she enabled that guard to find the Lord. This grace and forgiveness and love can only come from God. 2 Jesus talks about forgiveness like this in Luke 6:27-36. What is Jesus asking us to do to our enemies? Love them?!!! He must be kidding - why should we love our enemies? Because we are to imitate Christ - act like Christ as much as possible - and Christ forgave others. Do you remember the story of the woman, caught in adultery, who was waiting to be stoned, knowing her life had but a cruel and painful ending in but a few minutes? Christ said to her, as those who were going to stone her disappeared, "Your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more." Her sins, their sins, our sins, are forgiven – may we do likewise, and go and sin no more. The time of Lent is fast approaching, when we prepare ourselves for the season of reflection, repentance, remembrance and redeeming. During that time, we will be reminded again that Jesus said, hanging from the cross, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." How could we ever hope to imitate someone as loving and forgiving as Christ? Luke goes on to say, "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." Jesus was just reminding them of what God had told His people as they experienced their exodus from Egypt, after they had betrayed God with the golden calf, after Moses had to chisel out the second tablets of the Ten Commandments, because the first ones God had inscribed were destroyed. After all God had done for them, after all they had done in defiance and mutiny of God’s directives, God takes a breath, collects Himself and says to Moses, as to remind Himself, "The Lord God is merciful and gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6). Yes, God passed judgment upon those who completely disowned Him, but God’s character is to show mercy, compassion, grace and forgiveness, just as we fully see in Jesus, and in His life and death. How many times have you experienced the mercy of God - even when you were most rebellious and unlovely? Still God forgave you and me - over and over and over again. God is kind to the ungrateful and sin-sick souls of our day as well. Likewise, as we have been shown mercy, we are to show mercy, compassion, grace and forgiveness. We are to be kind to our enemies, too. It's that simple! But is it? I’m still wrestling with forgiving someone who was a friend who became not a friend. But by forgiving others, we free ourselves up from the prison of hatred and resentment we could be chained to. By 3 allowing God to help us forgive, we are set free. Don’t you think that Christ was able to love and forgive because He saw the bigger picture? That God was in control - just like Joseph understood? In Luke, it says that if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners can do that much. Christ is calling us for bigger things, greater things than what we have ever done before -- but we will only arrive, by learning that when bad things happen to us, it doesn't mean God has deserted us, it just means that God is in control and that we have to trust God for our tomorrows. A father tells the story about his six-year-old son who used one of those super adhesives on an airplane he was building. In less than three minutes, his right index finger was bonded to a shiny blue wing of his DC-10. He tried to free it. He tugged at it, pulled it, waved it frantically; but he couldn't budge his finger free. Soon, they located a solvent that did the job and ended the little crisis. The father goes on to say that he remembered this crisis when being introduced to a new family in the neighborhood. The father of the new family introduced his children and it went like this: "This is Pete. He's the clumsy one of the lot. That's Kathy coming in with mud on her shoes. She's the sloppy one. As always, Mike's last. He'll be late for his own funeral, I promise you." The dad did a thorough job of gluing his children to their faults and mistakes. People do it all the time. We may be too often reminded of our failures, our errors, our sins, and we can never live them down. Even worse, we may be one who reminds others of their shortcomings. Like the son trying frantically to free his finger from the glue, there are people who try, sometimes desperately, to free themselves from their past or present enslavement. They would love the chance to begin again. When we don't forgive, we glue them to their mistakes and refuse to see them - as anything more than a mistake. However, when we do forgive, we gently pry the doer of the hurtful deed, from the deed itself, and we say that the past is just that - past - over and done with. God enables us to do this. It is only through the power of God that we can forgive those who have betrayed us or hurt us. Some of us may still be angry, resentful or hurting over something that someone has said or done to you. Do you say, "I can't forgive this or forget that." I am here today, to tell you, through the power of God, He can set you free from those chains that bind you. If someone has hurt 4 you, call upon the power of God to forgive them today, right now, this very minute. As we come to receive forgiveness through Holy Communion, do so, freely, by forgiving others who have offended you, or worse. Don’t let your emotions get in the way. There’s a song entitled, I Could Never Outlove the Lord, that goes: There’ve been times when loving and giving brought pain, And I promised I would never let it happen again. But I found out that loving was well worth the risk, And that even in losing, you win. I'm going to live the way He wants me to live, I'm going to give until there's just no more to give, I'm going to love, love ‘til there's just no more love, I can never, never out love the Lord. He showed us that only through dying, can we live, And He gave when it seemed there was no more to give, He loved us when loving brought heartache and loss, He forgave from an old rugged cross. I'm going to live the way He wants me to live, I'm going to give until there's just no more to give, I'm going to love, love ‘til there's just no more love, I could never, never out love the Lord.