The Power of Letting Go

Do you remember those moments when you were a kid and you were doing something in the house you weren’t supposed to do, and you broke something? You know your parents are going to be upset, so self preservation mode kicks in and you start coming up with ways to explain the broken coffee table, the vase, or whatever it is you broke.

Maybe you blame it on the dog or your younger sibling. Maybe you conceal the evidence hoping somehow nobody would notice. But then mom or dad comes home, discovers what happened, and confronts you about it. You begin to go into your rehearsed story, but before you can even finish your first sentence, your parent holds their hand up and says, “Hey, I know it was an accident. Don’t worry about it. Let’s be more careful next time.”

All of a sudden, that stress, the fear, the manipulation—driven by the sheer terror that if you didn't protect yourself, no one else would. And the whole time, it was completely unnecessary.

When we feel threatened, self-preservation becomes a reflex. We stop trusting, and we start manipulating. We spin the truth, we hoard resources, or we try to control every variable because we secretly believe that if we don't look out for ourselves, we're going to get crushed.

That same panic is what we run into in Genesis chapter 50. Jacob, the patriarch of the family, is gone. Joseph’s brothers panic. They think the only reason Joseph hasn’t retaliated for what they did to him decades ago was out of respect for their father. With him gone, they fear there is no more protection for them.

Let’s read this story together.

Genesis 50:15–21 NASB95

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong which we did to him!” So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father charged before he died, saying, ‘Thus you shall say to Joseph, “Please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong.” ’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” And Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. “So therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

We love this passage because it is not hard for us to see that God uses the painful experiences in our lives for his purposes and his glory. We usually only see what God was up to when we are on the other side of pain. Sometimes we are Joseph. We see what God is up to. We see why God chose to act in the way he did. But sometimes we are the brothers. Sometimes we don’t believe a lived experience. They were anticipating Joseph to bring down the hammer.

There are times in our walk with God we are waiting for God to bring down the hammer. As we wait, we are paralyzed by fear. We manipulate situations in the interest of self-preservation. But when we come face to face with the truth, we begin to see that we don’t have to hold onto the past. We can let go and move forward.

Today, we are looking at three core principles for letting go.

Forgiveness replaces fear.

In the beginning of the narrative, Joseph’s brothers resorted to deceit to secure forgiveness through a fabricated conversation with their father. Joseph had time with Jacob before he died. If he felt it necessary to tell Joseph to forgive his brothers, he would have told him himself. But he didn’t have to. Why? Because they already experienced it.

Genesis 45:4–11 NASB95

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come closer to me.” And they came closer. And he said, “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. “Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. “For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. “Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt. “Hurry and go up to my father, and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, “God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. “You shall live in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children and your flocks and your herds and all that you have. “There I will also provide for you, for there are still five years of famine to come, and you and your household and all that you have would be impoverished.” ’

You see, Joseph and his brothers already experienced their moment of reconciliation but the fear and the doubt all these years later still lingered.

Some of us struggle with forgiveness. Has God really forgiven me of all my sins? Intellectually, we know the answer is yes, but we have a tendency to doubt and fear retribution like Joseph’s brothers did. We resort to manipulation not in the sense that we can manipulate God, but ourselves. When we think we have not actually received the forgiveness, grace, and mercy of God, we either give up or tell ourselves we can earn it, turning us into legalists.

There’s a deceptive little lie that we begin to believe that says we can accept God’s forgiveness through Christ on the cross, but we better be careful or we will outrun his grace. We begin believing that there is a line we will cross where God will finally say, “That’s it! I’ve had it with you!” and throw you out. We are just waiting for whatever is holding him back, like a pit bull on a leash, so he can unleash his fury.

Yet that is not what God does. The Bible reminds us,

Psalm 103:12 NASB95

As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Also in Jeremiah, speaking of the new covenant, which we now live in, God declares,

Jeremiah 31:33–34 NASB95

“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

My brothers and sisters, the root of God’s forgiveness of sin is his own character. I have said from this stage on multiple occasions that God’s character is perfect and he never changes. He never wakes up and does something contrary to what he did the day before. That is why we can trust him. It is our trust in his character that liberates us from the fear that seeks to control us.

There may be temporal consequences for our sin, but,

1 John 1:9 NASB95

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

God is not waiting to strike you with a bolt of lightning. He is the loving father who invites you to return with open arms. Forgiveness replaces fear.

Are you holding on to the silent fear that God is going to bring down the hammer? Trust in the forgiveness he has already supplied. Confess your sin, turn from your sin, and renew your relationship with Jesus, trusting he is waiting for you with open arms.

Reassurance rejects revenge

Joseph's reassurance to his brothers serves as a pivotal turning point. Joseph didn’t need to take revenge. In fact, his response to his brothers demonstrates Christ-like compassion. He knows his father never said that. He knows they are just trying to cover their own skin. But he responds with compassion anyway.

We sang Standing on the Promises right before the sermon. We did so intentionally to remind us of the truths the lyrics have spoken. let me remind you again:

Verse 2 Standing on the promises that cannot fail! When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail, by the living Word of God I shall prevail, standing on the promises of God.

Verse 3 Standing on the promises of Christ, the Lord, bound to Him eternally by love’s strong cord, overcoming daily with the Spirit’s Sword, standing on the promises of God.

We learn to let go through the constant reassurance that God’s promises never fail, that we are held by an eternal love, that we overcome by the power of His Word. We find liberation when we surrender our worries to God’s providence. This frees us to embody an ever increasing Christlike attitude, and experience peace. A peace that does not excuse our sin, but a peace that bolsters confidence in God’s character when we do sin.

Are you struggling with walking in the forgiveness God has already granted you? Reassure yourself of his promises, that you have already been forgiven, that God loves you with a perfect love, and as 1 John 4:18 says, perfect love casts out fear.

Providence promotes peace

Finally, Joseph restates the profound truth of God's sovereignty in transforming evil intentions into His glorious purposes. In order for Joseph to get where God needed him to be, Joseph would have to go through a painful ordeal. He would never have chosen to do that at 17 years old. God has a way of using the evil intent of others to orchestrate the circumstances of our lives to bring about his glorious purposes. If you knew that God was going to do something incredible, but it was going to require you to suffer tremendously for a long time, would you do it? Probably not willingly.

But this is where Joseph is a type of Christ. He foreshadows Christ to a degree in that Joseph did not willingly suffer as he was sold into slavery, but Christ willingly left his place in the heavenly realm to take on human flesh, to live among his people, to ultimately be rejected by them, and executed by the very people he came to save on one of the most excruciating instruments of death ever created. Jesus willingly signed up for physical abuse, public humiliation, and death so that sin could be atoned for, the wrath of God appeased, and salvation, redemption, and restoration secured.

We can try to manipulate the situation by earning God’s favor through good works, but we fall short of God’s standard every time. Instead, we can have genuine peace with God, knowing that he has forgiven us, that he will continue to act graciously and merciful toward us, and will work everything out for good.

Here is the key takeaway from this passage today.

Because God is trustworthy, you can stop acting out of self-preservation and rest in a grace you'll never outrun.

You never have to worry if God still loves you. You never have to worry if you have finally outrun his grace. In fact, if you are worried, that is a sign that there is a healthy outlook toward God. Do you know who isn’t worried about outrunning the grace of God? Those who never had it to begin with. The mere fact that your sin bothers you and makes you fearful of judgment shows that the Holy Spirit of God is active in convicting you and calling you to repentance.

So let me ask you. Are you bothered by the sin you commit against God? Or have you grown comfortable with it? Are you worried you have outrun the grace of God and he wants nothing to do with you? Are you waiting for him to bring down the hammer? What if we learned not to be fearful of God, but instead have a reverent fear of God where we don’t hide from him but run to him with full confidence that we will receive grace and mercy?

What needs to be laid down at the altar today? Fear? Worry? What do you need to let go of? Guilt? Shame? Embarrassment? Allow God to pick you up, dust you off, and help you keep walking toward the light of his grace. Stand on his promises today.