You are Full (cont'd)

Sunday's message picked up where Pastor Josh had run out of time on the last morning of camp. Back in Genesis 50, he briefly recapped Joseph's story before finishing the two points from "You Are Full" that he had not reached. He asked what a full life in Christ looks like when our circumstances do not change. Will's testimony earlier in the service had already made that question feel immediate.

Donald Trump Is Not in Charge

After Jacob dies, the brothers panic. With their father gone, they assume the bill has come due and Joseph will pay them back for the evil they did. They beg forgiveness and fall down in front of him as servants. Joseph weeps and answers them: "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good." Pastor Josh's first point came from that sentence. For a full life in Christ, be full of faith that God is in charge.

God is in charge. I'm not in charge. Your finance is not in charge. Your ability is not in charge. Donald Trump is not in charge. The oil price is not in charge. Whatever scares you, whatever you feel controlled by, they are not in charge. But God is in charge.

Pastor Josh spoke about prayers that seem to go unanswered. Your circumstances do not have to change for your perspective to change. We can pray hard, see nothing happen, and decide prayer means nothing. Yet prayer can change how we understand the life in front of us.

Joseph could not change the fact that he was a slave, but he refused to dwell on what he could not control. "If it's slavery, he did really good slavery. He was in imprisonment. He did a really good imprisonment." Only twenty years later could he look back and see that God had been in control.

If you are in the thick of the prison of life right now, be a Joseph. You can't just wish the circumstance would change for you. Why don't you see your circumstance through God's point of view? Why don't you believe that God is cooking something?

In All Things God Works

The church read Romans 8:28-30 together, and Pastor Josh slowed down over the words we tend to skim. In all things God works. Which things? Only the ones that worked out? No. Even the things you are ashamed of and the worst thing you can think of.

The other word worth slowing on is the verb. We read "for the good of those who love him" and hear a wish-granting service. But the verb is God works, and you don't know what is good for you. Nobody would have told Joseph it was good for him to be a slave, and he would not have agreed either. Yet through that slavery one family was sheltered under Egypt, came out 400 years later as a nation, and through that nation came the Saviour of the world. None of it was visible from inside the cell.

Pastor Josh also made a careful distinction. God can work in something without having caused it. He did not orchestrate the brothers' crime, and he did not cause Will to walk away. When Will came back, Pastor Josh said, he recognised fingerprints of God everywhere he went.

People can let us down, and sometimes faith wobbles with that disappointment. Some leave because a brother or sister disappointed them. Some, he admitted, leave because they don't like Pastor Josh. But why did your faith rest there?

You didn't believe in the name of Joshua Choi. You can get disappointed by me. Even my wife gets disappointed by me. But where was your faith originated?

Scripture keeps knocking the pedestal out from under its own heroes. Abraham tried to sell his wife. King David was a great king, and you know what he did. Joseph put his faith in God.

You Are the Brothers, Not Joseph

The second point was about victory. Many of us hear that word and picture Korea winning the World Cup. In Genesis 50, victory sounds like this: you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. Romans 12:19 tells us, never avenge yourselves, for vengeance is mine, I will repay.

You have absolutely no right to have any revenge on anyone. Why? Because you are the brothers. You are not the Joseph.

Every one of us committed the crime when we walked away from God, and God forgave us anyway. Jesus told the story about the man pardoned millions who went out and throttled someone over ten thousand dollars. It doesn't make sense, does it? You live in the victory of forgiveness because you are forgiven. That victory releases you from the need for vindication. Pastor Josh said he could name ten people who would be let out of anger's grip if they received the spirit of forgiveness in that moment.

The Person You Have to Forgive Is Yourself

The brothers were afraid of Joseph, and they were also being eaten alive by their own guilt. Every time anything went wrong for twenty years, they thought: see, I told you we shouldn't have done it, this is why this bad thing is happening. They didn't use the word karma, which belongs to a different religion. They were wrestling with guilt, and who wouldn't be?

Do you do that, reading every hardship as an invoice for something you did years ago? As a younger man, Pastor Josh would pray, thank you Lord, I love you Lord, give me this, and feel God whisper back: "I know. I know what you did last summer." That guilt eats you up. You never live a full life in Christ because you know what you've done. How quickly we identify ourselves as Joseph when we are actually the brother.

Church, the person that you have to forgive today the most is yourself. I know you lived 20 years out of guilt and shame all this time. But don't worry. You are forgiven. You need to say that to yourself.

Say the Word of Forgiveness

Pastor Josh made room for people to respond. "I don't want anybody to leave this place without saying, from your heart, I will forgive." He was not asking anyone to excavate old trauma already dealt with. He asked people to be honest with God about what still had a grip on them. There was no need to manufacture an encounter, because God is working.

Bring to God whatever you cannot control, and ask him to change your perspective while you wait. He may be at work long before you can see it. If anger still has a grip on you, say the words Pastor Josh asked of the church: I will forgive. Vengeance belongs to God. And if the person you cannot forgive is yourself, go back to the words God has already given you: You are forgiven. Say it out loud if you need to hear it.

Next week the series moves into Exodus, looking at 400 years of silence and how clearly God can speak within it.