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Well, howdy howdy howdy, and welcome to Real Men, guys. We are so thankful you're joining us. Uh, you're in good company; there are over 600,000 guys that join us across the country. Um, tons of churches that broadcast this every week. So, encourage you hop over to realfaith.com/realmen, get some resources, start gathering in groups with guys, watch this sermon, do the discussion questions. Uh, cuz men, we need you to be built up in 2025. That's our whole heart here at Real Faith. Uh, if you want to come join us, uh, visit us in Scottsdale, Arizona. Come on out! If you're a senior pastor and you want to come learn how to do Real Men, email hell@realfaith.com. We'd love to schedule some time for you to come on out, tour it, and learn how to take it back to where you're at. We're jumping into the life of Joseph, and the series is called "10 Tests Every Man Faces." So, this is going to be relatable wherever you are, whatever life stage you're in. So, buckle up and get ready. [Music] Last week of the semester. We're honored to have you; we're glad to have you. Thank you for joining us. I am so encouraged and blessed and honored to teach God's word to you, and I just want to celebrate all the work that God has done in the lives of this many men over the course of the last year, but particularly this semester, as today we have our final meeting of Real Men until the fall. And I just want to say the steps you're taking, the sins you're repenting of, the leadership that you are activating, God knows that, God sees that, God honors that, and God blesses that, and we bless and honor you, and we thank you for giving us the honor of being here to be with you. I love you guys with my whole heart; it's been the biggest, most incredible semester we've ever had, and we're going to go out with a bang. Amen. You guys ready to go? All right. If you are new, this is called a Bible; you're going to need one of these. Uh, we're in Genesis 50, and we're looking at the life of a guy named Joseph. So, when we started looking at this guy's life in Genesis, uh, 37, he was only 17 years of age. Today we're going to see him conclude his life at 110. So, Genesis covers 93 years of his life. You're looking at an entire lifespan of one of the greatest men in the history of the world, and I want to share with you three things today at the end of his life that made his life successful and significant. We're going to talk about forgiveness, God's sovereignty over your life, and God's anointing on your life. These three things sustained and carried Joseph from one of the most difficult seasons a man can face: being betrayed by his own brothers, thrown into a hole, sold into slavery, taken to another nation at the age of 17 with shackles around his neck and his feet. And then he is a slave and a prisoner. He does a great job for his employer; he is falsely accused of rape, even though he is a virgin; he is thrown into prison where he is abandoned, forgotten, takes his 20s and spends them as a registered sex offender in an Egyptian jail. Eventually, he gets out, and he rules and reigns in Egypt as one of the most powerful men on the face of the earth, overseeing the most successful economy and saving his own family. We've seen this man's epic, incredible life, and today we'll see his last days, and it starts with forgiveness. Jesus talks about forgiving 70 x 7, and here's the end of Joseph's life, chapter 50 of Genesis: 15-26. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil we did to him." So they sent a message to Joseph, saying—they're trying to manipulate the circumstances—your father gave this command before he died: say to Joseph, "Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you." And and I like that they recognize it was evil. Joseph wept, uh, when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him. Now they're begging and said, "Behold, we are your servants." But Joseph said to them, "Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones." Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father's house. Joseph lived to 110 years, and Joseph saw Ephraim's child of the third generation. So he saw generations of his kids, so not just his sons but his grandsons and his great-grandsons. Gentlemen, that is the goal. The goal is to serve your God and live long enough to see your great-grandsons serving your God. The children also of Makir, the son of Manasseh, were counted as Joseph's own. And Joseph said to his brothers, "I'm about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up from out of this land." But he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, the family's going to make it back to Israel. Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, "God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here." So Joseph died, being 110 years of age. Okay, here's the conclusion on one of the greatest lives ever lived in the history of the world and one of the greatest men in the entire word of God. I want to start by talking about God's sovereignty over his life and your life and my life. The sovereignty of God is that God rules and reigns, that God has full dominion, he has all authority and power, and he can intercede, he can intervene, he can interject anywhere at any time and do anything that he wants to do, and no one and nothing can stop him or thwart him. That's what it means to be the almighty, and he happens to be our Father. And so this is really crucial as you and I are living our life; we don't know the future, but our God does. We don't know what other people are plotting and planning or preparing, but our God does. We don't know what the future may hold, and it can cause a lot of anxiety in the present. The anecdote to anxiety is God's sovereignty. When you know that your God is over everything that you're going through, it changes how you go through it. It doesn't mean that you don't have to go through the same difficult things as other men, but you do so with a divine insight. Here's how he says it, Genesis 50:20 and 21. He says, "Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. So do not fear." So Joseph's brothers abandoned him; they sold him into slavery; and uh, then when a famine hit, they ventured into the nation where he is now ruling and reigning and overseeing the economy and the distribution of food, and he's Egyptian in dress and he's Egyptian in language, and they don't recognize him. So he had already forgiven them, but he spends two years testing them. So he hadn't seen them for 20 years; he spends two years testing them, and then they reconcile because he had forgiven them. Then his father, whom he hadn't seen in 22 years and his dad thought he was dead, he finally reconciled with his dad, and there was harmony and peace among the boys. And then dad dies, and what are the boys thinking? It's time for vengeance, I'm guessing. That Joseph was on his best behavior. They were thinking, as long as dad was alive, now that dad is gone, the emergency break has been pulled; this thing is rolling downhill, right? He's going to he's going to slaughter and murder us; he's going to destroy us. And so what he says is this: he asks, "Do not fear." How many of you men don't raise your hand, but you like it when people are afraid of you and they fear you and they're intimidated by you as a man? This is the strong position. If you have the strength and power and authority over another man, you can control him because you can ruin him, and he has fear and anxiety, and he does everything he can not to incite your vengeance and wrath. Many men make it through life being in the dominant position, being the one who induces the fear and anxiety in others, and you lead through manipulation, controlling, being domineering, overbearing, threatening. And some of you had a father like that, and I'm sorry for that. In this moment, Joseph is not in a strong position; he's in the strongest position. He is the second in command in the nation of Egypt, the most powerful empire on planet Earth. There are no laws because the pharaoh whom he serves is worshiped as a god. So there are no laws, and there is no justice; there's just the government; they have all the power; they do whatever they want. Furthermore, his brothers, they're not even citizens of the nation, so they have no legal rights. Even if there are legal rights, he can murder, slaughter them; he can torture, torment them; he can do whatever he wants to do, and he doesn't. And he's actually forgiven them. We'll deal with that here in a moment, but he asked this question: he said, "Am I in the place of God?" And the answer is that's exactly the place that he's in. See, because in Egypt, who's the God? Pharaoh. Where is Joseph seated? At the right hand of God, right in the kingdom of God. God the Father rules and reigns, and God the Son, our our Savior Jesus Christ, he's at the right hand of the Father. Joseph is literally sitting in a counterfeit of the kingdom of God, and he's sitting in the Jesus seat at the right hand of the king. He is in the position of God; he can do whatever he wants to do to them, and there's nothing they can do to stop him. Okay, how many of you men, at this point, there would be a temptation for vengeance in your soul? Be honest. How many of you, um, maybe not a temptation for vengeance, but just to cause them to have a sudden need to replace their underwear? Just just to give them, you know, something to think about, just put a little just put a little fear on them, just tell them all the things you could do, maybe just lock them up for a day or two and and let them conjure up the worst, or maybe take them to a pit and throw them in like they threw you in, leave them there for a few days and just let them consider what the outcome might be for them. Okay, he doesn't do that, and here's what he says: what you intended was evil, but what God did was good. Your evil is not bigger than his good. You see that? See, and and as men, we get fixated with, okay, they're doing evil, they did evil; she cheated on me; she betrayed me; she gutted me; her attorney bankrupted me; right, that litigation took my children; my co-workers, they stole from me; my family betrayed me. Okay, let's just call that evil, and God is over it. This does not mean that God causes it. Okay, did God cause or force or command the brothers to betray Joseph? Not at all. Okay, the sovereignty of God doesn't mean that everything that happens is God's will, but it means that whatever we do, God gets the last word because God is the final authority, and God determines the outcome, and God is so good that he can even use evil for good. Amen. Okay, couple of things about God's sovereignty, looking at it from the life of Joseph. Number one: living under God's sovereignty will test your pain tolerance. Can you imagine the painful seasons in Joseph's life? 17, slave, shackled, sold into slavery. God, you paying any attention here? I got a job. Okay, thank you, Lord, for the job. The master's wife, she's hot like hell; that literally every day she's showing up, her underwear is outerwear, you know? She wants you to learn whatever Victoria's Secret is, cuz she knows that secret like she's she's a black widow of a chick, right? And every day you're like, "Lord, I'm going to be faithful to you and my master; I'm not sleeping with a chick that's hot like hell." She's like, "Okay, then I'll accuse you of rape and send you to prison." So now he's got two choices here: he can have sex or prison. How many of you guys aren't going to flip a coin on those choices? Like, I don't know, Lord, be what your will, Lord, just choose heads or tails, right? Like most men, if it's like, hey, you need to have sex with her or go to jail, you're like, great, sounds great, sounds sounds fantastic. And he he chooses jail. And in that moment, he could have taken the outcome into his own hands. He said, "I'm going to trust God." He's left in jail, spends his 20s. Can you imagine how hard it was to endure all the pain that Joseph endured? But here's the key: if you believe in God's sovereignty, you're going to need to continually increase your pain tolerance. Okay, if you believe that God is sovereign, then you wake up every day, and you do your best to do what is right in the Lord's sight, and you trust the outcome with the Lord, and even if it looks like evil is winning, his good is bigger than their bad, and you trust that when all is said and done, he'll take all that evil, and he'll use it for good, and maybe even the saving of some other lives. That's Joseph's story. Here's the key to being a leader. Joseph, at this point, is one of the most significant leaders on the earth and in the history of our planet. The key to leadership, men, is trust that God is sovereign over you and your circumstances. Do what is right, trust him with the outcome, and as you get more pain, you need to increase your pain level and tolerance. Joseph has gone through a lot of pain, so now he has a lot of influence. Most men want a lot of influence, but they're unwilling to endure a lot of pain. If you want to have a great marriage, it's going to hurt like hell. You want to have a successful business; it's going to hurt like hell. You want to have a thriving ministry; it's going to hurt like hell, right? You want to financially provide for your family and maybe set up the next generation; it's going to hurt like hell. And so if you want to have more influence, you need to endure more pain, and you need to have a greater degree of trust in God's sovereignty. What I'm going through is not punishing; it is preparing. God has something coming, and I just need to have the fortitude and grit as a grown man to endure this pain to get to that blessing. Number two: living under God's sovereignty will result in a different life than the one you plan. Joseph thought he would grow up in Israel; he's in Egypt. He thought he'd be a shepherd; and now he's a politician. He thought he'd be speaking Hebrew; now he's speaking Egyptian. He thought he would be free; and now he's a slave. This was not the life that he envisioned or dreamed of. If God is sovereign, some of you men need to release your vision for his life, for your life, and you need to receive his vision for your life. If God is sovereign, you can have some hopes and aspirations and and goals for your life, but hold them always in an open hand, and if God and his sovereignty takes them out, you will get a different life than the one that you wanted, but the most important thing is not to get what you want but to be in his will. Amen. I never thought I would live in Arizona, never. And it is wild what God has done to get me here and my family. I didn't envision being here; I didn't plan on being your pastor; I didn't have any idea that we'd be doing Real Men and simulcasting; I didn't know that my kids would get married here, some of them on this very stage; I didn't know that my grandkids would be born here and they would grow up here. I didn't plan any of this; this wasn't my dream; this wasn't what I wanted, but it's what God wanted, and I'm happy to report it's better than my plan. It just is; it's better than my plan, right? Number three: living under God's sovereignty means waiting for God's timing. See, we we when you're reading Genesis, you start in 37, you go to 50, you're like, "Oh, Joseph's life was interesting; that was 93 years. Okay, 13 chapters was 93 years. Joseph was destined to be ruling and reigning in Egypt, but he had to be patient to get there." And I'll tell you guys this is one of the great failures of my life; I've I've failed at this test many times, and we're talking about tests in the life of Joseph. One of the tests that he passed was not just trusting God's calling but God's timing. As a man, as soon as I know what God's calling is, I just go; I'm a ready-fire-aim guy. Okay, if just left to myself, okay. And so what I've done repeatedly in my life, I've been in God's calling, but I've been off of God's timing. Some of you need to pick up the pace; you're not on God's timing because you're fearful, you're cautious, you're lazy. Some of you men need to slow down because you're ahead of God's timing. After 30 years of repeatedly being ahead of God's timing, I'll just pay your dumb tax, and I will tell you that zero times has it benefited me to be ahead of God's timing. For you younger men, it is good to be aspirational; it is good to be zealous; it is good to be driven, but if you get ahead of God's timing, you're going to hurt yourself. Joseph not only walked out God's calling, he did so in God's timing. That's believing in the sovereignty of God: not just is his destiny coming, but it's coming when he believes I am ready. Number four: living under God's sovereignty means not trying to be sovereign. Uh, there are two kinds of men: men who are control freaks and men who are dead. Okay, those are the two kinds of men. Okay, we're all we're all control freaks. Can you submit that? How many of you right now you're frustrated because your wife doesn't obey, your dog doesn't obey, your kids don't obey, and your employees don't obey, right? Can we be honest? Some of you like, "My dog obeys." Okay, well, great, you know, so congratulations. As men, we like to be in control. Why? Why do we like to be in control? Cuz somebody's got to be in control, and I don't want to be under their control, so I want to be in control. And sometimes men struggle with God's sovereignty because those men want to be the sovereign. And sometimes you just need to realize, you know, I am a leader and I have responsibilities, but I'm not the sovereign; God is the sovereign. And if things change, if if he re-pivots my life and course corrects my plans, you know what? That's my God. I feel like I'm supposed to say this; I I get sort of prophetic words when I teach you men, and a lot of this is verbal processing, but here's what I feel like I'm supposed to say: some of you men are angry at God because he didn't obey you. You told him what you wanted; he didn't give that to you; and so now you're bitter or jaded or frustrated with him. And honestly, you need to know he's a Father; you're a son. The son is never the sovereign. You need to repent of that because if you're angry against God, bitter against God, frustrated with God, questioning God, accusing God, what you're saying is, "I know what should happen." You don't. What you're doing, you're in your heart; you're calling God a sinner, and you're demanding that he repent to you. Okay, and and that, my friends, will poison your soul. Number five: living under God's sovereignty is worth it in the end. If you would have looked at Joseph at 17 and said, "Hey, God's sovereign," he'd been like, I that doesn't help today when he's in prison. In his 20s, could have said, "God's sovereign; he works out all things for the good of those who love him or called according to his purpose." Like, "Yeah, but I'm a registered sex offender in prison." Okay, so sometimes when we um when we don't have compassion or sympathy on somebody who is suffering, it's because we just appeal to God's sovereignty, but God's sovereignty doesn't fully actualize itself till the end. In the middle, he's living by faith with a lot of pain, but in the end, when we see Joseph, him remaining loyal and faithful to God and trusting in the sovereignty of God, was it worth it for Joseph in the end? Absolutely. I mean, if he would have slept with that chick, who knows, he might have been murdered for adultery. Had he not interpreted those dreams in jail, he never would have got out. You know, had he not remained loyal to God, he wouldn't have been blessed by God. And so here's the big idea in the sovereignty of God: God doesn't cause evil, but God can use evil for good. And the story of Joseph is in the Bible because the story of Joseph is a little story, part of the big story. The big story is that Jesus Christ comes from this family, and Jesus Christ is the greater Joseph. Like Jesus, he was loved by his Father. In addition, there was a culling and destiny on his life; he was betrayed by his spiritual brothers; he was thrown into a hole, a grave, and left for dead. Like Joseph, he was wrongly accused and convicted of a crime. When all was said and done, he was ruling and reigning at the right hand of the king, and he was overseeing a nation, and he was blessing and saving others. See, the story of Joseph is a little picture of the big story of Jesus. And so ultimately, men, the goal is to live our life trusting God's sovereignty and seeing God use even that which is evil for good. The greatest evil in the history of the world was the murder of Jesus Christ, innocent, faultless, sinless, and flawless, and murdered. And that greatest evil in the history of the world, the murder of Jesus Christ, that we'll celebrate this weekend with our Good Friday service here at church and online, it was then used by God for what? The greatest good. Because when Jesus died, which was evil, he died for us, which was good. And just like Joseph, he trusted the sovereignty of God, our Lord Jesus did, and then ultimately it was used, as Joseph said, for the saving of many lives. You need to know what you've been through, some of you, what you've done, and some of you, what has been done to you. There's a word here: it's evil. Evil is not bigger than God; evil does not have authority over God; and evil doesn't get the last word; God does. Amen. Okay, how many of you men, just to encourage those men who are in it, how many of you men, like me, you're on the other side of it, and you've seen God work it out for good? You've seen God even take evil and use it for good. Okay, how many of you men would testify right now, just by clapping your own hands, that you have seen God do that in your own life? Okay, okay. So, for you guys that are in it, you're like, "I'm in the pit; I'm in the prison." Trust the sovereignty of God. It is evil, but he is good. When all is said and done, he will use evil that they did for good that he plans. Amen. Okay, so that's the sovereignty of God. Joseph lives his whole life under the sovereignty of God, what the old reformers would call coram deo, or in the face of God. In addition, Joseph's whole life is an ongoing series of tests around whether or not he will forgive people. Forgive people; he has to forgive his brothers, and that's a 70 x 7; he has to forgive the chick who wrongly accused him of sexual assault; he has to accuse; he has to forgive her husband who believes her and not him; he has to forgive all the mistreatment he received in prison; he had to forgive the guys that he interpreted a dream for in prison, and the dude got out and ignored him and abandoned him and betrayed him; he had to forgive that.
Guy. Then, when he sees his brothers again, he has to forgive them yet again. And then, when he sees his dad after 22 years, and his dad thought he was dead, he had to forgive his brothers yet again, because now he's reliving the pain of being separated from his dad, and his dad not even knowing his wife, or or his grandfather's, or his father's rather, grandchildren. Just forgiveness, his whole life, every season that he was in, and you and I are in. You got to forgive. Let me hit this quickly, but eight aspects of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is always a private matter between you and God, and sometimes a public matter between you and someone else. Joseph forgave his brothers before he saw his brothers; he'd been forgiving them for 20 years. So that when he saw them, he had tears, and he was emotional because he loved them, but he couldn't yet trust them. So he spent two years testing them. So his forgiveness was public, um, after it was private. His private forgiveness was 22 years, and then his public forgiveness was after the 22 years. Number two: Your forgiveness may lead to their repentance, but does not require them uh to apologize. A lot of people like, "I can't forgive them; they haven't apologized." They may never. Okay, to to reconcile a relationship, the offender needs to apologize and repent; the offended needs to forgive. You forgive them; God will deal with them. You can't wait for them to apologize, because ultimately, if you're holding bitterness and unforgiveness, you are damaging and hurting yourself; you are harming the people around you who love you the most. Many of you men know another man who is broken; he is jaded; he is unhealthy, unwell; he is self-destructing. He may have even been your father, and it's because at some point someone wronged him, and he spent his life bitter, angry, and jaded, waiting for them to apologize, and they never did, and it broke him.
Number three: Forgiveness is a one-time event and an ongoing process. They came to Jesus; they're like, "How many times you got to forgive?" He's like, "70 * 7." And the most gracious scholars in that day, they would have said seven times, right? He had to forgive his brothers all the time. I woke up in Egypt today; my brothers did that. I woke up as a slave today; my brothers did that. I woke up without seeing my father again today; my brothers did that. I got married today, and my father wasn't there because of my brothers. My sons were born today, and my dad doesn't even know that he has grandkids, and my brothers did that. Some of you men have people in your life that you're going to need to continually forgive; some of you it's your dad; some of you it's your ex-wife; some of you it's your business partner who gutted you. And it's not just a one-time event, but it's an ongoing lifestyle and process.
Number four: Forgiveness is cancelling someone's debt, so they do not have to repay you; healing up; moving on; leaving the matter in God's hands. Here's what happens when somebody sins against you: they owe you. Okay, we say this: you owe me. Oh, you're going to pay me back; this is going to cost you. Forgiveness is saying, "I will eat the debt; you owe me nothing." It means there's going to be a loss for you, but number one, it shows that you believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, that when he died in your place for your sins, he paid your debt, and we don't pay him back; that's what grace is. In addition, by forgiving someone and cancelling the debt, what you're doing in that moment is you're terminating, you're terminating that which would require you to remain in relationship with that person. Okay, let's say uh you've got a creditor, and you owe them; well, now you're in a relationship with them until that debt is paid. If your creditor just forgave your debt, you would be out of the relationship. Here's how I want to explain it: let's say somebody stole from you, money, time, years of your life, joy, health, whatever it might be; they owe you. As long as you're demanding that they repay you, you're still in relationship with them; you're still tied to them, and you're still dependent upon them for you to be well and move on with your life. If you forgive them, it's over; just move on with your life. But a lot of men, they would say, "Well, I can't move on because I don't like to lose," well, but if you stay in that relationship, you're losing every day; you're losing a little joy; you're losing a little anointing; you're losing a little health, right; you're losing a little perspective, and you're losing a little hope for your future. Just, you're going to pay; some of you guys, you're going to lose money; some of you guys, you're going to lose credibility; some of you guys, you're going to lose your reputation; some of you guys, you're going to lose some relationships, and it's going to be a loss, and it sucks to lose as a man, but if you believe God is sovereign, and if he works it all out for good, if you lose today, he could bless tomorrow. That's what happens with Joseph; he ends up with a great job; he ends up with a fantastic wife; he ends up with incredible sons; he just happens to be in the one country that has food, right? He lost a lot, but then God blessed a lot; that's ultimately what faith is. Forgiveness is the opposite of denial, bitterness, vengeance, continuing to see yourself as a victim with no future hope because of past pain.
Number five: Denial. Joseph doesn't look at his brothers and say, "Hey guys, you guys didn't do anything wrong." That would be denial. What you did was evil; it was evil; it's not; he's not denying it; he's forgiving it. In addition, he's not bitter. What he doesn't do is then give the terrible tale, "Yeah, I was 17, and I was so scared, and do you know what it's like to be…" He didn't; he didn't tell the whole story. He had 22 years; he could have absolutely downloaded the story, and he didn't. What you did was evil; God used it; we're on the other side; praise God; I forgive you; moving on. It's also not vengeance. In the story, the brothers are terrified that he's going to get vengeance on them, so they make up another lie, because this is what guys do who try to be the sovereign guys who try to be the sovereign end up being liars, because when they don't think the outcome's going the direction they want, they start lying to course correct and try and change the outcome. So they're like, "Okay, Joseph's probably going to murder us, so let's make up a lie that dad said he can't murder us." And dad's dead, so he can't verify. Okay, and Joseph, he's he's grieved; he's like, "Guys, I'm not going to murder you because I have forgiven you; there's no murderous heart in me; there's no murderous spirit in me." Okay, it's not denial; it's not bitterness; it's not vengeance; and it's not just seeing yourself as a victim. And let me speak to the soft guys, right? It was evil, but you got to get stronger and tougher; you got to get to the other side of it; you got to freaking fight through it. You're you're a man; you're not a boy, and you're not a woman; you're a man, and God made you a man so that you could be strong. And those of you men who get up every day and, "I'm a victim," you may be, but at some point you got to be a victor; you got to forgive; you got to heal up; you got to move on; you got to get to your destiny; you got to stop bitching and whining and complaining. And at some point, they don't want to hear about your dad and your ex-wife; at some point, they want to hear about your plans and your hope for your future and your kids and your grandkids and your business and your destiny. I know this: no one follows a victim; no one follows a victim, even if you are a victim. I'm sorry; God give grace to you; forgive them. But if you get up every day like a whole generation of broken, weak, woke, worthless, freaking men, just absolute worthless generation of weak men, "I'm a victim; you don't understand my gender; you don't understand my mental health; you don't understand my depression; you don't understand my anxiety," like you don't understand being a freaking man, right? Cuz you can be a victim or you can be a leader, but you can't be both. If you want your wife to follow you, be a be a man who overcomes. If you want your children to respect you, be a man who fights through it. You want grandkids to emulate you and honor you, well, stop being a damn victim and start being a good man. Just a few things on my heart today. Okay, Joseph could have seen himself as a victim for the rest of his life: "I have trauma; I was abandoned; my reputation is destroyed; I was falsely accused; I need to vote for Democrats cuz there's probably some some financial compensation in this…" [Music] could be a Democrat or a man; those are your options. [Applause] Shots fired. I just… It's the last night. You… You can send a complaint, and we've got a team standing by to delete it. [Applause]
Uh, forgiveness number six is not trust, reconciliation, covering a crime, or God's forgiveness. See, when you forgive somebody, you're saying, "God, I'm not going to deal with them; you can have them; you can forgive them, or you can send them to hell; that's your decision. When you forgive someone, you also don't trust them." This is where a lot of religious guys get all smarmy: "Well, if you forgive them, you should reconcile with them." No, not if they're not repented, because if they gutted me once, I can forgive them, but I'm not going to let them gut me twice. "Well, you should trust them." Why? 'Cuz I thought you forgave them. I did forgive. Forgiving someone and trusting someone is totally different. Amen. They're two completely separate things. Forgiving is contingent upon God's character; trusting is contingent upon their character. I forgive them because he forgives me; I don't trust them because I can't trust them. Okay, so some of you religious guys, let it go. You're like, "They're evil; I've forgiven them; I've moved on; I don't want to know you; I don't want to work with you; I don't want to date you; I don't…" And I know it's my mother-in-law, but that's my final answer. Blessing is the test of forgiving. How do you know you've forgiven? Because a lot of guys like, "I forgiven that son…" Like, well, I don't know; I know if you've forgiven them if they're still got, you know, f-word instead of a real name, but you know, just… How do you know you've forgiven someone? Can you bless them? Jesus said, "Bless your enemies." Okay, so what does Joseph say? He says, "I will provide for you and your little ones." He says, "Okay, not only for I forgive you, I will house you and feed you and bless you and your children, because you're still fathers, and it's not the kids' fault that dad's an idiot, because you've met this guy, cuz if I shoot you in the head, then I leave the kids without a dad, so instead I'm going to forgive you, and I'm going to bless you, and I'm going to bless those kids." Blessing is the test of forgiving.
And then number eight: Forgiveness keeps your heart tender, compassionate, and warm. Men, you've only got one heart, so if your heart becomes hard, embittered, jaded, that's the heart your wife gets; that's the heart your kids get; that's the heart your grandkids get. Um, in the toughest time in my whole life, when I just wanted to do vengeance and just return fire for fire, um, I had a really wise man say, "If you choose a path of bitterness and vengeance, that will be the rest of your life, and you will be dragging your wife and kids and eventually your grandkids into your war; and if you forgive and walk away, God will bless you; your wife, kids, and eventual grandkids are going to have a better version of you." And in that moment, what I didn't want to do was just get so frustrated and angry that I'm fighting them, but I'm changing me, and now I'm breaking the people who love me the most. I don't want my wife to have a a hard-hearted version of me; I don't want my kids to know a broken, embittered, vengeful version of me; I don't want my grandkids to grow up and say, "Grandpa was really an angry and kind of a scary man." I I can't have that. So don't let the person who did evil cause you to waste your whole life on them, when God will already deal with them, and so you trust him to deal with them; you walk away from them, and if they repent, you reconcile with them; that's what Joseph does. Let me let me just jump down to the last point; I'll skip the five reasons to forgive, and here's the point: the greater you forgive, the greater the spirit anoints. Here's the key to Joseph's life; this is the key to Joseph's whole life. You look at it; creation in Genesis gets two chapters, right; Joseph gets 13; that's wild, right? The the book of Genesis, it just rolls through hundreds of years, and then it just stops to talk about the life of Joseph. Joseph's life is a supernatural life; it's a sacred life; it's a special life; it's the life that God has for you because it's an anointed life. The secret to Joseph's success was the person and the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. I'll show it to you in a moment. Joseph lived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and sometimes when you hear about being spirit-filled and spirit-led, sometimes you're reminded, if you've been in church, of the weirdest freaking guys; weird, like they're wearing purple; their wife looks like she lost a paintball gun war with her makeup; you know, they're just flopping on the stage like a perch on a dock, and it's just yaba daba doo, and you know, "Here's my hundfold blessing," and these are the weirdest freaking guys. Okay, Joseph is spirit-filled, and you know what spirit-filled means? You can forgive people. Do you know what do you know what spirit-filled means? You can be a good employee. The anointing on Joseph's life, it's incredibly practical. I don't know if he wore purple, you know, and I don't know if he spoke in tongues, you know, and I don't know if his wife, you know, blew a chauffear; I don't know; I don't know, you know, what his life was, but I know that when he was filled with the spirit, he would forgive people; when he was filled with the spirit, he would go to work and do a really good job; when he was filled with the spirit, he would steward a lot of very important resources; when he was filled with the spirit, he would have compassion for the people that had offended him, and he had forgiven them. To be a spirit-filled man is to be healthy emotionally and spiritually, and to succeed at life, starting with marriage, but including work; he's got a good marriage, and he's a good dad because he's filled with the Holy Spirit. Here's what it says, Genesis 39:2 and 3: "The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man." My prayer is that you would all be successful men. "His master saw that the Lord was with him, and the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands." So when he's working for Piper Potterer, is like, "Man, this is the best employee I've ever had; everything he does there's it goes really great because God is with that man." Okay, Genesis 39:23: "The Lord was with him, and whatever he did the Lord made it succeed." And then Genesis 41:38-39: "And Pharaoh said to his servants, 'Here's Pharaoh, the most important, powerful, affluent man on the earth; can we find a man like this in whom is the spirit of God?' Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, 'Since God has shown you there is none so discerning and wise as you are.'" Pharaoh looks at Joseph; here's what Pharaoh's got: women, money, power, fame, priests, demons, legacy, kingdom, castle, army; he looks at Joseph; he's like, "You got one thing I don't: you have the spirit of God; you're unlike any other man I've ever met." See, people worship Pharaoh as a god, but he recognized that Joseph was the greater man because he was filled with the spirit of God. Yes, let me say this: what makes a man great is that he is surrendered to the Holy Spirit; he is sensitive to the Holy Spirit; he is submitted to the Holy Spirit; that is the definition of a great man. Amen. Says the same thing about Jesus; his name means Christ, which means anointed in the spirit; he was conceived of the Holy Spirit; it says that he uh grew in wisdom, stature, and favor with men and God; that was by the power of the Holy Spirit; says he was led by the Holy Spirit; that he was filled with the Holy Spirit; that he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit; and and Christ means anointed of the spirit. The greatest men are surrendered to, submitted to, and strengthened by the Holy Spirit; that's the secret to Joseph. And here's what I love about Joseph: he lost his family; he lost his home; he lost his job; he lost his freedom; he lost his citizenship; he lost everything, but he didn't lose his anointing. Let me tell you this, gentlemen: if you lose everything but your anointing, you're going to be okay; if you keep everything and lose your anointing, you're not going to be okay. It's not about what we have; it's about who has us.
Um, I'll close with a conversation that I had, um, so about a decade ago, I got cancelled; started over; mid-40s; five kids; not sure what's going to happen; no job; no platform; no staff; control alt-delete on my life, um, and I remember I was in prayer, out of state, and I I remember I was talking to the Lord, and I was like, "Father, I I lost anything." He spoke to me. I'm I'm I'm in my mid-40s; I'm cancelled; I'm un I'm unemployed; I'm on fire; there's safety issues at my house with my wife and kids, right? No one No one called; it was quiet. And I remember talking to the Lord, and I was like, "Father, I I've lost everything; like, I got to sell the house; I got to go find a job; I think I got to move my family; I got to go find another state; I I I'm in my mid-40s; I got five kids, like," and I remember telling him, I was like, "Father, I've lost everything." And he spoke to me, and he said, "Son, you've not lost your anointing." I was like, "Okay, okay." 10 years later, what God is doing is wild; it's wild; like people are like, "How do you do it?" I was like, "You don't; like, I I'm just a kite, not a hurricane." Like what God is doing, like I don't even understand it; I don't even understand it; I I'll be honest with you; I don't even understand what I'm doing right now. Do you know I don't prepare for these talks? Some of you like, I could tell, okay, well, and I just know when I get up here, like God's going to anoint me, and he's going to give a word to you cuz he loves you, and you're his son, and he has destiny for you, and hope for you, and greatness for you, and and he he gives me a father's heart for you, and every week I just get up, and I'm like, I don't know where it's going to go or what I'm going to say, but I just know that he's going to anoint that, and he's going to bless that, and he gets I get to be used of God in a way that I don't even control, understand, take any credit for; I don't even… Guy's like, "What?" I like, "I don't even know; I get up; I yell; and it works; I don't know; I don't know; you know, I don't know," right? And let me just say this: as long as you're living under his anointing, it's going to be great; maybe not right away; there's going to be some challenges and some pain and some forgiveness and some tests, but if you remember his sovereignty, if you forgive people, and you live under his anointing, and the key is this, man: God doesn't bless men; he blesses places, and he blesses men who place themselves under his word, under his authority. Amen. A lot of guys are like, "Why does God not bless me?" Well, are you in the place that he blesses? See, Joseph lived in the place that God would bless; he lived in a place of obedience. So back to the story, and I'll close with this, um, it was many years ago; I was um I was anxious; I was angry; I was frustrated; I was bewildered; I was um not doing great; and I'll never forget; I met with a man, uh, his name is Dr. RT Kendall; he'll be preaching for us on Father's Day, so you want to come back for that; it's his 70th year in the pulpit, and I'm having him preach the first sermon he ever preached when he was 20, and I think now he's 90, and he's going to teach a class for us that week as well, so you're welcome to come and and learn from him, but he wrote a book called Total Forgiveness, and I was sitting on RT's couch at his house outside of N; I think it was outside of Nashville at the time, and he's like, "Tell me what happened; you know, what's going on in your life?" And uh so I did, and he looked at me, and I thought he would say, "I'm sorry; I'll be praying for you." Um, I I mean, I was hoping for compassion and maybe a meal, you know, cuz usually when somebody's having a hard time, you're like, "I'm sorry; would you like to eat?" I would um and thank you for your compassion and your Popey. And so instead, he looked at me, and I'll never forget, he's he got really excited; he's like, "Oh, this is fantastic!" I was like, "What the…? Did the old guy get his medical marijuana card? Like, what are we dealing with here? This isn't…" He's so happy; he looked at me; he's like, "This is… He's like, "This is great; this is fantastic!" I said, "Why is that?" He said, "The deeper the forgiving, the higher the anointing." He said, "So if you've been through this, and you forgive, your anointing will be great." And he told me the story of Joseph; he's like, "You remember Joseph?" I was like, "Yeah." He's like, "Well, his forgiveness was so intense." And correspondingly, God's anointing was so immense. For those of you guys who have been through the worst betrayal and the most horrific evil, it is a blessing, because if you will forgive them, he will anoint you, and then that is the story of Joseph. Do you think that the anointing of God would have been on Joseph had he not forgiven? No, no. And suddenly I realized, I don't need to be bitter; I don't need to be vengeful; I don't need to be angry; I don't need to be defensive; I don't need to straighten out what is made crooked; I need to repent of my sin, and there are many, and I need to forgive the sins of others, and then I need to wait for the father to anoint me and bless me, and to get there every day will be a test of whether or not I will be ready for that anointing. Okay, that's that's life. Okay, so we'll close with this: here's how we're going to end the semester: if you are a man who has someone, or maybe more than one, that you need to forgive from the heart, like Jesus says, if there is someone that it's hard for you to see God because you're still a bit focused on, obsessed by, bitter toward them, you're going to need to forgive them and get them out of your purview so you can see your God clearly. Yeah, if you… I'm going to ask you in a moment to do something very brave, and that is to stand, okay, and I'm going to ask you to pray with me to forgive the person or persons who did evil against you, and then ask God to bless them, and ask God to anoint you. Okay, Joseph forgave, so it ended well; I want it for you to end well, so you'll need to forgive. If you are a man, I'm only going to ask once; there'll be no manipulation; there'll be no there'll be no seeking to control the room, but if you are a man, and right now the Holy Spirit is bringing someone to mind, or a group of people to mind, and you've truly not forgiven them, or forgiven them from the heart, I'm going to ask you to stand, and we're going to pray to forgive them, and we're going to release that oppression off of you, and we're going to…
Invite the Holy Spirit to anoint you. If you're that man, just stand. If you're one of those men, just stand. Just stand. Okay. Okay. So if you're one of the men around these men, would you just lay a hand on their shoulders? And let's intercede for them.
For the guys who stood, would you just open your hands like this? Just open your hands. Repeat after me: Father God. Father God. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for not choosing bitterness or vengeance. Thank you for not choosing bitterness or vengeance. God, I forgive them. God, I forgive them. I forgive them from the heart. I forgive them from the heart. I pray blessing over them. I pray blessing over them. I want good for them. I want good for them. I pray that they would encounter the Lord Jesus. I pray that they would encounter the Lord Jesus and that He would change them. And that He would change them. God, I release any obligation they have to me. God, I release any obligation to me. They don't need to apologize. They don't need to apologize. They don't need to agree with me. They don't need to agree with me. They don't need to say they're sorry. They don't need to say they're sorry. They don't need to suffer. They don't need to suffer. And they don't need to pay me back. They don't need to pay me back. I forgive them in Jesus' name. I forgive them in Jesus' name. I bless them in Jesus' name. I bless them in Jesus' name. And I invite the Holy Spirit. I have the Holy Spirit to anoint me. To anoint me. So I could be like Jesus. So I could be like Jesus. In Jesus' name. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. God bless you, man. Thank you.
Welcome to Take a Seat, gentlemen. These things matter in the unseen realm. The demons were watching, and so was the Lord. And the demons are devastated, and the Holy Spirit is happy because now that bitterness bond has been broken, and the spirit of God can flow more freely into your life and into your legacy. I love you with all my heart. It's an honor to be your pastor. And just know you matter. Your life matters. Your wife matters. Your kids matter. Your family matters. Your grandkids matter. Your business matters. Your legacy matters. You're the Father's sons. He absolutely loves you. I love you, and I'm proud of you. Thank you for letting me [Applause] [Music] teach [Music] heat heat.