You can know the Scripture off by heart. You can know all the passages about forgiveness off by heart. You can recite the words of the Lord's Prayer. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
And you can recite it ten times in a day. But if you do not understand the practice of forgiveness, I want to tell you all means nothing. Welcome to Leading the Way Audio with Atlanta Pastor and the author of more than 50 books, Dr. Michael Youssef. Now, most people have experienced deep hurt at one time or another, and it takes forgiveness to promote healing.
That applies to our relationship with God, too, and that forgiveness influences all of life. Today on Leading the Way, hear how to live a life seasoned with and overflowing with forgiveness. Do keep in mind that you can get in touch with the Leading the Way team through ltw.org or by calling us at 866-626-4356.
Now, when you reach out to Leading the Way, please remember to share how you connect. That helps Dr. Youssef and his leadership team practice good stewardship, honoring God's provision through your giving. Hear now as Dr. Michael Youssef with his message, Winners Know How to Forgive.
In the very last message, we looked at how God's winners must forgive. They have no other option but to be forgiving people. That is what distinguishes believers from the rest of the world. That is what makes us different from the secular society.
That is what makes us different from the humanist society. Did you know that it is really easy to spot an unforgiving Christian? It really doesn't take long to discover an unforgiving Christian. Show me a defeated Christian and I'll show you an unforgiving Christian. Show me a prideful Christian and I'll show you an unforgiving Christian. Show me a Christian who's uptight, unhappy, super sensitive and resentful in his life or her life and I'll show you an unforgiving Christian. Show me somebody with a critical spirit in his heart or her heart and I'll show you an unforgiving Christian.
Why? Because the critical spirit does not come just from nowhere. Christian believers invite the critical spirit into their life when they cultivate the spirit of unforgiveness. It happens, it always happens when unforgiveness is cultivated in the heart. He always invites his twin brother and that is the critical spirit. They're kissing cousins.
They go together. How to develop the spirit of forgiveness? Well it might take time and I'm not going to tell you glibly that it's easy. But it begins with purposing in your heart and in my heart. It begins with a determination. It begins with a decision of the mind and a decision of the heart and a decision of the will that I do want to forgive. And God will do the rest.
That's all he's asking you to do. In fact to be blunt about it, there is no use praying and saying, God help me to forgive, God help me to forgive. If there is no determination and purposing in your heart that you want to forgive.
What do I mean by this? Well if you turn with me to the New Testament reading of Mark chapter 9, beginning at verse 14 all the way to 29, there is a magnificent story there of Jesus healing of a little boy. The man comes to him and he said, heal my boy. Jesus I don't know whether you can heal my boy or not. And Jesus said, well what do you mean I can? Of course I can.
Of course I want to. Everything is possible to those who believe. Do you believe? And here's the question. This man like all of us stumbled all over the place and he come up with this statement and he said, well I believe, help my unbelief.
On the surface it looks like double talk. What is this I believe, help my unbelief? Do you believe or don't you?
I mean one way or the other. So what did Jesus say? Go home and when you have enough faith come back. Go home and get yourself a good book on faith and then come back and then I'll heal your boy. None of that was said by the Lord Jesus.
You know what? Jesus understood perfectly the deep desire in this man's heart. Jesus understood the imperfect yet determined faith of this man. Jesus understood this man's willingness to believe. His willingness to be willing to believe. And that's what I mean by the desire and the will to forgive. It is saying, Lord, I am willing.
I am determined and purposed in my heart. Empower me to forgive. Lord, I genuinely desire your power to enable me to forgive and the rest is up to him.
And the rest will be done by him. But that's a step he is asking us to take. You know, I hesitated a great deal of sharing this with you. I always hesitate to kind of open my heart and be vulnerable. It's not always easy but in a sense it is a representation of where I am in my life, my firsthand experience with that whole question of forgiveness. And while I was going through my seminary training, it came to my attention that a man in authority was trying to persuade the academic committee to stop me from continuing on. That was very hard for me to take. At that point of my schooling, this man has never taught me anything, has nothing to do with me.
I have not had dealings with him whatsoever. And therefore that made me furious. It made me angry.
Obviously he failed in his attempt. That's why I'm here today. And now he's my very good friend. In fact, he became my very good friend a few years later.
I'm going to tell you this. How did I react every time I saw this man, this man that he was about to ruin my future ministry, this man who was about to destroy a very important part of my calling to preach the gospel in my training? Every time I saw this man, I wanted to pin him to the wall and then pray for forgiveness later.
I was 24 years of age. And here I am being trained for gospel ministry. I knew what the scripture said about forgiveness.
But that's about it. God would use this experience in my life to teach me something upon which is built the rest of my ministry. He began to teach me not the theology of forgiveness, but the practice of forgiveness. And there are two different things.
Trust me. You can know the scripture off by heart. You can know all the passages about forgiveness off by heart. You can recite the words of the Lord's prayer. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And you can recite it ten times in a day. You can become a seminary professor.
You can be a famous preacher. But if you do not understand the practice of forgiveness, I want to tell you all means nothing. I remember one time, several times, when I go to prayer and I start praying, and I said, well, I know Jesus said I've got to pray for my enemy. I've got to pray for this man. So out of obligation, I start praying for him.
You know what happened? As I began to pray for him, I found my spirits filled with anger and lost my joy. I had no peace in mind. It's literally ruined my prayer life. It hampered my effectiveness in ministry. It affected my demeanor. It sullied every area of my life. Until several months later, in this kind of miserable condition, and I knew it was not right, and the Lord kind of whispered in my ear, do you want to learn the practice of forgiveness?
Well, I'm not sure. Is this the voice of the Lord? For months, I was as stubborn as a mule. In fact, I was like that old timer who was so stubborn, was riding his mule.
You know the story? And he is riding his mule and he's plowing his field, and he was pulling on the reins so hard and literally ripping the jaw of the mule. And finally, a nearby farmer yelled at him and said, Look, neighbor, I don't want to butt in, but you know you can save yourself a lot of trouble by just saying gee and ho instead of jerking so hard on the reins. Well, this stubborn old timer kind of wiped his brow and he said, Yep, I know, but this here mule kicked me six years ago and I ain't spoken to him since.
But you know what? This is how we react when we hold resentment towards somebody. This is how we react when we cultivate the spirit of unforgiveness in our lives. This is how we react when we allow the rest of anger, we allow the rest of hatred to corrode our inner souls. This is how we react when we allow the poison of malice to seep into our inner being. You know, there are some Christians who go to church Sunday after Sunday and they walk out with that same unforgiving spirit with which they came. There are some Christians who come to the Lord's table and they walk out with that same unforgiving spirit with which they came. Well, I'm sure you want to know how the Lord finally got me to deal with this thing. I'll be happy to move on. But I tell you, what the Lord had done in my life became the pivotal foundation upon my whole life ministry.
It's growing every day. But the way the Lord got me to deal with this was not easy. It was not easy. And I want to tell you that exercising the spirit of forgiveness is not easy. I began to sense the spirit of God to be saying to me, invite this man in your home with his wife to have dinner with you. Is that really the voice of the Lord?
It's a flesh, a sentimentality. But the Lord said, do it. It took me a while, but I knew at the end that I have no option.
So with the help of my gracious wife, we did it. Now, I didn't say anything to the man at that time, that night, I didn't say anything to him. Except during the night, a couple of times, I just hoped that he'd get choked in his food. I didn't say anything. The next time I saw him, or the next time, or the next time, or the next time. But what happened that night is that the Lord taught me the practice of forgiveness.
A long time later, I already passed successfully all my external examinations. And one day he said to me, he said, you know, I owe you an apology. And he gave me an explanation.
But before he could finish his sentence, I said to him, I said, I forgave you the night that you and your wife came and had dinner with us. I had to obey God. I don't have an option. I do not do what is pleasing to the flesh and what is pleasing to me. I do what is the difficulty that God called me to do. I do do what is not natural, because Paul said to Timothy that we as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are partakers in the divine nature. Amen? Therefore, we do the supernatural and not the natural.
And God does the rest. What God taught me from that experience is that always forgive. Never hold a grudge. Never hold a grudge.
I think it's on a much larger scale. This has happened in Joseph's life. He had certainly forgiven his brothers long before he saw them again.
How do I know that? Because he never would have made it that far if he did not have the forgiving spirit. He would have never survived the slavery. He would have never survived the injustice.
He would have never survived the imprisonment. He would never have survived the disillusionment if he had not forgiven his brothers. But when he faced those wretched brothers, when he faced them after so many years, he had to deal with a mind full of painful feelings and eyes most likely filled with better tears. I want to ask you today and be honest with yourself, has the spirit of unforgiveness tormented you for long enough? Has the dumb spirit of unforgiveness stolen your peace for long enough? Has the spirit of unforgiveness robbed you of your joy for long enough?
Has the spirit of unforgiveness imprisoned you behind its bars for long enough? Like the father of the boy in Mark 9, you can say, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Help begin with a decision of the heart, a determination of the will, and the rest, that's up to God. He will intervene supernaturally.
He will work it out. What Jesus wants is our willingness because Jesus knew that our willingness is the key. Some of you perhaps are unable to forgive someone but you have not asked God to forgive you. You have been deflecting, you have been deflecting the attention and the searching light of the Holy Spirit off yourself. You have been deflecting your need for forgiveness, thinking that by carrying this grudge, thinking that by holding this resentment in, thinking that by blaming somebody else, you have no need to ask God to forgive you. And by so doing, you really have minimized your need to be forgiven.
You have convinced yourself that those who have hurt you so deeply, those who have abused you so severely, those who have wronged you so badly, they are the guilty ones. And you have stopped to ask God to forgive you. The truth is, because of that very thing, you are unable to experience God's forgiveness. You are unable to enjoy and revel in God's forgiveness. You are unable to fully participate in the joy of God's forgiveness all because of your unwillingness to forgive.
Please hear me right. It is not only forgive so that you may be forgiven, but also forgive because you are forgiven. Now I'm gonna have a word with those who have difficulty forgiving themselves. You know, there are some Christians who would say, I know that God has forgiven me.
I know that I have forgiven others, but oh, I have things in my life that I cannot forgive myself. And so you go through life beating themselves up. They go through life flagellating themselves.
They go through life doing their penance of perpetual regret, and they live their Christian life on two cylinders instead of eight. Look with me at verse five of Genesis 45. Here you're going to find one of the most significant dramas of this whole story of Joseph. Joseph knew full well, he knew his brothers. He was young when he left, but he knew his brothers well enough. He knew his brothers are gonna have a hard time forgiving themselves. He knew that they're gonna have a hard time accepting his forgiveness. He knew that they were prideful, that they will find it difficult to receive his forgiveness and forgive themselves and rejoice in it. Joseph knowing all of that, therefore in an unbelievable, I mean incredible unselfishness, he went out of his way to comfort them. Listen to what he said in verse five. He said, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here. He cared more for their feelings than his own. Yet in spite of all this assurance, these brothers lived for 17 years. Just think about it, this is a long time. 17 years never forgiving themselves.
You wanna see it? It's right there in the scripture. When their father died, in chapter 15, when Jacob died, you know what they said? They said Joseph now is gonna take revenge once our daddy's dead.
Why? Because for those 17 years, they really have never forgiven themselves. During all these 17 years and after all the magnanimous and the forgiveness of their brother and the practical demonstration of his forgiveness, after all of that, they were living with the guilt of not being able to forgive themselves. And they did not think that his forgiveness is gonna extend beyond Jacob's life. In verse 17 of chapter 50, Genesis, Joseph was so shocked at the lack of trust in his forgiveness. There in verse 17, he wept.
Friends, just please listen for a second. Isn't that exactly how so many Christians treat God? With all of his promises of forgiveness, with all of his assurance of his full pardon. Yet we go through life unable to forgive ourselves. Consequently, we indulge in self-belittling. We indulge in self-punishment. We indulge in self-atonement. And Joseph wept over his brother's distrust of his forgiveness.
You know what? I believe, and I'm very careful to say things about God, but I believe God is not honored. I believe God is grieved when we go about life self-fledged. Jesus doesn't want us to be bound by the spirit of unforgiveness. Jesus wants to set us free. He wants to set us free to love him. He wants to set us free to serve him. He wants to set us free to glorify him. He wants to set us free to praise him.
He wants to set us free to tell about him in word and in action. I'll tell you as I conclude this message, I want to just magnify something I said in my last message on forgiveness. While forgiveness takes place in the heart between you and the Lord, and in the appropriate time you offer it to the offender when they ask for it, yet it does not mean that reconciliation is always possible.
Please hear me right on this one. Many Christians put themselves under a terrible load of guilt when they forgive someone. I mean genuinely, truly forgiven someone. But the other person does not respond in kind. That is not your responsibility. That is not your responsibility. Many preachers erroneously preach that all forgiveness must be culminated in reconciliation. Not necessarily so. Life is not always that simple.
And you cannot be responsible for the reaction of somebody else. Ask between them and God. Joseph forgave his brothers and he demonstrated that by the symbol of naming his sons. The first one was Manasseh. God had made me forget. And then the other one was Ephraim.
God made me fruitful. He dealt with the past. He forgave his brothers. Some would say, well, really? That was forced upon Joseph. He didn't have a choice in the matter.
Really? Maybe in the first 13 years. But did you know that he was really, he was really the Prime Minister of Egypt. He was running a country. He could have sent Air Force One on horses, Air Force Two, got to Canaan, with Pharaoh's chariots, picked them up, no questions asked. During the seven years he reigned, even another two years. Nine years altogether he could have done it, but he didn't.
Why? Because Joseph believes in God's timing. He believed in the sovereignty of God. He waited for God's timing, not his own.
He don't want to force the issue. God's time is always the right time. God's time is always the ripe time. God's time is always the fullness of time. Don't try to force God's time or confuse it with your own time. You forgive and let God bring about reconciliation in his time.
You purpose in your heart and let God do the rest. Thank you for listening to Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Passionately proclaiming uncompromising truth for more than 30 years. Now, if you missed any part of today's episode, or maybe you want to hear content from Dr. Youssef, you can listen for free at ltw.org. You can sign up for a podcast wherever you consume your podcast, or you can use the interactive Leading the Way app.
Now, many have transitioned to consuming their content digitally. So, as we close out today's program, our team wants to share how you can get a hold of some free downloads, and it's easy. All you have to do is visit Leading the Way's interactive website. That's ltw.org. When you get there, click Store. It's right there at the top of the page. Then look for the Digital Resources link.
That'll be in about the middle of the page. Our team has selected and created some really exciting resources. Some give you tools to deepen your faith.
Others encourage you when life is trying to take you down. No matter your situation, you will find something for you, and the resources are free. Again, here's how to get yours. ltw.org. Click Store, then Digital Resources. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.
Passionately proclaiming uncompromising truth. Learn how to connect further by calling 866-626-4356. Or online. ltw.org.
