The Detours of Pardon

Many of us are being hindered from our destiny because we're being held hostage by a leash around our souls called unforgiveness. Dr. Tony Evans explains why getting the pardon we need depends on the pardon we give. If you're holding on to vengeance, then you are blocking God from taking care of it for you. This is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of The Urban Alternative. When we think of hostages, we picture people being held against their will or threatened in some way.

Well, today Dr. Evans talks about the kind of hostage who could walk away at any time but refuses to go. Let's turn to the book of Genesis as he begins. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will hinder you arriving at God's destiny for you like unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is that one thing above all else that will block God's movement in your life taking you from where you are to where you're supposed to go.

When you carry the weight of yesterday, it will ruin the place of the day and the progress to tomorrow. Unforgiveness is that one area that must be addressed if you're going to reach your destiny. If anybody had a right to be angry, bitter, and hold a grudge, it was Joseph.

A dysfunctional family, a dysfunctional father, put in a pit, sold him to slavery, seduced, unjustly jailed, forgotten in jail. If anybody had a right to be mad, if anybody had a right to say life is not fair, it was Joseph. Joseph occupies from chapter 37 to chapter 50 of the book of Genesis, so God wanted us to zero in on this man's life.

He gave so much of the first book of the Bible to him because he wanted to show us the key to destiny. And one of the things that Joseph was going to have to grapple with, that you and I will have to grapple with, if we're ever going to get through the detours and arrive at God's design for our lives, destiny, his purpose for our creation and our salvation, if you're going to finish life having fulfilled the reason why God left you here, then you're going to have to—we're going to have to—deal with the issue of forgiveness. First of all, let's define forgiveness, because part of the problem is many people don't know what it is, or they don't know if they've really done it. Forgiveness in the Bible means a decision to no longer credit an offense against an offender. Forgiveness has to do with a decision.

Let's start with that. It is not first and foremost an emotion. Forgiveness is not how you're feeling in any given moment. It has to do with whether you have made the choice to delete the offense. Let me give you a qualifying measure of whether you have truly forgiven the offense and the offender, and that is, are you still seeking revenge? If you are seeking revenge, if vengeance is yours, forgiveness has not occurred, because when forgiveness occurs, the delete button is pushed, or as 1 Corinthians 13.5 says, you keep no record. Forgiveness can operate on two levels, unilateral forgiveness and transactional forgiveness. Unilateral forgiveness is when you forgive and the person hasn't asked for it, requested it, or repented of what they did to you.

You are unilaterally, that is, on your own without their involvement, granting them forgiveness. The reason you grant unilateral forgiveness is so that you can keep going, because nothing will hold you hostage to your detours, keeping you from your destiny like unforgiveness. But then there is a second level of forgiveness, transactional forgiveness. Transactional forgiveness is where there is a desire for reconciliation and restoration of a relationship. It's where the person who has offended you is willing to confess and repent in order to restore what was broken.

That's what I'm calling transactional. That's why the Bible regularly calls us to repent. It calls us to repent in order to re-establish the relationship. So that's transactional forgiveness because it's reconciliation. Now, I want to show you in chapter 45 the steps you take to validate your own forgiveness.

They're very interesting in chapter 45. Remember, this is the long story, and this is now 22 years later. This is 22. When we hit these chapters, we're 22 years from the time Joseph was sold into the pit at 17 years old. So this is years unfolding.

But I'm going to show you a little something special in a moment that you don't want to miss out on. But for right now, let's look at how you validate your own forgiveness. Chapter 45, verse 1. Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood before him. He cried, Have everyone go out from me so that there is no man with me when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. He wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it and the household of Pharaoh heard of it. What did Joseph do? He sent all the Egyptians out of the room when he confronted his brothers, and he wept. Here's how you know you're serious about forgiveness. You don't bring other people in who have nothing to do with the sin.

He told all the Egyptians, y'all leave. Y'all are not involved with this. Y'all have nothing to do with this. I'm going to confront the offenders, but y'all get out.

You always know a person who has not forgiven because of the gossip. They bring people in who have nothing to do with it, who can't fix it. They can't resolve it.

They don't even know about it. But I want to bring them into it because I want to vent because I'm seeking vengeance. True forgiveness does not bring people into it who have nothing to do with it.

Leave the Egyptians outside. Now, of course, during this time, he unveils himself to his brothers so that they now know it's Joseph, which I think means he showed them his circumcision because that would have been the thing to validate that he was his brother since the Jews were the only ones who circumcised their young males. So he revealed to the fact that he was in fact their Jewish brother, but he also removed those who had nothing at all to do with it. So if you are gossiping to everybody else about the offense and the offender, forgiveness has not occurred. Secondly, you know you have forgiven when you make the offender feel at ease with you. Verse 4, Then Joseph said to his brethren, Please come closer to me.

Ah. When you haven't forgiven, you say, get away from me. He says, come—y'all did me wrong—come close to me. I am now welcoming you into my space.

He makes them feel comfortable in his presence instead of making them feel uncomfortable in his presence. He says, come near, not get out of my sight. I can't stand you. Don't want to ever see you again. Get away from me.

No, he says, come near to me. And these were the ones who've done him wrong. So forgiveness creates a space where the offender who repents, because we're talking about transactional forgiveness now, not unilateral, where the offender can come into a space they've been extricated from because of their offense. The next thing that happens. Verse 5, Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here.

The next thing that true forgiveness will do is it will help the offender to forgive themselves when they've asked you to forgive them. And then he did one more thing. Wow. Verse 9, Hurry and go to my father, Joseph says, and say to him, my father Jacob, say to him, Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all of Egypt, come down to me, do not delay. I don't want you to miss this. He tells his brothers, go back home and tell daddy I'm okay up here in Egypt.

Wait a minute. You mean you're not going to tell him to go tell daddy what y'all did to me? What he did was he protected them from the one who would have been hurt most by it because he was seeking transactional forgiveness. If you're holding on to vengeance, watch this, then you are blocking God from taking care of it for you. If you're trying to pay them back yourself, then God will let you pay them back yourself, but God will stay out of it. The scripture says vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord, and I will repay. God believes in justice. He believes in payback, his way, his time, and he does it without your help. I'm not talking about somebody who breaks the law. That's a legal issue.

It should be addressed. But we're talking about personal vengeance. He says that I will repay.

And if you read the story, you'll find out he did. Dr. Evans will have more for us on the link between forgiving and being forgiven when he returns in a moment. Stay with us. about what Jesus' death accomplished, how to maintain unity at home and at church, what spiritual armor is all about. The course includes custom content from Tony not available anywhere else. Work through it at your own pace.

Collaborate with other students. Get your specific questions answered through our online forum. Connect with the Tony Evans Training Center at tonyevans.org. It's like having a seminary on your smartphone or other device.

Start today. TonyEvans.org. Well, Dr. Evans has been talking to us today about the detours of Parton, one of the lessons in his nine-part message series called Joseph Detours to Destiny.

It explains why many of the twists and turns we experience in life are part of God's plan and reveals ways we can learn and grow when life's road takes us in unexpected directions. Right now, we're making this collection available on CD or instantly downloadable MP3s as our way of saying thanks for your gift toward the ministry of the alternative. Just visit tonyevans.org to make your donation and request your copy of Joseph Detours to Destiny. This is a limited-time offer, so be sure to drop by tonyevans.org today or call us at 1-800-800-3222. Team members are available around the clock to help you with your resource request. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. I'll have that information for you again after part two of today's lesson.

Here's Dr. Evans. Take Judah. And the reason I want to talk about Judah is because he was the lead guy who got Joseph put in the hole to begin with when he was 17. Because it's showing you how God pays somebody back who messes over you. In the middle of the story of Joseph, Judah starts losing his sons to debt.

He gets tricked by his daughter-in-law, has an affair with his daughter-in-law, giving birth to a child from his own daughter-in-law. His whole life crumbles because God will repay. But if you don't believe that, then you get to pay it without God. So when you are forgiving, doesn't mean you skip it, doesn't mean you ignore it. He didn't ignore it. He said, you all sold me here. But God was up to something, too. Because remember, whatever happens to you has to pass through God's fingers first.

Ah. What helped Joseph to forgive? This was a painful situation he's lived through. I want you to look at chapter 41. And I want to show you what set him up for forgiveness. And you have it for you, too.

Watch this. Verse 50 through 52. Now before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potipharah, priest of On, bore to him. Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, for he said, God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household.

He named the second Ephraim, for he said, God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. God set him up for forgiveness. He gave him another family.

Remember, his family messed him up. He gave him a whole new family, and he said, my new family helped me forget my old family. And the way he kept reminding himself that he was no longer hostage to his old family was in naming his kids. He named one Manasseh and one Ephraim. Manasseh means God has helped me to forget my troubles. Well, how often did he have to say the name Manasseh?

Every time he was calling him to dinner, every time he was correcting him, when he was sending him to school, Manasseh this, Manasseh that, Manasseh this, Manasseh that. So every time he called Manasseh's name, God has helped me to forget. God has helped me to forget.

God has helped me to forget. He named the baby exactly what he needed from God. But to help Manasseh, you need to have a second baby. Ephraim. Ephraim means God has made me fruitful.

Watch this now. And he says, in the land of my affliction, God has made me fruitful. Okay, Manasseh, God has caused me to forget.

That is the pain. Ephraim, he's blessing me where I am right now. See, if you get so locked into the past that you don't see the goodness of God that he is showing you right now. See, you need to say Manasseh, but then you've got to turn and look at Ephraim.

Because Ephraim says, oh, well, what happened to me yesterday? But God is providing for me today. He's blessing me today. He's taking care of me today. And even though I had a bad yesterday, my baby's name is Ephraim today.

And I like this. He says, he's blessed me in the land of my affliction. Unforgiveness blocks you from the supernatural. Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6, forgiveness our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. You read further in the chapter and he says, for if you do not forgive, you will not be forgiven.

We all have to remember, we've got two sides to our story. The need to forgive and the need to be forgiven. There are very few people who need to forgive who don't also need to be forgiven.

Okay? Forgiveness is a beautiful word when you need it. It's an ugly word when you have to give it.

But we all need both words. Because we need to be forgiven and we need to forgive. He says, and when you do, your Father who is in heaven will forgive you. He's not talking about your salvation.

He's talking about your fellowship, your harmony, your experience with Him. You no longer walk in darkness, John chapter 1 says. You're now living in the light. You're in the light of the supernatural.

Your GPS is working now. He can move you on to the place He's taking you. God will recycle your pain to His purpose. Doesn't excuse it, vengeance is mine. It doesn't say you ignore it, not saying any of that. I'm saying you have a providentially sovereign God who can overrule it and fulfill His purposes in spite of it and, in fact, use it for where He's taking you without excusing it. You've seen the movie.

I'm sure 90% of you have. The old movie, Forrest Gump. You remember Forrest had a friend from his childhood days named Jenny. And one day, Forrest and Jenny were walking along and they came across the shack in which she was raised, which was also the shack in which she was abused by her parents. When she walked by her old home, that shack, she looked at it, she reached down, she picked up a rock and threw it at the shack. Then she reached down, she picked up another rock and threw it through the window of the shack. Then she reached down and she picked up another rock as she remembered the pain of the past. And after she had thrown as many stones or rocks as her energy would allow, she collapsed. And that's when Forrest looked at her and said, Jenny, sometimes there just aren't enough rocks. Because no matter how many you throw in, that shack is still up there.

Some of us have been throwing stones at the shack. Why did you do that? Why didn't you stop him? Why did I have to go through that? That was not fair. Stop! I can't take it anymore. You throw rocks, but the shack is still up.

Because sometimes there are not enough stones. Dr. Tony Evans will return in a moment with a final illustration to wrap up today's message. But first, if you'd like to get a copy of this lesson to review again or to share with someone you care about, the title to ask for is The Detours of Pardon. Better yet, get the full-length version of today's message along with eight other insightful lessons as a part of Tony's teaching collection called Joseph Detours to Destiny. The complete collection is available on CD or downloadable MP3s as our thank you gift for your contribution toward the continued outreach of the alternative.

Don't put it off. Visit us today at TonyEvans.org to make your contribution and resource request. That's TonyEvans.org. Or you can let one of our friendly team members assist with your request when you call us at 1-800-800-3222.

That's 1-800-800-3222. You know, the Bible tells us one of the attributes of God's Holy Spirit living and operating inside of us is kindness. And that's something we can never have too much of. Dr. Evans encourages you to share a kind word or gesture with someone this weekend as you seek to carry God's light to a world in need of His love. Well, on Monday, Dr. Evans will explain that God helps us grow into the people He wants us to be in part because of what He wants us to do.

I hope you'll join us to find out more. Right now, though, Tony's back with a final thought for those who aren't feeling free enough to forgive. But you say, Pastor, I still feel it.

I still feel it. Let me remind you about the bell. You know, the bell in the bell towers is on a rope, and you pull the rope, bong, bong, bong, bong. And then they would let the rope go. And you'd still hear bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong. Because when they let go of the rope, the bell would still be swinging, but it would slow down until it stopped because they were no longer forcing it to ring. I want to invite you today to let go of the rope because as long as you're pulling that rope, bong, bong, it's not fair, bong, you hurt me too bad, bong, you never said I'm sorry, bong. As long as you're pulling the rope, you're going to hear in your soul the sound of the bell. But when you make the decision to let it go, it may ring for a little while, bong, bong, bong, until you feel it subside because you let go of the rope. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you.