The Story of Joseph's Forgiveness

Joseph's Journey to Reconciliation

Joseph's brothers were jealous of him—and understandably so. His father Jacob made no secret that Joseph was his favorite, giving him the Coat of Many Colors. Joseph didn't help matters by wearing it and then telling his brothers about prophetic dreams in which they would bow down to him. Enraged, they planned to kill him, but when Ishmaelites passed by, they sold Joseph into slavery instead. They dipped his coat in blood and showed it to Jacob, who believed a wild beast had devoured his son. The brothers thought they had gotten away with it, but the Bible says: "Be sure your sin will find you out."

Joseph was sold to Potiphar, an Egyptian officer. Though he had never worked before, God was with him, and he was exalted to head of Potiphar's household. But then came sexual temptation. Potiphar's wife repeatedly propositioned him, yet Joseph refused. Most people avoid affairs because they fear getting caught, but Joseph had the perfect opportunity—a foreign country where no one knew him, where no one back in Canaan would find out. He could have justified it, but he didn't. When asked why he said no, Joseph's answer was simple: God knows. Imagine being that devoted to God.

For his integrity, Joseph was falsely accused of rape and thrown into prison. There seemed to be no future for him. He did the right thing and things got worse. But God had something prepared for him that Joseph could not yet see.

From Prison to Power

The Pharaoh had a dream no one could interpret. The gift of interpretation that Joseph possessed became known, and he was brought before Pharaoh. Joseph interpreted the dream, and overnight he became the second most powerful man in Egypt—Prime Minister.

Through Joseph's prophecy, a famine came to the land. When it struck, Joseph's brothers had to come to Egypt to buy food. They were required to go before the Prime Minister to beg for provisions. Joseph always knew this day would come. He had thought it would be his moment of vindication—the day he could look at them and say, "Gotcha." He could have thrown the book at them. But by the time the dream was fulfilled, Joseph was a changed man. He was broken. He had totally forgiven his brothers.

The Revelation and Its Meaning

Joseph Makes Everyone Leave

When Joseph revealed his identity, he had all attendants leave the room first. He was surrounded by his cabinet, interpreters, and his brothers—yet he cleared everyone out before speaking to them in Hebrew.

Why? Because Joseph knew what he was about to do. He was going to persuade them to return to Canaan, bring their father Jacob and the entire family to Egypt to spare them from the remaining five years of famine. But he also knew something else: if word leaked out about what his brothers had planned to do to him, every Egyptian would despise them. Joseph was a hero to Egypt, but his brothers would be seen as murderers and thieves.

Joseph made sure nobody would ever know. Behind closed doors, he told them in their own language: "I am Joseph."

The Proofs of Total Forgiveness

The question many ask is: How do we know we've totally forgiven? There are several clear proofs from Joseph's example.

Proof Number One: You Tell Nobody

Joseph kept the secret. He didn't broadcast what his brothers had done to him. When we are hurt, our first instinct is to tell others. We get on the phone, we spread the story. Why? We can't bear the thought that the world doesn't know what was done to us. Especially if it's someone significant or well-known, we want to spill the goods.

There are two exceptions to this rule. First, you may need to tell one other person for therapeutic reasons. Second, if a crime must be reported to authorities, that is your duty. But beyond these exceptions, you tell no one. Instead, you pour out your complaint to the Lord, as the Psalmist says. The old spiritual says it best: "Nobody knows the troubles I've seen, nobody knows but Jesus." That's how Jesus likes it. When you've told two, three, five, ten, or five hundred people, you're no longer confiding in God.

Proof Number Two: You Don't Let Them Be Afraid

These brothers were terrified in Joseph's presence. But Joseph's response was to draw them close: "Come close to me." He simply wanted to love on his brothers.

When we haven't forgiven, we keep the other person nervous and afraid. Husbands and wives play this game all the time. But 1 Corinthians 13:5 says that love keeps no record of wrongs. Why do we keep records? So we can prove we've suffered, so we can throw it back in their face later. "I won't forget what you just said," we tell our spouse. But any marriage in trouble right now could be healed by sunrise tomorrow if both partners would stop pointing the finger and demanding the other go first.

This is where the anointing comes. Do it for Jesus.

Proof Number Three: You Don't Want Them to Feel Guilty

Joseph says to his brothers: "Now don't be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here." He doesn't want them to wallow in guilt.

But when we haven't truly forgiven, we want the person who hurt us to know how much they've hurt us. We want them to feel bad. We want them to be punished a little bit. What gets our goat is that the person who hurt us doesn't know how much we're hurting, and we just want them to know.

Yet you've got to be willing for them not to know. This is hard. If you go up to someone after this sermon and say, "I forgive you," but you're hoping they feel terrible about what they did, you haven't truly forgiven them. You're still punishing them.

Proof Number Four: You Let Them Save Face

Joseph tells his brothers: "Look, God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. Therefore it was not you who sent me here, but God." He's covering for them. He's letting them save face.

Instead of rubbing their noses in what they did, Joseph acts as if it was all part of God's plan. He makes it easy for them. It's an oriental expression—you cover for them, you act like you don't know what they did, or you even justify what they did to make them feel better about it.

Dale Carnegie's principle applies here: if you let another person save face, you win a friend for life.

Proof Number Five: You Protect Them from Their Darkest Secret

The brothers would have been terrified at the thought of having to return to Canaan and tell their father Jacob the truth about the Coat of Many Colors. They would rather die than confess what they had done.

But Joseph knew this. He protected them from their darkest secret. He wrote the script for them—word for word what to say to their father when they returned. He wouldn't let them tell the truth.

This is how God is with all of us. We've all got skeletons in the closet. God doesn't want to yank out those skeletons and make us look bad. "As far as the East is from the West, so far are our transgressions removed from us." The blood of Jesus Christ washes away all sin.

If you know something about someone that could ruin them, they're scared to death you'll tell. Don't ever let them fear that. Don't let them know that anyone will ever know.

Proof Number Six and Seven: You Bless Them and Pray for Them

You ask God to bless them, and you mean it. And it's a life sentence.

We know Joseph's forgiveness was genuine because seventeen years later, after Jacob died, the brothers came running to Joseph, terrified. They were sure he had only forgiven them while their father was alive, and now he would punish them. They made up a story, saying Jacob had commanded Joseph to forgive them.

But Joseph wept and said: "What's the matter with you? I told you seventeen years ago I forgave you. I forgave you then. I forgive you now."

Total forgiveness must come from your heart. You agree to pray for them—not for a day or two, but a week later, a year later, twenty years later. The people who hurt me have no idea I still pray for them. I actually pray that God will bless them. You say, "I couldn't do that." But you can. It's a matter of doing what will make you more like Jesus.

The Anointing and the Cost

If it's the anointing you want—that power of the Spirit that enables your gift to function with ease—then this is the path. But it costs everything.

I know what I'm asking. The hardest thing you will ever have to do is to totally forgive someone. It goes right against nature. The most natural thing in the world is to want to see them punished. But here's what Jesus asks: let your enemy off the hook, and then pray for them and bless them.

I only have one hope: that you will receive this word. If you want a greater anointing of the Holy Spirit more than you want anything else in the world, then you're in the right place. Otherwise, for the next fifteen to seventeen minutes you'll be bored. But if you accept this word and keep it, you will never be the same again.

Standing for Forgiveness

Let me tell you a story from my days at Westminster Chapel. It was a traditional church, and during worship we were singing the great English hymn "Praise My Soul the King of Heaven." In came a woman who had done irreparable emotional damage to one of our children. When I saw her, I lost it. I couldn't sing—I just mouthed the words.

Then I had to read the scripture, and we went through another hymn and the pastoral prayer. Those were long minutes. I don't know how I got through it. What saved me was offering time. I sat down next to the pulpit while a deacon welcomed visitors and announced the morning offering. That gave me about five minutes just to sit there and reflect.

But then something remarkable happened—something that had never happened before and hasn't happened since in quite the same way. The Holy Spirit entered into a conversation with me. I won't say this is verbatim, but it's pretty close.

The Lord said: "RT, you want to see Revival in Westminster Chapel?"

"Yes, Lord," I said.

"Good. How much do you want to see Revival?"

"Oh, more than anything."

"Good. Which would you rather have—Revival, or for me to send judgment on that woman out there?"

"Revival," I said immediately.

"Then pray for that woman."

"I'll pray for that woman."

"Ask me to bless her."

"Bless her."

"Say it again."

"Bless her."

"Say it again."

"Bless her."

"Do you mean that?"

"Yep."

"So what if I answer your prayer and take you seriously and I bless her?"

I said, "Lord, you wouldn't do that, would you?"

"But that's the point."

And I had to start saying, "Bless her, bless her, bless her." It was killing me, because I knew that God was going to bless her. And guess what? He did. That woman thrives today in London.

I've wondered if I could resist going up to her in heaven and saying, "I know why God blessed you." But I tell you that story because it was not only life-changing—that's where I first noticed a higher level of anointing.

The Connection Between Forgiveness and Anointing

People want to know how I've written all these books. They think it's my education, my brain. But no—it's the anointing. I began to get thoughts I couldn't write them fast enough. Publishers were queuing up saying, "Give us a book!" I couldn't write them because the thoughts came so rapidly.

God will do that for you. You may not become an author, but you've got a gift that nobody else has. You say, "But RT, you don't know about my gift. There's no demand for my gift." Well, what kind of demand would you think there was for Joseph's gift?

Can you imagine Joseph coming into the employment office on a Monday morning and saying, "I need a job." The interviewer says, "Okay, sir, sit down. What is your name?" "Joseph." "Good. Your address?" "Yes." "Well, what do you do?" "I interpret dreams." "Oh, good. Thank you very much. We'll write your name down and be in touch."

You may feel that your gift is about as relevant as that. But who would have known that the day would come when Pharaoh had a dream that nobody could interpret? And Joseph, who had a past and no hope of a future—who was known as a rapist—God overruled everything. Joseph interpreted the dream, and it changed everybody.

God can do that with the most insignificant gift. The question is whether you can totally forgive, pray for them, and actually ask God to bless them—and mean it.

The Call to Stand and Forgive

End of sermon? Well, not quite. Because I made a deal with you. I don't know if you accepted it, but here was the proposition: if I showed in the last twenty-five minutes or so that you haven't totally forgiven after all, would you then do it?

That's the deal.

I'm going to ask you something. If you see now that you have some business with God—someone you need to forgive—I'm going to ask you to stand to your feet. Not yet. In about sixty seconds from now, I'm going to ask you to stand.

You say, "In front of all these people?" Yes. They might look at it that way, but does it matter? Don't you care what God knows? Worry about what God thinks, not what people think.

In forty-five seconds, I'm going to ask you to stand. Don't wait to see if anybody else stands. This is just between you and God. In the next thirty-five seconds, I'm going to ask you to stand.

Don't stand—unless by standing you're prepared to say:

I won't tell what they did.

I've already done it; I won't do it anymore.

I won't let them be afraid of me.

I will protect them from their darkest secret.

I will let them save face.

I accept that I pray for them—not just for one day or tomorrow, but as long as it takes from this day forward.

If you're prepared to forgive them: five, four, three, two, one—stand to your feet right now and let the angels know you're prepared to forgive them and ask God to bless them.

We have a moment from Isaiah 55:6: "Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near." He's near right now. This may not come back again like this. Seize the moment.

Entering into a Covenant of Forgiveness

Normally I would ask people to come forward, but we'd have too much congestion. I would like to do that, but what I'm going to do now is pray with you. Because what you've just done is the easy part. The hard part will be an hour from now. You think, "What came over me?" Tomorrow morning after coffee, you'll question it.

We haven't prayed yet. You can still get out of it. But we're going to pray now and enter into a prayer covenant, and that makes it serious. Let me tell you why: every covenant in the Bible was ratified by blood. That was serious business.

We're going to enter into a covenant that was ratified two thousand years ago when Jesus shed his blood on the cross. If you're ready to pray, repeat these words out loud. Don't say them if you don't mean it:

Lord Jesus, I need you. I want you. I'm sorry for my sins. Wash my sins away by your blood. I'm sorry for my unforgiveness. I ask you to forgive them. I ask you to bless them. I set them free. I set them free. I set them free. Come, Holy Spirit. Thank you for your patience with me. As best as I know how, I give you my life in Jesus' name.

When You Fall Short

One last thing: when you mess up, and you will—we're not perfect—you'll forget. You'll point the finger. You'll say something about somebody you shouldn't have. The devil will come along and say, "See? There you broke the covenant. It's over. Forget it." That's what the devil wants you to do.

But when you make a mistake, when you mess up, remember 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Confess it, and that way you have an unbroken relationship with God.

I promise you, I guarantee you: the anointing will set in. The reason I'm so anxious to put this to you is that if I were to come back a year or two from now, I want to think this is still happening. You don't do it just today and say, "I've done it once." No—it's a life sentence. That's the commitment.

I'm finished.