We make excuses for ourselves. And Jesus died for our sins, not for our excuses. Because remember now what we're talking about, not how you feel about what you did to them. How do they feel about what you did to them?
You're listening to Treasure Truth with pastor and author James Ford Jr, senior pastor of the Christ Bible Church in Chicago. I'm Steve Hillard. Glad you're with us. As today we continue a message entitled When I'm Sorry Isn't Enough. And pastor, I can think of times in my life maybe you can as well, where I have wronged someone. And I thought it was a very minor slight. And I've gone.
I've apologized and it wasn't over because apparently what I thought was a slight was actually a much deeper wound. And so you bring up a great point. We need to be sensitive to the person that we have wronged.
That's right. Because even as you stated already, Steve, we don't know how that impacted them. Yeah, very minimal impact on me. I said it, I did it or didn't do. But what was the impact on the person. And that's what we're trying to do. Reconciliation. Bring back the relationship, restore this relationship that we've had that's been violated. And of course, you know, what we're doing now is a couple of months ago, we did look at forgiveness from
the standpoint of Joseph. And so we were talking about how do you give forgiveness, which is sometimes tougher than needing to have to ask for forgiveness. So now we're looking at from the standpoint of the brothers, you know, how do you ask for forgiveness. And so it's very significant because I would say in the body of Christ, this is the I'll call it the sine qua non.
What do you what do you mean by that? The lowest common denominator of why we have separations, why individuals leave our church and things of that nature because we haven't mastered what Jesus says about forgiveness.
Now you bring up Joseph and his brothers, and obviously they had wronged Joseph in a very major way. But Joseph did come to the point where he did forgive them, and he totally let it go. He saw God's hand in that, but he also put his brothers through a test before he revealed who he was. If we are going to grant forgiveness of someone, do we need to see a change in them?
Well, you know, we're going to talk about that in, in this series of messages. Yeah. So you just jumped ahead a little bit. All right. But what we'll talk about is the fact that he didn't do it to test them as to the validity of their need for forgiveness. He did it to test them because even though he had already forgiven them. Genesis 45. He wanted to make sure that he could now trust them. Yeah. So we're
talking about two different issues forgiveness and trust. Because when you reestablish a relationship, because remember, some people say, well, what they did to me, I'll never, ever be in the same kind of relationship with them again. Well, it is a process for the re-establishment of the relationship. We're talking apples and oranges.
Okay. Well, don't mean to jump ahead, so let's just get right into it. We're in Genesis 50. A message called When I'm sorry isn't enough. Here is Pastor Ford.
Here's the catalyst for acknowledging. So what's the first step? Acknowledge that you wronged a person. Acknowledge that you wronged the person. Now. Now, what's the catalyst for acknowledge the the person. Why is it some people won't ask for forgiveness? Now remember. Think about this. The first step in acknowledgment took them. How many years? Anybody remember? Holler it out. Right.
17 years. So then they put him in the pit at 17, and then he's 34, sitting in power second in Pharaoh's court, which, of course, Egypt was a world power, which means he's the second, not just in Egypt, in all the world. Look at that. Just let me throw that out to some of you who've been dogged out and hated. Maybe God will use their hateration for your elevation. That's what he did for Joseph. And so here. Now what happened? 17 years to admit to each other. Write
it down. I don't have time to go through it. Genesis 4213 through 24. And in verse 21, after, after Joseph begins to try to test them, to see if the relationship can be restored because remember, it only takes one to forgive, but it takes two to restore the relationship. Let me say it again. It only takes one to forgive. It takes two to restore the relationship. What do you mean by that, Pastor Ford? Once you've been forgiven, people say, well,
you know, we ain't going to never be the same. Well, that's not true. Biblical forgiveness. Can I get an amen? Deacon Thomas, am I right about it? True biblical forgiveness is what God did for us. He didn't say, okay, now Imma forgive your sin, but I ain't going to have nothing to do with you no more.
Thank God.
No, he got more to do with us after he forgives us of our sin than he did before he forgave us of our sins. And so, no, I don't want to hear that. And even preachers say it, you know. Well, it doesn't mean you're going to be restored. Your relationship. I want to hear that. That ain't biblical. Restoration is always the goal. And so then what do you what do you mean, Pastor Ford? That is, if if you forgive me. And unlike Joseph's brothers, I don't do what
I'm supposed to do to get forgiveness. You're straight and I'm not. And there will be no restoration of the relationship until I have the biblical response to the act of forgiveness. Everybody's been forgiven their sin. Amen. Then did Jesus die for everybody? Then how come everybody ain't saved? Because everybody doesn't accept it. That's why. So a pardon is not a pardon unless you accept it. And if I accept it, it means there are elements of things I must do. Well, when he forgives you, is it
a work? No. The Bible tells me. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And that is a gift of God, not a result of works, lest any man should boast. In other words, now what I have to do put faith in the forgiveness that's based on the finished work of Jesus Christ on Calvary. Preach, Pastor Ford, I'm doing the best I can.
Amen. Amen.
And so it took them 17 years to admit it to each other. So there, there in Genesis 42 and things ain't looking right. And the brothers say, you know what? Maybe this is because of what we did to Joseph 17 years ago. See that? Don't think that everybody doesn't care about what they did to you. For some people, it's riding them to. I would say based on that, when everything in the last 17 years, everything that bad happened to them, they thought, could this be because of
what we did? Could this be because of what we did? Could this be because of what we did? Huh? Now, where are we now? Another 17 years. And so what do we find? It took them 17 years to admit it to each other. It took them 34 years to admit it to Joseph. 34 years. Reminds me of when I used to watch Happy Days. And so back in the day. Remember Fonzie man and Happy Days. What could he never say? Yeah, he said I was raw, raw, raw. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm
trying to say. And you know what? There are people like that, man. Why don't you just admit. Yes, I sinned against you. Man. Acknowledge the sin. Now notice the catalyst for acknowledgement. What's the catalyst there? Daddy died. What does that mean? It means there was a buffer between them and doing what God want them to do to forgive. Now, remember, this is the first time the word forgiveness is mentioned in the Bible, which means it's to serve as an
example of forgiveness throughout the rest of the Bible. So the first thing is to acknowledge it. And so they acknowledged it, like I said. And so the dad's dead. Now there's no buffer between us. Now, now, let me make the application. What is it that's between you that stops you from acknowledging that you wronged somebody? I wrote some things down. Let's walk through them. Number one, uh, maybe it's because, very truthfully, we didn't even know we
wronged the person. I remember Sister God. She's in heaven now. And we used to be in the old sanctuary. We had three services. I used to sweat like crazy, I still do. I run and get changed and. And then get ready for the next service. I try to greet some people. I had a little few minutes in between. I was standing there one time. She walked up to me and she said, I forgive you. And I said, you forgive me. You forgive me? Uh, what do you mean,
you forgive me? Yeah. It's under the blood. And I'm saying, okay, well, what's under the blood? She said, well, last week I tried to say something to you, and you totally ignored me. And I said, oh, last week, where was I? She said, you were right where you are now. I said it was a service being dismissed. Yeah. And was I shaking hands with people and saying, thank you for coming and, you know, hope you enjoy the worship service? Yes. And
you wanted to do what? I needed some advice about something. I said, you know what? I never even knew that I offended you. That's the first thing. And she said, I know you didn't know. And I said, well, I felt you should leave that under the blood where you said it was. You didn't even have to come and tell me that because there's so many things happening, blah, blah, blah, you know, and you know all of that. I don't even know it. But you know what I did? I
waited till everybody was gone. I went over to the side. I said, now, do you still need to talk to me? Well, no, it's God done dealt with it. Now I'm thinking to myself, that's who you should have dealt with in the first place. And then I said, forgive me. She said, well, you didn't even know. I said, forgive me because whether it was intentional or unintentional, I offended you. And that's not what I want to do. I need you to forgive me for that. Can I give you a suggestion? Yes.
Next time you got something really important, please don't try to tell it to me in a public place. Call the office and make an appointment. Because you know what some people would do to me, bro? They won't make an appointment. They'll grab me on Sunday. When I got my mind on my message and my message on my mind, or they'll wait till afterward. I need to talk to you instead of making an appointment. See, you know, and then I just give a little grace to some folk,
you know? But then they get too long. I say, okay, now we got to stop this because I done preached three times. I'm ready to go home. I'm tired. Now, if you want to, I'll tell you what we can do. You can take me to Red lobster, and, uh, we can have a conversation over a meal. Oh, yeah.
While you're listening to Treasure Truth with Pastor Ford. And I hope you're not hungry as you're listening to this broadcast. If you're like me, maybe you just got a little bit more hungry right there. But our message is called When I'm Sorry Isn't Enough. It's a look at Genesis chapter 50. And we're going to get back to this
teaching in just a moment. You know, if you did go out to lunch with Pastor Ford, you may ask him a bunch of questions about the Bible or the Christian life and why we may not be able to take him out to Red lobster. You still can ask your questions of Pastor Ford. Simply come to our website. It's Treasure Truth radio.org. Click on the contact link and go ahead and ask that question. Who knows, we might just answer that on a future broadcast. Again, our website
address is Treasure Truth radio.org and click on contact. Well, if you are just joining us our message is called When I'm Sorry Isn't enough. It's a look at Genesis chapter 50. So grab a Bible. Join us there as we get back to the teaching again. Here is Pastor Ford.
Yeah. And so we don't even know. Uh, secondly, we didn't mean to offend the person. And so there's a lot of things that are offensive to us, uh, as we interact with people and we find out, hey, that's a touchy subject with so and so. We didn't mean to do it, man. I'll tell you. You know, it's like, uh, there was a brother at the health club before they closed down, uh, Bally's in River Oaks. That's where I used to go. I know you could tell I don't.
I don't work out much anymore. Amen. But that's alright. But anyway, uh, he was he was away for a while, and he, he did this thing and and I think it was that guy. What's his name, Richard Simmons thing he did that with, with him and boom boom boom boom. He lost £130 in one year. Then he came back to the club. He did all cardio and he came back to the club to tighten everything up. He walked in the back and we were all, you know, back there working out. He walked in, I looked and saw him.
Everybody said, oh man, look at so-and-so. And I said, man, look at you. You lost a whole man. His face dropped. I call myself giving a compliment. And so when I saw his face drop, I said, oh man, I done blew it. I know I done blew it. I waited till he was getting ready to leave and so I caught up with him. I said, hey, man, uh, you know what? When I said that, your face dropped, man. Uh, man, please forgive me for that. Uh, I was just ignorant, man.
I was just excited to see it. I'm too sarcastic. That's that's my problem. You know, somebody told me one time, you know, pastor, uh, you joke too much and you play too much, and especially in the pulpit is what I say, man. Look, you ought to see what I take out of my message. Now you think it's you. You should see what I take out. I have to take stuff out because you wouldn't anyway. Anyway. I take stuff out, man. And so you know you didn't mean to offend. Number three, we feel we need to give
it time for things to settle down a bit. And, you know, they'll get over it. Just give it time. No they won't. What will happen is they will become bitter about it. And then bitter turns to anger. And then anger turns to hatred, and hatred turns to murder. Now they may not shoot you with a gun, but let somebody bring your name up, huh? Number four, we make excuses for ourselves. And Jesus died for our sins, not for our excuses. Excuses are like noses. Everybody got one.
Because remember now what we're talking about, not how you feel about what you did to them. How do they feel about what you did to them? Now, when you're talking about relationships, that becomes significantly important because this is the person that you're with all the time, or this is the person you work with every day, or this is the person you see them every day when you go to the gym. This is the person you waking up in the morning looking at them. What do you
think about when you see him? Number five we may have offended them before. I done offended them before. I'm tired of going to them asking for forgiveness. How often do you ask for forgiveness? Guess what Jesus said. He told Peter, come on. How much was it? Seven times 70. Where's my mathematician who got an A in arithmetic? And you know, that gets me, too. Because they say you gotta learn the three R's reading, writing, arithmetic, arithmetic starts with a three R's. So what is it? That's what,
490 times. How many times? Come on everybody. 490. In how many days? One. Can you imagine somebody doing something against you? 490 times in one day? I don't know about you. I can't imagine them doing it two times to me. How about you? Because the humanity in us say. Oh, no. No no no no, that ain't going to happen to me again because I ain't even speaking to him no more. All I did was ask a question number six. The person may have wronged you and never cleared it up.
So you feel justified in your offense against them. Know what my mama used to tell me? Say, what did your mama used to tell you? Two wrongs don't make a right. That's what my mama said. My mama had mother wit. She only had a third grade education. But she was smart when it came to things of the world and relationships. And here's the seventh reason why we want pride. Stinking pride. Too proud. Why? Because please forgive me. Necessitates,
first and foremost, humility and subjection. Did you hear what I said? Please forgive me. Necessitates two things humility and subjection. You have now put yourself at the behest of that person, and nobody wants that. Mm. So they acknowledge it. Now watch this. Watch this. Watch this. Watch this. Not just the catalyst for their acknowledgement. Notice the comprehensiveness of their acknowledgement. They use three words. They said we trespass against him.
We sinned against him. The evil that we done. They use three different words for doing somebody wrong. Trespass. Stepping across boundaries that I shouldn't have crossed sins. That's omission, commission and disposition. And then evil. If it were New Testament, guess what word it would be? Say what word? Pain. Ross. Say pain. Ross what word is that for evil of the words in the New Testament for evil, Poneros means pernicious evil. No, no, no. What do you mean? What
do you mean evil is evil? I'm content to just do myself. But Poneros evil is evil that infects somebody else. And so they're saying, we know that the evil we did for him affected him and infected us. And remember, we saw he he acknowledged it. You meant it for evil. You meant it for pervasive evil. But God meant it for good. I like what Peter Marshall said. Peter Marshall said, Lord, when I'm wrong, help me to admit it. When I'm right, make me easy to live with. Ain't that a good quote?
That's a good quote. Notice he says. He says all the evil we did. The word did is Gamal. And guess what Gamal means. Succession. Now get this. Here's what Gamal using the word Gamal. They could have used another word. Why are you so excited about that word? Because here's what they're saying. All the evil we did. Come on. Guess what it means that they understood the implication of the consequences of putting him in the pit, that if we hadn't put him in the pit, he never would
have went and been a slave in Potiphar's. In other words, all. And remember, it was no picnic. Okay, let me let me just show you. Let me just show you. I know I gave you the scripture, but I want to read it. I didn't read it. I just last time I just gave you the scripture, but I want to read it. I want to show you what the Bible says, that it wasn't no picnic. We always read it and I say it ad infinitum, ad nauseam. He went to the pit. He went to the Potiphar's. He went to
the prison. Then he went to the palace. But they're saying, you know, all this stuff that happened to him that was evil. That's because of what we did. Now, you need to understand that there are some people that we have violated that we need to go and say, Will you forgive me, please? Because they are suffering consequences from what we did. There are people who have been abused and misused and confused as children that are suffering for
it as adults because of what some adult did. Maybe a family member and they still suffering from that can't have a good relationship in their marriage because of what happened to them when they were children.
Well, unfortunately, I think far too many are dealing with that today. You're listening to a message from Pastor Ford called When Sorry Isn't Enough. It's a look at Genesis chapter 50, and we're going to continue this teaching on our next broadcast. If you want to make sure that you don't miss it, of course, you can always be listening to your radio, but you can also listen to each and every program online. Come to our website. It's
Treasure Truth radio.org. There you can stream programs, download mp3's, or even order copies of this broadcast on CD. Again, the website address is Treasure Truth radio.org. You know pastor, for somebody who's been listening for some time to this program, they will have heard us talk about the fact that we're listener supported. But in essence, what does that mean?
What it means is we're able to bring good Bible teaching to our listeners because they are supporting the ministry. We couldn't be on if they would not be supporting the ministry.
So there is a cost actually to doing radio production costs and airtime.
Oh yes. Most definitely. And what they're doing is investing in their own spiritual growth.
Yeah. Well, you can make an investment right now as you give a gift to treasure truth and Moody radio. Very simple to do that. Come to the website. It is Treasure Truth radio.org. Click on the link that says make a donation. Again, that's at Treasure Truth radio.org. Well, thanks for listening today. Thanks also to our producer Amy Rios for Pastor Ford, I'm Steve Hiller. Treasure truth is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.