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Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions, week 9, day 3 of our look together to the
book of Genesis, and that means Genesis chapter 43. Genesis chapter 43, we learn
about forgiveness. We looked in an earlier chapter about the family of Joseph
and how this family had to begin to learn to forgive because of all the
struggles in their lives.

You've got these ten brothers who sell their younger brother into slavery and
they lie to their father when he was killed. You certainly have a family that
needs to learn to forgive, and Genesis 43 is an insightful look at what happens
to a family when someone has been wronged, when there's a deep resentment lying
between the four walls of that family. In Jacob's family, the wrong had been
done within the family itself.

However, whether the cause of a deeply seeded unforgiveness comes from inside or
outside the family, the result is the same. Everyone begins to play predictable
parts in this family system that's now clogged by unforgiveness. Here in Genesis
43, there is this family that's in trouble because of the decisions that they've
made, and you see them playing all the parts that a family plays, all the parts
that a family has to break out of.

Let me just walk through in this chapter the different parts that are played by
the different members of this family. You're going to recognize some of these
things in your own family possibly. It's going to be a reminder of how God can
help you to break out of this system, this unhealthy system into something new.

This is what happens to a family when there's deep seeded unforgiveness, when
there's long term problems that are not addressed in the family. You have these
different people playing these different parts. First you have the Jacob who is
the father in this family, and he is, I would say, the defeated skeptic.

Listen to what happens in Genesis 43, 13, and 14. Take your brother also and go
back to this man at once. Remember last time when they were talking about
whether they were going to take Benjamin or not, here he said you can take him.

Now back to the verses. Jacob says, "And may God Almighty grant you mercy before
the man, so that he will let your other brother and Benjamin come back with you.
As for me," listen to this, Jacob says, "As for me, if I am bereaved, I am
bereaved.

" Remember that Joseph is now the ruler of Egypt, but Jacob thinks that he's
dead, and that the brothers have no idea that it's Joseph that they met with
when they went to Egypt to get food because of this worldwide famine. Joseph has
asked for the brothers to bring back the youngest brother Benjamin when they
return for more food, but Jacob doesn't trust these brothers to take the boy
with them. So he's descended to this place of the defeated skeptic in his
thinking.

He's trapped between the family is going to starve if the youngest brother
doesn't go, or he sends his youngest brother to get food and he's going to get
killed. And so Jacob says this phrase, "If I'm bereaved, I am bereaved. "
There's this deep sense of powerlessness over life, of not being able to do
anything while being sure that there's another tragedy around the next corner.

That's the negative skeptic. It's often, though not always, the oldest in the
family. Instead of leading your family to hope, you feel that life has kicked
all the hope right out of you.

That's one of the parts that's played in a family that's caught up in
unforgiveness. It's caught up in an unhealthy addictive pattern. A second part
that's played is the part of Judah, and that is the responsible martyr.

Listen to what Judah says in verses 8 to 10. "Then Judah said to Israel his
father, 'Send the boy along with me, and we will go at once, so that we and you
and our children may live and not die. I myself will guarantee his safety.

You can hold me personally responsible for him. If I don't bring him back to you
and set him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life. As it
is, if we had not delayed, we could have gone and returned twice.

" Judah convinces his father, Benjamin, to send Benjamin along the way by
promising to bear the blame all my life. Now, it may sound like Judah is the
only one who gets it right in this chapter in these verses until you realize he
hasn't yet been honest about the blame that he already bears, the blame for
selling Joseph into slavery now these 20 years ago. Most families have within
them this responsible martyr figure, somebody like Judah, somebody who says,
"I'll take the blame.

My shoulders are broad. Put it all on me. " But if the problem is with somebody
else, or if they're making grand statements without admitting past failings,
this martyr complex is really just another part of a broken family.

It doesn't solve the problem. It keeps people from looking honestly at the
problem. So you've got Jacob, you've got the skeptic, the person who has
resigned to defeat.

You've got Judah, you've got the martyr. And then you have the other brothers,
and I'd call them the innocent bystanders. Besides a few comments from Reuben,
the other brothers don't say much in these verses.

They act the part of the innocent bystander. Now, they are far from innocent, of
course. Every one of them but Benjamin was there when Joseph was sold into
slavery.

Each one of them was keeping this terrible secret from their father. But over
the years, they'd likely come to determine that it really wasn't so much their
fault. Joseph had brought it on himself because of his selfish pride, they
probably told themselves.

The attitude of the innocent bystander is revealed perfectly when Jacob asked
the brothers why they told Joseph that they didn't know it was Joseph, of
course. Why they told that Joseph, they didn't know that their younger brother
Benjamin was not with them on the first trip to Egypt for food. In verse 47, the
Bible says these brothers replied, "The man questioned us closely about
ourselves and our family.

Is your father still living? " he asked, "Do you have another brother? " We
simply answered his questions.

How are we to know that he would say, "Bring your brother down here. " How were
we to know? It's not our fault.

We're just a victim of these circumstances outside of our control. That's the
innocent bystander. And then, in this family system, you have Benjamin.

And Benjamin is the sacrificial lamb. It is decided that Benjamin will go with
the brothers to get food from Joseph in Egypt. The Bible says in chapter 43
verse 15, "So the men took the gifts and doubled the amount of silver, and
Benjamin also.

And they hurried down to Egypt and resented themselves to Joseph. " The telling
truth is that even though this entire chapter is about whether they will take
him, Benjamin himself never gets to say a word. There is at least one Benjamin
in almost every family that's broken by unforgiveness.

It's often the youngest or the weakest. And they are constantly put in places of
physical and emotional danger in order to "protect the family. " Whether through
being cut off from normal relationships with friends to support a hiding family
or being thrown out of the home at an early age without the safety of a parent's
care, they've become the sacrificial lamb for the family.

There's all these parts that are being played in a family that's broken by
unforgiveness. The sacrificial lamb, the innocent bystander. But there's one
other part.

There is the Joseph. And that is the one who holds the keys to change. When a
family is stuck or broken because someone needs to forgive, the keys to change
are held by the one who needs to forgive.

Now of course, each person in the family can move on in a healthy way
individually without that other person forgiving. But in order for the family to
be healed, for that group to be healed, for there to be a sense of release and
renewal in the family interactions and conversations, forgiveness must happen.
And the one who is holding on to the bitterness is the one who can release the
family by forgiving.

Only that one. Joseph did not immediately express forgiveness to his family that
had so hurt him. In fact, instead of forgiving him as we began to see last week,
he tests them.

He does things like giving the younger brother Benjamin greater portions of food
at a meal to see if the others would be jealous. Or even plants false evidence
against Benjamin we're going to see to see if the others would abandon him. He
tests them, we're going to see, to see if he could trust them.

The truth is you, as a believer in Jesus Christ, do not have to trust someone
before you can forgive them. Yes, you must trust them before you can allow that
person back into your life in a way that where they might do something or say
something that would hurt you again. No doubt about that.

But that is different from forgiveness. Restoration and forgiveness are two
separate things. Forgiveness can be immediate.

Restoration takes time and the rebuilding of trust. Here's what I'm saying. The
good news is this.

You can trust God and forgive right now. You may be holding on to a hurt and
because of that you are holding your entire family in a prison by refusing to
forgive. This isn't just about you.

This unforgiveness, whether you recognize it or not, it's affecting every person
that's close to you, every person that you love. And choosing to forgive does
not mean that you must trust the other person. It means that you must trust God
and God alone in order to forgive.

That other person who hurt you, they do have a responsibility. They have a
responsibility to you to rebuild trust if possible, if the relationship is to be
restored. But you have a responsibility to forgive so that it doesn't damage
every other relationship in your family.

You want to be a great parent. You want to be a great son, a great daughter, a
great husband, a great wife, forgive. Recognize that you are forgiven but also
learn to forgive.

You can do everything else right in your family but still that deeply held
resentment will seep into everyone's life in horrifying ways. To those who are
closest to you, holding on to resentment in your heart is like building your
home on a toxic waste dump. Now of course it's hard to forgive and you will
never be motivated to forgive by feelings of guilt over what might happen to
your family if you don't forgive.

Guilt cannot motivate forgiveness. Only God's love can do that. So instead of
being motivated to forgive right now by saying, "Oh God, what's happening to my
family if I don't forgive?

" Be motivated to forgive by saying, "Oh God, what have you done for me on the
cross of Jesus Christ? You gave your life for me. " That's the motivation for
forgiveness.

That's the strength and the power to forgive. Right now as we pray, say, "Jesus
Christ, I don't have it in me to forgive but you, through what you did on the
cross, you've put it in me to forgive because you've forgiven me and because of
that now, now Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive. I forgive them.

I let it go. I recognize that that hurt is real but I also recognize that you
are real and so instead of holding on to that bitterness, I let it go. I put it
into your hands.

You are the judge. I am not. I put it into your hands.

I trust you with it. Lord, I want to move on with my life. I don't want to live
in the past.

I want to live in the present and towards the future. I want to live with hope.
Jesus Christ, I recognize how much you have forgiven me and so I forgive.

In your name, amen.