January 18
Genesis 47:28-50:26
You have heard phrases like, "Let bygones be bygones", "just let it go and act like it never happened", "no one is perfect", "everyone does it", "just forgive and move on". There is some truth to all of these phrases. No one is perfect. If we don't overlook the faults of others, and those times that others let us down we will turn into angry, bitter people. But you also hear many people make the statement, "I will forgive but I can't forget". This is the way of the world. But those of us who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, can take comfort in a different truth. We read in Hebrews 8:12, "And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”" We read in Psalm 103:11-12, "For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west." God being perfect does not overlook sins. He is all seeing. We can act like our sins were unnoticed since no other people found out, but God saw them. This why the term, "repentance" is so important. Repentance is so much more than saying, "I'm sorry". It represents a flip from a previous mindset. No longer holding onto our old set of rights and wrongs, or comparing ourselves to other sinful people, we compare ourselves to an absolutely perfect and holy God, and realize just how lacking we are. We not only confess, but change our minds, realizing that God is right and we were wrong. If we want to experience true forgiveness, and for our sins to no longer be on our account, we need to repent, and allow the blood of Jesus, make our accounts clean. His payment for our sins is perfect, it is as though they never happened before God.
When people go to the reading of a will, most probably come with a sense of excitement to hear those last words and what has been passed down to them. We see this unfold as Jacob knows that his time is coming to an end, he gathers his twelve sons around him in Genesis 49:1. Reuben, the firstborn is probably excited, being the firstborn, and after all that sin so long ago in Genesis 35:22, was probably long forgotten, "While he was living there, Reuben had intercourse with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and Jacob soon heard about it." But we hear Jacob's final words for him in Genesis 49:3-4, "“Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength, the child of my vigorous youth. You are first in rank and first in power. But you are as unruly as a flood, and you will be first no longer, For you went to bed with my wife; you defiled my marriage couch." Simeon and Levi come next, and probably think that scheme when they murdered the entire town of Shechem is long forgotten, when they took revenge in Genesis 34. But we see Jacob's final words for them in 49:5-7, "“Simeon and Levi are two of a kind; their weapons are instruments of violence...For in their anger they murdered men,...A curse on their anger, for it is fierce; a curse on their wrath, for it is cruel I will scatter them among the descendants of Jacob; I will disperse them throughout Israel." Judah's past was not great. In Genesis 38 he treated his daughter-in-law poorly and even had sex with her. But he confessed and repented of his actions. In Genesis 37, he was the ringleader behind the selling of Joseph as a slave. But in Genesis 44, not only does he repent of sins publicly to Joseph, he even offers to substitute his life for his brother Benjamin's as we read in 44:33, "“So please, my lord, let me stay here as a slave instead of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers." So it is through Judah the next in line in whom the promised Messiah would come, despite his imperfect past, as we read in Genesis 49:10 (NKJV), "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people." The term Shiloh as used here means "the sent", "the seed", all referring to the future Messiah. When the scepter, or the ability to adjudicate capital punishment was taken away by the Romans, roughly 6-12 AD, though the Jewish leaders mourned according to the historian Josephus since it appeared that this prophecy concerning the coming Messiah went unfulfilled, little did they know the prophecy came true (as they always do), that young Jesus was living in Nazareth at the time.
As we reflect back on our lives there are many things which we wish that we could have a do-over. Wrong words, wrong actions, wrong thoughts, wrong motives, the list goes on and on. Despite this reality, we live in a deluded world that compares ourselves with one another and most come out saying that they are pretty good. We are not, we are all pretty bad, when compared to an infinitely perfect God. God knows our weaknesses and sinful ways, and His standards are perfect. He knows that each and every one of us fall short. That is why He offers another path, not one of self-righteousness and the twelve steps to leading the perfect life. His plan requires us to repent. That's it. He did everything else. Our forgiveness is not based on the perfection of our life but on the perfection of Jesus who paid for our sins when He died on the cross for us, as we read in John 19:30, “It is finished!”, which means "Paid in full". So when those of us state we will be in heaven one day, it is not because we are better than anyone, it is because we followed God's one step program of repentance. God offers us forgiveness that the world can't, peace that the world can't, and hope that the world can't. This can be done in the privacy of your own room. Please make the decision today to stop pretending to be something that you're not. We read in 1 John 1:9, "But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness." Please consider His offer and join us, the repentant sinners who rejoice in the name of Jesus Christ.
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: