Sunday 13th September – Standing Out – Pastor Adrian Kitson

13-09-2026, Acts 7:9-16, forgiveness, Genesis 50:15-21, pastor adrian kitson, Stand out

Genesis 50:15-21

¹⁵When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?’ ¹⁶So they sent word to Joseph, saying, ‘Your father left these instructions before he died: ¹⁷“This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.” Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the od of your father.’ When their message came to him, Joseph wept.

¹⁸His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. ‘We are your slaves,’ they said.

¹⁹But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? ²⁰You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. ²¹So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

Acts 7:9-16

⁹‘Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him ¹⁰and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.

¹¹‘Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food. ¹²When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our forefathers on their first visit. ¹³On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family. ¹⁴After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all. ¹⁵Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our ancestors died. ¹⁶Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.

⁵¹‘You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: you always resist the Holy Spirit! ⁵²Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him – ⁵³you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.’

Many say that you and I are living in the toughest environment in which to bear clear witness to Christ.

I used to think that this was mainly because we live in a generally wealthy society. It is very hard for you and me to convince people they actually need God. People often believe they are already ‘living the dream’.

Over these last years I have learnt a lot about the conditions under which Christianity really flies; where it really stands out and where incredible stories of transformation of people are readily told.

Christianity seems to thrive in places where most people are not ‘living the dream’ financially or in many other ways: in places where poverty, hunger, injustice and oppression live.

Christian communities thrive in places where it is very unlike the surrounding community; Africa, South America, South-East Asia, Middle East, China, Korea and the like.

Today we hear the end of the sermon the first martyr of the Christian church, Stephen, proclaimed as the stones were being gathered by the powerful Jerusalem elite to kill him. He really stood out!

We are horrified at the scene. And yet amazed as St Luke goes on tell us that this terrible injustice was the beginning of the rapid expansion of the Christian gospel way beyond Jerusalem, as Jesus said it would go. Just like Joseph ends up telling his brothers, I think Luke would agree,

²⁰You (the brothers) intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

This first church really stood out, often so much that it was viewed as a threat to all those who had the most to lose from this whole other way of being human, as we see here with Stephen and as we saw with Jesus.

But here in our society, luckily, I have not seen and angry mob gathering stones for a good execution down at Coulthard House because of someone bearing witness to Jesus!

But on the other hand, we don’t seem to stand out much. Or at least it is hard to get it to stand out enough to bear witness to Jesus’ hope.

I think I know why. Our Western culture is squarely founded on the basic values of Christianity. Ancient Roman culture did not have any of the basic beliefs we have that come from the Bible in the ten commandments, Sermon on the Mount, the teaching of Jesus and the witness of the first church. Neither do animist, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or secularist societies in our time

For example:

The belief that every person has dignity and should be respected and protected because we are all made in the very image of God was nowhere to be seen in Roman culture. The poor, the weak, the dying, the orphaned, the widowed, the disabled are just that and there is no expectation that the community, the government or the palace should protect or value them.
The value that people have a right to speak their views on things because their story matters are not in Roman culture either. You can never disagree with the king or governor. He has ultimate power over you and lethal force to back it up.
The value that marriage is sacred and binding for life and is to be treated with utmost respect. Not so in Roman culture. A Roman male had all rights to do to any woman or man whatever he wanted anytime – all legal, and in fact celebrated.
Ancient rulers had no such value that powerful people should act justly for all and be impartial in their ruling of people.

Christianity stood out then and stands out now in places that have very different values and faith in different gods.

And these foundational values have been ingrained in my life all my life, as they have yours. We might even struggle to belief that other people don’t share these values, so basic and familiar they are to everyone in a Western country, Christian or not.

So, what is our unique gift to our community, our friends, our extended family who share a common moral code and believe that to be Christianity, but don’t know either the depths of their brokenness and sin or the heights of Jesus’ forgiveness and love for them?

What makes us stand out enough to get room to speak the true and unique Jesus who is anything but just another teacher or influencer or philosopher on life or assistant to my life project – but who says he is actually God here and now; who becomes our sin, dies for our sin, kills death’s hold over us all, names our sin, suffers with us and calls us to repent of all the ways we have mistrusted him and trusted ourselves; who freely offers his new and full and future-filled love and hope so it can flood our wayward souls to a new peace, a new life, a new future beyond simply ‘living the dream’?

Joseph knows. His story of how he forgave shows us the unique gift we bring to the world. It shows that God’s forgiveness is not earned, not expected and hard to dismiss. It shows that forgiveness makes us how we are different and how we stand out and how we might speak good news into a hurting world.

The Joseph story in Genesis is a masterclass in forgiveness. That great moment of full reconciliation between the powerful PM of Egypt (Joseph) and his traveling foreigners (the other brothers) has already occurred before this conclusion to the story (chapter 45).

There were tears and hugs and relief and joy to burn in that great moment when forgiveness poured into their souls and their family, their life and the future changed.

Joseph could have paid them all back for throwing him into that hole in the ground and selling his off to travelling traders all those years ago. But here he is with all the wealth in the world, power in the country and comfort in the palace cutting through all of that with forgiveness that could never be earned by those who wronged him so badly; a forgiveness he knows from his God that he now lives out in real time.

I am thinking these days that the single most important and transforming gift we offer this well-healed, comfortable and distracted community is forgiveness, peace between people, reconciliation between us.

The practice and heart of forgiving wrongs and forgiving wrong people is the central, highest, most unique thing about us Christians that we need to repeatedly live out to be Jesus’ people where he has placed us (according to Jesus – Matthew 18).

It makes sense. When raw unearned forgiveness pops up in life – either in your own or in the media, it is very hard to write off; very hard to dismiss.

Like Danny and Leila Abdullah who publicly forgave Samual Davidson for mowing down their three daughters, Antony, Angelian and Sienna and a niece, Veronique, that tragic day in Oaklands, Sydney (2020). They told the world that it was their faith in God, Father Son and Spirit that guided them away from hatred and forever bitterness to the freedom of forgiveness. They said they forgave that man.

Danny later followed up a few years later by allowing cameras to accompany him to a face-to-face meeting with Davidson to reaffirm mercy to him. Sounds lie Joseph. Sounds like Stephen. Does it sound like me; like you?

Can there be such forgiveness. Do I need forgiveness like that? Am I supposed to forgive like that?

Stephen would say yes, yes and yes. He says it all comes from Jesus of Nazareth whom the world tried to ignore and dismiss but couldn’t.

For Stephen it ends like this:

⁵⁸Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. ⁵⁹While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ ⁶⁰Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he died.

Sound familiar? It should. Stephen was only speaking what he had heard spoken in the same moment by the Saviour.

“Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.

Father into your hands I commit my spirit”.

If Joseph, Jesus and Stephen say anything to you today, surely, they say that forgiveness is everything for your live. It is your unique contribution; your highest priority; the thing at which you work and try the most – and repeatedly (70×7).

Forgiving people for all wrong is God’s unique transforming power at work in people like us, if we commit to it, learn it, do it, speak it as much as it is up to us.

I am hearing that;

When I have got all the power, I am called to lay it down and forgive.

When I have all that money can buy I am called to forgive.

When I am under threat, I am called to forgive.

When I am being treated unjustly, I am called to forgive.

It is such a high mark. I know I can’t do it. I know I need outside help all the time.

I have it as Stephen and Joseph did. God’s Spirit by Word and sacred gifts in this sacred community speaks, calls, promises, helps, sustains. This is the broken and damaged Saviour now risen and ruling through my weaknesses. I have hope. The forgiving community is here. The world has hope.

In the most conflicted times, we can say with Joseph,

²⁰You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. ²¹So then, don’t be afraid

Stand out, friend, by receiving that forgiveness from the Saviour and living it as best as you can. It is how many lives will be saved.