Transcription
Foreign. When you have it, say, "I'm ready." Says then, when 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 wrong we did to him?" They knew they were wrong, so they sent word to Joseph, saying, "Your father left these instructions before he died: 'This is what you ought to say to Joseph: I asked 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 God of your father.'"
When the message came to him, Joseph wept. His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. "We are your slaves," they said. But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children." And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them again.
This is Sunday on Wednesday, so I'm speaking out of the overflow of Sunday. I just want to use a different topic. I don't want you to be unnerved and upset. If you weren't here Sunday, you're going to get a review, but I want to talk to you tonight about the power of perspective. The power of perspective. Everybody say, "Getting out of my prison is all about my perspective." Catch this. On Sunday morning, we attempted to use Joseph's life, tempted to use his life as a teaching tool to teach us some kingdom keys that would aid and assist us in breaking out of prisons that are the consequence of unprocessed pain.
This is a difficult truth to digest, but it is a truth that is seen consistently all throughout scripture. In life, you will ultimately and inevitably have to experience pain. In life, you will ultimately and inevitably have to experience pain. In life, you will ultimately and inevitably have to experience pain. You can live a blameless life, that's not a perfect life, but a life that is above reproach, like Job did, and without explanation, the rug is pulled out from under you, and things are turned upside down. Somebody say, "Pain."
I want to share this with you. I want to share this with you. You got to get this because I don't think that this is a truth that is articulated enough from pulpits, specifically when it comes to contemporary churches. And as a consequence, we are meandering through life without having a proper perspective on what we can potentially face. Therefore, to be surprised by the inevitable is to be naive. The Bible says Jesus said, "In this world, because it's broken, it's flawed, it's not perfect, in this world, you will have tribulation." You're dealing with a broken world that is filled with broken people. Are you hearing me? And broke things hurt people. Somebody say, "Broken world." Now say, "Broken people."
When I say broken world, what does that mean? It means that nature is broken. So nature does not function the way God originally intended for it to function. So you have earthquakes and tornadoes and tsunamis and hurricanes because the Bible says all of creation is groaning, waiting, expecting, anticipating the manifestation of the sons of God. The whole created order is broken. Fires and floods. Life happens. It rains. The Bible says it rains on the just and the unjust, saved and unsaved. If you walk out in the rain, you can get wet. Are you hearing me?
So I know you're probably wondering, "Pastor, if, if things, if life can happen to me, what's the good news? What's the gospel?" It's this: the gospel is not a gospel of avoidance. It's the gospel of overcoming. So for me to be victorious, I don't have to avoid. But the things that God does not allow me to avoid, he gives me the strength to be able to overcome. Somebody say, "The power of perspective." Perspective.
I don't want to make you cynical. There are certain things, yes, there's certain pain that's avoidable. There's certain pain that's avoidable. Wherever there's the app, you heard me say this, wherever there's the absence of wisdom, there'll be the presence of pain. Ignorance is expensive. It's painful, right? Does that, am I making sense? Ignorance is expensive. It's painful. So certain things, when there's an absence of wisdom in our life, it hurts. It's gonna hurt. So the wiser we get, the safer we become. And is there anybody in the room that'll say, "That's why in this season of my life, I want some wisdom"?
[Applause]
Sometimes there are people who make jokes, uh, who people who've known me since I've been in the area, and they make jokes about, uh, my age, right? And, uh, "Oh man, when you first got here, when I first met you, you were 26. Now you're 36." And they make a joke. And straight up, I really have no problem getting older. Let me tell you why. Because if I have to be as stupid as I was at 22 to go back to 22, I don't want to be 22 again. See, that may not be your testimony, but that was my testimony, right? If I gotta have the 22-year-old brain to get the 22-year-old energy, I'm gonna take the 36-year-old energy with a 36-year-old brain. Because there's some stuff I had to learn the hard way. I don't want to relearn again. There are some tears I shed, I don't want to shed those tears again. There's some experiences I've had, I don't want to have those experiences again. Am I making sense?
Somebody say, "Pain." Yeah. This is my point. Broken world, broken people. And some pain in your life is going to come from broken people, undeserved, unsolicited. Somebody say, "The power of perspective." When I don't have perspective, I'll be confused and say, "Why in the world did they do me like this?" And I've done absolutely nothing to them. Somebody say, "Perspective." Yeah.
So I wish I could tell you, "Never have pain." But you will. You're going to have to bury somebody one day. You don't want to bury. Right? Pastor, why are you, why are you pressing the gas so on this? Why, why are you so aggressive? Why are you so assertive? Why are you so forthright when it comes to this? Because I have seen what happens to people's faith when it is not grounded in biblical reality. I see, I, I see that when you don't teach people biblical, the comprehensive biblical, a comprehensive biblical perspective that includes high seasons, low seasons, that includes winters and falls and springs and and summer, that, that when you don't teach them that, when they hit a winter season, their faith is shaken, their view on God is questioned, their commitment is shaken. The inner, y'all not hearing me? The enemy knows that when, when your perspective is inaccurate, your faith is fragile. So he knows when to send the right storm at the right time to get somebody off the right track.
[Applause]
Don't miss this. In this world, troubles ringing your doorbell. Not all the time, but sometimes, at some point, it's going to hit your door. You complain about it. We could say, "It shouldn't be like this." We can say, "This isn't fair." But after we get through complaining, we still have to deal with what is camped out outside our door. Did you hear me? The power of perspective. Pain. And some pain, church, is going to be inflicted upon you by other people. And if you don't process it properly, that unprocessed pain becomes a prison that keeps you trapped, and the perpetrator is free.
[Applause]
Got me? Now, that's the whole point of this series. What we've learned from Moses is this: is that we've learned that your calling is not your healing from unprocessed pain. So just because I've been called doesn't mean I've been healed. Number two, we learned from Joseph that your success is not your healing from unprocessed pain. That you can be blessed by it, but still mad at it. That you can like where you are, but hate how you got there. Right? Okay. Because most of the people in the room, we could say, "You love the one." Most of us can say, "We like the one we with," but we don't like the breakups we had to go through to get there. Because you can like where you are, but hate how you got there. So your success is not your healing. Does it make sense?
So I've got to make sure I process my pain. Joseph did. And we taught you on Sunday what he did. He did three things. Number one, he recognized. Right? He recognized that he was hurt. Recognized it. Owned it. You can't overcome what you don't acknowledge. And we use Moses as an example. He killed a man and then buried the bodies. And that's what we do. We kill people, bury the bodies, make vows we're never gonna do it again. And you mean well, but then by the time you get to another season in your life, you got a trail of buried bodies everywhere. What is that? That represents inappropriate, unwise activity. Does that make sense, y'all? Inappropriate, unwise activity. But we're trying to stop the activity without realizing that sometimes we gotta dig to figure out, "Why did I bury this body? And why did I do this?" So I got to recognize. Number two, we talked about this. We got to take responsibility. What they did to you is their fault. Your healing is your responsibility. Okay? It means that you can't hold your breath waiting on some people to get the revelation of how wrong they were. Some people, unfortunately, will never get it. Amen.
And number three, and this is where I want to park tonight. Somebody say, "Release." Forgiveness. And this is what happened in Genesis chapter number 50. Joseph's brothers had inflicted pain upon them. I was talking to, um, I talked to somebody earlier today, and we were talking about this particular text because when we look at the text, we, if the text only tells us specifically that Joseph was the one that was in prison, but when you, when I look at the whole story, I see something else. Somebody say, "What's that?" His brothers were in prison too. You didn't hear what I said. Okay, Pastor, what you mean they were in prison? It's in the text. Bible says when their brother saw that the 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?" So they sent word to Joseph, saying, "Your father left these instructions before he died." No, he didn't. But Daddy's dead, so he can't refute my lie. What are you seeing, Daniels? I'm seeing a trend in chapter 50 that I also saw in chapter 37, which is when they sold Joseph into slavery, they dipped a coat in blood, took it to the father, and lied to the father. So here they are in Genesis 37, lying. And here they are in Genesis chapter 50, lying. Joseph wasn't the only one in prison. They were imprisoned by activity that was birthed from their fear. They didn't have a lying problem. Chapter 50 just to have a lying problem. They had a lying problem because they had a fear problem.
[Applause]
They were afraid of how Joseph was going to treat them. Did you hear what I said? So here's Joseph looking at people who have hurt him, and they expect him to hold a grudge, because he has a right to hold a grudge. He has a reason to hold a grudge. It would be rational for him to hold a grudge. But Joseph released. Listen, listen to what he says. He says, "Don't be afraid." Y'all missed it. They never said they were afraid.
[Applause]
I wish somebody would help me in here. I said, they never said they were afraid. But Joseph knew they were lying. But he's so matured that he didn't have to tell them they were lying. He spoke to the root of their issue, not the fruit of their issue. You know, you ain't got to lie, Craig. You ain't got to lie. He's saying, "Listen, don't be afraid, 'cause I know the root of your issue is fear."
[Music]
In other words, I can't break this lying until I deal with the fear. Because until you conquer fear, you're always going to be tempted to do things and to manipulate situations that keep you in control of your own destiny. But Joseph is trying to teach them, "You don't have to do that. I didn't get here by doing that." So they're trapped. Can I just, this, this, can I just say this? It's just a preacher in me. This is just the kingdom preaching me that just sees Jesus and everything. God, just share this with you. Don't judge the brothers, 'cause you're the brothers. I'm the brothers. Y'all missed. Don't judge them because you're the brothers. I'm the brothers.
[Applause]
Joseph is betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, has to go down in a pit.
[Applause]
To come out of the pit to save the brothers. You miss what I just said. Joseph is sold into slavery, has to go down in a pit, but then come up out of the pit so he could save the guilty. I'mma say it again. Joseph was sold out, betrayed for money. As a result, he goes down in a pit, but then has to come up out of the pit to turn around and save the guilty. You're not following me. Jesus was sold out by Judas. He had to go down in the tomb and stayed there three days. Got back up out of the tomb to come and save the guilty. Don't miss it.
[Applause]
Watch this. Joseph says this, verse 19. He says, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God?" I never understood this until some time ago. This summer, I never understood what he meant by this. He says, "Am I in the place of God?" Huh. That it's God's place to determine your punishment.
[Applause]
Don't look at me like you've never wanted to be the punisher. Don't look at me as if you're never tempted to take punishment and vengeance into your own hands and inflict on other people the pain that they rightfully deserve. But Joseph says, "That's God's place." And when I put myself in the position, when I attempt to inflict on you what you deserve, I place myself in a judgment seat that I don't have the heart and the mental capacity to rightfully administer justice.
[Applause]
Because God makes righteous judgments. We don't. We will give a, we will give time that don't fit the crime. "Oh, you lied on me? Life sentence. We're never talking again. Don't do it again." That's the electric chair.
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Right? Righteous judgments. God knows that we'll make decisions in temporary. We'll make decisions, eternal judgments, based on temporary feelings.
[Applause]
That's why we're like, "God, kill him." God's like, "I'm not going to kill him because two weeks from now, this is not even gonna matter to you anymore."
[Applause]
All right, let me hear this. He says, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." This is what Joseph, this is what Joseph reveals. Powerful. He was able to release because he has a perspective on what happened that is vastly different than the perspective of his brothers. Watch it. So some of, some of us, we know what it's like to be in pain, right? And the struggle to release and to struggle to forgive. But what if I told you the answer to forgiveness isn't willpower? It's perspective. That until you change how you see it, until God helps you shift the way you look at it, that you'll never be able to release them from it. You, you, you didn't see that? Watch what he says. Look at verse 20. He says, "You intended to harm me." Y'all didn't see it. He says, "You intended to harm me." That's King James, NIV. "You intended to harm me." He didn't say, "You harmed me." Y'all not shouting. He said, "You intended to."
[Applause]
You tried. You tried to. You have plans too, but it didn't work. "No weapon formed against me shall be able to prosper." Did you hear what I said? The purpose of pain isn't just to hurt you. The enemy wants to use it to imprison you. And as long as you are not in prison, it was just an agitation on your way to your destination. So why am I going to continue to hold a grudge against you in my heart for something that did not accomplish what you intended for it to accomplish? Watch this. He says, "You intended it to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." Now watch this. Joseph has a different perspective. He says, "I'm looking at this differently, and I'm saying that I wouldn't be standing where I'm standing had you not done what you did."
Now watch this. It's going to shake up our theology a little bit. God. Now, if we look at the text, we don't see the text. We look at the story. This story, we don't see the story in any way suggesting that God has any involvement in this until the end. When you read the whole story, nothing that's going on in their life looks like God. What if I told you some of the stuff you calling the devil?
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What, what if I told you that some of the stuff isn't stopping and ceasing when you rebuke it? Because you can't rebuke God.
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Oh, my. I don't hear anybody tonight. He says, "But God intended it for good." That God didn't do this, you did it. But God, who's sovereign, looked at his overall plan for my life and allowed your injustice because it would serve his greater purpose.
[Applause]
Now, this is a problem. You gotta trust. What you've got to trust that the God who allowed the womb is the God who will take responsibility to stitch it. When you do it, it enables you to see this thing from a different perspective where you're able to release those who need to be released. I figured I was going to get this kind of response, so I brought some extra ammunition. Somebody say, "The power of perspective."
I want you to look at Matthew chapter 18. We're going to wrap up with that. Matthew chapter number 18. If you look at verse 21, you'll see something. Peter comes to Jesus and says, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive a brother, a sister, who sins against me?" He says, "Up to seven times." Jesus said, "Um, 70 times seven times." Seventy. Limitless number. Peter's like, "Jesus, this is too much." Then he says these, verse in verse 23, this is what I want you to see. He says, "Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven is like." Okay. He says, "I'm not just going to tell you to do something because you're not going to get it. Let me give you a parable that's going to give you perspective." Because if I just tell you to forgive people, you're going to say, "Why?" So Jesus says, "Let me tell you what the, the Kingdom of Heaven is like." He says, "Let me tell you how the kingdom works. Let me tell you how to live life the King's Way. Let me tell you, people, let me tell you how people who are offended, who are injured, in the kingdom should handle offense because they should handle it in a radical way. They should handle it in a different way." Everybody's going to get injured. But when, when you live life according to the King's principles, when you live the King's Way, you handle everything radically different.
So he says, "The kingdom is like this." So this way the kingdom works. He says, "There's this, there's this, uh, there's this, uh, King who needed to settle accounts with his servants." And he says, "As he began the settlement, a man owed him ten thousand bags of gold." Somebody say, "Gold." How much? Ten thousand. Okay. Verse 25 says, "He was not able to pay." So the master ordered that he, his wife, and his children, and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. Got me? "We're gonna sell your family, get the money to repay what you owe me." But the servant begged and said, "Come here, please, God. I'm sorry. Be patient with me. I'm working on it. I'm a work in progress. I'm not what I ought to be, but I'm not what I used to be. God, give me a little time. I know I owe you." Because in the Bible, sin is referred to as a debt. The wages of sin is death. So sin is a debt. It's what's owed. And we don't have the capacity to pay it. And so the servant says, "Please be patient with me. I need a little more time. You know, I'm working on this." Jesus, watch the text. Watch the tax. He, he says, "I'll pay back everything." The master took pity on him, gave him more than he asked for. He didn't give him more time. He canceled the debt and then let him go. Did you hear what I said? Which is what Jesus did with our sin.
But the servant went out, verse 28, and found one of his fellow servants who owed him. Don't miss it. How many? What kind of coins? Okay. So he owed ten thousand gold, but somebody owed him 100 silver. So it's less in quantity and less in quality.
[Applause]
Ten thousand gold, 100 silver. So watch what happens. He grabbed him and began to choke him. What do you do when you choke people? You cut them off. He cut off his air supply. So the king didn't cut him off, and he owed the king ten thousand gold talents. But somebody owed him a 100 silver talents, and he cut them off. "I'm through with you. Lose my number. Don't call me. Don't speak to me. Don't look at me." What service you coming to? Cause if you coming to the 12, I'm going to the nine. I'm going to South. Cause I can't stand to even worship with you anymore.
[Applause]
He says, "Pay back what you owe me." The servant fell to his knees and said the same thing, "Be patient with me. I'll pay it back." But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. So he locked him up. So this is what he did. He had him thrown into prison. So this is what he did. This, this is the teaching point for us. He treated him like a criminal. "I'm gonna treat you like a criminal. I'm always remind you you're a criminal. You're never gonna forget you're a criminal. Put this orange jumpsuit on you every time you come in from work. Let me put this jumpsuit back on. Take your work uniform off. I'm putting this jumpsuit back on because I'm gonna remind you you are a criminal. I'm gonna put you in prison. You will never forget what you did to me." You are talking to me. But the other servant saw what happened, and they were out-raised, and it wouldn't have told the master everything. And the master called the servant in, and look what he called him. He said, "You wicked servant."
[Applause]
The king says, "You're wicked. You're wrong. It's evil." He says, "I canceled all your debt." Y'all aren't talking to me. "Because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?" Come on, church. In anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay back all that he owed. I don't hear anybody talking to me.
What's the point? The point is this: God's saying, "Now, listen. I told you to forgive." And what I asked you to do seems irrational until I explain it to you this way. Until I give you perspective, it seems unfair. Until I give you perspective, and when I give you perspective, you see that really, it's not unfair on your end. It's unfair on my end. Because God said, "When I look at what you've done to me, that's ten thousand gold. I don't care what they did to you, that's 100 silver. Now I canceled all your debt and let you go free. You are walking free, benefiting from the only reason that they're able to owe you is because I let you go free. They, they wouldn't even owe you. They wouldn't even have the opportunity to hurt you if I gave you what you deserve. If I gave you what you deserve, you wouldn't be walking around here." So you're complaining about injury that came to you as a consequence of you benefiting from my mercy, because I didn't treat you the way you treated them. And, okay. So, so God says, "Because I have done this to you, you need to do this for others."
Don't miss the point. Somebody say, "Perspective." Not for others, but for you. Because the unforgiving servant is the one who got tortured. And when you don't forgive, you're the one that's being tortured. You're not hearing me. Because if people did not have enough sense not to hurt you, they will not have enough sensitivity to be upset by the fact that you won't forgive them. So the only person that's being tortured by your unforgiveness is you. Because unforgiveness always hurts you more than it hurts them. So no matter how much you make them suffer, they still can't suffer the way you're suffering. And no matter how much you punish them, they still can't be punished the way you're being punished. So you gotta say, "I don't know if I like you, but I like me enough not to torture me by refusing to forgive you." So I'm going to release you from what you did to me, not because I like you, I need God to help me with that, but because I like me enough to say, "My future is too bright for me to be trapped in a prison based on something you're not even sorry for." So you meant it for evil, but God, God meant it for my good. The power, the power of perspective.
Do watch this. Forgiveness isn't a gift you give to them. Okay, everybody look at me, please. The fact that they need forgiveness is a revelation that they don't deserve it. Because if they need it, they did something that's an indication they don't deserve it. But it is a gift that you give to yourself. Right? Especially if you cut them off, even though you're still mad, right? And it, there's nothing that'll make you madder than people who you want to be upset, and they're not upset. That makes you mad all over again, doesn't it? You need to be mad. Thank you. It's a gift you give to yourself.
And if you'll do it, God will help you. Did you hear me? He'll help you start peeling the onions, peeling back those layers. And it'll take time. And you'll hit a season in life where you'll get upset again. You got to go back and process it. Peel that in. "Lord, I forgive him." And you, you'll hit another aspect of your life where what they did to you affected you. You got to forgive. You'll look at your child in the face who acts, "Where's my mother? Where's my father?" And you get all upset all over again. You gotta, "Lord, I forgive her." Because it's a gift.
[Music]
And you gotta like you before you start back liking them. See, you're waiting on your way. You're waiting until you like them to forgive. You got to forgive because you like you. It's a gift you give yourself. And it sets you free from the prison the enemy wants you to be in. Clap your hands if you receive that word tonight.
Well, listen, thank you for watching Thrive. I want you to make sure you subscribe to the channel so that you don't miss any of our teachings. And remember, you can watch me live at Thrive every Wednesday at 7:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. Take care. I'll see you soon.