Greg Ford - Lemon Squeezy
Welcome to the Power of One. You know, one of the things I love about God is the way that he will bring the right message to the right person, at the right time. It’s not an accident, it’s a divine intersection. And that’s what’s about to happen right now. You know, there’s an axiom in the world that says, «When life hands you lemons, you should make lemonade». That’s kinda cool, that’s kinda cute, it’s definitely true, but when you’re the one holding the lemons, it doesn’t feel cute at all. Some of you have a life situation you didn’t ask for, you didn’t want, and yet you’re being asked to deal with it. What are you gonna do with it? Let’s go to God’s word, let’s hear from God, let’s learn together what we do with our life situations. How do we make the best of these things? Let’s learn together.
Let me give you a little background on Joseph. Cause what I wanna focus on this week, we’re gonna look at the depth of his story, but I wanna look at Joseph in terms of, sort of, the bowl of lemons that was handed to him based on things that happened before he was ever born. So, we have, in the book of Genesis, we have the telling of Joseph’s great-grandfather, his grandfather, and his father. His great-grandfather father was a man by the name of Abraham, who God makes the covenant with his great-grandfather and says, «I’ll make a great nation out of you, I’ll bless those who bless you, I’ll curse those who curse you».
And yet we see that, Abraham in many ways, was the patriarchy, he was a good man, but he’d make some complicated decisions, and those decisions have their way of cascading down generationally. They end up affecting the decisions of the grandfather, right if you wanna know a little bit about the mistakes of your father, you gotta know a little bit about your grandfather. If you’d like to know about his mistakes, you’d like to look a generation above, 'cause these things have a way of being passed down. So, by the time Joseph shows up, who’s kinda the person we’re gonna really look at, you’ll see, he had ideologies, and attitudes, and habits, and patterns, and behaviors, and things that happened before he was even conscious of the world or could think for himself.
Joseph’s an interesting character because he’s a guy who has some unusually high highs and some unusually low lows. He has a massive amount of both prosperity and hardship. And the prosperity does not ruin him. And his adversity does not harden him. But he’s able to take whatever’s given to him, whether he deserved it or not, and to give it to God, and to see how good can come from whatever comes your way. So, we’re gonna get into the meat of the story, but I’m gonna give you the cliff note. So, his brothers are so jealous of him, after this text, it said they couldn’t say anything nice about him but it gets worse than that. They decide they wanna kill him. «We’re gonna kill him. Okay, we’re gonna kill him and we’re gonna put animal blood on him and say, 'a wild animal got him dad. Oh man we didn’t know. Oh terrible, ohh'». But they decide, «You know what, we gotta better idea, let’s get some money for him».
So, they sell him to human trafficking. So, they sell him into slavery and then they pull the same move, «Oh he’s dead. Dad, he’s dead. Animal must have got him». And yet now, here Joseph goes into slavery, but he decides to thrive. He decides, you know, I mean, he’s a sharp guy, he’s a talented guy, and he gets sold into a home of a man with a huge estate, and the guy quickly has an eye for talent, and he’s like, «This Joseph guy is something else». And he puts Joseph in charge of the whole house.
So, Joseph is now, he’s running the show, he’s the vp. And yet, somebody lies on him in the house on something he didn’t do, and he ends up in prison. While he’s in prison, he thrives in prison. «Fine, bring it on. What do you got? Gimme another lemon». And he goes in prison, and he starts to earn favor in prison. And while he’s in prison, by the way, 14 total years of his hardship from when you know, he first kinda has grand dreams to actually the fulfillment of his dreams. While he’s in prison, he actually solves a problem for Pharaoh that no one else could solve, and he earns Pharaoh’s favor, and he ends up now the prime minister of Egypt. And God uses him powerfully to save the nation. We’ll get into this more in the next few weeks.
But what’s interesting in chapter 41 is not, he has his own two kids, two boys. And Joseph’s is in a place where he now has to process everything that’s come his way, and he has to decide, «What am I gonna do»? What am I gonna do? «I know what great grandpa did, I know what grandpa did, I know what my dad did. What am I going to do here»? And it takes tremendous discipline to step back and to analyze and to see everything. Sometimes, people who grow up in a dysfunctional environments perpetuate it or they keep it going. For example, people statistically who were abused, often, not every time, but sometimes grow up to become abusive. Why? You would think you’d go «Man, that was so terrible, I hated it so bad, I would never want to do it».
And some people do that. But that takes unbelievable intentionality. You gotta be purposeful about it, you gotta root it out. But for people that don’t, they find themselves doing the very thing they hated. They find themselves abusing. Why? 'cause in some way, it’s a right to be able to do it. It’s some kinda normal. Some of you, maybe it wasn’t full blown abuse, but yet you grew up in an environment, you didn’t like being yelled at, but now you find yourself yelling. You didn’t like that your parent was a workaholic, but you find yourself doing the workaholic thing. You didn’t like something about your environment, and yet you’re perpetuating it, because it takes a tremendous amount of discipline and courage and willingness to dig into the lemons, squeeze those things and find the lemonade, right? To find something about it.
By the way, I got some lemons today, I’m gonna make a little, we’re gonna start some lemonade. I did this last night and I cut myself, okay? And I learned, you gotta tuck your fingers. Okay, and they asked me, they’re like, «Do you want us to just cut the lemons for you»? I’m like, «Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, I got it». And then I cut, you know. No applause or any, I mean I did, no I didn’t, thank you for the affirmation. It’s kinda funny because last night I did cut myself and I was trying to, you know, but I kept bleeding, and I’m bleeding in the lemonade, which is gross. But I kinda like it for the sermon honestly. I kinda like it for the sermon for this reason, some of you, the lemons you’ve been given, in the process of you being willing to cut into it, you’re gonna bleed in the lemonade. You gotta be willing to bleed in the lemonade.
By the way, it was crazy 'cause last night, I cut the lemons and I’m squeezing them, and I’m getting lemon juice… You’ve been there? I’m getting lemon juice, I’m up here tryna preach the word, okay, and I’ve got lemon juice going in my cut. And the whole time I’m sitting there and I’m doing this, I’m going, «Man». But this is where the sermon isn’t cute. Because for some of you to go take really what’s been handed to you in terms of great-grandparent, grandparent, what the things you’ve been given, and to go back in, to have the courage to cut open, you gotta be willing to have some pain, you gotta be willing to have some bloody lemonade, you gotta be willing to go in and do this and to trust that whatever comes out of this, that God’s going to use. Here’s the fear in squeezing, squeezing is what comes out of this, is both truth and lies.
So, when I squeeze, both truth and lies come out. And sometimes we’re afraid of the lies, but sometimes we’re afraid of the truth. What’s true? One of the issues that we all kinda have to deal with is, before you had the ability to really rationally think things through, you believed things. And anything you believed, before you could actually think it through, is a tough one to uproot. Because it hits you at a visceral level, it is a deep truth. And even to re-examine it or to reopen the case, or to dig into it, feels wrong to do because you believe it so deeply. I’ll give an example, there’s, I’ve seen this many times, people who grew up in an environment that either directly or indirectly told them that they weren’t that valuable. So maybe somebody was verbally abusive, they tried to beat you down, they told you you weren’t valuable, horrible stuff.
And so, some people, when you hear that before you can even, when you’re a child, okay, and you don’t even really have the ability to really rationally, till you’re like an adolescent, you’re still kind of in concrete mode, you can’t think abstract, you can’t work your way through it. You’ve been given beliefs, theology, beliefs about God, beliefs about culture, beliefs about social, beliefs about government, beliefs about self. All of that stuff is given till believe it, then you get to where you can think about it for yourself, and there’s still an obstacle because even if I go think about it with my own grown mind, my adult mind, there’s still something at a visceral level that feels wrong to go back and do it, or I just can’t believe it.
And this is where I’ve seen people who had beliefs of value about themselves that you’re not valuable, either you were attacked at that level, or you were just neglected so much, you didn’t matter in the world. You were just like, «Man I’m one of 8 billion people, if I’m not here, I’m not here». So, you think you have no value. Then you become an adult, and you start hearing some preacher preaching to you sweaty about, «If it was just you, Jesus would’ve died for you». And you hear some preacher telling you, «No, you’re fearfully and wonderfully made. Oh, no, no, you’re made in the image of God. Oh, you’re loved unconditionally. You can’t out sin the great», and they’re telling you this, and you believe, you kind of understand it here, it’s not like you can’t rationally understand it, but you don’t believe it here.
And it gets so weird… I’ve seen people, I’ve seen people who had no problem believing it for other people 'cause they could understand it here, but something, there was an obstacle to them receiving it for themselves. I’ve seen people preach it to other people, «You are fearfully and wonderfully made». They will stand there and tell somebody else how valuable they are, how much God loves them, how important they are. And they believe it for others, and they believe it for virtually everybody, except themselves. Why? Because before I could even think rationally, I had these messages, these things that I believed, that were sort of cascaded down, and I end up with these lemons, and to even go in there and try to believe it, I keep coming up against an impediment, because that thing was, it’s in there so deep, I couldn’t even, before I could even think it, and then now, to try to undo it, it’s really, really difficult to do.
And this is why, you know, this is why it takes tremendous courage to come in here and keep digging because there’s more juice in this thing. You know what I mean? Now, here’s what you gotta do, if you’re gonna use this, you know, God made these things, you know, helpers. But you gotta cut off to do this, and I’ve learned all this yesterday. You gotta cut off the butt, which is, you know, the butt of the lemon, but what I’m talking about, I’m not talking about the butt, I’m about the, «Yeah, but». Yeah but, you gotta cut off the but, and you gotta get some help, because there’s more juice in there. Sometimes, it’s literally the courage to go, «You know what, I’m gonna start thinking about this more. I’m gonna start talking to somebody. I’m gonna get some help to really start thinking about this, because the tendency is to go», the truth and lies come out together.
And of course, we’ve talked about this before, but it’s bears repeating that what the enemy loves to do to keep people bound is to take a micro truth and turn it into a macro lie. That’s how he get’s you to believe it. The micro truth is, didn’t do good in school. What’s the macro lie? You’re stupid. Well is it true you didn’t do good in school? Yeah, I did terrible at school. Does it mean you’re dumb? No, you’re not dumb, you just didn’t do good in school. That doesn’t mean you’re stupid. The micro truth, hey, every romantic relationship you’ve been in, you’ve got cheated on. Is that true? Might be. It’s a micro truth. What’s the macro lie? You’re not worthy or worth being faithful to. Micro truth might be, nobody in this world loves me unconditionally. Is that true? That might be true. That might be true that no human being in this world loves you unconditionally.
Everybody might have a boundary that they go, «You know what? Now is when it dries up». That might be true. What’s the macro lie? That you’re unlovable. And so the enemy keeps us connected to these things, and we’re afraid of the truth and the lies coming out together, instead of trusting God enough to go, «You know, I’m gonna squeeze within this». Because whatever comes out, the combination of both truth and lies, as they come out, I begin to sort them out, I give them to God, and he helps to heal the things that need healed, and he helps to put truth on the lies that are in there, and then it leads to important conversation, important though, and the Holy Spirit starts to now, you know, show up in or lives.
Like again, there’s some things that I can’t even squeeze out of this, okay, by my hand, it’s the Holy Spirit doing work, okay, that I’m not even able to do by myself to go, am I willing to go here, have these thoughts, think these thoughts, have these focus? Because I don’t want to stay stuck in something I’m supposed to move past. My wife did a message last year, when I tore my Achilles, and she was up here and she preached on digging for gold and mining. And she told her story about, you know, she said, when she was a little girl, actually my wife was an unwanted pregnancy, so my father-in-law was an 80's rocker. Okay? That’s how he made his living traveling and do, you know, the band was called «Roulette». Tell me if that doesn’t sound like an 80's rock band, roulette.
So he was an 80's rocker, and my mother-in-law was a groupie. So, she shows up to the show and in the back of a pickup truck, my wife was conceived and my mother-in-law, no, I’m just telling you the truth, comes to the show six weeks later, and she’s like, «Hey I’m pregnant with your baby. I don’t need anything from you, okay, I can do this myself». And he’s like, «No, I wanna help». He’s like, «Can you think you can stand me for the rest of your life». That was his proposal. «Do you think you can stand me for the rest of your life»? She’s like, «Uh, yeah, maybe».
And so then they go to the mall and they buy a ring and get married and then they have three more kids and all this. He quits his music career, and he gets a job working as a manager of an apartment complex. And my wife was raised from there. Now when she was growing up, they thought she had leukemia when she was like seven years old. And she tells this story that they thought she had leukemia, but it was actually hyperthyroidism. She had lost a friend to leukemia, and so she thought she was gonna die. In fact, she tells the story where she said, her last Christmas, she spent all of her money on her family, 'cause she’s like, «Why would I keep any? I’m not gonna be here next year».
So, she spends all of her money on Christmas present. So, she said, you know, told me she stared at snowflakes, try to look at them as close as she can, and said, «This is the last time I’m gonna see a snowflake. This is the last time I’m gonna see the leaves fall». And she thought she was gonna die. Well, praise God, turned out it wasn’t hyper, it was hyperthyroidism which is treatable. But during that time when she thought she had leukemia, her mom gets pregnant with one of her brothers. And in her mind, the lie that jumped into her mind was that, «Oh they’re just replacing you. Like you’re dying, they’re just making another kid».
And then the lie that was embedded into her little seven year-old heart was that she was replaceable. Like, you’re just totally replaceable man. Something happen to you, you’re just not that big a deal. And she carried that with her into her late 30s. Never actually squeezing hard enough to see, but feeling it. And when she finally got that clear from enough squeezing and talking to a counselor and going back into some painful memories and actually putting language on it, when she finally told me, it made sense, I was like, «Man, I have felt that from you. I have felt almost like, you expect me to replace you or something». But then I looked back and I realized I did dumb stuff along the way that kinda, you know, that made sense.
Like, for example when she went shark diving, I was like, «I don’t think you ought to to go shark diving, you know, those are, they have huge teeth. And I don’t think you should do it». She’s like, «Oh, I’m going». I’m like, «If they eat you, if you get eaten out there, I’ll be remarried within a week». She’s like, «What»? I’m like, «No, it won’t be for love. I’ll never anybody like I love you, but I’m not raising these kids by myself. So, it’ll be within seven days, you know». And she didn’t think it was funny, you know, she didn’t laugh. And I was like, «Come on, lighten up. That’s a good joke. You know, I don’t mean it. I don’t mean it, you know». But it was fine, 'cause I could tell, she kinda, «Haha». But it was like, it hit her in the spot. What was it doing? It was lemon in the cut. It was like, «Well, I’m replaceable and you just confirmed it, even though you made a joke».
So, when she’s telling me this stuff, I’m like, «Man, that makes sense». So, she told in that message, when she’s telling that story, she looked at the camera and looked at the church and said, «You gotta keep digging fort gold, man. You know, cause if Jesus is really full of grace and truth, then whatever truth you find is covered in grace. And if the truth really sets you free, then it’s covered in grace and it’ll lead to more freedom». And she’s like, «You gotta keep digging». So she told us all to dig, but then I got the chance to get a front row seat to watch her keep digging. She goes back, gets some help, the Holy Spirit, a counselor, she’s talking, going, «Man, I just, there’s more truth in there. I gotta find some more truth. I gotta dig back into what I’ve been given».
And she realized this, when she was a young girl, in their church, there was a young woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock in their little church, girl gets pregnant out of wedlock. And the parents took it as an opportunity to gather all the little girls and go, «Listen now, this is what can happen if you don’t do it God’s way. Okay? See this girl over here, she messed around, sinned. And now, she’s pregnant as a consequence of her sin. And ya’ll don’t want that for your lives». The whole room of girls were all born in families of married people, and yet my wife walked away and went, «I was conceived in the back of a truck. Nobody was saved, nobody was married, I’m a consequence». And that embedded in her belief that she was a consequence.
So now, when her parents got divorced years later, she said, «They never would have got together if not for the consequence». When one of her sibling struggle with depression and suicide, she went, «They wouldn’t even be in this pain if it wasn’t for this consequence». When another sibling battled addiction, she said, «They wouldn’t even be in this battle for their life and bound in this addiction if not for this consequence». When our own sons were diagnosed with autism, she said, «They wouldn’t even have this, if not for the consequence».
And so she realized that some of these things that were embedded, that she believed, there’s micro truths and macro lies. And if all I do is sit here and I hold these lemons, and I let them keep all their juice, I lose an opportunity to give it to God, and to let him heal it, to let him put truth on it. And so, she starts to squeeze, and she said she fell in that process, she’s like, «You know, I’mma call my dad, I’mma call my dad». And she calls her dad.
You know my father-in-law, amazing guy but he doesn’t really talk. He’s like super quiet, he’s very quiet, very smart, good at everything he does, but he’s very quiet. And so, my wife calls him, and she calls him, she says, «I wanna apologize to you». He said, «For what»? She says, «For ruining your life». She said, «You had to give up music for me, so instead of continuing in the music career, you know, you had to do a job that was a 9-5. And I wanna say I’m sorry for ruining you life because you ended up in a marriage that didn’t work out. And I wanna say, I wanna apologize for all the pain I’ve put you through and my siblings».
And so, she goes point by point by point of everything she could think of that her mind had been going of what she was a consequence of. And my father-in-law, she said, «Greg», I come home, my wife she’s in tears. I said, «What»? She said, «My dad talked for 30 minutes without a breath». She said, «I’ve never heard him talk that much». «What did he say»? She said, he said, «Ruin my life? You saved my life. See, you don’t understand, I was in the music scene, I was starting to head into the drug scene, I was starting to go in a direction and nothing could get me out of that. Nothing could, I needed a bucket of cold water to face. And one day a woman showed up and said, 'you’ve brought a life into the world'. And that was the thing that caused me to say, 'you know what, I’m going to step away'».
He goes, «I cant think of another thing in the whole world that would have kept me from the slippery slope I was on, except that, created a sobriety in my mind and heart to say, 'I’mma raise this kid'». And so, he put his foot on the ground and changed direction. He goes, «I’d probably be strung out, I might be dead, I’d probably be and addict, I was vulnerable to all these things and it was you that changed my whole direction». Now, praise God for my father-in-law and thank God for that conversation, but I’m gonna say, there’s some of you that you go, «Greg, that’s so cool that your father-in-law gave your wife this healing». But some of you’ll go, «Let me tell you about a conversation with my dad. Let me tell you about a conversation with my mom».
Maybe there’s some of you that have listened and go, «Yes, it’s nice her dad was there, but my dad told me I’m only here because the contraceptive didn’t work. I’m only», and what I am saying is this, I’m not saying every conversation is gonna be lemonade, I’m not saying we’re going from zero to now it’s sugary drink. I’m saying that you have to trust in the areas you can’t trust people and that you’re fearful for yourself that you’ll gonna trust God that whatever comes out in a mixture of lies and truth that God can take and cause it to work together for good. God can bring healing to the most broken places. But it won’t happen if I leave the juice in the lemon, I gotta be willing to squeeze it, I gotta be willing to go back.
And this is what I love about Joseph. It says in chapter 41, Joseph has these two sons. Now, he’s a dad and he has the opportunity to be a father. And it says in 41:51, Joseph now has two sons, his older son, he names him Manasseh, Manasseh, which means forgetfulness. Why did he name him forgetfulness? «For he said, 'God has made me forget all my troubles and everyone in my father’s family'». Did it mean he lost consciousness of his past? No. Because we know actually in the next chapter, when he finally sees his brothers again, he’s so shook, he begin, he gets emotional and has to dismiss himself, weeps, regains his composure and comes back. It’s still hitting him at a deep level. But he’s saying essentially, when he’s saying to forget that, he saying, «I won’t get stuck in it».
The ability to move past it, the ability to move ahead. So, he names his first son forgetfulness, Manasseh, his second son, it says, he names his second son Ephraim, «For he says, 'God has made me fruitful'». Ephraim means fruitful. «He’s made me fruitful in the land of my grief». And so, you have Joseph who’s got some things handed from Abraham to Isaac, to Jacob, now coming to him. Patterns of dysfunction, paradigms, it’s all in his hands.
And he can’t go change what anybody else did, but he stand here in chapter 41 going «What am I going to do with mine? Tell you what I’m nit gonna do, I’m not gonna get stuck in it, I’m gonna move past it. And you know what I’m not gonna do is? I’m not just going to merely survive, once I get this healing, I’m going to thrive in the land of my suffering. I’m going not be fruitful in the land of my suffering. I couldn’t control what anybody else did, but here I am with my opportunity, what are you gonna do»?
And today, I offer you, and I challenge you an opportunity to take all that’s been handed down. There were things that were going on before you ever showed up in the world, and some of it you’re still tryna untangle and squeeze and go, «Man I didn’t even see that clearly». But to have the courage. And where does the courage comes from? The courage comes from faith in God. I trust God. Whatever come out of this, whatever comes out of this, whatever truth and lies comes out of this, that God’s gonna put truth on it, he’s gonna put healing on it and he’s gonna use it to help me thrive and be fruitful in what I have next. I don’t have to stay stuck here. I’m not leaving the juice in these lemons, I’m gonna allow God, I’m gonna trust him enough to do what only he can do.