Paul Daugherty - Revenge or Restore - Part 1
How many of y'all in this room have ever been hurt by someone? Anyone ever just been, your feelings were hurt by someone? All right, 100% participation right there. I didn't even have to beg for that. There's certain questions you ask in a church service as a pastor, and you get like, 20 hands raised, but that question right there, we all were like, yup, they're sitting right next to me. We had a fight on the way to church. But this message I believe is gonna bring some healing to those parking lot fights you had right before service, to the strife.
Someone told me after the last service, they said, "Did you put a bug in our house? 'Cause I feel like you were listening to my conversations this week". We're gonna talk about forgiveness, and this is a big idea, from the Old Testament to the New Testament. But before we do, I wanna look at what happens where Joseph is promoted, because there's some powerful moments here in Genesis 41 verse 14. You can make some noise if you want to. "So Pharaoh sent for Joseph," and in one day, he went from the prison to the palace. God can change your circumstances in 24 hours. God can shift things suddenly. We serve a God who knows how to get you out of the place you were in and into the place he's called you to be in a quick moment.
In that one moment, Joseph changed clothes. Now, Joseph had a wardrobe. This guy had changed clothes many times, right? The very first week, we talked about how Joseph was given a coat from his father. How many of you guys remember this coat right here? You guys remember the "Thrift Shop" song that I sang? This just looks goofy. I like this, though. But Joseph's coat was stripped from him. His brothers said, like, this coat was given by his dad, and that jealousy from the brothers that caused them to, they told their dad that Joseph had been eaten by ravenous wolves. They brought back the coat, ripped it up, threw blood all over it.
So then Joseph changes out of that into an apron, right? He starts serving in Potiphar's house as a waiter. Joseph has been through many different outfits. If you were here on the second week, I talked about Beauty and the Beast, "Be Our Guest". I served milk and cookies to you in church. How many of y'all were here for the milk and cookies? Come on, but you came back for the Word, right? So Joseph, Joseph went from being the dreamer to being the servant, to then he was thrown in prison. And when he was in prison, last week, I talked about how he had to make some friends in some low places. Joseph was put in chains, right? And he had to carry these chains for 12 years. He was confined to the prison. And in this moment, Joseph gets called out of the prison and into the palace, and it says he shaved, he took off his prison clothes, and he put on a new suit.
So this is the final outfit of the series. This has been like a Halloween series. I feel like I just keep changing into costumes, like my kids. Now Joseph was in a kingly outfit, come on. Some of y'all need to fix your crown on your head. You forgot that you're royalty. Turn to the person next to you and say, you don't know who you're sitting next to. You are royalty. So Joseph comes into Pharaoh's house, and Pharaoh starts talking to Joseph. He says, "I had these dreams. I had some dreams about some fat cows and some skinny cows". That's true, that's what he says. Then he said, "I had a dream now about seven heads of grain that were plenty, and then seven skinny heads of grain that were thin". And Joseph said, "The dreams mean the same thing".
In verse 25, he says, "God has revealed to Pharaoh what's about to happen. He's preparing you for what's going to come on the world, and you're confused about it, but God sent me to give you the interpretation". God is sending Josephs into the world right now to interpret dreams for Pharaohs. There are presidents, leaders, Pharaohs, Faucis, kings everywhere that are confused, and they don't know what to do. But God has prepared churches like Victory to be a Joseph in this generation, to say, we have the answer. We have the hope that the world needs. Y'all, I'm telling you, one of the biggest pandemics in the last two years has not been COVID-19. It's been depression and fear, and we've seen the world really come into a spirit of anxiety and stress.
And I know COVID's real. I know the sickness is real. But I also know that the enemy is using whatever he can to divide churches, to divide nations, to stir up strife, to stir up fear and anxiety, to get people to believe that the best days are behind us. But God sent Joseph in this moment to bring hope to a confused king. He said, "Here's what's going to happen. You're gonna have seven years of prosperity, seven years of harvest time, but don't waste it. Don't spend everything that comes in. Put some to the side. Store it up, because after these seven years of prosperity, you're gonna have seven years of famine, seven years of a pandemic, and it's gonna be rough. You're gonna think that it's coming to an end, and then it spikes again. You're going to need everything that you saved during the seven years of prosperity to help you and help all the nations of the earth to get through this, 'cause it's going to affect everyone".
And sure enough, it came to pass. Pharaoh said, "Who should I trust to put in charge of the storehouse production? Who can I trust that understands the wisdom and the signs of these times"? And Joseph said, "I'm glad you asked. It's none of your other counselors". Joseph was savage. I like it. Joseph said, "These guys couldn't even interpret your dreams. You need someone who understands how to hear the language of God and how to connect with the language of man". And Pharoah said, "You're the guy," and he put Joseph in charge of the whole nation. So Joseph was now second in command. And he actually took his ring off. It says he put his ring and his robe on Joseph as a sign of authority.
Can I tell you today, you've been given authority by God over everything that the enemy's trying to bring against you. Don't forget the authority you have as a child of God. So Joseph, he was walking in authority. It says he began to look across the whole nation in verse 44, and Pharaoh said, "Everything you see, whatever you do, no one will be able to stand against you. You only answer to me," and Joseph began to save up. Everybody say "stewardship". One of the first things we can learn from this season in Joseph's life is that if you're going to pass the test of leadership, you're gonna have to be a good steward. You're gonna have to steward what God gives you. It says every year, he began to store away grain, until there was so much grain in the storehouses that they stopped keeping records, in verse 55. They had more than enough in the storehouse, and then the famine came.
So seven years of prosperity. Joseph was 30 years old when he became second in command in Egypt. Now he's 37, because how the famine has began, and it says two years into the famine, people started coming from all over the earth. So now the famine has not just affected Egypt. It's affected Canaan; it's affected Syria, Persia, all these other countries around. Egypt was the superpower of the day, the most powerful nation on the earth, and Joseph was in charge. And Joseph, during this season, during this time, he has two children. He gets married, he was excited, has kids, right, and he names his first kid Manasseh. He says, "It is because God has made me forget all my trouble".
And at first when we hear this, we go, that's great, right? Name your future. Don't let the past name your future. Joseph is speaking, prophesying life, but then he says, "God has also made me to forget all about my family's household". In other words, he was saying, "I'm ready to forget about my brothers. I'm ready to forget about my dad. I'm ready to put it all behind me, 'cause I don't wanna see them again. Thank you, Jesus, my best days are right in front of me," and God's just smiling in heaven. He's like "We'll see about that". He's like, "You can name him Manasseh, but I'm bringing your brothers right to your doorstep".
God will set up a divine appointment between you and the people who hurt you the worst. He won't let you escape that test. He won't let you get away from that. While you're here on this earth, he will bring you an opportunity to forgive the people who hurt you the worst. Revenge or restore: it's your choice. He named his second son Ephraim. He said, "It's because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering". Another word for that right there is the land of my trauma. Now, this summer, we did a series on mind games, and we talked about trauma, the effects of trauma, that all of us have faced trauma or will face trauma in some way.
The definition of trauma means deeply distressing or disturbing experience; a physical injury or an emotional injury; an emotional response to a terrible event. It could have been a natural disaster, an accident, rape, but the long-term effects of trauma is that there are triggers in your life, that every time you're in a certain place or driving down a certain road, or you see a certain person, all of a sudden, the memories start to come back. Joseph is trying to forget about his trauma. He's trying to put it all behind him, so he names his kids, "Lord, thank you that I don't have to face my family, and God, that better things are coming in my future that have nothing to do with the trauma I walked through in the past". And the famine hits, and as nations start coming in, I wanna go to chapter 42.
It says when Jacob, the father of Joseph, learned that there was grain in Egypt, he looked at his sons, the same ones that had secretly lied to their father and kept the sin that they had actually sold their brother as a slave. They told their dad he was dead. He looks at these boys, and he says, "I need you to go down to Egypt. We are gonna die if you don't go and get some grain". So he sends all 10 of 'em, but he keeps Benjamin, the youngest, out of fear that he might lose another boy. "So Israel's sons were among those who went to go buy grain in the famine that had also touched Canaan". Verse six, "Now Joseph was the governor of the land".
You see how God's setting this up? It's like God's preparing a family reunion, and nobody knows about it yet. He's making sure that they're all going to collide at the same place. So Joseph is the governor. Everyone's in line to buy grain. Joseph is standing there handing grain as people start coming through, and then he looks up, and he recognizes those faces. It's been 22 years since he's seen these brothers. He was 17 the last time he saw them, and pain will age you. Pain will change you. Not only was Joseph aged from his pain, but he had changed because he was living in another country. Most people believe he was wearing a headdress. He was now dressed like a Pharoah. He had the whole like eye makeup that they wear from Prince of Egypt that you've seen, right? I mean, Egyptian culture was very unique back then.
So he was no longer the Hebrew boy that they remember him as. They didn't recognize him, but he recognized them. Have you ever ran into someone that you hoped you would never run into again? You ever been there, and it's kinda awkward. You're like, oh my goodness. They're still here. They're still alive! I thought I would never see them again. I was happy that I would never see them again. Yeah, you ever ran into someone that you like, were like, God, I would be totally fine if I never run into that person again? Has that ever happened? You're all laughing 'cause you're like, yup, ran into 'em at Victory. Or you ran into 'em at another church, and you came to Victory to get away from 'em.
I wonder what was going through Joseph's mind when he saw his brothers. It says in verse six, they came to him, now, Joseph was the governor, and he looks at his brothers, and they bow to the ground. So here his brothers are. They're bowing to the ground. Where have we seen this before? This was Joseph's dream. Five chapters ago, Joseph had a dream that one day, his brothers were gonna bow to him. But he didn't think it was gonna happen like it did, right, 13 years of insane trauma and pain and accusations and lies against him and people forgetting about him and stuck in a dungeon with rats and the sewage of the city. He's looking at these brothers as they bow to him, and it says in verse seven, "As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger, and he spoke harshly to them".
This is the part of the story we skip over. We go right to the forgiveness, but there's four chapters of the human side of Joseph's response. Before he forgives them, he puts them through the ringer. He does. He lies about them, he lies to them, he accuses them of crimes they didn't commit, he throws them in prison, he tries to get them killed. Where have we seen these things before? Everything Joseph walked through, he wants them to walk through. He thinks revenge, revenge is the path. Revenge is the path to victory. They must pay for what they did! But revenge never wins.
Revenge feels good for a second, but the aftertaste is bitter. Revenge feels good for a moment, but then, once you start to watch them pay, and you start watching it longer you might as well dig two graves because unforgiveness is like drinking poison hoping for someone else to die. Revenge is like drinking poison, and you're the one that's going down too. In fact, it's as if Joseph was in this, but he's taking steps backwards when he starts to get revenge. Now he's going back to the chains, because revenge will put you in chains. It puts you back in the prison. To forgive is to set a prisoner free, only to find out the prisoner was you all along. Restoring is less about someone else, and it's more about yourself. Joseph was so traumatized by what they had done that he could not erase it from his mind. I wanna tell you the truth about trauma.
Number one, we've all faced or will face trauma in some way. You can't escape it. Now, you might say, well, Paul, I didn't fight in the war. I wasn't like, a Vietnam vet, so I don't know that I have PTSD. But the truth is, all of us have faced something that was disturbing, that was difficult, that was a trouble of some kind that affected us at a young age. John 16:33, Jesus said, "In this world, you will have trouble". You will have trauma, you will have trials, you will have difficulties of many kinds. Just because you follow Jesus doesn't mean you are exempt from trouble, right? Jesus doesn't promise us a pain-free life, but he does promise to be our comforter, our umbrella, our shelter in the middle of the storms.
Both Christians and non-Christians go through painful experiences, but the difference is, we have a Savior. We have a friend who sticks closer than a brother. We have a Comforter. We have a Healer. We have a great Physician. We have a Father to the fatherless. You say, why should I get saved, if I'm gonna go through pain, just like I went through pain when I wasn't saved? Because going through pain when you're not saved, you're missing out on the true soul healer, the soul keeper. This is where salvation truly does. Like, I mean, there's so much power in knowing that God is with me when I go through the trauma.
Number two, God is not the author of your trauma, but he's the trigger for your healing. I've heard bad theology where people say, "God caused the cancer to happen on my dad". "God was the author of the divorce in my family," "God brought the leukemia to teach us a lesson". "God brought the autism to teach us a lesson". "God was the one who caused the car accident to happen and caused so-and-so to die, so that we would learn a lesson". No, no, no, that's terrible, that's not biblical. God says, "I came to give you life," John 10 verse 10. "I came to give you life, and life more abundantly". But Paul, what about Job? The devil afflicted Job. Well, why did God allow it to happen?
Listen, the secret things belong to the Lord. But God was not the author of the pain. He's not the author of cancer. He's not the author of divorce and abuse and leukemia and autism and car accidents. He's not the one that says, "Oh, I really wanna teach you a lesson, so I'm gonna hurt you today". No, no, no. He came to give you life, and life more abundantly. The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. You need to know, God is not your problem. He's the trigger for your healing. But you might say, well, where did the bad stuff come from? It started in Genesis.
The same book that Joseph is in, in the beginning of this book, God had fellowship with Adam and Eve, and he created them to have an utopia-like world. Everything was perfect, until they sinned. And it was their choice. He didn't force it. And when they chose sin, they opened the door to darkness. When sin entered the earth, so did all of the dark things we see, all of the pain, the genocide, the abuse, the Holocaust. All this stuff we see, the crazy; like, humans, our human nature is sinful. This is why we need a Savior. This is why God had to send his Son. This is why he had to go to the cross, because we need a Savior. But when sin came into the world, the second biggest crime that was committed in the Bible, the first one obviously was Adam and Eve sinning against God, but right after that is a brother's jealousy that led to murder.
So we see family trauma from the beginning. I wonder if Joseph's story, which actually wraps up the Book of Genesis; it all ends up Genesis 50, we're gonna finish it today; I wonder if it was bigger than Joseph and his brothers. I wonder if God was tying a bow on Cain and Abel and on Noah's sons and on Abraham and Lot and on Isaac and Ishmael and Jacob and Esau, because all the the Book of Genesis, you just see tons of dysfunctional family relationships, brothers hating each other, people not getting along, backstabbing, betrayal, all that stuff, and God was going to use Joseph's heart to bring healing to a family that had messed up a whole lot longer before him. God is not the author of your trauma, but he is the trigger for your healing.
Number three, God is with you through the trauma. He's the only one who truly understands your pain. I love that we sang that song during the offering, "No one ever cared for me like Jesus", that God cares for me more than anyone else. He's the only one who understands my pain. You go, yeah, yeah, yeah, but Paul, he doesn't understand specifically what I walk through. No, he does. He says, "You've got wounds? I do too, right here. You've got scars from how they treated you? I do too, right here, right here. You feel crushed in your spirit? So do I. You feel afflicted in your mind? So did I, crown of thorns, right here, right through the skull. You feel back-stabbed by your friends? Same here, spear in the back. Everybody ran". Jesus understands your pain more than anybody else does. He's the greatest Counselor you can go to. He says, "You've got scars? Me too. I understand your pain".
Number four, trauma can have negative effects on our lives if we don't deal with it. I remember my dad telling this story, that when Gran-gran lost her husband, she was in a lot of pain, and that was his dad. She was all alone. All three of her sons had grown up, gotten married, and moved out. She was sitting on a rocking chair at home, and my dad came back to visit her and said, "Mom, you can either get bitter, or you can get better, but you can't do both". You get to choose. Are you going to get bitter, and the rest of your life, shake your fist at God, shake your fist? Why did this happen? Why did this happen to me?
And that is what so many people do. Why did our family have to go through this? Why did the hospital mess up on my dad? Why did they misdiagnose our son? Why did autism hit our family? Why are we having to carry this? Why did we have seven miscarriages? Why did I get abused? Why, why, why? And you can live your whole life shaking your fist at God saying why, why, why, why, why? But it only makes you more miserable. It actually doesn't reverse any problems. Getting bitter does not make you better, but getting better does make you less bitter, and being less bitter makes you a whole lot more enjoyable and makes you enjoy life a whole lot more. If you have another 20 years, why not enjoy your next 20?