Paul Daugherty - Revenge or Restore - Part 2
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, she was in a lot of pain. And that was his dad. And she was all alone, all three of her sons had grown up, gotten married and, and moved out. And 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. And if you have another 20 years, why not enjoy your next 20? Instead of shaking your fist at God, the rest of your life. It's our choice. Revenge or restore. But one path leads to death and one path leads to life.
Number five, you're not bad if you still feel the pain of trauma. It's okay to not be okay. We say that at Victory, you can come as you are. Come with the hurt. Come with the pain. Come with the, the, the struggles, come even with the bitterness, come, come into the church. You don't have to clean up before you come in this house. You can belong before you behave. You can belong even before you believe.
But number six, don't stay that way. You don't have to let trauma dictate your destiny. You don't have to let it dictate the rest of your life. It's okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to stay that way. I want the keys to come out. So back to Joseph, he begins to put his brothers through all of this pain. He lies to them, lies about them. Puts gold cups in the bag, starts playing mind games with them. I mean, just the, like Joseph was petty, right? I, I can relate. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna make people pay for what they did. I'm gonna be a little bit petty back. 13 years of, of, of pain. And now nine years later here, he is 22 years since he's seen them. But then he gets to Genesis 45 verse one. And Joseph could no longer control himself, after putting them through all these things that he was trying to put them through, he stops himself.
And this is the divine moment that all of us will have to face. The test of forgiveness. He could not control himself in front of his brothers, and so he sent out all of his attendants. He said, have everyone leave my presence! So no one was with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. This was a private matter. Restoration is not supposed to be a public humiliation. Restoration is not supposed to be throwing your family under the bus, putting it on Instagram. Oh, I can't wait to tell everyone what they did to me. I'm gonna make, I... I'm gonna put it on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook, whatever platform you use. That's petty. That's revenge. And it never wins. Never wins. Revenge never wins. But Paul, if you only knew what they said about me, if you knew what they said about my family, if you knew what they did to me, they betrayed me Paul.
Jesus said in Matthew 5 verse 7, blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy in their time of need. Peter. I love Peter. The disciple. He asked Jesus, how many times do I have to forgive someone? Seven? Seven times, and then I can cancel them? Then I can cut their ear off? Then I can kill 'em? You know, Jesus is laughing. He's like Peter, not seven times but 70 times 7. And I did the math on that. It's 490 times. I'm like, okay, I could do 490. Then I get to cancel them. Then I get to be done with them. Never see them again. But it wasn't about a number, because you can't put a limit on forgiveness. The Greek definition for forgiveness means to exhale. Just for a second, hold your breath, hold your breath with me in the room. I couldn't hold it that long. Right?
We have to exhale if we wanna live. As much as you wanna live, you gotta keep on exhaling. You gotta keep breathing. You can't, don't hold your breath. Right? If you need forgiveness. In fact, Jesus even taught his disciples, when you pray, I want you to pray this prayer. Our father who art in heaven, hollowed be that named that kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as, we forgive those who've trespassed against us.
So He's saying I want you to pray that God forgives you the way that you forgive President Biden. No, Paul, he did not say that. I want you to forgive, ask the Lord to forgive you the way that you forgive President Trump, the way that you forgive President Clinton, the way that you forgive Mayor Bynam, Governor Cuomo, whoever, whatever politician you don't like. Lord, forgive me the way that I forgive my ex. Lord, forgive me the way that I forgive the people who hurt my family. Forgive me the way that I forgive the coaches who were mean to my kids. Lord, forgive me the way that I forgive the church that hurt...me. Lord, forgive me the way that I forgive the pastors that disappointed me. Lord, forgive me the way I forgive the, the doctors in the hospital that messed up on my dad. Lord forgive.
No don't, 'cause I'm not that great at it. And God says, as much as you need mercy, you gotta show mercy. Jesus tells this parable about this guy who owes like, a billion dollars to his master, his boss. And he tells the boss, there's no way I could pay that debt. And the boss says, okay, well, I'm going to throw you in jail and you're going to live in jail until you pay every last penny. And the man says, can't you show mercy? And the boss says, yes, I forgive you. All your debts are wiped away. That same guy goes out and finds a guy who owes him pennies, pennies, like a dollar. And that guy can't pay him. Throws him in prison. Chokes him.
What is he doing? He's putting himself back in the chains. Unforgiveness is only choking you out. He's, he's literally keeping himself in chains. You cannot grab hold of your destiny if you're still holding onto your history. You cannot, like God was trying to help Joseph. Joseph, you may not be able to restore your brothers, but you can restore you. And you need to forgive them if you're going to move forward. Because success doesn't heal trauma. Prosperity won't fix your problems. Five reasons why people won't forgive. Five reasons why, why we say I can't forgive them.
Number one, I can't forgive because it's too big. What they did is too big. But the harder it is, the more you need to let it go. The bigger it is, the more you don't need to carry it.
Number two, we say time heals all wounds. I'm not gonna deal with it because time is going to heal it. And so we put it on the calendar, and we start scrolling through. When do I want time to fix my problems? I'm gonna schedule it for November 30th, 2022. On this date, calendar I need you to heal all wounds for me. You know how silly that sounds? Time heals all wounds. No it doesn't. You gotta face it. Time won't heal what you won't face. So you've gotta schedule that appointment, and say, Hey, we need to talk.
And number three people say, well, I, I'll forgive them when they say they're sorry. They may never say sorry. Some of them are already in the grave. So they can't say sorry. So you have to go to the gravestone and say, I forgive you dad. I forgive you. But Paul, I can't until they apologize. But maybe they can't, or maybe they won't, or maybe even if they do, it's not enough. 'Cause you keep wanting to rub their head in their mistake. Don't you know what you did to me? Joseph wanted to make his brothers pay for it at first. Don't you know? But to restore means to truly forgive, to truly release the death.
Number four, I can't can't forgive if I can't forget what they did to me. But that's completely backwards. The truth is you can't forget until you forgive. And even then, you won't forget the memory, you'll just rewrite how you see it. Now you look at the memory and you go, you did hurt me, but God used it for good. I do remember the abuse as a kid, but God was a father to me through all those moments. I do remember how you hurt me, how you betrayed us, but there's no more sting there. So when you walk in the room, my heart doesn't start beating really fast. And I don't get really angry and start thinking death threats in my head. My prayers aren't Lord, let rocks fall on top of them and let them get, you know, some of us are like, I'll pray for 'em. I'll pray for them to get in a car accident, you know. You start praying some Psalms type of prayers that David prayed for some of his enemies. But your, your memory changes. So you still remember it, but you no longer carry the sting, and the pain, and the poison.
Number five, but if I forgive them Paul, they'll just keep doing it again. But that right there is not a reason to stay bitter. Draw the boundaries you need to draw, but do not carry the poison the rest of your life. Release them, release it. So back to Joseph. He weeped so loudly that the Egyptians heard him. Pharaoh's household could hear his tears. And Joseph says to his brothers, "I...AM...JOSEPH"! They didn't know it at first, right? He had to take the crown off. He had to take the mask off. He had to get vulnerable in front of his family. You don't get healed until you get vulnerable.
"I am Joseph". And then it says this, he says, "come close, come close to me". When they, when they came, to restore is to bring people close to you. He says, I am your brother. I'm the one you sold into slavery. I'm the one you treated like trash. I'm the one you hurt so bad. And I've cried so many tears, and I've carried a lot of pain, and I've been jaded as a leader, and I've been bitter, and I've been trying to lead the best I know how to, and it's been nine years since I've been in this position. I'm 39. I started in this leadership role at 30. And I thought I was good until I saw you. And when I saw you, I realized I'm not 39, I'm still 17.
Because trauma brings you back to your childhood. So you start acting like a kid again when you see those people who hurt you. And you realize you're punishing every person in your present for what people in your past did. And he's says, I can't do it anymore. It's killing me. I'm Joseph. And I forgive you. Forgiveness is not an event, it's a process. I wanna invite my friend Chrissy up here, because Chrissy now teaches in our class called Restore on Thursday nights. And she teaches about forgiveness, but she's got her own testimony of forgiving family members who really let her down. I'll let her share it with you.
Chrissy: Sorry to trip over all the things here. Yeah. So, so yes, the, the whole process of forgiveness, it is not an event is definitely a journey. So when you're wounded, you see through your wound. You see people, you see everything in your life. You don't realize that because it's been what you're used to. So for me, my youngest memories as a little girl, three, four year old was abuse. My parents split up when I was really young, my sister and I would go back and forth between my dad and my mom. And mainly with my mom. She had a lot of men in and out of the house, and drugs in and out of the house, and everything that goes with that. And so at the hands of many different men, and whether that was, you know, in exchange for drugs or just because we were there, there was abuse that happened all throughout my childhood.
And you know, about 10 years old, we moved outta that situation. And I thought, oh, I'm saved. I'm it it's done. But it, it was there. It was carrying in my heart. So through my teen years, you know, I just thought, man, I, I guess this is my purpose. My purpose is just to be used by others. It's to make other people's lives what they need for it, and I'll just shrink down and be that, because I didn't, I didn't know. I didn't know that that was the lens that I had. And so teenage years into young adulthood, there was guys, there was drinking, there was things, just trying to fill that hole in my heart that love was supposed to fill. You know, God has that size hole in all of our hearts that only he can fill. But when we don't know him or we, we're not as sure how he is with us, if we can trust him, we'll try to fill it with other things.
And so eventually from California, my sister moved here first and I moved after her, and she introduced me to God. She's like, I'm going to this church, there's this thing. And I'm like, is this a cult? What's happening? You know, but I came and, and I heard about this love that Jesus had for us. And I'm like, man, I don't know if anyone could ever really love me, or if I even want what I've had that's love, but I'm willing to try. And so I heard about forgiveness and, and I started just getting time with the Lord and going, man, I don't know how to forgive this. This is my whole life. This is all I've known. Even into my marriage, I'm like, man, I need to get this off of me, this pain, this trauma, the, you know, the panic attacks, night terrors, all that stuff.
And so God started really talking to me about forgiveness, and I thought it would be the men that were the hardest to forgive that had abused me growing up. And I got through that and I'm like, okay, this is still here. What is it? And the Lord says, told me in my heart, he said, it's your mom. You know that God gives us our parents to show us the example of the love of the Father. And so when we don't have that experience with them, it's the opposite of what he intended. Now, I was same. I was like, why in the world would you put me in this family then? God if you're so good, then why did all this happen? And you know, God is big enough to handle our questions.
I remember thinking if I asked this like, ugh, you know, scared of almost his response, but he's like, come to me, I'm gonna give you what you can't get by any answer, or by anything else, and that's my peace. And so going to him with those questions, I didn't answers from him as to why we live in a broken world. But what I do know is that when I would exchange those questions and receive His peace, He would give me that peace that surpasses understanding. When we give Him our I don't know, He gives us the peace. And so even after I was saved, it really was when I first had my first daughter, she's nine now. When I saw her, when she came, you know, to me, they put her on my chest. And it was like this overwhelming love. And I thought, how in the world, how in the world could you have anything else in your heart or do anything else, but love this child and protect her at all costs against anything. And it started that process that he's talking about of healing.
And so through that journey, the Lord took me just such a sweet place of understanding that if I never get an apology from my mom, if I didn't hear from her again, if there wasn't some, you know, magical fairy tale ending, I can still choose wholeness. I can still choose wholeness. And so can you if you never get that apology or that thing. And so I hadn't talked to her in a long time and I, I called her during that season. And I just said, you know, I don't know what happened to you, but I do know it must have been pretty bad because you spent your whole life trying to escape it.
You know, addiction is really just seeking comfort in a way other than God. And so, you know, she went through things that I don't even, you know, know about probably. But the point is, is I didn't have to wait for her to apologize for me to choose healing because that comes from God. And when God takes you through things, it's not again, to learn a lesson or, you know, all these things, but it's to have authority over that place. So then you can, then you can pass that on. And that healing, and freedom, and to other people.
And you know, about 10 years old, we moved outta that situation. And I thought, oh, I'm saved. I'm it it's done. But it, it was there. It was carrying in my heart. So through my teen years, you know, I just thought, man, I, I guess this is my purpose. My purpose is just to be used by others. It's to make other people's lives what they need for it, and I'll just shrink down and be that, because I didn't, I didn't know. I didn't know that that was the lens that I had. And so teenage years into young adulthood, there was guys, there was drinking, there was things, just trying to fill that hole in my heart that love was supposed to fill. You know, God has that size hole in all of our hearts that only he can fill. But when we don't know him or we, we're not as sure how he is with us, if we can trust him, we'll try to fill it with other things.
And so eventually from California, my sister moved here first and I moved after her, and she introduced me to God. She's like, I'm going to this church, there's this thing. And I'm like, is this a cult? What's happening? You know, but I came and, and I heard about this love that Jesus had for us. And I'm like, man, I don't know if anyone could ever really love me, or if I even want what I've had that's love, but I'm willing to try. And so I heard about forgiveness and, and I started just getting time with the Lord and going, man, I don't know how to forgive this. This is my whole life. This is all I've known. Even into my marriage, I'm like, man, I need to get this off of me, this pain, this trauma, the, you know, the panic attacks, night terrors, all that stuff.
And so God started really talking to me about forgiveness, and I thought it would be the men that were the hardest to forgive that had abused me growing up. And I got through that and I'm like, okay, this is still here. What is it? And the Lord says, told me in my heart, he said, it's your mom. You know that God gives us our parents to show us the example of the love of the Father. And so when we don't have that experience with them, it's the opposite of what he intended. Now, I was same. I was like, why in the world would you put me in this family then? God if you're so good, then why did all this happen? And you know, God is big enough to handle our questions.
I remember thinking if I asked this like, ugh, you know, scared of almost his response, but he's like, come to me, I'm gonna give you what you can't get by any answer, or by anything else, and that's my peace. And so going to him with those questions, I didn't answers from him as to why we live in a broken world. But what I do know is that when I would exchange those questions and receive His peace, He would give me that peace that surpasses understanding. When we give Him our I don't know, He gives us the peace. And so even after I was saved, it really was when I first had my first daughter, she's nine now. When I saw her, when she came, you know, to me, they put her on my chest. And it was like this overwhelming love. And I thought, how in the world, how in the world could you have anything else in your heart or do anything else, but love this child and protect her at all costs against anything. And it started that process that he's talking about of healing.
And so through that journey, the Lord took me just such a sweet place of understanding that if I never get an apology from my mom, if I didn't hear from her again, if there wasn't some, you know, magical fairy tale ending, I can still choose wholeness. I can still choose wholeness. And so can you if you never get that apology or that thing. And so I hadn't talked to her in a long time and I, I called her during that season. And I just said, you know, I don't know what happened to you, but I do know it must have been pretty bad because you spent your whole life trying to escape it.
You know, addiction is really just seeking comfort in a way other than God. And so, you know, she went through things that I don't even, you know, know about probably. But the point is, is I didn't have to wait for her to apologize for me to choose healing because that comes from God. And when God takes you through things, it's not again, to learn a lesson or, you know, all these things, but it's to have authority over that place. So then you can, then you can pass that on. And that healing, and freedom, and to other people.
Paul: Come on. So powerful. Thank you, Chrissy. So powerful. What you walked through will be a part of your testimony. God will turn that test into a testimony. And the mess that you walk through turns into a message. Chrissy now is helping restore so many people in our restoration class, which by the way, you can join on Thursday nights, 6:30PM, right here at the church. Or discipleship class. But you know, as we come to the end of the story, it says, Joseph looked at his brothers and with tears in his eyes he says, he says, I don't want you to be angry with yourselves. Even though you meant me harm, God sent me. Even though you sold me, God used it to prepare and preserve a remnant on earth to save your lives, and save the lives of all these nations. What Joseph was doing was he was rewriting the memories in his mind, by forgiving. It says he went and he embraced each of his brothers.
Now think about hugging the people who hurt you the worst. Right? Joseph just begins to embrace them. It says he wept on his brother's shoulders, kissing them on the cheek. And after that, all the brothers stayed together and talked with each other. We get to the last chapter of Genesis. Their father passes away. They thought he was only keeping them alive just because their dad was still alive. So when their dad dies, all the brothers come to Joseph and they say, are you gonna kill us now? And he says, who am I?
Look at this in verse 19, he says, don't be afraid. I am not God. I am not the judge. 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. So then don't be afraid my brothers. For the rest of your lives, I will provide for you and your children. And Joseph stayed in Egypt with his whole family. He lived 110 years. Think about that, 13 years of pain. But after that 80 years of complete, like, family restoration, family reconciliation, healing, increase, leadership, promotion. God will only promote you to the level of your offend-ability. He will only promote you to the level of your forgiveness, the level of you being able to continue to just say, I choose to restore. I choose to release. I choose to forgive.