Healthy Through Dysfunction

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Met Church podcast. Here at the Met, we are all about connecting people to God and one another. If you have any questions or want more information about what's happening here at the church, then head to our website@metchurch.com we would love to stay connected with you throughout the week through social media, so be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Now. Enjoy the message. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Well, good morning everybody. This morning we are continuing on in our series about healthy as you know. And if you're a guest this morning, we've been in this series since the first of the year. We may just sat in this for a long time because the health of a person is so essential to every area of their life. It's not just a matter of being healthy physically, and we're going to talk about that, but it's also being healthy emotionally. We've talked a little bit about that and being healthy spiritually. We talk about that every week. And what we find when we look at the health of our of our lives, everything stems off of that health. Healthy people grow, healthy businesses grow, healthy families grow, healthy churches grow. And so if you're interested in the growth of a thing, you need to focus on the health of the thing. Because if you'll focus on the health of the thing, the growth is automatic. And so we talked at the first of the year about having a healthy heart. One of the scriptures you read a moment ago said all of the issues of life come from our heart. If our heart isn't right, nothing else in our life is going to be right. You're just putting a band aid on a cancer. Unless you can deal with the matters of the heart. The heart of the matter is the matter of the human heart. And once you began to deal with that, all the other things began to fall in place. So we started there and then we moved into the section that we're still in this morning and that was talking about healthy homes. The very first institution that God ever established as he created all things was the home. And the home is truly the fabric of all of society. As the home goes, so society will go. And as the home goes, so the church. And so it is so important that we understand the value of our homes being healthy. And that's why it shouldn't surprise anyone to know that all of our homes are under attack. Because your home is so essential to so many things that happen in a civilized world. And so the enemy has trained all of his focus and all of his attention on our homes. And so it's not just you, it's just about everyone in the room. And everyone watching right now will probably be able to say, my home is under some type of attack. And so that shouldn't surprise us. It just simply shows the significance and the importance of the home if it's drawing that much enemy fire. And so we want to talk about strengthening the home. We want to talk about having a healthy home and the steps that we take in order for that to be a reality. And this morning, I want to talk about an aspect that all of us deal with when it comes to the home, and that is the dysfunction within the home. And it is possible to be healthy in the midst of a dysfunctional family. It is also possible to have been raised in a dysfunctional home and be healthy to come out of that home better than you went in. When I was looking at dysfunctional families, it made me feel good. When I looked at dysfunctional families in the Bible, the majority of them were to some degree or another. As I deal with the classic definition of dysfunction, and I'll share that with you in a moment. I mean, you think about Adam and Eve. That was a dysfunctional family. The very first family of the Bible were incredibly dysfunctional. I mean, the two brothers had a feud and one brother killed the other brother. Now this was the original family. And then you look at Noah, you talk about a messed up family. Oh, my gosh. Drunkenness, debauchery, everything is in the family of Noah. And so that's an incredibly dysfunctional family. You go a little farther, you look at Abraham. Abraham, the father of faith, right? And yet Abraham was a messed up man. I mean, Abraham was dysfunctional. Sarah, his wife, was a beautiful woman. We know that by the Bible because it says whenever they were traveling through some of these hostile countries, that one of the kings saw how beautiful Sarah was, and Abraham felt threatened. Because, you know, back then, those kings had principles. And they wouldn't just outright steal your wife, they would kill you and then take her. So, you know, they had values and principles. And so he was afraid that, hey, as good looking as my wife is, this joker's gonna kill me. Loosely translated, he's gonna kill me and take her. So he lied and he said, go along with this. Just say you're my sister, right? I mean, just a messed up situation. The king found out about it later, God revealed it to him, and the king said, man, you could have gotten me in trouble with God by doing that. So what's going on here? And so then you Go a little farther. And you remember God tells Abraham, you're gonna be the father of many nations. But Sarah, she's able to have children at that point in the game. So they get together and conspire. And he says, why don't we have a child with Hagar? She works for the family. It's kind of all in the family. And so they concoct a plan. Sarah signs off on it. And so Abraham has an affair with one of the employees and has a child with her. Messed up. I'm just saying. Messed up. This is dis. And yet this is Abraham. This is the father of faith. This is the one that Paul will point to. And Romans 4 is the example of our faith. I'm just laying groundwork to tell you that most of the families in the Bible were dysfunctional. I hope I can encourage you just with that thought alone. I could pray and we could go home and you could go, thank you, Jesus. I got some encouragement when I went to church. Cause I thought it was just our family, right? And so every family, to some extent or another, has some dysfunction. The problem is, is when you don't see it and you don't recognize it. I heard about a guy was going to a psychiatrist. He was trying to figure out what was going on with him. He had a fried egg on top of his head. He had a strip of bacon over each ear. And he told the psychiatrist, I'm here to talk about my crazy brother. Well, some people go through life like that. If you don't see the dysfunction, if you don't really see the things that are going on in your life, then you can't fix it. You can't adjust it, and you can't change it. And so one of the biggest things to do is recognize it and be careful. By the way, when you do recognize it, not get the blame and the shame game. So many times people will say, well, the reason my family is in such a mess is because I came out of a dysfunctional family. And we began to blame the family that we've come from as an excuse for the family that we currently have. We blame the marriage example set before us by our parents for the marriage that we're in now. And we get into that blame shame game. And that, by the way, is as old as the Bible itself. You remember I mentioned Adam and Eve? You remember what happened when they sinned and when God went and called them out, where are you? They come and God calls them out. Remember what Adam does when God says, man, what's going on with you. Why did you do that? Remember what he said? Read Genesis 3:12. Adam doesn't own it. Adam says it's the woman. He doesn't call her Eve. He calls her the woman, right? That's his wife. She's the woman. And then he doesn't just stop there. He says, the woman you gave me. So this is not. Not only is it not my fault, it's her fault. And not only is it her fault, it's really your fault, God. Cause you gave her to me. And if you never put us together, we will be having. I'm just saying it is as old as the Bible to get in the blame and shame game and not to own your own stuff. And that's a form of dysfunction. And so I'm just suggesting you. It is possible to break that pattern. It is possible not to pass the dysfunction of our past onto our future. I would put it to you this way. We can't do anything about our ancestors, but we can do everything about our descendants. We absolutely can change some patterns and we can change some of the dysfunction that we've been in and that we've grown up in these. If you want to call them a generational curse, that's great. These things can be broken. One of the things, as I said a moment ago, you have to recognize it, you have to own it. And then you have to say that crazy is going to stop here. Have you ever had that talk with your spouse and say, look, we grew up with some crazy. I said a moment ago, no perfect families. All the families in the room had some dysfunction. But at some point, when you recognize it and you own it, you have to say, we're not gonna pass the crazy on to the next generation. Now. We'll pass our own crazy onto them. Cause we can't help it. We're not perfect. But it'll be a different crazy, right? It won't be the same crazy. And so what you have to do, you have to say, this dysfunction, as I recognize it and I see it, I'm not gonna pass it on, not know. I'm not gonna pass it on to the next generation. This thing will absolutely stop here. Now, there is some, by definition, some basic identifiers that help us see a dysfunction that's happening within the family. It says, basically, by definition, a dysfunctional family is a family that has a major breakdown in the basic relationships. So the family no longer functions properly or healthily. And here's some five things to look for. Number one is estrangement. One of the marks of a dysfunctional family is estrangement, where family members are not talking to each other, they're avoiding each other. Estrangement. That's dysfunction. Number two, anger. Anger that is expressed or anger that is repressed. Now you're going to get mad from time to time. There's going to be anger in a family. We all get that. We're all different people. But when you don't deal with it you properly, where you express it improperly or you repress it and you just try to, you know, suppress the anger that you're feeling and you don't ever talk about it, doesn't go away and that becomes dysfunction. So estrangement, anger. Here's the third one. Lack of trust. Lack of trust. And by the way, trust is earned. Trust can be lost. Trust can get re earned. And so when you have a perpetual problem within a family where families don't trust each other, that is a form of dysfunction. And then deception, where you're not being honest with each other, you're either afraid to talk to the person because of how they're gonna react, or you just don't trust your own opinion about what you need to say. So you just keep those thoughts within your own head and they take on a life of their own. And so you don't have a healthy relationship when you can really talk about what you're thinking about and it turns into deception. It's a form of dysfunction. The fifth thing that they identified was unhealthy secrecy. And that's when you're not able to face the truth, the reality within a family, when you're not able to talk about things and it becomes an unhealthy secrecy that is going on within a family. Now, once you begin to identify those factors, and some of you, as I talk of that, may say, well, we got a little bit of that, maybe a little bit of that. Maybe I have three out of five of those. Maybe you didn't identify really any of those. But once you began to identify the dysfunction within the family, you have to begin to be proactive and take steps to deal with that. And as I said a moment ago, the first step is owning it. Don't get in the blame and shame game. Take your ownership of your part of that and begin to take steps to move in the right direction to try to bring function into that dysfunction. I would even say you can put the fun back in dysfunction. You know, you try to say, I'm gonna take some steps to make our family better. Our family is Never gonna be perfect, but it can be better. And one of the examples that I found in the scriptures, and like I said a moment ago, there are many, many I could talk about this morning, but one of the examples I wanted to share with you this morning of a young man that came out of an extremely dysfunctional family, but became one of the greatest leaders in all of the Old Testament. He didn't let his past define his future was this young man by the name of Joseph. And everybody in the room has heard of Joseph. But I want to tell you, I mentioned his father a moment ago. One of the most dysfunctional people in all of the Bible. One of the most dysfunctional families in all the Bible was the family that Joseph came out of. Now, Joseph had fallen into the blame and shame game. He would have never been successful. He would have been swallowed up by the problems that he faced. But instead, Joseph did not do that. He persevered. And I want to talk about that. He navigated through the dysfunction of his past and became, as I said, one of the most incredible, one of the greatest leaders in all of the Old Testament. Now, you could pick up and read the story of Joseph in Genesis from about chapter 27 all the way through to the last chapter. It's a fascinating story. But I've just dropped in to a little section of Scripture that I want to share with you. Then I want to comment a little bit, kind of in context to his life as we talk about how to be healthy, Even though there's some dysfunction in Genesis, chapter 41. Look at verse 37. The Bible says this plan that Joseph presented to Pharaoh seemed good to he and all of his officials. And then notice what Pharaoh asked them. Can we find anyone like this man? One in whom the spirit of God. Now, this is speaking of Joseph. This is Pharaoh, who was a pagan ruler. And he was looking at this young man, Joseph, saying, there's no one like him. This is a remarkable human being. This is a young man that I have seen and sensed the spirit of God in his life. Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has made all of this known to you, there is no one so discerning and wise as you. You will be in charge of my palace. All of my people will submit to your orders only with respect to the throne. In other words, I will be the only one above you. Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you. What a remarkable thing. In the context of what you and I are living in today. He would have become the prime minister of Egypt. This Is a young man. Guys, when you know his full story, the betrayal of his brothers, the dysfunctionality of his family, as I'm gonna touch on just a moment. And you know, everything he went through. Falsely accused by Potiphar's wife of hitting on her and attempting to sexually assault her, Thrown into prison under a false accusation. And you look at everything this guy faced and out throughout. Throughout his life, at any point in time, he could have quit. He could have said, this isn't fair, this isn't right. And no one would criticize him at any juncture in his life. All the challenges that he faced, he could have stopped any point along the way, but he persevered. He knew God had a plan and a purpose coming out of the dysfunctional family that he had. Facing all the problems that he had, he just determined, I won't quit. I'm not gonna give in, I'm not gonna give out. I'm not gonna give up. He persevered, and God honored him in a remarkable way. So the first thing you look at, I've alluded to it a little bit this morning, is what I'm calling the problems that he faced. I said he came out of a dysfunctional family. All of the problems that Joseph initially faced in his life came from his home. He had three stepmothers, he had 10 stepbrothers, he had a stepsister. All living under the same roof at the same time. Little dysfunction, little weirdness there. His father was passive. In fact, his dad's name, when you look at Genesis 25:26, his father's name meant deceiver. Schemer. How'd you like to have that for a father? Oh, this is my dad's schemer. This is my dad. Deceiver. Don't go into business with my dad. You will regret it. Right. That was his father. A deceiver, a schemer. And this was. Yet this was the family that he grew up in. Jacob knew God. His father did know God. He had a relationship with God. And yet he embraced polygamy, which was the culture of that day, which opened the door to jealousy and insecurity and constant conflict among his wives. He was disconnected. He was disinterested in his family. He was a cheat and a swindler, as I said, in his career. And he just. He was not engaged in the life of any of his kids. Now, that's the father. Now, some of you, sadly, can relate to that. You might have had a father that maybe wasn't as bad as Jacob, but he was a little disconnected from you. He was a dishonest person. He was not someone that was quick to tell you that he's proud of you or that he loved you. And you never knew that as a father. I'm just laying the groundwork to tell you that if that's the case, if you didn't have that in your life, that does not have to define your future. These were some of the problems that Joseph faced. He had that kind of a father. Really a horrible example for a father. And then in Joseph, to. To be fair, Joseph was what I would call kind of a clueless son. As a child, he was a little clueless. I mean, he was inattentive. He didn't really read the room. He didn't realize how troubled his family really was. He was insensitive. He made some comments to his brothers that was offensive to them because he really wasn't connected. He didn't have a sense of. You ever been around somebody that'll say something? They didn't think through what they said and it has a bad reaction. Well, that was him. He would just come in and comment about something and go, oh, Joseph, I wouldn't have said that. Right. So he was a little insensitive. He was a little clueless as a kid. He didn't have a lot of self awareness. So Joseph had some stuff that he was navigating through in his personal life. And then he's growing up around these brothers that were aggressive and that were jealous of him. They were resentful of him. They were deceitful to him. In fact, if you understand the story, at one point they sold him into slavery. Then they went home and told their father that he had been killed. So this was a messed up group of people. Again, I don't think you could. You could find another one, but not one quite as dysfunctional as this family. And this is the family that Joseph came from. I tried to summarize his family just kind of. Cause there's some chapter after chapter after chapter in Genesis that talk about these stories that I'm summarizing for you. And I broke it down kind of in three statements. Let me give this to you. He had undeserved treatment from his family. He didn't deserve that. He should have been loved. All kids ought to be loved. He had undeserved treatment from his family. Number two, he had unexpected restrictions from his circumstances. He was thrown into things that really limited his ability to navigate through them. It wasn't fair to him what he had to deal with. And the third thing was he had untrue accusations made about him. People said things about him that were not true, that were not fair. He had no way. It would be like somebody putting post out on social media about you that, that aren't true. And you're like, where do I go to defend myself? How do I get my reputation back? And so this is the dysfunction this young man came from. But as you read his story, the second thing that stood out to me, I wanted to share with you, is the provision that he found. David found a light in the dark moments of his life. And what, I'm sorry, Joseph, Joseph realized was the, the presence of God was with him every step of the way. When you read the story of Joseph time and time again, folks, you'll read this phrase. The Lord was with Joseph. God was with Joseph. God didn't forsake him. He was with him in the midst of everything. Could God have prevented all that from happening? Certainly, but for some reason, and that, by the way, is one of the big mysteries that we have in our faith, is why God allows us to go through some of the things that he allows us to go through. But yet in the providence of God, God allowed Joseph to have this dysfunctional family to go through all of the things that I've just described to you. He allowed it for him to go through it. And yet God was with him every step of the way. This kind of goes back to something we talk about all the time. We talk about recognizing, you know, the presence of God in your life and seeing his provision all along the way. You Remember in Daniel 3 when those three Hebrew teenagers were going to be thrown into the fire because they wouldn't recant their faith. And Nebuchadnezzar said, when the music sounds, you either recant your faith or I'm gonna throw you into this furnace and I'm gonna devour you and destroy your life. You remember that story and what's powerful about the story and the thing that always impresses me when I read the story is with the threat of physical harm to their body, they said, we won't recant. We're not going to turn our back on God. We will not do that. And then they said this to the king. It's there in Daniel 3. They said, God is able to deliver us. And then it says this, but even if he doesn't, even if he doesn't, we still won't recant our faith. Every time I think about this, I think about how our faith has to be big enough. Our faith has to Be big enough to allow God to do the things that he wants to do in our life when it isn't things that we agree with. Our faith has to be big enough to allow God to work in those areas of our life that make no sense. Our faith has to be big enough to allow God to do things in our life that doesn't seem fair. And here these three Hebrew children were. They were being persecuted, they were being pressured, they were being threatened. And they said, look, God can deliver me from this and he can. God can fix my marriage, and he can. God can bring our family back together, and he can. God can heal my business, and he can. God can bless my life, and he can. God. God can. We know all of that. But what if he doesn't? I mean, then where do you go with your faith then? What do you do with yourself then? Well, you have to be big enough and your faith has to be strong enough as the those Hebrews teenagers to say, even if he doesn't do what I know he can do, in the way I pray he will, I still trust him. I still believe in him. My faith will not waver. And I'm saying, when Joseph faced all the unfairness of his life and he looked at everything he was going through, he realized through everything, God was with him. Let me summarize it this way. God didn't keep him out of the fire like the three Hebrew teenagers found. He went with him in the fire. I think that's the difference. God may not keep a bad circumstance from happening in your life. He may not keep a dysfunctional family from you. Walk through that experience. But what you'll find if you look around a little bit and you'll think back that God has been with you every step of the way, through the disappointments and through the dysfunction and through the unfairness and through all of the things that were wrong. God has never forsaken his kids, and he won't forsake you. And so Joseph recognized man, God's been with me. And there's some powerful things when you think about that. And I wanted to share a few of them with you. And one of the things is, don't get your theology from your circumstance. Joseph didn't do that. Meaning that if things are going great, then God's favor is on my life and I must be walking in a way that's pleasing to Him. Now, that's true. But be careful with that. Because if you get your theology from your circumstance, then when things aren't going your way and when things do turn south and things go bad. The marriage is shaky and the business isn't good, and there's more month than money. And gosh, the health isn't good. If you're getting all your theology from your circumstances, here's what you're gonna do. Now that you're in a bad circumstance, you're gonna say, well, God must not be pleased with me. Something must be wrong in my life. I mean, I must not have the favor of God. Now, when you draw your theology from your circumstances, that will be your conclusion. So you have to be careful with that. Because here's what I found in my life. Sometimes God works in the things that he blesses us with. And sometimes he works in the things that he burdens us with. Sometimes God will allow the burdens to hit your life. And sometimes God will allow the difficulties to come into your life. And he allows those things for a divine purpose. I talked last week about discipline and the importance of disciplining kids and the challenge of raising kids. And the Bible speaks of discipline. In the Bible, in Hebrews 12, you remember, he said, those the Lord loves, he will discipline as a Father will discipline the Son. And he gives the instruction. In Hebrews 12, he said he first rebukes his child, then he disciplines him. In other words, he talks to them first and he disciplines them. Well, we're the same way. If we're gonna discipline a child for something they've done, we want them to know what the discipline is coming from. Here's what you did. And as a result, this is the consequence of what you've done. I'm going somewhere with this thought, so stay with me here. It's the idea that when we're punishing our children for something, we're trying to correct a behavior. That's all we're doing. We're trying to correct a behavior. And so that they learn the lesson, we have to be sure they understand why they're being disciplined. Now compare that to how God loves us. Those the Lord loves, He disciplines. God will not discipline his children without letting us know what we're being disciplined for. Here's the point. When I'm in a bad circumstance and I'm going through something, if it is the result of something I've done and God is disciplining me for that, he'll always tell me, I'll always know. There won't be a mystery about it. Cause I don't love my kids more than God loves his. And I'm just suggesting you that those the Lord loves, He Will rebuke, then chasten. I think it's Hebrews 12, 11. He will first talk to them, and then he disciplines them. My point is, when you go through a hard time and you're going through a difficult season, and you're faced with something that doesn't seem right and doesn't seem fair, and you say, I don't know why this is happening to me. And you're honest when you say that. Let me tell you something. That's not discipline. That's not the result of something bad you've done. Separate those two things. If it were the result of something you've done, God would tell you that, well, you know, did the crime. I'm gonna do the time. I'm forgiven, but I've got consequences, right? So I'm just suggesting that that's how you can tell as a child of God. How do I tell this is consequences of a bad mistake that I've made? Or are this is something different that God's doing in my life. And I'm saying when the something different that God is doing in your life, when that happens, you may not agree with it. I've gone through things, going through things I don't agree with. I told you a few weeks ago, God's never asked my opinion about anything, ever. I've never had an epiphany, a cacophony of angels going, bill, chuck it in. This is about to happen. You cool with that? Never. I don't find out till I'm in the middle of it. And I'm just saying that a lot of things I've gone through, and that's why I tell you, too, there are some mysteries in life that will not make sense until you and I are in heaven. God just won't tell us. But I'm saying it comes back to, do I trust him. Joseph had to make up his mind. He had to say, God, I'm not gonna get my theology from my circumstances. You've blessed me in some ways, you've burdened me in other ways. I know this isn't the result of some mistake that I've made. So, God, you're with me, and I'm just along for the ride. I'm gonna go with the flow. I'm gonna trust you with this. And you know what happened as a result of that? When he began to do that, when he changed his mindset about that, his problems became opportunities for him. One of the things God did, when you read Genesis 40, verse 7, God brought hurting people into his life. Problems became opportunities. It sensitized him to other people around him that were going through similar things. One of the things your problems will do when God allows you to walk down that road, it will sensitize you to other people going through similar problems. And it will prepare you to be able to minister to someone. Once you've gone through this and you look back at this, it will prepare you to minister to someone who's walking down that same road. Who's more qualified to talk to someone who's lost a child than someone who's, who has lost a child. Who better to talk to someone who's lost a loved one than someone who's lost a loved one? Right. I'm just saying, as unfair as that is and as hard as that is, problems provide opportunities and they prepare us for greater ministry to help other people who may be navigating through similar things. And I'm just suggesting that when Joseph was going through that, he found that God was faithful, that God never forsook him, and that through all of his experiences of life, God was working and he could be trusted. And the biggest thing, guys, when you're navigating out of a dysfunctional family or you're trying to bring health into a dysfunctional family, the biggest thing to do is to increase your trust and your dependence upon God. Even in the middle of a situation that seems so unfair. One of my go tos to help you understand this is in Matthew 11. It's John the Baptist. And he was the guy, remember, that was preparing the way of the Lord. What does that mean? That means he was getting a crowd together, Christ followers. He was getting people together that were looking for the Messiah so he could introduce Jesus to them. So he comes out of nowhere preaching like an Old Testament prophet. And undoubtedly he was sensational. And undoubtedly he was entertaining. And undoubtedly he was good. Cause people just wanted to come watch John and listen to John. So everywhere he went and preached, man, people just followed him. And then all of a sudden you have that famous verse in John chapter 2 where Jesus looks out and says, behold, there he is, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And Jesus in that moment stepped from anonymity onto the public stage. And then John said, I'm now going to decrease while the ministry of Jesus now will increase. And so John is stepping back from the stage and from the spotlight as Jesus is stepping into that spotlight and the crowds are now following Jesus instead of following. Well, here's the problem. John ran into. He had hacked off a lot of the religious leadership of that day. He was preaching about a messiah that was coming. He was talking about the fulfillment of prophecy that was taking place. And the scribes, the Pharisees, those rabbis, did not like what he was teaching. But there were so many people around him, and it was so popular, they couldn't take him down. They couldn't get to him without it being a mob scene and a riot. But once the crowds walk away from John and start following Jesus, John just has a pretty small little group around him now, so he's vulnerable, and they can go after him. And they do, and they arrest him. They throw him in prison. Unfair. But he's in prison. And John has one of his disciples, one of his followers, come to him to check on him, to see how he's doing. And he says, it's all in Matthew 11. He goes, Go ask Jesus, are you really the Messiah, or do I start looking for another one? Now, that's pretty sarcastic. He knew he was the Messiah. He's the one that pointed him out. Remember, behold, the Lamb of God takes away sin, baptized him. He knew who he was. But what he was going through had so messed with his head. What he was going through was so unfair. What he was going through had shaken his faith that he was even doubting whether Jesus was really able to do what he said he could do. Do. And, man, that's the critical moment of your faith. And I love how Jesus responds when they go to Jesus and say, hey, John's pretty upset at you right now. He says, are you really the Messiah? Do we start looking out for another one? And Jesus looks at him and says, go back and tell John the things you've seen me do. How that blind eyes are made to see and lame legs are made to walk and the dead are raised to life again. Go back and tell John I am who I said I am, the same person. I've always been that, and I still am that. And then he said this, and I'll translate it loosely for you. He said, tell John to quit getting hacked off every time I do something he doesn't like. In other words, tell John, would you trust me for just a minute? Just trust me. This doesn't make sense now, but it'll make sense later. And I'm saying, guys, when you're in the middle of something, that's the crisis of faith, where you have to make the decision. You have to choose to say, God, this is not fair. This is not chastisement. This is just something I'm going through. But I choose to trust you. And when you recognize that, you see the provision of God every step of the way. Here's the last thought, the third and the final thought. You see the providence that he followed. The providence that he followed, meaning that God was working in and through every step. In every season of his life, God was promoting him. I love that verse in Psalm 37. The steps of a good person are ordered by the Lord. He delights in his way. Though that good person falls, the Lord will uphold him and will bring him back. The steps. Life's a series of steps. Steps, steps, steps. Think about it as going up, ascending a staircase. You're going up. You learn a little more at the next level than you do at the previous level. It's like when you were in seventh grade and you were trying to get through seventh grade and it was so hard. When you get up to ninth grade and you look back at the work at seventh grade and you see how it appears so easy. It didn't at the time, but it does now. Steps. And where you are now is just a level. And if you'll take the next step, you'll find sooner that the level that you're struggling on will be the level you've been very successful at getting beyond. What is now your ceiling, if you continue to take steps, will eventually be your floor. It's all about steps. And throughout the whole thing, God was promoting him and God was moving him and he was preparing him from one level to the next level. And by the way, during this time, you know what was going on? I didn't touch on this, but he was estranged from his family. His family were so messed up he had to withdraw himself from his family. And can I tell you, if you're in a situation sometimes as a grown adult, sometimes you have to distance yourself from the dysfunction of the family you grew up in. Sometimes to get healthy and sometimes for them to respect your boundaries, sometimes you have to distance yourself. And he did that. He was estranged from his family for a period of time, but he continued to follow steps. He continued to trust God. God moved him from level to level to level. And let me just point a few highlights of his career. In Genesis, chapter 41, verse 41, he's made the prime minister of Egypt. He's given territorial and financial authority over all of Egypt. When you read Genesis 41, verse 43, he's given a company car with a valet and servants. That's a chariot back then, but company car. Genesis 45, he's given an Egyptian name and the Egyptian name that he's given means God speaks and God lives. And another thing he was given is he married the most beautiful daughter of their high priest and she became his wife. And when you get to Genesis chapter 50, guess what happens. He's reconciled with his family. That family he came out of that was so dysfunctional. That family that he was estranged from for a period of time while he's growing and he's getting healthy and God's moving him on in his career and he's growing his family, and he's trying not to make the mistakes of his past, that is, that he'd grown up in. While he's trying to create a new reality for his family. All of a sudden, man, God brings it in his providence to a point where he's reconciled back to his family. You know, he has a different perspective. You read Genesis 50. Some of you are familiar with this. He says to them in Genesis 50 to his brothers, remember, they sold him into slavery and lied. Told his father he was. He was dead. He said to his brothers, the things you thought that were evil against me, God meant them for good. Wow, what a perspective. In other words, all the things that we were going through here that we looked at and said, this is horrible. Now that I've gotten through them and I'm looking back at them, I'm realizing God was working all along. He meant it for good. Let me give you this and we'll go home. He even names two of his kids. He has two kids and he names them Hebrew names. One of the kids name is Ephraim. Ephraim means fruitfulness. Fruitfulness. He looked at his life, he looked at his wife, he looked at his career, he looked at his position, and he says, wow, God took me from nothing. He took me from some crazy, and he's made me blessed. I'm fruitful. I've got wealth, I've got success, I've got everything. You think a person would want to describe a pretty successful life? He said, I've got it, and I'm gonna name my son to honor God. Fruitful God, you bless me. I'm fruitful. Ephraim. Ephraim. You know what the name of the second son was? Manasseh. You know what Manasseh means? Forgetfulness. Not that the kid's a forgetful kid. All kids are forgetful. It meant more than that. Just as Ephraim meant fruitfulness, Manasseh meant forgetfulness, meaning this. God has taken the pain out of my memory. Now, here's what I know about a Dysfunction in the family and going through something with a bad family and trying to navigate through it. You can forgive. You can and you should, but you can't forget. You know, that'll say, oh, forgive and forget. You can, you can't. You can forgive, but you can't forget. You're going to remember. There's not a person in this room, not one of you, that have gone through anything in life where you've forgiven someone that you've completely forgot what you've forgiven them of. Now, we may get all pious and churchy and go, oh, yeah, boy, not me. I just don't remember any of that thing. Oh, come on, man, just me and you in here. You remember. But you know what happens in time. You know what happens. With God's grace, God will take the pain out of the memory. In other words, you can look at them and not want to kill them anymore. You can look at them now and not maybe not cry when you look at them. God has now taken the pain out of the memory. And that's forgetfulness in the sense that I've forgiven them because it no longer breaks my heart to think of them. I can be around them. It will never be the same. I don't want it to be the same. But I can at least be around them now without bad things happening, without tension in the room, because why? God's healed your heart. And that's what happened to Joseph. He could be around his brothers. He had the power. He could have killed them on the spot. And by the way, if that had been in the Bible, we'd all went, well, there you go. That's what happened. That's what happens when, you know, that's what. Amen, child of God. Go get them. But that's not how it ended. It ended with reconciliation in an impossible situation. Incredibly dysfunction. And yet God brought that back together and he protected Joseph's heart. So, folks, this morning, you don't have to raise your kids in the same environment maybe some of you were raised in. You can change that. As I said, you can't do anything about the ancestors. You can do everything about the descendants. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. And Lord, as we try to cover a pretty broad topic today, and we all deal with that, I pray you'll bring some healing to some homes and hearts. Father, would you impress upon our minds as we walk from this place that our family is worth fighting for? Father, I pray that you'll help some people who are in the middle of the storm, in the middle of the fire. Help them to know there's a reason to keep walking. There's a reason to keep taking the steps. There's a reason, Father, to keep trusting you. You can bring them through, you can get them to the other side. And they look, look back on it and realize it was that storm, it was that fire, it was that trial that worked to strengthen me and to strengthen us and to strengthen them. So, Father, I pray for healing in the hearts of people here today. And finally, Father, I pray for anyone who may not know you as their personal savior that this would be the moment where they humble their heart right where they are and say, lord Jesus, with everything I know about me, I now trust all that I know about you. Come into my heart. Forgive my sin. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:40:09] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.