Hurt People Hurt People #2

Sermon Outline

Prepared by

Joseph P. Metoyer, Jr., Th.D., Pastor/Teacher

May 4, 2003

Text: Genesis 37: 23-36

Series: Hurt People Hurt People #2

Text: Genesis 37:23-36

Subject: What I can’t see can hurt me

Introduction: In the mental realm, the detrimental effects of sin can also be seen in the flaws and fallacies of human reasoning. None of us is exempt from this sin-scar on our thought lives, and this reality is the reason God tells us to seek wisdom from Him rather than rely on our own or another human’s imperfect understanding.

Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;" Psalm 118:8 It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.

This is an important concept, because it shows that we accept the reality of damaged thinking processes even though we cannot actually see the injuries, wounds, and sin-related irregularities. We believe they exist because we see their effects. For an example, when I "rationally" weigh the facts and "logically" conclude that my ideas are almost always right and that my exceedingly bright [wife’s] views are almost always wrong, I am "seeing" my sin-damaged thinking in all its self-serving glory whether I "recognize" it or not!

I. Deflective Pain (Scene from Harry Potter)

A. When we seek to numb the pain of unseen wounds –either, knowingly – with denial or other "emotional anesthetics," we inevitably create additional pain for us and for others. Joseph was a victim of "Deflective Pain". Genesis 37:4 "But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him."

1. Ever been in a situation where parents seem to have preferred a sibling? You began to treat the sibling bad. That’s pain that is inflected upon you and you deflect that pain onto your sibling. "Deflected Pain"!

2. Do you work for a boss who seems to always give preferential treatment to a fellow employee, but you do all the work. That’s hurtful! Now the numbness of the pain from that unseen wound causes you to appear that it does not bother you. But deep on the inside you feel it. Now you become indifferent to that other employee, that’s deflecting your pain.

B. Typically, we hurt others most deeply in the areas of our deepest wounding, that’s deflective pain. Joseph’s mother was Rachel, and his dad was Jacob. His grandfather was Isaac and his grandmother was Rebekah. His great-grandfather was Abraham, and his great-grandmother was Sarah.

1. Abraham created a dysfunctional family when he asked his wife to tell the men of Egypt that she was not his wife but his sister (Gen. 12:10ff).

2. Abraham sleeps with his wife’s maid and gave her a child that was more evidence of the creation of a dysfunctional family. (Gen. 16:1-4).

3. Isaac and Rebekah had their own set of problems. They made a great start in trusting and serving God, but they got sidetracked from doing God’s will. Isaac loved Esau best and Rebekah loved Jacob best. Esau was the oldest and Rebekah tried to help God by convincing Jacob to portray himself as Esau to trick Isaac into blessing Jacob as the heir to the family’s promises. Their first major mistake was to show parental favoritism. This created the atmosphere to develop a "dysfunctional" family and started the long family cycle of "Deflective Pain".

II. Deceptive Pain Jacob (Joseph’s dad) arrived at his Uncle Laban’s and met Rachel. Laban promised Jacob Rachel in marriage but seven years later on the wedding day Laban tricked Jacob and at night slipped his older, not as pretty daughter, Leah, into Jacob’s tent and they were married. Remember what goes around comes around! The law of reciprocity, you reap what you sow! The "dysfunctional family continues to grow.

A. Deceptive pain is when victims become victimizers… Let’s track the "victims" and the "victimizers": Gen. 37:3-4; Joseph’s brothers are the victims of the father’s favoritism. But the brothers victimize the father because of his love for Joseph (Vv. 17-18, 20, 24, 31-35).

B. If I overpower, dominate, and abuse you today, it temporarily numbs the pain I still have because I was overpowered, dominated, and abused yesterday.

Joseph is proof that God can take things meant for evil and use them for good. Joseph opened the doors of blessing, opportunity, and friendship for his brothers, and because of it to the whole world…His life is a living testimony to the fact that perseverance will always outlast persecution. He is the epitome of the truth "God puts no limitation on faith, and faith puts no limitation on God"

Stay focus, even when you are in the pit of life. God will deliver you. Even when it appears that God has removed you from your family, you are all alone in your situation, it’s not the end of the world, and you’re just in a pit. Whenever you are the victim of jealousy you are in a pit.

Whenever you are the victim of favoritism you are in a pit. Whenever people lie on you, you are in a pit.

Being in a pit is lonely but realize that if God allowed your enemy to put you in a pit God has a purpose. Nothing builds character in a person like being in a pit.

Sin causes people to plot and conspire, while everybody in the crowd may not agree to harm you sin takes over. James says, "When desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death" (James 1:15).

Sin Has: embittered all human pleasures; corrupted all human goodness; infected all human desires; blemished all human beauty; contaminated all human thought; ruined all human hopes; Sin has also spoiled all human happiness.

If you are in a pit and God is in you then God is also in the pit with you. It might be dry in the pit but Jesus said, "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst but the water I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14).

He is my water when I’m thirsty! When I’m hungry all I say is, "Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more!

Application: Deception flows in two directions: Inward (as we try to convince ourselves) and outward (as we try to convince others) that we are strong and invincible instead of weak, wounded, and easily hurt. Psalm 139: 23-24 tells us how self-deceptive people like us can understand the true nature of our lives. Psalm 139:23-24 "Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; 24and see if there is any wicked way in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting." I have not always had the psalmist’s courage. How about you? When we lack understanding about our hurtful ways, we cannot make healthy, hurt-free choices. And so the cycle of hurt and pain rolls on.