Momentum - Learning to Overcome the Evil Aimed at You, Part 2

What do you do when life is just flat out unfair? You've been betrayed. You've been gossiped about. People have lied.

They've stolen. I mean, you just say to yourself, God, this is so unfair. And it hurts. How do you move beyond the pain?

How do you heal the wound? We're going to talk about three specific biblical steps that God will give you that will help you in your situation today. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.

Living on the Edge is an international teaching and discipleship ministry motivating Christians to live like Christians. In just a minute, Chip will wrap up our series Momentum, How to Ignite Your Faith, with a final look at one of his favorite Bible characters, Joseph. Last time, Chip described the way Joseph, in the face of incredible hardship and pain, continued trusting God's plan and goodness. Today, we'll learn more about what fueled his response and how, when anger and bitterness bubble up inside us, we can act in a God-honoring way, too. Well, with that, here's Chip for the remainder of his message, Learning How to Overcome the Evil Aimed at You. Finally, the last thing he did is he grew.

He faced his issues and he forgave others theirs. And you say, well, where do you get that, man? You're just making these notes up.

Well, when you see the movie later on this week or this day, he gets married and then he has two boys and he names them, Manasseh and Ephraim. The word Manasseh means God has caused me to forget. You know what it means? I put it behind me. I'm not living in the past.

Manasseh means, guess what? I dropped my rock. I'm not living with memories of my dad and the favoritism. I'm not living with my brothers and what they did to me.

I'm not living with falsely accused. I'm not remembering that I was forgotten by the cup bearer. You know what? God has allowed me to forget. I've dealt with those issues and then notice that he's moving forward because Ephraim, you know what his name means? Fruitful. And so at some point in time in the journey, and you know what?

There's a lesson here. See, he didn't turn on the big screen TV and he didn't get his life filled with hobbies and he didn't get busy to dull the pain. Of course, those things weren't available either. But when you're in prison, it is in silence and solitude. He had the ability to face the deepest issues in his life. He had time in prison to look up through the bars and see the stars and the hand of God and remember the dreams.

He hung on. You know, there was no written passages in this time. God's promises to Joseph were given to him in a couple dreams and it was holding on to the character of God and the dreams. God says this is going to happen to me and so I'm holding on to that as I go through 13 years of it looks like the very opposite of that could ever happen.

And that's what God wants for you and me. When I've been through the difficult times like this, Hebrews 10, 36, you might jot that in your notes. It says, for you have need of endurance so that once you've done the will of God, you might receive what was promised. You have need of endurance. Hoopo meno is the word.

It's used in James 1. It'll produce endurance. Hoopo means to be under meno, under great stress and pressure. You have need to hang in there, the pressure and the stress. I can't make it as a single parent one more day. I can't make it in this job one more day and let you get up and you do it. And as you do it, and as you do it, as you do it, as you do it, you get stronger and stronger and stronger. And see, what happens is God changes you. We're always asking God to change the stuff out there that we can't control.

And God's primary commitment is He'll change you in the midst of it and He'll change me. And so He grew. And He forgave them. And He moved on. Well, it raises the question, Joseph, I would like to learn how to do that.

What was the dynamic? It's one thing to read that and say, great, Joseph did it. What was the secret?

I like to suggest that Joseph's secret to overcome evil involves something he knew, something he did, and something he refused to do. See, in all of that 13 years and all the betrayal and justice, abandonment, there's something he knew. And actually, this is going to come right out in the text because he's going to meet his brothers and they're going to have a number of situations and he's going to test them and he's going to put gold in their bags and he's going to give them the grain and he's going to hide his identity. He doesn't do it to punish them. But he wants to test them. He wants to bring them to the point where they realize what they've done and how they've sinned against God. And they come clean with the whole deal. And we pick up the story here in chapter 45 and this is what he knew. Nothing comes into our lives by accident.

Circle the word by accident in your notes. Tell you what, you start believing that, your attitude will change and it will lead to a great change in behavior. Nothing comes into our lives by accident. It is either decreed or allowed by who? An all wise, sovereign God for our good. There's evil in the world. God has given us this tremendous gift of free will. People can choose to do good, they can choose to do evil, but their evil can't ruin your life.

But there's evil in the world. And God either decreed knowing his plan for you or he allowed it and he's going to orchestrate it in a way for your good. To say that God is all wise means he brings about the best possible ends by the best possible means for the most possible people for the longest possible time. It's a classic definition of the wisdom of God.

And he's good. He wants to bring your best and the word sovereign just means he's in overall absolute control of all the events and all the circumstances. God knows all things actual and he knows all things possible. And so what you see is that God has a good big plan for each of our lives and the little plans of some who intend to harm us are then refashioned by God to fulfill his big good plan. Joseph actively believed that God's sovereign control of all circumstances were meant for good.

At some point in time you just need to write down the phrase. When you're dealing with your rock they meant it for evil, God meant it for good. God meant it for good. God meant it for good. Some of the evil that has come at you made you go to a different state, go to a different job. If you can begin to trace you'll realize that if that evil hadn't happened I would have done this instead of that, but wow I landed here and that's where I met my wife.

Or that's when I realized I was a lot better at this and I took this job instead of that job. Notice what it says here in Genesis 45. Joseph is talking to his brothers. He says, and now do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there's been famine in the land and for the next five years they will not be plowing and reaping, but God sent me ahead of you.

Why? To preserve you for a remnant on the earth and to save your lives by great deliverance. So then it was not you who sent me here.

Are we starting to get a pattern here? It was not you, it was not you. God sent me here. And then notice he exalted him. He made me father to Pharaoh, Lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.

Here's the application. Therefore I am never a, can you fill it in? Victim. Never. Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Doesn't mean it's not hard.

Doesn't mean it's really difficult. You are never a victim. I am never a victim. I can't play the poor me card. Now it doesn't excuse the person's evil. It never makes it right. But if I can survive and thrive and resist and wait and grow, God will do what?

Work all things together for the good to those that love him, to those that are called according to his purpose. And I will tell you that when you meet people instead of the adversity and the betrayal and the abuse and the lies that it makes them instead of breaks them, I will tell you what, they do not have a victim mentality. They do not have the world owes me.

They do not have if this wouldn't have happened then I would be here and if only that would have happened. Some people live with this mindset their entire life. I got a raw deal and somebody owes to make my life work out and it can be very subtle and by the way that type of mindset, that type of personality produces an emotional response that produces the kind of person that other people don't like to be around. And so it becomes self-fulfilling.

Oh poor me. I mean you try and help the oh poor me's for a while and then after a while they just worry out. And what all of us do is we start avoiding them. And so part of it is you got to face those things. At some point in time you have to be angry at the person.

Basically Joseph said God was in control. Did I like it? No. Was prison fun?

Absolutely not. Falsely accused? My reputation? But at the end of the day he says he sent me here. Their little evil plans don't have the power to ruin God's big good plan for your life unless you let it. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and we'll get you back to our series Momentum in just a minute. But first, do you feel stalled out spiritually? Like no matter how hard you try, you just can't find a consistent rhythm. We'll keep listening after this message as Chip highlights a helpful resource we have that will jumpstart your faith and get you growing again.

You won't want to miss it. Well with that, here again is Chip. The second thing is something he did. He blessed those who cursed him. Chapter 45, as you look down, it says, Now hurry back to my father and say to him, This is what your son Joseph says. God has made me Lord of all of Egypt.

Wow, that's like that dream came true. God was faithful to his promise. Come down to me, don't delay. You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me. You, your children and grandchildren, your flocks and your herds, all that you have. Now listen to this blessing. I will provide for you there because five years of famine are still to come.

Otherwise, you and your household and all you belong will become destitute. You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that it is really I who am speaking to you. Tell my father about all the honor accorded to me in Egypt and about everything you've seen and bring my father down here quickly.

Now think about this. This is not a fairyland story. Joseph chose to willfully bless the very brothers who rejected him. Now that part where I said you need to pray and ask God to have your heart be open, right about now you need to ask him to keep it open. Because if you want to get rid of your rock, you've got to first believe that God really is in control and he's good. And second, you're going to have to bless the person who wounded you.

He committed to provide for them, their children, their grandchildren. Romans chapter 12 verse 14, bless those who curse you. Bless and curse not. It's a command.

It's not a suggestion. Do not be a, verse 21, in fact Romans 12, 14, here's sort of the bookend opening and verse 21 is the ending. He'll go on to say, never be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. When we want to pay back, when we give back evil, it's like fire comes to us and we try and put out the fire with a gas hose.

And it just, it's like drinking poison and thinking the other person's going to die. You've got to bless them. The application is I will do good to those who hurt me in a safe and appropriate way. And I add that the do good, I don't know what it looked like. I'll give you a couple of suggestions. And by a safe and appropriate way, if your father abused you, if you've been sexually abused, if you've been in a marriage where the person was violent, this, the application is not I think I'll go visit dad or have my ex-boyfriend who beat me up over for dinner.

No, no, no, no. There's very, very clear boundaries. But in a safe and appropriate way, how could you bless, how in some way could you do good for the person who brought this on you? I was with a guy and I'd heard his story. So we're riding in the car, we played some golf and then we were going to go to this restaurant and he drove me and so we were alone. I said, Bruce, man, I've heard this amazing story. And so pretty messed up life, pretty messy, bad, bad divorce, lots of anger, lots of back and forth to one another, alienating the kids, lying about one another, on and on and on. Bruce at 41 kind of gets his life really right with the Lord.

I mean, animosity at levels that you, some of you don't have to imagine, but messy, difficult, painful, ugly, ugly divorce, kids separated over it. Well, Bruce comes to Christ, begins to grow spiritually, really put some roots down, remarries after a period of time. And his wife, out of all this, instead of it making her, it breaks her, she goes through all the money, he pays alimony, pays an extra two years of that, squanders all the money and is almost destitute. And now his kids have grown and they get married and the daughter-in-law is talking to his new wife, he's been married now another 20 years, basically are saying, you know, we think, you know, we're going to end up having her live with us. And he, I mean, now he did before the law, I mean, he gave her lots of money, paid all the stuff, paid two extra years he didn't have to, and no matter what, she's just, she's out of money again. And he's, he's like, hey, you know, I did my part, I went over and above. And his wife that he remarried, a very, very strong Christian and they've been through lots of counseling and repair with the kids and, and he said his, his wife came and said, I think we need to do something for your ex-wife.

I think we need to buy a home for her and then get it where she will always have a place to live, provide for her the rest of her life. He said, I looked at my wife like she was on drugs. And he, then he said, I gave her all the reasons why that was such a stupid idea and what I've already done.

And it kind of came back to this, bless those. And then he said, I said, well, what was the turning point? Cause he eventually did it and he did it in a way where she picked out the house. He did it in a way where it could be protected where, you know, couldn't be resold and she couldn't mess up.

She would have a place to live the rest of her life, had the kids help her pick it out, whole nine yards. But I mean, totally no control, took the hands off. And I said, well, what, what moved you to do that? Well, my wife said to me, how can you say you love your kids if you're not willing to help their mother? And he said, you know, I did the legal thing and I did the thing that I never did before God. He said, I never dealt with my, the depth of my sin in the marriage, the depth of what I really blew it. I mean, I asked for God's forgiveness and I asked for hers, but it was still after all these years. And he said, after we did that, he said, it was like God opened the hardness of her heart and there was a restitution and forgiveness after 20 some years. He said, last Thanksgiving, we had all of my family, all of my children and my ex-wife. My ex-wife now is in the last five years has become friends. Now I'm not saying this is, I'm talking about the power of blessing and doing good to those that don't deserve it. And there's been restoration and when it got all done, it was like, you know, all the control issues that happened.

She said, when they signed all the papers and she had it, she came to them and she said, you know, you might want this because if I'm out of town, she gave them a key to their new house so that anytime you guys need to use the house, you can. Jesus said, you've heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemies. But I say to you, forgive your enemies and pray for those who desperately use you. For what good is it if you love those who love you?

Don't even the pagans and the unbelievers do that? But you're never more like your Heavenly Father who causes it to, the sun to shine and the rain to fall on both the evil and the good. And so he says, love your enemies, pray for them, do good to them that you might be like, literally it's that you might be sons of your father in heaven. It's a Hebrew term, the idea of you'll have family likeness when you do good for those who've done evil.

Finally, he refused to do something and what he refused to do is take revenge. The story picks up in Genesis chapter 50. It says, when Joseph's brother saw that their father was dead, they said, what if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs that we did him? So they sent word to Joseph saying, you know, it's like, hey, let's make up something that dad told us.

Your father left these instructions before he died. This is what he used to say to Joseph. I ask you to forgive your brothers and the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly. Now please forgive the sins of your servants of God and of your father. When their message came to Joseph, he wept.

His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. We are your slaves, they said. But Joseph said to them, don't be afraid. I'm in the place of God. You intended to harm me but God intended it for good to accomplish what you now see being done, the saving of many lives.

So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children and he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. He forgave them from the heart. He could pay back. He could finally, he refused to take revenge.

And here's the application and this is a big one for you and for me. I will choose to forgive or release those who hurt me from the retribution they deserve because Christ has done that for me. When Jesus was teaching on prayer, he said, what did he say? If you forgive them, so I will forgive you. I had two major, biggest betrayals of my adult life.

And I mean, I will tell you, you talk about a rock. I was livid, I was so angry. And I will tell you what happens for some of you, at least with me, is when this happens, when an unbeliever does it, it hurts really badly.

When you're betrayed or falsely accused or something from a fellow Christian that you trust, I mean, you just go like, are you kidding? I mean, we ate together. We were brothers.

We were. And I will tell you what God will call you to do is what most of you have turned to the back page, so I'll get there. I might as well catch up. There's three specific things you need to do to get rid of this rock. Number one, choose to forgive the person who hurt you. It's just a choice. You forgive.

It's an act. The process is forgiving. And when you go through this process over a period of time, some it's taken me a couple years, but you choose to forgive.

Second thing you need to do is begin praying daily for the person to bless the person who hurt you. And then you will find one day you'll hear something good about them. And before you can think of how you should respond, you'll have an immediate positive response, and you'll realize the grace of God has completely changed your heart.

And by the way, you don't feel like it. And my prayers usually start like this. Dear God, help them see how wrong they were. And then dear God, bring circumstances in their life so they'll really repent and see how they really are. And then as I get with God, it moves to God, would you give them a great marriage? God, would you help them be a great dad? God, would you bless the work of their hands? God, would you be merciful?

Please don't give them what they deserve because God, I don't want to get what I deserve. That was the breakthrough for me. When I looked into my heart and I looked at my side of any issues, I just thought, oh God, please don't give me.

When I was super honest, I had a brother who got next to me during my hardest times and he said, Chip, I want you to list everything that you need to own in every attitude or action or speech that was a part of that betrayal. And he said, you take that before God. And I did. And as I looked at it, I thought, I'm so focused on what they did, I kind of minimized what I did.

And when I saw that, I said, oh God, be merciful to me a sinner. The third thing is then, as you pray for them every day for the next three days, do one act of kindness this week for that person who hurt you. If possible, if they're dead, you can't do that, but you can write them a letter and forgive them. If they've abused you or it's not safe, you can keep clear boundaries.

But you could anonymously do something that would bring something positive into their life that they would never know came from you, where you can bless them. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and the message you just heard, learning to overcome the evil aimed at you, is from our series Momentum. Chip will join us in studio to share some insights from today's talk in just a minute.

You know, sometimes the best way to develop a new skill or habit is by learning from someone with more experience. And that principle is the same for spiritual growth, too. And that's what Chip has shown us in this series. We pray your faith has grown as we've studied the valuable lessons these six familiar biblical characters modeled for us. Let me encourage you to go back and revisit any part of this series at livingontheedge.org or through the Chip Ingram app.

Well, Chip's with me in studio now. And Chip, we hear from thousands of people through the work this ministry does worldwide, and there's a familiar statement that pops up over and over again. I really want to make a difference with my life, but I don't know how to get there. Now, what would you say to that person?

Well, first, way to go. I mean, I think your heart is beating with God's heart. I think we are made to make a difference. And just the fact that you have that kind of beating in your heart and you want it to happen is very pleasing to God. And at Living on the Edge, we have a number of resources to help you answer that question, but there's a devotional that I think would really help you get started. It's called Leave Ordinary Behind, 25 Days to an Extraordinary Faith. Now, that doesn't mean you're going to become extraordinary in 25 days.

This isn't like a silver bullet that changes everything. But I think what you'll see in this is this is a devotional that will help fuel that dream and help you see very practical ways. How do you have the faith of an Abraham, or how do you become separate from the world like Daniel, or how do you grasp who you really are like Moses? It's a devotional that I love written by a good friend, Lance Witt. And I will tell you, you want to make a difference? Get this devotional for you or one of your friends, and you'll be well on your way.

Thanks, Chip. To order Leave Ordinary Behind by our friend Lance Witt, go to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. As you study the life and faith of these notable biblical figures, you'll see your faith and dependency on God grow. So order this devotional today by going to livingontheedge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. You'll be glad you did.

For the final time in this series, here's Chip. As we close today's message and also close the series, I want to just go over the steps that I believe God will have us take that we can be free. Number one, choose to forgive the person or persons that have hurt you. And it's a choice, and we talked about that. But you need to do it.

You don't procrastinate on this one. You don't have to feel it, but you choose. The second, begin praying daily for God to bless that person who hurt you for the next 30 days.

And it's just a choice. We already taught it, but let me just encourage you. Would you be willing to do it? Write their name down somewhere or their initials if you don't want someone else to see it and begin praying God's blessing. And then third, do one act of kindness if possible this week.

And if it needs to be anonymous so there's no contact, absolutely. But do something that I mean is so Christ-like. I mean, it's a Father. Forgive them.

They know not what they do. And that's the mercy part. And then it's some grace. You actually give them exactly what they don't deserve.

And in so doing, free your soul and allow you to be like Christ. I had a lady after this write me a letter that was really touching. And she said, my dad has been dead for well over 20 years and I've been a prisoner for the last 20 years.

And after this message, I went home on a Sunday afternoon and I sat down and I wrote him that letter and I wrote out all the things he did. It was abuse issue, both sexual and physical. And this little girl had lived with this all these years and her father had finally died. She's a grown woman now and lived with all the pain and chaos that came out of that. And she said, I wrote him a letter and I named what he did. And then one by one, I forgave him and I sealed that letter. And she said, God freed me.

I long for that for you. Choose to let go and forgive. Choose to pray and bless them. And if possible, choose an act of kindness. Bless those who persecute you.

Practice and curse not. Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. Wow, what a powerful testimony, Chip. Such a great example of how to put into practice what you've been teaching. Thanks so much for sharing. As we close, I want to remind you that the Chip Ingram app is an easy way to share messages or complete series with others. So whenever you're encouraged by what you hear, I hope you'll pass it along to a friend or loved one who'd benefit from it. And be sure to tell them how it made a difference in your life. Well, thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Druey, and I hope you'll join us again next time.