When Your Past Comes Knocking | Pastor Chris Kouba

Uh, all right, I need to ask you something.

I need you to be honest with me.

How many of you either have currently or have had in the past a storage unit?

Would you raise your hands and let me see?

Raise your hands.

Oh, Houston, we have a problem.

We have way too much.

We have way too much stuff.

It's crazy.

Like, think about it.

We got way too much stuff.

If I had to guess, I'm not, I'm not judging you.

I'm not anything at that.

I just want to maybe predict and see, maybe, just maybe what actually is inside of the storage unit.

Let me just throw out some suggestions.

I want you just to picture, okay, you got your little lock, and you go and you undo the lock, and then you kind of do the real loud, crickety door, right?

That you kind of open it up, you throw it, and you just stuff.

Okay.

If I had to guess, somewhere in the midst of all of that stuff is the world's most expensive coat hanger, i.e., a Boflex machine that you thought you were going to work out with in the past.

Didn't quite maybe materialize like you'd hoped.

Could be any really uh exercise equipment that you just could have swore was gonna just change your life forever, and then it did for maybe a couple of times, and then now it's just something that you hang stuff on or something that you store stuff on top of, and it's just kind of there in the midst of the whole thing.

Or maybe if you're looking somewhere else in the storage unit, you've got your your box of your kids' participation trophies from 2012, right?

Anybody got that?

Right?

And and it's amazing that you have those.

Why?

Because it's why do they give out participation trophies?

You should only give out parti trophies if you win the actual season.

You don't give out participant trophies just for playing, but that's another thing altogether.

But still, what also makes you think that your kid wants those things, right?

Maybe you're just holding on to them thinking that maybe when they're in college, maybe when they're married, maybe whenever they've got grandkids, they would love to be able to say, Hey, look what I did in 2012.

I participated in soccer, right?

You can go ahead and get rid of it.

My my mom actually removed recently and she gave me my box.

You know what I did?

I threw it all away.

All right.

I didn't want it, right?

I don't care.

I'm not thinking about those things, okay?

But then some of you, okay, in the midst of your storage unit, may still have your skinny jeans from college.

FYI, you're not gonna fit back into them, okay?

And if you can, you shouldn't, all right?

They've changed.

So you you probably should go ahead and let the dream die and let it go away, okay?

But it's crazy if you think about a storage unit.

We are literally financing our indecision.

Think about that.

We don't want to make a decision about this stuff, and so what do we do?

We just pay in order to figure out how we could just wait and not deal with it in that moment.

And what's wild is that Americans spend$38 billion with a B on storage facilities every single year.

$38 billion.

People spend more money on storage units than they do going to watch movies.

Meaning this we would rather spend money storing our junk than to go see the new Superman movie.

That's what it means, right?

It's crazy whenever you consider it.

I mean, just think about it.

And we don't even know, we don't even think about it anymore.

Just$100,$150,$200.

It just kind of dings the credit card.

We don't even pay attention to it anymore.

It's just kind of a given expense.

And some of you could have actually sent a kid through college with all of the money that you've spent storing the junk that they're not gonna want after college, all right?

I mean, it's kind of wild to begin to think about.

And it's got it's just it's just crazy to think about how big of an industry and how much stuff that we have.

What I want to talk to you about today, though, is another kind of storage unit.

But this one doesn't ding your credit card every month, and this one doesn't even send you an invoice letting you know how much it costs.

I'm not talking about the storage units that are off 1960 or the storage units off of 59.

I'm talking about the storage units in your heart.

The ones where the currency that you're paying is your soul.

And what's wild is that unlike most storage units, whenever you lift up that gate and you're kind of like, I don't have any clue what's all in here, this is one you open up that gate, you know where everything is.

Every hurt, every wound, every disappointment.

All meticulously labeled and laid out in that storage unit.

In fact, you even know exactly what wall stuff's on.

Over here on this side of the wall, what you have this is let's just call it childhood stuff.

This is what your dad said when he was drunk.

This is what your mom was supposed to say but didn't in that moment.

This is that time when you asked that prom date out and they said no.

This is your coach who cut you.

All childhood stuff, just kind of all against this wall.

You go over here to the back of the thing, and it's kind of neatly organized.

This is where the really big items go.

This is the relational stuff.

This is that person who made that commitment to you and then didn't keep their word and walked out.

That's a big one.

Over here, what you have is you is you you you you have the all those times whenever you were vulnerable with somebody and you trusted them with your emotions and you trusted them with your feelings.

And instead of them letting that cause you to be closer with them, they actually use it as a weapon against you.

So you know you do now.

If you don't trust anybody, it's right over there and it's pristine.

Let's just call this wall over here church hurt.

Church hurt is one of those things where maybe a leader betrayed you.

Maybe this is one of those things where the people that you thought were supposed to love you and and and walk with you and help you actually did the opposite.

Let me just stop and say this.

I hope I didn't cause any of that, but I do want you to know this on behalf of the church.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that you walked through that.

What's wild is that we've got multiple different walls and multiple different spots, and some of us even have multiple different units.

One unit can't contain it all.

So we've got another one.

We just add another one.

We never actually deal with the one we've got, we just add another one along to the list.

Have you ever thought about what it's actually costing you?

I mean, if you could quantify it financially, that'd be one thing, but it doesn't really work that way.

I guarantee you it's costing you emotionally.

I guarantee you it's costing you spiritually, I guarantee you it's costing you relationally.

Let's just talk about the relationship piece of it.

I guarantee you it's costing you relationships.

You want to know why?

Because you can't trust anybody.

You're skeptical about everybody.

It's costing you opportunities because you can't look ahead if you're always looking behind.

I also guarantee you it's costing you joy.

You want to know why?

Because bitterness and joy can't split the rent.

So, in light of that, bitterness always wins.

And so you find yourself just a little jaded with every potential situation that comes up and everything that is in front of you.

I can assure you of this.

Whole series, we've been talking about the idea of leadership from the life of Joseph.

It's costing you leadership because you can't lead people to a place of freedom that you've never been.

We're looking at the character of Joseph.

And Joseph, his story is super interesting.

If anybody has justification to create a storage unit for all of their stuff, it's Joseph.

Think about this, Genesis 37.

He gets two dreams.

He God tells him what he's gonna end up being and what he's gonna end up doing.

And then guess what?

His brothers don't like to hear about that.

They throw him into the pit.

That's a 10 by 10 unit by itself.

10 by 10 unit.

Then they go and they decide that they're not gonna throw him in a pit, they're actually gonna sell him off as a slave.

That's another room added on to the 10 by 10 unit at this point.

You fast forward in Genesis 39, you see that he is he's seduced, and then he is falsely accused by that woman who is trying to seduce him.

Okay, now you've got 24-hour access going on.

And then what do you see?

You see the cupbearer who he gives a dream to.

He interprets the dream, he says, You're gonna be elevated.

And whenever you get up there, don't forget about me.

And what happens?

He gets elevated and he forgets about Joseph.

Now we're talking climate control unit.

Like he's got the whole thing ready to go.

For 13 years.

13 years of filling that storage unit.

Yeah, what we're gonna discover today in Genesis 42 and Genesis 43 is transformational when it comes to leadership.

Because Joseph puts the key in, unlocks the lock, pulls open the door, and it's empty.

It's gone.

Liquidated.

We're talking like the going out of business sale or the home, you know, home sale or whatever.

It's already happened, and there's nothing that is left.

Here's what Joseph knows to be true.

You can either hold on to your hurt or you can step into your healing, but you can't do both.

You can either keep your storage unit or you can lead, but you can't do both.

And that space that you're reserving for grudges means there is no space for growth.

So Joseph teaches us something vitally important.

I want you to write this down on the journal there.

It's the main point of the lesson today.

Leaders let it go.

I want you to hear that with the weight it deserves.

Leaders let it go.

What we're gonna see is that whenever they have that moment, when they're faced with the confrontation, when they're faced with the situation, they let it go in the moment.

What we're also gonna discover is that whenever it comes up like scar tissue, we're gonna see that in those moments as well, leaders let it go after the moment.

We're talking about something that I know resonates with people because the last two years we've done an Easter survey where we ask folks at Easter uh what they want to hear about related to God's word uh preached on.

And the number one by far is always going to be uh uh end times and that kind of spiritual warfare, all of that kind of stuff.

Uh, but then right next to it, like there's one, two, and then a big drop-off.

The next one right underneath that is forgiveness, which tells me there's a lot of people listening to me today who struggle with forgiveness.

Maybe you struggle with forgiving yourself, maybe you struggle with forgiving somebody else.

Maybe you thought you were good on this, but it just keeps coming up, and you're not really not sure what to do with that.

And I believe I have been praying harder than I've ever prayed for a message that God would give you freedom.

Today, you would stop paying rent on your pain, and you would allow the Holy Spirit of God to let you open up that door.

There'd be nothing there.

Would you pray with me before we get into the text?

Father, I feel the weight of this moment.

I feel the weight of your people.

You are carrying heavy stuff.

Some for decades.

And I pray by the work of the Holy Spirit you'd give them freedom today.

I pray that you give them healing today.

I pray God you'd give them the courage to face what they need to face.

I pray God that you'd walk with them.

Be near them.

Lord, your presence will be felt.

It's in the name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.

Let's begin reading in Genesis chapter 42 and verse 1.

Genesis 42 · chapter mention

It says, When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, How do you look at one another?

He said, Behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt.

Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.

So ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.

But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him.

He was the youngest.

Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.

Now Joseph was governor over the land.

He was the one who sold to all the people of the land.

And Joseph's brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground.

Do you recognize that?

If you've been with us in Genesis chapter 37, we saw that he had a dream that he would be one day in a place where all of his brothers and all of those around would be bowing down to him.

Genesis 37 · chapter mention

It's happening right now.

Look at verse 7.

Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them.

Where do you come from?

He said.

They said, From the land of Canaan to buy food.

Verse 8, and Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.

Remember, leaders let it go.

I want to give you three aspects to it, though.

Write this down.

The first one I want you to see is this leaders let it go before the moment.

Leaders let it go before the moment.

Verse 7 is an interesting verse.

There's so much packed into it.

And at first glance, it almost seems like Joseph's kind of being mean to him.

What we know from the rest of the chapter and into 43, he's not being mean to them.

I think he was so startled that he basically was stalling.

Ah, what do you what are you guys here for?

Like, what's what's going on?

I mean, it's just this moment where you can tell he had an ability to react.

And if he was in a situation to where he felt the way that I feel like maybe I would have felt, maybe you would have felt, then he would have reacted differently.

Yet what it shows is that he the way that he responds, he shows that basically he had done work prior to this moment.

Like this was not a spontaneous burst of mercy.

This had been rehearsed mercy that was now being expressed in the moment.

This was the fruit of internal cultivation.

Joseph had been in Egypt for 13 years.

13 years.

That's 4,745 days of waking up with a choice.

That's 4,745 opportunities either to nurse his wounds or to release his captors.

And here's what I find interesting about this scenario.

He knew who they were.

And what's wild about that is that Joseph had no guarantee, if you think about it, that he would ever have this moment.

Like, go back.

He either maybe could have thought that his brothers had died, maybe his brothers thought that he died, maybe they were just in the land of Canaan and they weren't paying any attention to him.

But what he does is he's walking in the process of forgiveness without the promise of restoration.

I think this is important, and I think this is where most people get the idea of forgiveness wrong.

They assume it is a transaction, and here's what they say: I'm not gonna forgive them until they apologize.

I'm not gonna forgive them until I know that they own their mistakes.

I'm not gonna forgive them until I wait and see how they respond, and if how they respond is gonna be good enough for me to then offer my forgiveness.

Joseph did all of that before any of the forgiveness was given.

And what he shows us, and the Bible teaches us, is that forgiveness is not a transaction between me and them.

Forgiveness is a transaction between me and God about them.

That is a radical difference of perspective.

Because if you think that it's only about you and them, then guess what?

It's how do I judge how they've responded as to whether I'm gonna come and do my part?

Instead, me and God are gonna work on them.

And if God forgives them, he's gonna lead me to a place where I forgive them regardless of what they've done or how they respond.

Man, that is so hard.

That is such a hard thing.

How in the world do you think Joseph could even get to the place where maybe he could even have done this?

I think one of the things you got to think through is that for unforgiveness is almost like carrying around a backpack of weights.

And every single time something comes up, and every single time you're reminded of what they did and how they responded or how they acted, you just get mad all over again.

And every time you do that, you're like adding another weight to the backpack.

And then one day you're online and you see that other person and you realize something, they aren't carrying a backpack.

It's like they don't even care.

And you realize they're not worried about it, and you're the one who's carrying all the weight of what they did to you.

How did Joseph do it?

I I believe this is my theory here.

What I'm suggesting and calling a rhythm of release.

Every morning, when the memory surfaced, as it did, he had a choice to make.

I've got to believe that he said something like this.

Today I choose to let it go.

It doesn't mean that it didn't matter.

It doesn't mean that it wasn't bad.

It just means he wasn't going to allow his past to determine everything about his future.

And so instead, he walked through the process of letting it go before the moment ever arrived.

Some of you are gonna have a moment, and you're gonna we're gonna talk about that in just a second.

Some of you will never have a moment.

They've died, they've never gonna talk to you again, whatever the case may be.

And so, therefore, I would simply tell you you can't wait until that time in order to choose to forgive.

You gotta forgive right now.

You gotta let it go.

You can't allow it to rehearse and come into your mind so that you get that backpack heavier and heavier and heavier to the point where you can't even walk.

But instead, regardless of whether it happens, before there, I'm gonna do the hard work of forgiveness that is not dependent upon their response.

Now let's talk this through though.

What happens if you do the work and now they're in your they're they're in your living room?

Like you're dealing with it.

What do you do?

I want you to write this down.

Second thing I want you to see the aspect of this leaders let it go, not only before the moment, leaders let it go in the moment.

Leaders let it go in the moment.

Genesis 42 verse 7.

Genesis 42:7

It's interesting.

It says there that Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them.

Can you imagine the weight of this moment?

13 years, and it's here.

The ones who sold you for silver are now trying to use that same money to buy grain from you.

The boys who threw you in a pit are now bowing at your feet.

Now you can imagine Joseph is the second most powerful man in all of Egypt.

And he, with a word, he could have had them executed.

With a glance, he could have had them thrown into prison.

And this right here, the power dynamic, has completely reversed.

And it shows something very true and very interesting for leaders.

It's one thing for you to be a leader whenever you're powerless, but what do you do when you have all the power?

That's what it says most about you in terms of your leadership.

Not how you act when you need someone else, but how you act when somebody needs you.

Joseph could have chosen revenge.

Who to blame them?

You guys made me starve, I'm gonna make you starve now.

He could have exposed them.

He could have uh manipulated them, he could have denied knowing them, but we know from the rest of the text he chose strategic grace.

He had this dream when he was 17 years old, it's now being fulfilled.

And what's he gonna do?

What he says, the Bible tells us that he was ready for that moment because what he ultimately does is he actually tells them, he hears about Benjamin, and he says, Hey, I want you to go back and I want you to come back and I want you to bring Benjamin with you this time.

They end up keeping Simeon back, kind of as leverage.

Simeon's one of the brothers, basically saying, I want to make sure you guys actually come back and get one of your brothers.

And so they go back over to Jacob, tell them all that took place, but as they're going along the way back over to Canaan, it says that they go and open up their sacks and realize that their sacks were.

Full of grain.

Joseph had given them all full grain, and all of the money that they had used to purchase the grain in the first place, he put back in their satchels, meaning he was just blessing them like crazy.

Fast forward to verse to chapter 43, and it says that they then come back with Benjamin in tow.

They come in before Joseph, all of them.

They still don't recognize him.

And look at what the scripture says in verse 29 of chapter 43.

And he lifted up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said, Is this your youngest brother of whom you spoke to me?

God be gracious to you, my son.

Then Joseph hurried out, for his compassion grew warm for his brother, and he sought a place to weep.

And he entered his chamber and wept there.

Let's just stop right there.

This is a little bit of an aside, but I do want to speak about this towards leadership.

Somewhere along the way, I am as guilty as anybody.

I bought into this lie that leadership means you don't have feelings.

It's wrong.

It's wrong.

What you see is this great wise leader feeling all the feelings.

Experiencing them.

Dealing with it.

And still choosing love.

I guarantee you those tears were some sadness, some disappointment.

It was all the things.

Like it doesn't mean that to forgive someone doesn't mean you don't feel it.

And you feel every bit of it.

You feel the betrayal, you feel the disappointment, you feel the deception, you feel all of those things, but you feel your way through it, and then you choose to love at the end.

I'm not trying to shove the part of some of our problems is we're shoving the feelings down, and so guess what?

We're not dealing with them.

And what God wants us to do is to go to the back room and cry, to weep, to recognize, man, I was wronged.

Like I I this should not have happened to me.

It doesn't matter how it'll happen.

At the end of the day, this was not okay.

But then when you feel it, you then come on the other side and you allow God to do his work in you, where he comes and he embraces you and he holds you and he says, It's gonna be okay.

Let's go forgive them.

So that when that moment comes, you are ready.

In verses 31 through 34 at the end of chapter 43, what we see is how Joseph responds.

He comes out of his cry session and then he comes in and he basically says, All these guys right here, they don't know who he is yet.

All these guys, I want you to come and I want you to be at my table.

And he gives them a feast.

Remember, they're in the midst of a famine right now, and he gives them a feast.

And Jonathan, the youngest brother, he puts five times the helping that is there.

What does this show us that whenever that moment came, he didn't just get revenge, he didn't try to make it right.

Instead, he chose to bless.

He chose to go not just, hey, now you're back to even.

He says, Man, I'm gonna just pour it out on you.

And I'm gonna pour out my blessings in every way before you.

Here's what's so wild to me.

Joseph is blessing people who don't know they need forgiveness.

Joseph is showing grace before there is a confession.

He's extending mercy before there is repentance.

Why?

Because that's what leaders do.

You do the work beforehand so that when the moment comes, regardless of how they respond, they're free.

Why?

Because, hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna bless you, and I guarantee you don't deserve it, but I'm not gonna remind you how much you don't deserve it.

I'm just gonna bless you.

I'm gonna speak well of you.

I'm gonna shower you with what I've received from God Himself.

Let's talk this through.

Because this is a beautiful picture.

But we also know you can have the moment.

And then later, when you thought it was over, it comes back up.

Write this down.

Last thing I want you to say.

Leaders let it go after the moment.

Leaders let it go after the moment.

2020, I had shoulder surgery.

I was having some issues with my left shoulder here.

I had a torn labrum, had a torn bicep tendon.

It was just giving me constant problems.

Anytime I try to do much of anything, when I'm sleeping on it weird, it just my mobility was starting to get lost.

And so, Dr.

Skebercha, highly recommend him.

He's a believer here in the area and a great surgeon.

Uh, did my surgery and did a successful job.

Everything went great uh on the surgery.

And he he told me, he said, Chris, I want you to know this is how this is gonna work.

Like the body's a pretty amazing thing.

You're actually, okay, the the tendon that was messed up, the the the the labrum, the kind of the tendon inside of there that I'm having to repair, you're gonna start experiencing some scar tissue.

Now, scar tissue is something that God gives to our bodies in order to bring healing about.

It's a great thing, wonderful thing, but scar tissue is not like the original tissue that you you injured.

He said, scar tissue is some of those things that that is a little bit less flexible, it's a little bit more brittle, it's a it's it's definitely one of those things that is more prone to inflammation.

And so I'm gonna immediately get you with a physical therapist who's gonna begin to work with you to help work through that scar tissue.

And so, sure enough, after the surgery was over, I immediately went to the physical therapist and it wasn't days, it was weeks, it was months, months of physical therapy.

I mean, I was just shocked at how little I was able to use in my arm, despite the fact that the surgery went well.

But he began to build strength around the injured area in the shoulder socket.

He began to show me what it looked like to begin to do certain stretches to gain my mobility.

He began to make me work through moments of pain along the way, but not too much so that it would cause there even be more problems.

But he told me when he finally cleared me about six months in, he said, here's the thing.

You need to know this is something you will deal with the rest of your life.

He said, Every now and then, what you're gonna discover is that you think you're good, but then the weather's gonna change, or you're gonna sleep on it wrong, or you're gonna do something working out that's gonna be a little bit of a problem.

And what's gonna happen is it's that scar tissue coming back.

And what you need to do is not ignore it.

What you need to do is what I've taught you, what I've trained you, and do the stretches, do the strengthening so that you can work it through.

And I promise you, it won't be as bad, but it is still gonna come up.

I think that exactly that's the same idea of forgiveness.

Just like scar tissue.

You have the surgery, you have the moment, you do all the hard work right afterwards, and then you look up, and a year later, five years later, ten years later, you're like, Where did that come from?

That didn't feel right.

And it comes right back up all over again.

Peter comes to Jesus in Matthew chapter 18, and here's what he says He says, Hey, Jesus, how often do I have to forgive someone?

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

Seven times, thinking that Jesus is gonna be like, Man, that's pretty good, Peter.

Like, wow, seven?

And his response was 70 times seven.

He wasn't giving an equation, he was giving a lifestyle.

He was showing that whenever you go and seek forgiveness, it's not about going to a location, it's about instead you living in a lifestyle or basically on a constant basis, whenever it comes up, as often as it comes up, that's when you choose to forgive again.

Folks, for some of you, you got some scar tissue.

You thought you were done with it, you thought it was over, you felt good about how you handled it in the moment, but it's come back up, and you know what you need to do exactly what you did before.

God, I turn this over to you.

I don't know where this came from today.

God, I'm mad.

I cannot believe they did that to me.

But God, I lay it back at your feet.

I'm gonna walk away.

Now, PT God told me, Chris, the worst thing that you can do is that whenever those scar tissue issues come up, is you can just ignore it and stop using your shoulder.

Yeah, you can rest every now and then, but the reality is you're supposed to do things where you do those stretches, and you're supposed to do things where you get that strength, and you're supposed to not just act like it doesn't happen.

If so, you're gonna end up with more problems than you had before.

So make sure that you're aware of it.

Use it as a way to remind you of the things that you're supposed to do.

Folks, please hear me.

If that scar tissue has come up in your life, don't ignore it, don't neglect it.

Don't start limiting your emotional range of motion simply because you don't want to trust anybody anymore.

You're reminded of what that looks like.

You instead you stretch and you do your strengthening exercises and you do the work that the Holy Spirit longs and wants to do in your heart and in your life so that you can forgive it yet again, not just once, not just twice, but every single time it comes up in your heart.

Let's go back to the storage unit.

What's crazy to me about the storage unit is the key.

How small this is, so little.

The storage units have the same kind of a lock, and then you got this little bitty key.

What's crazy is that this little bitty key controls so much in our lives.

What's nuts is that some of you got like four or five keys.

Because you got four or five storage units that you've built up.

You just add to it, you never deal with.

And somewhere along the way, I don't know how it happened, but somewhere along the way, between the pit and the palace, Joseph did something that could change your life if you will do it as well.

God doesn't want you to live this way.

You gotta set it down.

And when you set it down, you gotta walk away.

You gotta leave it.

I assure you, something's gonna come up and it's gonna make you remind you of it again.

And you know what you're gonna do?

You're gonna say, God, I've already laid that down and I lay it back down again, and you're gonna keep walking.

You're gonna keep walking.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, you can have freedom.

Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

We can't wait to see you next week for any of our services at 8 30, 10, 11 30, or Espanol at 1 o'clock.