DAY 40: FAMILY WOUNDS

Good morning. Welcome to True Word, Faith for Life with Dr. Sean. Through the Bible in a year, walking in the story of God. Welcome. Good morning. What do you do? What do you do? What do you do? What do you do when the enemy. Well, it didn't come from the outside. Didn't come from. Didn't come from it didn't come from an enemy even. What do you do when the betrayal came from people who knew your name, knew your story, knew your weakness, and they still chose to hurt you. Look, it's one thing to be resisted by strangers, it's an entirely another thing to be rejected by family. Some wounds aren't allowed at first. They begin with a look, a tone, a conversation. But it's a conversation that stops as soon as you walk into the room. A parent who favors one child clearly over another. A sibling who quietly resents another. A family system where love becomes competition and blessing starts to feel. Blessing starts to feel like a little bit of a threat. All right. Genesis 37. As much as perhaps we have been told that it's some, you know, flannel graph children's story about a colorful coat. Or a uh a song about a coat of many colors. No. It's a family wound with blood all over it. It's the beginning. It's the beginning of. Oh, Joseph's dissent. In fairness. It's the exposure of jealousy, favoritism, hatred, silence, and betrayal. All terrible things. All terrible things you may have suffered, you may be suffering now. Well, Genesis 37, it asks a very hard question. Can God still be working when the people closest to you have wounded you the deepest? Have you been there? Have you been there? Maybe you're there now. I don't know. I don't know your life. But we're going to learn how to bring that wound honestly before God and not hand your future to the ones who hurt you. That's what we're going to learn today. That's what the Bible is going to teach us. So I'm Dr. Sean, and this is True Word, Faith for Life. Before we go any further, my book, True Word Faith for Life, is available in this store at TrueWordfaithforLife.com. I know. Very difficult to remember. True WordFaithforLife.com. I don't know. Maybe you can. Maybe write it down. But this book, I wrote it to help you stop living on religious fragments and start walking in the truth of God's word with courage, clarity, and faith for real life. So today is Memorial Day. Normally I do a special episode, and that's the episode that gets the most views. Last year, the episode I did was thousands of views. It was very difficult for me to get through. This year I opted to observe it quietly. Memorial Day. I don't celebrate it, I just remember. By the way, how's my sound? Good morning to all. Today's a special, special day where we remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Memorial Day. Where have you allowed family pain to tell you what God is allowed to do with your life? Oof, that's oof. I'm gonna write that down. Where have you allowed family pain to tell you what God is allowed to do? What you allow God to do with your life? Put that question somewhere. Somewhere you can see it today. It's real. It's real. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Tammy. Good morning, Miss Linda. God bless you. My sweet friend. Look. Oh, hello to Junior Wheels394. Is this live or just an ad? Well, it's not an ad, so maybe have a little patience. Breathe it. Breathe it in. Let information come to you a little bit at a time. So Genesis 37, it isn't only about Joseph. We skip over that because we think that it is about Joseph. Just about Joseph. It's not, though. It's about what happens when covenant purpose enters a broken family. Oh. Genesis 37 begins with Jacob settled in the land where his father had sojourned, the land of Canaan. And that matters. The covenant story hasn't disappeared. God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still moving. Land, seed, blessing, covenant future. But the family carrying the promise is deeply fractured. No, he didn't. It's not what he said. Good lands, DLC. And this episode is nothing remotely about that. Man, grow up, dude. That's the thing about lives. You have people come in that they're not there to contribute or listen or learn or anything. They just want to destroy. Hello, Karen and Dragonfly Three Wings. Good morning. Good morning, Tammy. I pray for a memorial day that you'll remember those who have given it all. That's important. That's what it's all about. So Jacob, look, he he knows family conflict. He lived it with Esau. He did. I mean, we we we taught about that. We went through that part with them. We experienced it. We experienced deception with Laban. By the way, does this sound good? Good. Okay. He did. He experienced terrible deception with Laban. It was horrific. And he stayed and he lived there with the people. With the dude who did all this hurt to him. He wrestled with God. He buried Rachel. And then he limped forevermore after the wrestling match with God. But now the wound continues into the next generation. Imagine. That's one of the serious warnings of of Genesis. It's one of the really serious warnings of Genesis. Good morning, good morning. By the way, hello to all. I think we're streaming to nine locations right now live. And uh if you're listening on Playback, welcome. We uh we are on all of the podcast things. Whichever one is your favorite, the audio podcast, whichever one's your favorite, you know, find us, follow the show, click on follow, maybe write a review. If you're listening for the first time on true on uh true word faith for life with Dr. Sean on um YouTube, I encourage you to click on subscribe and the little bell, click on all notifications, click on the thumbs up. We appreciate that. Means a lot. So this is one of the serious warnings of Genesis. Unhealed patterns, they often become inherited patterns. Oh brother. So dumb. Donkey brains is right. That's an insult to donkeys. This is one of the serious warnings of Genesis, and it's not just a serious warning for then. For back then. Well, that was then. It's not now, it don't apply to us. Yeah, it does. Unhealed patterns, they they become inherited patterns, inherited patterns if we don't deal with it. We we don't see it as clearly at the time. We just don't. We don't see it at the time. And then if we don't acknowledge it, it continues on. Unhealed. Unhealed patterns. Well, they often become inherited patterns. Look what what one generation excuses. The next generation it just amplifies. Jacob loved Joseph more than any other son. Well, because Joseph was the son of his old age. That's what we're told. Jacob loved Joseph more than any other son. Because Joseph was the son of his old age. The text says he made him a special robe. The Hebrew phrase here is kind of difficult. Many know it as coat of many colors, right? This is what you learned as a child. Jacob in the coat of many colors. Joseph in the coat of many colors. But the idea likely points to a distinctive ornamented or or status-bearing garment. In that world, clothing communicated identity, rank, and role. It wasn't just fabric, it was a message. That robe wasn't just a piece of fabric. It was a message. This one is different. Joseph is favored. I don't want Joseph. He may be the one. Joseph may be the one. And the brothers saw it. They saw it. Genesis says they hated him. They hated him. That phrase matters. They hated him. Genesis says they hated him and couldn't speak peacefully to him.

Oh, come on, can you imagine?

Maybe, maybe you're in a sibling situation like that. Hello, 82 spiders and Arpana Rai. Good morning. Good morning, good morning. Good morning, Nicole and all of y'all. How lovely. And Tammy and Dragonfly Three Wings. And many more. Goodness. Karen, so nice to have you. My dear friend Linda. Even Junior Wheels. 2B Continued 25. Good morning. Good morning. Nicole says, Good morning. I pray for God's peace and comfort over the families that have paid the ultimate sacrifice for freedom and protection for those serving. And thank you. Well, you're welcome. It's the best thing I ever did. Let's pray. Heavenly Father. All across this nation, many of my dear friends. This is not a holiday of hamburgers to them. It's not a holiday of hot dogs to them. It's a day of remembering. And maybe they they're doing as I did. They're going to Arlington if their child is buried there. Their husband, their sister, their mother, their friend. Maybe it's a weeping parent over a grave. I just asked you to give them comfort today.

Let them remember the beautiful times.

Let them hear the laughter of their loved one. Their hero gone home. The greatest of us. Thank you for the courage and bravery of those who served and gave all. And for the families, we ask you for comfort. Comfort really only you can give. In the name of your son Jesus, Yeshua. Amen. Genesis says they hated him and couldn't speak peacefully to him. His own brothers, they couldn't, they didn't have a decent word for him. They couldn't speak shalom to him. They couldn't bring peace toward him. Their mouths revealed their hearts. When love dies in a family, shalom is often the first thing to disappear from speech. Right? Stop saying nice things to one another. The pleasantries go out the door. His sheaf rises. The brother's sheaves gather around and bow down. Why, I don't know why he did this, but he tells of the dream. He tells the dream. And they hate him even more. Then he dreams again. The sun, the moon, and eleven stars bow down to him. And even Jacob rebukes him, though he keeps the matter in mind. Now, we need to be careful here. Joseph isn't presented as sinless. He's not. He's young. He's 17. And he may, you know, he's young. He may not yet have the wisdom to carry revelation to maturity. Not every true thing has to be spoken at the wrong time in the wrong way. But the brother's response, this reveals more than just, oh, he's annoying. Oh, I can't take him. You know what I mean? Ugh. I mean, this was not a simple annoyance. It reveals this depth of envy. And envy is dangerous because envy doesn't merely say, I want what you have. Right? We think that, right? I want what you have. Envy says, I hate that you have it. And this is why envy is so dangerous, because envy can become violent. Favoritism feeds resentment. Resentment feeds hatred. Hatred feeds conspiracy. Conspiracy looks for a moment. Then one day, Jacob sends Joseph to check on his brothers. He's sending the seventeen-year-old to check on his brothers. His older brothers. That detail is painful if you understand it. Joseph is sent by his father to seek the welfare of the brothers who hate his guts. And yet he goes and looks for them. He doesn't find them at Shechem. But a man directs directs him to Dothan. When the brothers see him from a distance. They see him coming. And in that moment, they conspire to kill him. I don't know what kind of conversations they had before that. Ah, we hate that guy. Joseph, yeah, he's a he's a jerk. Man, he annoys us. I can't stand him. But he's far off now. They see him. And in those brief, you know, as long as it takes for someone to come to you where you see him. It's not far. And in that, in that moment, they conspire to kill him before he speaks. Before he says a word. Before he even explains anything. Before he can do anything. They've already did they've already made this incredible decision. They've already decided what he what he means to them. This is what bitterness does. Bitterness stops seeing a person as a person. And they start seeing a threat. Bitterness stops hearing words and starts hearing accusations. Bitterness stops asking, hey, what's true here? What's true? No. Doesn't care about true. It only asks, how do I get rid of what makes me feel small? Doesn't care about what's true, doesn't ask that. Just says, How do I get rid of this? This thing, this person that makes me feel small. His brothers say, Here comes this dreamer in their mouths when they say that, the dreamer isn't a description, it's contempt. They don't want to understand his dreams. They want to silence the dreamer. Shut up with your dreams, your special dreams. So much so that they want to kill him. He's their kin, their brother. Some of you know this wound, by the way. You tried to show up with a clean heart, clean slate, and people had already assigned you a motive. They assigned you a motive wasn't yours. You tried to love people who had already turned you into a symbol of everything they resent. You tried to explain yourself to people committed to misunderstanding you. Listen, there comes a point where there comes a point where you just have to accept it. That's where this text cuts deeply. Sometimes the the pit isn't dug by strangers. Sometimes the pit is dug by the people who sat at the same table as you. People who knew your father. People who knew your mother. People who knew the language of family, but refused the work of love. Reuben tries to prevent Joseph's murder and suggests throwing him in a pit. Hey, look, I get it. We're mad at him. We hate him, dreamer. Coat. Why don't what we don't do we need to kill him? Let's just dig a pit. Find a pit. Angels uh seven. How do we know we're going to heaven? Keep listening. I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you. How do I know I'm in the book of life? I'm going to show you in just a few minutes. You're going to see. You'll have an opportunity to know very clearly. Look, Reuben's motive. Look, it isn't pure. Let's be honest. But he does restrain bloodshed because they were going to kill him. They were straight up going to kill him. And that means beating him to death. That means beating him to death doesn't mean, you know, death by lethal injection or something.

No.

Beating him to death. And they were prepared. They were ready. They were going to do it. So he he does restrain homicide. But they throw him in a pit. What does he think is gonna happen in the pit? Then then Judah. He suggests they sell Joseph rather than kill him. What?

What?

Um, hold on, hold on. Idea. Instead, instead of killing him, we could sell him into slavery. We could sell him. Real thing. Do you heal the do you hear the horror of that? The brother becomes merchandise. The son becomes silver. The dreamer becomes cargo. They strip him of his robe, they throw him in the pit, they sit down to eat. They sit down to eat, and then they trade him to passing traders. They sell him to passing traders. They strip him of his robe, throw him into the pit, sit down to eat, and then sell him to passing traders. Oh my lands, people. The text doesn't rush, by the way. It's not in a hurry. It makes us feel the coldness. They eat while their brother is gone. He's in a pit. That they threw him in. You feel that coldness? That's what sin does when the conscience is being trained to sleep. It's being hypnotized. It can wound someone deeply and then sit down for dinner. So then they take Joseph's robe, right? They slaughter a goat. Now they've killed a goat, not for food. They just kill it for the blood. And they dip the robe in that blood and they send it to Jacob. Man. The deceiver is deceived. The deceiver is deceived. Jacob, who once used his own clothing, don't miss this. He once used his own clothing and goat skins in a deception involving his father Isaac, and now he receives clothing and goat blood in a deception involving his son Joseph. Genesis isn't random. The narrative is showing us that sin travels. Deception has a harvest. Family patterns have consequences. Covenant people aren't exempt from the damage of their choices. This is why, if it's you, if you're if you're the problem, if you're the destructive force, if it's you that's the destroyer, get a handle on it, especially if you have children, adult or children. Get a handle on it. Handle it now. Don't let it go into the next generation. Fix it. Fixing it may be hard. It is hard. What am I saying? It's it's not maybe hard. Not maybe hard. It's it's definitely hard to change, hard to fix. But if if you're the problem, fix it. Don't let it travel. Consequences have wheels. And it rolls fast. Look, covenant people aren't exempt from the damage of their choices. But God is still present in the story, even when his name isn't directly mentioned in this chapter. And that's important. Genesis 37 doesn't stop and say, God was doing this. No, it just shows the pain. The silence of God in the chapter doesn't mean the absence of God in the story. So what do we do with this today? First, name the wound honestly. Don't spiritualize betrayal so quickly that you never grieve it truthfully. You got to name it. Joseph was wrong. He was wronged. He was wronged. They did wrong to him. Horrible, horrible wrong. He was hated by his own brothers. He was stripped. Literally. He was thrown away. He was sold. Faith doesn't require you to call evil good, y'all. Doesn't. Well, here's a second. Refuse to become the wound. Refuse to become the wound. Don't let betrayal become your identity. You may have been mishandled by your own family, but you're not merchandise. You may have been rejected, but you're not rejected by God. You may have been thrown into a pit, but the pit isn't the final word. Well, third, and I just mentioned it a minute ago. Break the pattern where you stand. Right where you stand, don't go another step without breaking the pattern. If your family trained you in silence, tell the truth. If your family trained you in comparison, bless without competing. If your family trained you in resentment, repent before it hardens. If your family trained you to wound before being wounded, stop the cycle today. Make the call. Ask for forgiveness. Tell the truth without cruelty. Stop rehearsing the old offense every morning. Every morning you wake up and you say, Oh, those suckers threw me in a pit. Oh, my family, my siblings, they did this, they did that. Now I'm gonna be mad all day. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna allow it to impact me all day. I get it. I get it. I've experienced that. I've experienced it. Betrayal by your own family. It's brutal. But you you can't. You can't wake up every morning and replay the movie where they threw you in a pit. You tried to ruin you. Maybe they did ruin you. Gotta stop rehearsing the old offense every morning when you feed at the floor. That's that's not the first thing. Look, seek wise counsel. Move toward healing, not denial. Fourth, don't confuse people's betrayal with God's abandonment. That's the great temptation, right? We we we tether people's betrayal with God's abandonment. We say, well, people's betrayal, people that I love, people that were supposed to love me. This is God abandoning me. No, no, no. That's the great temptation. When people close to us wound us, we start wondering whether God has also turned his face away. We do. When we start to feel the wounds, we go, well, maybe God isn't looking at me. Angel 17, yeah, real, real life. This is real life here. These people were real people. They're the history of our faith, and and we're living real life now. And what you said, your family shunned you because you defended your nephew. Look, Genesis 37, it won't it won't let us tether those two things. The people, when the people close to us, when they're the ones that wound us, we start wondering whether God's turned his face from us. He said, No, you're not important to me. But Genesis 37, it won't let us make this mistake. No, it doesn't explain everything yet. It doesn't resolve everything yet. It doesn't let Joseph understand everything yet. But it does show us that covenant history keeps moving, even when the family carrying the covenant is fractured. That's the story. That's the message. That matters for your life. The wound is real. The betrayal is real. The grief is real. But the wound isn't sovereign. The wound needn't drive your life. The wound needn't drive your mind, the being perpetually aggrieved, whether deservedly so or not. Oh, that's not the way to shalom. Look, the betrayal isn't sovereign, the grief isn't sovereign either. God is still God, even when the chapter ends in Egypt, and you don't know why yet. And this is where the story begins to whisper forward. Joseph is the beloved son sent by his father to his brothers. Hear this. Hear it. Joseph is the beloved son sent by his father to his brothers. He's rejected, stripped, handed over, and counted as gone. We mustn't flatten Joseph into Jesus as if every detail is identical, but we can see a biblical pattern beginning to emerge. Yeshua came to his own, and his own didn't receive him. He was betrayed, he was stripped, he was handed over, he went down into death, but God wasn't absent in the suffering of his son. And God isn't absent in the suffering of his people. You. That doesn't make evil good. Whatever they did to you doesn't make evil good. It means evil doesn't get the final authority. It means rejection doesn't outrank covenant mercy. It means betrayal doesn't erase the faithfulness of God. So I have for you today a challenge and a choice. The challenge today is this. Stop letting and I don't say this cavalier. I don't say this lightly. I understand, not easy. Not easy, super hard, super hard. But the challenge is you've got to stop letting family wounds decide the limits of your obedience. You've got to stop doing that. You've got to stop handing it to them. Name the wound. Grieve it honestly. Stop pretending it didn't hurt. No, no, no. It did hurt. We get it. I get it. Believe me. Grieve it honestly. Don't pretend it didn't hurt. That's not the way through it. But don't let the people who mishandled you become the authors of your future. Don't give them the pen of your future. Don't let them continue to write your story. Bring the robe, bring the blood, bring the pit. Bring the silence and the grief before the God who sees you. Then ask him what faithfulness looks like in this unresolved chapter. So here's the choice is here are your choices. Will you let the wound name you or will you let God heal you? You can. You can keep going the way being perpetually aggrieved. You can. Look, I get it, that's become your identity. And to some degree, rightly so, in a way, but you can't live on that. You can don't hand the pen to them. Will you let that wound name you and tell this is who I am, this is what I am, nothing more? Or will you let God heal you? Will you keep rehearsing in your mind every morning, every night what they did? You can. That's a choice. You can do it. Or will you keep focusing on the Father? God. You you absolutely could. And most often it becomes a habit for people. Keep rehearsing what they did to you. Or will you begin obeying God with what remains in your hands today? Will you become bitter? Will you become bitter like the brothers? Passive like Jacob. Or faithful in the place where Joseph now has to learn to walk. Listen, your next step. Your next step may be simple. But it's not small. It will not be small. Send the message. Set the boundary. Tell the truth. Forgive without pretending. Get help. Stop feeding envy. Stop punishing others for what someone else did. Because shalom isn't pretending the family was perfect or whole or healthy. Shalom is God reordering what sin fractured. Genesis 37 doesn't end with reconciliation. It doesn't end with explanation. It doesn't end with Joseph understanding what God is doing. It ends with a son in Egypt. A father in grief, a brother's carrying guilt, and God's covenant story still moving beneath the surface. Some of you are living in that very chapter right now. You don't have the explanation yet. You don't have the resolution yet. You don't have the reconciliation yet. But you can still refuse bitterness. It's your choice. You say, I can't help how I'm feeling. This was done to me. Oh, I I agree. It'd be easy. The easier thing. The enemy wins when you do that. You can still tell the truth. You can still obey God in the dark. You can still believe that the chapter you're in isn't the entire story. It's just a chapter. I want to remind you, prayer isn't asking for an easy journey. It's asking for a strong back. Father, we bring you the wounds that came from close range. We bring you the family pain, the rejection, the jealousy, the favoritism, the silence, the betrayal and the grief we've carried too long. Father, teach us. Teach us to tell the truth without becoming bitter. Teach us to grieve without surrendering our future to the very people who hurt us. Father, break inherited patterns in us. Heavenly Father, heal what's been torn. Bring our lives into shalom under your rule, your mercy and your truth, and where we've been the jealous brother, the silent parent, or the one who wounded another. Father, lead us into repentance. In Jesus' name. Amen. I mentioned Earlier to one of our dear listeners, how do I know? Place your faith. It's a step of faith. Look, if today you've realized the deepest wound in your life is separation from God, and absolutely it is. Oh. If today you've realized, look, I'm I'm separated from God, this is where you come home. Maybe you've been betrayed, maybe you've also been the betrayer. Maybe you've sinned. Maybe you've hidden, you've resented, you've envied, and you've tried to survive without surrender. Yeshua, Jesus, came for sinners. He came for the wounded and for the guilty. Do you get that dichotomy there? He came for the wounded and he came for the guilty of doing the wound. He came to save, to forgive, to restore, and to make new. If you are ready to turn to him, pray this from your heart. Pray it sincerely. Father, I know I've sinned and I need your mercy. I have hurts habits and hang-ups. I need your forgiveness. I believe that you died for me and you were buried and you rose again. Today I turn from my sin. I place my trust in Him as my Lord and my King. Forgive me, make me new, and fill me with your Spirit. From this day forward, I want to follow you in Jesus' name. Amen. In this world. But when he returns and he calls us home, oh, what joy. Forever. For all of eternity. Look, you've just made, if you prayed that prayer, you've just made the most important decision you'll ever make in your entire existence. But it may be scary. I get it. There are a lot of questions. You do not have to walk this way. Listen, the enemy's gonna make you, it's gonna try to make you feel alone, feel stupid. They're gonna hurl all kinds of things. And it may be your family that does it. It may be your closest friends. In fact, most wounds, they come from close range. You don't have to walk this road alone. I've helped so many take their first steps, and I'm happy to help you. I'd be honored to walk with you. If you prayed that prayer or if you still have questions, contact me. Reach out to me through, and it's free. It's free. Nobody beats your door down. Heavenly Father, for Hannah R77 right now, you know her. You know her true identity. You know what she's going through. Reach out to her in a very supernatural way. In your matulus name. Amen. Look, reach out to me through Trueword FaithforLife.com slash contact, or you can just hit the little button up top. Just go to TruewordFaithforLife.com, hit the little contact button. There's also a little thing on the side. Click on that, it takes you to you can leave me a voicemail. And it's not free, but you don't pay, I pay. So it's two minutes though. It's two minutes. Make it count. I promise you, as soon as I receive your message, whether it's typed out or or the voice message, as soon as I receive it, it takes a little while to go through all the screening and all that. But it's as soon as it gets to me, I will absolutely contact you. However, you say is best. We'll help you find a community of believers near you. We'll help you, you know, find the right Bible for you. We'll help you grow in your faith day by day. You aren't alone. All you need to do is ask. Oh, a robe was torn. A son was sold. Father grieved. A family lied. But God wasn't finished. The pit was absolutely real. The pain was real. The betrayal was real. The covenant mercy, but covenant mercy was still moving. And the God who saw Joseph on the road to Egypt sees you right where you are today. That's good news. If this helped you, send it to one person. You know, to send it to a million. You send it to a million if you want. But think of one person who needs hope today. The right word at the right time can help someone keep walking. You never know. May Adonai bless you and keep you. May Adunai make his face to shine upon you and show you his grace. May Adunai lift up his face toward you and give you shalom. Shalom Bishim Yeshua. Veshalom Alakem. This has been True Word Faith for Life with Dr. Sean. For more teachings, True Word Faith for Life.com and True Word Faith for Life with Dr. Sean on YouTube or Rumble. Until tomorrow at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Shalom, shalom.