In-Law Probz

Well, good morning everyone, and welcome to church. Let's stand together all across the room today. If you're joining us online, welcome. We are so excited to live praises to the Lord today. Come on, let's sing to him. Let's thank him for his faithfulness, thank him for his goodness in this place. Come on, let's sing. ♪ Our God has been faithful to all generations ♪ ♪ We've all got a story to tell ♪ ♪ Stories of rescue, rebirth, and redemption ♪ ♪ We've all got a story to tell ♪ Come on, you lift it up today as we sing. ♪ If he's been faithful, if he's been good ♪ ♪ Sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah ♪ ♪ If he's been able, but no one else could ♪ ♪ Sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah ♪ Lift your voices. Oh, we praise you, Lord. Let the redeemed of the Lord lift their voices. Remember the things he has done. We've heard from our fathers and we'll tell our children the wonderful things he has done. ♪ He has done, we sing ♪ ♪ If he's been faithful, if he's been good, we sing ♪ ♪ Sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah ♪ ♪ If he's been able, but no one else could ♪ ♪ Sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah ♪ ♪ Sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah ♪ Come on, let's declare this truth today, we sing.

♪ He is good, his love endures now and for eternity, oh ♪ ♪ He is good, his love endures our history and our legacy ♪ ♪ He is good, his love endures now and for eternity, oh ♪ ♪ He is good, his love endures our history and our legacy ♪ ♪ He has been faithful, he has been good, sing hallelujah ♪ ♪ Sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah ♪ ♪ He has been able, but no one else could ♪ ♪ Sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah ♪ ♪ If he's been faithful, if he's been good, sing hallelujah ♪ ♪ Sing hallelujah, if he's been able, no one else could ♪ ♪ Sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh we magnify your name ♪ Oh come on, can we lift up our praise today? Thank you. ♪♪ Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome to church. We are so thrilled that you are here. If you're new, welcome. Hope you have a great experience with us. Really praying that God speaks to your heart today and thrilled that you have joined us and we encourage you to stop by. Let us know that you're new at one of our Next Steps areas and we would love to stop and get to know you and your family just for a little bit, so please let us know that you were here. If you are here today and you got your Bible, you got your journal, turn with me right now to g.com.

Turn with me right now to Genesis chapter 29. We are in a series that we are calling One Big Happy Family. We have named that sarcastically because if there's one thing that's true about the family we're studying in Genesis, it is anything but one big happy family. It would be better titled One Big Jacked Up Family or One Big Dysfunctional Family. And so today, we're getting into something that Listen, everybody deals with in some way, okay? We are talking about in-laws. And in fact, I think that I have given the greatest sermon title of the entire year on this day, because here's what it's called. We're talking about in-law props today. Yes, that's a Z on the end of that word. We're talking about, I'm making myself laugh here. We're talking about in-law. Okay, I have gathered myself, all right? We are really talking about in-laws and how that can be a major thing in a family. We all laugh about it, but in all reality, in some families, it's something that you cry about. And so let's talk about in-laws, y'all. Genesis chapter 29, let me pray for us. Lord, as we dive into a sensitive subject, Lord, would your grace meet us at this place. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Hey, good morning, everybody.

That may be my favorite video sermon intro that we have ever done. You'll be happy to know Nick cannot talk about this sermon title without laughing. Even up to this last week, just laughs every single time. So it's an amazing topic. Excited to jump into God's word with you. Whether you're here at our Fayetteville campus, I know we got many more of you joining us online right now. Wherever you're at, here's what I'm gonna ask, that you would ask the Lord to move in your heart today. You're here for a purpose. You're here by God's design. And so I hope that God will speak to you as we open up God's word together. This is gonna be a fun topic, and it's interesting. I've been a pastor for about 20 years now, and one of the most fun and exciting things that we get to do, and yet at the same time, very, can be very challenging, things is a moment in time that we call premarital counseling, okay? Now, all of our pastors do this a little differently, but we meet with couples before the wedding day. And the first meeting, I'm just telling you, it's always fun, it's always exciting. The couple shares about the story of how they met. They tell their love story. They talk about details of the wedding, super exciting. But when we get to session two,

there's just a moment in time where the temperature seems to drop a little bit in the room, okay? You never know where it's gonna go. Here's the question I'll always ask the couple. Why don't you guys just tell me about your in-laws? It's at that moment that you get some fun looks. You know, you can very quickly tell if it's comfortable, if it's uncomfortable. One of Rachel and I's life goals is that when our kids are sitting in a room with a pastor and they ask that question, as they think about us, they'll be like, they're a little weird, but they're good. And they just move on, okay? Here's what I tell you from experience. That's pretty rare. Usually their topics, in-law probs are a very real thing. And so that's what we're gonna talk about today, which again, a little bit dangerous because my in-laws are in the church. And so I just wanna be very clear. When I talk about problems, I'm talking about other people's problems, not my own, okay? My in-laws are amazing. As we look at Genesis 29, here's what you're gonna find. God uses Jacob's in-laws with all of their flaws and dysfunction, bad decision-making. He uses them as one of the primary tools in Jacob's life to develop his character, okay? That's what we're gonna look at today.

You know, it's interesting. You see this all over the place with our own lives. And a question that many of us wanna know is, God, what's the destination you're taking me to? We see maybe step one or two, but you're like, God, where are you taking me? And here's what I want you to see in the text. God does not care as much about a specific destination that he's taking Jacob on as he is about a development process of his own heart, of changing him and forming him and shaping him. And so here's the big idea of our text. If you're taking notes, I wanna encourage you to write it down. This is our big idea today. God will use difficult seasons with difficult people as a tool to form our character. Not fun, is it? Yeah, we've all experienced it. Sometimes it's a dysfunctional family. Sometimes it's really, really difficult in-laws. Sometimes it's a difficult neighbor. Other times it's a difficult coworker. Maybe it's a difficult roommate for those of you who are college students, but God will use those people, if you will allow him to, as instruments to help form your character. Now, let me give you a little context. Back in Genesis chapter 28, God had told Jacob through his father Isaac,

I want you to go to this land that is 400 miles away. And right there, I want you to find a wife from a very specific family. I want you to find Laban's family and marry a girl from there. And so Jacob, of course, began that journey. And then last week, we saw this incredible moment in his life where he encounters the living God and his story is forever changed. Many of us in this room have experienced something like that, where we came into a room like this and we experienced God for the very first time and we were saved and we began to walk with God. That's what happened to Jacob last week. He had heard about God, but from that moment on, it would no longer be his. dad's God or his grandfather's God, but he says, now you are my God. This is a personal relationship. And so I would imagine that for Jacob, after that moment, he had to have been on cloud nine. He had to have been like, man, this is gonna be so good life with God. I mean, it's gonna be great, it's gonna be easy. My story is gonna be amazing. Well, that's not exactly the way the story turns out. We get to chapter 29 and Jacob has made it all the way to this land, 400 miles away,

and he runs into a group of shepherds. He strikes up a conversation and little does he know, this conversation is going to begin a 20 year process of spiritual formation in his heart. And so if you would, let's read it together. We're gonna start in verse four, chapter 29, verse four. This is the word of God today. Says, Jacob said to them, my brothers, where do you come from? They said, we are from Haran. He said, do you know Laban, the son of Nahor? They said, we know him. He said to them, is it well with them? They said, it is well. Now, I just want to stop here. Does this conversation not remind you, for you parents, of your conversations with your teenagers? Very quick, right? Like, do you know him? Yes, we know him. Is he well? He is well. As short as it can be. That's this group of shepherds, right? But then they continue, they say, but see, Rachel, his daughter, is coming with the sheep. He said, behold, it is still high day. It's not time for the livestock to be gathered together. Water the sheep, go, pasture them. In other words, get out of here.

But they said, we cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well. Then we water the sheep. While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherdess. Okay, now, this is not the main point of the text, but I do not want you to miss something that we just read, okay? Do not miss the sovereignty of God and how he orchestrated this event, okay? You think about Jacob's life. He's got to go on a 400-mile journey to a place that he's never been to meet a family that he's never met. And yet, what does he do? He says, God, I'm gonna trust you. I'm gonna be obedient. And so he takes all of these steps for 400 miles, thinking, how am I gonna find these people? Where are they gonna be like? Like, no idea. He gets to the land, and what happens? It just so happens that these shepherds show up that know Laban. It just so happens that Rachel, Laban's daughter, who we're gonna find out later he's going to marry, shows up at this well that he just happened to be at. Here's what I don't want you to miss.

Some of you are at a moment in your life right now where God is asking you to take a step. Like, you're there. God's asking you to take one step. You don't know what the outcome, he's asking you to take a step. Can I promise you this? From the word of God and from my own experience with God, if you'll take a step, God can orchestrate every event that needs to happen. All we're responsible for is taking that step. He is a sovereign God that works in a powerful way. But from this moment that Jacob sees Rachel, here's what happens. It is love at first sight. Now, again, from personal experience, I just tell you, girls with the name Rachel just have this aura to them that draw you in. For those of you that don't know, that's my wife's name. Okay, like, they draw you in. Little known fact for you, there are six of us on the cross church staff that are married to Rachel, okay? Different Rachels, different Rachels, let me be clear. Married to Rachels, okay? And so I'm just saying, there's something there, okay? Rachel's an amazing name. But Jacob in this moment does what any single guy would do. He tries to shoo away the shepherds so that he can have some one-on-one time with Rachel.

In the Hebrew, what it really says is he's about to shoot his shot, okay? That's really what's happening in the text here. Maybe there are some of you young men in the room, maybe you've been watching online, that you were here today for God to say this, you'll never know unless you shoot. And so he shoots his shot in verse two. Keep going, look at verse 10. He tries to get her attention. It says, now as soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the well's mouth and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's kinsman and that he was Rebekah's son, and she ran and told her father, okay? Now there's a lot of things that are going on in our text right there, and I wanna be clear about one thing. When it says that he kisses Rachel, this is not advice for you young men about what to do when you're shooting your shot, okay? It was a customary thing in that culture for them to welcome one another with a kiss, but I love it, Jacob doesn't stop there, he goes further. If you could look at him, in essence, you've got this stone, and if you go back to verse two,

what it says is that this was a massive stone, okay? Normally, all the shepherds had to gather together, and together, They would move this stone in order for them to give water to all their sheep. And so Jacob looks at this and he says, hey, this is my shot. And so what does he do? He goes up and he's flexes a little bit. And what does it say? He himself alone takes this massive stone and moves it. And then he begins to water her sheep. Now, if you have ever been to the gym, you have seen this played out, right? Where a guy wants to impress a girl. And so he just kind of waits till she's in between reps and he gets the most amount of weight that he can get. And he just begins to curl right in front of her, looking her in the eye like, I got this, right? I did this one time with Rachel. We went to a bootcamp together. We were already married, still trying to win her over. And it was a leg day and I did way too many squats. I'm not kidding. I did not walk for an entire week. I couldn't even sit down, I just kind of lay back. That's Jacob in the text. He's like, I've got to do whatever it takes to win this girl over. I am going to do whatever I need to do.

Well, at this moment, she recognizes now who he is and she goes and gets her dad, Laban. Look with me at verse 14. And Laban said to him, surely you are my bone and my flesh. And he stayed with him a month. Then Laban said to Jacob, because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me what shall your wages be, okay? This is where the in-law probs begin to show up. Okay, it starts off really well. He's excited to see Jacob, excited to learn about his family. And so Jacob stays with him a month, but then what happens? After about a month, Laban's like, hey, I love that you're here, but if you're gonna stay, it's time to get to work, right? Now, some of you dads in the room are like, yeah, that's what I want for my son-in-law. I want them to work. Think about it from Jacob's perspective. We know that physical labor really wasn't Jacob's thing. Back in chapter 25, it was Esau, his older brother, who was the outdoorsman. He was the rugged one. He was the physical labor guy. What did the text say about Jacob? He was a homebody. He was a mama's boy. He had grown up in this family of wealth where no doubt they had servants

that had taken on much of the responsibilities of serving the people. And yet what happens here? He's being treated as a servant. How he would respond would reveal a lot about him. I once heard this saying, and I think it's really good for every single one of us to consider. A person never knows what type of servant they are until others treat them like a servant. Person never knows what kind of servant they are until others treat them like a servant. You see, God will often shape our character by putting us in positions that we would never choose for ourselves, putting us in opportunities that are humbling, putting us in positions where the call is to serve in ways that we never thought we'd have to serve. I wonder this morning, I gotta believe that many of you, whether it's at work or in some area of your life, you're being asked to do things that feel like, man, that should be somebody else's job. I wonder this morning, when you're treated like a servant, what wells up in your heart? Is there anger? Is there resentment? Is there pride that wells up? Well, here's what I want you to understand about the Christian life. If service is beneath you in any form,

then faithfulness to God will always be beyond you. Don't miss that. Wherever position you're at in life, this is why with our staff team, we tell them all the time, we're the ones that can be willing to pick up the trash. We're the ones that are willing to set up the tables and do the chairs. If serving in any capacity is beneath you, faithfulness to God will always be beyond you because why? He calls us to be servants. This is the Christian life is to serve to meet the needs of others. Could it be that God has you in that moment of service to shape you in some way? That's what he's doing with Jacob. Let's keep reading. Look at verse 16. It says, now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah and the name of the younger was the one we just met, named Rachel. Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. Jacob loved Rachel and he said, I will serve you seven years for your daughter, Rachel. Laban said, it is better that I give her to you than I should give her to any other man. Stay with me. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days

because of the love that he had for her, okay? Now, let me just give you a warning. This story is about to get crazy, okay? It's about to go into some uncharted territory for many of you, if you've never read the Bible before, but I wanna be very clear about something. I taught our Springdale campuses a couple of weeks ago. When you're reading the Old Testament and especially as we are working our way. through Genesis, these are narratives, okay? They're stories, they're stories of real people, real life, all these things. But there's a big difference in the Bible between what is prescriptive and what is descriptive. Okay, there are certain things in the Bible that are prescriptive. In other words, this is an example for you to follow. This is a command for you to do, like this is what you are called to do as a child of God. But most of the Old Testament, especially in the book of Genesis is what I would call descriptive. In other words, it's simply going to describe what takes place in a sinful fallen world with sinful people. Does that make sense? And so everything we're about to read, let me just put it in this category, it's descriptive. When we read this about Leah, many of us think, well, does that mean she's unattractive?

We don't really know. We don't know if she was unattractive. We don't know if she just had bad eyesight. What does it mean to be weak in the eyes? I don't really know, but here's what I know for certain. Jacob's heart was all in for Rachel, not Leah. Okay, that's what the text tells us. He's all in. In fact, so much so that he says, hey, here's what I'm willing to do. I am willing to work for seven entire years for my father-in-law, imagine that for those of you who are son-in-laws, seven years I'm gonna work for him so that I can pay the bridal price to marry Rachel. For those of you in the room who are married, maybe you're watching online, do you remember the time that you decided, I'm all in for my spouse? Like I'm going all in. Back in college, I was one of those guys that just struggled with commitment. I was kind of waffling back and forth. And so I had dated Rachel for one year where I just was kind of always wavering up until one just monumental night. It was at Nick and Meredith Floyd's wedding. And I got on the phone with Rachel after, it was in Sebring, Florida. So I was there, I was a groomsman.

It was right after the wedding and I get on the phone call and Rachel can just tell there's something wrong. And Rachel literally on the night of their wedding is like, Ryan, you're not in, we're ending this thing. And she broke up with me on the night of Nick and Meredith's wedding, okay? Now that lasted for about two weeks where I was just sitting, I was like, what have I done? This is the greatest thing. And I'm just telling you, you ask Rachel, from that moment on, I was all in. I would do whatever it took to win Rachel's heart. I was a changed man. He's like, I will do whatever it takes. Well, Laban, being the incredible father-in-law that he is, sees this single-minded devotion of Jacob. I mean, Jacob says literally seven years, it's like seven days to marry Rachel. That's how much I love her. And he uses it to his own advantage. He uses it to deceive Jacob. Look at verse 21. "'Then Jacob said to Laban, give me my wife "'that I may go into her for my time is completed.'" In other words, the seven years is over. "'So Laban gathered together all the people of the place "'and he made a feast.'" They had a wedding, okay? "'But in the evening, he took his daughter Leah "'and brought her to Jacob.

"'And he went into her.'" In other words, they consummated the marriage. "'Laban gave his female servant Zilpah "'to his daughter Leah to be her servant. "'And in the morning,'' this is the greatest understatement of all time, "'behold, it was Leah. "'And Jacob said to Laban, "'what is this you have done to me? "'Did I not serve with you for Rachel? "'Why then have you deceived me?'' If you're underlining anything, underline that word deceived, okay, deceived. Now, some of you are at church for the very first time and you are asking, what on the earth am I hearing in this text, right? I've heard of a lot of bad honeymoon stories. I've heard of canceled flights, bad weather. I got food poisoning on the third day of my honeymoon. That's not fun. Let's just be honest. This one takes the cake, okay? "'Jacob wakes up to the sunrise after his wedding night, "'expecting Rachel, "'and he behold, it's Leah.'" Now, I know you have questions because I have questions, like how does that happen? I don't know. Scholars would point to three things that were likely at play with this scenario.

Number one, you gotta remember, this is thousands of years before electricity, okay? During the ancient years, it is pitch black, okay? Super dark. Number two, in that culture, the women of that culture on their wedding day for the entire day would wear a veil, okay? So that's getting a little bit more legitimate, but then there's this third one, and honestly, I think they're probably right. It says specifically that he brings Leah to him after the wedding feast, and most scholars would say there's a high likelihood that he was probably a little bit drunk in this moment. Now, there are, I could give you a hundred reasons not to drink. Alcohol 101 right there, like this is not a good thing, okay? Regardless of what happened, here's what I don't want you to miss. Jacob would have been absolutely devastated to find Leah, not Rachel. Think about it. He loved her with all of his heart. He was single-minded in his devotion. He had worked for seven years and now his father-in-law has deceived him. No doubt he was thinking in that moment, what is this? I didn't sign up for this. This morning, I wonder how many of you are in this room, I gotta believe for those of you watching online as well,

there have been moments in your life where you had this exact same thought. What is this? I didn't sign up for this. I didn't sign up for this marriage. I didn't sign up for this in my workplace. I didn't sign up for this in my family. I didn't sign up for this with that health diagnosis. Like God, what is this? I think sometimes when you see those of us who are on stage, you can get the false assumption that man, life is good, all their relationships are good, man, these are pastors. Can I just be very candid? There have been many moments in my life where I've been face-to-face with God and I'm saying, God, what is this? The second year of our marriage, we were in seminary. I mean, my goodness, I'm training to be a pastor. Things should be really good. Like out of all the people, we should be good. We had one year of great. I'm just telling you, our second year of marriage was absolutely horrific. We were both in a dark place and I can remember one specific night, we're in our little 400 square foot apartment looking at each other and both of us would have said, this is not the marriage that I signed up for. What is this? There's another moment when we moved to California

and I'd been obedient to God. Some of you have been there, like steps of obedience. You took steps of great faith. You did exactly what God called you to do. And I can remember sitting in my office, tears flowing down my face, looking to the sky saying, God, what is this? I was obedient and what do I get? Difficult people, difficult circumstances, things that are out of my control, mean people, persecuting people like, God, I didn't sign up for this when I obeyed you. And yet, if I could look back at my life, I wouldn't wanna go back to any of those moments and there are many more than the two I just shared. I wouldn't wanna go back, but here's what I do know, that God was using difficult people and difficult situations to change me, to change my heart, to root out selfishness, to kill my pride, to enhance our marriage, to make it better. But here's the thing, I had to lean into the Lord in those moments. And friends, so do you. For those of you who are newer Christians, I know we got many of them here at Cross Church. Many of you have recently given your life to Christ. I wanna speak directly to you for a moment, okay? There's this false notion that when you become a Christian, when you put your faith in Christ,

the false notion in your mind is, now everything's gonna be good. Now I've got God on my side, like the obstacles are gonna go away, the hardships are going away. And so I just wanna be very, very clear with you this morning. When you give your life to Jesus, He does not promise the absence of problems. What He promises is His presence in the middle of your problems. You see the difference there? He does not promise the absence of difficult people and difficult situations and delays that you aren't expecting. What He does promise is to be with you in them. And here's the second promise, He can give meaning to your problems. He can give meaning to your pain. He can use those things to shape you in ways that the best days cannot shape you in. They don't have the ability to, but you bring difficult things, and all of a sudden you begin to see God shape a new person. Think about Jacob. One of his earliest character deficiencies was what? What was he? He was a deceiver. He was the deceiver. The name Jacob literally means deceiver.

He had deceived his brother. He had deceived his father. This was a character flaw in Jacob's life. And so what happens here in our text? He's on the other side of that. He's deceived. Do you think that God could use that to shape some things in Jacob's heart? I guarantee that's exactly what He's doing. If you are God's child, I need you to follow me here. If you are God's child, there are going to be seasons of difficulty and hardship, and God's desire in those seasons is to form you. One of my favorite passages that I go to over and over when I'm sitting in pain, just to remind myself of what is true, because let's be honest, when you're in pain, You got a lot of other thoughts going into your head. You got to remind yourself what's true. One of those things for me is Hebrews chapter 12. I'm gonna put it on the screen. Talks about the discipline of God. And here's what it says. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons, or if you're a woman in the room, as daughters. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

In other words, if you never experienced the discipline of God, the formation of God, the training of God, he says, you're not really his child. All children receive discipline. He says, besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject? In other words, trust in, come under the father of spirits and live. For they, talking about earthly parents, disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them. But he, God, disciplines us for our good, that we may what? Share in his holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. Can I get an amen? Always. Feels painful, not pleasant. But later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. For all of you who are good parents in the room, you know that when you discipline your children, it's not because you hate them. It's not because you're against them. It's not because you're trying to hold something back from them. Anytime we discipline our children, it is to help form them and shape them and develop character in them.

That is the purpose of discipline. If we who are earthly parents try to do that with all of our flaws, how much more God knows what we need as his children and can form those things in our hearts. But here's the key. What does it say? It produces righteousness to those who are trained by it. You have a choice this morning. For all of you who are walking through difficulty, you have a choice to either be trained in the midst of it or to reject it, try to fight against it. And can I just tell you, you do that, you're gonna end up bitter, you're gonna end up angry, you're not gonna have joy. But to those who submit to it, it says, you will produce the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Well, let's close by looking at verse 26. We'll end with this. Laban said, it is not so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, in other words, the other, the wedding ceremonies, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years. This is a bad father-in-law. I want seven more years. Jacob did so. Think about that. Jacob did so, and he completed the week.

Then Laban gave from him his daughter, Rachel, to be his wife. Laban gave his female servant, Bilhah, to his daughter, Rachel, to be her servant. So Jacob went into Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah and served Laban for another seven years, okay? Now, let me just remind you what I said earlier. Difference in prescriptive and descriptive. What you see in this text is descriptive, which means this. It was not right in God's eyes for Laban to deceive Jacob. It was a sinful thing for him to do. It was not right for Jacob to marry two women. It was a sinful thing. It was totally out of alignment with what we saw in Genesis chapter two, okay? These are sinful people that are making sinful choices, and yet here's the amazing news of the Bible throughout, but we see it right here, that God can enter into our dysfunction, our dysfunctional families, our dysfunctional past, our sinful choices, and he can use it to redeem certain things in our life. He can use these moments to build character. He can use these moments to make us more ready to see him face to face. This is the kind of God we serve, a God that loves us so much that when he sees the flaws in each one of us, he says, I love you too much to leave you there,

and so I'm gonna discipline. I'm gonna shape. I'm going to form, and so here's the big question as we close today. What will you do when God desires to form you? What will you do? Not what did Jacob do, not what will Ryan do, but what are you going to do when God desires to form you? Some of you right now are in that formational difficulty, difficult people, maybe a difficult delay, difficult situation. Here's my encouragement to you from our text, okay? I'm gonna, you know, at Cross Church, we love acrostics, so here's my acrostic, the word form, okay? What are you gonna do? Form, the F stands for this, fight the. urge to take control, fight it. And one of your greatest battles in life is not against other people, it's against the urge to constantly try to control your life, control your circumstances. Some of you right now are trying to control your spouse. You're trying to control that prodigal child. You're trying to control the timeline. Today, could it be that God has you here to release control and trust in God in a fresh way today? Fight the urge to take control. What does the O stand for? This, obey the next thing that God has told you to do, okay? In the moments of pain, we wanna get out of it,

we wanna look for three steps down the road. Here's what God's asking for each one of us. Just obey the next thing I've asked you to do. The next thing. You say, well, Ryan, that next thing's inconvenient. That next thing is unfair. You don't know what they did to me. God says, you cannot control what other people will do. Here's what's your responsibility for, yourself. So what are you gonna do? Are you going to obey the next thing God has asked you to do? The R in the word form stands for this, man, rehearse God's promises. Rehearse them over and over again. Say, Ryan, why is this a big deal? Because I can promise you the enemy is gonna say some lies to you. You have no hope, your marriage has no hope, your family has no hope. You're above this service thing that you're being asked to do. He's gonna be speaking lies. There's no hope for the future. There's only dismay. And so what do you gotta do? You gotta rehearse what's true. In your mind, over and over again, no, no, God loves me. No, no, God's been faithful. He's been faithful over and over again.

God has a plan in this. God is forming me. God is going to use all of this for His glory and my good. When I stand before Him in eternity, I'm gonna look back and I'm gonna say, thank you for making me more like you. You gotta rehearse the promises of God over and over again. Last but not least, the M stands for this, maintain your connection to God. The reason I put that in there is when you are experiencing difficulty, the normal natural response is to retreat. It's to retreat from God. It's to isolate yourself from Christian community. It's to read the word less. It's to pray less. And so if you're in one of those difficult situations with difficult people, can I just encourage you? Go into the Lord, lean into Him, be rooted in Him, abide in Him, maintain that close connection to God. You're gonna need it. And if you do that, I promise you, you're gonna see fruit on the other side. In just a moment, we're gonna move into a time of response. And this is the most important part of our service. So I'm gonna ask you, if you would, just try not to leave, try not to be a distraction to anyone else in this moment. But here's what I'm gonna ask. Don't think about what God is saying to someone else. What does God wanna say to you in these next few moments?

What I know is that for some of you, what we're talking about today, it's not theoretical. It is deeply personal, okay? You're in a season right now where you are tempted to ask God this question. God, what is this? I didn't sign up for this. And God has you here specifically today to show you, I love you, I care about you, I'm forming you. Would you trust in me? And so maybe you're here today, and man, you're in the middle of that dysfunction, you're in the middle of that pain, and you are one of those people you're holding onto control. You're trying to manipulate outcomes, you're trying to control people, you're trying to fix people, you're trying to do it all in your own strength. And this morning, be honest, you come into this room exhausted because you're trying to control that hard thing. The Spirit of God is inviting you today. This altar is open for those of you to come forward and to say, God, I'm releasing the grip. I'm gonna choose to lay down control and I'm gonna pick up trusting you. And I'm gonna surrender this thing to you. Friends, this altar is open for you to surrender some things to God today.

There are others of you today that you're right in the middle of your disappointment, you're right in the middle of that dysfunction. And you look at all of it and you're like, Ryan, I'm trying to rehearse the promises of God. I know God's using this for my good, but I'm having a hard time believing it right now. And here's what I'd tell you, you're not meant to carry that burden alone. This is what the church is for. We're gonna have leaders from our staff team spread out that are here to pray with you. Whatever burden you're carrying, you're like, Ryan, I want to, I love the Lord. I wanna walk in this will. We wanna pray for you. So I wanna invite, if that's you, I want you to come. There are others of you, you know that God has given you your next step of obedience. but that next step, it's hard, it's inconvenient. Maybe it's undeserved by another party. Today, the spirit of God is saying, hey, would you come obey me even in this? And I can produce things in your life that you never thought possible. That's you, I wanna invite you to come. Last but not least, there are those of you in the room that if you're gut level honest, you have never entered into a personal relationship with Jesus.

When I'm talking about sin and dysfunction, you look at your life and you're like, yeah, that's me. I'm sinful, I've got sin all around me, I've got brokenness all around me. And today, maybe for the very first time, you're realizing there's no amount of effort of trying to do things yourself, of being more like, you cannot fix what sin has fractured. You can't do it. But here's the good news of the Bible, God in love came and fixed it for you. He sent his son to die on the cross, taking the punishment for sin that you deserve so that you could be forgiven of all of your sin, past, present, future, doesn't matter what you've done, forgiven, and that you can be given new life that you could walk in relationship with him. Doesn't remove all the problems, but his presence can be with you from this day forward. If that's you in a moment when we stand up, I'm gonna invite you to stand and grab the hand of one of our leaders and say, I need to give my life to Christ. Ryan was talking directly to me. And would you do that this morning? All around this room, would you just bow your head and close your eyes? Jesus, I pray that you'd meet with us right now. I pray that nothing would hold people back from coming to this altar, Lord,

to open their hands and surrender, to receive new strength, to admit, Lord, I've distanced myself from you and I need to re-engage, I need to come back and abide in you in a new way. And for those that need salvation, God, that they would say, Lord, I'm ready to turn, turn from trying to build my life on my own, and I'm ready to put my trust in you. And I pray that all of these things would happen today. Only your Holy Spirit can produce change in us. And so that's what I'm asking that you do in these next few moments together.