WHEN YOUR LIFE BECOMES A SOAP OPERA
Gen. 25:28-30:20
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. People who break rules usually get caught sooner or later. I was reading about opening day of hunting season in one state.
2. Game wardens put up a sign on a certain highway that read as follows: “Check station: 1,000 yards ahead.” Near the sign was a convenient side road that went around the check station.
3. Lawful hunters went straight ahead to the check station. Over-limit hunters or those who’d violated the law turned off down the side road.
4. The check station? It was down the side road!
B. TEXT
25:28 Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
29:25 When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?” 26 Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. 27 Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you [Rachel] also. 31 When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless.
30:1 When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” 8 Then Rachel said, “I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won.” So she named him Naphtali. 19 Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. 20 Then Leah said, “God has presented me with a precious gift. This time my husband will treat me with honor, because I have borne him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun. 37:4 When [Joseph’s] brothers saw that their father [Jacob] loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.
C. THESIS
1. “A Dysfunctional family” is “a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often child or spouse neglect or abuse occurs, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is normal.”
2. A Soap Opera is defined as “a serial life-drama chiefly characterized by tangled interpersonal situations and melodramatic or sentimental treatment.”
3. The story of Jacob’s life certainly contains both dysfunction and a plot-line that would rival many of today’s soap operas!
4. Sometimes our own lives can lapse into a series of catastrophes. People often refer to the fact that there’s too much “drama” at their work, or in a relative’s home.
5. They’re overly emotional, backstabbing, gossiping, betraying their friends, and falling in and out of relationships all the time.
6. Sometimes our lives are so fraught with drama and crises that we really feel that we’re living in a soap opera.
7. Others absorb the difficulties of people they hear about, feeling responsible somehow.
8. Excitement, drama and living on the edge is entertaining in soap operas, but it doesn’t make for a healthy emotional life.
9. So we’re going to look this morning at “When Your Life Becomes A Soap Opera.”
I. WHAT’S WRONG WITH A SOAP OPERA LIFE?
A. 4 TYPES OF DYSFUNCTION IN JACOB’S FAMILY
1. FAVORITISM
a. Isaac favored Esau, Rebecca favored Jacob.
b. Jacob loved Rachel, Leah was unloved.
c. Jacob favored Rachel’s child, Joseph, to whom he gave the Coat of Many Colors (Gen. 37:3).
2. DECEITFUL NATURE
a. Jacob finagled Esau’s birthright for a bowl of chili.
b. At his mother’s insistence, he put on his brother’s clothes, hair on his hands & neck, and deceived his father into passing the blessing of Abraham onto him!
c. Laban deceived him with the wrong woman under the wedding dress! How horrible after 7 years of waiting.
3. JEALOUSY & RIVALRY
a. Between Jacob & Esau;
b. Of Rachel against Leah.
4. BITTERNESS OF JACOB’S SONS AGAINST JOSEPH
[see the diagram of Jacob's family: http://abrahams-legacy.org/family-tree.html]
B. NEGATIVE EMOTIONS ARE DISPLEASING TO GOD AND MUST BE SUBJUGATED
1. “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. James 4:1-2.
2. 19 “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, 20…hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the [God’s] Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control….24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Gal. 5:19-24
3. Also, anger, jealousy, fighting, & conflict RUINS YOUR WITNESS before loved ones and friends.
C. CONFORM? OUR STANDARD IS JESUS!
1. “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” Rom. 12:2.
2. “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” Rom. 8:29.
3. So we aren’t supposed to be like the mixed-up people around us in society, we’re supposed to be becoming like Jesus: to have His priorities, His love, His compassion, to conduct our lives as He would if He were us.
D. WE ARE CALLED TO FORGIVE
1. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” Eph. 4:32.
2. God has forgiven us our Mt. Everests of sin, so why can’t we forgive the small piles of sin others do to us?
3. ILLUS.
a. After preaching a sermon on forgiveness, a preacher asked “How many have forgiven your enemies?” All said they had, except one elderly lady.
b. "Mrs. Jones?" inquired the preacher, “Aren’t you willing to forgive your enemies?” “I don't have any.” she replied, smiling.
c. “Oh, Mrs. Jones, what an example you are to all of us. Would you please come down in front and tell us all how a person can live as many years as you have and not have an enemy in the world."
d. The sweet little lady tottered down the aisle, faced the congregation, and said "I outlived all the old hags."
4. That’s not what I mean, we should forgive, not outlive!
II. WHY OUR LIVES MIGHT BE A SOAP OPERA
A. WE’RE OUT OF THE WILL OF GOD
1. Jonah didn’t obey God and found himself in a whale of a lot of trouble - of his own making.
2. The devil gets blamed for a lot more stuff than he does. Many of our problems really originate in our wrong choices and jumping ahead of God.
3. Abraham didn’t wait for God but took his wife’s handmaid. Hezekiah demanded 15 more years and got Manasseh! Moses killed the Egyptian. Lot chose Sodom.
4. We need to stick close to the Word of God and get wisdom on how to conduct our lives!
B. WE’RE “IN” THE WILL OF GOD
1. Like Daniel – who was arrested for praying & forced to join the Lion’s Club!
2. Paul, because he preached the truth, was terribly persecuted – all in the will of God.
3. We may be being tried and tested. The rain falls on the just and the unjust.
C. WE MAY BE IN TRANSITION, ONE PHASE OF LIFE TO ANOTHER
1. The brook Elijah was to drink from, dried up. It was time for him to move to Zarephath. It wasn’t a disaster; it was a transition.
2. One thing may end to prompt us to move to our next assignment from God – a diff. ministry, a new job, a promotion! Etc.
3. Let’s keep flexible, stay attuned to hear what the Spirit is saying so we can keep in step with God’s purpose for our lives.
4. “11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” Jer. 29:11-13.
III. HOW TO FIX A SOAP OPERA LIFE
A. NORMAL LIFE HAS LOTS OF SHAKEUPS
1. Death, flat tires, house fires, serious illness, job losses, happen to many people sometime.
2. When I was a kid my Dad thought he could buy & sell a garbage truck & turn a profit. It didn’t sell for a while but ended up being parked in our driveway, pulling down property values. Then our family car broke down. Yes, drove as a family in the garbage truck – to the store, around town, and yes, we got dropped off at school in a garbage truck.
3. So when something happens that seems like a disaster, don’t think the devil hasn’t taken over or that God has abandoned you. Life just has some messy moments. So don’t freak out.
4. We should adopt the POSITIVE VIEW that difficulties are really challenges that will move us forward in Christ if we face them in faith!
5. So don’t freak out. Instead, Seek Out God’s people and seek God in prayer!
B. SET UP BOUNDARIES
1. Some people get their adrenaline from exaggerating everything that happens to them. Being around people who are constantly in crises can be exhausting and bewildering.
2. Then there are emotionally needy people who seem stuck in a negative tail spin and even if offered a positive wat out, they won’t to take it.
3. Both of these have found they can get a lot of attention by constantly being the center of attention. They use their crises or needs to ask you to prop them up – forever!
4. I remember Jesus asking the man who’d been at the pool of Siloam 38 years; “Do you WANT to get well?” Some people don’t.
5. So we may need to set up boundaries about how much we will let our peace and joy in Christ be dampened, and how much time we will spend around emotionally charged people.
C. HAPPINESS IS A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
1. People are unhappy inside because their relationship with God is broken down. If you’re not happy within yourself – all by yourself – then you won’t be happy with anyone else. No Jesus, no peace. Know Jesus, know peace.
2. Joy comes by peace with God, by the Grace of God through justification.
3. What is justification? It’s a legal term. The Bible says that because we have faith in Jesus, righteousness is “credited” to us. It’s a book-keeping term.
a. Imagine that your life & everything you’ve done is recorded in God’s Book. Every idle word, every vain or evil thought, every lie we ever told, every time we stole
something, our cursing, our hate, our jealousy, our envy, our lust – it’s all there in the ledger, on one side – YOUR SIDE!
b. In justification, God takes all the things you did off your side of the ledger and puts them on Jesus’ side of the ledger. And Jesus writes across all those sins, “Paid in Full!” with the crimson blood of Calvary. But justification isn’t finished yet.
c. Then God takes all the righteousness, holiness, and purity of Jesus’ side of the ledger and puts it on your side. And He imputes to you righteousness. All that is called justification.
4. If your house was robbed or burned up, would you still have joy? Well, if you got your joy from your house you wouldn’t. But if your joy is from God you would!
5. The Bible never says, “Rejoice in your house, car, jewelry, your looks, a person”, it says “Rejoice in the Lord!”
6. Let your happiness be derived from your relationship with God!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: SURPRISED BY GRACE
1. A woman in Grand Rapids, Michigan fell asleep on the couch after her husband had gone to bed.
2. An intruder sneaked in through the sliding door which the couple had forgotten to lock, and crept through the house.
3. He entered the bedroom where the husband was sleeping and picked up the television set. The sleeping man woke up, saw a figure standing there, and whispered, “Honey, come to bed.”
4. The burglar panicked, put down the TV, and grabbed a stack of money from the dresser, and ran out. The thief was in for a big surprise!
5. The money turned out to be a stack of Christian pamphlets with a likeness of a $20 bill on one side and an explanation of the love and forgiveness God offers to people on the other side.
6. Instead of the cash he expected, the intruder got the story of God’s love for him. (Our Daily Bread, 3/30/16)
B. THE CALL
1. You know, you may not have gotten what you’ve expected from life, but I’m here to tell you of the wonderful love of God for you.
2. Maybe your life has been a soap opera. God wants to start this morning and rewrite the plot-line of your story, and make it one of happiness and fulfillment
3. F. B. MEYER’S TESTIMONY
a. Joy began in my life one solemn night when I knelt before Christ and I had the holy light of His Spirit turned on one thing in my life that was filthy.
b. F.B. had heard a speaker said he’d discovered the secret of joy. F. B. thought, “I am unhappy; my heart seems full of evil.”
c. F. B. told the speaker his problem. The man responded, “Have you given yourself entirely to Jesus Christ?” F. B. went home, locked the door of his room, and resolved not to come out again until he had given himself entirely to Jesus.
d. He surrendered to Christ all but one key. Jesus said to him, “My child, if you can’t trust me with everything, then you can’t trust Me with anything!” “Yes, Lord. Come and take the key.”
e. Jesus opened and cleansed that area and took the desire away. F. B. had given himself entirely. He had a new sense of belonging to Christ. “I am His!”
4. Will you trust God with your life?
5. Prayer for those whose lives have been hectic, difficult, draining, upside down.
6. Prayer for a surrendered life.
