Today, we continue in our expository study series in the book of Genesis, and we are in chapter 29. Usually, I give you a brief recap of where we landed, where we ended last week. Today's a little different. I'm going to save the recap from last week for the end of the service today, and you'll kind of see why, because there was a point, there was an illustration I wanted to make at that point, but I think we needed to tie in where we ended last week talking about there is a

stairway to heaven. There is a staircase to heaven, and his name is Jesus. And unlike the stairway to heaven that Led Zeppelin represented, it cannot be bought. It cannot be bought, okay? It's by the grace of God that we are able to have that stairway to heaven. I want to talk more about that at the end. But today's sermon is Love Will Wait. Love Will Wait. As we get into chapter 29, we get into 29, and Jacob, the con artist, gets conned. The master deceiver,

gets deceived himself as we get into chapter 29, and he's going to be deceived by Uncle Laban, who has a PhD in deception. Jacob thought he was good, thought he was crafty, but it's nothing like Uncle Laban. And it starts off in chapter 29, and it says,

Then Jacob went on his journey, and came to the land of the people of the east, as he looked and saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it. For out of the well, the flocks were watered. The stone on the well's mouth was large.

Okay, just kind of in your mind, think back a few chapters back when we were in Genesis, and Abraham wanted to get a wife for his son, Isaac.

And he sends out, there are some similarities here with the well, but there's some hefty differences as well.

When Abraham wanted to get a wife for his son, if you remember, he sent his eldest servant, the servant of his household, we believe that to be Eleazar, sends him out to get a wife for Isaac.

He's going to find a wife for Isaac, but Isaac doesn't get to pick his wife.

He doesn't get to have a say-so in his wife. He doesn't even get to see his wife until they're actually already engaged.

And I know if you're thinking, if you're here today in this time and age, you're thinking, dude, I'm not going down that road.

I'm not going to travel that road. That's not going to happen on my watch.

But you have to realize, Eleazar did it very carefully, and he did it prayerfully.

He was very careful and very prayerful.

Jacob goes out, and he's not praying at all.

He's not praying at all at this point when he goes out to choose his own wife.

And it kind of leads to a question here, you know, who's better off, Isaac or Jacob?

I mean, you get to the end of the story, Jacob gets the right girl, you want to say, so it kind of all ends well.

But Jacob gets a double portion.

Jacob gets more than he bargained for in this whole situation.

And it didn't turn out the way that he expected.

And the world would just look at this and say, well, that's just a coincidence.

But we see it as the providence of God.

God was orchestrating these things.

These things seem to happen very naturally, but it happened very supernaturally.

All this stuff unfolds.

Now watch what Jacob says as we get to verse 3.

When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep

and put the stone back over its place over the mouth of the well.

Then Jacob said to them, my brothers, where do you come from?

They said, we're from Haran.

And he said to them, do you know Laban, the son of Nahor?

They said, we know him.

And he said, is it well with him?

They said, it is.

And see, Rachel, his daughter, is coming with the sheep.

He said, behold, it is still a high day.

It is not time for the livestock to be gathered together.

Water the sheep and go and pasture them.

But they said, we cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well

and then water the sheep.

Now, why would he say this?

You know, was he just being, you know, said this because he's conscientious?

He's a conscientious person who felt sorry for the sheep and wanted them to be watered

and let them get back to the field and all this good stuff and water them.

But no, and they're saying, look, we can't do that until they're all gathered together.

Then we do the watering all together at once and then we bring them back.

So why is he bringing this up?

He's bringing this up because he's right there at this area and he sees Rachel coming

and he's thinking, I need you guys to get some water to the sheep and get out of here

because I want to have a conversation with this woman who's coming.

You know how it is when you're at school.

You hang with your buddies, it's all good, until that special one comes walking down

and he's like, okay, time for us to be done.

the one. And so he's hoping that it's going to turn out that way. Verse nine, while he was still

speaking with him, Rachel came with her father's sheep for she was a shepherdess. I think that's

great. This girl's already, she's a working girl. I like that. She's got a job. She's not out in the

mall. Okay. She's not out doing all this. She's not wasting her time on social media. Okay. She's

a, she's a working girl. All right. And now, as soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of

Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban's mother's brother, Jacob came near,

rolled a stone from the well's mouth, watered the flock of Laban's, of Laban and his, his

mother's brother. Let's read to 11. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud. That's kind of

weird, isn't it? It's all romantic. Let me get the stone for you. And here we go. Roll

it away. Go ahead, water it. And then all of a sudden he, what he runs up, gives her a big

kiss. Oh, and then starts booing. And she's probably thinking, wait, was it the garlic

that I had for lunch? What in the world's going on? Listen, I think he's overcome with emotion.

He's always, it's been a long journey for him. And remember Jacob, he's, he's the homeboy. He

was the boy that was in the tent. He's more of an emotional guy. He's not the outdoors

man. Okay. Who's going to, who's going to chew and spit and all that good stuff. Now

he's an emotional guy. He was mama's boy. And so this could be the one he gives her a

kiss and he breaks out into this, into this, uh, into this crying spell. It's been a long

trip for the fella. He remember, he just had a crazy dream. Just, just the night before.

Okay. All this emotions going through in verse 12 and Jacob told Rachel, he was her father's

kinsman and that he was Rebecca's son. And she ran and told her father. Now some commentators

believe that this is, they'll represent this as love, love at first sight, love at first

sight. You know, she certainly, she was beautiful. The scriptures tell us that she's beautiful,

but, um, scientists that have studied this whole, um, love at first sight, they have the

interesting theory and they call it love mapping. Maybe you've heard of that before, the love

mapping. And that is that your brain is wired to lock into certain characteristics of the

opposite sex. And that when you see those characteristics, you will have a group of those

characteristics and different characteristics from one another that, that draw that attraction

and that bond forms infatuation. Okay. That's what, that's how the brain works. And that brings

you into proximity upon certain people that allows you to then begin to have relationship. Okay.

But I found this little article talking about love mapping. This expert was writing about

it. And so the, the, the whole issue of love at first sight, and it brings up the, um, the

whole, uh, uh, uh, speculation of the biological origin that you're wired to see somebody and

gravitate towards that person. And then begin that through infatuation, begin that. But the

lady's name is Helen Fisher. And she adds this to it. She says in terms of human courtship

and marriage, several observations are important. The infatuation phase, and that's where Jacob

is. He's infatuated. Okay. The infatuation phase, where was I? Um, tends to wane after four

years or less. This is, this may be in part to a reflection of the human's brain inability

to stay revved up over, uh, in the, in the revved up mode over a long period of time. The waning

of infatuation seems to play a role in divorces occurring in the early years of marriage. The

longer couples weather the years, the longer they tend to stay married. Okay. Now I share

that with you because Jacob is about to weather some years, not three or four years, but 14

years, 14 years, he's going to, he's going to show how, how really interesting he is. And

he goes from infatuation to commitment. Huge move right there from infatuation to commitment

in this relationship. Verse 13, as soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's

son, he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to.

What shall your wages be? Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah and the younger was Rachel. Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. I think perhaps the New Living Translation does a better job with this. It says that Leah had pretty eyes, but Rachel was beautiful in every way. Okay. Leah might have had pretty eyes, but Rachel was beautiful in every way.

Okay. And so that's the idea right here. Okay. And so that's the idea right here that she may have been beautiful. Leah may have been beautiful, but her sister Rachel was a knockout. Okay. And that's what it's, that's what it's getting at right here. Verse 18. And so Jacob loved Rachel and he said, I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel. Now he says, listen, this is the girl. This is the girl.

And she's so beautiful. And she's so beautiful. He makes a knee jerk. He gives a knee jerk reaction. You know, you know what? I'll tell you what she said, I'll serve you for seven years. I'll give you seven years. If you give me this, if you give me this girl and I'm going to get, I'm going to sign my life away here. The problem is he didn't read the fine print. He didn't read the fine print. He's dealing with the master deceiver.

Deceiver. Because if you'll notice, Laban never really promises that at the end of the seven years that he gets to have Rachel. He never, he never does actually promise that though. That's the implication that Jacob has in his mind. I'll serve you for seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter. We'll get into that in a second. Verse 19.

Laban said, it is better that I give her to you than I should give her to any other man. See, he doesn't say she'll be yours. He goes, stay with me. Stay with me.

So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him, but a few days because of the love he had for her. That's one of the most beautiful passages in the scripture to me.

I love that. Every time I read that, you know, I've always loved that too. Here's a man who makes a commitment of seven years for this woman.

And he says, you know, that he says he loves after meeting her and knows her for a month. I'll give you seven years for her. Seven years. That's, that's huge.

In first Corinthians, Paul writes, and he writes about love. And he says that love is patient. And it really, it's really defined in this way that love or love will wait. Love will wait. This guy is waiting seven. Did I mention seven years? He's waiting seven years. That is unheard of today. It is unheard of today.

Love is patient. Love will wait. Love will wait. You know, Taylor and Caitlin recently got married and they did it the right way. They did it. But I tried, I tried as a, as a dad to get her to wait a little longer to have some life experience.

They waited a year, not seven, not seven, but I wish they would have waited to, so she could have had some life experience. This is just from coming from a dad, you know, dad's perspective. Learn how to do this, learn how to do that.

But there is value in waiting and love, true, true love will wait. And let me tell you something, just, just a little bit of counseling here from, from, uh, uncle, brother, pastor, brother Curtis here from you ladies.

If you're dating a young man or a man of any age and says, Oh baby, I love you. I love you so much, but I love you so much. I can't wait to have more of you.

I just, I just, I just can't wait. And I can't wait till next year. I can't wait to the wedding. I just can't wait. And the only reason why I can't wait is because I just love you so much.

Listen, after you slug him in the mouth and you have my permission to slug him in the mouth. Okay. After you have that, you, you, you need to realize what he's really saying.

What he's really saying is I love you. But what he's saying is that is I love me and I want you for me.

That's, that's what he's saying. Because if he really loved you, he would consider you. If he really loved you, he would honor you. If he really loved you, he would, he would respect you.

He would not violate you, but he would consider who you are. Love is to be honored. Love is to be respected. Love will.

this guy who deceived his father, Jacob, okay, he is about to be deceived by his own father-in-law, his future father-in-law, okay? Here's the ironic thing. Paul writes in Galatians 6, God will not be mocked for what you sow, you shall reap. And Jacob has had a whole bunch of sowing in the deception department, hasn't he? And he's about to reap it. He's about to reap a harvest.

So seven years have passed, seven years have passed, and he's worked, and it's been a long courtship. Let's see what takes place here. Now, verse 21.

Then Jacob said to Laban, give me my wife, that I may go unto her, for my time is completed. So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob and went into her.

Laban gave, well, yeah, Laban gave his female servant Zilpha to his daughter Leah to be her servant. And in the morning, 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?

Now, I know a lot of you guys are thinking, what is this guy, a knucklehead? How does he not know that this is not Rachel?

You know, because I remember the first time I read it, I'm like, that's about the stupidest thing I've ever read in my life.

How does he not know, okay? Well, the reality is they were veiled. It was dark. It was dark. And the bridal suite was kept dark on purpose.

And they didn't have lights like this. They had candles. And she was veiled all over. So you couldn't make out certain shapes and bodies.

You just knew it was a woman, okay, that was there, okay?

And so, but he realizes in the morning, the massive switcheroo has taken place, okay?

This is a great, I was talking to Bobby Henderson this morning. He's like, this would be a great sermon to talk about those in-laws in your life and all that rascal stuff that they do in you.

And so, I said, I told Bobby, I said, my in-laws are pretty good. My problem is my own family. That's the people I got to get to.

So, anyway, but the whole switcheroo takes place here. And the older sis gets put into place. And look what Laban says in verse 26.

Laban said, it is not so done in our country to give the younger before the first born.

Bam! That's true all along. There's the fine print. There's the fine print. Jacob didn't, he didn't want to read the whole book.

Just tell me how it ends, you know? What do I get new? What do I get? He doesn't read the fine print.

Verse 27, complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.

Holy cow.

You know what breaks my heart about this verse, though?

Is look at the heart of the father here. He's talking about the situation.

And he doesn't even say Rachel's name. He says, I'll give you the other one.

What a sad state of affair when we succumb to that, that our children become this one and that one.

The other one.

That's just, that's just sad. It's heartbreaking for me.

But seven more years.

Take this week with Leah, and then I'll go ahead and do that.

I'll give you Rachel, I'll give you Rachel, but you're going to have to stay with me.

You can have Rachel, but you're going to have to stay with me another seven years.

Hardcore.

Verse 28, Jacob did so and completed her week.

Then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife.

Now, I'm just going to guess here.

There had to be sibling rivalry between Rachel and Leah, much like there was between Jacob and Esau.

There had to be some of that sibling rivalry here.

And so, and we throw Laban under the bus in here.

Yes, he's conniving.

Yes, he's doing this.

Yes, it's his master plan.

But guess what?

Leah is complicit in this whole thing too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

that handsome stud first. I get to marry him. I get that man first. It's going to work out to my benefit. Okay. And I'm sure that when all this takes place, there had to be that red light going off in Jacob's head. Like, man, I remember I did some of this stuff myself. I deceived my dad. I even put some hairy skins on. So we think I was, I put these all stank clothes on. So I'd smell stanky.

Like, I remember doing that. It's all coming back. Yeah. Okay. Verse 29. And 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.

You know, if he would have approached this carefully and prayerfully, like Eleazar did when he was looking for the son for Isaac, perhaps things would have turned out a little bit differently. We don't know for sure.

But maybe if he would have spoken, prayerfully spoken to Laban and he would have written, maybe had a better understanding of the customs. Maybe he knew the customs, but just didn't care. Sometimes you get knee deep in the emotional things that you just make, you make a call. I don't care what the consequences are. I just want my prize. I just want that.

And whatever it takes to get that, I'm going to do that. But we don't know. We're not, we're not sure. But I do know this. If you're entering into a marriage relationship, understand what you're getting into.

Understand what you're getting into. Because when you're during the ceremony, you're going to hear lots of things like till death do us part and all that good stuff. But it is much easier to get into a relationship than it is to live through a relationship.

Living through a relationship is tough. It's just tough. I don't care how much you love that person. It's just tough. It can be tough.

Mark Twain used to say that keep your eyes wide open before marriage and then half shut afterwards. I think that's good. Know what you're getting into.

But once you make that commitment, man, you just got to let stuff roll off your back sometimes. I'm learning that myself.

You just got to let stuff go sometimes. It's just not a hill to die on. It's not really a mountain. You know, don't get hung up on stuff.

But at first, let's go slow. Let's be careful. Let's be wise. Okay.

Well, it says that he loves Rachel more than Leah. That's got to pose a problem there. That's got to be an issue here.

But he serves Laban another seven years. Verse 31.

When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.

That's very interesting. Very interesting to me. It's sort of like divine compensation.

You see that? It's sort of like divine compensation.

What I mean by that is that you're lacking something in an area of your life and so that God can compensate by giving you more in another area to make up for that.

I see that in my own life. Sometimes I'm lacking in certain areas, but God compensates me, divinely compensates me in other areas in order to bring him glory through my life and helps me out, brings about a balance in my life.

Okay. And so God saw that and part of his grace was to enable one to conceive while the beautiful one was barren at this point in time.

God opened the womb of one and closed the womb of another.

The scripture is very, very clear on that.

In verse 32 it says,

And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben.

For she said,

Because the Lord has looked upon my affliction, for now my husband will love me.

Ah, Reuben means, Reuben means, see, a son.

See, I did it.

I did it, okay?

So, and every boy that comes out of a Jewish father, you know, especially in the patriarchal period,

every father wanted a son to carry on that lineage.

And of course, it was important if the messianic promises are going to be fulfilled.

And so she thought,

I'm going to be fulfilled.

That's not the answer. Kids are a blessing, but they're not an answer. Can I get an amen on that? Yes. I can't tell you how many people I've canceled. Well, we've tried this way and we had a kid. So what? Anyway, okay. So she thinks that's that's her mindset. Verse 33. I lost my place. I lost my place. I lost my place. I lost my place. I lost my place. I lost my place. I lost my place. I lost my place. I lost my place. I lost my place. I lost my place.

I know what it is. I turned the page. She conceived again and bore a son and said, because the Lord has heard me is heard that I am hated. Hmm. He has given me this, this son also. And she called his name Simeon. So no doubt. Listen, this had to be a matter of prayer for her. You know, she's gone before the Lord. She's petitioning. She's talked to the Lord. God, I feel hated.

I feel unloved. I feel unloved. And she bears another son. She gives him the name Simeon, which means one who hears. One who hears. Verse 34. Again, she conceived and bore a son and said, now this time my husband will be attracted to me because I have born him three sons. Therefore, his name is called Levi.

Levi. Every time she's trying to, with children, manipulate her husband to love her. Manipulate it. And he'll become more attracted to me. This one was named Levi, which means attached. Now he'll be attached to me. Surely I've given him three.

And so she bears Levi, who's going to be what? The priestly tribe. That's going to be the priestly tribe. It's very interesting. And we'll see that she, she, she's also going to bear Judah, who's, which is going to be the royal tribe from which Jesus Christ will come.

So she was compensated, you might say. Leah was compensated, you might say, being the agent of blessing, the blessing of God to the world. God still uses her. He still honors that. He hears her heart.

Verse 35. And she conceived again and bore a son. And she said, this time I will praise the Lord. This time I will praise the Lord. Therefore, she called his name Judah.

Then she ceased bearing. Then she ceased bearing. So the first few children were all about gaining favor from her husband. You see that?

And there's something Judah now somehow reflected a little bit of an attitude change with her. I see that in there. Now she's worshiping. Now she's praising. Now she's in better spirits. And she says, Judah, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

Lord. It had to be hard. It had to be hard on Leah. Even though she was deceptive and she was part of this whole thing as well. It was still hard on her.

Some of you come from a family where you, you felt like one child was favored over you. And you know what that's like. And moms and dads, you, you, you, you try hard not to, you try hard not to, but sometimes your kid's like, you love so and so more.

Oh my goodness. Yeah. There's no way I could. They don't get it. They don't get it. But to them it's real, right? But obviously there had to be something going on here.

I want to, I said, I wanted to recap and I want to recap from last week a little bit because there was a point I wanted to make on last week to really end on, but I put it aside because I really felt like we needed to really hit on the fact that we,

we, we understand that there was a stairway to have, there was a ladder and, and, and, and that, that Jacob saw in his dream. He has this crazy dream. He's out there. He's in, he's in this city of Luz and he gives the, that city a new name.

What's the new name? Bethel. Yeah. Bethel house of God. Why does he give it that name? Because he's in a very barren place. He's in a God forsaken place. He's in a, he's in, he's amongst the rocks.

He's lays his head down on a rock. He's in a barren place and he thinks surely God can't be here. And he has a dream and he wakes up in the morning and he says,

And he says,

But I want to, I want to recap that just a little bit last week because there's a question I want to ask you today and leave you with. We all understand the story of Jacob in the ladder. Okay. And, and how it's the, the picture of the angels ascending and descending and, and almost like going up and down from shifts and show, showing that God is, God is involved in the work that God, God is involved in the lives of the human race. God is involved and his messengers are serving constantly working in our lives.

But Jacob was at Bethel. And it was, like I said, it was a barren place. It was a forsaken place, God forsaken place. And here's the question I want to, I want to leave us with this morning is that what is your Bethel?

What is your Bethel? Your Bethel? You have one. All of us have, you have that some barren place, some barren place. Somebody's going to get this, get this, who's in a hospital bed and says, I know what it is. That's my Bethel.

You know, in the pain and they're in the pain of their hospital bed and the pain of their situation. It's barren. It's God forsaken. And you're saying, God isn't in this place for others. It may be in a wheelchair.

That's my barren place. That's my barren place. That's God forsaken place. God can't be with me here. For others, it may be a boring job. For some, it may be a dementia. For some, it may be just a situation where you have a very hard and difficult relationship.

And you think, you know, this is a dark place and God isn't here. God isn't here. God isn't. Why is God forsaken me? And you realize you have, you come to a place and you realize that this barren place, this, this, because this barren place becomes, it actually becomes your Bethel.

It becomes your Bethel. Okay. Where God, it's the house of God where God lets down the ladder in this barren place. God lets down the ladder. There was no literal house.

There was no temple back then. Okay. But if he calls it Bethel, he calls it the house of God, as if to say, God's house is wherever God meets me in my pain.

That's where the house of God is. Where God comes and meets me in my barren condition, in my, in my, in my hard spot in life. Can you still worship God in the midst of your Bethel?

The house. Can you still make the declaration that though I suffer, though I'm going through this, God is still in the midst of this. His angels are still ascending and descending and they are still working in and through to, to, to help me.

He is my help in time of need. And will you allow, will you allow the Lord to come to you on perhaps the very thing that you hate?

That's tough. That's tough. That's tough. The very thing that you fear the most. Will you allow God to minister to you in that?

Because so many times when we're in that barren place, we won't allow the Lord to minister to us. Our energy is spent on, I got to get out of here.

But maybe God wants you to rest there in the midst of that pain and that hurting because he's got something beautiful for you.

Something beautiful for you when you don't know what it is. If you knew ahead of time, then it wouldn't be faith.

I mean, think about the disciples, when the disciples, when did Jesus walk to them in the boat?

Was it, was it when the storm was off, when the waters were glassy and the day was beautiful and he just came strolling out?

No, it was in the midst of the storm and they said, I think we're going to die.

And he meets them in the thing that they feared the most.

And they saw the glory of the Lord and the hand of the Lord, the provision of the Lord.

And they felt the safety of the Lord.

What is your Bethel that you can continue to try to run away from to get out of so fast?

God doesn't want you to be afflicted and to know what it means to be afflicted all the time in life.

That's not what I'm saying.

But don't miss the growth.

When was the last time you were in that place of barrenness? In that place of pain? In that place of suffering? And you could honestly say, just as Jacob said, God is in this place. And I didn't know it. But I know it now. Praise His name. I know it now.

You know, it was an old story about a pastor who had preached on Jacob's Ladder. He preached on Jacob's Ladder one Sunday and later that week his little boy came up to him and said, Daddy, I had a crazy dream last night.

He said, I dreamt that I saw a ladder coming down from heaven. And the dad said, that's awesome. That's kind of like Jacob's Ladder. That's good, son. He goes, yeah, but it was different.

It wasn't angels coming up and down. It was people going up and down. He goes, excuse me. He goes, well, that's interesting. He goes, well, there's something else.

He said, at the bottom of the ladder there was chalk. And everybody that started to go up the ladder, they would take a piece of chalk and they'd make a line for the rung of the ladder.

And each line was for their sins. And you had to make a rung as you went up the ladder. He said, wow, that's interesting, son.

He said, yeah. And I was on the ladder, Daddy. And I was making the marks and I was climbing the ladder and somebody was coming back down the ladder.

He said, what was it? Who was it, son? He says, it was you, Dad.

He said, me, what was I doing? He says, you were coming back down for more chalk.

See, she really thought it would be a serious story there.

She looked at me like, no, he's serious.

But, you know, I like Jacob's ladder dream better than the boy's dream.

Because, see, here's the thing with Jacob's dream and the ladder and our place of Bethel.

It's not more chalk, it's more grace.

It's more grace.

Amazing grace.

How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I'm found.

I was blind, but now I see.

I didn't think God was in this place, but He was and He is.

God was here and I didn't know it.

And you know what?

That's okay when we come to the revelation that God was here and I didn't know it.

Because it allows us to have a greater faith.

It allows us to grow in our faith when we realize those things.

Don't beat yourself up that I didn't realize.

I should have known.

I've been a Bible scholar for years.

I should have known God was in this.

Stop it.

Stop it.

In the name of Jesus, stop it.

You know what?

God is still in the business of saving wretches like you and me.

Undeserved wretches like you and me.

He's still in the business of saving people, lost people,

finding them, bringing them home, restoring them, restoring them.

God is all about broken things.

He's all about broken things.

And it's in your barren places, in your Bethel, that you become broken.

And look through the Scriptures.

Every time there was brokenness, something beautiful comes from it.

But Jesus takes the bread in the Last Supper and He breaks the bread.

Something beautiful comes from it.

Because this is my body, which is broken for you.

The woman takes the alabaster jar.

She breaks it her whole life's savings and anoints Jesus with the alabaster,

with the oil, the fragrance.

And I don't care where you are in that house.

You smell that.

You absolutely participated in her worship.

The aroma was overwhelming.

Something beautiful comes in brokenness.

You know, if you're kind of like me,

I like talking to Matt Carbo about it,

because Matt likes to speak to me.

because Matt likes to speak to me.

because Matt likes to speak to me.

I like talking to Matt Carbo about it.

1968 Pontiac Firebird. Just love that car. And here's a picture of a Pontiac Firebird. That needs to be restored. Would you want to drive that to school next year? No? Jenna? You'd look good in that, Jenna. You could make that car good just by sitting in it. No? That's not for you? All right. So that car, can we all agree that that needs restored? All right. Here's one that is restored.

There you go. There you go. Pastor Appreciation Month is coming. I just thought I'd throw that out there. If those spirit falls on someone, someone's up. It'll take all of you. It'll take all of you. But that's what God does in our lives. We are a rusted heap. We are good for it. And really, this car right here, it looks beautiful. But guess what? It can't go unless it has fuel.

Right. So you can look good on the outside, but without the Holy Spirit driving us in our lives and leading us in our lives, you just sit on the showroom floor and look good.

How many of you want to just do that? Oh, don't touch me. Don't touch me. I look good. I look good. Can somebody bring over the mother's speed wax and just wax me a little bit? Because I look good.

I just look fast sitting still, don't I?

Listen.

God didn't want a new model. He had every opportunity to say, I'm finished with these hooligans.

They have messed this whole thing up. I'm creating a whole new race that will be a better people, a smarter people that will love me the way I want them to love me.

He says, no, I'll tell you what I'll do, is by the blood of my son, Jesus Christ, I will restore them.

I will make them a new creation.

And that's what God has done in my life.

Praise His name.

And I believe that's what God is doing in a lot of your lives as well.

And the Lord says that people like that, people like Rob Stein, people like John Perks, people like Sunghee Lewis,

they will be my billboard of grace.

They will be my billboard of grace.

Because my grace is amazing.

It's amazing.

Let's pray.

As we pray, I'm going to ask you to stand.

And I just want to encourage you this morning.

If there is, if you are in a place of Bethel right now, and it feels very hurtful and very barren for you,

I want you to know that there are family here that would love to pray with you and for you.

I want you to know that the hand of the Lord is willing to rest upon you, desires to rest upon you, desires to bring about a restoration of life.

And I just pray that that would be today for you.

I would love to be able to pray with you.

And we have some ladies who would love, if you're a female and want someone, a woman to pray with you, that'd be great.

Come up as a family, that'd be great.

If you want to meet John and Pauline Watkins in the prayer room afterwards, they'll be in there as well too.

But be encouraged in your place of Bethel.

For the Lord God is with you.

He is your comfort.

He is your sustainer.

He is your hiding place.

He is forever faithful.

He is forever faithful.

And church, he loves you.

He loves you.

I love this song.

I didn't know we were going to close with it.

Therefore, the hand of the Lord restores you. Restores you. And can we say amen as God's people? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. God bless you.