Family Drama - Part 1 | Sibling Drama | Dave Willis - MESSAGE ONLY

How you doing, Stevens Creek? You guys feeling good? You excited about summer, man? Summertime. You guys are looking good. You're looking ready. I love this time of year. I'm so excited you guys are here. Welcome. Grovetown campus, South Campus. All you guys watching online from the beach or vacation or wherever, you are thrilled that you guys are here. And we're starting a brand new series today called Family Drama. How many of you have ever had some level of family drama? Yes, that's right. And those of you that don't have your hands up, you do have it. You're just the cause of it. And no one has told you. But, like, we know we've all had some family drama. We just have. Because family's complicated and no family's perfect. Behind every perfectly filtered Instagram image of a family, you see, I promise you there's some drama there because that family's made up of imperfect people. And in close proximity with each other, imperfect people can cause drama. But God's word has a lot to say about how we can work through family drama and instead have more peace and joy in our relationship. So whatever season of life you're in, single, married, younger, older, a kid, a parent, a grandparent, whatever, wherever you are, there's going to be things for you in this series to help you in all of your relationships. So today, week one, we're going to kick it off with a series with a sermon on sibling drama. So how many of you have at least one biological, adopted, or step sibling? All right, all right. A lot of you. So most of you will apply directly to your family. Even if you're an only child, though, you've got millions of brothers and sisters in Christ, and a lot of these principles will apply directly to them as well. And so we're gonna talk about that next week. My wife Ashley and I are gonna be up here together. I'm always so excited when she's up here. She's amazing. And we're gonna give a sermon on a topic that so many people struggle in this particular dynamic. I have never, ever heard a sermon. Next week, we're going to have a sermon called In Law Drama. Yeah, it got awkwardly quiet. Like, really? We're going to talk about that? We're going there. The Bible has a lot to say, and it's going to be meaningful and helpful, and we'll have fun, too. So come. Even if you're not married, come. It's going to be, I think, really meaningful to you. Week three is Father's Day, the greatest holiday I Mean, it's epic. Guys, don't skip Father's Day. I promise you, we're going to have so much fun, and I don't want you to miss it. We've got so many manly, awesome surprises. So be here Father's Day. And then week four, we're going to talk about marriage. And again, Ashley will be up here with me. It's going to be so fun. And also to kick off this sort of series, this Wednesday night on this stage for United Night, which is our youth, our youth ministry, Ashley and I are going to be up here talking to our youth about relationships. So if you've got a middle schooler or high schooler, make sure they're here Wednesday night. We're going to have a lot of fun. And, yeah, so excited that you guys are here, but kicking it off. Sibling drama. If I'm talking about siblings, I have to show my own siblings. So I've got two brothers. I brought a picture of them. Yeah, there they are. I'm the short one. And I know what you're thinking. I didn't realize Dave's legs were that hairy. I know. I don't make the rules. It's just how God made me. So two younger brothers. You can take the picture now. Now they're just staring at the leg here. It's getting weird. Okay. Two younger brothers. They're both attorneys, right? So everywhere we go, it already sounds like a joke. You know, two lawyers and a preacher walking to a bar. And then, you know, it's like, but we've been having fun picking on each other since we were little. And I think for some reason, I don't know why it's this way. Like, siblings who really, like, pick on each other when they're little tend to be closer as adults. I don't understand that, but it's true. And you ever get hear somebody and they're like, oh, you know, me and my sibling, my brother, we never, ever fought. We got along great when we were kids. And you're like, oh, are you still close now? They're like, yeah. I mean, I just talked to him on the phone like two or three years ago. I mean, we're, like, really close. I don't know why, but, you know, something about picking on each other as kids, I guess, makes you closer as adults. My brothers and I mess with each other relentlessly. In love, mostly, and still do. Like, they still pick on me, and I still sort of pick on them in love. They love to make fun of the fact that I'm significantly Shorter than them. All right. All the guys in my family, except for me, are tall. All of them. And so they'll call me, and they'll be like, hey, Dave. Hey, we're going to Six Flags this week, and you want to come? Oh, I forgot. You're not tall enough to ride anything. Sorry. Hey, Dave. My kindergartner just outgrew some stuff. You think you could wear it? You know, these are the things that they say. And then I reply with, I've got a lot of lawyer jokes, which I enjoy telling them. Hey, bros, did you hear the story about the preacher and the lawyer who died the same day and went to heaven? And they got up there, and this angel was showing them around to their accommodations. And the angel started with this preacher and said, oh, you know, brother, here. Here's where you're gonna be staying. And it was a really modest room. And the lawyer was thinking, my goodness, if this man of God has got this modest space, like, I'm gonna be living in a broom closet up here. What's going on? So then he takes the lawyer to his spot, and it's this big, beautiful estate. It's the biggest, prettiest mansion he has ever seen. And the lawyer's so confused. He's like, tell me, how did this preacher, this man of God, get such a modest accommodation? When me, this sinful attorney, I got all of this. And the angel said, you don't understand. This is a big deal for us. You're a guest of honor. We've got millions of preachers up here, but you're the first lawyer we have ever had, and you're welcome. One call, that's all. So I give them a hard time, but they're great. They're great. I feel above the law having two brothers that are attorneys. Like, you know, I feel like I get arrested, and I'm just like, give me just a second. You know, bros, get down to Georgia. Bring some bail money now. They're great guys. We're close, but we fought a lot, too. I mean, there's been drama through the years. There just has been. But I love them so much. But I'm telling you, your siblings, if you've got siblings, they're your best connection to your past and the people most likely to stick by your side in the future. And so it's worth investing in those relationships. And I see so many folks who have these strained, broken relationships with siblings. Even in my own extended family, I've seen that. I'm gonna talk a little bit about that today. But it's worth pursuing, it's worth forgiving, it's worth fighting for healing and unity in those relationships. And God wants us to. And that's part of what we're gonna be talking about this whole series. So we're gonna come back to this one, this one principle every week of this series to kind of tie all four of these sermons together. And it's this. God calls all of us to be peacemakers in our families. Now, peacemakers does not mean you have to be a doormat. Peacemakers does not mean that you have to just pretend stuff doesn't exist to have this sort of artificial harmony. But peacemakers means that you are willing to actively, courageously work toward unity in your family. Now, unity does not mean uniformity. Uniformity means we all look the same, act the same, think the same. We never disagree. That's not real. Unity means despite our disagreements, despite our diversity, we. We are going to be there for each other. And the love we have for one another, the commitment we have for one another is bigger than anything we're ever going to disagree on. The Bible says this. This is kind of our theme verse for the whole series. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Now, I love that little verse because it's so real. It doesn't say, live at peace with everyone. It says, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you. In other words, there are gonna be some people who just refuse to live at peace with you because of their own pride or their own whatever. And you're not responsible for their behavior. You're not. But what you are responsible for is your behavior. Are you doing everything in your power? Am I doing everything in my power to promote peace and healing and understanding and forgiveness within my family, within my relationships? Or am I one that's stirring things up? Because the Bible tells us that God hates it when we intentionally try to stir up division and drama in our families. It's on a list of things the Bible gives us. I'm going to read this passage to you that God hates. And you think, well, if God is so loving, how does he hate anything? Well, it's because God is so loving that he's able to hate certain things. God loves life, so he hates murder. God hates the things that harm his kids, that us. And he hates it when we, his children, make reckless, selfish decisions that harm ourselves and others. So here's a list of some things to avoid. There are six things the Lord hates. No, seven, he detests Haughty eyes, that's pride. A lying tongue, that's deceit. Hands that kill the innocent, that's a heart that plots. Evil feet that race to do wrong. A false witness who pours out lies. And then this last one, a person who sows discord in a family. Another word for discord is division or drama. So God literally hates it when people intentionally stir up stuff, drama. This doesn't mean we shouldn't have difficult conversations and be honest about things that have wounded us and get real about the issues that our families are facing. No, it doesn't mean putting our heads in the sand. But what it does mean is let's not be stirring up dissension. Let's not be stirring up gossip. Let's not bring out past sins that others committed as ammunition and current arguments. Let's not be those people. Because when we stir up dissension, families break up. And God hates that. He wants you to have unity and love and peace and healing in your family. And he wants there to be unity and love and peace in his family. The family of God, which is made up of all of us who call Jesus our Lord and Savior. That's the family that will last forever. Not just the family of people who have your last name, but people who are redeemed by the blood of Jesus. And he wants in that family as well, for us to have unity and peace despite all of our beautiful diversity. And to do that, there's gotta be a lot of grace, there's gotta be a lot of forgiveness, a lot of communication, a lot of selflessness. Because when we get selfish, man, it's. It creates dissension. I'll give you an example from my own real life family. So my great grandparents, they Both died around 25 years ago within a year of each other. They were heroes in the faith for me. I mean, I just loved and adored them both. I respected them so much. But after they died, their farm, pretty modest property. But when it's sold, the kids, the nine siblings, they had nine kids, six boys, three girls, fought over the will like they weren't content with just splitting it nine ways. They all felt entitled to more. Well, I should get more because of this, you know, I did more work on that farmer. I should get more for this. I, you know, I helped. I helped with this. I helped mom with this, or I should get more for this. And instead of just. Instead of just selflessly saying, like, listen, mom and dad wouldn't want us fighting over this stuff. It's just stuff like, let's just move on with our lives and protect our relationships. But they dug in their heels and there were lawyers and legal fights, and it dragged on forever. And even to this day, 25 years later, some of those siblings have already died. But of the ones who are surviving, some of them still don't speak to others of them over just stuff. And it's just heartbreaking and senseless. And I see a lot of other families going through stuff like that. And guys, it's not worth it. We've got to be humble enough to say, listen, guys, I'm not going to sabotage or sacrifice our relationships over trying to overstep and just grab a little bit more. And God has called us to be humble and not prideful. And I think humility and pride are these two concepts that we misunderstand. You know, we think humility is something really passive, like it's just not having an opinion and not. Not ever looking anybody in the eye and not thinking anything of ourselves. That's not what humility is. When you look at the Old Testament, that the Hebrew words for humility and for pride, humility is. It's not passive, it's active. It essentially means to occupy the space that God has given you, but in occupying it, to respect the boundaries that are there, to not overstep those boundaries by taking something that's not yours or not yours yet. Now pride is a swelling beyond those boundaries and invading into the space, the property of somebody else. So pride is that little voice that says, you know what? This is my stuff. But my brother, my sister over here, you know, that attention they're getting, that stuff that they're getting, I feel like I'm entitled to some of that also. And my pride is gonna cause me to swell beyond my boundary into theirs, Invading their space and essentially trying to take to steal something that isn't mine because I feel entitled to it. And pride causes so much division and dissension, and it goes against the heart of God, who says we should be more willing to give up some of our own space than we should to be invade the space of someone we love out of selfishness. And pride, man, it's the root of so much, isn't it? I mean, it's the root of strife in every relationship. It's the root of most divorces. It's the root of most sibling fights and friendship fights. It's the voice that says, I'm doing things my way. And if your way disagrees with my way, then you're wrong. And I'm not gonna even Listen to you about it. And we've gotta be more understanding than that. We've gotta fight for unity. So how do we get there? What's at the root of this? Maybe is the first question. And I feel like this is often. If you're following along in your notes. Jealousy and rivalry are usually main factors in broken sibling relationships. And this goes all the way back to the very first siblings. The very first siblings in history. Two brothers named Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve, first people, they had some kids. First two kids, Cain and Abel, the very first siblings of all time. And one of them kills the other one. So, like, right from the beginning, these sibling relationships can be complicated. When the very first ones, there was like, you know, one murder, that's not really good statistics. And why did that murder happen? It happened because of pride. It happened because of swelling beyond your boundary by feeling entitled to something that was your brother's, that wanting attention that he was getting. Pick up the story. Genesis, chapter four. Now, Cain said to his brother Abel, let's go out to the field. And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel, and he killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, where's your brother Abel? I don't know. He replied, am I my brother's keeper? You know that phrase, I'm not my brother's keeper? Something that gets thrown around a lot. You might not have known the origin of that little phrase, but like many of the phrases we use, its origin is in scripture. And. And the one who said it was a guy who'd murdered his brother and then tried to deflect any responsibility that he had for his brother. So we are our brother's keeper. We are our sister's keeper. We're called to protect one another and defend one another and respect one another. Cain was the archetype of what not to do. He showed us what selfishness looks like, and he became the very first murderer, killing his own flesh and blood out of selfishness, out of pride. And we today, you know, you might not like, physically hopefully murder your siblings, but we can still have that same spirit of murder toward people we love. Just in our words, you can kind of kill people with your words that Jesus talked about. To have anger towards someone in your heart, resentment in your heart, is essentially to murder them. Because in your mind, in your heart, that's what you're doing. When you're throwing insults at somebody. You're essentially saying, I wish you were dead. You're not doing it, but you're carrying it out in your heart. Which carries such weight. And so we've got to be so careful guys, to speak life to one another because of proximity, because our siblings, people in our family, they see us at our worst. And sometimes we let our guards down and we feel like we can just have no filter and say whatever is on our mind to one another. And that's not really the same thing as intimacy and closeness. That can be reckless. If we're just thinking, I can cuss at them, I can insult them, I can tell them everything I'm thinking about them. And if we're doing it in a mean spirited way, then not only are we sabotaging our relationship with them, but we're actually hurting them. We're not being our brother's keeper, we're being our brother's killer. We're killing their confidence. We're killing the sacredness of the fact that they're created in the image of God and we're diminishing that. And so to diminish someone is not only to insult them, it's to insult their creator. And we've got to be really careful about how we, how we talk to one another. And I've been guilty of this, guys. I mean, again, like joking with my brothers, taking it too far. And when we were little, especially, oh man, Lord, forgive me, like, you know, we were, we were rough, rough on each other. But you gotta have a lot of grace. We've given a lot of examples about brothers so far. But let's bring the sisters into the mix, right? So let me give you a story from two sisters in the Bible and a principle to set this up. So we should never value our work or our agenda over our relationships. I think sometimes what sabotages sibling relationships is when we think what I'm doing is more important than, than what my sister, my brother is doing, which therefore means I'm more valuable or I'm entitled to more. And that's the wrong mindset. Jesus was really close friends with these three siblings. Two sisters and one brother. Their names were Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Lazarus is the guy in John chapter 11 who actually died. Jesus went there to visit his sisters Mary and Martha, and then brought Lazarus back to life. It's one of the most famous miracles. But all through the Gospels, you see Jesus hanging out with these siblings. They were some of his closest friends. And Mary and Martha had different personalities, all right? Martha was more of an achiever and Mary was more relational. And both those are gifts from God. I mean, it's just how they're hardwired in Their personalities. But if we're not careful, we can think. Because I'm this way, it makes being this way more important. And Jesus used this as a teaching moment. So I'm just going to pick up the story, and this is what happened. Luke, chapter 10. As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me. Martha. Martha. The Lord answered, you're worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed, or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. So in this scene, like, I mean, I want you to picture Martha being what we would consider responsible as a host. Like, she is getting the snacks out. She's cleaning stuff up. It's like, look, we got people visiting our house from out of town. Like, the Savior is here. I mean, we should at least vacuum. Like, let's do some stuff. And I'm doing it all by myself. Have you ever been getting ready for guests and you're doing most of the work and you just want to punch the rest of the family in the throat? Like, I put away the dishes, I took the trash out. I've done all this, and you're playing Xbox, and I'm over it, right? So I relate to Martha in the story. On the surface, you look at it and you're like, wait a second. Martha's got a point. Mary sounds like she's being lazy, and Martha's doing all the work. Jesus comes in and it's like, what he does. And I love. I just love this about Jesus. He never seems to do what we would expect, but yet it's always the right thing. And so he kind of pulls Martha aside, and Martha's flustered and she's sweaty and she's stressed. She's like, I've been working all day, working my fingers to the bone. I cooked all the food, and I did all of the cleaning. And Mary's just like, jesus is here. It's Jesus. So, Lord, get her to help. And Jesus so tenderly loving Martha, knowing how she's wired, because he's the one. Here's the irony. He's the one who made her. He's our creator. All things are made through him and by him and for him. He knows how she's made, and it's beautiful how she's made. He loves that she's a hard worker. Jesus has so much to teach about the importance of working hard, but never at the expense. Never at the expense of our relationships. And so what Jesus is saying is like, listen, Martha, it's not that what you're doing is unimportant, but it's just not the most important thing. Because, you see, I'm not always gonna be here with you in the flesh in this moment like I am right now. This is a gift. This is something unique. And Mary has recognized that. She's recognized that in this moment, there is nowhere else in humility. The space that she is called to occupy is right at the feet her savior. That's where she's meant to be. And, Martha, that's where you're meant to be, too. I can promise you, in 2,000 years, nobody's gonna remember what snacks were served today, even though they were delicious. Nobody's gonna remember if there was a little bit of dust under the rug or not. But you're never, ever gonna forget that you were there at my feet. Learning from me is I just encouraged you and loved you and laughed with you. This is a gift. Don't miss this moment. And it's a reminder to all of us, I think, to just be more present, especially those of us who, like Martha, are doers and task oriented and love to check things off lists. And guess what? God made us that way. And that's a strength. It's a great strength when used in the right place. But every strength can become a weakness when it's used out of balance. And so it can become out of balance when we get so focused on checking stuff off a list that we can't slow down and sit down and be fully present in the moment with God and with our families and with the people who matter most. And so we've got to be willing to slow down. And yes, for the person who's more relational, more wired up to just, you know, engage and talk and all that, yeah, you've got to be more intentional about saying, you know what? I probably should help with the chores. It's not fair that it's all falling on one person that needs to be a little more balanced. But let's both do that together before people start getting here, so that when people are here, we can be fully present, we can be fully engaged, and we can not miss those moments because it's all about relationships. I mean, that's what Jesus is teaching us here. Like, listen, all of the work that we do, it's all important. There's beauty in all work if it's done with the right attitude. But the most important thing is relationships. Your to do list, your task list, your job title means nothing compared to your relationship with God and your relationships with the people that he has placed into your life. And so we've gotta be willing to slow down long enough. You know, Jesus told a story about the Good Samaritan. And the whole point of this story was these guys who were so task oriented, they were busy, and they saw this dude who'd been beaten and robbed and left for dead just laying on the street. And they didn't want to get involved. They were religious guys. They knew that God wants us to help people, but they were busy. They had important church meetings to go to. They had this to go to. And so they just made an excuse to not get involved. Well, this is not my business. That's not my brother. That's not. That's not my problem. And then this one guy comes along and he sees this dude beat up and bruised. And it didn't matter whether or not he was the same family or the same race or it didn't matter any of that. In fact, the guy's unconscious. He couldn't hear from his accent where he was from. He couldn't tell from the blood on his face and the dirt on his face what his skin tone was. He just knew that this is a brother that's laying there. And it's my responsibility, it's my privilege to help him. And so this Samaritan, this foreigner, picked him up, treated him like family, took care of him, paid for his medical care. And Jesus is like, that's the way it's supposed to look. That's the way. Yeah, of course we should take care of those who are in our family. Take care of those who are in your house. But once we become part of God's family, your family gets way bigger, and we've got to start looking at each other as brothers and sisters. You know, I shared a story a while back, but I'll share it briefly again here. So my youngest brother, Drew, I was back home in Kentucky visiting family. I take an exit off the interstate, and all of a sudden I see my brother Drew broken down on the side of the road there, trying to change a tire. And I laugh. I'm like, aha, Drew. Babies of the family. They're so irresponsible. No, I didn't say that. I thought, well, it's my bro. I got to stop. So I pulled over to help, and I hop out, and the guy's like, oh, man, thank you so much for helping. And I looked at him, and I realized it's not my brother. It's just that I need glasses, and it's just some rando who looks like my brother. And now I'm thinking, this dude could be an axe murderer. And he was like, thanks for stopping, man. Nobody would stop. I'm like, those jerks. I mean, and the whole time I'm thinking, maybe I could get away and. But I. You know, I helped him. And then it was no big deal. And I drove off, just kind of laughing about it. And I said out loud, like, there's no way I would have stopped if I would have known he wasn't my brother. But it was like the Holy Spirit just kind of winked and laughed and whispered into my spirit. Not in a way that I could hear with my ears, but the way I could just sort of hear in my heart. Like, God was saying, dave, don't you see? That was your brother. That was your brother. You should have stopped. And I think we're called to see the world that way, that when we're in a position to help somebody, to not say, that's a stranger. If it was my family, I would help, of course. And, yeah, we can't help everybody all the time, but every day, or at least often, I think God is going to put people in our path in little ways and in bigger ways where he's almost testing us, saying, like, are you gonna treat this person like your sister? Are you gonna treat this person like your brother? Because they're my child. And if you call yourself part of my family, I'm giving you an opportunity to help someone in the family. And we need to be more willing, I think, to do that. And when we do, like, here's the thing, like, we get blessed. Like, I would not have stopped for that guy. I mean, just selfishly, honestly, I'd have kept driving, but Because I did. Even though I did under, like, a false pretense. But once I did, and I was hanging out with him and helping him, it ended up being the highlight of my day. And I just wonder, like, how many times have I missed opportunities to not only be a blessing for someone, but also get blessed myself? Because I was able to enter into an opportunity to really serve somebody with no agenda other than, this is what God wants us to do. This is how he wants us to live, and he. He always blesses us when we do. And blessing, it doesn't mean, like, sky's gonna open up and money's gonna fall down. It usually doesn't work like that. But the real blessing is stuff you can't put a price tag on. It's like peace and joy and connection. And God wants that for all of you. He really, really does. All right, one last principle. So how do we. If we're in a place right now getting ready to land this plane. I know it's almost lunchtime. Hang on. We're almost there. If things are broken, okay, like, if you got real brokenness in your family, and a lot of families do, like that sibling that you haven't talked with in years because of what they did, because of what they said. And, yeah, there are times where healthy boundaries have to be put in place, because if a person is just being toxic, sometimes the only way to love them is from a distance to protect yourself and to protect others and to protect your own mental health. But as far as it depends on you, what are we doing? What are we doing to establish some healing there? And I think it really starts and ends with forgiveness. Forgiveness, by the way, just like pride and humility, is kind of one of those misunderstood concepts in the Bible, Forgiveness doesn't mean that we just say, well, I'm just gonna. We're gonna pretend like it never happened, or I'm gonna just take all this pain that I'm feeling and just ignore it. Or I'm gonna just say, you're completely off the hook, and, in fact, you're free to keep doing that. Like, that's not what forgiveness is. Forgiveness. We could spend a whole sermon series on what forgiveness is and isn't, but just to kind of get the tip of the iceberg with the time that we have, it essentially means taking this wound that someone else caused in us and then trusting that wound into God's hands. Say, lord, I don't want to carry resentment over this. I'm not in a place to offer punishment or revenge about this. And that's why the Bible tells us not to seek revenge or try to punish others, because we would always mess it up. Guys, the only place that revenge plays out well is in Liam Neeson movies. It's the only place everywhere else in real life. People, including us, just get more hurt. But when we trust into God's hands, we're like, lord, I've been wounded. You see the wound? It hurt me deeply. I'm trusting it to you help me to have the wisdom to know how I can start the process of healing and if it's possible, how I can pursue healing in this relationship again. And I believe God will give us wisdom to how to do that. It starts. Forgiveness starts by just giving up the right to use someone's past defense against them. The Bible says it this way. Whoever would foster love covers over an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. That doesn't mean that you don't have honest conversations about the. The wound that happened. But what it does mean is after you've. You've had that conversation, then years later, you're not in an argument, and you're like. You're just like you were three years ago when you did this, or back in 1998 when you did. It's like, you can't. You can't keep bringing stuff up. You gotta truly say no. I trusted that in God's hands. He paid the price for it on the cross. He's forgiven me more than I could ever forgive anybody else. And so because he's forgiven me now, I'm gonna offer that grace freely. Now, forgiveness and trust are two different things. Just because you forgive somebody doesn't mean you're automatically trusting them. Forgiveness is a gift, but trust has to be earned a little at a time. I've heard it said, trust is built in drops, but it's lost in buckets. You know, we build it a little at a time, but it only takes one decision to dump out a whole bunch of that trust all at once. And so if we've been the one to break someone's trust, we've got to say, listen, I'm so sorry. I was wrong. I know I wounded you. I broke your trust. I'm asking you to forgive me and give me the opportunity to make it right. Give me the opportunity to start earning your trust again. Because I want a relationship with you. I want us to be close again. And whatever I can do to make that possible, I want to do it. And God will honor that. A few weeks ago, Pastor Marty shared a sermon, a powerful sermon. You should go back and watch, if you missed it, about Joseph in the Bible. Joseph was a guy in the Old Testament whose brothers betrayed him in the worst kind of ways. They were jealous of him. Their pride got in the way. They overstepped their boundaries. They wanted to get rid of him, so they kidnapped him. They sold him into slavery. They told their father he'd been killed. And then they lived with this terrible secret of what they'd done to their own brother. And Joseph grew up, you know, he. Long story short, he faced all kinds of injustice as a slave and then as a prisoner. But ultimately, God set him free from all that, elevated him to a great position of power within Egypt. And now he's in the perfect place for revenge because his brothers come back into the picture and it's like a storybook. This is what revenge can look like. But instead of revenge, Joseph had let his heart not grow bitter. He'd used that time in Egypt to grow closer to the Lord. He'd forgiven his brothers long ago. Even not sure if he would ever see them again, he had let go of that and said, lord, I believe that you're going to use this for good somehow. And Joseph had used his position of power to help so many people, and now he was going to use it to. To help his brothers and his brothers when they realized who he was, when they realized that this brother they betrayed had the power to annihilate them. He could have executed them or thrown him in prison for life, but instead. Instead, Joseph had just been waiting for this opportunity. Not to condemn them, but to let them know. Listen, you don't have to keep carrying the weight of the guilt of what you did to me. I'm over it. And I just want this opportunity to tell you I love you. These are some of the most beautiful words in the Bible to me because of all that Joseph went through with his family and that he was able to look at them in the eyes and mean this from his heart, to mean these words. You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children. And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. That's what forgiveness looks like. And when we forgive somebody, the one we're forgiving gains something, but the one who gives the forgiveness gains the most. God gives you peace instead of resentment. He gives you joy instead of anger. And that's what God wants for each and every one of us. He wants us to be peacemakers in our family for the sake of our families, but also for your sake. He's got good things in store for you. No matter what your family looks like right now. Trust it in the hands of God. Start today. And I believe God can work a miracle in your family. Let's stand together. I want to pray a prayer of blessing over you. Father, I thank you so much for your goodness. I thank you, Lord, that You've adopted us into your family, Jesus, because of what you did on the cross. You paid the price for our sins. And by putting our faith in you, seeking your forgiveness, we can be made right with you, Lord, and be adopted as a son or a daughter into God's family forever. For anyone who hasn't made that decision, Lord, let today be the day they reach out in faith and say, jesus, save me. Make me into the person I was meant to be. Forgive me of my sins. Adopt me into your family. I commit my life to you today and for all of us, God, we commit or recommit to being peacemakers here on this earth. For the brothers and sisters in our own homes, for those who share our last names, but also God. For the brothers and sisters in Christ all over this world, some whom we will never meet on this side of heaven. Help us to love them as family the way you intended God, the way you have loved us. We love you and thank you for your goodness. In Jesus name, amen. Let's give the Lord a hand. He is in the reconciliation business. And God, we thank you for your goodness. Friends. Thank you guys so much for being here. Don't forget to be back next week. It's going to be a fun service. Enjoy the start of your summer. We'll see you real soon. God bless.