But if you have a Bible, join
me in Genesis chapter 24. We are in a relationship
series through the week of St. Patrick's Day. We began at Valentine's
Day we call Lucky In Love. And we're taking some time
to go through a love story in scripture that
is so beautiful and learned so much along the
way about our relationships as well. We pointed out last week
that Genesis 24, which we'll jump back in in verse
9 in just a moment, is the longest chapter
in the book of Genesis, and is the second
longest narrative in the whole book
of Genesis, and is one of the longest
and continual stories, really, in all of
the Pentateuch, the first five
books of the Bible. And there's a lot of crazy
stories in the first five books of the Bible. So the fact that God would
single in on, hone in on, this story that really
amounts to a love story between a man and
a woman just shows us how much God cares
about our relationships. The Bible opens with a wedding. Jesus's first miracle
took place at a wedding. The Bible closes with a wedding. So all along the
way, we are left with this inescapable reality. Marriage is something that
is good, that's from God, that he cares about,
and our relationships that can cause us
pain, pleasure, and can be a blessing to us. They matter to God. The title of my message this
week is Handle With Care. Handle With Care. That's something we see
printed on packages. It's one of the top two things
you'll see printed on a package if the package is fragile. That's Italian. Fragile. Handle With Care. I put it on my Instagram
earlier this week. Tell me your top horror,
delivery stories. I thought I was going
to get a lot of stories about packages that had
been treated by Ace Ventura, kicked through the hallway,
and treated badly and mangled. And it was so funny
because I put that out there thinking I was going
to get a lot of broken package stories. But I got everything
except for what I was thinking I was going to get. I got one person
who wrote, "Are you talking about food or birth?" Delivery horror story. She said "Food or birth?" I was, like, "Neither, actually,
but I want to-- now, I want-- my interest is piqued. I want to know your
horror delivery and your horror food
story for birth." But then I got some other
ones, actually, quite a few came in from people
who had bought things and it just malfunctioned. Someone bought
liquid laundry soap and it came open and everywhere. All right. I don't know that I
would buy liquid laundry soap on the internet. Tons and tons and tons
and tons of stories came in from people who
had COVID related delays. They bought stuff,
and one person said they paid a ton of money
for First Class shipping, and that was the day
before lockdown started. So it came eight months later. A lot of people,
quite a few people, got stuff delayed in their
most recent ice storm. Texas, Midwest, [INAUDIBLE],,
I'm on that list . I've been buying some meals that
come already ready to microwave or put in the oven. And they come on
dry ice and you have to get them the
fridge, of course, right away due to the thing,
wherever it was messed up in the Midwest, these
things came five days late, and not going to be eaten by
me because they were warm. So lots of those stories. I got someone who-- actually, quite a few people had
bad experiences with robberies. Someone said they delivered
pizzas for Domino's, and they got robbed at the door when
they were delivering a pizza. Another person
says, and I quote, "I got robbed at
knifepoint by a meth addict while making a delivery." That's a problem. And then my personal
favorite, and not at all the kind of
story I was looking for, was the person who said, "I
was a pizza delivery person. The pizza delivery
was to a hotel room. The man answered
the door in a towel. And when I handed him
the pizza, the towel dropped to the floor." Yeah, that is, in every
sense of the word, a delivery horror story. Everyone say handle with care. Put it in the chat,
handle with care. The Bible says in the book
of Proverbs chapter 4, this is one of the most
important, in my opinion, verses in scripture on
relationships, in general, and how important they are. It says, "Keep your heart." One translucence says, "Guard
your heart with all diligence. For out of it spring
the issues of life." Listen to me carefully. What happens in your love life
will impact all of your life. You can't outlive bad
relationship choices. So we must, the scripture is
telling us, handle with care. We're living in a day
when relationships are kind of just blase
and taken lightly. Romantic relationships,
oh, end up hooking up with
someone on Tinder or here and this friend group. And, yeah, I hang out with them,
but it's not really a big deal. Yeah, we might be
hanging out here, but it's not really
that big of a deal. It's not going to
end up in anything. I wouldn't marry this person. I wouldn't even really be
this person's girlfriend or boyfriend. We're just kind of hanging out. Code for usually hooking up. We're treating it casual. It's no big deal. Oh, that? It's no big deal. This person I slept with,
it's not that big of a deal. And the Bible wants you to
know, God wants you to know, even when it comes to just
close friendships in your life that when your
heart gets involved and it's involved
in relationships, it's going to impact your life. So the scripture says
handle with care. Your soul is fragile. Your heart is fragile. Be careful who you
let into your life. It is going to impact your life. And we see some principles
that can help us handle our relationships with care. Here in Genesis 24, and
if you have your Bible, I'm going to read to
you starting in verse 9 a section that's kind of long
but, like I said, everything in Genesis 24 is long,
and it's full of detail, and it's beautiful. Verse 9, "So the
servant put his hand under the thigh of
Abraham, his master." Everyone say handle with care. "And swore to him
concerning this matter. Then the servant took 10 of his
master's camels and departed." If you made me touch
your thigh, I'd probably take camels
and ride off too, yo. "For all his master's
goods were in his hand." In more senses of the word then. "And he rose," I
apologize for nothing, "and he went to Mesopotamia
to the city of Nahor, and he made his camels
kneel down outside the city by a well of water at
evening time, the time when women go out to draw water. Then he said, 'Oh Lord
God of my master Abraham. Please give me success
this day and show kindness to my master, Abraham. Behold here I stand
by the well of water and the daughters of
the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Now, let it be that the
young woman to whom I say, please let down your
pitcher that I may drink.' And she says, 'Drink, and I will
also give your camels a drink.' Let her be the one you have
appointed for your servant, Isaac. And by this I will know
that you have shown kindness to my master.' And it happened before he had
finished speaking that behold, Rebecca," now we finally
meet this girl that Isaac's going to marry. "Rebecca, who was born
to Bethuel son of Milcah, wife of Nahor,
Abraham's brother, came out with her
pitcher on her shoulder. Now, the young woman was
very beautiful to behold. A virgin, no man had known her. And she went down to the
well, filled her pitcher, and came up. And the servant ran
to meet her and said, 'Please, let me drink a little
water from your pitcher.' So she said, 'Drink, my Lord.' Then, she quickly let her
pitcher down to her hand and gave him a drink. And when she had finished
giving him a drink, she said, 'I will draw water for your
camels also until they have finished drinking.' Then, she quickly emptied
her pitcher into the trough, ran back to the
well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. And the man, wondering
at her, remains silent as to know whether the Lord had
made his journey prosperous or not. So it was when the
camels had finished drinking that the man took a
golden nose ring weighing half a shekel and two bracelets
for her wrist weighing 10 shekels of gold, and said,
'Whose daughter are you? Tell me, please. Is there room in your father's
house for us to lodge?' So she said to him, 'I'm
the daughter of Bethuel, Milcah's son,' whom
she bore to Nahor.' Moreover she said to him, "We
have both straw and feed enough and room to lodge. Then the man bowed down his
head and worshipped the Lord. And he said, 'Blessed be the
God, the Lord God of my master, Abraham, who has not forsaken
his mercy and his truth toward my master. As for me, being on
the way, the Lord led me to the house of
my master's brethren." Now, in the intervening verses,
he and his whole entourage roll over to her house, is met by
her super, shady brother who is just like a stereotype
pulled from central casting who, the moment he sees the gold
and the jewelry in this girl, realizes it came from them. And, all of a sudden,
he's rolling out the greasy, red carpet and
super excited to have them over, and real smarmy. And they all sit down. And the servant goes through the
whole story, where he's from, shows him his identification,
shows him his credentials, tells them all about the
mission and his prayer and Rebecca giving water to
him and also to the animals, and why he's there, and
basically this whole thing rolls out. And then we will pick that
story up in just a quick minute. But, first, let's try and
come to some conclusions about what's happening here. And we'll do so
with this method. We'll ask three questions. And the first question is what
was in the servants' hand? What was in his hand? And the answer is, of
course, his master's thigh. As we begin, I
promised you last week, if you were here, that I would
explain what's going on here. So at face value, it's
his master's thigh. The Bible says Abraham
said, please grab my thigh as you make this promise. Now of course
culturally, we have no frame of reference
for anything like this. We would say the
closest equivalent we could come to would be if
you were in a court of law, we place your right
hand on the Bible and swear to tell the truth. That would be like the
most solemn kind of oath, or basically some form
of handshake agreement. Of course, pre-COVID. You can't do that now. But the handshake,
or here's my word. Or I was talking with
our college students, and one of them said,
the pinky promise. And I was like, yeah, I
think it's a little firmer than that, the pinky promise. But basically, him
grabbing the thigh, many commentaries say the
thigh was the strongest muscle in your body. They don't know
about the tongue. The tongue is the muscle
that can move mountains. But the thigh, that's where
all your strength comes from. So in that day, they say
that grabbing the thigh would be a way of saying
this is out of your strength. Promise me from the
strength of your life that you'll keep this
oath, just showing how urgent, how important,
how solemn the promise was to Abraham. But other commentaries
kind of dance around what is an uncomfortable reality. And that is the fact that the
Hebrew word doesn't always get translated thigh. Sometimes this word can actually
just be translated loins. Now this is going to get
real awkward real quick, but let me actually spill
the beans here and tell you what I think that the
servant was actually holding in his
hand, and that is he was holding Abraham's legacy. He was holding Abraham's legacy. Abraham, in having the
servant touch whatever he touched on that day, it
was a way, in that culture, at that moment, for
Abraham, who, by the way, is nearing the end of his life. And in fact, his last words
recorded in Scripture are, do not take my son Isaac
back to the land that I left. The final words of one of the
most significant figures in all of the Bible, the one who we
are told that if we believe in Jesus, we
become, essentially, children, sons by faith of
Abraham, this figure who looms so large in the Bible,
his final words highlighting the significance
of the Covenant God gave him being passed on
to the next generation so that we today could be
sons and daughters of Abraham, stars in the sky, sand
on the seashore, one of the innumerable
company of those who have come to God
by faith, not earning our own righteousness,
which we could never do if we had 1,000 lifetimes, but instead believing
God's promise is fulfilled ultimately in
Jesus Christ, his son who died on the cross for our
sins, who rose from the grave on the third day and is willing
to save anybody who comes to him putting
their faith in him, that this covenant
being passed on, that this not
dying with Abraham, that the dying words of Abraham,
who is old and advanced in age, is make sure my only
son Isaac, the son of promise, the son that my wife
laughed at the idea of us even having a child,
but she came home from the hospital
holding in her arms what she at one point
in her life laughed at. And I just want to
speak into your life that what seems impossible
to you, what you would laugh if I said this
could happen to you, if I said you could one
day be happily married, or God could use you
to change the world in some incredible way, or
you could start a business, you might laugh at it today. But I'm just daring
you to believe there's going to come
a day when you're going to hold in your arms
coming home from the hospital what at one point
you laughed at. And Abraham and Sarah
did have this baby, and it was so important that
like they came out of the land that they were
originally from and went into a land of mystery,
into a land of unknown, into a land by faith
and dwell as strangers, that they had for their son a
woman who similarly had that in her DNA, that she
came out of that land and was willing to do so. And that's what Abraham said. Find a woman for my son who's
willing to leave where she's from and come out
and blazed a trail into the wild blue yonder,
a new spiritual story. So that was his dying wish. And he wanted the servant
who had in his hand all that Abraham possessed-- and
Abraham was very wealthy. You get the sense of that
when you see the bridal gift. If you read the
part of the story we won't have time to go
through, the bridal gift that he gave to Laban, the shady
brother, character, to Rebecca. It was massive, which showed
that Abraham was truly blessed in all things, not just
spiritually and emotionally and relationally. But also, he thrived and
prospered financially as well. And he was safe to
bless because he knew he was blessed
to be a blessing, and he lived this
beautiful, generous story. So Abraham wanted the
servant to understand what he was holding
in his hand when he grabbed his thigh was legacy. He wanted him to
understand, you're holding the most important
thing to me in taking my son, picking a bride for my son. More important than
any of my money, more important than
any of my treasure, my son's spiritual
well-being, and him being married to
a godly woman who lives a life of faith
and a bigger story than just this world,
just this hotel room stay, we said last week, but the
bigger story of eternity, of this infinite game that God
wants us all to see life as. This is what's in your hand. And the servant understood that. And you see the trepidation,
you see the sense of holy awe as he approaches this
relationship choice that he has been given the
stewardship to make, that he knew that
legacy was in his hand. And that's what I want you
and I to walk away from this. Not that you would touch thighs. In fact, I think that
the less thigh-touching is involved in your dating, the
better, in fact, quite frankly. But I would say this. I would say that as
you approach dating, as you approach who
you're going to marry, who you're going to be
romantically involved with, and even the friends that you
keep in this world, the people you are allowing to
speak into your life, that you have in your hand the
awareness that your legacy is in your hand, what God is
going to do through you, and what God is going to
do through your family for generations, that the
right choice of who you marry, that the right selection of
who you're going to be with is going to very much have an
impact on your grandchildren and your great
grandchildren and what they're handed by way
of a story of faith that God wants to
do through you. But if you end up
with the wrong people, you'll start making
the wrong choices, and it'll quench
your spiritual zeal, and it will only ripple out
for evil and not for good. It will only stop
the things that God wants to do through
your family, as he is faithful to 1,000 generations. So all I'm trying to get you
to see is that there's so much more going on. There's so much more at
stake than just this right here in the moment, and what's
happening on Friday night, and what you're doing
when you're hanging out with your friends,
and these things, that it's so tempting
to live only here. You're 17 years
old, but I dare you to start thinking about and
dreaming about what God's going to begin through you
that's going to continue on long after you're gone. Legacy, legacy. I'm telling you to think
follow through in all you do, to have in your
mind something bigger. The Bible says that God is
faithful to 1,000 generations. And what if you and your
wife, or you and your husband, and the godly dynamics
to your relationship, and the passionate
love, and the way you will fight for each
other and fight for honor and remain faithful
till death do you part can inspire your
great grandchildren, who are going to be surrounded, no
doubt, just like you and I are, by a relational marriage
climate that's in chaos, that's tattered, where
divorce is the norm, and people abandoning even
the idea of relationships. And yet we can see
examples rising up, where there are kids
raised in a home with a mom and a dad who love each
other and love God, and do so imperfectly but faithfully,
and what a difference that can make, not only on the
cities that we live in, but this whole
country and the world. And that is meant to be a
bright light for the kingdom. Why does the devil attack
marriage so violently? Because he knows that the
marriage, the marriage is meant to be one of the most
powerful forces for evangelism in the world, and that God
intends for that marriage that is thriving and
rocking and cranking, and full of struggles
and full of setbacks, absolutely, but
continuing on, for that to be one of the beacons
of evangelistic light in this world, a for sure
component of the salt and light, the preserving
influence on society. And so hold in your hand
the awareness of legacy. Much more important than money. Much more important than
just what friends are doing and what seems good
on social media. What was in his hand? Say it with me. Legacy. Second question. We've got three questions. The second question is
what was in her hand? What was in her
hand, Rebecca's hand? Now of course, just like we
know in the servant's hand was a thigh and a
bunch of money-- no, no, he was holding legacy-- in Rebecca's hand,
we could answer, just from the human perspective
and say, a pitcher. The text actually says that
she came to give water. She let a pitcher down
from her shoulder. So she had in her
hand a pitcher. But what I think she actually
was holding was greatness. Greatness, because she,
in watering the camels and watering the
servant and all of those who came with him
riding the camels-- we don't hear much
about his friends, but obviously he didn't
just come with 10 camels. He had a whole crew that he
was rolling with as well. She came to him, and
as he had prayed, she had this willing
spirit that she would give water to the camels. Now he sort of set this whole
thing up kind of on purpose, it would seem, knowing
that at this time of the day, the women-- which,
in that part of the world, both then and to
this day, it is often the job of the young
women in the community to bring water,
which, by the way, touches our hearts so much to
be linked up with Charity Water, knowing we're making such
an impact specifically on young women who
it falls to them this horrible, dark task all
around the world, to this day, of lugging gallons and
gallons of water from wells back to the village, traveling miles at times just
to bring any water at all for drinking or for
washing clothes, or any water that exists at all,
which is why we, as a church, are so thrilled and
honored and humbled to be linked up
with Charity Water. And just what we got to
see just a moment ago, the fact that we just
got to finish five well projects in Cambodia
that will alter the lives of 174,000 people. And for us, we're like, when
do we start the next one? And I love, as a church,
that every time $1.00 comes in, every time somebody watching
this on television or a podcast says, I'm not just going
to receive from this, but give back to this
ministry, that God, through this ministry, like the
funds that Abraham was trusted with, we get to be
blessed, to be a blessing, and that we don't just get to
make a difference by preaching God's word, but we actually get
to meet needs of people like this young woman who was
bringing water from a well. But the prayer of
the servant was, God, when I go to this well,
where all the young women are going to be, I'm going to
ask one of them for a drink. And it would have been
absolutely unthinkable for any of these girls
to not offer water when he asked for it because the
dictates of Middle Eastern hospitality just would
have absolutely, you would have had to. They would have
just been a pariah to not give a little bit of
water as he asked for it. But it would have
been very abnormal, when he asked for a water,
and they gave it to him, for them to suggest from
their own compunction that they would feel like,
I need to also offer water to your 10 camels. Now Libby and I were looking
at the Bible this week, and we were reading it. And I said I said, how much do
you think a camel can drink? And she said, I don't know, go
on National Geographic website and I bet we could find out. So we got to Googling, which
is where almost all of my Bible studies lead to at some point-- I already told you I went
to Instagram for this one. Didn't turn out so good. Just got naked pizza stories. So here we are on Google,
on National Geo website. And I find this
article, and it says the average camel can drink
about 20 gallons of water in 13 minutes if parched. And we know these
camels were parched because they had just
traveled 450 miles from Canaan to Mesopotamia. And we're told that she, seeing
this crew, 10 camel deep-- that's a lot of camels. Anything over three
camels is bunch of camels. When the servant says, can
I have a drink of water, she looks up and goes,
oh, you have 10 camels. I'll give you water
for all of your camels. So she gives him a
drink from her pitcher, gives all the others
that are with him a drink from her pitcher. And then, based on her
own just free will, she says, I want to
water the camels. So she pours whatever water
is remaining into a trough, and then it says she
ran back to the well. How long would it take, how
buff was this girl, what was in her hand? In my opinion, greatness,
because the text actually says she gave water until all
the camels had had their fill. How tired would you be
getting 200 gallons of water? Who needs Crossfit? You don't need no Peloton. You see what I'm saying? She's just giving
water to these camels. And the text says, the
servant was stupefied. He just sat there
wondering at her. Why? Because he was witnessing
an answer to prayer. He didn't just want to get
a girl for his master's son. He wanted someone who had on
the inside of them greatness. And listen to me carefully. There is nothing that shows
true greatness more than having a servant's heart. That's what Jesus said
when two of his disciples got the wrong idea of what
it meant like to follow Him, and they thought that
greatness following Jesus must mean having
authority, and getting to tell people what to do,
and receiving glory for it. And so they sent their mom--you
already know it's gone wrong, when they sent they
sent their mom. They talk about
helicopter parenting here. We're living in a day when more
and more, parents, for whatever reason, are just wanting
to be in on the Zoom call when their child
has a job interview, and just not understanding
just that these kids need to make decisions for themselves
and develop the grit that comes from at times
failing and having to learn the hard way
from those lessons. And so these two disciples,
they sent their mom in. And James and
John's their names. And Mom comes to
Jesus and says, hey, can my boys sit
at your right hand and at your left
hand in the kingdom? And Jesus is like, that's
not how that works, just FYI. And then he goes to the
rest of the disciples and addresses this. And the text says when the
rest of the 10 heard it, they were displeased
at James and John. Yeah, I bet they were. But then Jesus used
the occasion to launch into a teaching moment about
the true nature of greatness in the kingdom. And what he wanted
them, and what we all need to understand
as well, is that it's upside down from how
it works in this world. He said, you know how it
works in the Roman Empire. Whoever's in charge
is the one who gets to tell the most
people what to do and receives the most adulation
and receives the most glory for that position. But that's not greatness
in the kingdom. He said, in Verse 43
of Mark Chapter 10, who ever desires to
become great among you shall be your servant, for
even the son of man, i.e. The most great
person who ever lived in the history of the world,
did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give
his life a ransom for many. What are we receiving here? We are receiving, from
Jesus and from the servant and from Rebecca's example, some
of the greatest relationship advice you'll ever receive. And that is if you want
to succeed and thrive in relationships, be a servant. If you want to improve
your marriage today, write down this goal, to be
more of a servant to my wife. To be more of a
servant to my husband. To serve in the home,
to serve this person, to seek to unlock
their greatness and not try and flex my muscles
and get them to do what I want, but to want to serve them. What do you want to do? What are you missing out on? How can I make you better? Someone said that the definition
of a wonderful marriage is two people trying to
out serve each other, that there's that mentality
of I want to serve you. I want to enhance your life. I'm not just trying to take. I'm trying to I'm
trying to give. That's some of the best sex
advice you will ever receive. Seek to serve your husband. Seek to serve your
wife sexually. Jesus said is more blessed
to give than to receive. There's far greater
pleasure that comes from seeking to
give than trying to get. It's the upside down kingdom. And as you seek to
bless your spouse, as you seek to
serve them, you'll enhance your life
in the process. And as you're seeking to choose
who you're going to marry, try and find someone-- the servant knew
who is a servant. This would be someone who's
going to be a phenomenal life partner with, to live
alongside someone who has the heart of a servant,
who notices, oh, you're not just thirsty. Your camels are thirsty. I want to take care of them. She just had this
kind of spirit, like, I want to take
care of your camels. It was just that mentality. She saw a problem and
instantly wanted to fix it. That's amazing to me. What was in his hand? Legacy. What was in her hand? Greatness. And what did he put into her
hand is our third question. What did the servant
put into her hand? And of course you're like,
well, he put a nose ring, and he put bracelets. No, no, no. Here's what I think he
put into her hand, honor. He put honor into her hand. And that's what one always does
in the presence of greatness. One realizes I'm to honor you. Now the Bible talks
about honor a lot. It's all over the scripture. Honor really just
speaks of wight. If you want to
understand what honor is, it's believing someone's
weighty, ascribing weight or worth to someone. And the reason that
definition of that word came into being as it
did was because there was a day when the heavier a
coin was, the greater worth it was believed
to have because it was a greater valuable metal. So if it's a heavier
coin, it was worth more. So if something was
weighty, it was worth more. It's how you get fooled
at a white elephant gift exchange when you pick the
heavy one up, and you're like, oh, this one must
be really valuable. And they know that, and
that's why it's probably going to be one of the worst ones. They're tricking you, people. But this idea of
weight and worth. And really what we're
talking about when we talk about honoring
is we're ascribing worth. We're ascribing worth to people. Were ascribing
worth to situations. And when we honor
someone, we're saying you're heavy, thus valuable. Thus you're to be treated
as the value I recognize you have inside of you. Now we at Fresh Life, we
like to say that here, we're an uprising of honor
in a world that has lost this virtue,
in a world that just wants to cancel people
and tear down people and criticize
people, and just is so full of a venom
towards one another. We want to show honor
up, honor down, honor all around because that's
what the Bible commands. Everything about the
life of a believer in a world that lacks it. Even the basic levels of respect
have gone out the window. But we are to be an
uprising of honor. And this is to start
with God because none has more value than Him. So that's the reason
we worship God and we worship no one, else
because there's no greater value, there's no
greater heaviness, there's no greater
worth than God. And that's why the
Bible says that when we experience God's glory,
we experience His heaviness. There's a heaviness
to God's glory. When we worship him, a
lot of times what you feel is you feel that heaviness. You've felt it singing
praise songs to God. There's this heaviness that's
a comforting heaviness. And you know what a wonderful
thing that is, is that's instead of the heaviness of fear
and the heaviness of dread that will come. So when we honor God, the gift--
when we say he's the heaviest, we receive the heaviness
of His glory in our lives, and our lives take on
a whole new weight. But our honor isn't
to stop with God. It's just to begin with
Him, and we're then to express honor to everyone
who's been made in His image. The Bible says that every single
person has the image of God or has been made with his divine
stamp on the inside of them. That means that there's
no person who's worthless. There's no person
who's a throwaway. There's no person
who doesn't matter. Every single person. That's why we believe in life. We believe that the moment
God brings life into a womb, there's value. That's not to be taken lightly. That's not to be
taken flippantly. We're to believe that that's
a significant choice we're making when it
comes to the baby, no matter how the
conception happened. I know my wife and I, we planned
to wait five years when we got married before we had children. And we got pregnant
really rapidly. And I remember we were just a
few months into our marriage, and my wife called me one day
on my old school flip phone. And she said to me, she
said, Levi, I'm pregnant. And I almost drove off the road. You know, I was
like, what the heck? I was so confused and surprised
and stunned by the news. And I kind of assumed the
pregnancy test was wrong, so booked us a time to
go in to see our doctor. And he did a
pregnancy test that I was convinced was going to
be better than the one we got at Walgreen's, and so he would
tell us this was all a mistake, and we were going
to get our five years of getting
to travel, and do whatever we wanted, and have no
responsibility, and be young. And we were in our early 20s. And so this was just definitely
not what we intended. And I think he could tell. And we were like, I don't know. This is crazy. And he came back in, guy
in a mustache, glasses-- they were kind of on
the tip of his nose, and clipboard-- he
comes in the room. I'll never forget. He says, Mr. and Mrs. Lusko,
you are indeed pregnant. And we were like, whoa. Mind blown. And he goes, so what do
you want to do about it? What do you want to do about it? And I was like, I
don't know, man. I think we probably
should get a crib. I thought you would tell us. Diapers, I assume. Figure out a name. I don't know if this
is going to work. We have this tiny apartment. And then I realized
at that moment that he wasn't asking me about
my plan for being a parent. He was, in fact, offering
to get us an abortion, to take care of this,
in his mind, problem. What do you want to do about it? And I said, well, I don't
want you to do anything about the pregnancy. And he goes, you mean
you want to keep it? And I assume he doesn't have
very many-- at that point in my life, I assumed he hadn't
had very many young parents in there who found
out they were pregnant and then just
automatically didn't, as their first reaction, want
to terminate the pregnancy. And so he goes-- he takes his glasses
off-- you want to keep it? It. Now he's talking
just, so we're clear, about my 15-year-old
daughter, who brings joy into our life
every day, Olivia Sky Lusko. And for the record, we
did want to keep it. The way he said it was so
cavalier and so nonchalant, like he was taking plates away
from a table at a restaurant. Do you want to keep it? It would have been so
easy to go, no, no, no. Go ahead, take it away. But we said, yes, we
do want to keep it. He kind of took a step
back and looked at us for the first time that day,
and said, you know what? I think you two are going
to be terrific parents. And I just thought,
the bar must be really low, because two
minutes ago, it was like, do we want to kill this child
that's in Jennie's womb. And now we're just mother
and father of the year simply by accepting
the fact that there was a life inside,
planned by us or not, that God had knit together
within Jennie's womb. And we, though we were
inconvenienced, certainly, from our scheduling
standpoint, what did we do? We trembled knowing that
there was someone coming into this world made in the
image of God, therefore worthy of honor. All life, every person,
your color of skin or not, where you live or not,
how you think or not, how you vote or not,
is worthy of honor. Their sexual orientation. We are to honor people
regardless of whether or not we agree with their choices. The Bible says honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Obey the king. We are to start at honor. Honor was what he
put into her hand because he knew starting out
she was a child of the king. But especially as we begin to
navigate the complex choices that we make within
relationships in our lives, I think honor is one of the
most important ingredients because not only did he honor
her publicly in this moment, giving her jewelry, treating
her like a princess, which is, by the way, what
a child of the king is-- so every person you've ever
dated, every person you've ever hooked up with, every person
you've ever slept with, every person you've ever
downloaded pornography and lusted at
their image, that's someone who's a child
of the king, someone who's made by God, someone
who has value and worth. And I love that he
here is treating her-- it really is beautiful
because he is not going to be the one to marry her. He's treating her like
someone else's wife. And I think, until
you're married, that's how every girl
should be treated. And when you're married,
that's how every other girl should be treated. Someone else's husband. Someone else's wife. So there's an honor and
a deference and respect, and he's being careful with her. He's guarding her here, guarding
her heart on behalf of another. All throughout our
engagement, even, that was a mentality we
had in our heart. I was still treating Jennie
as someone else's wife and fighting to save
that gift of sex, even though I was saving it
for me until I was married, the enemy would want to
put that in your head, like, oh, you're going to
get married in two weeks. What does it matter? But to fight and to save. Until that moment comes,
she's someone else's wife. I was fighting for future
me, fighting for future her. And I think that is a beautiful
example here of the way that he honors her. But then he honors her again
when he goes to her home. And even though Laban's
sleazy, and he is, and he'll pop up again
and again in Genesis. This guy is like whack-a-mole. He's relentless, used
car salesman on steroids. He still, the servant does,
honors Laban for what he is, the man in her life until
she's married to another. And so what does he do? He goes and seeks his approval,
and he talks to him about it. And he not only honored
Rebecca, he gave gifts to Laban, representing the
bridal gifts that would be given to the family
as a way of entering into all the customs of the day. And cultures have changed
and times different, but what is that God
wants this spirit of honor to be in our hearts as we
approach relationships. This mattered to me so
much when Jennie and I's courtship, whatever you want
to call it, we were dating. We were moving towards-- I wanted to ask her
permission to marry me. I want to ask,
would she marry me? But first I wanted
to ask her dad. And I think these what
feel old traditions are so important because I was
saying before, I become that covering and
that protecting man in your life as your husband. I want to honor that
you've had a father who has been that to you. And you would say the kid,
Levi, the guy I'm dating, the girl I'm dating,
she doesn't have a dad. Well, then, go to her mom. Go to her aunt. Go to any respected
person in her life and just honor whoever
has been protecting her until you step in that place. I just guarantee you
God will bless that. What would you want whoever is
dating your daughter one day to do? What would you want the person
dating your little sister to do? How would you want
him to treat her? And treat that daughter
of the king in that way. I'm just telling
you, these things might feel, that
is so old school. What do you want me to do,
start sending telegrams as well? I'm just saying this
stuff is amazing. And there's a reason God
has put it into our hearts. And start to be the
change in the culture that God wants for you to be. I thought I'd get at least a
name for some girls up in here. But no, it's all right. I think that we learn
from these three things a lot of beautiful things. And how it worked out,
if you look at Verse 54, we're going to jump
back in here now. It all worked out
pretty well because he and the men who were with him
ate and drank stayed all night. Then they arose in the morning,
and he said, send me away to my master. But her brother and her mother
said, let the young woman stay with us a few days, at
least 10, that she may go. And he said to them-- the servant got direct here. Do not hinder me, since the
Lord has prospered my way. Send me away so that I'm
going to go to my master. So they said, well, we
will call the young woman and ask her personally. Then they called
Rebecca and said to her, will you go with this man? And she said-- and I love this-- I will go. We'll get to why
exactly Laban tried to slow them down a little bit
here, what exactly was going on and why the servant
didn't tolerate it. But first let me just
show you, as we approach our relationships
with care, just as we begin to wind this
town, four quick handles, four handles that we can have on
our approach to relationships that will help us to care
for them as we share. The first is creativity. Creativity. I love that the
servant was creative as he tried to figure out,
is this girl a servant? You'll notice he didn't just go
up to all the girls at the well and go, y'all, who's
a servant here? Anybody here have
a servant's heart? And they'd raise their
hands, because anybody can say whatever they want
to when they're filling out their eHarmony profile. Anybody can say
whatever when they're filling out their Christian
Mingle or their whatever. And I'm not knocking that. I know plenty of people who
have met over the internet, and God uses those things. But I'm just saying anybody
can say whatever they want about what's in their heart. But these actions that
we live out over time, they really do betray it. And so the servant was
creative to see and to witness and to find out if it was there. What did he do? He put a situation together that
would allow him to find out. If I ask for a water and you
give my camels water, too, that's a servant's heart. I'm watching you without you
knowing you're being studied. And I think that's one of the
most powerful reasons why it's important for us to be creative
and to be careful about how we see, how we watch
for opportunities during the dating phase to
see what's really going on inside this person's heart. Is there really
a servant sphere? I think serving
within the church, serving God within your city
and ministry you're doing, I think that is a
powerful way to watch. How do they handle
difficult situations? How do they handle
having a team lead on this group of online
hosts, who here's when you're supposed to be. Or do they show up on time? What's their work ethic like? This girl had that not only
servant heart, but just an amazing work ethic. And he was creative. I think creativity must be
employed in really figuring out what's going on. Listen, you can suck it
in for a little while. But over time, the
reality comes out. What's really there comes out. And you must not
be in such a hurry, oh, we're going to get married. You just met two minutes ago. And you're like, well,
this guy did this. All right. Well, this is Abraham. So I'm just telling
you, in our day today, we need to give time,
give space to allow there to be opportunities
to see what God has really done in their heart
before we rush into a relationship
with this person. Creativity is also necessary
in marriage, in relationship, being creative at
how you express love, being creative in how
you approach date nights and connecting
together and growing in your love for each
other, being creative in how you approach
parenting and leading a home. Finding things that are
fun to do with your family to really continue to
grow in those friendships and relationships. Creativity is so important. Secondly, I want to talk for
a second about attraction. It's the second handle,
because Verse 16 says Rebecca was very beautiful to behold. And that's important. Why is it there? Because it's true. And he thought she
was attractive, and Isaac, we'll
find out later, he thinks that she's attractive. And I don't want to belittle
the importance of that. I think it's oftentimes,
in the church, kind of just like, oh, it doesn't
really matter. That's not really
that important. Hey, FYI, it is important. If you're going to be married
for the rest of your life, it would be not a terrible
thing to like what you see. That's not bad. That's not a bad thing at all,
chemistry and how you feel and that you like this person. But listen to me carefully. It's not the most
important thing. So for him, the prerequisite
was where she was from, that she's willing to come
and go out of the place that she lived, that
she was a servant. And then down the list is this
idea she's beautiful as well. Proverbs 31 says charm can
mislead and beauty soon fades. But the woman to be
admired and praised is a woman who lives
in the fear of God. So as you're thinking through
who you're going to date and who you're going to
approach and who you want, think about in your head
something deeper than just the
superficial, something deeper than just
money, something deeper than just their
looks, that there's something on the inside in their soul. You think about
the marriage vows, till death do us part,
for better or for worse, for richer for poorer. Think about, as
you're choosing who you're going to
make this decision to live with your soul
connected to, that it's going to be someone who it would be
an honor to suffer with, someone who it would be a joy to
go through life with if one of you, God forbid, ended up
in a wheelchair or unemployed, or God forbid, the worst
happened and someone in your home dies, and just
to deal with the suffering, that it would be someone
who it would be just as much of a joy to walk with in lean
times as in the fat times. So attraction is important. It's just not the
most important thing. Then third hand, resolve. There needs to be
resolve in relationships. And resolve to do what? To do God's will. To do God's will. The servant, he had
asked permission. Laban gave consent. He said, I can't speak
about this good or evil. It's clearly God's
doing that you're here. This whole thing,
everybody recognized there in that moment,
this is happening. They gave permission,
you can marry her. But then when the day
came for them to leave, he goes, you can
leave, just not yet. And he said, stay a couple
of days, perhaps 10, which many commentaries
suggest is actually a way, in that culture,
of saying up to 10 months. We'll figure it out. We'll keep talking about
it as time goes on. You can go, just not yet. And kind of hoping
that instead, Isaac would be brought back
there instead of her going to be with them. And the servant saw through
this for what it was, an attempt to procrastinate and
eventually talk him out of God's will, which
is one of the devil's most successful strategies. He won't just try and
tell you not to do what God called you to do. He'll tell you to
do it tomorrow. He'll tell you you
can do it later. JC Ryle once said,
and I love this quote, he said Satan doesn't care how
spiritual your intentions are as long as they are
determined to be done later because the road to hell is
paved with good intentions. And many of us have
been talked out of doing the things we're called
to do one day at a time, one year at a time. So the servant here, he said,
I'm not going to be deterred. We're going to go. You said we can go. The time to go is now. He said, do not hinder me. Send me away. So there was resolve. You see that in his
heart because he knew what was at stake. And then secondly, I see in
Rebecca that there was resolve. And there had been for some
time, because Verse 16 says, though she was very beautiful
to behold, she was a virgin. And the choice that
she had made led her to being in a place where
no man had known her. Now clearly in that day,
just like in any day, it would be easy to
have compromise for her. But she's come to this
moment, and she not only has the servant's
heart as a single girl, but she's also said, I
want to get to my marriage, I want to get to my wedding,
whoever that man is, whenever that day comes, and I
want to have saved myself, to have waited to be
intimate with anybody, and to go into marriage with
this gift of me to give to him. And I just love that she
had that kind of resolve. I told you last week
there needs to be a purposing in your heart, that
you would choose to fight for, and especially when
it's difficult, to choose God's best
for your love life. And I realize even in saying
this, there's a lot of tension because some of you hearing
that, I wish I could do that. I already gave that away. And I think the church has
overemphasized virginity as some sort of Holy Grail
benchmark of your love for God. And we've under recognized
what it looks like to honor God after you've made
mistakes that you regret, or after you've been
through hard things that you didn't have
a say in, whether it was a sexual assault,
or someone molested you when you were very young. And so this praising
of virginity makes you feel
like a second class citizen or damaged goods, or
somehow lesser in God's eyes. But what I've always
tried to preach, and what I believe to
the core of my being, is that God is honored
by us when we realize we've made mistakes, when we
realize that there's a regret, or when we realize that we
wish the past can be different than it is, that we say
from this day forward, I want to honor you. From this day forward, I
want to fight for your plans. I want to fight for
my future marriage. I want to say, God, I don't
just believe you can create. I believe that you can
recreate, and that I can get back up
when I've fallen, and I can move forward
from a painful memory and say that marriage isn't
on the horizon right now, and I don't know this person. But I'm going to choose to fight
for them from this day forward. And it's going to take resolve. It's going to take
intentionality. And as we move towards
week five and week six, I just want to tell
you even just where we're going to be going. We're going to be giving
you a roadmap, especially those of you single in
the church, single online, to take an oath and to
commit to whatever that looks like for you, to honoring
God with whatever years and days remain
between now and when God calls you to that person. And we're going to be giving
out to all of our church online family, and to
everybody in the church, a little commitment
card that you can keep and have as a token,
as a reminder of something precious and special and
powerful of this promise that you've made to honoring
God's plans for your love life. And so we're going to be
so excited to be doing that in the weeks to come. But let me end here,
and the worship team will come and help
us begin to close. I want to give your
fourth and final handle, and that is enthusiasm. Enthusiasm. I see it all over the passage. When I say enthusiasm,
I mean passion. I see it in Verse 17, when
the servant ran to meet her. I see it in Verse 18 when
she said, drink, my Lord, and she quickly let
down her pitcher. I see it in Verse 20 when she
quickly emptied her pitcher into the trough, and
then ran back to the well to draw more water and drew
for all 10 stinking camels. I see it in her
willingness in Verse 58, when they called her
together and figured she would be afraid
to in and say, yeah, 10 more days sounds great. And he said, are you willing? And she said three
words, I am willing. There was a willingness to her,
because what she was saying? She was saying, I'm
willing to leave my family and all I've ever known and
blaze a trail 450 miles away to be married to this
man who I've never met. There was a willingness,
there was a fight in her. There was something
going on here. She sensed God's hand on this. She sensed that God was
stirring, even though she didn't understand
it yet, to move away from the idolatry of
her people and to move into this life of following God. There was something inside
her, this enthusiasm which is such an underappreciated,
under recognized thing in our day, where I think
meh has kind of become a cultural slogan. Eh. Eh. Just kind of apathetic
and I don't know, and just halfhearted. And I'll just
change the channels. And if this convicts me,
I'll just go over here, and I'm involved
here for a while. But then I lost interest,
and so doing that. And just sort of a tepidness
where there needs to be fire. There's a halfheartedness where
there needs to be diligence. And I love this servant who
served with all of his heart. I love this young girl who
unleashed the greatness that God had put inside of her. And she didn't do
it halfheartedly. I love that there was an
enthusiasm that they were giving God something to bless. And I think in
our relationships, one of the greatest dangers
to a relationship being weakened over time is through
a gradual loss of enthusiasm. This is true of
all relationships, but especially our
relationship with God. Didn't Jesus tell
the church at Ephesus that their biggest problem
wasn't what they were doing? It was the fact that they
didn't have as much love as they did at first. So what did he say? Do the things you
did at the beginning. You see, the reality is, Jesus
was least recognized and least given honor where? In his own hometown. Isn't it possible that
over years and over time in a marriage, over
time in a relationship, you really can lose that
tender loving feeling? You really can lose that honor
that you gave at the beginning. And it can eventually
devolve, and you can stop pursuing the
person that you married. You can stop dating your mate. You can stop given
the earnestness, the wholeheartedness,
the enthusiasm. I love that word enthusiasm
because at its core is theos, the word for
God in the Greek language. That's where we get enthusiasm. In theos, or the God within,
God inside, or possessed by God. It's a way of saying, when
you talk to someone who's fired up-p- you know
what I'm talking about, when there's just a
brightness in the eyes, when they're so
excited you almost get swept up in their passion. You don't even care about
what they're talking about. I'm excited just
because you are. Like that great
old preacher story of the atheist who watched
John Wesley preach, and his friends said, why are
you going to watch him preach? You don't believe
what he's preaching. And he said, yeah, but he does. He does. And I like to listen to
him because I can tell he believes what he's saying. And I think that there needs
to be more enthusiasm, that we get gripped by God. So where does that come from? It comes from willingness
for God to fill you, willingness for God to invade
you, willingness for God to meet with you as you seek
him on your own in Scripture. As you get before him
in prayer, as you take walks with him alone
and the cool of the day, in the heat of the day,
or whatever kind of day you're having, just
walking with God, growing, not getting
tired, not getting bored, not graduating past the basics. Just seeking God and
knowing him and loving him and wanting to show
that love to others, and wanting to serve
people that are around you. Being creative in
how to grow, and not become stagnant and
lukewarm in your marriage or in your relationship
or your friendships, or in serving in your
church, making a difference. I told you at the
beginning that there are two things that
are common written on packages that are fragile. One, of course, is, as
we said, it's our title, handle with care. The other, of course,
would be what? This side up. This side up. Keep this package
oriented this way. I think a lot of
times, if we want to have enthusiasm
in our lives, it comes from living this side up,
with our heart set on heaven, not just on things of the Earth. But we're thinking through
follow through in all we do. We're thinking, how
will this live out? How will this ring
out into eternity? How will I feel
about this decision? How will I feel about
this interaction? How will I feel about
this addiction standing before God in heaven
looking back on my life? Let's live church this side up. It will cause there
to be an enthusiasm, and not a going
through the motions, not a eh, not a halfheartedness,
not a sluggishness. There will be a zeal. There will be an urgency. We'll be passionate
and stirred up and fired up and ready to do
all that God's called us to do. So to recap, creativity,
attraction, resolve, enthusiasm. These are our handles. This is going to help
us to handle with care. Handle with care. Come on, you see
what I did there? It's a whole thing. Handle with care. Now my favorite
verse in the text, and we're going to
close with this, is Verse 27, where the
servant says, as for me, being on the way,
the Lord led me. Being on the way,
the Lord led me. How did this all
happen, he says. He says, it happened
because I was on the way. What way? The way to Mesopotamia. The way to obedience. I found the girl that this
person was supposed to marry. I found the right person
when I was on the way. When I made sure to
stay on the way, that finding the right person I was
looking for worked itself out. Didn't Jesus say, I am the
way, the truth, the life? No one comes to the
Father except through me. I know there's a lot of you
who are tempted to compromise or to make decisions, or to-- I know that this is what
God wants for me, but look, that's not realistic. It's not exactly like
they're making guys like that in a factory, making
girls like that in a factory. And so you're sort
of thinking, I need to lower my standards
just a little bit. Let me tell you, you don't
need to worry so much about who you're finding, and
where he is and where she is, and how that's
all going to work. What do you need to do? Come on, stay on the way. Stay in your
relationship with Jesus. If you just trust in God
with all of your heart, lean not on on your
own understanding. In all of your ways,
acknowledge Him. He will direct your paths. The servants looked
back and said, as long as I was on the way
that Abraham, my master, told me to go, I was able to
be marvelously helped by Him. That's how this
thing worked out. And I believe that's how your
love story is going to unfold, that you'll be able to be
telling the story to your kids and your grandkids one day. And the story will be written,
I was just following Jesus. And then God just
took care of it. I didn't have to go
worry and concern and stress out over this thing. As I followed Jesus, it all
just worked out in the end. You receive it in Jesus' name. Father, we love you and we thank
you that just like the servant came with gifts, the
servant sent by the father on behalf of the Son, coming to
get the bride, brought gifts. And we thank you that your Holy
Spirit, sent into the world by the father, to get a bride
for the sun out of the world, has also given gifts,
given gifts to us. Each of us have been given
gifts by the Holy Spirit to use. And I pray for all
of us, whether we have an awareness of what
those gifts are or not, that we would all
have a willingness to see you reveal to
us what those gifts are and begin to use
them with enthusiasm as we serve and
contribute in this world. If, as we're praying,
all across the church you would say, I want to be
open to what God's gifts are, His gifts the spirit's given
me, whatever those might be, I want to be open to that. Or if you would say,
there's some decisions I've made when it comes to
honor, when it comes to sex-- based on what I've
heard today, God has opened my eyes to see
some things I need to change. If you would say I'm open
to God's holy spirit moving in my life, if you
would say, I want to act on and respond to out of
obedience to this revelation. Could I just ask that
all across the church-- every single person watching
on Facebook and YouTube and in every location and watch
party, every part of the world, on demand or on a podcast or on
television-- if you would say, I'm responding to the
Holy Spirit even now. Just raise a hand up. God will see you. Raise your hand up, raise your
hand up all across the church. Thank you, Father,
for what you're doing. Thank you for what
you're building. Thank you for you
stoking the fires of revival even in this moment. I pray to bless each, fill
them with your spirit. I pray for a new wind to
fill their soul like a sail. I pray for fire upon them. I pray for forgiveness
and healing. I pray for restoration
and redemption. I pray for you to rise up, a
generation who will honor you, most of all, and honor
those made in your image. You can put your hands down. I'm going to offer now a
moment in time for anybody who has not made a decision
to follow Jesus the Savior. Just like this girl was
asked, are you willing, the Bible says that God is able
to save you, able to heal you, able to promise you heaven. But you have to be willing. And if at this moment, you're
willing to open your heart up to Jesus, He will come in. He will heal you. He will make you knew. This could be your
first day born again, with living, eternal life
flowing through your veins. All you have to do is
open your heart to Christ. I'm going to say a prayer. Say it with me, and
God will hear you, and Jesus will come in. Say this. Say dear God, please
come into my heart. Make me new. I give myself to you. Thank you for dying for me. Thank you for living to
give me Resurrection power. I give you my heart
in Jesus' name. Amen. Come on. Let's celebrate with those
making that decision. If you did just pray that
prayer, grab your phone and send a quick text
message to 97000. Put the words Fresh
Life in the text so we can encourage you
and walk you forward in the next steps
walking with Jesus. God bless you, church. Thank you so much for
being with us today. Thank you so much for
listening to that message, and I hope it blessed you. It did. We hope it blessed you. It blessed me. Oh, that's great. And I know it blessed you. That's amazing. Hey, we wanted to also
say, if all this stuff that we're talking about, you
want to dig down more into it, we have a whole boo-- upside down--
called Swipe Right. The way you showed it, you
kind of like twisted it. That's so weird. You did like a windmill. That's true. Swipe Right: Life and Death,
Power of Sex and Romance, and the chance just to talk
more about these things. I like that in a book, you can
drill down more in a message. It's hard to get
the kind of context that you want on
everything as you're just going a million miles an hour. I was just preaching so
much text, maybe too much. Just write them out? Yeah. Well, hey, thanks for being
such-- you're like Rebecca. You're such a servant. It's one of the things I
really just love about you. You have such a servant's heart. Well, I hope this message
blessed and challenged you. We also want to
say that if you are interested in interning
at Fresh Life, we have a summer internship. You can get all the information
at internship.freshlife.church. And we would love to have you
consider spending your summer with us from May to August. You can get college
credits for it. So apply, come hang out
with us, and at Fresh Life, serve God, explore
Montana, be amazing. Anyhow, we love you so much.
