We want to welcome all of you at all of our campuses wherever you're worshiping today. Man, it is good to connect with you. And I want to especially thank our Gulf Coast campus, brand new campus, right there on 49 North. You guys are amazing. And also all the way up in Jones County on Busch Dairy Road, brand new campus. You guys are unbelievable. Let's give all of them a hand. Give yourself a hand for the fact, during a time of Covid, you guys are launching campuses. And because you go and because you give, we can reach people who don't go to church anywhere. And that's the kind of church we are. We're church for the unchurch. You're like, "Well, wait a minute, in South Mississippi everybody loves God." Well, if you've ever been to Walmart, you know that that's not true. Okay? And 60 of the people in South Mississippi, probably more, but that was the last count before Covid, they don't go to church anywhere. And so God has called us — it's not, we didn't get to vote on it — it's like, "Hey, you're going to be a people that reaches people that won't go anywhere else, and you're going to lead them to know, love, and follow Jesus."

And a lot of people ask me, and this is where it gets kind of confusing to people: "Well, when you reach them, what do they do then?" Well, well, then that's when you start growing. Okay? Then that's when you start inviting people. Because, you know, the best people to invite, people who don't go to church, people just started going to church. Did you know that 90 of the people out there who were surveyed said they would go to church if someone they knew would invite them? That, you know, the New Testament calls that evangelism, but we just call it, you know, being kind, you know, just being. It's obvious, just invite them to come with you. Invest in people where you're intentional about investing in them, not just because you need something from them, but because of the Gospel. Uh, you know, serving people, it impacts people. Whenever you serve people, it makes an impact on people. That's why people are just circling chick-fil-a. I mean, like, on Sunday, you know, like, they're like, "What am I going to do? You know, I can't make it." Uh, you know, but when you serve people, it makes an impact on them. And when you give, and that's what you've done better than ever. And I don't understand it outside of God's grace in Him moving on you. Because when you're generous, it affects every part of your life.

Now, that's how you grow in your Gospel identity, and that's what we've been talking about for several weeks. And and let me tell you, you don't start at understanding your whole Gospel identities process. And so today I want you to think with me, because I want to kind of see the Holy Spirit inch you up a little bit, and you understanding who you are and why God made you the way He made you, the way you are. And and the only way to do that, and that is forged, the Gospel identity, is forged in you understanding God more. The the better you understand God. Now this is really important. Okay? The more you understand God, the more you begin to understand yourself. And so for you to begin to really be a one of one that God created you to be, you're gonna have to spend some time with God. I mean, you got to get serious about your relationship with God. And we can't make you do that. We give you tools to do that. I mean, we've got everything online. If you've not downloaded our app, you're probably not a Christian. But because everything on there is to help you, man. These peop— our people have written stuff that's unbelievable. Uh, I'm gonna preach on a passage you're gonna read next week, and if you're, if you're following our reading plan — a lady asked me the other day, she said, "I can't get through Leviticus." I say, "Get out of Leviticus. Get over in our reading plan, and we can help you."

So today we're going to look at three messed-up people. Anybody know anybody that's messed up? Would you raise your hand? Okay, yeah, don't point at them. Uh, because we, we all messed up. But but God uses messed-up people to do amazing things. And today you're gonna see how God uses three of the most messed-up people you've ever been around. Matter of fact, you need to read the Bible. It is so relevant. The Bible reads you, it. You just don't read the Bible. It's like scanning you, like an MRI. And you begin to see things you never saw before. Three messed-up people He's going to use, okay, to build the 12 tribes of Israel. Okay? Now, so you need to grab this, and I've been working on this all week, because Wednesday I preached this. I felt I didn't feel like I was communicating clearly that these are the stars of the Bible. And this should make you feel better, because these three people really, if you want to look at them, there, one's a faker — you with me? — one supposer, and one is a wannabe.

Now, he, here's the thing today, and I want you to think about this message, because I know God gave it to me, and it's been a struggle to get here to preach it. Because I think this is something we can all relate to, because all of us, at some points in our life, and when we're not growing spiritually, we, we go in one of these three directions. And the first one is the faker. And that is the worker bee kind of guy, like Jacob. And you're a salesman, you know how to work the system, you know how to manipulate to get things that you want. You don't, you don't really lie, you just kind of shave the truth. And and you know how to produce and you know how to consume. And when you come to church, or when you go to a house church, you know, you're kind of, you understand, hey, this is probably the best way, but this is the way I have to make it. It's eat or be eaten. And some of you — and this is where I struggle, like, when I'm not right with God, when I'm not growing, I go into the faker mode. I can try to be the Holy Spirit. One of our staff said to me recently, they said, "You don't need to try to be God." I'm like, "What are you talking about?" I'm thinking, "You know, I do try to do that sometimes." And so, think about how many of you are like, you're, you're a faker. You're a person that kind of wants to work behind the scenes to make things happen and control things.

And then, and then the second one is a poser, and this is Rachel. And this is not all of us, because Rachel is beautiful. And and she's always styling, and she's always profiling, and she's always like, you know, wanting to have the right look. And and sometimes, you know, there's not a lot of people who can qualify for this. But she was one of those who, like Regina George, you know, she's got it all going on. And I'm sorry, I have to talk about Mean Girls, but it's the greatest movie of all time. If you — yes, thank you. I had one who — and and if you want to go, like, it was on yesterday, and he says, "I'm not watching that, so you can go to another room." I have to watch it because it shows you your life and the people in your life through every segment, all the way to the nursing home, there's mean old women. Okay? It's not just Mean Girls, it's mean, you know, octogenarians. And so, so here she is, and she is Rachel, and she is hot, and she is rich, and she poses and everything she does. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay.

Then there's the wannabe, and this is where a lot of us fall to, where we're like Leah. And Leah is not beautiful, she's not popular, and she wants to be somebody else. Have you ever been there in your life where you, you don't like who you are, and you see — you're an expert on other people's lives — and you see them on Instagram, and you see them on Facebook, and you see them on Snapchat, you see them, or whatever it is, or you see them somewhere, and you're going, "Why can't I be like that?" And Leah is a wannabe. And you're gonna find, she's like, to me, and the only person I could think of for her was Khloe Kardashian. And and how Chloe is kind of in the shadow of Kim. I'm sorry that in all these things, uh, I mean, like, I'm embarrassed, but like, I keep up with this. I don't mean to. It's like, it's like, it's a car wreck, and I have to watch it. Anybody's like that? Like, you, you have to watch it. You know, you're like that, and I was. But something sad, like, now I'm, I'm starting to feel for the Kardashians, they're getting a little bit older. And and now they're into Kylie, you know? And, uh, but, but here's the reality. When, when Chloe was married to Lamar — you got time for this? You got, you are — you okay? When she was married to Lamar Odom, and he, she, he's shooting a free throw. His left hand, he's shooting a free throw. He's not a good free-throw shooter. He's like seven feet tall. And so he's at the Boston Garden, and everybody in the Boston Garden, he gets up to the free-throw line, and you know what they start doing? I mean, you can't make this up. And like, it stuck with me forever. It made me feel differently about the Kardashians. But Chloe, you know what they started chanting in the Garden, anybody know? "Ugly sister." And I wondered how many people have ever felt like that, and cried out and said, "Why can't I be pretty? Why, why, why did God have to make me to look like this?"

And and so which one do you relate to today? Because I've got a message for all three of you. And if you'll personalize and own it, it will change your life. Where are you in the process of God working in you in these three shadow areas that are very relevant? See, the Bible is more relevant than you can ever imagine. And when you look at the background of how we got here, there's Abraham. I talked to him a couple of weeks ago, the father of the faith. He is not perfect. He and his wife Sarah — Sarah's 90 years old, and she has a baby. I've told Alicia there's still hope for us. And then they have Isaac, has twins Jacob and Esau. And Esau is loved by his dad. He's a dad's favorite. He likes to hunt with his dad. And Jacob loves his mom, loves to cook with his mom. And it creates all this strife and all this anguish and all this frustration. I know you wouldn't know anything about that in your family. And so Jacob runs off. Okay? And when he runs off, he runs off to another group of people that are connected with him. And he's in the beginning stages of growing and to be the person God has called him to be in Genesis chapter 29. If you have your Bible, or if you have the app, you can read. Because when you read this next week, I want you to slow down and say, "Where do I fit in the story when I'm not growing spiritually? Did I go toward the faker, do I go toward the pose, or do I go toward the wannabe?"

Genesis chapter 29, and when I read this you're going to go, "I never saw that before. I didn't know that was in there." Genesis chapter 29 verse nine: "While he was talking to them, Rachel" — he said he's, he's traveled, okay, and he's reached this well, and he, Rachel has come out, remember the poser — "and she's with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherd. When Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Laban, and Laban's sheep, he went over and rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, and he watered his uncle's sheep." And then this comes out of nowhere in verse 11, by the way: "Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to howl, to weep aloud." It literally means he was barking at the moon. Sounds like a guy, doesn't it? "He, he had told Rachel he was a relative of her father and the son of Rebecca. So she ran and told her father." That's good news to have, you know, after you kissed somebody. "And as soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he hurried out to meet him." Stay with me. "And he embraced him and kissed him and brought him into his home. And there Jacob told him all these things, and Laban said to him, 'You're my own flesh and blood.'"

And then, and then now Jacob says, "Hey, I want, I want to marry Rachel, the young daughter. I want to marry Kim, not Chloe." And so in verse 16: "Laban had two daughters in them. The elder was Leah, and the name of the young was Rachel. And Leah had weak eyes" — he's left out, Leo Left-Eye Lopez — "but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. And Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, 'I work for you seven years, I will work for you for seven years if you let me marry your daughter.'" And Label says, barefoot, he didn't say yes or no, he said, "It's better for me to get rid of you than somebody else. Stay here with me." "So Jacob served him seven years to get Rachel. But that seemed only like a few days to him because he was in love with Rachel. And then after seven years finished, Jacob said to Lavin, Laban, 'Give me my daughter. My time is completed. I want to have sex with her.'" I'm just going to tell you, if I got one daughter left, if you ever say that to me, if you ever walk up to me like, "Hey, I've been trying to really work out and look good, and I need your daughter so I can have sex with her," you're going to die in that moment. I'm — no, I'm going to shoot you. No, I'm not playing. Like, that's not the way to go at it. So you know this brother has got some problems.

So verse 22 — y'all know if I do this — "So so Laban brought together all the people that plays and gave a feast. But when the evening came, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob made love to her. And Laban gave his servant Zilpah to his daughter, and they attended. But when the morning came" — uh oh, this is like, this is like love, I mean, everything in here reads you — "in the next morning, when the morning came." Guess what? It wasn't Rachel. It was, we got Leah. It was dark. He had a little too much to drink at the reception. The brother went to bed with another woman. "He said, 'I served you for Rachel. Why don't you deceive me?'" Let me say, "Well, it's not our custom here to give the younger before the older, so you need to work for me seven more years, and then I'll let you marry here. Okay? And it'll be okay. You can let her finish out the honeymoon, and we'll get you over here." You think these brothers ain't messed up?

Listen, God only uses messed-up people, but you can't stay there. I mean, Jacob is a faker. He's looking for a cataclysmic relationship. And this is happening, man, this is so prevalent. Did you know the New York Times said it, so it has to be true, that during Covid, the the online cataclysmic look for hookups went up 70 percent? That men, and and women too, but especially fakers, they're so filled with anxiety and fear and shame, they're looking for a savior. And our culture says the way you get saved is, you have sex with somebody who's beautiful, they will complete you, they will heal you. And that's not true. Listen, Jacob is so wounded. And that's where some of you are, you are so wounded. When he sees Rachel, the first thing he does is says, "I've got to have her, I've got to own her. If I have Rachel on my arm and in my bed, then everything is going to be perfect." And then, and then, all of a sudden, you're like, "Hey, man, what is wrong with you?" What is wrong with him? Is he is looking for salvation in a person, in a cataclysmic experience. Listen to me. Only God can give you that. I can save you heartache, I can save you 10 marriages, I can save you these horrible feelings that are going to come when you chase a sunset, and you chase sex, and you chase a purchase, and you chase the next thing, and you're, you're eating a meal and thinking, "Where am I going to eat the next meal?" Because you're not going to find satisfaction in those things. You're only going to find satisfaction in a relationship with Jesus. These things will only betray you. They will rob you of the joy and gladness and hope that God wants you to have.

Well, well, that's the faker. How about the poser? Well, I don't know as much about this, so I watch Mean Girls, but I'm finding that if you're wealthy and beautiful, that can be a real problem. And and Rachel is the queen bee. She is the favorite. I mean, she just everywhere she goes, people open doors for, where she goes, so much to do something nice for. Listen, if you're not careful, if you're beautiful and you're wealthy, you're going to have a problem seeing the ugliness of your sin, because nobody's going to tell you the truth, and everybody's going to talk about you behind your back, and you're going to be set up to be broken. There's a real danger, and I, you know, I don't have to work with this, but there's a real danger in being beautiful and wealthy. And I'll just tell you, man, you need to be honest. You need somebody in your life that will tell you the truth. You need to serve people that you would never hang out with. Because I will tell you, of all the three, it didn't turn out well for Rachel.

But but then you've got Leah. Let's hurry on to Leah. Because we can all relate to Leah. We've all wanted to be somebody else. We've all wanted to be invited. We've all wanted to be included. We've all wanted to look like somebody else. I mean, that's what our culture does. That's why you're buying and doing and working, because you want to be something that you can't be, because if you can be that, it will be a cataclysmic thing. And and all Leah wants is to be loved by her husband. That's all she wants. Cataclysmic. "I, if I can just be loved by my husband." So you know what she does? This is so cool, man. She's going, "I will earn my love. Rachel is hot, she's bougie, but she's sitting over there, she ain't having kids. I'll have kids." So she — know what she names her kids? One of her kids she names, "Look at me." The second boy she names, "Hold me." The third boy she names, "Listen to me." She's saying, "I am working so hard to to to be somebody that you will look at, somebody that you will love." Let me tell you, you can't earn your identity. It is given to you from God. Only God can make you into the person that He wants you to be. And you don't have to be somebody else. Matter of fact, if you're somebody else, you're always going to lose. You are one of one. Let God work in you. Let Him making you who He's called you to be. Stop conning people and posing and wanting a different life, because God sees you.

The Bible says about Leah — and you don't get to see this, uh, in the in the passage because I didn't have time to read it all — but the Bible says that God saw that Leah wasn't loved. I love that. See, a lot of people, listen to me, you're like, "Well, I don't know where God is." God's watching you. He's loving you. He's trying to help you. He's trying to bless you. You say, "Well, why is this so hard? Why am I trapped in wanting to fake or pose, or or I want to be somebody else?" Is because when you experience — this is good. Now what I'm about to tell you is very deep, and if you master what I'm about to tell you, it will transform your life forever, and generations to come. Because when you have an amazing experience — and I will tell you now, if you're not married yet, wait until you're married, but sex is, it is amazing. I'm, I'm just saying. Okay, I know I'm a preacher, and you think I've never had sex, but I have. And but a sunset, you're like, when you see a sunset, you're like, "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness." A new baby that's born, like, "Oh my word." All those things, just a little taste of of what God has for you. But they're not, they're not something you can base your life on. It's like Baskin-Robbins, just a little taste. You know why they do that? You know why they want you to sit in that car? And I'm glad, I got car people, I love car people. I think it's a great idea. When you sit in that car, you go, "Oh, new car smell," until you get your kids in there.

And c.s Lewis says — let me tell you why that is, and listen to, look, because this guy's amazing. He says, "Hey, most people, if they really learn how to look at their own hearts, would know that they are looking for something this world will never give them. There are all sorts of things that promise it to you, but they never keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think that of some foreign country want to visit, or first take up some subject that excites us, they are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning will ever satisfy. I'm not speaking of what might be called an unsuccessful marriage or an unsuccessful trip. I'm speaking to the very best possible ones. There's always something we grasp at in the first moment of euphoria that will fade away in the reality, that a spouse may be a good spouse, the scenery has been excellent, but it turned out to be a good job, but but the thing that was going to be in the center of us, it always evades us." Because no matter what you go to bed with, you always wake up with Leah.

Wow, I hope somebody wrote that down. Yeah, I saw a young man, he's writing it down, yeah. See, I don't know what you're working on right now. They're like, "If I get this, if I get this." Like, I was watching Coach K last night, and I like Coach K, uh, Duke basketball. I was watching out, and if you watch that, but they were building it up. And there was an overtime game before that, and and you know, they were building up this last game, you know, at Duke with the with the Crazies, you know, and and and everything's going to be wonderful. And man, he went to bed with Rachel and woke up with Leah. North Carolina smoked them. That's the way it always is in your life. You haven't lived long enough to understand. If you get that relationship, you're going to bear with Rachel, but you're going to wake up with Leah. If you get that deal and it goes through, it, let's celebrate, you're going to bear the right, you're going to wake up with Leo. You know why? Because you weren't made for time, you were made for eternity. God is so good to you. He'll let you taste, He'll let you touch some of eternity, but He's bringing you back to Him. You trace the sunbeams all the way back to the sun. You realize you were made for more. God loves you. God's got a plan for you.

Like, "Well, give me three easy steps to get back on track." I don't have them. Leah, she got so tired of trying to win Jacob that she gave up. Said, "You know what? You ain't that big a deal anyway." And she has the fourth baby. You can't make this stuff up. The fourth baby — you know the fourth baby's name? Judah. Yeah. Do you know which tribe that Jesus came through? Tribe of Judah. That God chose the ugly sister to have the beautiful baby Jesus, so that everybody, including the beautiful Rachel, would have to trust in them to be their Savior, to be their all in all. Isaiah 53 says it this way: "He was unwanted. Jesus was unwanted." Isn't that crazy? Jesus was not attractive, He wasn't bougie, He wasn't included, He was always grieving, He wasn't popular. Why? So that you could be to God, not so that you could be to other people. Listen, the Gospel is never about you. Success here will not cover you, bro. The right girlfriend will not work for you, bro. Because no matter what you go to bed with, you're going to wake up with Leah. Because you need a new husband. I don't mean to get divorced. You need to put your heart in your husband, says the husband is the maker is my husband. The fact that only God can satisfy you. He did that for you. So if you're exhausted, rest in Him. Say, "Hey, I'm tired, I'm tired of trying to be in that group. I'm tired of wanting to be like that. I'm tired. You know, I'm just going to trust in God. I'm going to love God. I'm going to see that God is going to come through for me." Because Juda literally means, "I'm going to praise Yahweh, I'm going to praise the covenant God."

But then there's Jacob. What do you do if you're a player? What do you do if you're always working and manipulating? You kind of like that, because you got to get ahead, you got to get over here, you got to make sure you're at that, you got to make sure you do that. What do you do? You get broken. You say, "How do I get broken?" Just hang on, it's coming. The Bible says you need to understand, you need to be sure your sins will find you out. It's coming a time where it's like Genesis 32 for Jacob. He gets off by himself. There's nobody to come, there's nobody to trick, there's nobody to work. He's all by himself. And the angel of the Lord shows up, and he goes, "Uh, no, no, it's on you, come on." For some of you men, especially, you need to get alone with God, and you need to figure out who God is calling you to be, and you need to quit playing with your little idols and say, "Come on, come on." And they begin to wrestle. Get this, they begin to wrestle. He's wrestling the angel of the Lord, and his angel of the Lord is like Jesus in the Old Testament. And He's just kind of playing around, like I do with my grandkids, you know, I'm playing around, like, "Oh, you've got, oh, you've pinned me, oh, you go," and then I don't, over here. And then He touches his hip, because He goes, "His son, I got to go," says, "Tell me your name." He said, "I'm not telling you My name." It says, "Bless me." Goes, "Okay, I'll bless you, and I'll change your name. No longer are you going to be con artist, from now on you're going to be Israel." He takes a con man and names the whole nation after him because he's changed. Now, I don't know, this is not in the Bible, but everybody I've ever known that's a real player has a swag. I mean, you tell when you walk in a room who's got it. No, no, no, stay with me, because am I lying? You know, and if you got swag, you know you're swagging too. Then you'll, you'll kind of, you know, you're kind of it, like, something. You know what happened to Jacob? Swag? No more swag. Some of you, the best thing that ever happened to you is when life disabled you, because the decisions you made. And you got to remember, I'm never going back there. Never going back. There's better to limp with Jesus than to run without him.

Okay, I gotta quit. Oh, there's one, who's the other one, the poser, Rachel, beautiful in form and appearance. It only happens four times — only four women that were like so hot God said, "She's hot." You, you research it, you Google it, you go back and look at it. It says she was very beautiful, hot, hottie with a lottie. Uh, okay, all right, I'm, I gotta quit, I gotta stop that. But because of her beauty and because of her being so bougie, she never figured it out. You see, that's my fear for so many people. That's why we try not to really lean into beautiful rich people. Because we had a kid one time in our, on our, uh, in our youth group long time ago, I went in the youth ministry, I heard about it, and they were going out to mow yards. Because I don't even mow my own yard. I'm not mowing somebody else, you know. I thought, bro, it's coming to you, man. It's going to be bad when it catches. A lot of times, you know, the enemy will just let you run, like Romans 1, He'll just give you over. You just keep chasing, you keep chasing, you keep chasing, you keep chasing. She kept chasing all the way to the end. And she's having a baby, and she's dying, and you know what she says? She wants to name the baby the son of my sorrow, Ben-Oni, the son of my sorrow. And and Jacob steps in, because he's Israel now. He goes, "No, no, you've been playing everybody, you ain't playing this baby. His name is Benjamin, the son of my mighty right arm." I don't know what that says to husbands of beautiful women. Maybe there's a time you need to step in. Rachel never saw how ugly she was. So ugly Leah's great-great-great-and-own-great-grandson Jesus had to come die, not just for her, but for all of us.

Which one are you? You — so, "I just feel ugly, physically and psychologically, I'm just a mess. I just feel ugly." God sees you beautiful. Oh, because you're His. I've never seen anybody come out and go, "My baby's ugly." Ever. I've never had that. Now, I have been with people when they've had babies, and they say, "Ain't my baby beautiful?" And all I can say is, but not with God, because you belong to Him. Let me ask you something. You got about 40 days — I've gone over, but look — you've got 40 days before Easter. Would you use this time to wrestle with God? We built in some time in the service so you wouldn't bolt out. And because this is not a museum, okay, it's not just a comedy club, we've built in time so you can have an encounter with God where you can wrestle with God. We're going to add to it. There'll be a time where we'll have the Lord's Supper. There'll be time where we have people down here who will, uh, encourage you and pray with you. But right now we've got the crosses, but we're, you can stay where you are. But listen, if you're in the presence of God, man, you've got to decide. He's been in the presence, Jacob's been the presence before. He's never said anything about it, he's never done anything about it. It's time for some of you to wrestle. If you'll just wrestle, God will win, and you'll be changed.

Would you pray with me? God, I love You, and I love You because You first loved me. And that, God, I've not always seen that I was even lovable. I've tried to do all three of those things all of my life, and I keep coming back to the only being that I've ever been able to really trust, who had fulfilled me and satisfy me, Father, is You. And I thank You. I pray today people would come to understand You're the only Son that never sets, You. You're the only relationship that will ever satisfy us. So God, help us to pursue the Creator and not to create it. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.