God's In the Mess

Life is messy. And if you're a mom — or really, any human trying to hold it all together — you already know that on a deeply personal level. The laundry piles up. The calendar overflows. The kids need everything all at once, and somewhere in the middle of it all, you wonder if anyone even sees how hard you're trying.

In this episode, we open up the story of Hagar — a woman who didn't ask for the mess she was in, made some of it worse herself, and eventually ran away from all of it. Sound familiar? Her story is raw and honest, and the Bible doesn't clean it up. Sarah is desperate and controlling. Abraham is passive and checked out. Hagar is used, she mistreats, and then she's mistreated.

But here's what changes everything: God shows up. Not when everything is fixed. Not when anyone has it figured out. Right there, in the wilderness, alone and pregnant and running — God finds her.

That's the heart of this message. You don't find God in the mess. He finds you.

Whether you're in the chaos of raising kids, navigating a marriage that's drifted, facing financial pressure, processing a loss, or just quietly surviving when you were made to thrive — this episode is for you. God sees the tears you cry when no one else does. He sees the moments you feel like a failure. And He is not waiting for you to get it together before He shows up.

If life feels like too much right now, pull up a chair. You're not alone, and you're not the only one. He is the God who sees you.

Visit us at Generations Cowboy Church for more info about our church or find ways you can support what God is doing at GCC!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If you want to click or flip, we're going to go old school, Old Testament. Are you guys ready for this? I love the Old Testament because sometimes people are like, man, I'm missing some things that are happening there, and there's so much good in the Old Testament that we totally miss out on. So if you want to click, flip, we're going to get to Genesis 16 in just a moment. Today's message is entitled God's in the mess. Let me tell you, every mom in the room is very familiar with the word mess, aren't you? Every mom in the room said, Amen, right? You get called in when there's a mess. You walk in because kids need clothes and they can't find anything to wear, and my clothes are all dirty, and mom, it's I don't know what to do. Moms walk in and the dishes are piled high on the sink, even though people are fully capable of loading the dishwasher. There we go, moms. That was your shot. Come on, you can talk back in this one, man. Let's go. That you have these moments where shoes are scattered everywhere. Somebody's going to call you because I can't find my school project, or I got a game coming up this week and my uniform's not clean and I don't know where it's at, or you got littles who have blowouts in their diaper. Moms are familiar with messes. And sometimes like life often feels like a mess. And if you're a little bit like me, sometimes you kind of wonder, God, where are you at in the chaos of this mess? If I can be honest, planting a church the last three years of our life has felt a little bit like a mess. Like in a good way, but but man, life feels so abnormal for us over the last three years. Man, we we left a place that we had lived for seven years. We we left a home that we had built over six years. We left friends, we left jobs, we came to a place where we knew one couple, really, that was about it. And and life completely changed. And then over the course of this past three years that we've been here, like even just the other side of life has changed for us. Kids moved out of the house. The last kid moved out. And while it was fun right now, being an empty nester, every empty nester that now enjoys it, you would say, Amen. But let me tell you, that first week my daughter moved out and there were no more kids at home, I cried like a little baby. It felt weird. I'd had kids around for 21 years. Like this felt like such a mess now because what my life had been built around was changing around me. And then you kind of hit other moments where you just you experience health issues or financial struggles, or moments where you're just not feeling it. And somewhere along the way, it's like, man, God, where are you at in the middle of all this? And so to me, the beauty of this moment is for us to recognize that God is always there in the mess, that that every messy moment doesn't have to feel overwhelming, that God sees us and he seeks us in the mess. I think we don't understand the word mess very well because in today's society, you get pictures of everybody's highlight moments and you don't see the mess that's really going on around them. Nobody takes a picture of the laundry room piled full of dirty clothes. Nobody takes a picture of the kitchen a mess or the living room a mess, or you get the highlight moments where every kid is smiling, but you know, right before that you had to threaten three kids within an inch of their life just to get that smile. You had to bribe them with the right thing to get that picture. But sometimes it's nice to just think, man, we can be real, we can be honest, and just acknowledge life feels like a mess. And just because it feels like a mess doesn't mean God's not in it. In fact, a lot of times I've found the more messy life gets, the more I begin to realize God is right there with me. And sometimes the mess actually becomes a blessing because I begin to realize I can't do it without you being with me, God. And so we're gonna look in Genesis 16, a story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. If you know this story, you're gonna realize real fast where I'm going because you understand there's a mess happening here. If you don't know the story, then you're about to realize there are real people in the Bible with real problems, and God still showed up in the middle of their mess. Genesis 16, starting in verse 1. Now Sarai and Abram's wife had not been able to bear children for him. In this day and age, man, that was a shameful thing to not be able to have a child. But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar, and so Sarai said to Abram, The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her. And Abram agreed to Sarai's proposal. Hey, can we just acknowledge sometimes life is messy? And sometimes in the middle of the mess, here's what happens for some of us. Maybe not you, but it happens to me. I start having good ideas that I think are good ideas that are actually really bad ideas. Anyone else, like the messier things get, maybe the little more clouded your judgment gets. And I'm just looking for a way out of this mess. And so you start becoming to do some willing to do some things that sound like a good idea, but then they don't produce the results you were hoping for. That's what's happening in this story right now. God had promised Abraham and Sarah a child, a son would be born. That promise was made 10 years ago. That promise God doesn't seem to be delivering fast enough on. And so Sarah's like, I got you, God. Let me just help you out a little bit here. Like I can help you. Like, we'll just go this route. And Abram's like, man, 10 years, my wife's in a bad spot. Like, I just want to make her happy. And good ideas start sounding better than they really are. And sometimes we're tempted to be like Sarah and Abraham, and we're tempted to help God out. Anybody else like that? I am. And the more I try to help God out, I don't know if this happens to you, the more of a mess I make. Because here's the thing, just so we understand, God does not need your help. Let me say it one more time for those of you that are still struggling. God does not need your help. He doesn't ask for your help. He asks for two things for your faith and your obedience to his plan. That's it. That's all he needs you to do. He doesn't need you to help his will become real. He's perfectly capable of making his real, his will real in your life and mine without your help. Because every time we do, we start coming up with good ideas that aren't God's ideas, and we make a mess. And I don't know about you, but I'm done with Jason's good ideas. I want God's ideas. Because life is too messy. Just being honest. And Jason's ideas, no matter how great they sound, I make a mess even worse. And Sarah, Abraham, Hagar, they're all in this space, in this place where God has been inviting them to trust him, to obey him, to follow him. But no matter what they do, they begin to devise their own plan rather than trust his. And maybe as moms in the room, as parents in this room, as couples trying to figure out how to navigate our marriage, can we just be honest? There's moments where it's a little messy, and we just want to try to help God and deviate from trusting him and obeying him, and we want to come up with our own plan instead of trust his. If you haven't figured this out by now, there are going to be days where parenting is hard. Every parent in the room, if that is you, can I get aloud? There are going to be days where doing the thing that God asked you to do as a parent to raise your kids up and make their faith a priority and teach them what it's like to follow him is not easy. Don't come up with your idea in that moment. Trust God's plan and follow his.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Why? Because we told our parents the same thing when we were that age.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Stick to God's plan. Don't listen to your kids. Don't begin to change the plan because you want to be your kid's friend. You get time to be your kids' friends when they're adults. When you're raising your kids at home, like newsflash, it's not your job to be your kid's friend. It's your kid's job to raise your kid, to disciple them, teach them, and when necessary, discipline them. You can be friends when they're adults. Stick to God's plan. Trust his plan, even when life is messy. Genesis 16, 3 through 4. We're gonna keep going. So Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian servant, and gave her to Abraham as his wife. And this happened 10 years after Abraham had settled in the land of Canaan. And so Abram had sexual relations with Hagar and she became pregnant. Crazy what happens when you do that, isn't it? But when Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her, she began to treat her mistress Sarai with contempt. Hey, here's point number two. We make some of our messes. Like we want to blame God. Why am I in this situation? But we're blaming the wrong person. Because I tried my idea instead of God's idea, and now I don't like the mess that I'm in. And so somewhere along the way, we just have to acknowledge Jason makes many of his own messes. Because I try to do things my way instead of his way. That's the crux of this story in this moment. Three people made a mess for themselves. They made bad decisions all across the board. They created the messes that they were in. And maybe you're feeling a little bit like Hagar, like maybe the season you're in, you're feeling like, man, life is hard. I didn't ask for this. I got forced to do this, God, and I don't understand why these things are happening in my life. My marriage is struggling. My kids don't want to listen to me. They don't have anything to do with me anymore. Finances, bills are piling up, and I don't know how I'm gonna pay them. God, I didn't ask for this. This isn't what I wanted. How did I end up in this mess? Maybe you feel a little bit like Sarah, like, like, man, I've tried to help God out along the way. Like I thought I was doing something good. I'm trying to help you out, but it seems like the more I help you out, the deeper the hole gets and the bigger the mess gets. That I I try to just work more hours and work harder, and maybe I'll get out of this financial mess. I thought I would just try to get married, but I got married, and now suddenly my husband spends more time at work and in his hobbies than he does with me. This isn't what I thought it was going to be, God. I thought raising kids, they were just always gonna love me, and we were gonna sit around the dinner table together and have these perfect meals, and we were always gonna be happy, and it's not what's happening right now. And so many times we want to blame God or blame somebody else. But in this moment, there were three people that created this mess they were in. God didn't create the mess. Sarah, Abraham, Hagar all created the mess they were in. Sarah thought I'll help God out. Men in the room, hear me out. This has been our problem since Adam and Eve. It's not Father's Day. I'll be nice to you on Father's Day, but since it's not, men hear me. Your silence in these moments creates a complicity where you go along when Abraham should have stood up and said, No, that's not God's plan. We're not gonna do that. And you're like, eh, that's kind of hard. It was Adam's problem in the garden, too. Like, we don't want to blame Eve, but if you forget in the story, you want to know who was standing right next to Eve when Satan tempted her? Adam. He wasn't out on the golf course. Go back and read it. He was right there with her. He stood by, silent and complicit, while she went along with something that he knew better and should have opened his mouth and said something. Hagar, man, she got stuck in a bad spot, but she made it worse because she started treating her mistress with contempt instead of another way. She poked a bear. Anybody, I don't know about you. It's Mother's Day. I'm gonna give y'all a great piece of advice. Don't poke Mama Bear on Mother's Day. I'm just saying. Sometimes y'all poke Mama Bear and then you wonder why she growls at you. Quit poking her, man. These moments where we hit these spaces, we feel stuck, we feel trapped. Genesis 16, 5 through 6. Then Sarah said to Abraham, This is all your fault. That makes me giggle just a little bit. Whose idea was this? Oh, it was Sarah's. But Abraham, this is all your fault. I know you guys never have any marriage arguments like that. Don't look at your spouse. You can just look straight forward, okay? It's okay. I put my servant into your arms, but now she's pregnant, she treats me with contempt. The Lord show you who's wrong, you or me. If you ain't figured out now, this is not an argument, Abraham's gonna win. It's kind of like when she asks, these genes make me look fat. Just go to the other room, guys. Just go to the other room, ma'am. Abraham replied, Look, she's your servant, so deal with her as you see fit. And then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly she finally ran away. Hear me out. Getting away from your mess makes it worse. So many times we we want to run away from the mess we've made. We want to bury our head in the sand when we're in the middle of a mess. And all it does is make things worse. Sarah, she's got problems. She doesn't want to own her stake in the mess that she created here. This was her idea, and yet she wants to blame Abraham for what's happening here, even though it was her idea. Abraham is just sitting around silently, complicit, man. I don't want any responsibility for this. I just punt it right back. Do what you want. Hagar is the one stuck here at the end of it all. And what do we do in these moments? Because to be honest, we can feel like every one of them. Sarah likes to blame others instead of taking responsibility. If I can be honest, there are moments where I want to blame somebody else for my mess instead of just owning, man, I made that bad decision. That's on me. I can be a little bit like Sarah in those moments. It's so nice to find somebody else to blame. But the reality is it doesn't help fix the problem. It's me trying to run away from it. And there are moments where I just gotta own my mess and take my responsibility. There are moments where maybe we feel like Abraham, man, we're we feel trapped and we just want to pass the responsibility onto somebody else rather than assume some responsibility. Or maybe we feel like Hagar in this moment and Sarah a little bit, and we just want to play the victim card. And so we sit here in this space. It's like, what do we do in this space? Can I tell you why I love scripture? Because it doesn't sanitize this story. And that's a good thing. It just shows us three humans who are hurting, suffering, struggling, trying to figure out how to navigate life. All three humans get it wrong. And God doesn't try to sanitize this story and make it better. You know what that tells me? You don't have to sanitize your story to come be a part of this community of faith. God isn't afraid of your mess. God doesn't need the sanitized version of your life. He needs the real version where you just own the messes you've created and you allow him to invade the mess that you're in. So many times I hear people like, I just got to get a few things in order and then I'll come to church. I just got to get a few things in order and then I'll start following Jesus. And he's like, are you done trying to take your good ideas and keep making messes? Or are you ready to let me into the mess with you and help me help you? That's why I love this story on this moment in Mother's Day, because what do we do when Sarah is desperate and controlling, when Abraham is passive and complicit, and Hagar feels used and she mistreats somebody and then she ends up mistreated herself. What do we do? Where do we go? What's the point of this story? It doesn't feel like a very encouraging Mother's Day story, Pastor Jason. So where do we go? We go to the next verse. Genesis 16, verse 7. Then the angel of the Lord found Hagar. I'm gonna go on from there, but like I can't rush past this part. Who found who? The angel of the Lord found Hagar. She wasn't looking for God. Abraham wasn't looking for God. Sarah wasn't looking for God. They were stuck in a mess. And who came looking for who? God came looking for them. It reminds me of the same story. If you're like, man, I just I don't know if that's God's character. Let's go back to Genesis then. Let's go back to Adam and Eve in the garden when they sinned. They're hiding from God because they feel ashamed because of the mess they've created, because they chose their good idea and punted on God's good idea. And in the middle of their shame, while they're hiding from God, they know they've sinned, they know they've messed up. Who came looking for who? God came looking for them while they were hiding. That's God's heart to come find us. The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness along the road to Shur. And the angel said to her, Hagar, Sarai's servant, where have you come from and where are you going? Listen, you got to understand when the Lord asks a question, it's a rhetorical question that he already knows the answer to. I love that she's just honest enough to admit it. I'm running away from my mistress, Sarai. This is what's going on. Nothing to hide. I'm done playing games. I'm just running away. And the angel of the Lord said to her, Return to your mistress and submit to her authority. Go back to the mess you made. And then he added, I'll give you more descendants than you can count. And the angel also said, You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You were to name him Ishmael, which means God hears. For the Lord has heard your cry of distress. This son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey. He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives. True to this day. But that's a sermon for another day and another time. God meets us in our mess. You want to know what the beauty is this Mother's Day? God doesn't tell you to get your life together, get your house in order, and then I'll show up. God doesn't even wait for you to come running to Him. The grace of God. God is not that He is waiting for you to get your life in order so He can do something with you. The grace of God says, I will step into the mess and chaos with you, and I'll help you find a way out of this mess. That in this moment, God didn't make the mess go away, God shifted their perspective and gave them a different perspective in the middle of their mess. A moment where they can begin to realize that he is with me in this mess. And what I love is that God shows up in a story with no heroes, only broken people making it worse. If you didn't catch that, God showed up into the middle of a story where there is no hero. Because he's the hero. This is the gospel of the New Testament at work here in the Old Testament. Because you and I can't do anything to save ourselves. There's no amount of cleaning up your life that you can do to get it right. And yet, in the middle of the mess of your sin and every bad decision you make, God shows up in the middle of your mess and says, I see you and I'm here for you. Because you will never be the hero of your own story, just so we're clear. Jesus will be. He is the hero who steps into the mess with you. He is the God who says, I see you in the middle of what's happening. I see you in the struggle that you're in. I see every tear that you've cried. I see every moment that you have failed and chose to designate yourself a failure. I see every moment you feel inadequate. I see every moment that you feel incapable. I see every moment where you're just sitting there trying to make it in survival mode. And God says, Let me step into the mess with you because I see you and I'm here for you. You don't have to be good enough. You don't have to be strong enough. He is all those things for us. He simply invites us to surrender to his plan and follow him. He told Hagar, go back to your mistress. Just trust me. No, it doesn't make sense to just follow my plan. It is the same today. You may want out of the situation you're in. You may wish God could wave a magic wand and fix all your problems. But maybe the reality is God has brought you into this space to say, man, if you would just surrender to me today. If you would just trust me enough in this mess to just say, God, I've made a mess. And I'm gonna give it to you. God, I I I I messed up and I'm giving it to you. That would be the thing I would challenge you to consider today in this space, in this place. Every mom, every dad, every person, wherever you're at, whether life is going good or whether life is going bad, whether your heart is full of joy and peace, or whether you're sitting right now on Mother's Day heartbroken because there's something missing in your life. You can keep pretending to have it all together if you want to. The show to pretend is for only you because nobody else cares about your pretend world. And God never designed us to carry these burdens alone, to cry alone, to fight alone. He said, Bring them to me and let me help you clean up your mess. That's the invitation from God today. That's the invite that he's bringing to us, that he's giving to us, and in this space and in this place today that he wants us to do. And so here's the reality. To fix a mess, we have to face the mess with God. I mean, that's just the simplicity of today's message is that to fix a mess, we have to face a mess with God. That's his invitation to us. It's the same God, I'm just gonna trust you in this moment with a mess that I've made. Sometimes being a mom is hard. Being a parent is a challenge. Discipling our kids is tough. And so so many times we're tempted to just go into survival mode. We're just tempted to try to make it through life. I need you to hear me. God did not send his son to die on the cross for you so you could simply survive this life. Jesus did not offer his life as a sacrifice so you could just, I'm okay. Because he loves you. He gave his life as a sacrifice so that you and I could find victory in this life, so that we could overcome the things that we face rather than be overcome by the things that we face. So that we could find peace in this life instead of anxiety in this life. Instead of having an empty well that we always pour out, he actually dies so that we could have a well that is full of his joy and his peace and his presence, overflowing from our life. Man, are we willing to accept his offer today? Man, that's the challenge. That's the call in this moment. Moments are tough for us. Here's why you know in this room today, it's hard for some of us. Kids are growing up to being adults. Maybe you got a senior that's about to graduate high school. And they are like, I can't wait to get out. And for us as parents, like I remember that day. Like I was excited for my kids, and yet, like my heart broke a little bit too because one season of my life was changing with my child in that moment. And yes, there was a new season, but but it was moving from a kid that I'm responsible to care for now to an adult that I'm gonna have to trust to make their own decisions. They're about to graduate and walk out that door and go experience all that life throws at them. And then we gotta hope that somehow in the 18 years that we had them, we got it right enough. So that when they get out there, they make it. Moments where we're running from ball games to choirs to friends' house, laundry's piling up, the knees done, kids need to eat, emotions are running high, tempers flare, and our relationship with Jesus and our faith in him just kind of feels like a side dish in our life rather than the main course, if we can just be honest. And maybe instead of looking around and looking to God and saying, Man, how did I end up in this mess? Maybe it's time to start saying, God, I'm in a mess. I'm gonna need your help to figure out how to navigate through this space. Maybe it's time to just actually live our life the way he asked us to instead of the way the world tells us to. I don't know. Maybe this crazy thing that God calls a Sabbath that he said we should take one day a week off, we should actually consider some rest because if God said it was good, I don't know. Call me crazy. Like maybe we should do it. Maybe we should actually create some space in our calendars so we can date our spouse instead of past each other all week long. And it would do wonders for the marriage that we're trying to find a way to not just keep together but actually build life into and see it thrive and survive. Man, we can discipline our kids to become the star athletes on a field. But man, are we disciplining our kids in the faith so that one day when they're adults, they have a faith with Jesus that outlives their time at home? We invest so much time and money into those things. I'm not saying they're bad things, but I'm saying if they get more time and energy in your family's life than your family's faith, something's wrong. And the challenge in this moment is, man, will I just trust him enough to surrender this space to him? Trust him enough. Maybe for some of you, man, the heartache is real today. Mom's not here anymore, and you wish she could be. Maybe you have a child that's not here with you today and your heart's just breaking and life feels like a mess. You don't like this season and you don't understand why. Maybe motherhood never came for you. You wanted it, but it didn't. Maybe relationships that you hope for with your kids or your family aren't working out the way that you thought it would. Maybe life just feels hard. Can I tell you, God sees you and he is seeking you out today. And the greatest thing that you can do is just surrender to him and invite him into the mess with you. You can keep carrying it on your own. Here's what will happen. Hear me out. One way or another, it's gonna crush you. And you can either acknowledge I need help now and come to Jesus, or you can wait till it crushes you and then you can come to Jesus. Either way, he's gonna be sitting there waiting in the mess you're in. And so, all across this place, if we can stand, here's what I want to do. I think there's two things. We want out of the mess. I think part of the mess happens. We get out of it when we surrender our life to Jesus. We quit playing games with him, we quit checking boxes for church, we keep pretending to have a relationship with him. And maybe you're here today and you're like, I've just never really surrendered my life to Jesus. Then today the mess begins to change as we invite Jesus into the mess with us. And we just invite him into our life to be the one who saves us and sets us free from these struggles that we're in. So if you're here in this place, maybe you have never made a decision to surrender your life to Jesus. But today you're ready to surrender your life to him. You say, Man, I'm done playing games, I'm done making a mess on my own, and I'm ready to give Jesus a shot and follow him. If that's you, would you just slip your hand up so that I can pray with you real quick? I see your hand. Who else? Anybody else? Amen. That's me today. Can we pray together? Could we do that? Let's do it together. Pray with me out loud. Dear Jesus, I need you to come into my life, to save me from my sins and make me brand new. Jesus, I put you in control. I love you and help me to love you more. In Jesus' name, amen. And it's really that easy. And the beauty of it is now, how do we, what do we do from here? We get up and we keep following Jesus. Get plugged into a group, get plugged into a community here as opportunities come. Get into scripture. Surround yourself with some people that can help you. We're gonna go into a moment, we're gonna sing together in worship. I'm gonna have some friends of mine come down front, and here's the challenge that I want to give you today, if we could. If you need prayer for anything at all, I need you to hear me for just a moment. I know there's lunch plans that you got and other things you need to do. Maybe you're worried about what somebody might say if you come down here. Hear me. You can stay stuck in the mess that you're in by yourself. Or today you could just try something different and bring that mess to Jesus and say, Man, I just need help. I'm heartbroken today, I'm struggling. I keep trying, but the mess keeps getting bigger, and I can't get out of it. My family's struggling, my marriage is struggling, my finances are struggling, I'm struggling mentally. Take your pick. If that's you, here's what I'm gonna encourage you to do. Come down front. Find one of my friends here and let them pray with you. Maybe you just want to make a space here, just at the steps between you and God. Great, then make a space between you and God. But as they sing this song, I mean I'm gonna encourage you. If that's you today, I think you already know. I think the Holy Spirit's already kind of working in there a little bit. I'm gonna encourage you, take a step out, be bold as we sing this song. Come down front, let somebody pray with you, or make a spot here to just get along with God. And let's give him a moment of space before we move on. If you need prayer, come down and pray.