The Family Playbook: When the Roster Changes

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Thanks for joining us for this week's Real Life Church Podcast. We'd love to know if God is using this ministry to bless you in some way. And if you'd like to share your story or get connected at Real Life Church, you can visit us online at livereallife.com.

Jason (0:19)

We're continuing our series today called The Family Playbook. And I'm just going to be right up front with you today. Today, for me, this message is something that has really hit home. I've been preaching the gospel for 30-plus years and have never done a message like this today. And so if I get a little emotional beyond normal, please just bear with me. This is some of my story as well interwoven into this message. And today, as we continue the Family Playbook series, I want to talk to you about when the roster changes. How many of you have ever been to the store and you bought a picture frame and they're inserted into that was a picture of a family? You buy the picture frame, they put the fake pictures in there. And how many of you have ever seen those? You've seen a picture with a picture. How many of you left it in there? Come on now. How many know there's no such thing as a perfect family? And as I think about that, I think about that picture and that family that's already in there.

Nobody's family actually looks like that. Everybody is smiling. And how many know your Instagram and your social media is nothing but a highlight reel?

You don't show the ups and the downs. You don't show the downs specifically. You show more of the ups. And you know, every sports team has opportunities when the roster changes. You know, as you think about sports in general, there might be a time where there's trades that's happening. There might be times where there's injuries that take place, which the Bucs are experiencing. Or there might be times when you got to bench your quarterback. We'll name any names about who did that yesterday. Michigan's like, praise God, finally. Yes, let's do it.

But there's times where the roster changes, injuries and retirements. And you know, people go into the portal now, and you can, which I won't be surprised if he goes. Anyway, they're in the portal, and you go to a different team. But in families, our rosters change as well. And I would ask, as we go through the day in this message, that there'll be minimal up and down going out the door, especially during the ending, when I'm giving the time for people to respond to the gospel. Whether you realize this or not, it's the most important time in our services. And sometimes there can be a lot of move-ins. So I'm just asking that we just be sensitive to the Lord today.

And lean in into what God's saying through His word. And our families change. Divorce can happen.

Death can happen. Remarriage can take place. A prodigal could be away from the family. A child, maybe that you're still praying for. And when you think about your family, and you think about the things that are going on in your family, that you may come to the point where you look around and say to yourself, this is not the family that I pictured. This is not the family that I intended to have. And you look at it, and whether it's been through. And again, if you have, I just want to say this, that if you've experienced, you have a happy marriage, awesome. You have, you know, you've grown up with parents that are together and have remained together. Amazing. I celebrate that. But I also want you to understand, you know people that that's not the case. That they have experienced a roster change in their life. And honestly, you should thank God for generational blessing and those types of things. But I also know that God writes our story. And each story is different. And I want you to know today that no matter where you find yourself, no matter where you've experienced a roster change, whether it's through divorce, through death, remarriage, however it is, that God's still writing your story. You know, some of you in the room are single parents. And as a single parent, you're doing the workload of two people. Some of you in the room are blended families, and you're trying to figure out how all these pieces work together. Some of you grew up in divorce, and you still feel it maybe every holiday. You experience these types of things. Some of you have lost a spouse, and the house is quiet, and it's just you. Some of you are still maybe waiting on a family member that you've been praying for. And I want you to know today that when I talk from this angle, that this message has been something as I was sharing, this really is a lot of my story. I did not grow up in church. I had no concept of church growing up. My family did not attend church. And there was no Jesus talk in my home. And as a young man growing up in that environment, I grew up in an environment of addiction. I grew up in an environment of brokenness. I grew up in a big environment of dysfunction. And we just didn't have the Lord in our lives, and we didn't submit to His plan. And I'm gonna share with you today from a story in the Book of Ruth about a woman whose roster changed, and it changed fast. It changed fast. Within five verses, a woman by the name of Naomi loses everything. And we're gonna look at these different verses. And God, listen, God turned the family that Naomi thought she was going to have into a family that would eventually bring the Savior into the world. And today, as we look at the life of Naomi, that in five verses, I'll summarize that there was a famine, she moved to Moab, her husband dies, her sons marry, then both her sons die. So she has a family crisis in the moment, everyone in her family has disappeared. Ruth 1 to 5 says this, the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. Her whole roster in five verses was completely depleted, that there was nothing left, that she was there by herself. And she goes out and she goes to this place and as she comes back, it says in Ruth 1, 20, 21 says, do not call me Naomi, call me Mara. In other words, what she'd experienced changed her name. That honestly, here's what we have to understand today. Nobody around her changed her name, her circumstance changed her name. In other words, she went through something where she lost everything and she became Mara, which means bitter, and Naomi means pleasant. So she went from pleasant to bitter, she went from blessed to bitter because of the circumstance that she found herself in. It says that, don't call me Naomi, call me Mara, or call me, it says, for the Lord Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me, I went away fueling the Lord has brought me back empty. She says, I'm changing my name. She renamed herself after her pain. She renamed herself after the circumstance and after everybody had left or after everybody had died, that now she's here alone and she renames herself and she goes out to this place called Moab, and she goes there as a bitter person. How many know, you don't realize this about your life, but a lot of times when we go through painful moments, we rename ourselves. God hasn't renamed you, you've renamed yourself. You call yourself bitter, you call yourself anxious, you call yourself this, you call yourself that, and you've renamed yourself, but God has never renamed you. And I love what Ruth is gonna pull out about this girl named Naomi. You know, it says that she came back empty.