In-Laws or Outlaws? - Part A

Jay Adams, in his book, Solving Marriage Problems, writes, Perhaps the most difficult of all relationships to deal with is the in-law relationship. It's true that you marry the family. Unlike other situations, you simply can't avoid your in-laws. When you marry, you don't just gain a spouse.

You get a new family, for better or worse. And today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Pastor Skip tackles the difficult topic of relationships with the in-laws. Now, here's an offer that'll help you connect with God's design for fathers and understand why they are such a vital part of a strong family. Men in America need to step up and take responsibility for raising the children they father. Boys growing up without male influence get involved more easily in drugs, crime, and socially destructive behavior, and they are likely to repeat the cycle of abandoning their children. Dads make a difference. That's the title of a critical issues package that is a must for men of any age or stage of life. As a father and a pastor, I'm deeply concerned for the families in our nation. It's clear that so many destructive trends are related to the lack of a dad's influence in the lives of their children. We need to educate men on what biblical manhood truly means. The Dads Make a Difference package includes seven of Skip Heitzig's most important messages to men, along with the full hour video documentary, Where's Dad?

hosted by Skip. I think it's safe to say that the family is under attack today. I know that's a phrase that you have heard me say. In fact, I'll tell you the truth. I've said that sentence for 40 years, and every year it's been true. And today it's truer than ever before.

It is worse than ever before. Get this package in either digital download or on CD and DVD when you support Connect with Skip with your gift of $50 or more. You'll be joining us as we take Skip's Bible teaching into more major cities.

Request the Dads Make a Difference package online at connectwithskip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888. Okay, we're getting started today in Genesis 28. Here's Skip with the lesson.

Somebody once noted that Adam and Eve were probably the happiest of all couples who ever lived because they never had in-laws. You may have heard the one about the middle-aged man who went to his doctor for a physical checkup. And at the physical, the doctor said, You've got six months left to live.

No joke. You need to get your house in order. You need to make funeral arrangements. You need to make your will or trust. You need to get all that intact. You have six months to live.

I suggest you do that early on and then you spend the rest of the time enjoying your life. What's left of it? Well, after this sunk in to the patient, the doctor finally asked the man, So what do you plan to do with the last six months of your life? The man said, I think I'm going to go live with my mother-in-law. The doctor said, Really? Your mother-in-law?

Of all people to live with, why would you live with her? And the patient said, Because it's going to be the longest six months of my life. Or you may have heard the one about the young husband who hated his mother-in-law. And he was walking on the beach one day and found a genie in a bottle and the genie promised that he could have anything he wanted. But whatever he would wish for, knowing that he didn't like his mother-in-law, that the genie would give his mother-in-law twice that which he asked for. So the man said, OK, I want a billion dollars. Genie said, OK, but your mother-in-law is going to get two billion dollars. OK, I'd like an island off the coast of Greece. OK, said the genie, but your mother-in-law is going to get two islands off the coast of Greece. So the man saw where this is going and he thought long and hard about it and he said to the genie, I'd like you to beat me half to death.

OK, I'm going to move on from those jokes really quickly. I want to deal with the serious issue of in-laws that can be either a blessing or a curse in a relationship. You're either an in-law or you become an outlaw.

On that serious note, here are some actual sentiments from people who have come in over the years for counseling. My sister-in-law drives me crazy. She's telling me how to raise my children and she's single. Another one, when my father-in-law comes to dinner, all he can talk about is his work or what he reads in the newspaper. He never asks any details about our lives.

He seems totally disconnected from us. Another gal writes, my husband's mother wants to tell me how to cook. I've cooked my own meals for five years before we were married.

I think I know how to cook. I don't need her help. This is from parents now. Our son-in-law has essentially kidnapped our daughter. Since they got married, he refuses to let her come to our family events. I was reading a little article this week in the L.A. Times about a comedienne on the West Coast, a gal, pretty famous, who was being sued by her mother-in-law because of all of the mother-in-law jokes this comedienne was telling during her repertoire. I mean like every time she was on stage. Her mother-in-law lives in New York. She lives on the West Coast. And this went to court.

Finally, a federal judge dismissed it out of court saying there are free speech laws. This gal can say anything she wants. But you can understand the kind of tension that would be in that family. Not only do I have in-laws, and I have very good ones, by the way. I had to say that. No, I'm just kidding. I really did.

I really do. I have good in-laws, a great father-in-law, a wonderful mother-in-law. Not only do I have in-laws, I am in-laws.

And so I'm very sensitive to how this works. I will say, though I have great in-laws, the first time I met my mother-in-law-to-be was two days before my wedding years ago in California. Never met her before. She was from Michigan. She came out for the wedding.

And I'll never forget it, and here's why. She walked up to me, introduced herself. I'm Lendia's mother. Here's the second sentence out of her mouth. If you ever mistreat my daughter, I will break both of your legs.

She said it real calmly, but she wanted to get that point across, and the message was received. Jay Adams, in his book, Solving Marriage Problems, writes, perhaps the most difficult of all relationships to deal with is the in-law relationship. It's true that you marry the family. Unlike other situations, you simply can't avoid your in-laws. The problem is in-laws can become outlaws. And you know the difference is between an outlaw and an in-law, right?

Outlaws are wanted. I'm letting that sink in a little bit. All the way back, Genesis chapter 28, we have an example in the Old Testament and pretty early on in the text of Scripture as to how the dynamic between a couple and in-laws can go south pretty quickly. Whereas last week, we looked at one single verse of Scripture, today we look at several chapters and we're just going to take snippets from it. It's the story of Jacob and his wife Rachel. I say wife, that's what he thought he was getting.

He actually got wives, plural, from it, if you know the story. We're going to look at four roles, and they're mentioned in your worship folder this morning. The role of the parents, the role of God, the role of the in-laws, and the role of the children or the couple in question. And so we begin in chapter 28 with the first role.

This is the role of parents, to release their children's security. Look at verse 1. Then Isaac, 28, 1, then Isaac called Jacob, that's his son, and blessed him and charged him and said to him, you shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take yourself a wife from there of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.

May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may be an assembly of peoples, and give you the blessing of Abraham to you and your descendants with you, that you may inherit the land in which you are a stranger, which God gave to Abraham. So he sent Jacob away, and he went to Padan Aram, to Laban, the son of Bethuel, the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob, and Esau. The role of parents is this, to release their children. And Isaac does for Jacob what every father ought to do, and that is to release that child from the security of the home.

You brought them up, but there comes a time where you release them. One of the greatest gifts parents can give their kids is the gift of freedom. This takes us back to one of the verses we began the series with, Genesis chapter 2, verse 24. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave or be joined into his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. I don't know if you've ever examined that carefully, but don't you find it interesting that when God said you will leave and cleave, he said that to a couple, Adam and Eve, who never had parents, nor did they as yet have children. Imagine how that would sound. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother.

What is that? What is a father or mother? And be joined into his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Why did God say that to Adam and Eve, having neither parents nor children as of yet?

For this reason. God knew that one day they would have children. That was part of the plan. And that they themselves would model what a marriage is to their kids, and should encourage those children to go out and establish families of their own. So, the role of parents to release their children's security.

I've raised you, I love you, but now it's time for you to get out on your own. Now, having said that, I want to give some quick advice to both parents and to young couples. First of all, to parents. Every time you look at that child or children of yours, and no matter what age they're at, you need to at least from time to time have this thought.

I am preparing them and me for the launch, for the release. You know, having kids is sort of like fishing, catch and release, catch and release. Because they're yours only temporarily.

You have to release them. Psalm 127, remember what it says? Children are a heritage from the Lord. The New Living Translation says they're a gift. Children are a gift.

And I'll add a temporary gift. Children have been lent to us by God. They're not yours, really. You're simply a steward of them, but they're not your personal property. They belong to God.

So you are going to release them. Leaving and cleaving. Now, leaving doesn't mean deserting. Nor does leaving imply that the children or children in law need to be disrespectful. It doesn't mean that, of course.

The idea means there must be at some point a shift of allegiance, an allegiance shift. That to that young man getting married, his mother is no longer the dominant female in his life, his wife is. And for that young girl getting married, her father is no longer the dominant male in her life, but her husband is. No couple will ever reach full potential in marriage without this. So that's some advice to parents. Now, advice to young couples. When it says you will leave your father or mother, leaving doesn't just mean move out of the house.

Because you know what? You can move out of the house three thousand miles away and still you haven't left your father or mother. I would even say your parents can be dead and you still haven't left father and mother in some cases. Some people just hold on to some things forever. There was a true story, a 65-year-old man who had been married 40 years, heard his pastor give a message on in-laws years ago, afterwards approached the pastor and said, Now I get it, why I've had problems, why we've had problems in our marriage. All of these years, my wife has never ever left her father or her mother.

Leaving simply means you are making your mate the most significant other person in your life. Now let me add to that advice a little bit. Make sure, young couple, that you are forging that leaving, cleaving, one-flesh principle in front of your parents.

How? Commend your mate in front of your mother and father. Extol his or her virtues.

Talk about their good points. Never complain about your spouse in front of your parents. Never use negative language because that will make it difficult for your parents to ever love and respect your mate as they should. So you need to forge the leaving and the cleaving by what you say in front of them. Also, try to include your spouse in family conversations, your family conversations, your family activities. A spouse should never be left out when a family gathers together. In fact, you ought to make that clear to your parents and say, if you want one of us, you have to have both of us.

It's a package deal. That's the one flesh part of it. So the role of parents to release their children's security.

But now watch this. Go on in the text. We have the role of God mentioned in the same chapter. I take you down to verse 10, and God's role in the process is to direct his children's steps.

Verse 10. Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night because the sun had set. He took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head. He laid down in that place to sleep.

This is before posturepedic pillows. Then he dreamed and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth and its top reached to heaven. And there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, your fathers, the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give to you and your descendants. Also, your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth. You will spread abroad to the west and the east, the north and the south and in you and in your seed.

All the families of the earth shall be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you. Well, these are perfect words for a guy who just left home to hear. He's out there wondering, what is my future going to be? My father told me to leave. I have left.

What's going to happen now? Now he hears God give him this great promise. By the way, parents, when you release your children, this is what you are releasing them to. The providential care of Almighty God. You are saying to them, I have raised you, I have provided for you, but I am now turning you over to the care of your heavenly father that I told you about your whole life. May he bless you. May he multiply you. You're not just saying, good luck. You're releasing them into God's care.

So God speaks to him and basically introduces his role to them. I'm going to be the one directing you. I'm going to be the one guiding you. This brings up the issue of priorities. Every couple who gets married needs to establish a grid of priorities.

If you get this wrong, you get everything else wrong. And priorities begin, the first priority is that you become the right kind of spouse. Now listen to this. Most people are looking for the right spouse. You need to start thinking about being the right spouse. And that begins by you having a solid relationship with God. It's that priority. God is my first priority. And everything else comes after that. I'm surrendered to his will.

I want what he wants. Now you'll notice, I kind of emphasize it as we read in verse 13 and 14, that God affirms his will for Jacob to get married and have kids. He uses the word descendants twice in those two verses.

Well, you can't have descendants unless you get married and have kids. So God is simply giving to Jacob a priority grid. Here it is, Jacob. Me first, God first, your family second.

Those are the priorities. That is God's role to direct your steps. It might sound a little simplistic, but typically when I do a wedding and the bride is standing right here to my right, it'd be your left. Groom is standing right here to my left. I paint a simple picture.

The simpler the better. You remember it that way. I say, picture your life as a triangle. You're in the bottom corner, ma'am. Sir, you're in the bottom corner over here.

God is in the corner up on top. If you want to grow closer to each other, you discover that as you seek the Lord, seek the Lord, grow closer to the Lord, grow closer to the Lord, something happens. You are growing closer to each other.

You are establishing a spiritual bond with each other that will not be quickly broken. That's the priority grid. We have a good example of this, not only here. We have a good example of this in the book of Ephesians, which we have been looking at in this series. Now, don't turn there.

Just listen. Paul lays out the entire book of Ephesians with this grid that I'm talking about. Chapters one through three, Paul addresses your relationship with God.

You are seated with Christ Jesus in heavenly places. He's given you this, this, this, and that. Three chapters of that, your priority with God. Chapters four, five, and six, the second half of the book, Paul is writing about your relationship with people. So he speaks about your relationship vertically, God, horizontally, humans. The fourth chapter is general, how to get along with people anywhere.

Be humble, be loving. If you're a Christian, you see yourself as part of the body of Christ. But then he gets very specific in chapter five, as we have seen. Chapter five, he speaks about the husband-wife relationship first. Then in chapter six, the parent-child relationship, followed by the employer-employee relationship in the workplace. Now, that is a deliberate pattern by Paul, because he does that in Ephesians.

He repeats that same pattern in the book of Colossians, and again in the book of 1 Timothy. So that is a deliberate, God-given pattern of priority living. Number one, God. Number two, your husband or wife. Number three, your children.

Number four, everything else. Your vocation, your job, your hobbies, et cetera. That's God's pattern. If you don't keep this pattern, your whole life will get out of whack. If you don't keep this pattern, things like your job will start taking precedence over your family.

If you don't keep this pattern, your in-laws might creep in, and you give them a higher level than you have with your spouse. Or, as is often the case, your children take a higher priority than your spouse. You know, I've counseled some women whose life is so consumed in having and raising children that when their kids leave the house, they lose purpose and meaning in life altogether. What happened at some point in their journey is they began to identify themselves as a mother, but not as a spouse, a wife, and a mother. In fact, it's like they got married in order to become a mother and then forgot that other first relationship. So when the kids leave, they have nothing left.

That has to be avoided. The priority grid, God first, spouse second, children third, vocation, avocation, everything else last. So, I'd sum it up this way, be passionately in love with God. That's the best gift you can give to your spouse. Be passionately in love with your spouse, that's the best gift you can give to your children. And as you are passionately in love with your God and your spouse, that's the best message you can send to your in-laws.

Okay, now the story takes a little bit of a turn here. Jacob has left his parents. He's had God's assurance and now he's about to meet his future wife and father-in-law Laban. Chapter 29, go to verse 10. And it came to pass when Jacob saw Rachel, it's like love at first sight, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brothers, that Jacob went near and rolled a stone from the well's mouth.

Can you just picture this? He's going to show himself chivalrous, a caretaker. And watered the flock of Laban's mother's brother.

So far, so good. It's love at first sight, he's showing himself strong, but the next verse I've always found a little weird. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted up his voice and wept. Okay, am I the only one that thinks that's a little bit odd? Your first kiss? Oh!

She's thinking, is it the garlic I ate? What? I can't explain it, it's just something that I always found humorous. Brings us to the third role, the role of in-laws. And before we jump in, here's basically God's design for in-laws. In-laws are to be supportive. They are to support their children's mate.

I would even say they should support their children's choices, which include their children's mate. That's the role. The role is never to be divisive, never to be manipulative, always to be supportive.

That's Skip Hyten. With a message from the series, Keep Calm and Marry On, find the full message, as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at ConnectWithSkip.com. Now, here's Skip to share how you can keep these messages coming your way to connect you and many others around the world with God's Word. I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being a faithful listener to Connect with Skip. It's thanks to the grace of God and generous folks like yourself that we're able to expand the reach of this radio program far and beyond what we would be able to achieve on our own.

And I want to invite you to help us reach even further so you and many more people can hear these Bible-based teachings and experience the transforming power of God's Word. Here's how to give a gift. Visit ConnectWithSkip.com slash donate to give a gift. That's ConnectWithSkip.com slash donate. Or call 800-922-1888.

800-922-1888. Thank you for your generosity. We hope you'll be with us tomorrow for the conclusion of Skip's message, In-laws or Out-laws, to discover more biblical truth about God's design for in-laws. We've seen the role of parents to release, the role of God to direct, the role of in-laws to support. Now, here's the role of the couple getting married, the children.

And that role is to honor, to honor their parents' significance and both sets of parents. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Hyten is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.