“It’s Complicated”
Home Improvement Series
AV First
Pastor Ed Carlson
5/5/24
Its Complicated
1. The real cause of Dysfunction and Complications in our families is the entrance of
2. God’s Perfect Plan For Your Marriage Is Not Divorce…It is Healing, Restoration and Wholeness…God Never
3. God Hates
What is a Blended Family?
● The blended family is a family unit in which one or both of the spouses have been previously married and bring a child or children to the relationship.
● The word blended means “mixed together.” It suggests a combining of separate units into an integrated whole.
● The stepfamily is a family unit in which at least one spouse has a parental relationship with a child based on marriage, not blood.
Genesis 37:1-11 (CSB)
1 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. 2 These are the family records of Jacob. At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended sheep with his brothers. The young man was working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought a bad report about them to their father.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons because Joseph was a son born to him in his old age, and he made a long-sleeved robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him. 5 Then Joseph had a dream. When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 There we were, binding sheaves of grain in the field. Suddenly my sheaf stood up, and your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” 8 “Are you really going to reign over us?” his brothers asked him. “Are you really going to rule us?” So they hated him even more because of his dream and what he had said. 9 Then he had another dream and told it to his brothers. “Look,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun, moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10 He told his father and brothers, and his father rebuked him. “What kind of dream is this that you have had?” he said. “Am I and your mother and your brothers really going to come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
1. Joseph Had Imperfect
2. Joseph Had Imperfect
3. Joseph
We cannot blame ourselves for the faults of others but we must be realistic when it comes to our own faults and accept responsibility for them.
• You can never be fully prepared to handle the demands of a blended marriage and family…so seek out Godly couples and Godly mentors who have been where you are going.
• Failed Relationships From The Past Creates Issues of Abandonment, Distrust and Insecurity.
• Create Healthy Habits In Your Marriage to Combat The Dysfunction.
We have an
Proverbs 19:22 (CSB)
22 What is desirable in a person is his fidelity;
better to be a poor person than a liar.
Fight
Have
Proverbs 4:23 (CSB)
23 Guard your heart above all else,
for it is the source of life.
1. Commitment to
Proverbs 16:3 (CSB)
3 Commit your activities to the LORD,
and your plans will be established.
2. Commitment to their
Matthew 7:3-5 (ESV)
3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
Allow God to Redeem Your Story