The Blessing of Boundaries

If after church today you were to hop in your car and your

husband were to look at you and here to say, listen, here's the

plan, I am going to drive for the next 45 minutes with my eyes

closed. Would you stay in the car?

If the answer was yes, take less stupid pills.

Here's my question. Do you have an aspirational

vision for your family or an actual vision for your family?

An aspirational vision is one that you dream about, you hope

for. But an actual vision is

something you work towards. It shapes your decisions.

It serves as a budget for how you're going to allocate your

time and your resources. It determines roles and

responsibilities. And if that question was not

heavy enough, there's another one.

Does the vision that you have for your family aligned with the

vision that God has for your family?

Today we are in week two of our sermon series, Lovers and Land

Mines. Last week we learned that there

are land mines everywhere and they exist in every

relationship. So while being a Christian, it

will keep you from some land mines, but it will not keep you

from all of the land mines. And so when you come across a

landmine, you don't have to step on it.

And if you need to remove it, if you use the wrong tools to try

to defuse it, you can make matters even worse.

And your marriage and your family has an enemy.

Satan has come to steal, kill and destroy.

But the good news is Jesus has come that you and I might have

life and have it abundantly. That's where we get the phrase

God's way is the best way because God has a plan for you.

And I want to welcome all of our different campuses, those of you

watching online and inside. And in just a few weeks, we're

going to have some incredible guest communicators here because

I'm going to be taking a group of people from our church to

Greece. And so while I'm there, for

those of you who are going, hey, I'd like to see Greece without

having to pay to go to Greece, you can follow me on Instagram.

So while we're going around the Mediterranean Sea and we're

talking about all the stuff that's happening in the book of

Acts and part of the New Testament, if you're going, hey,

I'd like to go without having to go.

That's how you can go. And I, I'm not a great poster

because you kind of know how I feel about social media, but I'm

going to at least try to be whatever a person on social

media does for like those 12 days.

So if you're the kind of person who wants to watch, that's where

you can do it. Now, I need to kind of frame

this message for a couple of reasons.

When we wrote the series, it was because I wanted to take you all

through premarital counseling. So I need you to kind of see

this series through that lens. And you're going.

But Clayton, I'm already married.

And so I have #2 if you're already married, turn to your

spouse and say, hold on, this sermon's going to hurt.

So if it hurts, if at some point in the message, you go, this

kind of sucks, I don't want the kids coming after you to feel

the same way. You're going to feel everybody.

OK? OK, last thing, everybody just

take a deep breath. We're going to get through it.

God designed the family to do 4 main things.

One, to prepare the family for godliness. 2 To prepare them for

future roles in the family. That means that not only is your

family designed to help you become more like Jesus, your

family is also designed to help you raise a good future husband,

a good future father, a good future mom, a good future wife.

3 To prepare them for future roles in the Kingdom.

We want our family to do the things of God and to be about

the things of God when they get older And four, to prepare them

for future roles in society. And depending on which news

channel you watch, you are keenly aware that some we, we

may not be hitting #4 and we might be missing numbers 1-2 and

three. And so God uses the family to

prepare us for godliness. Just like marriage, being in a

family sanctifies us. It helps us to destroy the idols

in our lives. It exposes our sin and our

selfishness. And God uses parenting to teach

us. You will learn a lot about God

as a parent. You will learn a lot about God

as a child. Proverbs 22 verse 6 has this to

Proverbs 22:6

say. Start children off on the way

they should go and when they are old, they will not turn from it.

Some of you, you grew up in a maybe a different environment,

you heard it a little bit differently.

You heard train your child in the way that they should go.

There are a couple of things to kind of point out here.

The first one is that we need to start earlier than we probably

think. We want our kids to experience

what I call accelerated maturity, not delayed maturity.

Accelerated maturity would be a 13 year old acting like a 19

year old. That would be awesome.

Some of you would like to skip 13 altogether.

I would like to have an 11 year old, a 12 year old, and maybe a

14 year old, right? I don't want a 13 year old or a

15 year old. I'd like him to skip it.

Accelerated maturity helps them to get through the stupid years

faster. There's other people who have

delayed maturity. They're a 30 year old who acts

like a 17 year old. You guys, maybe you've married

them. You want accelerated maturity.

Starting implies early, and if you wait until you're sending

out graduation invitations to prepare your kids for godliness

and life, you have waited too long.

This is why so many parents overly invest in the lives of

their married children. You can't let go because you did

not fully train and equip. Second thing to notice is that

this is not natural. Training implies that this is

not second nature for us. We are taking on the sinful

nature. We are taking on the flesh and

we are trying to drive it out of our kids to make room for the

ways of God in their lives. We have to train for it.

And the third thing is as parents in the home, we are to

direct them in the way that they should go, not the way they want

to go. One of the land mines and

parenting is that they put kids in the driver's seat.

And if you have ever taken a 15 year old or a 16 year old in a

car when they're learning to drive, you know that that is a

moment where a lot of people find an intimate personal

relationship with Jesus Christ. Deuteronomy, how are we supposed

to do this? Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 5

Deuteronomy 6:5–9

through 9 gives us some insight. Love the Lord your God with all

your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

This is or God talking. These commandments that I give

you today are to be on your hearts, impress them on your

children. Talk about them when you sit at

home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and

when you get up. In other words, when you're at

the house, at the dinner table, you should be talking about

this, talking about the things of God when you're driving them

to school, when you're picking them up.

You're talking about Jesus when you're getting them out of bed

and when you're putting them to bed, tie them as symbols on your

hands. Bind them on your foreheads.

Write them on the door frames of your houses.

This is where Hobby Lobby makes their whole marketing appeal.

Put Jesus everywhere and on your gates, he sang.

Surround them with the ways of God.

Train them in the Lord and in his commands.

You guys have heard me talk about this before.

I have a very rigid prayer that I pray over my family.

My prayer when I'm taking my kids to school, almost every

single, I mean every day I take them to school, I pray this

prayer. If we pick up neighbor kids,

neighbor kids are hearing this prayer.

Heavenly Father, help my kids to grow up to love you with all

their heart, mind, soul, and strength, and help them to

embrace the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations.

Help them to be leaders of others and followers of you, and

help them to find a spouse who will love you and love them

well. And if God answers those

prayers, my heart will be full. I don't care if they're sick.

I don't care if they're happy. I don't care if they're wealthy.

I care that they are in Christ and that they are in a

relationship with people who are in Christ and that they are

committed to the things of Christ because no matter what

you're going through, if Christ is in you, you're going through.

Now you can take about all of the issues of life, all the

major concerns that I just talked about, and you can find

them solved or resolved in that prayer and in that passage.

You know what this is? This is a vision for your

family. Proverbs 22 verse or 29 verse 18

has this to say. Where there is no revelation,

people cast off restraint, but blessed is the one who heeds

wisdoms instruction. You may have heard it

differently. Where there is no vision, the

people perish. So let me ask the question

again, do you have a vision for your family?

Because if you do not have a vision for your family, the

people perish. There is no wisdom to heed,

which means there will be no blessing.

Tougher question, does the vision that you have for your

family align with the vision that God has for your family?

And are you training for that vision?

So what I want to do for just a little bit of time is I want to

talk about some basic, simple steps that you can take towards

living this out in your life and in your home.

And in order to do that, we need to see and recognize how God

creates and forms a family and the boundaries that he places

around it. So let's talk about the very

first family, the one that God put together.

Genesis chapter 2 verse 20 goes like this.

Genesis 2:20

But for Adam, a no suitable helper was found.

So the Lord God caused the caused the man to fall into a

deep sleep. And while he was sleeping, he

took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with

flesh. Then the Lord God made woman

from the rib he had taken out of the man and he brought her to

the man and the man said, this is now bone of my bones and

flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for

she was taken out of man. This is like Hebrew slam poetry

right here. And that is why a man leaves his

father and his mother and is united to his wife, and they

become one flesh. Everybody say 11 flesh.

Now, women, real quick, don't get too spun out here about you

getting made a helper. Like did I just get made a maid?

Kind of, but not really. The word helper is the same word

that is used of God over and over again in the Old Testament

when He comes to the aid of His people in dire circumstances.

And if that terminology of helper is not a bad descriptor

of God, it can't be a bad descriptor of you.

And then this is so. This is not a less than

statement, but it is a description of a beautiful role

that you are invited to step into.

Let's keep diving in. So women are this helper to the

family, this special helper. There is also a leaving of the

former family to the creation of the new family.

So when our daughter Kennedy got married, we did not get a son at

all. We're not saying, hey, welcome

to the family. You're not in my family.

You and her have a family. We love you.

We care for you. We're with you.

We're not kicking. You know we're not.

We don't hate you, but you are your own family.

He got a wife. We didn't get a son.

They are their very own. Many parents cause a lot of harm

because they do not allow their kids to start their own family.

Let me show you what this looks like.

You end up doing all the former family traditions instead of

allowing them to start their own.

You have 10 Christmases you have to go to to accommodate all the

other family traditions of the other families.

And so your family's tradition gets last place.

When you start your family, you have to put up a boundary for

your new family. And that means at times you're

going to have to put your old family at a distance.

Clearest example, when people are in my office for premarital

counseling, I go. There's going to be a time when

problems show up in your marriage.

When problems show up in your marriage, who are you going to

call? And if they say they're mom, I

go because I don't care how spiritual your mom is.

And I'm not listening. Moms, I'm not being plain mean.

Today. You need somebody who will root

for the marriage, not their child.

You want to know my family? Thanksgivings and Christmases

get a little funky because the ma or because the wife called

the mom to tell her about all the bad things that the husband

did that did and then when he shows up, she doesn't want to be

nice to him. I got to pull you aside and have

a conversation with you. So here's how it works in my

marriage. In my marriage, you you, I

present a list of people that hey Jennifer, if you don't like

the way things are going and you can't get through to me, here's

a list of people that I'm OK with you calling or Jennifer can

come to me with. Here's a list of people I would

like to call. I get a pick out of the list of

people that she puts forth. Who's the person I'm OK with?

Because I want somebody who is going to love me but root for

us. Love her, but root for us.

You want to know why people get so much divorce advice?

Because they're talking to somebody who is rooting for

them. Not we, not us.

Jennifer needs godly counsel. Not a mother who's going to make

things awkward at Thanksgiving. Do you think things being

awkward at Thanksgiving are going to help our marriage or

make it worse? And Judy, wherever, you know,

wherever campus you're at, she goes to this church, too.

I love you. I think you're the best, best

mother-in-law ever. Wish I could see you more.

OK, well, I got so many family at all of our campuses.

I'm like ducking and weaving. She's been great.

Hear me. Marriage.

This is another landmine. Marriage is a spiritual act.

Two people become one. When you have two unspiritual

people going through a spiritual act, or when you have one

spiritual person and one unspiritual person participating

in a spiritual act, you create chaos.

You become one flesh. You are united.

You become one, which means your family has one vision, one plan,

one set of boundaries, one set of standards, and yes, one set

of bank accounts. When you have different visions,

different boundaries, your family is divided.

And Jesus says a house divided cannot stand.

And when you have division in your home, you don't have

clarity in your home, which means you have confusion in your

home, which means you have chaos in your home.

What that means is there's one set of rules for the house when

mom's around, and there's a different set of rules in the

house when dad's around. That creates chaos.

Which rules actually matter? Who's actually in charge?

I like to get my kids energy drinks.

That's kind of my thing because I'm a cool hip dad.

Jennifer, not so cool, not so hip.

She says no to getting the kids energy drinks.

And hear me, I, I, I violated that.

She had told the boys we're not doing that anymore.

And I might not have been listening when she said that.

OK, this is I got a good woman. She said it is important to me

that they don't have that stuff in their system.

I'm asking you to respect that now.

My kids hate both of us. And you know why they hate both

of us? Because we are one.

One set of bank accounts. Only in the most dire of

circumstances should your spouse be isolated from the money,

because it's not your money and her money.

It's our money. It's we money because we are

one. Can I ask you a question?

Why on planet earth would you trust somebody with your heart

that you wouldn't trust with your money?

If you're not doing well, it only gets worse.

Ephesians chapter 5, verse 21 through 30.

Ephesians 5:21–30

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the

Lord. For the husband is the head of

the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church, his body of which

he is the Savior. Now as the Church submits to

Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in

everything. Husbands, love your wives just

as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, to make

her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the

Word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church,

without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and

blameless. In the same way, husbands ought

to love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself.

After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed

and care for their body, just as Christ does the church.

For we are members of His body. Let's look at the vision that

God has for the marriage and the boundaries He's put in place.

One, both of them are to live into submission to one another

out of reverence for Christ. This is not just husbands and

wives. This is all of us.

You are to live in submission to me.

I am to live in submission to you.

We are to live in submission to one another out of reverence for

not you, not me, but out of reverence for Christ.

And just so you know, he's the one who says I have come that

you may have life and have it abundantly.

So the one who wants to give you an abundant life has a plan.

That plan includes you and I being in mutual submission to

one another and I got to ask you a question when it gets to the

marriage stuff. How can someone submit to you

out of reference for Christ if they are not in Christ?

So you just chucked A landmine into your home then Paul gives

this instruction to wives and two husbands.

Wives are sub to submit to their husbands.

Hear me clearly. This is done willingly, not by

force. Women willingly submit to their

husbands. Husbands do not domineer their

leadership over their wives. They do not take their

submission, they receive it. Christian women who believe that

God's way is the best way willingly give their husbands

headship in the home. Just like every company needs

ACEO, just like every team needs a head coach.

Just like the car that you came in has one steering wheel.

Can you imagine Co driving your car home with your spouse?

She would not be your spouse by the time you got home.

Just like every company, he's the CEO.

Just like every team needs a head coach, just like every

steering or every car has one steering wheel, the family needs

a point leader in the home. This does not mean that the wife

does not make decisions. This does not mean that the wife

does not have a voice. What it does mean is that

somebody is ultimately responsible.

If the husband and wife are in fight for control in the home,

Satan is the one who's in control.

God hear me men. God will judge the man for the

health of the family women. God will judge the wife on her

willingness to come alongside of her husband to help create that

godly family. Now men, I hope you did not get

too excited about what I just walked you through because I did

not write that part for you. I wrote that for your wives.

This is for you men. TuneIn husbands love their

wives. And when Paul wrote this to his

culture, to his environment, this was the incendiary

statement. When I read it in my

environment, everybody's like, Oh my goodness, wives are

supposed to submit to their husbands.

But when Paul wrote this, you know the part that they were

freaking out about. You mean I have to love her

because submission was expected and enforced in the 1st century.

The radical teaching that Paul lifts up is that husbands, you

are about to love your wives the way you love your own body.

It was radical. It was out there.

And so I'm going to push in for a bit.

Men, how are we to love our wives?

We are given a model, the way Christ loved the church.

And here are things we know about Jesus.

We're getting ready to do a sign up for men's conference.

We're getting ready to sign up for Rise for a women's

conference. Do you know which one signs up

the fastest? The women.

Because women love Jesus. So if you want your wife to kind

of chase after you, maybe you should start acting a little bit

more like Jesus. So pay attention.

I'm going to give you 3 things that Jesus does for the church,

which is your Model 1. He sacrificed for her, He wants

what's best for her. He's selfless and he dies for

her. You want to know why women love

Jesus? Why they submit to Jesus while

they follow Jesus? I just gave you 3 reasons, which

means men. You don't get a point at verse

22 and ignore verse 25. You don't get to go home tonight

and go submit. Because let me tell you, while

it may be hard to submit to your husband's, it's almost

impossible to submit to an ungodly one.

And the burden you are putting on your wife to submit to a man

who is not equipped to lead the way Christ leads and loves is an

unbearable task. And imagine her carrying the

weight of trying to live out God's way while following a man

who is not God's man. So men, if the leadership in

your home is not sacrificial, selfless, and painful, the

submission issue in your home might be because there is a love

issue in your home. Men, we are to lead through our

love. You can watch this later and

take notes. Our love shows up in three PS.

Priority, Provision and protection.

Priority. God is to be your first

priority, your wife your second priority, your kids your third

priority. It is impossible to be a godly

man, husband and father if you are selfish.

Provision. We are to provide.

We provide spiritually, physically, which means we're

present emotionally and financially.

We get up early, we get right with God.

We make space in our lives to be with our family in undistracted

ways. That's the area right now where

I'm struggling and I'm trying to do better.

We are emotionally available and connect on matters beneath the

surface. We go to work and when we go to

work, we work hard. And if you do all of that really

well, then you can hunt and then you can golf.

But you earn that right, you earn that opportunity, you earn

that blessing. But how on planet earth can you

be in a duck blind? Or how on earth can you be in a

tree stand? And how on earth can you be

golfing if you have not loved your family first, your God

first. The third P is protection,

spiritual protection. To make sure that our family is

moving in the right direction, is moving and growing in

obedience to God's command, we provide physical protection.

Here's what this means. In the home, we die first.

If you're a dude and you're like, what's that noise?

Go check sweetie, you just got an F.

We provide physical protection. We die first.

And hear me, the fact that God has hardwired you to protect

should mean that they are never afraid of you have fear of you.

They need to know that you would lay down your life for them.

We protect them emotionally by making sure that our home is a

safe place for questions, doubts, confession of sin.

We protect our family financially.

We make sure that our spending does not outpace our earnings

because that would by doing so, we are able to reduce stress and

amplify joy in the home. Too many men in an effort to

provide financially sacrifice in all the other areas and are thus

able to, are not able to protect their family from unseen

spiritual and emotional threats. Can I just give a little devo to

the dudes for a minute? There are some of you who you

are absolute killers, assassins, savages at work.

You manage chaos, hardship and challenges.

You lead through market adjustment, staffing issues, and

if you were to just take a fraction of that energy and

leadership and leverage it in your home, you would be a gift

to the people that you love the most.

You have led planning meetings over and over again at your work

because you know that if you don't have a vision for how

you're going to get through the next season, you know the

company's not going to do well. But when it comes to your own

home, no vision, no protection, no provision.

So we are to prepare our family for godliness.

We are to prepare them for future roles in the family,

prepare them for future roles in the Kingdom of God, and we are

to prepare them for future roles in society.

When was the last time you had a planning session in your home, a

strategy session in your home for that?

And once you have the same vision as God has for your

family, your job is to lead them in this direction.

And a clear vision creates boundaries.

No boundaries means your family has no vision.

A person who is a vision of being fit?

Don't laugh. Establishes boundaries around

sleep and nutrition. A person who has a vision of

losing weight establishes boundaries, I'm told, around

calories and workouts. A person who has a vision for

financial freedom has boundaries around debt and spending.

That means that your vision for your family should impact your

schedule, your finances, your phone usage, your dating.

And if you have not held a discussion and decided what your

vision and boundaries are, that means that somebody else is

deciding. That means it's either your

kids, society or Satan, and I wouldn't put either of those

three in the driver's seat in my home, would you?

Let me give you an example. I love youth sports.

Love it. I think they're great.

I love it when parents do everything they can do to make

their kids great at sports so they can sell insurance when

they grow up. And I think it's a blast to make

memories. I think it's fun.

Parents, you get them coaches, you get them trainers, you buy

them all the equipment. And I think, hear me, I think

it's great. What I'm telling you is you

already know how to do it. How come you just don't do the

same thing when it comes to them spiritually?

One of the most satanic things I've ever heard is when somebody

came up to me and said I don't force my kids to come to church.

I was just thinking, OK, well, do you force them to brush their

teeth? Do you force them to take

showers? Do you force them to go to

school? Like there's a list of things

that you've decided. I don't care how you feel about

it, you're going to do it. What's the point of having good

breath in? Hell, it didn't make a bit of

sense to me. And you'll hear people go, oh,

yeah, you're just really forward thinking.

Like, yeah, we just don't. We don't let our kids.

Well, how many other decisions do you let your kids make that

are life and death for all the athletes out there?

I was doing the math, thinking about my own kids.

I ran through a list of a whole bunch of sports, football, men's

basketball and about what are the probability of them going

pro. I put a lot on there for you

dance people. I didn't put that on there

because I figured if I put going pro and dance, you guys would

think glitter and that's not where I was wanting to go.

So here is here is the chance. Let's just do football.

There's a 3% chance that your kid is going to go to AD One

school for being a great football player.

That's pretty cool. That's awesome.

Here's the chance that you're going to get some of the money

back that you spent on them playing football. 1 to 2% chance

of them getting a full ride. Here's the chance of them going

pro .08%. In other words, I wouldn't bet

on it. You can pick your sport.

You got all of them up there but dancing.

But I also did the math. There is a 100% chance that your

kid is going to need an intimate personal relationship with Jesus

Christ, 100%. There's a pretty high

probability that they're going to be a husband one day, a

mother one day. Your job is to prepare them for

the home, society, godliness, and the Kingdom.

Now, in just a second, I'm going to do something.

What I want to show you is the kind of vision that I have for

your family. It is a letter that I read every

so often to kind of awaken my own heart into my home.

And specifically, this is for the men.

This is the way that I want the men in our church to love your

wives. This is the kind of kids that I

want you to create so that they will be these kind of men as

they become fathers, as your daughters become mothers.

And I believe with God's help, this is possible.

And if you are lucky enough for a second to be here at church

today with your spouse, would you just hold hands for just a

second while I read this letter? This letter was written on

October 17th, 1946 by Richard to his wife Darlene.

Darlene, I adore you, sweetheart.

I know how much you like to hear that.

But I don't only write it because you like it.

I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it

to you. It is such a terribly long time

since I last wrote to you, almost two years.

But I know you'll excuse me because you understand how I am

stubborn and realistic and I thought there was no sense in

writing. But now I know, my darling wife,

that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing and that I

have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you, I

want to love you. I will always love you.

I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love

you after you are dead, but I still want to comfort and take

care of you. I want you to love me and care

for me. I want to have problems to

discuss with you. I want to do little projects

with you. I never thought until just now

that we can do that. We should.

What should we do? We started to learn to make

clothes together, or learn Chinese, or getting a movie

projector. Can't I do something now?

No, I am alone without you. And you were the ideal woman,

the general instigator of all our wild adventures.

When you were sick, you worried because you could not give me

something that you wanted to and thought I needed.

You shouldn't have worried, just as I told you then.

There was no real need, because I loved you in so many ways, so

much. And now it is clearly even more

true. You can give me nothing now, yet

I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else,

but I still want you to stand there.

You dead are so much better than anyone else alive.

I know you will assure me that I am foolish and that you want me

to have full happiness and don't want to be in my way.

I bet you're surprised that I don't even have a girlfriend

except you, sweetheart, after two years.

But you can't help it, darling, nor can I.

I don't understand it, for I have met many girls and very

nice ones and I don't want to remain alone, but in two or

three meetings they all seem like ashes to me.

You only are left to me. You are real, my darling wife.

I do adore you. I love my wife.

My wife is dead rich. PS Please excuse me not mailing

this. I don't know your new address.

That is a vision. If you had one, what would it

be? And if you had it, would it

align with Christ's? And if it does, will you pursue

it? We're moving to a time of

decision. To those of you who are here

today or watching online who don't yet have an intimate,

personal relationship with Jesus, I'm going to say

something that's a little hard to hear.

But he ends the letter not knowing the mailing address.

I have a question for you. If you were the day to die, what

is your mailing address? Where are you going?

And if you don't know or you don't like where it is, you can

change that today. That through the power of Jesus

Christ, through his perfect life, and through his

sacrificial death on the cross. And His resurrection from the

grave, He made a way possible for you and I to be united with

Him forever in heaven. And if you are outside of

Christ, you are outside of that promise.

But that promise is extended to you today.

You cannot be the godly husband you need to be.

You cannot be the godly wife you need to be.

You cannot be the godly father or mother you need to be until

God is in your life, till He has saved you and begun the process

of sanctifying you, making you more like Him.

And you can start that journey today.

And in just a few moments, the people around the room are going

to stand and sing. Some of them are going to come

to the steps and pray. And I want to encourage you to

walk right over there underneath that screen next to the

baptistry and start asking the questions that you need to ask

to the rest of you in the room, to those of you who already have

a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Is there an area of your life that you need to spend time on

your knees repenting? Do you need to spend time on

your knees asking God to give you the strength to start

setting the right direction in your family?

Do you need to start turning over areas of your life to your

family, of your family, to God's leadership?

Do you need to come to the steps and get down on your knees and

pray over your family, pray over your spouse?

What do you need to do to get right with God?

Lastly, if you're here today and you are a widow, I know that

this sermon sucked. So what I would like to do is

I'm going to walk out those back doors after I finished praying.

And if you are here today and you are a widow and you just

want someone to pray with you, I would love to do so.

Would you stand with me? Heavenly Father, I just thank

you so much for today. I thank you for sustaining us

and being gracious to us and long-suffering.

And I'm asking that you would do a mighty work in this church

right now, that not only would you convict us where we've gone

wrong, but you would you equip us to do what's right.

We stand zero chance to be the people that you've called us and

created us to be without the presence of your Holy Spirit.

So inhabit this place. In your name I pray.

Amen.