Family

Young people reading scripture. Thank you for blessing us with that. I wanted to say thank you to you guys. You're a blessing your blessing to me. Just hanging around you is fun. But specifically I was thinking about Ralph. He came to me a couple weeks ago and said, I've got four stories I want to tell and that was not a nice story. He's going to have three more this this coming three Sabbath's and I think we're going to continue to be blessed that wasn't something that I pursued him on. He initiated that and I want to thank him for doing that. Another thing that I want to thank is this a beautiful decorations that we have. Isn't that nice. Several of the deaconesses came together and initiated some change in our holiday Decor to make it pretty end and festive for a season and that I really appreciate you guys taking any initiative. I didn't ask anybody to do that and it happened and also back in the back of a notice. There's a new prayer box. Did you know there was a prayer box before you know, I opened up the prayer box a few weeks ago and I thought as Elders we need to pray about these very question our morning prayer on Friday. So we took out the prayer request. I handed them around in the guys for like, you know what this was from a year ago. This was like nine months awful. And so I think we weren't quite as faithful as we needed to be in in in praying for your prayer requests, but I noticed today that there's a new prayer box and it's all pretty and nice and there's some new prayer request cards there. I don't know who's responsible for that. But thank you this church it thrives and survives and grows. Are you taking initiative and doing the things that God has put in your heart to do for this community. I just want to thank each one of you for contributing to our family. Let's have our prayers. We open God's word Father in heaven. We just want to ask for your spirit to guide us there so many conclusions that we can come to you from the Bible that are just our own pride and selfishness twisting scripture and to fulfill our own ideas, and we don't want to do that. We want to be blessed by your word and your spirit. So please guide us today in Jesus name. Amen.

You're the church board and the elders and several of the other leaders have contributed to a set of visions that we've seen from being good neighbors and Community to discipling people and and also to share the gospel and we've articulated these vision statements. I want to show two of them with you today the series that were beginning today is called everything's better in community reduce a three-part Series. Today. We're going to do a talk about family and I felt like these two vision statements were particularly appropriate in the first one says we see healthy relationships family siblings marriages friends and dating couples where God self-sacrificing love is evident in our interactions with each other. It's not a nice thing to consider. What would what would it be? Like if this church if this community had healthy relationships everywhere and we were known for that. The second one is a vision about the small group idea that that we are discussing our we have been discussing a bit and the vision says we see a variety of missional small groups meeting in different homes in the community, which disciple church members. Attracted to their their groups former members and people who are newly interested in Jesus and which are engaging in missionary efforts that are unique to the gifts. The Holy Spirit has given their group. Don't what would it be? Like if our church had that kind of a mindset. I just think several individuals and and a small group for doing some taking some initiative in ministering to this church Community. Those are little things but they make a big difference don't they have a big impact? What would it be? Like if everybody was involved in some way or another in taking initiative based on God's gifts that they've given them in the context of some small group. I think that would be a fun experience to see a church that's thriving with small groups like that night. I know we all want our church to be a healthy Church. Would you agree with that? NN we've kind of articulated these three ideas being a good neighbor in our community Garden Inn in the story of the Good Samaritan we see what a good neighboring is like so that that's a good thing for a church to do right and discipling is didn't Jesus call us to make disciples. So it would be good if we were a church that makes good disciples and and isn't the Everlasting gospel the thing that. That's our mission. That's the thing we're supposed to be taking to the world. Right? So it would be good if our church was fully embraced are fully engaged in in sharing the gospel. And these these three things good neighboring disciple-making and sharing the gospel while their ideals that we would like our church to have. How do we get there and we're already kind of on that road. It's not like we're not we're ignoring discipling or completely avoiding sharing the gospel. It's not like we're bad neighbors necessarily, right? But how do we get to the point where we are meeting that I deal and I thought about the the different ways that you can do that and I could stand up front and I could tell you what you should do in end how you should do it, right? That's one way to do it and and about 30% of what I say you would get in about 10% of that you to apply and institutionally like it just doesn't work to transfer actions from a Pulpit. I can communicate ideas sermons can can help to organize the ology it can give us common language, but it's not going to move us in an action. And so I thought you know what you've got the option of creating systems in the church, right? We can have a public event. Frozen we can have really great Wednesday night prayer meeting so we can have great outreaches in the community that we try to get volunteers for right and then it's me and a couple of the elders. I'm just straining to get enough volunteers to come and help with some activity. You know how that is, right and you end up being overwhelmed so much to do how do you get a church active and effectively accomplish thing these good neighboring discipling and sharing the gospel and I think that as I've examined it and I've looked at research and stuff the functional system that needs to be in place for a church to grow healthy healthfully and to succeed in all of these areas are small groups. Mnic in the Bible all over the place successful missions that are happening in the Bible happen with groups. Jacob had his dozen-or-so sons. He had that doesn't sound that a daughter, I guess and God made a covenant with them that he was going to through them raise up a nation that would be Witnesses for the world and then you've got the tree of Moses Aaron and Miriam You always thought of it as just Moses, right but it's Moses Aaron and Miriam that take the children of Israel under God's leadership out of Egypt is a small group that leads there Sam. He develops schools where a small group of young men are trained to be spiritual leaders in the in the nation and as a result of Samuel's training through the these small schools that nation was ennobled spiritually in a way that that was it was powerful enough that Elijah and Elisha brought back these schools to try to get the nation out of of a Dollar Tree right? Then you got Daniel hananiah mishael and Azariah, you know those names, right? Who are they? The three Hebrew boys I can get so Daniel and his three friends there. They're so successful as a group of small group that that they have an impact for over three thousand years almost three thousand years. I should say and it's not just Christians that remember Daniel and his friends. It's Jews that remember him and his mom has a strong tradition from Daniel. A small group that makes a huge impact when Jesus began his ministry. He quickly recruited. That doesn't young men. One of them. We think might have been 17 or 18 at the time and he 17 or 18 year old in the room 16 year olds. Jesus wants you in his group 2. He recruited a dozen or so guys spend some time with them training them and discipling them and acts recordes from an outsider's perspective not from inside the church, but an outsider's perspective looking at these disciples. They're like, those are the men that turn the world upside down. Small group can do big things and I think that that's how God wants our church to be structured the functional system that will make our church successful. I think is small groups and a n research shows that when small groups are healthy the same mechanisms are or or characteristics of a healthy small group are required to make a healthy church one follows the other healthy small groups lead to healthy churches.

I want to talk about small groups, but I think that before we jump into the ideas and strategies about small groups. We need to back up and ask ourselves. What's the building blocks of small groups? And so today I want to talk about I think the most fundamental building block of a small group, which is a family and and if you think about it, Family is really a small group. In Matthew 18:20. Jesus says for where two or three are gathered in my name there. Am I among them notice the equation of small group of people gathered in Jesus name and Jesus is in their midst. How would you like Jesus to dwell with us? small group of people

There's a I'm having trouble with my little clicker thing here. There we go. I'll try to pull that in my pocket. So it's not in the way.

What is a small group when you think of a small group? What is a small group I'm going to be really basic just to start out our discussion a small group is. A group that is small.

Are we at church of small groups? Yes, we are. We are structured as a group Church of small groups. We have a church board that meets once a month and it's not very big but got maybe 15 or so people that attend. That's that church for that's a small group. No, it's not smoke hurt. Somebody shaking here. We have Sabbath School classes. They meet regularly their small group. We're going to start or we are starting in January a group a small group for men that's focused on developing spiritual leadership. Call Joshua's Men. Some of you are familiar with that cuz I've invited you particularly. And and that's a small group God's Pathfinder Club Adventure Club. We've got a Friday night bible study meeting at the continents home. We got a Wednesday night prayer meeting every one of these are small groups, whether they're effective holistic missional. That's another question, but we were at church that's built on small groups. I just wanted to point that out. This isn't a big leap from you know what we were doing. And so what we should be doing we're already doing it. We could probably add some systems to make that more effective. We could probably figure out how to to to to tweak it and improve it and I think that the thing that we need to focus Primarily at the beginning to really make healthy groups and whatever facet we have them whatever they look might look like in our church is to develop our families. Family is a broad term. It can include grandparents and grandkids that could include parents Aunts Uncles children siblings cousins. Lots of parts of a family in every part of the family is legitimate and important but I want to focus our attention on the nuclear family husband wife children children specifically their living in the home and maybe you don't have a husband or you don't have a wife either. You haven't been married or you were married before that. That's okay. This is still for you. Maybe you don't have children or you don't have children in the home anymore at that. That's okay. What we're going to talk about is still relevant and it's still relevant because Well, let me just go to the beginning in the beginning. God created Adam. He designed a beautiful perfect person. And and he gave him a job to do and this is before there's children. And before there is an eve he created a man and he gave him purpose. And there's nothing wrong with Adam as a single person. Nothing nothing imperfect about what God has made he had value and individuality and uniqueness and and purpose all of these things are built into his his being from his creator. And then God gave him a spouse. That doesn't mean that his spouse gives him purpose or value or meaning or anything like that. So if you don't have a spouse or if you don't have children that that's okay these things don't give you meaning or purpose and you're still part of a family. You're still a family unit. Even if there's just one of you because you're part of God's family, you're a child of God and you're part of God's and N are participating in God's small group called The Trinity. He knew I was going to get the Trinity into small groups, right that was designed into how God does things small groups are part of who he is. Now most of us find ourselves in the position that Adam was in when he's naming the animals and he's he's thinking about all these pairs and he thinks we're is one for me and we we have that longing for somebody who is like us who can know us fully and sand love us still. I went with Adam meets Eve. He says at the last finally you can read about it. Just go back to her verse there in Genesis chapter 2 verses 2225 the rib that the Lord got it taken from man. He made into a woman brought her to the man. And then the man said this at last is vote of my bones and Flesh of My Flesh. We long for somebody that's like us that connects to us can relate to us likes our idiosyncrasies and weirdness isn't and enjoys us. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh and the man and his wife were both naked and we're not ashamed they shall become one flesh. This is it's it's not an obscure concept when you think about it. It's not something that's hard to grasp two becoming one. I mean it is kind of hard and it's really the essence of the Trinity and it's complicated to think about but it's not an obscure concept we can we can sense when a marriage is United and purple and they have one purpose and they're they're moving in sync and we can sense when a marriage is not really one flesh. You know, it's it's the physical emotional and spiritual embodiment really have Jesus command to love your neighbor as yourself. Did you think about when Jesus created Adam and Eve he created the opportunity for fulfilling the last six of the Ten Commandments to love your neighbor as yourself? And and while our our our our personhood is not incomplete when we are single, we still have the opportunity to love God with all your heart soul and mind and I saw the opportunity to love others. It's in marriage that we have that Oneness that we can truly love our neighbor as we love ourselves Adams has bone of my bone Flesh of My Flesh. He's just like me. Unfortunately, we don't live in an evening at home anymore. We live in a world that's filled Us in and has all the problems that come with it are. Are relationships are polluted by selfishness and our hearts are rotten with fried. That's the reality of this is the world we live in and and send it causes harm to us. It messes us up send that other people commit against us in our own sanity. It hurts us, but our sin also hurts our relationships. It hurts our spouses. It hurts our children. There's no such thing as a relationship that doesn't have sin in the mix even even a perfect marriage like mine.

There's no such thing as a relationship that doesn't have sin in the mix. So what does a successful relationship in a sinful world look like? Leslie Vernick an author and the counselor she has three important aspects of healthy marriages that she describes mutuality reciprocity and freedom are these three principles and she says mutuality means that both Partners in the relationship contribute to the care and maintenance of the relationship. Both Partners bring to the relationship care respect and honesty both Partners show remorse and repentance when one or the other or both have done things that have harmed the other Mutuality that sound like a good part of marriage. And then there's reciprocity. She says that this is a healthy relationship. Sorry a healthy relationship is one in which both Partners given both receive power and responsibility are shared and the rules of the marriage or mutually Maiden at here to there is not a double standard where one person gets to have all the power and the other one takes all the responsibility.

And then there's Freedom all healthy adult relationships need freedom to be who God made them to be freedom to have their own feelings speak their own thoughts and disagree with one another without the fear of retaliation or danger. These are three aspects of healthy relationships. A successful marriage when you think about these these principles that she describes a successful marriage is marked by grace and forgiveness and humility and teach ability and one of us speaks harmful words, cuz it it happens. When we raise our voice in anger or cut somebody off or refuse to engage or ignore. Then a humble spouse will take responsibility for their unkind and harmful behavior and they'll repents. A successful relationship is marked by repentance and continual growth always moving forward always learning more always recognizing that we are not yet for filling price. Perfect. Love for our spouse. That word repent. It's it's a simple word. What does it mean? It just it just means to turn around or if you're in Pathfinders you you're supposed to do something like that about face. That's all it is repent is an about-face from where I was going to where I should be going. And ends it's that idea that I'm going to turn away from harmful habits, and I'm going to turn towards a a good habit something that's loving and an in relating well with my spouse. Repentance this turning around is a prerequisite to every healthy relationship relationship with your spouse relationship with your kids relationships with your co-workers. And it's it's kind of opposed to the sinful tendency of Pride that we have repentance isn't a natural thing that we jumped into easily. But we can't escape the reality that our hearts are naturally Bentford selfishness and pride and self-sufficiency. And so we can't escape the fact that we are going to harm our friends and our family are Partners in our children that's going to happen. And if that's going to happen then we need to be like David a man after God's Own Heart a woman after God's Own Heart that quickly recognizes our sin and repentance repentance is a prerequisite for every healthy relationship. Now, if you recognized your condition and you repent of it you admit that you're wrong then you know what happens Your spouse will quickly forgive because it's so refreshing to see somebody admit their wrong so quickly refer give your children and they'll say it's okay Papa. It's okay Mama. I know this because I have to repent a lot. And and it's something that actually binds our relationship together. Have you noticed this when you repent that your you actually grow in intimacy? I think it's a beautiful thing that God designed the even sin can lead to one this when there's repentance in the mix. Know what we've each had plenty of experiences with sin and relationships. Whether your child who's arguing with somebody recently or or been hit by somebody recently or an adult, he's heard some angry words spoken to you or who's spoken some Angry Words or some nasty things about somebody we all have experience with this don't we ends 1st Corinthians? 13 reminds us that The Temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. This is a universal problem. Everybody's got this problem. And then he says that God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand when you're tempted. He will show you a way out so that you can endure. Would you like a way out? Would you like a way out from the the bad cycles and patterns that you have in your marriage and in your family life? Would you like a relationship with your spouse and with your children? That's thriving?

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the home missionary a journal that was written a long time ago. You'll have it around today. But 1889 June June won the article entitled The Home influence Ellen White wrote that if ever there was a time when every house should be a House of Prayer it is now and yet it is in this time of fearful Peril some who profess to be Christians have no family altar. I know of nothing that causes me so great sadness as a prayer listen to the first and primary solution to the problem that plagues our relationships whether you're single or married married with kids divorced remarried, whatever your scenario is. This the first and primary solution to the problems that plagued these relationships. Is a personal walk with God? When my feet come to the altar of Jesus and my knees kneel down before the father. That's where my my life comes from. I have to drink at the Fountain of Living Water if I'm going to impart blessing to the relationships that I'm part of.

And when you make prayer a priority. Please please remember this you cannot change anybody but you so if your spouse is not making prayer priority, that's not your problem that's nares. If you make prayer priority and hopefully they will too then your marriage can be a place where you pray together and then your family can be appraised place where you can pray together and then you'll be a Praying family and a praying marriage. I think that's an ideal place to end up at you start with yourself.

But I guarantee that being a Praying person drinking from the Fountain of Living Water spending time and God's word. That's just the beginning and end. The reason is that we don't understand our own Hearts Jeremiah 17:9 says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick who can understand it. We don't even know our own hearts that do you do you remember recent time? It probably won't be very long ago that you lied to yourself. I mean your brain your brain lied to yourself about something you did know nobody nobody willing to confess lines or something. Okay. I have I'm sure recently it is something that we do we justify things that we shouldn't justify we tell ourselves negative things about ourselves or negative things about others that just aren't true or or half-truths that best too often. We look at back at something we've said or done and we see our actions and we hear our words and we think for ourselves. Yeah, that was the right thing to do or the right thing to say, even if it left. Our children coloring and our spouse disheartened. How do we how do we lie to ourselves about our actions and say think that we are acting like God even wear a Godly person when we do or say this or hold this standard up or whatever and the results is meanness and unkindness and harshness that God would never condone and yet somehow we we are able to justify that nevermind. We don't even understand our own self and let's be honest with ourselves because it's so easy to deceive ourselves and behaved terribly while thinking we're behaving like God we need a mirror. We need somebody to to feed back to us. The reality of our ourselves a third-party. You might say. Somebody that can short-circuit the process that that's we're in the cycles that were in at least snakes in our marriage and our families. The stakes are so high how we relate to our children is how our children will think about God that is a huge bar there. There's none of us are are going to reach that bar perfectly. And that means that's a big deal. That's that's a high-stakes right and then our relationships with our spouse so important the stakes are so high and the deception that we have in our own Hearts is so thorough that we can't afford to assume that our our marriages are healthy. Our families are thriving we can't do it. We can't afford to just make assumptions and say what I think it's pretty good.

We can't afford to think that we actually understand our spouses feelings for that. We understand the hearts of our children and we can assume that we even know our own hearts. And so we need to pray we need to ask God to search our hearts and we need to Humble ourselves and me to ask for some outside scrutiny. healthy relationship invites other people in what are the best things you can do for your marriage? And for your parenting is to go to somebody that's outside your marriage and say I need some help.

Is that a humbling thing to do after humbling thing to do, you know, it could be from a book. I'd recommend that you read a new book on marriage relationships Perinton communication conflict resolution some some relationship related topic every year. That's not too much to ask. Is it a new book? Once it once a year a new book on relationships? It would also be good to participate in some form of a seminar. I know that there's women's Retreats and men's Retreats of the conference holds or there's a weekend to remember seminar every year down in in Coeur d'Alene that you could attend with your spouse. These are things that that add spiritual Vigor and and renew your your commitment and passion for each other and also give you some insights that you wouldn't have had before you might join a small group that emphasizes marriage relationships or parenting and if your Cycles in your relationship are so bad that that there is contempt and anger just deceiving in your your relationship. Then you might need a counselor professional that can help you and guide you together to to resolve some of these things a Biblical counselor. Somebody maybe who knows some cognitive behavioral therapy. That's the stuff that really works. It's based on biblical principles to dispel the myth because this myth exists and some of our hearts it it's it's the natural thing that comes from pride and that myth says that a strong person or a strong man specifically some of us men like to think this a strong man is a man that stands alone.

But that's not where strength comes from. The mark of a strong person is not their independence, but their interdependence.

Great leaders, they don't lead a loan great leaders surround themselves with people who are better at things than they are. And we need people that are better at things than we are. And when we look back at our past lives you can you can see the the history that we've had and are you look back at your parents history and your grandparents history and married and in your marriage probably has some of the same negative patterns that your parents in end and your grandparents had and the reality is you just don't know how to resolve that problem. Neither. Did your parents needed that did your grandparents? You need somebody outside in order to in to help you get past some of those problems that you bring with you into the marriage. That's just a reality of sin. There's nothing to be ashamed of in particular in your own heart. But the problems we Face are coming to everybody so in so nobody should be looking down at you and saying all he's particularly bad, right? Nobody should be saying that about anyone else in here. We all have the same problems. In fact, I would love for our church to be a place where we don't look down at problems and and accuse people of Badness or whatever. Look at that marriage. That one's right. Anyhow, we have a fear of that don't we we have a fear of bringing ourselves and and in our reality of our family life into the public view because what will people think that's a fear that I have with my family. I'm in the public eye a lot and in my kids are are kind of in that mix two, and then you guys are thinking we'll how does he parent? How does how does my wife parent and so it's something I think about But it's it shouldn't be the culture of our church to look down our noses at other people. We need to have a culture that says wow. Look at that family in need who seeking help good for you. That's so wonderful. I love seeing that and that be nice a church that you can come to with your real problems your real self and and that church just Embraces you and loves you and says good for you man. God's growing u s so wonderful to see When that be fun, I'd like to be a part of a church like that, you know and I were married. At the end of September in 2005. Isn't she pretty? Who is that skinny kid?

And then by October 2005 we are pretty sure we have no idea what we're doing. Start a week later.

And that's the reality of marriage it you jump into something that you have no idea what you're doing it and and you need outside input. If you're considering marriage or if you have recently been married or you haven't really had a lot of input into your marriage yet and you've been married for a while and it's a really good idea to do some premarital counseling or at least it a some kind of assessment that helps you understand the good principles that that are there in marriage. I mean, there's finance and their spirituality and there's individuality in their careers and there's home life and then there's what you do with toilet paper and and not to mention all the other complexities of joining two lives together. There's a lot of stuff in being married we need help with and it's not bad that we need help. It's actually a good thing that interdependence is something God designed. This is kind of what small groups are about interdependence. We need help and and that's that's not a bad thing. That's a Good thing. If you're considering a thinking that you might need some some of that input into your own experience in marriage, I'd like to recommend symbas. There's a couple others prepare enrich is a good one symphysis is one that I've enjoyed and appreciated. It is an assessment that starts you out asking some questions and giving you some tools for dealing with communication and conflict and money and all these different aspects of marriage that you might consider taking part in your third year of marriage and I had to get started developing these unhealthy patterns. We all have them in our relationships and what had been confusion early on trying to figure out this marriage thing had started to turn into some deep frustrations. We're still deeply in love, but we are also deeply frustrated at at certain points in our marriage. I'm sure that you can relate or at least have had some experience in your marriage or you can relate to that idea. And so we decided that we were going to Tua professional counselor and I just forgot her name very nice lady down in California Southern California Film no Sacramento area and we went to her for six 8:10 session something like that. You all saw her sometimes by herself. I start sometimes and then we saw us are together. It was a really fascinating opportunity for us to explore. She held a mirror up essentially she listened to us and she said this is what I'm hearing and we got to see who we were like what we are acting like and what it look like to the other person's eyes. She helped us to gain some skills and listening are really important skill in any relationship. She helped us to learn how to date each other again. If you didn't know dating doesn't stop when you get married. You keep pursuing you keep Romancing. You keep dating. It's a good thing. It's hard when you got little kids I get that, but it's important. So if you need somebody to watch your kids while you date your spouse then give us a call and expect us to give you a call.

That are our marriage wasn't on the Rocks. We weren't we were thinking of Separation to divorce or anything like this, but we saw we needed outside input and we asked for professional counselor, and I'm not ashamed of that. I'm proud that that was our younger selves saying we had a need it's not a bad thing. In our fourth year of marriage. We attended a weekend to remember retreat in the Sacramento area. And we can remember is put on by Family Life a really fantastic organization. If you don't know them already. You should look up family life. Org. I included a little brochure with some resources and on one side of it. Nope, it's not there yet is right under Family Resources is a is a URL family life. Org.com and they've got a shop with lots of resources and they got videos and they've got tons of ideas, but they also put on all over the country these weekend to remember. Have you been to a weekend to remember raise your hand if you've been to a weekend to remember yay. I got some compatriots here. I highly recommend it is just down Coeur d'Alene Coeur d'Alene. It's a weekend. It's a fantastic experience. And in that process you get to hear about stories of people who have experienced challenges worse than your marriage is experienced and they have overcome and they found love and Oneness and intimacy and it's it's exciting and it renews lyrics your experience with God and it renews your experience with your spouse. It's it's a good thing to invest in.

Joel and I have what I think is a pretty healthy marriage. Maybe you looking in from the outside see something different. If you do, please tell me but I think we've got a pretty healthy marriage, and I know that we are always needing input. We're always needing to grow. We need to we need help to get back to the pattern of 1 this that God's designed for us and it you might find it that your marriage and kind of a kind of goes this exciting growth and then plateau and maybe even Decline and then some exciting growth and then plateau and write that that's okay to have some of those patterns in your marriage. But if this is a. Of decline in your marriage, I did encourage you to reinvest make this a new time of growth and excitement in our vision statements have healthy relationships includes, I think an expectation that this church WIll prioritize and value people seeking help.

That culture that I mentioned that let's read it again. We see healthy relationships family siblings marriages friends and dating couples were God self-sacrificing love is evident in our interactions with each other evidence. This is how people see us from the outside that God's love is here. In the honest home. Also in manuscripts number 170 Ellen White says God wants the home to be the happiest place on Earth the very symbol of the home in heaven very in the marriage responsibilities in the home linking their interest with Jesus Christ leaning upon his arm and his insurance husband and wife may share a happiness in this Union that the angels of God commend. Can you envision it a home where the husband is excited eager to come home? And in a home where the wife is excited in the children are anticipating. The father's return did this is a place where children look to their parents as the best and noblest role models and where the parents know that they're raising their children to love and honor God and their fellow man a home where each spouse is known deeply and loved selflessly the home of the spirit of God dwells and angels are proud to spend their time in Would you like that to be your home? If you don't have this kind of home, then let's get started. Let's figure out how to grow their because it where you are does not determine where you're going to be.

Where you are is just the starting spots division is healthy healthy relationships. And that's where you want to end up in our strategic planning session several people suggested that we have some kind of a training to develop counselors or marriage mentors or something and I'd like to suggest and then there's this bulletin inserts. I headed out I'd like to suggest that we could use a few marriage minter's in this church. In fact the symbols program it stands for saving your marriage before it starts its an assessment but it also has tools for Mary Dementors. If you would like to be a marriage Mentor check that little box beside the symbis certified facilitator and we can talk about that how that might work. It's not a guarantee that you're going to do it as just an interested in learning about it check box. Okay, so don't it's not a big hurdle. It doesn't cost you any money to put the little checkbox unpair and you don't have to be a perfect marriage in order to be a marriage Mentor. You just have to have a little bit of life experience and have faced if With your own problems and and have come through that with God's help. That's the prerequisite for marriage minter's. Maybe you would like to take the survey and it says saving your marriage before it starts with the book of saving your marriage before it starts 7 questions. You should ask before and after you marry, so it's perfect for everybody my wife and I have done it and and we find that they've got some specific tools for after marriage and they got some even more unique tools that they that they work with if you've been married more than once so it's it's a great assessments and a great tool for a marriage mentor. We we need we need couples where we can have that third-party. Maybe you see a need to invest in your relationship and you'd like to know who can help you. We need some people in our in our our church group that can raise their hands and say, you know, our home is available fun to come over and hang out with us. We'll watch a video together. We'll talk. We'll pray.

If there's also the opportunity to maybe post a small group if you're interested in maybe being a larger group rather than one-on-one counseling type of a situation or mentorship situation. I you could join a small group. We need some people that would be willing to host something like this one's a family life the art of marriage. It's a small group kit that's already pretty designs at 6 part program. Maybe that's something that you'd be interested in hosting will check that little box or maybe you'd like to participate or Join one of those check that box and just put your name and info down so we can communicate I'd like to start a pattern where this church is saying relationships are important and we're going to grow We're going to start with the most basic small group, and we're going to thrive there. How would you like to see that? I need the end with the gospel because that's where we always need to end needs to be the beginning in the middle in the end Genesis 2:25 the conclusion of this one this idea. Is that the man and his wife were both naked and we're not ashamed and you're wondering how in the world and be at the gospel out of this is okay. These were emotionally spiritually physically naked people that were completely open to the other person and completely unashamed and the truth is we are not easily. We don't usually bare our souls with other people. We we hide that's what sin does it makes us hide and it get it covers Us with shame. That's what happened with Adam and Eve when they sinned they ran they hit they covered and and that's where our relationships often are. And whether you're single or married you probably are longing for this kind of intimacy that Adam and Eve had this naked but not ashamed idea. Jesus says that you are his special bride. And and he Longs for this intimacy. He already knows you he saw you when you were born. He made you before you were even born. He witnessed your birth. He looked at you in class when you had your first steps. He enjoyed your first babbling words. Jesus knew every aspect of your growing up and every part of your life since he was there when you were hurt for the first time and he felt that pain and he was there when you hurt somebody else for the first time and he felt that pain to he knows every aspect of your life every aspect of your heart every aspect of your mind. And guess what? He loves you still.

in fact, he loves every part of you and he sees the person he's making you into that Noble Godly person that he is designing you to be he loves you he gave his life for you so that you can have not the life of sin and death but the good life the life that is filled with his spirit. And you know, he invites you to know him too. He knows you intimately and he's offered himself in Intimate relationship with you in his word and to your prayer life. He's going to lay himself bear. So to speak in emotionally and spiritually he's going to allow you to get to know him. To fully know him in that intimate relationship. Even if you don't have that in a marriage partner right now, you can have that intimacy with Jesus. Let's start there but start Before the Throne of God end and then what happens is that love begins to pour out from the relationship we have with Jesus to those important relationships in our lives because as first John tells us we love because he first loved us. We're going to sing a closing him that doesn't seem to appeal. It doesn't appear to be related to our discussion. About family but it is critical see when when we're married. There's not just two people and when you're friends with somebody, it's not just the two of you. When you're a parent and a child, it's not just the two of you. The spirits should always be invited into that relationship. So we're going to sing a song about the Holy Spirit and let stand as we invite him to join us this week and for the rest of our lives as part of our relationships.

What is we go into this coming week with these precious relationships that we value so much. We ask that your spirit would go with us that you would fall afresh on us that you would break us and melt us and give us repentance so that you can mold us into the noble godly people you want us to be we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.