Because no parent here, I just want to tell you, no parent is alone. And even though the enemy is after our marriages and our families, we are not alone in the fight and we are not going to lose the fight because the fight’s already been won, because Christ has already won the victory on the cross. He is drawing many sons to glory. He is putting his family together and he will be victorious. However, we’re going to look at Ephesians six and we’re actually going to start the last verse of Ephesians five and we’re looking at Ephesians six 1 to 4 primarily, and it’s about the family, it’s about how to raise your kids and the nurture, the admonition and the training of the Lord. That verse might be one that you’ve memorized in the past. It’s a good one to memorize if you’re a parent because that’s God’s charge to you. That’s his responsibility that you bring up his kids that he’s entrusted to you in the nurture and the admonition and the training of the Lord, the Lord being Jesus Christ himself. Now, we shouldn’t be surprised that in the context of Ephesians six, we have spiritual warfare. If you get into verse ten and down, you hear about Paul discussing that we don’t wrestle with flesh and blood, but our fight is against principalities and powers and the cosmic forces of wickedness and heavenly places. Before he talks about that, before he talks about what you might think of as deliverance and loud prayer and intercession and anointing your house with oil and, you know, spiritual warfare principles. You might think of it as something that you would see more in the church or more in ministry or more in Skid Row or in a dark place, see the sort of spiritual warfare. But the way Paul sets it up in the course of Ephesians, what we’ve been studying is he starts by talking about your life in the church. Then he talks about your life with your spouse, then he talks about your life with your kids. Then he talks about your life with your boss and your employees, and then he talks about how you really wrestling with demonic powers. You’re really wrestling you don’t have a fight against your spouse. You don’t have a fight against your kids. You don’t have a fight ultimately against your wicked boss. You know, that’s not, you know, the IRS. I don’t know. You know, whatever you think your fight is against, that’s like the closest example of demonic oppression that I can think of in a physical sense. I’m sorry. That was just a joke. We honor the authorities. Okay. That was a joke for everyone watching this on the NSA right now. Okay. But yeah, our fight is not actually against those entities. It’s ultimately against the divider, the one that divides. I think we have a scripture that I wanted to throw up at the beginning about Satan’s goal for your family. Did you know God has loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life and for your family? Satan hates you and has a terrible plan for your life and for your family. And this is really his goal. It says in Mark three that he’s out to divide Mark 324 through 25. Jesus said, If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. So if the enemy can divide your house he can divide you in the relationships that are closest to you. He can bring a wedge into your covenant with your spouse and your covenant with your kids, your covenant with your church, your covenant, your given word and business. Right. Those partnerships that you’ve given, if he can bring a wedge into those situations, your house cannot stand. We all realize we’re part of a family. You might have a physical family. You might be the head of a physical family or you might not. You might be single. I know I was single till I was 30, and I really wanted to be married way before that. And I would always get annoyed when there was messages about marriage and family. I’d say like, Well, where’s mine? You know, ours, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, but. But you have to realize you’re actually part of a household. You actually are called to pour into the house of God. If there is, you can think of families, physical families where the parents are torn up. The parents can’t pray for their kids. Maybe you could step in, maybe you could pray, maybe you can intercede, maybe you can bear burdens, maybe you can share the gospel. Maybe you can be a spiritual mother, a spiritual father, a spiritual brother or sister. Does this make sense to everyone? We all have responsibilities in the household of God and our physical household. There is specific instruction that God has for us today, for our household, and we’re going to get into that. And he addresses the dads, he addresses the fathers. And I just want to realize that I know there’s a lot of people in this room that you’re a single mom, you’re a single dad, maybe you’re a grandparent raising a kid. Maybe you’re the guardian of a child. Maybe you have a responsibility as a counselor or a teacher where you’re you’re really close to children. And I want to encourage you from the heart of God. I was discussing this with my partner, my wife, Dawn, and she said, you need to encourage the families. You don’t need to just come and, you know, tell them everything they’re doing wrong and how, you know, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, you know, But I just want to encourage you that if God has has put you in that situation, you’re not alone. You’re not second class. If there’s not like a traditional Leave It to Beaver family that you have from the 1950s, some of you have to Google that. I know I did anyway. But if you don’t have, you know, the husband and the wife and the kids and the steak and potatoes on the dinner table every night, you’re not second class in the kingdom of God and you don’t have a lesser Holy Spirit. And it only takes one person to stand in the gap for your family. It only takes one person to say, Lord, would you intervene? And would you put the blood of Jesus this house so the destroyer will pass over. It takes one person to lead an example of the nurture and admonition of the Lord. It takes one person to forgive and to be like Jesus and to show unconditional love. It takes one. So I hope everybody heard that. That being said that the Lord is calling me out. The Lord is calling us out today, that we step into that place, that we can fill, that we’ve been designed to fill and to lead our families spiritually. Like I said, I’m a I’m the high school pastor here with my wife, Dawn. We have two little daughters and we have a son on the way. So, yeah. So that’s important. Yeah. So that’s awesome, right? And I say that because I’m really happy about it and it’s my time to shine. I’m just kidding. But now I’m excited about it because, you know, God, the first mission he ever gave mankind was be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Why is there a spiritual war? Because Satan knows that mission. Satan knows that by having kids and godly families, we will colonize the earth and we will kick out the enemy. It’s not by top down political control. It’s not by Christians being the president. It’s by families that love Jesus everywhere, spreading the leaven and the mustard seed of the Kingdom of God. And we will grind the enemy’s face into the dirt over generations. And the enemy knows if he gives families enough time in the Holy Spirit, there’s only going to be one family. At the end of the day, it’s going to be the family of our Father God. In Psalm 22. There’s a prophecy of this right after the death of Jesus and talking about what he’s paid for and the cross. And it says in Psalm 22, verse 27, All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. And do you have hope for the future? Yeah. Do you have hope that the Gospel can win? Do you have hope that every family in the Earth can turn?

Satan fears that that’s his fear and we don’t believe it. We get dominated by fear and we think all the best we can hope for is just to survive this life. But what God says is go be part of the city, do good the community, have kids, be fruitful, multiply, build to the next generation. Did you hear what Josh preached? He said These are four steps into the future that we are raising, and then that’s the future that’s increased legacy. That’s going to grind the enemy out. That’s long term mustard, seed, leaven kingdom of God. That’s what we’re investing in. It’s not about all about us in this generation. God is the God of the families of the Earth. He shows steadfast love to thousands of generations of those that love him and keep his commandments. Exodus 24, six and seven thousands of generations. That is God’s heart. Is his heart that for your family. I know as hard as that for my family, I need to receive that walk in it and pray that over my family that the Lord will win his victory, that my family will be raised in Christ likeness, that my family will be a force for transfer farming society, that my family line isn’t just for the name of Leon, it’s the name of Jesus. Yes, it’s the name of Jesus that is the name by which we are called. And so I just want us to set the stage there of why there is this battle. Because, you know, if you watch the wrong Instagram feed, you think that, you know, you’re you’re really, really bad at being a parent. And, you know, the struggle is not really that real. And maybe other people have it easier. But there’s a war for the family, it’s supposed to be difficult. It’s supposed to be harder than you think because you have extra people throwing on the flames. They’re called demonic entities. And we believe that is the church, right? If there’s if there’s a place that believes that it should be right here and we should we should realize that there’s more with us than are against us. Greater is he who is in you than here who is in the world. So we need to recognize the battle. If we want to fight the battle. Okay. Now I’ll just be real transparent because Don and myself are not perfect parents. We’re just not we’re not like perfect individuals. And I’m going to go beyond that because it’s that’s sometimes it’s a cop out or like the preachers like, well, you know, I’m not perfect, but you need to you need to be perfect, you know, And, you know, we we fight. It’s hard for us to get to church sometimes. Sometimes we say, is this really what Jesus wanted? Like, but we can’t even get in the car here, You know, like, sometimes we cuss. I’m not I’m not going to tell you, like, which word is the most common, but it happens. Right? And so I just want you to know, like I love the testimonies today because there is so much in it about like, hey, I took a step back, but the Lord brought me forward again. Hey, I got hit, but I got back up by the grace of the Lord. This is a long term thing we get. I get suckered into thinking I just want the magic solution. Sometimes there is. Sometimes there’s a mighty healing and a mighty deliverance. But even then you need to walk in it. Even then, we sustain that. Even then we give it away to the next generation, to those that don’t, that don’t know Jesus. And so I just want you guys to know that, like I think of it as like the stock market. There’s certain years that are that are better than others. But if you look 100 years from now, you’d hope stock market would be higher, right? So we’re on this spiritual journey. We’re on a journey with our marriages and our kids and our church relationships and our boss-employee relationships. We’re on this journey and it’s not always going to look pretty. It’s not always going to look super righteous. There’s an enemy, there’s opposition, there’s sin, there’s stupidity, there’s selfishness, there’s ignorance, there’s miscommunication. This is a family. Okay? I think maybe. Maybe I’m not alone in this. Okay, cool. All right. So just so you know, I’m not here to say I’m David, and I can tell you how to live, right? That’s not. That’s not what I’m here to say. I am here to say that Jesus can tell you how to live because he lived it. And the Holy Spirit can tell you how to live because he’ll help you live it. Father can tell you how to live because he wants the most abundant life for you. Okay, so let’s get into some of the father’s instructions here. Let me pray for us. Father, I just thank you so much for every family in this room. I thank you so much for those that have come into your family that they’ve been forgiven. They’ve received new brothers and sisters. They’ve received a new dad. They’ve received hope. Father, I pray for anyone that has not yet joined this family that right now they would say, I want to come home, father. I want to come into this family. I want to be raised by you and father. I pray for every head of a household in this room that today we would renew our covenant with you. And we would say, as for me in my house, we will serve you the way we will you alone. So, Father, just refresh our hearts today, refresh our commitment. Inspire us with your initiative to fight and win for your glory. God, in Jesus name, Amen. So be the title of the message is a war zone called Home. Because that rhymed. So I thought it was a good title. But it is true. Sometimes the home is the biggest war zone because the enemy doesn’t fight fair. He’s not like, I’ll wait till they get to the church, and then I will, you know, put a temptation in his head, right? He’s like, no, he uses guerrilla tactics. He’s at the innocent. I’m being honest right now. Like he’ll strike at kids that are just born. There’s an example in the Bible where the disciples couldn’t kick a demon out of a kid. And the father said, this has been happening to him since he was a little toddler. The spirit tried to throw him in the fire and into the water. The enemy is not fighting fair. Your kids can’t defend themselves and the enemy’s coming to get them. And do you understand that? Yeah. He wants them dead. He’s been a murderer since the beginning. Many of you rightly, I would say, if someone came in trying to kill your family, you would intervene and you would stop. Person Why don’t we operate that way in the spiritual realm? Why don’t we realize that this is where the war is fought? The enemy fights? Yes, with intimidation. Yes, with undermining. But most of all, he’s fighting with deception, with quarreling, with accusation. He’s splitting. And I don’t know if anybody has ever experienced this, but it happens. Okay, thanks. Worse, less experienced it. All right, cool. Somebody did. All right. Let me just read our passage for us so we know what we’re talking about. I’m going to start at the last verse of chapter five in Ephesians, because there’s no chapter breaks in Paul’s original letter, and we’ll see how his thought continues. Let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up, nurture them in the discipline instruction of the Lord. Okay, so this is what we’re talking about. This is God’s instruction to Christian households. There’s actually a parallel passage I want to read from Colossians, another letter from Paul at the same time frame, Colossians 318 through 21. It’s the exact same structure as wives. Submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children obey your parents and everything for this pleases the Lord. Fathers do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. That we’re discouraged means they have a broken spirit. They lost the will to try again. There they were exasperated. Right? That’s another translation. Okay. So what we want to take from this is that there’s God’s will for your home, for your household. He wants a climate of peace in your home. He wants a climate where there’s respect, there’s submission, there’s love, there’s self-sacrifice, and there’s a focus on Jesus. Did you notice? He said, Bring them up at the instruction of the Lord. When Paul says Lord, he means literally the person of Jesus. So that’s the written word of Jesus and the example of Jesus. We’re teaching our kids to live the same life that Jesus lived. We’re modeling that for them, very imperfectly, but we’re coming back to it. We’re coming back to it when we fall short. We’re saying that wasn’t right. We’re being humble. We’re actually leading in that example. This is what the Lord’s calling us to do, is to have a that is submitted to Jesus. It’s about him. And that’s not going to be the default setting. When the enemy’s messing with you, it’s your default setting is just survival mode or your default setting is, I don’t know, financial provision or just make them be quiet and go to bed. I’m just speaking from personal experience, right? And so your default setting is not always like, how can we show the spirit of Jesus, you know, But that is what we’re called to do. It’s a blessing to have this responsibility. You know, I think sometimes we look at it and we say, it’s so hard, how am I going to do this? And I have failed so many times. But you have time. If you start with young kids, you have time. The Lord just wants to encourage you. If you don’t have young kids, you have time today. You have time to pray, you have time to apologize. You have time to make it right. You have time to invite them somewhere. You have some time right now. If you say like, it’s too late, that’s never the voice of God or the Lord said, I’ll restore the years the locust has eaten. And Joel 225 There’s nothing if you bring it to him that he does not want to redeem. There’s no failure in your past that he doesn’t want to make right and redeem. Do we read the word of God with that tone of voice when you read these passages you are reading it as fathers, don’t provoke your kids to anger like you already did. Like, is that the voice you hear? You’re screwing it up, You’re messing up again. Is that the voice you hear? If it is, that could be a result of something you used to hear. It could be a result of how Satan speaks to you, tries to father you, tries to mold how you see things and how you do that. But God’s voice says that Fathers don’t provoke your children’s anger because he doesn’t do that. He says, Just be a father. As I’m a father, look to me, How do I treat you when you’re really, really frustrating me? See you Like if you’re not going to provoke your kids to anger, that means you know how to handle it. When they provoked you to anger, you’re not just provoking them to anger unless you’re a psychopath. 

Like you’re not just like, Hey, we have nice peace and quiet here. Let me just go, you know, mess with my kid, his toy away from him. You’re not doing that. Usually this is a response to something that’s going on. You’re not getting them. All right. So this is this is a sense where if we’re not following all the commandments that led up to Ephesians six one, it’s going to be tough if we’re not filled with the Holy Spirit praising God, abounding in Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, serving our wife, serving our kids, Like if we’re not in the Word of God, letting it dwell richly in us, we don’t have very many resources to to react rightly. Is that my phone? Sorry. Okay. So I want to just encourage us that you’re going to be tested in these times and you’re not. You may not always do right, but stick it. Stick with it over the long term. Apologize when you get it wrong. This is all I can really say to you because this is all I can do. I haven’t discovered some secret silver bullet yet where everyone just does what I tell them to do. I can’t just give you, you know, the way I don’t believe. Even God has designed it that way. Because doesn’t always get what He wants from his kids. They have freedom. One of the biggest strongholds that can be in our mind is that these kids are mine. They’re not like Josh and Shiloh. They dedicated their child back to the Lord. That child ultimately belongs to the Lord and to themself. You have to release them. Are you preparing yourself for that? Is that how you’re treating the children is that how you’re treating people that you’re in close ministry to? If you if you don’t have physical children, like they don’t belong to you when you think they belong to you, you can start idolize them. This child is going to make my name. This child’s going to do this. This child’s going to always love me and give me the appreciation that I need. This child’s going to appreciate the thousands of chicken nuggets that I’ve cooked for him in the oven. Well, maybe not, you know, so it’s better to just release that one, right? Release them to the Lord, because the Lord is actually saying raise them as my kids. Raise them to be like Jesus and you’ll be called to account for that. That doesn’t mean that you control the outcome. You don’t control what happens. You don’t control their free decisions, but you control your decisions. I control my decisions. I control how I pray. I control how I apologize. I control how I set discipline. I control how I talk about the Lord in the family environment. I control how I bring peace or chaos into my choices, into my words. That is what I have control over, that the Lord will call me to account for as a parent. Good. Okay. So if we have God’s climate in our home, we have peace hopefully at least some of the time we have discipleship training in the home, raising them in the nurture admonition of the Lord, the instruction that word is paid. It means the whole training of a child. You’re training them up to be like Jesus, and a parent has that responsibility, he says to the father. That’s ultimately the father’s responsibility, even though mothers are doing a lot of it right. The Lord’s like, I’m going to call you father to account, just like I called Adam to account in the Garden of Eden. Now this means that, you know, even though you’re part of this church and you have the best youth pastor that could possibly be imagined that never does anything wrong and never, like, messes up anything, you still have to raise your kids, disciple your kids. It’s primarily you. I mean, Don and I, we have the high schoolers for maybe 3 hours a week. You have on 165 hours a week. That’s what the Lord’s calling you to do, is to train them in the Lord. And you might think, I’m not really equipped to do that. I don’t have the answers. Finance Hours watch YouTube videos with them about apologetics, doctrine, church history, historical context of the Bible. I can give you guys links for these if you want. If you want to start learning. It’s not all had knowledge, but had knowledge helps you. It’s your primary. It’s my responsibility with my kids. I’ll say it that way. It’s mine. Nobody else can do it for me. Nobody else is going to be as important to them molding their minds as. I and Dawn, Dawn and myself will be same for your kids. A pastor can help. A teacher can help, a counselor can help. They’re going to say, What did dad believe? What did mom believe? Did I ever come in the room? And they had their Bible open and they were taking notes. Did I ever wander in the room? And they were weeping, praising the Lord? What kind of impact would that have on your kids if you lived in that way? Modeling the instruction of the Lord for them? You could start today. It doesn’t matter what the pastor’s is. Everybody tracking with me right now. We believe in a faith that has something called repentance in it. It means that today can be a new day. It means there could be a reset button. It means you can come and say, hey, we haven’t really been focused praying together, but I’d like us to pray together today. We haven’t really been reading the Bible or or watching Superbook on the TV. That’s a really good, historically accurate Bible Bible show for kids. We haven’t really been watching that. We haven’t really been discussing it. Let’s do that. Let’s let’s turn off. I’m just going to pick a random one. what am I going to pick? Blip B Let’s just turn him off. Done. Right. There was a reason I picked that. But anyway, let’s let’s put some good things in the home and be gatekeepers, right? A lot of times the enemy can attack our homes because we’re just not being good gatekeepers. We’ve made compromises. And what kind of entertainment comes in? What kind of music comes in, What kind of other influences come in? And it’s just easy. I get it. You know, I am not without sin. I’m just I’d say over and over again, I’m just I’m speaking as a fellow person here, it’s so much easier to just put something on the TV. It’s so much easier to just disconnect. This applies to marriage if you don’t have kids, you should be fruitful and multiply. That was somebody’s sign. Somebody here was praying like, Is it time to have kids? All right. Did okay be fruitful and multiply? Was the Bible okay, But if you don’t have kids yet, praise the Lord. Okay, You’re in a great situation, but make the most of it. No, I don’t really know what to say in that. Just prepare yourself, man. I don’t know. Here is the passage with timestamps and “Unknown” removed: Stop the generation of God. He tried to stop the Messiah from coming, failed. And now he’s trying to stop the Messiah’s body from conquering the world. It’s going to fail. Trying to stop the family of God. He’s going to fail, but he’s going to make it pretty annoying along the way. Okay. And we have to just be really aware of that, making sure we fight the enemy. One of the ways he’s working, creating exasperation, creating chaos, creating accusation, creating wedges, splitting us from our kids and our wife. Okay? Causing us to provoke one another to anger. This is one that’s that we’re focusing on in our text. As Paul said, fathers don’t provoke your kids to anger. I’m asking the kids to obey, but don’t make it so hard. Don’t make it so hard for them to obey you. It says Obey in the Lord. I Just want to make this point for any kids or, you know, people that are in their parents household. You’re called to obey your parents. They actually whipped you when you were a kid. I can say it as delicately as I can. They did that stuff. Obey them. You owe them honor and respect until you can be on your own, until you leave. Father, mother, and start your own. Start your own thing. Okay. But it says Obey in the Lord. There might be some of you that have I hope not here, but some children are actually believers and their parents are using them against one another. Their parents are asking them to send their parents are leading them into temptation. You guys know these horror stories as well as I do, and it says Obey in the Lord, you don’t obey things that your parents leading you away from the Lord, leading you to disobey God. That’s not what you obey. But if the parents just asking you, I’d like you to take out the trash. You take that thing out, right? Okay. So obey your parents. Parents don’t make it so hard. Don’t. Don’t provoke your kids to anger. Now, how do I do that? That’s the question I asked myself. How am I really angering Laney, which does happen a lot, right? How am I how am I doing that? A lot of the times you’re not doing anything wrong. You just got to stick with the discipline. You got to stick to it. Don’t give in because you’re so insecure and you just want little Laney like you just don’t don’t give in on that. They need that limit. Okay. But how do we exasperate provoke our kids to anger through unrealistic expectations, through severity, through control, right through not listening, through hypocrisy? I hold you to a different standard then I hold myself to. That doesn’t make sense to a kid. That’s that’s going to be dissonance going on. There’s so many ways, if we’re excessively punitive, if we’re disconnecting, like I said, if we’re nitpicked, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And all they hear is correction and critique, that’s way more of the voice of the father of lies than it is father in heaven. They need to hear who they are. They need to hear encouragement. They need to hear what Paul said, nurture. Nurture is really the opposite of provocation. Did you draw that from the text? There’s there’s provoking to anger and there’s nurture, There’s bringing up that’s that’s the word bringing up in Greek. It’s translated nurture in a lot of other translations. And nurture means promoting growth, nurturing a plant, right? You’re nurturing, you know, your musical abilities. You’re allowing it to grow. Does that make sense? And How we do that with human beings, what makes you grow attention, care, gentleness, a good challenge every now and then? Truth, right? Instruction, all these things, nurture. That’s what we’re trying to provide to our kids. We’re not trying to, like, clip off every leaf of their plant or letting it grow. So hopefully, hopefully that makes sense to everyone of what Paul’s asking us to do. And it’s interesting that he asks the father to nurture. You might think, that’s the mom’s job, the mom’s the nice one. The dad comes in with the switch. Okay? Right. Like he lays down the law. But why? Our Heavenly Father isn’t just the law. Our Heavenly Father is the God of Grace. He’s the God of love. He’s the God of a warm voice. I hope you know this. I hope you haven’t believed the enemy’s lies about your father. That he’s a nit picker. you can never please him, right? This is just false. This is his lie. And the reason that it takes hold is because people have no father or they have a controlling father. And God forbid that I become that controlling father. I just pray, Lord, I just honestly pray. Lord, don’t let me do that. Don’t let me suffocate life out of my kids. Let let me allow some mistakes to happen. Let them grow. Let me allow them to talk and express frustration. Sometimes. Let me do that. I don’t like to do that. Can this be like my public therapy session here? I don’t like to be like, I’m sorry that your feelings hurt. I like to be like, we asked you once and you do it because that’s how I was raised, you know, why aren’t you doing it? And so that does need to happen. We’re towards that, working towards it. There is freely choosing human beings that are coming along the road with us. Right? We need to stay on that, stay with our initiative. But there’s times that just ain’t going to happen. And what are you going to do when you’re provoked to anger? What What am I going to do? This is something to think about. It’s not something that you’re going to really do well in the moment. If you haven’t prayed into it, if you haven’t thought about it, if you haven’t shared your struggle with somebody else who’s a parent and got a little advice, got a little support, got a little someone saying, yeah, I made that to maybe, maybe try this or or at least, hey, I will pray for you. That’s that’s a tough one. We never found the answer on that one. That’s that’s good to hear. We cannot this alone. That’s another stronghold you might have as a parent. Like, I have to do this myself. Now, far be it for me to quote Hillary Clinton. But she said it takes a village to raise a child. And I think Hillary was right on right there. I know that offended everybody in here. But it actually takes a church. It takes a church to raise a child. It takes a family to raise a family. We can do it ourselves. Well, may be okay, but it takes humility. I don’t know about you. It takes humility. Say, man, we really need a babysitter tonight. We really need help from our extended family. We don’t. We like to just get it done. Don and myself, we’re not. We try to just get it done type of people like not bother people. I hate bothering people, but with kids, you got to bother people because you’re being bothered. They have no problem bothering you. At least my kids. Maybe you have like a great kid that just sits there and, you know, plays with his his tiddledywinks. I don’t know. Legos. I don’t know. Maybe you have that. I mean, we have we have some kids with some attitude. So because we have attitudes, we have dorks as kids, because we’re dorks, we have attitude kids because we have attitudes. So this is what we’re trying to, you know, build and, you know, help, help them in Christ, you know, to the next the next generation. Okay. But yeah, we don’t have to do this alone. It’s I remember like I asked, there was two separate people I asked in this church that you would know. And I was like, how did you survive having really little kids? Because I I’m not equipped for this and I don’t have the patience for this. They don’t just listen to me, right? They don’t know how do I do this. They don’t ever stop crying. How do how do you handle this? And one of them said, Yeah, I don’t really remember. I blocked that out. And I asked the other one. The other one, I was like, How did you handle it? And she was like, I went insane for four years. And so I was like, All right, cool. So that’s maybe that’s what you have to do. Maybe that’s what you got to do. Okay, so the gods, the God of grace, right then you’ve driven him crazy plenty of times, right? You’ve driven your parents crazy, probably. I know. I’ve driven mine pretty crazy. I just want to let you know there’s mercy and there’s grace. God knows your frame. He remembers that you’re dust. According to Psalm 103, he understands it’s a big job. You’re not doing it alone. You have his spirit, You have his word, you have his church. You have hopefully you have friends. If you don’t have friends, try to get some friends. If you see a couple that has no friends, try to make friends with that couple. I mean, I’m scared, but yeah, but but seriously, sometimes these people are so overwhelmed. Right? And it could be a families many different situations. I’m just speaking out of my perspective right now. I hope you guys can hear that you have your own situation. I’m sure it’s you’re going to come up to me and say it’s wait until you have teenagers, you know, And that’s going to be so that’s going to be so encouraging to me. When you say that, when you say that to me, wait till they’re out of the home. You know, I don’t know you’re going to say, but everyone has their own their own situation. It can be very hard, be very difficult. Maybe if you see a family that’s struggling in any way you just say, we need to take a step and help them because we remember when we were there. It’s not just all about, now we’re free and we can go to Bermuda whenever we want. Yeah, well, congratulations. Someday, someday we’ll be there, right? That’s a great thing. Praise God. But maybe before you go to Bermuda next time, you just, you know, you invite someone out to dinner and see how they’re doing and pray for them. Is this making sense to everybody? I feel like I’m just. I don’t know. All right. So we need to actually help each other because we can’t do it alone. All right. Hopefully this is creating a new like a desire to pray and desire to pray for God’s help, a desire to intercede and a desire to lift up your family. I know. I know. It comes to me because I don’t just have it in me. I remember I was praying to God, like, if we should have a third child or not, and he’s like, I have two questions for you. And he doesn’t usually do this to me. So I was like, okay, I’m really listening. And he said, Number one, how holy do you want to be? Yeah, I was like, I don’t know, I think I’m good, you know, I’m just kidding. But yeah, I want to be I want to be holier. And the second question too, how unholy do you want to know yourself to be? I was like, I don’t know. It’s a hard one, but every time you have kids, you’re making that decision to find out the answers to those questions. How holy are you really? And How holy can the Lord make you through laying down your life, through commitment, through faithfulness, through serving, through putting other people before yourself, through not having your precious Facebook time at night as much as he used to, right? David Okay. And so hopefully this is just I want us to have this dependance upon God because this is this is the context.Keep reading. I mean, we’ll get to it hopefully in other weeks. But Paul talks about put on the full armor of God. Pray at all times in the Holy Spirit. He is talking about praying for gospel opportunities for him and his people, but he’s also talking about how to deal with every situation that he just described marriage, family, work, church. You got to pray because we we’re not edified in our spirits automatically, right? You don’t wake up edified in the spirit. Maybe you do. I don’t. The way you get edified in the spirit is through the word of God, through prayer, in the Holy Spirit. That’s how you edify yourself in the Holy Spirit. If we don’t have that, we’re trying to we’re trying to give it. It’s just not going to be there. So hopefully everybody realizes that. Okay. So a couple other thoughts here. I know the pastors asked me to cover a few a few questions on the subject. I’ve I’ve touched on a few of them, but we looked at what the family relationship should look like. It should really look like Ephesians five one. Imitate God as beloved children. So we’re raising beloved children as beloved children. We are beloved children of God, and that’s how we have something to love our kids. That’s how we have something to raise them kids. That’s how you have something to obey that parent that just doesn’t understand as much as you, right? They just don’t get it. Today, Lainey ran out in the living room. She’s like, Dad, you don’t know anything. I was like, Wow, that’s a that’s a blanket statement that you just made. I don’t know anything. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe that’s the beginning of wisdom. That’s what I should have responded. Okay. The only way is as the one that says they know nothing. Okay. All right. So you got to always have these responses ready. Okay, So we’re actually raising our kids in nurture, in love. In truth. It’s okay. All right. Why do families become targets for destruction from the enemy? I already mentioned Satan wants to stop the mission of filling the earth with the family of God. He wants to destroy families to the thousandth generation. He wants to divide churches. He wants to ruin ministries. How many ministries have you seen that evolve? Not because the person’s not gifted in the Scripture gifted, in the Holy Spirit, that because something went wrong in their marriage or something went wrong with their kids and are we judging them? God forbid we’re taking warning. I’m taking warning that can happen to us. Whoever take whoever thinks they stand, take heed lest they fall. That’s not going to be me. Well, the enemy is going to try to make it. You. So be vigilant, be sober minded, stand together. Did you know in a Ephesians we’ll get to it on spiritual warfare, it says Stand against the enemy. Stand. Having done all stand, it’s plural. In Greek, it’s plural. Stand together. Having done all stand together. Stand together with your wife or husband. Don’t be using the kids as pawns against each other. They’re not your kids to use like that. They’re the Lord’s kids. Okay, Stand together, Husband and wife. Stand together in the church. Stand together with friends that really know what you’re dealing with. That’s not going to be everyone. But it should be someone. It should be some people that can pray. Prayer is the key to victory here. I want you to know, I see we’re running out of time here. Prayer is so key. The devil is such a threat. Do I need to say more on the devil? It’s pretty much big threat. You’re not on your own in this. How about this? A lot of families with this lie until I get a spouse or until my spouse changes, our family is stuck. I just want to tell you something. I said it already. It only takes one person to stand in the gap. It only takes one person to believe the promises of God. God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly. Above all, you can ask or think through the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord is able to take care of His kids through you. That doesn’t matter if somebody else is messing around, you can hold the line. You still have a choice of whether you’re going to choose peace, choose love, choose to serve, choose to stay. It only takes one peacemaker to continue to reconcile conflicts. If there’s one peacemaker, there can be reconciliation. If there’s one person, I’ll just say this Why don’t you be the one in your family? I’ve made this commitment, and I’m not saying that Don won’t do this. I’m a a bonehead sometimes and she has to come to me. But I’ve made the point to myself that if I know there’s a conflict, I’m the one that needs to do something about it. I’m the one that’s going to take the first step. Jesus didn’t wait for me to step to him. He came off the throne of heaven to step to me. When I was his enemy. He came to make peace by the blood of his cross, as we read earlier in Ephesians. Okay, so our call is to be peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers. They will be called Sons of God. If you are one person in your house, even if you’re a kid and you have weird parents and you’re a godly kid, maybe there’s one person in the house that can say, Hey, let’s talk about this, let’s listen. Hey, I made a mistake here. I take responsibility for my side of this. Let’s talk about the rest. God is a god of reconciliation. There will always be the enemies of victory. There will always be division. Unless there’s a peacemaker. Unless there is a peacemaker, no family can ever hold together over the long stretch. And that isn’t just praying, that is having hard conversations, and that’s laying down your pride and that’s apologizing and that’s this. And that is everybody here, this this is what will hold your family together because you believe in what’s going to happen in the next generation. You believe that it’s about more than our happiness in the moment. It’s about these kids bringing the kingdom of God to the next generation. So that at least gives us an incentive to try to talk, to try to be one. To try to make peace. Right. This is this is so key that it’s not dependent on somebody else’s actions. The promise of God coming to your family. If you’re willing to pray, you’re willing to seek that with all your heart. The Lord says, I was looking for a man to stand in the gap, and I found him. I was looking for a woman to stand in the Gap, and I found her. I was looking for a grandpa to stand in the gap, and I found him. I believe that that is directly from the Lord. Do not give up hope. Keep praying. Pray over your family. I just want to cover at the end here. What does it look like to have a victorious household? Victorious household in God? So we’ve talked about the fact that there is a battle. The battle is won. But how do we bring that that victory to our home? Well, I just want us to realize that the first element is faith. Do you believe God is committed to you and your family? Have you committed yourself in partnership with God to not do it alone? Right. I I’ve mentioned this the Scripture before, but in Joshua 24, Joshua comes to Israel and says, Choose this day who you’re going to serve. And he’s talking to the heads of households. Choose who you’re going to serve, the gods of the river, the gods of Egypt. But as for me and my house, we serve Yahweh, and he made a covenant before God to do that, to say the most important priority of my family is the fellowship with God and the fellowship with God’s people. That is my house. I want to see His kingdom fill the earth. I want to see the King Jesus radiate out from my own life and my words and my actions and my love. I want to see that in my kids. I want to see his seal on their foreheads. That’s the covenant I make him, and it’s by his power that it will be fulfilled. I want to invite many people today in your hearts to just say, yes. That’s that’s what I’m doing in my house. I don’t care if she does. I don’t care if he does it. We’re doing it right and we’re leading towards it. And if we need help, we’re going to the pastors and we’re getting some help. We’re getting some support because we’re not doing it alone. So. Sound good? All right. All right. And then so it starts with faith. It goes into prayer you pray. You know, Victoria’s household, number one, they’re aware of the battle. Number two, they’re assured of the victory. Number three, they’re covered by the blood of Christ Christ. Our Passover has been sacrificed. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve just prayed like, Lord, I pray for my wife. I pray for my kids, that the blood of Jesus be over them and the destroyer will pass over. And I believe that. I believe we apply the blood of Jesus through our faithful prayer. And we persist in that prayer, we persist in that prayer. So we’re covered by the blood of Christ recovered by a priest. And that means that we are priests as parents, as heads of our household. If you’re a father in a house, you’re the priest means cover your house in prayer. Cover my house in prayer. If I don’t know how to pray for my spouse or kids, I put an image of them in my mind. I intercede in the spirit because the Lord is doing something and it makes a difference. If you don’t pray, less is going to happen that are in accordance with God’s purpose. If you pray, more of His purposes will come through. Don’t ask me how that works, but it works. Okay. Prayer is so easy to say. okay. Yeah. We prayed Lord, Lord, heal us. But really, we got to deal with this medically. We got to deal with it psychologically. We got to deal with it relationally. We got to deal with the communication. That’s true. You Need to do those things. But the primary battle is the spiritual battle. The primary battle is coming against that principality with prayer and faith and coming against what? What’s messing with you as a parent that you can’t that I can’t pour out to my kids? Okay. So the victorious household just I’ll move through this is supported by a community. It’s led by the word of God. It’s open to change. Has one peacemaker at least, hopefully more patient with the struggle and committed for the long haul. And I just want to end the instruction on that is like, this is a long term thing. You’re still my great my grandparents. They’re my kids, great grandparents. They’re raising their family today over the age of 90. They’re raising their family. They they get a prayer list out with everyone in the family every day. And at breakfast they pray over us. There’s not a single person in our family that doesn’t profess to know Jesus Christ, not I’m not lying. For a while that was not the case. And they prayed. They prayed, they prayed, they raised they set the example. I honor them. You’re never out of the fight. You are never out of the fight. Even when you go to heaven as part of the court of witnesses, you’re not out of the fight. So until His glory covers the Earth as waters cover the sea, we are raising generations, we’re raising people, We’re laying down our life so that Satan will be defeated. And the Kingdom of God, his kingdom of love, peace, justice, mercy will be established upon the earth. That’s what we want to give our lives to and our kids to see that your kids, my kids have to see me praying. They have to see me when there’s a sick person laying hands on that person and believing that they can be healed. They need to see me opening the scriptures and studying. They need to see when other people are watching cartoons, that is, you know, studying up on the word of God. They need to see that I’m willing to give money to those in need. They need to see that I care about the world and those in poverty that are broken. They need to see that. They need to see that I care about missions, missionaries. They need to see that. They need to see that I’m willing to repent. They need to see. I’m willing to forgive. They need to see me put my wife above myself. They need to see that I make myself a part of the house of God. They need to see that I’m here because I believe in the church. They need to see that. They need to see that. My friends, primarily my closest friends, are brothers in Christ that are going pray with me and that are going to be able to fellowship on a spiritual level so they know what real friendship is. That’s what they need to see in you. That’s the example open to you. It’s a rich, abundant life. If you haven’t been going that way, the grace of God is here. The grace of God is here. He can restore. He’s in the business of restoring. Do you believe that He can? Do you believe he’s on the move? All right. Just to close this want, I just think the Lord wants to encourage and minister to some people today. And so we won’t take super long on this because it’s the message about family. And you got to pick up your family from the junior church. But if you are involved in parenting a child or you are raising children on a daily basis, that could be a guardian, that could be a counselor, it could be a teacher, that you just have it on your heart, like I’m taking responsibility to spiritually father and mother, at least one kid. I just want you to stand up and we’re going to pray for you. Those that are around you, we’re going to intercede for you. You come. All right? So we have these incredible people. I just you guys do an amazing job. I’m so honored to be part of this community and to see how you guys raise your kids. And it inspires me. So I just want to let you know, the Lord’s faithful and he’s going to finish the work that he’s begun. He loves how you how you’re you’re in it for the long haul. So if you’re near these people, would you just lay hands on them? Would you go to them and just pray? I’m going to turn off my mike and let’s just let’s spend a few minutes praying. And when you’re done praying, you can go pick up your kids and go to fellowship. But let’s just pray over these parents, all right? God, you guys.