Winning At Home | Can God Fix My Family

good morning it is so good to see you
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um if we haven't met before my name is Michelle I'm a campus Pastor around here if it's your first time joining us well
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welcome it is just good that you are here if it's not your first time but maybe you're just starting to make a
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habit out of worshiping with us and we haven't had a chance to be introduced yet a great way to do that is to use a
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connect card that's that card that's in the seat in front of you you can take that out while we're up here and just
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give us enough information we're like this next coming week we can reach out and and say hi it's just a quick text
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message there's also a digital version of that connect card in the 242 app and
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so you can use that anytime to make an introduction ask a question get connected with the next step and the app
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is good for all kinds of other things stay connected all during the week stay on top of what's happening around here
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let's start our worship service like this will you stand with me and let's sing
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oh good morning my name is Sean and this is my wife Julie we are excited to be here with you and worship our Lord and
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Savior Jesus Christ by lifting our voices
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by lifting our hands and seeking to our Lord
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this is the day me
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whatever comes I won't complain for All My Hope
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and now your joy awaits my praise let's sing this together
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[Music]
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you set my feet
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so here I stand [Music] your faithfulness
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[Music]
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[Music] I can't fix
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[Music] [Applause]
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ing this together so
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[Music]
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foreign [Music]
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[Music]
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love is something
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everybody
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foreign
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[Music] father we are here to meet with you we are here to lift our voices and sing to
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you [Music] hear our praise As we sing [Music]
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this is the world here in the flesh
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[Music] the voice of God
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is every breath salvation of the world
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Behold Him lift up your eyes
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[Music]
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[Music]
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upon the cross and from his wounds his mercies flowing
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Dawn put death to death
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and ever since that creates been empty
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[Music]
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foreign
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[Music]
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here in our chest at every door
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the save yours
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[Music]
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everything
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all of them lift up your eyes
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damn again
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here I see the sun
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[Music]
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to praise
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foreign [Music]
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[Applause] you can go ahead and take a seat if
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you've just come in since we started uh my name is Michelle I'm the campus Pastor around here
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um you might already know this but our mission statement around here is to help people take next steps with God it's
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because we believe that no matter where you are in life that God is always
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bringing us along in his goodness that's just who he is
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and um our growth
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because he's so amazing sometimes he's just doing stuff we don't even know it and other times there are next steps
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that we know that we need to take places in our life where we're looking for
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Change and we know we need his help and that's when God gifts us with Community
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people with whom we can take those next steps next up groups at 242 are meant to
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help us take the next steps that we know we need to take and so we join up with other folks and we we take them together
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a Next Step group we have a couple actually just coming up
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that might be useful to you in a couple weeks on Wednesday Divorce Care will be
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starting on the 12th of October and then um on Tuesdays for the season is
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Financial Peace University now you can find out more information about both of these groups in the 242 app you can find
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your way to sign up for both of those a Next Step group this one actually was
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Monumental for diab and Laura now these
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two would tell you that from the outside from all outside appearances they were
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pretty successful they had nice cars they had good jobs they both had degrees
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they were living a great life but they would also tell you
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that oftentimes they would reach the end of their money before they reached the end
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of the month and eventually it got to the point where they had just had enough they knew they
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needed a change and they know they couldn't do it alone and so those two signed up for Financial
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Peace University they started this journey at a hundred and ninety thousand dollars
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in debt before their mortgage they would tell you that their net worth was negative eight hundred dollars
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and so when they signed up for Financial Peace University we call it FPU they
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were in a community where they were learning new things about growing uh
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bringing down debt and and bringing up wealth and by the time they finished their
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journey in just two years diab and Laura had paid down all of their debt and were
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completely debt free and they did that in the community with the support of their Community they cut
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credit cards and they slashed their budget and they downgraded their cars
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and without the support of their community and the new things they were learning in a circle that would have
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been impossible and at the end of their Journey they turned around and they were facilitators
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themselves in that same group they wanted to help someone else find the same financial piece that they had
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folks your next steps are always good for you
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but God is also using the work that he's doing in your life to help bring hope
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and peace to the next person God God doesn't just give to you he gives
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through you and that's what this moment in the service is always about we we celebrate
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together a God who is making things right and in our giving we we participate in
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the work that he's doing if you haven't given through 242 before
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here are some of the ways that we do that we do it in the moment right here there are buckets on this side of the
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aisle that we're going to pass to the other side of the aisle and if you choose to you can be a part of giving
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right now in the moment that's also a great place for your connect card if you want to share that with us now there are
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also ways to give digitally online many of us just kind of build in electronic giving into the regular rhythms of our
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life you can find ways to do that in the 242 app let's take a moment and pray and
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move on in our worship Heavenly Father
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sometimes a change in our life is big and it's just hard to miss and Lord
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those feel like Miracles at times and we're grateful for them they prove how powerful you are and Lord sometimes
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the change is slow and it's over time and we may not even realize it's happening
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and that shows us how present you are God we're grateful
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for all of you and Lord we're we're pleased to be a part of that work that
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you're doing and your son Jesus name amen the buckets I mentioned are on the right
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side so if you're over there would you mind passing it across thanks a lot folks we're kicking off a brand new
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series this week that I am really excited about I think it can create change for so many of us in the most
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important relationships in our life right at home so welcome to our brand
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new series winning at home
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[Music] all right well good morning I want to
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just say hello we're starting a new series today which I just love a new series it's like breaking into a fresh
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pack of underwear you know that feeling I want to welcome those of you in Saginaw those of you in Monroe at those
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locations I want to welcome those of you here in Brighton um will you start in a series winning at home and here's what I
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love about this is because that's what we all want this is universally true whether you are a follower of Christ or
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not it is universally true that we all want to win at home in fact personally I feel like if I am winning at home
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I can take on anything if I feel like my home is a place where the relationships are healthy where things are going well
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uh where I feel like I'm being a good father lawyer it's a place of Peace like
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it's a place of support I feel like I can take on anything and you know right now in the news we've
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got we've got Vladimir Putin threatened nuclear war we're entering into a
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recession that we don't really know what that's going to look like and that's okay I'm not a fan of those
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things but it's okay because my home my home is a place of support I
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can I can handle it but the opposite is also true that when I don't feel like
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I'm winning at home when I feel like things are actually kind of challenging and difficult and I I don't feel like a good father
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and I feel like the relationships are broken or there's tension in the home it's not a place of Peace it's not a
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place of support I choose despair rather quickly over the smallest of things I'll
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be watching a Lions game and I'm going to watch them blow another fourth quarter lead and I'm like I just
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can't keep doing that that's right that's the way we are our home is so vitally important and here's the thing
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we know that you want to win at home we want you to win at home and most
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importantly God wants you to win at home so that's why this series is so
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important and that's why we're going to take some time we're going to talk about this for eight weeks because we want to we want to really drill down into how
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God designed the home now before before I get into today's content I want to
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just kind of Define home a little bit uh for for many of you out there statistically speaking about 50 of you a
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home is is married with kids and maybe you've got kids in the home maybe you're an empty nester maybe you're a
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grandparent but that's that's you about 15 are probably Divorced with kids 10
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are widows and that's your home and then there's the 30 that are never been married 30 now that
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includes adults but also our teenagers and I just want to speak to you real quick because you might check out and be
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like Oh winning at home a family series like I don't know I I just want to say I want you to hear me on this this is
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important we have geared this towards everybody we believe there's something in here to take away for for everybody
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because your home is just your home whether that means you're living at home or maybe your home means it looks a
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little bit more like an episode of Friends like whatever your home is that is your home and we want to help you win
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there and we also don't want to build into The Stereotype The Stereotype that
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that you need to get married and you need to have kids in order to have worth
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we feel like sometimes through series like this in a church we can perpetuate something that's kind of like one of my
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favorite tick tocks watch this you're single well when are you gonna
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start dating you're dating well when are they gonna pop the question you're
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engaged well when are you gonna get married you're married well when are you gonna
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start having kids you had a kid well when are you gonna have another one
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kind of feels like that sometimes especially if you remember being single or if you are single or if you're young
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and everything it just feels like we're we're perpetually like you can't really have worth till you do that next thing
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and especially if you're single I just want you to hear this you're in good company you should not feel like your
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worth is tied with getting married because listen Jesus wasn't married
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and if your worth is connected to that then Jesus didn't have a lot of worth and I'll make the point like if you were
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getting ready to get married do I give it to your wedding day and you happen to have a wwjd bracelet on what would Jesus
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do the answer would be run because Jesus wouldn't be marrying
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the Apostle Paul who wrote a good chunk of the New Testament right he he was single and not only that but he
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encouraged people in scripture if you can handle it maybe you should remain single
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because you can do more for God so at the end of the day don't let your worth
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be connected with that now having said that today I want to move into like some
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content for today I want to set us up I think the objective I have for today I think this is where we're all at is
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we're asking this question can God heal what's broken
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with my family can God heal what's broken I'll just tell you that's the reason a lot of
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people come to church sometimes the the prompting to even seek God or attend
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church is because something feels broken at home a lot of times we'll have teenagers this happens more often than
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not teenagers will show up and be like man I just love being here because my home's a mess
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sometimes you'll have relationships that are broken you'll have infidelity in a relationship you'll or maybe not that
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maybe it's not to that extreme maybe it's just like you feel like something's broken in the marriage the teenagers
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aren't turning out to be what you expected there's something that's not working in the home and that prompts
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people to show up and figure out can God help me here I think we all start off in
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life wanting that picture perfect life this is a there's a picture here these uh people here are a group of
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randos that I Googled um I Googled perfect family and this is
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what came up I told my wife that and she was like well I don't know like that doesn't anyway so this but we do want
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this we want this picture at we want to be in sequence we want to be on there we want to share it on Instagram we want to
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we want to frame it and put it above the fireplace like that's what we all set off in life to kind of have and obtain
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and then something breaks along the way and I'm going to make this point here we're going to learn why this is but
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it's destined to break it will always break we're going to talk about why that is
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but that's just what happens our homes are all in places where something has
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fallen apart and broken and for some many of you that might be the most devastating thing that has happened in
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your life and a lot of times what we do in those scenarios is we we quote God actually
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what we do is we misquote God and when something devastating or something breaks in the home what we say is
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everything happens for a reason and we quote God
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the problem with that is God never said that when you say that to somebody whose home
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has fallen apart you're making God the author of their pain
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God never said that God's plan is so much more beautiful and robust than that
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and what we need to do and that's what I encourage us to do today is not think man everything happens for a reason but
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that we should be able to say everything can be redeemed
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everything can be redeemed and there is a need for you in your home no matter
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what that looks like for you there is a need for redeem we always think
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perfect we want to have a perfect family we always think we want to have a lovely
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family we always think that like we want to have that picture-perfect family and instead I think we ought to be saying
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this we want a family that is redeemed restored
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and reconciled I set off when I was a younger man I
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became a follower of Christ when I was younger and I set off to have this
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perfect family that picture family that we all want and I thought I'd kind of figured it out you know I just I just
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gotten out of my parents house and I'd like oh I'm not going to do things like that right so I had it all figured out
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and then on top of this I I became a Christian as a young man so like and I
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don't mean to brag but like I'm really doing this like I'm really following Jesus I'm not just up here talking about
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it I'm getting high on my own Supply okay I genuinely wake up every day and and I
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read scripture and I pray and I Surrender my life to God's will no matter how difficult that
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is and I cry out to God when I don't understand what's happening and I have lived my life in the trenches of
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genuinely authentically being obedient to Jesus and then on top of that when I was a
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young man I found a woman who is like a super Christian like she's
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she's the same way she's in the scripture and we pray together and we seek God together and we humble
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ourselves and pray and obedient to God and and I got to tell you over the last 25
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years we've been married for 25 years we've got four kids ages 23 21 16 and
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14. over the last 25 years don't get me wrong it's been marked by some really
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great moments some really incredible things that I think God showed up and just some times
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that I cherish forever but as much as we tried to have that
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perfect family and do it the way God wanted us to do it the last 25 years has been marked with
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tears and pain and broken relationship
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and regret so much
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regret and I want you to know if you feel like you've got a broken home if there is
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Brokenness in your life you are not alone it's actually part of the plan and
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I want to show you what I mean by that today we're going to talk about how God redeems us
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and then and buy that and through that is how he redeems what's also broken in
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our homes to do that we're going to jump into the book of Romans now in Romans chapter one
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through seven the Apostle Paul is going through like the heaviest some of the heaviest content uh you can find in
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scripture if you've never read the book of Romans before I just encourage you like do that and do that this week walk
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through it and understand it he's going through and he's he's explaining what it means in full detail that that God sent
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his only son Jesus Christ to this earth to die and rise from the dead
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he's explaining of all of what that means all through Romans chapter one through seven and then finally he gets
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to kind of eight and he he sort of draws a conclusion and in Romans chapter 8 verse 1 he says this this is an
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important verse heavy theological verse he says therefore based on everything
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I've been saying there is now condemnation
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remember that no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
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because through Christ Jesus the law of the spirit
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who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and
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death in order for us to understand the the way that God wants to redeem our life we
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have to understand the problem that God is working on and for the most part God
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is not working on the same problems that you and I are working on we're thinking career path we're
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thinking about where we live we're thinking about whether we're happy or not and all those things are important
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to God but that is not the source problem that God is working on God is working on this problem that's in each
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and every one of us it is our sin and this is universally true it's every
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one of us it's our factory setting all of us are like this I'm not talking about good people and bad people or
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those people that act like that or those people over there that behave like that not talking about that I'm talking about every single one
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of us we have a sin problem that's the problem that God's trying to to solve
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and seeing us in our sin he he sent his son Jesus to die for us and rise from
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the dead so that by putting our faith in him believing in him putting our trust in him he could redeem us what does
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redeem mean it means that he washes us he makes us clean he picks up the broken pieces of our life and and all the
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things that we've done because of our sin and he turns that into something beautiful for his will and his purpose
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that is his plan to redeem us now maybe you've heard that before maybe you haven't but sometimes I think we
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miss the power of it and sometimes it doesn't really fully sink in even people that are followers of Christ don't
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really understand what that means when I was a when I was about eight I
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made a decision that I wanted to get baptized now you need to know when I was eight I was not a spiritual person the
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only reason I wanted to get baptized is because my brother got baptized a few weeks before that and he got to go to
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Dairy Queen and so I was like maybe if I can find things I can go to Dairy Queen right and
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so I told my dad I was like Hey I want to get baptized and my parents were like oh you're a little young and they're like a little apprehensive but they I
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remember my dad explaining this to me he says okay here's what happens when you when you get baptized there it is your
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whole life your life is like a slate and you you sin and you make mistakes and you
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lie to your parents and you say words you shouldn't and you know he's just explaining the sin he's like but when you make a decision
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to get baptized God comes and he he wipes the Slate clean
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and he says but then after you make that decision and you're following after Jesus here's the problem you're still
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going to make mistakes you're going to ascend and when that happens here's what you do when you lie or use words you
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shouldn't or do whatever then then all you need to do is you just need to pray and you need to repent you need to say
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God I'm sorry and God will take it off the board
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and then you just keep doing that in your life now I heard that and I was
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like okay cool and then I went and I got my Blizzard from Dairy Queen by the way I got
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baptized got this and then I lived a completely a life completely opposed to the gospel I was one of the most
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rebellious people you've ever seen in your life and then one day God humbled me and brought me back to him and called
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me back home and I made a decision to actually follow Jesus when I was older but then I still had this in my head
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and so I tried to live this out I made a decision I got baptized again and this time it was for real and I began to live
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this out and I remember I would I would sin I would drop the F-bomb I would tell inappropriate jokes I would I would lie
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occasionally I would do all of these things and then I would pray and take them off the board and then and
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then what happened is I got busy I was an adult now and so I'm like busy and I'm doing things in my life and the
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board would begin to fill up and I'd realize I hadn't even taken some time and so I invented the uh the batching
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system which I hoped God was okay with where I just kind of like God like like
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you know like you know me you know what it is it's usually the same old ruts right and then I'd pray and I kind of
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try to take it off the board and and I just got to a Poise floor I just I couldn't keep up with it and then I
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learned that there are sins that I didn't even know were sins there were things that I hadn't even known as I
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read through scripture I didn't even I didn't even know they were wrong and I had all of this and I just felt like I was one minute I was in heaven and one
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minute I was hell based on whether I remembered these things and I prayed for these things and and honestly it got to be too much
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and then I started reading scripture for myself and seeking God for myself and I got to tell you do that don't go off of
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what you grew up with in catechism don't go up with you grew up off of what your parents said or what you've heard or
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seen around read it for yourself because you probably have it wrong
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as I began to read it for myself I began to realize that God didn't send his only son Jesus Christ to this Earth so he
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could have a better tracking system of my sin I read Romans 8 1 and it says
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that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus that God
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sent his only son to die for me so that so that the record that stood opposed to
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me would be destroyed so that I would be set free from the law of sin and death
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and I am free to be a child of the Living God he
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redeemed me and that's what it means to be a
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follower of Jesus Christ and that is the that is his plan to redeem what's broken
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in this world no as we continue through Romans 8.
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Paul's going to tell us like and now what do we do and now how do we live
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and I want to take what he says next he's not going to talk about our family or marriage relationships or kids or
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roommates or anything like that but he's going to give us the keys on how we are redeemed and he will show us
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how the world is redeemed he says in the next verse those who live according
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to the flesh remember that the flesh have their mind set on what the flesh
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desires but those who live in accordance with the spirit have their mindset on what the spirit
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desires let me pause there for a second the the flesh is so important to
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understand in Paul's writings and all throughout the New Testament there is this this flesh sometimes it's referred
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to as the sinful nature it's our basic selfish wants and desires any stupid
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mistake that you have ever made originated with your flesh any time
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you've ever heard yourself or hurt anybody else or damaged your relationship with God it
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stemmed from the origin which is your flesh
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your flesh is what's destroying your home and everybody's got it
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and everybody has to live with it and that's the reason why you can't have a perfect family because your flesh is
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going to at some point or somebody else's flesh in the house is going to come in like a wrecking ball and destroy
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something and it's going to be broken and it's going to be need of healing
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and that's why every family is broken and you can watch it happen in your family you can look back over your life
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and you can see it when I was a teenager I destroyed my home almost
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single-handedly I was in the flesh I only cared about myself I was very passionate about the
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things I was passionate about my parents meant nothing to me
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I scorned my father's prayers and I mocked my mother's tears
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and it destroyed what was there and it was coming from my flesh and in response to that my parents acted in their flesh
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years later now a follower of Christ now I've got kids in my house little kids in my house and I realized I thought I was
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all good like I'm all set and then I realized how selfish it is being a parent really highlights to you how
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selfish you are one of the things we do with our kids is we will tell them to
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behave and some of us will just say this overtly some of us just think it some of us will actually say don't you embarrass
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me what you realize as a parent is that that's your game a lot of times the
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discipline and the things that you're doing it isn't because you actually care about them that they grow up to be well
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adjusted godly people the reason that you care is because you don't want to look bad
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and so sometimes we say that to the kids and what and what the kids hear because kids aren't stupid
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it's like oh I'm just a show Pony your motivation is for me to make you
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look good because that's what life is really all about is just looking
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good and you realize your flesh even though you're the adult
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is breaking something then I raised teenagers oh my gosh it
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comes full circle I'm raising teenagers my my oldest daughter is one of the most beautiful wonderful people in the world but she
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would do this classic thing when she's stereotypical teenager she would come home my wife is so sweet she'd be like
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hey sweetie how was your day she'd be like it was fine get off my back
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and then she would run to her room you know and it was just it was just one of those
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times where the Flesh and you can't blame teenagers listen do you know what's happening they are learning to
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manage their flesh for the first time that's what's happening that's the big crossover when they become teenagers is
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they're they're actually adults for the first time and they have these sexual desires and these ego things and this
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this conflict inside of them and they're managing this flesh this thing for the first time and
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and sometimes as parents we react in our flesh in our sinful nature and there's a lot of times where I turn to Bethany and
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I was like you know what I need to do doesn't even go up in their room and lose my crap that's what I need to do
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and sometimes that's exactly what I did and there's this flesh that resides in
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our home no matter what your home looks like and it is warring against
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it's worrying against us it's breaking our homes and it exists for everyone
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it continues on in the next verse he says the Mind governed by the flesh is death but the Mind governed by the spirit is
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life and peace the Mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God it it does not submit to
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God's law nor can it do so not only is it breaking our home but it's breaking
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our relationship with God it is the thing that's broken and it's the thing that needs to be redeemed
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I want to tell you why this is so important because nobody else is saying this if you were to go to a counselor you
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were to go to a therapist today or you would reach out for anybody out there in the world for help
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they would begin to describe to you the problems that I think were pretty much all articulated if you were to go to a
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counselor today which is good I don't want to sound like I'm hating on Council like that's good but if you were to go
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to a counselor today and you were to self-evaluate you would probably be able to come up with
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The Usual Suspects right well it's a communication issue it doesn't matter how much we try we just
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can't we just can't communicate but why is because you're broken like why can't
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you communicate money we argue over money respect and appreciation that a child doesn't feel respected your
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roommate doesn't feel uh respected or appreciated there's a trust issue and I'm not really sure where that stems
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from but there's trust there's jealousy there's baggage we would be able to point out all of these things we could
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probably even write a few chapters for the counselor and be like hey here's our problems here's my problem
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but God's saying but I want to go beneath that I want to go level deeper than that I want to explain to you what nobody else is explaining to you I want
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you to know why it's broken and why you have a hard time communicating and why there's trust
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issues and why you fight over money and it comes down to Simply this it's the flesh
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and we can manage communication and we can get better at talking about money and we can do all the things that we
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deal with our baggage but God's solution strikes at the root of it his solution
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to the flesh is the spirit that's it he's like I need you to put
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your faith in me so I can take my spirit that resides inside of me I can place it inside of you and I begin to give you a
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life that is redeemed if you will follow after my spirit
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so it comes down to this we we die to our flesh
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and we live for the spirit Paul continues on Romans 8 he says
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but if Christ is in you then even though your body is subject to death because of sin
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the spirit gives life because of righteousness
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you're going to still feel the effects of your flesh sometimes it's going to rear up in different seasons of your
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life and it will be destructive but if we place our faith in Christ the spirit of the Living God is there to guide us
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into a new life because of righteousness and lead us to a redeemed life
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the next verse he says and if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you like this isn't just some
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mystical Halloween spirit this is the power of the Living God that Rose Jesus
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from the dead if he is living in you he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life
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to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you his conclusion therefore brothers
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and sisters we have an obligation but it is not to the flesh to live according to it
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for if you live according to the flesh you will die but if by the spirit you put to death
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the misdeeds of the body you will
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live if you're asking the question can God
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redeem what's broken in my home I want you to hear absolutely
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and God wants to redeem what's broken in your home by first redeeming you
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he wants you to put to death the misdeeds of the flesh he wants you to listen to to the calling of the spirit
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and he wants you to follow after him but here's the here's the rub now listen this is important
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the only thing you're in charge of the only thing you can do and the only thing you can manage is you can put to
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death your own flesh and you can live by the spirit and you
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can't do it for anybody else it is heartbreaking to me that I can't do this for my kids
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it's heartbreaking to me that just simply I can't make the decision for him and be like hey you just need to die to
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your flesh and you need to live for the spirit of God and I coach them and I lead them and I guide them and I pray
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for them and I'm I'm wanting that more than anything else but at some point it isn't about how I've raised them it
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isn't about the reflection of that it isn't about any of that it comes down to every body must make a decision for
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themselves you can't do this for your spouse the only thing you're in charge of in
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control of is that you can do that you can put the misdeeds of the flesh to death and live by the spirit
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this happens in very very practical ways on a daily basis
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I remember about I don't know how long we've been married I think it was about six years it was long enough that we had
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been past the honeymoon phase it was it was still good but it was past the honeymoon phase so we weren't flying
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high on love anymore it was like we were in the trenches we had a couple of kids and we had been bickering quite a bit I
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remember and there was this one particular day where we were just downright fighting
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and both of us I think were in the flesh but I think I think my uh wife was more in the flesh
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just to be honest with you I'm not saying that I am like the one that's right in every circumstance in fact more
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than not I am the one that's wrong and I'm In the Flesh right but this particular day I'm like I'm pretty sure she's wrong so I was like like going
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back and forth kind of trying to convince and then finally I was just like I gotta leave so I went to work and I remember praying and I remember
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praying for her I'm like God would you just fix this woman like would you it was one of those type of moments
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and then I got I got got to work and I had a moment and I opened up scripture
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when you know it's Ephesians chapter five God convicting me to go there right
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Ephesians chapter 5 and it says husbands love your wives
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Christ loved the church and laid down his life for her
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and the the calling of the flesh was so loud it's like no you're right you're
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Justified you're the one that's in the right she is wrong it's her problem
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calling of the spirit was so clear God was like it doesn't matter whether she was right or wrong guess what I died
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for you and you ain't no prize Pig in fact guess what you're always the one
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that's in the wrong and I laid down my life for you now you go down and lay down your life
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for your wife so I was like well how do I do that how do I do I just go home and say I'm
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blurry like what do I do and I remember her complaining that her feet were in bad shape they were like rough and
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calloused and needed a lot of work they're better now okay but I just remember complaining about that
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so I went to the store I believe led by the spirit I went to the store and I found the this this the stone that you
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scrubbed feet with and I got this Sandy lotion stuff and I went home and I soaked her feet and uh and then and it
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was on a lunch break I soaked her feet and I put them up and I scrubbed her feet and it took it took a while a little bit of work like I almost got out
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my DeWalt power drilled like anyway just got just got to the end of that and
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and the whole time I was just I was not expecting anything in return I'm just loving my wife I think if we listen
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I don't think it's that hard to hear the spirit calling I don't think it's that hard to hear the
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part of the flesh that needs to die I don't think it's that hard to hear and
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if we will be faithful God will show that to you every single day and that's the only thing you can do
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that is the only thing you can do
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I want to say that again because as you walk out of here today I want you to know that is the only thing you can do as you trust in God put to death your
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flesh and live by the spirit God will redeem you
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and as he redeems you he will begin to redeem the broken relationships in your
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family and if we are consistent at this God gives us this kind of Promise in
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some way he says this in First Peter 5. and the God of all Grace
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who called you to his eternal glory in Christ after you have suffered a little
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while they aren't going to be teenagers forever after you've suffered a little while
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it's a rough patch it's a season of your marriage don't don't quit on it it's a
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season kids do grow up you won't be alone for
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the rest of your life after a little while when this season is over
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will himself restore you and make you strong firm and steadfast to him be the power
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forever and ever amen and if we are faithful and we allow God to redeem our life and we do that over
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and over and over again eventually God will show up and when it happens we're not going to be able to praise ourselves we're not going to be able to praise how
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many books we read on great relationships we'll be able to turn and say to him
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be power and Glory forever and ever amen let me pray for you
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God I pray for the homes I pray for the families
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God I pray that you would bring healing and restoration God that you would redeem
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but God it wouldn't be on on them God like that we would place it on us
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God what are you calling us to do what are you calling me to do how do I need
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to put to death the flesh and follow after your spirit
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God I pray that you would lead us and make our make our families strong
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as we lean into what you have called us to and I pray that in Christ's name
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amen we're going to move now to in time just
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of reflection just a time of next steps in just a minute we have some prayer
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cards that we've made these are up at the front of the stage and they're also in the back and just a minute I'm going
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to ask you as a step of Faith to come forward and get one of these they have
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prayers on there if you're a parent or if you're a grandparent if you're single or dating if you're married no matter what your stage of life is there's
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prayers here that we just want to invite you to and it's simply this it's just that you would here in a minute stand up
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come down grab one of these cards take it back to your seat and just spend some time
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praying for your home whatever that looks like during this time we also have a moment
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where we take communion and the reason we take communion every week is because our faith is not built on us learning
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what's right and what's wrong and doing better at the right than we are on the wrong our faith is built on Jesus Christ
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death and resurrection and us being saved by faith and faith alone that he
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redeems us if we give him everything that we've gotten all we've got is our yes and our heart
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that's what it means to be a follower of Christ and he's the one by his spirit that works in our life
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so that's why we take communion to remember that that's what our faith is about it's about his sacrifice not our
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hard work during this time there's also an opportunity to make a decision to follow
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Jesus we have the baptistry filled up there's somebody over here by the side door over here that would love to assist you and
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in getting us shorts and t-shirts and changing and and making the decision to go public in baptism today I want to be
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clear about what that decision is it's it's not a fresh start it's not a do-over it's not wiping the
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Slate clean it's about surrendering your life completely and holy to Jesus of saying
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in every area of my life you are the Lord of my life and I want to be obedient to you with everything I have
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if you're ready to make that kind of decision today if you're ready to step across that line in faith then you
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should not wait you should definitely get baptized today there's also some people at the prayer tables where the
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lights are in the back if you've got anything to pray about they would love to pray with you but right after I I stepped down here
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what I encourage you to do is to come forward and grab one of these prayer cards or go in the back and get a prayer card and just we're going to give you a
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little extended time to just sit and pray for
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so let's do that let's welcome in the presence of God in our life and listen for the calling of his Spirit as we take
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some next steps