Building Stronger Households

Thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Tim Powell, and I have the privilege and the honor of being the campus pastor at our new life church, Greenbriar Campus. We are a non-denominational church located in the state of Arkansas with 19, about to be 20 campuses across the state. Our heart behind partnering with Pando through God Behind Bars is to allow your family an opportunity to connect to biblical community so that they can be growing in their walk with Christ at the same time that you were growing. So if you do have family in Arkansas, encourage them to check out newlifechurch.tv to find a campus that fits them. Thank you so much for being here. Now, let's listen in to today's message. All right, well, good morning church. Can we give God the praise He deserves in this place this morning? Man, so good to be with you guys. Listen, you know, each week, I like to take a moment to say thank you for those that are visiting, maybe in from out of town, and I also want to welcome everyone that's listing in with God Behind Bars. You know, we realize at any given weekend that we'll have people that are visiting from around the state. And I just want to say, too, that if you have a family member or someone that you know that is not connected to biblical community, I want to encourage you to encourage them

to check out one of our campuses. We have 19 currently soon to be 20 campuses across the state of Arkansas. I think we have a slide that starts from Northwest Arkansas that goes all the way to Pine Bluff. And we've never claimed to be the best church. Now, I'm not talking about telling your family that's already connected and plugged into a church. I'm talking about the family that is not connected. But we've never claimed to be the best church. We're a church doing the best job that we possibly can to share the gospel and the truth of Jesus Christ. Amen. And if you have family that is not connected yet, I just want to encourage you to invite them to come to one of our services. Each campus has a pastor that is a live speaker. I know some multi-site churches, they are video campuses. We do not have video campuses. There may be a couple of times throughout the year that if we have a message from one of our other campuses that we feel like the Lord wants us to share with you guys, we will. That only happens a couple of times a year. I had someone come up to me several months ago, or actually it was last year. And we had just showed a video. And he said, I didn't think this was a video campus. And I was like, well, that's the first video we've shown in like eight months, sir.

So I don't know, you just picked the right weekend. But I'm so glad that you guys are with us. And I will tell you that it is so good to be back with you. Last week, my wife and I had the opportunity to travel to Montana. And I will say that has to be one of the most beautiful places I've ever had the privilege of visiting. As a matter of fact, if I didn't love you guys so much, I would still be trying to convince my wife that we need to live in a van down by the river, launch a church in Montana. Somebody said, come on, you say, come on until about January when sub-zero temperatures set in, and then everything changes a little bit. But in man, it was incredible. It was so good to go. And one of my dreams as a kid growing up has been to fly fish in Montana. Now, you would think someone with a dream from a child would have learned how to fly fish before they actually got to Montana to fly fish. Well, I want the record to show that I caught two fish on a fly rod in Montana. Now, I caught my guide four or five times in the process. But man, I caught two fish in Montana on a fly rod. My wife was in the back of the boat laughing and taking pictures, but we had a great time. But it is always good to be back with you guys and to be here. We're kicking off a new series this morning around our family. And today, we're going to be talking about building

strong households. How many of you want a strong, Christ-centered household? I believe the only way that we're truly going to have a solid household is if we do have Christ in the center of that. And over the next several weeks, we're going to be talking about different areas of the family. We're going to talk about raising kids. How many of you know you need God to raise kids? Kids, we need help. Lord, help us when we're raising children. We're going to talk about raising kids. We're going to talk about being single. And what does dating look like to follow Christ and to keep him in the center of it? And we're just going to be led by the Holy Spirit. If God shows us a different direction, our heart is that we see our families become fully devoted followers of Christ. Amen? That's why we're here. We're not here for our performance. As Pastor Adam mentioned a few minutes ago, we're here to grow in God's Word and to get connected to biblical community. That's why we're here. That's why we exist as a church. But I want to give you a little bit of a disclaimer. It's a little easy sometimes. When I mentioned family, for you to want to check out.

I realize that some of you in this room, your family, may be a little dysfunctional. Anybody had-- don't raise your hand. There's some dysfunctional families in the room, right? Let me just go ahead and let you know. Every family has a little dysfunction in it. Some of you just do a little better job of hiding your crazy. But we've all got a little dysfunction. All families do. But how do we navigate this world when there are so many forces competing for our attention and trying to tell us what a family is supposed to look like? And that's gonna be our focus as we move through this series as well. For those of you that are still trying to blame someone else for your own dysfunction, it's time you found some freedom. And that's our heart as we go through this as well. I'm gonna make a statement that you may or may not agree with, but you don't have the right to not forgive someone. You don't have that right. Why? Because if you've accepted Jesus as your Lord and savior, he's forgiven you and he's paid for the sins that you would never be able to pay for on your own. My pastor says it best that unforgiveness is like drinking poison and inspecting someone else to die. It will hold you back, it will prevent you

from being able to see and fulfill the calling that God's placed on your life. If you're dealing with bitterness and unforgiveness in your life, if you go all the way back to the beginning of time, and I know what some of you are thinking, well, pastor, you don't know what my life was like. You don't understand the dysfunction that we had. You didn't have the father that I had or the mom that I had or the siblings that I had. You don't know what I had to navigate through, fair enough. But if you go back to the very beginning, if you go back to Adam and Eve, we see an example, perfect location, walking with God in the cool of the day, the perfect job, and sin still, crept in. How did that happen? We're gonna talk about that a little bit as well. They still made mistakes. They still allowed sin to move in. But one of my favorite quotes, and I've used it several times and I'll keep using it until you guys make me stop, but it comes from CS Lewis, it says you can't go back and change the beginning. But you can start now where you are and change the ending. Listen, I understand that there are people in this room, including myself, that it made mistakes in the area of families. We've blown it sometimes. Anybody ever blown it before? Well, the rest of you, I'm glad you flew in here today.

We've all made mistakes. We've all said things. We didn't wanna say, I wish we wouldn't have said, done things, we wish we wouldn't have done. But God has a plan and a purpose for our family. But a God-designed family, it's becoming a little bit of a rarity, isn't it? There's a lot of outside forces that's trying to identify and trying to define what a family is supposed to look like. Well, what do I mean by God-designed family? Well, if you go back to the very beginning in Genesis chapter two, verse 18, it says, "The Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone." It says, "I will make him, make a helper suitable for him." When we get to verse 24, it tells us that it is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh. There's two things I want you to grasp from this. The first one is the family has always been God's idea. It's always been God's plan from the very beginning. It's his institution and it's his building block for society. And we were all made for relationships. I know some of you are like, "Oh, I just wanna do life alone. "As long as I'm by myself, nobody's messing up for me." Well, God never designed you to do life alone. Never. First, God made Adam. He put him in the perfect environment. They walk together in the cool of the day.

Then God gives Adam purpose. He gives Adam a job to name all the animals. As a matter of fact, let's not get this out of order. There was a job before there was a family. Some of you need to hear that. One of our pastors that we come together, he said, reminded us of an old song, he says, "You gotta have a JOB if you're gonna go out with me "and all the fathers of girls said, 'Amen.'" Right? So there's a design that God created for the family as well as an order. But let's keep tracking here. God allows Adam to experience everything. He experiences everything the world has to offer. All of creation, all the animals, even the perfect environment. He experiences all of it. And he says, "It's not good for man to be alone." What was God showing Adam? That there's nothing in this whole world like family. There's nothing that compares, like relationships, that he created us for. People were made for people. We need relationships. Whether you're married or not, you need deep relationships. I'm not just talking about in marriage. That's the reason that we discuss biblical community so much. That's the reason that we spend so much time preparing for life group launch.

Where you are, we say it all the time. You need to be authentic with everyone. If you don't like me on Sunday, you're not gonna like me on Monday. But we need to have a few people in our life that we can be fully transparent with. Because regardless of where you are, there's gonna be days that you need people to pray for you. There's gonna be days that you're gonna need people Adam, he experiences all of it. What was God showing at him? What was he trying to show him? But there was nothing in this whole world that comes close to a family. Nothing. Well, what's family for? What's the purpose? What's the reason? Well, let me be very clear. Your family was created to be a lot more than just a bed and breakfast. Are you with me? Sometimes it gets to a place where we get so busy that we just treat our family like it's just a bed and a breakfast, coming out sleep, eat and leave, and go do my life. God never designed us that way. I will tell you that this week I did learn something. I'm not really a bed and breakfast kind of guy. We made the decision to the first night

that we got to Montana and we were gonna stay in a bed and breakfast. Oh, well, it's cool. The website looks really cool. Well, we get there and as I'm driving up to this cabin, I'm getting to question my decisions. Well, the guy that's running this place, he gives us a name. I'm still not sure that was even his real name. He shows up and he's wearing tall socks and shorts. I trust nobody that wears tall socks and shorts. Amen. Just something wrong with that. Some of you are in here right now, you wear tall socks and shorts. I don't trust you. But he would show up. He'd brought us breakfast and then poof. I looked at Shelby, I said, "Where'd he go?" She said, "I don't know, where'd who go?" Like, he just disappeared. But God never designed our families to be operated like a bed and breakfast. Our homes need to be more than that. Well, how do we build a strong home? As I was preparing this message and putting it together, I realized that before we can get into any type of practical application, there's something that we have to settle up front. There's something that we need to discuss.

I can give you all the self-help books. I can point you to all the counselors, but until you get this right, none of it matters. Psalm 1271 tells us that unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. I don't care how professional or how intelligent you think you are. Unless you've gotten to a place where you've put in Christ, where you've put Christ in the center of your relationship, everything that you're working for, everything that you're trying to grasp and accomplish is for nothing. You must have Christ in the center of it. You know what, this next generation, there's a move of God in them. I'm seeing it. I got to hang out at the gelato place last night with a few of our youth. They're becoming young men and women. And I'm just so incredibly thankful for them. If this next generation is any indication of what our future looks like, it's pretty bright. But man, they're going for God. And you know why? I believe they figured out that they're tired of being lied to. They're tired of the multi-million dollar marketing plans that tells them if they have this fill in the blank,

they'll be happy. They accomplished this, they will be happy. They've discovered that the only truth is in this word and they want to know more about it. There was a time that it was all for the lights and the entertainment, they're beyond that. We know there's more and they're growing. I'm so stinking proud of them. I'm proud of the way that they're growing. We had over 1600 of our students together at our GLR campus the last two days for Clyde. We had kids coming to the altar, surrendering at all, giving their life to the Lord. Pastor Adam's going to share a little bit of that a little bit later. That the truth is until we put Christ in the center of your life, your home, your family, you're going to find yourself empty. It's just reality. Until you get to a place where you draw a line in the sand, kind of the way that Joshua did in Joshua 24, it's after he assembled the elders and all the tribes of Israel, he reminded them of all the miracles that they had already experienced. The question I have for you is, how many more miracles did you need to experience? You go, I'll never witness to miracle. I guess you have. You just haven't been able to recognize it.

There are miracles all around us. God's still in the miracle working business. Can I have an amen? When we get to Joshua 24 verse 14, he says, "Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness." So he gives us very clear instructions as he was giving them that day. He says, "Throw away the gods, your ancestors worship beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord." But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day, whom you will serve. Whether the gods, your ancestors serve, beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites, That's the decision. Listen, we have a lot of practical application that I'm going to share with you guys. I believe it's important that how do we apply God's Word? How do we move forward? So we try to make sure that we give you some of that each weekend. But until you get to a place where you accept Christ has to be in the center of your life and acknowledge the fact that you've drifted off course, it's all for none. I'm about to give you some of those practical steps, but I'm going to do something a little bit different this morning. They make fun of me for saying that, but I believe it's important that we listen when the Holy Spirit nudges us. I'm not going to ask you to bow your heads. I'm not going to ask you to close your eyes, but I want to challenge you for just a second. If you're here this morning and you're in this room and you'd say, "You know what, Pastor, I have not kept Christ in the center of my life. My kids are getting ready to start back to school. We know there's a lot of things coming. We know there's been a lot of things fighting for our attention, but I'm ready as to say, as for me in my house, we're going to serve the Lord in our home. If that's you, I want you to stand to your feet right now without hesitation. Get up off of them. Stand up. That's a great place to

give God some praise in this room. Stay standing. Stay standing. I want to pray over you. Father, I thank you right now for the men and women that boldly stood to their feet today without worry or hesitation of what someone may think about the decision that they're making. God, we know that it is your design for the family and God, we also know that without you in the center of that family, we cannot make it. God, we've made mistakes and this morning we repent of those mistakes and we come to you. Father, we ask you to be in the center and be the director of every step that we take from this point forward. We cannot go back and change how we started, but Father starting today, we can change how it ends. It's in Jesus' mighty name we pray and everybody said, "Amen, let's give God some praise and you guys can have a seat." All right. Once that decision is made, what do we do next? Well, the first thing you have to do is create an environment that is a refuge. If you're taking notes, I want you to write this down. Now, what do you mean by a refuge? Well, a refuge is a safe place or a state of shelter, protection from danger, trouble, or bad weather if you look at the definition. Your home is meant to be a place of peace, not a place of chaos. Now, I'm going to step on some toes this morning and I'm paying no apologies because my home was not always a place of peace. You get so focused on success and you get so driven and you get so focused on what's to come and where you need to be, you lose sight of where you are. And sometimes, some of you, you need to hang up the work phone in your car when you get out to walk in your home. I can say this because I've been there driven, focused, or so I thought. And what ends up happening is the enemy uses that so-called success-driven focus to distort what God's called and created the home to be about. Your home is designed to be a place of peace. We all have storms in life because life is tough, amen? It rains sometimes and sometimes it pours. It's just reality. Things don't always go as planned. The Proverbs 14-26 tells us that whoever that includes you as well, whoever fears the Lord has a secure fortress and for their children it will be what? A refuge. Well, we've already defined what a refuge is. A refuge is a safe place and it needs to be that for our children as well. Our family need it because there's a few things that's going to happen in this world. You're going to experience failure. Your children are going to experience failure and life. It's going to happen. If you're not ever failing and you're not ever trying, you're going to fail sometimes. You're going to experience some rejection. Sometimes the people that you love

and that you care about the most, they're going to stiff-arm you. They're going to reject you and it hurts. The other thing that's reality, you're going to experience some attacks from the enemy. There's a spiritual warfare that is going on around us right now that is trying to still kill and destroy everything that God wants to do in you and through you. But we have to have a refuge. A refuge provides three things. A refuge provides a place of safety, a place of safety, protection. This is a place where no one gets ambushed in our homes. This is not a place that when they walk in or when mom or when dad walks through the door, we have to wonder what kind of mood they're going to be in. Are they going to encourage me? What kind of attitude are we going to experience today? You can disagree, but you're not getting ambushed. It has to be one place where everyone wants the best for each other. And that's a question you need to ask yourself. I'm going to give you some homework in a few minutes. And it may be one of the most difficult things that you've ever done in your home. This has to be a place where everyone wants the best. A refuge is a place of encouragement, not a place where you're tearing each other down. But here's your homework. I want you to sit down with your family and I want you to ask two questions. But I want you to be prayed up before you ask these questions. And I don't want you to get defensive when they answer. There's a lot of love in listening. Maybe you need to ask your spouse this question. Maybe if you have children at home, maybe you need to ask your children. But two questions-- what makes you feel safe and what makes you feel unsafe?

And prayerfully, I pray that they answer you honestly. What makes you feel safe and what makes you feel unsafe? This is my next point. A refuge is a place of honor. You honor each other. It's not a safe place for anyone if you're not honoring each other. We honor each other. It's one of the 10 commandments that God gave Moses that we honor our mother and our father. Read about it in Deuteronomy 5, 16. It says, "Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you." This wasn't a suggestion. This wasn't a recommendation. As he has commanded you. So that you may live long. And that it may go well with you in the land. The Lord your God is giving you. So that. Well, if we want our homes to be a refuge, if we want our homes to be a safe place where our children feel safe, where our spouse feels safe coming when things are good and when things are bad, we have to honor one another. You don't always have to agree to honor each other. One of the core values of our church is that we honor publicly and we challenge privately. We need to do that with each other in our homes as well. We don't go around talking about each other. We don't go around gossiping about the people that we love

and we care about in our homes. The enemy wants to use that to tear down relationships. We love here. We listen here. God's working on me. Half patience. I am need work in this area. Sometimes the most love you can extend to someone is patience in an area where you don't fully understand. Encouragement. We build with our words. Number four. A refuge is a place of growth. It's where we're growing spiritually, physically, emotionally. It's where we're spending time in prayer. We're speaking the word. It's where we learn how to battle spiritual warfare together before you go into the battle. I've been blessed to be a part of some incredible teams in my life. But the one thing that I've noticed with each one of those teams is we didn't go into battle without preparation beforehand. Well, there's not a successful team in this world that's successful by accident. Maybe once. Maybe twice. But there's preparation that goes into that. Well, our homes needs to be a place of preparation, a place of growth. We need to spend time growing spiritually, personally, ourselves, spending time in God's Word. We've got the sort of the spirit, but if you don't know where it's at, when the battle approaches, it's going to be really hard to find it.

So that's why we spend time. That's the reason that we -- it's one of the reasons that we decided to start doing half-time ministry is because we wanted to prepare our children with the Word of God in their spirit. So when they face those battles because they're going to, that they can go back to God's Word, not what culture in the world and society is telling them. You don't know why we invest in this next generation? Because we realize the battles that they're facing. We know what's coming at them, and it's not getting any easier. The world's trying to redefine what marriage is supposed to look like. They're trying to redefine identity. Like, well, you can just be whatever you want to be. No, God created you. You're what God created you to be. There's so much distortion in this world. is when they're faced with a lie, they can identify between the two because their lies in this world isn't there. There's a battle that's happening, Ephesians 6, 12 says for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, we know this, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. The next thing we have to do is we have to prepare our children for flight. As parents, we're preparing our kids for what they'll face in this world. No Psalm 127, 4 says, "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, our children born in one's youth." I love this phrase, but I'll tell you this, a warrior knows what to do with an arrow. That arrow is going to fly. Are you preparing that arrow to fly? Are you afraid to let go? Are you a helicopter parent?

Are you a parent that's preparing them to go further than you did? It's hard, man, because we love our kids. How many of you want your kids or grandkids to go further than you did? I know I do. I think we all do. We learn a lot of things in our families, though, don't we? We learn a lot about our character. Much of what you are, you picked up from your parents. You've heard like father, like son. I'm finding out that as I get older, I'm more and more like my dad. I lost my dad at 17, but I catch myself sometimes saying things that my dad said that drove me crazy, but characters, it's established many times in the home. Characters caught, it's not taught, but I will say this, there are generational tendencies that have to get broken sometimes as well. Maybe some of you didn't have the example of the father. Maybe there were things that you didn't catch that you wish you could have. What does that mean that you can go back and change it? No. What did I say at the beginning of service? We can't go back to the beginning, but we can start today and we can change the ending. Many of you in this room, you've done that. You've broken generational curses, bondage, it's been holding you back, and you're going for God with everything you have. Sometimes we have to make that decision to stop holding on to the past, extend some forgiveness. Not as forgiveness means that we have to trust them, does forgiveness mean that we have to spend time with them? No. But you don't have the right not to forgive someone, but the one that is holding back is you.

It's not them. I'll teach them, I won't forgive them, okay? You must wear tall socks and shorts. Characters taught, or it's caught, it's not taught. You don't tell your kids, always be honest and then when the phone rings, they tell them I'm not here. Sometimes our children need to see us make the hard decisions even when it hurts because they'll remember that one day in their life. Our values, think of all the things we learn at home about work, money, sex, we learn a lot of things in our homes, we learn a lot of values. Values come through loud and clear, unintentionally or intentionally. The last thing I want to encourage you on building this strong household, have fun. Have fun. Some of you need to loosen up a little bit. You know, I don't have the money to go on a vacation, you don't have to have money. Put on the sprinklers in the front yard, take your kids out there and run around and act like a crazy person. Just don't wear tall socks and shorts. Have fun, man. Loosen up. I'm worried about what someone's going to think. I'm going to tell you the only thing that I want people thinking about me, I don't care. As long as they know that I love the Lord and that He's what's most important in my family. It wasn't always, I didn't always put Him in the center. But as we grow and we mature and we get into God's Word and we mess up a few times and we stump our toe and we realize the pain that follows poor choices and poor decisions. We want what's best for our families, don't we? Some of you in this room, you've made some. God's not finished with you. Some of you, you need to let some people off the hook, maybe your parents.

It looks different in different stages of life for each and every one of us. But let's get Christ back to the center of our homes. Let's make Him the most important person in the room. You know, that's the reason that I started coming to a new life church 25 years ago. Wow, almost 25 years. The reason that we came back to new life church the second time was because the first time the pastor that was standing there, he didn't make it about him. He made Christ the most important person in the room, and I was like, man, hmm, he must be just having a good day, so I'm going to come back again. Well, the next time we came, he was normal, he didn't act like he was holier than now, and he kept Christ the most important person. If there's something that I've learned about my pastor, he's not perfect, but I've learned the importance of putting Christ number one, and I'll tell you something else that I've learned over the last 25 years, is that God will take our pain if we allow Him to, and He'll use it for purpose each and every time. There's a story I want to leave you with, I wish I had more time. But it comes from Acts, Paul and Silas, they've been beaten and thrown into prison, they've been shackled, handcuffed, and when you have time, I encourage you to dig into this story a little bit more, especially the reason that Paul and Silas were thrown into prison to begin with. But it says about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Now, keep in mind, they've just been beaten, shackled, and thrown into prison, so they've experienced the pain, betrayal, and they're singing hymns to God. They're worshiping God in the midst of a storm. Suddenly, there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken at once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone's chains came loose. The jailer woke up, when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword, and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, "Don't harm yourself, we're all here."

The jailer called for lights, he rushed in and he fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, "Sir, what must I do to be saved? Don't miss this, guys, please." And they replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household." Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. I love this story. At that hour of the night, the jailer took them, they washed their wounds, then immediately, immediately. He didn't wait till next week, then immediately he and all his household were baptized, and the jailer brought them into his house and he set a mill before them. He was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God, he and his whole household. Don't miss this, God did not waste their pain. I taught on this a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, and if you weren't here for that message, I encourage you to go back and listen to it, it was purpose in our pain. God will not waste your pain if you will allow him. But through this, God took this moment where Paul and Silas had to feel like that they were in hell, beaten, shackled, behind bars, had to feel like, "Man, it's over for us." They didn't give up, they began to worship and sing hymns, and there was a move of God. But what I asked myself was, "Well, a lot of times, we want to be comfortable in life, right? Like, we don't want to go through the pain, we don't want to go through the trials, we don't want to go through the hurt, and that's fair enough, I guess. But without the pain, without the trial, we don't. [MUSIC PLAYING] why things happen we have to get to a place that we trust God that he that he's a just God and that he loves us and God used that pain and whole household was baptized I don't know where you're at as a parent and I don't know what kind of relationship you may have had with your parents and it may have felt like that you were in hell some days you may have felt like that you were beaten shackled and thrown in a room to die but if you let God if you if you'll just let him

he'll take that testimony and he'll change lives and then you have an opportunity to break that generational curse on your life and to train up your children in the way they should go and not be held back from the things that you experienced and maybe just maybe even men some relationships that were broken because everybody including you have made mistakes in life and sometimes it's that forgiveness that we have to get to a place and we go God I give them to you I can't carry it anymore I can't control it anymore it hurt what they did I'm not minimizing the pain I'm not saying that it didn't hurt and I may never be able to reconcile this relationship but I'm knowing today that I'm gonna make a decision for me in my house we're gonna serve the Lord and for me I've making the decision to forgive them and release them to you in Jesus name I don't know where you're at but I know if we're truly gonna build solid families God's word with him in the center of it we're gonna have to ask ourselves some hard questions we're gonna have to surrender to the Lord and we're gonna have to let him do what only God can do amen please bow your heads if you look I don't know where you are in this but if you're here this morning or maybe you're listening in maybe you're watching this and it's months from now can I just tell you that the Holy Spirit is just as real where you are as we are right now and he's here this moment there was many people in this room that made a decision earlier than the service to put Christ in the center of their family but the question that I'm gonna ask now is there some forgiveness that you need to extend is there some things that you need to let God be God if that's you and you're in this room and there's some things that you need to surrender to him I just want to pray for you would you just slip your hand up all around this room yeah I see you all over the room I got you father we thank you that we don't have to allow society to identify and tell us how we are to live our life but God we can go to your word that never fails and never returns boy and father this morning there are people here that that they need to forgive some people but Holy Spirit I'm asking you to move in in that situation and God I'm asking you with the conviction of the Holy Spirit not condemnation because we

know that's not a view but conviction of the Holy Spirit if there's some areas that we're just off track whatever it may be father would you just show us so that we can make that course correction and that we can fulfill the purpose that you have created us to fulfill God we need you in every area of our life we can't do it on our own and we acknowledge that this morning so Father I pray blessings over every family in this room I pray that you bless their conversations Father I pray for relationships to be mended I pray for forgiveness to be extended and God I pray for healing to begin because truthfully you're the only one that can do it it is in Jesus name we pray and everybody said amen can we give God some praise in this place you You You [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]

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