Home Work Pt. 3

Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to Zion Church. And I'm so excited because today is part three of our series, Homework. And we want you to check this out. It's going to bless your life. We hope it's practical to you. We hope it's helpful to you. We hope you comment, like, and share and subscribe. But today's message is going to bless you. I don't know what to say about it other than love your family, love your family, that part. Check this out. We're going in the sanctuary. Homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework. All right. Please stand if you can without harm or injury to yourself as we go into the Word of God. That man is related to Eddie, Eddie and Gerald some kind of way, amen. Yes, indeed. Colossians chapter three is our foundation passage for this series, verses 18 to 21. Let's go to it. Before I start, tell somebody I'm glad you made it to church today. You don't even have to know them. Just look at them. Just go like this. Yeah, what up, though? Wives be subject to your husbands. Ain't nothing changed. Somebody just said, keep going. Out of respect for their position as protector and their accountability to God. Wives be subject to your husbands, not girlfriends. Don't apply something that don't apply to you.

Wives be subject to your husbands out of respect for their position as protector and their accountability to God as is proper and fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives with an affectionate, sympathetic, selfless love that always seeks what's best for them, that always seeks what's best for them. What's best for her? What's best for her? That's our job. And do not be embittered or resentful towards them because of the responsibilities of marriage. Verse 20. Children, obey your parents as God's representatives in all things, for this attitude of respect and obedience is well pleasing to the Lord and will bring you God's promised blessings. Verse 21. Fathers, do not provoke or irritate or exasperate your children with demands that are trivial or unreasonable or humiliating or abusive. Don't provoke them by favoritism or indifference, but do this. Treat them tenderly with loving kindness so they will not lose heart and become discouraged or unmotivated with their spirits broken. You may be seated. My subtitle for today is love your family. Love your family. And no, that shouldn't, that doesn't go without saying, maybe it should, but it doesn't go without saying because the truth is some of the hardest people in the world to love are right in our family. And remember the most difficult relationships we have in our lives will require a higher version of us to manage them. If you don't evolve as a person, you can't have a better quality of marriage because you're still the same. And I think some people like not changing, like I'm still the same person I always was. Don't say that. Don't even go around and celebrate that I'm all who I always was.

That's not progress. Amen. Love your family, your family, and you need a perfect love from God for an imperfect family. Now, before we unpack that passage and talk about that, let me go back to something I ended with last week. I talked about the importance of having a marriage plan. We have travel plans, we have healthcare plans, we have financial plans and business plans, and anybody that's got a wedding coming up, I promise you they have wedding plans. But what we have to have, if you're married, you should have a marriage plan. And if you're contemplating marriage, you should be thinking about what is my marriage plan? Amen. When I did some research, I came across a couple of quotes that I think are helpful. Here's one that says, love may start a marriage, but it's going to take a healthy plan to sustain it. And I will answer that, it doesn't only take a healthy plan, it takes a plan that you would adhere to, that you would apply to your marriage. Not just having a plan, that's the start of it, but living it out. Somebody else says, wedding plans prepare you for a day, but marriage plans prepare you for a lifetime. So since we know we need a marriage plan, I decided to do some research, and so I went and checked out Chat, Gertrude, Paul, and Timothy, and got some information from them. And when I went there, I said, well, give me a healthy marriage plan. And it said there are 10 things to a healthy marriage plan, so I've amended it, and I made two of them into one. So I'm going to give my version of what Chat, GPT says. And there's no particular order amongst these, in my opinion, except for this one. This one should be first, a spiritual plan. God should always be first. The first four words in the Bible, in every Bible, you can turn to any Bible, the first

four words in the first verse, in the first chapter of the first book, says, in the beginning, God is first. You know what God's trying to tell us right up front? It all starts with me. I am the head, and it should be that way in your marriage. You don't have a legitimate marriage plan if God ain't in it, because he's the one that created marriage. How can you enter into something that he designed and created and don't have his guidance in it? So a marriage plan, a spiritual plan, answers the question, how will we worship together? How will we share God's word with one another? How do we pray together? What kind of spiritual habits do we have? How do we make sure we're seeking him for the direction of our marriage? And not just doing things on our own, but how do we make sure we're actually doing what he wants us to do? A spiritual plan helps that. The next one, I combine a communication and conflict plan, because a lot of marriages struggle because people just don't know how to communicate with each other effectively. And communication is a skill. And I said earlier in this series, you have to understand that working effectively on your home requires both tools and skills. You gotta have skills. And communication is a skill we must have. And some people aren't skillful in communication, and we tend to, we may be adult age, but we don't communicate with that level of maturity. And one of the reasons why we don't communicate with that level of maturity is because we haven't been taught or we haven't used certain tools. Like a tool, a communication plan tool could be something like, hey, on a weekly basis on some level of frequency, we sit down every week and we have a business plan.

We have a conversation around what matters to us as a couple. And so it's a conversation between equal partners. No one is more important. No one's opinion is more important. We both get heard out. This is what I'm concerned about. This is what I'm optimistic about. This is what I think we should be working on. This is the goal. And here's the thing. Here's what respect says. We don't move forward without agreement. Unless you absolutely have to do something that you don't agree on, don't move forward because watch this, if you don't show patience now, you're going to pay later. Whenever you make a decision that your spouse is not in agreement with, and you just went on and did it anyway, at some point when that thing goes wrong, you're going to pay for it later. So move in harmony with each other. But having what I call a family business meeting or these kinds of conversations can help protect you from having an unhealthy communication line in your relationship. And the reason why people don't have healthy communication is because they don't have a strategy to communicate. They just communicate when there's a crisis. So hey, we got to talk. Well when you talk to each other in crisis, your emotions are high. And when your emotions are high, your communication skills are low. You're not really listening. You're angry. And a lot of marriages live in a place where the Old Testament calls, it's an Old Testament word, in a place called Lodabar.

Everybody say Lodabar. The prefix lo- means no, dabar- means words. Lodabar was a real place in the Bible, it's where Mephibosheth lived, and it's a place of no communication. Nobody talks in Lodabar. Nobody's communicating. And many of you have marriages that are listening to this message, and regardless of your zip code, if you were to truly identify geographically where your marriage is located, it's located in Lodabar. And you go days and weeks without talking to each other and doing what I call survival language You gotta pick Maurice up at three That's it that's the end of the conversation No response. This is and and that's because We don't have a communication plan that we plan on talking about stuff and part of the communication plan needs to be You know what? We're not going to do in a conversation Conversation even if it's conversing about something difficult We're not going to threaten each other with divorce and we're not gonna throw our ring across the room You know, you know once a person gets divorced once they like they like say some In the second marriage in the third marriage. They say look I already got a lawyer. I got a system to divorce people Just because you got married two or three more times don't mean it's gonna work. You just getting good at breaking them up And this is the thing that gets me we complain about our spouse, but we don't have any communication skills How is it your spouse's fault when you have a skill problem? You don't sit and listen One of the skills you need to have is to be able to listen to each other and understand each other and validate each other Listen understand validate your spouse is talking. I'm listening. I'm listening with my eyes my ears my heart. I'm in tune I'm trying to understand you so much that when I respond to you I tell you what you told me before I do anything for that's called McDonald's drive-thru in communication McDonald's drive-thru has master communication if you pull up to the drive-thru and she Kwanzaa said make McDonald How can I help you when she says that you're gonna say what I want? You know, she's gonna tell you what you told her

She's supposed to tell you no, don't just drive up the window number one. Let me tell you what you said I said, I want a number four with extra cheese I don't know what I'm talking about a number four with extra cheese and a large milkshake And then she says back to you. You say you want a number three with large fries. She's not no It's not what I said. Why do they do that? So we get the order, right? We stay there till we get it, right. Did I get it? Right? Is that what you said? Did you say you don't want cheese or you say you want you don't want onions on it? You say that that's that's communication so that by the time you get to where you're supposed to get We were on the same page that is understanding a person and then you validate the person you say hey I can see how you would see that I can see where you where you're coming from that. Thanks for sharing that Everybody's opinion is valuable and then you can say as a result, you know, what I can I share another? Way of looking at this people don't mind that if you do it that way Our problem is we're talking to each other with disrespect. We look at each other the whole time and somebody says I'm with Mm-hmm Go ahead go ahead fit you finished I says you finish you told me to let you finish you finish All right. First of all, it wasn't Friday. It was Sunday because I was at the ball And we just we just we don't even listen to people we just wait for them to stop so we can fire back with information How many know I'm telling the truth? So so we say we got the wrong spouse. I'm saying you got no skills You have to have skills to communicate So another thing we can do to make communication fun is to maybe annually go somewhere and just have a retreat where you talk about Hey, what's a dream for our marriage? What's the dream for our relationship those things can be helpful now my wife and I we don't do all these things We do some of them, but it's we're trying to grow just like everybody else There's some things in this series that go that I'm gonna do better. I can't speak for anybody else I'm gonna always try to do better and all of us should do the same now Here's another plan a financial plan finances are very divisive in a marriage And you need to have agreement about how much we're gonna spend just because it was on sale don't mean you needed to have it Amen, how much debt we gonna get into what how are we going to honor God with our spending with our tithes and offerings? What's gonna be our savings plan our retirement plan? And and here's here's something

I think it's very important. The Bible says when you get married to become one to Become one. That's what the Bible said. It's hard fight. It's just like to become one. Now. This is the thing How is it that you became one with each other but your merit but your money stayed, too? So so let's do that math So y'all are one but your money is two and you say right or no I'm Navy federal you didn't go ahead over there with that Bank of America, whatever you're doing You got the you got the utilities. I got this don't even ask me what I do. I'm grown Now you're supposed to be one but this my money now if you're in a marriage where there's been Irresponsibility to such a degree that it is jeopardized the welfare of your family and you saying pass I got to keep this money over here or we're gonna be homeless. I get it But some of you enter a marriage separating your money, you don't make it your money won when you're supposed to be won. So watch this, when you're married, your money is unmarried, it's easy for you to become unmarried. Because you have erected a structure for your marriage that automatically has division built into it. I'll prove it to you. Whenever somebody's trying to get out of their marriage, the first thing they get is their money out of it. Talk to me. So if you do that to get, watch this, if you make that move to get out of the marriage what chance your marriage has when you start the marriage like that? You build a marriage with, watch this, with one foot out, and you know what that foot is? Your money. They ain't like this all day. Y'all, nobody said amen to this all day.

But just cause you don't like it, don't mean it ain't true. Stop making things so easy to get out of. It shouldn't just be unified resources, it should be accountability and transparency. An intimacy plan should just include, shouldn't just include physical intimacy, that's important, say amen brothers. But it also should include emotional intimacy. And the better the emotional intimacy, the more enjoyable the physical intimacy. One feeds the other. Amen. You, you, you, because, because you don't wanna just be with a mannequin. And they just say, him, him, him. That's people who are emotionally disconnected. Him. You say you want him. Well, emotional connection, they be like. Huh? Do you want him, or you want huh? Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And I'm trying to keep it cause there's kids in here. Now, part of the intimacy plan means you have to have, build your friendship. Like, have fun. Fun is a mandatory requirement in America. I say this mandatory. You had fun before you got married?

So dates and getaways, that stuff is important. Stop looking at dates and getaways as optional. Look at them as oxygen. That we will suffocate if we don't do this. We'll suffocate with these kids. Amen. Be intentional. You have to have an intimacy plan. What are we gonna do to make time for each other? A family plan. A family plan. Are we gonna have kids? How many kids are we gonna have? Where will they be educated? What's our discipline process? And what kind of schools will they go to? And how we stay connected to our extended family? What holidays do we celebrate and how? And what kind of traditions do we wanna maintain? And what kind of traditions do we want to do away with? What's important to us? What's important to our family? What are our roles and responsibilities in our families? How do we keep blessings from breaking us up? How do we keep new things and new houses and promotions and things from splitting us up? And again, what are our roles and responsibilities? Not based on what worked for our parents or what worked in society or what culture says. In that song we just sang,

A Family Reunion by the OJs, if you listen to that song in its original content, there's a phrase, there's a place in the song where there's a man starts talking and he starts narrating. He says, now the family, the woman, she does the cooking and she does raise the children and they get all these traditional ways in which the family's supposed to be run. But you can't run your family based on tradition. You gotta make running your family based on what works best for y'all. So just because the song says a woman should do the cooking, what if that's not her strength? I'll break it down to you, there's some men who cook better than their wives. Let him cook. He got chef skills, let him go. Let him cook. I was taught that men's supposed to run the finances. Bikki's just better than me at that. Let her run that. You don't have to do what works for everybody else, do what's best for you, amen. A growth plan. Why is a growth plan so important? Because remember, if you are who you've always been, how can you expect a marriage to be better? How you gonna be married? You ain't in no married small group.

You don't go to any marriage events. You don't, you're not in a marriage Bible study. You don't listen to marriage podcasts. You don't do anything to increase your ignorance, to, no, no, to overcome your ignorance as a spouse. Watch this, you stayed here as far as your knowledge and application of what you need to be doing, but you're mad at the relationship, is that where you want? How so how can you not intentionally put yourself in environments where your marriage can grow Intentionally reaching out to other couples who can mentor you being around other couples who love each other and love God That can do something for your marriage You can be your marriage can be in lower bar and use and you want to go on a group date with some other couples And you say you want to go? Yeah I want to go and then you go on this date y'all and even talk each other in the car the whole way but you get Around that love and why y'all out there the wolf you start grabbing each other's hand Ha talk to you don't even know what happened, but you're back in I'm saying environment matters make sure you're around people who can help you grow as a couple a protection plan what kind of boundaries and and Safeguards that we're gonna put around the marriage to make sure it grows and it has longevity What kind of friends are you allowed to have what kind of trips are you allowed to take? How you gonna? How you gonna let somebody take a trip like that? Like where you going, which how's that work? What are you allowed to do at work? How about your friends see sometimes we have friends That we've had them so long that we can't see that subconsciously without them even knowing it They're not really for our marriage They may not like our spouse or they may not like the fact that they're not where we are But it's something about them. They're not for the marriage now You can't see it because y'all played in the sandbox together, but your spouse can always see a witch

Your spouse can always pick up on a spirit. That's not for you But you have to tell my what we grew up together. That's my homie for life Is that we we plans together and you doing all this stuff? But here's what I want to tell you the Bible says that you're supposed to leave your father and mother to become one with your spouse Now I'm saying if you're supposed to leave your father and mother, how does your friend get to stick around? Well, how do you make it your parents can't even be up in this by the way Be Careful putting your parents and everything in your marriage because your parents will always see it through your lens That's how they're wired. I Want to talk about that today? Let's talk about a mission plan. What's a mission plan a mission plan is Why did God bring us together it's more than us just being happy what was his plan when he let us come together Why did God put us together? I was okay by myself But what did God put us together for neo said it like this. I'm a movement by myself But I'm a force When we're together what neo was trying to say with this is Deuteronomy 32 one can chase a thousand. That's what he meant But two can put ten thousand to flight. What is the exponential impact that us coming together can do? I'm better with her. I can do more with her There's no way this church or my life would have had the successes had without her But she couldn't be where she was without me. We're better together You got to understand stop stop just talk about simple stuff God. What was your plan when you brought us together? What is your divine mission for our life? That's that should be in the plan What does God wants us to do together that we could not have done alone? And finally, what is our legacy plan what message do we want to leave behind us? To our children our children's children our nieces our nephews and everybody. That's all important So here is a healthy marriage plan Go back play this part of the message over so that you can listen to it apply to your marriage add the things you may Already have one add some things to it. However, you see fit now. Let's go back to this passage and talk about Do Colossians chapter 3 verses 18 and 19 and Here's the point. I want to make everything starts at the top

Say that for me. Everything starts at the top. Why do I say that when a wife does not? Arrange herself under her husband for whatever reason she might be mad at him and when a husband does not Agape his wife and he does not love her in a way. That's best for her That energy will cascade through the house It's impossible for the children to not feel it even if they don't say anything it creates an energy of emotional Unsafety Ness that ain't even a word, but I've been here since five o'clock. It's gonna work And I want to say especially with fathers see as husbands whenever a husband Is upset with his wife and therefore he's not being Compassionate and sensitive and loving towards her The problem with that is he's not just ahead of his wife He's the head of the whole house and when a man is upset It's hard for that man to be upset with his wife and not be upset in general Like it's hard for a man to be upset with his wife and not kind of take it out on his children And he mad at his wife, but he's saying and you need to go upstairs to him What's this mess right here? He really? I can't really say what I want to say. He really mad at his wife For her marital duties or something like that, but y'all know i'm telling the truth. Just stay with me. So so he's upset as a man Even if you don't take it out on your wife, it's hard to be tender and loving To your children when you're upset with your wife because as men we don't have the emotional bandwidth to go all those places When we're upset we're upset It's hard for some women to understand that because a woman can be upset with her husband and completely bifurcate And turn to her babies and say I love you so much. I love and mean it While being mad at him. I don't know how y'all do that. That is absolutely amazing That a wife can be that genuinely loving and nurturing for a child while she don't even want to talk to her husband That's amazing that y'all can do that it's also frustrating Because as a man now we out on the outside now don't nobody like us in the house And if you don't have a little dog or something you're shorter than a pregnant aunt as pastor darrell would say, where are you going?

The kids, you know, the kids gonna side with mom You played catch with that boy all his life Got a torn rotator cuff playing catch with him soon as he make a touchdown He won't tell him saying hi mom. He won't say nothing about you. Give it up Oh mom, I love my mom got mom tattoo. My son got his my biggie's name tattoo on him So one night I just washed him with his shirt off and i'm looking for my name somewhere that's on here this Kb something but those are his initials And so so here's the deal. This is why this is so important y'all when When that happens the children can feel it when mom and dad husband and wife aren't getting along the children can feel it Even the little ones the little ones can tell when mom and dad are not being nice to each other And you know what they'll do even if you're not yelling and fussing They can tell and the little one without even being able to talk She'll grab mom's hand and dad's hand and pull y'all together make y'all friends because even though she can't say it she can sense it Yeah That's why sidebar is so important to show affection to your spouse in front of your kids Flirt with your spouse in front of your kids. Have a good time. They're gonna say. Oh, yeah, that's nasty Oh, stop it. But in their mind, they're saying all is well Yeah, yeah, yeah i'm gonna go home today and show my kids all as well i'm just going Amen Amen So we have to I want to say this to men especially because we don't have that that that We don't have the bandwidth. First of all, we're not naturally tender And we can't compartmentalize like that So i'm going to ask men to do something that no other environment will ask you to be this as a man I'm going to ask you to be softer Yeah Because every way you go in life You're totally i'm gonna ask you to be hard to be tough to be firm to be courageous to stand tall To be unflinching to be the only one at the funeral. You ain't crying and somebody say how you doing

I'm being strong for the family. I ain't ask you nothing. I want to ask you to be softer I want to ask you to be tender to be kind To be what you're called a gentle man Have you ever thought that's what we're called A gentle man You said well that's not natural for me pastor i'm not naturally gentle I get it you're not naturally gentle But that's what we're called to be. I'm a gentle man Now, I know we're capable of it Because all that has to happen is is you have a grandchild And all that thug immediately is gone As soon as that little thing go like this to say pop pop all that gangster is out the window How many know i'm telling the truth? But but here's the deal. It shouldn't take us to wait till you have a grandchild for you to be tender For you to be a gentle man It's going to be important that we do that. Amen Now, let me tell you one of the reasons why it's very difficult for men and women to carry out their Responsibilities to for the woman to subject herself to her husband to arrange herself under him and for the man to love his wife with a goth a love is because in a lot of marriages the reality and the fantasy There's such a chasm between the two that Discouragement and despair make love hard What am I saying the marriage you dreamed of and the marriage you expected is not the marriage you have And the spouse you dreamed of and the spouse you expected brushes even as far as you have You expected them to be different than they are Because dating is deceitful When it's not continual

So now there's a chasm between what I expect and what I'm hoping for and you say well pastor I ain't sign up for this. I ain't sign up to be second to his mother His football team and his video game. He 50 playing mad Tournaments leagues He's 62 and he was you doing mad He got arthritis in his thumbs, but he's still hey, I'm like that I Didn't expect to be second to mad And his Xbox and you know what? He's saying. I ain't expect to be second to these kids Hmm I Expect to be second to your soar oars And you know what that chasm here's another one I didn't expect to be celibate and married Marital celibacy It made a trip when you was dating you couldn't keep your hands off his Lord help us we don't know we tried Jesus we saw We know Any time any place anywhere in a half? Now everything got to be perfect For next month Cuz I didn't sign up for this This is not what I expected. I never said I didn't get married to be lonely I Had a level of loneliness when I was single But now I feel like Jill Scott says I'm lonely whenever you're around Your presence makes me lonelier Because I expected us to be good company. Y'all can't relate to this So now now this this Unexpected marriage this marriage has not met my expectations now you asking me to arrange myself under that You asking me to a gop a debt. Yes Because you can never have a real marriage that really lasts Until you let go of the fantasy marriage that you was hoping for and a fantasy spouse you were home for you will have to Find out how to love your real husband and your real wife and and accept your real marriage

Or you gonna pay the lawyer to do it again so You cannot you have to detach from the marriage you were hoping you would have and Attached to the marriage you have and say God from this spot show me how to love here So watch this so watch this. Here's the point. You gotta learn how to love what you have not what you hope you had That's the point boom Show me how to love what I have not what I hoped Because as long as I wait on you to become what I hope I'll withhold love from you You don't deserve this love. Listen, that's not how it works Love your family your real family Love your spouse the one that's not financially responsible or the one that's not everything you thought they would be That's how that works this is grown stuff Can you love the imperfections of the people God has given you to look and one of the reasons why this happens by the way one of the reasons why we get into this chasm of between reality and And fantasy is because men and women view marriage differently When a woman gets married in her mind, that's the starting line For a whole new level of a relationship We've got to go to the next level of communication and connection and intimacy and and we're gonna do so much but this we're about to take off in our union Because she sees marriage as the start of something new and new and new and new And she sees marriage as the start of something new and new and she sees marriage as the start of something new better a man seems marriage not as a starting line for us that's the finish line and we work hard to get there when a man when a man gets married he says all right I'm done got my wife got me a wife like a job I got me a wife he think about working them I got me a wife you watch a man when a man is even when he's thinking we even when a man gets engaged his whole energy changes he starts relaxing yeah yeah mo he only he be sitting like this he never sat like this when he was single single he sit like this too much going on he's now he engaged he like this all the time yeah my only one hoop no more yeah shawty I

found the one man she the one shawty real well I'm done nah man I ain't man ain't trying to go out we ain't doing trips none of that man I'm I'm ready to settle down listen to that that ain't action I'm ready to settle down I'm ready to hang them up I'm ready to burn the black book I'm off the I'm off the I'm off now check this out let's take it because because you have to understand when you when you get married as a woman you hear here comes the bride for him he just graduated he hears commencement music like man I did it yeah even if he cries when you come down out he's just I won like it or not that's how we think and you up there you now in the man cave on the wall I'm talking about the wall you right up there if he graduated from college he got a degree up there that's my bachelors and then remember we caught that big bass I'm talking about the one 10 pound bass he got a picture that he really didn't catch it but he got a picture with it that's right there and I got my BA and I got my bass and then we went hunting and he got a deer head in there with the horns yeah this is the buck I caught and then I got so I got the BA I got the bass and I got the buck and I got Brianna that's Brianna right there listen I made it she did this is now I got my BA I got my bass I got my buck I got Brianna let's start the business let me work on a business not on Brianna you have to understand everything else on the wall he has already worked for what I do I work for that BA I'm not working on that anymore I work for that bass I already caught it just like I caught her I already caught that buck I had to be sneaky and creepy to catch that buck but I got it but now nothing else on this wall is asking me for anything because it knows I work to get it I work to get her why are you on me about something you're on the wall you're my trophy you're the best you're the best thing yet to ever come into my life you're the best thing yet yeah I can do it when I'm joking that's about the Lord you're so wonderful we should turn that into a worship song I'm not saying it's right I'm just saying and I'm not saying every man thinks about it but dad going it that's how most of us think she know what when we learn better we can do better when a man gets married he feels like yeah I did

that not I'm doing that the work was to do it do you understand that so there's tension around that but it don't mean it can't get better so so you have to watch this you have to love what you have not what you wish you had so be grateful if you got a man in here that's connected to you that's listening to this because that means he's willing to learn amen give him a hand praise the Lord amen because you need watch this watch this why you're saying I don't like who I'm married to because they're not meeting my expectations. Don't be surprised if the feeling ain't mutual. Isn't that a tripping? Yeah, they don't like me. I mean, I may not be up to par either. Let me tell you what else this happens because we're over time. It also happens with parenting. Just like a woman has a hard time arranging herself to somebody who has not met her expectations and a man has a hard time engulfing his wife because she hasn't met her expectations. Sometimes this is going to be this deep. Sometimes parents don't really love their children like they should because the children hasn't met their expectations. Look at your grades. Look at your friends. Look at your room. You got quiet in here. And sometimes because of the grades and the friends and the drugs or whatever it may be, your most difficult relationship might be with your child because of the stage or the age they're at and now they can't get your love. Your love is on hold while you wait on God to transform them into the person that's worthy of it. With your self-righteous self and your amnesia addict. What's the word for amnesia in this advanced stasis? Your amnesia self. When you must have forgot that the same God that loved you when you didn't have it all together. The same God that loved you with your nasty self when you was having unprotected sex and didn't get full-blown AIDS because of his grace. If y'all ain't gonna help me in here. The same God that lets you get home safely when you were so drunk and so high you don't still to this day know exactly how you got home but somehow you made it. The same God that lets you keep a job that you should have lost by now and lets you get a job you weren't even qualified to get. The same God that was gracious and merciful to you all your life in college and through high school when you was doing crazy stuff. The same God when you dozed off and fell

asleep behind the wheel when you woke up your car was still in his lane by the grace of God. Don't play with me in here and with your self-righteous self your child doesn't get the love you get because you don't think they deserve it. You lost your mind. God has already demonstrated you the kind of love that you're supposed to give is the kind of love you get. And so now your child has not measured up to your expectations and you are ashamed of him and embarrassed. I got to come up to this school again you knows I'm a deacon. I got to come up to this school again you knows I'm a deacon. That's what this is about. Love your family. Love your family. You're the one to take good notes. Are you on the Wednesday? That's not you is it? Is somebody? You're standing up. You're standing up. I gotta be talking to you. Do you go on Wednesday nights to the thing? That's not you. Okay. There's a lady on Wednesday nights. Somebody said when did you say this? And I didn't know what I said. She says you said that in Living Without a Fence part six. Whoa. I didn't know you looked like her. Amen. But anyway see how ADHD that is? Love what you have. Everybody stand up. I ain't gonna be able to finish. Love your family. Why? Because that's who he gave you to love in all of his imperfections. And stop giving them. While everybody while the church gets your best and work gets your best and neighbors get your best and society gets your best and your family gets the tired, annoyed, annoyed, door slamming, get out my face, leave me alone version of you. And let me tell you something. When it comes down to the end of time, when the clock is ticking and running out of time in your life, you know who the only people gonna be there for you? Is your family. Not the church people who may whisper a prayer for you. Oh that's so good. You know what? They don't even pray. They just send a praying hand emoji. Oh man, my father dying. But you know who can be there wiping your mouth and turning your bed? Is the people that you show your worst to. Love. your family. No they're not perfect and you ain't either. And you ought to call somebody and apologize and say I'm sorry for how judgmental I was to you. Luke chapter 15 there's a man, there's a story of the prodigal son, this man has two sons. I say he had a mild child and a wild child. That's how I see scripture,

I just see it that way. And the reason why I say it that way is because usually if you have more than one child, one of them jokers is on your prayer list. They all on it, but you know the one with asterisks. Lord please Jesus, Amen. His wild child came to him and said give me my money. I want my inheritance. That's so disrespectful. You're not supposed to get your inheritance till your father dies. You know what he's telling them? You could be dead for all I care. I want the money. And the man loved him. You know some of us that would have went totally different right there. He loved him enough to give him what he didn't deserve. He had to disrupt the family flow and give this because he got it. If I give you your inheritance, I got to give your brother his. I'm still alive. Now this is all out of order. He gave him the inheritance and you could tell the boy didn't care nothing about his father because he took the money and left his father. That's a message right there. Be careful when you go after the money but you leave the father. That's a word for somebody. Somebody's dangling something in front of you that's gonna make you compromise your walk with the father. And you'll run out of money. And you'll be bereft of the father. That's what happened to him. Soon his money ran out. Living riotously. Old King James said he was living riotously. Let's just imagine with that. Riotous living. Ran out of money. Nobody would hire him. One man gave him a job working with pigs. He's in the pig pen and the Bible says he started considering eating what the pigs eat. And he realized how low he had gone and he says, I'm better than this. At my father's house, the servants eat better than this. And he says, I will return to my father. I will say to him, I have sinned against you and against heaven. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me one of your higher servants. He starts going back home. That's his speech. He's pleading in his mind. I'm not worthy to be your son. Make me one of your higher servants. Not only did their father love a disrespectful child. Before he left and when he left, he loved him on the way back because he, watch this, the father saw him, the Bible says, a great distance off. It looked like my baby. That is him. And he starts running outdoors. Men didn't run in the biblical

times. He has a tunic on. He starts running towards his son. His son never got the speech out, Charles. He never got his I'm sorry dad speech out. The father ran, put a robe on him, put sandals on his feet, put a ring on his finger, killed a fatty calf because this is my son. He was dead and now he's alive. I loved him then. I love him now. And his behavior doesn't change it. Two things can be true. He can be wrong and I can still love him. Why do you still love him? Because he's mine. Why should you love the child you're estranged from? Because she's yours. Why does the father keep loving you? Because you're his. There's no shadow. I won't light up and no mountain. I won't climb up coming after you. There's no wall. I won't kick down and lie. I won't tear down coming after you. It's an overwhelming, never ending, reckless love of God chases me down, fights till I'm found and leaves the 99. I couldn't earn it, could God? I don't deserve it. Still he gives his love away. Can you cut him off? It's a privilege to have a child. You cut him off. You cut her off. And some of you children have cut your parents off Cuz she's on drugs or she did something wrong to you. How dare you? You're no better than they are All have sinned and come short of the glory of God all have sinned You may not have done what she did or what he did, but you did something And his father said I still love you Now I don't need your speech You might go back on it. I Love you when you left and I love you while you were gone It's good to see you son Hmm hmm, but you know who didn't love him who wasn't happy I'm trying to see if y'all read the Bible His brother

Brothers, I don't know what he doing all this for Okay, Wow Prostitute haven't ran out of the money and you're gonna throw a party for him You know why the brother couldn't love his brother Because he viewed him through the eyes of judgment Judgment is a family killer You Just taught us some people sometimes so how's just about she's selfish How's your husband angry how's your children disobedient Judgment Suffocates love It overrides it When I was a cashier, you know, I ain't never ain't had too many good jobs when I was a cashier What helped this illustration to make sense There were certain things that would happen at the at the transaction that you had to have a certain amount of authority to do And If something went wrong or you needed help you had to ring your bail for a manager to come When the manager came to your cash register, they had to do what is called an override And what the override did was it didn't matter what happened the override says my my authority Now Lord, let me make this connection On the negative side God has put love in you for your child, but your judgment keeps overriding it They can never do enough because the love is conditional it's based on performance You can't see them high and still hug them Cuz y'all ain't gonna help me now y'all getting quiet But What I love about God is that there is a fountain Filled with blood

drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunge beneath that flood Lose all their guilty straight, you know why because even though the sinners rail the blood overrides it I I Said there's an override. So when God looks at us, he doesn't look at us with judgment He said I see blood good God. I see blood. It's on the doorpost. Good God. I see blood I can pass open We gotta get out of here If this message for you As we close the service, I want you to come up to the front I'm not praying for wayward children. I'm not praying for bad husbands and bad wives. I'm praying for you Since you're the good one And maybe you're not maybe you don't see yourself as good I'm praying for people who know I'm gonna need help loving like that Now what's surprising to me is that anybody's still in their seat That That's what surprises me not that people are coming forward but that somebody can actually stay where they are and say oh I got that together Either that or you're not ready And I'm cool with that Everybody come up closer. Okay, you know, I'm cool with that. You know, people will hear revelation like this Listen up listen up before you pray uh ray and others listen to this let me say something when people when people hear revelation like this you know what they say man i wish i heard this 20 years ago i wish i had this 20 years ago 30 years ago and the devil wants you to say that the reason why the devil wants you to say i wish i had that 20 30 years ago is because the devil wants you to stay stuck in a past you can't change he wants you to stay in a place that can never be changed but today is the day of salvation in the day you hear his voice heart not your heart this is the day that the lord has made i will rejoice and be glad in it this is the day the lord has made i will not regret and be sad in it i will rejoice and be glad and what does that mean god i'm glad you let me live long enough till i did hear it even if it's 20 years later now is the acceptable time thank you for what you're giving me now

i can use this now i can work with this now because let me tell you something 20 years ago you weren't ready you hear things when you're ready that's why the bible says he did have ears to hear everybody go like this guess what you got you got ears but the bible says he has ears to hear that means that something's it can't just be physical there are people in here right now they got ears but not ears to hear they're they're shut down they're not open to truth so guess what they're gonna say 20 years later they hear a message like this say boy i wish i'd heard that 20 years ago you hear it when you're ready now i want you to lift your hands if it's okay with you pastor joy i want you to lift your hands there's been a glory in this service since it started something happens when there's a level of reverence in the room that you can't you can't manufacture it yeah there's an anointing that comes and a power that comes when god is revered and i just want to first pause and thank we are zion music thank y'all for bringing a revering of god today he moves where he's revered where there's where there's dishonor and indifference some people can't get them you know why some people can't get a miracle they're too cool you're too cool you're too casual with god uh i've been talking to some nigerian people i think i'm nigerian i don't know i don't my father left i don't i wasn't able to trace it amen i think i'm nigerian some kind of way we all from north carolina and then africa somewhere right they told me that in some nigerian cultures when they really want to worship they don't just get on the floor they roll on the floor like that's worse that we don't we if we had that we will call the mental health team right hey heather we got one and they were trying to explain to me how desperate they are for god and how grateful they are to god i believe if we had people in our church who first of all weren't judged when they do something abnormal in their worship because they're tired of being normal and tired of being okay and tired of being cool that maybe we would see manifestations like that before maybe children and fathers maybe

god would do what he said in malachi i'm gonna turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the hearts of the father i'm gonna turn some things around those are it ain't just when a tumor's dried up it's when somebody that ain't been talking for 15 years embraces and tears to say i'm sorry and i want a relationship with you that's what i'm talking about my head you Take my mind and transform it, take my will, Lord, please conform it to yours, to yours, oh Lord. The book of Ezekiel says, I will remove a heart of stone and I will replace it with a heart of flesh. Did I see God doing heart transplants in this space right now? And if you want that, let him do it for you right now. I'm not talking about a heart that works better and pumps better blood. I'm talking about a heart that loves better. I'm talking about a heart that's been closed and won't forgive, that can love. Father, we receive that right now in the name of Jesus. Transformation, confirmation, being conformed to your will. Transform our minds, our hearts, our decisions, our attitudes. Cause your love to be shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Ghost. And help us to love our families, to love our children, to love our spouses, to love those you have given us to love, no matter what. And we thank you for it in Jesus name. And if you agree with that, say amen. Amen. Amen. You may return to your seats. Pastor Joy. Wow. I'm so grateful to God that he spoke to us in this way. And I believe a lot of families are going to be changed and help because of this word. So I'll leave you with this final challenge.

Love your family without judgment. Try not to look at them through the eyes of judgment. It doesn't mean you don't see what needs to change. But one thing that certainly needs to change is our love for those whom God has given us to love. Isn't that right? Amen. That's perfect. That's perfect. It's perfect. See y'all next time.