Marriage and Parenting | Pastor Adam Peterson

Before we jump fully into this message, online family, so grateful for you. So many of you are watching live right now. Tune out all the distractions, lean in, because God wants to speak to your heart. If you're catching this message at an other time, like maybe throughout the week or a month, even a year later, come on, God's got a word for you. God's word never returns void, so let's go. To the men and women in the correctional facilities, you are our church family. Come on, let them know. So grateful for you. And I know even in this series that your relationship context is a little bit different, so lean into what God has for you, because there are relationships that he has ordained for you to have, for you to receive and give encouragement in other people's lives. And so we're gonna talk through some stuff today. We've been talking about relationships. The first week of this series, we talked about the family of God, the importance of being connected. Can I just say something very quickly? If you are looking for friends in your life, you're looking for godly, healthy friendships. My wife talked to two young girls at our church Wednesday night at our prayer and worship service, and they said this, God has changed our lives.

They recently got baptized at our church, and they said this, our lives are going in a new direction, and it's not really going the direction that our friends' lives are going. We need friends. And you know what? We're able to look at them and go, there are people in this church who are more than ready to be your friends, to become your family, because here's what I know, that your extended family, maybe even some of your immediate family, man, they're not healthy. Like, they're not encouraging to you. And so what we're trying to do with everything we can, and it's hard, it's a lot of work, especially as a growing church, but what we're trying to do is say this. I know your extended family might be unhealthy, but this is a safe place, and there are people here that wanna love you, care for you, know you, and encourage you. But get this, you ready? This is gonna blow you away. We can't know you, we can't encourage you, we can't love you if you only show up once every three weeks. We can't do that if you even show up every week, but you're only here for an hour,

and then you leave as soon as you get here. You gotta jump in, man. You gotta get connected here. Start serving with some people. Get in a group, start building some relationships. There are some amazing people at our church. We got a lot of weird people at our church too, but they're also amazing. And I'm telling you, there are some friendships that God wants to put in your life, and he wants you to be a friend. But Proverbs says this, that in order to have friends, you have to show yourself friendly. Which means from time to time, you're gonna have to put yourself out there, and man, get around some new people. Girls only is the perfect opportunity. You're like, I'm gonna be by myself. Okay, but you're gonna be in a room full of women. No men to get in the way, right? Don't amen that, come on. We're gonna be here serving you the whole night, thank you very much. But man, just talk to somebody, and I know that's scary. I gotta talk to, yes. Because you never know the relationships that God might wanna form, and just be a blessing in your life. So I'm so grateful for this series that we're in. Today we're gonna be in a very specific lane.

A very specific lane, and so just to let you know, this isn't gonna apply to everybody today. But I do want you to take the principles from God's word, and apply it to all of your relationships. And so today we are talking about marriage and parenting specifically. And the Bible has a lot to say about marriage and parenting. If you're here today and you're not married, apply it to your friendships. If you're here today and you're like, I wanna get married one day, then definitely start applying it now to your life. If you're like, I got married, my husband died, don't want another one. Well then you're off the hook, you're good to go, and you can take a nap if you want, okay? We're gonna talk through this, and I just believe that God's gonna encourage you. It's gonna be very practical, very, very practical, but it's also gonna be very, very spiritual. Let me give a quick plug. If you were not here last week, you weren't here last week, even if you were, this is for all of you, this is your homework. I want you to go back, and I want you to re-listen to my wife's message from last week. I was actually in Jamaica last Sunday while she was preaching and while y'all were doing church, and I got to watch the message.

And I'm telling you, I told her, I said, that was one of the best messages I've ever heard you preach because, listen, because it was so practical. It was just like, yeah, here's some things that you can do, but it was so spiritual because when you apply those things to your life, you bring God into those relationships because she was talking about healthy versus unhealthy relationships. How many of you would say you have some dysfunction in your family, okay? How many of you would say most of it's on your wife's side of the family? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. We all have dysfunction. Listen, we all have dysfunction in our families. Y'all wanna hear a dysfunction? How many of you think you have the most dysfunction in your family, okay? I promise you this, compared to the Bible, you're junior varsity, all right? Here, let me tell you about the dysfunction in the Bible. Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. One of them killed the other one. Maybe that's in your family, I don't know. Here's some dysfunction. There was a guy named Jacob. He went to his father, his soon-to-be father-in-law, and said, I wanna marry your daughter, Rachel.

And he goes, okay, you have to work for me for seven years. Imagine that, working for somebody for seven years. My wife, she's worth it. I would work for seven years to marry her. But on the wedding night, you know what the father-in-law did? Switched it, gave him the other sister. How wasted was Jacob that he didn't even know that it was the other sister? He wakes up and then the Bible says, and there was Leah. And he's like, what? I thought I got Rachel. How's your in-laws doing? Switching sisters on you, right? There's some dysfunction in the Bible and there's dysfunction in our families. And so within the marriage and parenting, like we don't want dysfunction, man. We want health. We want godliness. But how many of you know, marriage is a blessing from God, but that blessing requires work? Raise your hand if you know you're a piece of work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was your hand, nope, her hand wasn't up. That's all right. We got work to do. So we're gonna talk through things today. Specifically, we're gonna start with marriage and then we're gonna move into parenting.

And again, I know this relates to a very targeted audience, but don't tune out because this applies to many other things. Marriage is from God, but it's work. Because there's so many external factors that come in that play a role in your marriage. Here's a couple right here. The first one is simply this, finances. Finances, I put at the top because it's probably gonna be one of those things that you argue about more than anything else in your marriage. Why? Because one of you is a saver and one of you is a spender. And if you were both savers, you probably wouldn't argue about it. But at the end of the day, one of you is a spender. And so you gotta work through that though. There's gonna be some miscommunication. Well, I thought you said this. Well, I heard this. Well, I thought you said that. Well, no, you said this, blah, blah, blah. And now you're back and forth going, oh man, maybe I heard you wrong. Maybe you said it wrong. You ever had a moment where you said, I told you this. You didn't tell him that, you just thought about it and you thought you told him, but you never told him. All right? There's gonna be misunderstanding where you heard it said a certain way,

you took it another way, you got your feelings hurt. There's gonna be all this back and forth. There's gonna be calendar issues where she told you for weeks, something you were doing on Friday night. And then Friday night rolls around and you go, this is the first I've ever heard of this. Because you weren't listening or you weren't synced up. You didn't have the right calendar in line. You're gonna have extended family that loves to jump into the mix and tell you how to do things. And you should be doing that. And then gotta go to my in-laws for Thanksgiving and Christmas and this and that and that. They're all gonna throw their two cents in and then let's have some fun with it. Let's just throw some kids in the mix. Because that's easy. And exhaustion and sleep deprived. And the list goes on. So there's all these external forces that are fighting against our marriage. And then let's just be real and call it what it is. God is a relational God. God loved us so much that he created us to be in relationship with him. And then not only for us to be in relationship with him, but us to be in relationship with each other. And it's God's creation, therefore the devil hates it.

He hates God. He hates God's creation. He hates you. He hates that God created us to be in relationship. So he wants to steal, kill and destroy every relationship in your life. If you're looking right now at your marriage and you're thinking, man, it just feels like this isn't easy. I just feels like there's an attack. Yeah, that's the enemy. Wanting to take out your marriage, destroy it so that nothing good comes to it. So what do we have to do? We have to look inward and just go, God, we gotta make you the center of it all. I was at a church a couple of weeks ago preaching and I was just meeting the people of the church talking. And I met this lady, she was a little older. And I said, hey, how long you been coming to the church? She said, I'm brand new. I was like, it's your first Sunday ever? She said, yeah. I said, that's awesome. You know, blah, blah, blah. Tell me a little bit. She told me and she said, yeah, I looked at my husband this morning and I told him this. God's more important than you. I'm going to church.

To which I told her, I probably wouldn't have phrased it like that. But I understand what you're saying. God is the highest priority, but here's the reality. Sometimes we take God and we say, God, I want you to be a part of my relationships. We don't want God to be a part of our relationships. We want God to be the center. Think of like a wheel, think of like a bicycle wheel. You got spokes that are running to the tires, right? But you got that hub in the center, that's Jesus. I want Jesus the center of my marriage. I want Jesus the center of my parenting with my kids. I want Jesus the center of my friendships and my church family. Jesus at the center, not just a part of it, in it. And when we put Jesus at the center, now when I can look at my spouse, I don't have to say necessarily God's more important than you. No, God's in our marriage. He's in it. Matthew 7. Anyone who listens to my teaching, listening to the teaching of Jesus, this is Jesus talking, that's important to listen. Some of you aren't listening to me teach right now. I'm offended. Some of you are, thank you. Jesus says, anyone who listens to my teaching,

that's a good start. But here's where it is. Whoever follows it is wise. See, all of you could be listening, but some of you could say, I'm not gonna follow it. I'm gonna do what I want. Some of you could say, no, I am gonna follow it. So you have a choice today. You get to hear the word of God and you get to choose if you're gonna follow it or not. And the Bible would say this, if you follow it, whoo, you made a great decision. You're so wise. Some of you, you didn't realize that. You're like, nobody's ever called me wise before. Following God makes you wise, let's go. Like a person who builds a house on a solid rock. We're talking about Jesus here. Though the rain comes and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against the house, it won't collapse. Why? Because it is built on bedrock. Meaning this, Jesus, I want you to be the center of every relationship I have. We're gonna build these relationships on you. And when the floods come, when the winds come, when the storms try to knock us down, we are not gonna be shaken, because we are built on Jesus. Doesn't mean they don't come.

No, no, no, listen, listen, listen. Save your applause, because all of you should have clapped. It doesn't mean just because I got Jesus at the center that it's easy. No, the storm still comes. It means that I'm on solid footing. I'm on solid ground. I'm not just gonna get knocked over when a little wave comes, when a little wind comes. I'm gonna be able to stand firm on Jesus. Then he goes on to say this. Anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish. So you get the choice today. You get to either walk out of here as a wise guy or a fool. Some of you, and this is the wild part. I mean, it happened in Jesus's day. Of course it's gonna happen here at Rise Church. You get to hear the word of God, and you get to choose what you're gonna do with it today. And if you choose to go, God, man, your word kind of convicted me. There's some things that need to change in my life. The Bible would say, oh, that's so wise. Others of you are gonna hear the word of God today and go, no, I'm not gonna change anything. And the Bible would say, you're a moron. You're foolish. You're foolish to keep doing it your way because your way doesn't work. We say this all the time.

God makes a better Lord than you do. Let him be the Lord of your life that leads you in the right direction. Because here's what's gonna happen. The rains and the floods, they're gonna come and the winds are gonna beat against the house and it's gonna collapse with a mighty crash. You ready for this? Same wind, same waves, same storm hitting both people. Listen, non-Christians and Christians go through the same stuff in life. The difference is when it hits me as a follower of Jesus, I've got something firm to stand on. Not my own strength to try to get through it, but his strength. So when you look at two marriages that walk through the same type thing and you go, well, how are they still thriving and how are they falling apart? It's Jesus Christ. He is the foundation. Not only Jesus, he carries it. So that's why you need to be, as a young Christian, soldier with your father. Don't let your heart be that storm. Jesus is your strength. Don't let the storm get you down. Don't let the big bad waves fall you over.

That's all it takes. Don't let them down. Tomorrow is the big day. Don't let them be the worst storm you can face. Woo, 20 years, girl. That's a big deal, man. And you've heard us say this, we joke it, but it was real. Man, the first six years, man. They were rough, because what are we dealing with? Finances. One, we didn't have any money, so we were arguing about the money we didn't even have. You know what I'm saying? She wanted to spend money, we don't have it. How can we spend money we don't have? Doesn't matter, she wants to spend it. We had some debt, throw two kids in the mix, throw ministry in the mix, just stressors. All of this stuff, learning to operate with each other, pride in our heart, like all the things. The last 14 years, man, they've been a blessing from God. And I'm so grateful for it. And this is what I would say about our marriage. It's not perfect, but it's healthy. It's not perfect, but it's godly. Jesus is at the center of it. Do you still have arguments? All the time.

She's difficult. I'm more difficult. But here's what I wrote down. The best sermon I will ever preach to you is how I love and serve that woman right there. The best sermon I could ever preach is how I love my wife. Because Jesus tells us very clearly in Ephesians that I am to love her the same way that he loves me. And if I can't do that, then it's almost like it negates everything that I say up here on this stage. So if you were to ever walk up to her, don't, you don't need to do this. But if you were to ever walk up to her and just go, does your husband love you? Does he serve you? And she was like, no, he doesn't do any of that. All that stuff he says up here on the stage, he doesn't do any of that in our home. Then you would be like, what a hypocrite, right? So the best sermon that I can ever preach is how well I love her and serve her. Therefore, it justifies everything I get up here and say in front of you with anything else in the Bible. And the same is true of you, husbands and wives. Love your spouse. I heard a story about a husband who told his wife this. Hey, every time I have a headache, when you kiss me, my headache, it just goes away. She thought all that's so sweet. And then she said, wait,

what did you do for your headaches before me? He said, that's easy. I didn't get headaches. Holla, right? We are each other's biggest headache, but we're also each other's greatest encouragers. She is my peace. God is my peace, but God uses her to bring peace into my life, bring comfort to me. So this is what I would just say. Here's some practical things, you ready? Like put your phones down and talk to each other. Some of you right now, your marriage is dying because you give more of your attention to your phone than you do her. And the attention that you're giving to your phone is you scrolling and looking at other people's lives to the neglect of the woman right in front of you. Put your phones down, go for walks together. I know it's about to get hot, sweat together. Laugh together, learn to encourage each other. I am her hype man. She'll try on a new outfit. She'll be like, what do you think? I'm like, girl, whoo, that's the one. That's the one right there, whoo. Because not a single one of you are gonna hype her up like I can. You're gonna walk, oh, Pastor Rick, you look so good.

And I don't need that from you. My husband already told me I look good. All I'm saying is this, there are practical small things that you can do in your marriage that will lead it to a healthy place. But you gotta be willing to put the work in. You gotta be willing to take the time. Some of you are building your marriage on just having a good time together. That doesn't last. We're gonna have a good time together. We're gonna go on vacation together. We're gonna hang out Friday, Saturday. We're gonna have a good time. That doesn't last, because the good times, man, they're gonna end at one point. Some of you are building your marriage right now on your kids. That doesn't last either. It's why you see people who have been married for 20, 25 years, their kids graduate, move out of the house, and then they divorce. Why? Because the kids move out, and they look at each other, and they go, wait a second, we don't like each other. Because they build it on their kids. They build it on Jesus, on him alone. Let me speak to some spouses in the house right now, husbands and wives.

Currently, your spouse is not a believer in Jesus Christ. Currently, your spouse doesn't follow him. First Peter would say, you keep living out Jesus in front of them, and you'll be the one that wins them over, not even by your words, but by your actions. You keep praying for them. You keep believing for their salvation. You keep believing that God will grab their heart and you keep living out Jesus in front of them, he is gonna use you. It's gonna be the hardest journey you've ever been on, but God's gonna use you, I promise you he will. It's in his word. We gotta fight for it. Let me just lay out a couple things. God's a God of order. So there's certain designs that he has laid out. Genesis says it like this. This is why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one. Meaning at some point, boys grow up into men. They leave their father and their mothers. Girls grow up into women. They leave their father and they are united together as one. God designed it, he gets to define it. I know the world has a lot to say about what marriage is. It's one man, one woman, husband, wife, united as one, like two pieces of paper

being super glued together. You cannot rip them apart and if you try, it's gonna get destroyed. Meaning it's not my money, it's our money. Those aren't my dirty dishes, those are our dirty dishes. That's not my dirty laundry, that's our dirty laundry. We serve each other, we are one. That's God's design. It's a beautiful thing. Meaning everything I have is yours and everything you have is mine. We are together in all things, unified. Unity is the goal. And we're gonna go back to Genesis one, but this is not out of order because God was talking about creation of man and woman, bringing them together. And he said this, God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number. Get married, get together and go have you some babies. Get some kids. And for those of you that are in the house and you've been trying to have a kid and it ain't happened yet, I mean, we're praying that God brings that miraculous child into your life. Maybe you found each other later in life and kids aren't an option, that's okay. There are other children, there are other young people that you can parent, you know what I'm saying?

I'm grateful for the leaders in our church that helped me, the tribe of people that helped me and my wife parent my kids. You need multiple voices speaking into your kids because you're telling your kids something and you've been telling them for five years and all of a sudden their youth leader walks in and says the same thing you've been saying for five years and it's like they get it for the first time ever. You're like, what are you talking about? I've been saying that to you your whole life. So-and-so said it, whatever, I don't care. I don't care who gets the credit as long as God moves in my kids' lives, amen? Children are a gift from God. Ephesians, we're gonna walk through this pretty quickly. Ephesians five and six kind of walks through the family and it says this towards the end of Ephesians five, it says, hey, husbands and wives, submit to each other. A lot of times we just skip to the part where the wives need to submit. We're gonna get there in just a little bit. Ladies, you're gonna love it. But before it says that, it actually says submit to each other. Like we should be serving one another. We should try to outdo one another in love. So submit to each other and then wives, it says this, submit to the leadership of their husbands, meaning God created the man to lead you well.

When I do weddings and I say this verse, I say, ladies, you don't like this verse, but it's in the word of God. And then I look at the man and go, just make it easy for her to follow you. When I love my wife, when I serve her well, she doesn't have to go, oh, I guess I'll submit. She's like, oh, that's easy. You're loving me and serving me. I'll follow you wherever you lead our family. So be that type of person. And this is what it says to the husbands, lay down your life for your wife. It's not about you anymore. You are to lay your life down for her. And this is the order, submit to each other, wives submit to him, husband lay down your life, and then throw some babies in the mix. Children, you're not off the hook here either. Obey your parents. Why? Because I said so. And then, this is why, I don't know if I've ever connected this before. This is Ephesians five into Ephesians six. And then Ephesians six closes with this. Hey, and you need to put on the armor of God because all of this is a fight to which all the parents and all the spouses and all the married people said, amen.

Marriage is a fight. Parenting is a fight. It's not easy. So what do we need to do? We need to pray up and get the armor of God on us so that we can fight against the devil who is trying to steal, kill, and destroy our families. Come on, Psalms 127. Let's go through this quickly. Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain, meaning this. You try to build your. and you try to build everything in your family on your own, you are gonna labor in vain and it's not gonna work. You gotta do it God's way, let him do it. Lord watches over the city, guards stand watch in vain. In vain, you rise early and stay up late toiling for food to eat. Meaning you're trying and you're striving and you're doing everything you know to do. It's not gonna work unless God does it. I love this verse. For he grants sleep to those he loves. Hallel, God must love my wife because he grants her a lot of sleep. Let's go. Children, Pastor Jonathan, come on up. Children are a heritage from the Lord. They're a blessing, they're a gift. Sometimes we might wanna return that gift back to the Lord

but you stuck with it. An offspring, a reward from him. Listen to this. They're like arrows in the hands of a warrior. God's calling you parents warriors. They're children that are born in one's youth. Blessed is the man and woman whose quiver is full of them. Children are a gift from God. And when he gives them to us, they're like arrows and it's our job to sharpen them, to show them Jesus and then launch them into the world to be the light of Christ. Some of you are here and you're parenting toddlers right now. May the Lord be with you. Some of you are parenting multiple toddlers right now. We're praying for you. Amen. Some of you are parenting teenagers right now and you're going, this is the hardest thing I've ever done. Those teenagers mature, it gets better. Some of you are parenting older adult kids still. Still are struggling. Hey, they need you. You don't have to enable them, you get to lead them. It's not easy being a parent. There's no manual and you're not gonna get it right all the time. Matter of fact, one of the best parenting tips I can give you is to let your kids know

that you mess up all the time. Let them know, hey, I didn't get that right. I shouldn't have raised my voice there. I shouldn't have yelled. I shouldn't have done this. Would you forgive me? Model that for them, that you're not perfect. They need to see that in you. There's a cliche, a stereotype, if you will, that pastor's kids, and stereotypes are around for a reason, right? Because it's like, at some point we saw it play out. But there's a stereotype, a cliche, that pastor's kids will eventually grow up and run away from God. Maybe you've seen that play out in some churches that you were a part of. And I used to have a fear of that in my own lives. Oh man, God, you called us to pastor a church, man. Our kids are gonna grow up one day and they're not gonna love you. But here's what I've learned just through conversation with people, that sometimes the reason that happens is because the pastor is one thing on the stage and then a completely different person at home. And then the kids look on and go, what a hypocrite, because kids aren't dumb. And they go, I don't want anything to do with the God that you're talking about,

because you say it up here on this stage, but then you don't bring that into our home. You are completely different. I'm out. And I had that fear. But for me and my wife, I'm telling you, if you went up and you asked our kids, which don't, by the way, our kids don't wanna talk to you, okay? Not in a bad way, they just don't. They don't want it to stop, you know, don't, okay? But if you were, it would be my prayer that my kids would say, oh, my mom and my dad, they're the same people here that they are in our home. Matter of fact, they're even better in our home. May that be said of you. Don't show up here at church on a Sunday morning and act a certain way and then scream at your kids as soon as you get in the parking lot. Be the same person. Be better so that they see Jesus in you. God has entrusted them to you. You are the number one person who gets to lead them. We need moms who are peace bringers into their homes but will fight for their children. We need men who walk in humility but will protect their families. We need men and women of God. Hey, it starts with us. Relationships are work.

Marriage is work. Parenting is work, but it's worth it. Hey, if you're struggling right now, let me say it like this. You didn't get to this point overnight. This has probably been in the making for a while now. You're not gonna fix it overnight, but you can start taking steps in the right direction. And that starts today by saying Jesus be the center. Some of you need to ask for forgiveness for how you've been treating your spouse or a kid. Some of you kids need to ask for forgiveness of how you've been rebellious against your parents. Have the conversation, extend grace, extend forgiveness. Let's bring Jesus into the center of our marriage and our families and our parenting, amen. Let's pray right now. God, thank you that you're in this place. We need you. We need you in our relationships, God. We cannot do it on our own. So even if today we felt correction, good. Let that change us. Make us more like you. We want godly, healthy marriages. Godly, healthy parenting with our kids. In Jesus' name, all God's people said amen. Amen.