The Silver Scrolls: God's Guide for Families

But we are so excited and this is a topic that we love to talk about family. You know, families are pretty important, right? I think that's what's happening right now in the world that families are falling apart. And I think what we're experiencing is the fallout of that. So talking about the family, I think from a biblical perspective is one of the most important things we can do because if the families aren't stable in the church, the church isn't stable. Amen. If the families are falling apart, I mean, we've all been there when at least in a little argument, right? It's hard to worship Jesus when you don't like your spouse next to you or you don't like your spouse that they talk to the kids the way they did. be like, you know, you need some repentance. They should be praying a lot harder than they are right now. Signaling somebody, pray for them. So, today we want to talk about the family and pull from the word of God because you know, the word of God is the truth and we're young. You know, we have an eight-year-old and a six-year-old that we are still figuring out parenting and family, but the word of God has a lot to say about this topic. So, what we're going to do is dive in and open the Bible to see what it says about family. So, a few years back, about a decade ago, I was given the option to do a two-week practicum in St. Louis, Missouri, or I could go to Israel for 2 weeks. And I brought that proposition home to Adam. Well, she said, "Hey babe, so I have to do a practicum for my PhD program and I have to go to Missouri." I'm like, "Okay, well, missed my wife for 2 weeks." And then she's like, "But they actually did give us a second option." Like, "Okay, come again." She's like, "Well, we could go to Israel, too." I said, we can go to Israel or Missouri? And she's like, "Yeah." I said, "Is this really a question?" Like, so, I signed up on that trip even though I'm not in her classes. So, it was supposed to be for 2 weeks. they actually called us right before and said, "I'm so sorry. The trip that you were on was cancelled." I'm like, "Oh, Missouri." And they're like, "Or you can go to Israel for a month and have the same cost." I'm like, "Israel it is." So, we had this amazing opportunity to go to Israel and study with some archaeologists that had found like the city of David and excavated at Hezekiah's tunnel and found the pool of Shalom. And it was just it was a m like you know how when the Bible becomes real for you. It's just like oh yeah I'm not just reading names but like these were people's lives. This actually happened. There's a place. And so the Bible just came alive for us in the context in which it was written. So that just fired us up and it taught us a lot about what we're going to talk about today. So, we were on one of these digs and it was actually in Mara where Asa and the mighty men of valor fought and had their victory and it was pretty neat. There were they had been doing this dig for many decades and they were toward the bottom of these caves in this archaeological dig. They had 18 different caves. We were just in one of them when we were toward the bottom of one of them and Adam actually ended up finding a lamp from 2200 years ago and I think we have a picture of it to display here. It's pretty cool. Everyone said so do you get to take the lamp home? We're like no. Israel Antiquities Authorities made us surrender that. But that was a pretty cool experience and it kind of gave us some insight into how the archaeological digs work and that's my degree is not in archaeology but it did make the Bible come to life. And another really important dig happened in 1979 and that was by a man named Barai and his team. And we want to talk to you a little bit about that dig. So there was this kid named Nathan that was 12 12 years old and so they were doing this big huge dig and the top guy was you know it was a whole bunch of 12year-olds 13-year-olds just kind of helping carrying dirt doing stuff and he said he's remembering the guy in charge is like yeah and this kid named Nathan who was super annoying he kept coming up and asking questions and wanting to take his liberty with like the tools and stuff. He's like, "Yeah." So, what I did, he's like, "I sent him into a chamber, like a room." He's like, "You know, just go in there and start cleaning up." And so he went in there to clean up and brought a hammer with him. You know what 12-year-olds do with hammers, right? So, he went in there and he started banging on the walls. Well, nobody's in there to check on this guy. So, he hits a place in the wall and it shatters. And they're like, you know, this kid's like, "Well, what's in the hole?" You know, and what they found was one of the most important archaeological discoveries to date. So, inside the hole, he saw pottery. And he looked through and kind of opened the hole, and it was a treasure trove of a whole bunch of ancient manuscripts and pottery. And when they brought it out, they found a 2in roll of silver, which they really didn't know what it was. So they brought it out. It actually took them, I believe it was 3 years to open this scroll. On the scroll, they can only see one very very delicately marked word, Yahweh. So they started the process of enrolling. And of course if it's very old and they actually estimated that this that this scroll was 2800 years old. So right before Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple this scroll was buried. So they ended up finding two scrolls. U they found a 2-in one and a 3-in one. We have a picture of the 3-in one here. And like like Adam said it was so old. 2,800 years old. And they actually estimate that these scrolls predate the famous Dead Sea Scrolls by approximately 4 centuries. So, we all know how important the Dead Sea Scrolls were for archaeological findings. but these silver scrolls is what they ended up being dubbed. they were even older than the Dead Sea Scrolls. So, we actually got to go see these scrolls in Israel in the Jerusalem Museum. And we ended up finding out that they had a lot more significance than we realized. Yeah. So you're like, I didn't know we're going to an archaeology class at church today. So we're going somewhere. Hold on. The thing is these we didn't realize the importance of this. But what's beautiful about this is my parents have prayed this over us since I can remember since we were little little tiny kids. But I can't remember a time when my parents didn't pray this at night. And you could say the same prayer on the silver scrolls. And so what we're calling this message today is the silver scrolls, God's guide for families. You see, what's inscribed on these silver scrolls is a blessing that can be found in Numbers. And it was a prayer originally penned by God and given to Moses to give to Aaron to pray over his sons. So if you could turn in your Bibles to Numbers chapter 6 verse 22- 26 if you can tap on your Bibles. So scripture says, "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise, ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." So this is a prayer, like Adam said that his parents prayed over him his entire life. And this is a prayer that we started praying over each other when we were dating and into marriage. We pray this prayer over each other every night. And now that we have children, we pray this prayer over our children every night. And we want to break this entire passage into three stanzas that we believe is God's guide for families. So we have three important takeaways that we're going to go over with you. And so that these silver scrolls really have provided a template for us as godly families. there will be a lot of obvious instruction to parents for their children, but it applies to all family dynamics. It applies to husband and wife. It applies to extended family in many ways. but even just in our friendships and our relationships at work. And so we'll get pretty practical with that. So it wasn't until we went to Israel that I actually understood the meaning of behind the words. So you realize that Hebrew is a lot different from English. Right. Right. Okay. Just checking and maybe you guys are all biblical scholars and like this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. So if you actually look at biblical Hebrew, there's only about 11,000 words. That's comparative. if you look at English, English has I think hundreds of thousands of words. If you add in the medical terminology or the scientific, there's millions. So that's a big big language set. Hebrew though only has 11,000. And if you take out proper nouns like names and places, you only have about 2 to 3,000 words. So each word has a suitcase of meaning. So, it's a storytelling language. So, when I'm saying one thing, it's kind of you can expand it to mean a lot of other things. So, we're going to kind of do that today, kind of open this up, and I think you're going to get a lot of benefit out of this. Something you might be thinking though, okay, well, Adam, you know, these are these are, you know, this is a prayer given by God to the priesthood back in the Old Testament. How does this apply to us today? and what's really interesting about this is that we are a royal priesthood. That's has such significance because your identity isn't just, you know, I'm just Adam or you're just Jenny or Bob, you know, like we are a royal priesthood. What was so significant about God's deeming people with their identity was that he took a gen a whole group of slaves and gave them a name, didn't he? From Israel. But he had the problem, how do you change slaves mentality? How do you change their mind? That's a difficult I mean changing anybody's mind is difficult, right? But how do you change someone's identity? So God started to try to teach them by what they wore and what they did. So if you look at this is this blew my mind looking into their history. You know how you know on the corners of their garments they were supposed to have fringes. You remember that little tassels? If you look at Jewish people today, you know, in the airport or whatever, you'll see little tassels hanging out from under their garments. That's very much like the Old Testament, how they looked and how they did it. Well, this is really interesting. Why would God put tassels on their garments? Isn't that weird? You know what? If your pastor was today, you know what? We're going to change the standards of the church. I want everybody here to wear tassels on all the corners. You'd be like, where you what are you doing, pastor? But God did this to his all of his people. Tassels were symbolic for royalty because it was extra. It was extra fabric. People didn't have a ton of stuff. They couldn't just go to Ross and buy a Nike shirt for $15. It took a lot more than that. Like you got to go and kill the lamb or, you know, shear the lamb and take the fur and spin the thing. You didn't just have extra lying around. Only kings had a ton. So God's like, I'm going to put tassels on their robes to remind them that they are a nation of kings and priests. And then what he did, this is so cool, is that only priests wore blue. That was a symbol of priesthood. So what God did says, I'm not only going to try to train them that their royalty, that their identity is royal because they come from me who is the king of kings. If I'm the king of kings, you are royalty. I'm going to give you I'm going to give you the fringe or I'm going to give you the tassels, but I'm also going to put inside of every single tassel a blue thread to remind you that you're also priests. So, you carry with me the authority and you carry with you the healing nature that I bring that heals the soul as well as judge the nations. So God is trying to tell us and in Peter 1 Peter 2:9 it says, "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." So when you come out of the world and into this beautiful family, you're not just joining like the four wall like you come to church. No, you are now have a new identity because your father, your daddy is the king of kings and next to you are all the fellow royalty who are the kids of the king of kings. Isn't that just beautiful? Yeah. What would happen if we honestly took in that idea that we are royalty? We don't have to hang our head in shame of who we represent or who we are. We are the light. To the nations. Amen. God is so good, isn't that? Amen. So, this priestly blessing is for you and for your children and for your family. So, we're going to dive into it today. Let's take a look at the first stanza. Verse 24 says, "The Lord bless you and keep you." So, first let's talk about blessing. we use this word all the time. You know, God bless you, brother. also what comes to mind sometimes when you hear of blessing is like, "Oh, let's bless the food, right? Lord, bless this food into our bodies in Jesus name. Amen." So we kind of think of blessing sometimes like thankfulness in a way or maybe Lord like take any disease out of this food that it might have so that I don't get sick. but turn it to a carrot on the way down. Yeah. The classic. But you know blessing is a little bit different than that. from Jesus's day until the present the Jewish people have a tradition. and it's kind of a process. They call it barot. have to kind of get that luggie when you say it, right? And it's a process by which they say a hundred blessings a day and they some of them are pretty religious about it. They count each one. Some of them just kind of think about it like we would pray without ceasing like I just want to be in the in the mind of the Lord throughout the day and always be meditating on his precepts. but what they'll do is anytime they are going in into a place, out of a place, switching activities or something surprises them, they say a prayer of blessing. So for instance, they go stand under the shade of a tree, they'll say, "Blessed is he who creates good trees for joy." if they hear a clap of thunder, they'll say, "Blessed is he whose power fills the world." And so they're constantly looking at the source of the things that they see and experience. And so the point isn't making things or people holy by blessing them, but it's acknowledging that God is the source of these things. And so they're blessing God because he's the source. And the Hebrew word for bless is barak. You guys have heard that word in some songs. this word for bless barak also means to kneel or a knee like a camel's knee. Remember knee right here. You know, we only have 3,000 words in Hebrew if we take out all the proper names. And so there you have to use one word for multiple English words. And so barack, you know, means to kneel. It means a camel's knee. It also means a source. Well, think about, you know, when you're riding throughout the Bedawin Desert. How many of you have ever been to Israel, by the way? Raise your hand. Okay, so you guys know, you've seen how the Bedawins ride on the camels out there. And the camels have to kneel down to drink water or to get someone off of their back or to get a load onto their back. And so when they're kneeling down at the water, they're going to the source. So it all ties together. So when we are blessing God, we are praising him for being our source. so blessing is not the same as thankfulness even though it's closely tied. Thankfulness is you know we thank God for you know what he's done but we bless God for who he is. And so when we bless so when we I we prayed this actually over our kids last night before they went to bed. The Lord bless thee ineely. The Lord make his face shine on thee and be gracious to thee. When we say bless, what we're doing is we're turning our attention and making the mundane sacred. Does that make sense? So, we're not just saying, "Oh, let's just eat, say this quick thing, and not be weird over the table at In-N-Out." but we're going to close our eyes and make this moment sacred and thank God and bring God into this moment with us. See, we want to be God conscious always and in all things give God thanks. Paul is actually turning back to this old ancient tradition to says in anything that you're doing in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. These are their ways of saying, "Hey, we're constantly turning our attention. I'm doing this thing that I normally would just do without Jesus or without God's presence." But then when I bless him or when I bring my attention, when I turn my consciousness to God for who he is because he is the source, I actually make this moment holy. I make this moment more than just the mundane. And when we're talking about family, how can we turn our attentions more often to God? So this is a question and there is no like perfect answer, right? But when your child has a problem, how often do we say let's pray about that together? When they have a difficult time, how can we turn our attention back to God or celebrate his goodness or his provision? you know, celebrate the shade of a tree. Like, you know, I don't know the last time I celebrated God for trees. I probably ought to because they're great. Anyone who's been in a big field and it's been too hot knows how wonderful trees are. But God is good and it's turning our minds back. And that's another point that you know what's really interesting is that God gave this prayer as a prayer. He said, "Hey, pray this way." You know, Jesus did that too. But here in the Old Testament, he said, "Hey, pray this." And so obviously God is trying to communicate something. Would you agree? Amen. So he's trying to say here you're going to get some aspects about who I am and what I want for you through this prayer. And the first thing bless thee keep thee. We're not going to belabor everything like this word bless. But what we really want to elucidate from this scripture is that we want to bring as families, as dads, as moms. How can we find as many things that we can bring God into the moment with us? Amen. It's a challenge, isn't it? Especially when your kid doesn't do something right, you're like, "Oh, Jesus, help me." You maybe just brought God there, but the thing is, it's not always easy because we get sucked into the stuff. Yeah. The minutia. How can we bring God into it with us? Because remember that they don't have that concept of God like you do. You are the image of God in their mind at that young stage. You know, you are giving them their inner voice. You know, by the age of seven, a lot of their relational dynamics are fixed. you know, if they're younger than seven, the blueprint of how they see relationships is are is still kind of wet. We could still shift it, but we are starting to form their world view. When we go into our life, when we're training up a child, let's bring Jesus into every moment, no matter how mundane it is, let's walk that out. the word blessing which is very similar to the word to bless braa it's also it's associated with the idea of multiplying and when we're praying that blessing over our children we're acknowledging the source we're humbling ourselves and we're also praying that the Lord would multiply our children so in verse 24 the Lord is we're saying the Lord bless thee and keep thee we're saying multiply our children, expand them, increase them emotionally, morally, physically, financially, academically. So, so many it's each word is a treasure trove, a treasure trove. when we when we really look at the Hebrew, let's look at the word keep. the Lord bless thee and keep thee. The word keep has to do with guarding. So watching over and guarding of course protecting them from external dangers but also protecting them from emotional dangers and even sometimes protecting them from themselves, right? We want to pray that the Lord would protect them. think about the place where a parent's responsibility begins to in terms of protecting and blessing and keeping them. It begins in the womb. And the Hebrew word for womb shares the same root as the word for compassion. And it's not coincidental because the womb is doing those two things simultaneously. It's nurturing, growth, so blessing and increasing. And then it's providing protection, which is the keeping and the guarding. And so when the blessing says the Lord bless you and keep you, it's describing that that womblike care. and so God's compassion works exactly like a mother's womb. We're going to look at this parallel the way that God sees us and then the way we need to see our children and our families. So, we need to have that womblike compassion when we're blessing and keeping and praying those prayers of blessing and keeping. A beautiful example of compassion. If you want to look at this verse, it's really beautiful. Genesis 25:11. I hope this is okay. This may be deep. But you know what's really interesting about the Bible is that the more that you dig, the more treasure you find. And you know, you can't help us, but like we're looking like, "Wa, this is amazing." So look at this. A beautiful example. Abraham in this verse had just died, which is absolutely tragic when your father dies. and Isaac was grieving. The Bible here says that God blessed Isaac. But we know the word blessed comes from the Seemetic word to kneel. The Jewish Talmud, which is actually a lot of their like history, talks about this verse. the Jewish Talmud confirms that the word barak in this verse means to comfort and to kneel. So, it's more accurately translated, God knelt before Isaac and comforted him. Isn't that amazing? The God of the universe who had walked with Abraham and called him out of a land and that trusted him and followed him faithfully. God saw how hard that was for his son Isaac. Remember, he loved Abraham. And then he saw his son Isaac and said, "Ah, it's so hard to lose someone." And he's grieving. And he gets down in his heavenly omnipotent. Like, think about the King of Kings that made these creatures that he desperately loves. He gets down on his knees and hugs him with compassion. The God that you love is a perfect father. The God that you love is a perfect father. He's not some ideological thing entity that is not moved by us. He's moved by you. Remember that he is moved by you and your prayers and your pains. He understands. He knows he's a God of sorrows and he's in your brokenness. So when he sees that, he gets down and hugs. It gives us a picture too of how us fathers when your kids are crying or need comfort, don't be distant. Don't push them away. It's so easy for me to look at my son when he gets hurt and go, "All right, pick it up. Come on, let's go." But what is that teaching him? To ignore his pain. What happens when someone really close to him hurts him? Is he going to push that away? Remember that every single thing that we train grows? So when my son is hurting, when my daughter is hurting, you know, how do we comfort? When someone near us, you know, not everyone is our, you know, in our immediate family, but we all care for each other, don't we? In the body of Christ, in this room right now, I know that there are people that are grieving. I know that there are people hurting. things have happened. The body is to comfort the body. How can we reach across and show compassion to keep to love to hold and just say, "Hey, I'm with you." How do we get low? I just want to challenge like so much is in this verse, but challenge us. Don't just walk past a grieving soul or a hurting soul. Can we stop for just a second and hold them and see them? Really see them and comfort them. Amen. We talked a little bit about this over the weekend with regards to our spouse. How we want to connect right brain to right brain before we connect left brain to left brain. What that means is that we need to attune to each other's needs and emotions before we go into conflict resolution. So the way we say this in the context of parenting is connect before we correct. So often as parents or even as spouses, it could be really easy to jump straight to the criticisms, straight to, oh, here's what needs to change. Here's what you need to do to measure up. But when we're looking at this parallel, how God sees us and how God knelt before Isaac to comfort him, it shows us that we need to be there to comfort the people we care for, whether that's our children, our spouse, our loved ones. So, be sure that we're engaging in that empathetic connection with each other before we jump right into correcting. of course, sometimes that's going to involve discipline. Loving someone and protecting them from themselves involves discipline. But make sure we're connecting before we're correcting. The next stanza, some people are like, "Thank God." How long is this verse? So, the next stanza, verse 25, said, "The Lord make his face to shine on you and to be gracious to you." Shine and be gracious. So Hebraic thought sees the idea in the first verse of compassion of womb. It starts there. The second is kind of a progression from that. When the baby is born, the first thing that a father does is they look on that baby and their face is shining. They're proud. Has that baby done anything to earn it? No, it's so easy for us as Christians to believe that we have to earn our father's love. We strive and we do this. Remember that we do all the things that we do because we love him. But we don't have to earn it. There's nothing that we can do to earn his love and his grace. Amen. That is Bible. But it's so hard to believe that, right? Because we also know that he's holy and he expects us to live to a code. But the first thing is that he loved you first. Before you did anything, before he called you, he loved you with the father's love. And when a parents see their newborn, their face absolutely lights up with joy. It's the image here of God's face shining on you is him bringing order to your life and him having delight in your existence and not your performance. Yeah. In Hebraic thought the idea of light is associated with order and then the idea of darkness is associated with chaos. So, I love how this verse has both the Lord shining his face on you and being gracious to you, cuz it's both sides of the coin. It's saying, "I'm going to bring order into your life, which means I'm going to set boundaries. I'm going to create structure and bring order, but I'm also going to have grace." So, you're not going to measure up to those boundaries and structure at all times. So, I'm going to have grace as well. So God's grace is what feeds that deepest part of our soul and it's that foundational love that says you matter before you do anything to prove it. Grace is that gift that we did not earn. So he gives us both his order and his grace when we don't line up with that order. So we when we are shining our face on our children and praying that God's face shine upon our children, we're bringing order. We're wanting to establish a moral compass and sometimes the most powerful thing we can offer is simply delighting in our child's existence. So it's order as well as delight and grace that we're conveying in this verse. so practically speaking, how do we apply this? We want to make sure that we're teaching our child in the way that they should go. and being gracious by delighting in who our child is today. not necessarily the potential of who they can become. You know, it's really easy to hold our baby and know that they didn't earn anything when they first came out of the womb and just our face shines and we want to bring order to this child. But what about fast forward 10 years down the road when our child is really acting up? and when we're getting into quarrels with our extended family or our in-laws or our colleagues or our brother or sister in Christ in this very room, how can we extend grace while we still want order? God is a God of order. He's a God of grace and truth. and as parents and as Christians, often we want to speak truth, but sometimes that's at the at the expense of grace. and then sometimes we have people on the flip side and a lot of other denominations where they want to show grace, but at the expense of truth. But Jesus was full of grace and truth. And we want to embody that as parents, as families to be full of grace and full of truth, which is such a challenge. It is such a challenge. We always try to connect before we correct. We try to stay connected and say things in a loving way. cuz what we're doing is we're embodying Christ for our kids and we're trying to train them up in the way that they should go. So the last verse, the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. So the last three verses, the type of love happens after the first two. So listen to this. First verse 24 is a womb type love. It's compassion, protecting and keeping and growing. It's nurturing, protection. Verse 25 is that birth love. It's the moral compass and grace. So, it's pure delight in that person's existence. Now, verse 26, this is very interesting, but it says this, "The Lord lift up his countenance on thee and give thee peace." Why was the Lord's countenance downcast? Why was God's eyes down? So, there's a growing up process that happens, right, with all of us. There's that womb and then there's the face shining. But, as we all know in life, the people closest to us have the ability to hurt us the most. And I don't know about you, but raising kids is scary. or am I the only person here that feels that like when the when the teacher is calling you like Forest has been acting up today. We're going to have to have a talk like oh Jesus you know like I'm doing my best to raise my kids up but there are sometimes not being raised up. And there's a time where where God I think has that same experience with us. The first two loves are top down, vertical, defenseless, and undeserved. But verse 26 addresses something harder. It's horizontal love. It's this sort of love between two people. So then, why would God's eyes be downcast? Because there may come a time when your child chooses differently than you would advise them. They might say no. They might choose something else than what you would choose and it might break your heart. You know that God hurts too. This isn't in our notes but one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible I think is a verse found in Song of Solomon. Don't freak out. But it says this, "Thou has I loved thee with you know everything." And then it says, "Thou hast ravished my heart, my darling, my love. Thou has ravished my heart with one look of thine eye and one chain of thy neck. That word ravished is communicating it's only found once in the whole Bible. and it's really interesting. Ravish actually means to rip the bark off a tree. What happens when you rip a bark off a tree? You make it vulnerable, right? You can make it vulnerable. That tree becomes vulnerable when you do that to disease, to decay, to bugs, to insects, to invaders, all those things. And so we know that in Song of Solomon, it's not just love poetry, but it's also about a king that's loving an undeserving bride that he absolutely values, which is a type and shadow of God's love for his church. Right? So when he's saying I've ravished, think of this towering king with everything. He has everything and he is opening his heart to his bride. He is making himself vulnerable. That is a hard thing to do. And so when God does that, God is actually saying to you and me, you have ravished my heart. Please protect my heart. We have the ability to hurt God. Do you realize that? If we can be hurt in our earthly relationships, God who loves more perfectly and knows every single hair of your head and has them numbered, which means he probably loves you. I don't do that to my wife. I mean, that's pretty crazy. But God knows everything about you and loves you more than I can imagine. And we sometimes say no. But God because of that love has made himself vulnerable with that love because love is a risk. And so he is saying I am opening my heart. And when we love our kids, it's a risk that they will say no. And so there comes a time in all of our relationships, every single one, where we have to extend forgiveness. And this kind of love truly is the hardest of the three where we've talked about three different kinds of love and three different ways that we raise our children and extend love toward our families. But this kind of love, the horizontal or even the humbling kind of love where we look up is a is the hardest kind. and that's when we make ourselves vulnerable. We humble ourselves and we choose reconciliation. Even when we're disappointed, even when our heart is broken because of the choices that our family member, a spouse, child, loved one is making. And so we have to humble ourselves and say, "You know what? I'm going to choose reconciliation." Anyway, one of my favorite things that my dad did, I have this distinct memory. We were in the car and driving home and he, you know, does this, you know, he's driving, puts his hand around the seat really slowly, looks back and says, "All right, kids. I want to tell you, I told your mom I'm sorry already, but I'm sorry for talking to your mom that way. I was wrong. And he illustrated a powerful point is that sometimes we have to humble ourselves and say, "Sorry." Sometimes I've had to tell my boy and my girl, "I'm so sorry. I could have reacted better." That's repair. That's what repair looks like. Sometimes in a church this size, I'm sure that there are people that don't really like each other right now. They may love each other, but they may not like each other. I would say show God's love and reconcile. Lift up your eyes to them and meet their eyes and say, "Here's what I did wrong. I am so sorry." Some of us in earthly relationships, especially our spouse, they may need to hear it. I can see people eyeballing each other. No, I'm joking. Don't look around. But we need to say sorry sometimes to each other. I'm sorry I did this. And to restore that love, that freedom, that joy, that goodness. Because sometimes that peace, the shalom that we're all looking for, the wholeness that we're looking for only comes after those cracks in the relationship have been filled in. And generally that looks like reconciliation. And what gives us the strength to reconcile when we are disappointed? It takes a lot of humility. But you know how we build that ability to reconcile? It's through the first two types of love. Verse 24, that compassion, that nurturing kind of love. Verse 25, those moments of creating order yet also extending grace and unconditional delight. When we've built that bank of capacity, if you will, then we can extend mercy and forgiveness and lift up our countenance onto each other and bring peace. So, this takes a lot of fruit of the spirit. It takes us dying daily to our flesh, modeling that for our children. In John 13:35, Jesus is talking and he says, "By this all will know that you are my disciples if ye have love one to another." So if people can look at our marriages and our families and know by looking at our marriages and families that we are Christians, then we're doing something right. So ask yourself that. Can my colleagues, can my neighbors look at my marriage and family and know that I'm a Christian by the love that I share with my spouse, with my children, and with my community? It's so good. It's a deep question. if you the musicians can come. We're coming in for a close. That's all. There's only three stanzas, but I know we're not hanging from the chandeliers. May this is different. But there's a lot of truth, I think, in the words that God gave us. I think this is a very, very powerful and poignant guide to how we ought to look at our relationships. How do you guard your relationships? Are you letting things in your home that shouldn't be in your home? How much compassion is extended? Are we showing truth at the expense of grace? Are we showing grace at the expense of truth? And how well are we extending forgiveness and reconciling and allowing ourselves to take the risk to love someone deeply and to let them in? You know, that's really hard to let someone in. to let someone in when you know maybe you've been hurt to let them in when it's scary but really healing happens when you're in relationships. I think we said this week is that things break in relationships. Most things like all things relationships are hurt in relationships, right? But the only way for us to find healing is in relationships as well. So sometimes that starts with our relationship with Jesus cuz he is the way. Sometime I don't really always feel like saying sorry to my wife. You know, I know we're dear married couple and do the all the stuff, but I don't always feel like it because sometimes she's wrong until I pray. But thank God for a moral compass. Thank God that we have his spirit in us to quicken us to do the right thing. And this is a challenge. You know, we're all at different places in our parenting journey, in our marital journey, in our friendship journey. This is for everyone. We're all at different places. And I think in this verse, there is so much to take away. What can you improve in? Do you need to let people in? Do you need to love better? Do you need to show compassion? I always look at that verse, the love, you know, that that verse that Chris had just now said that will they know that you're my disciples. I always like to ask myself that verse that love is gentle. Love is kind. Love is long-suffering. It's not puffed up. It's not arrogant. It's not self-seeking. It forgives all things. Boy, if we had a church full of those people, there is nothing that could overtake this church. You realize that if we really worked out, if we actually walked and sometimes we seek so much to have those prophetic gifts or those, you know, cool stuff like healing and all that. He says, but Paul said, "Look, if you do all that and you don't have this other thing, the fruit, then it's just like clanging a symbol. It's nothing. It's just annoying. If we don't actually put on love, joy, and I want to say this to our families, is that how we show up in our families? Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. If we don't have longsuffering, if we can do those in our families, our families are going to stand. It doesn't matter the chaos that's happening out there, the darkness, because the fact of the matter is when you have the light on and the darkness is out there, people want to come to the light. Our pastor just, he says this, he's like, if you make the fire hot enough, everybody wants to join in. Sometimes it's not flashy, but that love when it's deep and when it's profound and it's gentle and it it's emanating out of our lives, people want this thing. Amen. I want I want relationships like that. I want to live with brothers that have my back, that love me, not for what they can get from me, but because they love me. They have patience with me because I'm an idiot sometimes. I guess we have kids. I need to calm down my language. They need to forgive me, but I can forgive them. And I just want to challenge us. Allow God to speak in your heart. I wonder if we all can just stand and maybe as families. I don't know if you're with your families. This is family month. So, I was told there's a big huge beautiful screen that said it. So, I know it's true. But maybe if we have the family here, maybe you could get together. If you want to come up to the front, I don't know what they're going to sing. I know it's going to be beautiful because they're talented and amazing, but I wonder if we can just ask God to come into this place. Sometimes we got to be reminded of these things. You probably know this stuff, but God, illuminate these things in me. Let me walk out love. Not just something I say, but let it be something I enact, that I put on, that I do, and let people see that love on me so that I can be the light to the world because the world desperately needs it right now. Amen. So, if we could just can we just turn that worship to him? God, illuminate those. Help. Help my family, Jesus. Help me be the leader of my family. If you want to come to the altar with your family, you're welcome. If you want to just lift your hands where you are, but I want to challenge the families right now. Jesus, show us, God. Oh, let your blessing, God, come in our families. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. Oh, God. Make your face shine on us, Jesus, and be gracious to us, oh God. Lift up your countenance on us, God, and give us true shalom in our hearts. Give us peace in our lives, God. Bring us peace, God, in our families. Bring us peace, God, in our homes and our church, Jesus, and our marriages, God. Oh, Jesus. Come on, right now. Let's really reach out just for a few moments, God. Let's really Come on. Let's really pray for our families.