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So real quick, we are doing a very short series here on family, all right? And I wanna call it the Battle for the Home, but I almost titled it My mom and dad are Fighting. Becca and I had the privilege of praying at our general council this summer in Orlando. And it was the youth service. And they asked all the old people us to go up there. I was like, I'm the old guy. So they said, all the old people, come on up here. If you're an old leader in the church, pastor presbyter, whatever you are, come on up here. We want you to pray over the next generation. So I'm there, and I'm ready to pray with them. The first person comes up and says, my mom and dad are fighting. It's terrible. They're swearing. It's just. It's chaos in our home. All right, I pray for them. I said, do you feel safe, though? Do you feel. Yeah, I feel safe, but it's just chaos, and they're swearing, and it's breaking my heart. Next person comes up, didn't hear the prayer request in front of them, and said, I just want you to pray for me. My family, they're fighting. My mom and dad are divorced. They're fighting over where I'm supposed to live. Okay, that's two. And the third one comes up. I just want you to pray for my family. Three for three, praying for the family. And afterwards, I compared notes with Becca. I said, well, who did you pray for? And she said, man, there was prayer for the family. The families are fighting. The family is in chaos. I said, that was all three of mine. All three of mine and two of the three for her. And I was like, we've gotta talk. There was a. I left there with such a burden. I was so grateful that we could pray for them, but I left with a burden that if these were random kids at this youth conference, there were 15,000 kids there. And three just prayed with me and three that prayed with Becca. And really, it was like five out of the six. It was like, family, family, family. I was like, there's such a burden. We've got to talk about this. We've gotta help these kids. We've gotta address the home and say, let's fight for the family, and let's not fight in our family. Let's fight for the family. And I didn't know this. In my home growing up, our home was filled with so much love. I didn't see my mom, dad fighting. I mean, I knew when they were getting ready to fight, I could Tell, you know, but they would leave and it was done appropriately. Okay. And so I just wanna talk real quick, just some practical things and eventually I'm gonna get to Nehemiah Chapter four, if you're wondering where I'm go. But I'm gonna take a long way to get there. But I just wanna say this to those that are looking for help and I'm speaking to the teenagers and the kids right now. I want you to understand that all parents have fighting and there's conflict that happens. And it can be done in a positive way, in a good way that resolves and doesn't actually hurt the family. It actually can help the family if there's a disagreement and it's done properly and it resolves and the family is healed through it. But it can be done terrible and it destroys the family. I mean, even in our home. Like if I would even raise my voice towards Becca. True story. Connor, when he was just a little kid, if he heard the volume, he would just get right in between us and he would just be like, hey, tone it down. As a four year old, five year old, right in the middle. So I'm not talking about normal parenting. I'm not talking about normal conflict in the home. I'm talking about toxic parenting. If you're wondering what that is, a toxic parent is someone whose behavior creates an unhealthy and often harmful environment for their child. That's a toxic parent. It's constant criticism, manipulation, emotional neglect, physical abuse, verbal abuse, drug and alcohol abuse. You're failing to support your family in the right way. And if that's you, and you're like hearing this as a parent right now, and you're like, oh boy, oh boy. I just wanna tell you, Jesus can change your family today. You don't have to stay that way. You don't have to stay stuck there. I'm praying that you'll find a hope in this. You'll say, I don't have to have the alcohol and drugs in my life anymore. We had a couple of guys, Fox brothers, they were painting our house when we moved in and they said, keep preaching on alcohol and drugs. We've just seen it destroy so many people. You could preach the alcohol and drug stuff all the time. Keep telling families they don't have to stay stuck there. We had people just with the profanity. And I wanna tell you, like the Bible says, let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth in Ephesians 4. 29, but only what is helpful for building others up. Like, profanity doesn't need to be part of your family. It doesn't need to be part of your family. Outbursts of rage, gone. It can be gone and healed in Jesus name. So I wanna just say to the kids real quick, like, if you, if you feel threatened during the fight, if you really feel threatened, please, if you're a teenager, if you're a kid, seek help immediately. Go to a friend, go to a relative, get to a public place after the fights, after they're over. If you still feel overwhelming sadness and anxiety and you have a constant stress that you can't get rid of, we want you to talk to your pastors, we want you to talk to a trusted adult, we want you to go to a mental health professional to process through these things. You're not weak in going for help. You're actually trying to say, like, I want our family to line up with God's ideal for the home and not the mess that we're living in. And please, please, I mean, if there's alcohol abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, if you're a kid and you're hearing this, you need to go get help. And I know there's like, almost like, well, you can't tell on the family and you can't, no, you need to get help. You don't need to be in this dysfunction like this. And God wants to heal your home and I want you to hear that you need to get help. We're here for you. The pain was so heavy when I was praying with these young people. It was so real, it was overwhelming me. And I just kept saying, God, we've got to do something. And so I'm telling you this right now, teenager, young person, kid that might be listening to this, we're praying for you. We wanna take action with you. Just may you find peace in your home. And maybe you're gonna be the light, you're gonna be the one that brings the change because your tender heart walked in. It was, no, no, no, no, no, no. Or you had to run to a neutral corner and get to safe. But that caused your family to wake up to this. This is not God's plan for there to be this dysfunction and chaos and violence and profanity and all this going on in the home. We've gotta get this right, we've gotta get this right. Because a peaceful, stable home, according to George Barna, he's a church research expert, he said a peaceful, stable home is really the strongest indicator that your child will have a strong emotional health and will Grow up with a faith, faith that they will own. Having this peaceful home is something that will say, like, they'll grab hold of your faith if they see the peace of God in your home, if they see you truly living this out, and if they don't see you living it out, it's. Why would they want to go with it? Why would they. All right, we're get there. You're like, where's Nehemiah? We're going to get there. But I just have a couple more things. The effects of this hostility in this toxic home. What happens is it gives kids higher anxiety, depression, aggression, social withdrawal. This comes from Tavistock Relationship Policy Brief, the impact of couple conflict on children. It talked about verbal hostility, shouting, or silent withdrawal in front of the children. Produces stress similar to physical danger. Children in homes where the tension increases year after year show steep growth in profession in depression and behavioral problems. I mean, this is so destructive. And destructive conflict harms. And like I said, constructive conflict is something that actually will help your children. Cause you can have conflict, but it's calm. It's a calm discussion. It's problem solving, focused. It involves forgiveness. It has a resolution. It has affection, and it can actually strengthen a child when they see them. You get through this. Side note about this in my studies, as I was looking at this modeling healthy speech about the church also helps your child to see the church as a place of life and not hypocrisy. All right? If you want your kids to turn out good for God and you're in a church and you come to church and then you go have barbecued pastor for lunch, how many know that they're just seeing, like, oh, that place is terrible. That place is terrible. I want nothing to do with that place. So speak life. Side note, did you know that we used to talk about the church in front of our kids? We used to, like, believe it or not, I know we're celebrating 30 years and all this wonder, like, it's a joy to pass, but there were difficult times a couple times. All right, some of you are difficult. I'm not pointing, but I'm just saying. And we used to talk about the church and the problems in front of the kids. And Connor said one time, he goes, hey. I pretend that I'm not listening, but I am. And we said, note to self, we're never gonna talk bad about anything there. And we would go outside into our screen porch. Even in the winter, we would not talk. So if you want your kids to love Jesus and his church, speak good about his church. All right, let's look into a little bit of fighting in there in the Bible, and then we'll get to Nehemiah. The first fight in the Bible that I could see is Adam and Eve. We don't make it very far. I mean, we're Genesis, and they sin. And God says to Adam, what happened? He's like, it's her fault. You gave her to me. So it's probably your fault, you know, like, I mean, it's not my fault. And can I just say this to men? I've counseled enough men in my life that they usually say, well, I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for her. I was like, no, no. Adam already tried that. It didn't work. Didn't work. Didn't work there. It's not gonna work now. You're still responsible. So Adam and Eve get in the first fight. Adam blames her. She lives under the weight of this. But then after that, we see mostly sibling fights. Now track with me here. I'm getting there. We see mostly sibling fights and not marriage fights. All right, so we're looking through the Bible, and, I mean, they're there. If you put some humanity on the story. I mean, David and Michal, his wife, he's dancing before the Lord, and she's like, look at you, you. You're so undignified. And I bet you they were having an amazing fight going on. And he's like, oh, you wanna see me dance before the Lord? Watch now. You know, I think Abigail and Nabal, he's another guy in 1st Samuel 25. She's out there, like, david's gonna go take his life because he's been a jerk to David. And she goes out and she's like, david, please don't kill my husband. His name means fool, and he really is a fool. I mean, it's in the Bible, you know, So I can put some humanity on these stories and realize there's fights, but there's not a lot of fights with families. It's mostly sibling fighting going on. And here's what's going on. God created marriage in a covenant relationship. And when sin entered, it stopped. It still was a covenant, but we move from living out God's ideal for marriage, living in this covenant and bringing glory to God. And it became about a competition, and it became about lineage, it became about having heirs, and it became about this. And we don't fully understand this, but it left being a covenant and became this competition. And it was all about the Greco Roman and it was just. It was all about this patrilineal. It was the household, and it was the father's name and the father's blood and the father's wealth, and it was passed down to the son. And so all of the marriage really was like you were married to have a family, to keep the line going. You forgot about the covenant. We've forgotten about the covenant, too, in today, by the way. It is a covenant that you're entering in marriage. It's not a contract, it's a covenant. And I don't have time to go into it. But, you know, even the middle aisle. The middle aisle where, you know, they always want middle aisle, right? Bride side, groom side, it's really a covenant. Two halves to the covenant. And the middle aisle is considered. It's called the walk of death. And some of you are like, tell me about it. You know, that guy's like, it's the walk of death. And in a covenant, there would be animals that would be killed, and the two parties would come together and they'd walk down the middle and they'd form a covenant. So there's a covenant that is going on, and we've forgotten that. And it's become a competition. It's become all about lineage. And it's interesting that Jesus, when he comes onto the earth, he says he restores this, the value of marriage. He restores this. He's like, the line has come. I'm here now. We don't need to worry about that. I'm here. Let's get back to God's intended order. And he said, he created them, male and female, and the two will be one flesh. And he goes back to the covenant. It's a beautiful thing. So marriage is important. The family is important. God's order is important. And there's three things from Nehemiah chapter four that I want to hit it very quickly as we talk about fighting for the family. If you don't know about Nehemiah, Nehemiah hears that the walls of Jerusalem are down. He's burdened for this and says, somebody needs to rebuild them. And he goes back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem, his homeland. While he's there, he's being attacked by other leaders, and there's a lot going on, and they're threatening to come against the Israelites and. And he's having to rally the troops to stand up and to finish building the wall. And In Nehemiah, chapter 4, verse 14, it says this. After I looked things over, I stood up and said, to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people. Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your home. Three things that I wanna point out. First thing is, don't be afraid. The second thing is, remember the Lord. And the third thing is, fight for your families. First thing, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. When it comes to the family today, I can't tell you how many people are afraid of starting a family, afraid of getting married. I've talked to people that maybe even in our church, and they're living together. And you're like, you should get married. You should start a family. You should be right with God with this. And they're like, I don't know. Marriage doesn't work out. I'm afraid. I've read the statistics. I've seen that. I just wanna stay where we are. I'm like, no, you're in disobedience. Marriage is a beautiful thing. Starting a family is a beautiful thing. Don't be afraid of this. When I was a youth pastor 40 years ago, 40 years ago, I had a family come up to me. They said, hey, we don't know if we should have kids. It's just kind of like we're looking at the family and how tough it is in the world and how bad it is in society. I don't think we should have kids. What do you think? I was like, I think you should. I mean, I think, like. But think about it. Forty years ago, they were worried about it. And I hear that same thing today. There's fear in the home. There's fear for the family. And. And people are afraid to go into marriage. They're afraid to do this. We're afraid. It's a beautiful thing. And if we can get it right and the home can be right and it can be God honoring. You don't have to live in fear. And people say, but I'm afraid what destroyed my parents will destroy us. Even if you're in marriage, there's a lot of fear in marriage. People are like, but our family does this. And our family history is this. And this is lurking in the back. And I'm like, no, you don't have to be bound by fear to historic alcohol or abuse or whatever. The blood of Jesus cleanses you and forgives you and makes you new. You don't have to be afraid. And so anybody right now, I just wanna say this. If you're afraid and you're in marriage and you have this attack from the enemy. It's gonna happen to you. I know you've had five good years of marriage, but here it comes, Here it comes. I want you to come back to the altar where you made your vows. You went forward at a church or some ceremony and you made that an altar. And you said, God, we're doing this. I want you to come forward and say, as for me and my house, that's not gonna happen in my family. I pray that we flood the altars and we overcome the fear of we're not gonna make it. This is a starter marriage. But the abuse will rear its ugly head. The alcohol will get into it. No, it's not. It's gonna stay out in Jesus name. And we'll come into agreement with you that it doesn't have to be your future. God's with your family and you will not fear. And we need men and women of God that will stand up and say, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And by the way, did you know you're not doing it in your own strength anyways? All right, the second one. He says, remember the Lord. Everything I go through in life, I'm like, I thank God that I have the Lord on my side. I mean, every crisis, every tragedy, every struggle, every. I'm like, thank God that I have a personal relationship, that I have the Lord getting me through these times. And, and Nehemiah says, don't fear them and remember the Lord. Remember the Lord. And when we talked about it last week with our remembering of the 30 years, remembering means just like, oh, yeah. It doesn't mean just, oh, he's good. It means bringing his past faithfulness into our current moment. And so you're remembering how good God is and you're remembering the covenant order of this. And you're like, that's right. Marriage is not about lineage. It's not about my name. Marriage is about living the covenant and living the expression that God has for marriage. And my spouse is not there as the perfect person. They're actually helping to make me holy. How many know that? Right? They actually are making you holy in this give and take and what's going on. And you remember the Lord, you're saying, God, it's in your strength. It's in your strength. And if you forget the Lord in your life, if you don't have the Lord in your home and you're trying to do this on your own, you will start to be self serving. You will start to have Pride, you will have competition, you'll have selfishness. And that's the opposite of what love is. The Bible says that love in First Corinthians 13, 5, it's not rude, it's not self seeking, it's not easily angered in it keeps no accounts of wrong. And we're gonna remember the Lord. How are we gonna remember the Lord? We're gonna remember the Lord in our daily walk. You wanna know how you're gonna remember the Lord? You're gonna be engaging with God in prayer, engaging with God in his Word. You're gonna have weekly worship, and you're remembering the Lord and you're engaging God into your family through your weekly worship. I love regular serving, whether it's a specific serving area. But I was thinking about, I love seeing all the kids on the serve day. I love seeing that. Where you're saying we are remembering, we are serving the Lord together as a family. I love seeing junior Ushers, how many are with me, seeing the junior ushers, helping mom or dad and doing that. I love seeing that because we're remembering the Lord. I'm telling you, when you forget the Lord, all of a sudden pride will start coming in, selfishness will start coming in. And maybe you're not thinking about lineage in your marriage, but you're thinking about, hey, take care of me and my needs. And all of a sudden your marriage is in trouble because the other person isn't gonna meet every need exactly like you need it met. Marriage is not about me. It's about living out the covenant and the relationship that that God wants to be. So he's saying, remember the Lord, so don't fear in your marriage. Remember the Lord. And then he says, fight for your families. Fight for your families. And if you think about it, why is the family under attack? Because the family is really this foundation of the community. And if the family can be destroyed, the community can be destroyed. And if the community can be destroyed, the nation can be destroyed. And so that's why there's so much attack on the family today. And we need God's supernatural presence on the family today. It's crazy that some in our government are trying to tear apart families by eroding parental authority. They're not your kids. It's not your authority. They're trying to destroy the family through gender ideology and progressive education. And no, I tell you, we've gotta get the family right. We can turn it around if we can get the family right. We need to be an example out there fighting for your family. What does it mean. It means ridding your family of profanity, abuse, addictions, violence, anger, and to live for Christ. It also means if you're gonna fight for your family, that there's no threats of divorce. I mean, when you yell that in front of your kid, like, we might get a divorce. We just determined, Becca and I, and I know this sounds crazy, you're like, well, you're pastors. Of course you would have said this. For the first six months of our marriage, we decided we weren't gonna be pastors. We said, we want six months of just being married. And we were working different jobs. And you know, it's interesting. We taught Sunday school at the church. We taught Sunday school. We were youth leaders. And we were like, we wanna model what we wanna be. And so we were doing that and we just said, hey, we're never gonna use that word. We're never gonna use the divorce word that's banned from our home. We're gonna model the covenant, love of God in this, and we're gonna live this out. So it's no threats of divorce. It's dying to self. It's living this covenant and saying, God, we desire to fight for our family. Now I just wanna say this. It's a rare call to fight in Nehemiah. If you look at the Bible and you see the Bible so many times, God's like, all right, you gotta fight these people. Sit back, I'll fight em for you. How many know what I'm talking about? He's like, watch this. You know, you're gonna march around Jericho and then you're gonna cheer and I'm gonna fight for you, and the walls are gonna fall down. And he's like, hey, you're gonna go out there and you're gonna hold up a lantern and you're gonna blow a trumpet. And I'm gonna make him go into chaos. Just sit back and watch what I do. Another time. He's like, hey, here's the battle plan. Put the singers out in front. Not a plan. Like, that's only God. Only God could do that, right? So so many times it's like, sit back, sit back, sit back. When it comes to Nehemiah, the challenge is fight for your family. Fight for your family. And this was an order that wasn't given to generals and military people. This was an order given to moms and dads. Fight for your family. Protect them. Protect what is sacred. Pray together, Stay faithful, forgive, confess, cleanse, apologize, wash, rinse, repeat, do it again and protect the family. And I do wanna say this. I commend all the people in our congregation that wanna help us defend and protect our families, that are actually serving on the school board and, and the city councils and the mayors and the governors and all that. Can we just show our love and appreciation for those that are defending our families and fighting for them? So as we close this out in saying fighting for our family and we're gonna rid ourselves, I just believe in our altars. We just, I wanna see people up here praying. This needs to stop, this needs to change. We need to have our family be a godly family. We need to fight not in our family, but for our family in Jesus name. It's interesting. The armor of God in the New Testament found in Ephesians comes right after the apostle Paul is talking about relationships. Isn't that interesting? He's talking about husbands and wives and parents and servants in the household. He's talking about all these dynamics in the home. And then he goes into the armor of God. It wasn't like he was like, all right, what's a new topic here? All right, I think there's a connection, I think there's a connection that he's talking about. You need the armor of God to protect your family, and you need to have that shield of faith over your home. Saying, as for me and my house, we are gonna live out differently. Our future will be different than our family's past. We're not gonna live this way anymore. I don't have to stay trapped here anymore. And we're gonna go there. And it's interesting in the shield of faith, it carried a communal weight to it because a shield would hook in with another person and another person and another, and it would protect everyone. And I'm saying, you need to have faith for your family right now and put on the armor of God and say, God, I wanna protect my home. I'm gonna keep these things out. I'm gonna keep these things away. I'm gonna stand in faith, raising our children in the ways of the Lord, living out this example. And I pray that we defend our home, fight for our family. We'd live this out and, and put on that armor of God. But I, I, I, I want to end where I started. No condemnation right now. I pray there's conviction. If your home has these things in it. If you would be mortified if we asked your kids for their prayer request. Don't stay there, don't stay in that position. Change in Jesus name. Change in Jesus name. We wanna see your kids prayer Request be, may I have the type of marriage that my mom and dad have? May I have that type of example? May I live that out. I want what? May I find a spouse just like my mom and dad did. And so if that's you, you're like, I need to change. I need to change. Men. Don't be so prideful thinking, like, well, I'm not gonna go, no, break that pride in Jesus name. The pride is going to poison everything else in your home. It's time to submit and say, God, I desire to live this out and be the man of God. You want me to be husbands and wives together. It's incredible. We can live this out to the world. The world will see the love of Jesus. We could change this world if we can get our families right. So I pray for a spirit of conviction. And I. And I pray that you wouldn't be. I'm like, gotta walk out feeling that way. No, walk up for prayer, grab hold of it in this moment and saying, God, I desire to change in Jesus name. So, Lord, I pray right now. I just come, I want to pray these three things. Lord, I pray against fear in the home and fear in marriages. And we come against that in Jesus name. No fear, no fear. I pray, Lord Jesus, that we'd remember you and your goodness. And we know that we don't do this alone. And I'm reminded even something we share at weddings we say a threefold cord, the husband, the wife, and God, Lord, it's not easily broken. So, God, you're fighting for them. And so God, I pray that we'd remember you. And lastly, God, I pray that we'd fight for our families. We'd fight to be the godly example that we need to be. We'd protect our children from the things of this world. We'd protect them. And our prayer request of our kids would be that they want exactly what we have. Thank you, Lord. I pray for the teenagers or the children that are just struggling. That's my family. That's my family. I don't even know what to do right now, God, I come into agreement with their prayer right now that their prayer would be answered and their family would be healed in Jesus name. There would be an honesty, there would be repentance, there would be a coming home in Jesus name. So we thank you for this. We thank you for this minister to our families now in Jesus name I pray Amen and amen.