 So parenting on purpose, I want to read to you Deuteronomy six verse six through nine. It says this, these commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts and press them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up, tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them to your, bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. This passage, this is right when the Lord had given, you know, Israel the commandments and I'm just really encouraged by what this passage is saying here. It's funny because we read this and there's a lot of symbolic talk here. It says tie them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your foreheads. Well, what does that mean? I'm reading this and when I look at this first and foremost, I see intentionality. It's so crazy because when God gives a command, it's not just for you. It's for your family. God is a God who is about family. He is a family oriented God. And so right off the bat, when he gives a command to his people, he's already giving the command to train your children in the Lord. God expects us to be intentional and it says this here, bind them, tie them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your foreheads and to me that speaks of my hands should be symbolic of the will of God. When I am doing things with my hands, when I am working, my life, my hands should be symbolic of God's will and on my forehead it should be bind on my forehead that everywhere I go when people look at me, they see God's will. When my children look at me, they see God's desire. On top of that it says this, write them on your door frames of your houses and on your gates. To me this means that our homes should reflect God's command, God's will, God's purpose and desire. You know, we can't control what the world is doing today but I know for myself that I want my house to be a place that when you walk through the gates of my house, when you go past the door frame of my home, you're entering into new territory. You're entering into a place of safety, of refuge, a place of holiness, of righteousness, and I don't know about you but I want that to be evident in my home, amen? Intentionality and I think there's a reason why God emphasizes intentionality in raising our children and it's here in Judges 210-12 and I'm reading in the NET version. It says this, that entire generation passed away, a new generation grew up that had not personally experienced the Lord's presence or had seen what he had done for Israel. The Israelites did evil before the Lord by worshiping the Baals. They abandoned the Lord, the Lord God of their ancestors who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods, the gods of nations who lived around them and they worshiped them and they made the Lord angry. There's something powerful in this statement. It says this, a new generation grew up and they had not personally experienced the Lord. We're always one generation away of a spiritual legacy being lost. Do you understand that church? It's important that we talk about parenting today because we are always one generation away of the spiritual legacy in our home being abandoned. In the book of Judges, this was a common experience that happened. It happens many times in the book of Judges where they have a judge rise up, the people of Israel, they follow the Lord and then it repeats the same phrase but they did not teach their children and their children fell away. In other words, I'm paraphrasing there. But this happened time and time again and it was always one generation away within the family for the spiritual legacy to be lost. So that gives an urgency in my spirit that should give us an urgency in our homes that there should be intentionality in what we do, amen? So with that said, what does intentionality look like? I know all of us have a lot of different things and I hope today as I share with you that there might be something that's insightful, something that resonates with your spirit of maybe what God is speaking to you. I'm not here to necessarily give you all the tips and tricks that I've learned because I'm still learning them. But there are things that I know the Lord has put on my heart that I believe will stand the test of time regardless of what age you are, regardless of what age your children are, amen? So the first thing is this, and you can write this down if you're taking notes. Be parented by the Lord. Be parented by the Lord. You know, our prayer, when we're talking about being parents, we should be asking this prayer, God, parent me so I can parent them. Parent me so I can parent them. They're so quick sometimes to want to try and figure out, okay, what are the tips and tricks? What are the things I need to do? How am I going to implement discipline in my home? What are the practical things I'm going to do today? But let me tell you this, there's nothing more important than you first asking the Lord, parent me. Parent me so I can parent them. Our best parenting comes. I truly believe this. Our best parenting comes when we think less about being great parents of children and we think about being great children of God. Did you hear me this morning? When you focus less on trying to be a great parent to your child and you actually just focus on being a great child of God, something happens as a byproduct. It affects your home. This is why I think it's so important that he says, bind it on your hands. Wear it on your forehead, everywhere you go. Because at the core of what it means to be a parent is discipleship. We talk about discipleship in the church, but people don't often realize that parenting is discipleship. These children that God has entrusted me with, even though they're my flesh and blood, they belong to Jesus and it's my responsibility as a steward of what God has given me, not only because of the great commission, but because of the family bond that we have, the blood line that I'm carrying, the legacy that God has given me, I am discipling him in the Lord and I can't do that if I'm not first following him himself. Does that make sense? So be parented by the Lord. As they speak louder than words, Psalms 103 verse eight through 10, and I'm going to read the passion translation just because I really love the way that it says this, Lord, you're so kind and tenderhearted and so patient with people who fail you. Your love is like a flooding river overflowing its banks with kindness. You don't look at us only to find our faults, just so that you can hold a grudge against us. You may discipline us for our many sins, but never as much as we really deserve, nor do you even get even with us for what we've done. The same way, and this is verse 13, the same way a loving father feels toward his children, that is but a sample of your tender feelings towards us, your beloved children who live in all of you. Man, there's a lot to unpack in that, but I just want you to hear that passage. That alone can teach you so much about what it is to be not only a son, but also a father, to not only be a daughter, but also a mother. When you begin to see the way that the Lord treats you, it's so easy to then turn around and do the same. None of us will have an excuse. I don't know what. If I don't know what to do, if I follow in the way that the Lord is leading me and teaching me and guiding me, then I have the perfect example of what it means to raise and disciple my own children. Actions, they speak louder than words. Ephesians 6-4, it says this, fathers don't exasperate your children, but raise them up with loving discipline and counsel that brings revelation from the Lord. In other words, that word exasperate, it means don't reprimand, don't just dig into your kids all the time. Chances are they're probably not listening to you anyways. But raise them up in discipline, train them, instead show them, coach them, show them what it means to live for the Lord. You know, some of us are really good at telling our kids what not to do, and we should be focusing on trying to port our kids in the direction of what they should do. You know, a really great example of this within our own church, and some of you may not even realize it, one of the fathers, the father of this house, Pastor Vassili, what he's done for us, even though we are not his physical children, what he's done for us is that he didn't just tell us what not to do, he showed us what we should do. And in fact, oh come on, let's put our hands together, there's a legacy that he's carried in this house. And in fact, many of the parents, and I only know this not because I speak Russian, but because of what has been told to me, is that many of the parents in the time that our church was beginning, and we were speaking in English, and Pastor Vassili was sending out his sons and his nephews to go out and do ministry, is that they were saying, they're too young, and focusing on not trying to get them plugged in, and they were, he's sending them into the school to be a light, and then on the other side, there was parents saying, this is ridiculous, you know, this is too much. You know, you're exposing them too much already, and you know what's funny, is not funny, it's actually sad. A lot of the parents who were so afraid of trying to protect their kids from the world, and just try and treat them as one thing and telling them what not to do, and they failed to do the very thing they should have done, which is showing them what to do. And there's a difference in the young men, the now grown men, who were standing on this stage because they weren't only told, don't do this, don't do that, although that did happen because discipline and correction is necessary, but what was more than that was the pushing forward, was the constant saying, here, move this direction, do this, watch me, imitate me as I imitate Christ. Yes, we're disciple makers, and you're home, you're a disciple maker, so focus on being a good disciple. Everything else would come as a byproduct, and you know what, there's something beautiful about that because that means that you don't have to be the one that comes up with all of the right things, you don't have to invent the wheel, God already did that, you don't have to carry the final burden of parenting, you carry a burden, but not the final burden, and that allows you and frees you up to just follow someone rather than trying to figure out how you're doing, because let's be real, none of us really know what we're doing as parents, we're kind of just making it up as we go. But the beautiful part about being a child of God is that we have the ultimate example, and all we have to do is follow, if we follow, so will they, you know, and they will see by our example because it's bound on our heads, it's symbolic in our hands, it's in our home, the environment is a safe place, and all of these things play into it and impresses upon the hearts of our children. And within that thing, before I move on to the next point, I want to point out this thing, be parented by the Lord, because if not your childhood that you had will play into your parenthood, did you hear me? We have to first address our childhood before we can address our parenthood, until I understand my own upbringing, I don't know how, I don't know what I need to do as a parent in its fullness. We're building legacies here, and for some of us, we're tearing down strongholds in generational curses, we're tearing down the wrong kind of legacy, and we're building up new ones. So we have to pay attention and address our own childhood, let me give you an example, there was a woman that came to one of our player lines one time and I got the privilege of counseling her and talking to her, and she basically had come and said, please help, my son is severely demon possessed, I don't know what to do, you know, it's beyond, nobody can help, counselors can't help, so on and so forth, and you know, it was really interesting as I began to talk to her, and no doubt the son needed some serious inter-healing, he needed some serious spiritual work, but as we began to talk it became very evident that this didn't just come out of nowhere. You see this mother, she had some issues with her own mother, and her own mother used to, in a very, very bad way, bribe her with everything that she did, everything in the house is a bribe, what discipline looked like in the house was a bribe, if you do this, if I buy you this toy, then you have to do all these good things, if I go and get you this snack, then you have the promise to be good at school today, and all these things, and everything in the house, and that's not even the gist of it, I want to just be careful for her own sake to not share too much, but everything in discipline became a bribe, and what that translated for the mother was that while when she did the right thing it seemed like, man I got something good, instead of realizing I need to do the right thing because it's the right thing, but moreover it became actually a tactic that the mother used for manipulation and control, and everything that the child had, you see when you're a small child that you may not recognize it, but as you grow up every little thing in your life, you know, has been bribed to you, nothing is given to you, just because they're your parent, everything you owe, you owe, and now there's this bribe, and she would be constantly be held to that, it'd be one thing of saying, hey good job, you did a good job, there's nothing wrong with rewarding, but then turning around and now holding them like that your child can never just have anything, it kind of messed with her brain, and it was kind of an extreme situation, but what had happened is out of this relationship with her mom that turned into manipulation and control, she then went into her own parenthood on the exact opposite, she was so afraid to withhold things from her son that she let him have everything, and that is also not healthy, you know, sometimes in our own efforts we try to not do what our parents did, so we go way to the other extreme, but oftentimes that's not going to be the right solution for us, she went to this other extreme to the point where even the things that were harmful for her son, she was allowing to have exposure, even at the age of three, four, five, having exposure to things, having access to things, because she was so afraid that he might feel rejected if he didn't get what he wanted, you see how your childhood affects your parenthood and until you address it, because the real answer actually is in the middle, it's having the balance between being able to reward your children and withhold, like God who gives and takes away, and there's nothing wrong with that, and when you have a healthy dynamic, you can understand the intricacies of that rather than it just being you gave and then you took, but when there's a healthy dynamic in the home, they understand the intricacies of what that meant and what that actually looks like, and so she failed to have that in her home and it affected her parenthood, so I just want to encourage us, be parented by the Lord, address your childhood, make sure that you're tearing down generational curses, make sure you're tearing down generational strongholds, some of us, we didn't have parents, some of us, the parents we had, they were doing the best with what they had, they were doing the best that they could with what they had, but for you, you have God the Father who loves you, who treats you tender kindly, he treats you better than you deserve, and allow him to guide you, first allow him to heal you, but then allow him to guide you in training your children, amen? Amen. Number two, I want us to take notice of the norm, take notice of the norm. Many of us, we have a lot of great ideas when it comes to parenting, we have, well you know what, every night I need to have my prayer time with my kids, I know growing up with me and my parents, what they established as a tradition in our home, every Saturday, especially as kids, we grow, as we grew up it kind of faded out, but as kids on Saturday before Sunday happened, we would actually come together and they'd read the Bible to us, and that was a great tradition, I still remember that, I still remember the children's Bible that my dad would read, and those are all really great, I'm sure that God is going to be creative in showing you what traditions you're going to build in your home, I'm sure God is going to give you insights that's going to be best and most beneficial to your family dynamic, but what I want to ask of us is to not necessarily look around for some fancy thing that we can do to bring into our home, but yet take a look at what's normal in our home, realize the significance of normal, now what do I mean by that? Do you guys know what a liturgy is? For those of you who don't know, I have here on the notes, a liturgy is a form or set of forms according to which public religious worship, especially Christian worship, is conducted. Now our Sunday mornings, to give you an example for those of you who are still trying to get caught up, this would be considered our liturgical process, our liturgical task that we're doing. Here coming on Sunday mornings, we open up with songs of worship, and then we go into a time where we give unto the Lord our finances as an act of worship, we have a testimony where we give glory to God for the things that he's done, and then we come and we partake in a word. This is our form that we have in our church that helps us understand what it means to walk with the Lord, it's a practice, it's a repeated process in our life that gives the form of our worship. Do you follow me? I want us to think of our child raising from the perspective of liturgies in the home. What practices do we have in our home, either by default or on purpose, are shaping our children's view of God? I want to give you an example. So one of the practices, and I've shared this in sermons before, one of the practices that I do with my children before bed is I pray with them and then I speak life over them, I prophesy over them, and I do this every night. It's my liturgy in the home. And so this is something that I practice, it's kind of like one of those significant points that I hope my kids remember, but one day I was doing this liturgy in my home and the Lord convicted me, hardcore, like, you know, I could share this with you guys, wow, that's really cool. I've actually had the last time I preached a sermon, someone coming in and he's like, man, man, I wish I'm doing that with my kids, I wish I would have done that. I'm thinking, yeah, that was really cool. Well, one of these days the Lord actually convicted me because here I am, bath time happens. I get my kids in the bath and Noah, my youngest one, he's running around butt naked around the house. I can't get him to come to the bath. I've already told him many times, so I'm, hey, come here, come here, you know. I'm already losing my temper because I can't control him. He comes into the bath and then they're playing and they're having fun and then he starts splashing, making a huge mess and I'm just, you know, and then we're trying to go and get them dried off and my son, he runs out of the bathroom with wet feet, he slips and hits his head on the floor and now he's crying and you know, and then Mila's running around and she's complaining that she doesn't have her milk before bed and I'm thinking, you're four years old. I don't even want to give you milk because you're going to pee your pants if you do and so I'm just like feeling all this stress and I'm just snapping, I'm snapping, I'm taskmaster, do this, do that and I just have no peace, right? How many have been there before? I have no peace and I'm just going at it and then, you know, they finally get riled into bed and it's been about 45 minutes and they're laying in bed and I'm like, they're already like, at this point they're like military, yes sir, you know, because they already know they already ticked me off and then I turned around and was like, the Lord loves you, daddy loves you and I'm just going through my routine of things and I'm saying all these things, speaking over them and I go and I close the door and when I close the door, I'm just like, man, I'm exhausted, like what the heck, you know, and the Lord convicted me because the reality was is it'd be fine if that was one night but it seemed like that night turned into every night and every night we were having a battle and I'm yelling at my kids, my kids are going to bed scared even though in my mind I'm like, man, I just, I just prophesied over you, I said God loves you and dad loves you, they're going to bed scared and I'm mad and this is the liturgy that I was building in my home. It wasn't about what was the significant thing I was doing, it was about what was normal. My normal was that my kids were seeing me angry for 45 minutes and for about two minutes they're seeing me tell them that God loves them and at dawn I'm like, I wonder what my kids think God's love looks like based off of that 45 minute repetitive thing that we do every night. What do my kids think God's love looks like and what do they think my love looks like because after I was just snapping at them this whole time and it says God loves you, I realized what's the most significant is my normal and I want to ask you what's normal in your home. Is it normal for your kids to hear you nag all the time? Is it normal for your kids to hear more negative than they do positive from you? Is it normal for your kids to feel like you're not present? Is it normal in your home? And don't get me wrong, we all have our moments. Again, if you have a moment, it doesn't mean you're a bad parent, but when those moments turn into every day, turn into weeks, turn into months, turn into years, they become repeated liturgies, so to speak, forms of how it's the how to or what. And so I just want to ask you to pay attention to what's normal. What are you teaching your children by accident? And you know, that challenged me and I began to ask the Lord, well, how do I fix this because you know, my kids are wild and this is their age and I could easily write it off as that, you know. And you know, otherwise, you know, a little bit of, a little bit of like, you know, rough and tough love, you know, is not going to hurt them, but I also knew that's not what I wanted to build. So I was like, Lord, how do I, how do I change my normal? And you know what it did? It caused me to go on a journey of reflection because I realized my children were only reflecting what was going on inside of me. Again, address your childhood before you can address your parenthood. And I realized, man, you know what, there's a lot of turmoil that I'm carrying, frustrations, stresses, you know what? It's actually, I realized my kids were just trying to have fun and I would have been able to calm them down if I first was calm. But the reality was, and I looked at that day, that day was very stressful for me. And so I came home bearing my stress. I came home with that. And when I came to them, when they're coming, daddy, you know, because they see me, I'm tired already. I can't take it right now. I want to be available, but you know, and so it just one thing led into another. We all have those days, but make sure that those days don't turn into your normal. Amen. Realize that communication is always happening, even when you're not speaking. Your actions speak louder than your words. And how you do things oftentimes is communicating to your children the what more than you realize. Amen. Number three, don't punish for telling the truth. Don't punish for telling the truth. Now, I got to be honest right now. My kids are still young in this stage. So the things that I would tell Mike, that I tell my kids when, when they tell the truth, the ramifications of their actions, they don't have, I can, I can practice this really easy right now. But I'll tell you this. I have led an internship program prior to being a parent for at least six and a half years, working with teenagers day in and day out. And there are some really valuable lessons that I learned that even though I'm not a parent of teen, I dealt with all the teens who had parents who did certain ways of, of methods of, of parenting. And there was actually a very common thing that I found to be true is that we need to make our play, our homes a safe place to share things. So in my home, I've decided this, that I don't want to punish my children for telling the truth. Now, let me explain myself because some of us here are like, wait a minute, this is getting really soft here. You know, let me explain. Confession is an act of repentance of a repentant heart when, if my kid comes to me and tells me something that they're afraid to tell me or that they're afraid to tell anybody, if they tell me that, then that shows me that they, they felt they bared the weight of the, the guilt in their heart already so much so that they, they had a change of heart. They confessed to me something and I don't want to punish them for actually doing the right thing. Even if they first did the wrong thing, I would want my home to be the place where my kids can come to and talk about things. For example, I, the way most of kids in America today learn about sex and drugs is from their friends, not from parents. I personally would rather be a parent where my kids come and talk to me about those things because then I can control that conversation. I can make sure that it's happening in a healthy manner. Now it's a tough conversation to have, but I would much rather them hear about it from me than from the internet or from Tik Tok or from their friend who is experimenting in those things. So I want to build a home that's safe enough for my kids to share. That, what that looks like then is when they share, they don't get in trouble because most of the time what happens is this, when a kid screws up, they go, oh man, and I know I did this growing up. I used to go like this. I'm like, man, I really messed up. I gotta run. My dad's gonna kill me, you know? But I would rather have this instead. Man, I screwed up. Oh man, I gotta go tell my dad he'll know what to do. I would much rather have that response. Even if it makes it look like, seemingly, it makes it look like that I'm not disciplining my children. Romans 10, 9, declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you will be saved. If it was good enough for God, it should be good enough for me. God doesn't punish us for our sin when we confess. If that's good enough for God, that should be good enough for me. Now that doesn't mean that there's not consequences, but punishment is a different thing. And fearing that my relationship with my parent will change if I don't share, or if I share it, that shouldn't be the thing that we should have in our homes. So we should create an atmosphere where it's okay to tell the truth. And that leads me into point number four, which is discipline is an act of love. Proverbs 3, 11 through 12, it says this, my child, do not despise discipline from the Lord and do not loathe his rebuke for the Lord disciplines those he loves just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights. Did you hear that? The Lord disciplines those he loves so don't loathe his rebuke. They're still disciplined. They're still rebuke. But it's an act of love and not an act of anger or retaliation or exerting your dominance. Some of you are not yet convinced on this. Some of us, we grew up only associating the word discipline with anger, when in reality discipline has to do with correction and instruction and leading and guiding someone. And so, yes, there's going to be correction and there's consequences for our actions. But there's a difference when our consequences lead to restoration or if our consequences lead to alienation. Those are the differences between discipline and punishment. I just want to give you an example, a case study, if you will, of Adam and Eve. Many think that God's decision to remove Adam and Eve was an act of retaliation or possibly discussed like, you messed up, get out of my garden, get out of my house. And some of us, we look at that man, God was really angry. He was really exerting his authority and punishment on his children for messing up. But I want to reach you Genesis 222. It says, And the Lord God said, Now that man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat it and live forever. You know, what's interesting is that actually what we don't see, and I believe it, I believe that it's the enemy's narrative that he's trying to push that see God doesn't love you. That's why if he really loved you, he would have let you stay in the garden, but he kicked you out. See, he abandoned you. And your relationship with him is based on how good you can work for him. And when you don't do good, he kicks you out. I believe that's exactly what the devil wants us to think. But the reality is this, if Adam and Eve would have eaten from the tree of life, they would have made their sin nature permanent. Did you catch that? They would have made their problems permanent. The damage would be permanent in them. But no, God says, you got to get out of the garden. I have to remove you. That's a consequence for your action. You have to be removed. But what do you see? He clothed them at the same time. In the process of him removing and setting boundaries, God was setting boundaries so they wouldn't continue to destroy themselves. But in the same action, he was clothing them. And then what did God do for the next thousand years is this. He developed covenants with man. Going on this journey of trying to restore humanity back to relationship with him, ultimately to the point where it led to himself dying on the cross and then cleaning up our mess once and for all, restoring us to right relationship with him. And the very thing that was damaging to us is our victory now. It's our testimony. And it's the very thing that we don't have to struggle with the sin nature anymore because of Christ, right? He made it to where we now have that constant communion with him. So was it God's punishment by kicking him out of the garden or was it God's loving discipline? It's his discipline and discipline is an act of love. Because I love you, I'm going to set boundaries. Because I love you, I'm not going to allow you to do these things. The enemy will have you think that it's the other way around because God's mad at you and because he hates you. The enemy will try to convince you of that, but it is God's love. It's those whom he loves, he disciplines. And so it's so important for us to catch that. So important for us to catch that because then we have the right frame of mind when it comes to our own children and catch this. His discipline matched the transgression. His discipline matched the transgression. Sometimes for us as parents when we get really angry and we're just so offended by what our son or daughter did, we over-discipline. We come in with these crazy punishments that'll, yeah, that'll really teach them. We just feel this justice that we have to serve. Oh yeah, they're going to really pay for this one. And sometimes we overdo it and it comes back to our liturgies. It comes back to what's normal in your home. Is it normal for your kids to see you retaliate or is it normal for them to see healthy, godly discipline? So it's important for us to pay attention to that. If my consequence leads to alienation, then it's punishment. If my consequence leads to restoration, then it's discipline. If I only changed their behavior, it was a punishment. If I also changed their belief, it was discipline. If I only changed their hands, it was punishment. And if I also changed their heart, it was discipline. Did you catch that? The whole point of repentance and our children coming back and listening and obeying is not just so that they obey when I'm around. I'm actually trying to raise someone up to be a decent human being in society. I'm actually trying to raise someone up who wants to do the things that I'm asking them to do. So it's important that I pay attention to how I discipline because how I discipline will determine whether or not it was punishment or whether it was that loving discipline that we're talking about. It's the difference between does it restore them? Does it make them right again? Or does it push them away? And that often comes down to making sure that our discipline never goes above or below their transgression. The consequence should always match the level of transgression, nothing less, nothing more. Otherwise it's not love. If the consequence is less, then I'm condoning destructive behavior. And if it's more, then I'm ruining my relationship. Do you follow? We have to be extremely intentional, purposeful parenting. I want us to rise up. I believe the Lord is wanting to develop godly legacies in this house. Amen. I want us to pray. If you're a parent, just raise your hand right now. Awesome, awesome. I want you to look around and find another parent. And those of you who are children, you can also just find another parent. I just want you to lay hands on each other. We're going to pray for each other right now as parents. And I just want us to ask the Lord, parent me so I can parent them. I want us to pray. Lord, help me develop godly legacy. Lord, help me to be the kind of father, the kind of mother that restores my children rather than alienates them. Let's just begin to pray. Lord Jesus, I thank you for your presence. I thank you for your anointing that you have given each one of us as parents in this house. Lord, to be the example in our homes. I thank you, Jesus, that you have given us such a high calling to raise our children for the Lord, to be disciple makers in our home. I thank you, Jesus, for your grace and your anointing God that is upon every single one of us. Lord, whatever background we came from, whatever the enemy has tried to do in our family lineage before, trying to cause destruction, trying to cause division. Lord, I thank you that you're rewriting legacies, you're rewriting history for families here today. I thank you, Jesus, that where we have had lack, you are the ultimate father. You are the God who teaches us. You're the God who counsels us, who leads us, Lord. I just pray for every parent here that we would carry a burden and an urgency in our heart to be better parents, to be parents that honor you first with our own lives, but in the way that we raise our children. Thank you, Holy Spirit. I pray, Holy Spirit, those parents who are feeling tired, who are feeling weak, who are burnt out because their child went off into the world and is struggling with drugs and alcohol. For the parent who their child right now might be struggling with transgenderism, homosexuality. I pray, Holy Spirit, first and foremost, for your peace over that home, the reality of your grace over that home. And secondly, right now in the name of Jesus, whatever demonic spirit is attacking their household, whatever attack is coming against their children, we rebuke it right now in the name of Jesus. We command you to let God's people go. You demon of homosexuality, you demon of addiction, attacking the family, attacking the children, attacking the fathers, the mothers, loose your grip. This house shall serve the Lord. As for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. Every attack on the household right now in the name of Jesus, Lord, send your grace, your anointing that breaks the yoke. Let it be released over every household right now in the name of Jesus. Those who are watching online, Holy Spirit, I pray that you would reach their family, reach the single mother right now who is tired and weak. I pray, Holy Spirit, that single father who's trying to figure out things on their own. God, I pray for your fathering touch. Parent them, Lord. Parent us, Lord, so that we can raise children who serve you with all their heart, who will carry our legacy to win souls, make disciples, to be someone who loves you with all their heart, all their mind and all their soul in Jesus' name. Amen. Hit thumbs up to this video and subscribe to our channel so you can get new videos every single week delivered to you on your YouTube app. If you go to hungrygen.com forward slash sermons, you'll actually be able to download the transcript, the notes and the quotes of this sermon and the rest of all of our sermons free of charge. Until next time.