 It's good to see everybody this morning. Can we just give it up for my beautiful bride of 27 years, joining me on the stage? You guys do not know how much a miracle this is. I love what I do. I love being on stage, but Jane is a leader in her own right, but typically her leadership is not demonstrated on the platform. And so when I asked her to do this and she said yes, I knew that even when it seems he's not working, he never stops, he never stops working. And then the questions came in last week and I was like, dear God, what did I do? Yeah, she's like, I may only do like Saturday night. I'm like, well, here you are. So we're glad to do this. And so today we're gonna be talking about marriage, family, and parenting. So if you have not sent your question in, you can do that at radiant.church slash red hot. And I wanna reiterate again that we don't know the questions ahead of time. Last night, after the Saturday night service, we got a message and somebody said, it's so disingenuine. You guys are so polished. We know you've been working on these questions all week long and my generation doesn't need to see that. They need to see raw and authentic. And I'm like, Jane, you did an awesome job because somebody thought we had prepped for a week on this. I promise you, we have not seen them. And we're gonna do the best that we can to answer them from God's word, not just our opinion. And we are grateful for all the questions that have been coming in. So we're gonna start, we're talking about marriage and parenting, ready, set. Here we go, first question. Jeremy online, I married a Michigan fan. What should I do? Well, this is actually the fourth reason in the Bible that you can divorce. It's in the apocrypha. It's really rare scripture. No, yeah, I don't know, pray. You know, some of these only come out by prayer and fasting and so, you know, love your enemies. I don't know, I don't know. Jane, do you have any input on that? And I honestly don't even know the difference between the two, so it doesn't. I've tried to teach her about football for 28 years and she's like, why are they starting over again? It just said second down and now it's first again and I'm just like, you're supposed to go 10, that makes no sense. So I gave up and so we've agreed to disagree. All right, we both like hockey. There you go. Okay, here we go. Another question. Okay, Hannah from Richland, when is it okay to start talking to your kids about sex? That's a great question. Thank you, Hannah, for that. I would say, unfortunately, way sooner than we would like to, just because of the culture that we live in today that it's shoved in our faces everywhere that we go, including our kids. Also, now I know that if it's not here in a lot of public schools, they are starting the sex education process way earlier, including things that, in my opinion, we shouldn't even be talking about in school, that should be left to parents, but it's being talked about now in kindergarten, first grade, things about, even about homosexuality, LGBT issues, transgender issues, all those kinds of things. And I know in California, it's now mandatory part of education starting in kindergarten. And I just think that that is, it's terrible and it's usurping the parental role in the rights and the privileges to determine when you bridge those conversations with your kids. Now, if you're a public school teacher, I want you to know we pray for you because being a believer and being a teacher in the public school district is a mission field and it's a calling. And we understand that you're salt and light that is there. So when I say things that are kind of challenging about the public school system, I'm not saying that about you, I'm grateful that you are there and you're salt and light. I'm just talking about the system as a whole. But what that does is it forces us to have to talk about these subjects earlier because if we don't, the only advantage point that they're gonna get is from a worldly perspective. I remember sex ed class when I was in elementary school was fifth grade and your parents had to sign off on it. And a lot of kids had to like sit in the hallway because their parents didn't want them going to sex ed. Times have changed, media has changed, smartphones, the internet has changed everything. And so I think that we, I think the question is when is it okay to start? I'll just give you a simple answer. I think it's okay when you as a parent deem it necessary, when you feel like you're talking together, husband and wife, or if you're a single parent, you're looking at the life of your child, what they're beginning to talk about, questions that they're beginning to answer or ask what's going on in school. If you're gonna be a parent in today's world, you have got to be very involved, very alert, very inquisitive to be able to know where your kids are at, to be able to partner with the Holy Spirit, literally to say, okay, I need to, that doesn't mean on day one you gotta roll it all out, right? I mean, how old were our kids when we started talking to them? I think Ashley was 10, Jared, I don't know cause you did that and then Tiff was about that too. I did that conversation on an airplane to Australia with Jared and he was like 10 years old and I did it cause he was captive audience and in the middle of the plane, you know, everybody's out for a 14 hour sleep, trying to get to Brisbane and Jared looks at me and he goes, what? You do what? I'm like, well, that's how, he's like, are you kidding me? Woke up like half the plane. So you thought the girls were like 10? Yep, and I think now, you know, there's so many in there was then too and I wish I had maybe done one of the resources because it is a tad awkward to do it but there are so many good resources and I feel like now, like I don't really know, I should probably know cause I have a grandson but I'll let Ashley deal with that. But kind of like, you know, like, I feel like this is the right age to introduce this and this and this and so there are so many great resources and I feel like they probably didn't even happen. We had little ones because of the way that the... Well, and the internet is both, it can be a negative and a positive so just as much as there's availability of a lot of sexual content, there's also a lot of resources that are available on the web, on the internet. Like the Bible project, not specifically about sex ed but parents, if you're trying to find ways of bringing your kids into understanding scriptures, the Bible project that's on YouTube and if you go to like Family Research Council, focus on the family and different ministries like that, there are a lot of great sex ed introductory pieces for you to be able to begin that conversation with your kids so the answer to your question is, it's okay when you as a parent feel it's necessary and you can begin that conversation and get some help and do that. Here's the big thing, we want our kids having a view of sex that is shaped by a Christian worldview, not shaped by a twisted, crooked, recreational sex, anything goes culture because otherwise we're gonna have to undo it. We don't want Babylon discipling our kids, we want Jesus discipling our kids in every area including sex, so. Okay, next question, this is from Ashley in Richland. How do you teach your children to be kind and help those around them without putting themselves in danger? How do you distinguish between polite pleasantries with a stranger in line behind you at the checkout and stranger danger? Man, that is a great question and that is where we live and I think, man, I think that you can teach your children manners and also teach them discernment at the same time, I don't think it's one or the other, I don't think they have to be cold and mean and callous and walk around scared all the time but we have to teach them to be alert and we have to teach them to be aware and we need to, the whole stranger danger thing is real. When I was growing up, I was probably five or six years old, there was a string of kidnappings that were taking place in Michigan back in those days. Some of you may remember in the late 70s about that and I was scared to walk to school because every time I saw a green gremlin, I don't know if you guys remember that, there was a green gremlin that was kidnapping kids, it was like, I'd see a green gremlin, I would freak out and run. It's probably how I got so good at running. I would run to school and I don't think it's good that our kids walk around in a constant state of fear but I think we can shape boundaries for them, what to look out for and how to engage people and to be kind and to be nice but not to be naive and not to be too innocent. And honestly, I just think it has to do with just having conversations and talking about this stuff. And don't underestimate your kids because if they get a weird feeling, don't be like, oh, kind of go with that, talk it through instead of being like, well, shaming them or that wasn't nice or they're a nice person. Kind of take that, walk with them, talk with them through it and figure it out. I think that's important too, just not dismissing them and going, well he was a nice, you know what I mean, blah, blah, blah. Because a lot of times if kids have been touched inappropriately or abused or if they think something's going on, they have discernment too and it'll come out of them or you might notice their behavior changes a little bit different. And I think it's important to like, like if your kids have a sleepover or something, it's like, tell me what you did, did everything go okay? And dig around a little bit, just not out of suspicion but just those open lines of communication. You're gonna hear your kids say things and it might not be an overt thing but you need to pay attention to that. And to remember they had the same Holy Spirit. You know what I mean? That is talking to them like they're talking to us and to listen to that. And then from a parental side, I think you can help your children by having really strong boundaries and guidelines about where you let your kids go, who you let them go with, when you let them stay. We can't throw our kids to the wolves, right? I mean, so we have to be very careful. And it's not just, hey, outside of the home, now with computers and smartphones, you have to be careful of strangers in your house. And so we never, our kids never had computers. We had one computer, it was in the kitchen and that's where everybody did their homework. That's where everybody did Facebook. That's where everybody did their thing. And we didn't let them take their, later on their laptops or their iPads into their room because there are chat rooms and there are fake apps that they can use where they're, it looks like a calculator, but it's actually an app, like a WhatsApp where they can communicate with people and nobody can track it. In our house, there was no such thing as privacy. I mean, you go in the bathroom and change your clothes. I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about digital privacy. We wanna know your password. I wanna be able to access all of the different instruments that you're using and we're gonna have filters on all those kinds of things because that's where a lot of this stuff starts. It starts on Facebook, Snapchat, it starts on chat rooms and different things like this where that's actually in some ways more dangerous than your kids just walking down the street at midnight or whatever. Parents, you have to be involved. You can't check out. That's really the big thing, I think. And the funny thing is this really just for me, but now I look back at some of those pictures and go, oh my gosh, my kitchen was always a mess. Yeah. Like, because it would be like back and I'd be like, oh my gosh, I never did dishes. It's because everybody's in the kitchen now. You should have done those dishes. Rotten wife, terrible wife. Don't you know? But seriously, our kitchen always had backpacks, always had coats, because that's where everybody was hanging out. It was the hub. And I would much rather have that than our kids like going into the rooms and we don't see them at all. We wanna be interacted in their life. We don't know what's going on. And so I think you can teach your kids to be kind, be helpful, but also to be aware and to be accountable, okay? Next question. Laura from Richland. Okay, well, welcome to Red Hot. What are the rules on threesome if the husband and the wife say it's okay? Well, I'm not so concerned about what you say is okay, but what God says is okay. And so I'm saying that very directly because I think in our culture, we make light of a lot of that kind of stuff and there's nothing okay about adultery. That's what that is. And so let me just read to you, let me read to you Jesus' words, what he said. Matthew 19. And Jesus said, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife. And listen, and the two shall become one flesh. Sex is not just, it's pleasurable. I get that body, soul, and spirit, but it's more than that. Sex is a bonding agent that God has given us that takes two people and makes them one. And he said, and then he goes on and he says, so you are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. In other words, don't let anything come in between that. So sex is supposed to take place in marriage between one man and one woman for life and any other sexual expression with anybody outside of that union is adultery, it's immorality. And if you wanna look in the Old Testament and find some examples of that, you can find polygamy, you can find concubines, even in like Abraham who married Sarah, but then when Sarah could not produce offspring, she came up with her own concept of how to fulfill God's promise and his satisfaction and she gave him Hagar and Hagar gave birth to Ishmael and that created thousands of years of conflict as a result of that. So you will never find any positivity that comes out of having sex or a sexual relationship outside of God's divine purpose. And so in the kingdom, in God's way of doing things, the only rule is this, it's one man, one woman for life, that's it, nobody else from the outside, if they come in from the outside, they're a thief and a robber and so husbands, your job is to protect your wife, wife, your job is to honor and protect your husband and to protect your union at all costs, okay? And so that's, and listen, we're living in a crazy over sexualized culture where it's like we treat sex like twister. It's like, oh, it's just fun, it's a game, it's yoga without clothes on and it's like whatever you wanna do, have fun and do it, it's like, no, there's some things that have ramifications and consequences and if we only view sex from the lens of what we do physically, we're discounting the fact that we are spirits that have a soul and live in a body. We're not just bodies, we're not animals. We were created in the image of God. And if you're a Christian, that means your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Everybody take your index finger, hold it up for me. Even online, do it, I'm watching, okay. Now take that finger and invert it and point it back at yourself. You are pointing at the temple of the Holy Spirit. So don't do anything in your body that you wouldn't want to do with God standing right there because he is. Selah, okay, next question. Queen from Richland, as a parent, how would you deal with a child who wants to change their gender at a younger age because that's who they think they are? I'm gonna turn this one over to Jane. Jane, do you want that one? No. I would obviously strongly, strongly advise against it. Because you always had the kids that were town boys or you had the boys that played with the girl toy. You know what I mean? Like that kind of a thing. They're not old enough to figure that out. And as parents, we're the ones that are supposed to walk with them. And if a kid was like, oh, I want to cross 131, you're not gonna let them do it. And if somebody's like, well, you know what I mean? I don't like my gender or blah, blah, blah. Where's that? First of all, I want to know where is that coming from? Where are you hearing that? Because somebody's telling you that, you know what I mean? And then the other thing is, this is who God has made you, you know what I mean? And I mean, when you're in your 20s or whatever and you want to do it, oh, break my heart and I'll pray for you. But at a young age, I mean, I remember our kids having a girl in our neighborhood, that was a town boy and she literally, people would call her a boy and she loved to do sports and not even just sports, cause that's really not it. But, and then all of a sudden now she, right, she acted like a boy. She wore a pair of shorts, she just, and now she's beautiful, she's married, she has a kid and I think, oh my gosh, if this was in today's world, somebody would have been like, you're a boy, you know what I mean? And I think for like reference to look at would be Jackie. Hill Perry. Jackie Hill Perry because I follow her on Instagram, YouTube or whatever, because she goes through all of those different things that she felt like people were telling her already at a young age that you're a town boy, you know, cause you don't want to wear a purse and you don't want to, and it kind of shaped her instead of like calling out. That's exactly right. And then we have our things, well, who says that woman has to carry a purse and because they don't carry a purse that they're a male, you know what I mean? Or have that bent or whatever. And so I just think that as a young child that we're responsible as the parent to guide them and control them in the boundaries and protect them. Yep. And so this is a huge topic in our day, the whole subject of transgender and transitioning and in Sweden last week, they're presenting a bill where they want to have state funded sexual transitions take place at age 15 without parental consent. And so kids who want to can just change and can transition. Let me tell you the danger of that. This is according to John Hopkins University. This is not Christianity. This is secular science, or social science that over 70% of people that have reassignment surgery in their adolescent years, over 70% regret it and wish they could regress back to it. And it's because there's a lot of confusion. Gender dysphoria, sexual dysphoria is a very real phenomenon. And we're not saying that to condemn anybody or to make anybody feel less than, but we're living in a day where a lot of the things that God built into family and society that assigned to us are identity and teach us about the validity of sexuality and who we are has been broken down with the nuclear family and with the introduction of an over sexualized, non-binary type of a viewpoint of the world. You read Genesis chapter one, everything is binary. God, creation, heaven, earth, night, day, God, man. And God did that because heaven and earth are supposed to complement one another. And the same, you find that in marriage, man, woman. There's a compliment that takes place. And what the devil loves to do more than anything is he loves to distort, pervert, twist and confuse the image of God. Because he hates the image of God. The image of God on the earth is a reminder of his judgment. It's a reminder that God is God and he's not. And so who are the image bearers on the earth? The image bearers are human beings. So what does the devil do who is full of violence who's twisted, he's a liar and he's a deceiver. What does he attack? He attacks the image bearers and there's nothing more demonstratively expressible about the image of God in the earth than human identity and sexuality. And so that's what we are seeing in our day and age. We are seeing a demonic attack. I'm not saying that people are demons. I'm not saying that people are not sincere. They are, they're wonderful. They're love children of God that Jesus died on the cross for to redeem us. Not to just tell us we're okay the way that we are but I don't care if you're heterosexual, homosexual, transgender, whether you've struggled with that or whether you haven't. Jesus is an equal opportunity redeemer and saver. He didn't just come to tell us you're okay, I'm okay. Jesus came to tell us none of us are okay and we need the grace of God to redeem and restore us. Parents, if we take a massive step like that in our children's development and formation, we radically alter their future. And what we need to do is we need to affirm their identity. We need to say you are a child of God, you are a mind, I love you and we need to speak destiny over them. Sometimes they may need some counseling and some help to walk through that but I definitely would not do anything that is going to alter their identity. If they're just dogmatic on that, you say well that's a decision that you can make when you are an adult but until that time as you live in my house, I am not going to co-sign on a lie of you being somebody other than who God made you to be. That's how we stand, so. And I think that the verse that just comes is John 1010, that the enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy and sometimes like in our own minds, it's hard to even fathom that the enemy hates us that much. You know what I mean? Because you're like oh, you know like he hates us. He hates our kids. And he wants to destroy us and whatever he can do to do that and it's just sometimes it's like mind-blowing. But he does. And then it's that Jesus came to give us life and life more abundant. And so when we press into what the Lord has for us, you know we have abundant life and it might not be always easy but it's abundant. And that's true across every area of our life. It doesn't have to be an issue of gender confusion. You know, no heterosexual can sit back and cast stones because the devil deceives us that don't struggle with that but maybe struggle with lust or adultery or immorality. There's high levels of deception that are there. What we need is to all bring our sexuality to the foot of the cross and say, Jesus, I need you to redeem me and renew our mind so that we can see us and see him the way that he's created us. So. And it even goes back to the threesome. I mean, really. You know what I mean? That's deception. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and where do we get that? Maybe for a moment, pleasure, but. Yeah, yeah, a lifetime of, of regret. Okay, next question. Martha, online. Last week you said physical abuse is biblical grounds for divorce. What about verbal, mental and emotional abuse? Well, what I said last week is that physical abuse can be a grounds if it is ongoing. Definitely if you're being physically abused, you need to be safe. And so that means that may mean separation, leaving the home, getting to a safe place. The hope should be that there could be restoration. There can be, that could be an ultimatum that leads to a breakthrough change in the marriage and healing. That's the hope. But if there is not a overt repentance, acknowledgement and a desire for healing and for trust to be rebuilt back again, then yes, I do believe it can be grounds. When we talk about verbal, mental and emotional abuse, we have to be very careful about that because physical abuse is easy to define, okay? When there's physical contact that is aggressive and it injures a person, you can see that. It's, okay, did he touch you? Did he punch you? Did he slap you? Did he grab you? Did he restrain you? That's easy to define. But I'm talking from a pastoral level, emotional, verbal and mental abuse can be more difficult and more complicated to define. My experience, I'm just telling you my experience in a pastor for 26 years. I've had a lot of people who want a divorce, don't have any grounds and so what they say was, what he's mean to me is mentally and verbally abusive to me and what that means is he raised his voice at me. That's not verbal abuse or it's not necessarily verbal abuse or he's not meeting my needs. You know, I want what I want because he's not given that to me. That's mental abuse. There is a place for separation and safety from verbal, mental and emotional abuse. I would say that in order for me as a pastor to ever sign off on that, I would want to partner with a professional who affirms that that is really what's going on. Not just somebody saying, oh, this happened. But I would want to be, number one, I would say, okay, if you're really afraid for your life and you're threatened by verbal, mental, emotional abuse, separation's the first stage. Then with a professional counselor in conjunction with your spiritual leaders. And I would say Christian. Christian. Yeah, a Christian counselor because they're seeing things, that's a great caveat. They're seeing things and they're judging things based on the word of God that that can be a partnership in the mouth of every two or three witnesses let every matter be established. And to have a counselor who says, look, I'm walking through this and this guy is demeaning. And I'm talking about guys. It could be a female to the male as well. They're demeaning, they're belittling, they're unrepentant, they're destructive emotionally to the children in the house. And my other experience is when there is that level of physical and verbal real abuse that's going on, there's a lot of other things going on with it as well. There's substances, there's immorality, there's all kinds of stuff that goes with it. I would not just sign off and say, well, if you think that they were mean to you one time, that you have the right to divorce, I would not sign off on that. But there could be certain circumstances where I would feel like this might fit into that category. Anything you wanna add to that? That was really good. Christian counselor. And let me tell you real quickly, 15 seconds why that's important. Whoever is giving you counsel that's gonna guide your life, they're either gonna be shaped by the world and the world's perspective or God and God's perspective. And as disciples of Jesus, we've committed our lives to live in the way of Jesus. So we want the wisdom that we're drawing to come out of the wellspring of God's word, okay? So Christian, there's a lot of great Christian counselors. If you need one for any reason, we can make recommendations to you, but be careful about going to counselors that have a different perspective, okay? Brandon at Portage. My wife is jealous of an innocent work relationship that I have with another female. How do I honor her without assenting to her fear? Those are tricky questions. Seriously, this type of question that I would love to have a sit-down conversation because I have about 20 questions that I would like to ask in order to understand this question better. Like one question is, why has your wife said that she's uncomfortable with it? Has there been a thread of text messages that are exchanged? Have you gone out to lunch one-on-one? Have you spent time on the road on a travel trip where it's just been you pairing off that they're unaware of? Do you have little inside jokes? Is there something that is causing your wife to be uncomfortable with it? Now it could be that she's just jealous in general and it may not be that you've done anything, but I would want to ask more questions about that. But let me jump off and kind of go this direction and then Jane can chime in from the wife perspective. I'm careful about boundaries as a husband and as a pastor. For example, I don't counsel women one-on-one. It's not because I don't trust women, it's just because we're living in a world where somebody could make an accusation or something like that and I never want to be on the other side of an accusation that I didn't have somebody else there. And I never want to give the enemy opportunity to tempt. So when I counsel a woman, either Jane's there with me or Krista, who's my administrative assistant is present with me. I don't travel with women. I don't give rides to young women. Maybe my mom, my grandma, I guess, but my daughters, but I don't like, hey, come ride with me and it's one-on-one. I never want to put them in an awkward position. I don't want to be in an awkward position. I have boundaries. I don't go to lunch with women one-on-one. If we have staff members who are women, if we're going to do it, we do it as a group. And again, it's not because there's anything evil about women, it's not because there's anything evil about me. It's I never want to put them in an awkward position and I'm trying to live at a place where because I'm a human being, I never want to have an accusation come against me that somebody or Jane has a question mark in her mind about that. And so even texting, you have to be careful about that kind of stuff. And Facebook, do you know that over 50% of affairs begin on Facebook? Most recent statistics say, and a lot of it has to be with old boyfriends and old girlfriends. It's like, oh, I reconnected. Hey, what are you doing? You start communicating and pouring your heart out and pretty soon that flame gets lit again. So I do think, especially in work relationships, you have to be very, very careful. Jane, what am I saying that's not right? Go ahead. Well, I mean, everything you said is right, but I would be just like, what is the important relationship here? You know what I mean? It's your husband, it's your wife, and if this chick is causing your wife to be insecure, then cut it off. I mean, she's just a friend, if that's all it is. And- You're getting the real J now. To me, I just, and I don't want to be like, but it just seems simple. Like if your wife doesn't like it, and it's another female, then cut it off and just be done with it. Like be professional or whatever, but just- That doesn't mean you have to quit your job, it just means- No, and be professional or whatever, but like flirty, I mean, whatever it is, if she's jealous, and even if she is insecure or whatever, it's causing it to be worse. And who are you married to? Are you married to the chick that you're working with or are you married to your wife? And so to me, it's just cut and dry, like let it go. It's not worth it, so I don't know. So when Jane and I were dating, I had a friend who was a girl, and she went to a school in town, and we were just friends, but Jane was like, it's me or her, and she's like, you need to- And I was like, and what if I just had a friend- Well, that's different. That was a guy. And I was like, uh-uh, if you wanna date me, then you're not going, not that we can't have, but I just think individual friendships with the opposite sex is just unhealthy, unwise, and stupid, really. So, and so I was like, if you wanna date me and you want a relationship with me, then you're gonna break it off with her. I broke it off. I said we're not friends anymore. I married you. And then here's the funniest thing. Like 15 years later, we had an entertainment group come in for like our volunteers here, and that girl, Chick, was part of that entertainment group. I'm in the front row going, oh my gosh, I cannot believe this. I mean, it was all those years later. It was the most awkward thing in the world. So you had to like approach it to me and like, and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's been 15 years. I think it's okay. But at the time, I would literally was like, no, and you wouldn't like it, and we're not doing that. Wisdom, according to Jane, no chicks. No chicks. Okay. And if, yeah, in no chicks period, even if they aren't jealous, just isn't smart to do. That's right, there you go. A couple friends, great individual, no. Yeah, there you go. That's good. All right, next question. Makayla from Portage, can you give an example where Jesus was all-loving and all-forgiving but had healthy boundaries? How do we strive for this balance in the adult-child-parenting relationship? That's a great question. Can you give an example of Jesus where he was all-loving and all-forgiving but he had healthy boundaries? Yeah, so, I mean, John 1 says that Jesus, who's the Word of God came, he was full of grace and truth. So his grace is very gracious, very merciful, forgiving, offered amnesty, but never relented on truth. And I think an example of that is the woman that was caught in the act of adultery. I think it's John 4, who was dragged before Jesus and said, here's this woman. She was caught in the very act of adultery. And so we don't know. She's probably half naked at this point because it says she was just caught in the act. My question is, where's the guy who was committing adultery with her? Because how many of you know, it takes two. And he wasn't being dragged, they're just her. And so they were saying, the law says that she should be stoned to death. And so Jesus stooped down in the dirt and he wrote, nobody really knows what he wrote, but it says that they began to leave. All of her accusers began to leave from the oldest down to the youngest. And I don't know exactly what Jesus wrote, but whatever he wrote convicted them to the degree that it affected those who had more time on the job, more so than even the youngest. Probably something to do with the longer you live, the more sins accumulate and the more rock should be thrown at you. But they began to leave and then Jesus turns to the woman and he says, now where are your accusers? And neither do I accuse you, therefore go your way, sin no more. And so Jesus forgave her, was she guilty? Yes. The letter of the law could have required her to be stoned and punished. But Jesus didn't allow the letter, and Paul said the letter of the law kills, it's the spirit of the law that gives life, spirit gives life. So Jesus operated in the spirit of grace without diminishing the truth. He didn't say, it's okay, go back to your hotel room and you're fine, don't let anybody judge you or you can do whatever you want to. He said, go your way, sin no more. I forgive you, but sin no more. And I think from a parenting, I know that's way over here, we take a look at our parenting as adults and raising kids. I think it's important for us to strike that balance of parenting our kids out of truth, but recognizing that they're gonna make mistakes along the way. And if you could come down super hard, but I'll just remind you what Ephesians five says to parents, it says, fathers do not provoke your children unto anger. One translation says, don't discourage them. And if you come down hard every single time on every little thing that takes place in your kid's life, you can be accurate in the fact that what they did was wrong, but you can actually be wrong in the fact that you've broken their spirit, you've discouraged them, you've exasperated them and you break the relationship. And so for us, I always came down hard when it was overt rebellion, okay? When it was over rebellion and hardheartedness, that's when I would come down hard. If it was other mistakes, we tried to show a ton of grace. And I feel like as adult children, it's different because it's okay to let them fail, fall, whatever, and then be there to pick them up because they learned so much from that. It's like our relationship with the Lord, like when we're new believers, God is so gracious to us and so loving and so merciful. And then as we grow, he expects more from us, and I believe that's with our adult children too, that... You kind of be there to pick them up, pop them up. Yeah, exactly, but not control them because we'll never see them again if you do that. You know what I mean? Like if you're like, you'll never see them again. And to just be like, it's okay, and let's walk and talk this through and... And be careful of statements that you feel in the moment like making, especially with your older kids. It's like, if you do this, don't come back and ask me for help. Or if you leave the house, don't ever come back. Be careful of those things because in the moment you say them, and you really don't mean them, what you're trying to do is control them. But if you say those things, those words stick with them. So when they do get to a place like the prodigal who wakes up and comes to his senses and says, maybe I wanna come home or maybe I need to ask for help. They're gonna hear the last words that you spoke where I'm done with you or don't come home. And that's never the last words that we want our kids to hear. We want them here. I love you. I believe in you. I may disagree with you and I'll be here to help you when you're ready to change. But in the meantime, you're gonna have to go and figure this out on your own. Just be really careful. I think sometime as parents, we just want to fix every problem. And I don't think that that's the healthy thing to do as their adult children. When your kids are real little, you are their protectors. And then when they are eight, 10, 11, 12 years old, you're their teachers. When they're teenagers, you're their coaches. And when they're adults, you're their friends. And you have to know what stage and which season of life you're in because that's how you respond differently to your kids. We were at a park one time when our kids were really little. And we watched parents who had a small little, probably three, four-year-old. And our kids were about the same age. We were about to leave and we were talking to them. And they wanted to leave the park, but they're just like, what do you think, Johnny? Do you want to leave now? And he's like, no. Okay, Johnny, you tell us when you want to leave. What do you want to do, Johnny? I want to swing. Okay, Johnny, there we'll go and swing right now. And we can't leave yet. Johnny doesn't want to leave. And I'm like, no, in my world, it's like, Johnny, we're leaving. Get in the car because I've got grace for you for the next 15 seconds to get in the car. But if you ain't in the car in 15 seconds, you're going to meet my little friend called Truth. And Truth is engraved on a wooden spoon that's going to be applied to the back of your behind, your diaper covered behind. And you're going to experience the pain and the ramifications of your truth. And then once your heart has been changed, I'm going to love you and overflow you with grace. So you got to know what season of life that you're in. Was that bad? It's good. All right, let's all stand up. Great questions today. Thank you. Wasn't it fun? Let's just pray together. In fact, I want to invite both campuses, our prayer team to step into place. And if you would, everyone in the room just by your heads, close your eyes. I'm going to pray and you know, whenever you begin to talk or think and explore subjects of family, marriage, even sex, culture, parenting, it's not a question of if we're going to experience pain or questions or challenges in those arenas. Just a matter of when, how much and which ones. Here's what I know is that probably every one of us in this room have. Some of us, though, right now find ourselves in acute battles or we just feel overwhelmed. We feel unqualified. We feel torn. We feel alone and we need God's help. The good news is that whatever battle you find yourself in today, I want you to be rest assured that Jesus is standing with you. His grace is available. His wisdom is available. And I'm just going to pray over every single home, over every life, over every family. And then we're going to dismiss, but as we dismiss, if you're here and you find yourself in one of those acute, chaotic battles right now or you just feel overwhelmed, maybe there's some single parents and you just feel overwhelmed and raising your kids and you didn't see yourself doing this. Whatever it is that you're going through and you just feel overwhelmed, we're going to invite you when we dismiss to just come and receive prayer because God is here and he cares and there's power that's released. There's healing that's released when we pray for one another. He meets us here. Lord, today I just pray blessing over every household, over every family, over every marriage, over every single person, over every child, over every job, over every dream, over every conversation and even over every battle. Lord, every battle you declare victory over. You've never met an enemy that you could not overcome. Lord, we pray that you would be in the middle of our battle with us, standing with us. I pray that today as people come forward and receive prayer that Lord, you would be here in our midst bringing healing, wholeness and help. Lord, we're grateful that we live in community. We're grateful for your word that is a light and a lamp unto our path. We're grateful for the presence of your Holy Spirit supernaturally gracing us to live in truth and victory and grace. Help us as we walk out of this place today to exemplify what it means to be followers of Jesus. We pray in your name, amen. And amen.