What's up, Destination. All right, just got you nice and warmed up, and I'm I'm here to to be the closer, I guess. So, good morning and just so awesome to always come up on stage and to see all of your faces.

And I just want you to know again, as your pastor, I'm praying for you. Whether it's your first time here or you've been here for a while, I just want you to feel like you belong here, like you are part of what God is doing here and part of the destination family. And speaking of that, that is what we're moving into today.

We are going to talk about another core value of our church. If you are just joining us, we are going through the book of Colossians and we're looking at what the Apostle Paul wrote to this brand new church about putting Jesus in all things, about just what it means to find and follow Jesus. And so as we've been following this book verse by verse, we've also been getting to know what this church is like. Our core values as a church.

So as a quick recap here, week one, we looked at Christ centered values and then for the following weeks we kind of dove into one of our core values verse by verse. The first one being gospel, the second one being grow. And last week, an awesome one that I'm still riding a high off of, which was our worship message.

And so, if you missed one of these, I want to encourage you, go back, check them out. They give you a really good sense of who destination is, but also if you're just reading through the book of Colossians. But today is our fourth value, which is family.

And the way that we tagline this one is that we want to build and resource families to be Christ centered. Now, I'm just going to be upfront. Can I can I just be like authentic just for a second here with you guys. Can you handle that. I'm I'm actually really nervous for today.

Because as I've been explaining the church, this is the hardest core value to kind of articulate. And not only that, but this is the hardest section of scripture that we're going to go through in Colossians. And you'll see that in a second.

And so I'm kind of nervous. And so if you don't like what I have to say today, pray about it and go take it up with my boss, okay. He's he's up there. He'll listen to you.

But honestly the other thing that I want to say here is that I want to remind you that when I say the word family a lot of things come to your mind and to your heart because you may hear the word family and think oh my let's not talk about mine or you might think family okay that that sounds great or you might think of fast and the furious or Lilo and Stitch you know like ohana means family Okay, just seeing if we got the humor here this morning. I don't know. Maybe I should leave that out of the rest of the message. Anyways, you all have different impressions of family and it all carries a different weight. And so, while I'm preaching here from under the authority of God's word, I know I'm not coming over it.

I'm coming under it. As I preach, know that you have a unique individual situation. And so, just want to premise that. Another question you might have is, Josh, if this section is so hard or if this value is so hard, why is it even a part of Destination's core values.

And I want to say why. It's because I can't stand to see broken families. I've been through divorce. I have been through just figuring out what it means to be a Christ follower as as a brand new Christian in my family.

I I've had to learn how to lead, how to love well. And if we as a church can partner with you in some of the most difficult relationships but loving relationships that you have, that is what is important. Because here's the truth. As much as we want to sometimes we want to put a front on at church, a lot of us are living a broken life behind a closed door. And what happens is we come off on the surface like everything is okay in our household, but behind the closed doors are things that happen that people don't see.

And we end up being overall dissatisfied with our family systems. And so if we're dissatisfied with our spiritual walk or life, it leads to things like addictions or absence. If we're dissatisfied with our marriage and and we keep that dissatisfaction, it leads to things like divorce and disdain towards even the idea of marriage.

Again, if we have dissatisfaction from our kids and and and they're rebelling or maybe we've done some things in our parenting journey that maybe we regret or maybe it's not the the closed doors of our home, but maybe it's our job that our job is is in all the relationships in our workplace that we're bringing home and we're living as burnt out and bitter for our family to see. You see, all of this stuff that we deal with that we put behind a closed door is the very reason why we need to talk about this. So, here's the big question for today. How do you build a Christ centered life. And to do this, we're going to answer it with scripture.

Colossians 17. It's on page 2017. As Wes said, if you don't have a Bible, please take this one home with you.

It's our gift to you. It's meant to be read. It's got tons of truth and tons of wisdom that I cannot even dive into a just a portion of it this morning.

And so read it throughout the week. We're going to be starting in verse 17. It's also where we left off last week. So if you follow the numbers down to the number 17 and it says this. And whatever you do whatever whatever whatever whatever you do whether in word or deed do some of it in the name of the Lord Jesus.

There we go. Somebody was paying attention. Do it all in the name of Jesus. Do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Now, comes the part where you need to pray for me.

Paul's going to address five people here. Look who he addresses. Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children or they will become discouraged.

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Not when their eye is on you to cure their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever and whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as in working for the Lord and not human masters, since you know that you have received an inheritance from the Lord as your reward.

It is the Lord Christ you are serving, anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism. God help me. This shows though and gives us a blueprint of how to build a Christ-c centered life through your relationships.

The first place we need to start is where we left off last week, which is in order to even have good Christ centered relationships. Who do you need there. Jesus is the answer.

And by the way, if you never know what an answer is to a question, Jesus. Jesus is the answer to this question. It says in everything you do, in whatever you do.

And so this idea has been given to us through this entire book that everything exists through him, by him, for him. It's because of Jesus. And so if you are married, if you are single, if you are dating, wherever you are in your relationship status, you put Jesus in that relationship.

Wherever you are with your parenting journey, wherever you are in your career, wherever you are in whatever you do, Jesus becomes a part of that. Even in your hobbies, okay. If you're in a band, you're playing music to the glory of God.

If you are crafting, you are crafting and bringing God into it to the glory of God. If you are shopping, I don't think shopping works here, but here's the thing. Unless you're shopping for the for a church or something, I don't know. But here's the idea. Bringing Jesus into everything needs to be first.

It needs to be in all things. If you want to hear more about this, go back and watch last week's message. I want to spend a lot of time here because we need to look look at what that looks like now in your relationship. So, let's go on verse 18 and 19.

It says this, "Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. So, this is not, by the way, your typical marriage verse that you would hear in a topical series.

You don't hear five ways to have a happy marriage and then you hear wives submit to your husband. Like this is not a verse that is preached upon by choice. This is why we believe in taking the Bible verse by verse cuz I can't cherrypick and and go over the hard stuff. And so this is a passage where if you were to go look up any other preachers who are going verse by verse, they spend the entirety of 40 minutes just on these two verses. So hear me when I say this.

We are just scratching the surface when we dive into what this verse actually means. And I think we gota we got to hit all of the elephants in the room. And the first elephant is this word submit.

Anybody get uncomfortable by this word. No, just me. Submit kind of has this like negative commentary for us because we think of submit in in kind of a negative light.

And so we need to talk about this word before we dive into just just addressing the wise first. So let's dive into submission. What it is and what it is not. Submission is not submitting to any male.

We are talking about the context of just biblical marriage here. It is not submission to any male authority here. Secondly, submission here does not mean obedience. We're going to talk about Greek words here in a second, but here in this scripture, Paul explicitly does not use the word obedience. He reserves that word for later with children.

And so this, by the way, is countercultural to how the church in Colasse is being ran. It was cultural for all of the men to say, "No, wives need to be obedient. " And Paul's saying, "Eh, no, not obedient. They they need to submit. Submission also does not mean that the wife is inferior or that the male has full and total bottom line signing control.

Okay, that's not what this is saying. Lastly, we have to we have to look at this last part of the verse too. Here it says, "As is fitting in the Lord.

" And so what's really important here is yes, it does address husbands and wives, but we need to see that if Jesus is not in the husband or not in the wife, we'll talk about that in a second. If Jesus is not in the husband, then this submission section does not happen. Because if Jesus is not in him, then how can you co-lead. Because we're unequally yolked at that point. We believe different things.

So here's what submission is. Submission comes from this Greek word called hippoas. Almost sounds like hippopotamus.

Okay, that's how you run around. Hippotas, which really means in translation to arrange under. And I love the word arrange because it gives us a biblical picture of marriage that in marriage we are working together to arrange things under the submission submission of God. And so we're looking at scripture. We're looking at the word of God and we are together as husband and wife.

We are discussing through some of the big or maybe not so big questions, right. Who does the bills. How do we do the bills. What happens with who works and who doesn't.

Who does the dishes. Who does the lawn. Who changes the dirty diaper, which is the the one, right.

This is the one. Anyways, this is what happens in the context of marriage or a relationship is we want to start to work together to arrange under the mission that God has placed us on. But the the natural bent of women, just going to survey the room, make sure I made everybody uncomfortable. The guy's going to start talking about women.

The natural bent of women is to not involve the husband in some of these arrangements. And where I get this is from the very first sin in Genesis is that Eve comes and takes the apple from the serpent without consulting anything of what Adam wants to do and includes Adam in this in this rebellion. Now ladies, hear me when I say this. That doesn't mean that like you're just you're so sinful and we're not. That's not what I'm saying.

But what I am saying is sometimes we may write up a predescribed excuse for our husbands so that we can make a decision. And so because he's uninvolved or because he's working a bunch or because this or because that then I'm not going to involve him in any of these decisions. Now again Jesus needs to be in and the Holy Spir spirit needs to be speaking through your husband. But if we're excluding then we're not really doing this whole Bible verse which is talking about arranging and submitting under I think submission here can be better translated in a sense of respect and we can talk and split hairs about the words but I don't have time to get into it but one of my favorite books about marriage is this book called love and respect and just kind of summarizing some of the books chapters about what it looks like to be submiss to submit out of respect to your husbands.

Here's just a summary of it. It says, "Simple ways to respect a husband include acknowledging his efforts, speaking positively about him, seeking his input, avoiding public criticism, and honoring his roles and importance in the family. " Let me just summarize this verse by saying this.

Wives, your job is to build up your husbands and not tear them down. And that means that even, you know, and this applies to husbands and wives and this applies to dating, that means your words, just a reminder, your words mean more to him and have more weight than any other person. Okay, so that's wives. Do you mind if I go after the husbands for a little bit. Wives, you good.

Let's Let's get the husbands. Okay, let's make everybody mad this morning. Okay, so it says verse 19, "Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. " Sounds pretty straightforward.

Let's move on. All right, we're good. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Here's the thing. It sounds pretty simple on the surface, right. All I got to do as a husband, love my wife.

Do not be harsh with them. But here's what we mistake. The word love. The word love is a really interesting word because when we look at the Greek for love, there is four different kind types of love and they all express a different type of love.

And so there's felipe which is like brotherly love which is like Philadelph. That's how you can remember that. There's a storage kind of love which is like a family brotherly bond. And then there is aeros love.

Aeros love is your romcoms. It's romantic love. It is physical.

It is expressive in romantic love. But there's one more form of love because Paul is not talking about aeros love. He's not saying, "Husbands, be romantic with your wives. " He's saying, "Husbands, agape your wives. " Agape is the highest form of love.

Agape is more compared to Christ's love for us, which means it is sacrificial, which means it is unconditional. Which means guys, not only are you not harsh with your wife, but also you are sacrificial for her. That means when you are not getting the respect, that means when you do feel unloved, that means when you'd rather do something else, Jesus is saying, and Paul is saying, come to a place of sacrifice.

Ephesians says it like this, "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So Christ in his love died for the church. And so husbands, would you die for your wife.

Better question, husbands, would you live for your wife. Would you make choices to put your relationship and your marriage in and through everything. Now, I don't want to be unsympathetic here because again, I failed at this. Everybody has different relational backgrounds. You're applying your situations right now.

I can see it in your faces. You're like, "Oh my gosh, we're gonna have an awkward conversation in the car after this one. Thanks, Josh. Let me just give you a picture of what this looks like from my own life.

Chelsea, who's up here singing beautifully, is is my wife and we've been married now for 11 years and together for almost 13. And I I love my wife and there are times where we are trying to figure out some of these things together, these big decisions. And one of them was planting this church.

Honestly, about four years ago, or over four years ago, I felt a call from God to to plant a church. And so we went to this church planting assessment and and they they watched us for 12 hours a day for four days in a row. They evaluated us, put us through all these crazy tests and we passed and we came back. But the one thing that we sat down and talked about is that we were not ready to plant. And and my wife would would tell you up here and I have her permission to tell you.

My wife would tell you that it was never in her little dream diary as a child to be a pastor's wife, to be singing on a worship stage, to be a homeschool mom and a stepmom. Like, it was never in the cards for her. And so, this decision was a really big decision. Now, in unhealthy situations, two things could have happened. One thing is I could have been like, "Well, I'm the guy in the house and so you got to submit and be obedient.

We're planting a church, right. " Or the other way is, "Well, honey, you're completely right. I guess I'll just give up on what God is calling me to.

" Do you see how both of them in their own ways and respects are unhealthy. So, what did we do. What we did is we sought out God together. God, we we don't know.

And so we are taking you at your word. We're reading your word. We are praying together. We are seeking counsel together. We are seeking people that can reflect to us.

By the way, this is why a growth group is so important cuz you need this in your marriage. And eventually we both have came to the same decision at the same time for the same place for this time now. Now, you might say, "Whoa, that's an easy story, Josh. You got your way.

" No, I didn't. No, I didn't. , we got our way.

And we came under the mission of Jesus. And so it's so important, wives, husbands, even if you're looking at being married someday, that you work together, that you arrange together in such a way where you can come under God's purpose and plan for your life. Again, there's so much more I could say here, but we got to we got to keep going here with this verse, cuz not only do we want your marriage to be good, but we want you to be good as parents. Now, everybody in here, some some of you are not parents. And that's okay because you've all been children at one point, right.

None of us just got here. And you all have an influence on the next generation. So, let's read verse 20. Look at verse 20. It says, "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Fathers, do not embitter your children or they will become discouraged. " So, not only does Jesus need to be in your marriage, but Jesus needs to be in your kids. And here's the thing. As parents, we there's so many statistics that I'll read in a second that point to how we believe that we're responsible for our child's spiritual health.

But most of us, if we're being honest, feel unequipped to do so. And that's why we as destination are here not to replace you as that person but to encourage you to resource you. So here's some stats. 86% of parents admit that their children learned spiritual lessons at church that they themselves cannot teach.

Maybe for some of you growing up, you had parents that you asked some hard questions to and they couldn't give you answers, which by the way is fine in the short term. Okay, get to that in a second. 85% of parents said that they believe that their primary responsibility for teaching their children about religious beliefs and spiritual matters, but the majority do not spend time discussing or studying with their children. And there's so many studies out there that link a spiritual a spiritual connection that the child has to Jesus in the faith displayed by their parents.

And that's why parents, the toughest job you will ever have, and by the way, if you're a child, the toughest job that your parents ever had was not to pass down generational chains to you that you needed to deal with. And this is why this gets difficult is because some of us didn't have this model. I'm going to talk to that in a second.

But for those of us who are here and we have the opportunity because we have children, we want to be here as a church to help you do this. This is why, by the way, if you see our amazing kids director, her name is Felicia. You need to just give her a big thank you because she is taking everything that we do in here and she's taking that lesson and she's applying it in the kids ministry.

So what they're learning in there is also applicable to what you're learning in here. So you can go home and talk with your kids. That little handout that we give you, it's a handout that you can discuss with your kids.

Because I didn't know how to do this. I didn't know I didn't know how to lead my kids in in Bible study or to do any of these things. And so one of the things that I started doing with my oldest daughter is before bed because they always like to talk so much before bed is I'd ask her, "Do you have any questions just about life or about God or anything like that.

" And sometimes the questions would be like, "Oh my gosh, I don't know if I'm ever going to answer that. Did Adam and Eve have a belly button. " Oh, like right. But then some of them were like the questions you and I ask.

If somebody loves Jesus, why do bad things happen to them. Or you know, why did Jesus heal this person but not this person. And we get into these really deep discussions which by the way I did not have all the answers to.

But you know what my kids got to see. My kids got to see me struggle through finding the answer. And that taught them then that they can struggle through finding the answer themselves.

And so this is why this is so important. And I just need to point out why we do this. This is such an important verse for this family message that I don't want to skip.

It's Deuteronomy 66-9. And it says this. And these words that I command command you today shall be on your heart.

You shall teach them to diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit down in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as fortlets on your eyes and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. This is why again this value is so important to us. So that way that next generation that's back there, no matter what your influence is, whether your parent, grandparent, whatever it is, is that we pass down Christ and not chains.

And that's why this is so important to put Jesus in to the next generation. So Jesus in your marriage, Jesus in your kids. You guys still with me.

Jesus in your job. Ready for this one. Let's look at this.

I'm going to read a big section here and we'll we'll dissect it. Says, "Slaves obey your earthly masters in everything and do it. And not when their eye is on you to cury their favor, but in sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as you're working for the Lord and not human masters. Since you know you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward, it is the Lord Jesus you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs and there is no favoritism. So, let's talk about slavery. I'm just hitting all of it this morning.

No, we're not going to have a ton of time to talk about slaves, but Paul starts out by addressing slaves. And so, we just need to say these two things as a quick bridge into the next part. The Bible does not endorse slavery. The Bible addresses slavery as a situation that somebody would tell would find themselves in.

And so he's reminding believers that no matter who you work for on earth, they not they aren't as important as your heavenly relationship with your father, but that we ultimately find ourselves in a place where we can show Jesus in our workplace. And he gives us four ways that we can do that. Look at the four ways. He says first of all don't just do the work when their eye is on you to curry their favor.

So all of us you know if the boss is w work watching we work harder. The boss is not watching then well we can slack off a little bit. But what Paul is saying is whatever God puts in front of you work at it with all your heart.

Not to impress the coworker, not to impress your boss, not to get a raise, but because your heavenly father knows all and sees all. He sees how you work. That thing, that extra mile thing that you did this week that nobody saw, Jesus saw it. And we need to remember that because then then Paul says work as if you're working for the Lord and not human masters since you know you have received an inheritance from the Lord as your reward.

So the other reminder here is most of us are working to live. We're working to get the paycheck. But what Paul is reminding us is work in such a way that you're not building up just your earthly bank account. You're building up your heavenly bank account. This inheritance that God can give you is bigger than the inheritance that your job can give you.

And how I know that is because Jesus is the whole reason that we have jobs in the first place, right. They can be taken away and given in just an instant. And again, we can unpack this one even more. We didn't even talk about Jesus in your friendships yet, right.

There are so many different ways that we can talk about these relationships. We could be in a series for 12 weeks diving into each of these relationships in your life. But I need to just address the elephant in the room cuz I know you've all been thinking it this whole time. And I know as I was reading and studying for this message that I felt this the whole time.

What if you failed at some of these things. What if I've been failed at some of these things. What if I had bad parents. Or what if my parents never helped me understand God.

What if I have a weward child. What if I have an abusive husband or wife. Or what if my marriage is on the rocks.

Or what if my marriage is over. What if I'm on the way to getting divorced. What if I'm in my job right now and I just feel hurt and burnt out and broken and bitter and I just feel like my job is pulling me away from Jesus. See, when we talk about these things, every single person in this room has a unique experience that I I don't know, but God knows.

And God sees. And so, let me just give you some pastoral care for this morning and just really speak some life into you. See, your parents might have missed the mark, but you are still loved by your heavenly father. You may have missed the mark as a parent, maybe, but there's still time for your child's redemption.

You might be struggling in your marriage right now, but God is in the business of restoring relationships. I've seen it. But you may be or get separated or divorced, but Jesus wants to bring you hope and healing and bring you a hope in a future.

You may be hurt and overwhelmed and overworked at your job. But God came to bring you peace, to make your burden light, to give you purpose. You see, this is why this value matters.

Is because we need to see that when these relationships hurt, when these relationships are difficult, that Jesus sees us and knows us and wants to be in them with us. And so, please, if you don't hear anything that I'm saying this morning, hear this. Put Jesus in all of your relationships.

Would you bow your heads and pray with me. I'll invite the worship team up. And I just feel like for some maybe in this room, I know I was in this place where I had just gotten out of a divorce and trying to figure out, you know, what is what is God's view for family.

I I thought I did everything right. I thought I would was figuring everything out and then it it just all fell apart. So God, what do you what do you need. What do you what do you want me to do right now.

And for some of you this morning, the answer may just be you just need to rest in Jesus. You just need to say, "Jesus, I I trust you. Jesus, you are worthy.

You You see me at my best. You see me at my worst. And God, this job or God, this kid or God, the way I was raised or God, my marriage, whatever it is, the Father sees it. He knows it.

And he wants to reach you today. And to give you comfort and peace and to know that you're loved and cherished. But for some of us, we've never even put Jesus in that spot.

We've never even put Jesus first in all things, in whatever we do. And so, I just want to address this side of the room. If there's anybody in here today who just says, "You know what. I need to take a first step. I need to just boldly say, Jesus, I need you in my life.

Jesus, I need you as Lord and Savior. If that is you in this room, if you want to give your life to Jesus, would you just in a moment of boldness with everybody's eyes closed, heads bowed, would you just raise your hand so I know who I'm praying for. If you need to give your life to Jesus today, for those of you who raise your hand, you can put your hand down. I want to just encourage you to come meet with me, one of the leaders at the next steps table. But I'm going to pray for you and then I'll pray for all of us.

God, I thank you for three people who have raised their hands this morning to put you first in all things. God, I pray that following you would not be a burden, but God, that it would be a new life. That they would confess you as Lord over all things, over marriage, over kids, over jobs, houses, situations, that you would be in all things.

And God, I pray for all of us that despite how hard some of these relationships can be, that we would come to you and we would build our relationships on the foundation of your love in Jesus name. Would you stand as we close in worship.