Lessons From Your Family

Introduction

Well, good morning, everybody. Glad you’re here. when DeWitt said he was going to pick out songs that go with the lesson, he really did. And at first you’re like, oh great, songs that go with the topic, but then after a while, you’re like, hey, back off. You’re taking my point, you know. So he did a great job picking those songs out. again to our visitors, we’re very glad you’re here. We hope that you’ll come back and be with us anytime you can. if you’re watching online, please come join us when you have the opportunity. And to all of you who are visiting with us, you know, please give us time to greet you after services. Ask babies basically where are you from, you know, and that’s you know, when people see a slide like this when they get nervous, you know, when we go somewhere, it’s they’re gonna make us stand up, you know.

We’re not gonna do that, you know. But we do want to talk to you afterwards and greet you and ask you where you’re from, because where are you from is kind of a term that has a lot of meanings. And what I mean by that is sometimes it’s not a question of where you actually came from, but it’s more of a rebuke. It’s kind of like when women say, Oh, bless your heart, you know. So we all know what that means, right? You know, Jeff did the lesson today, bless his heart. Right, you know. but if you were to say something like, well, in and out burgers are actually better than Whataburgers, you might get a oh bless your heart. Or if you say barbecue is really pork and not beef, you know, women will say, Oh, bless your heart.

Or if I order my tamales online, you’ll get an oh bless your heart from the women, but men will kind of give you that look, like this guy. Even the horse is not happy with you when you say things like that. And we don’t say bless your heart, we’ll give you that. Where are you from? And what we mean by that is not where you’re from, but because you’re obviously not from here. To make statements like that about Whataburger is just wrong. So when we say where you’re from, there’s also a third meeting, and that’s the one we want to camp out. Where are we all from? Where did we come from? Why did God put us on earth like he did? You know, he had many ways he could have done it.

He could have done it one at a time, like this poor lady here. Just out there by yourself. God says, I’m just going to put one person on earth at one time. You’ll get a tree or fruit of knowledge of good and evil, you’ll get a snake to do battle with, and good luck. You know, and that’s the way he could have done it if he had chosen. He could have done it like this. He could have done it to where there’s everybody all at once. Instead of spacing us out over time, I’m just going to put everybody on earth, and you’ll just have to figure it out. You get a t-shirt and sunglasses like these people, and let’s go. You know, it’s just a mass start.

Well, he didn’t do that either. What he did was he gave us families. And that leads us back to our topic here, our families. He decided to do it over generations, one generation after the other. One generation coming from another. So you had great-grandparents and grandparents and parents and yourself. And then after you will come your children and grandchildren. And so, why did he do that? Was it just some random choice? Was there a plan involved? Well, I think there was a plan involved, and that’s going to be the topic of our lesson is why. So God built the world for us. Things he put on this world are to make the world operate, but also for other meanings. Ants. I really thought about starting with a picture of an ant.

I thought, I bet Tony’s never started a lesson with a giant picture of an ant. But then I thought more and he probably has. But we see he uses things like ants in Proverbs 6. It says, Go to the ant, thou slugger, consider her ways and be wise. So not that ants were put here just for that one verse, but he uses that. That is a teaching for the rest of us. Things like soldiers. 2 Timothy 2, 3 through 4 says, Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in actor service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. So do we do? And we’re drawing an analogy from soldiers that we know about to the life as a Christian.

How we don’t get entangled with other things and we dedicate ourselves to that. How about kings and kingdoms? John 18, 36, Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. So if we didn’t know what kings and kingdoms were, this meaning, or the meaning would be lost on us for something like this. But we do have these kind of things in the world. So notice there’s other things shepherds and sheep, birds, flowers, farmers, sowing seeds and gathering and things like that. So Jesus drew lessons from all of these in his teaching as well.

1. Lessons You Learned as a Child

And so what we’re going to look at today, what kind of lessons can we draw from our families? So we’re going to explore this and start with where you started as a child. You think about children, and you think back as far as you can remember. What are some of the lessons you learned just as small babies? And boy, we’ve got a lot of them here. And it’s fun to watch because we see the things that they go through and the things as they slowly learn about their lives. Well, the first thing every child learns is love.

You think back to your earliest memories, you’re going to have memories of toys and siblings, but you’re also going to have memories of your parents and the things that they did for you. How they had affection for you, how they would play with you and cuddle with you, and just, you know, you would have them in your face and talking with you and getting you to giggle and laugh. And that affection that they showed you is something that you learned early on. You learned that you had comfort from your parents. Now that when you were hurt or distressed or trying to sleep at night and couldn’t or whatever, your parents would come in and help you out. They would answer that cry. You had assurance. You knew that your parents were there for you.

You didn’t have to worry about being alone or figuring something out of your own. You were always secure. You weren’t hungry because your parents did what? They sacrificed for you. Even if it meant not getting the latest car or not having the latest clothes, maybe they’re sacrificing so you could have better. And this love that you learn at such an early stage, and it’s such a base level, is something that stick with you the rest of your life. And we’ve heard stories of even grown men on their deathbeds or soldiers of mortally wounded in battle, crying out for their mothers in these moments. You know, it’s not their buddy, it’s not the latest nurse they saw. It’s their they’re going all the way back to that earliest memory and calling out for their mothers who may have been passed away for several years.

It’s that deep inside of us. So we learn that early on. And we know that whatever happens to us, we understand that our parents are always going to love us. We can see in Romans 8 37 through 39 says, but in all things we are overwhelmingly conquered through him who loved us. For I’m convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, or principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So we see that same love that we learned as a child helps us understand the love of God for us. And you can refer back to that and relate back to that how my children or my parents loved me and loved me, even if I’ve done wrong.

Even if, you know, and we see this on the news, you know, oh, we know so and so he did wrong, but the parents are like, Yeah, yes, he did wrong, but we still love him. We want the best for him, we want to support him. And so it’s that same thing for us. So we learn love in an early stage, and like we said, that helps us learn more about God, but we also learn no. You know, that’s probably one of the first things your kids ever learned, other than love, is like, no, that’s wrong. Don’t touch the end and pe kids will start saying that. Children will say, No, back to you. Because that’s a word that they figured out, that means you can’t do this, that there’s something beyond you.

Or if you break a rule that there’s consequences for that. And it’s just sometimes no for children means you don’t get what you want. You don’t get something. But it’s a it’s an easy thing, and it’s one of the earliest ones. James 4, verse 3 says, You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. So that same idea, well, yeah, you asked for something, but no. Romans eight twenty eight, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. So sometimes the answer is no, because it’s for your best, it’s for your well-being. And the same with our parents.

You know, they say no to this, no to that, but it’s not because they don’t want you to be happy, they don’t want you to have things, it’s because it’s what’s best for you. So children start to learn that as well. And then along with no is oftentimes the because I said so. And I know we’ve all said that. Now I’m not saying we shouldn’t explain things to our children. No, we are the we should be the source of the knowledge about the world to our children. So when you can, yes, you do explain things, but they also have to learn there’s times when you just mind right now. Carrie told me about an episode of Little House on the Prairie that she saw where the mother of the family had some kind of situation that suddenly came up and told the children, just listen, go inside or stop, or whatever it was.

You just I can’t explain it right now, just do what I say. And they did, and so it alleviated the danger of that situation. But sometimes that’s what you have to do, and your kids have to understand that sometimes it’s not time for a long lesson of why this, why that, because children like to ask why for a lot of things. But oftentimes it’s just mind and do, because you need to hear this right now. and also in involved in the because I said so is the idea of talking back. Children need to understand that they need to learn a respect for authority, and that authority better come from their parents. And hopefully, when you were a young child, you learned that at an early stage, that I respect my parents, and I learn to respect that authority over me, and that’s going to help me later on in life.

And it’s also going to help you when it comes to your relationship with God. Romans 9, verse 20. It says, On the contrary, who are you, old man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, Why did you make me like this? Will it? Well, no, it won’t. We don’t answer back to God. Job learned that. In the book of Job, chapter 40, verses 1 and 2. Job has questioned his situation. And then God says, Well, then the Lord said to Job, Will the fault finder contend with the Almighty? Let him who reproves God answer it. Because you’re going to find fault with me. You’re going to question me. And then he says later on in verses 6 through 8.

Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm and said, Now gird up your loins like a man. I will ask you and you instruct me. Will you really annul my judgment? Will you condemn me that you may be justified? So we see Job’s attitude in all this is like, nope. He realizes he messed up, and he says so in the in the verses in between those two. But still, God goes on. And if you really feel kind of too big for your bridges at times, you know, just open the book of Job into chapter 40 and following, and pretend that’s you that God’s dressing down. And it’ll set you straight really quick. You know, that was the message to Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden.

You know, leave that thing alone. Don’t touch it. There was an episode of an old TV show called Mash, where somebody was given an order, and they started questioning things. And finally they obeyed the order and came back and said, Well, why didn’t you tell us? That was a good idea. And the officer in charge said, you know, I don’t have to explain orders to you. Just do what I say. And sometimes that’s the case. Some, you know, if there’s something that we don’t understand, we still do it. Maybe we can learn about it later, but we should learn to obey. We should learn to respect that authority and do what it says. Then also is the idea of trust me. You know, so no, because I said so and trust me, really go together.

But we often tell our children, let’s get in the car, we’re going to go do this. Well, what’s it like? Well, it’s going to be fun. Well, maybe I don’t want to, and then you finally have to say, just trust me and do it, you know. And of course, they like it. You know, well, maybe I don’t want to go to the Grand Canyon. Maybe I don’t want to go to this park or Disney World or whatever it is. And you have to just say, Trust me, you’re going to like it. Just do it. And so God was the same way, you know. You know, when it came to Naaman in 2 Kings chapter 5, go dip in the river seven times. I mean, at first, what was his reaction?

No, I don’t want to do that. That’s dumb. I got nice rivers where I’m from. But still, the idea was that, you know, somebody convinced him, say, why don’t you just do it? Why don’t you just have enough trust to go do that? And it worked out. We saw the children of Israel often fall into this trap where they would resist God. They would get in trouble, they would turn to God would deliver them from their circumstance, then they would go back to not trusting them anymore. And so that kind of the lesson God’s been trying to get across to all of us for so long. Just trust me. You know, you’re going to really rely. You’re really going to like the results in the end.

But the child that doesn’t learn this is at a disadvantage. But then there’s a lesson of belonging that you learn at a young age. You learn that you belong to a family. You’re a part of a family, even your brothers and sisters, which can be the difficult part, but it’s a sense of being part of something. You’re one of us. And when we look at the people here today, we see all the different families that are represented, and we see how they have that continuity of a family. And you have your friends and your family and all those people, and that becomes your group. Proverbs 17 says, A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. We see that you can count on your friends, you can count on your family.

John 13, 34 and 35. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this will only know that you’re my disciples if you have love one for another. Or you love one another. So it’s that idea that you’re not just here as an individual detached from the rest of the group. Here, your family. You’re part of us. I had a school teacher one time tell me that you know, kids in high school, especially, they need to be part of organizations like sports teams or band or other things. It says, because that gives them a sense of group or a sense of something to belong to, and it’s harder for somebody who doesn’t be a part of anything in school because they’re just kind of alone and adrift.

And so it’s it’s something that’s better for you. Think of this. Your brethren are already facing an ugly world. We have rude, ugly people, they’re dismissive, they’re mean, intolerant, and all kinds of things. They certainly don’t need that here as well. We need to be accepting of our fellow Christians and help them through these trials of life. A child needs its home to be a haven from the world, and your brethren need that at the church as well. And it’s think about how we treat others. Now we have kind of these levels.

Well, that term agape love always comes out. That means it’s the highest form of love you can have. And we can have this love that Christ had. And oftentimes people will have that kind of love. And it’ll mostly be people you’ve known for a while, your closest friends, because you would do anything for them. You want to spend time with them. You want to help them any way you can. you have another level basically down from that’s like the acceptance level. Okay, maybe we’re not best friends, but I still love somebody else in this congregation. I still want to do things for them, but yeah, we’re not best buds, but I still accept you. You’re still one of us. You still belong here. that’s the way we should at least on the base level treat each other.

But even if you can’t do that, at least have some acceptance for your brethren. At least acknowledge their existence. You know, that’s kind of a minimum level I know, but there’s there’s always that level that you can get to. Notice this, I got this off our Decker Prairie webpage. What do we have? Look at the hashtags at the bottom. Decker Prairie is family. So the idea of what? That the attributes of a family we want to reflect here. Again, that caring for each other, that loving for each other, that willingness to help each other is seen here. And also you belong here is another hashtag out there. You belong here. That idea of belonging to something, and how important that is. So when Jesus was look walking the earth, you know, he wasn’t ignoring people.

2. In Adulthood You Learn Love

He saw the woman at the well. He saw the crippled and the blind, he saw the poor, the lost. He wasn’t too good to talk to somebody. He was good enough to talk to other people, even when they are in these lowest states. So he sought these opportunities out. He helped other people out. We need to be the same way. The next stage in your life, though, again, kind of referring to the 33 class that we’re doing with the men, you know, the stages of life. You’re not a child forever. You grow up. Once you get into adulthood, well, what do you learn there? Well, you learn love. Again, it’s the love that you founded in your childhood phase, but now you’re an adult and it’s grown.

It’s a different kind of love. Because you’re not just loving your parents, hopefully you still do, but you also find somebody else to love. You’ve got that other someone that’s caught your eye, and you think about them and you kind of get this tunnel vision. And we see this a lot with teenagers and young adults when they fall in love. They get a tunnel vision and they kind of forget everything else. And it’s funny to watch them. there was Bambi. Do you remember the movie Bambi? I think that old Al said they were twitter pated. It was a weird term, but it meant just kind of people kind of losing their minds in love, or they’re they’re seeking out one another. And you think about love and all this changes.

It’s the strongest emotion that we have. if you ask somebody who’s going through a breakup or hard times with a boyfriend or girlfriend, you know, they’re devastated by it. You know, it’s not just eh, no big deal. You know, it’s it’s a very difficult thing. Because we’re built to seek out these loving attachments. It’s also God’s strongest emotion if you think about it. 1 John 4 8. It says the one who does not love, does not know God, for God is love. You think what defines God in this world? Actual love. He is love personified. So, how is this supposed to be in marriage? Well, that’s how it’s supposed to be in marriage. you have this love for one another like God loves us, and that you would do all for your bride or groom.

You love them with all you have. And it’s the same between Christ and the church. So we see the church is often referred to as the bride of Christ. John 3 29 says, He who has the bride is the bridegroom. This is John the Baptist speaking. And it says, but the friend of the bridegroom, meaning him who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has become has been made full. Why? Because he saw Christ on the earth, now establishing his church. And he was like, I’m the best man, and I get to see this, and I’m happy for him. Because I love Christ, and I’m glad to see him setting this up. So he’s the bridegroom. Revelation 19, verse 7 says, Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.

Who’s the bride of Christ? We are the churches. And then later on in Revelation 21, verse 9, it says the one of the seven angels, I’m sorry, then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. Okay, so that whole relationship that a man has with his wife, that understanding and that bonding and that oneness is what we see. So you love your spouse, just like Christ loved the church, and that’s reflected in these verses. Also the idea of two becoming one, not in a physical sense, but when you’re married, you know, the whole statement about two becoming one is a reflection of Christ and the church.

And he explains this really well in Ephesians 5, 22 through 33. And we can read this together. It says, Wives be subject to your own husbands, as the Lord, as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church. He himself being the savior of the body, but as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be subject to their husbands and everything. Oh, sorry, we’ll keep first. Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church and all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.

Because we are members of his body. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh. This mystery is great, but I’m speaking in reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you should also love his wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. So you see that there’s this whole balance between the Christ and the church that reflects the balance between the husband and the wife. How we’re one as a family, just as Christ is the head of the body, the Roof. I’m sure everybody’s probably heard of that if they haven’t seen it. But the main character, I can’t remember his name at the moment, but he asked his wife in one scene, Do you love me?

And she goes, Well, yeah, I mean, I cook for you, I clean for you, I take care of the kids, I do all this. And he says, But do you love me? And she’s like, yeah, I kind of just answered it, didn’t I do all this stuff? And then he asked her again, and the whole idea is that, you know, do you love me? Not do you do stuff for me? Have you found yourself comfortable in this situation that we have? But do you really deep down inside love me? And that’s what he was trying to ask her. And we get that same sense in John 21 15 when Jesus asked Paul three times, do you love me? And you see Paul gets upset by this because he’s saying, you know, do you love me?

He’s like, well yeah, of course I love you. And why would he ask him those three times? Because it really made him stop and think, not just yeah, answer quick. Yeah, I love you, but do you really love me? And it’s that same deep affectionate love that he’s trying to get to with Paul. And it’s that same deep emotional love. That’s what John was talking about on the Lord’s Supper table this morning about you know not just doing it in rope repetition, but you know really getting the deep understanding and the deep meaning. So he’s asking you know, do you really love me deep down inside? And that’s the kind of love that you need to have between you and your spouse.

3. As Parents, You're Learning Love

That’s the kind of love that God wants from you as one of his children. Let’s move on to the next point here and that’s once you finally reach that last stage or almost last stage, you become parents. And so as parents, that changed everything. You know, getting married is one thing, but becoming parents changes your whole world. I remember when we had our first child, I was going to get a nap. And then Carrie said, I think my water broke, and I haven’t been rested since then. I was gonna watch a football game after that, and no, but you know, we had children, and that’s how it happens. all your Facebook posts stop becoming pictures of your cat and dog and become pictures of your babies.

Diapers, other kids’ diapers were a problem, but your own kids’ diapers are not a problem anymore. Because as a parent, yes, again, you’re learning love. And it’s changed again, it’s a different kind of love than you had before. It’s not just love of my parents, it’s not just love that I have for my spouse, but it’s a love for something that can’t really love you back at this at the beginning. So it’s helpless, it eats, it sleeps, it gets sick, it needs changing, it wakes you up all hours of the night, but still you would do anything for your children, and you all know that, especially mothers. you worry about them even when they don’t have a care in the world. You do things for them that they don’t even know about or don’t thank you for, and we can all understand that.

You spend money on them that they could never repay. That’s how we treat our children. And you can almost hear God say to you when all this is happening, as you’re looking at your child and thinking about all this stuff, you can hear God saying, now you understand. You know what it’s like for God in this situation that you have such love for something, excuse me. You have such love for something that cannot imagine what that’s like. Excuse me. But you want to do good for them. It’s experiential learning that we’re going through. And you think, how else could we understand truly that love that God has for us without going through that? I know not everybody’s reached that stage where they have children. But it is something that you see and it hits you and you understand it.

And it starts to make a sense. You know, why are we the way we are? Why are we brought into the way we are? You want to do good things for your children at all times. Matthew 7, verses 9 through 11 says, What man is there among you? Who when a son asks for a loaf will give him a stone. Or if he asks for a fish, will he not give him a snake? Will he? If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give what is good to those who ask him? Well, that’s true. You think how much you love for your children and want to give them stuff. Do you think you originated that?

God did. And he wants to do for you just like you want to do for them. Matthew 7 and 8 says, Ask and it will be given to you. This is the verse just preceding what we talked about. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks, receive. And he who seeks finds. Enter him that knocks will be open. That’s our problem, I think, in most cases. We don’t ask. We don’t seek, we don’t find. We don’t tell God what we need. But God wants to give you stuff just like you want to give your children stuff. He wants to help you in the same ways. So you want to teach them things that they need to know growing up.

You want to teach them how to be respectful, like you were taught. You want to teach them the meaning of the word know, like you were taught. Proverbs 1, verses 7 to 9 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Hear my son, your father’s instructions, and do not forsake your mother’s teachings. Indeed, they are graceful wreaths on your head and ornaments around your neck. So, yeah, we want to teach our children stuff. We want to instruct them. You discipline them also. You do it out of love. So you want them to know right from wrong. You want them to be respectful of what’s right. Romans 12 verse 7. For it is, it is for the disciple, excuse me.

It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? Disappointed when they fail to do right. So you can be disappointed when your children fail to do right. And so that same feeling is what God has. You know, he wants you to do right. He’s going to teach you and instruct you in what’s right, but still we can let him down. And of course, you care for them, what they’re going to be like in the future. So it’s not always perfect. And I know everybody can look at this, or not everybody can look at this, go, yeah, that reflected my situation completely. You know, you don’t have children yet, or you know, you’re still young and haven’t found somebody that you want to marry yet.

Or you’re in a situation where, like in this case, your parents weren’t like that. We know a lot of people who grow up in poor homes. What does that mean for you? Does that mean it’s totally lost on you? No, we can still do what’s right. We can still learn what’s right. I know we see the world around us and we see it slipping further and further into the pit. Each generation getting worse because of the mess made by the previous generation. But I have a good analogy where I think it’s good. It said, before people started sharing memes with each other on Facebook, people would do that same kind of thing, but we do it with photocopies. And so back in the 80s and 70s and all that, you would get a photocopy of something that you thought was funny, and then you’d make a copy of it and then pass it on.

Well, these photocopies would get worse and worse and worse over time. And that’s kind of what we get in a world that doesn’t point to God’s word, it does get more degraded generation after generation. But if we have the source, if we have people who are continually looking to the Bible for guidance and God’s word for hallelujah, you’re never going to get that degradation that evolves year after year. And if you’re in a situation where things are not what they should be because they digress so, you can still get back to the original, get back to the source by going to the Bible. Maybe your spouse doesn’t see it that way, meaning that you’ve married somebody who’s not a Christian or have difficulty with, and there’s just not that partnership and getting your children to learn the right way.

You can still do your part.

Maybe you’re saying my kids just aren’t interested. Well, you can still do what’s best for them, even though they don’t understand. Sometimes they’re so young they don’t know how to make the right decisions, and saying, No, we are going to go do this. We’ve seen situations where even going to like a church camp in the summer, they’ll say, Oh, well, so and so didn’t want to go, so I’m not going to make them go. And you know, our point of view has always been, no, you’re going to camp. You know, you know. And we send them off to camp or take them to camp. And at the end, of course, they were like, Oh, this is great. I’m glad I went. So, you know, you do what’s best for your children.

4. Well Begun Is Half Done

Now, sometimes, you know, you need to start when they’re young enough that you can have that influence on ’em. Well begun is half done. This is our last point of the morning. If you look this up, it was either originated by Aristotle or Mary Poppins, depending on your source. But like I said before, sometimes your children are just too young to decide what’s right. So you need to set that wise goal at a young age. so what we’re saying is young people, decide when you’re when you’re starting off that you want to do what’s right from the beginning. It really makes life so much easier. I’ve been fortunate enough to be in this church my whole life, and I don’t want to say it’s just been totally easy, but it’s made so many decisions easier.

Some of the mistakes I’ve seen happen around me, I’ve learned from, but I’ve learned from other people’s mistakes, not my own as much. So I’ve had money of my own, but just set your mind on doing what’s right now, and then it’ll alleviate so many of the pitfalls and traps that people get into and wish they could get out of. I don’t know how many smokers I’ve seen that said, I wish I could quit. How many alcoholics just wish they could quit? You know, just don’t get into those situations. And this find yourself someone who wants to go to heaven with you. And that’s probably the best advice I ever got from anybody. Find somebody who’s as dedicated to going to heaven, they don’t care about these other things, not worried about a career or anything out, but worried about going to heaven and making sure I get there.

Thank you. But that’s that’s how it goes, you know. You’ve got somebody with you and they’re on your side and they’re gonna do what’s best for you, even when you’re not thinking about it. And with them, you want to agree to raise your children in the Lord. Because you’re gonna do what’s best for those kids. You want to be with them eternally. I know we’re talking to their caramelas about, yeah, we know you’re leaving at some point, which apparently is a very flexible schedule. But, you know, at their first going-away party that we had, they said, you know, the point was made that, yeah, we know you’re going to be up in Oklahoma. Maybe, you know, they were of course inviting everybody up, but if we don’t get to see you anymore here, we’ll see you on the other side, and we’ll be together forever after that.

It’ll be awesome. So that’s what we want to do. We want to be up there with our children at the same time. You know, you think how glorious that’s going to be. Our children live somewhere else. We love it when we get a chance to see them. But even if we never do again, we’ll still see them in heaven. And then finally start now. Whatever situation you’re in can always be that starting place. You say, well, I know I need to be doing this. Well, maybe you’re not going to be perfect at it, but you can at least start working in that direction. So our lesson has really been to try to draw some analogies, draw some lessons from what it’s like to have an earthly family and see how that helps us understand the spiritual realm better.

Conclusion

Often in Christ’s teachings, he talks about the physical realm and the spiritual realm, or people who live for the world or carnal, and people who live for Christ or are living a spiritual life. And he says there’s a big difference between those two groups. And I can tell you that living for Christ, living in that spiritual realm is by far the best way to go. So if you haven’t decided how you want to live your life, you need to think long and hard on that. If you have decided and you want to put on your Lord and baptism, start walking that spiritual plane, learn all the lessons of life that you can. We invite you to do that now as we stand and scene.