Abundant Living Family Church

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know, last week we started a thought within this
Circus series because life and family is a circus, and
our families a little bit more are more likened to
a circus than anything else.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
And so last week we launched a thought.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
I shared a thought about the concept of never dating
or in other words, understanding the value of your dating season.
And how can we as parents get our children to
either not make the same mistakes we did in our
youth or be able to train them in a way
that they understood the value of dating. Or maybe you're older,
you're in your thirties forties, and you've dated in the past,

(00:34):
but has it.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Always worked out well?

Speaker 1 (00:36):
And you want to be able to date well moving
on in the future so that you could find the
right person.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
For your life.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
And so how do we biblically approach these values that
God gives us in the Bible around dating and courtship.
So if you missed last week's message, I encourage you
when you leave today go to our website or go
to our YouTube channel and check out part one of
Never Date in this Circus series. Or also you could
just join us today you'll be able to catch up

(01:03):
as well. And so before we dig in. Would you
join me in a moment of prayer as we go
to God for this message today, God, we come before
you right now, Father God, and we just trust this
moment to you.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Father. We trust this message to you. Lord. We believe through.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Your word we cannot only discover the scriptures, but we
can also discover our rules and plans for our life.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
According to your word.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Lord, you have so much value to give us. You
have so many things in your word that are there
to not only lead us into salvation, but also to
lead us into life. And so God, may today we
be in a place where we can have life and
have an abundantly Lord. May we have success in our relationships.
May we have success in our friendships, and may we
have success in our marriages. Today, Father God, we give

(01:48):
this moment to you, and we give this day to
you in Jesus Mighty name. Amen and Amen. Hey, I
want you guys to check this out a little bit
about what we talked about last week is if you
do us simple Google search. If you go to Google
and you look at non ministry related things and you
ask Google, what should every young person know before they

(02:08):
go in adulthood? So what should every teenager know what
should every young adult know that's in college.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Here's a little bit of a.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
List of non church related questions that they encourage you
to ask or answer a young person and teach them
before they come of age. One of the first things
they want us to know is find what you're passionate about.
We're encouraged at a young age to find what it
is that you love to do.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
And we hear that saying all the.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Time is if you discover something that you love to do,
you'll never work a day in your life. Has anyone
ever heard that statement before or something like that before.
We all heard that before. The right career will bring
you the right money. You know, we're taught at a
young age to start thinking about your career. Start thinking
about what you'll do for a living, and make sure
that you understand how much money that career might bring

(02:58):
you for your future. Next one is we're taught build
a resume. We start to learn in college and other areas.
Make sure you sell yourself well for a job one day.
Make sure you can articulate, make sure you have work experience.
That's why you see kids in high school they join
this club and that club because they want to get
into a good college, and a good college wants to

(03:19):
see what programs are they a part of, What clubs
are they a part of?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
What are their grades?

Speaker 1 (03:23):
The next one is this, do your homework, get good grades.
You get good grades, you get into a good college. Right,
We're taught all these things all the time. Let me
see your test. How many parents have you done that before?
Show me one of your tests. Oh, you gotta d
you gotta do better at that, You gotta f you
gotta do.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Better at that.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Listen, you can't play on your iPad, you can't go
on your PlayStation until you get better grades. We've all
said something along that lines before, or heard it ourselves
growing up. We're also taught do your chores. It's about
time you do your part in here in this household.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Right.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
So we have our kids, they start picking up dog poop,
start taking.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Out the trash.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
My son's job, who's for his job right now, is
to bring in the mail. And one of his things
is when he walks right through the door, he thinks
that's a place to release all of the mail.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
And so he walks in the.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Door and just yesterday his mail was everywhere at the
front door. I told him, did I tell you to
bring the mail in? And he said, yes, I brought
it in. I passed the door and that's where it went.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Right. So we're all teaching.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
We're all taught start to do chores and start to
learn your chores. And then we're also taught this is
learn to vote. Right from junior high, high school, college.
What do they have they have asb associated student body.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
It's a form of voting. It's to prepare us.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
In high school, you have government economics starts to teach
you how to be a citizen, how to do your part.
Mind you, these are really good things. There's nothing wrong
with any of these things. These are valuable wisdom for
a person's life, very good things that people need to
learn and know. And also we're taught this know how
to change a tire, just simple things. Learn how to
change your oil or change tire, how to maybe fix

(05:01):
a sprinkler, valve or knob, or how to turn on
your hot water or fix your hot water. Right, we
just taught valuable kind of skills for life. Right, some
of these things we learn. Next thing we learn is
learn how to pay your taxes. One of the things
we don't want to do is overpay Uncle Sam. Right.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
So I remember my first job.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
I worked at Zuomi skate shop at Victoria Gardens, and
I did my math. I worked twenty hours that week,
and I made this much per hour. So on my head,
I said, I'm walking away with this much on my
first paycheck. And then I get my first paycheck and
I say, CA tax, federal tax, social Security insurance, this
and that, and so it went from five hundred dollars

(05:41):
to one hundred and twenty five dollars. I'm thinking to myself,
oh wow, this is crazy. I learned about taxes really
fast at that time, sixteen. I understood what taxes were
right away. The next thing we're taught is take care
of your health. Make sure you make sure what you
put in your body matters. Make sure that you pay
attention to your health. Make sure you pay attention to

(06:02):
your heart, make sure you pay attention. And all of
those who are getting older and older, we start to
learn more things cholesterol, blood pressure. Stuff we took for
granted when we were kids. So we start to learn
these things.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Now.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
When you look at these things, these are all very
valuable things for life. The only issue is is we
are never taught through those things how to have success
in your marriage one day, which majority of us will do.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Majority of us will get married.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
One day, and were never taught how to have success
in your family majority of us will have kids one day,
and so at a young age we start to learn
that there are far more valuable things in life rather
than the thing that is Actually if you have a
broken family, if you go through a hard marriage, if
you go through a divorce like we talked about last week,
that's one of the most detrimental things that you could

(06:52):
go through in your life. And anyone who's ever been
through a divorce, they would say, I would like to
never go through that again. Hopefully if I get remarried day,
I don't want to go into that marriage expecting a
new the same outcome. I wouldn't want to be in
another divorce if I've been in one. Right, So, how
do we successfully teach our next generation or also if
we're in a place of singleness, whether through divorce or

(07:14):
just single still in our life, how do we ensure
that I have a healthy relationship moving forward? How can
we teach the next generation what healthy relationships look like?
So here's one of the things a lot of those
questions that are ask is how to have you know,
how to have passion.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
For your future, how to pay your taxes.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Those are all really good things to teach someone that's young,
very valuable things. But here's one thing that I think
every young person should be taught in their youth is this,
how do I divorce proof my future? That's an important thing.
I think if more of us talked about divorce prevention
and divorce proofing our life, then what would happen is

(07:53):
we would start to see more healthy relationships happen. You know, America,
fifty percent of marriages will in divorce in the first
ten to fifteen years. And so what we're talking about
is one out of every two people will have marriage crisis,
will have marriage issues ultimate leading to fifty percent of
them moving forward with divorce. And so fifty percent of

(08:16):
them are actually moving forward with divorce. How many more
of that statistic is just people in a broken marriage,
that's just surviving, that's just living. That says they don't
want to be in it, but maybe they have some
different values, maybe they feel like they can't do it.
So how do we have success in our relationships according
to God's word, or better yet, if you don't like
that term, how do I divorce proof my future? The

(08:38):
next question would be, then how do I honor God
in my relationship? How do I honor God in my relationship?
Here's what we have to understand, and here's what the
next generation has to understand is this is we have
to understand. Well, we're not getting any internet connection today,
which is okay, we don't need it, so it created
a new one. There we go, Okay, we're in trouble

(09:01):
with this one. Isn't always the time that you need something,
it's the time that it doesn't want to work like
it worked perfectly yesterday, and things like that. I want
us to look at this right now, we have a verse.
I want to see that in Jesus's word. In the word,
Jesus says a statement in Matthew chapter nineteen, verse three
to eleven.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
I want you to read this scripture that Jesus says.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
He says this, and the Pharisees came up to him
and tested him by saying, is it lawful to divorce
one's wife for any cause? He answered, have you not
read that? He who created them? From the beginning made
them male and female is 'x first and said, therefore
a man shall leave his father and mother and hold

(09:42):
fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
So they are no longer two, but one flesh. He
talks about the unity before God that happens, and then
he says, what therefore God has joined together, let not
man separate. They said to him, why then did Moses
command one to give a certificate of divorce and to

(10:05):
send her away? He said to them, because of your
hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
But from the beginning it was not so.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
And I said to you, whoever divorces his wife except
for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery. The disciples
said to him, if such is the case of a
man with his wife, it is better not to marry.
If you didn't know, disciples were teenagers. So the Disciples
started at about age thirteen, and then Peter was probably

(10:38):
the oldest. But majority of all of them were single.
And so that's a very teenager statement to say. So
what happens is is Jesus for a moment will finish
the scripture in a second, Jesus for a moment, talks
about the unity between a man and a wife. How
in God's eyes, when someone commits himself to someone, God
takes two people and he makes them one flat. And

(11:01):
then God says, well, whatever God has put together, it's
gonna be hard for man to separate. In other words,
he's speaking of the certificate of divorce. It's hard to
separate something God has already honored.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
And then he says, but there's some exceptions.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
It's there for adultery and things like that. Then there's
permissible areas to be divorced. But he said this, But
he said, but all intensively. God really values the person
that you decide, and in heaven he unites you spiritually
and physically and considers you.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
To be one flesh.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
So the disciples say this, well, if it sounds that
much of a headache, why do we even get married.
Something a teenager would say, right is when they hear
how much work something is, a teenager wants to say, well,
why are we doing it anyway?

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Why do we even do it?

Speaker 1 (11:52):
And so then Jesus continues in the scriptures, when they
say why do we do it anyway? It says he
said to them in verse eight, because of your heart
of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But
from the beginning it was not so. And I say
to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual morality,
marries another commits adultery. The disciples said to him, if

(12:13):
such is a case of a man with his wife,
is better not to marry. And Jesus said, But he
said to them, not everyone can receive this saying, but
only those who it's given.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Jesus says, I know what I just.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Said is a hard pill to swallow, but only those
who truly hear my words will treat relationships with the
value that it deserves.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
So that's what Jesus tells us. So Jesus tells us.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Not everyone will take marriage and relationship as serious as
a disciple of Christ.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
That's the reality.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Not everyone will honor God in the same way that
God expects us to honor him in our relationships. Thank you, hovey,
you look great today. Man. By the way, I like
that T shirt. So here's what we have to understand
before we get into a few things today. Is we
have to understand this is relationships are like a funnel

(13:10):
and here you have your singleness and here you have dating,
and whatever you do in those seasons will funnel into
your marriage. Okay, this is a funnel. What happens in
these two seasons will trickle down. Here's what a lot

(13:32):
of us think that marriage is. We think that whatever
I do in my singleness and whatever I do in
my dating.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Progresses and I learn new.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
Things, and the things I don't like in my singleness
I can cut off when I take into dating, and
then the things that I don't like in my dating
I can cut off, and I could take in my marriage.
And then a lot of us, if we go into
a second marriage, we treat it like this second marriage.
We think, oh, well, whatever I didn't like in my
first marriage, I can cut off. But what we have

(14:07):
to understand is the next marriage you go down into
will funnel into your second marriage. So unless we go
to God for healing and wholeness and sanctification, because the
only one that can heal this, the only one that
can correct this is Jesus Christ. He's the only one

(14:30):
that can take our brokenness. He's the only one that
could take our imperfection. He's the only one that can
take our broken heart, and he can give us healness.
He can heal us. He talked to the woman at
the well and he said, you got five boyfriends that
you've slept with, and you're living with the guy right now.
But what does he do? He tells her, I got
living water for you. I can heal that. I can
heal you. I can heal your brokenness. So there is

(14:52):
a way to break through this. But it's only through one.
So not only is salvation through one man, but wholeness
and healing in relationships is only through one. But what
a lot of times we teach our young people is
this is you can separate every season. You can't separate
every season. So you enter in pornography right here in

(15:16):
your singleness season. You're gonna take it into your dating.
If you don't have victory and in your dating, then
you're gonna take it into your marriage because it's all
the funnel, it's what you're taking into those things. And
so today what we have to do is we have
to understand the value and for a moment briefly, together,
we're gonna look at to some statistics that are gonna

(15:36):
help us realize what we do in the single season
and the dating season does truly affect our marriage season.
We're gonna understand the weight and the value of decisions
according to statistics, but that are rooted in the word
of God. So we're gonna spend a few moments looking
at some divorce statistics. And here's the thing, Like I

(15:57):
already said, it's important that if we're gonna teach someone
how to divorce proof their future, they're gonna have to
understand why and how people get in divorces. That's an
important thing to note because what we notice is habits
that we do when we're younger actually lead our probability
of divorce. If I was talking to someone who was
a body builder, they wanted to go on stage and

(16:18):
they wanted to compete, well, one of the things I
would tell them is I would talk to them about
the statistics behind their eating. Right, if they just said, Hey,
I want to be a bodybuilder, but every day I
want to go to McDonald's every day. I want to
eat cupcakes every single day. But the week before my
figure competition, I'm gonna go to God in prayer. I'm
gonna go to church seven days a week. I'm gonna

(16:39):
make sure I give God, my everything right. We do
that stuff all the time. We say, oh God, I
want to have success in my relationships. I want to
have success in my marriage. But we're eating Life's cookies, donuts, McDonald's,
We're putting stuff before our eyes. We're saying cute, little
flirty things at work. And then in the ninth hour
when our marriage is in trouble, what do we do?
Start going to church, are praying, Start telling God to

(17:01):
clean something up that I've spent five, ten, twenty years
embedding in. And now I'm spiritually obese and my marriage
is obese. It's not fit, it's not happy, it's not fresh.
And so we teach our young people then that habits
these habitual things that we're.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Doing all the time.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
So these statistics are gonna be really important for us
to note today, and we're gonna have them up on
the screen. Majority of people who get in a divorce,
they say it's because a lack of commitment. One side
wasn't committed, or both sides were not committed to each other.
And that comes in various different ways that we'll see
here in a moment. Fifty six percent of divorces happened
because they say they've argued too much. It was a

(17:40):
fight every single day, every single day, they were getting
into it. Over fifty five over fifty percent of marriages
are because of infidelity.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Someone has had an affair.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Now, that statistic is mainly the act of having an affair.
That does not include the statistic of other things that
isn't seen For why an affair happened in infidelity, Forty
six percent say that they were just married too young.
We had to do it because one got pregnant, We
had to do it for this reason or that reason,
or we were in college, we were twenty and we

(18:11):
were in love. We thought we could do this together well.
Forty six percent say it was too young. Forty five
percent say they had unrealistic expectations. They wanted someone to
do something for them that they were not prepared to
do in their life. Forty four percent say lack of
equality in the relationship. I didn't feel like they were
equal to the other person or didn't treat them equal.

(18:33):
Forty one percent says lack of preparation in the marriage.
We did not prepare well to be married. A lot
of them will say, now, let's look at some statistics
that will begin to help you understand. And what I
love is these statistics I'm going to share in a moment.
They're more sentenced statistic is. The beauty is we would
know this in church and through God's word. Many of

(18:54):
these things to exist. But the beauty is of the
statistics I'm going to share right now are not from
any Christian website. They're not from any Christian studying. These
statics is I'm gonna share are by a law firm
called Wilkinson and fank Biner.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
They are divorce attorneys.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
So on their website they put out statistics that say,
if couples can figure this out, we will be out
of a job tomorrow, okay, Or if couples avoid this,
we will be out of a job tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Want you to look at this.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Those who wait till marriage until they are over twenty
five years old are twenty four percent less likely to
get divorced. And so the longer you wait as you
get older, the higher success statistic. Now we'll get in
a second why that is. It's not just because of age.
It comes down to also financial responsibility. It comes down
to understanding your career. Now, because of the American culture,

(19:45):
we talked about it last week. Is twenty five is
really when you start to be able to provide for yourself,
and so you want to be able to wait a
little bit longer until you can provide, or else you're
gonna have some trouble in your marriage. If both you
and your partner have had previous marriages, you are ninety
percent more likely to get divorce than if it had

(20:05):
been the first marriage for both of you. Guys, So
two divorced people go into a marriage together, you're more
likely by ninety percent that that too will end in divorce.
Now here's why, because many of us go into a
second marriage just thinking to ourselves, I won't do or
I won't let happen what happened in my first marriage.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
But that's not the correct view of things.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
What you first have to do before you go into
a new marriage is you have to heal from some things.
You have to understand why you were where you were,
at what position, what boundaries did you have, What stuff
did you allow in the relationship that you won't allow
in the next relationship, Because a lot of times we
just start this cycle over and we end up finding
someone that's just like that other person. And the dating

(20:50):
phase seems like, Oh, you were divorced. I was divorced.
We can heal each other. Oh, friend, that is not
how you heal a marriage. Two people cannot heal each other.
Only God can heal us. Only the scriptures. Only a
relationship with Jesus can heal us. So if you're looking
at a human to heal you, I will tell you this,
you will probably end in disappointment. You will probably end

(21:12):
in being disappointed. Let's look at the next statistic. Sixty percent.
This one's crazy, sixty percent of cohabitating couples who eventually marry.
So most people that lived together before marriage, majority of
them will end up getting married. However, living together prior
to marriage can increase the chance of getting divorced by
as much as forty percent. Living together before marriage can

(21:35):
increase your divorce rate by forty percent if you're a
female doing that. If you're a female that has lived
with a lot of guys, a woman who has lived
with more than one partner before your first marriage, then
your forty percent more likely to get divorced.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
Than a woman who has never done that.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
You increase. My wife's story was that when I met
my wife she had. Just a few years earlier, she
had dated a professional football player and he left school
and he went pro and.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
She wanted to go with them, and so they lived together.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
And during that living season, she caught him cheating on her,
and yet she was still living with him, and she
tried to make it work. And then he cheated on
her again while they lived together, and one day she
had to make a choice, I'm going to move out
of here. So she packed all her stuff and she
got out of there. And then two years later her
and I met and we got married. And guess who

(22:31):
moved in all of those pains and those heartaches from
that last relationship. My wife moved those in with me.
And I was a pretty imperfect person myself who had pains.
But what I didn't realize is she had some brokenness.
And she'll admit that she had some anxieties. She had
some fears that when we'd be living together and I'd
be on my phone and if my back was to her,

(22:52):
she'd think to herself, who are you texting right now?

Speaker 2 (22:55):
And I think to myself, who gave you that?

Speaker 1 (22:57):
I've been nothing but a faithful man, I've been nothing
but good to you.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
And she we had to go to counseling.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Counseling six months married, had to go to counseling to
heal from these things. What you do in your dating
season and your single season you will bring into your marriage.
And it is something her and I could not figure
out by ourselves. We needed to go to someone else
to say, help us heal us. I had some of

(23:28):
my own trauma, some my own stuff we had to
get healing from. We talk about so it matters. You see.
Another thing is is another statistic is this In two
thousand and one twenty eleven, a study of University of
Iowa found that up for both men and women, the
loss of virginity before eighteen was correlated with a greater
number of occurrences of divorce within the first ten years

(23:50):
of marriage. The younger you are that you lose your virginity,
the higher the chances of divorce. One day, which we'll
get to in a second on why that is the
risk of divorce it is said to be almost doubled
ninety seven percent higher when the mother went out to
work but her husband made minimal contribution to housework in childcare.
In other words, in the modern life, that we live in.

(24:12):
Most families are dual income, especially here in California. Is
in order for you to have to survive, both of
you tend to have a job. You're blessed if someone
can be a stay at home parent, if that's if
you're able to financially do that. And so most parents
both are working. But if the husband still treats the
wife as a stay at home mother, it's said to
increase the divorce rate by almost one hundred percent. In

(24:35):
other words, if there's two incomes coming into the house,
then it means two people got to do their part
in the house. That's what that statistic teaches us. Did
you know seventy five percent of women are the ones
who put in for divorce nowadays seventy five percent. Just
two decades ago, it was fifty to fifty fifty percent
of men put in for divorce. Fifty percent of women divorce. Nowadays,

(24:58):
seventy five percent of all divorce versus are put in
by a woman. That's something men have to take note of.
Why is that happening? What is there that's happening within
men today, not just in the body of Christ, but
outside of the body of Christ. That are causing women
to say no, no, no, this isn't for me anymore. This
isn't for me anymore. We got to be mindful of
these things, and we got to teach the next generation

(25:19):
about these things, or there's going to be some generational
habits that we're creating in our.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Youth and our young people.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
At the same time. The next statistic is this pornography
addiction was cited as a factor in fifty six percent
of divorces. Fifty six percent of divorces claim to have
some type of pornography abuse. Again, most pornography abuse begins
when you're young. You don't all of a sudden stumble
upon pornography in your thirties. It's something that happens at

(25:46):
a very young age. You get it in your teens,
and if you cannot get freedom from this addiction, you
will take it into your marriage and you will take
it into the expectations of your marriage. Having a baby
before marriage can increase the risk of divorce by twenty
four Each leader of alcohol consumed raises the chance of
divorce by twenty percent. Factor in that the average American

(26:08):
drinks nine point four leaders of alcohol per year, raising
their divorce likelihood by one hundred and eighty eight percent.
Why is this well, because when you start to get
liquored up, the truth comes out, That's why.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
And so you get a little drinking. You men, men,
we walk around sober, tough, chest.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Out, I got this together, I'm good, I'm taking care
of my family. And you just drink a little bit
of alcohol and you're walking around and go.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
None of you love me.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
I hey you, I'm doing it all all of a sudden.
You found your emotions all of a sudden. Some you
can't articulate when you're sober, All of a sudden, it's
coming out. When you got a little drink. Women, it's
the same way. You get a little alcohol and you're like,
I gave up my youth for you.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
My body is because of you. You just start letting
it all out. So what happened? You can't take.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Back something that did come out. A lot of people say, oh,
I didn't even know what I said when I was drunk. Yeah, right,
you knew what you were saying. You had a little
truth serum and you said, oh, here it comes, I'm
gonna lut it out. Here comes Mount Vesuvius. Here's all
everything I've been going through. So when you start drinking alcohol,
if you don't have a healthy marriage, oh, it's gonna

(27:21):
increase this joint and it's gonna increase the likelihood that
you're gonna head towards a divorce. So there's some things
that we gotta get victory over if we want to heal.
If we want to heal, we gotta get victory over
some things. Among the population segments with the lowest likelihood
of being divorced subsequent to marriage is Catholics at twenty

(27:42):
eight percent, Evangelicals at twenty six percent, and upscale adults
at seventy making at least seventy five thousand dollars a year.
In other words, the statistic says, these are the groups
of people who are least likely to get a divorce.
These group of people religious people, Catholics and Christians who
honor God's who put God's word above their life and
their marriage and their family. And additionally, because we're going

(28:05):
to see in a second, majority of marriages end because
of financial constraints and financial debt.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
That's why a lot of marriages.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Go through it, because they're because of the stress in
the home of the finances so people who are making
a median income of seventy five thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
A year are less likely to get of a diorce.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Why because if you remove the argument of finances, well,
you've already beat it by fifty percent your likelihood of divorce.
That's why that statistic is real. A new study found
divorce and death shows that broken marriages can kill at
the same rate as smoking cigarettes. Indications that the risk
of dying is a full twenty three percent higher among
divorces than of married couples. You see what we have

(28:44):
to recognize through these statistics everything I shared. You could
look at those things and say, hey, living together before marriage,
that increases your chances of divorce, Losing your virginity before marriage,
that increases your chances of divorce. Drinking alcohol in your
marriage or before your marriage, and getting to a place
where you can't control your emotions increase it. Hold on,

(29:04):
this all sounds really familiar. I think I've read somewhere
where all of these values are taught. To marry one person,
to keep yourself pure for God, to honor God with
your body, to honor God with your flesh, to not
live with someone before your Marri I've heard these things before.
These sounds so familiar. It's the word of God. And

(29:27):
this isn't even by a Christian institute. This is by
divorce attorneys making a living doing this thing. They teach
you something. And here's something that we got to understand.
Is there someone who's young today. There are two major
contributing factors to divorce. Two factors. These are the biggest
ones and it's kind of be summarized in what we

(29:49):
just saw right now. The first one is is a
contributing factor to divorce is infidelity and finances. I want
you to see this. Statistics show that if you have
debt up to fifty thousand dollars, it increases your chances

(30:09):
of divorce by three times prior to being marriage up
to sixty percent, up to sixty percent if you have
fifty thousand dollars worth of debt. So what happens is
is usually when a young person at twenty one graduates college,
they graduate in America with an average of forty thousand
dollars worth of debt. It's one person, one person you

(30:32):
have not even factored in a possible car. That means
you have ten thousand dollars to get a car, to
get a credit card, to get a phone, whatever you
would get debt for even a house, that's gonna count
in it. Right, this is one person, so now times
it by two because now you're marrying another person who

(30:54):
their likelihood, so collectively, now you may have one hundred
thousand dollars worth of debt.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
This is all before you even graduate college.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Then what we learn, and we'll see in a second,
is the more sexual partners you have in your life.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
We'll see a study in a second.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
The more sexual partners you have in your life increases
your chance of divorce by every sexual partner you have
that doesn't become your spouse. And so what are you
taught also in college is you're taught to have as
many sexual exploitations as possible. Go to all the fraternities,
go to all the sororities, go to all the parties,

(31:35):
go do all the things.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
And so what happens.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
Is is when I graduate college, I graduate college with debt,
and I graduate college with sexual pleasure. So now what
happens is is already before I've even graduated from college,

(31:58):
I've increased my likelyhood for divorce by seventy percent, seventy percent.
A study shows us that if you have ten sexual
partners in your life, your likelihood when you stand at
the altar before you say I do, your likelihood at
the get is a thirty three percent chance that you're

(32:19):
gonna end in divorce thirty three percent. If you only
have three sexual partners, your likelihood of divorce standing at
the altar is increased by twenty five percent. Do you
know if you go to the altar as a celibate,
as a virgin, your likelihood of divorce four percent, four percent,

(32:41):
four percent from four percent to thirty five percent. Just
by exposing yourself to as many sexual partners as possible,
you have increased your likelihood that this marriage isn't going
to work out. Well, why is it? Well, it's something
I experienced. Me and my wife walked into our marriage
not as virgins. And there were things early on when

(33:01):
I was married to my wife and I say, hey,
let's try this in the bedroom. Let's try this in
the bedroom. And she looked at me and she'd be like, oh,
I don't like that. I didn't like that. With one
of the guys I would do, I'd be like, hold
on what do you mean? What do you mean? Hold on?

Speaker 2 (33:20):
What's she talking about? You mean I don't like that?

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Who? Right? Who? You don't like that?

Speaker 2 (33:28):
With what happened?

Speaker 1 (33:32):
And to me, I'm sitting there and she's like, Oh,
I don't do that anymore, or I'm not a fan
of that.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
I'd rather do this, or I don't like for play, I.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Don't want to do this, right, I think to myself,
I always had a girl who did do for play.
I'm trying to free some people today, is what I'm
trying to do. I'm trying to get some people to understand,
trying to people, get some people to understand in my
own transparency and why in my own life, you cannot separate.

(34:00):
You cannot separate your singleness, you cannot separate your dating,
and you cannot separate it from your marriage. And unless
you're gonna find healing, unless you're gonna find wholeness. Because
it was in those moments I shared last week. We've
been married seven years and we just recently looked at
each other and said, hey, where our sex life is
getting better? Uh? We're talking more right like we like

(34:23):
yet seven years you see, because her and I brought
a lot into stuff that we didn't understand that in
our youth that we would take in. And so what
happens if a young person understands that this will get
you in trouble.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
So for my son, what do I want to do
with my son?

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Is what I want to tell my son is before
you are twenty five, Before you're twenty five, you wanna
limit your debt. Limit debt as much as possible. Limit
your debt. So if you got kids right now in
their twenties who are living in your house, I say
you don't got no luxuriesuntil you pay off your student
li get I just whatever I can do to help you.

(35:03):
You cannot walk into your marriage with these student loans
as best as you can. And so don't be going
and buying yourself some nice shoes. Don't be buying yourself No,
Louis Vatton, don't begining a credit card.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Why because I.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
Recognize the stats behind debt in divorce. You can pray, shout,
skip and do whatever you want to do in church,
but it will not free you from the responsibility of life.
It will not free you from the weights. It's not
gonna all of a sudden, you ain't gonna fall out
the altar and see your credit card bill be paid
off by nine grand tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
It's just not not how it works.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
So we have to be responsible if we want to
have success in our relationship. A lot of Christians we've
taken on modern day mysticism, which.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
Says as long as I shake a eight ball, as.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Long as I come and I dance on my head
and I shout and I scream, I'll be free from
the decisions that I've made in my life, that it'll
just mystically go away, that it will mystically go gone.
That's not how life works. The Bible tells us in
the New Testament, he that don't work should not eat.
I mean that's talking about responsibility. So what I want

(36:13):
to teach my son is limit your debt as possible.
And I want to teach him college is not a
season to explore your body. That is a lie that's
been told to us. It's a lie that's been told
to us. In college, get the degree and get as
much debt as possible. Where nowadays, in order to make
a good living, you may need to go into debt
a little bit, but you want to make sure that

(36:34):
it's a priority to pay that thing off. You want
to make sure and you want to limit debt, limit
your sexual activity. And he would say why Dad, and
I would say, because, Son, what I'm trying to do
is I am trying to did I raise it, did
it go away? I'm trying to divorce proof your future.

(36:56):
That's what I'm trying to do, Son, in the same
way that I'm trying to help you to make mature
decisions for your life on you know, sometimes our kids.
I was that person, Dad, Should I buy a fifty
thousand dollars car and have a two thousand dollars car payment.
He's like, heck, no, you shouldn't do that. And the
same way that we lead our kids in those ways,
we need to lead our kids in this way. We

(37:17):
need to teach them the value our decision. So what
we got to learn if I'm a Christian here today
times already as zero, but well just go hair over today. Okay, guys,
So that's all right because we got to get somewhere
and we'll close off. So what we have to understand
is in this season of life and dating and in singleness,
what I have to start doing now, not when I
get married, because how many of you guys know, in

(37:39):
your marriage you have to have boundaries, right, marriage has boundaries.
One of the boundaries in my marriage is my wife
doesn't let me go hitting on women. That's a boundary
for her, as is a boundary for me to her
she can't go around and hitting on men. Recently, my
son he joined soccer and she's the assistant coach, and

(37:59):
the head coach said, here's my number, text me.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
She said, give me your wife's number. I don't want
to text you.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Right, that's a boundary, she said, right, Well, that's a
healthy marriage. Something in our marriage that's a boundary. So
in your marriage you have boundaries. I think in our
marriage we say we don't want our spouse we're watching pornography,
We don't want our spouse to be overspending our money
that we both worked for, or whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Right, these are boundaries.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
So on our singleness, we want to get good at
laying boundaries.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
That's what we need to do. So if you're single.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Today and you say, okay, when I go to meet
somebody one day, what are some healthy boundaries I should have?
What are some boundaries I should have expectations for the
person that I may want to date because dating has
to be missional. There has to be a purpose with dating,
because if you don't date with a mission, then what
happens is you're gonna lead to this. There's a lot
of temptation. There's a lot of temptation. If you don't

(38:51):
know when you're gonna be ready to marry and you're sixteen,
then the likelihood of you falling into these areas is
pretty high because it's gonna take a lot of discipline
to have that much success over your flesh and over
your finances. If I was taught when I was young,
I spent a lot of money on girls that I
could have saved, you know, affecting my finances a lot, right,

(39:15):
And if I knew that we were gonna break up
months later or twenty four months later, I wouldn't have
spent the money, So I would have took her to
McDonald's a lot more, and not cheesecake factory or anything
like that. Here's one of the boundaries I want to place.
I want to say, do you have church attendants, you
go to church? Do you submit to God? Now we
already found people who have the most success in marriages

(39:36):
are Christians. Catholic and Evangelicals. So to me right away,
not only submission to Christ, but it's like, do you
submit to the word of God?

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Do you understand who God is?

Speaker 1 (39:47):
I mean, people all the time, Well they tell me
they're open to going to church, Well, you about to
be open for a breakup.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
That's what's gonna happen. So open yourself up for that.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
Next Okay, So what happens is is you want to
be church attenant. That's the next boundary I want to
see is do they.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Pray like I want to hear you talk to God.
You don't got to be perfect, but.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
I just want to see because when our marriage gets tough,
when me and my wife are going through it, you
wanna know what me and my wife have to do.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
We gotta pray.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
My wife don't need to be calling her girlfriends and
her friends and talking about how Adam this and Adam that.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
We got to pray. We gotta trust God.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
When we get that health report one day, say hey,
we gotta go to prayer.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
We gotta trust God. So I want to look for someone.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
If I'm a girl, I want to look for a
man that's gonna cover me in prayer. If I'm a guy.
I'm gonna say I want a girl that will allow
me to cover her in the word of God in prayer.
Does she submit to God? Does she submit to the word.
I ain't talking about them having to have this thing
figured out? But are they in that direction? Is that
a boundary that I'm gonna set? So then what happens
is is what are they celibate? We've already found factually

(40:56):
that we have to be at a place where we
do not jump into intimacy with people right on. And
so you need to value your body more. You need
to value your sex life more. You need to understand
that the decisions made in the dating phase, well, well,
no men will be with me unless I sleep with them.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
How is that going with those type of men?

Speaker 1 (41:17):
How's it going?

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Because here's what we got to.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Understand how important saving yourself is for marriage Because a lot.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Of times what we often do is we often do
this is we men, women, women.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
We got these cookies and we have our cookies, right,
So cookies, right, and we go to the club and
we tell a guy you want a cookie, have a cookie.
We go to the bar and we say you want
a cookie, have a cookie. Oh, we go over to
our school, we say, you want a cookie? Have a cookie?

(41:50):
Who else want a cookie?

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Oh? I met a guy at the gas.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Station, have a cookie. I met a girl of Victoria
Gardens here cookie. I went on tender and I got
up with that person to have a cookie. So then
what happens is we meet a guy and then we say, oh,
have some cookies.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
Have some cookies. And then what happens is then.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
We tell the guy, if you want any more cookies,
give me one of these.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
I want you to put a ring on it.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
And he's saying to himself, first of all, you know
how many guys have had the cookie? And second of all,
do you know that you've already gave me the cookie?
Why would I? Why would Why would I spend ten
thousand dollars on a ring on something that I'm already
getting right now? And so what happens is is we

(42:44):
don't value this, and then all of a sudden, overnight,
we want someone to value this. And then all of
a sudden, this is where our marriages fell. We get married,
and then we say cookie shop closed, and the guy's going, what,

(43:07):
you gave more cookies away when you were single than
when you're married and you're wondering why the marriage isn't healthy.
You're wondering why your marriage is hurting when everyone's been
to that bakery. If you have something of value, you

(43:32):
need to treat it with value. If you have something
that's worth something, you need to treat it like it's
worth something. If I had a two million dollars for arey,
I wouldn't pass the keys to anyone.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
I'd pass the.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
Keys to someone that I know that would treat my
car the way I would treat it. So if you're
gonna give your body to someone, in your flesh to someone,
it better be someone that has been proven. And you said,
I know I could trust you with this. I mean,
things are gonna be perfect. But we've already seen the statistics.
The more of these cookies you get out when you
go into marriage, you're gonna have some trouble. So you

(44:06):
want to make sure that that bakery is full by
time you got married or else you're gonna have some
challenges when you do get married. And we think to ourselves,
so I just want it to be fixed overnight. The
next thing is we want to see some boundaries curfew.
Why do we want to set a curfew is why,
because curfew and dating is a poor even if you're forty,
when you're dating, you want to be able to say,

(44:26):
here's the time that we stop hanging out ten o'clock
eleven o'clock.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Because what happens.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Is is we know when we're married, the temptations they
just increase, they don't go away. And so if we
can't honor little things like this is it and we're
using excuse because we love each other so much because
of this and that, well, then what happens is if
we can't respect this, then I know what happens when
we get married. You're gonna have some troubles respecting some
other boundaries. It's gonna be trouble in those areas. So

(44:53):
when show we have victory. Next one is finances. How
does he or she spend their finances? How do they
use their credit card? How do they use their spending?
Because debt is important, how they open to debt? Oh yeah,
it's cool. Oh you know, I'm twenty one and I'm
driving around in a Mercedes. My car payment is nine
hundred and fifty dollars a month, and I'm working at
Anniean's Pretzel like, that's not a responsible thing to do.

(45:18):
Not that there's anything wrong with working at Annieans, but
if you're working at Ani N's, you shouldn't have a
nine hundred dollars car payment should not match that. So
you want to understand finances, have a boundary for yourself
in that area. Person you're dating, you want to see
how apt they are to having some boundaries around finance.
The next one is language. How do they talk to you?
How do they talk to their mother? How do they

(45:38):
talk to their father? What happens when you guys argue?
What words come out? Are you all of a sudden stupid, ignorant?

Speaker 2 (45:46):
This and that? Oh?

Speaker 1 (45:48):
See if they will use that in the dating face? Oh,
just wait until y'all get married. Wait until how many
times the F word is gonna come out when y'all
are married? Wait? Wait, wait, wait, wait, how many times
the B word's gonna come married?

Speaker 2 (45:59):
You're married?

Speaker 1 (45:59):
If if he could freely talk about his mom that way,
he could freely talk about his dad that way, If
she can freely talk about someone that way. Oh, it's
coming around the corner. It's coming for you, and you
can't say all of us So for in the dating face,
you'd be like, hold on, hold on, I don't get
talked to.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
You that way.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
You do it one more time, I'm gonna dump your butt.
I'm gonna leave you out on the streets. You talk
to me one more.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Time like that. You do that.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
You gotta have we gotta have some boundaries. Here's close
with some two more. Here it is friends. What are
their friends look like? I see this all the time
with guys. Is all your friends are cheaters. They're at
the clubs, they're having affairs, and you'll be telling your
wife or your girl, but not me. You are the
sum the greatest. Some of those who you hang around,

(46:41):
You are the greatest. Some of those who you hang around,
now you may be able to accurately come away from
those things. But all of us humans are sponges, and
whatever we're around the most, that's what will soak up.
So if you have friends like that that you're trying
to be a light to, you better have some closer
friends that have the same value you, that do love

(47:01):
their wives that do because because if you hear around
your friend how much he hates his wife, how much
he can't stand his wife, how much she don't do
this you. Hey, that's gonna seep in. So in the
dating phase, you're gonna want to say, what are your friends?
Who are they? What are they doing? I want to
meet your friends. And when you meet the friends, listen,
listen to how they talk. When you're hanging around the friends,

(47:22):
they're like, ooh, dude, I girl, I met this girl
last night.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
You're thinking yourself, isn't this guy engaged well? And that
guy going, oh, that's just my boy. That's Tyrone. You
know how he be? He crazy, He's silly. No, No,
next one is love.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
How do they love this?

Speaker 1 (47:40):
One of the biggest ones is this is the season
that you cannot heal each other. So you want to
be able to learn to love well, and you want
the person that you're with to be open to loving well.
Healing from trauma, healing from heartbreak, healing from your past,
healing from your trauma so that you can love well.
Going to God. That's why going to Christ, that's why

(48:01):
praying is so important, because you cannot love well unless
you've met God. You cannot heal unless you've encountered Christ.
It does not happen. And we're gonna close with this
last thought. As a we've got a little bit over today,
we'll leave with this last thought right here.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
We could say so much more, but here's the last thing.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
I would encourage a young person that when they start
to date, whatever age you as parents will allow them to.
But but for me, you know, I'm gonna encourage my
son to be older before he starts that process, both
of my sons. But what I'm also gonna do is
encourage relationships with the opposite sex. That's where we kind
of get in trouble. We divide the line and we

(48:44):
treat it like a Romeo and Juliet thing, like you
can never be around the opposite sex. So what do
they do? You go to sleep, they jump right on
the phone, right so we know what happens. So I'm
gonna be able to have conversations with our kids to
find balance in these relationships. But when it comes to
him saying, oh I wanna, I wanna date a girl, well,
on top of well, if you're gonna date the girl,

(49:05):
you better have your own card. You better be paying
some of your own bills. You know, you still live
on your house, but you better be paying a lot
of your stuff. Because financial responsibility. You better learn that
you have to also honor these boundaries in order to
do those things. And then and then additionally, here's some
things that I would say, just some We could go
into this so much further, but some things I would say,

(49:25):
what do you look for? What are you looking for? Well,
you want to find someone that has good character. In
other words, you want to find someone who are they
when no one is around? That's what I want to
see in a person. We'll see a person that develops character.
I want to have someone that has character, has disciplines.
Next thing I want to see is commitment. What are
you Are you committed to anything? Is there anything you're

(49:46):
committed to? Is there anything that you're doing that you
believe in that you have disciplines around? Because I don't
want you calling me all the time that you're bored.
You better be passionate about something. You better be doing something.
We're seventeen acting like we're married. Both got nothing going on,
talking to each other all day. No, go do something,

(50:07):
get a job, do your homework, do something, get busy.
Because we get married. Is a man that's gonna get
real at that point? And the next thing is this
last thing we're gonna close is cause, cause what are
the case? What are they called to? Is there something
that they yearn to see fixed in this world? If
I'm a believer, I'm saying, what are you called to

(50:29):
in your life? What is God speaking to you? Is
God talking to you? What are you headed towards? Where's
your purpose? Where your passion? If they say I don't know,
I'm figuring it out, then it's not time to be
in a relationship with that person because they may figure
out all of a sudden they want to be in Jamaica,
and you don't want to go to Jamaica. So before

(50:52):
you can really start a process, there's some things you
want to start to evaluate early on. And there's so
much more, but this was just a launching point of
understanding that what we do in our singleness and what
we do in our dating ultimately leads into our marriage.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
And so we hope you join us to Wednesdays.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
If you have any more specific questions, continue this series,
pastor diego. We'll share something kind of a new topic.
But to conclude our circuit series next week. But I'm
gonna pray right now as we begin to close, and
I would encourage you if anyone's in here that needs healing,
anyone that's in here. If I was still a young man,
not married and I heard this message, I'd be thinking
to myself because I wasn't a virgin when I met

(51:30):
my wife. I had hit that statistic of giving myself
away many times. So in this moment, I'd just be saying, God,
I pray you make me new.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
God.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
I pray you refresh me. I pray you heal me.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
God.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
I pray those wounds that I might bring into marriage
one day, that you'll be able to heal those wounds,
that you can heal that brokenness. God, I pray that
through your word, I can be chosen by you and
found new by you. And if you're married in this
place or divorce and you say, hey, I don't want
to bring any of my old stuff into my relationship
to be freed of those I want to be free

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of that brokenness. If you're in here right now and
that's you and you just feel like you need to
be freed of some things before you move forward in
a healthy relationship, would you do me a favor? Could
everyone close their eyes, could bow your heads, your life,
or you could if you like, or you could just
keep your eyes goloes. Would you raise your hand if
you just say you want to be healed of some
broken things, past relationship, past choices, past decisions, past marriage,

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past things. I just want We're gonna keep your hand up.
I just want to pray God. Right now, we come
before you, Lord, and I just pray Father God for healing.
In Jesus' name. Lord, I pray that all of us
in this moment feel like we're the woman at the well,
feel like we're the woman caught in adultery, feel like
we're a person that's put on display right now. But God,
we found that through Jesus Christ. There is nothing but

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the love of a savior. There is nothing but the
healing of a savior. I speak the words in the
same way Jesus spoke where he says that he's come
to give life and give it abundantly. And so as
the woman at the well. God, right now, may you
give life and give it abundantly to every person. May
you heal their brokenness. May you heal their wounds, Lord,

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may you heal their Traumas Father God, anyone that's anyone
in here that something happened to them at a young
age that they didn't choose to let happen to them. God,
may you heal them right now. May you bring fullness
right now, Father God, may you bring completion to them.
May they understand that you love them, that you care
for them, that you have purpose for them.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
God.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Right now, Lord, we give ourselves to you God, in
our brokenness, in our shame. I believe God, you are
doing a new thing right now. I believe you bring
a newness right now to every person in this place,
every person online, every person in the courtyard. Lord, I
pray for healing in Jesus' name. Amen and Amen. Can
we then God this morning? Praise God. Well, hey, we're

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gonna get out of here right now. I just want
to last thing. I want to make an invitation to you.
If you're in here and you've never given your life
to Jesus Christ or never made them your personal Lord
and savior, just like we prayed right now, healing and
wholeness comes through Jesus, but it starts with salvation. Truly,
truly the thing that God came to do. It's not
just heal our lives, but to heal our souls, to

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bring us into unity with God the Father. It's Jesus
who died for our sins and resurrected. And so if
you're here today and you've never given your life to
Jesus Christ, you never called upon him as Lord and Savior,
and you've never repented for your sins, then I encourage
you right now that if you're in this place, give
your life to Jesus today and turn to the cross.
Believe in the resurrection, because only Jesus can bring us

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into unity with the Father. So, if you're in this
place right now, what everyone joined me in repeating this prayer,
by no means the prayer is not the thing that
saves at all.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
All we're doing is we're.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Responding and affirming to what God is already doing as
a family. So would you join me with this right now?
Would you say this woman, dear Lord Jesus, in this moment,
I confess you as Lord and Savior. I believe in
my heart that you died on the cross and you
roast three days later. In this moment, I confess my

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sins and I commit to follow you for the rest
of my days in Jesus' name. Amen, Can we celebrate
with those that may have said this prayer today and
given their life to Christ. If that was you in
this place, I encourage you to go to a website
that we have called ww dot Grow dot Faith. You

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could do that right now as you're leaving. We have
a free book for you by our founding pastor, Pastor Diego.
It's called Seven Steps of a Christian Walk. It's the
best first step for you to do in your life. Additionally,
we want to issue you a challenge. If you just
gave your life to Christ, would you take this challenge
on for the next twelve months as often as you
could get to church or watch online. Do that? Give

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this twelve month challenge to say God, when the church
doors are open, as often as I'm available, I will
be there and I want you to grow my faith.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
I want you to grow my walk.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
We see people take that challenge all the time, and
we see God doing incredible things in their life by
committing themselves to Christ.