I Will Properly Prioritize My Children in My Marriage

Well, good morning again. I’m Pastor Ben. It’s my privilege to share from God’s word with you here this morning as we are now finishing up our series, My Marriage Matters.

A special welcome to anyone that’s a guest and welcome to those joining online as well as at First Lutheran as well in Algonac. In this series, this is where we’ve been in the last few weeks. If you’ve been with us, you’ve seen that we first started with God, that we want to prioritize God in our marriages above all else.

And then we need to prioritize our spouse. And then last week, we need to protect our marriages. And if you are a married couple and you weren’t here last week, I encourage you to go check that message out.

It’s a PG-13 one, but one that we all need to hear God’s word on. And then today, we’re looking at how we can properly, properly prioritize my children in my marriage. And so, being the staff member who has the most kids, I have three boys, eight, six, and four.

They got that resident expert on how to, you know, properly prioritize kids in marriage. And that’s why I’m up here, right? No, no. Just like everyone else.

But we get to see what God’s word has to say on the matter. But before we jump into what is, what does it look like, the tension sometimes that’s felt between marriage and being a parent, marriage and raising your children, let’s go back to the foundational verse for this whole series. In Genesis 2, it says this.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Before there’s any kids in the picture that God establishes that there’s a special relationship, that there’s a covenantal relationship between a husband and a wife. And really, that marriage is that first human relationship that we have.

It’s our first neighbor. It is among the most important relationships that we have, and it is the foundation for family. That following this, God does give the command to go be fruitful and multiply, but He first gives Eve to Adam, and Adam to Eve, that they might be in that union together.

And from that place, that would be the firm foundation for a family to grow up. Because sometimes, if things are not properly ordered or prioritized, kids and parents can be at odds with each other, can’t they? And you know what? Before I go any further, I recognize this. In this whole series, there could be the temptation.

Oh, this is marriage. I’m not married. Or I’m a widow.

Or I’m not married yet. Or in the case of today, I don’t have any kids. So you might wonder, like, well, does this really apply to me? I’m going to go ahead and tune out for a little bit.

Hopefully, you don’t do that. But let me just ask you this. How many kids are in the room this morning? How many kids? Let me try again.

How many children? How many of you are a child of someone? How many are your child? Oh, okay. So this one, this week, actually all these weeks, God’s Word has something to say to you. So whether you’re a parent, a grandparent, you’re an empty nester, whether you have no kids whatsoever, you are a child.

You are a child of your earthly parents, and you’re a child of God. And so there is something for us to glean from God’s Word here this morning and how we prioritize and properly prioritize our relationships in life. Amen? There’s going to be something here for each of us today.

Well, I can give you one quick story just a couple weeks ago where I felt the tension between that marriage relationship and the kids relationship and how there’s interesting dynamics at play. See, I was up here working on a Saturday, getting a few things done. And I get home.

The boys are already restless, and they’ve been rambunctious the whole morning, I’m sure. And I collapse down on the couch, and I’m ready to rest a little bit. And one of my sons comes up to me, and he’s like, Dad, what are we going to do today? Like, what are we going to do? Like, do we have a plan for today? Are we going to do something fun? And I thought I was funny.

I thought, oh, well, buddy, you know what I’d love to do? I would love, I would love to take you to the zoo. I would love to go get pizza with you. I would love to go get ice cream even.

You know what? But really, you need to check in with your mom to see if any of those things are possible. And then without skipping a beat, she pokes her head from the other room and says, yes, yep, let’s do all those things. So go ahead and get up, Ben.

Put your shoes back on. Everybody get in the car. And I was forced to have a lovely afternoon with my family instead of resting like I wanted to.

We went to the zoo, and we got pizza. We had a great time. Oh, boy, it backfired on me.

But sometimes, sometimes marriage and parenting, there’s a tension there. They’re at odds with each other. We’re going to be focusing in really on just a few verses.

There’s many verses throughout Scripture that tell us about parenting, but one section from a letter from Paul to the church in Ephesus. And it says this, children, and we just have to stop even right there. This letter was written by Paul to be read in the assembly, to be read at the church.

And so by the sheer fact that he includes this address, children, what does that tell you? Children were in church. Children are part of the body of believers. This is a very simple thing that we could look over, but you’d have to slow down and think about this.

Paul has already written, he shared about the mystery of the gospel already here. And then he’s gone on, and in chapter 5, he tells husbands and wives what kind of relationship they’re supposed to have. And he’s just finished telling husbands that you need to love your wife like Christ has loved the church.

Be willing to lay down your life for her. And now kids. And he’s just moving through, and he’s recognizing that kids are part of the body of Christ.

They are part, they are believers as well, and they have things that they are called to do. And so he’s addressing children as they would be there at church with their parents as well. And he tells them this, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.

And all the parents said, amen. Right? See, it’s in God’s word. You’re supposed to obey me.

That’s it. God’s word says it. I believe it.

That settles it. Well, it’s interesting about the word obey here is it’s not simply just blind obedience. Like I said it, you just have to go do it.

But there’s actually something deeper taking place. It’s meaning to listen and to obey. To heed someone’s warning, to heed their advice, and then to follow through on it.

So it’s not just the actions that someone’s living out, but there’s a transformation that they receive information. It transforms them, and then they follow. That’s the type of obedience.

And that can’t just be done to parents or unto parents, because you have to highlight the other factor in here as well, actually the most important part of this verse. Obey your parents in the Lord. Not that they are God, but children, to obey your parents as this is really your first and primary act of worship towards God as a child is to be obedient to the authority figures He’s first given you.

Your parents, that you would listen to them, that you would obey them, because they are a model. They are imperfect, most certainly, but they are representing His authority in your life. And so there is a call, kids be obedient as this is your act of worship here in life.

It goes on, and he anchors it in the Old Testament, and he anchors it within the commandments themselves as well. So he cites the fourth commandment. Then he says, honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you, and that you may enjoy a long life on the earth.

See, the first three commandments we refer to sometimes as the first table of the law. It has everything to do with our relationship with God. And then starting in the fourth commandment, it has everything to do about our relationship with other people.

And isn’t it interesting, the first commandment that has to deal with any relationship with any other people has to deal with our parents. That this is the first and foremost, the primary relationship that you have, that you are born into, and what God has called us to is to honor our father and mother. So Paul is anchoring it in that.

He then goes on, and he moves away from kids, and he goes back to the parents. He actually goes back to husbands, and in particular, fathers. And he says this in verse four, fathers do not exasperate your children.

Instead, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Don’t frustrate them. Don’t make it difficult for them to listen to you, but bring them up.

Which isn’t, again, it’s worthwhile to slow down and look at what some of these phrases mean, because you could move right past that, and it seems like the primary focus of this verse should be discipline and instruction, and we’ll get to those in just a few moments. But first, you are called as parents to bring up your children. And when you go back into the Greek and you look at this, it’s not just simply to raise them, but it really means this, to nourish them, to feed them, to cultivate growth.

That is what you are called to do, that you’re not just the guardrails, that you’re not just the enforcement, you’re not just the law in their life, but you are called to nurture and support them. Because let me ask you this, what happens when you don’t feed something that needs to be fed? It dies. Parents, you obviously know that there is a call on parents to clothe and to feed your children, but you’re also called to feed them God’s word, support them in that way, raise them up in that way, nourish and feed and cultivate growth in that way.

And you’re called to do this not because you’re such a good parent, but you’re called to do this because God has commanded you to do it. Because sometimes we wouldn’t say it like this, but sometimes we treat our children like they’re our own, like they’re our property, but you don’t own your children. They’re God’s children and you are called to steward them.

If we slow down long enough and you think about it, we recognize this, our children are gifts from God given to us. They’re entrusted to us that we would raise them in the faith, that we would care for them, that we would clothe and feed them and do all the things that parents do for them. But sometimes we can treat them like they’re our own minions, our own mini-me’s.

In Psalm 127, it actually refutes that idea that we own them. And it supports this idea that children are a heritage from the Lord. They are a gift.

They are the fruit of the womb is a reward, a gift given to parents. Not always treated like that. But then there’s the other side of it.

Sometimes you can treat them like little mini-me’s, like you own them, but on the flip side, you can treat them like they’re idols. Because we need to recognize this, that children are wonderful blessings, but they are terrible gods. And this goes for anything in our life.

We can appreciate gifts, but worship the giver. But anytime that we invert that and we begin to worship the gift, appreciate the gift more than we appreciate the giver, and we prioritize our kids more than we prioritize God, we prioritize our kids more than we prioritize our marriage, what that now has become is we have taken a blessing, a good thing that God has given us, and we have made them an idol. And we’ve already talked about the fourth commandment, but this really gets to the heart of it.

This is the very first commandment that God gives us, that we shall have no other gods before him. And that we can fall into one of these two camps where we treat kids just like they are our possessions, and that we own them. Or we can go all the way to the other side and think, oh, I’m loving them, and I’m lavishing my love on them, and I’m caring about them.

But let me ask you this. If your hope rests on their future, then that’s an idol. If all your hope in this world is that your kids get a better degree than you got, if they get a better house than you have, that their family is doing well, if all of your confidence and hope is resting on how your children, even, yes, your adult children are doing, then you’ve made them an idol.

If their happiness is the thing that is controlling your decisions, and those decisions affect your marriage, or those decisions affect your relationship with your God, that thing has become an idol. Your children have become an idol. But thanks be to God that Jesus died for all of us idolaters.

That all of us, when we fall short into one of those two camps where we’re mistreating and misplacing and misprioritizing our children, where we’re placing far too high of a value on them, or we’re putting a far too low of a value on them and putting ourselves in the place of God, that He’s willing to nail those sins to a tree with Jesus. And that really is important for us to recognize with everything that follows, is that when we talk about the instruction that God gives us, whether it is husband and wife and the instruction that He gives, or as a parent to your children, the instruction that He gives to children, their parents, and parents to the children, is that what is first established is His redemptive relationship with you. It was just a few weeks ago that I was actually teaching on the commandments, and I was reminded yet again that in Exodus 20, we receive the commandments.

Yet at the beginning of Exodus 19, God is talking to Israel, and He’s calling them His treasured possession, that they are His royal priesthood, that they are His people, that He has saved them, that He’s brought them out, that He saved them out from slavery, and then He establishes these ten commandments. This is the pattern all throughout Scripture, that He does His redemptive saving work first. He establishes a relationship, not on our works, but on His alone, and then He calls us to live in light of what He has done.

Not that we would live that out so we could earn favor with Him, but rather that we would live it out because we are being given a new identity. And so everything here that follows, as we look at how it is that we are supposed to prioritize our kids, how are we supposed to discipline and instruct, what you need to hear is that you are first redeemed and beloved child of God because of what Christ has done for you. That is secure, that is firm, and that is your new identity as God’s child.

And then He makes this call to us, this is what I want you to do, and this is how I want you to live it out. Going back to verse 4, I mentioned we were going to talk about these two words, discipline and instruction. So we’re not supposed to exasperate, we’re not supposed to frustrate, we’re not supposed to make it difficult for our children to listen to us, but we’re supposed to nurture them, bring them up, foster that, and the way that we do that is discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Very simple way that we can understand these things is that discipline that we offer is structure and it’s correction because sometimes kids get things wrong, right? I have three test subjects at home, I can confirm they need correction, they need structure, they also need instruction. They need us to teach them the faith that you are the primary instructor of your child’s faith. And that is a serious, that is really the highest calling that God could give anyone on this side of eternity is that you would help form the faith of another person.

But let’s just check in, how are we doing? What does discipline and instruction look like in your house? Well, let me just ask this, maybe this will help. See if you can fill in these blanks. Just wait until your father gets home.

Quit your crying or I’ll give you something. Okay, wow. Okay, so like we mentioned in the video, there is counseling services that are now available to the church, mostly for women right now.

We’re working on the men. Wow, you guys, yeah. So maybe you’ve heard those things, maybe you’ve heard them on a show, but maybe you’ve heard them spoken over you.

And what I recognize and I’ve even seen in my own life that the default mode of parenting that we inherit is the way that we were parented. And then all of a sudden that when you begin to parent, I mean really, there’s only perfect parents are those that don’t yet have kids, right? And then once you start parenting and something falls out of your mouth and go, oh, that sounded a lot like mom. That sounded a lot like dad.

And what discipline and instruction don’t look like is they don’t look like harshness. They don’t look like sarcasm. It doesn’t look like favoritism.

It doesn’t look like constant criticism or just arbitrary rules, different rules for your kids. Like there do need to, there does need to be guardrails for your kids that you do need to have some discipline. And people can argue about what that exactly looks like, but what you have to recognize it never comes from a place of anger.

It never comes from a place of emotion. Very simply, how has your heavenly father disciplined you? How does he speak to you? And if he was to step into your house and into those moments of discipline and instruction, would he be pleased with the way that you are carrying out that high calling that you’ve been entrusted to, to those precious gifts? Would he be pleased with the way that you’re doing it? And would he recognize it? Would he go, that’s how I discipline you. That’s how I instruct you.

That’s how I have been forming you your whole life. And so there has to be this discipline and instruction, but it simply isn’t raising voices and getting angry and getting red in the face. There’s a reason for this.

Paul echoes his same teaching from Ephesians and Colossians, and he says this in Colossians 3, children obey your parents and everything for this pleases the Lord. This is your act of worship. This is what you’re called to do.

Obey your parents. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. And that could be understood as more than just simply discouraged, like, oh, wow, you’re going to hurt their self-esteem.

Oh, wow, you’re going to make them question who they really are, and you’re going to really wear down their confidence. But you’re going to discourage them because you are the representative in their life of a heavenly father, of a heavenly parent who loves them. And now you are showing them that the only way to earn love is to follow the rules in a certain way.

And if you don’t, then you have an angry God who’s going to have his wrath unleashed on you. So you’re not just discouraging them as individuals here in this world, but you’re discouraging their faith, which is honestly one of the greatest offenses you could do to God, the greatest calling to form their faith. But what a great offense to be entrusted with such a beautiful gift as a child and to discourage their faith.

And here’s the bad news is that we can’t do this. We cannot do this, and we cannot do this well in our own strength. Everything that we need or everything that our children need, you need to see this, that I first need from God.

When you’re parenting from an empty cup, and maybe you had a parent who parented you from an empty cup, maybe they never considered this, maybe they never even thought about this, and yet you were handed this down. You have a heavenly father who’s actually given you all the tools, all the gifts you need to parent your child well. You need patience.

Your heavenly father has been abundantly patient with you, continually patient with you, as you continue to get tangled up in the same sin over and over again that his loving kindness still pursues you. You need to forgive your child. How could you ever forgive your child for what they did, for what they said? Well, you have a heavenly father who is forgiving you more than you could ever ask, think, or imagine.

You need mercy and grace for your child. You have a father who is giving you new mercies every single day. This is the stance, this is the position that you have to parent from, is actually first recognizing that you are a child, a child of a God who loves you more than you can comprehend, and to bask in his goodness and the love that he lavishes on you, so that then you can better reflect that love, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, all those things towards your children.

Because if you try to do this in your own strength, it’s going to last for about two minutes. But this is what God has called us to, to first receive from him so then we can pour out into our kids. Like I mentioned, discipline is not a bad thing.

God disciplines us. The writer of Hebrews says it this way, for God disciplines the ones he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. That even, yes, as believers, yes, as redeemed children, those that are saved by grace through faith, that he still disciplines.

There’s still instruction that happens in our life. And it’s not to punish us or pummel us into a dust, but rather to fortify us, to refine us, to purify our faith so it’ll be like that of gold. That is what he’s doing.

So we have to see that there is another pitfall. That you can be far too harsh, but you can also be far too soft in your parenting and never offer discipline. And don’t give the guardrails that kids need in their lives.

You’re doing them no favors and you’re not reflecting your heavenly father. And you have to recognize that even that discipline, that discipline isn’t punishment. Because all the punishment, all the anger, all the wrath, all the red in the face, all the no son of mine whatever, that was never meant for you.

And it was actually all poured out on Christ. That he was the one to be found in human form, that Jesus humbled himself to become obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. That all of God’s wrath, all of God’s anger towards us and our sin, towards us and our idolatry of our children, where we lift them up to such a place of prominence that our whole life revolves around them.

Or that we don’t treat our children as we should. And we’re not loving them as we should. And we speak to them in ways that would just break the heart of our heavenly father.

All of those things were given to the obedient son. That he would be nailed to a tree and that our heavenly father would turn his face away from his own son. So that then we would be called children of God.

It’s a beautiful mystery of this gospel that we are now his children, not because of our works, but because of Christ’s work. And that from that place that we are called now to try to live this out, said another way, and you need to hear this. Your parents, they sinned against you, they’ve messed up, they’ve said things, you’ve been hanging on to it.

Your parents are not your savior. They were never meant to be your savior. They are fallen human beings who in all likelihood tried the best they could and they have fallen short.

And much in the same way, you are not your child’s savior. You are called to raise them in the faith. You are called to nurture them.

You are called to discipline and instruct them. And that you and your spouse to do that together, but you are not their savior. Jesus is.

He is the only one who can be their savior. And we can do away with putting these ridiculous standards on other people that we would never apply to ourselves and recognize that we do have one who has been perfectly obedient, perfectly loving, perfectly patient with all of us. And that even in that, even in the instruction of faith that you yourself, I myself cannot form faith in the heart of my children.

I’m simply called to do the best that I can and entrust them to God. The one who, and this is hard for us as parents to understand, the one who loves our children even more than we do. And that goes for those of us that have kids at home and that goes for those of us that are empty nesters, because I’m sure about this, you have not stopped praying for your kids.

Entrust them to the one who loves them even more than you do. You might ask, so where is like, how does the thing get practical? What is it that we’re called to do? Some of the most famous parenting verses in all of scripture come out of Deuteronomy chapter 6, where we hear this, and these words I command to you, today shall, say it with me, shall be on your heart. Do you see where it starts? Great parenting.

Parenting and having a marriage that prioritizes kids properly first starts with God’s word. First starts with your relationship with God. That’s why we started this series this way, that his words to be on your heart.

That is the only way that anything else follows. And then you shall teach them diligently with your children. You shall talk about them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise.

Every bit of your life, when you’re on the way to or from the soccer game, when you’re on your way to school, when you’re at the dinner table, when you’re at the breakfast table, when you’re doing an evening devotion, that you are talking about the things of God again, and again, and again. And yes, even moments of instruction, even moments of discipline, even moments of sin, and actually, I’d argue, especially moments of sin are unique opportunities to point your kids to Christ. That every act of discipline, every act of instruction that you carry out as a parent, or a parent has carried out towards you, is a chance to point them to Christ.

Let me give you a little example of what this looks like when it’s done well. And let me tell you, I don’t always do this well. But when it can be done well, because again, I have three test subjects at home, eight, six, and four.

And there are some times that they might argue over a toy, or that they might wrestle. And when that happens, and after I inspect the bite mark and make sure it didn’t break the skin, then we move on to this discipline portion, where I pull one of the kids aside, maybe who was the instigator, and ask them to name the behavior. What did you do? Okay, I bit my brother.

Ask the heart question, why? What were you feeling when you did that? What made you do that? And then this is all important, because I don’t think we always do this. This is the language God has given us. And sometimes we shy away from it, because it might seem too spiritual.

But tell them it was a sin. The way you treated your brother, the way you responded to your mom, the way you didn’t listen to me, you know what that is? That is a sin. And then point them to Jesus.

You see how this is a beautiful moment where you can then take them to the cross. That act of disobedience, that act of anger, that lying about homework, whatever it may be, that is a sin. And it is a sin that Jesus died for.

And so now you have the opportunity to practice forgiveness with them. And I’ve tried to do this, my wife and I have tried to do this as best as we can. We don’t always get it perfect, but we don’t like to use the language I’m sorry in our household.

It’s not the language God has given us. We have our boys go to one another and ask the other person, the one they offended, will you forgive me? And then whoever is offended, and they know this, if they have someone come to them asking for forgiveness, there is only one response. Yes, I forgive you, because Christ has forgiven me.

That is the only type of forgiveness that we offer, and we have no place in withholding forgiveness from someone else. The alternative, of course, is telling them to say, I’m sorry, and I’ve done it, and I’ve seen it. Tell them sorry for biting them.

Sorry. Say it like you mean it. I’m sorry.

It just doesn’t have the same effect as getting eyeball to eyeball to the one that you hurt and asking them to forgive you, because you’ve sinned against them. I’ve mentioned I don’t always get this right, and it was just probably within the last couple weeks that I was trying to get out the door to get somewhere, and getting out the door with kids is very easy, as many of you know. And my youngest son went over to his shoes, and he became really frustrated because someone had marked it up with permanent marker.

He was that someone, but it didn’t stop him from getting so frustrated with it, so he grabbed his shoe, and he takes it over to one of our bathroom sinks, and he’s going to try to start scrubbing it and washing it, and all I want to do is get out the door. And so I started raising my voice a little bit to say, what are you doing? Put your shoes on, and I could see him cower. And after I composed myself, I got down on one knee to see my four-year-old eye to eye.

And before I could say anything, he first told me, Dad, when you raise your voice like that, I get scared, as he’s just kind of cowering in his little four-year-old frame. And I had to ask my four-year-old for forgiveness. I was way out of line.

I let emotion get the best of me. I’ve sinned against you. Will you forgive me? Because staring in my eyes was a gift from God given to me that I was not stewarding well in that moment.

And this is where it becomes practical for us parents, because it’s not just about us parenting our kids well, but it’s also modeling for them what it means to show humility, what it means to be human, and not to lose your position and your authority because you simply ask your kid for forgiveness, but to show them your humanity. And in doing so, you’re pointing them to Christ. They’re offering you the forgiveness that he’s first given them.

As we come to a close, I just want to remind you this, that as we’re talking about marriage, I know we focused a bit on parenting here, but a child-centered home cannot sustain a Christ-centered marriage. If your kids are always your first priority above your spouse and above God, that is not a sustainable model and you’re going to be running on fumes. But a Christ-centered marriage, one that you have a personal relationship with God, that you’re receiving all the good gifts that he has for you, that you are practicing these very things with your spouse and loving them well and forgiving them well, and then you can raise God-centered children.

One of the greatest gifts that any parent could give their children is this Christ-centered marriage. That is why we have this invitation to all of you for our final week here as we’re doing a challenge is that you would prioritize your marriage, that you would find that place to be your firm foundation outside your relationship with God, that the next most important relationship would be your spouse, that you could get together, that you could date each other, that you could talk about not just the mundane things but actually connect with one another. And this is a difficult one, I’ll say.

If you’re not a planner, this is going to stretch you a little bit because what we’re inviting you to do is to plan a date night for the next three months. One spouse plans one date, one spouse plans the other, and then you plan the third together. My prayer for all those that take us up on this is that those times would be fruitful for you and that you would be able to carve the time out, that you would be able to look at your calendars and prioritize that and say that this is far too important.

I need to prioritize God and I need to prioritize my spouse so that I’m able to parent and love well in the way that God has called me to. We can close with this. From the same Psalm, Psalm 127, the one that tells us that kids are a heritage, they are a blessing, they’re a gift from God, it actually starts off this way.

Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. For all of our efforts, for all that we do, for all that we try to do to build up our own marriages, to build up our families as best as we can, we can be spinning our wheels if we’re not recognizing this, that God is the one who’s building your family. God is the one who’s building your home.

God is the one who has sustained you up into this point and he is the one who’s going to carry you forward. He’s the one who began a good work in you and your family and he is the one who’s going to bring it to completion. And so in that, what I want you to hear is that we can do this from a place of rest.

From a place where all the work is really finished. All the heavy lifting has been done by Christ and now we are called to simply be his obedient children. Obey.

Heed the message that he’s given to us and live it out that we could love and forgive our children as he has loved and forgiven us. Amen? At this time, I invite you to pray with me and if you have your spouse, if you have your kids with you, that you might grab their hand, that you might just pull together and that we can just pray over our families, over our parents. And again, this is for all of us because we are all in fact children.

Let’s go to God in prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, God, we thank you that you are just that. A gracious Heavenly Father to each of us.

God, we come before you and we recognize when it comes to something as difficult as parenting, as difficult as loving our spouse well and getting things in the proper priority, God, that we all too often fall woefully short of your perfect standard. Yet God, we know that we can come to you and that we receive forgiveness that you’ve earned for each of us on the cross. By your Holy Spirit, empower our families, empower our parents, empower our kids to properly prioritize you in our lives.

That we might receive all the good gifts that you have for us that then we might be able to go forward and share them with the ones that we love most. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen.