Home-Field Advantage | Week 1 | Bill Bush

Do you guys all know what home field advantage is? Yeah, it's that teams historically have a much better record playing at home than on the road.

And like, why does that happen? If you're the same team, it's the same size field, everything's the same. What makes that happen? And a lot of it is you don't get your routine thrown off. You didn't have to travel. You didn't have to get all of that stuff. You don't have time zones to deal with. You don't have any of that. But I think one of the biggest reasons

home field advantage happens is because of the fans. They can affect the game, especially at football. You know, in football, like you can throw off a defense as when you get loud at the right time, quiet at the right time. And it's really very encouraging. You're gonna play better

when people are cheering for you rather than against you, right? And that's really what it's about, like for example, like it's really hard if you don't have home field advantage ever. And I remember when the Cardinals left, you know they came to Arizona, and they were the

oldest, they're the first NFL team in existence, so they're the oldest team in the NFL, and often they play like they're the oldest team in the NFL, but especially back then they moved, they weren't very good. Usually if a team leaves where been, it's meaning they didn't do very well where they were, and so

they came to Arizona, and Arizona, yay, we have football, but they never had it before, And so the people, they didn't even build a stadium. And so when they came here, they had to play at ASU for a number of years. Imagine that, an NFL team had to come play at a college site, they didn't even have their own home. And

that would be like if you're the older brother and you fell on hard times and you had to move in with your younger brother, and your younger brother's more popular than you.

And so that's what they had to do, and you know what, it showed like they didn't have a home and they definitely didn't have home field advantage, because the other thing that hurt them is Arizona is filled with people that were born somewhere else.

And that's why I look out and I see so many like Seahawks jerseys right now, you know. And the Seahawks get it, I'll give them a compliment right now even though it's gonna make me throw up in my mouth. They

know that the fans can make a difference. They have a name for the fans. What is it? Twelfth Man. There you go. The twelfth Man. And and it's it's it's a it's good thing. But but when the Cardinals played here, they didn't even have a home and they definitely didn't have a home field advantage.

Back then, if you wanted to wear a Cardinals jersey to the game, you had to consider who they're playing because you're like, I might get heckled. That's you had to consider that at a home game, especially,

believe it or not, when the Dallas Cowboys would come into town. Because the Dallas Cowboys were pretty good back then.

And and and what would happen is it's is when they would come, you really didn't. If you wore your cardinals, you were way outnumbered. They actually used to call the Cowboys game in Tempe was called the Cowboys ninth home game. That's how bad it would be. I mean, if you wanna know a more today example,

imagine if you go to the Diamondbacks

game right now when they're playing the Dodgers, feels the same way. You think, am I in LA right now? Because I don't know, I see way more Dodger paraphernalia than I do my own team. And and and you know, it's gotten better. They finally got a home. They they they got better as a team. But it's still not perfect because those

because people in Arizona, we're like practical people. Right? So a lot of people in this state have figured out, you know what? I want season tickets, but they're expensive. Well, you know that there's so many fans from other places that you know that if you buy season tickets for these eight games, there's probably usually two games a year on the schedule that they have the fan base that you could sell those tickets for so ridiculously overpriced, it almost pays for your other six games.

And I hate that the fans do that, because you show up at a game and like instantly you're overwhelmed, but there was a number of years ago back when Kurt Warner was a quarterback, they were good, and I got tickets to the Cardinals Packers game.

And my son walked out to get ready to go and he had a Packers jersey on, because I don't know where I went wrong as a father,

but he's a Packers fan, and I look at him, he's young at the time, I was like, you're gonna wear that? Yeah, I'm a Packers fan. I go, you're gonna feel out of place. He goes, I don't care, I don't care if they yell at I'm not thinking, well, I gonna fight with somebody because

I'm a terrible Is somebody gonna call CPS that I'm there with my son and I let him be a Packers fan? What am I doing? But I said, all right, if you can deal with it, let's go. And we were in this nosebleed section, we walk out of the tunnel to look for our seats, and as I turn, I am overwhelmed

by this sea of yellow and green. We're looking at the tickets, I'm right in the middle. I'm the only person in this whole section that has a Cardinals jersey on. I'm the one that was out of place, I'm the one, my son got high fived the whole game, hey, I got parents,

you're raising them right, you're raising them right. I'm like, what are you talking about? Cardinals won the game though. So preemptive go Cardinals right there. So that's what happens in home field advantage, and I think that what I meant was the biggest thing that I think gives you home field advantage in sports is,

you got more people cheering for you, not against you. So what does that mean in our homes?

Home field advantage. It means our homes need to be a place where we're cheered for, not booed against.

And now don't hear what I'm not saying. It doesn't mean that you you watch a football game and you see some sideline conversations, you see a quarterback getting in the face of people, you see coaches coaching, They have to review film. You gotta practice. You gotta do stuff that you want. You're gonna have to have tough conversations

with Home Field Advantage to grow in a home.

But the difference between that and booze is when there's coaching going on the right way, everyone knows that we're here to be better. We're not against each other. But a lot of us are in homes now that it's like, it's changed. It's not we're working together to be a better home team, it's the other person or the kids and me as the parents, it's become like Cardinals and Seahawks, I'm gonna boo you, you're gonna boo me, I'm gonna cheer for victory and for your loss.

And a lot of us grew up in homes like that. And that's what makes it so hard to bring home field advantage into our homes. And that's what we're gonna be talking about for the next few weeks. But just by don't, I just wanna say something, if you are single,

you're gonna get a lot out of this. We're looking at this from a different point of view. It's not gonna be this exactly like any other kind of marriage or parenting series I've done. We're gonna be peeling back the onion a little bit more in a different way. Especially if you're married and you wanna get married, it's more important that you learn this now anyways.

But just hang in there. And if you've been married for a million years, you think you got it all put together, like I said, there's still some stuff we're gonna talk about that'll be better for the home anyways. But today I wanna just start with talking about what is home field advantage when it comes to our homes.

And it's simply this, this is the big idea. Home field advantage happens when you belong and become. If I try to summarize what God's saying about what it means to be married and have kids, and first of all, you can be just husband and wife and be a family.

So if you're struggling or you never had kids or you didn't want kids or you were like, you know, wish you never had kids, whatever it is. A marriage constitutes a family.

But with marriage and kids, it's like it happens when you belong and become. What does that mean? Well, first of all, I'm just gonna take those two things apart and we're just gonna talk about them. And the first one is to belong. What does it mean to belong? It means that we get to belong to something like nothing else in creation.

Marriage and having parenting is something that God created that is like nothing else in all of creation. Let me show you. I'm gonna go into Genesis chapter one and two. We've looked at a few of these verses before in other sermons, but

Pat looked at a couple of these verses, and I'm just gonna correct his heresy and and set it right. No, I'm just kidding. He's in the room by the way. I just said that for him. But no, I'm gonna look at these passages and say, how is how is belonging to a family is belonging to something like nothing else in creation? Well, chapters one and two of Genesis are interesting. Chapter one talks about the creation story. Then chapter two

does it again. And you're like, did Moses have Alzheimer's? Is he like me now with my kids? Sometimes I'll tell a story and then I'll tell it again, because that's what we do when we get older as grandpas. And

but no, if you look, chapter one tells it, and then chapter two tells it again, but it focuses more in on more detail on the creation of Adam and Eve, on us humans, male and female. So I just wanna take a few verses and show you what it means to be

part of something like nothing else in creation. So verse 27 of chapter one says this, so God created human beings in his own image.

In his own image. In the image of God, he created them male and female he created them. So that's kinda the overall picture. So God created male and female. That means both of them are in the image of God. And it took both of them. In the image of God, does that mean that we have we look alike? No. It means that he created us to be image bearers, that we can carry some of the attributes of who God is. We can we can do things and be things that the animals and other creations are. You know what? He didn't say about any other thing he ever created that has the image of God.

So us as men and women, God created us to be a bearer of his image, and we're an illustration of that, and we're supposed to reflect that. We are the high point of all of his creation. We are the exclamation point. And as God is a creator, he's an artist. He's an artist. Meaning he painted this creation

and we are the masterpiece if you think of him as artists. He's creating the whole universe, and we are his masterpiece,

his final piece, the most important piece, the best piece of work he's done, then that's what we're supposed to be. And he says in verse 28, then God blessed them and he said, be fruitful and multiply.

Fill the earth and govern it. Rain over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and all the animals that scurry along the ground. So not only did he create us as a masterpiece, God is the only artist that's ever existed that created art, that creates other art.

So we are meant to It's a blessing. Part of our creation is we were to multiply, we are to create more. You know, we're this masterpiece painting that comes together as one, and as we come together as one as this image of God, we create little paintings

that grow up, and then they become, and then they create little paintings, and we get to bear that image, and we get to do that, we are a part of something that God meant to be an illustration, something special.

For example, as we are the people of God, as people of Christ, he calls us the bride of Christ. He uses marriage as an illustration, because marriage is supposed to illustrate that two becoming one. As we come together, we get to fully illustrate together the image of God, and it takes male and female.

And then we create little kids. So if if if our marriage is this this illustration of the image of God, that also is an illustration of how we relate to God as bride and groom. There's a purpose in why God created the way he did. And having children shows us how much God does love us.

And you can understand him better in that illustration, because when you have kids, kids will break your heart. You know, and then they leave. Or then they don't leave. Either way, it breaks your heart.

One way breaks your wallet more than your heart, but still It's an example of God's love because you think about it, even when they are the most frustrating, if you genuinely care as a parent and you love the way God called you love, you still love them don't you?

Even though you just wanna punch them in the throat over and over again. But when you understand that, it's an illustration to help you understand God's patience and love for you. So it's something like nothing else in creation because it's revealing how we are image bearers that get to create other image bearers,

and that's important. That's important because if you look through scripture, God created government. He created this ability to have society because you know we have this whole eternity to live for, but we're also created and we live in this world. And so there's society and then there's church.

And think about it. In other words, if you look at society, even societies that don't care about God, that little bit of that image that's still the image of God that's been twisted and turned a little bit, but we still kind of bear it as human beings, Every society has mainly that's been flourished.

The basic building block of society was not top down, it was family up.

Family units have been the cornerstone and the building block of all great society, all great cultures that's ever exist. And also God created the family to be an illustration of us as the church family and the church world. As we come together to become the body of Christ, it's meant to be built on the basic building blocks of the family.

Meaning the whole family needs to know Christ, the whole family comes. And reality is parents come with their kids, the children's ministry, the youth ministry is supposed to be a compliment to you as the number one shepherd and pastor for your kids.

But imagine if you break that apart, imagine if people stop thinking about it that way. Imagine if you get these fractured families, imagine if you have this, and then imagine society if family doesn't work right. This

is almost a little bit right here is a continuation of the devil's playbook. I just didn't talk about this and that because I knew I was doing the series. So think about it. If God really created marriage and parenting

to be this family thing that the Homefield Advantage is, that's what he's gonna that should be the building block for society and for the body of Christ. And you're the enemy of God. And you wanna steal his glory, and you want to mess with things,

which pillar do you think you would be easy if you knock that pillar out, it would cause problems? Distort what marriage is, distort what family is. And if you get that, you're gonna affect society and the church all in one.

If you don't believe me, let me give you an example just from a study of society. I know if you ever heard of a sociologist and historian named Carl Zimmerman. He wrote a book called Family and Civilization. He was a historian and he was also a sociologist. So what he did is he studied

a bunch of great societies throughout history and that went into decline. And he found a parallel

thing of where the family went, that's the same time the family declined from the traditional idea of the family being the building block of society and the definition of it. As that started to go down, the society started to go down. And in all of these studies he found eight characteristics, eight patterns

of domestic behavior that typified the downward spiral of each culture. You wanna know what they are? Because you're gonna hear them now anyways. Marriage loses its sacredness, it's frequently broken by divorce, divorce rates go up. The traditional meaning of marriage is lost. The traditional meaning of what is marriage

is lost. Radical feminist movements abound, because now you have this difference of who's who and what's what's and gender roles and all that gets confused. Increased public disrespect for parents and authority in general. Acceleration of juvenile delinquency, promiscuity and rebellion,

refusal of people with traditional marriages to accept the family responsibilities that they're supposed to have in said marriages, growing desire for an acceptance of adultery, and an increasing interest in and the spread of sexual perversions and sex related crimes.

I'm so glad that doesn't sound like anything we see out there today, right? That describes our culture right now. And he wrote this book in 1947. I'm telling you,

we have a lot of things that we like to get on our social media and argue about like if we don't do this our society's doomed, if we don't do that we're doomed, if we don't do this our churches are doomed, if we don't do that our churches are doomed. I'm gonna tell you that my theory is this, family, marriage,

the way God says it should work, if that doesn't happen that is the number one threat to our society and to our churches. And I know because it's getting twisted and changed and it's already affecting our society and it's already affecting our churches.

Because I know there's some people in this room that are gonna react to what I'm gonna say right now. What is a family? What is a marriage? God says it very clear. One man,

one woman, for life, and then the free agents you sign on as you go along the way. That's what the bible says. There's no other way. And here's the problem, we don't wanna accept that. We've listened to culture that's twisting it because the truth is getting twisted. And here's the thing, if God's really God,

if this is his word, which I believe, and it is inherent and inspired,

he says this is the way it needs to work because I'm the one that created it. And if you twist what he created, if it really is created to be image bearers, and he says you need male and female, because look, if you go into the chapter two here, look what he says in chapter two verse 18, he says, then the Lord God said, it's not good for the man to be alone. I'll make a helper who's just right for him. Oh, that's a no doubt point, everyone knows you can't leave a man alone. We devolve really fastly.

But what he's really saying is it's not good for men or women to be alone because you're not a complete image bearer at this point. It needs both of you to be the image bearer. And so he said he made a helper. Helper doesn't mean less than. The helper word there is the same word that's used the name of the holy spirit.

It means you are a team and together you complement and together you work together and together you actually reveal the image bearer. So how can it be man a man, woman a woman or multi different genders? It needs to be a man and a woman. That's the only way it works.

And here's the weird twist where many of us have been twisted. There's people in this room that think I'm wrong. Because the enemy is trying to take society and the church down. And if he can get the church fighting over something as fundamental as what God declared,

how are we ever gonna move forward in what God wants us to do? And I'm not being mean because we need love. But love doesn't mean what society is trying to say love is. Jesus says you need to speak truth in love.

Love doesn't mean I accept you, I accept everything about you, and I have to agree that everything in your truth is your truth, or I'm intolerant and unloving. That's not what love is. And that's what's funny. A lot of people that argue this think that's love, but you have a kid.

And then try to apply that. Try to apply that definition of love to your child. You know what'll happen? No one will live to adulthood and you'll go to prison. If you love your kids, there is a million things they wanna do or be or say that you know they can't.

Why does that change? Just because you became an adult. Think about the logic, any of you that disagree with me. There's a twist in life that's not logic. I'm not even using bible, just use basic logic.

But we run down this road of feelings and we think if I say someone that hey, I don't agree with that, that's not what God meant, somehow you're being mean. And I don't have enough time but I'm just telling you, you know what it is? There's two lies. Definition of intolerance has been changed.

It used to mean I won't be prejudiced against you, but I think you're wrong. I'm tolerant. It's now become if you don't believe my truth is just as valid as your truth, you're intolerant.

And that's also combined with the lie that the devil has sold, especially to the younger people in this room, is that your sexuality is your identity. And that's why if God says sexuality needs to be this way and you're not, you don't have that desire,

you're either something wrong with God or there's something wrong with your interpretation because God wouldn't let me be built this way. Well, we're in a broken world. There's lots of things that I don't celebrate that God made in me. It's not that God, like I said, artwork that creates artwork.

But we're in a broken world. So we are born with diseases. We're born with lots of things. We're born with desires for stuff in our heart that God says no, that's wrong. So just because you were born that way or you have a desire that way doesn't make it right or wrong. And the problem is when it comes to sexuality,

why it's so hard to talk about that, we can talk about right and wrong and so many other things. Like they know there's a genetic predisposition for anger and being a serial killer. Do we say, well, you just gotta let them killers be killers, let them be a killer.

You know why that most people don't accept that with sexuality? It's because you think that's your identity. There is nowhere in the word of God that says your sexuality is your identity. It's not who you are. It's not, that's not who you were made to be. But I gotta go on because that wasn't the point of this talk.

So we belong to something like nothing else in all of creation. And that's why verse 24 of chapter two says, this explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one until they move back in with their dad so they can save money to buy a house.

I have three kids, that's happened twice already.

Just saying. My wife and I are gonna talk a little bit during this series and you're gonna hear a lot about phase two parenting. Parenting the adult, somehow I was under this illusion that it got better? No.

It just gets different. So just

before we move on from this point that I landed in general, me give you three things that what does that, this thing that's not like nothing else in creation, what's it supposed to look like? Let me just give you three things, just three quick things that I think it should look like that that that's not completely, but I think it really sums it up. And the first one is protect.

Home field advantage means you have a place of protection. It's a protective place. Let me read Proverbs fourteen twenty six here. Those who fear the Lord are secure. He will be a refuge for their children. So if you're in a family when when you when you when you fear the Lord, you trust the Lord, and it should be a place where there's protection there. You it's a refuge. It's it's it's it's a safe place.

In other words, our home should be the safest place we know. Your kids' home should be the safest place they know. In your marriage, that should be the safest person you know. And not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually,

they should be the safest place to be. And this is the hang up. This is where a lot of families get broken because so many of us in this room I started praying for every marriage, every family, every kid when I knew I was gonna preach this series. Because I know one of the biggest struggles is so many of us near, you grew up in a home that that was the exact opposite. Home was the least safe place.

And you don't know what you don't know. You know you didn't like that. So how do I not have that? It's hard to just know what you don't like without knowing what you need to do to have what you want. And we have to learn to go, hey, how is it safe? How is it secure? Meaning I need to go home and not hear boos.

Home should be the place of encouragement. It should be the place of encouragement. The second thing is a place of play. A place of play.

Now what do mean by that play? Like, if you heard the word recreation, when you think rec, you think the rec center playing, you know, foosball and basketball or whatever. But recreation comes from two words, recreate. It means to recreate, and that means God created us that, you know, we have to get we need recreation.

You go out into the world, and the world is tough. We've got we have jobs, we have jobs, it's rough, and home should be the place of play, the recreation. Home should be the place where I get recreated,

but a lot of us don't look at it that way. Home is the place where we feel like we get destroyed, and we need something else to recreate, but home, family should be the place where that happens. Let me show you a couple verses. First Ecclesiastes nine:nine, look what Solomon writes. Live happily with the woman you love, oh, that's sweet, through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you under the sun.

Solomon was the wise man, this is when he's old and he went all in these other ways and he realized you know everything I chased after other than what God told me to do is meaningless. So he's just bluntly

saying it, you know what, life out there can be very meaningless at times. It could be soul sucking, it could be tough, but the problem is home, life with your wife should be the happiest. But how many of us reverse this? You know, live happily in the days of your life

so you can get through all the meaningless days with your wife or your husband. Somehow we reversed it. Home's become the meaningless place and you're always longing to be out there.

But we have it backwards, we need to learn to play, especially with husbands and wives. You know, here's the thing, guys, there's a little bit of throat punching going on for guys in this series, because I am one and I'm sorry, it just there is. So

you know, because that's what it means for a guy to be a leader, doesn't mean a boss, it means you go first. For guys to be called to lead in the home, it's not a ladder hierarchy where you're on a higher rung. Drop that ladder down and it turns into train tracks. It means you're supposed to be the engine.

You're all on the same plane, you're just the one that's supposed to pull first. You're supposed to push first. So

You just expect to be at home and you stop wooing. You need to date your wife after you're married. You need to care about it. You need to have fun together. It can't be just the you come home and you report about all the nine things that idiot kids do and all right, let's divide and conquer. You gotta take that. You gotta that's necessary, but where's the fun? Where's the play? Where's the common interest? Look for the things you like to do together.

You have to keep doing that. It's actually more important. But now you gotta guys look at me, you know, we're like caveman. Let me bottom line it for you. Put cookies on the bottom shelf guys, here you go. You have to play together if you want to lay together.

That's all I'm saying. Alright? That's all I need to say about that. But then look at Psalms one twenty seven verse verse three through five here. Children are a gift from the Lord. Right now, children are a gift from the Lord. Children are a gift from the Children are a gift from Lord. Even

when they tell you they wanna go 6,000 miles away. They are a reward from him, children are born to a young man, here's this, you know a guy wrote this,

because they're born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior's hands, how joyful is the man whose quiver is full of him, he will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates. It's like children are your own little army. You can defeat all foes with your kids.

All that means is they're a blessing not a burden, And you need to enjoy them. You need to play together. And in our culture you know what we do, we don't really play together with our kids, because if you play together, you know we don't really do that. We live together,

we're the taxi cab that drives them all the things, we watch them play together, and we just, you know we just, we do that, but do we really actually truly play, get involved?

The simple thing guys, this is what it means to dumb it down for us.

If you play together with your kids, they'll pull together with you in the home. You've got to play together to pull together. So we need to look at that in our homes. How are you doing on that? And the last one is simply the no duh. We provide life skills. The home is a place for life skills. You know, just you gotta

teach your kids how to survive, know. One of the things is I got this human being that's completely dependent upon me, and the goal of parenting is to make them completely independent of you. That's what makes parenting so hard. It's an eighteen year process of letting go. And they need to learn some things.

And you know what, we're pretty good at certain life skills.

But I think in our society we focused on a lot of the wrong ones. We focus on do good in school, if you like sports do good at that. And we run them around and go, alright, I'm gonna make you good at sports, I'm gonna take you to this, oh, you need to learn a musical instrument, I heard that's better for education, so you're gonna take jazz flute lessons, and then you go from that, then you run around that, you get involved in dance, you gotta do extracurricular, gotta be a good student, do this, work hard, because I need you to get a job so you can move out of my house.

You know, and then pass that on to your kids. We that is a job that is job skills and responsibility in that way is an important life skill, I think we've missed out on a lot of the other life skills. A lot of us grew up in broken homes and messed up homes, and it's we live in a society now that I think that's affecting our society. We have more and more adults that are growing up without certain life skills.

And what do I mean by that? Some of these life skills are values that teach a life skill. For example, one of the things I am the most thankful for in my home was my mom and dad both taught me this critical life skill, and my dad turned it into a mantra, and what he said is, bushes do hard things.

He made that a family value, we do hard things. We don't avoid hard things, we don't say if it's hard, it must be wrong, we don't try to avoid hard. And in other words, he was a military guy, he would also say we do hard things and that means you embrace the suck. He said suck in church. It's a military term.

It means when you're a soldier and you know there's a critical mission and you know that the mission achieved on the other side is gonna be very important, but you know that from here to there is gonna be terrible, it's gonna suck, you know as a soldier you embrace that suck.

You don't fear it, you don't just get all mad at it, you're not yelling at it all the time, you lean into it and you embrace it.

And that kind of mentality is why we have one of the greatest armed forces in the planet, because our soldiers, Urah, embraced the suck on our behalf. But guess what? My dad didn't tell me it in the form of soldiers. He said this is what a bush does. This is what our family does.

And we live in a society now that most of us don't know how to do that. You know why? We have instant gratification.

I'm amazed at how things I never even thought I had to go search a million stores, save up the money, like figure it out. I can just push a button on Amazon. Oh, if I order something else, it's here by 2PM. You don't wait. We don't wait for stuff.

Why do you think COVID almost blew up the world over the last year? In World War II, there was severe rationing for three years and we weren't killing each other and hollering about everything. We live in a world now that we have a hard time facing hard things.

One of the life skills you need to teach your kids is how to manage conflict.

And it's hard, and we have a generation, a lot of us, it's hard because you know what, when I was a kid growing up, we had this law of the playground. We'd go outside when I was like 10 years old, and as long as I came home by the time the lights went on in the street,

I was okay. Mom would maybe occasionally come out and check on you, say come in for lunch or whatever, but for the most part, we ran around and if we got in fights, we had to work it out. We had to figure out how to manage conflict.

But you know what? We don't do that anymore. Matter of fact, many of the parents in this room, if you saw the way my mom mothered, you moms would be calling CPS. Because we don't even let our kids have a play in the playground without us right there.

Wait, wait, Tommy's going for it, he's going for it. He pushed Billy over, run and grab him, it's okay, it's okay. And then you grab, it's alright, it's alright, we don't do that, we don't do that. You know why we have to jump in there and prevent any tough thing going on?

Most likely it's because you never learned how to manage those type of moments. They scare you.

So you're paranoid of ever letting your kid be uncomfortable.

I didn't want my daughter to go to England. I didn't want her to be far away. We had this moment where she was gonna stay home for this whole semester and be online because of all the issues. But then her visa came. And then she panicked and got afraid. There's part of you in your parent like, yes, stay here longer.

But then she changed her mind after a week, which now made it even more complicated. But then she said, I'm just afraid. I didn't want to do as I'm afraid. At that point, that's all I needed to hear. You need to go. I'm gonna get on a plane with you next week and you're going. You've got to do a hard thing.

Does your family embrace the suck or do you try to avoid it at all costs and now you're passing that on to your kids? Provide life skills that mean something.

So then the second thing, a little bit deeper here, this last point here, just gotta hurry. Become who God created us to be. Become who God created us to be. If you look over into the book of Mark chapter 12,

I just wanna read this interaction. Jesus has this interaction with this group of religious people called the Sadducees and they don't believe in resurrection, they believe when you die you're done and that's it, that's why they're sad you see.

That was terrible, I apologize. But he destroys them in this argument. So then there was this teacher of the law, when you hear teacher of the it means they're a bible scholar. They were the ones in Israel that they were the experts

in the Old Testament, the word of God, they would interpret it, they would say here's what's going on and here's what it means. So this guy was watching, and here's what happens in verse 20, it says one of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus answered him well, so he asked of all the commandments, which is the most important? Jesus replied, the most important commandment is this, listen, O Israel, the Lord our God is the one and only Lord,

and you must love the Lord your God with your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and all your strength. The second is equally important, love your neighbor as yourself, no other commandment is greater than these. So basically this guy says, hey, can you just give me the cliff note versions of the Bible man, I don't know what's going on you know.

And he goes, all right, here it is. Love God, love others. And know that there's only one God. So he's one God, there's one way, there's his way. That's the most important commandment.

Well, that's the most important commandment of all scripture, that's what God really wants for our lives, shouldn't that be what we need to be as a church? That's where we get That passage is where we get our mission statement of the church. That and

Matthew 28, where Jesus, what he ascended to heaven, he gave us a charge as the people of God. Go make disciples. In other words, go show other people the way to love God and love others. That's us as an organization. But you know what, as an organization, you know what we are, we're more of an organism.

The church's mission statement is our mission statement, because we are the church. So our mission statement for our life should be, I need to love God and love others. In other words, were to point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus. But I gotta know Jesus to do that, right? Alright, well that's the mission statement of the church. Some of you haven't even embraced that, that you realize that's your mission statement given by God.

That's not just mine, that's all of us. Then there's another level. If that's true of me, of us as the church, of us as individuals, what do you think your family's mission statement should be? What do you think the goal is as a parent, in your home, of your marriage?

It should be this, mission statement for a family, love God and love others. We're supposed to learn love God, that's why marriage, see people I'm just not happy, I'm not happy. Marriage wasn't created for us to be happy, it was created for us to be holy. Now not holy like holes punched in you,

but holiness, to be like Jesus, to love God, to know him, to be like him and loving others. And that's why the person you married irritates you so much sometimes.

Now here's the thing, you think that sounds sad, I'm not gonna be happy? No, there's this weird thing. You pursue what God wants, you pursue holiness, you will be happy. If your life is always running after what you think will bring you happiness, it'll destroy your marriage and you will only have moments of happiness and you'll have really bad bouts of not happy.

And so this should be the mission. So this should be the point. When you think about how you're parenting, the life skills, what you play together, what you're trying to do, what you're trying to protect, what you're trying to show him. How many of you said everything I'm trying to teach and show my kids is I need them to know and love God and love others?

That's what we need to become. And I think a lot of us struggle in marriage because you've redefined what you think marriage should be, and you've redefined what being a parent is. You know, if you don't know what the goal is, if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time. And if you don't know where you're going,

you're gonna end up someplace else. Yogi Berra said that. And so this should be the mission, this is what it should be. What does that look like then? How do we love God and love others? Well there's three words we use around here, anybody know what they are? What?

Three words, no, go, go, someone said it, I heard you mumbling it, great.

To know Jesus in a personal and purposeful relationship, to grow in biblical community, that's kind of love for one another, how do we help each other grow in knowing God and understanding God and loving them, and then to go live intentionally. This is to show other people love of God, this is to put my life, my family structure, everything around living out what God called me to be by his power.

This is what we need to be. But I wanna focus on the no, because here's the point I wanna make right now before we close down. If I don't get this, I can try to do this all I want and I'm not gonna get anywhere.

In the Bible it talks a lot about this thing called legalism. And I'm like, what is legalism? What is this? We think it's all just judging people and not No, legalism is trying to make yourself right before God and making life work. You can come to church and be very legalistic. In other words, it's like I'm gonna try to grow in biblical community and go live intentionally without actually trusting

Jesus, without surrendering to him. It's more like, okay, I'm gonna go do these things. I'm gonna live for God's love. I do this, then God loves me. And then you think if you live that way, then you think when I do the right things, God should give me the blessings I want.

And that's a really confusing model because when you do it that way and you don't get what you said the blessing should be, you start to think God's mean and eventually you're gonna give up and run away. And if you you think that way, you think everything I'm saying is you better do this or God's after you. No.

We need to not live for God's love, we need to live from God's love. We need to know Jesus. And this is the most important thing first, for you personally, for your family, for success, you have to know the love of Christ. In order to love God with all your heart, it says in John

writes, we can love because he first loved us. So our ability to love God back and love others comes from our ability to surrender to the love of God in the first place. We have to see how much he loves us. I'm gonna prove this point to you right now, look. Mark chapter 12, let's finish the story of what this guy

talked to Jesus. Verse 32, the teacher of religious law replied, well said teacher, you have spoken the truth by saying there's only one God and no other. Didn't that sound a little arrogant?

He's talking to the way, the truth, the life, the one who is the word of God. He goes, you know what, I agree, I think you're right. Good job. He's trying to give Jesus a gold star.

He's also trying to justify himself before Jesus, because he says, you're right, and I know it's important to love him with all my heart understanding and all my strength and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important

than to offer all the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law. So he's like, I know it and that's what I try to do. He's trying to say, see Jesus, give me a gold star. And if you look at verse 34, it says, realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him, you are not

far from the kingdom of God. Wait, Not far, not far, not far, playoffs, Not far. What does not far mean? Not there. Not there. Not far means not there. Close but no cigar.

It means not far is like close, but almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, right? I'm really aging myself, that's the bee's knees, here we go. This

guy knew everything about what the Bible said, he had all the answers, he knew what it mean, he knew what it means, he knows you're supposed to love God, he knows you're supposed to go live intentionally, he knew you're supposed to grow in community, he knew all that, but he didn't, you know why he said he's not far, because he didn't know Jesus.

He had all the right answers, but he didn't have the right relationship. He had all the right answers, but the wrong relationship.

His relationship with God was about I do this and then you give me. He didn't know Jesus. When he said not far, he's like, you gotta understand, you're close, but you don't know that that only happens, that only works as a response to actually accepting and knowing me and knowing my love.

You could do this all you want, you can come to church all you want. A lot of you come in here, you're just like this guy, you're close, you're sitting in the stadium, you're coming to the game here, you're here, you listen to what I say. And some of it you're like, yeah, that's truthful, I'm gonna try that. I don't like that, I'm gonna And the reality is you're never surrendered to Jesus, you just come and you're here and you're so close, you're not far, but you're gonna miss it.

You're gonna miss it. And that's why it's so important for a family, this is the number one thing you have to embrace in order to get anywhere in life.

Because let me show you, I'll prove it right now. So that's where that guy was. If you go to John chapter four, there's a story in here, I gotta hurry here. There's a story in John chapter four where there was a Roman official, that means a Roman officer,

that seeks out Jesus because his son is deathly ill. Now here's what's weird about this. A Roman officer would have one, not known anything about the bible. Not known how to love God. Not known that you're supposed to do that. Not known nobody even cared. They worshiped multiple gods. They obviously thought that the Jews think that there's one god was stupid.

They thought the Jews were beneath them. And a matter of fact, if you were a Roman officer assigned to Judea, something you did wrong, that was considered the armpit of all the places to be assigned. That's the worst place to be. You would be mad that you were there. You hated it there, the way the

cities were set up and Jerusalem were opposite of Roman, it was so foreign, they hated it. They didn't like it, it'd have been like if you're in the military and you got stationed at Tucson. Well, maybe not that bad, but still.

And so he wouldn't have known anything, wouldn't have cared about the Jewish bible, wouldn't have cared he actually wouldn't have cared about Jesus, matter of fact, the only thing he probably knew about Jesus, he's probably on a watch list because this guy starts, his rabbi starts talking about a kingdom and a king and now he's a king. They did pay attention to that.

They didn't want any rebellion. And yet his son gets sick and unlike the teach of law that knew all the answers but was prideful and didn't know Jesus, look what happens in this guy's life. Starting in verse 46, it says, as Jesus traveled through Galilee,

he came to Canaan where he had turned the water into wine. There was a government official in nearby Capernaum whose son was very sick. When he heard that Jesus had come to Judea,

from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Jesus to come to Capernaum to heal his son who's about to die. Isn't that the opposite of the other guy? He came himself.

An officer would have sent lackeys, and he had the power to drag, to send some of his men to forcefully bring Jesus to his home, but he didn't. He went and saw him face to face on his own and begged him. And why? Because he loved his son.

It says, Jesus asked, will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders? He's like, are people ever gonna truly believe me unless they see these signs? But the official pleaded, Lord please come now before my little boy dies.

So Jesus saw this heart of this guy, he's putting faith in me, he trusts me, he has no reason to believe in me, but somehow he thinks you can bring healing. There's no other way but you.

Then Jesus told him, go back home, your son will live. Jesus did something interesting, you could be a scam artist and heal people by just planting someone. I can't walk, hit them in the head, I walk now. They probably walked before too. But how do you just say, they'll be fine and they're miles away?

This is what's crazy. So he didn't see it, he didn't go with them, he just said he'll live. And here's where you know this guy had faith, for somehow he just He looked to Jesus and nothing else. It says, and the man believed what Jesus said, so he started home.

While the man was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well. He asked them when the boy had become to get better, and they replied, yesterday afternoon at 01:00 his fever suddenly disappeared.

Says the man realized, the father realized that was the very time Jesus told him your son will live. So right at the moment Jesus said, your son will live, he sat up in bed and went, mom, meatloaf. He was fine.

But here's the powerful part. Here's what I'm trying to say guys, if you want home field advantage, you need to know Christ.

You need to surrender to him. He needs to be Lord of all, he needs to be the way, the truth, the life. You need to not just come to church and know the answers, you need to have that right relationship with him because look what happened next. The guy that knew nothing that the teacher of the law knew, knew nothing

and had no reason even to care about this Jewish religion at all. But look what it says, and his entire family, household believed in Jesus. This guy loved his son, he went to Jesus, he didn't know all the other stuff, he just thought Jesus can heal. And through all that, not only did he believe in Jesus, his whole family

came to know Jesus. There's an entire sermon for dads in that right there, I don't have time to unpackage it. I will tell you this, the Bible's stating something over and over that studies have finally caught up to. 75% of the time if dad is the first person to turn to Jesus, the entire family will.

If dad is not, only 15% of the time.

Men, that's what it means for you to be created as a leader. You're the engine out front. You are not the top rung of a ladder. But look what happened, his entire family was transformed and he didn't know all the other stuff. He probably went on to learn it and he learned to live from God's love,

not for it like the other guy. So how about you? I don't want you to miss it. So many of us in this room, maybe you grew up in church, maybe you've been around church, you've been in here all the time and you're like that teacher of the law and you're missing it. You need to surrender to Christ, you need to see his love, that's where it needs to begin. Otherwise you're just gonna force yourself to come in here, you're gonna sit here every now and again and you're gonna get tired, you're gonna go alright, well how long do I to hear, what's the minimum I need to do, what's going on?

Let me sum it up with this,

when I was a kid I grew up right next to where the Phoenix Giants played, they were the triple A team for the San Francisco Giants, was before we had the Diamondbacks. And my dad and I, he taught me baseball and we lived so close that if the game started in ten minutes we could leave and be there five minutes before the game started.

And so we'd go to a lot of these games, and my dad would always try to get right behind home plate or right along the dugout, because we'd like to watch the pitchers, he would like watch the hitters, he would diagnose stuff and talk. And I was a kid and I liked it, I loved baseball, but I wasn't as into it to him, so I'd get there and I'd be okay for the first few innings and I'd start getting bored. And I wanted a souvenir, when I go there, just wanted to get a ball.

And so I knew that the best place to get both was if you go straight out behind the concessions that behind on the outside, the stadium wasn't huge, so lots of foul balls that came straight back would just fly right over there and you could catch them and get them. But he wanted me to stay there and pay attention to the game. And the other thing is he wanted me to pay attention. I had a glove and he kept saying, hey, watch the game, watch the game. It wasn't just to learn the game, but he also said, where we're sitting, we didn't get to sit, we had to sit behind the dugout. There's no net here, if you get a line drive right here, it's dangerous. So pay attention, you can actually get hit in the head with something.

And I of course would watch a little while and then not believe them, and turn and start looking at a butterfly or whatever else it was, talk to a kid behind me, I don't know. I would look all the place. And all a sudden about the seventh inning,

I was turned in a way that my in my peripheral I could vaguely see home plate. And in about a nanosecond something happened. You hear this crack of the bat and I sense something coming right at my head.

And as this ball is flying right at my head, I didn't know what to do, I didn't have my glove and then in just an instant, I did what any like 10 year old would do. I just thought if I close my eyes somehow that'll protect me.

And so, and then let's still do that today, if I just don't think about it, it's not gonna really bother me. So I just closed my eyes and I braced for impact and all of a sudden I hear this smack of a ball hitting flesh and bone, but I didn't feel any pain. And I thought maybe this is what it means to die.

It happened so fast I didn't even feel it, and then especially because then I heard the crowd, I heard this this cheering happened and I thought that's the throngs of heaven celebrating and welcoming me home. So I opened my eyes and what it was was everyone in the stadium was cheering.

And what I saw right in front of my face was my dad's outstretched arm. And with one eye, even though I wouldn't listen to him, even though he told me over and over again, if you don't turn and pay attention, you're gonna get hit hard.

He loved me so much, he just stretched his arm out and he caught that ball right in front of my face. And it broke his hand. Broke his hand. And as he rubbed it, he just said, son, pay attention. And I understood what he meant. And I didn't get distracted anymore from that point on. Maybe a few times, squirrel.

But no one then he did. He tossed me the ball. He said there's a souvenir for you. He not only saved me, he gave me the ball. He gave me life. And this is what I'm saying. This is how it relates to your marriage and your family.

None of everything none of the stuff we're gonna talk about over the next weeks is really gonna make a difference. It might lessen some of the symptoms, but it won't get to the source. And the source is you need to accept the love of Christ

because we don't pay attention. We come to the state, we're so close, but we look around and we get distracted and we know all the answers, but we don't know Jesus sometimes. And so the problem is we have got to see that he stretched his arms out for you and me.

And he stretched his arm and he got his hands messed up when some nails went through him and through his feet. And he hung on that cross, and he died in our place, in your place. And he not only just took a death and a beating for you, he took all of your sin, past, present, and even future.

Even the future, even the future of your kids and all those moments and in your spouse and with you. He died for that, and you need to see that. You need to embrace that, and that's the only way you can love God and love others in the way we need to love. It's the only way a family will ever work the way God meant it to work.

And the question is, do you have the right answers but the wrong relationship? Have you ever surrendered to the love of Christ? Have you ever called him your Lord and your savior? Have you ever been born again? Have you ever just purposely turned from your sin, apologized to God, and said, I believe in you, Jesus?

Because that's where it starts, that's in the middle, and that's where it all ends.

You really want the ball that God designed for you to have? It comes through Jesus. And that is what a home field advantage is. So will you just pray with me?

Here's how I wanna pray. If you already know Jesus, you know this, you've you've you've put you've turned your faith in, but maybe you've got distracted a little bit. Just talk to God right now, whatever he wants to talk to you about. But just quickly, anyone online, new in this room, I want to pray with some of you.

Some of you are gonna have the opportunity to join over 200 people that have already done this, and that is to surrender to Jesus, to turn to Jesus. And you can have it right now.

You can have that right now. All you gotta do is is just turn to him, just to to to confess and profess. And I'm gonna pray with you and just pray this prayer with me, but make it your own words. Make it between you and God. Just pray something like this. Dear Jesus, thank you.

Thank you that when I'm not paying attention, I've done my own thing and I've just completely ignored you and tried to make life work my way that's called sin. You stretched out your hands and you took it for me. You took my sin. You took death

because you love me. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry for my sins, but I wanna turn from them and turn to you. And in the best way I know how right now, I want to look to you to have life. I want to look to you as the way, as the truth, and the life. And I put my faith in what you did on the cross,

and even more important is that you got up out of the grave and you beat death. Thank you. Thank you for loving me in that way. Thank you for stretching out your arms that way. Thank you for just allowing me

to have a way back home.

Before I say amen, with your eyes closed, I just encourage me, like over 200 people have done this already. If you just prayed that with me, would you just lift your hand up and let me see? Let me celebrate that. Thank you. Man, I see those hands. Wow. There isn't a part of this room that doesn't have hands up. Thank you.

God, I pray for these hands. I pray for these people that just walked out of death, walked out of that ball coming towards their head and walked into a life that comes through you, Jesus. So give us a ball in this life as we try to play this game you've called us to be. Thank you for the home field advantage.

And I pray for each of these people to raise their hand that they will know that they can go from here and not live for your love, not try to figure out life on their self, but they can embrace your love and learn to live from that in freedom, in hope, in life.

I thank you and I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus, amen. Amen. Thank you, guys. God bless you. I love you. And it's good to be back. And just to let you know, if you just raise your hand, if you could go to rockpoint.io,

we have a I said yes to Jesus, and just kinda put your name, fill it out in there. No one's gonna put you in a book of the month club or anything like that. It's just there's a team that wants to pray for you and continue to pray. And other than that, enjoy your day, and go Cardinals. Thanks

for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on rockpoint.io for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.