Welcome to the Wilton Baptist Church, where we worship God, walk with others, and win people to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm Pastor Steve, and our congregation is pleased to share this message with you today, and we pray it'll be a blessing and encouragement to you. Blessings as you listen or watch. It's just, there's all this pressure, you know? And sometimes it feels like it's right up on me and I can just feel it, like literally feel it in my head and it's relentless and I don't know if it's gonna stop. I mean, that's the thing that scares me the most is that I don't know if it's ever gonna stop. Yeah. Well, you do have a nail in your head. It is not about the nail. Are you sure? Because, I mean, I'll bet if we got that out of there- Stop trying to fix it. No, I'm not trying to fix it. I'm just pointing out that maybe the nail is causing- You always do this. You always try to fix things when what I really need is for you to just listen. See, I don't think that is what you need. I think what you need is to get the nail- See, you're not even listening now. Okay, fine. I will listen. Fine. It's just, sometimes it's like there's this achy, I don't know what it is. And I'm not sleeping very well at all, and all my sweaters are snagged. I mean, all of them. Yeah, that sounds really hard. It is. Thank you. Ow! on if you would just... Don't! I love that skit, that is amazing. Well, we're talking right now, tomorrow we're gonna talk about raising kids. But today we're gonna talk about what happens when the children are ready to leave home. What do you do with in-laws? We're always in transition. We are always going from one stage of life to another stage of life. I was driving out of my, housing development in Vegas. Everything in Vegas is built. There's housing developments here, housing developments here, and housing developments here, and we live in a housing development. I'm coming out of this housing development. We have about 56 houses in this area, and I'm coming out. As I'm coming out, I'm facing west towards the mountains. Now, Las Vegas is a desert valley, but we're surrounded by mountains, and the mountains are beautiful. If you drive 45 minutes from the desert, go up to the mountains, there's beautiful pine trees, it's gorgeous. And in the wintertime, when it snows up there, it's still dry in the desert, it snows up there, you can see these beautiful snow-capped mountains. I'm driving out one day after a snowfall, after a winter storm, and I saw the mountains. They were just gorgeous. And I said, I was driving two of my grandchildren to school. I had my granddaughter, Amber, she was eight years old. She's sitting over here. And my grandson, Clark, he's sitting in the back seat. And I'm driving, I said, I looked up and I said, oh, look at those mountains, kids. They're beautiful. I said, my mother used to say to me that God made these mountains just for her, that she was out here in this dry desert valley, but she got to see the mountains and God made those mountains just for her. And when I said that, Clark in the back, the five-year-old said, said, Grandpa, When did your mother pass?" And I said, oh, I said, she passed many years ago, a long, long time ago. Ember up front said, well, Grandpa, why did she pass? And I said, well, Ember, she just got really, really old. There was a pause in the car for a few minutes, and then from the back seat, the five-year-old said, Grandpa, you're really, really old. To which the eight-year-old, to assure him everything would be OK, she said, oh, Clark, it's going to be OK. She said, Grandpa's going to live a long, long time. He's got at least two or three more years. And so I was just reassured that day. The truth of the matter is we never know what's going to happen next in our life. Our life is always in transition. And when it comes to this whole thing of children getting up, that's a major, major transition in our life. Someone said that marriage is not just the union of two people, it's the union of two families. And this can be a great blessing, but it also can cause great conflict. And so we need to know how to work through that situation. So let me give you several principles that I think will be a great help. I call this when the prince leaves home. The Bible tells us this in Genesis 2. It says, Adam said, this is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of the man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife. and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed." So it's important that we understand this principle of leaving and cleaving. We've talked about that a little bit, but here's some help. Number one, help your children pick the right life partners. Help your children pick the right life partner. That is, check out their salvation. It's important that you help your children. When my children were very young, my daughters would say to my mom, to my wife, they would say, how are we gonna know who to marry? And she would say, she'd say, don't worry, your dad will help you pick them out. And you'd say, well, did you pick out their spouses? No, but I helped them. I helped them. Parents will say, you shouldn't have any part to do with that whatsoever. Of course you should. You help them with every decision they're making in their life. And the two most important decisions that they'll ever make is trusting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That's so important, and you bring them to church and you teach them so that they will receive Christ, and then helping them pick the person they're gonna spend the rest of their life with. Why would you check out of a major, the major decision in their life when it comes to their physical happiness here on this earth? So help them, teach them to check out their salvation, check out their family backgrounds. Check out what's going on. Our media actually makes us feel guilty. Oh, you shouldn't have to check anything out. Yes, you should. You're concerned about your children's well-being. So help them. Protect them. Help your children not to blow it. Your children can blow it. So for my kids, there was no single dating. No single dating whatsoever. You say, you act as though you didn't trust your kids, right? Matthew said to me one day, he said, dad, you don't trust me. I said, no, I don't trust your flesh. I love you, I trust your spirit, but I don't trust your flesh. Your flesh is just as bad as my flesh. And I don't trust mine, I'm not gonna trust yours. So no single dating. Number two, they should always be where they can be interrupted. where somebody can break in and watch any time that keeps them cautious and will protect them. You should make your home available all the time so that they feel comfortable bringing the ones that they're dating, the ones they're getting serious about into your home and your home is a place where they can talk, where they can sit in the dining room and talk and you're not interfering with their conversation, where they can have a private conversation without you being in the middle of that. So help them pick out the right life partner, be involved in those things, and then teach them the principles of marriage very quickly. We need to understand that, again, they must be saved. The Bible says this. be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness?" We did not allow our kids to date evangelistically. Oh, well, this guy's gonna come to church. If he comes to church, he might get saved. Well, that's not the deal. Let him come to church, let him get saved, and then after he gets saved, then maybe we can talk about dating. but don't let them date evangelistically. They must be saved. And then they've got to desire marriage. Don't push your children into marriage. The Bible tells us this, that Paul didn't have the desire, and Jesus said there were going to be very few of you, but some of you will not have the desire. If someone doesn't have a desire to get married, then don't push them into that. Number three, they should be serving the Lord. My kids, they love serving Jesus. They love being in church. They love doing the things of God. They love those things. Why would they want to marry somebody who's not interested in it or the church is just a sideline to them? Your children, we said to our children, you need to understand, you want to find somebody who wants to do what God wants them to do. They're in church because they want to be in church. They're serving the Lord because they want to serve the Lord. they should be serving the Lord. I would ask three questions. I would ask three questions every time that somebody got serious about my daughters. Now, my first, my oldest daughter, Charity, uh would date and we let her date two or three different guys or two or two or three times and then when the guys started getting they started getting serious then I would sit down and have a conversation with him and three three basic questions that I would ask them uh but then I realized she's getting her heart broken she's meeting a guy getting serious about him and then then we're having these questions and uh then then if there's a breakup because of the questions then she is heartbroken and I didn't want to do that. So what I would do is allow my daughters, our daughters didn't date, none of our kids dated until they went to college. We were 18. I said that dating is to find somebody that you are interested in marrying. And then, so dating is to develop a spiritual relationship with somebody. Engagement is to develop socially with somebody. And then the physical relationship is saved for marriage. That's what we do. And so, are they serving the Lord? When my daughters were in college and they would go out on a date with somebody, it would always be either a group date or a double date or something like that. And if the guy asked her for a second date, she would say, you have to call my father first, you have to talk to my father. In fact, my daughter gave me her phone one day and I put the answer, you know how you put an answer on the thing? So I put it on her phone, I put the answer, this is Dave Tice, why are you calling my daughter? Call me. And so I would, we had a lot of fun with that back then. So anyway, I had forgotten about that until just recently and I was, I think one of my daughters reminded me. So after the first date, they would call me and I'd say, okay, you really, you want to date my daughter and you want to start, you want to start talking? That yes, we do. Then I've got three questions and I would say, I'd say, now you don't have to answer these questions. But if you don't answer the questions, you won't be dating my daughter. And I had a guy say to me, well, what if she still wants to date me? I said, if you don't answer these questions, she won't want to date you. I want you to understand that. So if you want to date my daughter, I'm going to ask you these questions. You don't feel obligated to answer these questions. You can say, I don't want to answer the questions, and that's fine. But but I've got to ask you these questions, so I wanted to know first of all if they were morally pure I Would say to a young man sitting across the table from him I would say I need to ask you these questions, and I want you understand. I'm if you're not If you haven't been morally pure if you have if you're not a virgin that doesn't disqualify you from serving God It doesn't disqualify you from doing what God wants you to do. It doesn't disqualify you for anything I'm not better than you. You're not better than me. I'm just telling you this my my daughters have saved themselves My son's the same way have saved themselves to marry and to for marriage and they want to marry somebody that Has saved themselves as well. So if you're not a virgin Then you need to understand that my daughter's not going to want to date you And I don't know how many conversations I had with him this by the way. This was an easy conversation This wasn't a cute little conversation. It was a very serious very Hard hardest conversations I've ever had was to sit across from a young man and ask them. Are you morally pure? so but we We did that because I think virgins should marry virgins and I asked them that. So that was the first question. The second question was have you been involved in pornography? In fact I stopped asking have you been involved in pornography and just said how much pornography have you seen? Because I think every kid in America is in some house, it's been flashed on their phone or they've seen it somehow. Our culture is so corrupt. And I want to make sure that they're not involved in pornography right now, that they're not pursuing pornography. And so I'd say, are you involved in pornography? I don't know how many students I helped after talking to them and they said, yes, we are involved in pornography. And I would say, you are not disqualified from dating my daughter, but you cannot date her until you have been clean from this for one year. and I'll meet with you on the phone, I'll talk to you on the phone, I'll help you, I'll check with you week after week so you can have an accountability partner to help you overcome this terrible sin. But you can't date my daughter until you've overcome this pornography and I'll take that for a year. And so I help students that would go through that for two or three or four months and eventually they would either break up with my daughter or they would or they would, whether or not they'd overcome it or not, something would happen. But it's important that your children, I don't want my daughter being compared to something that is not real for the rest of her life and have to deal with that. So I would ask that question, are you a virgin? I would ask the second question, have you been involved in pornography? And then I would ask, are you drug free? have you been involved with drugs? What kind of drugs have you taken? You say, why is that so important? That's important because drugs affect your body. They can mess up the next generation and the next generation. And I'm here to protect my sons. I'm here to protect my daughters. And so I want them to be drug-free. What drugs have you done? Which ones and when? Those are questions that we would ask. A fourth question that's very important is this. Are they financially responsible? This doesn't disqualify them from marrying, but you want to help them. Are they in debt? Are they in debt? And what is their plan? What's their financial plan to get out of debt? These are important questions as you're preparing for marriage and helping your children pick the right spouse. I thank the Lord that in his mercy and his grace, each of our children were able to find people that they love, that love Jesus more than they love them, and have been faithful and are doing what God wants them to do. But these are questions, these are difficult questions that we had before they got married. We were very, very protective of our children. People would call us today helicopter parents. I don't think that you can be overprotective in 2024. I didn't think you could be overprotective in 1994. I don't think you can be overprotective. in our culture. We need to watch and protect our children. And people would say to me, as we were protecting our children, you're gonna, your kids are gonna be, they're like hot house Christians, that was the term they would use. You protect them from everything, you homeschool them, you take care of them, and when they get out in the world, they're just gonna explode. Or they would say, they're not gonna be able to interact with people. They're not gonna know how to interact with people. When they hear curse words, they're going to go nuts. Can I tell you this? Just as a personal testimony, all of my children are up. We have 20 grandchildren. My children work with people from multi-millionaires to drug addicts on the street. All of my children are involved in ministry with people from every walk of life. They are very, very able to communicate with people. They are very, very apt to teach and be taught. They are very, very active in their communities. They are very, very active in social areas of every climate. because they were taken, they were taught. We protected them when they were young so that they could be effective when they're old. And you protect your children when they're young, and you help them, and you help them make the right decisions. There'll be a time that they'll question, why are you so domineering over us? My son said to me one day, Matthew said to me, Dad, I just want to tell you something." I said, what's that? He said, I'm 16 years old. He said, my friends are down playing volleyball and I can't go because there's not adult supervision. I said, that's right. He said, he said, I thought when teenagers were young that this was the happiest time of their life and that they were supposed to sow, this was the words he used, they're supposed to sow their wild oats now and then look back at their teenage years all their life and say those were the best years of our life. I said, that's the philosophy of the world. The philosophy of the world is you sow your wild oats, and then the rest of your life you think, oh, I wish I was a teenager again. You're not gonna do that. I said, what you're gonna do is you're gonna learn how to control your desires right now, and you're gonna learn how to walk as a man now, and for the next 50 years, you're gonna have a great time enjoying your life. You're gonna look forward to your fun, not look back at what you used to do. And if you talk to Matt right now, he's 47 years old, and I asked him, how's he doing? He would say, I'm living my best life now. That's the way it is. If you teach them right. So what's their financial plan? Now, when our kids left the house, They were out of our house, they were out. There is no, at the wedding, the preacher said, who giveth this man to this woman? And we would say, we give, he's yours, she's yours, it's over. There is no control. A lot of our children-in-law's parents were concerned that since we were so protective before marriage that we would be interfering after marriage and that's just the opposite. We believe that you need to step back and let children live their own life. So there's some rules. There's some rules for the king and the queen. When the prince leaves home, there's some rules. What are they? Number one, don't have them live at home. Don't have them live at home. They're to leave and cleave. That's what they're supposed to do. Number two, don't go to their house without an invitation. Uh, we just we live by this rule if they don't and my kids all say to me dad You're invited anytime. You can come anytime. Just drop in anytime We don't do that because we know if we did that then they would be saying oh man, they're always dropping by So I want it to be in a position where they're saying hey, you can stop by anything. We want you You always have an invitation Don't go to their house without an invitation Let them live their own lives Let them live their lives. You've trained them. You've done everything you can for them. Let them live their own lives. Don't expect a phone call, and don't be constantly calling them. A lady came to me and she said, Pastor, I'm so concerned. I said, what? She said, you know, my daughter just got married. Like, she's been married for three days. They went on their honeymoon, and we haven't gotten one phone call. I said, well, good for them. She said, what? I said, one phone call. I said, who wants to call their parents when they're on their honeymoon? Did you call your parents when you were on your honeymoon? And she said, well, I never thought about that. But I wasn't as close to my parents as she was to us. I said, that's OK. They'll be back, and they'll be OK. Don't expect a phone call. Let them know the door, however, is always open. Your door is always open. My kids today will walk into my house, my boys particularly. My girls are a lot more courteous than the boys, but the boys will walk into my house and walk right to our refrigerator and just take whatever they want. It's their house. Our door is always open. Whenever you are invited, go if you can. If you can go, you go. I just canceled a meeting in... in California that I'm supposed to be in in October because of a special event that's going on at my son's church in Las Vegas. I very seldom ever cancel meetings, but this was something that I needed to be at. And so if you're invited to go, go if you can. Always receive, but never demand the grandchildren. You have no right to demand that the grandchildren be with you. But you should always receive them whenever you have an opportunity. We just got a phone call a couple days ago from one of our kids and they said we're going to be out of town for I think the last week of August or something. And can we just leave the kids with you for the weekend?" And we said, yes, yes. My wife answered the phone and told her yes, because our answer is always yes. Yes, yes. Leave the kids. We never demand them. We never say you have to leave them. We, but man, if the kids can come, we'll take them. We were driving across the United States. We were doing, in fact, the Northeast tour that we're doing right now, about two years ago, and my daughter and son-in-law had to go to an emergency meeting, and they had no place to watch, no one to watch their, two of their children. And they called up and said, what should we do? I said, send them to us. We'll pay for their plane ticket. We'll pick them up in Cleveland, and we're going to be going by Cleveland, fly them to Cleveland. We'll pick them up in Cleveland, and then they can travel with us for two weeks. And we had a ball with them. Was it work? Yes. Was it hard? Yes. Did we have to correct them? Yes, that's what you do. But man, we just had a lot of fun with them, and we focused on that. Always receive, but never demand. At Christmastime, let them live their lives. When my son got married, my second son got married before my first son, and when he got married, we realized her in-laws, or her parents, lived in in Alabama and they're living in Las Vegas and we thought man at Christmas time he's going to want to be with her parents. I don't want them to have a conflict feeling like they're being torn apart like he has to be they both want to be in both places or one year they'll be here and one year they'll be there. That shouldn't be the case. So we said listen at Christmas time you go do whatever you want to. On December 25th we don't want you at our house. You go to your in-laws, you go any place. So we said that to all of our children on December 25th. They don't come to our house. What we do is we We request January 1st. We say January 1st is now going to be Tice family Christmas and January 1st nobody wants anybody at their house. Nobody cares whether anybody is at their house because everybody has a hangover. That's not true we are Baptists. But everybody is everybody's Nobody cares on january 1st. So we said january 1st is now tice family christmas on time on january 1st Everybody's invited to our house and we have we used to rent a cabin, but it's got two months There's too many of us now. There's like 30 some and so um So but we would we just get together and for two days We have a big party and we we do this everything you do on christmas. We we uh, read the christmas story we uh, we pass out gifts we do the whole thing we do the whole great big thing and they get to have their Christmas time and by the way that's worked out really wonderful for us we have this little cabin in Pennsylvania and on Christmas my wife and I fly out to the cabin and it's just us alone and it's the it's you know looks like Christmas out here it doesn't look like the desert and so It's a great thing to do. Let them have their own Christmas. Let them do that. Always love the spouse genuinely. Love the spouse. It's so important that they know that you care about them. I tell people that we have 10 children, five by birth and five by marriage. One day, I was with my son-in-law and my daughter, and I said, I introduced my son-in-law as my son-in-law. And he said, well, thanks a lot. I thought I was one of your kids and then I felt bad because we treat them and because we feel this way and we think it's right that they are just our children. So I love them genuinely. Don't let your children gossip about you. a gossip to you about their spouse. It's very important we understand. Your kids can come home and be upset about something he did or something she did. Don't do that. Don't let them put you between them and their spouse. That will cause major conflicts down the road. You just need to remind them how wonderful their spouse is. Remind them why they married their spouse. Don't let your children gossip. Don't get offended when they yawn at your advice. I travel around the country and we literally do marriage seminars. We teach on the family. We give advice to people across the country. But my children are my children. And when I'm talking to them about something, they've heard it all their lives. They yawn at my advice. Don't get offended. That's just the way it is. These are your children. Let them be your children. Let them make mistakes. They'll learn from them. They'll learn from their own mistakes. Now, if it's some huge disaster, you might give them a warning, but don't, let them learn from their own mistakes. You learn from yours. Never say, I told you so. Never say, I told you so. Always have a listening ear. I mean, by that, you're listening to what they're saying so that you can lead them in a right direction. Always have an open heart. Let them know that you love them. If they say things that are hurtful, allow yourself to be hurt. Don't close your heart off to your children. And then let them raise your grandchildren. They're your grandchildren. Let them raise them. So that's the rules for the king and the queen. Here's the rules for the prince and the princess. Number one goes hand in hand with number one for the king, never live with your in-laws. You are to leave and cleave. And then again, never counsel with your parents about your spouse's problems. Here's what happens. Joe and Mary are over here and Joe says something unkind, Mary hears it, maybe he talks to her about the nail in her head or whatever, and they have a conflict about this. And they're just really upset about it and she says some things and he says some things and they get mad and she stomps out of the house. And she goes home and she says to mom and dad, Oh, I can't believe that Joe did it. He said this and he said that. He was so mean. He was the meanest man I ever met in my life. I don't even know why I married him. He did that. I can't believe it. And then you say, oh yeah, he is a creep. We thought he was a creep. We always thought he was a creep. And now we know. I can't believe that this was just a huge mistake. And she weeps and cries. Well, you better just go home. So then she goes home. And she sees Joe, and Joe says, oh, honey, I'm so sorry. I was a grouch, and I was wrong. And she said, yeah, I was wrong, too. And they're all loving, and they're having a wonderful time. But the problem is, you and mom, over here thinking, what a creep, what a creep, because she never comes back and says, you know what? It was me too. I was the creep. I was, I was, you never hear that. And then the next time they get a fight, they come in and do the same thing. And you're just getting all waked up. Then a year or two goes by and nobody over there understands why you hate him. Well, you hate him because she taught you to hate him, or vice versa. The boy does that with his parents. It's never good to counsel with your parents about your spouse's problems. And if you're, let me say, if you're the parents and your kids come, you just need to remind them, listen, he's a wonderful guy, she's a wonderful guy, and you need to understand. it's probably not all his fault. Would you understand that it's probably not all him. Do you think that you might have said some unkind things? Well, maybe, maybe. If he's 95% wrong, I'm only 5%. Well, remember this. If he's 95% wrong and you're 5% wrong, then you're 100% responsible for your 5%. So why don't you go back to him? Because he's really not that bad of a guy. She's really not that bad of a girl. In fact, she's a wonderful girl. Never counsel with your parents. The Bible says, whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles. Never borrow money from your in-laws without a contract to pay it back with interest. I just, I don't have time to go into this in detail. I just want you to understand, very, very unwise to borrow money or borrow money without some kind of contract to pay it back because if you do, I have, I've just seen this over and over again. Couples will say, my mom and dad think that this house is their house because they helped with the down payment. Or they think that we owe them. Well, the way you don't owe them is if you ever borrow money from them, and it's probably a wise thing not to borrow money from them, but if you're in a situation where you have to, make sure you do it with a contract and you pay it back with interest so that it's a benefit to you and to them as well. And work that out together with them. Never have in-laws stay with you without a definite beginning and ending time. The Bible says withdraw thy foot from thy neighbor's house lest he be weary of thee and so hate thee. There's a lot of conflicts in marriage because in-laws come and stay. Too long and become outlaws don't if if somebody's gonna come and stay with you They're here for a period of time two months six months Three weeks two weeks and then you know, there's an end time coming and that time has been set ahead of time Protect your children from your in-laws And this is very important My family was rough. I have a very rough family. I don't want to speak evil of them, but there was only one sister that I have that I would trust with my children. I wouldn't trust my brother with my children. Very few people in my family that I would trust my children with. Bible says it's better for a millstone to be hung around the neck of someone and be cast into the sea than to offend a little child. We had rules in our house. There were certain things that could be done and certain things that couldn't be done. In our house, and these may not seem like strict rules for you, but for my family they were strict, strict rules. You weren't allowed to smoke in my house, you weren't allowed to cuss in my house, and you weren't You weren't allowed to drink in my house. And for that reason, for the first two years that we were married, nobody came to my house. Because all my family did, not all of my family, but most of my family did those things, and I was just a legalistic Christian. I don't know what the deal was with me. But we just decided that that's the way it was gonna be. In our house, there was not gonna be any drinking or smoking. You need to understand this, that it's very important that you show respect to your in-laws. I'm talking to your father-in-law and your mother-in-law on both sides. You show respect but you are not in submission. You do not have to submit to them. Anybody that teaches that is teaching false doctrine. You show respect but not submission to your parents. You need to listen to your children. If they feel uncomfortable, if a child says to you, I don't want to be with that uncle, I don't want to be with that aunt, I don't want to be with grandma or grandpa, then you need to listen to them. Remember this, you have no obligation to your in-laws to allow them to watch your kids or have them spend the night. Spending the night is something that you should do very, very seldom. Remember this, children have been abused by relatives. And that is a very common occurrence. Now having said that, it's important that, on the other hand, you become friends with your in-laws. and that you show them the respect. You don't have to submit, but you should be respectful and be friends with them. And here's a very important point. Discuss how you will handle elderly or widowed in-laws. When my wife and I got married, for instance, I knew that one day her and I would be responsible for our aging mothers. I was the baby of my family, she was the baby of her family. Her mother was in her 60's or late 50's. My mother was 65 when we got married. And so I knew that one day we would be responsible. So we sat down and talked about what are we going to do? What are we going to do when they need housing when they're older and they need to live with somebody? We don't want them living in our house with us. So what are we going to do? And we determined this is something this isn't for everyone, but this is what we determined. We determined that we were going to have we were going to build onto our house or convert a garage into a studio apartment so they would have a place that was right next to us, but they wouldn't have direct access into our home. And that was what we decided we wanted to do. So you've got to ask yourself, will they live with you? You've got to ask yourself, how do you feel about nursing homes? Some people are totally opposed to them. Some people are for them. You need to remember this. You have a responsibility to your aging parents, but not to the detriment of your relationship with your spouse. Remember, your spouse is more important than anybody else in the world. But you should discuss early on what you're going to do when it comes to your aging spouses. Then remember the rules. Remember the rules. Your first priority in life is your relationship with God. Spiritually, that is your number one relationship. Your primary human relationship is your spouse. More important than anybody else, my wife and I. That's it. He or she is the only one that stood before God and said, for better or for worse. And then your children are your primary relationship as a couple. So spiritually, number one is God. Physically, my spouse. And then for my spouse, it's our children. Our children should know they are number one. All other relationships are secondary. Everything else is number two. And here's, I think, a promise from God that when you live by Bible priorities, you'll have time for all the people God wants you to interact with. Jesus said it this way, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. So that's when the prince leaves home. Let's pray. Father, we've talked about some very important things today. We've talked about how to be a godly husband. I pray that every husband that heard that will remember and will commit to be the kind of husband you want them to be. I pray for every wife. We talked about how to be a kingdom wife. I pray for every wife that heard that, that they will determine that they want to be the kind of wife you've intended us to be. Father, for those who have left home or those of us who have children who have left home, I pray you'll help that last session to be a help that will be determined to live as your word says to live. And that this will be a help to each person that is here and that has heard this. And that we will commit to not just talking about these things, but living these things so that you will be glorified through our lives. And I ask this in Jesus' name, amen.