So good to spend today with you. I want to welcome all of our
different locations, those of you watching online and those of
you who are part of our Inside Family Quick report.
Last week was Easter weekend. Many of you were joining me and
praying for 16,000 people to come to our services and more
people to hear the gospel than ever before in the history of
our church. And I'm pleased to report that
God heard our prayer. He did what we asked Him to do
and it took place at all of our locations.
I'm telling you that because listen, this is not about the
crossing. This is just about the fact that
God hears our prayers. And when you are praying to God
about people finding a relationship with God, He is not
the enemy that you are trying to convince to do the thing that
you want to do. He is your greatest advocate in
helping people come into an intimate personal relationship
with Jesus Christ. And if you are joining us again,
you came maybe for the first time or the first time in a long
time on Easter weekend and you came back.
You need to hear me say this. We are so very glad that you are
here and we want to encourage you.
Swing by the new here booth day before you leave.
Today we are launching A5 week sermon series.
And to be honest with you, we are launching what I believe
will be the most contested season in our church is from a
preaching and teaching standpoint.
We're going to be spending five weeks on the family, then we're
going to spend three weeks on generosity, and then we're going
to spend 4 weeks on the Holy Spirit.
And if you want to know where the Holy Spirit loves to attack,
it is in those areas. It is in how we handle our
finances, whether or not we are attuned to the Holy Spirit and
what he wants us to do and how to handle things at home.
And we called this sermon series Lovers and Land Mines.
You picked it when you voted on the app.
And the reason we called it lovers and Land Mines is because
there are land mines all over our world.
There's land mines emotionally, spiritually, financially,
sexually. And stepping on them can be
disastrous. And I know that many of you know
all about that. But I believe that there is no
more field populated with land mines than when two people fall
in love and start a family. And this series was born out of
a desire to kind of take our whole church through premarital
counseling. I wish I could sit across the
table from every single one of you and walk through the land
mines that exist or will exist, and keep you from stepping on
them. Just so you know, we have an
incredible staff at all of our locations who will be a
fantastic resource for you if you find yourself, as we're
going through the series, needing somebody to talk through
some of the land mines you may have already stepped on.
And I want you to know they would love a chance to meet with
you, but there might be others of you who you're in a season
where you're going. I think I need a little bit more
elevated help, some elevated coaching.
And if you find yourself with an issue that's maybe more serious
or more complicated, I want you to know that we have Vineco
Counseling Company. And if you want more information
about that, it is in your app. It's always down at the very
bottom, but this week it'll be near the top of your For you
section. And if you're going, I could
probably use some coaching, some help that's a little bit more
intensive than what Clayton's giving on stage or what maybe
our pastors can provide. They are incredible people,
people that I would trust myself to, and you should have no
worries trusting yourself to them.
Now additionally to that or in addition to that, right now we
have a team of people here at our church working behind the
scenes to roll out an even better premarital counseling
program. And our plan is to certify a
majority of our staff so they will be more than qualified to
serve you even better in the future.
We are all in here at the Crossing.
We want to be in your corner. We love you, we love your
family, and we want to help you learn to trust and believe that
God's way is the best way in every area of your life,
including how to navigate family.
So let me give some disclaimers, OK?
No matter what stage of life you are in, as we are going through
this series, there will be challenging stuff for you if you
will allow it to challenge you. You might be going to Clayton.
I'm not in that season. Hear me.
There will always be either a wisdom for you to apply or a
wisdom for you to pass on. You will either need that tool
for yourself or God will allow you to use that tool to be a
blessing in somebody else's life.
And there are going to be some of you as we're going through
this series, that you're going to start praying for something
that God will not give you. You're going to start praying
for a time machine so you could go back in time and do it
differently. And you need to hear me say
this. God does not give time machines.
How many of you wish there's some areas in your life where
you had a time machine and you could just go back and not do
what you did preach. God does not give us time
machines, but He does give us the gift of repentance, and He
promises that His mercies are new every morning.
You might have dug yourself into a pretty big hole.
I have a really good news for you.
The Holy Spirit has a really big shovel.
OK, there's this obscure passage in the book of Joel of the
prophet. It's Joel chapter 2, verses 12
through 14. This is what He says to the
people even now, declares the Lord.
Return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping
and mourning. Rend your heart and not your
garments. In other words, do the internal
work. Don't just do this big spectacle
on the outside. Do something deep right here in
the heart. Return to the Lord your God,
because what kind of God do we serve?
For He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger,
and abounding in love, and He relents from sending calamity.
Who knows, he may turn and relent and leave behind a
blessing. Joel is crying out to his
people. Get right with God.
Do what he says. Hear me.
God loves it when you turn to Him.
God loves it when you turn from sin.
And look what God promises to do when we do that, when we turn to
Him and away from sin. Verse 25I, I will repay you for
the years the locusts have eaten.
In other words, God will allow you to make up for time lost.
He's not going to give you a time machine, but he is saying I
will redeem the wasted years. I will undo the punishment of
sin. So as we get ready to go into
the series, I want to kind of give you a little bit of context
today. I'm it's going to be somewhat
depressing. Turn to your neighbor and say
depressing. OK, this is a 5 week series.
This one's a little depressing. There's some good stuff in
there, but you're going to feel like it's going to feel a little
chicken a little, it's going to feel a little the sky is
falling. OK, so let's just kind of talk
through land mines. Where are all these land mines
and why are there so many land mines?
Well, one, Satan wants to to destroy your marriage and your
family. John chapter 10, verse 10,
you've heard us talk about this all the time.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
In other words, your marriage and your family, and for that
matter your very life, have a very real and powerful enemy.
Real and powerful. Well, why does Satan attack the
family? I'm going to give you at least
three reasons. One, because there is no pain
like family pain. There is no pain like family
pain. Nothing can destroy, can destroy
a faith like problems in the family. 2 Research has caught up
to what the spiritual world has always known from the very
beginning. A strong family is the backbone
of a strong society. If Satan can destroy the family,
he can destroy a society. And if he can destroy a society,
then he can destroy a nation. I want to give a word of
caution, slash rebuke to those of you who are like all in
American patriots, and maybe you're a better American patriot
than you are a Christian. Can I just issue this
encouragement to you? One of the most patriotic things
you can do is raise a godly family.
Three, the spiritual world knows that the family is the primary
way that faith is passed on to the next generation.
So to those of you who are super upset at whatever generation
came after you, I want to remind you, you raised them.
So this might not be a them problem.
This might be a you problem. OK.
And I'm saying, I mean, OK, let me pause for just a second.
All right, here's what you need to know.
Everything we're going to do over this series is highly
spiritual. And it's not just going to be
this series, it's going to be the next two.
And you need to know that this stuff is incredibly real.
And I am not trying to step on anybody's toes.
I'm not trying to be mean. I'm not trying to make you feel
bad. And I have this deep concern
going through the series that some of you who are not yet
spiritually qualified are going to start grabbing a hold of
promises that you're not ready to take a hold of.
And then others of you who are more than spiritually qualified
will be too passive to actually engage in them.
And I have this other burden, which is as you're going through
the series, you may feel, watch this, things get worse at home
and you'll be going, I'm going to church and I'm listening to
what he's saying and I'm in my word and things are getting
worse. And at home, I'm going to tell
you why, because Satan is attacking you because you are
trying to go into his territory that he's already claimed and
reclaim it. I'm not saying this as a martyr,
but you just need to know what it looks like in my world, every
time it is Christmas or Easter, I just know that someone's going
to Chuck a grenade in my home. I don't know if that grenade is
going to show up in my marriage or in my parenting or at work.
I just know that when it means the most, there's going to be
attack. Every time I do a family series,
every time I do a family series, I write that series in pain in
my own house. Now I've done it long enough
that I know to expect it, but the reason why I tell you that
you may be fighting more on your way to church.
Have you ever noticed that that sometimes you get into your best
fights on the way to church? Hear me, that's spiritual.
If he can get you angry before you worship, you won't worship.
If he can get you so upset at your spouse that you can't hear
the word of God, and then he will keep you from applying the
word of God and you'll walk out of church, justify that you
showed up for church and they didn't, or you came to church
and you came away with a really clear message from God.
They're the problem. I need you to see this.
You are at war with an enemy who is real and powerful and takes
no days off. Satan knows that by attacking
the family he can get you to abandon the faith, destroy
society, and as a result the nation, and he can keep your
family from finding the life changing message of Jesus.
So gear up for this series. Second reason is that when you
step into your marriage, what marriage does is it is an idle
crusher. This is actually a good thing
that God sets up in your marriage because marriage and
family are one of the ways in which God sanctifies us.
Sanctification is making us more like Jesus, and you thought you
were pretty awesome until you got married and then your spouse
told you you're not. That's because your spouse is
starting to step on your idols. It is one of the blessings that
God gives to us to make us more like Him.
In order for us to become more like Him, the idols in our lives
have to be torn down and dealt with.
And dealing with idols is painful work.
You see, marriage is a lot like money and power.
It is a magnifier. Let me explain.
Money doesn't change you, it magnifies you.
If you're a greedy person and you're poor, nobody notices.
If you're a greedy person of means, everyone knows.
If you're a generous person with very little and you come into
money, you coming into money will only magnify your impact.
If you are a selfish person with almost no influence, very few
people will be hurt by you. If you are a selfish person with
lots of power and lots of influence, tons of people are
impacted. A person who desires to serve
people and bless people, when they find themselves in a
position of power, their impact is magnified.
Money and power do not change you, they magnify you.
And the same is true in marriage.
When you're single with no kids, it's hard to tell how selfish
you really are because nobody cares.
You just get to do you all the time, but then all of a sudden
you find yourself married and you have kids and your
selfishness will be on full display.
Marriage magnifies you. There will be land mines
littered in almost every room of your house, and the people that
you love the most will step on them every single day.
If you're a control freak, maybe nobody really notices at work.
They don't see how deep you're crazy goes.
But you get married and you have kids and boom, landmines
everywhere. The problem is that in your
marriage and your parenting is that these pain points
associated with your sin, they're not to destroy you, but
to make you more like Jesus. Your marriage and your family
are tools that God uses to reveal the shortcomings in your
walk with Him. When was the last time when you
were dealing with an issue in your home?
You went, I think God is using this to make me more like Him.
I'm guessing about 0. Instead, you went, This person's
crazy. It's always them.
So when this happens in your home, you have two choices.
You can defend your sin and get mad at your family, or you can
repent of your sin and become more like Christ.
And if you choose to repent of your sin and become more like
Christ, you will become the person your family desperately
needs. Here are three common areas
where I see Satan at work in marriages and families.
I'm going to go by categories, so let me talk to the single
people for a second. Satan will get you to think that
your identity is tied to your relationship status, that you're
worth is tied to who you're with.
I just need you to know, I just need you to hear me say this.
Jesus was single, so was the apostle Paul.
And I would say that those two people are two of the most
influential people who have ever walked planet earth.
So you can be one of the most impactful people on planet earth
and never settle down and get married.
In other words, your ability to serve God is heightened in your
singleness. If God chooses to bless you with
a marriage, so be it. But being single is in and of
itself a blessing to those of you who don't have the gift of
singleness. You're going.
I need to get married. Great.
Satan gets you to spend all your time trying to find the right
person instead of becoming the right person.
You can either spend your time looking or growing, but you
can't do both. What I would encourage you to do
is grow in such a way that other people come looking for you.
I've heard it said by what can I go?
Great single people, parents. OK, there we go.
I've heard a lot of pastors say this, so I have zero clue who to
attribute it to, but it's really good.
It's really complicated sentence, but it's a really gold
sentence. You'll think about it throughout
the week. Here's the question that a bunch
of pastors have posed. Are you becoming the kind of
person that the kind of person you're looking for is looking
for? Are you on the process of
becoming the kind of person that the kind of person you're
looking for is actually looking for?
In other words, if you are a gift from God to your future
spouse, what kind of gift are you becoming to the dating and
engaged community? This is going to be my spiciest
to take. I see two major landmines.
Satan will get you to spend more time on the parties around your
wedding than in preparation for your marriage.
There's the engagement party, the wedding shower, the bachelor
party, The Bachelorette party, the rehearsal party, and the
reception. Tons of time and money are spent
on colors, flowers, videographers, invitations, DJs,
menus, and almost no time is spent developing a game plan for
success in your marriage. It is like people are going out
and buying a plane and never bothering to get a pilot's
license and then wondering why they crashed.
Here is my free advice. This is not in the Bible.
Turn to your neighbor. Say this is not in the Bible.
I don't want you guys putting this on anybody.
Don't even put this on Jesus. This is just Clayton's advice.
But it's good. You're one of the biggest
challenges that couples face, especially young couples.
You know, one of the number one things cited as a as a cause for
divorce, money problems. Watch how crafty Satan is.
I tell fathers to make this offer.
Here is the budget for your wedding.
Do whatever you want to do. If you want, do the wedding for
$5000 and take the rest and put a down payment on your house.
Or if you want, take the rest and put it in a retirement
account and leave it alone. Let me give you some stats to
stress you out. The average wedding last year in
America was between 30 and $36,000.
The average. So if you this is the first time
in your life you've ever wanted to be below average.
You're like, I want to get AD OK?
I, I, we are not getting an A, we're getting AC minus on this.
OK, Can I just walk you through it?
In our region the average house is $170,000, which means if you
were to put $30,000 on the down payment of your house, one,
you'd save yourself from PMI which is about 100 bucks a
month. Two, it would say save $200 a
month or a month off of your house payment, which means
that's putting 2400 or that is putting $2400 a year back in
your bank account. Which means that over the life
of the loan it would give you back north of $70,000.
That is a 2X return and you just reduce the financial stress in
your home. If you want you ready for this,
don't put it on the House, put it in a retirement account and
leave it alone until you're 65 and that $30,000 will give you a
53 X return and you'll retire with $1.6 million in the bank.
By saying no to the dress instead of yes.
I'm just telling you, I've done a lot of weddings.
I've done a listen, I love being a part of people's special days.
I'm doing almost 0 weddings this year.
I love being a part of those special days.
And I want you to know I've been in weddings in my office that
were just two people and their parents, and they were
beautiful. And I have been on top of a
private mountain in Aspen, Co doing a wedding.
I've seen the extremes. And I want you to know neither
one of them is more guaranteed for success.
It will have everything to do with who they become in that
marriage. Spend the time on becoming who
you need to be. So in other words, regardless of
whether or not you overspend on the wedding, make sure you
overspend on your marriage. Do intensives, read books,
attend retreats, get guides to help you navigate all aspects of
your marriage, whether whatever you don't talk through, whatever
you don't talk through before your marriage, you will likely
fight about in your marriage. Are we OK?
Someone was going time machine, time machine, time machine, time
machine, OK married people. Here are two landmines that I
see over and over again. The 1st is that Satan gets you
to think that you married the wrong person.
After the wedding dress is hung in the closet, the thank you's
have been sent and life starts to get normal.
It starts to get hard. You shifted from pulling off a
wedding to trying to pull off a marriage and there will be all
kinds of problems and challenges to navigate and Satan will get
you to think that they are the problem.
You married the wrong person and you'll spend all your time
trying to talk yourself through marrying the wrong person
instead of you trying to become the right person.
How often in your marriage do you go I'm the problem, own your
part? Or is it always your spouse
who's the problem? And just because they don't,
just because they have major flaws, doesn't mean that you
don't have any. Hear me?
Your wedding vows were a declaration of war against your
feelings. Your vows were commitments,
promises about how about who you were going to be in the
marriage. Remember the lines for richer or
for poorer, in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow.
You were saying regardless of the situation, you can count on
me. My word is good, and with Christ
as my example and my strength, I'm going to keep it.
Imagine what would happen if that is who walked into your
marriage when you got home from church today.
The second area where I see Satan at work inside of
marriages is that when trouble comes, he gets you to fight with
the wrong weapons. Here's a couple of the weapons.
When trouble comes knocking, we're going to pull out the
weapon of volume. We're just going to get loud,
really, really loud. And when I say it like that, it
sounds stupid, but a lot of you have done it.
I know what this problem needs me to yell louder.
And can I just ask you, how often has that ever worked?
We don't even like circle back and go, hey, has yelling really
improved our marriage? Has screaming just magnified in
a positive way? My parenting, Nobody can point
to it. Oh, yeah.
When we started yelling, things really started going the right
way. We don't even evaluate whether
or not the weapon we're using is the right weapon.
And so guess what? Our weapon becomes a landmine.
How many of you were going? Yeah, everything's going better
because we just. We just made a commitment.
I looked at her and I go, babe, let's yell more.
Look what Proverbs 15 one says. A gentle answer turns away
wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
Another weapon that couples love to use when trouble shows up in
their marriage that's also from Satan is the weapon of
withholding. They withhold their words.
They withhold their emotional connection.
They withhold sex. They're choosing to starve their
spouse. How many couples problems have
ever been solved by silence? How many challenges have been
solved by you know what, let's just stop connecting
emotionally. How many problems have been
solved by not having sex? Can I show you how crafty Satan
is? First Corinthians Chapter 7,
verse 5 Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual
consent. In other words, hey, do we both
want to not have sex like that would be a question.
You'd have mutual consent, which I'm guessing most of you haven't
had that conversation. How about we both stop so that
we we can devote ourselves to prayer.
This is a 2 parter babe. I'd like us to dial down the
amount of sex that we have in our home so we can pray more.
Said almost no Christian ever. The wives are like, oh, we're
supposed to pray? Yeah, then watch this, then
Satan watch, then come together again so that Satan will not
tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Do you see this When you are depriving each other sexually,
you are giving Satan another foothold in your life.
Do you see how crazy this is? In your pain of navigating the
landmines of life, Satan convinces you to use a tool that
gives him more access and power in your home.
To those of you who struggle with volume, this is a
self-control issue. In the moment you are not able
to temper yourself, calm yourself, steel yourself, and so
you're prone to being angry and saying things you regret.
This is a self-control issue. People who withhold is
premeditated. You're trying to find a way to
hurt your spouse. This is a special kind of evil
because you're not trying to get even, you're trying to punish.
And the sad thing is, none of us need trainings in these weapons.
We are all proficient at day one.
They are as natural as our flesh and our sin.
When I've counseled people, this is one of the questions I asked
to try and get them to get perspective.
How would you feel if you saw someone doing to this this to
your son or your daughter? How would you feel watching
somebody yell at your daughter and fear washed across her face
immediately? You see these couples go, Oh my
goodness, I would want to go hold that emotion.
How would you feel if somebody that you knew that you loved was
being withheld from? You looked at your son or your
daughter and you saw their spouse withholding from them to
punish, intentionally being cruel, choosing not to serve.
They are a daughter and they are a son to God our Father.
Have you ever thought that the way you treat your spouse in
your home is an act of worship to God?
Here's the good news. Depressing part over.
The good news is that Jesus offers a better way.
The rest of the verse in John 1010 is this.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
But I have come that they may have life and have it to the
full. That's where we get the phrase
God's way is the best way. And Jesus has a plan and He has
the power for you and I to live a full and abundant life.
What that means is that your worst days in your marriage can
be behind you and your very best days ahead.
That means that your worst days of parenting may be behind you,
and your best days could be ahead.
Hear me? There may be land mines
everywhere, but you don't have to step on them if Jesus is your
guide. And when you see him through his
power and his strength, you can remove them.
And I hope you'll start doing that.
We're moving to a time of decision.
To those of you here today and watching online who don't yet
have an intimate personal relationship with Jesus, I want
to be very clear to you. You cannot have a godly home
until Jesus is the leader of your home.
And Jesus will not be the leader of your home until he is the
leader of your life. You cannot avoid the land mines
if Jesus is not your guide. You can't remove them if Jesus
is not your strength. You cannot recognize them if he
is not your wisdom. You cannot disarm them if he is
not your teacher. So if you're here today and
you've never started an intimate personal relationship with Jesus
Christ, you are not giving your family the spouse or the father
or the OR the mother that they desperately need.
And so today, maybe one of the best things you could do for the
future generations that will come after you as you start a
path to getting right with God. And in just a few moments, the
people around you are going to stand and sing and some of them
are going to come to the steps and pray.
And I want to encourage you to walk right over there underneath
that screen next to the baptistry and go.
I need to start asking some of the questions that have been
holding me back to the rest of you in the room.
To those of you who know Jesus, I'm going to kind of get paint
with a really wide breast for just a second.
Maybe not all of these are going to hit you, but some of these
will hit you. Maybe just one of these will hit
you. Is there something in your life
right now that is being magnified that you don't want
magnified anymore? The Bible clearly teaches that
you reap what you sow, so maybe today, through God's help, you
will stop sowing into that area. You're tired of all the anger in
your house and yet you keep sowing words of hate.
You keep using volume. You want your family to be warm
and cozy, and yet you keep withholding.
Maybe today you'd go. You know what?
This is an area where I've been sowing for too long.
You listen. You can sow grass and you can
sow weeds, but if you sow weeds, you can't get mad at the yard.
You hear me? Some of you need to go.
You know what? I've been sowing into this and I
need to stop. Maybe for some of you today,
there's a weapon that needs to be laid down, A weapon that
you've been using your whole life and you've justified it.
You've justified it because of how you were raised and you've
justified it because of how tough your job is and you you've
done it because of how things are happening.
I'm just saying if you're using the wrong weapon, things will
never get better. I don't care how many excuses
you wrap around it. The wrong weapon will never
bring about the right conclusion.
Is there a weapon that needs to be laid down?
A sin that needs to be repented of?
And if for some reason none of those two things apply to you,
that is a scary self-righteous position for you to put yourself
in, which means that you may have a hard heart spiritually.
And that means that maybe you need to start repenting and
going. God reveal the things in my life
that I'm not doing or that I'm doing that are causing harm.
And at the very least, at the very least, would you use this
time to pray over your spouse and pray, pray over your kids?
One of the consistent things that I do, you'll hear this in
the one of the later series is I pray over my kids future spouse
six days a week. I don't know who they are.
They could be in this room. Pencil boys like older women.
So, I mean, my boys are in junior high, you just graduated
from college. Be on the lookout.
They're going to have a good credit score and they want to
put the money towards retirement and get married in my office.
Can I just say this to you, of all the regrets I have as a
father and as a grandfather, can I just tell you one of the
regrets I do not have the prayers I have prayed over them.
Would you use this time to do that?
Would you stand with me? Heavenly Father, you've been
great and gracious to us. Thank God as we go into the
series, truthfully, I'm just nervous.
I know that there's just a lot of landmines and there's some
that people are going to step on today after the service and all
throughout the week. There's me some people that are
here this week and gone next week.
They're just going to get blown up by stuff.
But God, I'm asking that you just right now put a hedge of
protection over our church during this series, Not just as
the church, but and not just the body, but the individuals that
are here, the guy you'd begin to do something significant and
mighty in their life that would change things for the days
ahead. And your name I pray.
Amen.