"But that at the same time, we have to live into that freedom. And allow ourselves not to be trapped into the rules of the world that sometimes hold us back into the freedom. Now, last week we talked about our friendships and how they are the most important relationships above everything else. Because if we do not have a good support system and support system that is going down the route that we are trying to go on. A route drawing us closer to Jesus." [29:17](Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"So today, we are looking at our family relationships. Now, this one is probably the hardest. Because some of them you don't get to choose. Right? I mean, you're born into one family. And if you get married or have children. You have a significant other. That family you choose. But some of it is just is what it is. So we're going to talk about how we deal with our family." [30:15](Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"Doing wrong is fun for a fool. But living wisely brings pleasure to the sensible. Now, I want you to think for a second. For those of you who are in a relationship. Was there a sense when you started dating that that fun, spontaneous, even kind of reckless side of somebody was kind of attractive?" [31:01](Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"See, that's what Abigail did. Her husband was acting foolish. If we use a modern word, he was acting a fool. Same thing, right? Same thing. Same thing. She could have ignored his behavior and brought the whole family into the foolishness. But she responded. And she allowed him to be the only one that received the consequences of his foolish behavior." [48:25](Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"We have to think about the same thing with our family. We don't have to remove family from us if they tend to be bad influences or not wise decision makers. But maybe we need to think about their influence upon us. You see, in the boundaries book, if you want to learn more about boundaries, this book is amazing." [49:13](Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"It's my hope and prayer that all of you have family blood ties. That are trying to go on the same journey as you. But if you don't have everybody on that journey with you, then this is why we find people in the family of God that are on the journey with us. And we pray for the ones in our family that aren't." [51:02](Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"Would you pray with me? Almighty God, I am thankful that in all things we have a community to support us. That we journey together. But that sometimes we need people that are related to us. And sometimes we need people who are not. But in either way, they are all family." [52:03](Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"Friends, the Lord's table is open. I'll invite all to come. We will start in the back and come up the center and out the outside. Hey, friends, just before you go, in your seats you have your Connect card. If there's a way we can pray for you, you can fill that out and put it in the baskets, give it to me or give it to Val who's in the back." [55:54](Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"Almighty God, send us from this place so that we may be filled with the wisdom of Abigail, knowing how to balance the relationships in our lives, and to love all, to be aware of the acts around us, and if they are wise or if they are foolish, so that we may ensure that those acts do not impede the consequences in our lives." [01:10:01](Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)

Amen.

Good morning, friends.

I would like to share just a word of thanks as we prepare for our offering prayer. We do receive the offering at the time of communion, which is the baskets up here at the kneeling rails. If you would like to give a physical offering, you can do so at that time.

But one thing that's unique about being United Methodist is that we are connected to the other United Methodist churches. What we call our annual conference is most of the state of Florida. And our annual conference has prepared some unique prayer resources so that all the United Methodist churches this month can be praying together. And there's a power in a mass amount of people praying together.

I shared those things in my article this week. I'd love for you to reach out and read those and join us as we pray for the general United Methodist Church and as they do the business of the church. And things like these resources are ways that we continue to support one another in the connection, which is when we're not all by ourselves and we are connected to the United Methodists around us.

I also want to ask for your prayers, because today in United Methodist churches all over the state of Florida, some churches are going to do as I'm about to do and tell you that the bishop has decided that I get to stay with you another year. I'm very thankful that's your response. But other pastors are having their SPR chairs come up and share that they have been chosen by the bishop to go elsewhere. And they're receiving a new pastor.

And so we want to pray for all of these pastors that are being sent into new congregations and congregations that are receiving new pastors. This is part of our connection to have this system. And there's a lot that goes with that. And y'all know this, because two years ago you received the same word. And I'm excited that I'm about to start year three with you and that we are not having a change. We are all very happy about that in our house. I'm glad you are, too.

So let's pray. Let's pray for the connection and the pastors and the churches that are having a change this year.

Almighty God, we as United Methodists, we are thankful for the fact that we are not solo churches and that we are connected to our fellow United Methodists. We do things, activities together, and we worship in unity. And we have things like these prayer efforts that connect us across the state.

But also, Lord, in days like today, where I'm thankful for the celebration of the congregation and that the bishop has deemed that our family can continue to serve you another year. In this space, we are reminded that other congregations have a different word today.

So we ask, Lord, that you bless all pastors that have been deemed the need of changing congregations. That you bless their families and you bless them as they prepare to pack and to move. We ask your blessings upon the congregations that are preparing to receive new pastors and the congregations that are having to say goodbye to their current pastors.

We pray, Lord, that you just allow these seasons of transition to be fruitful. And for people to grow into the next stage of the bodies of Christ and the persons and the leaders you want them to be. And that for us, too, Lord, as a congregation, and as we move together to year three, that you help us to go deeper into the congregation you want us to be.

Now, Lord, as we receive the offering at the end of the service, I pray that you help us to give out of our hearts the joy of who we are. So we can continue to grow our congregation and to serve others outside of our church. We pray this to honor you and to glorify you in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.

All right, for my friends who are going to join Miss Katie this morning in Kids Club, you may head to the back.

All right. Well, we're continuing our series about holy boundaries. We've been talking about how boundaries in their essence are there to keep us safe. And they also do so in the spiritual realm.

The first week we talked about how Jesus' death came to set us free from things like the law. So that we could live fully into who we are. But that at the same time, we have to live into that freedom and allow ourselves not to be trapped into the rules of the world that sometimes hold us back from that freedom.

Now, last week we talked about our friendships and how they are the most important relationships above everything else. Because if we do not have a good support system and a support system that is going down the route that we are trying to go on—a route drawing us closer to Jesus—then everything else in our life will not be on the best path.

Research shows that when you have a good support system, your marriage, your health, your work life, everything else in your life is better supported and more successful because of the friends around you.

So today, we are looking at our family relationships. Now, this one is probably the hardest. Because some of them you don't get to choose, right? I mean, you're born into one family. And if you get married or have children, you have a significant other—that family you choose. But some of it just is what it is.

So we're going to talk about how we deal with our family and what we deal with sometimes when our family is not as helpful for us and others. And we also went into the book of Proverbs last week, and we talked about how the book of Proverbs is a wisdom book. I called it the fortune cookie of the Bible. Each verse in itself really can stand on its own.

And so for the focus of today, I'm going to be reading out of Proverbs chapter 10, verse 23: "Doing wrong is fun for a fool, but living wisely brings pleasure to the sensible." Sounds like a fortune cookie, doesn't it? I'm telling you. King Solomon, man. He just could have written all of them for the restaurants. I mean, they're just all there.

Doing wrong is fun for a fool, but living wisely brings pleasure to the sensible.

Now, I want you to think for a second. For those of you who are in a relationship, was there a sense when you started dating that that fun, spontaneous, even kind of reckless side of somebody was kind of attractive? You know, the person who dropped everything and even took off work to go to a concert? I mean, in your young days, 19, 20, 21. I know I got some of you that are that age. And so it's okay. You can. It's okay if that's where you're at right now.

But we call that spontaneous, right? The one that drops everything to decide to go and watch the shooting stars or something like that. We sometimes are attracted to the spontaneous person. And then as we get older, we need the spontaneous person to be sensible. We need them to get up every day and go to their nine to five and remember they have a house payment or a car payment or that they have children they need to actually look after.

Sometimes we expect the fun, spontaneous person to grow up and become an adult. And sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. And then you have to remind yourself, well, was I the foolish person to think they would grow up? Or am I foolish now to not want to do the spontaneous things we used to do?

You know, I can't just call into work for an entire week and go down to Daytona for the 500. Eventually, my boss is going to realize I don't have 10 grandmothers that have died.

So what do we do when sometimes some of the things that didn't bother us before in our families, whether it be a relative or a significant other, start to become an issue? Because society expects us to eventually become sensible, or as we might say today, adulting.

Well, I got a story I'd like to read for you. It's a long story, but it's a good story. And I couldn't cut any of it out, so I just need you to bear with me, okay?

This story is about a woman who was married to a man who was not very sensible. It comes out of the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 25.

There was a wealthy man from Moan who owned property near the town of Carmel. He had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats, and it was sheep-shearing time. This man's name was Nabal, and his wife, Abigail, was a sensible and beautiful woman. But Nabal, a descendant of Caleb, was crude and mean in all his dealings.

When David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep, he sent 10 of his young men to Carmel with a message for Nabal: "Peace and prosperity to you. Peace and prosperity to your family and everything you own. I am told that it is sheep-shearing time. Y'all say that fast: sheep-shearing time. When your shepherds stayed among you near Carmel, we never harmed them, and nothing was ever stolen from them. Ask your own men, and they will tell you this is true. So you would be kind to us, and since we have come at this time of celebration, please share any provisions you might have on hand with us and with your friend David."

David's young men gave this message to Nabal in David's name, and they waited for a reply.

"Who is this fellow David?" Nabal sneered to the young men. "Who does the son of Jesse think he is? There are lots of servants these days who run around with all their masters. Should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers and give it to a band of outlaws who come from who knows where?"

So David's young men returned and told him what Nabal had said.

"Get your swords," was David's reply, as he strapped on his own, and then 400 men started off with David, and 200 remained behind to guard the equipment.

Meanwhile, one of Nabal's servants went to Abigail and told her, "David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he screamed insults at them. These men have been very good to us and we never suffered any harm from them. Nothing was stolen from them. They were with us the whole time we were with them. In fact, day and night, they were like a wall of protection to us and the sheep. You need to know this and figure out what to do, for there is going to be trouble for our master and his whole family. He is so ill-tempered that no one can even talk to him."

Abigail wasted no time. She quickly gathered 200 loaves of bread, two wineskins full of wine, five sheep that had been slaughtered, nearly a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins. And she packed them on donkeys and said to the servants, "Go on ahead, I will follow you shortly." But she didn't tell her husband Nabal what she was doing.

As she was riding her donkey into the mountain ravine, she saw David and his men coming toward her. David had just been saying, "A lot of good it did to help this fellow. We protected his flocks in the wilderness, and nothing owed was lost or stolen, but he has repaid me evil. He has repaid me evil. He has repaid me evil for good. May God strike me and kill me if even one man of his household is still alive tomorrow morning."

When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed low before him. She fell at his feet and said, "I accept all blame in this matter, my Lord. Listen, please, to what I have to say. I know Nabal is a wicked and ill-tempered man. Please don't pay any attention to him. He is a fool, just as his name suggests. But I never even saw the young men you sent.

Now, my Lord, as surely as the Lord lives, and you yourself live, since the Lord has kept you from murdering and taking vengeance into your own hands, let all your enemies and those who try to harm you be cursed as Nabal is. And here is a present that I, your servant, have brought to you and your young men. Please forgive me. I have offered you... And if I have offended you in any way, the Lord will surely reward you with a lasting dynasty, for you are fighting the Lord's battles, and you have not done wrong throughout your entire life.

Even when you are chased by those who seek to kill you, your life is safe in the care of the Lord your God. Secure his treasures pouch, but the lives of your enemies will disappear like stones shot from a sling. When the Lord has done all he has promised and has made you leader of Israel, don't let this blemish on your record. Let them consider that they won't have to bear a staggering burden of needless bloodshed and vengeance. And when the Lord has done these great things for you, please remember me, your servant."

David replied to Abigail, "Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you to meet me today. Thank God for your good sense. Bless you for keeping me from murder and from carrying out vengeance with my own hands. For I swear by the Lord God of Israel, who has kept me from hurting you, that if you had not hurried out to meet me, not one of Nabal's men would still be alive tomorrow morning."

Then David accepted her presence and told her, "Return home in peace. I have heard what you said, and I will not kill your husband."

When Abigail arrived home, she found that Nabal was throwing a big party, and he was celebrating like a king. He was very drunk, so she didn't tell him anything about her meeting with David until dawn the next day.

In the morning, when Nabal was sober, his wife told him what had happened. As a result, he had a stroke and lay paralyzed on his bed like a stone. About ten days later, the Lord struck him dead, and he died.

When David heard Nabal was dead, he said, "Praise the Lord, who has avenged my insult I received from Nabal and kept me from doing it myself. Nabal then received the punishment for his sin."

Then David sent a message to Abigail and asked her to become his wife.

That's quite a story, isn't it? Anybody read that one recently in your daily devotions? You know, we get a lot of pictures in the Old Testament about the women being super passive. Abigail is anything but passive in this story.

I mean, just picture it for a second. She's got her husband, Nabal, whose name means "foolish one." You've got Abigail, whose name means "a father's joy." And you've got King David, who is known for being a great warrior, who's already killed Goliath at this point in his story. And he leads a multitude of troops.

And at this point in the story of his life, he has been fighting against Saul because David and Saul are going at it for the throne. And he's been hiding from Saul and trying to get Saul to give up the throne because he's already been anointed to be king. So the people should know what's going on and who David is.

So Nabal lived into his name. Now, there's something to realize, though, about what's going on in this that may seem a little weird to us, why David got so upset. Because you see, the sheep and the goats, they were important with the fact that there was a custom that if you were around and you saw something like the shearing of the sheep and you could do something to protect somebody else's assets like the sheep and you protected them from robbers and you could protect somebody else's assets like the sheep and from the animals and stuff like that, if you could do that, then you were supposed to.

So David's men did. It's said in the story, they were like a wall. And they ensured that no animals and no bodies stole anything from the sheep. And the people that were doing the shearing, they got rewarded based on every animal that made it back home. And David's men ensured that every animal made it back home.

So it was not just the sheep. It was not unreasonable for David to send a message and say, "Hey, we helped out your people. You know, you got all those animals back. You got them back because my men have been helping. You know, they've been traveling in the wilderness for a long time after Saul, and they made a pit stop and they helped this big old shearing session."

And he's just saying, "We would like a little bit of that reward. We'd like some food." But Nabal's foolishness caused him to respond by saying, "I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. That's all mine. And I'm going to go enjoy the spoils of my victories and harvest." And he goes and throws his party after rejecting David.

Now, this is obviously super dramatic in the sense that nobody in our world today is going to do something like this in our family circle, right? Like if you got somebody in your family circle that's throwing an insult in such a way that there's going to be an army marching on your doorstep, we need to have a conversation.

But Nabal insulted David. He broke against the customs of the day and he didn't care to be kind, considerate, and respectful. Those are the types of things that can happen in today's world, isn't it? He was impulsive and he wasn't wise. And he didn't even care that he had done those things. He just moved on to what he wanted to do.

And you got to love the fact that he was so focused on enjoying his spoils, he didn't even realize that his wife had taken all that food and the servants and all that stuff and left his house. He's obviously very oblivious to what goes on in his house.

So when Abigail does all the good things, in the end, God rewards her. She becomes the wise person in the story. Because not only does she save her household from being destroyed by David, she becomes the person who creates an alliance between her household and the kingdom of Israel.

Because it doesn't say that there was an alliance between the two. But by the marriage, that's what it did. It created an alliance between her household and David's kingdom. Because that's why kings got married back then, is to create alliances. Otherwise, they wouldn't have so many wives.

Because we all know that it's absurd for a person to have a ton of wives. That just creates a lot of burden, right? All the men, it's okay, you can say yes. Your wife is not going to be upset.

So her interfering with the fool is seen by God as a positive thing. You see, the thing is that sometimes we forget that it's okay to have boundaries between people in our family and us. And the reason is that sometimes there are other scriptures in the Bible that are used that make us feel like we're not okay.

That make us feel like that we should not have boundaries. For example, the church can use these scriptures in ways that are not intended for how they were written. Like, "Honor thy father and mother." Who grew up in church and heard that by your parents a lot? That scripture is not meant to be used after you leave your house. It's meant for children within the home.

"Honor your father and mother," meaning be respectful, be kind, be loving. When you leave your home and it says you cleave to your spouse, you no longer have to be under the authority of your parents. You're under the connection of your spouse. There's a separation.

Now our honor is a respect but not an authority. There's a difference. What about the whole "wives submit to your husbands"? You've heard churches talk about that one, right? Yeah. You know what they forget? They forget. It says the husband is supposed to be as the church. That's the same form of submission. Husbands are supposed to also submit to their wives.

Y'all don't hear that one preached, do you? We have many scriptures that are put out of context for years in the church that don't give us healthy family relationships. The reality is that we're not supposed to allow foolish behavior to seep into our lives to cause us to be unhealthy.

And if we go back to the book of Proverbs, and we're going to be in chapter 26 this time. Pages are sticking together. There we go. Chapter 26, verse 5: "Be sure to answer the foolish arguments of fools or they will become wise in their own estimation."

See, that's what Abigail did. Her husband was acting foolish. If we use a modern word, he was acting a fool. Same thing, right? Same thing. She could have ignored his behavior and brought the whole family into the foolishness. But she responded.

And she allowed him to be the only one that received the consequences of his foolish behavior. And she protected the rest of the household, which, by the way, in Jewish tradition, especially in the Old Testament, the woman was responsible for the entire household.

So she didn't step outside of her authority. She managed everything that happened. She managed everything that happened in that house. So the only thing she did that people may have looked at her that was not okay was the fact that her husband said he wasn't going to do anything for David. And she went out and said, "Don't listen to my husband. He's a fool."

That's the only thing people might have said she was wrong for. But was she wrong? Because he was. And she spoke the truth. And she honored God. And there's nothing wrong with that.

So when we think about our lives, we think about how we connect to the people in our families. Last week we talked about this. Sometimes we have to think, are all of our friends feeding us and bringing us closer to Jesus? If not, maybe we need to think about how much influence they have.

We have to think about the same thing with our family. We don't have to remove family from us if they tend to be bad influences or not wise decision-makers. But maybe we need to think about their influence upon us.

You see, in the boundaries book, if you want to learn more about boundaries, this book is amazing, but he says this: he says that Jesus says our spiritual ties are the closest and most important. And if you don't have enough family—this is obviously me speaking right now—if you don't have enough family that are in the same journey as you that are trying to become more like Jesus, our true family is the family of God.

It's my hope and prayer that all of you have family blood ties that are trying to go on the same journey as you. But if you don't have everybody on that journey with you, then this is why we find people in the family of God that are on the journey with us. And we pray for the ones in our family that aren't.

Who is with me in that you have people in your family you are praying for? I do every day. I mean, I pray for all my family every day, but there are some in my family that I'm praying for in other special, specific ways. To have the fire of God livened up within them.

And it's okay to categorize and say, "This family is helping draw me closer to Jesus." And "This is the family I'm trying to help draw closer to Jesus." And the influence they have on my decisions are different.

I would love for you to think as you go today of in this story, who are you? Are you more like David? Are you reacting to the foolishness around you? Are you more like Nabal, being spontaneous? Are you more like Abigail? That when something happens in the circle that you're in, that you're not allowing that other person's behavior to influence what happens in your life, but you are taking control of it.

Would you pray with me?

Almighty God, I am thankful that in all things we have a community to support us. That we journey together. But that sometimes we need people that are related to us. And sometimes we need people who are not. But in either way, they are all family.

Lord, as we keep thinking about who is in our circles, and who draws us closer to you, and who continues to make us better, I pray, Lord, that you show to us the people we need to keep drawing nearer into our lives. So that we can be the people you want us to be.

I hope and pray everyone in this room has the deep desire to be the best version of themselves. As we prepare to come to your table this morning, I ask that you show us anything we need to adjust in our life this week. So that we may make the changes to be a little bit more like the person you want.

We pray this in your holy name. Amen.

This table is our Lord's table. He invites all. And he makes no requirement that we have before we come, other than that we confess our sins together.

So I'd like to ask you now, if you would, join me in this confession that you'll find on the screen. And we'll read it in one voice, if you'd join me now.

"You have shown yourself to us, O God, by word and the Spirit, with signs and wonders. In flesh and blood, yet we sinned. Still struggle to live and believe the good news of Jesus Christ. Have mercy on us. Forgive us. Enter into our lives and cast out our fear. So that we may come to trust in you and have life in Jesus' name."

The night that Jesus sat with his disciples before his arrest, he took bread and he broke it. He said, "This is my body, which has been given for you. Eat in remembrance of me."

He also took a cup. He said, "This is the blood of the new covenant. Drink just as you eat in remembrance of me."

If you would, just take a moment and lift anything in your heart you want to lift to God as a personal confession, and we'll come back in just a moment together.

Almighty God, we ask that you hear the confessions of our hearts and that we thank you, you receive them, and that you forgive them every time we give our confessions to you.

We also ask God this morning that you send your spirit upon this bread and this juice and transform it to be your body and your blood. We pray these things in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Friends, would you hear this word of forgiveness this morning? In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.

Would you join me? In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. Amen.

I'm going to invite those who are going to help me with communion to come forward. As they do, I'm going to give you a word of instruction. I'm going to serve my helpers first, and then I'll invite everyone forward. You'll receive a small piece of bread to dip in the cup. We'll have two stations, one on each side. In the center, we have prepackaged communion, if you prefer for your communion not to be touched. And we'll also have gluten-free communion.

After I serve all of my helpers, I'll invite everyone forward. Friends, the Lord's table is open. I'll invite all to come. We will start in the back and come up the center and out the outside.

Hey, friends, just before you go, in your seats you have your Connect card. If there's a way we can pray for you, you can fill that out and put it in the baskets, give it to me or give it to Val who's in the back. And that's just so we can be in support of you.

Also, we've been talking about connections within the church family. If you feel like that you have not connected within the church at this point, the Mix and Mingle that is this Thursday is a great way to connect with others in the church. That will be at my house.

If you would like to come, please just give me a heads up that you're coming because we've done them in restaurants in the past, and I don't have an endless kitchen of food. So I don't want to run out of food because that's a bad Methodist thing to do.

So I would love an overflowing house. That would make me really happy. I would just be really sad if I didn't have enough to feed you. So if you would, you can text me, you can fill it all in that card, whatever, to let me know you want to come.

But just note that that's what that event is for, is to help you connect with others within the congregation just as we've been talking about.

And then the last piece is you'll note that the Parents' Night Out is coming. If you'd like to volunteer with that, you can fill it out on the card. For students, that's a student event where you can earn volunteer hours as well. And if you have a kid in Kids Club and you want a night out, that is the purpose for that event. If you have questions, Katie can answer them.

All right, let me send you with this blessing.

Almighty God, send us from this place so that we may be filled with the wisdom of Abigail, knowing how to balance the relationships in our lives, and to love all, to be aware of the acts around us, and if they are wise or if they are foolish, so that we may ensure that those acts do not impede the consequences in our lives.

And help us to reach others, to help them feel the love of you. We pray this in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.