Foundation | Future Family

What if your family’s future could feel lighter, clearer, and more united because the foundation was already settled? We share how choosing Jesus first reframed everything—how we dated, how quickly we married, where we moved, and how we navigate conflict and calling. From missions in hard places to late-night hospitality, our story keeps circling the same truth: love that lasts is sacrificial, not self-serving.

We open Scripture to anchor love in reality, not vibes. First John 4 reminds us that love starts with God. First Corinthians 13 shows how love behaves when no one is watching—patient, kind, honest, steady. Genesis 2 calls us to leave and cleave, forming a new team. Then Ephesians 5 levels up the standard: submission as sub-mission under God’s purpose, and husbands loving like Christ by laying down pride and comfort. This is not theory. It looks like shared calendars, shared budgets, shared decisions, and the humility to say, “Let’s pray first.”

Most couples don’t crash over one big thing; they drift over a thousand unsaid words. We name the usual hotspots—sex, money, and family—and offer simple ways to talk before crisis. A premarital toolkit or a quick SWOT analysis can turn a gut feeling into a wise plan, and prayer can set pace and boundaries before a move or a purchase. We also talk about relaying a shaky foundation. It’s never too late to reset your home on Christ, rebuild trust with small acts of respect and service, and date your spouse with intention.

You’ll hear stories of contentment before marriage, a near-impossible move while pregnant, tense moments where mission and marriage had to realign, and the deep peace that only comes when your feet stand on rock. Whether single, newlywed, or decades in, our hope is the same: as you move closer to God, you’ll move closer to each other. If this encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review so more families can find a foundation that holds.

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Transcript

Future Family Vision

Jason Brown 0:00

Our family is written in the Word. Today we are talking about future family in this theme, talking about this effort that we are in wanting to have a family in the future that's more in line with Jesus. And so that topic today we're talking about is foundation for your family. We want you to have a foundation, the root, the ground floor, everything that's built off of it. We want your foundation to be something that's solid, something that's set in Jesus. And as we're talking about foundation today, then the concept of a foundation is that your foundation will be built on love. Say it with me. Built on love.

Celeste’s Call To Put God First

Mission, Service, And Unexpected Doors

Celeste Brown 0:46

Yeah, well, when I was um late teens, early 20s, I had just made a complete decision that I was gonna put all of my trust and my faith in God, and I was gonna put him as the foundation of my life. Um I grew up with three best friends at a Casa Grand, and so there were four of us together. And I remember as we were getting a little bit older in our 20s, they were all getting married, and I was just kind of not married yet. And it's weird when you're in that that season of all your friends getting married and you're alone and you're like, what's wrong with me? Why doesn't anybody like me? Um and it it just happened to be the way it was, and I just thought, you know what, I'm just gonna put my trust in God. I'm gonna follow him, I'm gonna put him as the foundation of everything, and I'm gonna go wherever he leads me. And so that's what I did. Um if you don't know, Jay and I, we didn't get married until later in our 20s. Um I was 27, I believe. 28. Oh gosh, yeah. I was 28. And um. I don't even know. Yeah, I was 28, and so it it was a few years, and as you kind of live independent independently and you do your thing, um, it is harder to get married as you get older because you have your own ways of doing things. And so um I just knew right away from the beginning, I'm just gonna follow after Jesus, put everything I have into my relationship with God, and he's gonna be the foundation of my life. And it led me on an adventure that I would have never imagined. And if you are somebody who is even contemplating following after the Lord, let me tell you this. Um, it will be the ride that you never forget when you follow Jesus. He will lead you in a path that you could not possibly create on your own. But he opens doors for you that are only by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords that you got through that door many times. And so that's what happened to me. I began getting really involved in the church and I started living uh my entire life for the church and doing whatever it was God wanted me to do. Um, I am not somebody who desired to work with kids, but I found myself working in kids ministry and I loved it. Um, I am the oldest of um all brothers, so I was always mom number two. Anybody can relate to that in the house? And so I didn't want to have any kids right away. I thought I already raised them, so I'm not gonna have kids young. Um and but I ended up working in kids ministry and I loved it. I also would just serve people. And when I lived in Northern Arizona, one of the things that we would do as a church is we'd go into a senior living assisted home and we would do Bible studies for the seniors that were living there, and they didn't have any family nearby, and so they were in this home, and we would go in and do a Bible study with them. And that was not something that I thought I would enjoy, but I loved going in there and hearing of the stories of old of what God has done in people's lives. And um it's just a journey that God took me on. Another thing that he did was he led me into missions and serving in other countries. And when I first would tell people that I wanted to go into missions, some of the responses that I would get was, oh, it's so sweet. When you get married, maybe you'll get to go. Um and I thought, why can't I go by myself as a girl? That's ridiculous. Um and I had a pastor at the time who just believed very strongly in women in ministry, and he just encouraged me to go onto the mission field. And so that's what I did. God opened doors for me to end up in places of the world that I would have never never chose on my own. I used to live in Paraguay and South America, and uh Jay and Javen recently went there this past year, and they came back and they're like, I'm shocked that you live there because it wasn't what they expected. And another place I lived was in Bangladesh, and um you'll see videos of it being one of the worst places in the entire world you can live. But when I was there, I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And so you're on an adventure when you place the Lord as the foundation of your life, that He will open doors that no man can shut, and He will open doors for you. So I was following after God when I came back from the mission field. I lived in Cottonwood. I was on staff at a church serving the Lord with my whole heart. And I would take these walks every morning for about a two-mile walk just to clear my head before I went into the office. And one morning I remember walking the track at the middle school. And I can tell you exactly where I was on that track. And I felt um just the presence of the Lord speaking to me that morning, and he told me um that he was really proud of me. And I told God, I said, God, I don't care if I ever get married. I am so full of joy in this moment of my life that I don't want to leave where I'm at right now. Because my relationship with God was just so full of joy. And it wasn't long after that. I honestly believe it was just a few weeks that this guy came into my life.

Jason Brown 5:45

And I was not interrupting Jesus in her life, but I just want to clarify.

Contentment Before Marriage

Celeste Brown 5:51

And I remember a few things stood out to me um with Jay, and that was number one, that he loved people. I want to tell you that if you are waiting for the person that God's gonna bring into your life, do not compromise. If you have lived your life for the Lord, don't settle on second best, but let God give you the best for you. And that's what happened. I I would see him interact with people. And at the moment in my life, I would get peopled out. I don't know if anybody else is like that, but when I went home, it was like, shut the door, nobody else can come in. This is my refuge. I need a breather. And Jay was opposite of that. He was like, swing the door wide open, two, three, four, five in the morning, come on in, we'll be ready for you. And um, I love that about him, that he loved people. Another thing um that I loved was that he would go wherever God asked him to go, and he wasn't afraid to just say yes. And so these are things that having Jesus as the foundation of my life, he brought love like that into my life, and I was truly grateful. And um we were just willing to do whatever it was that God wanted us to do. I left um Northern Arizona and moved here to Phoenix. I'd never lived in the valley before. I'm from Casagran, and so we would come up quite frequently, but we didn't live here ever. And so um it was a lot of change, there was a lot of shift in my life when we got married. We um met, dated, and married in 11 months. No, no wows. When you get married at 28, you know or you don't know. How many of you are like, I've been through all the wrong ones? Jesus, if this is the right one, it's going quick. It's going quick. And so 11 months, we were we we dated, um, got engaged and got married, and it was amazing. And I moved into the valley, and there was a lot of change. I left my job, I left full-time ministry, I moved to a city, I went to a different church that I didn't know anybody at except him. And so there was a lot of shift. But I will tell you this when God begins to do things in your life, there's such a peace when he's at the foundation. There's such a peace. That peace doesn't come when you're doing things on your own. That peace doesn't come when you made the decision and then invite him to bless it. That decision came because he was the foundation and you built upon that. And so that's what we have done in our marriage, is now we're shifting that same philosophy to our kids, saying Jesus is number one, he's the foundation of everything, and your life will be built upon that.

Meeting Jay And Nonnegotiables

Peace From A Shared Foundation

Aligning With God To Find Love

Jason Brown 8:28

Praise the Lord. I'll say this you know, if we're gonna be those that that want God as the foundation of our life, then we need to follow God where He's leading us to go. We talk about that often. And if we're gonna be following God, then it's whenever we align with Him, then He's the one that'll help us to find love in the correct way. And that what that means is that you don't have to go out chasing after this and that and the other thing and and uh trying to find the right hookup or some kind of deal like that. That's not how that works. In fact, it was one of these things where in this idea of like the romantic style of love, like I got burned chasing my heart, fleeting this way and that way when I was younger. And as I got serious about God, then I was like, Lord, then I'm just just me and you. Whatever you want me to do, I'm with you. And that means that I'm gonna cut this whole thing out of my life, and I just want to be for what you want to do in my life. And it was after I had made that declaration to God that that Celeste was in my life. And I'm thankful for that because what that did is it put the alignment in the correct way. It said, Lord, that you're first, and from that, you're gonna guide me into a relationship that will that will be one where we're not pointed at each other like this. Because what happens so often is we point at each other with this passion, thinking we're going right in the same place. The problem is we're still in control of our path and we start going away from each other. If we are people that about the things of God and we get connected to each other, the closer we go to God, the more we go towards each other, and the more we go in alignment with the things He has for our lives. And so as we talk about the Word of God today, as we talk about what romance is, man, we're thankful for that. I love the the flutters and all those kind of things. I think that's that's important. I think you should date your wife. I think you should do those things to be intentional to be people that show the character of Christ. And so if we're going to be after the character of Christ and we look to the word of God as the things that he would have for us in the alignment of those endeavors. Now, we want to talk about this idea of love. Now, if you think about love in the romantic sense, obviously it's all the flutters and all the pieces. You know, it's like yesterday, Valentine's Day, a day made by a greeting card company to make you feel guilty. No, I'm just kidding. It's a good day. Obviously, the basis of it is pretty interesting with someone who was going and performing marriages for Christians, you know, when they weren't allowed to and actually died for his belief in Christ. And in those concepts of being someone who fights for love is tied to St. Valentine's story. You know, for us, we want to align ourselves with what God says to us about what love is in the Bible. So if you have your Bible, your tablet, your phone, we're looking the first place today in 1 John 4, verses 7 and 8. Famous piece of scripture talking about love. It says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. For whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. And so it continues here. It says, In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world that we might live through him. So as we talk about a man and a wife, as we talk about their romance, you can see like an image of that here, as they're drawing near to each other and they're having that conversation with each other. It's an alignment of what the love of God is in our lives, is that we're loving sacrificially. We're not loving in a lustful way, we're loving in a sacrificial way. That's the difference between a give me, me, me, me and for you is it's a sacrificial love, the one that we see from Christ. You know, in the same way we look to what love is and the characteristics of God, much like we would see in Galatians with the work of the Spirit, we see the character of Christ in 1 Corinthians 13. It talks about it often about what love is. We see it here. It says, love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoings, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. In verse 8, verse A, it says, Love never fails. Or love never ends. Friends, that's the kind of love that God has for us. That we would have the same characteristics to be those who, when we love, we love in the same way. That's why, whenever it talks about in the Bible about a man and wife together, it talks about that from the beginning of the book in Genesis, in Genesis 2, verse 24. It says, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. So they're no longer separate, they're now one in alignment with God. And so that's why we talked about what we've been talking about. That's why we talked about our focus for our family in alignment with God, about his vision, his mission, his values for your life. We talked about what it means to be on team with each other. Is you're looking to each other's eyes, as we see in this next image, it's the idea of that we're not fighting against each other, we're fighting for each other. As we talked about, we want to be those that make that daily commitment towards the Lord and towards each other. So whenever we look at that and says that he shall leave his father and mother, it means you're becoming a grown person. It means that you are now the one who is becoming something separate than just your nuclear family. Now you're launching out into a new family that God is doing something through. And that's a powerful thing for us to think about and to and understand as that we are a foundation that is built on love. Somebody say with me. Built on love. Amen.

Celeste Brown 14:11

So we are in the series Future Family, and I just want to welcome you here today to Cornerstone. Um, we love to follow after Jesus with all of our heart. You'll see a photo behind me of Jesus walking with his disciples, and that's what we strive to do. It's not always easy, but every single day we make the effort to walk with Jesus where he is leading us. Um, over the last couple weeks, uh, we've started a new series of life groups. I don't know if you've been able to attend one, but they have been amazing. Um, I was here on Wednesday night. We have a prayer life group that meets here in the sanctuary, and then we had some other groups going on, and I I just kept texting Jay saying, I just love that there's so much life happening at the church right now on Wednesday nights. So if you have not become part of a life group, there's still time for you to join. They don't all happen on Wednesday, and they don't all happen at the church. So find one that fits your schedule and is something that you'd be interested in and join. You will not be disappointed. Um two weeks ago we started on uh Future Family and we uh Pastor Jay spoke on focus. We talked about the vision, the mission, and the values of family. And then last week he spoke on friction and fighting for the family and what it means to be on the same team. So if you've missed either of those weeks, I encourage you to go back, listen to it on the podcast. And this week we're talking about the foundation being built on love.

What The Bible Says About Love

Becoming One And Team Mindset

Series Context And Church Life

Jason Brown 15:33

Amen. Now we are in a unique situation that we're just two weeks shy of our 20th anniversary, 20 years. Very thankful for that. And it's pretty awesome. I will say, you know, you can see this next picture. This is from our wedding day. Ooh, la la. I had some moves. You know how it is. Uh no, you know, it's been amazing. Celeste and I, we've had uh quite the adventure of our of our marriage and our family. You see these next image is some snaps of us around the world. We've lived on three continents with three kids and and had a chance to have a pretty amazing adventure. Over 50 countries who've traveled together and had some uh amazing, amazing adventures in that regard, each one of those being a snapshot of a story, uh of a location, of an adventure, of a season that we walk through together, and is pretty powerful. Also, today is Celeste's birthday. And so we want to say happy birthday to her. We love her. Beyond just being a pastor in the house and my best friend and my wife and the wife and the mother to my children. I'm so thankful for her character, for who she is as a friend and who she is uh as someone who serves the church and loves the church. Uh, I've taken snaps across of her across the world. You see some of them here. And it just, this is just a backdrop to Celeste. She's the main character, man. She's out there doing it. And I love that about her is that she's someone who, you know, when it she's telling it from her side, whenever I met her, I knew of her first. And when I met her and connected with her, I was like, wow, this is a woman who knows what she's doing. Like she's after God. She's not waiting around for someone else to tell her a good idea. She's going after God. She's also not someone who's afraid. There are people that live in fear and are very much encapsulated by fear. And I knew for me, like what I want to be connected to is I want to be connected to someone who has is not afraid and is willing to go where God is leading us to go. And so as I started to pray and fast and do all those things and talk about what it means to be in a relationship, it had to be someone who had a foundation themselves, that their foundation was already set in God, that her foundation was in God first. And so you see this idea of foundation, you think about the concept of being built on love. And we talked about already how it talks about a man shall leave his father and mother, they should become as one. That means the husband and wife together are the team. It talks about in scripture that he comes and he makes them man and woman and brings them together in this marriage. And since they're a husband and wife team, then it's them in their relationship with God. And as we talk about a relationship with God, and then we have your relationship with your spouse, so much of this is important because if it's not foundational on something like God and his precepts, his values, then it's up for grabs. And you can kind of go however you want. And that's why so many times, whenever we start to interact with people, whenever they come into problems, they come to us and they're talking about things. Most of the main problems they hinge around these three areas. Most of them talk about this problem is within sex, within money, or within family. And so that's the intimacy in the relationship, who spends the money, how it's spent, where it goes, and why it goes there. And then family, how their family is going to be raised, valued, corrected, how their greater, larger family is going to have influence in their nuclear family, or how those things are going to work. And so many times, those the relationships that we're interacting with, it's not a checkup or hey, can we get involved and have a dialogue about some wisdom here? No, it's like we are in disaster. Help put out the fire. And friends, we're willing to help in those situations. It's not like that. But my point is, man, let's get way ahead of it before it becomes that kind of an issue. And what we realize it so many times is that those might be the categories that are there, but really it's about communication about those things. And what we've seen is that the intimacy, there's no communication. So the communication breakdown, therefore, the intimacy and sex in their marriage breaks down. We see that they're not having communication about how the money is spent or how it should be saved or how it should be invested. And therefore, it becomes a friction, a fight against each other for control on the money. It becomes a fight on how are we going to do what we're doing with our kids or how are we going to do what we do with our family and their input into our relationship. Or if we're having problems and not reaching out for wisdom from those who've gone ahead of us. And so it's both sides. As it becomes a communication issue. And so while we're thankful to be those that are out there problem solving, we would much rather it be those that are in the relationship start the problem solving before it gets there. How many people know what I'm saying? And that's all of us included. We're not taking ourselves off of that. That's all of us that we would be in alignment with it. That's why, as far as pastors here in the house, that we won't perform marriages without people going through premarital counseling. And the reason is we want to give you the ability and the toolkit to be able to work on your relationship and be successful in the communication in all these big areas. That's why whenever we we have people are getting ready to get married, we say, listen, we want you to go through this. We've done different variations of things. Right now we're doing what's called saving your marriage before it starts symbus. And it's a nice piece of kit for us because what it does is it takes both the the wife and the husband or those who are about to get married, the fiancés, and has them run through this list and they each one of them respond to different things. And then what it does is it talks about and matches them up. And this is an example here of one of the sheets that are part of it, it's like how who's gonna make the household chores and who's gonna do what they do. And it's what was modeled to you by your parents, and then what do you expect in your relationship? You'd be surprised how often these things aren't talked about. And we've even had people who've lived for years together before they got married, and we're talking about listen, you still need to go through all this stuff because most of the time you haven't talked about it. I was surprised on how many people got to this sheet and they still hadn't talked about these things yet. And then they're wondering why the intimacy is breaking down. It's because you didn't take out the trash. You didn't do the dishes. Well, you never talked to me about doing the dishes. You never talked to me about taking out the trash. Am I being too real? The idea is that friends, if we're gonna do this thing successfully, we need to talk about it because we are one and we're going the same direction. We're on the same team. In the same way, before we go and make a big decision, we want to be those that make an analysis of it together. You don't just show up and one person's made the decision for the two of you on big major life changes. You know, if you want to do a change at work or you want to do a change and buy a different house or a car, it's a dialogue, it's a lot of interaction on what we're gonna do. I suggest to people that they go and take take a skill set like a SWOT analysis and put it to something so they can clarify all the different parameters of their situation and then pray and ask the Lord to give them guidance on how to make a decision. How many people would rather have a guidance before you make a decision than have to go back after the mistake? How many people also realize it's very hard to ask the Lord for this for a decision when you know he might tell you no? The reason I still don't have a motorcycle. Wanting one every year. Still want one. You guys, by the time I get one, you'll be like, uh, she don't care no more. He just sees going. But you get the idea is that it you you talk about your strengths, your weaknesses, the opportunities and threats of any single issue, and then you fill out your sheet. There's you take a sheet like this, and and you see the different different areas, strength, weakness, opportunity, threat, and you talk about it. So if we're gonna go buy a new place, then we need to talk about the new place and see the parameters of it. If it's gonna be where are we gonna go, how's it gonna do? What's the opportunity? What's what's the trade-off? What's the weakness? Well, now we're losing everything we had set up before, our northern rhythms of life. What's the opportunity? The opportunity is maybe it's better, bigger, better for us, and as far as our family. What's the threat? There could be another opportunity that we're now missing out because we're spending money in this direction. Does that start to make sense? We start to make big decisions together because that's what this life is about. Is if we're gonna be a foundation of a marriage built on Christ, then we need to be together seeking his will for our lives.

Two Decades Of Marriage And Calling

Celeste Brown 24:09

Well, I'm gonna give you an example of one of the big decisions that we had to make in our marriage. And we had just gotten married in 06, and then in 07, um, our son arrived in May, and um Jay had left on a missions trip to Europe with some of the youth from the church at the time. And he was there and I was on maternity leave. Um, I worked full-time, but I was off for a few weeks to stay home with our newborn. And so it's just me and Jay have been at home for the whole time he was gone to Europe. And while he was gone, um, he heard of a new plan that was gonna take place inside of Paris, France, which was to plant a new church. And something was stirring in him, and he felt like maybe we should consider going. You have to remember, I love missions. Um, I would go wherever God asked us to go. But at the time that he called me, I was tired, very sleep deprived. I have a three-week old in my hands, and um a lot of things had just changed in the last 12 months in my life. And so he's like, Hey, I really feel like we should pray about moving to Paris. And I thought, You're crazy. Um I'm really tired right now, and anything can make me cry. Hello, mothers. And um, I'm sitting here by myself holding this little boy, and you're over here saying, Hey, we think we should go. Let's just yard sell everything and head out of here. And I'm like, Well, I love you. We'll have this conversation when you get back home. And um that was kind of the starting point of the discussion. And I have to tell you that um Europe was never a place on my heart. I love people, but I was never in love with a place. And so Europe was not a draw for me. Europe, um, I joke about it that it was wasted on me because a lot of people love art and they love all of that stuff, and they would be like, Oh, what I would do to go to Paris. I spent four years there and I didn't really see much because it wasn't of interest to me. And people are like, You're crazy. But it just wasn't my thing. I just love the people. So all that I did was just hang out with people. Um, but when we were making this decision, when he got home, we did, we fasted, we prayed. There was a lot of things that were going into um going back into missions. It meant taking the first grandson from his side of the family. So I knew there would probably be some daggers thrown at us as we decided to leave. And um it was just a lot. It was a lot for everyone. And so we did, we, we really did pray, we really did fast, and we both were at peace with what God wanted to do with our family. And so that's what we did. We started taking the next steps. You have to fundraise before you're allowed to leave, and they tell you the marker of how much you have to raise. And I will tell you this by the time all of our fundraising got done, we were seven months pregnant with Shiloh, and that's when we were cleared to get on the plane. So I was holding my the hand of my two-year-old. I couldn't even pull the luggage because I was so tired. And I'm seven months pregnant, and we flew to Paris. And when I landed, the first thing on my mind was, I don't care where we sleep, but I got to find a hospital to have this little girl at. And so that was my journey when we got there. But I will tell you, through all the change, through all the shift, everything was based off the foundation of Jesus and Jesus alone, and he's the one that made everything possible. And so if you're in a marriage right now and Jesus is not the foundation of your marriage, you can still relay that foundation today. You can still hack up all the things that it was built on and start over and relay that foundation and be committed to him first and then be on team with each other.

Three Big Flashpoints: Sex, Money, Family

Jason Brown 28:00

That's exactly what we want to convey is this idea of future family and that a husband and wife are on the same team. We talked about it recently last week and the friction that's there. So the husband and wife are together as one, and that means they're on the same team. We said it last week, say it with me. Same team. Since that's true, we're gonna take a look today at Ephesians and talk through Ephesians 5 for a few moments, what it talks about about being a wife and a husband that are subjugated to God, and what that means in his plan for us.

Celeste Brown 28:31

Yeah, let me read um verse 22. It said, Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. And um, I just want to share a moment about submission and about unity in your marriage and um what it is to be united with your husband and to really be walking in unity and walking together with him. Um, you have to understand that there is an authority above you, and that authority is God. And God is the one who's created you, you're created in his image, you're created for purpose and on purpose. So you have to just settle that first. God is the ultimate authority of all things. Now, when you get married and you are in a Christian marriage, you guys are a team together, you're united as one. And in marriage, you are an indiv you as an individual are not more important than the working of the team. I want you to hear that. When you're in a marriage, you as an individual are not more important than you working as a team. You've been brought together, you are now one. And when we submit to God, we recognize God's authority and we act accordingly, or we should be acting accordingly to God as the authority. And every day you practice submission, whether you realize it or not. If you work somewhere, you have a supervisor, you have a boss, that person, you are submissive to them. So they come to you in the morning and say, hey, I have a project for you, it needs to get done by this time. You better get it done. Or there's an ultimatum for you. You are submitting to those in authority over you. And that's what submission means. It means to be submission. You are in mission together. There's a mission for Christian marriages. And that mission is obeying and glorifying God. God is the ultimate authority. So I'm gonna put myself under the mission that God has for us together in our marriage, because that mission as one is more important than the things I'm over here trying to get on my own. And so I just want to tell you in love. I know the world will tell you something completely different than that. They'll say, be your own person, do your own thing. Who cares what he says? That is not how your marriage is going to be blessed, but you are ultimately under the authority of God, and together in unity, you work as one.

Communication Before Crisis

Making Big Decisions Together

Jason Brown 31:11

Amen. So we're called to be united, it's called to unite together and walk in step with each other. And that's what it means, is that we, as we are those who are submitted to God, as though as those who come alongside in alignment with what he calls for us to be, then we can do the same thing. It continues in the same thought here in Ephesians 5 25. It says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water of the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. It talks about here a great high standard for husbands, being those that will sacrifice everything for their wife. What is the example? The example is Christ for the church. Jesus literally came, emptied himself of divinity to walk as a man, to walk this life so he could be the sacrifice for all people. He took on the weight of sin and death and hell for you and for me. He took our place and he did that for us. He did it for us because he's motivated by love. He wasn't puffed up on his own machismo or his own title. Why? We know that because that's exactly what he pushed away from Satan when he was tempted in the desert. The desert's trying, he's he's coming, the Satan, the enemy of his soul, the enemy of our soul, is coming against him and saying, you know, if you do these things, I'll make you great. I'll make you powerful. And he knew who he was already, and he said, This is not the path that I have. I am only subjugated to the Lord. And so as he says those same things, so do we. And that means that you have to be the man that steps up and is sacrificial for your family, not your own machismo or ego, but instead for your family. It says that the greatest love has someone that lays their life down for their friend, that we would be those that live that example for our family to lay our lives down for them, to be the provider, protector, and all those things that God has called us to be. I'll say this. When I met Celeste, you know, I saw her as this woman who is doing all these things already. And I started to read Proverbs 31, and I was reading about this woman who's has everything going together, and I was like, wow, Celeste is a lot like that. And then the other challenge came to me is like, do you deserve a woman like that? Are you the man of God that can step up and champ up and be the man of God you're supposed to be? Because if you're out here looking for a woman of God that's a Proverbs 31 woman and you're not that man, shame on you. Champ up, champ. Stop being a Sally. Stand up and be the man of God you're called to be. Stop with your pity party for yourself. Sorry for your ego. You're not that cool. Get in line with what God has for your life. He'll make you better, a better man than you'll ever be by yourself. That's the truth. If you want a woman of God that has good character and has good quality, then that's who you need to be. And woman of God, if you need a man that's going to be after Jesus, then you need to be the kind of woman that he's looking for. And not some other woman on some hookup app someplace, and you guys swipe right and that's all good. That's not what it's about. It's about having an alignment with God as the foundation of your relationship. Because when it is, whenever all the mess is coming and the mess is coming, when the mess comes, you know where your feet are set because your feet are set in the foundation that is founded Jesus Christ. And then you're not fighting each other, you're fighting for the mission that you're on. And I can tell you, you know, we, man, we'll have disagreements about stuff. And we were at someplace one time in Egypt where we were at an impasse and we were like, what are we really fighting about? I said, listen, I know what we're here doing. I get it. We've given up everything to be here in the Middle East to bring the light of the gospel to people. But if we're not on the same team fighting for the same direction, then I'm over this. Like we can go and give this away because we're called to this first. And so we need to get in alignment here. And we are able to walk that out and navigate what that meant. Friends, don't shortchange yourself what God wants to do. Be those who step up and sacrifice for each other. Ephesians 5 29 says, For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Jesus is doing that for us, continually doing that for us. And then we can continually do the exact same. Walk as people who are committed to the things of God, committed to each other, and walk committed to what God has said to us. That's why it says exactly that the concept of a man shall leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife, the two will become one flesh. Say amen to that. Amen. Anything else you want to share?

Celeste Brown 36:09

I would just encourage you in your marriages to um enjoy, enjoy each other. Um different seasons, seasons of little kids in the house, seasons of them adulting. I'm not crying. And um just different seasons. And so enjoy because when everything else fades away, it's the two of you. And um just let God open doors for you and work together.

Paris Move: Fasting, Risk, Peace

Relaying Your Foundation In Jesus

Ephesians 5: Unity And Order

Jason Brown 36:33

Since we want to see you thrive in your family, we talk about the foundation for your family being Christ. A few takeaways today, you guys can see them here. First, we talk about how our family is built on love. Family is built on love, and so we need to have the love of Christ in us, and that's what we should build our family on. That's as we come into this, we're intentional in the way that we love each other and show love to each other. And then the concept beyond that is family make big decisions and they make those things together. And so that's the concept of walking connected to each other, walking in step with each other, and being those that dialogue on those big decisions. I saw something that came on Saturday Live. It was a kind of a commercial, fake commercial they did. This guy came home with a big, you know, a big fancy car with a bow on top. And if you've done that, no shame on you. But he came home with a big, big car like that. And at Christmas time in his life's like, you just bought this car without talking to me about it, and just talking about the price of the car and how much kind of payments they're gonna make after the fact. So my point is not be those who are short-sighted for just the moment of, oh, we got this thing, but to dialogue and be those who are connected to each other so we can make the big decisions together. Better to ask the Lord first so he can guide us where we're supposed to go. Amen. The next thing we see here is that we're called to be those that submit and unite and sacrifice. We're called to be in alignment with the living God. We're called to be those who are about what he has for us. And that last piece that we talked about, that we want to be those that love and respect. It talks about that in Ephesians 5 33. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, let the wife see that she respects her husband. Friends, that we would walk in love and respect for each other, that we're showing both love and respect to each other. Because if we do, then it it it continues the cycle of conversation, continues the communication together. Whenever it breaks down and you stop showing love because maybe she made fun of my nose continually. And so therefore I stop showing love or I stop showing respect, then she stops showing respect and showing love because I'm not showing her love, and then suddenly that intimacy thing has a problem. But instead, if we're those who are intentional with each other and we aren't doing those things, we're not hurting each other, instead, we're fighting for each other, that sparks the intimacy because the respect and the love is there with each other. And that's who we're called to be, friends, is those who have a foundation in Jesus. We want to see our future family be thriving in the will of God. Amen. Today, as we come to this opportunity to um to give opportunity to respond to Jesus, that question that each one of us asks is Have you embraced Jesus? Maybe you're here today, you've never made a decision to follow after Jesus today is your opportunity. Invite him into your heart and life. Say, Jesus, I believe you are who you say you are. Lord, I ask you to come into my life and forgive me of my sin. Forgive me of my brokenness. Lord, I thank you for your willingness to love me first and to come and do those things on my behalf. See, friends, whenever we embrace Christ and His work in our heart, then what happens is we die, we're gonna have to come to a judgment for our lives. That's what the book says. It says we're gonna come to the end of our life and stand before a holy God with nothing to offer a holy God. But what's amazing is that Jesus, by his sacrifice, what he does is we accept him. Instead, the Father doesn't see us in our brokenness. Instead, he sees Jesus in his sacrifice, having made us a new creation and forgiving us of all unrighteousness, of all sin and all brokenness. And so that's how we walk and have a communication with the living God, is because of the holy sacrifice that Jesus has made for us. That's why the symbol of the cross is so profound, because it's so powerful. Because Jesus, though he did nothing wrong, he takes my sin and my mistakes upon himself. He takes your brokenness upon himself. He takes all of our fighting and squabbling and all the mess of our marriages, and he took it and paid it for it. And friends, as he died, all of that sin died too. And what it means is that as he comes back to life as he is today alive, then what it means is that all that all that sin and all that pain and all that shame has been paid for upon the cross, and it's no longer something that we have to carry, because it says he makes us a new creation. The Apostle Paul, he writes to the church at Rome, he says this, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. With the heart one believes and is just that, with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Friends, today is your opportunity. Your opportunity to say yes to Jesus. I'm gonna ask if you're here in the room, if you just stand at your feet right where you're at, you just bow your head. As Christians are praying, people are making decisions to follow Christ. Already today, there have been people that have made a decision to follow Jesus. Maybe you're here in the room, maybe you're online. You want to embrace Christ today. Today is the opportunity for you to make that decision. To start a new relationship with him, or maybe you have made that decision in the past, but you haven't been living it, and you need to make that commitment today. If that's you, if you just raise your hand right where you're at. Say, Pastor, that's me. I just want to invite Christ into my into my heart and life. See the hand that's there. But there are others to see hands that have been raised. Thank you, Jesus. Friends in the dark, I can't see you all except the lights, but thank you, Jesus, for those that are making decisions today. If you're online today, friends, you as well. Make a decision to follow Jesus. I'm gonna ask if everyone would they'd pray this prayer out loud after me. Lord, thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending Jesus. I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me of my sins. I surrender my life to you. In Christ's name I pray. Amen. Amen. Friends, we rejoice with you. Those that made a decision to follow Jesus today. Praise the Lord. Hey, if you are one of the ones that raised your hand today, take a moment. Take a shot at this QR code. I've decided to follow Jesus. Follow it so it can put some materials in your hand to live successfully after Christ. We don't want you to live this life alone. Friends, for all of us, those who are married and single, what we want to have is the foundation of Christ in our heart and life today. If that's you, you just want to draw near to God, that you would come and make an altar with God. Maybe you're seeking Him for wisdom, for insight, for whatever it is that you're going through. Maybe you're in a relationship where you need God and God's guidance. Maybe you just want to say thank you, Lord, and come and make an altar with God and thanking Him for being faithful all these years. We're so thankful. We open this altar to you today that you would come. Come and have an impartation of the Holy Spirit of God. Lord, we thank you for your word today. Lord, we thank you for the story that you've shared with us about the alignment that we're to have. Lord, in line with you and of your heart. Lord, with you as the foundation of all that we do. Lord, that we would be those that have the love of God as the foundation of our marriage, the foundation of our family. Lord, that we are in step and alignment with what you want us to do in the mission for where we're headed as a family. Lord, we give you all the praise and all the glory for it. Lord, we thank you that you are the one that calls us to it. Lord, and that we are challenged to step up and do something about it. So, Lord, as we come to your altar today, Lord, we do so. Lord, with hearts that want to seek you more, to know you more, to go deeper after you and have an impartation of your spirit, your guidance, your wisdom, your healing, we pray this name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Celeste Brown 44:52

Yeah, well, we thank you. We are having party with the pastor immediately following this service. So if you have been a guest of ours for the last maybe three months and we haven't had the chance to meet you, we'd love to meet you. If you have children, grab them first. And then if you meet us on the east side of the building down the hallway, uh we'll be in there with our team, and it will be very informal, but we just want to put a name to the face and say hello.

Jason Brown 45:15

Amen. Also, this Friday, we're having a special worship night out in Cash In by the Mercy House. And so let me encourage you to find out more. You see that this flyer is on the social media for Mercy House. You can follow it, be a part of that night. It's gonna be a collaboration with other churches in the area near the Mercy House. We're just gonna have a night of worshiping out in the community out in the park. And so it's gonna be a powerful night. So let me encourage you to be a part of what God wants to do there. Before we go, I want to pray this blessing over us. The Lord bless you and keep you. Lord, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, or lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Lord, I pray a blessing upon your church, your people. Lord, you empower us by your Spirit to live your love out to those around us. We pray all this in the powerful name that is Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Know this. We love you very much here at Cornerstone. God bless you and have a great week.