12.30.18 Sermon

A year-end family service built around a Zig Ziglar story—a son who, win or lose, tells his father "I'm always rooting for you"—and what that kind of commitment looks like in a home. Danny Cox anchors it in the Shema (Deuteronomy 6): love God first, with everything, and let every other relationship flow from that. He presses the counterintuitive claim that Scripture never tells us to put family first—putting God first is what actually produces a healthy family. The message works this out across marriage (Ephesians 5, read through verse 21's "submit to one another"), parenting (caring more for a child's holiness than happiness, the parent as the child's pastor), and children (honoring parents into adulthood, even when it is hard). The recurring image: bring a broken thing back to its maker.