SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure I can follow that.
SPEAKER_01: That was incredible.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Natalie and Jacob and praise team and orchestra and everyone.
SPEAKER_01: What a great deal.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to remember that feeling and the words of that omnisci uh omnipresent, omnipotent, soon coming king.
SPEAKER_01: Remember that in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to come back to that.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to begin this morning by reminding you we started a sermon series last week called Biblical Parenting in a Chaotic Culture.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to remind you that this is the definition that we are working towards as parents.
SPEAKER_01: And this is really important.
SPEAKER_01: It's not something that I just put up there, and I think hopefully you'll see that in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: This is the goal, what we're doing as parents.
SPEAKER_01: Raising your children to have a relationship with Jesus so that when they are adults, they will walk with him and serve him.
SPEAKER_01: Let me repeat that again.
SPEAKER_01: Raising your children to have a relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So what you're doing now, moms and dads and grandparents, what you're doing to help your kids, your adult kids with their children, your grandchildren, we are teaching them to have a relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Everything is focused on helping them know Jesus, love him, worship him, follow him, be saved, have a relationship with him, and do that in such a way that when they are adults, they will walk with him and serve him.
SPEAKER_01: So the question then is how do we do that?
SPEAKER_01: And last week we talked about what we needed as parents, that you needed to have a passion for Jesus that transcended down to your children and grandchildren, that you needed to have a spiritual vision for your family, and then a commitment in all the different ways to teach and to train and to do those things so your children have a relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Then I gave you four principles that are the foundational things that we're teaching.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's what I want to do today is give you the biblical principles that you need for biblical parenting.
SPEAKER_01: You see, it starts there.
SPEAKER_01: So turn with me in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 11.
SPEAKER_01: Before you ever get to the issues in the culture, you have to know what the truth is.
SPEAKER_01: Because you don't have a framework to deal with what kids are dealing with, the questions that they have, all of that.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have a framework to counter what the world would say or argue with us as followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so we are not equipped to handle the chaotic culture until we understand those biblical principles that we are imparting and training and teaching our children that help them have a relationship with the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I want to show you these four principles again.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Bobby's helped me.
SPEAKER_01: We just took the screen from last week because I want to keep reiterating that.
SPEAKER_01: And parents, this is layered for us today.
SPEAKER_01: As you'll see here in Deuteronomy chapter 11, beginning in verse 1, the Bible says, and here's the instruction to the audience that he's speaking to.
SPEAKER_01: Love the Lord your God and always keep his mandate and his statutes, ordinances, and commands.
SPEAKER_01: You, the audience that he's speaking to, here is parents.
SPEAKER_01: You, as parents, you must understand today that it is not your children who experienced or saw the discipline of the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: Our children are sponges and they learn.
SPEAKER_01: But they don't know anything yet when they start out life.
SPEAKER_01: The maturing process is growing to learn and understand progressively the world around you.
SPEAKER_01: Now I love it when you have babies, right?
SPEAKER_01: And they can't see much and they can't do much, and they and they only see about here, and they discover their fingers and they do all that, and then they begin to recognize voices, and then they begin to recognize you, and then they begin to recognize things ten feet out, and then they begin to recognize some other things around them, and they it's this progressive sense of learning all those things.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what he's saying: listen, how are your kids going to know who God is?
SPEAKER_01: And how are your children going to understand all the things that he has done for his people to create this spiritual heritage unless you own it and teach it?
SPEAKER_01: And so what he's telling them is this love the Lord your God and always keep his mandate, statutes, ordinances, and commands.
SPEAKER_01: He is saying, listen, you must own this to give this to your children.
SPEAKER_01: You must have a passion for the Lord that is so strong and deep and rooted in him, it is so authentic that your kids catch it as they're learning it.
SPEAKER_01: That it is the reality of their life and they learn from that.
SPEAKER_01: And you have got to teach them in a way that is greater than the world around them is trying to teach them the opposite.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to beat the world around you with the message.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I want you to see it.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to read this passage again.
SPEAKER_01: We read it last week, we're going to read it again, but I want you to notice these four principles and see how they are repeated throughout this message.
SPEAKER_01: God is layering the importance of these biblical principles as a foundation.
SPEAKER_01: Love the Lord, worship him with all your heart.
SPEAKER_01: He begins that way.
SPEAKER_01: That's the song we've just sung.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't know who God is and acknowledge him as God, everything else is just information.
SPEAKER_01: And it may not even be information you choose to believe in it or not.
SPEAKER_01: It begins with the foundation of who God is.
SPEAKER_01: Once you know that he is God and He's issued commandments and written scripture to us, well then we need to follow that.
SPEAKER_01: A gratefulness for his provision, an understanding that everything that we have comes from him, that he is the God who is prepared and blessed, and that we are the recipients of his provision.
SPEAKER_01: And then the call to live is God's people for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: The very fact that he is speaking to his children of Israel and he is preparing them to go into the land of Canaan, he is setting them up to be his people and to be the conduit through which he brings the Messiah into the world.
SPEAKER_01: By definition, right here, he is calling them to live as his people for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: Now, look at those four things and see how often they are repeated through this passage.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2, you must understand today that it's not your children who experienced or saw the discipline of the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: His greatness, strong hand, and outstretched arms, his signs and the works he did in Egypt to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and all his land.
SPEAKER_01: What he did to Egypt's army, its horses and chariots, when he made the waters of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued you, and he destroyed them completely.
SPEAKER_01: So obviously he's rehearsing there when God redeemed his people, following the leadership of Moses, out of Egypt and led them towards the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: Then he says, verse 5, what he did to you in the wilderness until you reached this place.
SPEAKER_01: Now he's talking about the fact that as they got to the Jordan River and ready to go into the land of Canaan, they were afraid of conquering that land, and they wilted in their courage and in their faith, and they refused to go in.
SPEAKER_01: And because of that, God said, You will now wander for forty years, and this generation will move on, and the next generation will come up, and we will begin with them as children, and we will raise them to follow me and understand, and then they will have the faith to step into the land.
SPEAKER_01: And that's now where we find ourselves, with this next generation forty years later, ready to go into Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: So he says in verse 7, Your own eyes have seen every great work the Lord has done.
SPEAKER_01: Keep every command I'm giving you today, so that you may have the strength to cross into and possess the land you are to inherit, and so that you may live long in the land the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and their descendants.
SPEAKER_01: That's having a vision for the spiritual life of your children and grandchildren.
SPEAKER_01: A land flowing with milk and honey.
SPEAKER_01: For the land you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you've come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated by hand as in a vegetable garden.
SPEAKER_01: Now he's saying, Look at how beautiful this land that I've given to you is.
SPEAKER_01: It is a land the Lord your God cares for.
SPEAKER_01: He is always watching over it from the beginning to the end of the year.
SPEAKER_01: If you carefully obey my commandments I am giving you today, to love the Lord your God and worship him with all your heart and all your soul, I will provide rain for your land in the proper time, the autumn and spring rains, and you will harvest your grain, new wine, and oil.
SPEAKER_01: I will provide, you see, God's provision, grass in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat and be satisfied.
SPEAKER_01: Be careful that you are not enticed to turn aside, worship, and bow down to other gods.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord's anger will burn against you.
SPEAKER_01: He will close the sky, and there will be no rain, the land will not yield its produce, and you will perish quickly from the good land the Lord is giving you.
SPEAKER_01: Now he teaches them as parents all those principles.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, imprint these words of mine on your hearts and minds, bind them as a sign on your hands, and let them be a symbol on your foreheads, and then number two, teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up, write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that as long as the heavens are above the earth, your days, a vision for your spiritual life, look at what he says, of your children and grandchildren, look at what he says, your days and those of your children.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe many in the land the Lord swore to give your fathers.
SPEAKER_01: For if you carefully observe each and every one of these commands I am giving you to follow, to love the Lord your God, walk in all his ways, and remain faithful to him, the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will drive out nations greater and stronger than you are.
SPEAKER_01: Every place the sole of your foot treads will be yours.
SPEAKER_01: Your territory will extend from the wilderness to Lebanon, from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea, and no one will be able to stand against you.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord your God will put fear and dread of you in all the land where you set foot, as he has promised you.
SPEAKER_01: You see, these principles work.
SPEAKER_01: When we train our children and they become the next generation of the people of God, we are the church of the living God, the church of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: When we are inhabiting that power and that abundant life and that walk with Him, we have the power to impact the chaos around us instead of the chaotic culture impacting our children.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we've got to understand, we've got to teach them these specific principles.
SPEAKER_01: These are the things that God said, you should have learned as you walked with me, that you imprint on your minds and hearts, and then you teach your children every moment of every day.
SPEAKER_01: When you get up in the morning, when you put them in bed at night, when you walk through the way, whatever you're doing, you write them on the doorpost of your house, you teach your children these things that he keeps repeating.
SPEAKER_01: And as I read through there, you should have recognized these four over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_01: Now, these are not sequential, these are all interlocked and linked together.
SPEAKER_01: They, if you pull one out, you break down this biblical worldview and framework.
SPEAKER_01: They begin to be much weaker if you start to break them down.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, love the Lord your God, worship him.
SPEAKER_01: He is God.
SPEAKER_01: If he is God, then nothing else matters.
SPEAKER_01: If he's not God, do whatever you want to do.
SPEAKER_01: If he is God, you must worship him.
SPEAKER_01: And as the creator God, he has a purpose in that.
SPEAKER_01: As the creator God, he gives us the rules for his creation.
SPEAKER_01: And he gives us instructions as his people to follow.
SPEAKER_01: And if he is God, then we must follow them.
SPEAKER_01: If I'm not following them, I am literally saying, I don't really care what you think, because I don't really think you're that important.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, He is who loves me, who keeps my commandments.
SPEAKER_01: Gratefulness and stewardship, why does he keep going through all this about this is not the land you created, and this land is beautiful, and it's not like that place you came from.
SPEAKER_01: This one is lush and green, and I'm gonna pour rain on it, and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: Why is he doing all that?
SPEAKER_01: Because he is reminding you, how many times did you see the word provision?
SPEAKER_01: Everything that we have comes from the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You're not smart enough to have created your career or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you didn't pick the DNA that you have, you didn't pick the parents that you have, you didn't pick the skills or the abilities or traits that you have.
SPEAKER_01: All of that, God created in you.
SPEAKER_01: And then you live in the place and you walk in the opportunities and all of that He created everything that we have.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one who created it for us.
SPEAKER_01: We have two children, Mabry and Grant.
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
SPEAKER_01: As they grew up, we watched them.
SPEAKER_01: We thought, here they are in the same house, the same mom and dad, the same DNA pool that they came from, and everything else, and they couldn't be more different.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was unbelievable.
SPEAKER_01: Our daughter is a science mind, and she does all this stuff and literal and all this, and our son is a word guy, he's a writer, he's an editor in a magazine, he does all this thing.
SPEAKER_01: And like they think so completely differently, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_01: You think, like, I don't know, like they swapped one of them at the hospital or something.
SPEAKER_01: There's got to be some commonality between them, but there's not at all.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he made each of them specifically and purposefully, and he made them to be who he wanted them to be and gave them abilities and talents that are unique from either one of us.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she has pieces of Janet, pieces of me, and Grant has pieces of Janet and pieces of me, and like some pieces, we don't know where that came from.
SPEAKER_01: But they're there because God created them that way, and they are successful and they do what they do, and we try to remind them you did not pick your brain, you did not select your talents, anything that you have developed, you are simply being a stewardship of what God placed in you.
SPEAKER_01: We live in a world that God has provided and created for us.
SPEAKER_01: And when we forget that, then we get these ideas that God is mean or he's ugly or it doesn't matter or he doesn't care about us or all this other kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: All kinds of weird, aberrant things come out of the fact when we are not grateful for God's provision and we are looking to him as the provider of what he does for us.
SPEAKER_01: And then all of that moves towards you're his people.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he instructs you, that's why he commands you, that's why he provides, that's why he's planned you, and it is your job to do what he's called you to do and live for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let me give you just a few thoughts about these as we sort of unpack this deal.
SPEAKER_01: This week on our Triangle Podcast, I don't try to wrestle you to listen to that all the time, but I think you'd be blessed if you did.
SPEAKER_01: But this week, I want you to listen to it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm asking you to listen to it because there is some information on there about a new book that's just come out in the last two weeks.
SPEAKER_01: That's one of the books that I study.
SPEAKER_01: It is an update from a book written by George Barna in the early 2000s that has shaped our my ministry.
SPEAKER_01: Janet and I, our ministry.
SPEAKER_01: It shaped us as parents.
SPEAKER_01: The original one was called Transforming Your Children into Spiritual Champions.
SPEAKER_01: And the new one, the updated one, is Raising Spiritual Champions.
SPEAKER_01: You'll have information in the podcast, you'll hear an interview from Dr.
SPEAKER_01: George Barna, who is the author of that book.
SPEAKER_01: I cannot tell you how important it is that you learn the information in that.
SPEAKER_01: And it tracks along with the series.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things he does is he researches where people are and what trends are and how those things happen.
SPEAKER_01: In that book, he has some pretty incredible statistics that they have taken in interviewing teenagers all over the nation.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I want you to think about this with me for just for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: The first principle that God begins with in this passage is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_01: Love the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: We must understand that we live in a world that does not recognize God as God.
SPEAKER_01: For generations, everybody's been teaching our children and our grandchildren and the generations that God is not the creator, and there was some big bang from something, and they didn't can't tell you where the bang came from.
SPEAKER_01: They just think there was a bang, and then they think there was some primordial ooze or slime or something, and you all look handsome and beautiful this morning because some process where some worm climbed out of some slime somewhere and somehow over billions of years grew into be like you.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it just sounds idiotic when you say it out loud, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: But God is the creator God of the universe, He is the God of the universe, He is the creator.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to what where teenagers are in the world that we live in today, the culture that you are raising your children in.
SPEAKER_01: Only 27% believe that God is God in the basis of altru.
SPEAKER_01: Only 31% of teenagers in America today believe that God is the creator and sustainer of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: We sang omnipotent, omnipresent this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Only 36% of teenagers believe that.
SPEAKER_01: Just a third.
SPEAKER_01: Nearly half of all teenagers don't even know if God exists.
SPEAKER_01: And we're raising our children in this culture.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Sixty-one percent of teenagers believe that Jesus did sin, or may have, or could have sinned.
SPEAKER_01: What happens to salvation if that's your picture of Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: These beliefs matter as it plays itself out in life.
SPEAKER_01: Only 18% of teenagers pray.
SPEAKER_01: Only 19% seek to know and obey God.
SPEAKER_01: Only 20%, that's one in five, intentionally thank God, praise and worship Him outside of a church setting.
SPEAKER_01: It sounds simple to come into a church and tell people that God is God, but listen, parents, you are in the minority if you believe that.
SPEAKER_01: And your children are walking in a world where an entire world tells them that God is not God, that Jesus sinned.
SPEAKER_01: They are telling him, your children and our children and grandchildren, then God is not the creator, and it didn't happen this way.
SPEAKER_01: And there is a responsibility to that because if God is not the creator, then you owe him nothing.
SPEAKER_01: If God is not the creator, when you run into an issue in our culture and you say, But God says, they go, Well, I don't care.
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know who that is.
SPEAKER_01: You literally have no framework for the conversation.
SPEAKER_01: And how are your children going to go to school, be involved in baseball, dance, band, whatever it is, listen to the radio, have an iPhone, watch television, go to the movies?
SPEAKER_01: How are they ever going to do all of those things?
SPEAKER_01: And if you have not owned in your life that God is God and spent every Moment of the day teaching your children that God is God, how are we not going to lose our children?
SPEAKER_01: Why do you think all throughout this passage of Scripture?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, if anybody knew that God was God, it was the children of Israel, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they've watched the Red Sea and they've watched water come out of rocks and they've had manna every morning and they've done all this.
SPEAKER_01: Like they see God, and He is not taking for granted.
SPEAKER_01: You must teach your children that I am God.
SPEAKER_01: Because they're not going to know if you don't tell them.
SPEAKER_01: They haven't seen what you've seen, they haven't experienced what you've experienced.
SPEAKER_01: And we see that played out in our culture today.
SPEAKER_01: Second one, keep and obey the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: Keep his commandments.
SPEAKER_01: Be careful to obey his commandments.
SPEAKER_01: How many times did you see that?
SPEAKER_01: God say that in just this one passage of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Only 10% of teenagers in our culture today reject truth.
SPEAKER_01: Only 10% reject the idea that there is moral truth.
unknown: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Now listen, I am not picking on this generation.
SPEAKER_01: We love kids.
SPEAKER_01: If I'm picking on anybody, it's the parents that hadn't taught them diddly squat.
SPEAKER_01: Because there are more than 10% of the people in America that go to church, and yet 90% of teenagers don't understand that scripture is true.
SPEAKER_01: 17% agree with this statement.
SPEAKER_01: 17%.
SPEAKER_01: That the best way to define success is obedience to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: 18% will validate Scripture as a source of truth.
SPEAKER_01: Only 27% believe in God as the basis of truth as revealed in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: They have this has a result.
SPEAKER_01: Only 12% of teenagers study the Bible outside of a church setting.
SPEAKER_01: See, parents, we we got work to do.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, work.
SPEAKER_01: And we are swimming up against a major cultural current.
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about gratefulness and stewardship.
SPEAKER_01: We live in a world today where at most studies say that 20% of people tithe, of church growers tithe.
SPEAKER_01: 20%.
SPEAKER_01: 40% say they tithe.
SPEAKER_01: Unpack that a little bit at lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why does that matter?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I'm not a fundraiser, I'm a preacher.
SPEAKER_01: But listen, God repeatedly told the children of Israel, you only live in a place that I have provided for you.
SPEAKER_01: And we must understand that God's provision has a fundamental impact on our definition of the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: Eight percent of teenagers believe that wealth an individual accumulates is provided by God for them to manage to advance his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Eight percent.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's got to beg the question: what are we teaching as parents and grandparents, and what are we modeling to our children?
SPEAKER_01: And listen, when your kids go to school and somebody tells them something like, that God of the Old Testament is mean, kills people, commanded genocide, and they are challenged with the definition of the person of God, if they stick with the original, we believe that God is God, then the only response they can have to that is somehow God is some mercurial, mean, judgmental something.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what also happens.
SPEAKER_01: If we don't trust in Scripture as being true, and they tell you the God of the Old Testament, all that kind of stuff, then they get to the New Testament and they go, well, Jesus looks pretty good and that deal, and God looks bad in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm just gonna get rid of the Old Testament and I'm only gonna listen to the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And they do great violence to their theology and their picture of God.
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't have an understanding of the benevolence of God, of the love of God, of the provision of God, of everything that we have come from him, how are you ever going to teach your children that God is always about life and the flourishing of the human condition?
SPEAKER_01: How are you gonna teach your children that?
SPEAKER_01: If you don't teach them the Old Testament, then you can't teach them Genesis, where you teach them God made it all beautiful and he made it wonderful, and he put them in there and he said, Enjoy the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: And sin broke the world, not us.
SPEAKER_01: Sin broke people, not us.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is what's judged.
SPEAKER_01: God is not up there trying to destroy people.
SPEAKER_01: He sent Jesus to step out of heaven and die for our sins so that he could save us.
SPEAKER_01: But if you don't acknowledge the provision of God, how is that ever going to make sense to someone who's trying to make sense of the world?
SPEAKER_01: It matters if you tithe.
SPEAKER_01: And it matters more to your children and your grandchildren if you tithe than it does to you.
SPEAKER_01: It reflects what you believe, but it shapes what they believe.
SPEAKER_01: It literally anchors in the definition of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let me ask you, let me talk to you about this for a second.
SPEAKER_01: I know everybody wants their children to learn right from wrong.
SPEAKER_01: I know they do.
SPEAKER_01: And people, we we try to do that, and it's important to parents, and I know so many parents, we teach them right from wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Be polite.
SPEAKER_01: I I it's funny, you learn as a pastor these things.
SPEAKER_01: I came down out of a sermon like this one Sunday, and nice mom loves Jesus, great mom.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a bad story.
SPEAKER_01: It's about me learning.
SPEAKER_01: I come down out of that and she says, Pastor, you said stupid in your sermon.
SPEAKER_01: I said, I did.
SPEAKER_01: I probably didn't say it enough.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Pastor, we are trying to teach our children how to speak with grace, and we have bands stupid in our house, and I go home and tell my kids not to say stupid, and they say, Well, Pastor Greg says it.
SPEAKER_01: It's fun.
SPEAKER_01: I go out and I'll talk to people and I'll see this family, and I'll see a kid, you know, fourth grader, third grader, second grader.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, what's happening?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm saying, I'm Greg.
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm Greg.
SPEAKER_01: And they go, Pastor, we're trying to teach our kids manners.
SPEAKER_01: You're Pastor Greg.
SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm just Greg.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just want to be just Greg, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I want to get down and play and let's go get some Legos and a Nerf gun and let's go have some fun, right?
SPEAKER_01: Let's get no Pastor, we're trying to chill.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, okay, okay, I get it.
SPEAKER_01: You know, parents are trying to teach right from wrong.
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
SPEAKER_01: They're trying to teach right from wrong.
SPEAKER_01: You guys are doing that.
SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Don't talk to your brother that way.
SPEAKER_01: Don't talk to your mom that way.
SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: But listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't anchor that teaching in the foundational truth of Scripture and teach them that it's the Bible that says not do that, then all you have done is given one definition of truth, and somebody else can give them another definition of truth, and they can pick whichever one they want.
SPEAKER_01: How many times do you sit down and teach your children how to use their Bible?
SPEAKER_01: How many times when you correct them, do you take out a scripture verse and you say, you don't talk to your mama because the Bible says this?
SPEAKER_01: You don't talk to your brother or sister because the Bible says this.
SPEAKER_01: We do this because the Bible says that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to tell you, if you're not teaching them the foundation of Scripture, when they become 15 and they come home and they ask you, all the other people in the locker room are mad at me, but your son tells you Billy is the only one that's not ugly to me, and Billy's a nice guy, and Billy and I are going to try to date.
SPEAKER_01: What foundation do you have to explain that or unpack that?
SPEAKER_01: Now let me tell you, that's a real question.
SPEAKER_01: That's a real experience.
SPEAKER_01: You go to church, and sometimes even the church people don't love you.
SPEAKER_01: And you get on the cheerling squad or the baseball team or you get in the band or whatever, and that person actually appreciates you, you had better have given your children some foundation to process those difficult life issues.
SPEAKER_01: Or you got trouble.
SPEAKER_01: And that is coming, parents, if you haven't had it already.
SPEAKER_01: And you have got to have anchored them in scripture.
SPEAKER_01: It isn't gonna matter what you think is right or wrong when somebody else that's cooler than you and is not you, and didn't make them go to bed without supper, and told them they can't listen to that on their phone, that person's gonna be cooler than you, and if all you've given them is opinion, that one is gonna be better.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, we got to live as God's people for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, the whole point of life is this.
SPEAKER_01: The whole entire point of life is having given my life to Jesus and found out what he wants to do with it.
SPEAKER_01: And there is no joy outside of that, there is no fulfillment outside of that, there is only judgment, there is only loss, and there is only hell.
SPEAKER_01: And we've got to learn as the church in today's world, you better train your kids to be missionaries and warriors, or you are at risk of losing them.
SPEAKER_01: Because the faith doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_01: If Jesus says the Great Commission is this, whatever I have taught you, you, when you baptize people in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, you teach them to observe whatever I've commanded you.
SPEAKER_01: And if you have not gotten that as the target and training your children to that, you have unanchored them from the point.
SPEAKER_01: And what strength do the other three have if they don't have a target?
SPEAKER_01: But how much more serious and powerful they become when God, who is God, has a plan for your life.
SPEAKER_01: And God gives you instructions in his word, and he shows you how to get that, and he does all that because he has a plan for your life that he wants you to be a part of.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm grateful for God's provision and all that he's done for me because he has provided a plan for my life.
SPEAKER_01: And now I can step into that plan as God's child.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to what the stats are telling us.
SPEAKER_01: Only 20%, 26% of teenagers see the purpose of their life as knowing, loving, and serving God.
SPEAKER_01: Only 28% of teenagers believe that God's plan for humanity is based in families.
SPEAKER_01: One man, one woman, one father, one dad.
SPEAKER_01: Only 28%.
SPEAKER_01: Now let me give you these stats, parents.
SPEAKER_01: Only 44% of born-again parents characterize as very important serving others as a disciple of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Only 44% of born-again parents as church people, not culture, as church people, only 44% of church people characterize as very important serving others as a disciple of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If only 44% of the church people believe it's important to live as God's people and for his glory, that's why only 26% of teenagers believe it.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not committed to the church and serving the church, you are putting at deep risk the spiritual future of your children and your grandchildren.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not a warrior for Jesus, how are you gonna raise a warrior for Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: If you don't believe in Jesus enough to invite somebody to church, to figure out how to share your faith and tell somebody about Jesus, how are your kids gonna believe it with that depth?
SPEAKER_01: When they say that the God of the Old Testament is ugly and he's judgmental and all of that, when your kids are grappling with that and they're hearing it in college or they're hearing it in high school, they're being inundated that with everything around them, if you have not shown them the character of Jesus in serving the people around you, what credibility does your message have to your children?
SPEAKER_01: We are in church because our parents were in church.
SPEAKER_01: My parents were in church, and Janet's parents were in church because their parents had a vision for them to be in church.
SPEAKER_01: I don't come to church because I'm the pastor.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, sometimes I don't want to come, and Janet says, you have to go because you're the pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I come to church because I need to be here.
SPEAKER_01: And I come to church because I need you.
SPEAKER_01: And I come to church because I love people that need Jesus, and I come to church because my son and my daughter need to know that it I meant it when I said it.
SPEAKER_01: And I have a grandchild on the way, and I need them to know that granddad is not a preacher, he's a follower of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, this 50% business is not getting it.
SPEAKER_01: Go read the stats.
SPEAKER_01: Not really concerned about what somebody's opinion is.
SPEAKER_01: I've been doing this for a long time now, and I've been pastoring through multiple generations, and I'm telling you, if you're a 50% attender and you write a$20 check somewhere, and it's more important baseball, homework, the lake, snow skiing, razorback games, or whatever than Jesus, you have deeply hampered the spiritual future of your children.
SPEAKER_01: Period.
SPEAKER_01: That's just what happens.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not a warrior for Jesus, your parents don't know what one looks like.
SPEAKER_01: And the only hope they have to know what one looks like is to be in church, and you're not bringing them to church where the warriors are.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not about church.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I'm not counting noses or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about it.
SPEAKER_01: We have three things to get through this life with.
SPEAKER_01: I tell this all the time, I probably don't say it enough.
SPEAKER_01: I should apologize for not saying it enough.
SPEAKER_01: You have three things to get through this life.
SPEAKER_01: You have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit when you're saved, you have the Word of God, and you have each other.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're not here, you've taken out a third of what you have.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've taken out a third of what you have, you're probably not reading Scripture outside of this.
SPEAKER_01: And so you're down to one, and now you've rendered the Holy Spirit's role to this.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, get it together.
SPEAKER_01: Why aren't you in church?
SPEAKER_01: Greg, I told you not to say that.
SPEAKER_01: Greg, when are you going to come back and have time?
SPEAKER_01: Greg, when are you going to get it right?
SPEAKER_01: Greg, when are you going to come back?
SPEAKER_01: And you have taken 80% of the spiritual power out of your life when you have walked out of the church.
SPEAKER_01: You're not having a quiet time, and you have limited the role of the Holy Spirit to trying to call you home.
SPEAKER_01: This is the worst part about being a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: You're reaching out into the community and you're trying to share Jesus and you're trying to lead people to Christ, and people are being saved, and you have carnal Christians who are not living for Jesus and they're playing with their faith and they're messing up stuff and they crash and burn and they come into the church when I've got lost people to go meet and they are tugging at me back here, going, Pastor, you've got to come fix our life.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you'd have been in church and doing the word of God and listen to the Holy Spirit, you wouldn't have that problem.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm trying to reach out and I'm trying to reach to people who need Jesus and I'm getting tugged back into my office for counseling for people that have messed up their lives because they're not living for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm gonna start preaching.
SPEAKER_01: Now please don't misunderstand me.
SPEAKER_01: We are always here for you.
SPEAKER_01: You know that, right?
SPEAKER_01: Our staff loves you and we pray for you, and if you got a struggle, you come.
SPEAKER_01: That is why we are here.
SPEAKER_01: Please do not misunderstand that illustration.
SPEAKER_01: But the point is, we ought to have an army for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But the most important thing is our children and our teenagers need to see what an army looks like, get excited about it, and want to be in it.
SPEAKER_01: And we got to show.
SPEAKER_01: And all of that begins with the first truth.
SPEAKER_01: You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to say any better than this.
SPEAKER_01: This is Jesus' body, which was broken for us on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: You want to know God's provision?
SPEAKER_01: He gave his only son to die on the cross to pay the price for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: That's how much he loves you.
SPEAKER_01: You want to know why you should keep his commandments?
SPEAKER_01: Because every promise in Scripture is sealed with the blood of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: How do we know that Jesus saves?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible says.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.