November 2, 2025 - Mark Turman - Sharing Your Faith With Your Family

Mark Turman - Sharing Your Faith With Your Family

00:00 Introduction: A Devout Roman Catholic Family

00:45 Reflecting on Influences and Faith

01:23 David's Last Song of Influence

04:02 Using Your Influence for God

05:07 Getting Close and Copying Jesus

12:02 Family-Friendly Missionaries

18:52 Show and Tell God's Identity

29:18 Interceding for Others

31:58 Communion and Final Reflections

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: A Devout Roman Catholic Family
• 0:45 Reflecting on Influences and Faith
• 1:23 David's Last Song of Influence
• 4:02 Using Your Influence for God
• 5:07 Getting Close and Copying Jesus
• 12:02 Family-Friendly Missionaries
• 18:52 Show and Tell God's Identity
• 29:18 Interceding for Others
• 31:58 Communion and Final Reflections

Transcript

[00:00:00] Introduction: A Devout Roman Catholic Family

Stories about church because the first decade of my life, and for most of them much longer periods of time, we were in church every single Sunday as a devout Roman Catholic family. My parents were in leadership. We were in it as deep as you could get in it until I was about 10 years old. And then in my 10-year-old brain, my parents flipped a switch and it all went away and we weren't in church anymore.

Me and my closest brother, John, who's there at the back of the picture. We were thrilled because church was the last place we wanted to be on any given day. Now, just think of the irony of that with me standing in front of you today. 

[00:00:45] Reflecting on Influences and Faith

Who has influenced you the most and particularly who has influenced your faith the most?

I want you to hold onto that question as we look at the very last song that David, the Great King of Israel, the last of the songs that he wrote, about 75. About half of the 150 Psalms that you find in the Bible are attributed to King David. He was not only a shepherd boy and a great king. He was an incredible musician, an incredible poet, an incredible writer of music.

[00:01:23] David's Last Song of Influence

Here in the latter part of the Psalms 1 45 may not be one you've heard before, but it is his last work and it is a testimony to what it means to share your faith. Starting with those closest to you. Lemme just ask you to stand in honor of God's word. Let me read these 21 verses very quickly to you. It's not very long, but here's David's last song of influence, he says.

I exalt you, my God, the king, and bless your name forever and ever. I will bless you every day. I will praise your name forever and ever. The Lord is great and is highly praised. His greatness is unsearchable. One generation will declare your works to the next and will proclaim your mighty acts. I will speak of your splendor and glorious majesty and your wondrous works.

They will proclaim the power of your all inspiring acts, and I will declare your greatness. They will give a testimony of your great goodness and will see and will joyfully sing of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and great and faithful love. The Lord is good to everyone.

His compassion rests on all he has made. All you have made will. Thank you Lord. The faithful will bless you. They will speak of the glory of your kingdom and will declare your might informing all people of your mighty acts and of the glorious splendor of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.

Your rule is for all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words and gracious in all his actions. The Lord helps those, helps all who fall. He raises up all who are oppressed. All eyes look to you and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

The Lord is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all his acts. The Lord is near all who call out to him, all who call out to him with integrity. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him. He hears their cry for help and saves them. The Lord guards all those who love him, but he destroys all the wicked.

My mouth will declare the Lord's praise. Let everything, let every living thing bless his holy name forever and ever. And everyone said again. Amen. You may be seated. Wow. 

[00:04:02] Using Your Influence for God

What does it mean to use your influence for God? We know that God. Does all the saving. God does all the forgiving. God does all the rescuing.

God does all the resurrecting, but he uses us to influence others toward his kingdom and toward the message of salvation. Just this morning when we were gathering, had a chance for a couple of minutes to tell about some of the influences that God used to bring me out of my own sin and darkness and into the place of faith.

And relationship with God. That's something we ought to look for every day if we can, every opportunity starting at home to share the relationship that we have with God and the grace and mercy and power and blessings that he is pouring into our lives every single day. How do you do that and do it well?

Well, I think David gives us some instruction on how we might be used of God to influence others, starting with our families more toward him. So let me just walk you through three or four of these today. 

[00:05:07] Getting Close and Copying Jesus

First of all, we need to get close and copy Jesus what some people call being intimate with Jesus. I understand that word, but that kind of throws me off track, to be honest with you.

The word intimate seems to be something I would resign to relationships of things like marriage and dating, but the Bible calls it oneness. It calls its closeness, nearness in a deep relationship with God. Jesus, just before he was arrested and ultimately crucified, the next day he offers a prayer. John 17.

He begins that prayer by saying this, this is eternal life. This is the best life you will ever have to know God and his son Jesus. If you want the best life, the longest life, the greatest life, the real life that you are longing for, it comes from a deep abiding and close relationship with the living God through his loving son.

And David, even though he lives hundreds of years before Jesus comes, David understands this. He has been developing this not perfectly, but deeply and passionately, and you get a sense of that right at the beginning of this song by the titles that he uses. He says, this is my God, not just the God or a God.

This is my God who is also my king. And a little bit later he says, this is my Lord. This is my leader. This is my guide, my master. This is the ultimate authority in my life. All of those titles and descriptions are revealing to us the closeness that David continues to develop with God through a life of faith.

You also see it in the action words. He says that I will exalt God. I will bless God. I will praise God forever and ever and ever. What we're learning from David's words is that the closer we get to God, the more we are eager to celebrate him. Him. The more we get in proximity with God, the more praise will grow out of our life.

That knowing of him deeply produces in us adoration. And if it's not doing that and there's something out of sync in that relationship, something we need to work through in the Spirit of God and with the people of God and with the Word of God, that right there is the starting point. Of being a witness and a testimony that God can use to draw other people to him.

I was sharing a little bit of my story, as I told you on the way in, and God can use anybody in any situation. As I was telling a little bit about my story, I was sharing that the two first influential people in my life, beyond my family, beyond my parents, were an assistant manager at a grocery store where I worked and a high school friend.

Both of them gave testimony to who Jesus was and to what Jesus had done. A story I did not understand with any kind of of significance at all at this point in my life. But get this, neither of those two people were living their faith at that time. So God can use you in a lot of different ways, including letting you be a negative example sometimes.

But he would rather you be a winsome and positive and holy example of what it means to know and walk with him closely. If you and I will commit to doing that, to doing things that Jesus told us to, to live out the greatest commandments, to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength to love others as we love ourself, and to do that every day.

If we will take on the challenge where God inspired the apostle Paul to say, imitate me as I imitate Christ. If we will dedicate ourselves to that consistently, God will grow us into an attractive influence. For him and for his kingdom and for people to believe in the gospel. I was listening to an expert in AI recently, and he was listing some of the concerns he had about where artificial intelligence might take us.

He said, I'm worried about where it might take us in terms of warfare. I'm worried about where it might take us in terms of medicine. He also said, I'm worried about the fact that AI is helping us to become even more of a surveillance state. Surveillance society. You kind of notice that you really can't go anywhere without a camera being pointed at you.

I don't think there's any around here. Mike are there? Yeah. Okay. Just spoken like a true lawyer,

but we are being watched, but guess what? We've always been watched. Not by God, but certain, not only by God, but certainly by others. About a year ago, my sister Cindy, who was in that picture, my third oldest sister called me out of the blue. Now I've had a, a unique kind of relationship with every one of my siblings, but I have had the privilege of baptizing two of them, my youngest sister Carol, and my sister Cindy.

Cindy has really in the last 25 years, stepped deeply into her faith, which was not always the case. And when I became a Christian as a teenager, I was the only one living in my house with my parents and some of my siblings. I was the only one pursuing faith at that point, was a lonely experience in many ways.

My sister called me about a year ago and she said, you know, I've been thinking about. What it must have been like for you when you became a Christian and when you tried to start living that life in the context of our family. She said, it just dawned on me when I was thinking and praying about all that, that it must have been really hard for you and it must have been really lonely.

And we had a wonderful conversation that just reminded me that even though I thought that they were ignoring me in some ways, even at times mocking me. They were actually watching me, and they continue to do that even as I watch them. So even if you think your family members who know you best, if you think they're not interested, they are probably more intrigued about your life of faith than you ever thought possible.

So live it well every day, get close to Jesus. And copy what Jesus did and what Jesus does. 

[00:12:02] Family-Friendly Missionaries

The second thing is, is that we need to ask God to help us to be family friendly Missionaries. Acts one, eight says that as Jesus was about to ascend back into heaven after that first Easter, he said, you will be my witnesses.

You will be my influencers, you will be my people in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the world. You can interpret that as Jesus saying, you will represent me at home when he references Jerusalem, he's talking about the immediate environment where most of them lived. He said, you will be starting at home with the people who know us, know you most and best.

That will be your first mission field, and I'll bet there's a bunch of us who could testify that trying to live for Christ in the midst of your family, your immediate family, your nuclear family, and your extended family is likely to be the hardest mission field you'll ever serve in. We ought to be going to Guatemala.

We ought to be going to Nigeria. We ought to be going to all the places in the world. And many of you have been to those places and you've served greatly in those places, and you continue to pray for those places. And you may be going to other places as a way of serving. God, that's great. You ought to do that.

Absolutely. But I know about you. I found it a lot easier to serve God out in a foreign country or even right here among you. It's a lot easier to try to serve God and represent God on a Sunday morning when you're preaching a sermon than it is on a Tuesday afternoon when you're trying to work through a difficult thing with your spouse or your parent, or your grandparent, or your child, or your uncle or your niece, or it's a lot easier than it is sometimes in our family.

But let me remind you that the Bible teaches us in a number of different ways that the gospel travels at the speed of relationship. Especially those relationships where the people involved know each other well, I've had conversations with some of those siblings that I showed you that I didn't realize would resonate and would echo with them and with me for decades, not just for hours.

That's partly why when God was framing up the nation of Israel. He gave them this instruction, probably familiar to many of you out of Deuteronomy. It says this, this is the command, the statutes and ordinances, the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you so that you may follow them in the land you are about to enter and possess.

Do this so that you may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life by keeping all his statutes and commands that I am giving you, your son and your grandson. So and so that you may have a long life. Listen Israel and be careful to follow them so that you may prosper and multiply greatly because the Lord, the God of your fathers has promised you a land flowing with milk and honey.

Then he tells them how to do that. He says, listen, Israel, the Lord your God is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I'm giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them in your, repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, and when you lie down and when you get up, bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead.

Write them on the doorpost of your house and on your city gates. Keep pointing people, including your family, back to Christ. Every opportunity you can. And I love what David adds in this psalm he says. In the, uh, in the seventh verse, seeing of his righteousness. Somebody said to me a few years ago, tell me what you sing about.

Tell me what you laugh about and tell me what you cry about, and I can tell you what you're all about. How many of you have ever listened or sung along with the song by Mercy me called I Can Only Imagine. You know that song? I should have had Sheila play it for you today. I love that song. Have heard that song sung many times at funerals, but it is actually not my favorite Mercy Me song.

I want to share with you a song that Judy and I introduced to our grandkids because our daughter and in-law are doing great job with these three beautiful children, and one of the things they do sometimes crazy that they do this. They turn off all the lights in their game room and they get out those glow sticks and they turn on the kids' favorite music and they have a three or four song dance party before they put these kids to bed.

And I thought, this is gonna never work. But Judy and I have been in some of these neon dance parties a few times, and I decided to offer up one of my favorite Mercy me songs. So let's just watch a minute of it.

All right. Now Sheila's back there dancing. Y'all can't see it. Okay. And you can imagine in your own mind what it might look like for me to be a part of a neon dance party. But the reason I wanted to show you that to you, by the way, the video is called Happy Dance if you haven't ever stumbled on it before.

I would love if this is my last day on the planet, that my three grandchildren and all of my family would remember that kind of joy in me if it's the only thing they could remember about me. And music is a powerful way to do that. And I don't, I've never been a silly person in my whole life. I do like to laugh, but I've never been silly.

But I will be silly on behalf of those grandkids for the sake of their faith, because joy is perhaps the most attractive thing there is about the faith. That we have unbridled joy. I love the lyric out of this song. It's kinda hard to hear. It says this, we done traded our sin for joy and now that joy, once out happy dance.

Let that joy come out in front of your family because nobody wants to follow a sad SAP Christian. A third suggestion. 

[00:18:52] Show and Tell God's Identity

You need to show and tell God's identity. That's the privilege of all of his children. You get to show and tell you, remember, show and tell from kindergarten in the first grade. Lemme show you one other picture.

This is shameless bragging. This is my granddaughter, Abigail, and this is her show and tell. Coming up this week for Veterans Day, which is November the 11th, she is holding a picture of Judy's dad when he was in the army serving in Turkey. And if you get close to that picture, you can see he's all huddled up, got his rifle, and we're just celebrating so much.

This week, Judy was pulling out old pictures so Abigail could have this to take to school. We are so thrilled that she is learning about the noble service of people in the military and that her grandfather, who she has always had a mysterious connection to, that she is able to celebrate him. This is her show and tell.

You get to do, show and tell in a lot of different ways with others and especially with your family. Now I gotta tell you, my parents were not particularly great at this. In some ways, probably because they were trying to manage a small army of eight kids, but I didn't learn until I was well into my twenties, perhaps into my thirties, what kind of people my parents were in their younger years.

I didn't know that my dad had been a multi-sport athlete in high school, that he had been quarterback of the football team two years in a row. That my mom had been the, the drum major for the band and that basically they were big man and big woman on campus. I didn't know any of that stuff until I was well past those years and it came to my spiritual life.

Was also true. My parents didn't tell me a lot of stories until I actually became a Christian and became a minister. Then they started telling me some of their own faith journey. Some of my own spiritual mentors, junior, I had a fabulous pastor. We grew up around a fabulous church in the early days of our faith, and while they taught us great things from the Bible.

There were certain things that I look back on that they left out, okay, well how do you do this? You tell me to read the Bible. Can you tell me where to start, how to handle it? What do I do? How much should I read? It's a big book. How do I do those things? What does it mean to pray? What does it mean to go off and have an extended time of prayer?

Some of those lessons were lacking. They were missing. They were great helps. They were very influential. I needed a little bit more in terms of knowing what this was supposed to look like and who it was that I was actually pursuing. Who was I trying to get to know? So if you look back at the Psalm, verse eight in this Psalm says this, the Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and great in faithful love.

The Lord is good to everyone. His compassion rests on all he has made. Now, if that seems to echo in your mind out of something else that you heard in the Bible, that would be a good thing. It's about 400 years between the life of Moses in the Book of Exodus and the life of David that we read about in the Kings and in other places like the Psalms, about 400 years.

But as David is sitting down to write this song, he hears the echo. Moses in his mind, probably through the spirit of God, undoubtedly, because in Psalm or in Exodus 34, verse five, it says this, the Lord came down in a cloud and stood with him that has stood with Moses and proclaimed his name, the Lord. The Lord passed in front of Moses and proclaimed the Lord.

The Lord is compassionate. And Grace. He is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding and faithful love and truth, maintaining love with a to a thousand generations forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the father's iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.

And Moses immediately knelt down on the ground and worshiped. He said, my Lord, if I have indeed found favor with you, my Lord, please go with us. 400 years later. David is hearing the sound of that testimony and is putting it into song that God is slow to anger and gracious and compassionate, God goodness is all around us.

That's one of the reasons we love coming to pk. Because you see part of the problem with people who are younger than us is that they are like us or like we were in that age. Do you realize that all of us think that that history started with us? And one of the things that you and I can do, especially as we get older, is we can remind them that God is playing a long game.

God sees the beginning from the end. He knows how this story is going to work itself out, and he is telling us of his goodness every day so that more and more people might be saved. We have the opportunity to remind them and to remind ourselves that God is playing a long game, a couple of more things, and then we'll have communion together.

You can be an influence for God if you point people consistently to this. Abiding an everlasting promise of hope. That's really the way this Psalm comes to an end, because you see our influence and our witness, our testimony is more caught than taught. It's a little bit of both, but it's more caught than taught.

And so David unpacks this in 13 and following verse 13 through 16, that God is good to everyone all the time everywhere. He's quoting that idea that Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, Hey, look. Love your enemies, just like God does. He sends the reign on the good and the bad, on the just and the unjust.

There is a common grace, a general grace, the blessing of God that touches every single human life in one way or another. But if you wanna move past that into the deeper grace of God, you need to pursue what's called the favor of God. He talks about that beginning in the 17th verse. Here's what he says, the Lord is.

Righteous in all of his ways and faithful in his acts. The Lord is near all who call out to him, all who call out to him with integrity. One theologian put it this way, from the moment that you begin to inhale so that you might pray you prayer to God, God immediately turns his attention to you. I thought it was the hawk.

It's gone. Okay. That was, that was God's warning to finish this up. All right.

There's a difference. There is a difference between proximity and closeness. You can be in proximity to a lot of things, but not necessarily close to them. You're in proximity to a fair number of people in this moment. A relationship determines how close you feel to any of them. And we all know that knowing about God is not the same thing as knowing God.

One happens to all of us. The other happens to those who choose to pursue him in a faith that is humble. Just like I learned last week when I was in church. Yes, I do go to church when I'm not here with you. Our pastor in McKinney did a wonderful job of explaining to us a passage outta one Peter, in which he said, you know what?

If you want God's help, the key that unlocks that door is humility, and it's never gonna be anything else. It's never gonna be some other formula. It's never gonna be some other quality. It's never gonna be any other system because God has committed him to the committed himself to this truth. God gives grace and help to the humble, and that's the only kind of people that he can give it to.

They're the only kind of people that are willing to receive it. God's help comes when we are humble. God's truth protects us from the harm that the, that Satan wants to do in our lives. And God's character guarantees that his promise of everlasting life is valid. How do we keep pointing people to those promises?

I meant to bring it with me, but I forgot it. I started this past January doing a legacy Bible for my grandkids. A legacy Bible is simply a Bible with a really wide margin, and I follow a daily reading plan, as many of you probably do. There's lots of great ones out there, and if God impresses on me something out of that reading in the morning, that takes me about 12 minutes to read a portion of the Bible, you realize.

With 15 minutes a day, you can read the entire Bible in 365 days with just 15 minutes a day. So I'm following my reading plan and if God impresses something on me, I pull out a pen and I get that legacy Bible. And I'll jot down a few thoughts. And while I'm writing down in that Bible, a few thoughts. I'm thinking, what if Abigail is reading this when she's 12?

What if Caleb is reading this when she's 15? What if Andrew is reading this when he's 18? My hope and my goal, if God gives me the the time to do it, I hope to build a, a legacy Bible for every one of them so that they will know that I was thinking of them when I was listening to God every morning when I get up, because I want them to know that these promises are true and everlasting and essential.

The last one is obvious to you. 

[00:29:18] Interceding for Others

If you wanna be an influence for Christ and your family and with others, you need to intercede. Always intercede persistently. Intercede means to pray on behalf of. It's what we think of when we think of a priest who brings the needs of others into the presence of God. And there are lots of needs.

Some of you know Nick Pitts. He's been out here to speak a number of times at the Chapel. Wonderful young man. He writes a newsletter twice a week. This week because of Halloween, he included a short story about what are Americans afraid of, what are we most afraid of? I thought he was talking about the now gigantic witch and skeleton that my neighbors bought to put up in their yard.

Do you notice that our Halloween figures are getting bigger? Actually, Chapman University runs a study every year called What Are Americans afraid of? And for the 10th year in a row with a growing percentage, Americans are most afraid of corrupt politicians. No real surprise. Right behind that we are also afraid that somebody that we love and care about will get seriously.

Ill a little further down the list. We're afraid of economic and financial collapse and disaster. Rounding out the top five, cyber terrorism, and another World war. This is the world that we occupy today. This is the world that our children, our grandchildren, our nieces, our nephews, our parents, our grandparents.

This is the world that we traffic in every day, and the best way perhaps that we serve them and each other. Is by praying. By praying the words that you'll find here in this psalm in beautiful prayers that were inspired by the Holy Spirit through the pen of the Apostle Paul and others. Philippians one, nine says that we are to pray that all that we know would come to think biblically and to live faithfully and to serve intentionally and more and more.

In this season of my life, I find myself. Of writing a note to somebody or writing an email and putting at the end of it, one of my favorite prayers in the Bible, Romans 1513, that simply says this. Now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

[00:31:58] Communion and Final Reflections

I want you to think about the overflowing grace of God as the communion elements are passed to you. Now, just think about that cup and think about that bread as very, very small symbols of the overflowing love and life of Jesus that has been given to you for the forgiveness of your sin, for the freedom that God longs for you to have.

For the promise of everlasting life with him. Sheila's gonna play some music while you take time to reflect.

I dunno about you, but I just really don't understand the journey of communion from the upper room to these small little tokens. When you think about what these symbols are intended to remind us of. It seems like the, it ought to be the biggest loaf of bread you've ever seen and the biggest, I don't know, water Tower of wine that you could ever tap into.

Maybe we should be the ones to bring a 55 gallon drum in here as a way of reminding us there's bound to be reasons. I understand. Trying to lead a large group of people in a moment of sacred reminder. On that night in an ordinary room lit by candles and full, full of fear in many ways, but also a growing fullness of faith.

Jesus took bread, he broke it into small pieces, passed it around to those who knew him best. And said, take and eat. This is my body, which is given for you.

Even as they tasted the bread, felt it going into their body, Jesus took the cup and said, this is the cup of a new covenant, A new promise. Which will be for you and for all generations that those who will believe this cup is a symbol of my blood. For the remission, for the forgiveness of your sins, take and drink all of you,

Jesus. Thank you. Thank you again. Thank you always for the overflowing and abundant mercy. Grace and love that you give us every day. Thank you Lord, that you wanted us to be with you for all times so much that you were willing to suffer so greatly. Lord, we will spend eternity celebrating that with you and and with each other.

We're grateful today that our time here has been a taste of that and God we pray. In a new and fresh way that you would cause our joy in you, with you, and from you to just overflow onto the people that we know and love the most, and to everyone else that we may meet for the very first time today, that we might be the salt and light that you have called us to be and equipped us to be.

Lord, help us. To be your people in this generation. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. God bless you.