Speaker 1: Go ahead and take your bibles.
Speaker 1: Let's turn to Deuteronomy chapter six and let's stand as we open the word of God together.
Speaker 1: Uh, some of you are in the habit and I love this about our church, but as soon as we open the word of God together, and I've shared with you many times, the reason we do that is because of a message I preset in Nehemiah chapter eight when they stood for, uh, the book when it was open.
Speaker 1: But I have to admit, you scare our guests preacher.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when you do that, they're not ready for it because I don't, brother Scott, another day he was getting ready to preach and he said, man, it was like 10 minutes before I was going read my text.
Speaker 1: But as soon as I opened it and told them the passage, they all stood up.
Speaker 1: And so I said, well, you know, and of course you guys c all i t all.
Speaker 1: And after that where he was kind of going, but I love it.
Speaker 1: We're not, as long as I'm up here preaching and when I opened the book, go ahead and, and, and let's stand in honor of the reading of God's word.
Speaker 1: And when we have a guest speaker, uh, you might give them a second and just, let's see, see where they're headed with it.
Speaker 1: Uh, to begin with.
Speaker 1: But let's, uh, Deuteronomy chapter six.
Speaker 1: The passage we looked at a little over a year ago when we were talking about, uh, not being home yet, but I wanted to come back to it because of its relevance for where we're at in this new series where beginning, uh, beginning with verse four, it says, listen or hear o Israel, the Lord our God.
Speaker 1: The Lord is one.
Speaker 1: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.
Speaker 1: These words that I'm giving you today are to be in your heart.
Speaker 1: Repeat them to your children.
Speaker 1: 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 and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Speaker 1: Father, I pray that as we begin this new study and really what it means to bring up a generation of disciples of Christ that make a difference in the world.
Speaker 1: Lord, I pray that this would just be a God anointed thing that we're experiencing as a church.
Speaker 1: So there'll be something that becomes a real part of who we are, Lord and Lord, I pray that this morning that uh, the vision you've given me and so many others in this area will be a contagious vision war.
Speaker 1: That it will catch fire in our church.
Speaker 1: And uh, Lord that we will truly believe that as a church family, the greatest days are ahead and no matter how bleak things look in this world, but we would see that we would see lord, you are raising us up as a lighthouse in this darkness around us.
Speaker 1: We pray in Christ's name.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: You can be seated.
Speaker 1: There was an Algebra teacher, the sin, a no home with his students because he feared that the homework was being done by the parents.
Speaker 1: Any of you teachers ever wonder that?
Speaker 1: Uh, we've got several school teachers in our church, but have you ever wondered who's really doing this homework?
Speaker 1: Did the parents do this or do the towel and this will, this Algebra teacher got suspicious that the homework was being done by the parents?
Speaker 1: And so the teacher sent home a note with all the students and said, you are not to do their Algebra homework for them.
Speaker 1: The teacher was humored though to get a letter back from one of the moms that just simply said this.
Speaker 1: It was at the bottom of the letter that the, the Algebra teacher had sent home.
Speaker 1: And at the bottom it just said, I am so flattered that you think I actually could.
Speaker 1: Some of you parents know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: You do all that.
Speaker 1: You can, you get them in high school and you say you're on your own from here will cause the stuff you're bringing home.
Speaker 1: It's over my head.
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't remember how to do this.
Speaker 1: You're just going to have to handle it.
Speaker 1: Now some of you teenagers are gifted and some of you know that your parents are gifted and can help you out.
Speaker 1: And some of you know that we can only get you so far.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we feel like that in the spiritual journey we feel like, Lord, what you're giving us to do, here's kind of over our head.
Speaker 1: I remember being where Brian and Amanda were just a few moments ago.
Speaker 1: Karen has our water mark because our first year here, just after being here a few months, we had that parent child dedication with her and we blink and now she's, you know, 16 years old.
Speaker 1: So time gets away from you and you find yourself going, do it.
Speaker 1: Do I really know what I'm doing?
Speaker 1: And some grandparents you're thinking, I just got it figured out when my kids got grown and so I'm going to be really good with my grandkids.
Speaker 1: What are we trying to accomplish as parents?
Speaker 1: Or what are we trying to accomplish as a church that says that we care about the next generation?
Speaker 1: You know, life in Christ is a journey.
Speaker 1: And for that journey, God, I believe, desires for these children that come into this world, to have two covenant institutions in their lives, to provide them with a team and to provide them with the equipment that they need for life.
Speaker 1: Those two covenant instance institutions or the Church and the home, which was established long before there was a church, the church and the home are vital in the lives of children's.
Speaker 1: Our mission here at Trinity, we repeated again, again, we put it on the front of our bulletins.
Speaker 1: We want to get it before you as much as we possibly can, but it's delete our neighbors, the nations, and the next generation to know, love and serve Christ.
Speaker 1: This past Wednesday night, a was able to talk with, uh, brother Scott about the fact that we don't have to make apologies for caring about the next generation in investing a lot of time, energy, and resources into children in kids' ministry as this place was just hopping with kids on Wednesday nights, several of whom came to faith in Christ.
Speaker 1: You know, the best way to do this and my calling in this process of Asians for 11 pastor teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
Speaker 1: The best way we can do this is equipping our homes, equipping family, uh, equipping them as part of our corporate worship as part of our small group, as part of the ministry teams that were involved in, but, but equipping homes to be all that they can be to the glory of God.
Speaker 1: And so these seven summits that we're going to be articulating over the next seven weeks, including today, uh, pastor band's going to take a couple of these while I'm in India, but we're going to emphasize seven areas that they reflect goals and high points along this journey of becoming a well-established follower of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: And that's what I want for my children.
Speaker 1: That's what I pray that you want for your children.
Speaker 1: That's what I want for our church family, is that we become well established followers of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: You know, in Colassians chapter two, Paul wrote these words.
Speaker 1: He says, as you have received Christ as Lord, so walk in him rooted, built up, be established.
Speaker 1: We want to see people that are established in their faith and he describes that as being a people who are not deceived by philosophies of this world, not deceived by empty deception.
Speaker 1: So that if someone is like in the case of my daughter who start in our nursery and graduate from high school, having gone through all the ministries of our church and a family who's a part of our church, that they would be well-established, rooted deeply in the things of God, that their faith would not be rattled by the philosophies of this world when they leave their home and maybe if they go off to school and they're not a part of this church anymore.
Speaker 1: As we've seen many do recently.
Speaker 1: So each summit that we look at will represent challenges and character traits that will be developed along the journey.
Speaker 1: These summits will also be both sequential and concurrent.
Speaker 1: Let me explain what I mean by that.
Speaker 1: Sequential in that I'm going to show you how we'll move from one age to the next to the next, to the next, seeking to provide that summit experience for every child and teenager that comes through our church.
Speaker 1: At the same time, they're not just sequential, that something you kind of grow up with.
Speaker 1: They are concurrent in that they will in our adulthood.
Speaker 1: For me and for you provide a checklist of areas of life where we can say, how am I doing as a disciple of Christ?
Speaker 1: And I was in student ministry for about a decade before I became pastor here and one of the things I look forward to is getting to preach to the parents because it seemed like they wanted you to keep the kids off drug sex and rock and roll, right?
Speaker 1: Just send them down to that youth group, let the youth pastor handle it and keep them out of trouble.
Speaker 1: But they didn't want to model those things in their own lives.
Speaker 1: So we're not just talking about something that is sequential and helping the children to grow.
Speaker 1: We're talking about something that is concurrent.
Speaker 1: In other words, as adults, we need to revisit these summits often to make sure we are being the Christ followers, the disciples that Christ has called us to be in our text is going to point that out for us even as we launch out into the first summit this morning.
Speaker 1: So each summit will offer the opportunity for us to come alongside the family and help a quip brothers and sisters in Christ to bring up a generation that knows and loves and serves God like never before.
Speaker 1: And there will be celebrations that mark each one of these summits.
Speaker 1: So I want to just briefly before we get back into the text this morning, I want to mention what the seven summits are that I'm talking.
Speaker 1: You're, you're sitting here thinking, well what do you mean seven summits?
Speaker 1: And I've put a bug in some of your ears and I've shared a little bit of vision in this area as we've been developing this over uh, several months now.
Speaker 1: But let me share with you what these summits are, what age groups we are referring to sequentially as we worked through this, but also areas that become seven check points in your life to say, how am I doing as a follower of Christ?
Speaker 1: The first one is this, the provision summit.
Speaker 1: We're going to come back and we're going to break that one down in our texts this morning.
Speaker 1: Provision, we're talking about those years from birth to preschool where we're providing an environment, the best environment possible for children to experience the love and the truth of God.
Speaker 1: Now, the celebration for the provision summit is the celebration that you observed this morning.
Speaker 1: It was a parent child dedication.
Speaker 1: And so we want to help you understand what that means and how you can be a part of a parent child dedication, not only as parents and as extended family, but as a church family.
Speaker 1: It's something we want to take very seriously.
Speaker 1: The commitment that all of us made this morning to baby jack is a commitment we want to take very seriously with every child.
Speaker 1: God brings into the life of our community of faith here at Trinity.
Speaker 1: So it's the provision summit equipping homes to provide that environment for these children from the moment of birth, uh, after they get to about kindergarten through fourth grade.
Speaker 1: Those children that just with great passion and enthusiasm ran up the hill to be a part of kids worship.
Speaker 1: This morning we're going to call that the presentation summit while the presentation, because those are the years that they began to understand the essential oils of the gospel.
Speaker 1: When a child gets in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, during that time in the church in the Far East, they use the phrase embracing the faith, but during those years they begin to understand what it means that they are a sinner.
Speaker 1: They know how to show remorse, to experience the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: They come to an age of accountability as hard for us to sometimes nail that down, but where they can show remorse for sin, conviction, and understanding of the Gospel that Christ died for their sins, that he was buried and that he rose again on the third day.
Speaker 1: And so the celebration for the presentation summit would be watered.
Speaker 1: Baptism, which we experienced Wednesday night, went to hope.
Speaker 1: We experience again real soon here because of some of the ones who gave their lives to Christ over the past week.
Speaker 1: But water baptism is a celebration.
Speaker 1: Now obviously you can do a parent child dedication after they have passed those years, those first four years that we looked at.
Speaker 1: You can also do water baptism at anytime because baptism is the first step of obedience after a person puts their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: So once someone comes to know the Lord, whether it's during these presentation years or later in life, we want to celebrate that with believers baptism.
Speaker 1: And that's the celebration for that summit.
Speaker 1: But I believe there are many, when we begin to create that environment that we talk about in the provision summit and people are involved in a Bible believing church and getting in on those things that we're articulating with the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we will see many by that fourth grade year that have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and prayerfully avoid a lot of the heartache and heartbreak that many of us experience when we do wait until later in life.
Speaker 1: And then there's the preparation summit.
Speaker 1: This is fifth and sixth grade.
Speaker 1: This is where we will equip parents with things like preparing for adolescence, those fun years, you know, fifth and sixth graders, they feel like they're, they feel like they're too old to be with the kids and they feel like they're too young to be with the teenagers and they're just kind of in limbo for a while.
Speaker 1: But we want to make that a special season of celebration and we're gonna plan a, an overnight parent child retreat for the kids that age in that preparation summit, those preparation summit years.
Speaker 1: The fourth summit, we'll be purity summit in the middle school years is about seventh and eighth grade.
Speaker 1: And especially it's when your purity first becomes under great attack.
Speaker 1: And so we're going to hit certain core competencies when it comes to that consecrated life.
Speaker 1: Ninth and 10th grade years will be the purpose summit.
Speaker 1: Then we'll get into the passion summit, the 11th and 12th grade years.
Speaker 1: Rightly guided passion.
Speaker 1: By the way, the celebration for the purity summit will be a kind of a rite of passage, uh, for guys.
Speaker 1: Maybe a a purity ring date, father, daughter, date for the girls.
Speaker 1: The celebration for the purpose summit will be, we want every ninth and 10th grader to have the opportunity to go on a mission trip where their North America or international but to go on a mission trip and invite parents to be a part of that.
Speaker 1: And then the passion some at 11th and 12th Grade Years, we've been doing a junior senior retreat for some time now, but where we go away with our juniors and seniors and talk about rightly guided passions and what God may have next for you.
Speaker 1: And then the pursuit, the launching out the college years, the uh, celebration here at churches, a graduate recognition service.
Speaker 1: But we want to equip them to go out and to pursue what God has in store.
Speaker 1: So as I mentioned before, these are sequential as you can see that we will focus on certain things at different seasons of life.
Speaker 1: But they're also concurrent because every one of us, including myself, we need to revisit these summits and say, how am I doing in these areas?
Speaker 1: And as we see this morning, somebody so important for parents to model what they're preaching.
Speaker 1: So what are the challenges and characteristics of this first summit w this provision summit providing the best environment?
Speaker 1: What, what is it that we're providing?
Speaker 1: And you know, James Dobson referenced the 1994 study of boys with great confidence who seem to be really prepared for what life was throwing at them.
Speaker 1: And there were three characteristics of the homes of these boys who seem to face life with confidence and maturity.
Speaker 1: Number one is that they were loved at home.
Speaker 1: They said, you know what, I just always knew at home that I was loved.
Speaker 1: Number two, they said they always had clear rules and discipline at home.
Speaker 1: And number three, they said there was an openness for communication at home.
Speaker 1: So, so there was love, there were clear rules, there was an openness for communication.
Speaker 1: As we get into this text or as some of you along with me, revisit this text in Deuteronomy chapter six known as the Shamar because of that word.
Speaker 1: Listen or hear.
Speaker 1: That's the Hebrew in Hebrew, that's the word Chammas of the, the Jews began to call this the Soma and represented to that first word and became one of the most profound reminders of what they were to be about in Israel.
Speaker 1: As we get in this passage, we'll see a couple of things.
Speaker 1: The first one is this.
Speaker 1: We are to create an atmosphere of God's love in our homes, where to create an atmosphere of God's love in our homes here.
Speaker 1: Oh, Israel, the Lord our God.
Speaker 1: Verse Four says, hear or listen, o Israel, the Lord our God.
Speaker 1: This assumes something.
Speaker 1: It assumes that there is a god who wants to communicate something to us, and when he uses that name Israel, he's saying, I'm speaking to my covenant people, the Community of faith of people that I love here.
Speaker 1: Oh Israel, listen to me.
Speaker 1: I'm, I'm communicating something to you here the Lord y'all way.
Speaker 1: When you see the word Lord in all caps, that's his covenant name for his people.
Speaker 1: It's the name Yahweh, the name that Moses was given before he launched out into his ministry.
Speaker 1: So here's a, a covenant community of people to Whom God speaks to whom God initiates the relationship of people for whom God loves and that God would demonstrate his love.
Speaker 1: And so notice that when it comes to this atmosphere of love here, when it comes to all that's about to take place, God is the great initiator in the process.
Speaker 1: He's the one who called Abraham out.
Speaker 1: He's the one who called Moses and said, I'm not finished with my people and I know that they are in Egypt and I want you to lead them out.
Speaker 1: God is the one who initiates the process.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to the love relationship, and we're going to see that we have to reciprocate that love right here in the text.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to that love relationship with God, first John Four 10 says that here in his love, not that we loved God, but that he first loved us and that he gave his son to be a propitiation or a sacrifice, a willing atonement for our sins.
Speaker 1: We read in Romans chapter five in verse eight that God demonstrated his love for us.
Speaker 1: In this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us before we could ever respond, God was demonstrating his love toward us.
Speaker 1: In First John Chapter Four Verse 19 says that we love him because he what?
Speaker 1: He first loved us, God in these sheets, this whole, this whole process, this whole relationship, this whole journey that were owned is because God loves us and God wants us to be in relationship with him and have harmony in that relationship with them.
Speaker 1: So our love merely reciprocates the love that he demonstrated toward us.
Speaker 1: And then when we get into verse five here, after he's says, listen, o Israel here, this, here's, here's how we reciprocated in verse five he says, therefore, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
Speaker 1: Jesus would call this the greatest commandment.
Speaker 1: Remember when he was asked, well, what's the greatest commandment?
Speaker 1: And they were like, well, what is he going to say?
Speaker 1: You shall not lie.
Speaker 1: You shall not steal the fair season.
Speaker 1: We're just just ready to say, well, we've got it all together and other people don't.
Speaker 1: You shout out committed adultery, you can't.
Speaker 1: What's the greatest commandment?
Speaker 1: Remember the sabbath and keep it holy.
Speaker 1: He calls a lot of people are breaking the Sabbath.
Speaker 1: Jesus.
Speaker 1: Jesus said, the greatest commandment is this.
Speaker 1: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Speaker 1: He went back to the and he said, this is the greatest commandment is that you love God.
Speaker 1: This is an environment that is to permeate a home.
Speaker 1: It is this.
Speaker 1: What's important about this passage, the Shema as as we get into talking about this whole relationship with God, the richest place for that relationship to be was supposed
Speaker 2: to be in the home.
Speaker 2: Did the community of faith help out?
Speaker 2: Was there a sabbath where there was corporate worships?
Speaker 2: Certainly there was, but the responsibility is placed in the context of the home.
Speaker 2: Be a place where you understand that God loves you and that you're to return that love for God in our worship and our witness and our work and everything that we do were to return that love toward him.
Speaker 2: And we would see in the old testament that the, the best picture of that love is the covenant love between a husband and alive.
Speaker 2: And so not only Brian and Amanda this morning, but every other couple of here, everyone here with children, the best way for you to make sure that you are communicating God's love in filling your home with God's love is for you.
Speaker 2: Not only to love him but to love each other.
Speaker 2: The second greatest commandments love your neighbors yourself.
Speaker 2: So we know we're to love God and we're to love others.
Speaker 2: And the one covenant love relationship that your children see all the time is the love between a husband and a wife.
Speaker 2: And so the confidence they have in God's love will often naturally flow from the love that they see between mom and dad.
Speaker 2: So much so that even in Israel, when Israel later on, but before the fall of the kingdom again, but before the northern kingdom fell in the southern kingdom fail in the days of the profits, the prophets would say, Israel, you're playing the harlot because their unfaithfulness to God was pictured like an unfaithful wife in marriage.
Speaker 2: And so marriage has always been a picture of God's Covenant Love in the New Testament.
Speaker 2: Husbands are told to love their wives as Christ loves the church and gave himself for her Ephesians five 25 and then in verse 33 that the wife is to respect and reciprocate that love the greatest needs for our spouse or a woman to feel loved by her husband and for her husband to feel respected by his wife are also the greatest needs for security that we can demonstrate as adults to our children.
Speaker 2: In other words, when we're meeting one another's greatest needs of love and respect in the home, we're meeting our children's greatest needs where?
Speaker 2: Sense of love and security in the home.
Speaker 2: And so that's why I say be very outgoing in demonstrating your love for your spouse, appropriate, meaningful affection in front of the kids that you decide how much is too much when it comes to be inappropriate.
Speaker 2: Now I think it's real cool for parents to flirt in front of their kids.
Speaker 2: I say, just go ahead and embarrass them with your flirtatiousness, you know?
Speaker 2: But parents flirt in front of your kids.
Speaker 2: Say words of praise in front of your kids.
Speaker 2: If that child grows
Speaker 1: up in a home where they're like all I ever see his mom and dad arguing and fussing and fighting and they just don't really like each other, how much security are they going to have?
Speaker 1: And what are they going to learn about the covenant relationship and the love that they have from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: And so it's the marriage that begins to picture that covenant love.
Speaker 1: And when we begin to say love bears all things, love, believes all things, love, hopes all things, love endures all things.
Speaker 1: They see it demonstrated in how a husband and a wife, how mom and dad relate to one another.
Speaker 1: And so part of creating the atmosphere of God's love is the way that we show love to our spouse in the context of the home, the way grandma and Grandpa love on each other tells me how real God's love is.
Speaker 1: So we have a responsibility to create that atmosphere of love in the home.
Speaker 1: And in 1983 there was a singer by the name of Pat Benatar.
Speaker 1: Anybody remember Pat Benatar?
Speaker 1: I've already made fun of the music of the eighties a few times, but, but uh, Pat Benatar was one of those female rockers that had, I don't know if she was one hit wonder, but I do remember the one hit, but it was called love is a battle field.
Speaker 1: So there's some other pagans out here with me writing.
Speaker 1: You remember that too.
Speaker 1: Love is a battlefield man.
Speaker 1: We would crank it up and I didn't even know the lyrics.
Speaker 1: Love is a battlefield, but in the song she would sing about phrases like no promises, no demands.
Speaker 1: She would say stuff like begging me to go, but making me stay.
Speaker 1: It was all this confusing, these conflict thing message.
Speaker 1: And she had just resolved to be satisfied with.
Speaker 1: It's just the fact love is war.
Speaker 1: Love is a battlefield and the sad thing is for so many homes that's true it for so many homes, you feel like you're walking through a minefield.
Speaker 1: There's not an atmosphere of true love.
Speaker 1: Grace does not permeate the home.
Speaker 1: Unconditional love.
Speaker 1: Unconditional acceptance does not permeate the home.
Speaker 1: You feel like you're, you say, well, maybe not a minefield, but I'm certainly walking on eggshells and I'm so afraid that what I might say or what I might do might set off my husband or I might set off my wife that I'm just nervous about it and I'm not secure in who I am.
Speaker 1: There's no grace, there's no love and the kids are walking around just scared to death.
Speaker 1: Somebody's going to blow up in your home.
Speaker 1: That's not the atmosphere that Communicates Covenant Love.
Speaker 1: That's not the atmosphere of grace that sets the best place and establishes the best place for kids to hear the Gospel.
Speaker 1: What's interesting, I quoted those verses from Ephesians five 25 and 33 and said the greatest need of of a wife is to be loved sacrificially as Christ lifts the church.
Speaker 1: The greatest need for men is to be respected by her wife in that way, if he's just 35 33 the way the church is to respect Christ and there to picture that within the home right off the bat in Ephesians chapter six when this passage ends on the husband and wife relationship, and keep in mind, Paul was writing a letter that he didn't number the sentences.
Speaker 1: We went back hundreds of years later and put those numbers in.
Speaker 1: And so it was just a free flowing letter that went right into a conversation that said that children are oh by their parents in the Lord, their honor, their father and mother and fathers aren't to provoke their children unto wrath.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so what I think Paul was saying is if you want to bring your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, if you want to bring your children up with spiritual disciplines in their life, first of all, create an environment.
Speaker 1: Create an atmosphere of God's love, because in that environment, in that atmosphere of God's love, now God's laws can be communicated.
Speaker 1: And this is the second thing.
Speaker 1: And the final thing I wanted to share with you when it comes to this summit, we are to champion and appreciation for God's laws.
Speaker 1: But I would say be very careful that you first create that atmosphere of God's love.
Speaker 1: Josh McDowell said it years ago, rules without a relationship lead to rebellion.
Speaker 1: And so if you try to lay down the law before you've provided an environment of love, you're going to get rebellion every time.
Speaker 1: Champion appreciation for God's laws.
Speaker 1: In verse six he comes back, he says, these words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart.
Speaker 1: God's standards must be personalized.
Speaker 1: It's got to be real to you.
Speaker 1: First Mom, dad, grandma, grandpa.
Speaker 1: It's gotta be real in your heart and in your life.
Speaker 1: And he says, let these words be own your heart in your life is as Moses would write this book of Deuteronomy, it was Deuteronomy means second law.
Speaker 1: It was saying, Hey, let me just tell you what God's principles, God's standards, God's precepts are before you go into the promised land.
Speaker 1: And so he's speaking to the parents here and he says, first, let it be on your hearts.
Speaker 1: Let it be real in your life, but then don't keep it to yourself.
Speaker 1: Now there, there is a danger on the flip side of the coin when it comes to some homes where they, they try to lay down the law without love.
Speaker 1: And so what happens with result rebellion on the other side of the coin, sometimes you have homes that will say, okay, we don't want to push them away.
Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of love, but there are no borders.
Speaker 1: There's no boundaries, there's no standards.
Speaker 1: I know some parents that have an open channel of communication with their kids, but they're not telling them anything.
Speaker 1: Well, I just want to love them.
Speaker 1: I don't want to push them away and they're crying out there saying, show me where my standards are.
Speaker 1: A lot of times the rebellious activity on this side of the coin is because they're saying, I'm just begging you.
Speaker 1: I'm just pleading with you.
Speaker 1: Show me that there is right and there is wrong and that it does matter and that you're living it.
Speaker 1: You personalize it.
Speaker 2: So God's
Speaker 1: standards must be personalized.
Speaker 1: In verse seven God's standards must be proclaimed, must be communicated.
Speaker 1: So repeat them to your children.
Speaker 1: Then he says, talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up, you know what that really means?
Speaker 1: It means talk about them all the time and explain it clearly.
Speaker 1: Articulate those standards, but don't just say, hey, it's my way or the highway.
Speaker 1: You can like it or leave.
Speaker 2: That's tough word for four year old, right?
Speaker 2: [inaudible] maybe not for an 18 year old, but, but that's tough.
Speaker 1: You communicate the standards and you explain.
Speaker 1: See now more than any generation before, we've got a generation of teenagers.
Speaker 1: And even the millennials that have come before them that are saying, I'm not going to believe it just because mom and dad told me.
Speaker 1: So they need to demonstrate that it works with their life, but they need to articulate it.
Speaker 1: They need to be able to explain why I believe what I believe.
Speaker 1: And if we don't explain why we believe what they believe, they won't hold on to it.
Speaker 1: And so when they ask why they're not being rebellious, they're wanting to know that there is a reason and we've got to be able to communicate that.
Speaker 1: So he says
Speaker 2: good about it.
Speaker 2: Talk about these things all, all the time.
Speaker 2: When you lie down, when you rise up, talk about the standards of God, the precepts of God, the principles of God.
Speaker 2: Talk about God's principles for marriage
Speaker 1: in dating and courtship.
Speaker 1: And when, when, when the laws have changed in our land that says a man can marry a man and they say, really mom, dad, does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Well, no, we've never believed that way.
Speaker 1: Explain why we may not believe that way.
Speaker 1: Answered their tough questions and listen, our rules, our laws, our standards, if they are, God's standards may seem restricting in their life for them for a moment.
Speaker 1: While we know they are protective and liberating, really God's rules are particular.
Speaker 1: We know that, but they may not get that.
Speaker 2: When I came here as pastored, my son was, uh, maybe three, three and a half years old.
Speaker 2: Ken was just a little guy.
Speaker 2: Then Charisse had just started walking, just barely walking, and I had come home for lunch and we lived right here behind the laundromat on highway 98 in Daniel's Ville.
Speaker 2: I had come home for lunch.
Speaker 2: I had hung out with the family just a little bit and it was time for me to get back up to the office, had to get some things done.
Speaker 2: I did not know
Speaker 1: as I pulled out of the driveway that Kent had decided he really wanted to be with his dad that day.
Speaker 1: I mean, he really wanted to come back to the church with me that particular day.
Speaker 1: And so what I didn't see as I was backing out in the driveway as he was running after me.
Speaker 1: And so I get on the highway 98 I'm around the light and I'm up at the church also.
Speaker 1: What I didn't see is that my wife had left this brand new walker.
Speaker 1: This girl that's starting to walk, his Charisse was left behind and she ran out to try to catch Kent before he got to highway 98.
Speaker 1: Now all good Madison County folks know that highway 98 is like the number one highway in the state for two things, chicken trucks and logging trucks.
Speaker 1: I mean that's, that's how we 98, we heard it from long before sunup to uh, after sundown every night.
Speaker 1: Chicken trucks and logging trucks coming up.
Speaker 1: How we 98.
Speaker 1: So everything that could have gone wrong was going through Tina's mind and she's racing to get Kent and catches him just before he gets to the road.
Speaker 1: She is out of breath.
Speaker 1: She's emotionally devastated by this point, barely kitchen because he was going to run down highway 98 to 29 and had the Trinity Baptist Church.
Speaker 1: And so she catches him just before he gets to the highway.
Speaker 1: She comes back and carrots is sitting on the top step.
Speaker 1: She believed that an angel just put her down on these concrete steps on our back porch.
Speaker 1: And so she gets into the house and she calls me up here at the church office in the days before we all had cell phones.
Speaker 1: And I guess I've been here a long time, right?
Speaker 1: But she called me and I, and she, she's, she can't get her breath and she goes, you've got to come home and do something with your son.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, what did my son, I come home and she told me the whole store, he was headed to the hallway.
Speaker 1: And we're not one of those families that believe that in every situation that you get a little Tom out, um, or that you know, you, you don't get a cookie that afternoon.
Speaker 1: We did believe that there are a few times when we felt like we had clearly communicated you can't do this and it kid violated that, that yes, there would be a little heat for the seat.
Speaker 1: There would be a spanking and um, and kit probably, uh, has plans to have a certain wooden spoon bronzed one day, but he got a little heat for the seat that day.
Speaker 1: And after that I lovingly communicated, this is why we've told you you never go to the road.
Speaker 1: Now, no adult in their right mind would say you should let kids make their own decisions.
Speaker 1: You should let them decide if they want to play on the road.
Speaker 1: That's their decision.
Speaker 1: Don't push your beliefs.
Speaker 1: I'll phone them.
Speaker 1: But we'll say that in so many other areas.
Speaker 1: See later on he would get to an age where he's driving and making his own decisions and going places on his own.
Speaker 1: And we only had so many years.
Speaker 1: Now do we still try to influence?
Speaker 1: Yup.
Speaker 1: He got the call yesterday.
Speaker 1: You need to get out of the storm, go back to the dorm, the football games in hands.
Speaker 1: You know, we only have so many years to influence him for the glory of God and to listen if he, if he had received discipline without
Speaker 2: an environment of love, communication.
Speaker 2: This is why we believe what we believe.
Speaker 2: I don't believe he would have embraced it.
Speaker 2: We had to explain those things has to take place also in real life patterns.
Speaker 2: He says, look, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up, when you're riding down the hallway, bring up the subjects that we're going to be putting before you in the weeks ahead.
Speaker 2: Talk about why you believe what you believe.
Speaker 2: Bring up what's going on in the news.
Speaker 2: Bring up what's going on at school.
Speaker 2: Bring up the fact that they're grieving because they lost someone that they love as happened this past week with a young man who coached some of our middle school guys and they're asking, why did things like this happen?
Speaker 2: Talk about those things after the game.
Speaker 2: When the report card comes home or right after a break up, talk about seeking first the Kingdom of God and living your life for the glory of God and why it makes all the difference.
Speaker 2: Constant communication.
Speaker 2: And then in verses nine through 15 by the way, he says, and you know, bind that, bind these things.
Speaker 2: So there's gotta be constant communication.
Speaker 2: Put it on your wall, put it on your doorposts, but don't you gates, wherever you are, keep the principles and precepts of God before you.
Speaker 1: By the way, we're all these, it's where the family is.
Speaker 1: It's where the home is.
Speaker 1: We get so upset with the church because they took the 10 commandments out of the courthouse or they took the 10 commandments out of the school house and I am all for the 10 commandments in the courthouse and I'm all for the tank and methods in the school house.
Speaker 1: But when the Shamal was given, he said, it's got to be in your house.
Speaker 1: And there are people here that may have complained that the 10 commandments are no longer at school, are no longer at the courthouse.
Speaker 1: And if I were to ask you where are they in your house, you would say, I don't know that they are anywhere.
Speaker 2: Miles.
Speaker 1: How often do you talk about the things of God in your car?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know that we often talk about the things of God
Speaker 1: should be all the time verses nine through 15 he begins, we won't read all of these, but he talks about God standards being proven in your life.
Speaker 1: It's a very pragmatic generation today.
Speaker 1: And they're saying this, if it doesn't work for mom and dad, it must not be true.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't work for grandma, grandpa must not be true.
Speaker 1: My generation came along and we, we, we would over rationalize everything and we would say, well theologically it could be true whether it works for them or not.
Speaker 1: Cause they might not be working it right?
Speaker 1: But this generation, so they're coming along, they're not saying they're not working it right.
Speaker 1: They're just saying it's not true.
Speaker 1: They say they believe this and they're not living it.
Speaker 1: It must not be true.
Speaker 1: And so we've got to demonstrate it.
Speaker 1: We've got to live it out.
Speaker 1: And so there's gotta be an environment where there's a lot of love
Speaker 2: and there's gotta be an appreciation for God's law.
Speaker 2: And when you're rich in both of those areas, it leads to a, a generation that grows to know, love and serve him.
Speaker 2: I can draw a continuum if you will, before you, if you could imagine a line going this way and, and the further this way you go, the higher you are in communicating the laws, discipline, instruction of God, and in a continuum going up, the higher you go this way, the more you're saturating your house with love.
Speaker 2: And in this quadrant here where there's high love and high discipline instruction, that's where children are most likely to be successful, successful as servants and disciples of Christ.
Speaker 2: You would say, well, I guess the worst quadrant is low love and load discipline instruction.
Speaker 2: Actually that's not true.
Speaker 2: The worst quadrant is where there's high discipline instruction, but low love because kids will rebel even further than when they don't get the discipline instruction at all.
Speaker 2: But we want to create an environment in our homes and in our church.
Speaker 2: We want to facilitate the process of building high love, high discipline and instruction gospel-centered grace-filled homes.
Speaker 2: We need to communicate that early in life during these provision years, during this provision summit to say, man, we love kids and Jesus loves kids.
Speaker 2: It's so important that their foundation be right.
Speaker 2: The famous author, the Danish author, Hans Christian Anderson, wrote a lot of children's stories like the little mermaid and others.
Speaker 2: He was speaking late in life when his death seemed imminent to the one who was going to be composing music for his funeral and the funeral march that would take place in those days.
Speaker 2: And he made this statement to this composer.
Speaker 2: He said, most of the people who will march after me at my funeral will be children.
Speaker 2: So make the beat.
Speaker 2: Keep time with little steps, make the beat, keep time with little steps.
Speaker 2: I want to grow deep in the things of God.
Speaker 2: I want to be well established in the things of God.
Speaker 2: I want to know that I want the world to know that I love God and I love his word, and I will not compromise his truth and I want my relationship with him to grow richer and sweeter as a days go by.
Speaker 2: But I also pray that as a pastor, as a father, as an encourager to by brothers and sisters in Christ, that we will make the beat keep Tom with little steps that we want.
Speaker 2: Apologize for investing time, energy, resources, and equipping parents and preparing the generation that comes before is your life, is your heart.
Speaker 2: Is your home field with such grace, such sweet music that keeps pace, the Gospel centered, Christ loving environment that keeps pace with the steps of little feet.
Speaker 2: Would you bow your heads with me.