Well, a few weeks ago, we began a brand new series entitled God in the Details.
Can we all say that together? God in the Details. And the point of the series, in fact, if you're newer to our church or possibly you just haven't been here as of late, this series, God in the Details, the idea behind the series is this, that your relationship with God should impact every detail of your life.
Your relationship with God should dictate every detail of your life. And if you're like me, perhaps I grew up around the church my entire life. And so I've been around the church my entire life.
If that's your story, can you slip up your hand so we can know that we resonate? That's how I was raised. I was raised around church. And here's what I've learned is that for us that have been raised around the church, we tend to compartmentalize, if you would, our relationship with the Lord. And what I mean by that is a lot of times we think that our relationship with God is just something that we do on Sunday.
Right? Can you resonate with that just a little bit? It's just a place that we go on Sunday. And that's what our relationship with God is. Or perhaps it's a few moments that you have in the morning with the Lord through a devotion. And that is the extent of your relationship with God. And so what happens a lot of times is for us is we end up treating our relationship with God like a priority, if you would, on our list.
And here's the point of the series. God doesn't want to just be a priority on your list. Now, let me say he should be a priority on your list for sure. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying, but he doesn't want to just be a priority on your list. He wants to be the center of every priority on your list.
So if you think about your daily priorities, we all have work, we have careers, we have families, we have community. And the point of the series is this, is that God wants to be the center of your work life. He wants to be the center of your choices and decision making. He wants to be the center of your family and he wants to be the center of your community. And that's why we've entitled this God and the Details. We thought it would be fitting today, since it is Mother's Day, for us today to talk about God and our family.
God and our family or God and my family. And so today we are going to talk about the idea of parenting and the idea of parenthood today, since it is his mother's day. Now, let me say upfront that every time I talk about parenting, I feel like I have to give a few disclaimers, if you know what I'm saying.
And so I want to give a few of those to you here today as we kind of kick this thing off. First of all, when we talk about parenting, I am not an expert. I know like growing up, I sat on that side and up until a few years ago, I was the person sitting out here. And here's what I always thought. I thought that whatever the person up here is talking about preaching that he is the expert. He knows everything about the subject that he's talking about. And little did I know that when I became this, that I would realize that, man, I'm no expert on a lot of these things. I don't want you to feel that way. If you're looking at me like I know everything about parenting, I don't. Before I had kids, I did know everything about parenting. I will tell you that. And but I'm not an expert. My kids struggle, my kids make mistakes, my kids do things and and we are not perfect. Believe this or not, I lose my mind with my kids from time to time. And so I understand all about that. So I am no expert. But then another disclaimer that I want is that for some of you, you might be a child or you're just not a not a parent and you don't have kids yet.
Listen, this series is still impactful for you. And this sermon is still impactful for you because there is a chance that one day you get married and then you might have kids. And so it's important that you understand what the scripture says about about parenting.
And then to the rest of us, here's what I want you to know. I mentioned this earlier, is that parenting and scripture, when you look throughout scripture, most of the verses when it comes to parenting is actually directed to the entire church. It's actually directed to all of us. And in this case, where we're going to be at today, it's directed to the nation of Israel.
So it's a command. It's really this way of parenting, the purpose of parenting to the entire camp. In other words, it's not just for the parents. Now, the parents are the primary disciplers of their kids, and we're going to talk about that this morning. But here's what I want you to know up front. Is that it does take all of us working together to help these family raise their kids to love God with all of of their hearts. So we're going to talk about God and our family. And I wanted to kick it off with this.
And you guys will believe this, especially parents. And here is this. The days are long, but the years are short.
How many of you would agree with that? The days are long, but the years are are short. As I get older, I have two children. I have an 11 year old and I have a 13 year old. And I am learning each and every day that time is passing by rather quickly.
That time is passing by rather quickly. I can remember when my kids were born, both of them, you know, when we were in the hospital and and Lindley was our first. And and when she was born, I'll never forget that, you know, that emotion when we're about to be discharged from the hospital. And I couldn't believe this. I told my mom who was there and we're about to be sent home from the hospital and we're taking this baby with us.
And I told my mom I literally was kind of joking, but I was kind of serious. I was like, I can't believe that these nurses and doctors are going to send us home with this baby by ourselves. Right. And how in the world are we ever going to be able to to handle this? We get to raise this other life.
We know nothing about it. And and then when you start that phase, that infant phase and then the toddler phase and as parents. And if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. You feel like that phase is never going to end.
Right. You feel like you're never you're going to be changing diapers for the rest of your life and you're going to be saying the word no for the rest of your life. And and you feel like we are never going to get out of that phase.
And the next thing you know what happens, you blink and they're they're a teenager. And that's kind of our story today right now. And and the point is, is that the days are long, but the years are short. And and you begin to say things as your kids get older, you begin to say things like time, please slow down.
Or or perhaps when you go to a reunion and if you're a child and you've probably heard your parents say this, that we blinked and then they were 10 years old, like what happened to all of our time. But here's what I'll tell you is that when you realize that time is running out, you start to make more use of the time that you have now. You ever notice that when you realize that time is running out, you start to make better use of the time that you have now. I wanted to illustrate this.
I'm going to ask Pastor Bailey and Pastor David to help me with this. And so they're going to bring a illustration out here today with this idea that the days are long, but the years are are short. You see, when you realize that time is running out, you begin to make better use of the times that you have have now. And so so here we have three jars, if you would, of these of these marbles.
OK, and so you have all these all these marbles in here and we got three jars in them. And and I was trying to illustrate this because I really want you as parents to understand the importance of of what you get to do and the time that you get. Most of the time and family situations you have when you bring a kid home from the hospital, you have about 18 years with your child before you send them off. And most of the time they'll go, they'll move off to college or or whatever.
Now, I get it. Some of you, your kids stay longer and that's OK. And you can add a jar with more marbles in it if you need to. But here's what I'll tell you is that most of the time you get about 18 years with your child and then they kind of become an adult and they they move on. And so when I was thinking about illustrating this, I wanted you to understand that time's just kind of moving by so fast. And so each marble that we see here represents a week that you have with your child, a week that you have with your child. And so in this one right here, you have in this you have nine hundred and thirty six marbles. And so if you have an infant at your house, if each one of these marbles represent one week, you have about nine hundred and thirty six weeks with your kid from the time you bring them home from the hospital until they turn 18, 18 years old. Well, in this one right over here, you have just over 600 marbles in this one right here.
And here's what I'll tell you. If you have a kindergartener at your house and you have a son or daughter that's about five years old, this would dictate and show how much time you have left until they turn 18 years old. And then if you're like me and you possibly have a teenager, this is how much time we have left with our with our teenager.
I was doing this this week and I was kind of really noticing. So we have a 13 year old daughter. And if you take these marbles right here and they dictate a week, this is how many weeks I have left with my 13 year old before she turns 18.
And when I did this, here's what I'll tell you. When I when I looked at this, I was thinking, man, like when you bring home a kid from the hospital, you think you have an eternity in front of you. You think you like they're never moving out.
Right. But you think it's forever. And what happens is you blink. And next thing you know, they're in kindergarten. And look at how much time has gone by. And next thing you know, they're a teenager. And then you see how much time is running out. What I want you to understand today is this is that as parents, we have to remember that as we look and this is just a fact of life, like like I know you wish like, man, I wish our kids could just stay forever and that kind of thing. But we know that there's coming a day where they're going to move out and and that pains us to be able to see it. But we know that that's just a part of a part of life. And so when we realize that our time as parents is running out, here's what I'll tell you. It really motivates us to make better use of the time that we have now.
It really motivates us to make better use of the time we have now. And in Deuteronomy chapter number six, if you have your Bible, you can join me there in Deuteronomy chapter number six. In Deuteronomy chapter six, we have God through Moses. He's he's giving instructions and and he's talking about about the home.
And here's what I'll tell you. You can tell by Deuteronomy chapter number six, that God sees raising children as crucial to furthering his kingdom. God sees raising kids as crucial to furthering his his kingdom.
Here in Deuteronomy chapter number six, here's what the scripture says about parenting. It says, Now these are the commandments, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it, that thou mightest fear the Lord thy God to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou and thy son and thy son's son all the days of thy life, and that thy days may be prolonged. Here therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it that it may be well with thee and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee in the land that floweth with milk and honey.
Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Verse five, And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. Look what he says in verse seven, And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, that they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.
Thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and on thy gates. Here's what I want you to understand, and we're going to dissect that passage together. But as time is running out in front of us and we're losing time with our children and they are growing up, here's the point is we have to make better use of the time that you have now. You have to make whatever age, whatever stage of life your kids are at, you have to make good use of the time you have left now, because here's what I'll tell you about life, is that life doesn't allow you to put more marbles into your kid's life, does it?
It doesn't allow you to add extra weeks that you can have with your kids. No, there's coming a day where your kids are going to move out and they're going to be sent out. And what you have done with your children up to that point will be so key in what God does with them when they move out. But when we think about this, this is the purpose of parenting. Now, I'm going to be honest with you, I love listening to parent podcasts. I love reading books about parenting.
I love things like that. And I'll tell you this, you should, if you're a parent, you should be doing those things. There's some great resources that are out there that really will help you in parenting.
But here's what I want you to know. The purpose of parenting and the most important thing you could ever learn about parenting is found here in Deuteronomy chapter six. It's found in Deuteronomy chapter six. And so, yes, read, yes, listen to all these things. But the most important thing you need to know about your role and your responsibility as a mom or as a dad is found here in Deuteronomy chapter six.
I want to give you a few of those here today. The first thing is this, your first purpose, if you would, if you're taking notes, your first purpose as a parent is to teach our children about God, to teach our children about God. You see that reflected here in our text when he says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. You see, your primary role as a parent is to teach your kids about the one true God. That's your primary objective, if you would, is to teach them about the one true God. Now, I heard a preacher say it this way. I thought this was really interesting. He was talking about parenting and he was doing a sermon based on Deuteronomy chapter six. And here's what he said. He said that for you, every child that you bring home from the hospital, right, your kids, it's like they are an unreached people group and you are the missionary to reach them.
Think about that. Like, we send people all across the world, right? We send people all across the world to these unreached people groups, to these areas of the world that the Bible is not in their language, and we send them into places like that to reach them.
And what he's saying is this, our responsibility of parents is every time you bring home a kid and you bring a kid into this world, here's the point. They're like an unreached people group and you're the missionary and it's your responsibility to reach them and to teach them about God. Listen, I'll tell you this, our culture and our world today, there has always been, and it was true here in scripture as well, there's always been an attack to question who the one true God is. You see, the enemy is walking about and he's trying to get you off track and off base so that he could influence your kids to question who the one true God of Israel is.
That was true in this day. And so God was writing to them and he's telling them here in our text, he's telling them, hey, teach these things to your kids, because here's what's happened in Israel, is many of them had allowed their children to go and they would do things that were against the law. The law would tell them things like, hey, only marry within the Jewish camp because that's God's chosen people. And what they were doing is they were leaving the Jewish camp and they were marrying these other women from pagan nations, these nations that didn't care about God, that hated God, that didn't know God. And what they were doing is they were bringing them into the nation of Israel, these people who were what I would call anti-God. And they were bringing them into the nation of Israel.
And so God is telling them this, he says, if you lose track of your children and you stop teaching them about God, what's going to happen is you are going to produce a generation of people that don't know who God is. Now, does that describe where we are possibly as a society to some degree? Think about it.
Think about it. Sometime from this on, what have we done? And the nation of Israel struggled with it as well. They weren't teaching their kids about God. And so they produced a generation of young people and people that did not know who the one true God is. And so what he's saying is we as parents are to teach our kids about God. You say, what am I supposed to teach them about God?
Well, he mentions a few things. First thing, you're supposed to teach them the truth about God, who he is. Verse four, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. They should learn that there is one God and one way to God through Jesus. They should learn that from you. That should be something that we're teaching in our home. That should be something that we are teaching and regularly having conversations with our children about. Not only that, we're to teach them to love God.
Verse five, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all that heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. You need to teach them to love God because here's what I'll tell you, is this, time is running out. It's been said that once they turn about 10 or 11 years old, kids are starting to get set into what they believe and set in their ways.
So if you just decide at this stage, like, hey, that'll be something you do way down the pipe. You're really missing out on a lot of crucial time you have with your kids to teach them who God is, to teach them to love God, to teach them to trust God, to teach them to trust God. Listen, we should teach our kids from our own experiences that God is trustworthy. Mom and dad, let me just tell you this. You go through difficult times. We all do as parents, right?
There's trials, there's tribulations, there's suffering that we have to endure. Use those as, your kids are watching that. Your kids are noticing when you're stressed.
They notice those things, and here's what I'll tell you, is that as mom and dad, here's what we got to do. We got to use those opportunities to teach our kids that God is still good and He is still trustworthy, even when we go through difficult days. We should teach them to fear God. We should teach them to fear God. Look at verse 24, if you drop down in Deuteronomy 6, verse 24 says, And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God. You see, fear recognizes how essential God is for our own good.
Fear recognizes how essential God is for our own good. We should teach our kids to respect and fear God. Like, for example, if your kid does something wrong, right? They don't just sin against you as the parent. It's teaching them that when they do something wrong, they also are sinning against God, because He's the one who instilled the parents as the primary leader of the home. And so when your kids do wrong, that's an opportunity to teach them to fear God.
But then we also must teach them the gospel. Look at verse 20 and 21 of Deuteronomy 6. It says this, And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And so he's telling these families, he's saying, hey, one of your responsibilities is to teach your children how God delivered us out of Egypt. That's the Old Testament, if I can say it this way, that's the Old Testament version of salvation, right?
When God led the nation of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, they were delivered from it. And from that day forward, they were supposed to teach that to their kids. They would celebrate that. They would remind it. They would talk about it. They would rejoice about it because that's the moment that God protected them and God led them and he delivered them.
And so for us, here's what that would mean today. We should teach our children how God has made a way of delivering you and I from the bondage of sin. You see, for us, we were all born into this world into one family. The sinner's family. That was your last name, sinners, right?
And every single one of us, we were born into the same family. Every single one of us was connected to one another through our sin. And because of our sin, here's the problem, because of our sin, we had been alienated from a perfect, righteous, holy God. And here's what I'll tell you, is that with a holy God and a sinful people, they cannot mesh.
They cannot go together because a holy God cannot see or accept sin in any way. And so because of that, here's the problem. The dilemma that we're in is that our sin leads to death. Our sin leads to death and there's nothing that you can do about it.
There's nothing that I can do about it. The Bible says that our good works are like filthy rags. We all fall short on your very best day, your most moral day that you've ever lived. Let me tell you this, you've fallen short of the glory of God. And because of that, you've fallen short of the glory of God. And so what God did was He loved you so much that He wanted a relationship with you, that He sent His one and only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, who would come from heaven to come to earth.
Why? To die on a cross. To die on a cross.
Why would He do such a thing? Why would He leave a perfect heaven to die on this cross? To deliver you from something you couldn't be delivered on otherwise.
To deliver all of us from the power of sin in your life. You see, without Jesus, we're all in bondage to sin. But with Jesus, we can all be free from sin.
And you see, that's what He did. And here's what God is saying. Parents, mom, dad, your role is to teach your kids about what Jesus has come to do for you. He's delivered us from sin, and it's our responsibility to teach our kids about that. They should learn about the gospel, not just because of church, not just because of kids' ministry, not just because of Sunday school. No, they should learn those things from you in the house in your home.
Number two, not only is our purpose to teach our kids about God, but number two, our purpose is to send our kids out on mission. Now, remember the illustration. One day, right, one day, your kids are gonna move out. And you've met, like, the weeks, you can't get them back.
You can't earn them back. Your kids have moved out on your own. And you, kind of, your relationship with them change. I know my dad, when I moved out, my relationship with him kind of changed just a little bit. He became more of, like, what I would call a mentor in my life, or a spiritual coach, where I ask him for advice, but he doesn't just demand things, like when I was growing up.
And so our relationship has changed. But here's what I'll tell you, is when you think about the purpose of one day, if your kids are gonna move out of your house, what do I need them to know? What's the purpose of the 18 or so years that I had with them?
Here's what I want you to understand. Our purpose is to send them out on mission, to send them out on mission for him. When you think about purpose, it's like, what is our purpose? Is our purpose as parents for them to just take care of us one day, right? Is that your purpose of having children? Or is your purpose to raise kids to be successful?
Listen, I'll tell you this. I hope your kids are successful, but that's not the main purpose. Is your purpose that they would marry somebody good? Hey, listen, I hope that happens for you, but that's not your main purpose.
You see, your main purpose is not just to let them be an athlete or let them have a good career or let them make a lot of money or any of those things. Your main purpose here is to raise them and teach them to know who the one true God is to one day send them out into the world on mission for him. In Psalm 127, the Psalmist talks about that. In fact, Psalm 127 is a Psalm that was written by a man that you're familiar with, a man by the name of Solomon. And you have these Psalms. It's actually a song of ascent or what we would call the pilgrimage Psalms.
They are the Psalms that you find from Psalms 120 to Psalm 134, the pilgrimage Psalms. And what they would do, those Psalms, the Psalms of Ascent, is that the nation of Israel, Psalms 120 through Psalm 134, they would take those Psalms and they would sing those songs to the Lord on their way to Jerusalem. You say, why were they going to Jerusalem? They were going to Jerusalem to observe the three Jewish festivals that they were responsible to be at. And on their way there, they would lift up their voices and they would sing these Psalms of Ascent and they would sing them as a group.
You could say as a congregation, similar to how we sing together, that's what they would do as they marched and journeyed their way into Jerusalem. And tucked away in the middle of these Psalms that they would sing is a song written by Solomon here in Psalm 127. And I want to read you just a couple of verses of Psalm 127, verse three and four.
It'll be up on the screen. Here's what it says. It says, low children are a heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward. And he goes on in verse four. And he says, as arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Here's the point is, so here are the Psalmist and what's amazing is they would sing this. They would sing this as groups, as a congregation to God here.
It's almost as if what's amazing to me is like, they're mentioning that the nation of Israel would help in the raising of this generation. It wasn't just a thing for the parents. That's kind of why we do parent child dedication. What we celebrated in here today is this isn't just like, hey, good luck parents.
Good luck. You're in this by yourself. No, when we do parent child dedication, it's as if we are saying that we are in this together.
We are in this together. Like I think about it like my family. We have a family name, the name Evans, right? And that sets me apart with my wife and my two children. And so that's our family name. So when my kids come to church, that's the name that'll be on their tags and different things like that, right? That's our family name. But here's the thing, we actually have two families. We have the Evans and then we have the church family. And so for me, we have the Union Grove family.
And those two families are important. And so my main job, my main responsibility is to teach my kids about Jesus and to prepare them to send out on mission. And so what I'll tell you is this, as mom and dad, you are the primary disciplers of your children. When I was a youth pastor, I worked with teenagers. And here's what I'll tell you. I saw tons and tons of families who their kids had wandered and they just bring them to the church and they say, fix them, fix them, make it right. And here's what I'll tell you.
We'll do everything that we can to help you. But at the end of the day, you are the primary discipler of your children. The church is a secondary family, a secondary family that comes alongside of you and helps instill the principles that we hope you're teaching your children at home.
So in other words, remember my illustration, we have the Evans. My responsibility, listen, nobody else is gonna answer for my kids one day, but I will as the dad, okay? And so I will answer for them. So that's my first family.
But here's what I'll tell you. I am grateful that I have a church family. And here's what that means, is that what I'm trying to teach my kids, I have small group leaders who reach out to me in our student ministry. And they talk to me about my daughter and different things and they encourage her.
There's some things cause she's 13 years old. And so there's some things that she's just feeling more comfortable sometimes talking to her small group leaders about and then praying for her sometimes than dad. And that's frustrating for parents, I get it. But let me tell you this, it takes a village. It takes a village of people working together to help raise kids in today's culture. And so for me, I love that I get to instill that and that's my main responsibility in my house.
But I'm grateful for my church family who comes alongside of us to help instill and reinforce the principles that I hope we are teaching them at home. You see, that's the purpose. And here in Psalm 127, all of the nation of Israel, they would lift up this song and they would sing this song talking about how our children are a heritage from the Lord and our children are like arrows in the hand of a warrior. Or like arrows in the hand of a warrior. If you think of a bow and arrow, think about a bow and arrow and when you think about this, the purpose of arrows are to send them out, right? Like for you, if you're a hunter and you're hunting with a bow and arrow, that arrow is gonna do nothing if it stays in the stand or the blind that you're in, right?
It's gonna do nothing if it just stays with you. No, the purpose of the arrow is what? You gotta pull back the bow and you gotta shoot that arrow and you gotta send the arrow out.
It doesn't just stay with you. You have to be willing to let go of the arrow if it's ever gonna hit the target in front of them. And so you shoot them out, these arrows, to hit the target that you are aiming at. And what the psalmist is saying is this, is that our children are like arrows.
Your kids are like arrows. And so your job is to prepare them to one day, when they go out into the world, to one day pull that bow back and shoot those arrows all throughout the world to be on mission for him so that they could hit the target that they are supposed to hit. You see, God gave you children so that you could send them out for him.
Now, let me be very clear. I'm not talking that every one of your kids have to go into ministry or something like that. What I'm saying, if your kid's gonna be a mechanic or an accountant or a teacher or wherever God leads them, listen, let them be on mission wherever that is. Let them live on mission wherever that is. But your purpose is to prepare them that wherever God calls them, that you are prepared to shoot them out and to go from there. I love what Jim Elliott, Jim Elliott, the famous missionary that many of us know, Jim Elliott actually, he was one of the missionaries that went to the Auca Indians and he was there as an unreached people group and they felt that God wanted them to go there. And so when they finally landed, Jim along with some of his friends were some of the ones who actually died and they were speared to death by the Auca Indians that they had tried to make contact with. And you can imagine as Jim's parents, as he is trying to go to this somewhat hostile group of people, because he's saying God wants to go, I'm sure his parents from time to time were begging God, like, why on earth would you ever send our son to a place like that? What do you think you're doing, God? Why would you ever send him to this dangerous, hostile place?
And it was found, Jim, in one of his diaries, he wrote a letter to his parents, you'll see it up on the screen, here's what it says. He said, I do not wonder that you were saddened at the word of my going to South America, but remember how the Psalmist described children. He said that they were as a heritage from the Lord and that every man should be happy who had his quiver full of them. And what is a quiver full of but arrows? And what are arrows for but to shoot? So he tells his parents in his diary, he said, so with the strong arms of prayer, draw the bowstring back and let the arrows fly, all of them straight at the enemy's host. You see, that's the purpose of parenting.
It's right there. It's to raise them through prayer and through scripture and through teaching them what God says about a relationship with him and how God has delivered them from sin, and if they but trust in Jesus as Savior, so that one day when your time is out and your jar is empty and your house is empty, one day when that comes, hopefully you have spent every week of being a parent preparing your kids to send them out so that they could make a difference and that when God gives them kids and they have a jar of 936 marbles, 936 weeks with their children, that you have prepared them to teach their own kids the very same thing about how to love God and what Jesus has come to do for them. You see, parents, that's our role. That's our main objective. That's our purpose in being a parent. In closing, I wanted to be super practical because I get it when I became a parent.
I really wanted to be practical. I'm like, what does this mean? Teach them about God. Great, what does that mean in everyday life?
How does that look? I want to give you some real practical things, parents, you can jot these down or record them in your phone, whatever you feel comfortable doing, but here's a few things that'll help you. Number one, prioritize relationships in your home. Prioritize relationships in your home. I know what it's like to be busy. I know what it's like to where sometimes you just see each other at meals and you kind of catch a glimpse of one another, right?
And you've been busy all week and you have no time together. I understand that and there are seasons that you just can't escape that in life. I get it, our kids play sports and we're always coming and going and everywhere. I understand it, but here's what I'll tell you is that your kids need a relationship with you.
They need you. So my challenge is be present in your kid's life. Be present in their life.
Use meals and car rides to have conversations. I know when we get busy and you get home and you just want to kind of push your kids to the side because you've had a long day at work. I understand that, I've been there. It's kind of like, listen, I just want to go and sit at a dinner and I just want my kids over here with their phone and I just want peace and quiet for a minute. I get it.
I've been there, I understand that life, but here's what I'll tell you. For parents, if we're going to make the best use of the time that we have, we need to leverage those opportunities to have gospel conversations with our kids. Not to just push entertainment onto them, but to actually have conversations about God with them at our dinners and car rides and different opportunities that we can have that.
One thing that we did this past year, I wanted to do this when my son turned 11. I took him on a trip, just the two of us, and it was an opportunity. It doesn't make me a perfect parent, trust me. You spend five minutes with my kids, you know we don't have it all together. And so, but here's what I'll tell you, is that I got a chance for two and a half days just to be with my son, experiencing some fun things at 11 years old and just affirming him about who he is and how he was fearfully and wonderfully made in Christ.
It's not perfect, but listen, he loves God and how God has delivered him and that he's becoming a man and now it's time for him to start living this life. Listen, those are opportunities. Don't miss them. Mom and dad, because there's coming a day where you're gonna have no more marbles in your jar and it's too late. You can't go back and add weeks with your children.
It doesn't work that way. And so right now, with the time you have left, with the marbles that you have left, listen, I want you to use the weeks that you have to leverage and it starts with prioritizing relationships in your home. Number two, you gotta deepen your relationship with families in the church. Listen, who your kids are with when they're young, if you kinda show me that, especially at the teenage years, you'll probably be able to show me where your kid's future is.
Because who we're around, we eventually what? Become, become. And so here's what I wanna challenge you to do, deepen relationships with families within the church, families with the same values, family with the same biblical principles. Find somebody that is trying to teach their kids how to love God and how to prepare them and use their weeks to glorify God that they have with their kids and link up with them and deepen those relationships because here's what I'll tell you, it takes a village. I'm so thankful for the leaders who invest in my children in our church and in our Christian school that are there for them, even when they make mistakes. Listen, my kids make mistakes and here's what I'll tell you, I'm grateful to have a community of people that comes to us and doesn't just judge us but actually runs to us when that happens because we need it. Deepen your relationships with families in the church.
Number three, this isn't everybody's next step but it could be yours, it might need to be yours. Consider adoption, we celebrated this with a family in our church in the first service who had their child dedicated, who they adopted. And in fact, our church had a part in this, the Mora family who have been our missionaries in Honduras.
On your way out today, they have a puzzle out there of their son who they adopted and they've been working at this for years and Union Grove helped them with the funds in order to do it. Listen, adoption is not every single person's next step but there's few things that really show the gospel better than adoption. And here's what I'll tell you, if God is maybe working in your heart to that, listen, we can connect you with people who can help you get started on that journey because maybe that is your next step to help the next generation so that we can shape the next generation for Jesus Christ. Number four, get involved in our kids and student ministry. Get involved, listen, become a leader, invest. If God's not giving you children, hey, maybe your next step is to help the ones who do have kids. By becoming that helpful leader around them, I'm thankful for that.
You know, when I was a youth pastor, I loved leaders who would invest in my kids. Listen, we as adults, we can't view what's happening over there as the problem. It used to bother me to no end when people would complain about our students and they'd complain about our kids. Listen, they're opportunities.
Stop looking at what they do to the walls or what they do to the carpet or what they do to these things. Listen, I get it, but I would much rather have a church full of kids and a church full of teenagers than to not have any at all. Because it's an opportunity for us to invest and to shape a generation so that they can go out of here and we can send them out on mission to reach the world for Jesus Christ.
And then last, this is for all of us, we can pray for all the arrows in our church. We got a bunch of them. Like we got a bunch of, every single week, we have about 60 kids down there.
Every week we have about 40, 50 teenagers. And listen, what an opportunity. And if you're not doing anything, here's the one thing every one of us can do. We can pray for the arrows that God has blessed us with here at Union Grove. Because one day we are gonna draw those bows back and these kids are gonna go out into the world. And if we haven't made good use of the time that we have with the weeks that we have with our kids, here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna create a whole generation of people who do not know the one true God. None of us want that, but it's gonna take us making good use of the time that we have left teaching our kids about God and ready and preparing them to send them out on mission for Him. Can you bow your heads with me?
