The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 2: One More Generation

Episode Date: May 5, 2019

Parents: of all the people in the entire world, God has chosen YOU to have the primary responsibility of raising your children. Be reminded that He is not calling us to merely raise good citizens, but to raise Jesus followers. Click the 1 Samuel Resources tab for the full study journal, summary recap videos and more.

Well, guys, this is an exciting day. We say it all the time. You can't be around here for more than a couple weeks before you know that we are a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus. And all doesn't just mean all in this church. It doesn't even mean all in this city. It means all over the world, all over the United States and all over the globe. I just got back from the Middle East this past week. We are planting a church in Kuwait and in Beirut.

How about that? And we are believing that over the next 10 years that God will plant 10 campuses, send 100 long-term missionaries, and that we'll be able to partner in planting a thousand churches in Jacksonville, the United States, and around the globe. And so Pastor Clifton has been our student pastor. He helped launch this church, build a student ministry here. And then about a year ago, he and Katie's wife felt a call to plant a church. and so they stepped into our church planning residency and have been working through the process

for the last year of getting ready to go out to Southern California, which I know you're thinking, wow, that sounds rough. You should go. You should be one of the hundred and go with them. Like Hannah, who's been in our internship program, and she felt God calling her to join them in Red Line Church out in Encinitas, California, North San Diego County. And so we are thrilled that they are doing that. And so today we are going to pray over them.

We're going to commission them. They are going to pack up their stuff. And they're going to drive out to Southern California, just like some of you all are going to hear God call you to do the same thing. And so I have a couple gifts that I want to give you, Clifton. First of all, this is a watch that we want to give you. It's not a retirement watch. But I have the same watch. And on that watch, it's got the insignia of the Navy SEALs.

And we give it to everyone that comes through the Church Planning Residency program. because you guys, like those Navy SEALs, they go behind enemy lines, they go first, they take enemy ground so that the rest of us can know true freedom. And even more so what you guys are doing is you're stepping behind enemy lines and you're going first and you are proclaiming the gospel that Encinitas in North San Diego County and to the ends of the earth would know freedom and fullness of life in Jesus Christ. And so every time you look at that, I want you to remember thousands of people in Jackson. that love you, that are praying for you, and that are so excited about what you guys are doing. And so, yeah. And then also, I have this. This is a, my mom made this bag. So, so that, and then my dad cut these little triangles of wood. And you're like, wow, that's a great gift, Adam. That's super sweet of you to give them a bag of wood. But here's what happens. When you plant a church,

you usually begin in a place. Sometimes you start in your home, and then the group builds. and then you move to somewhere that you can afford. You rent space or somewhere like that. And there's never enough door stops. They're like socks in your laundry room. They just go missing. And you need to get the doors open because people need to get in to hear the gospel.

And so we just want you to have a bag of door stops. Remember, fling wide the gates. If you run out, my dad will cut more for you. So we love you guys. And we're just so excited of what God is doing in you. and the call that he's placed on you. And so one of our elders, Barry Chandler, is here. And so we're going to pray over you all.

So if you would, if you would kneel down, if you all would reach out your hands, and we're going to pray for this family and this team that heads off to California. Would everyone please rise and stretch out your hands toward Katie and Clifton? And Kate and Kai, I guess, is in nursery. Okay, super.

And Hannah, we love you. And, God, I remember my wife and I and family got to know Katie and Clifton back at Beach Church. They were faithful then to serve the church and the youth of the church. They felt a calling here to 1122. And now they felt a greater calling to Red Line Church and Encinitas. And, God, I pray that you would speak boldly through this family. That you would undergird them with your mighty power. that you will fill them with your spirit, that same spirit that raised Christ from the dead,

that you will be with them in the good times and in the discouraging times. God, that you will do a mighty work through Clifton and Katie and the family and Hannah, and they will all look one day back and say, wow, and it all started right here. We pray these things in your name. Amen. Give them a big round applause. You guys sit down. We love you guys. Love you guys. Hey, also, I'm just, I'm reping my Red Line T-shirt. You guys can get one of those for a small price of a $1,000 donation to Red Line Church. You laugh like I'm kidding, but you should talk to them.

In 17 days, Kristen and I, my wife and I are coming up on 20 years of marriage. How about that? Yeah, you can applaud for her because that's mainly been applauseworthy for her. And we have two kids. We have Gavin who's 16. We have Sophie who's 13. And I can remember like yesterday when Gavin was born. And we were living in Virginia and it's this snowstorm. And I remember he was born and they wrap him up like this little burrito and they hand them to you and I'm looking at him. And at that moment, you remember this too if you're a parent, don't you? The gamut of emotions that rush into you at all. all at the same time. And there is joy and there is fear. There is wonder and there is awe and there is pride and there is doubt. Nothing in life will cause you to feel the range of emotions like parenting will cause you to feel.

And then they just let us take him out of the hospital. Which blew me away. I was like, you have to take a driver's license test for your driver. ever slice, you're just going to give me a human being? I got to just get to, they're like, well, you made them, you take them home. We don't want them here. Like, go. So we packed them up, put him in a little car seat, drove home, we get home, we go into the living room. Hey, Kristen, settle on the couch. I bring Gavin in. We set him down, and I look at Gavin, and then I look at Kristen, and I'm, now what do we do? I mean, nobody ever tells you that is the quietest they

will ever be, the cheapest they will ever be, the sweetest they'll ever, like, but what do you do? Because in our culture, honestly, it's sort of assumed the point of parenting. I mean, we say it all the time, right? Like, well, I just want my kid to be happy. Or I want them to be successful, or I want them to be fulfilled. But is that really all you want for your kids? And at some point or another, you have to ask, wrestle down, and answer the most important question you can ever ask as a parent. And that is, what is the point of parenting? What's the end goal of parenting? What is it at the end of this whole thing that you are looking to accomplish? And as Christians, here's what the end of it all is. The end is that our children would love the Lord their God with all of their heart, soul, mind, and

strength, that Jesus would be the one thing that drives everything in their lives, that they would fix their eyes on Jesus and go after Jesus with everything they've got every moment of every day, no matter what it is that they're doing. Now, here's the problem. You're feeling it right now, because I can see it in your faces. It's impossible. It's impossible. You and I can't make anybody love anybody else. You can't make your kids love God. Now, some of that is good news, but some of that creates a problem because then you're like, okay, well, then what do we do? Now, have you ever been camping? Like real camping, not like RVing, not like hoteling on wheels, right? Like real camping. You go camping, and what you don't do when you go to build a campfire is you don't go find the biggest

log you can find, drop it in the fire ring, strike a match, and throw it on it, hope a fire takes off. What you have to do when you build a fire is you go and find little pieces of kindling and you stack those little pieces of kindling up that when the spark hits it, it would ignite into a little flame and then it would catch the bigger pieces of kindling and the bigger pieces and the bigger pieces until the big giant pieces of wood burn bright and long and hot for a long, long time. And that's what we do as parents. That the main thing of parenting is that we would stack kindling, gospel kindling around the hearts of our children, that the Holy Spirit would come along and ignite it so that Jesus becomes the one thing

that drives everything in their lives. That we don't make our kids believe in Jesus. We just are called to stack up the kindling of the gospel around their heart. That the Holy Spirit would do what the Holy Spirit does, what only the Holy Spirit does. what only the Holy Spirit can do, which is bring them to faith. And so what we're going to do, we're going to pick up in 1st Samuel, chapter 1, verse 21. And last week, Pastor Jobi kicked off this new series called Prophet, Priests, and Kings. So if you've got a Bible, turn to 1st Samuel, or if you've got your journal, you can flip a couple pages in, and you'll see where we're going to be today in part 2.

And what we're going to do is we're going to pick up the story. There's a family in 1 Samuel, where it begins. there's Elkina and Hannah, husband and wife. They aren't able to have a child. They have struggled with infertility for a really long time. And if you've been in that place, Pastor Joby talked about that. My wife and I dealt with that. We found it really hard to become pregnant.

We actually lost our first child part of the way through pregnancy. And so I know the weight that that hangs on you. But after praying and praying and praying and praying, Elkina and Hannah become pregnant. And then they're left with this child. They've got Samuel and they're having this moment. Now what? Now what do we do? And so what we're going to do is walk through 1st Samuel and we're going to look at these pieces of

kindling that we can stack around the hearts of our children that the Holy Spirit might ignite them to faith. And I know when I say that in a room like this and across our campuses, you hear that. And for some of you, you're like, well, I don't have kids and you just sort of mentally check out. And I would go, hold on, hold on, hold on. you might have a niece, you might have a nephew that you could come around and stack kindling. You might be the only one in the life of a child that can stack kindling of the gospel around their heart. Or maybe you have a friend that is far from the Lord.

And you're wondering, how do I get it so that the spirit would ignite faith in them? And I think you're smart enough to be able to translate this over to look like that. I think this is something you can do when you have a newborn. you've got a little kid, you've got teenagers. If you're a grandparent, you can keep doing this to your adult children. You can keep stacking kindling around your grandkids' hearts. And so here's where the story picks up. 1, 1, verse 21.

The man Elkina in all his house went up to offer to the Lord the yearly sacrifice and to pay his vow. But Hannah did not go up. So if you just stop there, it sort of looks like, uh-oh, mom doesn't go to church. for she said to her husband, as soon as the child is weaned, I will bring him. And now watch what she says next. So she says, as soon as he's weaned, I'll bring him so that. And that is really important. Whenever you see so that or because or therefore, you need to circle those words in the Bible, because they really, really matter. Because what she's about to say, what follows the so that is the end game for her. She's saying all that I'm doing on this, the weaning him and the waiting and everything that I'm doing,

it's not just out of convenience, it's not just out of ease. She is doing those things so that he may appear in the presence of the Lord and dwell there forever. That she wants her son to be able to stand face to face, to be able to appear before the Lord, and then dwell, live, walk with him all the days, abide with him, all the days, abide with him, the days of his life. And so she is beginning. She has an end in mind. And the first piece of gospel kindling that we can stack around our kids is that we would

start with the end in mind. When I was 18, when I was graduating high school, it was the day of graduation. My parents threw a big family graduation party, potato salad and ham and all that that you have to eat deviled eggs and all that. And all my family's around and my friends come over. And we're about to start dinner. and my dad gets a glass and his knife and he clinks his knife on the glass and he's like, I have something to say. So he gathered up and, you know, he's like, Adam, we're so proud of you.

You made it. Like, you barely, but you made it. You're done. And he says, it's been great having you live in this house. Come back and visit anytime you want. Like, I wouldn't even out of my cap and gown yet. But my parents, my brothers are like, dives on his room, right? Like, I was homeless. before I had my diploma in my hand. But I remember, I mean, that was, joking aside, they had an end in mind. They were going somewhere with this whole thing. And as parents, what is it that is the end in mind that you're working for? Because everything has an end.

And if you don't pick an end intentionally, one will be picked for you unintentionally. In unintentional choices, get unintended consequences. that unintentional choices get unintended consequences. You would never go to Home Depot and just buy a bunch of wood and nails and be like, let's see if we can build a house. Let's see how this ends up. If you could, you wouldn't just hop on a plane and be like, well, I wonder where this will take me. And how much more important are our children?

That you and I, do you know when your children are born, if you live in the United States, when your children are born, you have about 938 weeks with them until they graduate. If you had a jar, the jar would be about this big, about this big around, and it would only be filled about half full with marbles. So what are you going to do with those 938 weeks? Do you know the end of this whole thing that you're aiming for? One of the things that I do with couples that are getting married and premarital counseling, and if you don't want to do this, don't see me. me for premarital counseling, but I tell couples, sit down and write a top five list. Take the top five most important things in your life. What are the things that you want to

define your family and list them in order? What is number five, number four? And then do it separately, and then when you're on good terms, come together and talk about it. And see if you can come up with what is the most important thing. What is it that you're aiming? for in your life. And when you do this, it will lay out priorities for you. It'll begin to affect your schedule, your calendar, the way you spend money. It'll make it so much easier to say no to things. That in a world of incredible distraction, focus is a superpower. That knowing where you're going and knowing the end game is a superpower. But I'm telling you, if you do, that. If you parent with the end in mind, you will be so countercultural. You will be such an oddball

if you do that. But if you start with the end in mind, when you start parenting with the end in mind, you're not just doing some best practices. It's not just good tips and tricks for better parenting. When you parent with the end in mind, you actually are displaying and declaring and demonstrating the very character and nature of God. I mean, this whole thing is not taking God by surprise. From the very beginning, God knew exactly the way all of his creation would go. The good, the bad, the wonderful, the sinful, none of it caught him out of surprise. God is not working in our lives reactionary.

He has an end in mind. He knows the end in mind. And the end in mind is that Jesus would step into our lives, rescue us that we might stand face to face before him to the glory and praise of his incredible name. That God worked with that way. That Jesus never chose easy. He chose eternal. He never chose comfortable. He chose the cross.

In Hebrews 12, verse 2, it says, fix your eyes on Jesus. the pioneer and the perfector of faith for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. That Jesus endured the cross for a joy that he knew was coming. The joy of your salvation, the joy of his resurrection, the joy of getting to be in the presence of God forever. Jesus knew that and he lived his whole life with that end in mind. And so verse 23, Elkanah, her husband, said to her, well, do what seems best to you. Now, the problem when he says that is you can't really

see his heart. Is he engaged or is he being passive? Right? I mean, dads, you're sitting on the couch, you're watching a football game, your kids come in, they're like, hey, can I spend the night at Jane's house? And you're, you can, this is what you say, right? What did mom say? What did your mom say? Now, there's two ways you can say that. You can say, what did your mom say? Meaning, I'm busy, I'm watching the football game, get out of here, go talk to mom. Or you can say, uh-uh, you're not dividing and conquering mom and I. We're one on this thing. We're synced up on this thing. And you can't really tell which way Elkanah is going here. But do you know what God wanted for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? He wanted for them to be engaged with one another

and engaged with him. And do you know what the problem was that happened in the Garden of Eden? It was that Adam was passive. When Eve began to be tempted, Adam stepped back. He didn't engage. He stepped back in passivity and let her walk into the temptation of Satan. The most dangerous place that you can be, spiritually speaking, is alone. The most dangerous place your kids can be is alone.

And they don't need a perfect parent. Your kids don't need perfection. What they need is engaged. They need you to fight against passivity. And that's the other piece of kindling you can stack up around them, is that you would fight and push back against that passivity. They don't need you to be perfect. They just need you to be engaged and point to the fact

that they have a perfect heavenly father. So don't ever miss the opportunity to be engaged. Last week, I was in the Middle East. I was in Kuwait. I was in Beirut. We were planting these churches. And I got home Monday night, about midnight, Tuesday morning. I came in here, did some things on Tuesday.

Tuesday night, by about 9 o'clock, I was out. I mean, passing out, tired, jet lagged, on the day. the floor, couldn't keep my eyes awake. So I go to bed, I crawl in bed, we go to sleep. And about two seconds later, Gavin, our 16-year-old, comes running in and in like WWE style, like up on the bed, just body slams me. And it's like, Dad, I'm going to bed. All right, good night, dad, see you later. And I was like, Gavin, get. And I just laid into him. I mean laid into him. Drifted right back off to sleep. The next day I get up, we're breakfast.

Chris and I are breakfast. And I'm like, can you believe Gavin coming in and being, like, I'm trying to sleep. I've been traveling. He comes in and like jumps all over us and yelling. And Kristen's like, he tiptoed in and whispered good night. And you lit him up. About that time Gavin comes out of his bedroom. And he sits down.

And at that moment, I had a choice. Do I invoke dad privileges and just like let this one slide? Like I made you, I can yell at you whenever I feel like it. And I just like, Kristen's giving me the eye and I'm like, all right, I'll engage. And I was like, Gab, I'm so sorry. My heart is so wretched. I will sin in my sleep at you. Like, I will, that's how dark it is down here.

I sin while I sleep. He's like, it's okay, dad. I forgive you. And then at that moment, I loved it. Kristen jumped in and she's like, hold on, hold on on. It's not okay. We forgive. It's not okay that he did that, but we forgive.

And she had the choice of whether to engage or not engage. And I'm just telling you, as a parent, jump in, engage. Don't miss the moment with your kids. Let them see you engaging. Let them see the gospel and working on you and engaging your heart. And dads, for a minute, there was this study that was done in 1994, I think, in Switzerland. And here's what it said. It said this, that if dads are not engaged in faith, so if dads are not engaged in all,

only 2% of their children will consistently engage in their faith. If dads are irregularly engaged in their faith, only 3% will consistently engage in their faith. But if dads engage regularly, if dads push back against passivity and engage their faith and engage their children in faith regularly, 82% of their kids will engage at some level in their faith. Your kids don't need you to be perfect. They need you to be engaged. Fighting against the passivity of this whole thing. And when you fight back against the passivity, you are, you're declared.

declaring and demonstrating, you're stacking up gospel kindling around your children to declare and to demonstrate the character and the nature of God. That God is not a passive God. The God, when the wheels came off this entire thing for us and we chose our will over God's will, God didn't step back and go, all right, let's see you work that out. Let's see if you can figure your way to me. I'll just sit over here and wait for you to get your act together. No, what God did was he went, No, the sin is so deep. You're going to do it in your sleep. You can't fix that.

I need to come and rescue you. You'll never figure your way up to me. You'll never do enough good things. You'll never do enough right things to be able to earn your way into my presence. And so I've got to come. I've got to engage. And when you engage, you're declaring and demonstrating the very character and nature of God. So Elkinah, her husband, said to her,

Do what seems best to you, wait until you've weaned him. Only may the Lord establish his word. In essence, what Elkin is saying here is, hey, listen, whatever we do, we're going to do this thing in light of the word of God. We're going to do this thing in line with the word of God. That scripture is the word of God. when I was in Kuwait a couple days ago we were waiting for this meeting with the one guy in the entire country

that could grant us permission to plant a church or not plant a church the whole thing hinged on this one meeting that we may or may not be able to have and so we're waiting outside his office and right near his office is the one bookstore in the entire country where it's legal to buy a Bible they have one there's one type of Arabic Bible that you can buy and it's in that one place and we just so happened to be standing there waiting for this meeting.

And these two women walk up, they had immigrated into Kuwait, and they, along with their husbands, were evangelizing and planting a church among the immigrant population in Kuwait. And they had saved up their money, and they were going to that bookstore, and they had all their money, and they're standing in front of the Bibles, and they're looking for the one Bible they can afford to buy. and I'm listening to them talk and so we step in we just ask them a couple questions we come to find out they're trying to plant this whole church but they only have money enough for one Bible and some of the stuff they were saying it was like oh I don't know this is a little crazy and I'm like how many

bibles are in here how many Arabic bibles do we have so we just cleared the bookshelves and bought them every Arabic Bible that they had right you guys did that you guys bought them and as we're leaving Blaine, the pastor who's going to plant the church with us, he's like, she was a little crazy. And I'm like, well, you have to be a little crazy to plant a church in the Middle East. Come on. I said, but why wouldn't you put as many Bibles in the hands of people? Because here's what we believe about the scripture, is that the scripture, it's inspired by God, that it's inerrant, it's right, that it is infallible. It teaches us about the Lord. Listen to what this says. Second Timothy 316, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof,

for correction, for training, and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Romans 10 says this, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. not your works, not your actions, not your good behavior, a belief that Jesus is who he said he is, he did what he said he would do. And you believe that and you confess that. And then it says this in verse 17. So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ, that there is incredible power in the Word of God by the power of the Spirit. And the other piece of kindling that we would stack up around our kids is that we would just saturate all of our lives in the

Word of God. That we would just saturate it up. Do you know what fat lighter is? You ever heard of fat lighter? So we got pine trees around Jacksonville all over the place. Pine trees have sap in it. And whenever they cut down a pine tree or pine tree dies, the sap that had been up, way up in the trunk had seeped down. It gets down into the root. And as the root rots and the whole root starts to break apart, the sap turns into this resin. And so you get this resin tar soaked little piece of wood. And all you have to do is like pull a box of matches out of your pocket to set it on fire. It's the greatest piece of kindling you've ever seen in your life. And that's what the word of God is. The word of God is, it's like gasoline on the hearts of our lives and on the

hearts of our children. And so do whatever it takes to soak. their lives in the Word of God. Do you know that when Jesus started his earthly ministry, he started it by preaching out of the book of Isaiah? That when the church launched and Peter preached the very first sermon, he preached right out of the book of Joel. That when Martin Luther was a monk in the 1500s in Germany, and his heart was just twisted up that he didn't know how to get right with God, he went to the book of Romans and read the book of Romans and God saved him while he was alone in his little monk room. And everything that we know about faith was altered. Everything that we know about church was altered from that time on. Because there's power by the spirit of God and the word of God.

And so do whatever it takes. You don't have to know the Bible. Listen, if you don't know where to start, all you have to do is read it to your kids. Go to the book of Luke, Matthew, Mark, Luke. It's the third account of life of Jesus and it runs the entire life of Jesus. Just read them a little bit and ask them how they feel about it. I have this, this is probably, I don't know how this is probably our 20th copy of the Jesus storybook Bible. This is the greatest children's Bible I have ever seen in my life. We have worn this thing out. Pages are ripped out of it. Our kids have colored all over it. If you have kids that are under about the age of 10, you should, like I'm not even getting paid for this, but I'm telling you, you should go get one of these and read one of these.

If you as an adult have never read the Bible before, go get one of these. I'm just telling you, this sits on my desk. There's one sitting back on Pastor Joey's desk. This is incredible. Do whatever it takes. Do whatever it takes. Let your kids see you soaking up the word of God in your own life. Now, listen, if you can do family worship time and devotions at night, God bless you. And I mean it. Like, do it. If you can do it, if you can pull it off.

In our house, somebody always has their finger about a centimeter away from somebody's face. And they're like, he touched me. No, I didn't. I didn't touch him. I mean, we're back stage before the first service. Kristen and Gavin and Sophie and I, and I'm like, let's pray. And so we're holding hands. Man, Kristen just like prays down heaven.

Sophie, 13, just sweet. God, do a word. You know, like, have your 13-year-old daughter praying for you. Come on. And then Gavin's 16-year-old is like, dear God, don't let us screw it up for dad today. It's a parenting talk. Keep Sophie in line. Everybody'll think dad's a fraud.

We just, you know, I look at like, I guess God's sarcastic? I don't know. Like, but for us, what seems to work in our house is that we just sit down at dinner and we just start plying our kids with questions about life. And we're just looking for a way in somewhere that we would. their lives in the Word of God. Gavin was in middle school. Seventh grade, he comes home one day. He's like, we're having dinner and I'm asking him, how's days going, and we're asking a bunch of questions, what happened? How's recess? You know, how's class? He's like, Dad, you'll never believe what happened at lunch. He's like, it was crazy, dad. I'm sitting there at lunch. All of a sudden,

this girl jumps up on the table, starts jumping up and down on the table going, I demand to be treated like a boy. Not into a middle school boy, when this happens, he's like, Dad, it was crazy in there, Dad. And I'm thinking what you're thinking right now is like, what do you do when your kid brings that home? I'm like, this is not in the manual. Like, Googling, like, what do you say? You know, at that moment, so what do we do?

Okay, we should probably go and read Genesis 1. We should probably ask, how did God create men and women? We should read Psalm 139. Did God make a mistake when he knit us together in our mother's womb? Who gets to determine our identity? That you would soak, we would soak all of our lives in the scripture. Listen to this promise. Isaiah 5511.

God says this, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose it. when you read the word of God over your children, when you soak your family in the word of God, you don't have to know it. It's you saying, God, I need you to do what you promised you would do, that by the power of your spirit,

you would send your word out, and you would accomplish exactly what you want to accomplish in our family. So the woman remained, verse 23, nursed her son until she had weaned him. When she weaned him, she took him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an F of flour, and a skin of wine. Now look, she's going to church, and she's bringing steak, bread, and wine. I'm just saying, I don't know what you brought, but chop house is good.

She brought him with steak bread and wine. She brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. and the child was young. What you'll see as we continue to walk through the book of Samuel is this rhythm of Elkanah and Hannah going up to the house of the Lord and going home and taking their son to the house of Lord and coming home and taking them up and putting them in the arms of Eli, the priest, and then they'll go home and then they'll make them some new clothes and they'll bring them or they'll make them some food and they'll bring them. And what you see begins to form is this partnership between the family and the house of God.

and your child was created to be a part of the family of God. He was created to be in your family, and your family was created to be among the people of God. That you were not meant to be isolated. Your kids were not meant to be isolated from the family of faith. That when we separate and we pull back from the family of faith, we're just setting ourselves up for the enemy to pick us off. We're ripe.

for the enemy's attack. And so the fourth piece of kind of stack up around your kid's heart is that you would prioritize church as a partner. The church is not an afterthought to God. The church is central to the plan of God. The church is not a replacement for you as parents, but it is a partner for you as parents.

I'm so grateful for this right now in our life. When our kids go to student ministry on Wednesday night, do you know what they come home talking about? Well, tell you what they don't talk about. They don't come home and they don't go, Dad, you'll never imagine what the lights were like. Dad, you'll never imagine how many people they had in the band. Dad, you'll never imagine the set and all that. And those are great and those are wonderful. But the thing they come home talking about is, Dad, do you know what Kat said? Dad, Dad, do you know what Tommy said? Tommy said. Tommy said. Tommy said. Tommy said. And I'm just telling you, Tommy, Tommy. Tommy. Tommy. thank you. Like, thank you. There are people that are pouring into the lives of our kids, the Word of God.

And I can't tell you how powerful it is to have another voice that's saying the same thing that you and I as parents are trying to say to our kids. That's what the church is to do. And if you're a single parent, I mean, you are doing something so incredible. And we as a church, we want to. stand in the gap with you, that we want to partner with you, that we don't want to be a replacement for anything, but we want to stand with you that you would point your kids to God and say, God is your heavenly father. God is the one that stands in the gap and fills every need in your

life. He is the perfect heavenly father. And that we would do that. Go to family camp. Put your kids in camp. Get them here. Show up in the house of Lord. Go do a family mission trip. Because when you do this, when you prioritize church as a partner, you are declaring and demonstrating the character and the nature of God. That Jesus loves his church. Jesus died for his church. Jesus said, my church will not fail. The gates of hell will not prevail. You want to put your kids on the winning team? You want to put your kids in an environment of success? The gates of hell won't prevail against the church of God.

And then they slaughtered the bull and they brought the child to Eli. And she said, oh, my Lord, as you live, my Lord, I am the woman who is standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord. For this child, I prayed, and the Lord has granted my petition that I made to him. Do you hear that prayed and prayed and prayed eight times in chapter one. prayed, I prayed, I prayed, I prayed. The first half of chapter two is just a record of one of Hannah's prayers. A whole prayer is recorded in here.

Then another piece of kindling that we would stack around our kids is that we would pray with and for our families. I remember when Kristen and I got married on our wedding day, my mom went in and talked to Kristen for a few minutes for the wedding and she just said, hey, I have to let you know something. I've been praying for you. since I found out that I was pregnant with Adam. She said, I knew that God had somebody in mind for my son. And I didn't know you.

I had no idea. But I knew somewhere there were a set of parents that were having a little girl that one day would grow up. And I've been praying for you. Do you know what that did? Do you know what that did to shape Kristen? Do you know the legacy that has left in our family? and I'm just telling you, pour out your soul before God on behalf of your kids. You don't have to be good at praying.

I know what you're thinking. You're like, if I'm going to pray with my kids, then I've got to be better at praying. I've got to be more eloquent with my words. And I'm just telling you, God doesn't hear you based on your eloquence. God doesn't hear you based on how good your prayers sound. God hears you based on the blood of Jesus Christ. that the reason God hears you is because Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected, and is seated at the right hand of the Father for you right now. He hears you because Jesus carries your prayers

to the Father. And when you do that, when you pour your soul out for your kids, and you pray over your kids and you fumble over your words, you are declaring and demonstrating the very character and nature of God. And you're stacking, kindling. John 17, Jesus prayed for you. And when he's in the garden, Jesus prayed, God, not my will, your will. When Jesus was on the cross, he said, God, forgive them. They don't even know what they do. They sin and their sleep.

They're so wretched. Forgive them, God. And he prayed for you and he prayed for me. Here's the most amazing thing. Right now, Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding and praying for you. At this moment, the resurrected Savior of the world is going to the Heavenly Father on your behalf. And when you pray for your kids, you are declaring and demonstrating that type of God. For this child, I prayed. And the Lord granted me my petition, the petition that I made to him.

therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he's lent to the Lord. Isn't that interesting? Like in one breath she goes, hey God, I prayed for this. I declared I could, I can't make this child happen. And God, you granted, you gifted this child to me. Then in one breath, she recognizes that this child belongs to God, that this child was given as a gift from God. She didn't make this child happened. God made this child happen. And then she turns around and says, so God, I lend him to you? Then that sounds weird? Like, we lend things we own. But what she doesn't mean here is, like, God, I'm going to let you kind of have for a little bit my son, but he's really mine. What she's saying is, God, I'm laying down all of my hopes. I'm laying down all of my dreams. I'm laying down all of my dreams. I'm laying down all of my rights to claim on this child. And God, he's yours. He's yours. All I want to do,

God, is steward his life that he would live for you all the days of his life. And when you and I, we could stack up this kindling when we would see ourselves as stewards of our children's lives. That our children belong to God, but that we are stewarding their lives. And I'm learning this like crazy right now. So our kids get older. It didn't just little kids like, I want to be a truck driver. They're saying things like, Dad, Sophie says, Dad, I want to move to Paris when I grew up and I want to be a baker.

Uh-oh. And my question to her needs to be, Sophie, not what do you want to do, but what does God want you to do? Then we need to shift away from, honey, just follow your heart to, honey, follow the heart of the Lord. Imagine if we raised up a generation. Think just in this church, the thousands and thousands and thousands of children

that if we raise them up to put away the American dream and to put on God's dream for them, imagine the impact that would have across the globe. Imagine what would happen if we released generations of children that grew up and they had their eyes squarely fixed on Jesus and they said no matter what happens, no matter where I work, what I do, my family, my leisure, whatever it is, my wealth, whatever it is, Lord, I want to do with all of that, whatever you want me to do because my life is yours.

Imagine what that would do to this world. Imagine the way it would transform things. And when you do that, when you steward your children's lives, you are declaring and you're demonstrating the character and nature of God. Now, we just spent the last 40 minutes talking about tips and tricks and best practices to be better Christian parents. Honestly, this would be another waste of time.

Because this isn't even really about that. See, when we named this series Prophet, Priests, and Kings, we named it that because in the book, of Samuel, you will see the rise of prophets and priests and kings. But the rise of those prophets and priests and kings weren't just to point us to good moral stories. They weren't just to teach us how to be better versions of ourselves. They were to point us to the prophet, the priest, and the king. That when Samuel is dead.

That's what's going on here in his life, that when Samuel is dedicated, his dedication is not about him. That when we dedicated these kids, their dedication was not about them. When Samuel is dedicated, it wasn't even about his mom and dad. When these kids are dedicated, it wasn't even about their mom and dad. When Samuel was dedicated, his dedication was pointing forward to another dedication that would happen 1,100 years later. that another family that has the miraculous birth of a child, Mary and Joseph, they show up at the temple and they walk in and there's another man standing in the temple like Eli was standing that day. And his name is Simeon.

And when Simeon sees Mary and Joseph walk in with Jesus for Jesus' dedication, Simeon looks up to God and he says, oh God, I've prayed and waited all my life. You can take me now because as I look at this child, I have seen salvation. That the dedication of Samuel points to the dedication of Jesus, and the dedication of Jesus points to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. That Jesus is our prophet. That he is the one that all of Scripture is pointed to. He's the one that is said all of God's plans, all of God's purposes, all of God's ends are coming to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and that Jesus is our priest. That Jesus, you don't need another mediator between you and God, you just need Jesus.

That Jesus is the priest, and he is the sacrifice. That he came and he lived the life that you and I should have lived. but our hearts are so dark we do it in our sleep and we can't fix this stuff inside of us and our sin doesn't just make us bad our sin makes us dead and Jesus came and lived a perfect life and on the cross he who knew no sin actually let this sink in became sin

that you might have a right face-to-face relationship with your heavenly father forever and when he died on the cross, he was the perfect sacrifice. And they buried him, and three days later, he was resurrected. And he walked around and he saw hundreds and hundreds of people for about a month and a half. And what he said was, not if you trust in your good works, not if you trust in your efforts, not if you trust in your parenting skills, but if you trust in me, if you trust in Jesus, then what Jesus did on the cross counts for you.

And the life that he had in the resurrection will be the life that you will have in the resurrection. And that he is our king. That Jesus right now is ruling and reigning. All of the chaos that you feel inside of you as a parent does not move Jesus off its throne. For some of you, your kids have grown up and you've thought, well, I didn't stack any kindling and you feel guilt and you feel shame and when you feel that, I would just say Jesus is still on the throne of your child's life. Jesus is still in perfect control as the resurrected and ascended savior of the world and that he's still not done and that you can trust him and that you can

rest in the fact that Jesus has your children. And then if you will surrender your life to him, Jesus will have you. And then this chapter ends with this, and he worshipped the Lord there. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to worship the Lord. We're going to respond to the gospel, and we're going to worship the Lord.

And so you need to come down and pour out your heart and pour out your soul. And then others of you, you can't pour it out until it's in you. You can't give what you don't have. And what you need, what you have felt is the spirit this morning, igniting faith inside of you. And what you need to pass on to your children is you need Christ in you, the hope of glory.

So this morning, maybe it would be for you that you would surrender your life, that you would say, Jesus, I want you to be my prophet, I want you to be my priest, I want you to be my king. and I lay my life down and I trust you with all of my life so that I might know my Heavenly Father. So would you bow your heads? And if you say, I want Jesus as my prophet, my priest, my king, I want what Jesus did on the cross and his life,

his death, and his resurrection to count for me. I want God in my life. I want Christ in my life so that I can pour it out for my children. you have never surrendered your life to the Lordship of Christ. And you want to do that. Would you raise your hand right now? The spirit would be igniting faith in you right now. Absolutely.

You would see God bringing you to faith. Heavenly Father, we love you. We thank you for your son, Jesus. Lord, we pray that we would respond in faith as we worship. Thank you that you have ignited faith in this place. And God, we pray for our children, that we would stack kindling around their hearts, that you, Holy Spirit, would ignite it to faith according to your perfect plan and to your glory, your fame, and your renown alone.

We pray it in your name, Jesus. Amen.