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While the language of this sermon is directed to parents, I want to give a word to the non-parents here. You might be an aunt or uncle or friend of someone younger who needs to see a questionable life. This sermon is for you. Children, perhaps you are here and your parents’ faith is lacking. This is not a critique or weapon to be used against them, rather it is a tool for you to evaluate your past in order to make informed decisions about a faithful future.

Children are not born with the knowledge of God. (Deuteronomy 31:12-13)

• I’m afraid that too often we think that children will just automatically gravitate to a vibrant faith if we take them to church. They won’t! If you add up all the hours the church has with your children, it’s less than a week. We can’t compete with you!
• Psalm 34:11, “Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” They do not naturally fear God, they must be taught. True more is caught than taught, so we must be intentional about our actions.
  • I know a man who’s daughter didn’t want to go to church. He was a leader in the congregation and often found “work” outside of service. I asked him, “When was the last time you sat in church?” He said, “It’s been awhile.” I asked, “Do you think you’re modeling a healthy spirituality for your children?” He said, “I’ve never thought about it like that before.”
  • Jenny and I try our best to be in church when we have a week off, because I feel that it’s important my children know I want to be in church even when I’m not “paid” to be here.
• Deuteronomy 11:1-7, tells us the responsibility for faithfulness is with the adults who have seen the work of God. This is why we do not baptize children. Children do not know and are not held responsible for the weighty knowledge of God, yet as they grow they must be taught about God. We only have a limited time to train them before they are responsible.
  • The church will not be a substitute for your spiritual guidance at home. We can supplement your teaching, provide another adult and role model, but if they’re not saying the same things you are then it doesn’t matter.
  • Every week with our elementary students we are sending home sheets with the Bible stories, preschool students get refrigerator magnet cards, our junior and senior high students have online presences available through the church website.

We must be intentional in our example and teaching. (Deuteronomy 31:12-13)

• We need to seize these opportunities because it is our job to train our children. If you continue in Deuteronomy 11:18-21 we see that the responsibility doesn’t end with us, it passes on to our kids. We must prepare them! Our job is to teach faithfulness to our children who will then learn to obey God.
• The ways we do that is myriad, look at Deuteronomy 11:19-21. We teach them, we talk about God at home and along the way. We need to turn off the TVs in our vans and tune into each others’ lives!
• Festivals and feasts were created for this purpose. In the Old Testament Festival of Booths in Deuteronomy and the Passover in Exodus. Today we have feasts called Christmas and Easter. We need to find shared ways of celebrating faith.
• I don’t know why we as evangelical and conservative Christians have abandoned the observance of Pentecost. This is the day our ancient forefathers looked forward to, the day the very spirit of God would be poured out on his children. We have the Spirit of God in us! Why shouldn’t we celebrate this day!
  • If Christmas is the fulfillment of the Father’s greatest promise and Easter the fulfillment of the Son’s greatest promise then Pentecost is fulfillment of the Spirits!
  • Is the Spirit somehow less equal that we don’t observe his working? No, we should celebrate his work in our lives.

Suggestions for leading a questionable life.

• Start early (Genesis 17:12, Exodus 13:2)
  • Boys in the Old Testament were circumcised; it was a mark on their body that lasted for life. We have baby dedications and give you a Bible to read with your children.
  • If you didn’t start early then start now. Start with repentance and transparency, invite your children in to help create a family worship time.
• Make traditions (Exodus 12:25-26)
  • Celebrate Biblical events and traditions: Passover, Pentecost, Christmas, etc.
  • Reclaim old church traditions. I.e. Advent, Lent, Easter season, etc. Church seasons are so relevant to us today. Celebrate Lent, not because you have to but because stillness and self-denial are needed in our culture of over indulgence.
• Remember your faith journey (Exodus 12:27)
  • Exodus 12:27, remember that you once were in slavery to sin. Don’t be afraid to tell your children you weren’t perfect, and be proud of your redemption. Salvation is not your work of holiness, it is God’s work of grace.
  • Children are not impressed with unrealistic tales of faith, but honesty and growth.
• Be consistent and persistent. (Proverbs 22:6)
  • Training a child in the right paths is an ongoing command. As you journey and grow so too must your children. If you try something and it doesn’t work, try something else. If it should work, stay with it and keep trying.
  • If your children ask questions and say, “What’s going on?” Tell them and say, “I want to make sure that we as a family celebrate our faith and grow in it.”

This is the children’s Bible I mentioned, we use it for morning stories.  I think this is a great devotional for our toddlers.

Some of you have by now figured out that the “theme song” to the new sermon series, (played in our fantastic intro clip made by Franklin Wiggins) is Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.”  Coldplay is not a “Christian Band” and has been pretty tight lipped about the meaning of this song.  Some of the lyrics however are fascinating and very insightful into church history.  While some would disagree with me, this song I believe is about the rise and fall of Christendom particularly under the power of the medieval papacy.  What makes it so appropriate is the historical nature of a very “broken answer.”  During the time of medieval Christendom the church became distracted from it’s purpose of spreading salvation to ruling the world.  The answer to more godliness they thought was to legislate behavior – instead of transforming hearts and minds.  This “legal answer” was grossly abused and used to justify all sorts of horrible atrocities (the crusades for example).  This answer was so broken that it brought about arguably the largest church split in all history.  I’ve included a link so you can watch the video in its entirety here and contemplate the lyrics for yourself.

::Click here to link to the full “Viva La Vida” video by Coldplay::

Last Sunday we looked at guilt and it’s pretty clear how guilt is out of order – once we’re forgiven guilt has no place in our lives.  But tomorrow we’ll be looking at faith, how is faith out of order?  The simple answer is that true Biblical faith is not out of order and it is still a powerful force in the world.  Jesus told the disciples that even a little faith could move a mountain and it still has that power!  (Matthew 17:20)  Yet, as we look around sometimes it seems that faith’s power is lacking and that we as the “people of faith” are a little anemic spiritually.  This disconnect between the Biblical witness and our present situation leaves many questioning – perhaps the problem is that we lack faith.  There are those who prey on the faithful and desperate by promising rewards for extravagant demonstrations of faith.  These demonstrations are usually large financial gifts to their “ministry.”  These promises leave the faithful broken and skeptical.  But, perhaps the problem is not that we don’t have enough faith – rather we don’t understand faith.  Maybe faith isn’t out of order just our understanding of it.  Tomorrow morning we’ll explore how our understanding of faith has gone awry.  I encourage you to take time in prayer, ask God to help you evaluate your faith, read through our text Matthew 14:22-33 and come prepared to learn about faith.  I’ll see you there!

Yesterday I preached from the “Parable of the Vineyard Workers” in Matthew 20:1-16. The sermon will soon be available on BGCC’s podcast. Below you will find notes, references and some other material that didn’t quite make the cut…

There Are Two Types of Workers

• Those who work for their price.
  • This is driven by me, we try to deal with God and God doesn’t deal. (Isaiah 1:11-13) Some modern bargaining chips we use include: church attendance, serving when convenient, not surrendering our lives.
  • These are the folks who in Matthew 7:21-23 say to the Lord, “Why didn’t we make it? Lord that wasn’t part of the deal!” And Jesus will reply, “I don’t make deals, now go.”

• Those who work for their faith.
  • These workers work what is needed, for more than they deserve and feel blessed. Which is what all the workers did – only these realized it.
  • Paul hints at working for faith when he tells Timothy about his “trust” in God. (2 Timothy 1:11-12)
  • Like Paul we must rely on God’s goodness – not a contract. That’s how it’s been for people of faith from the beginning.

• Both are rewarded – only one is blessed, which worker are you?
  • At the end of the day everyone worked, and everyone was treated more than fairly. The question was not the fairness, but contentment.
  • Regardless of who you are you have to finish the day to receive your pay, don’t quit now, you’ve worked hard, don’t let anyone cut in on you.

References, notes, etc…

More information about Project PG is available by clicking here.

Robert Capon’s commentary Kingdom, Grace and Judgement has a great retelling of this parable (even if it’s a bit on the edgy side).

William Mounce, Matthew (New International Biblical Commentary) was a great aid in the two worker angle of this text. This is a great commentary that’s pretty approachable for daily Bible study (even though I don’t agree with everything he says).