From Generation to Generation

Message Transcription

Well, if you have your Bible, invite you to turn over to to Psalm 78. The passage you just read invites you to kind of be looking through that. As we talk this morning, I'm going to actually be preaching from a couple of different texts, but that one kind of serves, I think, as a as an overall kind of preparing our hearts for for what God has to give to us. Today. I was online this week looking at some different articles came across, one that has to do with economics and moms I thought was kind of an interesting article. It was a couple of years old, but the author in it cited the study done by the government called the American Time Use Survey. And in this survey they asked parents, how do you typically spend the hours of your day, the time that you have? How do you typically spend those hours? Now, it may not be surprising to you, but these parents had kids under 18, and this is some of the things they found. Women moms spend 1.7 hours engaged in childcare as a primary activity. As compared with 0.9 of one hour for men. It may not surprise you that much. Again, these are averages. So some of these moms are working, some are not. If you include secondary child care time and that's time spent while also doing something else, aka multitasking. Women spend 7.6 hours a day tending to their children while men allocate just five.

The gap persists even when both parents are working full time with when women spending an average of 30 minutes more a day caring for your kids now. 30 minutes doesn't sound like a whole lot of time to you. If you add it up over the course of a year, it's equivalent to Dad taking a week long vacation while Mom does parenting herself. I do not recommend that as a strategy for marital bliss or success. Right. But the author was promoting these economic policies, saying, what in our world today actually helps encourage and nurture and bless our parents? And his thesis was, we need to do more to help working mothers and working fathers because they do so much not only for families but also the economy is really interesting kind of an article, but he ended it this way, he says. So this Mother's Day, let's remember two things. First, labor market policy must respect and prioritize the job of parent. And second, call your mom. Call your mom. For those of us who are able today, call your mom. It's a day we try our best to show love and appreciation for our moms. Moms play a huge role in our lives. Now, again, we're thinking of the best here as a church. We're trying to do our best to live into the roles that God gives to us. And so as we think about what it means to be a mom, we stop and we think about it's not just important that we support working parents economically, but how are we doing that spiritually? How are we helping come alongside and encourage and nurture our moms because they play a huge role in the nurturing of spiritual life and families.

You may remember a Barna study that came out just a couple of years ago, talked about this latest generation of teenagers, Gen Z, and they said they consistently identified Mom as the principal housemate for almost all activities, everything from talking about God to having conversations, even confrontations. They seek their moms out most when it comes to advice, encouragement, sympathy, things that might be troubling them. Questions of faith, questions about the Bible, self reporting, teenagers saying, I go to mom when I'm looking for important spiritual task. In fact, 68% of them said Mom was there in my last personal crisis. Mothers consistently were sought out when it came to things like being a prayer partner, talking about God, talking about the Bible, other faith questions. And one of the amazing things about the role of motherhood, it's also about fatherhood. And we'll talk about that next month on Father's Day. But today, we're going to drill down and and think about the significance of being a mom is the important work that God does in and through our moms to challenge, to encourage, to help us.

That's why we care so much about our parents and our moms here and family ministry at Broadway. In fact, starting next Sunday, there's going to be a class called Parenting Conversations. It'll be a three week class. Brian Brunson, our youth minister, a couple of our former staff, Jennifer and Randy, who are getting ready to transition into Pioneer Bible translation work. But they're going to be teaching this class just coming alongside parents and talking to them about the significance of the work that they're doing and trying to gather parents together to to support and encourage one another by going to God's word and thinking some about what does Scripture have to say to us as moms and dads, we recognize that's not your only role that you play in life. And in fact, it's not your most defining role that you play in life. But it is a very important role that you play and we want to come alongside and support our parents. In fact, if you exit the building this way or go down this hallway, you'll see we have a whole section of our building called the Waystation. And what we've tried to do there is identify different tools and resources to come alongside and equip our parents, whether it's something as simple as planning a movie night or a game night at your house, or maybe more seasonal, seasonally related resources around holidays, but also just stage of life resources.

What do I do when I'm launching a teenager? What do I do when I'm trying to talk with my kids about some really important topics, like, like sex or like how to deal with peer pressure? We have resources identified just to come alongside and help encourage and challenge our parents into deeper thinking about what is the wisdom that we get from God. I invite you to check that out on your way out today. Or if you're more of a technology person, we have all of those resources available online on our website. We invite you to go there because we believe in the role of mothering and the support that we want to provide to bring alongside you. This may be more appropriate line to do on Father's Day, but Home Depot had one of the best ad lines, I think, in a long time that I think actually applies to what we do here at Broadway. Their line was, you can do it and we can help. That's how we feel about resourcing our families is we believe in you, God believes in you. That's why He gave you this child. Maybe for some of us that's a spiritual relationship. God, spiritually given you to be a spiritual grandparent or parent of a kid who who's far away. And I would not have been able to make it as long as we have here in Lubbock without spiritual parents to come alongside us, to encourage us, because our family lives at least 4 to 5 hours away.

We can't just run over at any problem. So we've had to gather around folks who have served as spiritual parents for us and grandparents for our kids. It's changed our life. And so we want to do all that we can to support you in whatever role you find yourself in. One of my favorite things about serving at Broadway is our heart for adoption and helping find homes for kiddos, where they'll have a mom and a dad, someone who will love them, who care for them, who help nurture them in the faith and all that's happening with that. This desire, though, is not something that's unique to us, and it's not unique to Broadway. Even though we've been here and trying it for a while, this is actually a story that's rooted deep in Scripture. In fact, if you're around much and you hear Brian teach or McKenzie at some point here pretty soon teaching, they're going to refer to this passage, this one that I want us to spend a little time in together this morning. Deuteronomy Chapter six, that it's here. Moses has led the people out of captivity and he's about to take them into the Promised Land. And so they're talking about this amazing covenant that God has made to be their God, to lead them, to guide them, to watch over them, to take care of them.

And as he's outlining what this covenant will look like. Here in Chapter six. As it opens up, Moses calls them the people to Remember. In fact, it's become a prayer in the Jewish faith, one called the Shema, which simply means to remember verse one. These are the commands, decrees and lost the Lord. Your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you and your children and their children after may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all His decrees and commands that I give you and so that you may enjoy long life here o Israel and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors promised you. Hero Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one love the Lord Your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. It's two times in these opening verses here of Chapter six, Moses challenges the people to remember, to hear, to listen. In fact, here in verse five, where he says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, and all your strength. He begins by rooting them in this amazing love God has for them.

But he says it's also got to be rooted in you. And so love God do your best to care for your relationship with Him, with all your heart and your soul and your strength. In fact, Jesus would pick up on the same verse when later in his ministry he's asked by some some teachers of the law who come to him and say, There are a lot of commands out there. Jesus, loose translation here, the Greek. There's a lot of translation, a lot of commandments. What's most important, what matters the most? And Jesus says This is what matters most. Love the Lord, your God. Love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and your strength. He gives them a bonus. The second one is this Love your neighbor as yourself. But all of these commandments, this way of life, it's all rooted back. Unless loving God moms. The number one thing you could do for your family, for your kiddos, is to love God with all your heart and your soul and your strength. All that the Spirit provides to love God. That's so critical in the lives of our kiddos is knowing they have a mom who loves God first. All of it flows out of that love. Your first love. And if we aren't careful, we can take our own spiritual health seriously, can't we? Moms, you get so busy with so many things to do that it's hard sometimes to prioritize loving our kiddos by loving God first, by taking that time.

But I promise you this you'll never regret those moments. You'll never regret that time taken away to hide in your heart. Got Scripture to spend time praying for all the things that are burdening you, but then time listening for what God may have to say to you. If you've taken a flight any time. I'm sure you've heard that that speech that the flight attendants tend to give at the very beginning. They talk about all the different possibilities of plane failure, which is not the most wonderful news to hear as you're about to take off. Here are all the things that could go wrong. But one of the things they say could go wrong is we could lose cabin pressure. And if that happens, what falls down from the ceiling? These air masks. Right. And if you listen closely, you'll hear them tell you this. Put yours on first, especially if you're traveling with a child or someone who's disabled or who can't help them. Put yours on first, then put it on your child. Why? Because they know if you try to help them, you're going to go out and then you can't help anybody. And so they say, put yours on first. I think that's the wisdom Moses is trying to give to moms here this morning.

Put your mask on first. Moms love God, love Jesus with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength. Because it's only then that you'll be able to from that begin to love and to help your kiddos know how to love and to follow Jesus. It's so crucial. But, you know, that's not all. The counsel that Moses gives, he picks up in verse six. These commands that I give to you today are to be on your hearts, put them on your hearts, and press them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road. When you lie down. And when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands. And bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. Mom. So just keep these commands to yourself. Don't just dwell in God's presence yourself, he says. Teach it. Turn around and give it back to your kids. Talk about it when you're walking, when you're coming and you're going. When you lay down. And when you get up. These words, this truth, this gift of faith and trust and wisdom in the Lord is a gift that will continue giving your child's entire life. And there will come a time, Moses says later in Chapter six, when your kids, your sons are going to stop and ask you Why? Why do we do this? Why do we live this way? We've had conversations like this in our house.

Why don't we? Why can't we have some of the things that other people have? Why are we giving this money over here and not keeping it for these moments where we can stop and and begin to unpack? Well, let me tell you a story. Let me tell you about the way God has been at work in our lives, how he has blessed us and shown us incredible grace and given us all kinds of blessings, and then challenged us to live into that blessing, not just for ourselves, but for others. You see, these commands aren't just for us. But therefore our children remind them what God has done for you. But not only that, he says in Chapter seven, he reminds them how God, how the story got started in the first place. This one chapter over verse seven, Moses reminds them. He says, the Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other people. In fact, you were the smallest. But it was because the Lord loved you. Again. You have your baba with you today that you could just underline right there just because the Lord loved you. It's not because you were so great. It's because his love for you was so great. Because the Lord loved you and he kept the oath that He swore to your ancestors that He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh, King of Egypt.

Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is God. He is faithful. Keeping his covenant to a of love, to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. See, Moses says you didn't choose God. God chose you. And God made a promise in his faithful to his promises. He keeps his word. But not only does he love you, he loves everyone. In fact, he is faithful to a thousand generations of those who love him and who follow his ways, blessing generation after generation, a thousand generations to come. You see, moms are your number one job. It's to love God with all your heart, soul minded strength. And then from that love, we begin to pour out. You begin to pour out into your family to help your kids know how to love and serve and follow Jesus. And to know this story, it's a story of love, of God choosing us. Of choosing you. I know it's important for us and as a kid, as we're getting ready to launch a kid out of our home into the wild, wacky world of college, and we want our kid to know how to make wise choices. I want her to be a good citizen who contributes to the health of the community around him.

We want all of those things. We want him to be kind and generous that we know all of those, those desires, our hopes, they're rooted in this promise that Gabe would know and love and follow Jesus all his days. And so we try to order our life in such a way as to promote that. And and Caitlyn, I do our best, and we fail a lot. Try to live that out to show an example of why it matters that we live that way. Moms, we need your help with this. Our teenagers say we go to mom looking for wisdom and understanding. It's not that Dad and dad, we're going to get to you next month. Mom. They're looking to you. Will you live it out for them? This commitment to love. And telling the story of a God who is committed to love. You know, oftentimes when you come across promotion of a company, the kids and I were watching the show, a game or whatever on TV will laugh at some of the products that are put out before you because at the very end, they always have to give you what that disclaimer. By the way, if you use this thing, it could cause you to lose a limb. You're like, What? Why are we? What if you take this medicine? It could make you forget.

Wait. What? So we try to listen for what's the craziest term of condition that's listed after this product that's supposed to change your life? This unconditional your life will never be the same. But by the way, we'll be on the lookout for. They usually speed up the tape. That's the only one who gives a promise without condition. Got us faithful. Period. If God promises he is faithful, you can trust him. Even when those situations and those circumstances that are that are really complicated and messy and we don't know where this is going. God is faithful. He is faithful. And sometimes that's really hard to believe. And so that's why it's important for us to keep gathering together, to remind each other. Oh, yeah, he's faithful. Let me tell you how he's been faithful to me, because sometimes church, I show up and I have a hard time believing that based on what's happening in my life and the way my world seems to be coming apart. And so I'm depending upon you to help. Remind me. No God is faithful to his promises. He's faithful. He's the only one who doesn't have updated terms and conditions that change after you sign on the dotted line. This promise of faithfulness is all throughout the Scriptures, all throughout the Old Testament. Brian led off with one Psalm 100, verse five. He's faithful. Psalm 119. Verse 89 and 90, your word, Lord, is eternal.

It stands firm in the heaven. Your faithfulness continues through all generations you establish the Earth. And it endures. His faithfulness endures. Generation to generation. And that's it. There isn't any more to it. That's what unconditional promise from God looks like. He promises to do something and he does it. Again, words echoed. Hearing Becky's reading of Psalm 78, this reminder of we're going to orient our life around the principles that God has set out for us to follow, not because we're rule followers. But because we are remembering, as Jesus said, this is the life that's truly life. It's a life built upon a promise that we're not alone. No matter what is happening in our life, nothing can separate us from the amazing love of God who chose us first. Like that's the kind of life that we long for. Moms, you help us so much and living into that promise and then modeling it and raising up kiddos to know that. It's a promise of faithfulness found not in the old, not just in the Old Testament, but also in the new. In fact, one of my favorite mom stories in the New Testament second Timothy chapter one, where Paul's writing to his protege. He's trying to encourage him as he tries to do his best to raise up leaders in the church to face all the challenges that are coming at him as he tries to do that amazingly difficult work.

Verse five. Paul writes these words, I'm reminded of your sincere faith. Which first lived in your grandmother, Lois, and then your mother, Eunice. And I'm persuaded lives in new. You see, moms, one of the gifts of faith is it's not just yours. Your faith is not your own. It's a gift that that keeps on giving. You impart it into your children, Paul says. I'm reminded of how your grandmother took up this mantle of faith, and she started living in such a way that it changed your mom's life. And one day you were brought into the world and she committed to do for you what her mother had done for her as to model this amazing life of faith. You see Timothy's faith, it's not your own church. If you're here today in faith, it's not your own faith that was given to you. It was one that was imparted to you, that was taught and modeled to you by someone who loves you. And for many of us, it was a mom. And again, that may have been a biological mom or an adoptive mom or a spiritual mom, but it was a mom loving us well, loving Jesus well. And then showing us how to live in that love. This image of of God's faithfulness from generation to generation. Of moms who are willing to take their faith seriously. To say, I'm going to learn to love the Lord our God.

With all my heart. With all my soul. With all my strength. Am I trying to impart that into my kiddo? Each and every day in the simple and in the complex ways. We'll close with this this morning. The preacher in Hebrews, I think, speaks to the same idea of living into this incredible, faithful promise of God. Of God's joy and love He gives throughout all generations. He would write it this way in chapter ten, beginning of verse 19. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we could say moms and dads. Since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened up for us through the curtain. That is His body. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with His sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from all guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. And the preacher says, we've been given this amazing gift of life, of hope, of faith because of what Jesus has done for us. Well, Glenn, and reminded us just a few moments ago, around this table, we celebrate the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus that is through that amazing gift that now a life is opened up to us. And so. So then the preacher says this verse 23.

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised his faithful. His faithful moms. This is my prayer for you these days. That she would hold unswervingly to that hope. To loving God with all your heart and your soul. And your mind and your strength. In the midst of all your flaws and struggles. That you continue to try to model that life of faith and love to your kiddos never knowing it. Am I raising a timothy? Am I raising a Yoda or a Cintiq? We're not sure. All we know is you're raising the next generation of faith. And if they'll choose to follow Jesus the way you do, who knows what God might do in that? You look around this room, you're not going to lock eyes with one person that's not here because someone was faithful to Jesus and said, I'm going to share that faith. I'm going to pass it to the next generation. Moms invite you this week. How's God inviting you to step into that next generation of passing the faith? Maybe for some of us, it's inviting us deeper into to community, to growing our own personal faith. For others, maybe finding some ways to begin connecting the dots with our kiddos, imparting that faith. Wherever you are on the spiritual journey, we'd love to help you take your next step. Maybe for some, it's just trying to decide.

Can I believe it? Can this really be true? Can I really find the life that's truly life? We'd love to help you explore that. Let's pray, God. Thank you again for our moms. Thank you for the ways that they have through difficult and challenging, overwhelming circumstances have continued to pursue you. And the life you've called her to. Thank you for our biological moms. For our adoptive moms to our spiritual moms and grandmoms. Thank you. That they didn't just settle for the promise for themselves. But instead have tried to find ways to impart that faith back into the world, back into their children, back into their grandchildren, back into their church family, their church kiddos. Father. Would you encourage him this week? And I pray that they would they would feel your love, our love for them. Not just today. Certainly today, but not just today. That has kids and grandkids as spouses, as friends, that we would do a better job of coming alongside and supporting them and cheering them on for this incredible role that they play in her life. A Holy Spirit. Would you fill them to the brim? Would you touch their hearts? May they just get in some small way. Today, just a glimpse. Of the life change that has been brought about by their faithfulness to you. Gamma. You draw their hearts, their minds to the to the story of your faithfulness to them in their life.

And Lord, may it just encourage him. Again, we know this is such a complicated time as well that some of us have really hard relationships with a parent or with a kid, just rips our guts out. So God, would you bring the healing that needs to be brought? Would you help take down the walls? Would you help thaw out the frozen hearts? Whatever needs to happen. God, would you help that this week? Which begin to move us in the right direction. Lord, would you just give us courage to take that next right step and whatever direction we need to go in, whether it's to explore more about you and life in your name, whether it's to to explore reconciliation or even how to begin that process, or if it's it's to step into a Bible study or prayer group. Whatever it may be into your word. God, would you give us the courage to take that next right step? Again, Father, we thank you for our moms, for what they mean to us. We ask your blessing on them not just today, but every day forward, that they might come to know you and to love you with all their hearts, their souls, their minds, and their strength. I gather they would in turn begin to impart that and a deeper way. It's their kid house. Thank you, Father. Thank you for the gift of moms. We pray your blessing in Jesus name. Amen.