Well, good morning again everybody and thanks for coming today and and celebrating our first child dedication as a church. We've been appropriately in this message series called foundations. And what this series is is it is helping you establish a foundation in Christ.

And that is in your relationships. The last couple of weeks we've talked about your relationship with Christ, your romantic relationship, and this week we'll be talking about parents and parenting. Now, before that scares you away, it's going to be a message about more than parents and parenting, and I'll get to that in a second. But as we go through this message series too in the future, we'll be looking at some of the spiritual habits that we shape and that we form to form a firm foundation because when hard times come, when the storms hit, we want to know that we have a firm foundation in Jesus. So that way on those bad days, we are not washed away with the storm.

And so that's what this whole series has kind of been about. And today, as I said, it's about parents and parenting. Now, I have to just acknowledge before I I even get into today that every single person, take a look around.

Every single person in this room has a different journey with their parents and with parenting. Some of you are parents and you may have mixed feelings about being a parent. You might love it in the morning or like me when I've been summoned to the room for the fourth time to get a bottle of water for my daughter.

Like, oh my gosh. , you might have mixed feelings a little bit. , for some of you, you wanted kids and maybe couldn't or didn't have kids.

Or maybe there's some of you that are just simply not called to be parents that you chose to walk in a life of of honoring and following Jesus in a way where you said, "Hey, we're just we're we're not called to be parents. " Some people maybe had mixed feelings about their parents and their upbringing and how that wondered and or how that shaped them. And for some of us, maybe you've had kids and they're you you've raised them and they're out of the house and you're wondering, did any of it even matter.

But all of us had some form of parents, biological or not, that shaped us. And if we were wounded, if there was something in the foundation that got cracked or that didn't work, when the storms come and when the bad days happen, our foundation becomes exposed and things can fall apart very easily. So here is what connects all of us in this room. Everybody in this room is shaping someone or and everybody in this room has been shaped by somebody else. This is the non-negotiable.

And for most of us, some of that is out of our control, right. And so, , I just kind of want to give you an example of how some of this is it how it feels to be in this level of out of control. So, recently I got to take my kids to Legoland.

And I'm not talking about the Mall of America Legoland. I'm talking about we went to outside of Orlando for the big Legoland. My kids love Legos. And so they were super excited about this and I wanted all the education that I could get about this trip.

So we watched YouTube videos, we looked at the map, we planned what rides we would do, what things we would pass on and all of that. But what was really cool is when we arrived at Legoland, , there had been a new section of the park that was opened. Now, my kids love Legos.

And you know what else they like. Guess what the the island was. It was Space Legos. It's perfect, right. Did not know it was opening.

So, we we go and we go into this section of the park and there is a ride there called the Galactic Coaster. Name should have gave it away, but here we go. So, I'm looking at this thing that is an indoor ride, and I'm looking at a building that does not look really that big to me, and I'm I'm kind of just gauging, should should we go on this ride. It is a space ride. It is a space Lego ride.

This looks awesome. And we get up to the little, you know, height thing, and I have a four-year-old that's my youngest. And put her up to the height thing and she's just a little peanut and she's just barely past that height marker and I'm like, "Yes, all right.

Let's do this. Come on, kids. Let's let's get on this ride.

" , so then what happened next is we got on the ride and I realized in that moment this might have been a mistake because I I sit down in the Galactic Coaster and there's these huge shoulder straps that come over me and I'm like, "Oh, cool. This is a a ride. This is gonna be an exciting ride.

" And then I realized my 4-year-old daughter is with me. I look over at her and she looks like a little tiny beanie baby in an armchair just like I'm ready to go. And I'm like, "Okay, it can't be that bad.

It wasn't that that big. " They turn us and they point us up and they go launching in 3 2 That's when you know you've made a mistake. So, we go launching and we're I found out later it was like 45 miles an hour. So, like you know it's fast to a kid, right. And so I watched my 4-year-old daughter's face go from woo to to allout falling.

And I felt so bad. But the thing was about the ride is I didn't take any of it in. Could not tell you what was in front of me, beside me, anything because my face was on the little beanie baby in the armchair the whole time just making sure that she was okay.

I felt so extremely out of control. And this is what parenting feels like. This is what parenting feels like. This is also what being parented feels like because you don't have a choice in it.

You're just kind of out of control and sometimes you're just hanging on, right. And so that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about parents and parenting.

And my prayer for you is that the things in your childhood that were out of control or when you're parenting and it feels like you're out of control to know that God is in control. So, , why don't you go ahead, take out your Bibles. We are going to be in Deuteronomy chapter 6, and we're going to talk about three important things, , about shaping the next generation.

By the way, , as a church, we've given away over 170ish of these Bibles. It's something that we do as a church. So, if you do not have a Bible and you would like to open the word of God throughout the week, please take this one home with you, it is our gift to you, , and we know that this transforms lives.

The second thing that I want to say as you're finding your place in our scripture today, , is to remind you that as I share these three things, these are not the best three things, okay. These are not the only three things. These are just three things from our verse today that we are going to learn about shaping the next generation. So, if you're in here and you're like, "Oh man, my marriage, my dating, my my whole parents and parenting thing is a real mess and I really want to zoom in on it. " I have a resources page.

Can you put that one up. It's got a QR code here. This will be up on the screen after the service today and you can scan this QR code and it brings you to a resource page that's got a bunch of books that I would recommend on the subject so you can dive a little bit deeper.

But let's look at our scripture Deuteronomy chapter 6. It's going to be verse 5. If you follow the numbers down to the number five, it says this, "Love the Lord your God with all, not some, all your heart and all your soul and with all your strength. " These commands that I give to you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children.

Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road and 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 house and on your gates. So that is the word of God.

That is what the word of God says about shaping the next generation. Three things. The first thing that it says is to love. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

Okay, this is echoed later on by Jesus. If you were here 2 weeks ago or you can go back and check it out online, we talked about this as the greatest commandment. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

And you think about that in the context of parenting. Okay, we want our kids to be a lot of things. And for everybody in here, we want the next generation to be a lot of things, right. We want them to be smart.

We want them to be maybe athletic. We want them to look us in the eyes when they're talking, right. We want them to put on some deodorant, right. Clearly, everybody who was laughing has had a middle schooler.

, we want them to do these things. We want to instill values onto our kids so that they can learn and walk in the right direction. But as for me, I want my kids first and foremost to know that the most important value is Jesus. And so I tell my kids, listen, for me, the most important thing that you do with your life is that you love and follow Jesus. Because I believe that when you do that, everything else starts to work out.

The respect, the wisdom that you we want our kids to have, okay. They're going to know and realize things because they know the creator of the world. They know Jesus. And so my job is to train them in that. Proverbs says this, "Train up a child in the way that he or she should go.

Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. " So for me, I need to be able to train my kid. Now listen, that doesn't mean that I am just verbally doing this, okay. I need to do this in every aspect of my life because more is caught than is taught. And so as you think about your upbringing, you might be able to repeat some things or phrases that your parents said on repeat, but you caught way more off of attitudes and behaviors and different things like that.

And so the universal truth for all of us, not just in parenting, but in faith, is you will reap what you sow. So if I plant an apple seed, I'm going to get what. An apple tree, right. That only makes sense. And so if I plant seeds of anger in my household, guess what I'm going to get.

If I plant seeds of self-doubt and a lack of confidence and self-esteem, what am I going to get. The same result. If I plant seeds that sports are more important than showing up to church and being in a faith community, how is that going to carry on to my kids.

I will reap what I sow. And sometimes sometimes the kid will go in the polar opposite direction and kind of like rebel against that almost to a point to where maybe anger was modeled in the household and you have a bunch of angry kids as a result or maybe dad or mom was angry and as a result you are fully passive. I I don't even want to touch anger as an emotion.

And so this is hard because we're we're catching these things. We're catching these things as they go along. And our responsibility in that is to do the best that we can to model Christ in our households.

Now listen, I want to just talk just for a second to dads. If you're a dad in this room, I need to tell you some days I know that it feels like it doesn't matter that like mom's always going to be number one and mom's going to always be the one that gets ran to and all of that. You are modeling way more than you think. Your kids are watching.

And that's not just for you dads. That's for you moms, too. They're watching how you treat each other.

They are watching how you react to situations. They are watching how you model your faith. And now all now for the whole room as we are collectively convicted by that cuz I am.

I want you to take a little bit of hope in this. Nobody is more qualified to teach your kids than you are. You may feel unqualified, but God doesn't call you to be a parent because you're qualified to be a parent. He qualifies you because you are called.

And so know that if you have a kid, a grandkid, a niece, a nephew in your life, God has placed you and positioned you in that spot to be that loving encouragement to that child. And in order to do that, we need to be able to go that way ourselves. So in order to train the next generation, we need to be able to do that for ourselves. Child Spurgeon theologian says it like this in follow up to that verse. He says, "Train your child in the way he should go, but be sure you go that way yourself.

" We need to make sure that we are walking in those ways. But here's the hard part. What happens if we didn't have a really good model for this.

Like what happens if we really did have truly God parents that did not model anything Christ centered for us. Because we get lost. We have to build the ship as we're flying.

How do I figure this out. How do I break this generational curse. And for all of us, parents and and non-parents and for people that are healing from that, we need to watch the ways that we live. That's the second thing in this verse.

It says, "Impress them. " That is these commands. Impress them onto 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.

Make this verse really simple. Talk about Jesus and your faith always. Make it always about faith. Make everything Christ centered. Make everything point to Jesus.

And while that might feel just a little bit intimidating, especially if this wasn't modeled for you, I promise that as you are pointing people to Jesus, you will go that way yourself. And so for some of us though, we need to not look to our parents to maybe model the ways that we're living and walk and talk with, but maybe there is somebody in our lives or in our circles, in our church that can pour into us in that way. The goal for each and every one of us is to be surrounded by people that are surrounded by God. And so for me personally, I have my my parents. I I love my parents.

They are amazing parents, but I also have a spirit spiritual parents. I've gotten to serve in in many different church comp contexts and I have spiritual mothers and fathers that would pour into me or mentor me maybe just for a season to help and walk and talk with me about life and and becoming just somebody that I can run to or I can pray with. Do you have that person.

Because for our kids, you won't be the only one that walks and talks with them. Parents, you'll have coaches. You'll have teachers.

You'll have friends. You'll have oh boy, media and social media. You'll have culture.

You'll have different church families that are walking with them. The question isn't if they're going to be influenced it. The question is who are they going to be influenced by.

And Proverbs says, "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. " And so, you need to walk with somebody wise if this hasn't been modeled for you. And if you just have just a little bit of faith in Jesus, guess what.

You're someone wise. You have some form of wisdom to impart into the next generation. And you may not know that or you may not see that because here's the truth. Satan doesn't want you to pass on your faith to the next generation.

He wants this next generation to be more lost, more confused, and more question with more questions than answers. And so for each of us, we need to be able to surround kids with the love that of Jesus. But as a culture, we've hit this universal problem.

This problem is that everybody wants a village, but nobody wants to be a villager. Okay, this is where my message is going to get tough. Okay, we we haven't gotten to the tough part yet, just so you know.

This is the tough part, and then we'll come out of it. , we live in a time now where everybody wants things to get better. Everybody wants love and support and a community and people surrounding them with love and support and reaching out to invite them into things. But here's the question.

Are we those people ourselves. >> Are we people who reach out. Are we a village for for the kids. Because here's the truth. Every single kid that was dedicated up here, every single kid that is back in kids ministry right now, we are at war for their hearts.

And if we do not impart Jesus into their lives, it is like we're sending them off to war with no armor or no weapon. This is a weapon. And we need to send them off knowing this and being able to live this out.

And if you're like, Josh, I feel unqualified for that. Or like, Josh, I don't I don't like other people's kids. Or, Josh, I don't I don't feel like I can do that.

Or whatever it is, right. I'm telling you, if you have just a little bit, a little bit goes such a long way with a child. Don't let the excuses that you have excuse the gift that you have to give to the next generation. They need you. They need you.

And if I sound passionate about this, it's because I'm coming from a life of of of ministering to youth and kids. And this is just a passion of mine to see this these kids know and love Jesus in a way that maybe we didn't get to. And so, here's my ask to you, and this isn't made to to guilt you into anything. I just want to give you an action step, okay. And an action step could be that you sign up to serve in kids ministry.

We have a bunch of kids back there that are awesome kids. They're amazing kids. And just being back there, giving them a high five, telling them their outfit looks cool and telling them, "Hey, Jesus loves you.

" That's three easy ways that you can just encourage a child. Now, listen to me. I'm not saying this because I'm asking you to babysit.

I don't want a babysitter back there. What we want is people that are invested into changing these kids' life. And that is so much more simple than you think.

It is so much more simple to live in a way that leaves a legacy in these kids. And that's the last one. So it's love, live, and legacy. Not live, love, laugh or whatever the that whole frame thing says.

So verse 8 goes on to say, tie them that is these commands that this verse says, tie them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your foreheads, and write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. Okay, this verse can get confusing cuz it sounds like a tattoo and interior design. I promise it's not that.

What this verse is is saying is it's essentially kind of giving a figure of speech by making these things making your relationship with Jesus so obvious to everybody else that nobody misses it. >> That you are leaving behind such an obvious tell of what you want to leave in the next generation. Psalm says it like this.

We that is all of us who are believers. We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord his power and wonders that he has done that he has done. We want to be reflecting these things onto our kids because for those of you who are parents, we're not just passing down eye color and hair color and hair lines, right. We're doing so much.

Oh, somebody's been affected by that one. We're passing down character. We're passing down character to our kids, to the next generation.

And some of you, the most important work that you will do is to change the family legacy. To say, generation after generation in my family dealt with alcohol, I'm going to break it. Generation after generation in my family dealt with physical, mental abuse.

I'm going to break it. >> You can be that in Jesus. He can break those generational chains in your family.

And it starts with you making it so obvious that I am intending to break this. You are mobilizing the your kids, the next generation, your nieces, your nephews, every kid, everybody that's around you that's witnessing this, you are equipping them for the mission of God. I love this this quote.

The ultimate mission of the family that is the church family, our church family and your biological family is not to protect your children from all harm but to mobilize them for the mission of God. Each of your kids, each of you has a story. Each of your kids are going to have a story and they are going to leave a legacy.

What you have control over is to point that in the direction of Jesus. And so will you do that. One of the biggest things that I think that we pass down to our kids just practically speaking is to teach them how to ride a bike.

Got three kids. And all of them I've equipped with a bike and they have the training wheels. One of them still does. And it's a it's a really interesting moment. Maybe you remember it if you've been through it when you take the training wheels off because as a as a dad I have to hype up my kid knowing that they're maybe going to fall.

And as a dad, I have to run alongside of them and try to keep up with them as they're biking so that they don't fall. But eventually, they don't need me by their side. Now, granted, they might fall and I'm there to encourage them and to bandage them back up, but I won't always be there to help keep them balanced. You see, parenting and shaping the next generation.

And for you, how you've been shaped feels like this. Cuz maybe you had bad training wheels. Maybe you had bad parents.

Maybe they didn't model any of these things. And you've been just trying to balance through life. Maybe some of you, you've fallen plenty of times through life and you're trying to to figure it all out.

Maybe for some of you, you're a parent and you've let go of all of your children and you're just praying that they're not falling, too. But here's the truth for all of us. You have a perfect father in heaven who is always there to love you, who is always there to be by your side. So while your biological mom or dad may not be by your side always, your heavenly father will for those of you who believe in Jesus. So here's what I'd like us to do this morning as we close.

I'm going to invite the worship team up and I just want to invite everybody in the room to just kind of close your eyes, bow your heads. This is something that we do not to, you know, be weird or whatever at destination, but it's just a moment where you can reflect on maybe how God is speaking to you this morning. We live in a really loud culture where it's really hard to just get this moment with Jesus.

And so maybe you're in this room today and for you, you've believed in Jesus. Maybe you've had good models that you've lived with, whether they're your parents or not, and they've modeled faith in such a really good way, but you haven't been imparting that faith onto the next generation. >> So maybe for you, the invitation today is to love and talk and walk with the next generation. To serve in a way that fills up kids or maybe youth to help them find and follow Jesus. But maybe for some of you, it's deeper than that.

Maybe for some of you, you just need that perfect father. That you feel like you have been balancing through life, falling through life, and you need the perfect father that has always been there with you. And so today, I want to invite you to break generational chains, to start something new and something different and to have a new faith foundation.

And so if there is anybody in this room that is feeling this, I'm I I just want you to know I'm praying for you right now in this moment that if there is anybody in this room that would like to give their life to Jesus and to put their trust in the per the perfect father to have a personal relationship with Jesus, the relationship that you wish you would have had maybe with your mom or your dad. If there's anybody in this room who would like to say yes to a relationship with Jesus, maybe for the first time, maybe just to return, would you just so boldly raise your hand so I can pray for you this morning. If you want to put your trust in the perfect father, let me close by praying for all of us.

Jesus, we thank you for today. We give you all parts of our lives. And God, while there's a war for the next generation, for all of us who believe in you, we leave here today to fight that war. To help the next generation find and follow Jesus.

And for every anybody in this room who's just still on the fence, who's been maybe hurt by their earthly parents or maybe have had a tough time parenting, I pray that they would lean on you as the perfect father. It's in Jesus name we pray.