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Welcome to the Hope Community Church! Hope is a multi-site church community with locations around the Triangle in Raleigh, Apex, Northwest Cary, Garner, and Fuquay-Varina. We are here to love you where you are and encourage you to grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ! We strive to speak the truth of the Bible in a way that is easy to understand, helpful in your current life circumstances, and encouraging. No matter who you are or where you come from, you are welcome here!
Well, uh, I think it must have been hard parenting me when
I was seven years old.
It was the night before Easter, and my dad took my brother
and me to the Catholic church
where we attended the night before.
Easter is called the Easter vigil if you
were raised Catholic.
And, uh, my dad sang in the choir.
I don't remember where my mom
and my sister were on this particular night,
but my dad sits, my brother
and I down right in the middle
of the church right there in the pew.
And he says to us, be good as he goes
and leaves us to go sing in the choir.
We weren't good. This wouldn't be a good story
if, if we were right.
But in our defense,
the Easter vigil is the longest service
in Catholic church history.
Like it's the kind of service
where you sing every single verse of every song.
And we all know that the,
the priest has like some shortcuts available to him
that he could take to shorten things up,
but he doesn't take any of those on the Easter vigil.
My brother and I knew we were in it
for the long time, uh, for the long haul.
And we were miserable. Uh, we were bored out of our minds
until hope they started passing out
candles and lighting them.
That's right. And our tiny unsupervised hands, my brother
and I now held fire,
hide it under a bushel.
No, we were gonna let it shine.
And so we thought, you know what?
The hymnals seem like a good place to start.
And it turns out hymnals are perfect kindling
for the wooden pews that they keep 'em in.
That's right. We tried to blow it out to our astonishment.
Yes. What you're picturing is right,
all the hymnals catch fire
and then the pew in front of us, there's shouts,
there's screams, there's chaos.
My dad comes running from the choir,
he literally pulls my brother and I out of all the wreckage
and he drives us straight home.
I don't even honestly know if
that solemn Easter vigil continued in my absence or not.
I have no idea. But I could tell you
what our night was done.
So I tell you, it must have been hard to be my parent.
It's helpful for me to remember that from time
to time when my kids do dumb things.
It's just helpful to remember I was a mess too.
And even if you'd say today that you have good kids,
and I think I do, I think I have really good kids.
Parenting seems to be getting more
and more complicated, doesn't it?
As parents, we blame a lot of things though.
But I think the primary reason we all think parenting is
getting more complicated is
that we've actually abandoned the book that tells us how
to parent our children as God has faithfully parented us.
And that's one of the main ideas I
want to share with you today.
We are to faithfully parent our kids
as God faithfully parents us in this book.
In fact, I wanna give you the two other main
ideas right off the top.
Uh, parenting is not about behavior control.
It's about heart change.
And a parent's job, a parent's role is
to faithfully represent God.
We represent him even as we fail.
And especially as our kids fail.
And make no mistake, parents
and kids alike, we're going
to fail more times than we care to admit.
So we're gonna need help, we're gonna need encouragement,
and we're gonna find it today in God's word.
So open up with me to Ephesians chapter six.
We're actually picking up right where we left off last week,
right after the verses to husbands and wives.
Um, but it's real short six verses today.
I'm gonna read it to us now.
It says this, and starting in, in, in verse one, children
obey your parents in the Lord.
For this is right, honor your father and mother.
This is the first commandment with a promise
that it may go well with you
and that you may live long in the land.
Fathers do not provoke your children to anger,
but bring them up in the discipline
and instruction of the Lord.
This short passage is part of a larger section of scripture
that's often referred to as the household code.
Uh, Paul actually introduces this whole thing,
several verses before in verse 21, setting it all up.
He says, uh, that we are to, we're submitting to one another
out of reverence to Christ.
And then he goes on to explain how that pertains wife
to their husbands and now children to their parents.
But notice it's that out of reverence to Christ's part.
That is our motivation again.
And as we zoom way out, we see this bigger picture of
what God has been up to as he's been restoring everything
that has been broken on earth.
Paul's been building this story explaining
what God's been up to in the first three chapters
of this letter to the, the church in Ephesus,
that God is working to unite all things in him, in Christ,
things in heaven and things on earth by faith in Jesus.
This includes all nations on earth
and it includes every man, woman,
and child who believe in Jesus being united back to God.
And especially it includes families being united back
together, husbands back to their wives
and children back to their parents.
And this letter to the Ephesians,
Paul first reminds us of the gospel.
He begins by reminding us that we have a father.
God is our Father.
If we put our faith and trust in Jesus, he goes on
to explain that, that the father's love
for sinners has finally arrived in his son, Jesus Christ.
It's good news for all people that if we trust in Jesus,
that if we put our faith in his death
and in his resurrection, then we will be forgiven.
That we will no longer be considered dead in our trespasses
and sins, but we will be made alive together in Christ.
That not only that we will be adopted into God's family
and once in God's family with him as our Father, the way
that we can live our life will bear a powerful testimony
to this good news to the gospel.
That once in his family with God as our father,
we will have a chance to walk by his spirit in light
and in truth and in wisdom in his family.
God the Father shares graciously all things with us.
He loves us and he cares for us
as he's growing us up into the image of Jesus Christ.
And so in light of all that, he says,
husbands love your wives.
And now children obey your parents.
The gospel is the context for our sermon today.
The gospel is also the motivation. We look to Jesus.
Remember out of reverence to Christ, he says in verse one,
then children obey your parents
and the Lord for this is right.
How cool is it that Paul directly addresses children here?
Uh, he assumes that his congregation is made up of,
of a multi-generational church, that,
that children are present with their parents
as they hear this message
that there's responsibilities being shared directly
to parents and directly to kids.
I think that's awesome. I I,
I remember several weeks ago we did that.
We invited our children into our services together.
I hope we get to do that again. It just feels like family.
So Paul tells children directly,
kids obey mom and dad.
There's no indication of compulsion here.
Children are willingly and joyfully to obey parents.
Have you tried this? Kids obey
if only it were that easy, right?
If only the first time we told them they would just
obey personal pet peeve.
Um, I I I hope we can all get over the parenting.
Like counting to three trick.
This is kind of an aside,
but you know, the, like the Johnny, uh, I'm gonna count
to 3 1 2.
Okay? Johnny, you know what happens when I'm gonna get
to three, I'm gonna start over again.
Johnny. One, two. Can we just agree to stop that?
I mean, think about what this is communicating
to our kids versus what Paul is saying here,
how God wants us to obey our parents as to the Lord.
We would never do that to God.
God, it it wants us to obey right away all the way
with a happy heart.
Can you picture God doing that with us? Dave?
I'm gonna count to three. Don't you like
those hymnals on fire?
Dave, walk two. I digress. I digress.
Um, how important is this anyway?
How important is it that we obey our parents?
I find it fascinating to look at other places in scripture
where we find the same idea.
Jesus himself mentions honoring your father
and mother five times in, in the gospels.
But Romans 1 29 has stopped me in my tracks
as I was preparing.
Disobedience is listed right there in this list
of horrific things, including murder, including, uh,
deceit hating God, inventing evil.
And then right there in the middle
of the list disobedience to parents.
So in short, disobedience to parents is a sin.
Now, before you go run
and tell your kids that Pastor Dave called them a little
sinner, uh, it might be helpful
to remember your own disobedience to your parents, right?
If you really wanna be thoughtful about it, you may pause
and remember your own disobedience
to your heavenly parent as well.
I promise you that will cause you
to move toward your children
with a little more grace the next time they misbehave.
Here's an observation,
whether they're your biological child,
your adopted foster child, your grandchild, the things
that irk you most about your kids are the things
that are exactly like you, like
reproduces, like, ugh, they're so stubborn,
they're just like me.
It's so frustrating, right?
Well, no, children are not commanded to obey mom and dad
because mom and dad are geniuses.
Somewhere around age 13, every kid thinks, huh, my mom
and dad aren't as smart as they made me think once.
Um, they, they know that nor are kids committed to obey mom
and dad because mom and dad are perfect,
nor are they commanded to obey parents unconditionally.
Paul's not saying that we should follow
our parents into sin.
Remember last week, we looked at the same verse.
Peter said, we must obey God rather than men.
Although I admit, I've often said the words
because I said so when my kids ask why do they need to obey?
Uh, there's better biblical answers to why
and how children should, should obey their parents.
And we can find three right here in this verse.
The first one is this. They need,
they should be obeying in the Lord.
This could also be rendered as to the Lord.
It's the same idea that's flowing
through this whole section of scripture.
Uh, in other words, why should they obey?
Well, out of reverence to Christ, submission
to to, uh, in obedience, appearance is rooted in our love
for Jesus that's rooted in the gospel.
Second, for this is right, he says, we don't need
to oversize this.
Obeying your parents is simply the right thing to do.
Um, you know, we, we all pretty much say things like,
because I'm dad.
That's why, and this is actually kind of close to that.
I think the reason we all say this,
even though our kids roll their eyes every time
we say it, because I'm dad.
And that's why is because God has ingrained this idea
and I in us, in all of us, that it's just right to obey mom
and dad, even though we choose not to.
And third, because it's commanded in God's law.
In verse two and verse three, uh,
Paul specifically references the 10 commandments
that were given to, uh, Moses in Exodus chapter 20.
So if we believe that God's word is truth
and we believe that God's way is best, then we're going
to align our lives and relationships to what he says.
And he says, honor your father and mother.
This is the first commandment with a promise
that it may go well with you
and that you may live long in the land.
Now, this promise does not guarantee that obedience
to your parents is gonna give you some sort
of immortality or invincibility.
We, we sadly all know, uh, tragic cases where,
where children have died tragically too young.
And I, I actually, I know there's some of you here
that are firsthand experience with that,
and I can't imagine, but this promise was originally given
to the children of Israel.
But Paul's expanding on it here,
making it universally applicable to all of us.
Paul actually adds words here that aren't in Exodus 20.
They aren't in the original 10 commandments.
He adds the part that it may go well with you.
Those words aren't in the 10 Commandments, just the,
that you may live long in the land
and this is what he's driving at,
that if you do this generally it's gonna go well.
It's not a guarantee that every,
every day is gonna end up in perfect happiness,
but generally we can expect
to experience God's best when we're obedient to him.
In other words, if we were
to take a big step back from all this
and we're to look at a healthy church, if we're
to look at the family of families and,
and figure out how can we get healthy again,
it's not gonna be possible
unless the parent child relationships are marked by love
and by trust and by obedience and honor.
If we get that right,
Paul's saying it's gonna go well for you.
And then verse four, Paul shifts his instructions directly
to parents, specifically fathers are instructed here.
And it doesn't mean that mothers don't need
to heed these instructions.
This is can be seen as an extension of the headship
of the husband, that God, uh, that Paul has established,
excuse me, that God has established in the
previous few verses.
Um, so he says,
and by the way, just by way of reminder about that headship,
remember if, if you were tracking with us last week,
husbands are set up as the ultimate
servant in your marriage.
If you miss that sermon, go back and watch it online.
It's a good one. But the, the, the instruction is
for fathers and mothers alike.
But he says, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger,
but bring them up in discipline and instruction of the Lord.
So Paul's instruction is first negative,
and then he moves towards the positive.
So we're gonna stand, uh, on the negative for just a moment,
then we're gonna move toward the positive.
So negative, do not provoke your children to anger.
Provoke means to exasperate, to frustrate intensely.
This kind of continues Paul's comments earlier about anger
that he said just a couple, uh, chapters before, be angry
and do not sin.
Do not let the son go down on your anger
and give no opportunity to the devil.
In other words, don't forget, there is an enemy out there
that is trying to bust up your family.
He's been doing it since Genesis three.
And anger is a great weapon for him to bust up families
for dividing children from their parents.
So do not provoke your children to anger.
Literally means, Hey, show some restraint
in the Roman culture of the day.
There is this, uh, uh, unique, I guess is the right word,
uh, cultural phenomenon called patria potus, the authority
of the head of the house.
This is the culture that he's speaking to here.
This gave the father unlimited power over his children,
that if his children misbehaved,
he could inflict severe physical punishment that actually,
if a child misbehaved,
the father could have his children sold into slavery
because of misbehaved.
He could actually legally command the death penalty if his
kids misbehave, misbehaved.
Imagine that instead of counting to three
or a timeout, right?
And Paul is saying in the, in the Christian household,
it shouldn't be like this.
This kind of unrestrained tyranny of a father
or of a husband is not
what a Christian home should look like.
So show restraint.
Don't provoke and frustrate your children.
Don't do more harm than good.
It's tragic when kids are brought up in an environment
where they're constantly in fear
of the next volcanic eruption from mom
or especially from dad.
But it's not just outbursts of anger
that can frustrate our kids and provoke them to anger.
Let, let me uh, give you seven ways we
provoke or frustrate our kids.
And you're like seven Dave that's kind of heavy handed.
Maybe just two would be enough.
But I want you to know, these are seven things I'm learning.
These are seven things that I'm tempted to do, seven traps
that I have fallen in from time to time.
I'm a co struggler among you, so I'm just sharing with you
what I'm learning as a parent.
But the first thing is this, our selfishness.
This is at the top of the list.
When we forget that our children belong to God,
it gives us it, it sends us into a whole
world of parenting trouble.
If you wanna see this in action, go
to a soccer field on the weekend
and watch the parents watch what happens when, when a kid
misses the penalty shot
or when a kid blows it
for the whole team and they lose the game.
Watch the parents' response.
Sometimes they, they, they have this personal embarrassment
that le leads them to anger.
They lash out the kid saying things like, well,
I'm signing you up for, for, uh, extra lessons,
private lessons starting tomorrow as the kid just kind
of shrugs and is ready to quit.
Is this more about the kid
or is this more about us as a parent trying
to make our kids into our personal trophies?
I mean, that, that's the kind of selfishness
that makes everything about our hopes, our dreams,
our expectations, our reputation,
rather than encouraging God's plan
and his desire for his children.
Second, our severity.
I want you to think carefully about the punishments
you choose for your children.
All kids are different,
and I'm not here to prescribe one punishment over the other.
I'm just asking you think carefully about this.
Don't respond in a moment of emotion.
Ask yourself two questions.
Will this punishment lead to the growth
that God desires for his children?
And does this severity
of this punishment appropriately match the behavior?
Third, our inconsistency.
This is when one day, one thing is ignored,
and the next day the exact same thing is punished.
I'll be honest, when I fail at this,
it's when there's like a difference between
what happens in public
and what happens in private, like privately.
If they do a little bit of misbehaving, I'm like, it's fine.
It's whatever. I don't feel like dealing this right now.
Let 'em go. But in public, they're making me look bad.
And so the exact same misbehavior you can come down
and punish and that, that frustrates our kids.
When that happens, again, it's more about us
and our selfishness, how we feel
when we forget who they belong to.
Fourth, our failure
to distinguish childish foolishness from sin.
Kids are kids and kids are gonna do foolish things.
We just need to know that they may not know any better.
A child getting a Lego stuck way up his nose is not the same
as a child trying to lie to his parents about
how it got stuck up there.
You know, um, like the, the Lego thing, that's not a sin.
That's a kid. Being a kid that's foolishness.
But lying to your parents, that is a sin.
And a wise parent will be able
to distinguish the difference when he, when he
or she is discipling his kid moving forward.
Uh, fifth comparison to other kids.
Why can't you be more like your brother?
These kinds of words are like poison to a kid's heart.
The only measuring stick we should be using is our growth
toward the measure of the fullness of Jesus Christ.
Sixth are hypocrisy
when we ourselves fail in the exact same way,
but it goes unpunished without a consequence.
Like when you say, Hey, don't talk to your mother like that,
when you yourself are disrespecting
your wife in front of the kids.
Seventh, our failure to acknowledge their growth.
This is when nothing is good enough. Ah, you scored a goal.
Well, what happened on that other one?
Or you got a 93 on that test? What'd you get wrong?
Honestly, this is the one I failed at the most as a parent.
One day I was at a restaurant with my son.
We were talking about fears,
and I asked him if he was afraid of quicksand.
My son grew up with this irrational fear of quicksand.
He thought it was gonna get him everywhere he went.
He was really kind of disappointed that we still
to this day, haven't actually seen quicksand.
I don't even know if quicksand is a real
thing to be quite honest.
Um, but he said, no, dad, I'm not afraid of quicksand.
And I said, well, what are you most afraid of?
What's your biggest fear in life?
And he thought, and he thought, he said,
I think disappointing you is my greatest fear.
It's like, oh, dagger to the heart.
I don't know how many times I've often thought the same
thing about my dad before he died.
I mean, the, the crazy expectations of growing up as a,
as a pastor's kid must be incredible.
And I've often failed to see and to celebrate my, my son
and my daughter's victories.
So those are some of the, the traps I've fallen into
that can provoke or frustrate my kids.
So let's not do those. So what do we do instead?
Paul moves us toward the positive.
He says, we, we bring them up in the discipline
and instruction of the Lord.
The word bring them up is the same word as nourish.
It's the same idea that you could use
as you plant a tree in your garden
that you make sure it has the nutrients it needs,
that it gets the sunlight it needs, that, uh, the, the,
the soil is good, it gets the water it needs.
You're, you're bringing it up.
And this bringing it up describes a process.
Parenting is not a one-time event.
It's not something that it just happens and it's over.
It's a process. And that is good news for parents
because that means it's not too late.
Parenting doesn't hinge on our last failure or success.
If, if the last conversation you had
with your kids was a disaster.
Well, good news. You're still mom, you're still dad
until they meet Jesus one day or you meet Jesus one day
or he comes back again.
When Cindy and I, uh,
dropped off our Senate college last year,
we didn't declare mission accomplished.
Our job is over.
We could have, if we considered our job as, uh,
behavior control managers, you could say,
yeah, all right, he's outta your house.
You're not controlling his behavior anymore. You're done.
But that's not our job.
Remember, our job is to faithfully
represent God to our kids.
So we haven't stopped, nor will we stop in this regard,
but it looks different today.
Now we're continuing, uh, to pray for our son, hoping,
praying that he continues on his own
and what we've already taught him in God's
word while he was in our home.
It reminds me of Paul's words
to Timothy, and these are awesome.
Uh, listen to this continue.
He says, in what you have learned
and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it,
and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings,
the Bible, which are able to make you wise for salvation
through faith in Christ Jesus.
What makes these verses amazing is Paul's actually referring
to Timothy's mom here,
and his mom is named in the letter to Timothy.
Her name is Eunice. He's also referring specifically
to Timothy's grandma, and she's named, her name is Lois.
That these two women as mom
and his grandma were the ones
that taught Timothy God's word.
Isn't that cool? So shout out to godly, uh,
prayerful grandmas
and grandpas that are teaching their
grandchildren God's word.
I applaud you way to go. Grandmas and grandpas keep it up.
So how do we bring them up?
We bring them up in discipline and instruction.
Discipline means training.
The training regimen of a loving Christian parent is
to be framed by the transforming power of the gospel.
Uh, we can't be too overly severe provoking them to anger,
but discipline is required.
We are to faithfully parent our kids
as God is faithfully parenting us.
So again, we look to God's word, we look to his example,
we look to our heavenly Father for a cue on this.
The author of Hebrews writes it this way.
He says, for the Lord, disciplines the one he loves.
And he chastises every son whom he receives.
It is for discipline that you have to endure.
God is treating you as sons for
what son is there whom his father does not discipline.
He God disciplines us for our good
that we may share in his holiness.
For the moment, all discipline seems
painful rather than pleasant.
But later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who have been trained by it
with God The Father is our example.
We are to likewise discipline our children in love Again,
the goal in this passage here is not about behavior
control management.
The the goal is heart change.
Its holiness that God is growing our hearts into his
likeness, and it will yield peaceful fruit
of righteousness in our kids' hearts.
That's what it's all about. And this is our training manual.
This is the instruction that Paul is talking about.
It's God's word. Because look, parents,
children are gonna ask hard questions.
Where will you turn for the answers?
Children will ask things like, dad,
why did my friend hurt me today?
Dad, why does our neighbor down the street have two moms?
Dad, how do I know if I'm in love?
These are great questions. They're hard questions to answer.
As a parent and loving parents,
even if they don't know the answer, will wisely reply.
What does God's word have to say about that?
And, and even if you don't know the
answer, you can look together.
This is how we do it. This is discipleship.
This is teaching our kids to turn to God's words so
that they may see the world around them
with a biblical lens.
This is bringing them up in the discipline
and instruction of the Lord.
And those last three words of the Lord are important.
In fact, they're vital. I know we wear plenty of hats, uh,
as parents, we're the medic, we're the chef,
we're the cheerleader, we're the teacher, we're the coach.
We're like a lot of things.
But remember, our biblical role as parents is
to represent God.
The one that we are trying to, to teach them about.
In other words, behind parents who teach
and discipline their children stands the Lord God the
Father himself.
Ultimately, parenting is not about getting our kids
to depend on us.
It's about getting them to depend on God.
That through godly discipline
and biblical instruction, through meals together, through,
uh, at prayer time at night, through conversations
during carpool that they would come to know and to love
and to follow and to depend on God, the father himself.
I wanna put up a chart for you guys that we use in,
uh, and hope for parents.
Uh, this shows a child's dependence,
and there's two lines on.
Parents goes down into the right on
God goes up into the right.
See, when a kid is born,
it's like off the charts high there.
Uh, like if you don't feed your kid, they will not survive.
They're completely dependent on you.
But notice that's not a straight line going across.
We don't want a kid that's 60 years old still completely
dependent on us living with us, right?
So that line goes down.
We want our children to become increasingly
less dependent on us.
While at the same time that line of
that dependency on God is going up into the right.
We want them to increasingly become more dependent on him.
And notice if like reproduces, like we need
to be as parents growing in our dependence on God if we
expect our kids to follow in that way.
So the key to doing this is again,
to understand your child first belongs to God.
Uh, I think a beautiful, uh, passage that represents this.
In fact, it represents all of our faith beautifully.
The gospel and our role as a representative
to our kids is two Corinthians five, 17 through 20.
It says this, therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation.
The oldest passed away. Behold the new has come.
And all of this is from God who through Christ reconciled us
to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation
that is in Christ.
God was reconciling the world to himself
and not counting their trespasses against them.
This is the gospel that, that Jesus did it all for us.
And then get this entrusting to us.
The message of reconciliation, God is entrusting to you.
This message, this gospel message. He's saying, here it is.
Parents, I'm entrusting this message to you.
Therefore, in verse 20, we are ambassadors
for Christ God making his appeal through us as parents,
to our kids, to our neighbors, to the world around us.
The ambassador doesn't call the shots,
doesn't write the message, uh,
write the doesn't set the agenda.
The the ambassador represents the one who sent him.
That's your role as a parent.
You are Christ's ambassador, his primary chosen instrument
to represent his gospel
and his truth to your kids in your home.
And that way, your home is actually God's embassy.
It's not about church buildings. Once a week for an hour.
Your home is the primary environment,
which in which you were
to bring up your kids in loving discipline
and biblical instruction.
You cannot subcontract this job.
I understand the temptation.
I hope we have like the most, um, talented group of kid,
city staff and middle school
and high school pastors that I've ever met.
No matter how talented are they are, no matter
how prayerful they are, how wonderful they are,
how cool they are, how fun they are.
No matter how much goldfish we they throw at your kids,
no matter how much pizza that the,
the student pastors shove down those kids' throats,
they cannot compensate for the absence of loving discipline
and biblical instruction from you in your home.
The goal of parenting, again
is not behavior change.
Oh, that'd be really nice if they behaved right.
The goal is heart change, that our kids, by his word
and by his spirit, would be growing into the measure
of the fullness of Jesus Christ.
That we as, as Paul says,
that we may no longer be children tossed to
and fro by the ways and carried about by every wind of,
of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness
and deceitful schemes.
There's so much of that going on.
There's so many messages bombarding our kids
that they're being tossed around by the waves,
rather verse 15, speaking the truth.
That's the gospel in love.
We are to grow up in every way into him.
Who is the head into Christ? That's the goal of parenting.
That we are growing up like Jesus into his likeness.
You guys, this is a hard job.
Maybe the toughest one on the planet, exhausted, worn out.
Parents are called day after day
after day to, to wake up and try again.
Well, here's some good news.
Your kids don't need to see perfection in you parents.
They need to see your dependence on God.
And what God is, is after is not your success as a parent.
What he's after is your faithfulness.
That's good news for parents and kids alike.
That's why, uh, I I I published the book is why we have hope
for parents is it's the reason we created this class.
And even with all the good news there is, I want you
to know there's no guarantee here.
Sometimes we could do all the things, all,
all the right things as parents
that we could raise up a whole family that loves Jesus
with their whole heart, mind, soul, and strength.
And because of sin,
good parents can still raise struggling kids.
Sin divides families that separates us from God.
That's why Jesus came to set you free.
But until he comes back,
and that is our hope that he's coming back
to set all things right until that moment comes, until
that day comes, the Bible's pretty clear.
You can expect hard times. You can expect suffering.
And so I I want you to know we're not le sending you out
to like go figure it out.
Good luck. We want to walk alongside you.
We want to equip you.
I I want to invite you to join my wife
and me starting next week.
We're gonna be offering this class called Hope for Parents
and, and in hope for parents.
Uh, in the book that's written, I I try
to share right now real life, tangible hope
that is rooted in the gospel.
That we walk through the gospel narrative, uh, of,
of God the Father parenting us from Genesis to Revelation.
You can look at some of the pictures from the class.
By the way, there's grandmas in this class.
There, there's a woman in this class.
I dunno if you'll see her in one of the pictures who's like
literally pregnant.
She went into labor during the last class.
So like all the way from
just literally had a baby in the class to a grandparent.
You guys are welcome to come.
You will be encouraged by this class.
You're gonna be in God's word.
And most importantly, you're gonna be connected
with other moms and dads that have the same struggles.
You can learn from each other, you can encourage each other.
You can pray with each other.
And then, uh, Cindy and I, we're just gonna share
as much biblical truth as we can to encourage you
to learn from you as well.
I wanna invite you to join us.
We're gonna be offering it here, uh, at the Raleigh campus
and at the Apex campus.
And we're doing it during service, you guys.
So like your, your your, your kids will have childcare.
They'll be taken care of.
There's literally no excuse, but you gotta register.
The campus pastors will give you some, uh, uh, next steps on
how to register for your campus.
And if you can't make it to Apex
or to Raleigh starting next weekend, let me know.
I I'd love to get that book in your hand
so you could study it either, uh, in your own home
or with your own small group.
Just let us know. We, we want this to go to as many people
as we can, but join us parents.
It's not too late. It's not too late.
There is hope for you and your kids.
I hope I get the opportunity to continue
to share it with you starting next week.
Let's pray together. Father God. Huh?
It's good that we get to call you Father
because you are the good and perfect father.
Yeah. We ask for your help as parents because we need it.
We ask for your help because you hear us.
We ask for your help because you are able.
So God, may we parent our kids as a response to the way
that you faithfully parent us.
And in the process, God, would you grow us all up?
God, grow our hearts, transform us from the
inside out into the likeness, into the character
of the incredible, uh, of the holy, uh, son Jesus Christ.
We pray in His name. Amen.