April 14, 2024 • 25 mins
Join us for a powerful sermon titled "Raise Disciples: The Ultimate Parenting Goal" at the Ninth Avenue Church in Haleyville, Alabama. This heartfelt message underscores the profound impact of Jesus' teachings on family, faith, and spiritual growth.
Discover how Jesus' love for children sets a spiritual standard for us all, calling us to embrace childlike faith and humility. Reflect on the story of Hannah and Samuel, illustrating God's unwavering promises and the blessing of children as a testament to the truth that the battle belongs to the Lord. Our sermon dives deep into the biblical narratives, providing practical applications for our daily lives, reminding us that God's love and guidance are ever-present.
We invite you to join us in person or through social media, where you can engage with our community, share your thoughts, and deepen your faith journey. Like, subscribe, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to stay connected. Let's grow in spiritual unity and love like Jesus together.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:23):
Thank you for joining us for this program from the Ninth Avenue Church of Christ in Haleville, Alabama.
We hope that you will subscribe and will share our program with others.
Now, we take you to the service of the Ninth Avenue Church of Christ.
I'm so glad that we are able to be together today for a very special day that
we started a few years ago, our Family First Sunday, where we take a moment
(00:45):
and just celebrate the families in our church.
It is a great day to be together as always, but especially when we get to honor our children.
Jesus had a very special place in His heart for children.
Children Jesus told us he said unless you become like one
of these children you cannot enter the kingdom of God they are our
standard think about that for a second the children that
(01:07):
fill this room this morning are our spiritual standard
we usually think about it the other way around right that they need to grow
and they need to mature they need to be more like us but Jesus says and unless
we've become like them that we will not inherit the kingdom and so that's a
very you know Jesus Jesus had a way of of taking things and kind of turning them upside down.
(01:29):
He kind of had a way of of making you think that what he's fixing to turn left
and he actually turns right.
And so I hope that as we gather today and we think about our family and we thank
God for our children, that we will.
Remember that God says that we need to become more and more like them,
and we need to strive to do that every day.
(01:50):
Before we do that, let's go to God in prayer as we go into our lesson.
And as we pray, we're also going to have a very special mention for Shea Williams.
Shea's not doing very well, and so we just want to remember her in a very special
way as we pray this morning. So let's go to God in prayer.
God, we thank you for the chance to be together this morning.
We thank you for the opportunity to just lift our voices in song with one another.
(02:13):
To come around this table of remembrance, this table of thanks,
and be grateful for the sacrifice that your son made for us.
We thank you for giving us that, God, giving us that sacrifice and his death
and his resurrection so that we can have a hope of eternity with you forever and ever.
(02:34):
Be with us as we go into this lesson, God, today.
Help us to open up our hearts and our minds and and our souls,
God, to you and your direction for us in our life as we strive to do our best
to lead in our homes, to lead our families.
God, I know that being a parent is not always the easiest thing in the world.
(02:55):
It comes with so many distractions in today's society. It comes with so many challenges.
Help us to always look to you as our strength in everything that we do.
God, we pray a very special prayer this morning in this moment for Shea.
We know that her struggle, her journey over the last few years has been very difficult.
Yet she has been a wonderful example to each and every one of us as she has
(03:18):
fought every day of the life that she has had.
To continue to try to be with her family, to continue to try to be with her
friends. And she has succeeded in so many amazing ways, God.
But God, as she is struggling today, we just pray a very special prayer of comfort
on her, a very special prayer of comfort for her family, for peace,
(03:41):
God, in all that they face.
We thank you so much for the love that you show us. And it's in your son's name we pray. Amen.
I sat down and just thought of a few things.
That children will do for you in your life. And then, you know,
I believe that we all have had those moments where children have made liars out of us.
Any of you had moments where children has made a liar out of you?
(04:04):
I've got a good friend that they were actually, had a couple of elders coming
over to their house one night to talk to the husband about becoming a deacon.
And they come in and they sat down and they began talking to them.
And they asked the kids, they go, is there anything you want us to know about your dad?
And the oldest son goes, yeah, he beats me every night.
And he says it's not true though the
(04:25):
dad did i don't know i don't know if anybody ever really investigated any
further kids have a way of just you know we think we're
going to be okay everything's going to go well and it's not
you know they're just going to make us they're just going to make us
out to be a liar you know one of my favorite things about kids is if your kid
is sick and you take them to the doctor how do they act when they get there
fine you know just just tell them you're going to the doctor and your kids get
(04:47):
better i've also learned as a parent the absolute best way to get your child's
attention is to sit down and look comfortable.
If you sit down and look comfortable, your children are going to find you and
you're going to have their undivided attention.
I also learned that once we had kids, we became completely irrelevant to our very own parents.
Completely irrelevant to our very own parents. So kids are a great thing.
(05:10):
Kids are a blessing from God. And I want to take a moment and really talk from the story of Samuel.
Samuel, when it it comes to having a child and stories of that in scripture,
Samuel is really one of my favorite, if not my favorite on a day like this,
because I believe that story really sums up the desire to be a parent.
(05:33):
I believe God put it within us to want family, to want to have family around,
to be a parent. There is this great desire.
And of course, that was something that no matter how much Hannah and her husband
desired that. They were struggling with that.
And I love that as well because, you know, for some people, starting a family
or growing a family is not always the easiest process.
(05:55):
And we know that there are great people of faith that had that same struggle.
And we can find comfort in that.
We can find strength in that to know that God is listening in those moments
and God has answers and God has the ability to help us through those times.
But I think we see some great lessons from this particular story,
(06:17):
and we'll talk about a couple of them together.
The first is this, children are a wonderful blessing that comes from love.
That's the first thing that I want you to think about this morning,
that children are a wonderful blessing that comes from love.
John 3.16, one of the verses that we all pretty well know, that we learned from
such a young age, say it with me, the very first part of it.
(06:40):
For God so the world that he gave his one and only son.
But the part of that that really always jumps out at me, and it's just an attribute of God.
God is a giving God.
That is one of the great attributes of him. He gave us his son,
which is what this particular verse is talking about.
(07:00):
But I think it's so wonderful for us to remember that God loves us.
All right. If you ever question about whether or not you are cared for,
someone has feelings for you or if someone loves you, he says it God loves you.
And God loves you so much that God gives to you.
And our children are part of that giving.
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They're part of that love. That as our families grow, so should our love and
our relationship with God.
Because we look at our children and we should remind ourselves or be reminded
that we have that child for one main reason, and that is because God gives and
God God gives out of love.
(07:42):
And that's such a wonderful dynamic that we have in that relationship with our
God, that God gives out of love.
But as I think about children, and today we talk about, or we'll acknowledge
later this afternoon, some of our youngest children.
But I think back with my kids, you know, that raising children is a fun, full of fun moments.
(08:05):
First words, steps, depths, laughs, birthdays.
You know, it is funny to me that we want for so long, we want our child,
we want our children to say their first words, right? And what do we want?
Dads, what do we want our children's first words to be? Dad.
Moms, what do we want it to be? And there's this back and forth,
(08:26):
right? You know, say dad, say dad, you know.
But the funny thing to me is once our kids learn to start talking.
What do we want them to do?
Be quiet. Stop. It's like as parents, we can't have it both ways.
We want them to talk, but then when they start talking, we're like, hey, will you quit?
Just be quiet. Enough is enough.
(08:47):
But all of those moments are born really out of that first year.
The list could go on and on of all the memories that you really make,
those cherished memories you make in that first year.
But as you experience them and as you raise Raise your children.
Remember that those memories come because of how much God loves you and that
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our job as parents and as grandparents and as friends and family members and
church family is to let our children be reminded of that love as well.
That as we feel the love of God from our children, it is our job to then show
them the love of God in our own life and let them know that they are loved in such great ways.
(09:30):
But as we think about 1 Samuel, you know, Samuel is a great story of understanding
of what we should do with our children, how we should show them that God loves them.
You know, the story really starts in 1 Samuel of Hannah and her husband.
They're wanting children. They're trying to have children.
And that doesn't go the way that they want it to, the way that they had planned it.
(09:52):
And life is just that way, that we plan to go this way, this direction in life.
And And sometimes God says, no, I've got something else planned.
But go with me. I guess we're in one verse 20, the first few verses.
It says, so in the course of time, Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son.
She named him Samuel, saying, because I asked the Lord for him.
(10:17):
And I love that from the very beginning of this story, that as Hannah and her
husband and are wanting to start their family.
God is not something you introduce into your child's life when they show up.
God is something that has to be there from the very beginning.
As you are going into maybe a relationship,
as you're going into a new marriage, as you're going into growing your family,
(10:41):
it is evident from Hannah's life and from chapter one, that Hannah asked and
prayed and talked to God about her future family.
And she knew at the end of the day that that blessing ultimately came from God.
I named him this because I asked the Lord for him.
(11:01):
How many things in our life, and I really want you to think about this,
it's not necessarily just about our children, but life in general.
How many things in our life do we miss out on because we don't actually take
the time to ask God about those things?
That we try to make them happen. We try to put things into place.
We try to make actions turn into results on our own, and they don't work.
(11:25):
And maybe the reason behind the reason that they're not working is because we've
not put God in the middle of it.
We've not put God in the middle of it. And then for our children,
as you hold your child, as you are raising your child, are you praying for things in their life?
Are you looking ahead into the future and going ahead and praying about the
(11:46):
spouse that that they will marry, about the people that they will date,
about the friends that they will have, about the decisions they will make.
Even as a young child, are you praying about those moments ahead?
Because God's gonna go ahead and answer those prayers when we talk to the Lord
and ask the Lord about those things. So Hannah was a person of prayer.
(12:07):
She was a mom of prayer from the very beginning.
And so when all of this finally came about, she said, I'm gonna name him Samuel.
Why? Because I asked the Lord for him.
And when her husband, Alachna, went up with his family to offer the annual sacrifice
to the Lord and to fulfill his vow, Hannah did not go.
She said to her husband, after my boy is weaned, I will take him and present
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him before the Lord and he will live there always.
We see from the very beginning of this story that this mother and this father, what is their focus?
Focus what is their number one focus and priority
through their life it is being what God
has called them to be it is doing the things that God wants them to do God is
(12:55):
their focus it is so easy it is so easy to get into a routine to get into a
place in our life especially when we have children that our focus is on being a parent.
And being a parent is a full-time job. It's a full-time job.
You have so many different jobs within that title parent. You're a counselor. You're a cook.
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You're a chauffeur. You're a nurse. You're a doctor.
You're all these things wrapped up into one. And it's so easy to get so focused
on I'm going to be a good parent. I'm going to be a great great parent.
But our focus first and foremost above everything else is not being a parent.
It's not being a husband. It's being a what?
A disciple of Jesus.
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And we live our life as a disciple of Jesus, and our parenting filters through that.
Our being a spouse filters through that. Our being a friend,
a family member, it filters through the idea of being a disciple.
And we see just in these few verses that Hannah and her husband are focused
(14:06):
on being followers of God above everything else.
They're wanting to make sure they're doing what God has called them to do.
But one of the things that I think about Hannah in such a real way is Hannah
had every reason, I think, to be a helicopter mom.
Hannah had every reason to be a helicopter mom. I've prayed for this child.
(14:27):
I've asked for this child. God's given him to me.
And now that he's here, what am I gonna do?
I'm just gonna hover over him and make sure that everything is taken care of.
Make sure that everything is okay. okay, he could have been the ultimate only child, right?
He could have had the ultimate only child syndrome, but instead she understood what a blessing he was.
(14:50):
And from the beginning, wanting wanted to give that blessing back to God.
And we have to realize the same thing in the lives of our own children.
This is a very intimate, I think verse from, from Jeremiah, as he's talking
about, or as he's having this conversation, he says, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
(15:12):
Before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
And I believe that that verse holds true to every one of us,
that before we were formed, God knew who we were.
God knew us. God knew who we were going to be. God knew what we could become.
God knew what we would become.
He said, the scripture tells us that we're God's workmanship,
(15:34):
and he's already to put things in place for us to do on His behalf.
So God's got a purpose. God's got a reason for us.
And as we hold our children, we need to remember that as well,
that God has already said, I know who this child is, and I want to use this child as a blessing.
And so we have to make up our mind. Are we going to be those disciple,
(15:55):
Christ-following Christian parents that look at our children and say,
we're going to give you back to God?
I'm going to give you back to God in the most amazing and most powerful way.
Way. Now, in this particular story, what does Hannah do?
Hannah leaves him. Hannah leaves him at the temple, and he's raised in the temple.
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I'm just going to be honest with you. I've got four kids already.
Do not bring your children to the church building and drop them off and be like,
hey, we're leaving them with you. It's your turn to raise them.
That's not what we're doing, but we want you to be here with them every opportunity,
every moment that God provides, God's, because it is so important from the very
beginning to say that I'm going to let this child be all about God,
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and I'm going to give him or give her back so that he can grow or she can grow
in that environment from day one.
The Jewish people, and this is just such a beautiful image here,
the Jewish people actually called their homes little temples. Right?
Little temples. So it is important to raise our children in that spiritual environment. Let's keep going.
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As a parent, this just carries on the thought, making God's top priority is essential.
Go back and look in verse one, or I'm sorry, verse three of verse one.
Year after year, this man, talking about her husband, went up from his town,
worshiped and sacrificed the Lord Almighty at Shiloh.
Okay. And if you keep on going in verse chapter two and verse 21,
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and the Lord was gracious to Hannah.
She gave birth to three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew
up in the presence of the Lord.
As we've kind of talked about, I believe he was going to grow up in the presence
of the Lord to begin with. He was going to grow up in this house that was already focused on God.
They just kind of put it on steroids when they brought him and dedicated him
and gave him at the temple to let him serve and grow there.
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But I want you to understand something this morning. This is maybe the most
important thing of all the things that we talk about, is what you focus on will
be the things that your children focus on.
What you focus on, what's important to you as a parent, will be the things that
are important to your children as they grow up.
And this is just a really simple illustration, and I meant to put the picture
(18:14):
up and I forgot to throw it up there, but there's this picture from last baseball,
from the opening day of last baseball season,
and it's me and Collins and Vance in London, and they're getting ready to go
to school, so it's opening day of baseball season, so we've all got to wear our Braves jerseys.
Now, why do you think my kids are Braves fans?
Do you think it's because they understand the great history of the Atlanta Braves
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and all the great people that came through and all the wonderful things that
they accomplished in the past? Do you think that's why they're Braves fans?
Why are they Braves fans? Because who's a Braves fan?
Because it's important to me. Because it's important to me that they're not fans of anybody else.
What's important to you will be important to them.
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And if God is the most important thing to you and they see you living that,
not just saying it is, but they see you living that out in your life.
They see you coming and worshiping. They see you living a prayerful life.
They see you studying the Bible away from this building.
They see you praying and hear you praying for other people and for things and
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you're involving them in those things.
You're at the things that, you know, you don't just drop them off at church,
at youth group things, you come and you're a part and you participate.
When that is the number one thing in your life, it will be part of just the fabric of your child.
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We put so much focus on so many things. And not all these things are wrong.
There's nothing wrong for your kid to play sports.
There's nothing wrong for them to be in the band. There's nothing wrong with
them doing these extracurricular things. Nothing wrong with them at all.
But they can't be the number one thing.
Because if you allow those things to become the number one thing in your home,
they will become the number one thing in your child's life.
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And as they grow up and they have a lack of interest in God,
you're gonna go, well, why do they not wanna go to church?
Why do they not wanna do this? All they wanted to think about what was important to you.
And then that was what's gonna become important to them.
The last thing I want you to think about is in that same direction,
the most important thing you can do is to raise your child as a disciple.
(20:28):
It's to raise your child as a disciple.
We talk about bringing people to church all the time. Let's bring them.
Let's get them here. Let's let them get to know us.
Let's do our best to teach them Jesus.
And hopefully as they get to know Jesus, that they will be convicted by him
and they'll want to become his children. They'll want to be baptized.
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They want to have that relationship with Him.
But as parents, I think it is such a wonderful thing that God gives us the ability,
the built-in discipleship to our children, that we look at them and we understand
that it is so important for me,
to move in a direction that brings these children closer to God every single day.
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Every single day that that needs to be what my purpose is, is to live a life
that my children could become closer to God every day.
I need workmanship. As a parent, you are God's workmanship.
And God has given us a job before we ever got here. And as parents,
part of that job is to raise our children as disciples.
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If we accomplish all these things that the world says is important.
And then our children are lost because of our lack of effort.
That's a lot to stand before God with and say, hey, I accomplished all these
other things, but I'm sorry, God.
We didn't have time for this.
You do what you want to do. If you want to be a devoted Christian in your life, guess what you'll do?
(22:02):
You'll be a devoted Christian. If you want to devote your life to other things,
you'll devote it to those other things.
But just remember that the most important thing that you can do is raise your
child as a disciple of Jesus.
Today, Today really is a wonderful day. Today is a blessing of a day because
we're reminded, one, of the sacrifice of Jesus and the fact that we have hope
(22:27):
that this world is not it.
And aren't you glad that this world is not it? There's a lot of great things
that we all enjoy about this world.
There's a lot of things in this world that cause us to struggle and that cause
problems and challenges and heartaches.
And I'm glad that this isn't what it's all about, out, that there is another life after this one.
And another wonderful thing about it is that we have the opportunity to remind
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ourselves that we need to do everything we can to take everybody with us, our children included.
And so this morning, I hope that you will take the challenge of Scripture and
say that my home is going to follow God. We're going to be about Jesus.
We're going to be about raising disciples.
And know that if that's your focus, that this is a church family that will help
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you in every single way to grow that within yourself, within your heart,
and within your home. That's what we're here for, to help each other grow.
Let's close with a word of prayer, and then the lesson will be yours.
God, we thank you for the chance to be together. We thank you for the opportunity
to be reminded of the struggle of being a Christian parent.
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It's in a home that focuses on you, that that's what you've called us to,
that's what you want us to be about.
And in those challenging moments, God, give us the strength to just keep going with it.
Let us as a church family wrap our arms around our young families and encourage
them every single day to not give up on the great call that they have been called into as parents.
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God, be with us as we try to make disciples, not just of our children,
but of our community, of our friends, of our family, of our neighbors,
God. God, help us to teach and to show your love.
Help people to understand that Jesus Christ came and lived and died for each
and every one of us, and that if we will follow him,
if we will have our sins washed away as he has asked us to, we will be welcomed
(24:25):
into the most wonderful family, the family of God.
Let us do everything we can to bring as many people into that family as possible.
Give us that urge, God. Give us that desire. It's in your son's name we pray.
Thou art giving and forgiving, ever-blessing, ever-blessed.
Thank you again for joining us, and please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel or our podcast.
(24:51):
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(25:14):
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Be sure to join us again and until then, remember to love like Jesus.
Thank you for joining us for this program from the Ninth Avenue Church of Christ in Haleville, Alabama.
We hope that you will subscribe and will share our program with others.
Now, we take you to the service of the Ninth Avenue Church of Christ.
I'm so glad that we are able to be together today for a very special day that
we started a few years ago, our Family First Sunday, where we take a moment
(00:45):
and just celebrate the families in our church.
It is a great day to be together as always, but especially when we get to honor our children.
Jesus had a very special place in His heart for children.
Children Jesus told us he said unless you become like one
of these children you cannot enter the kingdom of God they are our
standard think about that for a second the children that
(01:07):
fill this room this morning are our spiritual standard
we usually think about it the other way around right that they need to grow
and they need to mature they need to be more like us but Jesus says and unless
we've become like them that we will not inherit the kingdom and so that's a
very you know Jesus Jesus had a way of of taking things and kind of turning them upside down.
(01:29):
He kind of had a way of of making you think that what he's fixing to turn left
and he actually turns right.
And so I hope that as we gather today and we think about our family and we thank
God for our children, that we will.
Remember that God says that we need to become more and more like them,
and we need to strive to do that every day.
(01:50):
Before we do that, let's go to God in prayer as we go into our lesson.
And as we pray, we're also going to have a very special mention for Shea Williams.
Shea's not doing very well, and so we just want to remember her in a very special
way as we pray this morning. So let's go to God in prayer.
God, we thank you for the chance to be together this morning.
We thank you for the opportunity to just lift our voices in song with one another.
(02:13):
To come around this table of remembrance, this table of thanks,
and be grateful for the sacrifice that your son made for us.
We thank you for giving us that, God, giving us that sacrifice and his death
and his resurrection so that we can have a hope of eternity with you forever and ever.
(02:34):
Be with us as we go into this lesson, God, today.
Help us to open up our hearts and our minds and and our souls,
God, to you and your direction for us in our life as we strive to do our best
to lead in our homes, to lead our families.
God, I know that being a parent is not always the easiest thing in the world.
(02:55):
It comes with so many distractions in today's society. It comes with so many challenges.
Help us to always look to you as our strength in everything that we do.
God, we pray a very special prayer this morning in this moment for Shea.
We know that her struggle, her journey over the last few years has been very difficult.
Yet she has been a wonderful example to each and every one of us as she has
(03:18):
fought every day of the life that she has had.
To continue to try to be with her family, to continue to try to be with her
friends. And she has succeeded in so many amazing ways, God.
But God, as she is struggling today, we just pray a very special prayer of comfort
on her, a very special prayer of comfort for her family, for peace,
(03:41):
God, in all that they face.
We thank you so much for the love that you show us. And it's in your son's name we pray. Amen.
I sat down and just thought of a few things.
That children will do for you in your life. And then, you know,
I believe that we all have had those moments where children have made liars out of us.
Any of you had moments where children has made a liar out of you?
(04:04):
I've got a good friend that they were actually, had a couple of elders coming
over to their house one night to talk to the husband about becoming a deacon.
And they come in and they sat down and they began talking to them.
And they asked the kids, they go, is there anything you want us to know about your dad?
And the oldest son goes, yeah, he beats me every night.
And he says it's not true though the
(04:25):
dad did i don't know i don't know if anybody ever really investigated any
further kids have a way of just you know we think we're
going to be okay everything's going to go well and it's not
you know they're just going to make us they're just going to make us
out to be a liar you know one of my favorite things about kids is if your kid
is sick and you take them to the doctor how do they act when they get there
fine you know just just tell them you're going to the doctor and your kids get
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better i've also learned as a parent the absolute best way to get your child's
attention is to sit down and look comfortable.
If you sit down and look comfortable, your children are going to find you and
you're going to have their undivided attention.
I also learned that once we had kids, we became completely irrelevant to our very own parents.
Completely irrelevant to our very own parents. So kids are a great thing.
(05:10):
Kids are a blessing from God. And I want to take a moment and really talk from the story of Samuel.
Samuel, when it it comes to having a child and stories of that in scripture,
Samuel is really one of my favorite, if not my favorite on a day like this,
because I believe that story really sums up the desire to be a parent.
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I believe God put it within us to want family, to want to have family around,
to be a parent. There is this great desire.
And of course, that was something that no matter how much Hannah and her husband
desired that. They were struggling with that.
And I love that as well because, you know, for some people, starting a family
or growing a family is not always the easiest process.
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And we know that there are great people of faith that had that same struggle.
And we can find comfort in that.
We can find strength in that to know that God is listening in those moments
and God has answers and God has the ability to help us through those times.
But I think we see some great lessons from this particular story,
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and we'll talk about a couple of them together.
The first is this, children are a wonderful blessing that comes from love.
That's the first thing that I want you to think about this morning,
that children are a wonderful blessing that comes from love.
John 3.16, one of the verses that we all pretty well know, that we learned from
such a young age, say it with me, the very first part of it.
(06:40):
For God so the world that he gave his one and only son.
But the part of that that really always jumps out at me, and it's just an attribute of God.
God is a giving God.
That is one of the great attributes of him. He gave us his son,
which is what this particular verse is talking about.
(07:00):
But I think it's so wonderful for us to remember that God loves us.
All right. If you ever question about whether or not you are cared for,
someone has feelings for you or if someone loves you, he says it God loves you.
And God loves you so much that God gives to you.
And our children are part of that giving.
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They're part of that love. That as our families grow, so should our love and
our relationship with God.
Because we look at our children and we should remind ourselves or be reminded
that we have that child for one main reason, and that is because God gives and
God God gives out of love.
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And that's such a wonderful dynamic that we have in that relationship with our
God, that God gives out of love.
But as I think about children, and today we talk about, or we'll acknowledge
later this afternoon, some of our youngest children.
But I think back with my kids, you know, that raising children is a fun, full of fun moments.
(08:05):
First words, steps, depths, laughs, birthdays.
You know, it is funny to me that we want for so long, we want our child,
we want our children to say their first words, right? And what do we want?
Dads, what do we want our children's first words to be? Dad.
Moms, what do we want it to be? And there's this back and forth,
(08:26):
right? You know, say dad, say dad, you know.
But the funny thing to me is once our kids learn to start talking.
What do we want them to do?
Be quiet. Stop. It's like as parents, we can't have it both ways.
We want them to talk, but then when they start talking, we're like, hey, will you quit?
Just be quiet. Enough is enough.
(08:47):
But all of those moments are born really out of that first year.
The list could go on and on of all the memories that you really make,
those cherished memories you make in that first year.
But as you experience them and as you raise Raise your children.
Remember that those memories come because of how much God loves you and that
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our job as parents and as grandparents and as friends and family members and
church family is to let our children be reminded of that love as well.
That as we feel the love of God from our children, it is our job to then show
them the love of God in our own life and let them know that they are loved in such great ways.
(09:30):
But as we think about 1 Samuel, you know, Samuel is a great story of understanding
of what we should do with our children, how we should show them that God loves them.
You know, the story really starts in 1 Samuel of Hannah and her husband.
They're wanting children. They're trying to have children.
And that doesn't go the way that they want it to, the way that they had planned it.
(09:52):
And life is just that way, that we plan to go this way, this direction in life.
And And sometimes God says, no, I've got something else planned.
But go with me. I guess we're in one verse 20, the first few verses.
It says, so in the course of time, Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son.
She named him Samuel, saying, because I asked the Lord for him.
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And I love that from the very beginning of this story, that as Hannah and her
husband and are wanting to start their family.
God is not something you introduce into your child's life when they show up.
God is something that has to be there from the very beginning.
As you are going into maybe a relationship,
as you're going into a new marriage, as you're going into growing your family,
(10:41):
it is evident from Hannah's life and from chapter one, that Hannah asked and
prayed and talked to God about her future family.
And she knew at the end of the day that that blessing ultimately came from God.
I named him this because I asked the Lord for him.
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How many things in our life, and I really want you to think about this,
it's not necessarily just about our children, but life in general.
How many things in our life do we miss out on because we don't actually take
the time to ask God about those things?
That we try to make them happen. We try to put things into place.
We try to make actions turn into results on our own, and they don't work.
(11:25):
And maybe the reason behind the reason that they're not working is because we've
not put God in the middle of it.
We've not put God in the middle of it. And then for our children,
as you hold your child, as you are raising your child, are you praying for things in their life?
Are you looking ahead into the future and going ahead and praying about the
(11:46):
spouse that that they will marry, about the people that they will date,
about the friends that they will have, about the decisions they will make.
Even as a young child, are you praying about those moments ahead?
Because God's gonna go ahead and answer those prayers when we talk to the Lord
and ask the Lord about those things. So Hannah was a person of prayer.
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She was a mom of prayer from the very beginning.
And so when all of this finally came about, she said, I'm gonna name him Samuel.
Why? Because I asked the Lord for him.
And when her husband, Alachna, went up with his family to offer the annual sacrifice
to the Lord and to fulfill his vow, Hannah did not go.
She said to her husband, after my boy is weaned, I will take him and present
(12:32):
him before the Lord and he will live there always.
We see from the very beginning of this story that this mother and this father, what is their focus?
Focus what is their number one focus and priority
through their life it is being what God
has called them to be it is doing the things that God wants them to do God is
(12:55):
their focus it is so easy it is so easy to get into a routine to get into a
place in our life especially when we have children that our focus is on being a parent.
And being a parent is a full-time job. It's a full-time job.
You have so many different jobs within that title parent. You're a counselor. You're a cook.
(13:22):
You're a chauffeur. You're a nurse. You're a doctor.
You're all these things wrapped up into one. And it's so easy to get so focused
on I'm going to be a good parent. I'm going to be a great great parent.
But our focus first and foremost above everything else is not being a parent.
It's not being a husband. It's being a what?
A disciple of Jesus.
(13:45):
And we live our life as a disciple of Jesus, and our parenting filters through that.
Our being a spouse filters through that. Our being a friend,
a family member, it filters through the idea of being a disciple.
And we see just in these few verses that Hannah and her husband are focused
(14:06):
on being followers of God above everything else.
They're wanting to make sure they're doing what God has called them to do.
But one of the things that I think about Hannah in such a real way is Hannah
had every reason, I think, to be a helicopter mom.
Hannah had every reason to be a helicopter mom. I've prayed for this child.
(14:27):
I've asked for this child. God's given him to me.
And now that he's here, what am I gonna do?
I'm just gonna hover over him and make sure that everything is taken care of.
Make sure that everything is okay. okay, he could have been the ultimate only child, right?
He could have had the ultimate only child syndrome, but instead she understood what a blessing he was.
(14:50):
And from the beginning, wanting wanted to give that blessing back to God.
And we have to realize the same thing in the lives of our own children.
This is a very intimate, I think verse from, from Jeremiah, as he's talking
about, or as he's having this conversation, he says, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
(15:12):
Before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
And I believe that that verse holds true to every one of us,
that before we were formed, God knew who we were.
God knew us. God knew who we were going to be. God knew what we could become.
God knew what we would become.
He said, the scripture tells us that we're God's workmanship,
(15:34):
and he's already to put things in place for us to do on His behalf.
So God's got a purpose. God's got a reason for us.
And as we hold our children, we need to remember that as well,
that God has already said, I know who this child is, and I want to use this child as a blessing.
And so we have to make up our mind. Are we going to be those disciple,
(15:55):
Christ-following Christian parents that look at our children and say,
we're going to give you back to God?
I'm going to give you back to God in the most amazing and most powerful way.
Way. Now, in this particular story, what does Hannah do?
Hannah leaves him. Hannah leaves him at the temple, and he's raised in the temple.
(16:20):
I'm just going to be honest with you. I've got four kids already.
Do not bring your children to the church building and drop them off and be like,
hey, we're leaving them with you. It's your turn to raise them.
That's not what we're doing, but we want you to be here with them every opportunity,
every moment that God provides, God's, because it is so important from the very
beginning to say that I'm going to let this child be all about God,
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and I'm going to give him or give her back so that he can grow or she can grow
in that environment from day one.
The Jewish people, and this is just such a beautiful image here,
the Jewish people actually called their homes little temples. Right?
Little temples. So it is important to raise our children in that spiritual environment. Let's keep going.
(17:09):
As a parent, this just carries on the thought, making God's top priority is essential.
Go back and look in verse one, or I'm sorry, verse three of verse one.
Year after year, this man, talking about her husband, went up from his town,
worshiped and sacrificed the Lord Almighty at Shiloh.
Okay. And if you keep on going in verse chapter two and verse 21,
(17:30):
and the Lord was gracious to Hannah.
She gave birth to three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew
up in the presence of the Lord.
As we've kind of talked about, I believe he was going to grow up in the presence
of the Lord to begin with. He was going to grow up in this house that was already focused on God.
They just kind of put it on steroids when they brought him and dedicated him
and gave him at the temple to let him serve and grow there.
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But I want you to understand something this morning. This is maybe the most
important thing of all the things that we talk about, is what you focus on will
be the things that your children focus on.
What you focus on, what's important to you as a parent, will be the things that
are important to your children as they grow up.
And this is just a really simple illustration, and I meant to put the picture
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up and I forgot to throw it up there, but there's this picture from last baseball,
from the opening day of last baseball season,
and it's me and Collins and Vance in London, and they're getting ready to go
to school, so it's opening day of baseball season, so we've all got to wear our Braves jerseys.
Now, why do you think my kids are Braves fans?
Do you think it's because they understand the great history of the Atlanta Braves
(18:37):
and all the great people that came through and all the wonderful things that
they accomplished in the past? Do you think that's why they're Braves fans?
Why are they Braves fans? Because who's a Braves fan?
Because it's important to me. Because it's important to me that they're not fans of anybody else.
What's important to you will be important to them.
(19:00):
And if God is the most important thing to you and they see you living that,
not just saying it is, but they see you living that out in your life.
They see you coming and worshiping. They see you living a prayerful life.
They see you studying the Bible away from this building.
They see you praying and hear you praying for other people and for things and
(19:21):
you're involving them in those things.
You're at the things that, you know, you don't just drop them off at church,
at youth group things, you come and you're a part and you participate.
When that is the number one thing in your life, it will be part of just the fabric of your child.
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We put so much focus on so many things. And not all these things are wrong.
There's nothing wrong for your kid to play sports.
There's nothing wrong for them to be in the band. There's nothing wrong with
them doing these extracurricular things. Nothing wrong with them at all.
But they can't be the number one thing.
Because if you allow those things to become the number one thing in your home,
they will become the number one thing in your child's life.
(20:04):
And as they grow up and they have a lack of interest in God,
you're gonna go, well, why do they not wanna go to church?
Why do they not wanna do this? All they wanted to think about what was important to you.
And then that was what's gonna become important to them.
The last thing I want you to think about is in that same direction,
the most important thing you can do is to raise your child as a disciple.
(20:28):
It's to raise your child as a disciple.
We talk about bringing people to church all the time. Let's bring them.
Let's get them here. Let's let them get to know us.
Let's do our best to teach them Jesus.
And hopefully as they get to know Jesus, that they will be convicted by him
and they'll want to become his children. They'll want to be baptized.
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They want to have that relationship with Him.
But as parents, I think it is such a wonderful thing that God gives us the ability,
the built-in discipleship to our children, that we look at them and we understand
that it is so important for me,
to move in a direction that brings these children closer to God every single day.
(21:15):
Every single day that that needs to be what my purpose is, is to live a life
that my children could become closer to God every day.
I need workmanship. As a parent, you are God's workmanship.
And God has given us a job before we ever got here. And as parents,
part of that job is to raise our children as disciples.
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If we accomplish all these things that the world says is important.
And then our children are lost because of our lack of effort.
That's a lot to stand before God with and say, hey, I accomplished all these
other things, but I'm sorry, God.
We didn't have time for this.
You do what you want to do. If you want to be a devoted Christian in your life, guess what you'll do?
(22:02):
You'll be a devoted Christian. If you want to devote your life to other things,
you'll devote it to those other things.
But just remember that the most important thing that you can do is raise your
child as a disciple of Jesus.
Today, Today really is a wonderful day. Today is a blessing of a day because
we're reminded, one, of the sacrifice of Jesus and the fact that we have hope
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that this world is not it.
And aren't you glad that this world is not it? There's a lot of great things
that we all enjoy about this world.
There's a lot of things in this world that cause us to struggle and that cause
problems and challenges and heartaches.
And I'm glad that this isn't what it's all about, out, that there is another life after this one.
And another wonderful thing about it is that we have the opportunity to remind
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ourselves that we need to do everything we can to take everybody with us, our children included.
And so this morning, I hope that you will take the challenge of Scripture and
say that my home is going to follow God. We're going to be about Jesus.
We're going to be about raising disciples.
And know that if that's your focus, that this is a church family that will help
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you in every single way to grow that within yourself, within your heart,
and within your home. That's what we're here for, to help each other grow.
Let's close with a word of prayer, and then the lesson will be yours.
God, we thank you for the chance to be together. We thank you for the opportunity
to be reminded of the struggle of being a Christian parent.
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It's in a home that focuses on you, that that's what you've called us to,
that's what you want us to be about.
And in those challenging moments, God, give us the strength to just keep going with it.
Let us as a church family wrap our arms around our young families and encourage
them every single day to not give up on the great call that they have been called into as parents.
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God, be with us as we try to make disciples, not just of our children,
but of our community, of our friends, of our family, of our neighbors,
God. God, help us to teach and to show your love.
Help people to understand that Jesus Christ came and lived and died for each
and every one of us, and that if we will follow him,
if we will have our sins washed away as he has asked us to, we will be welcomed
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into the most wonderful family, the family of God.
Let us do everything we can to bring as many people into that family as possible.
Give us that urge, God. Give us that desire. It's in your son's name we pray.
Thou art giving and forgiving, ever-blessing, ever-blessed.
Thank you again for joining us, and please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel or our podcast.
(24:51):
We can be found on Apple Podcasts or any other podcast provider.
Also, leave us a 5-star review, which will greatly assist in getting the message
of God's love and salvation to others.
You can also follow us on Facebook.
Instagram,
(25:14):
and Twitter.
Be sure to join us again and until then, remember to love like Jesus.
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