These are my sermon notes for Sunday's Sermon on the Nuclear Family, Parenting and how to Raise an Enjoyable Child. There are amazing blessings of living in a home with a caring mom and dad. How specifically does it work? I call this the Discipline/Delight model of parenting. And guess where I get it from? You guessed it, the verse we discussed last week - - 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Remember, Proverbs are guidelines and tendencies, not promises. But they are meant to help us steer and make good decisions. And this steering includes discipline (train up) and delight (he will not depart). The implication is that if you discipline correctly your child will want what you are selling, his heart will be drawn to it. One commentator writes,
“The Hebrew word ‘hanak’ “to train” implies both dedicating a child to God and instructing him according to who your child is (knowing him, delighting in him) and the proper instruction to lead him in the right ways.” So to show you how this is done, I will present four possible ways to use both discipline and delight - -
One more thing: Proverbs 20:7 & 23:26 says that children learn most from your example. That is why God put them in the same house with you. It is in the warmth of the greenhouse where they watch, learn and begin to imitate. That is why I look in the mirror and say, “Wow, I remind me of my dad.” The image of God is meant to be passed. What are they to learn from you by example:
If you are a parent with kids, I wish you Godspeed!!
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Don’t blame Jesus for the horrific crimes in the Roman Catholic Church. Since the movie Spotlight aired 3 years ago detailing the clerical abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church in Boston, it seems the journalistic floodgates across our country have been opened wide. Just this week, the Pennsylvania grand jury report on child sex abuse lists hundreds of accused priests. What is going on? The case of the systemic crimes against children in the RCC goes deeper than the mere moral failings of weak people. The repulsive behavior of a large portion of the clergy have been hundreds and hundreds of years in the making. People want to know why? They need to know why! If only for stopping one more child in the church from being sexually exploited. There are many opinions on why there was such widespread abuse that went unchecked: The Church’s penchant for protecting the Roman Catholic leadership so the institution would not be dragged through the mud. The embracing of the homosexual lifestyle by many of the priests. The RCC’s love of money and their desire to settle all the lawsuits out of court. Some say it is because the Catholic Church have perpetuated a culture of secrecy. Whatever the reason, it has led to some of the most appalling crimes ever committed on such a wide scale this country has ever seen against children. Some people want to downplay it, and make it a comparison of moral equivalence, "All churches have their skeletons in the closet." Not quite like this. I think at the core the problem is more fundamental than mere secrecy and homosexuality. It is the reason I left the church in the first place. The RCC has faulty and dangerous theology. When you leave the truth, all you have are lies that destroy. I will name three areas I believe have allowed for the such unchecked behavior. And I will try to keep is short and simple... Authority of Scripture Martin Luther put it clearly and bluntly, "A simple layman armed with Scripture is to be believed above a pope or a council without it." Scripture should dictate behavior and policy, not the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops or Priests. Authority comes from the mouth of God - - not some man in a white robe holding a golden crucifix. Scripture states in Psalm 119:99, "I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts." Sounds so simple, but it has been largely ignored in the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, most Roman Catholics don't even know the bible. Just a cursory reading of the New Testament should stop the veneration of priests dead in its tracks. Matthew 23 is Jesus' scorching indictment about the Pharisees and Priests during his day and it has been largely ignored by most Roman Catholics. Just listen to some of his warnings, "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach." "Do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven." "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness." Jesus is saying, "Priests are people too." Not some holy unblemished saint wearing a white robe, not a person you never question or fawn over because they can do the sign of the cross. The number one reason why clerical abuse happens is because no one in the Roman Catholic Church sees the priest simply as a fallen man. And the priests even buy into the lie about themselves. They have been playing a charade. Acting holy when in fact they are fallen like everyone else. The worst play actor of all is the Pope. I would hate to be the Pope when he finally sees Jesus. He is a flawed man, and he acts like some statue carved by Michael Angelo. I would love to sit in a room with the Pope alone, I would like to punch him in the nose and say, "Get over yourself!" Even Peter refused to have people bow to him. (Acts 10:25-26 -- "As Peter was about to enter, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet to worship him. But Peter helped him up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”) There are so many other scriptures that people in the Roman Catholic church ignore. It is appalling how they allow such non-sense to go on. 1 Timothy 4:1-4 says this, "The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving." Demonic teaching forbids marriage. Just think if many of the horny priests got married how that would have stopped so many children from being exploited? Priesthood of Believers This leads naturally into one of the most important doctrines of all, The Priesthood of All Believers. If you are a Christian, you are a priest. You don't need a mediator to go between you and God, you can go directly to him. (1 Peter 2:5, Hebrews 4:16) You don't need some guy with a special title to address Jesus for you. The Roman Church doesn't believe this. Once again they put faulty men on a pedestal. Think about it: If scripture says we are all priests, and yet the Roman Catholic priest thinks they are the only true priests, then they don't really know the bible. So you are allowing ignorant men to lead you. Many pastors in the Protestant church fall prey to this as well. They love the title and special significance. This is one of my pet peeves as a pastor. Especially when someone is sick in the hospital. People in the church think only the pastor can go because he is the only one who can pray special prayers. And so people dont go see other members in the church who are suffering because people they think it is the pastor's job to do that. No, it is everyone's job, because everyone is a priest! Justification by Faith My biggest problem with the Roman Catholic Church is that most of the priests themselves are not born again believers. They are religious, not righteous. They believe faith + sacraments + tradition + the writings of the Magistrate all save. When scriptures says clearly, "Therefore, being justified by faith we have peace with God." (Romans 5:1) And so when you have a man who is a sexual being, trying to abstain from marriage and sex, thinking they are the arbiters of all truth concerning God, and they are just as lost as every other sinner because they are not connected to the life of God by faith, you have all kind of trouble on your hand. Listen to Paul in Colossians 2:16-23: "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence." Lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. See, clear as crystal. But remember, Roman Catholic's don't read their Bibles. This is why I left the church, and why I hope more Roman Catholics leave because the destructive theology and fall-out from it will never change. Never. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” Proverbs 14:12 I had a life-altering moment, a breakthrough, a flash of insight, a bolt of concentrated wisdom, and some would even call it an epiphany. I haven’t had one in quite some time, but this one I just had was the kind of experience that when it struck me all of reality fell in line. For a brief moment I understood all things. Sharp focus and clear thinking has been granted to me for a short time, so I must write it down before the cloud of brilliance leaves me. Let me describe the moment for you... I was making myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch yesterday in the kitchen while my daughter was in the living room eating a salad that I just made her. It was a hot summer afternoon. And when it is a Thursday and it is hot, not even my dog wants to go outside. My daughter had a busy morning, she finally could relax for awhile, stay cool inside, and so she sat on the couch getting ready to watch some mind numbing television. To my horror the show she chose to watch was one of those silly teeny bopper shows that have been made for kids to pass the time without thinking. Normally I ignore it when she puts one of those shows on, but on this hot Thursday, I grabbed my sandwich and decided to join her to watch. The name of the show she was watching is called “Mr. Young.” The description of the show puts it like this, "Take Doogie Howser out of the O.R., put him in a classroom and you have the basic premise of 'Mr. Young.' The titular Adam Young is a whiz kid who entered college as a 9-year-old. At 14, now a college graduate, he begins his career teaching science to high schoolers -- including both his best friend and his crush, which presents a challenge for him in balancing his personal and professional lives. As if being a teen isn't hard enough!" Sounds great, doesn't it? To put it simply, "Mr. Young" is another one of those Disney kid's shows that are really, really, really, really bad. Think "Suite Life with Zac and Cody," "Hannah Montana," "Ant Farm", "Shake it Up", or get this name, "Dog With a Blog." When I say bad I mean cheesy, silly, ridiculous, mind killing shows that have terrible plots, horrid acting and children who are so over the top expressive that after five minutes of watching you are sure to develop the most intense migrane headache you have ever had. So there I sat, watching, enduring, rolling my eyes, trying to put my fingers in my ears to stop the pain. And right before I got up to leave the room it hit me. The moment was like a man making a discovery on a Twilight Zone episode when a person realizes all of his friends and neighbors have been poisoned by the aliens who want to take over the world. Do you know when it comes to media many people believe violence is what is rotting our children’s minds? I can understand this. But I believe there is something that is far more dangerous and subtle that causes way more damage to our kids. And I mean this sincerely, but you will have to hear me out, because what I am about to say may at first sound preposterous, but if you consider my reasoning I will show you how it is akin to what is killing our souls on a larger scale. The problem with the world is the “laugh track.” Yes, the laugh track. You think I am kidding, but I am not. If you look deeper and try to notice, Disney utilizes the laugh track to make those really bad shows somewhat believable. They are used to convince your child that what they are watching is actually funny. Look into the eyes of the younger children when they watch, everytime the laugh track is played their eyes will glaze over and they then begin to buy into it. Crowd psychology is a powerful tool. The laugh track gets your kid believing everybody is laughing. But let me tell you, what the laugh track has them laughing at is not funny! Dont get me wrong, I love good humor, but what the laugh track has you laugh at is not humorous. It is bland insanity. The laugh track is a marketing gimmick used to get your kid to like a show that has zero substance. Trust me on this! I wanted to prove it for myself, so here is how I performed my own test: Everytime my daughter is watching one of those shows I will laugh along with the laugh track. I will try to have the same intensity of laughter to match the track and it is strange how she will begin to snap out of the trance the laugh track had her in previously. When I do it, boy does she ever get mad! But my response to her irritation is very pointed and intense, "Think about it, that was not funny. They are fooling you! What they just did there is bad writing, in fact it is mindless garbage. It is not funny! They want you to buy into their humor, which is not humor, or plot, or reasonable writing. It is trash and they sell it with the laugh track!” She is beginning to see, I am winning my daughter back to the world of the living . She is starting to think again. I can now teach her that a good story has to have a plot, not just a laugh track. I still have alot of work cut out for her because that laugh track is so compelling. Mob rule rules! I am convinced the whole world is operating on a laugh track. The majority of people I know are living lives that are not really wise, significant, or have any kind of plot behind their choices whatsoever because these days we are just expected to laugh, or cry, or go "ah" with the crowd and the hidden laugh track that is always playing behind the scenes of everyday life. Do you know what the intention of the laugh track is? To take the bite out of life. Life has been neutered. We no longer believe we are living in a grand story, we no longer think the Gospel is wonderful, or dangerous, or important. We have been dumbed down by the laugh track that is always playing behind the scenes. Look at everyone staring at their hand held screens and mounted screens, they are buying into the constant drone of the laugh track. At least with a violent movie there is the potential for shock and horror. But the laugh track numbs us into stupidity, and it destroys urgency! Proverbs 14:12 says that most mindless people are hurtling towards death without realizing it. That is because the laugh track is numbing them to the world around them. It is not funny! Recently ABC had a show on called "The Proposal" which is the perfect illustration of what I am trying to warn people about. It is a one hour show. Think about it, a one hour show with commercials - - so it is a 42 minute show. In that 42 minutes one person is choosing between 10 people to find the one person they are going to propose to at the end of the 42 minutes. 42 minutes! During this 42 minutes the crowd "Oohs and Ahs" over the banal non-sensical answers of the 10 people they don't even know. Tears of sentimental stupidity flow, and then under bright Hollywood stage lights the proposal for marriage occurs. 42 lowsy minutes!!!! The cooing crowd makes mindlessness acceptable. We are now praising hollow idiocy. I blame the laugh track. At least with violence your child starts to see the world is dangerous, but with the laugh track nothing matters. There is no urgency, nothing is noble, nothing is dangerous, and everything must be tolerated with a forced laugh. I HATE IT! Is there really coming a day of recompense? Or did Jesus die so we could watch Mr. Young and Miley Cyrus? Yes, there is something far worse than violence. The laugh track! It may be the final sign of human degradation. We don't know how to think anymore. More's the pity!ency. "The world of the fairy tale impinges on the ordinary world the way the dimension of depth impinges on the two-dimensional surface of a plane, so that there is no point on the plane-a Victorian sitting room or a Kansas farm-that can't become an entrance to it. You enter the EXTRAORDINARY by way of the ORDINARY. Something you have seen a thousand times you suddenly see as if for the first time...you do not have to go a great distance to enter it any more than you have to go a great distance to enter the world of dreams-you just have to go to sleep-or the world of memory..." Frederick Buechner (Telling the Truth) I was watching a rain drop.
Framed in a cloudy backdrop of gray, a single bead of lonely water fell silently out of the sky. It traveled a short journey from the bottom of the lacy dark canopy tumblng quickly down to die on a hard surface of dry concrete. It ended quietly. No cry or whimper, just the sound of a soft pat hitting the ground. Within seconds it was swallowed by the cracks and dimples of a thirsty sidewalk. Is that what life is like for you? A sad straight line downward? Are you just existing to exist? Is there any magic or only dull tedium? I am not by nature a depressed person, but there are days when I wonder is that all? Is my day only the same day, lived again and again, a drab existance covered in a cloud of emotional gray? Am I a rain drop? Listen to this quote by Frederick Buechner, it is aimed at preachers like me who forget the real fairy tale we are daily living in: "The truth, reality, is what it is. It is the TV news with the sound turned on and all the other sound turned on with it-the sounds of the house, of the street outside the house, the town, the countryside, the world...The truth is all the sounds that well up within the preacher as he sits down at his desk to put his sermon together-the sounds of the bills to be paid, the children to educate, the storm windows to put up, the sounds of his own blunders and triumphs, of his lusts and memories and dreams and doubts, and one of which when you come right down to it is apt to seem more real and immediate and clamorous to hm than the sound of truth as high and wild and holy. So homiletics becomes apologetics. The preacher exchanges the fairy-tale truth that is too good to be true for a truth that...secularizes and makes rational. He adapts and makes relevant. He demythologizes and makes credible. And what remains of the fairy tale of the Gospel becomes in his hands a neutered narrative where there are few suprises." (Italized words are not the original authors ). Is the Gospel a fairy tale? Not in the sense that it is a completely made-up, make-believe story; but it is in the sense that when understood rightly it is "high, wild and holy. It is magical!" Yes, the Gospel is meant to be wild, and magical. It is meant to awaken my soul to another world that exists just beyond my sight. But to the average preacher, like me, and the average Christian, like you, the Gospel is often seen merely as an insignificant add on to the monotony of my ho-hum daily routine. Like the rain drop, my life quietly, silently, unceremoniously descends. That isn't much of a fairy tale. In fact, that isn't even magical. And that isn't the Gospel. Frederick Buechner says there are three components to the fairy tale that are also true to the Gospel: (1) The hidden world is full of darkness and danger. He says that in the fairy tale there are "fierce dragons that guard the treasure, wicked fairies who show up at royal christenings, wrong turns off the path, an awful price to be paid for choosing the wrong casket or wrong door. It is a world of dark and dangerous quest where the suitors compete for the hand of the king's daughter with death to the losers..." The Gospel has been sold differently than this. We have come to see it as something tame. A list of ideas, cold principles and irrelevant histoical facts that you learn on Sunday, but is not does really contain the warp and woof of real living. The Gospel doesn't pay the bills, it adds little to help troubled relationships, it offers relatively nothing in the immediate stressful schedule of the day. But I believe if you were to actually read the Bible rightly, the Gospel is first and foremost the entrance into a real world full of darkness and danger, of beasts and creatures fully fanged. In my Proverbs study I often forget I am dealing with more than meets the eye. Proverbs is not just wisdom for being good, it opens us up to a wider panarama of the "high, wild and holy." I came across a number of verses that will chill you to the bone. Let me offer just two: - Proverbs 21:26 - "One who wanders from the path of understanding and good sense, will rest in the assembly of the dead." What path is this? I am not walking on any path right now, am I? Jesus says I am, in fact he clearly states that there are only two to choose from. A wide road and a narrow rocky path. (Matthew 7:13-14) He tells me the wide road, the easy road, the one most of us are traveling on, leads to destruction. The narrow path, the one rarely ever chosen, leads to a vibrant techni-color life; it leads the weary wide-eyed adventurer eventually to a land full of wonder that is just around the next corner. Is my daily wandering really that precarious? Will many of my friends and family end up walking with the assembly of the dead? Are they holding hands with hordes of demons and fanged monsters? Does aimlessness really involve that much danger? The Bible seems to think so. - Proverbs 15:11 - "Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the Lord; how much more the hearts of the children of man!" Sheol, the place of the dead, and Abaddon, the great abyss that holds terrifying demons and dark angels, lie open, right this very moment, ready to swallow the unsuspecting average person like flies to flickering flame. Most of us see the world as nothing more than a mundane existence. a boring routine, going to work, watching Netflix and taking an Advil and a few vitamens to stop joint pain as I get ready slink into to bed on my $399 Serta matress. Is Sheol widening her mouth under hundreds if not thousands of unsuspecting simpletons as they sleep in total ignorance? Is there more in this moment than simply paying bills and attending mindless parties? Is life a dangerous world? Is the Gospel that magical? (2) Both Evil and Good disguise themselves in the fairy tale world. Buechner queries, "Who could guess that the little gray man asking for bread is a great magician who holds in his hands the power of life and death...Beasts talk and flowers come to life, and nothing is apt to be what it seems." For Christians the man who was helplessly strung up on the cross, the despised one, the one whose name is daily used as a mere swear word of the cool and cunning, is getting ready this moment to return to the earth in his royal raiment. He will be beautiful to behold and mighty in word and deed. He is hidden, waiting, wanting people to want him. But when he bursts on the scene he will shake the world, and everything that is not built on a sure foundation will crumble. And the one who looks beautiful now, will be utterly shamed. The Devil will be defanged and humiliated, and those who follow the "god of this age" will be striken silent and dumb, no more mocking, no more sinning in abundance, the adversary will be eating crow...and his army of followers, the arrogant and proud, the beautiful people of this current world, will be forced to choke on their own pride. (3) The fairy tale is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name. I like how Frederick puts it here, "So great is the power of magic that even the less-than-good live happily ever after. It is the beast who becomes beautiful, the cowardly lion who becomes brave, the wicked sisters with their big feet and fancy ways who repent in the end and are forgiven. Happiness is not only inevitable, it is also endless." Christianily promises happily ever after as well. Revelation 22 says, "Let the evil doer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy, Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done...Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and they may enter the city by the gates." We are walking among giants, people who have washed their robes in blood. Mighty men and women. And yet most of us yawn when we see them, or we cringed when we look into the bathroom mirror not seeing ourselves as we really are. The world to us is only gray, we feel like drops of water falling. But this is not so! Soon may seem like a relative word, something that seems far away, but I am not so sure. Soon I will close my eyes. Soon I will wake up in a bed that is mine, a soft bed, warm. Soon I will open my eyes and a familiar face will be looking at me, a face I will intimately know but have never seen before. I will know the voice. Soon I will also see my dad, alive, smiling, standing behind the face that is more beautiful than a sunrise, more alive than a summer day. I will feell like I did when as I boy I was standing with my dad by the edge of the shimmering water that was lapping up on Lake Erie beach. But it will be better. It will be soon. Soon means I am near the edge of a world that is as close to me as a dream when one awakes. I am not a rain drop. I am an hier to the throne. Royalty hidden underneath the clothes of a commener. There is more than meets the eye. My job is to live like magic is real. I need to stop being bored. So do you. Wake up the fairy tale is real. Jesus rose. Jesus is "I am." Wake up! |
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