Silver Spoons - Week 4

Men. Amen and amen, thank you so much for your generosity. Today.

We're going to continue in our in our serious silver

spoons this morning talking about family and just listen, this

one is going to apply to everybody. It just so

happens that it made the Family series. But we want

to talk about formation, about those deep things that are

on the inside of us. Did you know that you

can give your children everything and still miss the very

things that form them and cause formation in their lives?

That you can provide everything you want to provide them

and still miss the mark as far as parenting and

really doing what God has called us to do, because

the goal of parenting is not provision, it's formation. Let

me say that again. The goal of parenting is not provision,

its formation. Let me say it another way. It's more

than just keeping them alive. Amen. You know, and and

our first one I challenged that, you know, God really

showed up just to keep Madison alive, you know, on

several different occasions, and a Lexi came along and she

drank toilet bowl cleaner a few times, she took kilandaw

PM a couple of times, like when my phone rang

at poison Control. They answered said, hey, Steve, what's wrong

this time? And sometimes we think that because we keep

them alive, or because we're able to give them things,

because we're able to take them to the beach, because

we're able to take them to the mountains, because we're

able to give them something at Christmas, because we're able

to do those things, that somehow that's parenting. But God

has so much more for us than just providing for

our children. In Deuteronomy, chapters six, verse six, We've already

read this, but I want to. I want to read

it again. It says, and these words which I commanded

you today shall be in your heart. Underline, shall be

in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children,

and you shall talk of them when you sit in

your house, and when you walk by the way, and

when you lie down, and when you rise up. He says, Listen,

I want you to I want some things to be

deep in your heart. I want some principles to get

in your heart so that the natural expression of life

comes out. And when you're sitting at the table, my

principles come out. Come on now when I'm sitting, when

we're walking, when we're they were walking down the road.

When we're riding down the road, those principles come out

that we're talking about life. And as we talk about life,

principles come out that you know, on that uh, you're

coming home from from the little league game, and that

last strike it wasn't a strike, but the umpire was hot,

so he called it a strike and they struck out,

and you're on the way and they're just sitting in

the back, just blasting the umpire for being blind and

all those things. And you just take that opportunity to

teach a principle and say, well, you know, Jesus spoke

to blind Bartimaus and he was able to see. So

maybe if you'll just speak a little more positively to

the umpire next time, I won't like to spank you

when we get home. Come on, somebody taking that opportunity

to have those principles, because there's some principles in our hearts. See,

before we can ever parent, before we can ever be

a leader, before we can ever impart things, we first

have to have those things imparted to us. Before we

can ever be a former, we have to have formation.

We have to be formed, and as we go through life,

I want to remind you of those questions that we've

been talking about since January. There's three of those questions

that we've been talking about since January that we're supposed

to sit down with our families every single every single

day and ask these questions. And listen, I'm gonna be

honest with you. I haven't done it every day. That

was not supposed to be. That's supposed to be a

mom for everybody. Just soak it in, Calvin. That first question,

what am I grateful for? When I look around my life?

What am I grateful for? The second thing, where is

God moving even in small things? The third one, what's

coming up this week? Where I need God's wisdom or peace?

And get ready because here's the next question. You're supposed

to add, where is God correcting me right now? And

am I resisting or receiving it? Where is God correcting

me right now and I'm I receiver or am I

rejecting it? Add that the fourth question that you should

ask every single time you sit down, get together with

your families, have them asking those questions and answering those questions.

And maybe it's just you say these things out loud

and go through that process because These are questions that

cause us to trust God at a deeper level, understand

who He is, and cause formation to happen deep at

the heart level, at the fabric of our being, where

God knitted us together. Those four questions, if you'll ask them,

it will trigger something in you, and it will trigger

a pursuit for God to work and move in your life.

See when what you live consistently will be what your

children live naturally, what they will carry naturally, What you

model consistently is what they're going to carry naturally. Whatever

is in you, whatever you are, your children are going

to become. They're going to see the world through your worldview.

They're going to be shaped by that. Now, watch this.

Depending on how you parent and how you interact in

the relationship, and the way you teach those lessons are

going to determine whether they embrace your worldview or reject

your worldview. The way you present these principles, the way

we live these principles together, will be the very things

that will either drive our children from them or call

them to them. Because there is a process by which

we go through there there's a series of things that

we govern our lives by. When we really look at scripture.

Go to Isaiah chapter sixty four. Isaiah chapter sixty four,

verse eight. Isaiah chapter sixty four, verse e. It says,

but now, oh Lord, you are our father. We are

the clay, and you are potter, and all we are

the work of your hand. This this moment where where

Isaiah comes in, he says, Hey, God, I need to

be formed. That there's there's I'm not that craftsmanship that

I know you want me to be in this ideology

of a potter on a wheel and the clay is

spinning and being formed by the potter's hand. That God

wants his unique imprint and design on your life. See.

I think sometimes we think that that God was probably

very instrumental in us being here, But then somehow we

don't also believe that he wants to be instrumental in

our formation and every moment of our life. That now

that we're here, he just kind of says, Okay, Danny,

go do it. Okay, just to Taylor, just go figure

it out. Man, Now I got you here, now you

just go figure it out. But he wants to be

instrumental in crafting who we are and the way we

interact with one another and the way we interact with him,

and this imagery is that I'm being worked, and if

there is an imperfection in the clay, that we allow

the potter to start all over removing the imperfection. You know,

when this was written, they didn't have the quality clay

that sculptors work with today. It was full of fine

pebbles and sand, and it wasn't the homogeneous mixture that

we have the opportunity to sculpt with now. There were

all kinds of perfections, and as that beautiful craftsmanship would

begin to be formed, those imperfections would be revealed. And

if that imperfection was at the wrong place, the potter

would have to remove it and crush the clay and

start all over to create this masterpiece or this very

useful object that was being formed. And as the Lord

shapes us, he reveals these imperfections in our lives, these

things that were below the surface that we didn't realize

we're there. But if we will stop crawling off the

Potter's wheel, come on, somebody, if we'll stop crawling off

the wheel and just allow God to continue to form

us and smash us down, and form us, and smash

us down and form us a little more, and then

I add just a little more moisture and just begin

We end up being this incredible master peace that God

himself sculpted, and we come to the conclusion and the

reality that God is doing something significant in my life

that he wants to share with other people. And if

we're in the process of formation, then when we begin

to parent our children, we realize that they're also in

the process of formation. That when we are submitting ourselves

to God and we begin to check ourselves before we

check them, that we begin to see if maybe what's

wrong here is not the beha. Maybe the problem here

is not their behavior. Maybe the problem here is not

what they did or what they said. Maybe the problem

is what led up to it from me, or maybe

the way I just perceived it, or maybe the way

I'm about to handle it. Come on, somebody, so just

to show up hands. Have there ever been a moment

in your life when you discipline Scott already you what

I was asking, He raised his hand. Has there ever

been a moment in your life where you disciplined your

kids and they didn't probably deserve it. Everybody's like, oh,

make me raise my hand. Okay, Well, let me ask this,

Has there ever been a time when you should have

disciplined and you didn't. This is a process, it's an

ongoing work, and we don't get it right all the time.

But if we can do it out of a cemented

heart to the Lord, understanding that everything we do is

in the context of his love, not for our children,

but in the context of his love for his children,

then we can come to a much better place. And

we all come to those points, and we all get

frustrated and we go through shaking. Amen, you have a

hard day and you're shaking, and things are happening all

over and you just don't Why did the water come

out of the bottle because it was shaking too much?

That's good, ask because I didn't have the top on it.

Let me pose another theory to you. The water came

out of the bottle because it was water that was

in the bottle. Had it been orange juice in the bottle,

the shaking would have caused orange juice to come out.

If it had been mountain dew, it still wouldn't be there.

I'd already drank it. But the reason water came out

of the bottle when the shaking happened is because water

was in the bottle. In Matthew chapter twelve, starting in

verse thirty three, it says, either make the tree good

or it's fruit good, or else make the tree bad,

and it's fruit bad, for a tree is known by

its fruit brood of vipers. How can you, being evil

speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart,

the mouth speaks, and a good man, out of the

good treasure of his heart, brings forth good things, and

an evil man, out of the evil treasure, brings forth

evil things. When you have that moment where you explode

on your kids, when you have that moment where you

reach frustration and you are to the end of yourself

and you know you're about to say things, you're about

to do something you can't take back, I want you

to pause for a moment and consider that maybe it

was not the action, but what's already in you that

has brought you to that moment. Because whatever is in

your heart will come out in the most vulnerable, shaking

moments of life, and most often those moments are with

the people we love the most because they're in proximity

more than anybody else. So that frustration you feel for

not Maybe you feel like you're not enough because you

missed a promotion and that's been living on the inside

of your heart. And you get home and your kids

start picking a fight and they start doing this, and

they start doing that, and you totally to put their

phone down, but they didn't put their phone down, and

you just blow up and you release all of that. See,

it's about what's in your heart. It's not about what

they do. It's about what's in your heart. And if

we allow God to form us and work on us,

then the explosion never happens, and our kids' self esteem

is never because it's easier to blame it on the

situation that's happening right now than the reality that we're

not where God wants us to be in the grand

scheme of spiritual maturity and growth. Every single one of

us are still the children of God and he's still

raising us. And the way we know that we got

mature as we went home. If you're still here and listen,

some of you have been saved longer than I've been alive.

Probably not many of you anymore, But I used to

be able to say that it was true for a

lot of people I'm getting a lot older, is what

that means. But we've ever come to the place of

spiritual maturity because we've gotten just mature enough to know better,

but not mature enough to realize that maybe other people

don't see biblical parenting. It's not about raising comfortable kids.

It's not raised it's not about raising kids that listen,

have all the opportunities. You know, I have these conversations

all the time about what happens when you know, I

say you can't have a cell phone, but everybody else

in their class has a cell phone. Now, the way

I handle that is not the way you should handle that.

When LEXI would say, hey, why does that person have

and I don't have, I would just look at her

and I would say, because their parents don't love you,

I mean don't love them. Their parents gave them a

cell phone because they don't love them and they don't

want to protect them. I want to love you and

protect you, so you can't have a cell phone. Now

that was an over dramatization, and there my children are

used to my over dramatizing ways. Amen. But the reality

is is that when you parent from a biblical worldview,

your children are not going to have and be able

to do all the things that others their children have

and can do. And some of those things are very practical,

like a cell phone. Some of them are very practical,

like screen time. Some of them are very practical like

no ball on Sundays. Some of them are very practical

things that live out in a very real way. And

when those things are done in the context of me

growing in Jesus and they see me growing in the Lord,

they realize that our family is on a spiritual journey together.

And you never have to say it because kids can

see it. And it's not our job to raise comfortable kids.

It's our job to raise kids that are able to

carry destiny. They're able to carry legacy, They're able to

carry hope, They're able to carry faith. They're able to

carry Jesus into their school, They're able to carry Jesus

into their marriages, They're able to carry Jesus into their workplaces.

Because we went through the hard job as a parent,

formation and allowing Jesus to make us who we are

so that we can help them be who they need

to be. M Legacy is not what you leave your children.

Legacy is what you leave in them. It's not a

number in a bank account. It's not any of those things.

It's who they become that is your legacy. Bank can

come to the come to the stage. Parenting is the

hardest job you'll ever have because it is the biggest

responsibility you'll ever have. Now, I know that there are

lots of people who have young children here, and you

understand that. Some of you have older children, and you

really understand that. And some of you are here you

don't have children yet. Maybe you just decided not to

have them. And listen, if that's you, you might you

need to run away from here if your plan is

to not have children, because it happens here, it happens.

I mean, we live in Genesis. Here, be fruitful and multiply,

and some of y'all need to go back to school

because y'all are using exponents rather than basic multiplication. But

it's hard. The reality is, though, that God trusted you

to do it, and if hasn't trusted you to do

it yet, He's trusted you to get involved in the

lives of other people you have influence with and live

out those principles until the blessing comes to you. There's

somebody here right now that you've been struggling to have

a child. God wants you to know he sees you.

He sees you, and the promise is own its way.

Don't get discouraged, don't give up. The promise is on

its way. Thank you Jesus, Thank you Jesus. And you know,

maybe you're here today and you didn't come through a

loving environment. You didn't you didn't get those principles taught

to you, and you've just kind of been making your

way through life. I want to read you probably the

most famous passage of scripture in all of the Bible,

John chapter three, verse sixteen. For God so loved the

world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever

believes in him should not pair it but have everlasting life.

For God did not send his son into the world

to condemn the world, but that the world through him

might be saved for God. And that's the way our

scripture reads. For God so loved the world. And then

he positions himself in the Godhead through his next statement.

He said, his only begotten son, So God the Father

looked at you, God the Father positioning himself as your

spiritual parent, as the one who understands it perfectly because

he is the model of it, who promises to never

leave you, to never forsake you, who looks at you

and says you are very good, who speaks life over

you and says you're the head and not the tail,

above and not beneath, who spoke and said you are

the pinnacle of my creation. A father who knows love

expansively and deeply, in the intricacies of love, that father

chose you, that his only begotten son would give his

life so that you could come into relationship with his father.

Your value is not on what you do who you know.

Your value is based in what the Father did for you.

That he saw you in your sin, he saw you

in your brokenness, he saw you in your rebellion. He

saw you in all those things, and he doesn't have

one regret, every head bowed in, every eye closed. Right now,

in this moment, your heavenly Father, he's calling to you.

He's saying, I have searched the universe to find you

here in this chair today, and all you need to

do to come to me is just ask if you're

here today. And you've never asked Jesus to forgive you

of your sins. You've never asked him to be the

Lord of your life, but today you want to come

to the Lord and ask him to make you new

for him to be that Heavenly Father. You a son,

you his daughter. That's you. This process starts just simply

by raising your hand and saying, Pastor, pray for me.

I want to give my life to Jesus this morning.

That's you. Just slip your hand up, say that's me, Pastor,

pray for me. I want to give my life to Gie.

I want to surrender all my all, my hidden sin,

all my rebellion, all of those things. I want to

I want to give it to him. I want to

I want to come to Jesus today. I'm gonna wait

just another few minutes, another few seconds. If that's you,

just slip up your hand and put it right back

down and say pray for your pastor. Amen.

Amen, everybody, open your eyes, everybody look at me.

If you're here and you didn't raise your hand today,

but you know that's you, just come grab me after church.

I'd love to have a conversation with you about who

Heavenly Father says you are and what his plan is

for your life, because it's more than you could ever imagine.

Everybody's staying with me all over the room. H We're

gonna worship together. And listen, Paris, if you've blown it,

you know you've blown it. You want to come to

the altar and seek the Lord.

Come.

Nobody's gonna pray with you. You need to work this

out in your heart because it's not too late. God

will guide you and give you wisdom. But as the

band sees, the altars are open, and then we're gonna

we're gonna take communion together today. Amen. So unless you

got a plan to catch, just hang out with us

for a few minutes and we'll have communion together in

just a bit. Pastor Clay, let's worship together.