A Kingdom Vision and a Growing Family - Travis Kropf 6-8-2024

Good evening. Good to be here this evening, each with you. All

bring greetings and Jesus name to each one here. The topic that was assigned

to me this evening is a kingdom vision and a growing family. And I'm

very aware of this evening that my report card is still being written. I

probably have a lot more thoughts that I would feel comfortable sharing about youth than

about the stage of life i'm at. I might even have more thoughts about

how grandparents should be at this point in my life. I think the other

thing that I think of here is the There's a lot of different angles we

can approach this from, and I have approached it largely from the premise that

as a young parent, my children is where I should be putting a lot

of my kingdom vision. The other thing that I was thinking about, and

I find it fascinating in connection to the topic this evening, is how much

children change the equation. You have the youth in their their contribution where they're

at, and you add children to the equation and it adds a lot more

thoughtfulness to it. In our minister session yesterday afternoon, some of the speaking

of the Mission Board and the different boards and projects and they talked about having

a twenty year vision and where do we want this project to be in twenty

years from now, and how that affects where the decisions I make. And

it's a lot that way with children only, it's probably more than twenty years

stretches out beyond that. You youth are unique in that you're not very tied

down, and it gives you a lot of opportunity. And when I was

a youth, I took some of those opportunities, and I don't regret that

at all. I think of some of our discussions, think about your congregation.

You're sitting in a Brethren's meeting, and some of our discussions, if

it were not for the children for the next generation involved, some of those

discussions seem very arbitrary and even maybe foolish to degree. If it was just

about me and my generation, that's where it ended, it would be,

well, how much does this matter? But because there's another generation, there's

a continuation that it matters a lot. I realized that you were in Deuteronomy

chapter six earlier today, and I want you to go back to Deuteronomy chapter

six. I want to look at the last part of the chapter verses twenty

to twenty five, and I would probably give you a little more of an

overview of the first part if it hadn't been read and somewhat gone over earlier.

Verses twenty to twenty five have three steps about how to answer your child

they when they ask you, so I'd like to begin with this and then

talk about child training and probably some more service oriented things as well. Deuteronomy

six, verse twenty And when thy son asketh thee in time to come saying

what mean the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments which the Lord our God

hath commanded you, then shalt thou say unto thy son. We were Pharaoh's

bond men in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a

mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders great and sore upon Egypt,

upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household before our eyes, and he

brought us out from thence that he might bring us in to give us the

land which he swear unto our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do

all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always,

that he might preserve us alive as it is at this day, and it

shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord,

our God as he hath commanded us. What's your first response when your

child comes to you and says, Dad, why are we doing it this

way? Why can't we do it like that church over there or that group

of people down over there, And what's our first response? Our tendency is

to say, well, it's just it's the way God said we should do

it, and we can go and we find some verses. That's not what

this passage says. This passage says, to begin with, you start with

the history, with the story of why where we came from. You know,

son, we used to be down in Egypt. We were slaves there

and it was really hard, and God came down there. He heard our

prayers after all those years, and he came and he rescued us, showed

signs and wonders, work miracles, and then we need to say what God

did for us. He brought us out. And then after you've you've covered

the history and what God's done for us, then the third thing is and

the Lord commanded us and said, you need to do this for our own

good. There was a reason. There's a reason for it. I think

that's as you think of a kingdom vision, it has to go back to

God, and it has to go back to what God did for me and

what He's done for my people. Do I think of young families, I

probably, in my mind at least kind of hit about the middle of that

range right now. I've been married fourteen years, and I believe as we

think of a kingdom vision, I think how we take care of our children

is one of the most important aspects of this stage in life. I have

some just very basic practical things here. Some of these are things I've learned

through trial and error and experience. Some of them are things that other people

have taken the time to share with me and bless me in that way.

I think we need to think, first of all, what is the goal

of child training and child discipline, And in my mind, it comes down

to two basic principles, and one is to teach submission to authority because that

reflects back to God, and the second is to teach self control. I

think that our discipline pretty much all comes back to those points. And as

parents, it's very easy to discipline because my child just made me look really

stupid, or because I'm just angry, or because they decided to test my

authority. But it's very important that in discipline that we remember it's for the

child. I am no longer in the equation it's not for our own sake,

but it's for the child's sake. We need to make sure it's to

point our children to God and to prepare them for their life of sir us.

Number of years ago someone shared with me the thought of making discipline a

time of worship, and I have found it to be a tremendous blessing,

both for me and for my children. Sing a song together, pray,

memorize scripture. I'm not sure that a lot of the benefit isn't in simply

that it forces you to take more time. Maybe that's where a lot of

the benefit lies, but I have seen some very good results from that.

I'm very grateful for that advice that it has given me. Need to remember

there are absolutes. We live in a world, in a society that does

not believe in absolutes, and I am concerned that that does not come into

our thinking. I don't think that anyone here wants that, and yet when

we're bombarded with that year after year, day after day, it can wear

down our thinking. Think of the law of sowing and reaping, one of

the absolutes in life. There's a lot of sowing and reaping along with that.

I believe it's very important to tell our children. No, there's a

right way and a wrong way to tell our children know, and there's right

reasons and wrong reasons. We need to do it for the right reason and

in the right way. It's talking to one of your brethren before the service

here in comparing notes, and I'm going to share share a story from my

teenage years. I suppose enough time as he lapsed, I can probably the

details probably don't matter that much. But as a as a young as a

mid teenager, one of the things that a lot of the youth boys were

doing was they'd give their three wheelers and four wheelers and go ride up in

the mountains, go right out of the coast and the sand dunes. And

that was one thing my dad said, No, for our family, we're

not gonna do that. I was thinking about that earlier today. You know,

I really don't think it would have made a difference in my life and

my siblings' lives. If Dad wouldn't have said no. I don't think that

it's not about whether we take the four wheeler out to the dunes or not.

When a parent can say no because of their convictions, and at the

same time a child knows how bad the parent would have liked to say yes,

it's very powerful. Must be done with love. Children are different.

We cannot use a factory approach. Our society has moved in that direction.

It's a factory. The schools, the every aspect is geared in that direction.

Our children are different. Their personalities are different. The way they respond

to disciplines different. The type of discipline they need may even be different.

All children do need discipline in some form, and all children need love,

not just saying it, but showing it. All children need teaching. All

children need a good example. Our children pick up more from our example than

from anything we say. One of the areas that we need to be an

example is to aologize to our children. There are times I have said and

done things in anger. To restore that relationship, I must go back and

make that right. I have to admit that I'm wrong this time. Many

times as parents, we need to be the adult, we need to lead.

I think it's another part of our society is putting our children in the

position of leading in the parents following. And maybe that goes more into some

of the older later topics. But we need to lead. It's not that

our children don't have insights. It's not that our children but we can't learn

from our children. There's a reason the Bible says honor thy father and thy

mother, And if you go back to the Old Covenant, I believe the

punishment for disobeying that commandment was death. There's a reason for that. Like

to now think a little bit of service. I believe one of the most

important things we can do for our children, after loving discipline, is to

teach them to serve others. And I think that means, by examples I

said, taking them with us in that. I believe our service for others

should start with the church brethren, and then into the local community, and

then from there into the larger world. Because I look at parents who have

successfully raised families, I feel that that is one aspect that comes through almost

every time, is a mindset of serving others. Kind of along with that,

but maybe just a little. It's not entirely connected, but somewhat.

And that is friendliness, and it's kind of a I think it's a weakness

in our Anabaptist cultures, especially with our children. But I think we need

to teach our children to be friendly. We need to teach our children to

include others. There's many aspects of this and I'm not going to try to

cover all of it. And I realize too there's people I see people in

our churches that do very well at it, and I appreciate that. But

are we okay with our children spending half the service turned around the bench staring

at a visitor? Are we okay with just saying well, my children are

shy. They just they have a hard time making friends. And I realized

personalities are different, but we should be intentionally teaching our children to be friendly

with other to other people, especially visitors and strangers who come. And again

there's there needs to be boundaries. I understand that people we don't know.

I think as I think about young families, it's a very busy time,

it's a very stressful time. It's the time when the labor demands are the

highest and the income's the lowest and it's reality, and it's when we're trying

to learn how to guide children, and yet it's the most formative time for

our families. I just want to encourage that we we be intentional about building

the Kingdom during this time of our lives.