Legacy: Mentoring and Maintaining — Finding Your Role in the Family of God - Julie Hamilton

Wow, Mother's Day. It's really incredible, the special ministry that God called

women out to do for the church, and just how important nurturing and mothering really is.

I am so excited to be here with you on this Mother's Day.

I do have the privilege of being an earthly mother, but I also get to mother

a lot of other people's children.

And so this morning, I would like for you, if you will to pull out your Bibles

for me, and we're going to kick off our time together in Scripture.

Psalm 78, if you would turn your Bible to Psalm 78, and we're going to look at verses 1 through 7.

So this is a psalm that was written by a Levite, a musician in David's court,

and he is talking to Israel, and he's reminding them of something that in their

stubbornness they might have forgotten about. So take a listen.

Verse 1 says, Oh, my people, listen to my instructions.

Open your ears to what I am saying, for I will speak to you in a parable.

I will teach you hidden lessons from our past, stories we have heard and known,

stories our ancestors have handed down to us.

We will not hide these truths from our children.

We will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord,

about his power and his mighty wonder.

He says, to Jacob he

gave his instructions to Israel he commanded

our ancestors to teach their children

so that the next generation might know them even the children not yet born and

they will turn and teach their own children so each generation should set its

hope anew on God not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his command.

The word of god for the people of god thanks be

to god so this morning starts a

new series for us called legacy and i'm sure that as we begin our time together

this morning you'll see why psalm 78 is so important it's not that we here at

new hope have forgotten about the next generation it's because we haven't forgotten

right and so these next few weeks we are going to be spending time,

not just talking about what the next generation is, right?

Or what the role of the church is with the next generation.

But we're going to look at ourselves as a family of faith.

We're not just going to say we're a family.

We're going to look at how we function as a family, right?

We're going to be talking about how the Holy Spirit is moving in our family.

We're going to highlight some areas. We're even going to hear from one of the

next generation next week. I'm so excited.

So if you don't like what I have to say today, next week, Emmy Roberts is going

to preach, and it's going to be amazing.

So I just invite you to come back for week number two.

And then in week number three, Pastor Vicki is going to wrap us up on Pentecost

with the movement of the Spirit amongst us. I'm so excited for what we are going

to get to do in this Legacy series.

I don't want you to be bystanders or just listeners through this series, okay?

It's really important that we're not just going to be talking and you're not

just going to be observing what God's doing, right?

It's really more about examining where you fit into what God is doing.

See, the world is changing. We know that, right? This next generation,

they speak in like acronyms and abbreviations. Have you guys noticed that?

I like to think of myself as pretty hip. But the truth is, even my own kids

text me things sometimes that I need translated.

And so with that in mind, we need to adapt to be able to communicate.

And so in every family, the way we build relationships is through communication.

It's through adaptation. It's through passing down traditions,

things that are important to us, and finding ways to communicate that to our children.

So that's what we're going to be focused on.

Psalm 78 is giving us that foundation. It's really reminding us that our faith

was never meant to stop with us.

It was meant to be passed down.

It wasn't meant to be stagnant. It was always intended to be shared, okay?

So I want you to hang on to those truths that we get from Scripture this morning

as we start to talk about family dynamics.

Now, for those of you who don't know, I'm actually a counselor by profession,

so family dynamics is my jam, right? I love it. I eat it up.

Working with families was always my most favorite thing to do as a counselor.

But we're not talking about the eccentric aunt who always has the unsolicited

advice. Do you guys have one of those?

Yeah, I know you do because I know some of your aunts.

What about the cousin? You know, the one when you were younger that always liked

to be mischievous and get you in trouble, convince you to do things,

and then kind of bail on you when it came time for accountability?

I had one of those. I had one of those. But that's not really the family dynamics

that we're going to be delving into.

Scripture uses the family as a picture of relational connection,

of how the church and relationship is more deeply reflected in who we are.

See, we get to live life together as an extended family.

We care for one another, we celebrate, we grieve, just like today. We do it together.

You know, in Paul's letters to Timothy, he even reminded him to manage the church

like a family, to look at the church like his mothers and fathers,

his sisters and brothers.

That was Paul's advice to Timothy when he sent him out, not just to evangelize,

right, but to stabilize.

And he said, remember, these people are your family.

So here's the tension that we're going to sit in this morning and throughout this series.

Are we at New Hope living in the present like Israel was, soaking in the goodness

of what God has, celebrating and grieving together, doing life in exceptional ways.

Or are we experiencing God now and preparing for the future with what He's showing us in our present?

Are we intentionally passing down what God has done?

Are we just enjoying the good of what He's done right now?

All right i think i have a slide for you guys of a family tree.

Everything we're going to talk about is in the context of a healthy family okay healthy family,

because i realized that not everybody's experience of family is positive right but see the goal,

for the family of god is not dysfunction right it's not to fix the wayward cousin

or the eccentric aunt, right?

It's to live life working towards holiness through our sin, through our imperfections,

loving each other well, okay?

So everything we're going to talk about is in the context of that idea of family

that's healthy and whole.

In that healthy family, parents provide stability.

They create an environment where faith is taught and traditions are passed down.

Grandparents offer wisdom from a wealth of experiences.

Siblings and cousins, well, they're the ones who do life alongside of us, right?

Share our adventures, our memories, our texting language.

Right? Aunts and uncles, well, they support, they reinforce the vision,

the traditions, the values of the family.

Every single layer really matters.

So let's take that family and let's put it in the context of the church, okay?

So for most of you, your small group is going to look like what? Shout it out.

Sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents? What do your small groups look like to you?

Your siblings or your cousins. Yes. Nice job. See, sorry, I'm like at the core,

I'm a teacher. Like you have to respond.

Otherwise, it's gonna be a really long morning. But then I want you to think

about who in the life of the church are your aunts and your uncles?

Who around you reinforces your values? You don't have to shout this one out.

I want you to think this one in your head because the answer will be different for all of you.

Who are your spiritual parents?

Like my parents are here this morning. And I have amazing parents. I got really lucky.

But here's the thing, there are people sitting in these pews who have parented me really well too.

I have a lot of spiritual parents in this church. Who are yours?

What about grandparents?

Who's in that role of giving you wisdom?

Now, even more important, who are you doing that for?

These aren't rhetorical questions.

Like, you have really good sermon notes that I worked really hard on.

So, jot some stuff down, because you're going to need it for your homework.

Who are these people for you? Who are you pouring into?

Who are you doing life alongside of? Who are you passing down your traditions to? All right.

So the trick of this is, is you can look at those questions as just me giving

you rhetorical questions and never reflect on them again.

But the truth is, is can you put my family tree back up for me real quick?

If you don't know where you fall in the family tree, it's really hard to figure

out how you fit in the family.

It's really hard to discern what you contribute. and it's really difficult to

make those relational connections.

So here's the curveball. I told you to think about all those things.

Now what if I told you that in the family of God, that healthy family,

roles aren't always determined by age?

What if I told you that they were determined by stage?

What if you considered that a 28-year-old could grandparent a 6-year-old?

If we look at what we said a grandparent was, it's a person imparting wisdom based on experiences.

What if I told you a 16-year-old could parent a 45-year-old?

Somebody young in age and deeply rooted in truth, formed by scripture,

shaped by prayer, someone who's able to articulate the gospel clearly because

they have spent their young life in the church,

is just as capable of spiritually parenting a 45-year-old that's never met Jesus

as another 45-year-old is.

So just because of your age, it doesn't mean that one of those roles can't belong to you, okay?

And I say that because it's really important because a lot of times we think

that we have to leave certain responsibilities to certain age groups, right?

It's not about age, it's about stage. And we need each other in order to really be a family.

You sticking with me? You tracking? Haven't lost anybody, right?

So I just told you if you were 16, you could be a parent. Don't freak out. Okay?

Right? And I just told you if you were 28, you could be a grandparent.

What if I told you that you were 80 and you could be a parent?

That would also be just as scary. Right? Because it's not about age. It's about stage.

All right I do know from all of my years

of being a counselor and a teacher that giving you

some beautiful metaphor for something and not

really landing it in something practical means that you won't actually learn

it okay so let's make our family practical right we're going to take our healthy

family right and let's put them in a house all right so everybody in your head

I want you to imagine a house.

Do you have it? Okay, this is interactive. Do you have it? Awesome.

Great. Thank you.

All right. In a house, things break. Someone has to fix them, right?

Laundry piles up and someone does it or nobody has clean clothes.

You can have the best top-of-the-line refrigerator, but it is useless if somebody

doesn't go grocery shopping and fills it, right?

The yard, the grass, the bushes, they're going to grow.

So if somebody doesn't mow it and trim the bushes back, the house could become

inaccessible from the outside.

And I don't know about you guys, but in my house, everybody uses their skills

to contribute. I am one woman.

I am not super mom, okay? And what that means is that everyone in a house uses

their developmental abilities to contribute to the maintenance. That's the plan.

Without that, a house can very easily become unlivable.

And honestly, the same is true of the church.

Without regular maintenance, a church can become uninhabitable.

Let's pull it together and talk about it like this. Maintenance isn't glamorous.

I don't know how many of you guys enjoy grocery shopping, but if you do, don't raise your hand.

This part's not interactive. I don't like it. I don't enjoy laundry.

My husband will tell you that I pass off those two things as often as I can.

It doesn't mean I don't contribute.

It just means I don't enjoy those things. But it's essential, right?

It creates stability.

Maintenance builds rhythm. It establishes consistency.

And what's most key is trust. It establishes trust.

It preserves values. It passes down traditions. It prepares for the future.

And maintenance doesn't happen by accident.

It has to be intentional. It has to be done with care. we have to follow through.

And maintenance has to be taught, okay? So let's define what a maintainer is

then, okay? It's not a grocery shopper.

It's not a laundry doer, right? It is, but it's not.

But a maintainer is someone who intentionally invests in the health,

stability, and future of the family, preserving its values,

sustaining its rhythms, and most importantly, preparing others to carry it forward.

Applied to the modern church structure, maintainers aren't tied to age as much

as temperament and calling.

So in other words, it ain't about your age, it's all about your stage, okay?

You know, around here we have that saying of, if you're not dead,

you're not done. You guys have heard that, right? And it's true.

Like, God is using us to our very last breath.

But we also have that, well, I don't know how to, right? I get that a lot from

my young people. Well, I don't know how, all right?

When my house, and I don't know about you guys, but I don't know doesn't fly,

all right? I have a 14-year-old who I adore, but he's a 14-year-old boy, okay?

I promise you he loves laundry this much, right? And remember,

I already told you I didn't like it, right?

But here's the thing. If I asked him to put a load of his clothes in so that

he could have clean clothes for school, if he looks at me and says,

I don't know how, I'm not going to go do it for him.

I already told you I don't enjoy

it, right? Plus, I'm just enabling a long-term problem, let's be real.

And we did go back to we were trying to build a healthy family, right?

I'm going to teach him how to do it, right?

It's not enough just to teach what Scripture says, right? We have to give practical application.

I can't just say, well, there's a knob on the washing machine, figure it out, right?

That's like saying, here's Scripture, figure out how to apply it, right?

It doesn't even make sense.

So I think that the Bible does give us a lot of really

good examples though of what maintenance can look like all right and what maintainers

looked like in scriptural times so Aaron supported Moses you guys remember him

right so Moses is leading the Israelites you know all of these wonderful things

that Moses is doing but behind the scenes here's Aaron right,

And he actually handled rituals, handled the rituals, sacrifices.

He helped propel the worship in the community, right? He supported Moses in what he was doing.

Nehemiah is always thought of as kind of the rebuilder, right?

But he restored what was broken so that community could be maintained and that

they could thrive spiritually and socially.

Barnabas is often remembered as a missionary but the truth is is not only was

he a missionary but he was an encourager and a stabilizer for new believers.

Phoebe well she's in Romans 16 and we know that she supported the church materially and logistically.

She is a perfect example of someone supporting ministry, right?

Priscilla and Aquila, we've heard about them a lot from up here.

But I mean, really, they were running a house church, sharing the gospel, right?

Discipling others and creating a stable environment for growth.

They are classic examples of maintainers of community and teaching.

And then there's Timothy. And most people think of Timothy as an evangelist,

somebody who went out for Paul, right?

But if you recall, he was sent to correct, organize, and strengthen communities

that were really already in place, relationships that were already there, right?

None of these maintainers were passive. They weren't stagnant.

And they didn't just always hang out in the background. I think a lot of times

we think about maintenance as being that unappreciated thing, and it's not true.

Maintenance is essential.

See, these individuals from Scripture, well, they weren't just from one age

group or one generation.

They didn't even represent one skill set.

Rather, they shared a spiritual relationship with the Lord in which he was able

to use to forward his mission.

They represented stability, creativity, assertiveness, and humility.

But most of all, they were just faithful people who were willing to let God use them, right?

That's really the only underlying qualification for a maintainer,

is being willing to faithfully let God use us.

Let me ask you this, if we put that tree back up there,

can you see where you might be in that tree in your current season?

Take a minute and reflect.

Do you know your role?

And years ago, I was part of a mom's Bible study.

And when I say years, I mean like two decades ago.

And one of the things that we had to do is we had to write our description,

like our job description as a mom.

And my oldest is 21. So this tells you I was a very new mom, right?

My 14-year-old son was not even a thought in my mind, right? I was a really young mom.

And this job description well i have this little stack of things that i carry

from one prayer journal to the next every time i start a new one i carry these

things over with me and this job description has come with me each time and

i don't know it's been a probably a couple of months now,

since i moved over to my newest prayer journal and i found that job description

again and i got quite a good laugh out of how naive that mother was.

She was so sweet and innocent and had no idea what was coming.

And so I didn't know at that time what I would be up here sharing with you this morning.

But I decided, and I'm just going to go with it as a prompting from the Holy

Spirit, but in my mind I decided, right, that I was going to rewrite my job

description for now because Because when I share this with you,

you will see how very inaccurate it is for my current stage of life.

And I share that with you to say and to prove to you that where we are in our

spiritual journey and how we fit into the spiritual family changes in every stage.

So I'm going to let you guys hear them. Don't laugh too much, okay? Be kind.

But the first one I wrote was...

Keeper of peace and healer of boo-boos. Extensive experience in locating public

restrooms, stopping tears, packing lunches, and giving hugs.

Strong shoulders that carry the hopes, dreams, and worries of her family.

Amateur cook, teacher, and maid.

Always available for kisses and snuggles.

Side note, I am not the affectionate one of the parents. My husband is actually much better at that.

So that was a practice skill that I was quite proud of to add to my job description

at the time in which I wrote it.

And so, like I said, a couple of months ago when I wrote it again,

it changed significantly.

Healer of broken hearts and holder of hands.

Professional cheerleader and expert encourager. a present witness to life's transformation.

I see in others what they can't see in themselves, the God-given gift of potential.

I smile even when I'm sad because my world is dependent on my strength.

I know the meaning of sacrificial love and I embrace those who don't even share my DNA.

I speak life in seasons of grief, and I stand firmly behind in humility.

I'm an amateur counselor with extensive experience in crisis management in midnight

make it better snacks so i didn't manage to make it out of the kitchen apparently

but my grace and confidence,

is found only in jesus and i'm made for even more it's a very different mama

right i'm at a very different place in that mothering, in that nurturing.

And see, the other thing that the mama on the little pink card didn't realize

is she thought family was this big in one house, right?

But I now realize that I'm positioned to do life with my sisters and brothers,

that I'm spiritually parenting far more children than my own, right?

And that I have a responsibility to teach the next generation how to be a family,

not just tell them how to act like one.

So here's your challenge. At the bottom of your sermon notes,

actually I think it's on the back page, you're going to see a little exercise there for you to do.

I want you to write your job description in the family of God.

And I want you to be careful that you're not just plucking one of those titles

off the tree to make your own.

This is not about a title or a label. Your job description doesn't need to fit

one of those family dynamics.

It's not a position. It's a description of your function and your contribution.

Here's the thing. If you don't know what your role is in this extended family,

you cannot mentor, you can't disciple the next generation or the lost.

If you don't understand just how amazing what you have to give the family of

God is and that your contribution is necessary to our future.

I couldn't imagine, as a mother in my own home, failing to pass down a tradition

or an explanation or faith or love and just letting it die out with me.

If we, church, don't act with what God has given us, right? Just like Israel.

If we don't pass it down, then it stops with us.

So here's your question. Are we maintaining with our eyes on what God has next?

Are we intentionally passing down our faith while preparing for the future?

Or we're just hanging out in the presence surrounded by laundry and an empty fridge.

I want to close this morning with the prayer that took its inspiration out of

ephesians for me ephesians 3 because i think it's so important that we understand.

That god has called us into this family right him going to the cross has made

this extended family a possibility for all of us more than once this morning

you've heard mentioned from this deck that not everybody's family is awesome and cool,

right? But this family is.

Because we have a father in heaven who loves us in ways we can't even begin to imagine.

So even in all of our sinfulness, we don't have to be dysfunctional, right?

Just because we are broken people, we have a father who is healer in a way that

we can't even begin to understand.

We don't have to carry in our extended family, in our new hope DNA,

things from the past that broke us.

We can let go of those because we have a father who healed those.

We can take into our future the parts of our DNA that we like.

Isn't that cool? Like I can't change my physical DNA, right?

I can't change what I gave to my kids.

I didn't get to pick. I promise I would have picked differently.

They got stuck with some of my not great parts and I feel so bad for them, right?

But see, church, as an extended family, we do get to pick what we teach as long

as we're using the truth of Scripture and the guidance of the Heavenly Father

through the Holy Spirit.

For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven

and on earth derives its name.

Lord, I pray that you root us, establish us in love, strengthen us by your Spirit.

Teach us to be a people who build, who maintain, and who pass down faith purposefully.

For your glory through every generation. Amen.