When Our Kids Are Our Idols

By Bobby Blakey on November 1, 2015

1 Samuel 2:27-30

AUDIO

When Our Kids Are Our Idols

By Bobby Blakey on November 1, 2015

1 Samuel 2:27-30

This is a rush transcript.

[00:00:03] We want to continue after our fun night for the whole family to have a special service about the family and really, as we talk about the family here this morning, it's going to lead us to talk about idolatry. And if that sounds awkward or so weird. Let me just ask you this. Let's think about it this way. If you and I went to Belltrees shopping center right down the street, we went to the pier after this service and we did a little survey of what is the most important thing in your life right now. Huntington Beach, November 1st, 2015. What is the most important thing in your life? What's the number one answer we would receive?

[00:00:43] Family would be the answer.

[00:00:45] And then as people's marriages maybe break down and their families kind of get a little broken or blended, usually even the answer might get specifically to my children are the most important thing in my life.

[00:00:58] What is the right answer to that question?

[00:01:01] What is the most important thing in life? God, the glory of God. The worship of God. Lifting hi, the name of Jesus Christ. What are we putting into that place in our culture right now in America?

[00:01:13] Family, each other. That's idolatry.

[00:01:16] When we put something in God's place, that's idolatry now, idolatry when we hear that word. I think we think of statues and people bowing down to worship statues. Or maybe we think of that incident with the golden calf that I described earlier. Well, here's a picture of what we kind of think of people in need, you know, interesting looking costumes, bowing down to some kind of statue, blowing weird trumpets, burning incense. And we think, well, that's an old problem. Nobody struggles with idolatry today. I'm not going to really worship anything the man has made or something like that. Well, I thought this picture kind of put it into a good perspective right there. And I thought that got straight to the heart of idolatry.

[00:02:00] I would never worship anything made by men. Oh, you technology idolatry right there. And tell me you guys are already thinking, oh, my phone is so much upgraded from that phone right there. I know who you are. You know.

[00:02:15] So, you know, we have a tendency to put things in God's place and that that's an idol. It's about as equal a 14 three says its idols of the heart. It's not necessarily about the the thing. And the thing could even be a good thing.

[00:02:31] And it's just the way that you put it, where God should be worshiped in your heart. But you put that there instead. And it starts to rival with God. It starts to compete with him for your affection and for a lot of us. This is what our idols might look like right here.

[00:02:47] These precious children, in fact, this is what could be a temptation to be my idol right there. That's my son, Jack. Here at our church.

[00:02:59] He's three years old. I've talked about him before. I've talked about those cheeks. You can see him right there. They're they're real. Right. And it's just a cute look. You little boy right there right now.

[00:03:09] I'm not here to bash children. I love children. Children are a blessing from the Lord. Anybody want to say amen to that here?

[00:03:18] Do we have a belief here that children are a positive blessing, not a negative inconvenience that our culture might sometimes describe them as? No, we believe they are a real blessing and we love our children. But is it possible that I could be so focused on my children that I could start to worship them, that I could start to do what they want rather than what God wants me to do? And I could start to report, prioritize that really my bank account and my calendar and what I'm thinking about starts to be dictated by my kids rather than by God. And I'm here to say this is something that I could fall into as this little boy comes into my room usually first thing in the morning and he comes in like like somebody just shined a bright light in his face, like he's not even fully awake. And the first thing he wants to do is grab his blanky and run into room and see see, dad. That's the first thing he wants to do every morning. Suffer this morning. For some reason, I found him downstairs sorting out all of this candy that he had received last night.

[00:04:22] I got to see. Got a new idol this morning.

[00:04:25] But usually he comes in and we always get to this question, is today Daddy Day?

[00:04:30] He asks me, is today your day off?

[00:04:33] Is today the day that we're going to play is today Daddy Day. And he doesn't understand that most days are not Daddy Day. Most days I work and I come here to the church. But no, today again.

[00:04:44] And on that that today, Jack, today is not Daddy Day is tonight. Daddy night. I'm pretty sure that I'm his idol, right? And and when he says this today, daddy day, what's my natural inclination of my heart? Yes, Jack, I want it to be daddy day. Let's blow off the schedule. What do you want? Let's go buy it. What do you want to eat? I'll give it to you. Right. I love this kid. But that love can quickly become making him in a place in my heart that should only belong to God.

[00:05:16] I want to show you what child idolatry looks like here this morning. And it looks terrible. The consequences of it are severe.

[00:05:23] And I want you to see it in this man named Eli in First Samuel, Chapter two. So hopefully you've got a Bible and we can turn their page. Two hundred and twenty five is where the book of First Samuel starts. And I don't know if you ever heard a sermon from verse Samuel before, but I hope you can turn there now. We're going to meet this man, Eli. And it says that he was a child. Idolater. And we'll get into that. And really, this book of Samuel. It's about the prophet Samuel who would anoint eventually King David. And so I don't know if you've ever read first and second Samuel before, but really the main thing that they focus on is King David, a man after God's own heart. And this just amazing life that he lived. But before King David could be anointed, God raised up a prophet who would anoint him really the last of the of the judges here. And his name was Samuel. And this story begins all the way from the birth of Samuel. And really, it's a tale of two parents. If you ever study First Samuel, Chapter one and chapter two, there's two different parents that you're introduced to. The first parent you get to meet right away. Is Hannah. Maybe you've heard of her in the Bible before, but Hannah was in this really difficult situation. She's introduced in chapter one, verse one. Her husband is al-Khadra and he had two wives. And the Bible is completely against a man having two wives because of situations like this, where the other wife, Pennine, had children and Hannah had no children. She was a barren woman. And this other wife would just make life miserable for Hannah because Hannah didn't have kids and she did. And it was like this weird competition between them. And so Hannah would just hear about it for not having kids. And here's just a woman who wanted so badly to have a child, and especially it seems like they would go yearly to make a sacrifice at Shiloh, where Eli was the priest, and especially for some reason when they went to make this sacrifice, it would just get rubbed in Hannah's face that she didn't have a child. And so one time while they're there, Hannah is just praying and she's just asking the Lord, please give me a child. And Eli, the priest, he sees her and he sees that her mouth is moving, but no words are coming out. Doesn't not understanding. She's praying. And he says, why are you drunk? WOMAN Basically. And when will you stop drinking? And she says, I'm not drunk. I'm asking God to give me a child. And Eli says, Well, may the Lord grant you your request and had this really interesting idea. If God would give her a child, she would give her child back to the Lord. She would commit her child to the Lord's service. And so God did answer her prayer. And the baby was born was Samuel.

[00:08:10] But then she gives Samuel to Eli to work there in the tabernacle of doing priestly duties. She doesn't even keep her child for herself. She gives her child to the Lord. And so he ends up living with Eli. And then we start to get a glimpse into who Eli is and what kind of parent he is.

[00:08:31] He's not a good parent.

[00:08:33] The priest of God's people is actually a child. Idolater and God sends a man of God, a prophet, to come and rebuke Eli for worshiping his kids. Here's a man who was involved in the worship of God, overseeing the sacrifices in the tabernacle. And so even though he knew your way was the one true God and he wasn't bowing down to all the false gods of the other nations around them. No, he was still committing idolatry.

[00:09:01] And he's a very sobering example, a bad example that no one here should want to be like. Look at the rebuke that Eli gets. This is First Samuel, Chapter two. And let's start in verse 27. As a man of God is now going to come and confront Eli for his sin does there came a man of God to Eli and said to him, Thus, says the Lord, here's a word from your. Did I indeed reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt, subject to the house of Pharaoh?

[00:09:33] Did I choose him talking about Levi here? Out of all the tribes to be my priest, to go up to my altar. Hear that from the tribe of Levi. Maybe through the Aryan priesthood. Here he is going back to the descendants of Eli that led to him being the priest to go up to my altar, to burn incense and to wear an E fight before me. Didn't I give you this great privilege of being the priest I gave to the house of your father all my offerings by fire from the people of Israel?

[00:10:01] Well, then why then do you scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I commanded for my dwelling and honor your sons above me by fattening yourselves on the choicest parts of every offering of my people Israel.

[00:10:18] Therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel declares, I promise that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever. But now the Lord declares. Far be it for me. For those who honor me, I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. And it goes on from there to describe the judgment that God is going to bring on Eli and his two sons, Hoffner and Finian's. And you go back up to verse 29, there's scorning the sacrifices. And what's the heart behind that? You can underline it. The key phrase here, you honor your son's above me.

[00:10:58] I got a big problem with you, Eli. In fact, it's going to ultimately mean that I'm going to end up taking life away from you and your sons shortly after this. If you keep reading in first Samuel, his sons, Hockney and finials that he was worshiping in the place of God.

[00:11:12] They go out to battle. And when they are killed in battle, the word comes to Eli, a very old man, 98 years old, sitting in his chair. And when he hears that his sons have died in battle, he falls over in his chair and dies himself.

[00:11:29] This is the punishment that comes down upon him.

[00:11:32] And if you keep reading, even his future offspring, it says, will not live a full life. They will die early. And eventually the priesthood was taken from Eli's family and given over to another family in the tribe of Levi. All because it says here, you honor your son's above me.

[00:11:51] And if you think, well, that's a stretch to call that child idolatry, well, let me just tell you that the Hebrew word there for honor is the word that's very common in the Old Testament, that we often translate glory.

[00:12:04] You glorify your sons before me.

[00:12:07] Is this word that we usually has the idea of weight or heaviness as if your sons are a heavier or weightier concern in your heart than I am? You're the priest. You're supposed to be leading the people and offerings and sacrifices. But the truth is, you're more concerned with your sons than you are with me. That's what God rebukes him for.

[00:12:31] Now, this specific example here is given to us early in the earlier in the chapter, look at verse 12, go back to chapter two, verse twelve. What does he mean by the offerings and the sacrifices not being done right? How is he, Eli, looking at his sons as more important than God? Making them an idol struck me in verse twelve.

[00:12:50] Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. What makes a man worthless? They did not know the Lord.

[00:12:57] And the custom of the priest with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest servants would come while the meat was boiling with a three pronged fork in his hand, and he would thrust it into the pan or candle or cauldron or pot. All the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. So when people were coming and they were offering their sacrifices. Well, here comes the priests. And they would literally put a fork in it. And whenever they pulled out with their fork. Well, that was for them, which was a total not right way to do sacrifices. There was a part of the animal that was given to the priest, but it was already designated. What part should be the priests? None of this just stick your fork in and whatever comes out. No, I'm sure they had a good strategy of where to put the fork to get the best stuff.

[00:13:50] See, these are priests disobeying God's commands about how to do the sacrifices that God has set up.

[00:13:58] And then it gets even worse. If you look at verse 15, moreover, before the fat was burned, the priest servants would come and say to the man who was sacrificing give meat for the priest to roast, for he will not accept boiled meat from you. Only raw.

[00:14:13] And if the man said to him quoting the law of God, because this is was how it was supposed to work, let them burn the fat first and then take as much as you wish. That's what we're supposed to do. Offer to God the sweet meat, this this fat offer that to God. And then we would take from it. But no, look what they're saying. No, you must give it now. And if not, I will take it by force. We're bullying people into give into breaking God's law and giving us the best of the meat, the fat of the meat here. They were totally abusing God's system of sacrifices that he's put us in charge for for our own personal gain to get the best meat. It was a whole system of corruption. Verse 17 does the sin of the young men offering it veny as the Sons of Eli was very great in the side of the Lord for the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt. They looked down. They did not honor God as they should. They look down on it and Eli allowed it to continue because he also did not honor God, but he honored his sons. And really, I think this is an example of the sin of the father being passed down here to the son, because one thing the Bible says very clearly is Eli was a fat man.

[00:15:23] That's why falling out of his chair was a fatal experience for him. That's what God rebukes him for here, fattening himself.

[00:15:34] Reason maybe he was okay with his sons abusing the system of sacrifices as he liked to eat of the meat himself say.

[00:15:43] And God says very clearly, you want to honor your kids above me. Well, here's what I think about that. And he gives us a principle. Everyone look at this principle in verse 30, halfway through the verse. Now the law declares, far be it from me. Those who honor me, those who give me the glory, the weight, the heaviness that I deserve, will I will honor. But those who despise me, you look down on me. You let something else become first place in your heart. Well, those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

[00:16:13] And that's a nice way to say those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Will actually the sons of Eli, Eli himself are all going to end up dead. No one in their line is going to live a full life and the priesthood is going to be given to somebody else. I think God takes his worship pretty seriously here.

[00:16:31] So we've got to take idolatry in our hearts very seriously, we all need to check our hearts here this morning and make sure am I honoring somebody else? Maybe my kids. That's who we're focused on. Maybe another relationship, maybe something my job, my house.

[00:16:45] Could it be possible that I have let something else compete in my heart with God? That's what an idol is. Anything you value in your heart over God is an idol.

[00:16:56] Anything you give God is not going to stand at your at your podium where you're handing out your medals of your heart. God is not going to stand in second place and look up at what's first place in your heart and be okay with anything being first place. But him.

[00:17:12] He wants your worship. He wants all of your heart. In fact, just look at how God has made this clear in his work word.

[00:17:19] Here's the first commandment that we get in the Ten Commandments. The first revelation from God demand Exodus 20. It says you shall have no other gods before me. First thing I want you to know is there's nothing else that you're going to worship before me. Let's take it to the New Testament here. Jesus when he's asked what is the greatest commandment? Well, here's what Jesus says. You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.

[00:17:47] That's the greatest commandment. Like there's nothing that would even compete. There would be no rival. There would be no second place because it's all given to God. How about how Jesus says it here in Matthew? Ten verse thirty seven. Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

[00:18:05] Pretty clear statement there from Jesus.

[00:18:07] That child idolatry will not be accepted among his followers. Does Jesus want us to love our children? You guys tell me, does he want us to love our kids? One hundred percent. Does he want us to love our kids more than him?

[00:18:22] Well, it's pretty clear. You can take loving your kids too far to where it turns into worship and you start to put your own children.

[00:18:34] That came from you in the place that only God should be in your life. Go to Luke 14 and let's see what Jesus has to say about being a Christian. You're being his follower. Everybody grab your Bible and turn with me to Luke 14.

[00:18:47] Angie, let's look at a sermon that Jesus preached here called Operation Crowd Reduction. That was the name of this sermon right here. He had massive crowds following him. We've been going through the gospel of John. People love the miracles, people of the signs. We're gonna see as we get back into it. Jesus feeds 5000 people, man, who doesn't want free food. There's a lot of people interested in following Christ. And it's like when he sees this great crowd, he turns and says to them, hey, I'm pretty sure not all of you guys really understand what you means to follow me. Let me just tell you what it's gonna cost you. Let me just tell you what it really looks like to be my disciple. And he says this. And Luke, 14, verse 26.

[00:19:28] If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and for our purposes here this morning, children, you can underline. You can circle it. Brothers and sisters. Yes. Even his own life.

[00:19:43] He cannot be my disciple.

[00:19:47] You are not allowed to be one of his disciples, is the tone. They're like it's not going to work out.

[00:19:53] You can't follow me because I'm not settling for second place in your heart. If you're going to put some other relationship in your life, including yourself, above me, then this isn't going to work, Jesus says.

[00:20:06] So we know that Jesus is in saying that we should hate people, we know that from the rest of the scripture, that Jesus wants us to love our our parents, our kids, our spouses, Jesus.

[00:20:15] He wants us to love our enemies. So what is he saying here? There's gonna come a time when you're going to have to choose somebody else in a relationship, maybe even your children. Is it gonna be daddy day or is it going to be serving Jesus today?

[00:20:29] Which one is it gonna be?

[00:20:31] It's a choice that's going to come down in your heart. Do I want to please this person or do I want to obey Jesus? And what Jesus is saying when you get to those crossroads, which all of us are going to face. You choose me.

[00:20:43] That's what Jesus is saying to my followers do.

[00:20:46] They don't just follow me when it's easy. They don't just follow me on Sunday. They follow me when it's going to cost them maybe a relationship or somebody else might even feel rejected like you hate them. Your kid might not understand why you're going to church and leaving them behind while you're going to meet with so-and-so to encourage them or evangelize them and not hanging out with them. Your children might not understand your service to Christ. They might even feel rejected. But you choose Jesus. That's what I'd say.

[00:21:13] Point, everyone, let's put it down like this. You put God in first place, God has first place in your heart and he will have no rivals.

[00:21:22] Jesus says it's got to be like you're ready to leave everybody else behind to follow me. Now, we know he wants us to love the people in our life, but we always put obeying Christ over obeying the desires and wants of our children specifically.

[00:21:39] Some of you guys are even doing this while you sit here right now because you did this brave thing that we really encourage parents to do. Can we get really personal here this morning?

[00:21:49] Is that all right with everybody? We get personal because some of you guys dropped your kids off in the kids ministry. You guys know what I'm talking about.

[00:21:55] And that was like that was not just like, hey, here's my kid. Hey, yo, let me sign a man. That was an ordeal. Like your kids started screaming bloody murder when you draw. Anybody ever been there before? And the infinite other the room.

[00:22:06] It's like we got torture chambers back here with evil devices designed to torment your children while you get some precious few minutes alone. Right.

[00:22:16] I mean, we got the we got the nicest people we could find the church. We got all this stuff, our safety, everything is all sanitized. You know, we got the the best toys. I mean, we're trying to have so much fun with the kids, take as good care of them as we can. And they're just screaming bloody murder, murder, weeping morning. Just begging. They will literally stand there at the gate. Have you seen this at our church before? I've seen it. I'm like, who's running this church? This place is out of control.

[00:22:41] There is one of the toddlers standing at the gate just shouting, what? What if they could put words in? Why do you hate me? Why do you leave me? What about stranger danger now? It's a good thing the one and a half year olds can't talk.

[00:23:01] All the guilt trips you're the one and a half year olds would play on the parents of this church to make sure you never got that precious hour and a half to sit there and worship God, to focus on him without distraction, to hear his word, to actually deal in your heart with the living God o your children will keep you from the. They will scream and yell until you pay attention to them more than God, and you will have to tell your kids you can't even speak to you. You will have to tell them, no, there's a pricking order here. There's a priority here. And you're not at the top. Every single kid that God blesses you with needs to know that God is more important to you than your child.

[00:23:46] They need to see that.

[00:23:48] This is what Jesus requires from his followers. And now this is an issue of the heart, we're talking about idolatry.

[00:23:57] This is an issue of of what what what are you putting in your priorities, in your thinking, in your affections? Does something have more of your attention, heaviness, weight than God does? And that might be hard to to pinpoint.

[00:24:10] I mean, I don't know too many people who will just be like, yeah, I'm an idolater. No, I'm not sure. I mean, I don't know if I'd go that far. I mean, I love my kids, but I don't know if I'm really, like, wrong about it. Like you're saying, we'll go back to First Samuel, too, because the evidence of idolatry will always show up in our lives.

[00:24:27] And we can see, by the way, that Eli conducts his parenting here. It proves what God rebukes him for, that he honors his son's above God. We can see that from his parenting. If you make your kids an idol, it will show up in the way that you parent them. You will start to parent them a worldly way, a different way, rather than the way that God has commanded us to be with our kids. And so look what happens here. A part of the story that we didn't get to yet is for Samuel to verse 22. We've already read about the corruption of the sacrifices that Eli and his sons had go in and how he preferred his sons over God. We'll look at this. This is where it gets just out of control. Here is for Samuel to 22. Now, Eli was very old and he kept hearing all that his sons were doing to all Israel. So he keeps hearing bad reports about his sons, Hoffner and finials. And check this out, how they lay with the women who were serving at the entrance to the tent of meeting.

[00:25:28] OK, so we've got some women come in to do some work there at the Tabernacle and we are twisting what is happening there to where we are committing sexual immorality with these women in the place where God is to be worshiped in a place where there is the holy of holies representing the very presence of God. We have now done what most idolatry is about is we have allowed sexual immorality to creep into the worship. Now, when you hear about idolatry and you think about people Ballan down to statues and you think that's stupid? Well, let me just tell you what it was really about. The end game of the idol was the idol usually let people do what they wanted to do in their own flesh. And usually idolatry always leads to sexual immorality. And a lot of the pagan worship that would have been taking place at temples to other gods, that would have been going on, there might have been drunkenness. I think even in the golden calf situation, it might have been about the people expressing themselves in sinful ways that really might be behind the heart of idolatry because your idol is not going to tell you what to do.

[00:26:36] Like God is. And so idolatry often leads to and we see it did here sexual immorality. So now this isn't just we're not doing the sacrifices. Right. And we're getting more meat. This is clearly sin known by all the people of Israel happening in the Tabernacle. This is religious hypocrisy at its extreme, happening with the priests, sons who are now priests themselves, grown men.

[00:27:04] So what is Dad Eli going to do about it?

[00:27:08] Well, let's see. Let's see his method of parenting here. And he said to them first twenty three. Why do you do such things? Question mark. For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people. No, my sons.

[00:27:25] It is no good report that I hear the people of the Lord spreading abroad.

[00:27:30] If someone's sense against a man, God will meditate for him. But if someone's sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him?

[00:27:39] Question mark. When do you see what we're doing here?

[00:27:42] We got sons that are out of control and who got sons that need to be taken out of the priesthood. Yesterday, we got sons that probably need to be taken and stoned outside of the town, executed probably for their sins before the Lord, according to the Old Testament law. I mean, we got we got the hammer needs to be dropped. Authority needs to do something about the sin that is happening. And we come alongside and we start asking questions.

[00:28:09] Well, guys, don't you realize that what you're doing is really bad? This is called reasoning, parenting. This is what the world is going to tell you to do if you're a parent. So here's here's your strategy. Appeal to the good nature of your kids. Appeal to the moral development of your children. Come alongside of them.

[00:28:28] Stop being the authoritative figure of discipline of of years long gone by. New kind of parenting we're doing now.

[00:28:35] Come alongside, be a body, be a friend, get your kid to like you, and then you can kind of reason with them. Then you can ask questions. You can put it to him in different ways. You don't have to tell him what to do. You can just help him think it through. That's what the world is telling us parents to do.

[00:28:50] In fact, I wanted to look up what the world would say about discipline, including forms of discipline, like like spanking, even I started do an Internet search on this.

[00:29:02] Because what Eli's doing here is the exact opposite of what God commands. Every father in this room to do, which is fathers, are commanded to discipline their children. OK. And as priest here, he these guys were qualified to be disqualified from the priesthood. They should have been removed immediately.

[00:29:20] But he decides to do this very modern kind of parenting technique here.

[00:29:27] Reasoning, parenting, now, I saw I typed in, I did a search. I don't know if someone's gonna come after me because I stood an Internet search for spanking. I don't know if guys are paying attention to what's going on, but don't do an Internet search for spanking. But I did. And about 17 hours ago now, I saw that Mr Dad had just published a new article.

[00:29:46] I don't know how I survived nine years of fatherhood without the wisdom of Mr. Dad. In his weekly column.

[00:29:53] But apparently someone just in the last 24 hours asked Mr Dad what they should do about spanking that kind of form of like intense, authoritative discipline as talked about in scripture.

[00:30:07] And this person was shocked to find out that some of their friends were still spanking people today. And in fact, their friend even implied to them that the majority of people even spank their children. And this person was like, Mr Dad, tell me, should I spank my kids? And what is Mr Dad say right away? Please don't. First words of the article. Please don't spank your children.

[00:30:31] In fact, I don't even think that's the majority. Here's some surveys that say it's not the majority of what people are doing anymore. And here's some other surveys that prove once and for all that spanking doesn't work.

[00:30:42] And we should never spank our kids. Here's what we should do instead. I have a list of things here. Top thing on Mr. Dad's list of how you should parent your kids, help your child develop moral judgment.

[00:30:56] For example, instead of don't pull the dog's ears, say why my pulling the dog's ears be a bad idea?

[00:31:12] You see, yeah, your kids going to immediately let the dog go and you ask that question. See, now it's getting worse because not only am I offending child idolaters now, I just offended dog idolaters here, too. That's a picture of poor little dogs.

[00:31:25] Ears getting pulled is terrible of a kid is pulling dogs ears. Don't tell the kid to stop. Don't give him a command. No, doing this teaches children to think, not just obey. And the more practice they get it moral reasoning, the less they'll need correction in the first place.

[00:31:43] Mr. Dad solves another problem. And I'll go on what? Dogs are safe everywhere.

[00:31:50] Reason with your kids. That's what the world's going to tell you. And I'm here to tell you, which I've told you before and I'll continue to tell you, is that your kids were born in what? There's no reasoning with them. No folly is bound up in their heart. And the scripture says that the wrath of reproof, authoritative correction from dad is what drives Fali out of the heart of a child. That's that's what God wants dad to do. God wants dad to have an authoritative role in the home.

[00:32:20] In fact, the scripture gets extremely specific about what kind of discipline it would encourage dad to do at home. It doesn't leave any room for interpretation. It's very clear. Go to Proverbs, Chapter 13, where in the Old Testament. Go over to the right a little bit to you.

[00:32:36] Find Proverbs right after Psalms and look at Proverbs, chapter 13, verse 24 with me and we'll see what one dad Solomon passes on to his son here about how dads are supposed to be, how God has set it up with the kind of discipline that God is looking for is not reasoning parenting where you ask questions. Appealing to the good nature of your child. No, it looks like this. Proverbs 13, verse 24, says whoever spares the rod hates his son.

[00:33:08] But he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

[00:33:12] So the Bible goes back to this idea that there's a rod here and this is a very specific idea here in Hebrew with this thing called the Shabat had lots of purposes of shepherd, might use it to guide and and lead the sheep. And it's clearly talking about a little physical kind of stick here that we would have used in a way to into discipline by even spanking children.

[00:33:37] I feel like in our culture, I need to throw out a disclaimer here and say I'm not talking about anybody beating their children. All right.

[00:33:43] That's not I'm not talking about striking your children in anger. I'm not talking about abusing your children. I'm not talking about bullying or being some tough, macho dad who's trying to force kids to do things. No, I'm talking about in love. When your kids have disobeyed the commands that are here in scripture, that you have been faithfully teaching to them, that you give your kids pain.

[00:34:06] That's what discipline is. It's a consequence that includes pain that shows the child they must correct their behavior or even worse, consequences will befall them in life.

[00:34:19] So.

[00:34:20] That's what discipline is and proverbs who go so far as to say, if you don't use some physical instrument to give some physical pain to your small child here, that is that if you don't give your son a good spanking, perhaps that you hate your son is what the proverb says. That's not loving your son. No. Actually, when you love your son, you're diligent to discipline. You do it regularly. You do it early. You start as soon as you can. As soon as you can tell that your kid is doing something they know is wrong, you start using pain to correct them and get them back on the right track.

[00:34:57] That's the idea here. That's the biblical God given idea for dads and how they should be disciplining their kids. Go to Proverbs, Chapter 23 turnover there with me, Proverbs, Chapter 23 versus 13 to 14. Look at these verses and how it says it here. There's so many proverbs we could go to. I'm just jumping straight to a couple of them. But look at the wisdom here. Do not withhold discipline from a child. Every child needs some painful consequence that corrects their they're wrong behavior.

[00:35:31] Do not withhold discipline from a child. If you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you're afraid about what's going to happen to your kid by spanking them. Well, here it's trying to help you think that through you, they will not die. It's not going to be for their detriment. No. If you strike him with the rod, we're talking about spanking specific kind of discipline, you will save his soul from she all the place of the dead.

[00:35:56] No, it's saying it's this kind of correction, this kind of discipline that's going to keep a kid from growing up and sleeping with whoever they want to sleep with. It's going to keep a kid from going up and thinking, well, God said this, but it's okay if I just kind of do it like this. The things that Eli's sons grew up to do with Amy there could have been prevented if their dad had discipline them.

[00:36:18] That's the idea here, that dads make a difference in the lives of their kids. Anybody want to say men to that? We still believe in that here in America. Now, I was one of the few one of the proud one of those who had a dad who disciplined me when I was growing up.

[00:36:35] I was the oldest of three boys. In fact, my dad's been here. But I remember when my dad was here preaching before. He's been here before. In fact, last week we just announced that we're hiring my brother as the associate pastor. Was anybody here for that? And he's going to come and he's going to join us. And so we've been talking about my family. You've been getting to know my family. I grew up in what I have found out was a very unique family where my dad we had three boys, I was the oldest. And he read the scriptures to us almost every day, if not every day that I grew up. We read the Bible at our house and nobody had this plan that we were creating future pastors of America. That wasn't some idea. No, he was just trying to do what dads are supposed to do.

[00:37:16] And he took seriously to teach us that the scriptures and in one other thing, he took very seriously. Was he disciplined, his sons?

[00:37:27] And if I did something wrong at my house, I guarantee you pain was coming my way and I knew it.

[00:37:35] And I was the oldest, so I had it the worst. I don't care what those other guys say. Hey, I know Bill's coming and he's going to start saying all kinds of stuff, but we need to get this straight right now, OK? That was amazing. When I announced that Bill was comment and my brother is gonna be another pastor here at this church, the overall response of our congregation was extremely positive.

[00:37:58] Nobody was like, well, what's the shady business of at least nobody said this to me. What's the shady business of bringing your brother into the church?

[00:38:04] Because many people here have heard the story of our family, of a dad who actually taught the Bible to his three boys and how all three of them ended up becoming pastors.

[00:38:14] And I know that's actually inspired some of the men here in the church who have started now daily reading the Bible to their kids. And some men who were doing that have been renewed now in their efforts to do that. But now we're getting to another thing that you have to do with your kids is you must discipline them. And because I was the guinea pig, right. I was the oldest. I received some discipline that was very intense discipline.

[00:38:44] And in fact, if my dad was here today and he said this to me many times, if he knew I was preaching on his discipline, I'm sure he would say that he feels bad about some of that discipline because maybe he took it a little too far. Perhaps. Because by the time my younger brothers were my age, it was amazing what they were getting away with at our house. I don't know if anybody else has had that experience.

[00:39:07] OK, so after me kind of toned it down a little bit. And he has come to me on several occasions and has tried to apologize to me for disciplining me.

[00:39:17] And I have said to him, Dad, don't you need to apologize to me. Thank you for disciplining me. Thank you for giving me pain to correct me. When I was going on the wrong path, who knows where I would be dead? If it wasn't for your discipline, so don't apologize, Dad. Thank you. And I'm sure that anybody who had a dad who discipline them here in this room is saying a man in your heart right now that you appreciate. The pain you realized that was love from your father. To keep you on the right track, go to a Fusion's Chapter six. And this isn't just suggested forms of parenting in the Book of Proverbs or the wise way to do it.

[00:39:58] Now look at Fusion's Chapter six, a New Testament letter talking to Christian people living a new life in Christ. People like me and you gathering at church on a Sunday morning. And it says this to all of the fathers here. Here's a governing principle for our families. Ephesians chapter six, verse four. And just to make it very clear, we're not talking about being harsh with our kids. That's not what we mean. Fathers do not provoke your children to anger. We're not talking about dad being over the top, dad making up his own rules, dad abusing his authority. That's no. There's a warning against that. But here's what the command is.

[00:40:39] Bring your children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. So there must be instruction from God's word. That Dad does with his kids. And there must be discipline that dad does with his kids. We're calling out every father here this morning.

[00:40:56] You are commanded by God to inflict pain on your children, to correct their wrong behavior and encourage them in the way of righteousness. And I would say for young children, this will involve spanking. I would strongly encourage you to do this according to God's word.

[00:41:16] So I think that whether you're kids or idols or not, you can you might have a hard time detecting that in your heart, but you will prove it in your parenting. In fact, let's get that down for point number two. If God is in the first place, point number one, then you will prove it in your parenting.

[00:41:32] That when it comes to what your kid wants and it comes to what God has commanded, you will obey God's commands over the desires of your children. And so when your children want to act a certain way and get away with it and continue in that kind of behavior, you will not bowed down to your children. Instead, you will bow down to God commanding you to discipline your children. And even if your children think that you hate them and they might, you will still submit to God rather than your kids. That's what it's going to look like.

[00:42:04] We're not here to be buddies with our children. We are here to represent God and obey his commands to our children and we'll prove where our hearts are really at.

[00:42:15] By the way, that we parent say.

[00:42:18] Now, if you've got young children, I would strongly encourage you as soon as they put that finger towards the electric socket and you've told them time and time again that they shouldn't be doing that. I would inflict a little bit of pain to help make your point. I think that's godly parenting.

[00:42:34] Now, at some point, though, as they grow older, as they get to junior high and high school, I would not recommend spanking for parenting, OK?

[00:42:42] But there are many ways that you can inflict pain. All right.

[00:42:46] I'm here to tell every parent right now of a junior high or high schooler that we need you so desperately to parent your child. I was a high school pastor for 15 years at Bible teaching churches. And it was shocking to me that by the time someone was a freshman in high school, how far removed mom and dad were from the Daily Equation. It blew my mind that I'm not talking about our culture. I'm talking about the church people.

[00:43:15] I could not believe how laid back they were, how permissive with they were, they were the attitude they would allow their kids to roll their eyes at them and just act like, well, they're a teenager.

[00:43:27] What are you going to do while all the time telling me their kid was a good kid when they're kids disobeying them right in front of my eyes?

[00:43:37] And they would let it go. There was no discipline. There was no authority.

[00:43:41] Let me just empower you. If someone lives at your house, if they are your dependent. You have authority over them. They don't get to have passwords that you don't know. There is no freedom. They live based on your life.

[00:43:58] Today, if you want to talk about ways to punish high school students, I got all kinds of ideas. We can go out to lunch and we can talk about points of pain and how you can get their attention.

[00:44:11] And you can you're making the decision at your house. Are we going to fight World War three or are we going to surrender to our kids and let them win the victory, say?

[00:44:22] Parents who fight. Let me just tell you how it works. Parents always win. You guys realize that's how it works. Parents win. God set it up that you will win. If you parent. That's how it works. You have the authority. You have the upper hand. And you will rejoice to know that all the children at this church are being taught Ephesians Chapter six. But the verses before this that say they should obey their their parents. OK. So we have your back. OK. We're on your side, OK. I have even done counseling here at this church where parents have brought in their teenager and they have to come to Pastor Bobby's office. Last place, teenagers. There's Funtime Shane down the hall. No Ackerman into Pastor Bobby's office. Come on in. No, no. I smile. That's friendly. Let's go. You have authority now. Maybe some you guys like, oh, I'm so glad my kids are grown. Gone out of the house or this sermon would be convicting. And I'm so I'm so ready to be a grandparent. All of the joys, all of the idolatry without any of the discipline, man can't wait for that. Just the chubby cheeks and the gifts and the good times up dirty diaper. You go back to your parents live in the dream, right. If you are still supporting one of your children financially, you have power over them. You are enabling the life of a grown man or woman to sin by your financial provision for them. You have authority you could drop the hammer right there. Why are you giving money to somebody who is sinning against God? And a grown man or woman who can choose what they want to do, that's going to blaspheme God and defy him by the way that they live. We don't need to support that. You have more authority than you think. I would never encourage a parent. No matter how old your child is.

[00:46:12] They have their own family, their own financial independence. Do not come and ask them questions. Speak to them with the authority that God has given you over their life. Use the authority for their soul. I beg for the souls of your kids. Be the dad that God has called you to be.

[00:46:29] Plead with them. You are their father. No one has the influence in a kid's life.

[00:46:34] That dad does. You cannot replace dad, period. Be the dad that God has called you to be. Do it with authority. OK.

[00:46:43] Prove that you are going to honor God, that his weight, his heaviness rings more true in your heart than what your kids want and that you will instruct your kids and discipline them in the Lord, not based on what they want. And here's how it goes. You've got kids live in that house. I know how it is. You put in a long day at work. You come home and you find out that so-and-so, I got three different kids. So I got three potentials of trouble every day that I come home. Sometimes all we're three for three at the Blakey house some days. Now, I don't know how you feel after a long day of serving the Lord, whatever your vocation is, but sometimes I get a little bit weary, get a little bit tired.

[00:47:26] All the World Series is on tonight. Maybe I'll just sit down for a minute. Maybe I'll just watch this and I start to think about how relaxing it's gonna be. And then all of a sudden I walk in the door and things aren't well at the Blakey household. Have you ever had one of these moments? Dad and so-and-so needs to be talk to you right away. And so-and-so has been doing this all day and Mom's been dealing with it. Well, and sometimes I just want to say, good thing we got a godly mom here at the house and go sit down.

[00:47:52] Or sometimes I want to be like, hey guys, team meeting dad.

[00:47:54] So let's shape up everybody else. Forget about what happened. Let's press on. All right. I don't want to deal with the discipline, say. Once you guys go deal with that in another room, see, I think I feel as many dads feel it is hard work.

[00:48:09] It is there is no joy in inflicting pain on my children. No, there's just love. That's why do. Love, and because I'm more concerned about what God thinks than about what my kids think. And so I come home, and yet I discipline if that's what we need to do. Because that's my job. That's who I am. I'm a father. You have the privilege of being father of God has blessed you with children. I'm begging you on behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ. And I'm telling you the commands of God, discipline and instruct your kids. We need you. We need you to join us now. That is amazing thing that happens if you go back to First Samuel with me. There's an amazing juxtaposition here, amazing contrast.

[00:48:54] I mean, this just seems like a terrible story. We've got a guy who honored his sons and they all died and God removed the priesthood from their family line. And you might be honoring your kids and go home and feel convicted. That might be where we're at in the sermon right now, OK?

[00:49:10] But there's this interesting contrast here. First, Samuel, to what talent Tara were telling excuse me, this terrible story of the priest and how he is not idolizing his kids and how it's leading to all of this corruption and eventually consequences. There's this other story that's being told. Look at chapter two, verse 18. It says, Samuel was ministering before the Lord hears that boy, Hannas boy hears that mom, that barren woman begging like maybe so many moms have done.

[00:49:42] I'm sure some moms here in this room begging God for a child. He answers their prayer. But instead of just becoming this mom who's just so happy that she has her little precious, Hannah does something extraordinary. She gives her son Samuel back to the Lord to serve the Lord.

[00:50:01] An amazing thing for a first time mother to do. And it says that Samuel, he's ministering before the Lord. He's a boy. Kind of an interesting picture here, a boy clothed with the linen, any fired, which is what the priests would wear. And his mother used to make for him a little robe because they didn't have boy sides. If God's there at the Tabernacle, so she would make him a little boy size and she would take it to him each year, implying that she sees him like once a year. When she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.

[00:50:31] This is an amazing woman.

[00:50:33] She prays for a child. God gives her a child. And she says, here's what I'm going to do with my kid. I'm going to give my child back to the Lord. And she does it in a way.

[00:50:41] We're not asking for anybody to leave their kids here today. We're not asking for that here at this church. That's not the standard here.

[00:50:47] But she does something extraordinary where she says, I'm going to commit this child, my first firstborn child that I prayed for and I want to give my child to God's care.

[00:50:59] And it seems like as Eli and his sons and their family is falling apart, Samuel is just being blessed. In fact, look down at chapter two, verse 26. It says now the boy, Samuel, continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and also with man.

[00:51:17] This is right in between the passages about the sins of Hoffner and Finnie as and the child idolatry of Eli. But look at Samuel just growing up in favor with God and man, that sounds really similar to another verse I've read. Who else grew in favor with God and man Luke to. Two Jesus. In fact, Luke might even be referring to this idea here, hearing for Samuel to 26. But look at how this young man look. Here's a dad who worships his sons, who makes them heavier, weightier in his heart than God. Look at the devastation. Here's a mom who will entrust her son completely to God's care. Look at the blessing. Look at the reward.

[00:51:59] There's a clear contrast that's being made here.

[00:52:03] And eventually, in Chapter three, the boy, Samuel, was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days, God wasn't speaking to many people. There was no frequent vision. But if you continue to read, God is going to speak to this boy, Samuel, and he is going to make him a great prophet who will anoint King David, who will start a line that will last forever. And his ultimate descendant, Jesus Christ.

[00:52:32] And it's coming from one woman.

[00:52:35] Who said, I'm not going to if you give me a son, I won't even make it about me, I will entrust my son back to you. See, here's what we got to all realize as parents is we can't even take care of our own kids.

[00:52:50] Do you believe that?

[00:52:52] I mean, I mean I mean, do we really think that we're the ones keeping our kids alive?

[00:52:57] Do we really think that the video monitor is going to help us when we're asleep in the middle of the night? I've sat there and I've watched my babies in their crib and I have realized there is nothing I could do to keep this kid alive. I have watched I don't have any dads ever experienced this. You always picture you'll be the dad. Just comes in and right before your kid falls down and scrapes their knee, you, like, catch him in one hand while holding heavy stuff in your other hand. I've watched my kids eat it right outside of my fingertips, just crying blood everywhere. And Dad was like the closest person, you know, to me.

[00:53:34] Like, I've become very convinced that as much as I might have good intentions for my kids, I can't even keep them alive physically, much less get into their heart and do anything to give them spiritual life.

[00:53:48] They can't do it.

[00:53:50] They all of us, even if our kids live with us, even if we're with them all the time, doing our best to take care of them. The truth is God is the one who provides ultimate care for the children that he has given to us.

[00:54:02] We've talked about this before, we talked about at our church the difference between daycare and mom care, and now we want to be the kind of church where we love one another like mom care. I mean, even if you've got the best babysitter in the world, even if you've got a daycare program that is just off the charts, good. They care for your kids, but nobody loves the kid. Like Mom loves the kid.

[00:54:24] Nobody has that personal, intimate relationship with the kid like a mom does. Well, actually, what first Samuel is telling us is, no, there's something even beyond mom care. It's God care for your kid.

[00:54:37] That's what you've got to trust in.

[00:54:39] Your ultimate hope for your parenting is not what you're doing, but that God is going to work in the heart of your job. That's why you obey God's commands for parenting, because you think he knows better than you do.

[00:54:51] Let's get it down like this for point number three here that you need to give your children to God's care. You need to entrust their souls to the Lord. You pray for not only their physical safety, but their spiritual salvation.

[00:55:04] And you don't think, well, here's what I think would be best for my kids. Here's how I think we should do it. Now, you don't trust in your own understanding.

[00:55:12] You trust in the Lord, and if he said that here's how dads should be towards their kids, then that's how we're going to be. Because we trust in him to be the ultimate shepherd of our children's hearts.

[00:55:25] Now go to Proverbs Chapter three. We've already spent some time there, and I want you to see that really what it comes down to with our kids is whether we're going to try to take matters in our own hands or we're gonna listen to what the world has to say or we're gonna.

[00:55:38] Parents based on fear or whatever's happening now, or we could trust God. And that's really a main emphasis here in Proverbs. Maybe one of the most famous verses in all of the Bible Proverbs, Chapter three versus five and six. Turn there with me.

[00:55:55] It's on page five hundred and twenty eight. If you got one of our Bibles, actually, it's on page the next page five. Twenty nine. Sorry. You know, five. I was right. Five. Twenty eight. And you'll see their proverbs. Chapter three. Verse five.

[00:56:07] Trust in the Lord with all your heart. No room for idolatry. No room for what you think is best for your kids. Do not lean on your own understanding in all your ways. Parenting. Acknowledge him.

[00:56:23] And he will make straight your pad's be not wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

[00:56:34] And so many of us, we think that we know our kids best. We've got to understand God knows our kids best. We need to trust in his ways and not try to lean on our own understanding, in fact, even look at the example, go down to verse eleven where it says, my son do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof, his correction, maybe his painful consequences to turn you around from sin for the Lord or proves him who he loves as the father, as a father, the son and whom he delights.

[00:57:07] You've got to trust in God, not yourself.

[00:57:10] And then later, it even talks about this same idea. We got to trust that God's discipline is the way to go. And it's done out of love because it's the best for the child. We consider ourselves people of faith. And here's what's crazy. If I was saying right now that the only way of salvation is that you and I should repent of our sins and put our faith in the gospel of Jesus, and here is the gospel of Jesus that he is Christ.

[00:57:34] That he died for our sins. And we actually believe here at this church that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day to offer all of us eternal life. When we preach that here at the church, what do we get a man? Everybody says, and now I'm saying, well, yeah, you're trusting God for your eternal salvation, for your soul. But you won't trust him. And how to parent your kids.

[00:57:57] Why is that so much harder for us?

[00:58:01] Is it because our kids are our idols? Is it because we think we know best or will we be bold?

[00:58:06] Will we be a woman or a man of real faith like this lady, Hannah? Who entrusts her son to the Lord and if you keep reading the story and Samuel is a mighty man of God. What great things he does. It says that when he was a prophet and when he spoke to the people, none of his words fell to the ground because he spoke the word of God and God spoke through this man, Samuel.

[00:58:30] And it begins to describe Hannah. If you continue reading that, God blesses her with many more children. So you tell me, do you want to be Eli? Who'd wanted to parent his own way, reasoning with his kids, making them idols?

[00:58:43] Or do you want to be Hannah? Who will entrust the souls of your children up to God's care as even greater than your own?

[00:58:51] Now, this is something that was heavy on my heart as I was thinking about, we need to address this issue of family. I realized that if I came at the end of this sermon and I said, guys, I've got a really good book that I want to recommend. In fact, I've gone so far as to buy everybody a copy of this book. And it is written by a man who is a medical doctor and he has a great family.

[00:59:11] He's a grandfather now. He's got many kids who have kids of their own. And he's just an amazing patriarch. He's the kind of grandpa everybody wants to have. And he has written this brand new best selling, cutting edge parenting book. And he'll start you out with your infant and he will get your kid sleep trained. He will get your kid on the schedule. I mean, he is the baby whisperer. This guy knows what he's doing. And then, you know, he you think the teenage years are problems. Where do you see what this guy did with his teenagers? Where do you see the awesome discipleship and the trips he went on with them and how he he just became such a mentor to them and then. Oh, yeah. Well, you have a son who's older, who's grown up, who's gone the wrong way. Will, one of his sons did bet that you should read that chapter. And he turned that son around. It's like the prodigal all over again and even refers to the prodigal.

[01:00:02] And this book just came out and it's taken over the bestseller charts. And I bought it for everybody. Will you please go read this book? Everyone, you know what? I bet we could get a lot of people at this church to read that book.

[01:00:15] But if I said, hey, there's a book. And it's actually one of the 66. There's a book that a father wrote to a son, it's super old. Most people don't even pay attention to it. It's a book called Proverbs. It was written by the wisest man who ever lived. And he wrote it to his son on How to be a man. You'll want to look at parenting. Here it is. I want everybody at this church to read Proverbs. My concern is the heaviness on my heart here this morning is I think more people would read the bestselling parenting book than they would read Proverbs.

[01:00:45] Because we think men have some wisdom that maybe God doesn't know about our kids.

[01:00:51] Some of us might think we're better fathers than our father in heaven.

[01:00:56] Or that maybe God doesn't really love my kid like I do as his mom.

[01:01:01] But God has given to us wisdom on how to fear him, how to live according to his word. And he has given us great parenting instruction. The Book of Proverbs is the opposite of Isla.

[01:01:14] It is a dad doing what he's supposed to do, teaching and instructing and warning his son of the errors of his ways and promoting discipline. That's what Proverbs is about. So we don't have bestsellers that I bought for everybody, but I did buy everybody this book right here.

[01:01:31] You can take one home if you want to, if you don't have your own copy. And I'm going to encourage everybody in our church. Let's read through the Book of Proverbs together. What do you guys think? That sounds like a good idea for all us needy parents. Couple of people are clapping. Few people. Smattering of applause for Proverbs.

[01:01:47] Not as exciting as that bestseller. But I guess it's something. Yes, we can read something.

[01:01:53] No, I some of times as Christians, we do this thing when we start a new month, we say, hey, let's let's read Proverbs this month because it's got 31 chapters. And so usually it goes pretty close to the month that you're in. So maybe you've heard of this thing that Christians do sometimes where we do like the proverb of the day. So whatever day it is of November, maybe, I don't know. Oh, wow. Hey. Hello, November. Hey, AB even November 1st, everybody. So today, right now on our Web site, it's already got Proverbs Chapter one on there. You want to go on there, leave a comment, start a discussion about it, but let's all go read through the book of Proverbs. You miss a couple of days. Whatever the date is in November, let's dove in as a church to that chapter. Let's look for wisdom and we're going to see a great model of parenting. If you didn't have a dad who was a model to you, let the writer of of Proverbs Solomon let him show you how a father should be to his son hearing God's word.

[01:02:46] And we want to get a conversation going among the families of this church. We think who you are in your family as a husband, as a wife, as a mom, a dad. We think that's so important here at this church. So we're going to have some special events this Saturday. I would like to call all the men of the church out on Saturday morning at eight o'clock breakfast time right here at this church. And we're gonna do a husband's workshop. We've talked clearly about what a father father's supposed to do with his kids here today. Well, there's an even more important relationship at home and then your kids and that's your wife. If you've got a wife and she still wants to live with you. Well, we got to talk about that here, man. And so we've got a husband's workshop. It's designed for husbands. Any man at this church is welcome to come be a part of that Saturday at eight o'clock. And then women, we have an event for you. What is this heart that Hannah had that she would entrust her son to the Lord? Well, my wife will be teaching the parts we left out there in First Samuel one and two on Hannah. So this is now not this Saturday, but the next Saturday at 10 o'clock. All the women of the church are invited to find out what this attitude was that Hannah had that would lead her to trust God in such a powerful way that God would take her baby, the baby off the barren woman, the marked woman, the woman who didn't even know how to be a mom.

[01:04:04] But he gave her a son and she trusted God. Any exalted her child. So if we want God to exalt our children, we need he honors who honors him. That's what he said in our passage. Put him waitI, put him heavy, make him first place in your heart, not your kids, and then see what God does with your kids. Trust in him.

[01:04:28] Don't lean on your own understanding when it comes to parenting. Let me pray for us. God, I just pray for this church. God, we thank you for what you're doing around here. How you getting us going, how you're bringing us together, making us have family save and people here. But God, we bring our families before you right now.

[01:04:46] And God, I know that live in an Orange County, this message is so countercultural. It's so challenging.

[01:04:52] The world would actually say that the sin of worshiping your children is a virtue. That would be our answer to the question of what's most important in our life. Our children would be the answer.

[01:05:04] God, I pray that we will repent of that here at this church.

[01:05:08] We will tear down the aisles of whether it's our kids or any relationship where anything that's going to compete with you for first place in our heart. Anything that we might be tempted to choose instead of obeying your commands and putting you first, that we will tear down those idols, guy, that you will convict us and work on our hearts.

[01:05:28] Please, if someone is convicted here this morning, don't let them leave and keep doing the same things, God, next time some of us dads find ourselves asking our kids questions, convicts Scott and let us discipline our children.

[01:05:43] Let us obey your commands.

[01:05:45] God, I pray that your glory and your honor would always be the weightiest and heaviest things on the hearts of all of us here at Compass. God, that you will suffer no rivals. And so we will have no idols in our lives.

[01:06:01] And if there's anything that needs to be cast down, any idols that need to be destroyed. God, please do that here among us so that your worship will be genuine and true. God, let us not be like Eli, who should be leading and overseeing your worship. And instead, it's being corrupted because of his idolatry. Even at your own place of worship.

[01:06:22] It's corrupted by ideology.

[01:06:25] We pray that that would not happen here at this church, but that you would be honored and that you would show us your glory and then we would respond with loving you, with all of our heart, with putting no other gods before you and giving you are worship.

[01:06:37] We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

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