Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast. How do we know where to find answers to the toughest
questions in life? While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search
and how do we discover this truth? Today, in this teaching podcast, John Meador, lead
pastor of Cross City Church, takes a specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth
for the life we're searching for. We are so glad that you're with us. Take your
Bibles this morning and turn to Psalm 78 as we talk about investing deeply in the next
generation. This is our Out of the Shallow series. This is where we're talking about
what it means to go deeper in your relationships. We began talking about going deeper in your
relationship with God. We began going deeper in relationship with others around you based
on the great commandment, which you remember says, love the Lord your God with all your
heart, all your soul, and all your mind and strength, and you love your neighbor as yourself.
So we began talking about what it means to dive deeply into relationships. Last week
was about marriage. This week is about passing it on to the next generation. Psalm 78, would
you stand with me as I read Psalm 78 and the first eight verses there of that Psalm. Psalm
78 is written from the background of failure. It's written from the background of a generation
that did not follow God. And so now the psalmist is saying to the present generation, we don't
need to be like those who failed to follow God, failed to pass their faith on. And you'll
see why as you see the instruction. Listen, O my people, to my instruction, incline your
ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings
of old which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not conceal
them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord
and his strength and his wondrous work that he has done. For he established a testimony
in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel which he commanded our fathers that they should
teach them to their children so that the generations to come might know, even the children yet
to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children that they should put their
confidence in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments and not
be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not prepare
its heart and whose spirit was not faithful to God. All about investing in the next generation.
Let's pray together. Father, thank you so much for the opportunity today to look at
the important calling we have to pass faith on. And Father, to understand the responsibilities
we have and also the challenges and the complications we have in passing faith on. But Lord, give
us today under the illumination of your Holy Spirit all we need to be faithful to do that.
And I ask this in Jesus' name and I'll guide people said, amen. Please be seated if you
would. You know, one of the things I like to watch on television besides football, and
by the way, I am really glad football is back on TV today. Can I get an amen? I mean that
may be my best amen all day. Yeah, I've got some guys back there clapping their hands.
It's the Cowboys tonight, so we never know how we're going to feel on Monday, right?
But I love to watch track and field. I love to watch, especially the relay races, where
a baton handoff is critical to the success of a race. I like the four by one hundred
meters or the four by four hundred meters where these incredible athletes are running
with a beautiful form their leg of the race, but also the complication of what it means
to hand a baton off from one runner to the next and then for that second runner to take
its course and then the third and then the fourth. And really it's unusual that the team
that is absolutely the fastest on paper wins the race because so much depends on that baton
handoff. Because you move from a relatively simple movement of running to a little bit
more complicated movement of handing it off to someone else that's running and that's
why these great runners spend a lot of time in relay races. They spend a lot of time preparing
with the baton handoff. I've learned there are three different styles of baton handoff.
Who knew? But everyone has the best way to hand off that baton because it's so critically
important. Sometimes the fastest runners in a race don't win the race as a team because
they fail to pass the baton off. I want you to think about that with me today as we talk
about this Psalm 78 because really it's all about passing the baton to another generation
of people who can understand what it means to believe by faith in God. Everybody wants
the next generation. Have you noticed that? Culture wants the next generation. Some of
you young people in the room today, I assure you the whole world is focusing on you through
social media and advertising and everything else. They want your heart. They want your
life. They want your morals. They want everything about you. Businesses want you and they want
the next generation. Their marketing strategies are built in order to gain business for the
next generations for life. So companies pursue this all out. But the people that really need
to want the next generation are people like us who want to pass faith onto the next generation.
A well-worn statement but altogether true is that Christians live just one generation
away from extinction. If we don't pass our faith to the next generation then who will
pass it to the following generation? It's such an important thing because faith is passed
on not just by transfer but by example and by word and by teaching and instruction and
all the things that we'll talk about today but it's incredibly, incredibly important.
Now let me give you some facts as we dive into Psalm 78 and it's going to say everything
about the why. Why do we need to be talking about a Psalm written thousands of years ago
and why is it relevant today? Let me tell you why. 80% of high school graduates moving
on to college who have been involved in church and have held to the faith of Jesus Christ,
80% of them abandon church, ultimately sometimes abandon faith in itself before the end of
their college years, 80%. Recent surveys say that one in eight professing Christians hold
to a biblical worldview. We talked about worldview not too long ago. Some say it's even worse
statistics than that. More like one in ten who profess Christ hold to a biblical worldview.
Now a biblical worldview would be very simply put someone who believes the doctrines, for
example of the Baptist faith and message that we hold to, the doctrines that are on our
website. Viewing life through what scripture says is true. That's a biblical worldview.
It's not complicated, it's not complex but very few really hold to a biblical worldview.
Recently I read an article that was probably the most revealing article based on a survey
that perhaps was the most creatively constructed survey getting specific answers instead of
just generalities about why young people leave their faith and I found it very intriguing.
I want to give you some reasons as to why this survey says people have lost their church
involvement and then later on their faith in recent decades. I'll give you five reasons
that this survey gives us among about 15 that they detailed. The first was at the top 24%
of those who left church and then later on said left faith was because of the way the
church treated those in the LGBTQ plus community. It wasn't about whether they agreed or disagreed
with the morality of that movement, it was about how the church treated people that were
in that movement. 16%, the second reason is they abandoned church and later on faith because
of the general behavior of people who said they were Christ followers but didn't look
like they were Christ followers at all. They were mean spirited, they were judgmental,
or they were hypocritical, not authentic. Their faith only seemed to be a Sunday morning
only kind of faith. It wasn't real enough for that particular person that answered that
way on that survey to embrace it as a whole. The third reason and emerging reason was politics.
That shouldn't surprise anybody. Politics sometimes turns people off to the church and
turns people off to faith in general. Here's another reason that I think all of us could
predict and see coming and that is loss of trust and leadership. The only people today
say we've lost trust in any corporation in the government and any position of authority
and leadership, we've just lost trust in them. And the reality is sometimes church leaders
earn that distrust instead of earning the trust they should. And then number five, a
problem with intellectual integrity. And basically what they're saying in that is they're saying
that I can't reconcile what the Bible says with tough questions that I can't seem to
answer. Questions like, and this was a question that was referenced, how can a good God allow
evil to be on the planet? I can't answer that and that makes me discouraged in my faith
and makes me want to walk away from it. One of the most disturbing things I read were
the results of that survey and another 14 or 15 reasons after that, but those were the
primary ones. I read recently a man by the name of Richard Rorty, who was a long time
tenured professor at a major university on the East Coast. He said, when we American
college teachers encounter Christians in college classrooms, we do our best to convince these
students of the benefit of secularization. Rather, I think those students are lucky to
find themselves under the benevolent teaching of people like me to have escaped the grip
of their frightening, vicious and dangerous parents who believe in the Bible. That's
what young people encounter sometimes in colleges around the world.
So with all those challenges, that gives me the why to be motivated to pass faith on to
the next generation in the best possible way. We're not the first generation that has faced
these kinds of challenges, but it's so important for us to understand what's in front of us.
I remember when I was growing up and I grew up in probably one of the best Christian homes
you can grow up in. And I say that only having grown up in one home, but comparing with all
the other homes that I knew about, my mom and my dad were phenomenal parents. My dad
was a pastor, my mom was an amazing pastor's wife, they were an incredible couple together.
They treated my brother and I in just the best possible way. I just can't imagine a
better set of parents. And yet in spite of that, and in spite of the fact that I'd made
a decision to follow Christ as a young boy, I found myself about at the age 18 doubting
my faith, doubting the veracity or the validity of my faith and wondering if I was really
born again, really saved, was I really a child of God. And I had a very personal encounter
with God, desperate to know God in a real way. I had a very personal encounter with
Him and never again doubted my faith. But no matter what kind of home you grew up in,
everybody has to come to the place where they own their faith and know that their faith
is their own. You can't make it on mom and dad's faith. You can't make it on your son's
school teacher's faith. You can't make it on some book's author's faith. You have to
have your own faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know the wonderful thing about that
is that's what God is all about, helping you know Him personally. Isn't that great? But
what we do have a responsibility of doing is passing on our faith in the sense of serving
it up for others to understand it from one generation to the other. And that's what this
text is all about. What does it mean to accomplish the handoff, the baton handoff from one generation
to the other? Now you may be in the room today and you may be saying, you know, I don't have
any children. This message doesn't apply to me, but it absolutely applies to you because
there are younger people around you that wonder why you believe what you believe. It applies
to all of us in this room today. Nobody escapes application today. Nobody escapes responsibility.
If you have faith in Jesus Christ, you have an amazing and important responsibility to
pass it on to the next generation. And you can do that through Psalm 78 and its instruction.
How do we accomplish that? What do we pass down? That's the first point. What do we pass
down? What is the baton? Psalm 78 in verse four says, we will not conceal them from their
children, but tell them to the generation to come. I want to focus on that for just a few
moments. We don't want to hide the tenets of our faith. We don't want to hide the reality
of our relationship with God. The psalmist says, don't conceal those things from the
next generation, but rather tell them to the generation to come. Sometimes when we think
about passing on faith or doctrine or truth, we tend to fall into a classroom mode, but
that's not the phraseology that we have here. The word tell is not instruct, it's not teach
in the sense of standing up in a classroom behind a lectern and others sitting in chairs
looking your way, but it's more of a conversation that families or individuals are to have with
the next generation, helping them know things about God. So what are those kinds of things
that we first experience and then testify about, if you will, tell others about it,
if you will. How do we do that? What do we tell them? In Psalm 78, we have five things
that I'll try to cover very briefly, very quickly that we are to pass on. If you're
taking notes today, I'm going to give you five of these things to pass on. First of
all, the first thing we pass on is what we know about God's character. What we know about
God's character. Who is God? How does God respond? What is his personality? How does
God reveal himself? We pass on what we know about God's character. We find that in verse
four where it says, we don't conceal, but we tell the generation to come the praises
of the Lord. That word praise is a word in the original that simply is a general word.
It's a word that describes something that we would put in a song or something we would
put in a phrase that talks about who God is and our experience with God and how we can
share him with others in a very real and a practical way. It's really about sharing about
God's character. You say, well, what do you mean by God's character? Well, when I make
a statement like God is faithful, I'm talking about the character of God. When I say God
is love, that's part of God's character. When I say God is a forgiving God, that is his
character. When I say God is patient and long suffering, that is the character of God. When
I say God is holy, that's part of the character of God. Anytime I read the scriptures and
see who God is in the text, and by the way, quick time out, when you read the Bible, no
matter what text you're in, be sure you ask the question, what does this text say about
God? Because when you get the answer about what this text says about God, you're finding
out God's personality and God's character. It doesn't take a difficult study to know
God's personality and God's character. So what we know about God's character is so incredibly
important and for us to represent that character to the next generation as a complete description
of God's character. Now I'm going to take a step backwards for a moment and address
one of those reasons that sometimes people fall away from the church and fall away from
faith and sometimes it's about the attitude that believers have towards those that are
not sympathetic to the morality of the Bible or to the truth of the Bible. At certain times,
at certain moments, we want to represent only one side of God's character and that is His
justice. We want to say, okay, God is going to zap you. God is going to annihilate you.
We want to say those kinds of things. And it could be that we misrepresent the whole
character of God. I mean, for the grace of God, go us, right? I mean, God has every right
to zap me as well, but I love the mercy of God and the forgiveness of God and the loving
kindness of God when I'm interacting with the next generation, when I'm talking to people
that may not be in sympathy with what the Bible says about what truth is, what purity
is, what morality is. We've got to represent God's whole character. Yes, He's a holy God.
Yes, He's a just God, but He also extends an invitation for you to come to Him, turn
away from your sins, come to God and experience His mercy and His love and His forgiveness.
So we are to pass on to the next generation the character of God, what we know about His
character. I know today some of the quick responses that people have when they hear
about God's character. I think those that don't know Him often say, well, that's not
the kind of God I worship or that's not the God I know. Sometimes the statement itself
is a statement that basically says, I really wouldn't want the God I worship to be like
that. And what they're hopeful for is shaping God just a little bit in their image, but
we really don't have that option, do we? We don't have the option of shaping God in our
image. We don't get to define God. All we get to do is choose whether we follow God
or not. And that's why it's important that we pass on to the next generation a very well
defined detailed description of who is God and what is His character and what we praise
Him for. It's so important that we do that well. The second thing that we're told to
do in passing this baton on is to teach what we know that He is able to do. You see that
next line? It says, and His strength in verse four. That's just a reference to the strength
and the thirstness and the power and the ability and the might of God. And when we see that,
when we see God's might and His power and His ability, when we read about it, when we
experience that for ourselves, we are able to talk about what God is able to do. Now
I will say this for today's generation. We live in a generation where we think every
answer that we need in life comes from man himself. Somebody's going to invent something
to get us out of this mess, right? Like artificial intelligence. I can't wait for artificial
intelligence. I mean, intelligence is only one of two words that describe it. The other
word is artificial. It's not real. But today people look at artificial intelligence as
a hope to solve some of the problems of the world. We have all kinds of ways that we look
for those to solve the problems of the world. And I'm not saying we shouldn't use technology.
I'm not saying we shouldn't use human ingenuity. But what I am saying is we should never forget
the ability of our God to do above and beyond anything else. Never, never should we ever
think that anything can replace God's wisdom, God's power, God's ability, God's strength.
So it's important for us to talk about God's power, even in the most technical of generations.
I walked into the Bible. It doesn't take me long to talk about God's ability. He was able
to speak and the heavens and earth came into being. God created the heavens and the earth
with such amazing, amazing synchronization. He spoke and that which was not became. He's
able to create heaven and earth. He was able to part the Red Sea. I read my Bible and see
how He parted the Red Sea for the Israelites to walk across. He was able to keep Bishak
Shadrach in a bed and he'd go from burning in the fiery oven. He was able to close the
mouths of lions so that Daniel would not perish in the lion's den. Able to stop the enemy
in Gideon's day. Able to stop the sun from going down in Moses' day of battle. Able
to bring down the walls of Jericho in Joshua's day. Able to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem
in Nehemiah's day. God is able. God is able. And when I talk about God, I want to talk
about the ability of God to do things that humanly we can't accomplish. Because if I
don't do that, the next generation will say, somebody will find an app for that. Somebody
will find a fix for that. Someone will find a solution to that. No, God already has a
solution. And you know if you read the New Testament, we get it over and over again.
Listen to these verses. God is able to make all grace abound toward you. Not to him who
is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. He is able to aid
those who are tempted. He is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against
that day. Not to him who is able to establish you. Or he is able to save to the uttermost
those who come to God through him. I mean over and over in the Bible, the God is able
is all over the place. Now I talked about my home and my parents. I have to tell you
that my mom had a he is able verse for every problem I ever came up with. And I came up
with a lot of problems. Some of them others created, some of them I created. She had a
God is able verse for me every single time. I love a mom like that. I needed a mom like
that. The next generation needs someone in the present generation, an older person in
this generation to say to a person facing challenges, they cannot fathom how they'll
get over those challenges. They need to hear people say God is able. I've got the years
behind me, I've got the decades behind me to be able to be qualified to say that no
matter what happens in life, God is able. We need to have those three words in our vocabulary
and talk about the works that God has done. That's part of passing on faith to the next
generation is talking about what we know he's able to do. It's not just a story, it's
a testimony of God's power so that when people come face to face with adversity that they
can't imagine getting through, you can say to them, I've experienced it, you will experience
it, God is able. God is able. The third thing we pass on according to Psalm 78 is what God
has demonstrated. The line there in verse four says, and his wondrous works that he
has done and the psalmist was referring to things he had heard that God had done but
also would include extraordinary miraculous things God had done in the people's lives.
Now what that means in terms of application is being real with those of the next generation
about the prayers that God has answered in your life, the provision that he has made
in your life. It means having conversations in a church context where we, the people of
God, can hear what God did in someone else's life and hope and pray he'll do that in our
life. Listen, if you're not in community, if you're not in a small group, if you're
not hearing how God is answering prayers, you're missing part of what it takes to pass
on faith to the next generation. That's why we want you in small groups and connection
groups. That's why we want you to hear what God did in somebody else's life with their
prayers so that you'd be encouraged in your prayers so that you can pass on to the next
generation how God worked in your life. So how God works is a big part of how we pass
faith on. And that's why the church is so important. You know, and this is not a church
attendance rally, but when you miss church, you miss the testimonies that happened during
the week that God has worked in somebody else's life. You miss hearing that answered prayer
that somebody prayed with you the week before and now you know that you prayed for something
that God answered. You miss the provision stories that are being told whenever someone
needs something that God provides. You miss the healing stories that are shared whenever
someone comes and says, look what God did in my life or in somebody else's life. And
in a sense, what you miss is fuel for the fire of passing on to the next generation.
We have to have those stories. We have to pass those stories on. Number four, the stories
of his faithfulness. Verse five, where he established a testimony in Jacob. So here
is a specific testimony through a specific person and family. The application would be
what has God done in your family that you pass on to the next generation. Now I've got
a great story of my family. My great grandma Castle, she was known as mama Castle. And
when I was 10 years old, I was in Tennessee where she lived and she lived in this little
farm house out on a farm. And she was a woman that mostly sat in her chair all the time
that I was in the house and read her Bible. And she had almost lost all of her eyesight
by the time I got to know mama Castle. But I was told she had read through the Bible
50 times before she lost her eyesight. And she was still trying to read through the Bible
after she lost her eyesight. He was a praying woman. And one of the stories I heard after
I was called to preach is that mama Castle prayed that God would raise up in her family
a line of preachers. And the first one to be raised up was my father. He was a rebel
until he heard the call to preach. And I didn't hear the whole story until I was called to
preach and then they told me the whole story and I realized, wow, I thought I was in control
of my life. Mama Castle was in control of my life. Sometimes I tell that story so that
my kids can know this. There's a spiritual heritage here, a spiritual influence, a testimony
from one generation to the other that is undeniable. It's undeniable. You can't argue your way
out of that fact that God has used people in our family. We have a testimony in this
family just like there was a testimony in Jacob. And if you have no story of God's faithfulness
in your family's past, allow him to provide that story in you and pass it on to the next
generation because it's your story of what God has done. You know, it's so important
to be able to say to somebody that's of the next generation, anybody younger than you,
let me tell you, let me tell you a story of what God did in my life. If you don't introduce
that, sometimes people think that you did that or that through your wisdom or ingenuity
or whatever it is that was accomplished. But just to pause and say, let me tell you a story
about what God did in our family or what God did in my life. No matter how secular, no
matter how relativistic a person listening to that is, they have to give credence to
the fact that you experienced God in a special way. That it will linger in their minds until
they reconcile it in some way. Pass on the testimony, pass on God's faithfulness to
the next generation. Then number five, the laws and values he's given. The last thing
it says here is in verse five, and appointed a law in Israel. Now I like the fact that
this list doesn't begin with the law, but it ends with the law. What God says to us
in the law and in the statutes makes much more sense to our minds when viewed through
the eyes of his love and commitment to us. That way we see God's commandments as being
for us, as being a part of what God is doing with us and around us. And not just these
10 things that you must do, but we see God's law as being something that helps us, that
enables us to live according to his alignment and according to his values. I love that it's
last and tip first. But nevertheless, when I share with the next generation, I tell them
why it's always wise to live under the commands of God instead of rebellious to the commands
of God. And after they hear the reality of a relationship, the reality of the experience
we have with God, all of a sudden the character of God, the realness of God, the authenticity
of a God in our lives, those commands are very easy to want to come under. So it's important
for us to pass these things on. Did you read chapter 6, verses 6 through 9, very famous
statement after the Shema, exactly part of the Shema. And it says this in verse 6, it
says, these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach
them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when
you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them
as a sign on your hand that shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on
the door post of your house and on your gates. So did Rodney is telling us, and let me paraphrase,
lest your heart, your home, your walls, your doors, whatever you wear and whatever you
say point to the God you worship. I don't want to use the phrase, where is the brand
of God, but we wear the brand of everything else, don't we? I mean, everybody knows that
I'm a Dallas Cowboys football fan, I tell them. And everybody knows that I don't think
they'll ever win a Super Bowl again in my lifetime, but I'm still a fan. My family
knows there's only one truck on the road, that's a Ford truck, they know my brand. My
truck, my Ford truck has never been found on Road Dead, never. They know my favorite
food, they know my favorite restaurant, I'm a Tex-Mex guy and I'm going to La Ha after
church, everybody knows that. Now why do I know, why do I pass that stuff on? I pass
that stuff on to my family because that stuff is important to me. You know what's more important
to me than all those things? God, that's who's more important to me. And He's more important
to you than all those other things. As freely as you talk about your football, as freely
as you talk about your Ford, as freely as you talk about your food, you talk about your
food. And you pass on to the next generation who He is in your life. There's this great
little statement in the book of 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 5 where Paul is writing to
Timothy. Most people don't know that Timothy was raised in kind of a mixed home. He has
a Greek father and most suspect that this Greek father never came to Christ, at least
not by the time of his writing. And Paul is calling Timothy to be a son in the faith.
And he makes this statement in 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 5. He said, I'm mindful of the sincere
faith within you which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and
I'm sure that it is in you as well. Do you count how many generations he's talking about
there? He's talking about a grandmother Lois, a mother Eunice, and also in Timothy. And
Timothy later became a very prominent leader in the New Testament. So what does that say?
It says somebody had a baton and that somebody didn't have the ideal home in which to pass
it off, but they were able to pass it off. And that grandmother and that mother had such
an influence over Timothy that now Paul is calling Timothy to be with him a son in the
faith. Wow. Became a prominent leader. So this text goes on and tells us something else.
It answers the question, what do we hope to accomplish? If we do all those things, what's
the goal? What's the net goal that we're moving for? And you find it in verse 6 and 7, it
says that the generation to come might know even the children yet to be born that they
may arise and tell them to their children. And here it is, but they should put their
confidence in God and not forget the works of God. Put their confidence in God and not
forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. Now notice the end connective here. It puts
these two phrases together and we can say it like this. Remembering God's words gives
us confidence in him in the future. We're to pass on to the next generation all the
great things that God has done in our life and for them to remember the works of God
that happened in our lives as we told the story, it helps them to put their confidence
in God in their generation. They can learn to hope in God. And that faith can live on.
It has the potential to live on if we pass the baton well. It doesn't guarantee that
it will catch in every next generation, but it guarantees that we've been faithful to
do our job of passing that baton off. You know when the baton runner runs his leg, the
relay runner runs his leg, and he hands the baton off or she hands the baton off to the
next runner, do you know what they do after they hand the baton off? They step off the
track. They step off the track because their job is done. They've run the race, they've
handed off the baton, and they step off the track because it's the responsibility of that
next person who now has the baton to do the very same thing to the next generation. I
want you to think about that for just a moment. There's some of you in this room that are
living out reality as I do. And sometimes you ask the question, Lord, what if they disregard
you in your ways? And all the attempts that we have of passing faith on to the next generation,
whether it be our children or our grandchildren or great grandchildren for some or just younger
people that I'm around, what if they disregard your ways? What have I done wrong? You ever
ask that question? Don't need to take a hand display of who has asked that question, but
I have asked that question many times. I want you to remember three things. Remember three
things first of all. Faithful parents and teachers sometimes see children disregard
God. Sometimes that happens. It happens frequently in this generation. It's important for you
to know that Psalm 78 is written in that context. I've mentioned that earlier, but if you go
back and look at verse eight, it references that. So if the generation to come won't be
like the generation that's been, who have ignored God, who have denied God, who have
disregarded God, the Psalm actually references that. It happens. A few years ago I spoke
with a young man who attends our church. He's a very prominent business person and a great
man of faith. And we were talking about his family. I was getting to know him and he told
me about his mom and his dad and just talked about their faith and the reality that they
were great, great parents. I said, well do you have any brothers and sisters? He said,
I've got a brother. And I said, well what's he like? He said, exactly the opposite of
me. I said, what? What do you mean? He said, well he's been in and out of jail a lot. He
said he's had drug problems. He's had all kinds of problems and like. And he said the
funny thing is, he said we were both raised in the same environment. We both had the same
opportunities. We both had the same two parents. He said, I can't figure out what's gone wrong
with my brother. And I said, theologically speaking, it's free will. It's free will.
It's the fact that you had a choice. You chose Christ. You put your faith in Christ and He
has not. That is a big deal. And the truth is not all embrace faith. And sometimes it's
the most difficult thing in the world for us to handle. You know we can control a lot
of things as parents. I enjoyed parenting most when my kids were under the age of 18.
You know why? Because I could fix the problems they had. And under age 10 I could fix them
real fast. But after they get over 18, 20 years old, you don't fix them at all. You
ask God to fix them. You pray. You counsel. You're available. But you can't fix what
they have. So the key is to pass the baton off in a clear conscious. Do your absolute
best to bring them to the place of knowing your faith and knowing what you have experienced
with God and letting them then experience the Lord in their own life. That they may
have their own faith. Second statement I'm going to give you is
some disregard of God for His season and then return. The Bible has a number of stories
of that. One of them being the prodigal son. Isn't that a great story? I mean here's a
guy that had everything. He said not only do I want everything, I want everything now.
Give me my inheritance. He goes off and spends it and riots his living. He comes to the end
of himself. He says I return to my father just to be a servant because I don't deserve
to be a son. And the father is standing there waiting for him and embraces him and says
no you're a son, kill the fatty cat. That's the prodigal son in one minute or less right
there. The powerful picture is a compassionate father that's waiting for this one to come
back but the reality is he's waiting for the prodigal. Some disregard God for His season
and then return. Years ago my wife and I read a book by Ruth Graham Bell or Ruth Bell Graham,
the wife of Billy Graham and it was about their family. The title of the book was Prodigals
and Those Who Love Them. And in that book she details two sons that they had that were
rebels. They weren't following the faith of Billy Graham and his wife and one of them
was Franklin Graham and she tells a story, a great story of being at a drive in like
a sonnet drive in and Franklin was so disobedient, so loud, so disruptive that she opened the
car door, pulled him out, opened the trunk, put him in the trunk and shut the trunk. She
actually did that. And I read that and I thought well if she got away with it I could get away
with that. She actually did that, I mean that's in her book. I mean I might do that but I
wouldn't write a book about it right. I don't know how long the laws, the statutes are for
that kind of thing but nonetheless. My point is Franklin Graham today preaches the gospel.
You don't always know where someone's going to be because you don't know the whole picture.
But what you do know is that sometimes people disregard God for a season and then they return.
Pass the baton and leave the rest to God. That's all you can do. The third thing I'll
say to you is we all stand before God alone. Man as much as I'd want to hold my kids hand
when he stands before God I can't do that. As much as I'd want to shield them, give excuses
for them, give reasons for them, can't do that. Each of us will stand before God alone.
That's important for us to tell them that but it's also important for you to know. You
can't take it all the way home. They have to take it all the way home. They have to
put their faith in God. They have to trust him. But I want you to remember that the same
God who called you is capable of calling them. The same God that got your attention is capable
of getting their attention. Aren't you glad about that? Amen, amen. So be faithful to
what you're called to. Trust his faithfulness to complete it. Tell the stories that God
has worked in your life. Make sure the next generation knows what he's done and whatever
you're calling is whatever it is be diligent to pass that baton off in the best possible
way then trust God through prayer and through waiting. That's the call we have in our lives.
That's the baton that we are to hand off to the next generation. You know a recent
race that was on television involved international teams and one team in particular dropped the
baton in the baton handoff and it was a group of females who were running the 4x100. And
you only have a short amount of distance to cover of course and so they dropped the baton
and one of the runners took a step back and got the baton and realized they were already
out of the handoff zone so they went all the way back to the handoff zone and then made
the proper baton handoff and then finally ran the race and of course they came in dead
dead last. The important thing for us to know today about baton handoffs is that you just
get one chance to do it and it's so important that you're fully focused and fully present
in what you're handing off. You only got one shot but give it your best shot. Give it your
all. Have a clear conscience in doing that and trust God with the results. I'm going
to give you three invitations today as I always do. Number one, we've talked about a great
deal about what God has done in our lives and how we have testimonies. I think every
one of us would say this today that the greatest testimony we have is that Jesus Christ died
on the cross, rose again and offered eternal life to us and we want our kids to have that
faith in Jesus Christ. By the same token I would say if you've never experienced the
reality of the forgiveness of God that swallows up the holiness of God in their life, in other
words the judgment that you rightly deserve that I rightly deserve swallowed up by the
forgiveness of God if you've never experienced the forgiveness of God demonstrated on the
cross by Jesus Christ today, we want you to know that. We want you to put your trust in
Jesus for forgiveness to make you whole, to make you clean, to give you a faith that you
can pass on what you've never had. And as you leave in just a few moments the invitation
will be to stop at this decision station that is on either side of our building on your
way out, talk to somebody about that. We want to encourage that. Secondly, I invite you
to the guest reception room where I'll talk with you just a few moments about Cross City
Church and the next steps. We'd love for you to do that. Thirdly, I invite you to invite
somebody as they come back next week as we go deeper into relationships with those around
us. Such an important thing that we live out relationships well. Let's stand together for
that. Father, in Jesus' name I am so grateful today for your word, for the calling that
you put on our lives, for the baton that we're supposed to hand off. Lord, thank you that
for generations now batons have been being handed off. Faith has passed from generation
to generation. Thank you so much for those who've come before me that helped me know
you personally. And Lord, I pray that I can be faithful. I know all in the room want that
faithfulness testimony in their lives. Father, direct us to make the decisions to take the
steps that will lead to knowing you. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen and Dismissed. God Bless.