Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,
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sermon. God Bless. How do we think of these words
in the first Thessalonians, admonish the idol,
encourage the weak, be patient Lord. And some
of us need admonishing and some of us need patience
and some of us need encouragement. And I pray
Lord that this morning you would meet us where
we are, that you'd encourage us, that you would
admonish us, that you would challenge us. that
your kindness and your grace, your attentiveness
would be evident in our lives. And then, Lord,
having received such kindness and care, Lord,
would we imitate you, please? God, shape us by
your good news, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.
So just around the time when Lily was being born,
I attended a conference, actually along with
Jed, the previous pastor here down outside of
Atlanta in Decatur. And among other things that
were going on at this conference, it was a bunch
of pastors, was one of them, this guy named Martin
Bond was giving a talk, kind of a discussion
that he was leading. He gave a talk and then
answered questions like these things happen about
parenting. I remember thinking about it, of course,
because partly I wasn't down there necessarily
for that. But of course, in my mind, with the
idea of having a child, this was something I
was eager to hear about. And I had read books,
and I continue to read some books on parenting.
I listen to lectures and stuff. But what Martin
Bonds said with me stuck. And here's what he
was mostly talking about is that parenting kind
of shifts. Like there's these different stages
where parenting takes on certain sort of demands
and sort of invite certain kinds of speech and
actions and care for.