Bayside Baptist Church

Jason King: In his book *Bad Religion*, author Ross Douthat argues that as families have weakened and deep relationships with other people have waned, we've tried to fill the vacuum by relying on professionals that we hire to do what family and friends once did. He goes on to say that a lot of the professionals that help us out care about their clients, but it really reveals a deeper problem. He says the United States has witnessed a hundredfold increase in the number of professional caregivers since 1950.

As of 2023, he said our society boasted almost 72,000 clinical psychologists, 728,000 clinical social workers, almost 389,000 mental health counselors, 71,000 marriage and family therapists, 34,200 life coaches, and hundreds of thousands of other non-clinical social workers, substance abuse counselors, and other folks who serve in those realms. He says most of these professionals spend their days helping people cope with everyday life problems, not always mental illness.

He said it means that underneath our noses, there's been this revolution, this change that has taken place in the personal dimension of our lives where now millions of Americans pay professionals to do what family and friends once did. Think about that in your life or in mine. Oftentimes, as parents, we find ourselves doing the same thing. We find this same approach with our kids. We often pay professionals to help and maybe even pay professionals to care for our kids, whether it's hiring a tutor or a coach or an instructor or somebody else who has a level of expertise to teach our kids how to excel academically, hit a baseball or a golf ball, shoot a basketball, play a musical instrument, dance, or learn some other skill that they're an expert at.

Then when it comes to spiritual things, there's this tendency in us to want to leave that to the professionals. We don't want to mess that up, so we need to take them to church. We need to get them in a Christian school so that they'll learn and have all that they need from those people for that area of their life. Really, you may feel this, but sometimes as parents, we just become the bus or the Uber driver and the bankroll for all that stuff.

Scripture paints a different picture of your life as a parent. Today, I'm going to talk specifically to parents, but I want to say to all of us, whether you're a grandparent, a student, or a kid, it applies in a lot of different ways. Not only are we going to talk about what you can do as a parent, no matter the age of your kids, but for those of us who maybe aren't in that space, how you can come alongside parents and help them walk out what we're going to talk about today.

Scripture paints this picture of your role as a parent. God's plan for the spiritual growth and development of your kids is not for hire. It's not something you need to let the professionals do; it's best left up to you. That's God's intention. That's why God has put you here, and that's why He's given you kids. He calls you and me as parents to lead our kids to faith and then to show them day by day what it looks like to live by faith.

If you have your Bible, open to Deuteronomy chapter six. In the front end of the Old Testament, Moses gives us this picture for what it is to look like between parent and child. How, as a parent or even as a grandparent, you can impart what God has intended and what God wants in the lives of your kids. Last week, we started this series called "Go Beyond." It's more than just a sermon series; it's really this moment in our lives together as a faith family where we're asking God to stretch us in faith.

Would You lead us to go beyond in our own lives with the vision that You have for our lives? Would You lead us to go beyond in our heart as we pray for someone that we know who is far from You? Would You lead us to go beyond to sacrifice of what You've given to us to ensure that people who aren't yet here would have the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ? God is inviting us all to go beyond, but today we're going to talk about how you can go beyond with your family.

How you can go beyond for the family that God has given to you. How you can see God move in power in your family, through your family, and because of your life. I believe that you want what's best for your family. For the most part, nearly all of us, probably all of us in this room, would want what is best for our family. But hear me: what is best for your family is your intentional spiritual influence.

I want you to hear today from this passage what God is going to say to us through this word. He's calling you to go beyond where you are right now for your family to see God move in power in your family. So, how do you go beyond for your family? The first way that you do this is you need to do more than just go to church. Look in Deuteronomy chapter six and see what I mean by that. Deuteronomy chapter six, on the heels of one of the most famous passages in all the Old Testament where God tells His people that there is one God, one Lord, and you need to worship and serve Him wholeheartedly.

It picks up in verse six, and Moses says, "And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands." What are these commands? The Lord your God is one, the Lord alone, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. You need to commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands he says that I am giving you today. Your faith and my faith is to be more than simply going to church. It's a way of life. He says, "Commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands," to the word that God has given to us, how He has revealed what He desires for your life, and how He wants to lead you.

He wants you to follow it. If you choose to follow what this word says, you'll be just fine. That's what God's word promises; He will bless your obedience to Him. Somehow, though, we've got into this place where we believe that our faith is just one component of our life. It's so easy to compartmentalize our faith and to have a drawer for church and then a different area for other places in our lives, and we can turn this spiritual switch on and off when we need it.

But that's not what Moses is saying. He said to commit wholeheartedly to the Lord. God's not simply inviting us to go through the motions week after week and to come to church or watch online. He's inviting you and me to a life that is centered on Him in every way. The normal routines of your life day after day and week after week would be centered on the Lord and on your faith. It's more than just coming to church, watching or listening to worship and a sermon, and trying to be a good person. You're made for more.

When you hear the word "commit," some of you may have grown up in a church that's like, "Well, here's what it means to be committed. You wear this or you don't wear this, especially when you come to church. You talk like this or you don't talk like that." That's not what Moses is talking about. That's called legalism, and it actually sucks the spiritual life out of you. What Moses is saying is if you will commit yourself to the word, to walking in obedience to the word, and allowing God to work in your life, you'll experience the power of God.

Some of you might not realize that's where you're living right now. It's why you're spiritually frustrated, why you wonder all the time if God really cares about you, and if you are doing enough for God. To commit yourself to God's word is to let it become who you are, not try to do a bunch of stuff to impress or to get God's attention, but to let it become who you are. The way we talk about it around here at Bayside is that we want to live an inside-out faith, that God deposits His word in your heart, the Holy Spirit applies it to your life, and it changes how you live.

I love how Warren Wiersbe says it. He says, "When we hear the word of God and receive it into our hearts, then the Holy Spirit can use the truth to transform us from within. God writes the word upon our hearts, and we become living epistles or living letters that others may read, and our lives can influence others to trust Christ." How we live is important when it backs up what we say. More than the task of reading the Bible or studying a Sunday school lesson or trying to learn more information, what happens when you get in the word of God is the word of God gets in you.

God writes His word on your heart. That's why in the Bible, Paul says in 2nd Corinthians, "The Lord has written this letter on your hearts, and it's evident to see." Why? Not because they went to church and they wore these types of clothes and did this sort of thing on Sundays. It's because life change was happening in them, God was doing a work in them, and it was evident that the word had been applied to their hearts. And that's what God wants for you.

You might be thinking, "Is it really that simple?" Maybe you've been told to wear certain clothes, cut your hair, talk about certain things, go here, don't go there, but those are the words of man. The words of God say that you become a living letter as the Spirit of God applies the word of God to your heart and that He works in you and then works through you after He does this work in your heart. You need to trust God and let Him write His word on your heart, and that is the key to having a greater impact even in your family.

You might also be saying, "Well, I just want this for my kids. That's why we're at church; my kids need to be in church, I need to get them baptized and make sure that we get all that done and they're good to go." If that's what you're thinking, you have been fooled into thinking that the faith is a one-time decision that you make once upon a time that never affects your life. That's not what the Scriptures teach. Moses says to commit your life, your heart, and do it wholeheartedly.

God wants you to experience life change and then download that to your kids. You need to walk in the faith for yourself first. Paul says in 1st Thessalonians 2:13, "Therefore, we never stop thanking God that when you received His message from us, you didn't think of our words as mere human ideas. You've accepted what we said as the very word of God, which of course it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe."

This means when God is speaking to you right now in this moment, as you open God's word and He's speaking into your life and calling you to faith and to more than just going to church, it doesn't mean you ignore the areas of your life that God is speaking into. There's this tendency that you have to think, "I'm in church, I'm doing some good stuff, I'm cussing less than I used to, I'm nicer in traffic," and so you think you're all good. And that is a good start. You need to be nice to people in traffic.

But what I'm talking about is the heart level. All that will change if you let God's word start to be applied to your heart. It will be different what you're thinking about and how you're responding and the things that are going on in your life when God is working in you. You need to take steps of faith, next steps of faith, as a way of life. So what does that look like for you today, to do more than just go to church? Maybe your next step is to simply give your life to Jesus Christ.

You may have been in church for a long time, maybe your very first time in church, or something in the middle, but you've never given your life to Jesus Christ and said, "I am committing my life to You, Lord, wholeheartedly." Maybe that's your step of faith. Maybe it's to get baptized or to start becoming more consistent with church. Sometimes it's hard to get up and get going and get the kids out of the house, and it's easy to just watch online. Maybe you just need to be more consistently engaged.

Maybe you need to guard what's coming out of your mouth or be careful what you're choosing for entertainment. Maybe you need to choose to interact with people at work in a way that's consistent with what God's word is giving to us as direction for treating other people. Or maybe for some of you today, you're in this relationship with your date or maybe you're even engaged, and God's calling you to begin to honor Him in that relationship. Right now, you're living together and you need to take a step of faith and to figure out how God is going to intersect that relationship and lead you to honor Him.

There's a next step that God is calling us to personally. Several years ago, there was a church that I was familiar with that had a slogan and I love it; it's always stuck with me. The slogan of this church was, "It's not just church, it's life." But often, don't we flip that on the head and we say, "It's not life, it's just church." God's calling us today to step in and to begin to walk by faith. It starts with you. Before you can go beyond for your family, you've got to start with your own heart and your own life.

The second thing that Moses downloads here is not only commit yourself wholeheartedly, but he says this: you need to be consistent with your kids. Look back in the text in verse seven of Deuteronomy chapter six. He says, "Repeat them," that's the commands, the word of God, "repeat these things again and again to your children. Talk about them when you're at home and when you're on the road, when you're going to bed and when you're getting up." What's he saying? These commands are the things that he's just told us to live wholeheartedly in your faith, to love the Lord your God with all you are and to commit yourself to Him.

He's saying take these commands that you're practicing and then teach your kids. Instruct them by talking about God's word, by leading them in faith, and by being intentional to download faith to them day after day. Talk about God's word throughout the day, not like a robot, but in the midst of your normal life. Look for opportunities where the word of God intersects your circumstances or something that your children or you are facing and explain it to your kids. Bring them along with you.

Those of you that have kids or grandkids or have just been around kids, you know that you can't tell children something one time and expect them to get it. Sometimes they're just not paying attention. There was a bug that flew in front of the light and they didn't hear what you said right there. Sometimes they misunderstand what you're saying, or maybe you didn't say it clearly or they were distracted. Sometimes it doesn't register, they just forget, or they don't want to hear it. Sometimes they have these need-to-know or need-to-grow moments that they experience before they're willing to receive it.

For example, you don't have the sex talk one time and then wipe your brow that you've done that and you don't ever have to talk about it again. You shouldn't, if that's been your approach. You don't want to talk about money or relationships or discernment or handling failure just once. In the same way, you don't talk about God's faithfulness or His goodness or His mercy or His grace just one time. Moses is saying you talk about it over and over and over again. And then you keep talking about it some more, not just because you're supposed to, but because this is the way that we learn, because this is your life.

As a parent, your role is to impress the word on your kid's mind and make it a natural subject, a natural part of everyday life. Teach your kids which way is up, what's right and what's true, and most importantly, how to think through the lenses of this book to interpret their world. Then when this book doesn't seem to line up with their circumstances, how it's faith to trust what God has spoken. You want to look for teachable moments. You don't have to be perfect to do this; you just need to be consistent.

It makes me think about this because here's the reality of faith and life. If you're a parent, this is how your kids come. Spiritually speaking, they are a blank slate. Now, they may look like you a little bit or grow up and have some mannerisms that you do or have some tendencies that you do, but when it comes to their heart and their mind, they're totally a blank slate. You've ever been over in the mountains or around here too, there are these guys that can take these big logs and they take a chainsaw and a chisel and they make incredible sculptures.

One of the things that I think would help us to understand the reality of the kids that God has given to you is this piece of wood and how you as a parent, from the moment they are born, you're chiseling, shaping, helping them become who God has created them to be. So think about it. If you choose compromise, you choose a half-hearted faith, if you just go to church, well, guess what? That's what you're putting in their heart and in their mind, that that's how it's supposed to be.

If you're facing sin in your life or dealing with things in your life and you're just sort of sweeping it under the rug and acting like everything's good, that's what you're teaching them. But on the other hand, if you live wholeheartedly and you're following Christ, and you're not perfect, you make mistakes, but you're letting God work in your life and you're doing more than going to church, guess what? You're also chiseling that into their life. Scriptures paint this picture that our kids are like a block of wood or a block of granite that each day, every moment in our lives, you are shaping and chiseling their heart, their understanding, and ultimately their life.

That's what Moses is trying to say. We're not trying to make somebody be something that we're not; you naturally do that just by the way that you live and the choices that you make. Moses tells us it's so important. Your kids don't become who they are just like that. It's these little moments day after day after day after day after day after day where the word of God is deposited in their hearts by your life and by your intentionality, and that's where they learn a life of faith.

Think about the opportunities that you have. The task is huge, but the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit helps you, that God helps you in chiseling out this message that's to already be inside of you. If the Holy Spirit lives inside of you, if you're in Christ, this is what He's enabling you to do first and foremost. Even if you've missed it up to this point and your kids are grown, it's never too late to start. Wherever you go, when you wake up in the morning, when you're driving them to school, when you're talking to them on the phone, when you're dropping them off at practice or sitting in the stands at a game, you're chiseling a picture of life and faith in their hearts.

Your role as a parent and as a grandparent is to come alongside parents and encourage them to live this kind of faith. Let me give you a couple of areas that you need to be super intentional to help chisel out in the hearts and lives of your kids. You need to be intentional to teach them how to walk with God. You've got to learn how to do it yourself. That's why we give you the life journal, and that means you need to read at home during the week on your own and learn how to do it.

Show your kids how to hear God speak through His word. Pray with your kids about things that are important to them. Pray with your kids about family decisions and needs and help them learn how to pray. I think you need to chisel into your kid's life a spirit of generosity. To honor God with your finances. Don't hide it, but help your kids know why you tithe and why you choose to help someone in need or why you choose to be generous. I think you also need to chisel into their hearts the value of attending and serving in your church.

Don't be legalistic about it, but make church attendance a priority. You're not a consumer; you're a part of this faith family and you're called, we're called, to be spiritual contributors using our gifts and talents and abilities to serve the kingdom of God. Some of you middle schoolers need to start serving. Some of you parents need to trust that your kids can be used by God to serve and make a difference in the lives of other people, and you need to encourage and foster that.

You also need to be intentional to download to your kids lenses of how to respond to the woke and progressive ideology of our day. Don't let them figure it out at school or other ways. You help them see the foolishness of our day with what people say about faith and morality and gender and sexuality and politics and a host of other issues that people are all kind of messed up on. You need to help them understand why the cultural winds are just that, cultural winds, and they'll change tomorrow.

You need to help them understand why you love the church. Even though the church is not perfect because we're not perfect, nobody's perfect. If you have a tendency to gripe about stuff at church and fuss about things that you've experienced at church or live in this place of dwelling on something from the past with church, you're chiseling into your kid's heart and life not a desire for the Lord, but a desire to look for a door to get out of that as quickly as possible.

Be positive and encourage your kids about church and to love the church. Sex is another one. You'd better not wait until fifth grade to have some conversations about all that. They'll be teaching you if you do that. So start the conversation much sooner than you think. There are lots of resources that can give you age-appropriate suggestions for conversations. It's not a one-time thing. You need to get over yourself and step into that part of your child's life to help them understand the realities and the dangers of sex.

Can I tell you you also need to speak into who their friends are? Don't sit back and let them chisel it by themselves and figure out their friends and their influences. Whether it's somebody they're dating or somebody they're close to, you need to speak into that to help them understand. This word right here, the word, controls even who comes in and out of the front gate of your house. It's okay if your kids get mad at you. It's okay if they don't understand. It's okay if they never understand. Maybe one day they will, but even if they don't, as a parent, you have the responsibility to guard your house and their hearts.

This type of work takes time. It happens one moment, one little hammer strike at a time, and you are showing and teaching your kids a life of faith. You're giving them something that you have. Love is not only doing the commands, but it's teaching your kids as well. The purpose is not just to hope they figure it out someday; it's to lead them to a life of faith by your example. You don't have to be perfect to do that, but you need to be one step ahead of them walking with the Lord yourself.

The last thing that Moses says here in this passage is if you want to go beyond for your family, you need to make it a way of life, not something weird. Look at what it says in verse eight. After you repeat them and talk to your kids about it, he said, "Tie them," that's the commands, "to your hands and wear them on your foreheads as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

In the Jewish faith, they have these little boxes that key passages of Scripture would be put in. Sometimes they'd be worn for a ceremonial gathering for worship and it'd be a part of what someone would wear in that gathering. And then he says they also would take and have something at their house as if to say and to be reminded, "This is what it's about. It's about the truth of the word of God affecting every area of my life." So I've got it on my wrist here to remind me, I've got it hanging on my head to remind me, I've got it on my house to remind me so that I know my life is centered on the word of God.

But they did what we often do, and they took the method and made the method the thing and missed the message. Having stuff hang on your arms and on your head and on your house was not the deal; the deal was what it was to symbolize. What it was to symbolize is a life being built and inundated upon the word of God. But they began to make it about the stuff. By Jesus' day, the Pharisees were the ones who were walking around with all this stuff, but their hearts were farther from God than anybody else.

What was intended as a sign that the home was to be a place devoted to the Lord, where the word was loved and taught and obeyed, became a legalistic practice where the method became more important than the message. For some of us, that's a word today. The point of it all was to take some key passages and remembrances of God's faithfulness and to build their lives upon that. But over time, it became about the method.

The point is to lead to a love and trust and obedience of God's word, a life built upon God's word, but it became a practice that took on a life of its own. Don't let the stuff become the point. The point is for you and me to walk with the Lord wholeheartedly, to download it to our kids through a consistent presence, and to trust that God is at work in the midst of it.

The point is not to necessarily make your house a chapel, although I do think your home should reflect what you believe and that you have a desire to love and teach and obey God's word. But it doesn't mean you need to go to Hobby Lobby and buy every Christian trinket they have on the shelves. But I do think your home should reflect the heart of faith that you and I should have and desire to have, to be intentional.

The way of faith is to bleed over into every part of our lives. So don't make it weird. Let your faith be a normal part of life. As we're praying that God would help us to go beyond, ask the Lord, "God, what is it in my life? What is it right now that I'm chiseling on the hearts and the lives of my kids? What are they seeing from me? Not what I'm saying, but what are they seeing? Am I teaching them how to play the church game, or am I teaching them to live wholeheartedly for Jesus Christ?"

Am I teaching them that this book, that the word is the most valuable possession that I can have because in it is life as the Holy Spirit applies it to my life, or am I teaching them that something else is more important? Throughout the rest of their life, as long as God gives you influence in their lives, you're chiseling away. And God's desire for us is that we would take the faith that we have, download it into our kids, and be faithful to chisel this in their lives.

It ain't about you. Everything in our world today tells us, "You go do you. You go chase you. You be happy. You get what you want." This right here says, "No, no, no. You commit your way wholeheartedly to the Lord and to His word, and He will bless you beyond measure." And those little people He's given to you, they're not in the way so you can pursue your dreams. They're given to you so that you could chisel the life of faith that God wants them to have.

God has given you a greater purpose. As you walk by faith, the overflow of that is going beyond for your family. Let's pray together.