Preparing For Doubts About the Goodness of Christianity
The Disciple Making Parent • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 10 viewsNotes
Transcript
Intellectual doubts about the how and why of God are not the only questions that will go through out children's minds.
They, like us will also have doubts spring up in their minds about the goodness of God and His commands.
Whether we admit it or not, we all have had these same doubts in our lives as teenagers or even adults.
Children will things, “Is following Jesus really the good way when others seem to be ignoring His commands and having a good time doing it with no consequences. “
They will be torn between God’s restrictive ethical teachings and His goodness that they see in scripture.
Similar to what Adam and Eve experienced.
Satans attack was on the goodness of God.
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Satan told Even,
you will not die
God is holding something back from you.
These are the same things we ourselves have thought at time or two… and I can guarantee you that this is what our children at some point will think. THIS IS THE UNIVERSAL LIE OF SATAN.
Here we find ourselves needing to think of a defense that will need to be given.
Not a defense of the evidence, but a defense of the WISDOM GIVEN TO US BY OUR LORD and ULTIMATE BLESSING of the Christian faith.
Disciple-making parents equip their children for questions about the goodness of following Jesus.
Solomon Inoculated His Son
Solomon Inoculated His Son
Somebody from scripture that we can gain wisdom to help us in this is King Solomon.
Solomon used this method of that we see in scripture that BETTIS CALLS INOCULATION.
INOCULATION: the action of immunizing someone against a disease by introducing infective material, microorganisms, or vaccine into the body.
That’s an interesting way of thinking of what Solomon did for his son in the book of Proverbs.
Looking through Prov. 5-8 we see Solomon effectively doing this for the mind and heart of his son talking about adultery and seduction, financial entanglements, malicious men, seductions some more in chapter 7 and then in chapter 8 this APPEAL TO WISDOM.
11 for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. 12 “I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion.
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
Solomon’s strategy:
He forewarned his son that he will face sexual temptation.
Solomon provided illustrations of the nature of the temptation his son would face.
He provided arguments against those temptations by showing the consequences of sin.
Solomon warned that not following God’s ways will lead to pain.
The writer of Psalm 112 instructed his children that God’s ways also always BRING BLESSINGS.
1 Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments!
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.
The Nature of Temptation
The Nature of Temptation
We see from Prov. 7 that children can be naive. Especially when considering some of their actions of walking out into places where they don’t need to be in the first place!
7 and I have seen among the simple, I have perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense,
They see only the pleasure that sin offers.
They don’t see the consequences.
SIN DOES HAVE REAL PLEASURE FOR A SEASON.
17 Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel.
24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
The world highlights the pleasures of sin.
But is masks the consequences.
24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
There is often a lag between somebody building there home in the wrong place and the storm or hurricane of consequences that come.
Cape Bluffs eroding at a rate of three feet a year.
Our job is to point out to our children all those lives that have crashed because of not following the commands of our God. (The consequences seen in their lives to warn them in theirs)
And that even though it may take time… each man harvest what he plants. It may not be in the here and now… but it will be one day in glory with our heavenly Father.
7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
Issues to Anticipate
Issues to Anticipate
There are several issue that seem to be a theme amongst many children and teenagers.
Places in life where they may begin to listen to the lies of the enemy and think to themselves that God is holding something back from them.
The temptation of pornography.
15% of teen respondents said they first saw online pornography at age 10 or younger. The average age reported for first viewing pornography is 12. (Common Sense Media Quote)
The temptation of premarital sex.
The temptation to dismiss the value of singleness.
The temptation to marry a non-Christian.
The temptation to live together before marriage.
The temptation to dismiss my need of and duty to the local church.
Temptation to dismiss sins that revolve around
What would be other issues you would say that we should be anticipating as parents?
Doubting the Goodness of Purity
Doubting the Goodness of Purity
Our children will begin to doubt the goodness of purity within their lives if we allow the cultural thoughts from friends and peers to get to them first.
We must be wise in this and understand that there is a great amount of sexual pressure that will be on our children if it’s not already there.
Ages 8-12 with porn.
ages 14-18 with premarital sex.
By age 15, around 20-21% of young people (both male and female) have had sexual intercourse.
By age 17, this increases to 53% for females and 55% for males.
By age 20, 79% of young females have had sexual intercourse.
We are now living in a age that resembles Jeremiah’s day….
15 Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,” says the Lord.
There seems to be no understanding of consequences amongst children of the sin that they are falling into.
They are doubting the goodness of God’s Commands because they have not been forewarned of it’s dangers.
BUT, God in his wisdom has said that this gift needs to have the protection of the marriage covenant surrounding it.
Something we need to be thinking about as parents… is the appropriate time, age appropriate ways, for us to broach some of these subjects with our children. We should be by ages 8-10 in my opinion begin to inoculating our children against the message that will be heard from a sexually driven culture.
Remember that as parents, we want to forewarn our children about what they will see & hear.
Arguments for that sin that people will throw at them.
And practical and biblical answers.
The best time to deal with these issues is before they come up.
I really like the way Bettis gives as an option to bring the subject up…
“One day you might come across something inappropriate on the internet, (can include in this conversation or temptations). You will be tempted to look at it rather than click away. Tell me what you think you should do?”
ULTIMATELY, WE WANT OUR CHILDREN TO KNOW THAT THEY CAN TRUST GOD AND HIS COMMANDMENTS… AND KNOW THAT THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES TO SIN… (them or somebody else they see)
Doubting God’s Commands For Singleness and Marriage
Doubting God’s Commands For Singleness and Marriage
It is something that many parents… think of often and even allude to in joking… the thought of our children one day beings married.
I can’t tell you how many people say something to be on a monthly basis something along the lines of how many weddings i’ll have to pay for, or scaring the boys off here in a few years.
This is something that is a part of our culture. Young people at a young age are being told by our cultures that they should be pairing up. It’s what you do. Ask a single person how they feel on valentines days and you’ll get a glimpse of the message that our culture has sent to that person.
You’re an odd duck if you’re still single by the time you’re 30.
You’re an odd duck in MS if you don’t have a girlfriend or boyfriend.
It’s happens at each age.
There is this natural longing for companionship. There is obviously a God ordained part of that. He made us for community. He created women for the companionship of a man and for his help. Man was not good enough!
But we should also have it in our aim to be teaching our children to be thinking biblically in this arena.
Marriage can be a great blessing and a great temptation.
In thinking about this… here are a few different principles to keep in mind.
You may be called to singleness.
Tom Bisset states wanting to get married but not finding a mate was one reason young people walked away from their faith. Could it be that these children left because we never mentioned the possibility they might be called to singleness? Could it be that the church and many parents do not have a robust understanding of singleness?
Christ
Paul
Were both single.
God calls everybody to a season of singleness.
God calls some to singleness for their whole lives.
12 For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”
Exalting Jesus in Matthew Practical Application (Matthew 19:10–12)
In
7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
We see here that Paul refers to singleness as a gift.
It’s a privilege.
An opportunity to be full time for the Kingdom of God.
We must prepare our children for such a possibility. To at least prepare their heart posture for such a season no matter how long it may be.
And we must ask the Lord to work on our heart posture in the even that our children’s season of singleness ended up being longer than what we had planned. Do we see it as what God’s Word portrays it as?
2. You can only marry another believer.
14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God…
39 A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.
There is pain awaiting the Christian who does not listen to these commands to marry another child of God.
This needs to be a standard that we are setting early and mentioning often.
3. If God hasn’t called you to singleness, then get married.
The study showed that the marriage rate in the United States went down by nearly 60% over the last 50 years.
According to the study, the marriage rate in 1970 was at 76.5%, and today, it stands at just over 31%.
We can see that the unity of marriage has been under assault.
People do not understand the need of it any more on a grander scale.
Anti marriage messages.
Cohabitation has increased.
We can and should show them how it violates God’s Word to have sex outside of marriage and to lure ourselves down the road of temptation that cohabitation brings.
But we should also show our children the consequences that this sin brings.
First, about 45 percent of those who begin cohabitating, do not marry. Those who undergo “premarital divorce” often discover it is as painful as the real thing. Another 5-10 percent continue living together and do not marry. These two trends are the major reason the marriage rate has plunged 50%. since 1970. Couple who cohabit are likely to find that it is a paltry substitute for the real thing, marriage. of the 45% or so who do marry after living together, they are 50% more likely to divorce than those who remained separated before the wedding.
- Michael McManus
Marriage is about commitment, it’s about a covenant that God continues to teach us about the Gospel and the New Covenant that we are in with Him.
The Church: Duty and Delight
The Church: Duty and Delight
As stated earlier…. the duty and the delight that a Christian has to the church and in the church should not be overlooked to our children.
This has been something that we have stated a few times in this class… the important of serving together with our children to show them the importance of other like minded brothers and sisters in Christ and us being in fellowship with those people.
IF WE ARE LIVING THIS OUT… our children should begin to recognize this.
BUT, we cannot forget that we should be speaking these things as well within our times of family worship and devotions.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
This is a way that we know that we have come to know Him… loving others… and using our spiritual gifts for the benefit of others.
Conclusion
Conclusion
15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
We can rest inn God’s goodness.
Numerous conversations in warning them.
Understand that this is a world that we are to help in training them to go out into while they are being sanctified by God’s Word.
Disciple-Making Parents equip their children for doubts about the goodness of following Jesus.
For Thought, Discussion, and Action
For Thought, Discussion, and Action
