Sermon Tone Analysis

Raising Amazing Kids – Part 4

Raising Amazing Kids – Part 5

WHEN TREASURE REMAINS HIDDEN

May 28-29, 2011

(NLT)

1 O my people, listen to my instructions.

Open your ears to what I am saying, 2 for I will speak to you in a parable.

I will teach you hidden lessons from our past— 3 stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us. 4 We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders.

5 For he issued his laws to Jacob; he gave his instructions to Israel.

He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children, 6 so the next generation might know them— even the children not yet born— and they in turn will teach their own children.

7 So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.

8 Then they will not be like their ancestors— stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God.

Welcome!

What a great weekend.

So good to have you at Saddleback Church.

I want to say welcome to all of our Saddleback campuses and our venues.

I’m the children’s pastor here at Saddleback as Rick said.

I’m so very proud of all of our Saddleback kid volunteers and our staff members.

Very proud of our junior high and our high school volunteers.

We appreciate you so very much.

Raising Amazing Kids – Part 5

Pastor Steve Adams

May 28-29, 2011

Welcome!

What a great weekend.

So good to have you at Saddleback Church.

I want to say welcome to all of our Saddleback campuses and our venues.

I’m the children’s pastor here at Saddleback as Rick said.

I’m so very proud of all of our Saddleback kid volunteers and our staff members.

Very proud of our junior high and our high school volunteers.

We appreciate you so very much.

I’m from Tennessee.

When we need to relax or when we need to unwind we would shoot stuff.

In California they frown on that.

A little adjustment on my part.

I don’t shoot as many things as I used to.

But we all have things that we like to do to relax and unwind.

I like to get audience interaction on things like this.

I’m a little afraid to ask this question for live interaction: What do you do to relax and unwind?

So I’m just going to leave it at that.

Now that I can’t just go out and shoot things like I did before, one thing I really enjoy when I want to just relax and just to chill for a while, I really enjoy going to the movies.

There’s certain genre of movies I really enjoy.

I’m sure like you, that certain ones I’d really rather ram my head into a wall than to have to sit through certain movie types – dramas, most romantic comedies, those are the things that my wife Stephanie would really like me to like.

It’s like somebody’s just jamming something in my gut when I’m watching these things.

I fake through it and try to act like I enjoy it.

But here’s one thing I learned.

For you guys who have maybe just gotten married, if you make a big deal about it now, you’ll get a Get Out of Jail Free card later.

Try it and see how it works for you and let me know.

But one of the genres of movies I really like is the whole pirate scene.

How many have seen the new movie Pirates of the Caribbean?

I really enjoyed it.

It’s my kind of movie.

It’s got ships and sailors and pirates and people dying – shoot each other, stab each other, all the wholesome basic stuff, the stuff that really builds and edifies.

I’ll walk out of there super close to God.

Super close!

I’m not saying this is devotions for me.

But it’s pretty close.

But I really enjoy this type of movie.

They’ve made six, seven, eight of these.

It’s at the point that they’re really not good any more.

I’ll still go see them.

I will still go see them just to get that good basic, wholesome, stab, shoot and all that.

That’s just the kind of thing I like.

It helps me to unwind and relax because I don’t have to think during a movie like that.

I think and strategize and plan and fix things all day.

Like a lot of you.

When I go to the theaters the last thing I want to do is think.

If you think that’s shallow or ignorant, oh well.

I don’t know what to say other than I just don’t want to think when I go to movies.

I really don’t.

But ironically, having said that, while I was at Pirates of the Caribbean, it did make me think.

I was really bothered by that in fact!

But it caused me to think about some of the things that we’ve been talking about in our series on Raising Amazing Kids.

Here’s what I want you to do.

For those of you who don’t have kids at home, maybe you don’t have young kids or even teenagers at home, I want you to tune in.

Because these tips I’m going to share with you tonight, they do apply to you and you can incorporate these principles into your walk with Christ and make you a stronger believer as a result.

But especially for those of us who have kids at home.

And we have this desire to help our kids find what’s really most important in life.

The title of this message is When Treasure Remains Hidden.

If you notice we’ve decided this weekend for you to be a little more creative with your notes.

So we didn’t want to box you in quite as much as we normally do.

But this idea of when treasure remains hidden, it kind of fits with this movie thing.

It kind of fits with the Pirates of the Caribbean, because we want our kids to find the real true treasure in life.

We want them to find what really matters.

In this movie series, Pirates of the Caribbean, this particular one, their treasure is typically gold and fame and fortune.

But in this one it’s the Fountain of Youth, they’re searching for the Fountain of Youth.

So the treasure that they’re pursuing is the Fountain of Youth.

And who wouldn’t want to partake of the Fountain of Youth.

The joints move a little better, a little younger, not quite as much hair loss… I struggle with that so bad that they actually wanted to put stuff on my head because they said it was shining too much last service.

So this whole Fountain of Youth thing is really more appealing to me right now than it ever has been.

But in this pursuit they were willing to do anything and everything to get to their objective which was the Fountain of Youth.

It is their treasure.

The things that I noticed, the parallels that I want to share with you up front before we actually get into the heart of the message this weekend is this, three observations, three parallels that I saw in the Pirates of the Caribbean and their pursuit of this treasure as it relates to our pursuit in helping our kids discover the treasure that really does matter.

Here’s the first one.

I noticed that the pathway for these pirates, the pathway to the treasure is not always clear and easy.

The pathway is not always clear and easy.

They always seemed to have real difficulty.

There’s not a real clear step, never a real clear process in finding the treasure.

Honestly, how many of you, if you knew then what you know now, how many of you would have had kids?

They can’t hear you; it’s ok!