Sermon Tone Analysis

Message

Children are a gift from the Lord;

they are a reward from him.

Children born to a young man

are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.

How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them! - Psalm 127:3-5 NIV

Children are a gift.

They are a heritage from the Lord.

They are a special possession.

Even the Psalmist writes, “[Children] are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.”

When properly released, an arrow soars to provide, defend, advance, protect, and win victory!

I think most parents wish these dreams over their children.

Your parents for you, and you for your children.

And you for your grandchildren and still others of you for your great-grandchildren.

Arrows represent every one of us in some way shape or form.

As arrows become released... as each one of us have been released… our intention should be such that we soar across the generations, and build upon the previous ones before us: our parents, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles, tias and tios… so that we may build our homes and prepare the way for our children and grandchildren ahead of us.

As an arrow yourself... as one who may be in the process now of releasing arrows... or as one who might be hoping one day to release arrows... how might you both soar and release your arrows to love across the generations and advance the kingdom of God...into new communities… into new cultures... and even into future generations ahead of you?!

For an arrow goes where the warrior cannot go… and together our hope is that our children will go places and accomplish things that we will not... and the healthiest, strongest ones soar to provide, defend, advance, protect, and win victory, all aimed at loving across the generations and influencing future ones for the sake of Jesus and his kingdom.

That’s the bullseye.

Someone did it for you, and we must now do this for others.

I once heard someone say, “Christianity is always one generation away from extinction.”

Our message must continue onward as we seek to love across the generations.

That’s our bullseye!

In 1926, a group of families gathered together to form Christ Journey Church in Coral Gables with that bullseye as their vision.

They shared this message during eras of Depression, WW2, Vietnam, the sexual revolution, the Cold War, the cocaine epidemic here in Miami, 9/11, global terrorism, and to this very day now in which we find ourselves, the bullseye has not changed: We are about loving across the generations to help our children, our families, our friends, and our city find and follow Jesus Christ!

At Christ Journey, we are a family, together.

Since moving to Miami a few years ago, one of the many characteristics of Latin culture that I respect and appreciate so much - in addition to the food, the passion, and the art - is the cross-generational involvement of the family.

How wonderful to witness abuelas and abuelos, tias and tios, and primos all coming together under the banner of their family identity… with all of the ups and downs and joys and sorrows that come with that, as well.

Some of you know my in-laws, the Tschirhart clan, from within our church community.

Now fourth generation Miami themselves, my in-laws embody so many of those rich characteristics that we value from the Latin culture.

As an Irishman myself, I am still learning so much about this wonderful place, and I feel so grateful for the acceptance and love that my family feels from you at our church.

It feels like home, as our family tree continues to expand.

From 3 daughters, my mother and father-in-law now boast 12 grandchildren.

But that’s not all.

On my father-in-law’s side of the tree, every ten years his extended family gathers together for the Tschirhart family reunion just outside San Antonio.

(open by hand the panorama picture)

In 2016, over a thousand of us gathered together, and those were only the ones who could be there in person.

Truly, a momentous occasion.

(pause)

But what happens when the family tree becomes fractured, even split apart, or uprooted altogether due to any number of issues that may include hardships contributing to the 42%?

Like for me.

I am one of more than 31 million children - 42% - in our country who grew up in a fatherless home.

42%.

As a church, let us never forget that number.

In Miami Dade county alone, our home, as of last month, March 2018, according to the American Community Survey, an estimated 353,000 households, comprising nearly one million people live in single parent led households.

How long, Lord?

As a teenager, I can vividly remember one profound moment in particular when the gravity of fatherlessness sobered me to the extent of its effects on a child.

One evening when I was 17, while driving home, a radio commercial announcer began listing off statistics like these:

● 50% more likely to develop health problems

● 300% more likely to need psychological help

● Twice as likely to commit suicide

● And twice as likely to drop out of school

I’ve updated these facts from when I first heard them on the radio almost 20 years ago.

In the car that evening as I listened to the announcer rattle stats like those, I remember wondering: what could possibly be the catalyst for such destructive and debilitative behavior???

I find them just as arresting of my heart now as I did back then.

Toward the end of the radio commercial, the announcer said, “These children grew up in a fatherless home.”

I’m from a fatherless home, I thought.

“But How did I not go down that road?"

I began to weep for these children just like me, as I gave thanks to God for graciously sparing my brother and me from becoming one of those overwhelming and near certain statistics.

That moment will forever stay with me.

I resolved to myself that “I will not become a statistic.

Instead, I will help those who feel hopeless."

But that question: “How did I not go down that road?” sat at the forefront of my mind for months.

How did my brother and I not become one of those near certain statistics?

How did that happen?

Now, we certainly dealt with our hardships, and we'll always carry with us some amount of redeemed pain, but after giving this question much consideration, some compelling factors became apparent that influenced my brother and me from going down paths of destruction and debilitation, namely one factor in particular:

The love we felt across the generations.

Full transparency, my father’s divorce felt like an amputation, like a part of my body was cut away.

Perhaps you’ve experienced a similar kind of void in your life?

Very few of us, if any of us, get to adulthood without some kind of wounding.

Yet, the good news of what we believe about Jesus says that God can restore and even fill the deepest voids of our lives.

And for my brother and me, God did exactly that through the applied love of father-figures from across the generations.

After my parents divorced, unbeknownst to my brother and me, my mother leaned into her instinctive guidance that I call the Holy Spirit to facilitate opportunities for her sons to feel the love across the generations from other men who could help fill the gap of our father’s absence.

She rallied other men like my grandpas and my great grandpa, Ashford Broadwater, who some of you may remember me telling you about during a message a few months back, a man who loved Jesus, his family, his garden, and his rhubarb pie.

My mom also rallied my uncles - men from our extended family tree - along with other men like my Pastors, Gerald Morgan and George Lynch… and other church men like Floyd Milhoan, Harvey Callahan, Dan Decker - men from our church, the village of the Holy Spirit - along with my Boy Scout Senior Scoutmaster, Jeff Evans, from our extended circles who gave a strong, positive influence on my life.

I wanted to say each of these men by name because they earned a place in my heart.

Like antibodies, God used these men from across generations to begin healing my father wounds and restoring my heart and soul back to health.

Some of these men like my Uncle Phil and Uncle Richard, George, Dan, and Jeff were my father’s age, and truly, demonstrated themselves as father figures for my brother and me.

Others of these men like Floyd Milhoan who served in WW1, my grandpas who served in the Navy…

(show pic) Handsome gents!

My moms father lied about his age so that he could enter into the Navy at 17 and fight in WW2, while my other grandfather served during Vietnam, earning the rank of Master Chief aboard a Destroyer.

...and my great-grandparents who told us stories about how their grandparents had fought in the Civil War.

These men were each 60, 70, and 80 years older than my brother and me.

And my brother and I needed every single one of these men.

The younger and the older.

They each served a profound role in our healing, adolescent growth, and spiritual formation.

These men rooted our identities into a deeper family and community history, which helped my brother and me keep a wider perspective beyond just ourselves and our own grief.

When we think about these men, my brother and I both agree that they saved our lives.

No exaggeration, these men saved our lives.

I believe God used each one of these men to redeem our despair into healing comfort so that my brother and I, in turn, may do the same for others.

That’s the bullseye.

That is love in action.

That is love across the generations.

That is love through time.

That is the tangible hands and feet of Jesus walking and healing through time.

How you love right now across the generations compounds across time… like compound interest.

Your love across the generations yields a long term, eternal return.

Wherever you find your life amidst the generations, I want you to know that your presence, your love, and your faith still matters right now both in your family and within our church, whether you are 12 or 112 years old.

In fact, the Apostle Paul wrote about just this idea in his second letter to a young Pastor named Timothy.

From what we can gather from context clues in his letter, circumstances surrounding Timothy at the time had caused him to doubt his calling as a Pastor and probably his faith, altogether.

So much that Paul began his letter straightforwardly addressing this issue by reminding Timothy of his identity in Christ through how others across the generations rooted his faith into Christ’s love.