This past Sunday I invited my church to take a journey with me into the heart of God for broken people like you and me. I preached from the story of David and Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 9:1-13), one of the most beautiful expressions of God’s love in the Old Testament. I hope it encourages you.
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Tony Kummer, at ministry-to-children.com recently posted a children’s bible lesson I wrote based on J.C. Ryle’s sermon for children called, No More Crying. This sermon and other addresses to children can be found in the book, The Two Bears, (Grace and Truth Books, 2004).
The lesson is shaped around “3 places” which kids (and parents) will easily remember:
When you lose sight of God, it changes everything – just as it did for Saul in 1 Sam. 18:6-29. While David’s eyes were on God and his kingdom, Saul’s eyes were on himself and his kingdom leaving him angry (1 Sam. 18:8) and afraid (18:12).
I encourage you to listen to Tony Rose’s sermon on what happens in our lives when we lose sight of God. Listen | Watch | Download | Subscribe
These were his helpful application questions:
Here’s a little sermon illustration for children (and adults):
There are some things you never forget. I’ll never forget the time when my brother and I held the Winter Olympics in our basement. We were 6 years old and we had been watching the Winter Olympics on TV. We got so excited as we looked at the people going on the bobsled rides zooming down really fast. And we loved watching those guys go off the huge ski jump. So we decided that we were going to hold the Winter Olympics right there in our basement. Now we had some steps going down to our basement. So what we did for the ski jump was to simply take a running start off the top of the stairs and see how long we could jump down below. It was kinda dangerous but thankfully we didn’t get hurt. For the bobsled, we had the idea of taking my mom’s laundry basket and both of us sitting in it and sliding down the stairs as fast as we could. I must admit, we wiped out a few times!
Now, were we really in the Olympics? Were we really Olympic athletes? No, we were pretending to be something that we were not. Do you know that many people in this world and many people who go to church are pretending to be Christians but they are really not. They say all the right things, but their lives are no different than those who are not Christians. Their words don’t match their actions.
Jesus told us that this is really serious. In the Bible, he spoke to his disciples one day and told them three pictures of what it means to be a true Christian. Mt. 7:13-14 (Two Ways), Mt. 7:15-20 (Two Trees), Mt. 7:24-27 (Two Houses).
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. That’s the name of our upcoming series on the Life of David beginning this Sunday at LBC. Here’s what my senior pastor Tony Rose says about this series:
Beginning February 7 we will begin a study of the Life of David, the Old Testament king of Israel. We will follow his story as it is recorded in the books of I and II Samuel. David’s story is truly one of the good, the bad and the ugly. If we take this story at its true value it will have a considerable shocking effect on us. When God told David’s story he did not sanitize it, God told it as it was. Most of us tend to sanitize the stories of our own lives, for ourselves and for others, but God does not. Following David will help us to truly know God in our real life situations and with our real life selves.
This past Sunday my buddy, Lisle Drury, preached a great message on The Absurdity of Idolotry from Isaiah 44. That evening I followed up with a brief message on The Beauty and Glory of Jesus. Both of us were influenced by Tim Keller’s book, Counterfeit Gods. This line, in particular, has continued to affect me this week:
“Jesus must become more beautiful to your imagination, more attractive to your heart, than your idol…If you uproot the idol and fail to ‘plant’ the love of Christ in its place, the idol will grow back (172).”
I pray these messages will help us take steps to remove the false and functional saviors in our lives and replace them with the beauty and glory of Christ.
My pastor, Tony Rose, preached at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary today. I told him it was “Vintage Tony Rose.” Tony has a unique gift in preaching the gospel as a means of soul care to pastors. I encourage you to watch and listen to this challenging message entitled, We Must Rest in the Gospel Before We Can Run with the Gospel.
It was a privilege to have my friend, Justin Taylor, come to preach at my church and speak at our Pastor’s Conference this week. We had a good time hanging out and encouraging one another in the gospel. One of the things I appreciate most about Justin is that he makes you feel bigger in his presence … which is hard to do since he’s a pretty big guy! But Justin genuinely thinks of others as better than himself. It’s evident in the way he lives and the way he blogs, always pointing to others and deflecting attention away from himself even though he’s a gifted writer and thinker himself.
Here’s the two messages he preached at our church. Justin did a great job teaching on the familiar parable in Luke 15 comparing and contrasting the two lost sons and bringing out good gospel application. And his message on adoption (spirtual and physical) was very helpful, providing a needed challenge for the church.
Jonathan Dodson with a great message (and notes) on the problem of community. His outline:
Every parent wants to be a good parent. The pressure is even more intensified as Christian parents. We want to raise our kids the right way. We don’t want them to make the same mistakes we made. We want them to turn out to be good and godly men and women.
Last night at our SEEDS Parent Chat, Dr. Eric Johnson shared his personal journey as a parent which he called, “Confessions of a Christian Parent.” I’ve known Eric for quite a few years now, and I deeply respect this man. But my respect grew even more after hearing him share very openly about the difficulties he’s faced as a Christian parent. Eric is a seminary professor, author, and trained Christian psychologist, but he was not afraid to share his parenting struggles and admit he’s still learning and growing.
He ended his message by giving these 6 points that outline a humble, gospel-centered paradigm of Christian parenting. The parenthetical remarks are mine.
1. Deep spiritual growth is much slower than intellectual growth (you can read all the parenting books out there, but your “internal world” as Eric calls it, takes a long time to change)
2. Parenting is the hardest task of life (Can I get an Amen!)
3. Parenting is one of the best sources of spiritual and psychological growth (God uses our children to grow us!)
4. Sins against our children are the worst sins of all (what a sobering truth)
5. My goodness is not in me (not in my parenting skills) … but my hope is in my Savior Jesus Christ
6. We need each other as brothers and sisters (to help one another in our brokenness as parents)
If you’re member of LaGrange Baptist Church, I encourage you to come and be a part of our SEEDS family ministry and SEEDS Parent Chat which meets on Wednesday nights from 6:30 – 7:45. The Parent Chat format each month looks like this:
1st Week: Tools for the Home
2nd Week: Parent Panel
3rd Week: Pastor Tony shares (primary focus on marriage)
4th Week: Dr. Eric Johnson shares (primary focus on parenting)
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