Be Intentional
This is the rough draft of Pastor Steve’s message from the first week of “Raising Home Run Kids” on September 8, 2019. You can also watch the message here. We hope you find this helpful as you pursue your next steps in Christ
“So, let’s start with a question today. Parents and grandparents, what do you want for your kids? I’m sure we all have answers to that question. Do you want them to be successful? To marry a good person? To be happy. To be rich? To get good grades? To stand up for what is right? To make the varsity team?
How about this? I want my kids to win in life. In fact, if we were to take this thinking and bring it into the context of sports, particularly baseball, that might give us some greater definition. I know what we don’t want. We don’t want our kids to live a strikeout life. Do you know what a strikeout is? I got to ask because a few weeks ago when I had some NBA references, some of you were not even close. Just saying! A strikeout happens when you are upto the plate. You swing with the bat and you make no contact with the ball. After three misses, that’a strikeout. No one wants that for our kids. Not in a game or in the reality of life.
In fact, we want quite the opposite. We want them to live a home run life. A home run is when the batter steps upto the plate, swings at the pitch and he hits it so hard, it goes over the fence. Kind of like this. (HR Video Clip) A home run is the pinnacle of baseball. When you hit the long ball, you score and anyone that was on base in front of you scores as well. Now, if we bring that into the arena of parenting, we all want that. We want our kids swinging for the fences. We want them to score and win in relationships, in school and in their faith.
Here is the challenge, we know a home run looks like in life, it’s the ball that goes over the fence. But hitting a home run in life, that’s not as clear. Winning on the field seems really clear to us, but winning at home and with our kids seems to be less clear. What if I were to tell you that God’s Word gives us some clear direction on how to raise home run kids? What if I were to tell you that God gives us clear markers on how to raising winning kids?
Today we are going to look at a passage that is crystal clear for us as parents and grandparents. And by the way, the principles that I will share with you today, that just aren’t parenting principles. They are what God asks of all of us. So, if kids aren’t your thing, don’t disconnect. I believe all of us would want to live a homerun life.
In Deuteronomy, we find Moses, the leader of God’s people giving them some instructions. A brand new generation of God followers is about to cross into the promised land and Moses calls a timeout in the game.
These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Deuteronomy 6:1-2
Before this Moses gives them the 10 commandments. Commandments like respect your parents, don’t misuse God’s name, don’t steal from or covet what your neighbor has. Moses says, “this is what it takes to follow God. And if we love him and follow him in these ways, hey everybody, you are going to live and blessed life.”
Moses says that because the previous generation, they bugged out on God. God did miracle after miracle in their lives and they just walked out on God. And in doing so, an entire generation, for 40 years, wandered and eventually died and never entered God’s promised land. Now Moses is standing in front of the next generation and he is challenging this new generation to live better than their parents did. This is a homerun life.
So, let’s pause there for a moment. Maybe you have gone through what this new generation had gone through? They had been let down in the past. Their parents didn’t really follow God fully. How about some of us? Maybe you don’t know much about homerun parenting because you didn’t see it in your home growing up. Maybe you don’t know how to raise Christ-centered kids because faith was not really a priority in your home? If that was you, guess what? You can become what you didn’t have? You can create a home environment that you never experienced. You can lead even if you were never led. I believe in my heart of hearts that you can chart a new course, like this generation here, and be a home run kind of parent and lead a home run kind of home. So Moses gives us a picture of what it means to lead that way and to raise home run kinds of kids.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:4-5
What does a home run kid look like? Home run kids are kids that love God first. You have heard me say it a million times and you will hear it a million more as I have breath in my lungs. What you do with Jesus is your turning point. He is the game-changer for all of us. You can accept or reject him, that’s your choice. But in doing so, that decision has implications for the rest of your life. It impacts how you view others. How you spend money. It challenges your view of forgiveness, marriage, intimacy, and on and on. This is a choice for all of us.
In fact, if I were to draw this out, this is what it would look like. In baseball, how many bases are there? There are four. You have home, 1st, 2nd and 3rd right. In baseball, it all starts with home plate. In life, it all starts with home plate and that home plate as we just discussed, is our relationship with God. And if I were to give this home plate one word it would be this one; connected. Being connected with is significant.
Guess what? The same is true with our children. Our job as parents is to point our kids towards God. Why? Because what they do with Jesus, impacts everything they do or will ever do. If we want home run kids, we need to raise kids that love God with everything. We need to raise kids that are spiritually alive. It all starts with home plate. It all starts with knowing God. The greatest responsibility that we have as parents and grandparents is not their education or their iPhone or their sports calendar, it’s helping them get connected to Jesus.
So, here’s the cool thing. Moses just doesn’t tell us what he tells us how. He gets, very practical. When I read Moses’ instructions for us, the one word that comes to my mind is this. Intentional. That means there are some things we can do on purpose. Do regularly. Do consistently that point our kids to Jesus. Here is the first.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Duet 6:7
What did Moses say? Impress these truths. The context here is like a stamp being pressed into hot wax. That wax only has that impression on it with consistent pressing. That takes what? Time! Repeated impressions. Repeated shaping. How do I raise a home run kid? One, intentional time. Like hot wax, your job is to impress into their lives what it means to be a Jesus follower. Now, that’s not manipulative or coercive pressure from us as parents. But it is consistent. It’s firm. It’s regular. Here me on this parents. If you and I don’t take the time to shape our kids in knowing Christ, someone else will shape something else other than what God wants for them.
Time is the great equalizer for all of us. You know why? We all have the same amount. Now, we may grow up with different opportunities, talents, abilities, brainpower, or education. But, we all have the same 24/7/365 time given to us. The first breakdown that happens in raising kids that are spiritually alive is that we don’t take the time we have to leverage faith in the lives of our kids. What kind of time do I take to lead my kids in faith?
“Whatever gets little time develops very little. Whatever gets much time, develops very much.”
We know that. We really do, but here is what we say it all the time. “Man, I don’t have time for _______. You fill in the blank. I don’t have time to workout. I don’t have time to serve. I don’t have time to go to the doctor. Well, yeah we do because we all have the same amount of time. We are no different in the time department. The challenge is that whatever we don’t have time for, has not become a key value for us. Whatever we do have time for has become a key value for us. We find ways to manage our time for the things we value. It’s true of all of us. So, if we want to raise home run kids that love Christ first, it starts with intentional time from us. This applies too even if you don’t have kids. Intentional time devoted to your faith is what develops your faith.
Now, I believe that as parents, we are responsible for our kids. It’s the greatest joy and the greatest challenge we carry in life. It is! But in that challenge, I want you to know how your kids develop in faith, it matters to us. We want to come alongside you and help. We want to put the tools in your hands. That’s Biblical community for you. But your kids need to that too. They need to see and hear faith in Christ from you but also with others. This church believes in kids' ministry because kids matter to God and so kids matter to us. When you can change the life of a child, generations can be changed. Here me though. Your kids need community with other kids. They need the reinforcement of faith that you give them from people in the local church. I truly believe that. So, we are in your corner. We want to stand with you and see your kids be spiritually alive.
However, let me challenge you a bit. Maybe even offend you (in love) just a bit. One of the statements I often hear from parents in this department that I don’t get is this. “Well, I don’t want to make my children go to church with me.” And usually quickly behind that statement is this. “My parents made me and look at what it did to my faith. I ran. I bugged out. I was gone from God and the church for a while.” I totally understand that notion. We are not called to force or manipulate our kids in life and in faith. Listen to Paul.
Parents, don’t exasperate your children by coming down hard on them. Ephesians 6:4
Don’t control. Don’t come down with anger. Don’t manipulate. Maybe some of our rejection of God and the church was some full-court pressing from our parents. This is great wisdom, but Paul is not done.
Take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master. Ephesians 6:4
Lead them. OK, maybe don’t do what your parents did, but do better. Lead better. Use time better. Value their faith better. But to do that, you still have to be the parent. You still have to lead. You have to be intentional with time even when it’s difficult or when you are tired. You have to be intentional with time and with faith they don’t want to hear you or when they are tired. You have to lead them in faith at home and in the local church. Yes, even when they don’t want to, you choose what is best for them. You have to be intentional even when they give you pushback and would rather do something else or be somewhere else.
Let’s try that again. “Well, I don’t want to make my kids go to church with me.” Where else in life does that work with your kids? How do you respond if they don’t want to go to school? I don’t want to go to bed? I don’t want to do my homework. I don’t want to eat my veggies. I don’t want to brush my teeth. I don’t want to apologize. I don’t want to clean up my room. I don’t want to be honest. I don’t you limiting my phone. I don’t want to go to practice. How does that work? What would that look like?
If you and I are not intentional with our time in those areas, here is what would happen in their lives. I wrote this down. “I would raise an illiterate, uneducated, unfit, unhealthy, unforgiving, undisciplined, sleep-deprived, junk food addicted, pleasure addicted, iPhone addictive, rotten toothed child that is a daily mooch.” We would never do that. We would take the time to make sure our kids don’t grow up like that. Then let’s agree, for our kids to be home run kids and to be spiritually alive, it starts with us putting time into our kids spiritually. That time happens within your home and has to happen within the local church.
How do I raise a home run kid? Two, intentional talk. We need to talk with our kids about their faith in Christ.
Talk about them wherever you are, Deuteronomy 6:6
Spiritually alive kids just don’t happen. They grow and develop when we talk to them about faith. About the challenges of life. About how God loves them. Statistically, though, we don’t talk.
“The majority of children in America have fewer than 10 minutes of significant and meaningful conversations with their parents each week. And if you remove the mother, you can measure this statistic in seconds.”
Sobering isn’t it. It starts with talk, but there is more. Three, intentional truth. Talk and truth have to go together. This is not just random talk, but talk rooted in truth. Moses said what? “Talk about them.” Them what? Biblical truth. In other words, to raise home run kids our talk must be rooted in the values that Jesus lived and which he taught. And to talk about those truths parents, those truths have to be a part of us. They have to be growing in us. It’s very difficult to raise a spiritually alive kid if we are living a spiritually alive life.
Now, let’s state some things that are key. We have to know our kids. We have to know how they learn. What works for one child may not work for the other. We have to try and fail in that department. When we talk with our kids, be age-appropriate. We know that we don’t talk to our kids about God’s view of intimacy in marriage to our kids in full detail when they are two right? We also know that you can’t talk about God’s view of sex to a teenager in a preschool tone right? “Now Mikey, today we are going to learn about God’s plan for intimacy. Let’s use this flannel graph and start with a big word called, ‘sexual immorality.’” We know that right?
Here is a key too. Think in terms of lots of smaller conversations rather than one big conversation. I think one of the mistakes we make as parents is we sit our kids down for a talk and that’s it. We take 15-20 minutes to talk it through and we kind of scratch it off the list. Come on, we talked! At times, it’s good to talk something through and move on. Yet, what I’ve learned is that our kids need regular bite-size conversations with us that lead them in truth. Bit size convos that happen consistently rather than one and done conversations.
I was reading a teen resource that we get, Axis.org, the other day and they said one of the greatest mistakes we make as parents is this. We load it all up into big talks and stop. They were speaking in regards to “The Talk.” You know, the sex talk. Chances are very few of us had the talk with our parents and if we did, it was one, awkward, long and embarrassing convo and it was done. One and done. Instead, they say, in any area of life, in raising spiritually alive kids, our kids need short bursts of conversations. In fact, Moses shows us that too.
Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Deuteronomy 6:6-9
He shows us where faith shaping takes place. Did you see it? He says, at home. On the road. In the morning. At night. In fact, if I were to contemporize this a bit, here are four natural times to talk truth with your kids. Dinner Time. Travel Time. Morning Time. Bed Time.
Dinner time. For us, this is where we have most of our conversations. I mean, you have a captive audience. Everyone has to eat and on some level, everyone has to talk because you are sitting across from one another. Some nights it’s a devotional. Some nights I read a passage and we talk it through. Some nights it’s eating pizza and watching a video geared towards teens. Travel time. Again, for our stage of life, talk happens a lot in the van. We are constantly driving kids to school and sports events. So, why not use that time to talk? Parents, if turn off the radio and set the phones down, this is a really good time. You are going to hear about the kid next to your child’s locker that got bullied. There’s a chance to listen and see how your kids responded. There’s an opportunity to express to them that one of the ways we love others is by standing up for them. You are going to hear about your daughter's winning shot in the game. There is a chance for you to celebrate with them. A chance to thank God for the skills that he gave them to play ball.
Morning time. I’m going, to be honest, we are not a morning family. We are not, so we don’t have a lot of conversations much less Jesus centered morning convos. However, since it’s not a strength for us, I’ve tried something simple. One of the things I started years ago, especially when they hit middle school was one simple phrase. “Hey, make wise decisions today.” Just about each time they get out of the van, they hear, “wise decisions today.” And our kids know what that means. You know why? For so long we have connected wisdom to God’s Word. We’ve said and tried to live over and over, “following Jesus, that’s wisdom. Everything else leads to regret. Bedtime. When the kids were little, this was our wheelhouse. You’re winding the kids down and getting them ready to sleep. It’s a perfect time to get out a kid's Bible and read a story. It’s a great time to pray with them. It’s a great time to ask the question, “what can we pray about today? Who can we pray for?”
Think of it in this way. Allow the conversation of Christ to be normal in your family’s life. It becomes normal in your life when you talk about Christ consistently. It becomes normal in your life when you connect your kid’s experiences with Biblical truth. It becomes normal in their life when they experience it at home and in the local church. And let’s be honest for a moment. There will be moments where you crash and burn. There will be moments where you knock it out of the park. You will get frustrated and you will feel joy. You will doubt yourself and wonder if you are getting through to your kids and you will see moments where it all clicks for them. It happens to every parent. Just continue to lead. Continue to be intentional.
“We take too much credit for our kid's successes and we beat ourselves up too much for our kid's failures.”
Let’s avoid both of those extremes and let’s lead our homes. Let’s be intentional. Intentional time. Intentional talk and intentional truth. Let’s help our kids lead home run lives. And remember what a home run kid looks like? Home run kids are kids that love God first.
In your notes today I’ve given you some resources to lead your family. I just gave you a handful. I hope you will look those over and take a step in leading your kids to know Jesus better. But I’m hoping you will take this to heart and process it a bit. Here are two questions that I want you to think and pray over. Let’s start with parents. Which area can I be more intentional in helping raise my kids in faith in Christ? What will I do to be more intentional? Then let’s shift to the rest of us. When it comes to my faith in Christ, where can I be more intentional? What will I do today to be more intentional?
Let’s pray.”
Resources For Parenting:
Parenting Younger Children:
The Parent Cue: https://theparentcue.org/
The Parent Cue App: https://theparentcue.org/app/
The Bible App For Kids: https://www.bible.com/kids
Parenting Students:
Axis Students: https://axis.org/
Debunked For Students: https://getdebunked.org/
Reasons For Hope: https://www.rforh.com/