What is IT that matters most?
What is IT that matters most?
That’s an important question for us as parents and grandparents to ask and answer, and by the way… how I answer that question may surprise you. But it’s also an important question for all of us to ask and answer.
What is IT that really matters most?
The Fire Carrier
Have you ever tried to start a FIRE without lighter fluid?
There have been a few times in my life when I needed to start a fire but had to do it the old fashioned way. And when I say the old fashioned way, I mean with a match! I’ve never had to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together or by striking a flint. Why? Because…
Starting a fire from scratch is not easy.
That’s why, back in the days when the cowboys were moving cattle herds across Texas they had someone who had the job of being the FIRE CARRIER. It was something the cowboys learned from the Native Americans living in the land.
Before striking camp and moving from one place to another, the fire carrier would take burning embers from the campfire and place them in a buffalo horn and cover it with a wooden lid that would allow for some airflow. When they arrived at the new camp, they wouldn’t have to start the fire using flint or friction between two sticks, they could simply use the burning embers from the past campfire to start the new fire!
When you’re living in the open range what matters most is having a fire to keep you warm at night and to cook your food each day. Fire is necessary for survival!
But when you’re raising your kids, what is IT that matters most?
What is IT, what is the FIRE, that we want to carry not from campsite to campsite, but from generation to generation?
What is IT that we want to pass on to our children? What is the FIRE that we don’t want to go out?
Intention
The problem for many of us is that we may have IT in mind, whatever IT is for us, but then life happens and we get busy in the wrong direction.
It may not be a bad direction, but it’s not the direction that takes us to our desired destination. And you know like I know that DIRECTION DETERMINES DESTINATION.
We live in a world where it’s never been easier for kids and families to be busier that ever. And when we’re BUSY we’re TIRED. And when we’re tired we’re distracted. And when we’re distracted we just want to numb out, veg out, and we’re not focused on what IT is that matters most much less worried about the DIRECTION we may be heading in at that particular moment.
None of us would ever think of falling asleep at the wheel of a moving vehicle. But how many of us have fallen asleep at the wheel of parenting our kids?
All of this takes INTENTION.
Direction takes intention.
Carrying the fire takes intention.
What is your IT that matters most?
Are you heading in that direction?
Genuine Faith
What is the IT that really matters most?
Let’s take a look at the Apostle Paul’s wise words to a young man named Timothy to see if we can discover what IT really is.
2 Timothy is a letter written by Paul to a young man named Timothy who was full of faith. In many ways, Timothy was like a son to Paul.
At this point in his life, Paul is the old pastor who’s been preaching the gospel for a long time and Timothy is brand new in ministry. Paul sees a lot of promise and potential in Timothy and he’s encouraging him as he gives his life in the service of Jesus and his church.
TIMEOUT: By the way, I think this is a wonderful reminder of how important it is for those of us who are older to encourage our young ministers! We are blessed with some incredible people serving in ministry and they need our constant support and encouragement. They have chosen to give their lives to serving the church. That is a high and holy calling.
Listen to the first 5 words Paul says to Timothy…
2 Timothy 1.5-10
“I remember your genuine faith…”
For many of us, when I ask the question, “What is IT that matters most?” you might want to say it’s this:
GENUINE FAITH!
And that would be a great answer.
Genuine Faith. This is the FIRE we want to pass on to our children and our children’s children hoping to one day to see the FIRE of faith burning in their lives. We want the Light of the World to shine in them and through them to those around them!
Genuine Faith. This is the direction we want lead our kids so that they will come to know God, love God, and serve God with their lives.
But all this begs the question, if Genuine Faith is that important, WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS GENUINE FAITH? What does it look like? How would you define it?
Checking the Box
For a lot of us as parents, we check the box the day our kids are baptized. And don’t get me wrong, baptism is important. If you know me at all you know how deeply I believe in the waters of baptism.
I did youth ministry for 16 years and I’ve been preaching ever since and one thing I’ve noticed is that for a lot of us parents, baptism is an end and not a beginning. We finally got our kids baptized. Check, check! Now they’ll go to heaven when they die. My most important job as a parent is done! I’ve actually heard parents, Christian parents, say things like that!
For many parents, we check the box if we can just get our kids to church on time on Sunday morning. And don’t get me wrong, some days… that is an accomplishment in and of itself!
I believe church attendance is hugely important. We live in a world that downplays the importance of coming to church. But people still show up for school. They still show up for work. They still show up for sports.
For many parents, we check the box if our kids just don’t get into any major trouble, are generally well mannered who most people think are “Good kids.”
If they can just turn out good, if they are generally kind and respectful, don’t do anything too terrible, and end up with a decent job and find a nice guy, a nice girl to marry… we’ll be happy.
The problem is that kids CHECK OUT of CHECK the BOX FAITH.
What is GENUINE FAITH?
So let me ask the question again, What is GENUINE FAITH?
I don’t know about you, but for me… genuine faith has something to do with believing and trusting and fully depending on Jesus above all else.
A genuine faith has to be this experience of a deep and abiding presence of God within you that carries you and sustains you in the good times and the bad, when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death it’s knowing that God is with you.
I can’t say for sure, but I think that might be what Paul had in mind when he writes to Timothy and he says…
“I remember your genuine faith…”
And you might think… that’s IT! That’s the IT that really matters most.
But before we go there, listen to the rest of this sentence that Paul writes…
“I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois and your mother, Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you. This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you. For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”
Before Timothy knew God, he knew his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois. Before Timothy was in a relationship with Jesus he was in a relationship with his mother and his grandmother. And that relationship with a parent and a grandparent led Timothy into a relationship with Jesus!
The Goal of Parenting
One of the things that has always been important to me and Alisha is that we want our kids to always love us and love each other, and we want them to enjoy being together with us and with each other.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a season for discipline, there is a time for correction, I think our kids understand that our roles as parents, as mom and dad, mean that we get the final say at the end of the day. But our goal has always been relational.
The goal of parenting isn’t obedience, it’s love. It isn’t compliance, it’s relationship.
We are not the perfect parents and we’ve got plenty of stories to share of our parenting fails! All we can do is share what we’ve learned… but one of the things that has always been important to us is the idea that just like mom and dad go out of our way to help you in everything you do, we want you to get to the point where you do the same thing for us when you can because you LOVE us.
It doesn’t matter if it’s cleaning the house, cooking dinner, cutting the grass, whatever it is, the question we want our kids to always be asking is,
“What is the need? How can I help?”
Why? Because it’s a relational question.
Because Lois and Eunice parented and grand parented with the relationship in mind, Timothy developed a relationship with Jesus.
And that relationship with Jesus fanned into flame a faith in Timothy’s heart and life.
What is your IT that matters most?
A few weeks ago when I started preparing for this series, we sent out a short survey to a few people in our church. Some who have raised their kids to the point where they are no longer living at home and some who are in the process of raising their kids at home.
I asked both sets of parents to answer this question:
What’s the goal of your parenting? What’s the “WIN”? What matters most?
Some of the parents who still have children at home said this…
- Raising Godly children who are kind and happy. Having a trusting relationship between us and them and being a close family unit.
- To know and love the Lord; to help them develop Godly character; to ground them in love.
- Our goal is to raise adults who think independently and make their own choices to have Jesus at the center of their hearts and love others well.
All of those are extremely great answers. Very thoughtful. And every one who answered that question said something similar. Everyone wants their kids to grow up loving Jesus.
Some of the parents whose kids are grown and gone said things like this:
- I want my kids to love God and love others and to live that out. I pray that they find faithful spouses who encourage them in their Christian walk.
- Faith
- My goal was that they would develop their own faith, their own relationship with Jesus Christ, and one day declare Him as their Savior.
Over and over again, it seems like most of us want the same thing.
We want for our kids what Lois and Eunice wanted for Timothy… GENUINE FAITH.
But HOW do we do that?
How do you raise kids with Genuine Faith?
What if the best way for us to do is to do exactly what Timothy’s mother and grandmother did:
Parent with the Relationship in mind.
If we’re parenting with the mindset of grown and gone, just trying to raise our kids where they will grow up, be good people, and not live in our basement… we may may miss IT.
But… if we’re looking to raise the next generation to have a genuine faith, what if we made the relationship our goal?
What I want to suggest today is that the Family Matters. Before God established the church God established the family.
The family is the first place where genuine faith is formed and genuine faith is passed down. Even families that may be perfectly imperfect matter because God has formed the family and uses the family to pass on the what matters most.
And here’s what happens, when we make parenting with the relationship in mind as the goal, we keep the door open to our kids if and when they walk away from faith.
And chances are, they will walk away from faith at some point, at least for a time. It may be a short time, it may be a long time, but chances are there will come a time when they have doubts.
Didn’t you? Do you remember when you had doubts, when you had questions, when you were not sure if you believed in God or if you did, what you believed about God?
But chances are there was someone in your life who prioritized their love for you and their relationship with you over what you did or did not believe. And because they always kept that doorway of relationship open, you found your way to faith, or back to faith!
And if you had someone like that in your life, you need to tell them, “THANK YOU.” Because in that way they were just like Jesus.
Jesus Always Prioritized Relationship
Isn’t this what Jesus did?
Jesus always prioritized relationships over his faith. In other words, he never let what He believed about God separate Him from people.
In fact, it was the exact OPPOSITE.
Because of what he believed about the great love of God he always kept the door of relationship open to everyone… the worst of “sinners” and those who were self proclaimed “saints.” The only people Jesus was ever at odds with were those who were using their faith to keep people from relationship with others and with God.
Remember the story of the prodigal son? The door was always open for the son to come home. The father prioritized the relationship and when the son realized he was welcome home, his life was changed forever.
How do we pass on genuine faith to the next generation? How do we do that as parents? As grandparents?
Relationship is the IT that opens the doorway to faith.
That relationship becomes the horn that carries the fire, the flame of genuine faith!
Time to Relationally Check In
What’s one relationship that you need to strengthen this week? Who in your life do you need to reach out to with a text, with a phone call, and just check in? With whom do you need to keep the relational doorway open?
Someone needs a Eunice in their life. A Lois. A Paul. Someone younger than you needs to know that you are in their corner and that you value your relationship with them.
We need to fan into flame the genuine faith that was passed on to us from those who came before us to those who are coming after us.
But we cannot pass on burning embers of a fire that we have allowed to burn out.
We cannot expect the next generation to end up at a destination when we never pointed them in the right direction because we were too busy, too tired, or too distracted.
Jesus came so we could have a relationship with him and so that through that relationship we could come to know the great love of God.
It’s my prayer that the relationships we have with those around us will lead others to know this same great love of God.
May we always prioritize personal relationship that opens the door to share genuine faith.
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