Passion: From Familiarity to Intimacy
In a recent book called, Resilient, Child Discipleship and the Fearless Future of the Church, Valerie Bell says this…
“If our young people are going to thrive in digital Babylon, they have to move beyond familiarity with Jesus to a place of intimacy.”
Resilient, Child Discipleship and the Fearless Future of the Church, Valerie Bell
Passion and Stories
I recently heard the story of Joshua Haldeman.
He grew up in Saskatchewan on a 5,000 acre farm and his first job was breaking wild broncos. When the effects of the Great Depression hit Canada, he and his family lost everything, including the farm. He had to start all over. He tried his hand at being a chiropractor. Then politics.
And then he found his real passion, flying airplanes!
In 1950, Joshua decided to uproot his family and move halfway around the world to South Africa.
With the help of his wife and kids, he disassembled his 1948 single-engine Bellanca Cruisair. The airplane was packed into crates, shipped to South Africa, and reassembled by the family once it got there.
A few years later Joshua and his wife, Winnifred, decided to take flight and flew 30,000 miles to Australia and back! They are believed to be the only private pilots to have made this trip in a single engine airplane… one that they took apart and put back together with their kids! Talk about a family team building exercise!
You may have never heard of Joshua and Winnifred Haldeman, but you’ve probably heard of their grandson. A man by the name of Elon Musk!
No matter what you think about Elon Musk, I think we could all agree that he has taken on some rather ambitious entrepreneurial exploits. From Tesla to Twitter to SpaceX!
I don’t know how familiar you are with SpaceX but SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk and routinely sends people into space in partnership with Nasa with hopes to one day send a manned mission to Mars!!!
One biographer noted,
“Throughout his childhood Elon heard many stories about his grandfather’s exploits and sat through countless slide shows that documented his travels.”
Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
Here’s what I want you to think about… I don’t think Joshua and Winnifred Haldeman would have ever dreamed in the 1950s that one day their grandson would be a part of launching astronauts into space. But everything we do sets the stage for the next generation.
(This story comes from Mark Batterson, Win the Day)
Legacy
We are all standing on the shoulders of those who came before us.
We sometimes think that what God does for us is just for us, but it’s never just for us. It’s always for the third and fourth generations who will come after us!
Our children will stand on our shoulders. Our passions, our dreams… they set the stage for the next generation.
But what we so often forget is that our legacy isn’t just about what we’ve done, it’s about what we’ve made possible for those who come after us!
And if we want to leave our kids a legacy of faith, if we want to be the kind of disciples of Jesus who are not just raising kids, but are raising disciples of Jesus, then we have to tell our kids the stories of who God is, what He has has done, what He is doing and the part WE PLAY in the continuing story God is writing in our world!
Just like Elon Musk sitting in front of the slideshow looking at pictures and hearing stories of his grandparents transatlantic flight, we need to share the stories and show our kids the pictures of our adventures with Jesus!
Another Historic Story
Stories like this one found in Acts 3-4!
It all started when Peter and John, two of Jesus’ closest friends and followers, were in Jerusalem and were going up to the Temple.
This is after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. In fact, at this point in the story Jesus has already ascended to Heaven.
As you can imagine, having witnessed all of this with their own eyes, Peter and John are pretty fired up. They are passionate about what God has done and what God is doing.
So they get to the gates leading into the Temple courts and there’s a man who can’t walk begging at the gates for money. He’s about 40 years old and he’s been crippled since birth.
Every single day friends and family carry him to the Temple gates so he can beg for money. He depends on the generosity of others to help provide for himself and his family.
As Peter and John approach the gate, this man asks them for money. Peter tells the man, I don’t have any money to give you… but I can do you one better! “In the name of Jesus Christ, get up and walk!” – Acts 3.6
WONDER
Once again, everyone one who was there that day and saw this miracle was completely AMAZED! Filled with WONDER! Just like when Jesus performed this same kind of miracle in Capernaum!
Everyone in Jerusalem knew this man. They saw him almost every day when they went to the Temple. They knew he couldn’t walk. They knew he had never walked! But now, he’s walking, running, jumping, completely and totally healed!
DISCOVER
Peter can see that he’s got everyone’s attention so he takes this opportunity to tell everyone there, everyone who saw the miracle, everyone who can see this man who was crippled but now is completely well, that this happened through faith in the name of Jesus! And Peter tells them the story of how Jesus was crucified, buried, and then rose again on the third day!
As the people hear this story, and as they witness for themselves the miracle, they believe in Jesus. They put their faith in Jesus. In fact, Luke says that the number of believers in Jerusalem is now more than 5,000 people (Acts 4.4)!
Boldness + Passion
As you might expect, this does not sit well with the religious authorities in Jerusalem. The same powerful people that wanted Jesus crucified in the first place are furious that people like Peter and John won’t stop talking about Jesus. And so they have Peter and John arrested!
And listen to their question: Acts 4.7:
They brought in the two disciples and demanded, “By what power, or in whose name, have you done this?”
Then listen to Peter’s response: Acts 4.8-10
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of our people, are we being questioned today because we’ve done a good deed for a crippled man? Do you want to know how he was healed? Let me clearly state to all of you and to all the people of Israel that he was healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, the man you crucified but whom God raised from the dead.
Here’s what I want you to notice… Do you sense any hesitation in Peter? Any fear, worry, or anxiety at all about his situation?
These are the same people who had Jesus crucified. Who’s to say they won’t do the same thing to Peter and John?! These are powerful people who are angry and have killed people, including Jesus, in order to silence them. And now they have Peter and John in their sights.
But instead of being filled with fear, Peter and John are filled with PASSION.
Why?
Because they know something these religious leaders still haven’t figured out. They know that Jesus rose from the grave. And that even if the worst possible thing happens, even if they kill them too, they will one day be resurrected, too!
Resilient Faith
And now, the tables are turned. Peter and John are filled with boldness, the religious leaders are filled with fear! Listen in to their conversation as they try to figure out what they should do with Peter and John…
“What should we do with these men?” they asked each other. “We can’t deny that they have performed a miraculous sign, and everybody in Jerusalem knows about it. But to keep them from spreading their propaganda any further, we must warn them not to speak to anyone in Jesus’ name again.” So they called the apostles back in and commanded them never again to speak or teach in the name of Jesus.
Once again, they try to leverage their power, their threats, their influence to silence these disciples of Jesus.
But Peter and John replied, “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than him? We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.”
As you can imagine, this made the religious leaders even more furious, but they felt like they couldn’t do anything about it because there’s a man that everyone in Jerusalem knows was lame for 40+ years who is now walking around because Peter and John healed him by faith in the name of Jesus.
If they took any action against Peter and John it would result in a riot and a likely revolt in Jerusalem, something they couldn’t afford to happen. They had already spent what political capital they had with Pilate to get Jesus crucified.
They needed to do their best to keep the peace for the moment so they could stay in power. They only way to do that was to threaten Peter and John with empty threats and then release them.
And if you skip down to the end of the chapter, you see what Peter and John did after they were released…
…they preached the word of God with BOLDNESS.
How Do You Raise Kids with this Kind of Faith?
How do you raise kids with this kind of faith?
This kind of boldness? This kind of passion for God?
Here’s another way to ask that same question…
How do you raise kids with that kind of spiritual resilience?
Most people in Peter and John’s situation probably would have folded under the pressure.
Most people would have probably left town and if they kept talking about Jesus at all would have done so far away from Jerusalem after being threatened by the same leaders who had killed Jesus.
Some people would have wondered, “Where are you God?” after being arrested, put on trial, and threatened by the authorities.
Some people might have even lost their faith, even after experiencing a miracle, if they were put through something like that.
It happens every day. People get scared. Teenagers walk away from faith, lose faith, give up on God, and leave the church. Adults stop believing even after experiencing the grace of God in their life. Even after experiencing the love of God in their life.
But not Peter and John. They continued with BOLDNESS. With PASSION.
How?
How do you have this kind of spiritual resilience? How do you raise kids who have this kind of spiritual resilience?
What does it mean to be spiritually resilient?
In her book about child discipleship Valerie Bell defines Spiritual Resilience this way:
A quality that describes the spiritual elasticity of a child or adult. The resilient strength to bend and flex, but not break against the weight of culture.
Resilient, Child Discipleship and the Fearless Future of the Church, Valerie Bell
How do you raise kids with that kind of spiritual resilience?
According to research out of Emory university in Atlanta… The number one predictor of a child’s emotional well being isn’t how many hugs and kisses they get from mom and dad, although I’m a big believer that those are important. It wasn’t making sure they have the best of everything or even saying your prayers at bedtime.
According to the researchers, a critical indicator of well-being is whether children know their family history!
(Read this story in Win the Day by Mark Batterson)
Family History
So what if the best way for you to create spiritual resilience in your kids is by telling them your family history?
What if it’s by telling them our family history as a church, as disciples of Jesus? Stories like this one about Peter and John. Other stories of faith from scripture but also your stories of faith.
From time to time our kids will ask us, “Why did we move to Texas?” Some of you know our family isn’t from Texas. We didn’t grow up here. We didn’t go to school here. But don’t worry, we still pull for the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers. I’m not sure if or when we’ll become card carrying Texans… we weren’t born here but we got here as fast as we could!
But whenever they ask us that question we don’t tell them that we moved here for work. We tell them how God led us here, brought us here, and has our family here for a reason. And then we start telling them some of those reasons, some of those ways we already know, how we’ve already experience why, God brought us here.
From time to time our kids will ask us, “Why do we take communion?” “Why do we baptize people?” “Why do we give money to the church?” “Why do we go to church on Sunday?” And every question is an opportunity to tell them the STORIES… not just the reasons, but the STORIES behind our faith.
And here’s what happens over time. These stories become a part of their family history… just like Elon Musk watching slide shows and hearing stories of his grand parent’s adventures, these stories of faith become our family history that creates a sense of identity, purpose, and PASSION within our kids that can’t happen any other way!
In fact, I would suggest that those kids who grew up and left the church never understood that they were part of a larger story of what God is doing in the world! Because when you understand that you’re a part of a story that God is still writing, everything changes!
If we want our kids to develop a PASSION for God and SERVING Him with their lives, if we really want our kids to develop a long and lasting relationship with Jesus, we have to help them understand that they matter to God and that they can make a difference for God.
Are we raising kids? Or disciples?
Maybe the question we need to ask and answer is, “Are we raising kids? Or, are we raising disciples?”
“If our young people are going to thrive in digital Babylon, they have to move beyond familiarity with Jesus to a place of intimacy.” – Valerie Bell
This is what we want for our kids, but this is what I want for all of you as well. For you to move from a place of familiarity with Jesus to a place of intimacy with Jesus.
When you make that move, you can’t help but be filled with passion for His name and a desire to serve Him with your life.
And here’s the thing, when we… the adults in their lives are filled with this kind of passion for Jesus, when we… the adults in their lives are serving those around us with love and grace, when we… the adults in their lives have a resilient faith and a boldness for Christ… our kids will too.
May we be filled with passion for Jesus and may we serve Him with our lives until He comes.
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