Passing Faith onto the Next Generation

Sid Koop · Tidal Church Moncton · February 12, 2023 · Our Imperfect Family series

Sid Koop looks at Mark 10:13-16, where Jesus welcomes the children and tells His disciples not to hinder them. Parents and the whole church family are called to pass faith on to the next generation, live with integrity, and trust Jesus to redeem every failure.

More from Sid Koop · The Our Imperfect Family series

Topics: Faith, Marriage & Family, Discipleship

Transcript

[0:00] Hey, good morning, everybody. It's a real privilege to be with you this morning, this weekend. We actually hosted, we do conferences in different parts of the country for training youth workers and in particular volunteer youth workers, by the way, and so this weekend we got to host one of our conferences here and it's been a real privilege to be in your church and we're really thankful to be a part of this space. So as Austin said, my wife and I both have been given the incredible privilege of kind of investing our lives and passing faith on to the next generation, which we think is an incredible privilege, and man. Is it ever hard sometimes, you know what I mean? Like for those of you who are parents here of children or teenagers, you feel me right now. You understand what I'm saying? I remember the very first time I was asked to do a parenting seminar, which was before I had teenagers. I remember how good my seminar was. It was so good. I had three really nice points that we're gonna fix all the problems, and parents were gonna be great, and I just came up with wonderful formulas, and then when I had my own teens, I realized, oh, this does not work at all, and my parenting seminars became kind of like group therapy. That's actually what they became, just to be honest with you.

[1:10] That was kind of part of the journey. No one ever told me, by the way, that like raising your kids would be so challenging. You know, it was one thing to have one child and start to raise that child and kind of figure out, all, here are some things that work, some ways to journey with them. This is the personality that we have here in this young son. And we have two boys. Peyton is my oldest son, as Austin said. He's right now 21 years old, busy dating a young lady that I really hope he doesn't mess up because she's so wonderful. Man, I'd like him to get that right. And then we have our younger son, Cole, who is 18, and he's actually just out of high school. He's right now in a prep school that's preparing him for university. He loves basketball. In fact, we just found out this weekend that the coach from University of Prince Edward Island has been trying to get a hold of him, and I'm like, oh, that's so far away from where we live. And there's some days I'm like, man, you can't get there fast enough. Go. And, right, and there's some days where your heart breaks, like it breaks. This journey of parenting is so crazy.

[2:10] Now, I remember just this one moment. We had when our boys were younger. Cole was probably, I think, about nine or ten. Peyton was about 12 or 13, and it was kind of this defining experience for me as a parent where I just felt the tension of desperately trying to raise our boys and feeling so confused in the moment, like just so confused. Are we? Peyton was having a hard time with school. School wasn't going easy for him. And so we were trying to help him engage his school a little bit more intentionally. We wanted to help him do his homework a little bit more consistently. We'd come to a point where every day after school, when I would pick him up at school, I would have to walk through the classes that he'd gone through to ask if he had homework in any of those classes to make sure he would bring it home. Do you know what I mean? And so I remember, I picked up Peyton. I walked him through the classes. We had it all. It's great. We got home, picked up Cole, got him home, and it was late at night. Just getting later, about 8:30, and I remember, I heard Peyton on the phone talking to one of his friends about a test he had the next day. And I just remember coming to myself, oh, I don't remember you bringing that up when I walked through all your classes and the homework that you had going on. And he gets off the phone, and I go, Peyton, do you have a test tomorrow?

[3:23] He goes, yeah. I go, oh, did you bring, like, your homework home to study for your test tomorrow? Goes, Dad, tests aren't homework. I'm like, well, they are now, you know. And I remember just saying, son, you're gonna get some of that information, and you're gonna spend some time studying for that test tomorrow because this is really important and I need you to be prepared. Now call your friend back, get the information, and start studying. And he's kind of like, but Dad, it's really late. I'm like, I don't care how late it is. You're studying. Go now. And as I'm saying this to him, I see Cole, my youngest son, begin to pull books out of his backpack. And he's placing them all over the table, and I turn to my son. Cole, son, what are you doing? He goes, Dad, I've got to study. I've got homework that I got to get to. And I remember looking, I'm thinking, son, you are not allowed to study. I said, you need to put those books away right now because it's late. You got to get to bed. And here's my problem with you, son. Every time you say you have homework that you need to get done, your homework is never due for at least two weeks from this moment. You need to do less homework. Quit doing homework. And I remember just all of a sudden standing back. Oh, I'm schizophrenic right now.

[4:36] My children are messing with my mind, you know, and you just kind of have this moment where you're like, this isn't, like, this is not easy work that God is calling us into. And thankfully, you know, when it comes to passing faith onto the next generation, it's not just our work as parents. It's primarily our work as parents, and all of our research tells us that when it comes to passing faith and values and character on to the next generation, there's no one that has a more significant influence in the life of a young person than a parent. Absolutely true. But as followers of Jesus, we know that we are also a part of a much broader family, that as this community of people who love Jesus, we collectively carry the responsibility of passing faith on to the next generation. Isn't that true?

[5:24] You know, we've done a couple of national research projects when it comes to faith formation of teenagers. The last one we did was called Renegotiating Faith. We were looking at the journey of transition with teenagers from high school to life after high school, and we're asking ourselves a question, you know, what significantly impacts young people as they go through this really important stage of life when it comes to forming faith that will be consequential and committed over the long term. And we knew when we had studied young people, children up into early adolescence, we knew again the role of parents that was very significant. But when it came to middle and late adolescence, what we discovered in this project was the role of other mentors in their lives also became incredibly important. In fact, here's what we found.

[6:10] If a young person in grade 12 who grew up in the church was consistently attending church, engaged in faith. If they did not have a mentor in their life that was intentional about modeling faith before that young person, if they did not, and they moved away to university in another community one year later, only 15% of those people were still consistently engaged in church, and church affiliation almost always equaled faith affiliation, very closely linked. But here's the other thing we discovered, that if they did have a mentor that they could acknowledge while they were in high school and that mentor actually helped them bridge into a new community of faith before the end of September, by the way, before the end of September, if they had a mentor that would help them bridge into a new community, faith, that one year later that number moved from 15% to over 75% consistently engaged in their faith.

[7:09] And collectively, God has called us to embrace this calling to pass faith on to the next generation, and it's a privilege to be in an environment that takes that so seriously. And the reason why it's such a privilege is because the Scriptures are so clear to us that Jesus is so serious about passing faith on to the next generation. And when we fight to help the next generation know Jesus, we are not wasting our lives, and we are not wasting our resources. I want to take a minute and take a look at Mark 10:13. to 16 this morning real quick. We find this moment in the life of Jesus where His ministry is actually kind of like socially quite popular. There's lots of people who are coming, the crowds are big, the people are listening.

[7:58] The disciples who are journeying with Him, His followers, are pretty excited about kind of this position that they've been given within the community where they are. You know, like they're actually in this really significant space where there's people watching, listening, miracles are happening. And so they're in this space and we find in Mark chapter 10 that Jesus is in front of this crowd. He's beginning to communicate and then all of a sudden something happens. The people and the parents begin to kind of work through the crowd to bring their children to Jesus so that they could experience Jesus simply like touching and embracing their kids. They're fighting to help their kids get to Jesus. Listen what happens, verse 13. It says this: "And they were bringing children to Him that He might touch them.

[8:43] And the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, He was indignant and He said to them, 'Let the children come to Me. Do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. And truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.' And He took them in His arms and He blessed them, laying His hands on them." Hey, Jesus is so serious about ministry to the next generation. Here's the first thing we see, verse 13: they're trying to get their children to Jesus that He might touch them, and the disciples actually rebuke the people who are trying to bring their kids to Jesus. That word rebuke is a really strong word. It means to censure or to reprimand them, and the noun form, it actually means punishment. The disciples are really led on the matter. Hey, you can't disturb what is taking place here. You can't come into this space like this. You need to get your kids and get out of here. You're causing us problems. You're distracting from what we're supposed to be about. You know, it's really interesting when you look in the Scriptures.

[9:41] There's a few times that Jesus gets, like, really upset. The first time that we see it is when the people use the temple as a marketplace instead of a place of prayer. Jesus gets really upset. I mean, He just messes the situation up. He pushes people out. He releases the animals. Like, He's just really upset, really angry. We see Him angry there. We see Jesus really upset and angry in the story in the Gospels when His friend Lazarus dies. You know the story, some of you. And what happens is Jesus comes to the funeral of His friend Lazarus and the people begin to say to Jesus, "Man, if only You had been here three days earlier, before Lazarus actually died, You could have done something." And the language that's used around Jesus' response speaks of this kind of deep frustration that the people don't believe He can still engage the situation and bring redemption. They don't understand that He actually is the King.

[10:38] That there's no moment that He can't speak into and bring redemption, and He's frustrated and angry in the space. We find when Peter, one of His followers, when Jesus begins to reveal to Peter that His primary work was actually to come and go to the cross, suffer and sacrifice for others and die, you know, to redeem us, to bring healing and forgiveness for our sins, that when Peter begins to understand that Jesus' primary goal is not to set up a political kingdom, but rather a kingdom that's going to transform hearts and lives of people, he stands in front of Jesus and he says, "No, you can't go to the cross, Jesus." And Jesus turns to him and He says, "Get behind Me, Satan." We see this indignation that comes out of Jesus, and you don't want else we see it when the people try to keep the children from getting to Him.

[11:29] We see this indignation, this rebuke, come from Jesus when His disciples try to keep the children from coming to Him. Listen to what He says. He says, "But when Jesus saw, He was indignant and He said to them, 'Let the children come to Me. Do not hinder them.'" Man, this phrase haunts me. This phrase, "Don't hinder the children from coming to Me," you know. My wife and I are in an interesting stage of life. They call us empty nesters. I didn't know our home is a nest, by the way. Just found that out. And both of our boys have left, and I used to hear my older friends say to me, "Oh, it's gonna be great. You know, you're gonna kick your kids out. You're gonna tell them when you're 18, you need to hit the road, and your mom and I are going to enjoy our home." And you know what? I'm gonna be honest with you, this has been terrible, like literally terrible, like we sit alone in our home and watch TikTok videos at night. This is what has come to for us, you know what I mean? Like, I'm like, "This is not the fun I was looking for." And we did it, all right, like we worked on our relationship. We were involved in ministry together beyond our kids, and we're just in this space, you know what I mean, when our boys have left our home, and we're in this transition and it's taking some time. I cried for the month of September. I'm over it now. I'm getting better. But that was kind of my experience because we just miss being with the kids. One of the things that's happening as we've gone through the stages, it's become this time of evaluation for us. And you know, part of the way that I'm wired is that oftentimes I'm thinking, how can I add value, get better, improve things?

[13:01] And one of the interesting struggles I find right now is I reflect over my journey with my boys. I just love so much of what's taking place, and I'm so thankful. But there's these moments where I go, "If only I could have done it different. If only I could have just leaned in a little differently. If only I could have just, like, engaged a little differently, what difference would that have made for the journey that they're on right now?" And I hear Jesus say, "Hey, don't hinder the children from coming to Me," and I'm going, "Man, I wish I wouldn't have hindered." And you know, there's a few things that stand out to me when I think about the journey that I've been on, things that I would change. I think the first one would be my integrity. Man, I'd be much more serious about my integrity, especially as a model before my boys. We did a research project where we surveyed 2,000 young adults in about 2011. We were looking at young people leaving the church, and we were asking the question, what is actually driving kids out of church? What's helping them stay in church as they move out of high school?

[13:59] The number one driver and barrier was actually the faith of the parents that was lived out in front of them. And here's what we found. Living faith and passing faith on to their children for parents was primarily defined about structured Bible study and prayer time together. We actually discovered that especially as kids moved to middle and late adolescence, it had limited impact on their lives. In fact, when we interviewed young adults and they reflected back on those moments of structured kind of Bible study and prayer, now, we're not talking about children, children a very different experience. We're talking about adolescence here. What they actually talked about, many of them, they said, "You know what, it was actually a little bit disappointing, because here's what we found.

[14:46] We found that we would do this Bible study and we would do this prayer time, but it didn't seem to make any difference in how my parents lived out their faith when it came to the rest of the week." And it actually hindered the faith development of the next generation, you know, as most powerful. The most powerful impact in the faith formation of the next generation, what they told us, the ones who were most committed to faith as young adults, as they said this, "My parents modeled authentic faith and authentic faith practices for us that changed how they functioned in the workplace and in the community and with each other. And when we saw authentic faith rooted in integrity lived out with my parents, it was transforming for us." And it just moves me to the times where, God, man, how often did I struggle? I remember when I went before my son one time, and I just said, "Hey, buddy, is that different at work than he is at home?"

[15:38] And he goes, "Oh, yeah, Dad." I go, "Oh. How's that?" He goes, "Oh, you're way louder at home." I'm like, "Okay, we can deal with that." But I also remember the time when I was dropping them off at their Christian school. And I just was so frustrated with them that morning, and then I drove into the parking lot, and I smiled and laughed at the people that were there, and my son kind of grabs me as he's heading into, like, his grade seven class, and he just goes, "Hey, Dad, why is it that you're so mad with us right now, but as soon as we turn into this parking lot, you're so happy with everybody else?" And I just thought, Lord, You need to do a work in my life. You need to shape me, need to transform me. I think about the integrity issue. I think about my lack of humility. How often I wish I would have maybe been quicker to say, "Sorry."

[16:26] What that might have modeled for my boys if I would have leaned that way. The lack of time, my need for control. Whew, that's a hard one for us, isn't it, parents? Our need to control our kids' journey. You know, the other thing that we discovered is when young people told us about what really shaped their faith through early adolescence, is they talked about an experience with God. That if a young person could look back on their childhood or adolescence, and they could say, "I experienced God," it was such a key indicator to long-term faith formation, and the places that they talked most about experiencing God, places like missions trips. They talked about camps. And then they talked about going through really difficult times.

[17:13] They said it was going through the difficult times that we experienced God meet with us and journey us through. And that challenged me, because here's what I found as a parent, that I found that as a parent, every time my child went through difficult times, my whole goal became, how do I get him out of this moment? You know what I mean? Like, how do I remove him from the difficulty? And yet, when we looked at the research and we did the interviews, we found that by simply removing them from the difficult times, we might actually not be helping, we might be hurting, because it's in the difficult times when we can teach them how to, like, rest in the hand of the Father, give them a vision for what God might have for them, that they actually experience God at work in their lives, because that's the time when they're most aware of their need for God in those difficult moments.

[18:03] I remember when Peyton got cut from the basketball team, and it seems so unjust, you know what I mean? And he was so broken by it, because for him it wasn't about the removal from a sport. It was about the removal from a community. And there was a huge cost to him. And I remember just feeling like, man, this isn't fair, and I so wanted to get to the coach, and I wanted to, like, make a case for my son. I don't want it to advocate for him. And I wanted to remove him from the pain that he was experiencing. By the way, one of the reasons I wanted to do it, if I'm really honest, is because for us as parents, it's incredibly inconvenient when our kids are hurting. Isn't that true? You know what I mean? Someone once said to me, "Sid, you're only going to be as happy as your least happy child," and I'm like, "I feel that. I feel that." And I remember wanting to lean in and just remove them from the space, but I just felt like God saying, "Hey, you just need to let him sit.

[18:54] There's work I need to do. There's work I need to do." And so I just remember sitting down with my son, and he was so angry. We were about two weeks in, and I just said, "Hey, buddy." I said, "I think you have a couple options here in this moment that you're inside." And he didn't really want to hear it. But I just said, "Listen, just got to listen to me. I'm just gonna take a couple minutes, then it's on you." I said, "Kiddo, I think number one, you can remain bitter if you want. That's your choice. And that's an option for you, is to remain bitter, if you like that experience, you can roll in that space." I said, "But there's another possibility, and the other option might be that you come before God and you say, 'Okay, God, what do You want to teach me through this? I'm open to You. You do Your work.'" And I said part of that process might be actually you taking the coach out and asking him what you need to do different or be different in order to be a part of the community. And the other thing I discovered is that one of the reasons that Peyton wasn't a part of that community wasn't simply because of the skill. It was actually because of his character.

[19:58] That hurts as a parent when you hear that, you know what I mean? Yeah, hurts, right? And so we had the conversation. He wasn't too happy. And so then I just had to leave it and just start to pray for him. Lord, like, You need to do a work in this kid's life. And it was funny. He never came and told me, but I found out later that he'd actually gone to the coach and took him out for a Coke and asked, "Hey, what do I need to do?" And he didn't talk to me about it, but I was really proud that he'd be willing to do that. I never actually knew the story until just last year. So last year my wife, who's the executive director of Green Bay Bible Camp, hired my organization to oversee the leadership development and discipleship of our kids, which meant I got to look at all the applications and do the interviews of the staff. Guess who applied at our camp? Yeah, that'd be my son. Yeah, I didn't hire, don't you?

[20:49] I got, but I did get to read his application. And for the first time, I got to hear the story of God doing transforming work in his life through one of his darkest seasons that he experienced. Now some of us go, how dark is that season? You didn't make a basketball team. But when a basketball team is kind of most of your life and you don't make it at that age, that's a lot lost, makes sense. And Jesus meets us in the midst of our loss. This is what this is part of His redeeming and redemptive work. This is what He does, and I read the story of God's work in his life, and I was so thankful. But I got to tell you, it was only that God's grace that I didn't interfere in the work that God wanted to do in the life of my child. And this is what we do. You know, it's really interesting to me when you read the Scripture and Jesus comes to the disciples and He says, "Don't hinder the children from coming to Me." The disciples didn't know they were hindering. They actually thought they were helping His mission.

[21:44] They were trying to keep the children from disturbing what God was doing, but God came to them and said, Jesus came to them and said, "Don't hinder them. Don't keep them from coming to Me, because this is My mission." You know, I wonder if one of the postures we as a church need to take and we as parents need to take is to kind of humbly come before the Lord and just say, "Hey, Jesus, other things that we're doing as a community, as a family that we think might be helping Your work but could actually be hindering it. And could You show that to us? And if You'll reveal that to us, Lord, then we'll do whatever it takes to remove that barrier, because we don't want to hinder Your work of helping the next generation know You." What a beautiful space that would be for us. And it's not easy. It's hard. It's unnerving, especially for some of us who have tried to, like, own this space for a little longer. It's difficult for us to be open to His new way of working in the next generation, but I just believe if we will posture ourselves with humility before the Father, He responds to that so beautifully.

[22:55] And He works. Jesus is so serious about passing faith onto the next generation. And when we are fighting as a community and as a family to help the next generation see Jesus, my friends, we are not wasting our time. We're not wasting our resources. But not only is Jesus serious about ministry to the Next Generation. He's really serious about the ministry of the Next Generation, right? Listen to what He says. He goes on, and He says this. "But when Jesus saw it, He was indignant, and He said to them, 'Let the children come to Me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.' And He took them in His arms, blessed them, laying His hands on them." Listen to what He says here. Jesus doesn't say the kingdom belongs to these children. That's not what He says. He says the kingdom belongs to such as these.

[23:52] Here's what I think He's saying. I think what Jesus is saying is not only our children as valuable as adults. I think what He's saying is that children and youth are valuable to adults. That Jesus has a missional plan for kids to us as adults. Part of it is what they model. When a young child feels safe within an environment, they come with boldness. They come radically dependent into the presence of the people who care for them. They don't even have to think if their needs will be provided for when they live in a safe space, because they trust the ones who are caring for them in that space. And I think what He's telling us is, and that's a model for how we need to be with the Father, we can trust His provision even in the difficult moments, even when we don't see it and we're not aware, God is at work, we trust Him.

[24:45] But not only are they this model, but also God calls them into mission. God has our kids on mission. He has our teens on mission. Have we embraced that? Do we believe that to be true? Are we fighting to move our young people into positions that are more significant than just passive observers in the environment that we've created for them? Are we fighting to move them into a place where they can actually experience the power of Jesus working in and through them? You know, this is why we love camp so much, right? I love camp so much. One of the things that my wife says to our staff over and over again at camp, she says, "Listen, you're not just a teenager here. That's not who you are. God has you here on mission." And we watch God work through them as they fight to respond to the difficulties and hardships that the children in their care are going through.

[25:40] As they fight to figure out how to be healthy community together in a pressurized space where they're tired and struggling, but they know that God's called them to submit and love each other. Well, even in that environment. And so they fight to be the people that God would have them to be for the sake of His glory, and we see God do this tremendous work through these young people. Do we have a missional vision for our young people, my friends? And when I start thinking about that, it's forcing me to ask a few different questions when I think about a missional vision for my kids. It's making me ask the question, like, what if I cared more about the character of my boys than I did their competency? What would that look like? What if I cared more about the character than the competency, man? I wrestled with this last night.

[26:30] I mean, Cole, my youngest son, is shooting, you know, for a scholarship to go to university, and last night was probably one of his worst basketball experiences he's had, and I just wanted to call him and say, "Hey, son, you've got to pick it up for tomorrow, because the scouts are in the crowd, and if you don't pick your game up, like..." But that wasn't the right conversation. The right conversation was, "Hey, son, how does God want you to respond to this space? How is He asking you to, like, honor your coach, even though you're frustrated with the situation he put you in, or how he responded to you? How do you serve your teammates today coming back, even though you're embarrassed and ashamed? What does that look like for you? Like, how do you represent who God is calling you to be in this space?" Now, even when it's hard, what if we cared more about character than we did competency? What might that look like?

[27:21] What if, instead of primarily trying to protect our kids, we shifted to preparing our kids for the work that God would have for them in a culture that seems to be more and more in tension with the values of faith? What would it look like for us to think about how do we prepare our kids to go into this space? What if, instead of removing our kids from the world, we started to live with them as missionaries in their world? What might that look like if we started rolling that way? What if we started to model mission for them and spoke with them about what it's like to be missional in every part of our world, both our failures and our successes? What might that look like? Remember, I remember talking with my friend Dave Rahn, who does research in the US, and he was looking at ministries where young people were sharing faith with their peers and radically serving their peers. And one of the things they found that was consistent in those spaces is that those young people had older people that were modeling those activities before them.

[28:22] And so I started thinking about that thing, my boys have never actually seen me share my faith with my peers. They'd only ever seen me share my faith with their peers as a communicator to students. Do you know what I mean? And I started thinking, oh, that's different. I think I might need to make a change. So I'm sitting with my boys. We're in a hot tub. I sit with my boys in the hot tub, and I said to them this one, even say, "Hey, boys." They're like, "Yeah, you know, our neighbor next door?" And they're like, "Yeah, the one that smokes a lot of dope, Dad." I'm like, "Hey, yeah, that one." I said, "Hey, I think Jesus is asking me to hang out with him and just maybe talk to him about Jesus a little bit." They're like, "No way. You're, that's crazy, Dad." I'm like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Hey, would you guys pray for me on that one?" And they're like, they've never done that before, so they just thought that I was having problems, you know, I mean. And so I'm like, "No, just, hey, just pray for me, guys." And so they prayed for me. We just had a moment, whatever. Carried on. Next week I'm sitting down with them again. I go, "Hey, boys, do you remember last week when we prayed for our neighbor?" And they go, "Yeah." "Well, I went and talked to him." They're like, "No way." They're like, "Dad, what happened?" I'm like, "Oh, it was terrible." I was like, "He didn't want anything to do with it. I didn't even know what I was saying, like an idiot, you know what I mean? But I'm praying for him, and I think just God's calling me to, could you pray for me?" They're like, "Wow." Like, it all just started to change for us. Now when I started driving my boys to school, I turned to Cole and go, "Hey, buddy, what are the friends that Jesus is asking you to love? Well, how can I pray for you with them?"

[29:45] He'll tell me, they say, "Hey, you know what? Your friend's dad. I think Jesus is asking me to love your friend's dad." "Really? Well, could you pray for me that I would know how to do it?" What if we started modeling that before kids? What kind of a difference would that make? You guys, here's the reality: Jesus is so serious about passing faith on to the Next Generation. He's serious about ministry to the Next Generation, and He's serious about the ministry of the Next Generation. And when we are fighting to help the Next Generation see Jesus, and it's It's a real fight. It's not easy. But when we're fighting to help the Next Generation see Jesus, we are not wasting our lives. We're not wasting our lives. And I just want to speak to those of you right now, like parents what you do matters more than you have the greatest influence in the life of a young person for good or for bad like you there's the research is clear on that but next to you another significant adult has a powerful voice in the life of the Next Generation. And if you are like a volunteer here and children's ministry or if you're a volunteer here in youth ministry.

[30:46] And you're wondering does it really matter for me to show up mid week to be with these kids. Can I just say to you that as a parent who is experienced your role in the life of my kids you matter so much. You matter so much and you don't even know how the moments matter that you've invested in them. But I do. And I'll be honest with you, sometimes I'm a little jealous of you. Like, it's gonna be really clear on that. I remember when Peyton got into a new youth group in our church in Kelowna. About 12 years old. Midweek, but Wednesday, I get a text from his youth pastor says, "Hey, is Peyton getting baptized this weekend?" No. And I go find Peyton because I'm like, I'm nervous, right? And I go find Peyton. I go, "Hey, son, you getting baptized this week?" And he goes, "Yup." I'm like, "Oh."

[31:37] I said, "Any chance you'd like your dad to maybe baptize you?" He's like, "Nope." I'm like, "No problem." Just my profession, you know, like, I'll get over it. I'm like, "Well, who's baptizing you?" "My small group leader." I'm like, "Oh." I hate him. Yeah, and I love him, you know what I mean? And so then I'm like, "What would you like me to help you with? A Bible verse or something?" He goes, "Nope. Got it, Dad." I'm like, "How do you even know what verse?" He goes, "Like, I got this." I'm like, "Wow, you're blowing my mind." I'm like, "Can I help you put together your talk?" He goes, "No, Dad. I've got it." So he gets, we get to his baptism, Jen and I are relegated to the seats and the stands, you know. I'm just thinking, like, man, we've invested a lot to not be a part of this moment. But okay, you get there. He starts telling a story, right? Starts telling a story, and he talks about the time when God became most real for him. It was when he was 11 years old at a camp on Vancouver Island called Camp Qwanoes, and all of a sudden, like, "Oh, this is so awesome. I'm finally gonna get mine," because that was the very first time that I was ever his speaker at camp when he was like a preteen.

[32:42] Do you know what I mean? So this is my moment. And then he goes on and he says this, he goes, "Yeah, I just had these two counselors in my cabin that really showed me what it was to Jesus, and it changed my life." And I remember thinking, I've been showing you that for 12 years, you know, like, come on. And all of a sudden I just realized, like, there's just so much more going on here than I'm aware of. And that God has called us to pass faith on to the next generation, and his parents. That's primary responsibility for us. But as body of Christ is also our responsibility. Did you know that in the New Testament, when Jesus speaks about family, He talks more of the body of Christ as family than He does the nuclear family? Hey, this is the responsibility we carry.

[33:29] And not just the responsibility, this is the privilege we carry. And what's really beautiful is, because Jesus has fought to get to us, and Jesus is fighting to get to our kids, and He's showing this through His work on the cross. And the reality that through His work on the cross, He transforms and changes us. We realize there's nothing He can't redeem. Parents, right now you're wondering about the mistakes that maybe you have made, or the situation your kids are in that are so difficult, I need to tell you right now. There's not a single thing that's beyond His redemptive power. And you are not alone, and He is working. He has worked, He is, He will, He's working. But because Jesus has fought to come to us, we are enabled to fight to bring kids to Him.

[34:21] He's invested. And He's calling us to continue to invest, and when we are fighting to help the next generation see Jesus, we are not wasting our lives, and we are not wasting our resources. Because Jesus is so serious about helping the next generation know Him. Let me pray for us. Father, I love You. You're so good. We thank You so much for who You are and for this time. I love You, Jesus. I thank You that You have fought to come to us. And because You have fought to come to us, You have called us, You now enable us to fight to help the next generation know You. We know, Lord, that there are so many times when it feels like our work is like futile. We wonder if it matters.

[35:15] We see our failures more than our successes, but Jesus, there's nothing You cannot redeem. And Your grace is so amazing, and we say thank You. And we ask, Lord, I ask that this community would be a community known by their love for the next generation and their willingness to radically sacrifice to help the next generation know You. And I pray for the families here, Lord, and I think of families where it's a struggle, where it's hard, where we wonder if You'll come through, that they would know because of what You have already done on the cross. They would know that You are now working. And there is nothing You cannot redeem. You are so good. We love You so much, Jesus.

[36:02] In Your name. Amen.