Modeling for our children. Modeling for our children. I want to talk about how we get to model. And from the book of Philippians this afternoon, and we allowed you to do a little bit of extra talking. And so now I want to rush into this if I can. But we are models for our children. And men, you are a model of Christ for your wives. And wives, you're a model of the Christian life for your husbands and so on. We are a representation of the Lord. And because we're focusing today on ministry couples with young children, I'll probably focus more on the model that you as parents are for your children than I will perhaps on the model within the marriage itself. But I want you to realize that we are models of what Christ of what he has done for us. We want to be that model. Notice, if you will, what Paul says, a familiar passage in the third chapter of Philippians. He talks about the things that were gained to me, he counted loss for Christ. And we're familiar with that passage in the third chapter. And he says, that I may know him and the power of His resurrection, this is Philippians 3.10, and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death. And I've outlined that, that I may know Him, that is, knowing Him personally. And the power of His resurrection, that's knowing Him powerfully. And the fellowship of His sufferings, that's knowing Him painfully. It's the part we don't like. being made conformable unto his death, knowing him permanently. There will come that day for each of us. Either it is coming or at our going, whichever it is. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, that by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained, either were already a perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend, that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. In our first session, I used that end chair to picture the moment we came to Christ and that end chair to picture the end of life either when we walk through the valley or when the Lord comes and everything in between pictures our Christian life. And Paul says here that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended. So Paul was looking back to the day Jesus apprehended him. Acts chapter 9. Jesus apprehended Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road. Now notice what he said, that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended. You know what Paul's saying? He's saying in this journey from here to there, I want to lay hold of what God had in mind when he laid hold of me, that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Just like God got a hold of me that day, I want to get a hold of everything he had in mind. I want to be a model of what it really means to be a Christian. Amen? You want to be a model for what it really means. Today we have a number of models out there. I'm not going to cover them all, but one of them is the camouflage model. We are becoming them believers instead of becoming us believers. We have way too many people who are looking at the world as its model and we're becoming like them. Rather than looking at what Christianity is, looking at what God wants us to apprehend and becoming us. And I don't mean us and them as we're enemies of each other. I don't mean us and them like we're better than they are. No, I don't mean that at all. But are we willing to say what Jehoshaphat said to Ahab? I am as thou art. My people are like your people. My horses are like your horses. Are we going to do that? That's the camouflage model. We just kind of blend in. We become them. We don't become us. It is a progression that leads away from pressing toward the mark for the prize. of the high call. And by the way, not part of this really, but it is part of this. It is a high calling. Hebrews 3.1, wherefore, holy brethren partakers of the heavenly calling. It's a heavenly calling. And 2 Timothy 1.9, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling. It's a holy calling. Our calling is high and heavenly and holy. It's not low. and earthly. And if you raise your children on the camouflage model, when they become adults, they won't look any different than the world. And they probably won't act any different. Blended in believers who are trying to avoid being noticed, it's a position that is apart from Christ-likeness. Christians on the other side of the world are paying for their faith in Christ with their lives. Christians on this side of the world are afraid of a little mockery. It's shocking how unwilling believers have become to be different than the world. When Jesus said, marvel not if the world hate you, and it hated him first. There's the critical model. And some of us in this room perhaps are retaliating from this critical model a little bit, where there are browbeating that goes along for any person who is beneath me. You don't live up to my standard, so I'm going to judge you. Well, that's not right. And I just have to say, I might as well be transparent as to fake here. There's a part of me that has dealt with that. I've had to come around to realize that not everybody is where I am. And I'm not where some of those people that I look. There are probably people in this world, no, let's erase the word probably. There are people in this world who wonder, what is wrong with that Farnam guy? Why doesn't he grow? The belittling of people that are above us in the Christian life. Oh, they just think you're so holy. Careful with that. Because, you know, We talked in our last session about athletics. Do you want a coach for your basketball team who can't even make a foul shot? Do you want a coach that has ability that your children can attain to? Or do you want a coach that doesn't even know what a full court press is? By the way, I don't know what that is. I just heard the term and I think it's associated with basketball. Maybe it's bowling, I don't know. No, bowling has alleys, not courts, right? Blend it in, believers. We just want to blend in and I want you to understand that we are critical of people who are beneath us and we can become Just irritated with people that actually are setting an example for us to follow. You know, there are people that are ahead of us in the Christian life. Amen? And we ought to not belittle them. We ought to sit and learn from them. Okay? Then we have the Christian model. And I've put down this, burning bush believers. Are you a burning bush believer? In the book of Exodus, we come across chapter three. If you want to turn back there, Exodus chapter three. I think it'd be good to look at this portion. Exodus chapter 3, I won't read all the material leading up, but verse 2, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, that's Moses, in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. And he, Moses, looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. He didn't say how, but why. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called on him out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, here am I. So burning bush believers, I want to challenge you with that concept today. Number one, be a believer. Be a couple. Be a family. Even be a church that doesn't burn up in the fires of testing. The bush didn't burn. be the kind of a man, be the kind of a woman, be the kind of a pastor, camp leader, whatever your position is, be a mom, be a dad who doesn't burn up in the testing fires. And testing and fire are put together all through the Bible. 1 Peter, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with I'd be found in the praise and honor and glory of the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom, having not seen, you love, in whom, though now you see him, not yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable. How many of us do that in the fires of testing? We're like, seriously, God? Why are you? Oh, yeah, I'm not supposed to ask that question, am I? Be a burning bush believer. Be one of those people. God can throw anything at you and you won't burn up. The bush didn't burn. That's phenomenal. That's huge. Because I just want to say this. You got married. You invited testing to your life. And I'm not saying that because I'm going to make all these anti-woman jokes. I don't know any anti-man jokes. I can't imagine there would be any. I'm just kidding. Human nature is the funniest thing on the Earth. And if you can't laugh at it, you're in a sad state. And there are funny things about men and funny things about women. And it's probably about 50-50. Be the kind of believer. Be a marriage where God can test you and you won't burn up or burn out. Be that kind of a family. You know, the last 20 months of our lives, my wife and me, have been agonizing. 20 months ago, our son was clobbered in a car wreck. In fact, The agony started about four months before that when he announced to my wife and me that he was making some horrible decisions. He will tell you today he was running from God and God can run faster. On the 23rd of June, 2018, about four months after he told us some very wicked decisions he was making, We started praying, Father, be as merciful as you can be, and still get his attention. And at the crossroad of County Road 9 and County Road 30 in Goshen, Indiana, our son was driving home, and a man high on marijuana plowed through a stop sign at 60 miles an hour and nearly killed him. Traumatic brain injury. Many, many, many broken bones. The worst break was his left pelvis. The bumper of the van came right through the door, crushed his pelvis, pulverized it into more than 1,000 pieces of bone. It took seven hours to put him all back together. They pulled him out of the car. The ball of his femur was up behind his belly button. His shoulders were about this far apart. Both lungs were collapsed. He couldn't breathe. It's absolutely beyond any human reason that he's alive. We got the call at 11 o'clock that night to come to the hospital to identify. It's an hour, 10 minutes from our house, and it seemed like it took a week And so began an agonizing test for our family. I don't want anything like that to happen to anybody in this room. It was like he had no brain at all. His traumatic brain injury was on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being death. His neurosurgeon said, it's a 9 and 1 1. You can't have anything worse and still survive. Now, the good news is he's working a part-time job. He walks unassisted. They put him back together. He has four plates and 26 pins, and he sets off the alarm when he drives by the airport. And he's still dealing with traumatic brain injury, and he will probably for the rest of his life. And, you know, he'll he'll halt on his thigh a little bit as a reminder. Don't do that again. Amen. But you know what happens to most couples when things like that happen, they break up, they divorce. That's the statistic. Are you that kind of a couple? You won't burn up in the testing, because I have no idea what's coming for you. And you don't either. When you start having children, you open yourself up to a whole new realm of, I am willing to be tested. Somebody said a mother is a person who agrees to wear her heart on the outside for the rest of her life. You can't avoid it unless you're dead inside. I want to say number two about being a burning bush believer. A believer, a couple, a family, or even a church that other people turn aside to see. If there's something about you where people go, what is it about him? Or are you so blended into the world? They never even notice that you're a Christian. You know what? We recognize the Hindus in our society, don't we? and we recognize the Muslims, and we recognize the Mennonites and the Amish, why don't people recognize the Christians anymore? I'm just asking. It bothers me. It grieves me. It saddens me. Why don't people walk through Walmart and say, Did you see those Christians? Why are we so unidentifiable? You see, there were all kinds of bushes out there. Moses didn't turn around to see any of the others. He turned around to see that one. And you say, well, we're not supposed to be seen of men. Oh, yes, we are. It's just the attitude with which we're seen. Because Jesus said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works. The difference between the Pharisees who did things to be seen and the believer who does things to be seen is who gets the glory. But you know what? If nobody knows you're a Christian, they're not going to see you. And sad to say, The first thing we see about anybody is what we see. It's just the way it works. Scientists tell us that 85% of what we learn, we learn by what we see. That's why blindness is such a serious handicap. What do people see? You and I, you know what? Our church ought to be different than the rest of the churches. Our family should be different. There should be something in your family, in your marriage, in your life as a person that people go, you see that? Did you see that? I go back to our mess with our son here. We spent 217 days in the hospital. Three different hospitals. When we were at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids for 87 of those days, there was a cleaning girl assigned to fourth floor. When we got around to leave, she gave me a card. She said, I will never again clean room 4112 without Piggy. I can't walk in that room without seeing there was something different. You turn aside to see. We didn't go there. I didn't walk down the hall and say, honey, that cleaning girl's coming, we better put on a show. Because I'm going to tell you something. I had my mind on a whole lot of other things besides putting on a show for a cleaning girl. My son was nearly dead in that hospital. He couldn't walk. He couldn't even sit up. He couldn't do anything when he got there. He was just opening his eyes. When we got him out of the trauma hospital in South Bend to Mary Free Bed, he was just getting his eyes open. His pelvis was put together, but he couldn't put any weight on it. He couldn't use his arms because he had two broken collarbones. He was just helpless. He was just barely putting words out. He had finally recognized his mother. He called me grandpa. That's because she's prettier than I am. And that's a good thing. We don't need any more pretty men. Are you the kind of believer that people turn aside to see? Is your marriage something like that? Are your children like that? Is your church I want to say number three, a believer, a couple, a family, or church from which God speaks. Did you notice in this, God spoke out of the bush? You and I have a message. Well, we should. Amen? And you and I, you as couples, you should have a message. There should be a message that emanates from you. There should be a message that your family represents. And when people come to your church, listen, there ought to be something about your church, your camp, your ministry that says God all over it. The God of the Bible, the Jesus of the Bible, not another Jesus. mentioned in 2 Corinthians chapter 11. And then be a burning bush believer in the sense of being a believer, a couple, a family or church that brings about a response of submission to God's call because God called to Moses out of the bush and Moses said, here am I. Here am I, I'm here, what do you want? Now we know the conversation that went on, but you know what? Even though Moses put up all the excuses and even though Moses argued with God for a while, guess what? He went back and led the people of Israel out of bondage. And that is something that I hope that you get that picture in your mind today. Being a burning bush believer, a burning bush couple, a burning bush family, so that the model that you are is a model that doesn't burn up, a model that people turn aside to see, a model from which God speaks, and a model from which God's call gets answered. You know, I think the oldest child here today is 12 years old. And I spoke to the man about how that when they're born, you as parents are in 100% control and authority, and the children are at zero. In 18 short years, they are at 100% of control of their choices, and you're at zero. And if you have a 12-year-old, you're two-thirds there. And there's a crisscross where you wake up one day and you realize, uh-oh, I don't like the decision he's going to make, or I'm concerned about that decision. And you know, if you've nurtured them and discipled them and trained them, you can still work with them. But guess what? I don't control anything that my children do anymore. Can I tell you? It's fun. It's freedom. You know what? You're on your own. You're accountable to God. But you know what? We have trouble adjusting to that. We really do. I'm just going to be transparent. It wasn't easy. I told my kids three years ago, I said, I am praying for God to help me be a dad to a bunch of adults. Because you know what? I'm a type A. This is the way to do it. I don't have OCD. I have CDO, which is OCD in alphabetical order. You know, there's a way to do it, and it's dad's way. Sorry. Again, I'm just being transparent. You know what? I had to learn that my daughters aren't going to marry the guy I think is the right guy, because I'm not the Holy Spirit. And my sons, I have one son that's married. He picked a wonderful girl, but it's not somebody I would have chosen. It's about a heat shock. And you know what? They don't raise their kids the way Catherine and I raised our kids. And we drive away thinking, what is wrong with our kids? And about a mile down the road, we say, well, you know what? We don't care. Because it's on them. Freedom. I love it. But I want to encourage you in this matter as you model Christ to your children. Be a burning bush dad. Your kids, don't you want them to turn aside and see what God's doing in your life? Don't you want them to realize that when dad is teaching us, he's teaching us almost as if it's the word of God. Don't you want it to be, mom, that your children look at you as the godliest woman on earth? Don't you want them to think that? That's not a bad goal in life. That's a good goal. It's not unrealistic. It's not some egotistical, oh, I want my children to worship me. No, no, no. It's not worship. It's respect. It's so your children go from obedience to honor. And they are two different things. You know, your six-year-old obeys. But when they're 26 and they honor you, it's way more precious. Obedience is very often I have to. Honor is always I get to. When I want to work, I want you to get there. And if you have six-year-olds or eight-year-olds or two-year-olds or 12-year-olds, I want you to get there. I want you to have a family that serves God and honors God and loves God, but a family that no matter where the Lord leads and takes them, there's something that comes back to dad and mom. And in the quiet moments when you don't even know it, they are talking to their co-workers about what a great dad, what a great mom. And you know what? Our kids wandered off and did their stupid stuff. My wife calls it their stupid years, from about 18 to 25. They don't know anything. But you know, most of them are past those stupid years now. And you know, they're telling us things just off the cuff that really, really It's precious. God's at work. We have our list of impossibles, things there's no way in the world we can do anything about them. And so we're asking God to do things. God's at work. We love it. You're a burning bush believer. And then I want to say this before, and we didn't get started until 10 after, so if I go a little over, I'm not long-winded. I just want you to know that. Mentoring Her children. There's no change in the truth regardless of our generations. Here's what Paul said. But you know the proof of him speaking of Timothy. That as a son with the father. Yes, served with me in the gospel. Philippians 2.22. You know what? The generation you're in does not have a different Bible than the generation I know. Your children's generation will not have a different Bible than you have. God's truth has not changed since it was written. And if there is something that God's people have done for thousands of years, who do we think we are to disregard that? If there is something that has characterized the people of God for thousands of years, why do we not want that to characterize us in our generation? Paul said, Timothy does it just like I did it. Not because Paul was perfect. Paul admitted to being far from perfect. but because it was right. Right is right in every generation. Not only do we mentor without regard to generation, we mentor without regard to geography. I hear this in so many preachers' conferences and meetings. Well, brother, I live in a hard town. Yeah, thank you, brother, cool. Anybody here live in an easy town? I'd like to know, because I might want to retire there. Yeah. He lives out in the woods, the trees don't argue, amen? Bunch of wooden Indians, that's it, you know? No, does anybody here have an easy town? Is there any place you can go and it's just easy for us? No. No, there's no change with regard to geography. Here's what Paul said. For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus. He's still talking about Timothy. who is my beloved son and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ as I teach everywhere in every church. You know what's right at Plainfield, Michigan is right in Dallas, Texas. And Sacramento, California. And Santiago, Chile. and Beijing, China. What's right is right. The word of God does not change with geography. It doesn't change with generation. It doesn't change with geography. I'm going to say another thing. It doesn't change with gender. It doesn't change with our gender. You know what? There are unique things about women versus men. Thank God for that. We are unique. We're not equal. This equality movement is humanism. There are lots of things my wife can do way better than I can. Lots of things. I am not equal to her. She's not equal to me. We labor together. We compliment each other. That is, we dovetail. But there are places that I am just a klutz. and she can walk in with finesse. And there are other places where she's the klutz and I come in with finesse. There are places where she has a skill that I don't have. Places I have a skill she doesn't have. And I'm not just referring to biology here, I'm referring to the soul, the people that we are. And we labor together and we're laborers together with God. And it doesn't matter the gender. The Bible isn't different for women than it is for men. God's truth is God's truth. And when we are mentoring our children, we need to keep a very clear distinction in the genders today. In a world that's trying to convince us that there are, how many of them are there now? I told people pretty soon they're gonna run out of letters in the English alphabet and have to go to the Russian alphabet or something. It's L, G, B, T, Q, S, J, I don't know how many there are anymore. Somebody, I was reading some article recently said there are at least 20 genders that have been identified. What a nonsense confusion this is. Yes, there are things that God says to us as women and ladies and girls, and there are things that God says to us as men and boys, but I want you to understand the truth of God is the truth of God. Regardless, and as you mentor your children, I want you to understand this is the manual. This is the manual. Right here. Perhaps, and I'm just saying perhaps, perhaps our greatest problem in the ministry is unfamiliarity with this book. It is good to know Bible verses. That's very good. But there is a difference between knowing Bible verses and knowing the Bible. You ever notice in Philippians 4, here's what Paul said, Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. So there are eight categories of acceptable meditation for the believer. Pretty interesting. But I want you to notice the list starts with two words. It's like, are you repeating yourself? Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest. Aren't those the same thing? No. Because when you read the word honest in the Bible, and when you study the word honest, the English word honest, we don't have to go to the Greek to see this. You just study the English word honest. And it has to do with just speaking what's right. Yes, I hit my brother. That's being honest. But true and truth in the Bible have to do with whole truth. And so whatsoever things are true has to do with the whole truth on a subject, not just a verse on a subject. You know, Jesus did turn water to wine. And a lot of people who don't know truth, they know just one verse will say, that means I can drink alcohol. Because Jesus turned water to wine. You know what the problem is? What they said is true. Jesus did turn water to wine. But they don't know the truth. of that true statement. And we need to be believers as we mentor our children and mold them who are absolute, and I say this carefully, who are masters of our man. We've been doing M's today. If you like M&Ms, this was your day. Masters of our man. I want to challenge you men that are leaders in ministry. I don't know what your schedule is, but you ought to have a minimum of one hour a day uninterrupted. A minimum. Now, that's difficult when you have small children running around. But you know what? You girls, I call you girls. You're all younger than my children or my children. You girls need the Bible too. It's your husband's job as Jesus sanctifies and cleanses the church with the washing of water by the word. It's your job as men to do that so you can present her to yourself a glorious bride. You don't want to neglect your wife so that when you're 50 you don't like her You realize that happens in a lot of couples. It does. We call it the midlife crisis. But it's sad when God's people are having midlife crises and he's running this way and she's running that way when they're 45 and 50 years old. Well, the kids are raised, it won't matter. Oh, it matters. I happen to still like my wife. Amen? What I want you to understand is we need to get into this And not just have a few Bible verses that we yank out of the air for our pet position. But we get along and we become people like David was. You know, I want to close with this. Saul came to a time of trouble in his life. And we read about David as a young man. And just before the devil's spirit started troubling Saul, the Bible says it came to pass when they were come that he, Samuel, looked on Eliab and said, surely the Lord's anointed is before him. But the Lord said unto Samuel, look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature, because I've refused him. For the Lord seeth not as man seeth. For man, now notice, man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. So you know what God was saying to Samuel? Now Samuel was a godly man. And even a man as godly as Samuel, he said, Samuel, you don't see everything I see. But notice it was all about what is seen. And so Samuel anoints David. The Bible says the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that hour, but the Spirit of the Lord left Saul, and a devilish spirit began to torment him. And here's what happened. Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me. One of his servants had the sense to realize that good music drives the devil away. Amen? That's true. By the way, the music here yesterday was beautiful. You know what? The music here today was beautiful. And that's the stuff that drives the devil away. Amen. Just wanted to let you know that. So one of the servants said, you know, we ought to get a guy that can play the harp and drive the devil away. And Saul said, you know what? That's a good idea. Provide me now a man that can play well and bring him to me. Then answered one of the servants and said, behold, now listen to the word. of 1 Samuel 16. Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse. He didn't say, I know him. He said, I've seen him. That's key. You know what this is? That's what one man sees in another man. David as a boy was a burning bush Christian. He was the kind of person that one of the servants of Saul went. Now here's what he saw. It's not just that he saw, but it's what he saw. I've seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite that is cunning and playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the Lord is with him." Six amazing qualities, but do you realize some of them are the invisible qualities? But the servant of Saul still saw them. And how did he see them? He saw them by what was on the outside. Most extremes are the overcorrection of the opposite extreme. It's winter. We're driving down the road and we start to skid toward the right ditch. What do we do? And where do we end up? The left ditch. That's a Michigan problem from December to February or March or whenever the snow decides. Yeah. You know, as Christians, we can be so focused on avoiding this ditch that we end up in that. We can be so fed up, and listen, I'm fed up with outward conformity Christianity. I've had it up to here. But that does not mean that we go to the other ditch. Because then we're just conforming to something else. The world. There is something very important about being a burning bush believer. It's very important. And the importance is the fact that that's the only bush Moses turned his sight to see. You may be the key to somebody's eternity, and you'll miss it if there's nothing about you at first sight that says that's a man That's a woman of God. That's a family that knows God. I want to encourage you very strongly on that. A testimony must be visible, audible, and credible. Your family testimony, your testimony as a couple, your testimony as an individual. If you talk about Christ but the world can't see Him, they won't listen. If you conform to Christ which you never witnessed, they can't hear Him. We need both. Visible and audible makes Christ.