Family-ish (Part 5): Parenting on Purpose

church if you're excited to be in the house put your hands together make some noise come on online we're so glad you're here as well man we got folks tuning in today from ethiopia thailand and italy come on somebody we're so glad you guys are here apart uh my name is kervin i have the privilege of overseeing the youth and young adult ministry here at victory church i'm joined by my wife candace y'all make some noise for my boo thing please and uh it's it's it's really an honor to be able to be a part of the fourth installment i believe of the family-ish series and today we're joined with some incredible friends that we're gonna introduce in just a few moments uh but today we're talking about parenting somebody say oh we're talking about parenting and uh what we want to do we we really want to just say this right off the cuff that listen we are not considering ourselves experts up here listen i'm not dr phil okay my wife is not oprah okay we wish we had all their money but that that's not us all right so today we're talking about parenting from just real life experiences uh we're still raising children ourselves and this is a journey that we're all on and we want to just look to the word of god and to gain wisdom from the scripture and also we want to speak we do realize that in this room and joining us online that there are many different dynamics to the family institution you know uh there's not just the traditional family unit if i could use that language but man listen they're single moms right there are fathers that are raising children uh by themselves and then there's also blended family so there's some dynamic there that we want to address and speak to we also realize there are some of y'all that you know you're single you don't have kids yet or maybe you're married without kids i just want to ask that no one tune out because i believe there's truth today that can impact our lives as we move forward and i know this much no matter what the family dynamic may look like for you personally i believe that as we look to the word of god we can find instruction and wisdom for any family dynamic to help us raise godly men and women do you all believe that amen that's good in fact in psalms 127 verse 4 it says like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth i love that imagery we as parents get the privilege of propelling our children into their purpose and that is something that we should not take lightly so we have to remember that we're raising adults not just 13 year olds let that sink in for one minute that's scary yeah very scary that 15 year old will be a grown-up one day making decisions for themselves and i don't know about y'all but we are trying to raise godly men and women who are kind and who actually love jesus okay how many of y'all know there are enough rude people in the world today and so we're not trying to add to that quota yeah that's right so the question is not are we parenting the right way but rather am i the adult that i want my child to become you hear that man don't elbow nobody listen so here's the deal man over the last few weeks we've spoken to several families again different family dynamics and we've collected some great questions and so we're going to dive into these topics today and without further ado i do want to go ahead and introduce our panelists uh here to my far left your far right we have our marriage pastors matt and angel rigsby come on yeah and then right here in the center we have our friends our men's pastor pastor aaron his wife natalie come on natalie serves on our stratcom team she's incredible incredible uh parents uh married folks like this is like the powerhouse duo it's an honor to be up here with you guys and uh i want to just dive in today with something a little a little more lighthearted to give our friends some hope because we were all children and teenagers at some point right um and so we did not always love jesus and we did some crazy foolishness at some point in our lives so i wonder if there are any stories maybe from your childhood or as a teenager that any of you uh would like to share how about you angel okay so i was four years old and i was a quite rebellious four-year-old okay um i didn't really have the teenage crazies but i did actually i just i can't think of any stories but um so i was kind of a tomboy at four years old went outside picked up a pretty sizable rock brought it in and my mom knowing that i liked to throw things she said don't throw the rock in the house well of course what do you do when somebody says not to do something you throw it and or you do it and so i threw the rock but the rock hit my great grandmother's crystal vase yeah and so um you know there you know you can forgive but sometimes you don't forget and i know my mom never forgot i hope she forgave me but i know she never forgot because even up into my adulthood like she will look at me and be like i tried i tried gluing a crystal vase and it did not work oh my gosh and you know the saying that apple doesn't fall far from the tree now i have a four-year-old little boy who likes to throw rocks in fact as we were pulling up today he found a rock in the in the parking lot who finds rocks in the parking lot right there's a rock in the parking lot and he went for it you know so so the apple doesn't fall far from the tree it's like the sins of the fathers right how about you matt that's true um so i may have gotten into a car chase with my vice principal yeah what's wrong with you bro so hey we were just having fun so i was out with my buddies uh late one night and we saw this car pass us and it was the vice principal and one of them says hey let's follow him so i turn the car around and we we start we start this chase well this doesn't come a chase yet but we start this pursuit and after about three turns he realizes something's up and he starts to go a little faster but when he hit that fourth turn it was on it became a chase at that point and he was he was flying down making cuts and and turning here in the air and he went down an alley about 60 miles an hour but you know what we were right on them we were not going to lose them and uh so mr fee if you're watching i'm so sorry please forgive me for terrifying you that day but uh yeah that was honestly a lot of fun that's awesome matt um so the story i selected is one of my safer ones actually but um i remember being grounded and apparently i kept taking my car when i was grounded so my mom put a club on it if you guys remember the club you know and those things are really sturdy like they don't come off very easily but um i went into the garage got the power tools and i'm trying to drill off the club the only thing i succeeded in doing was putting a hole in the steering wheel and i was just trying to come see my very first girlfriend and but anyway so that was uh that was me couldn't get into the car man yeah the club okay so my father is kind of a big dude he's about six two or so and whenever i would get in trouble he would take my door off and so it was about 17 and we were arguing about taking my door off he had all his tools he was ready i was angry and i just felt the heat rising and rising and i felt like i kind of blacked out for a moment well i swung on my father he spun around hit the bed and i hit the door i was like i'm out cause if i don't leave right now i'm gonna die i didn't even come back until the next morning because i knew yeah i knew oh my gosh that is crazy does that sound familiar i remember you're gonna say that i know someone else who used to have their door removed when they were young i was a trouble teen okay i had issues so my wife we've known each other since six years old so like we have all the dirt on each other so we will not be sharing all of it this morning no no we're gonna talk about that bathroom you set on fire when you were a whole bathroom okay get your facts straight it was not a whole bathroom just one trash can just one trash can a mirror to pyromaniac y'all okay anyways anyways i think we should get into what we're actually talking about before he tells more embarrassing stories so let's talk about unity this morning we know that unity is important to god and to the body the bible says in psalms 133 verse 1 behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity i believe that that same principle applies even more so to the body you know whether we are in um both parents are in the house a single-parent situation or even a blended family unity is important but let's be honest that's a lot easier to say than to actually do so i would love to talk about what unity looks like for you guys if you want to start matt and angel so jesus said to build your house on the rock and the rock is jesus and the word of god right and so you have to build your house on him you have to build your house on the word of god and it's it's it's interesting because if if two people are reading the same bible and they're believing it and they're building their house on it then that's what they're gonna that's that's how they're gonna raise their children right and that's what we try to do we we live our lives according to the word of god and it helps us to be more like-minded and that that really creates unity with us and um the other thing is i know that the if my husband needs respect and honor in the home which as parents we need respect and honor right our children need to honor us and respect us but it's my job as the wife in the home to honor and respect my husband and so i set the stage i set that example for the children and then there's times that i don't do very good setting that example and i might say something or have a bad attitude but i also know that i have to be quick to repent and when i repent i will repent in front of the children if i said something in front of the kids you know what i'm saying um because i am not perfect absolutely and and i do the same thing for her too so whenever yeah you can clap for that yeah go for that and i have to do the same thing in where maybe our children are disrespecting my wife that i'm going to protect her and guard her as well and so we want to make sure that we are there's a spirit of honor and respect in our home but i think um practically some of the things that we do is really communicate we're communicating a lot we are number one when we're talking to our children it's usually not one of us just speaking to our kids we're both coming together so that we're a united front and we're speaking the same thing and if my wife says something i'm supporting that she's supporting what i'm saying um and then there's there are times where you know we're just praying for our kids we're praying and hearing god's voice about the things that we don't see those blind spots in their life that we don't know what's going on that god puts his finger on and says hey your child may be dealing with this or that and we have to to to keep an eye on that and then a vision we have a vision for our family and so uh you know if you have two different vision you have die vision you go on and you know and that allows the enemy in that's right so for us we have vision for our family so if we see our kids begin to go a different direction than where we're trying to guide them we have to step in and help direct them in that way and we do that together so so good how about you guys you have any insight to share well um so natalie and i are blended family and um i think going into that i'm reminded of romans 1 18 it says if it is possible as far as it depends on you live at peace with everyone so the good part was we were friends before we got married you had been previously married and i knew lily a little bit already and so as your friend i had a relationship with her but then when i became her stepfather i just sit down with her and say hey you know lily what do you want to call me and how's our relationship going to look what kind of things do you like what are we going to do together and how to build our own relationship and so it's easy to make your identity be your blended family well we're a blended family and we're going to be weird and we got to figure out how this is going to work instead of just saying hey any kind of family you don't just accept the fact that you're lumped together you build relationships with each person in your family so you just can't say hey well you know you're my son this is the way it's going to be so you have to spend time learning who they are what they like making sure that you have an open line of communication that they see you uh as someone they can come to not just as this figure taking a position and so one of the things i did is um with natalie's ex-husband when we got engaged i sat down with him and had coffee and we talked about hey man so we're both raising your little girl what is that going to look like and what's important to you and what's important to me and i know that this is a non-negotiable she has to follow jesus and so if you're doing that from your point of view and i'm doing from my point of view then we're going to help her get to where god's called her to be so that was very very important so good you know the other part is it's hard enough just to raise kids normally we also have our youngest daughter as well but then when you add in you know uh biological parents step parents everything else it's very important that you have uh things like a joint calendar that you all can see um that you have a group chat like a whatsapp where we can all talk to each other it used to be just the two of them now i'm on it as well so we can all communicate and here's the most important part um you cannot speak bad about their biological parent like you can even if they're wild now right no because no matter what they're doing because here's the thing um i'm you know my parents got divorced when i was a teenager and neither one of them spoke ill of each other i don't i don't remember them doing that and the thing is is here's why one you're modeling behavior to your kids two that's half of their identity as well so when you're speaking bad about them what are you saying about the your child wow and it doesn't matter what his behavior is i'm calling out the worst in you and there and you're like now who am i because my father is this or my mother is this and so you're teaching them how to relate to each other you're teaching them how to respect people and you're calling out the good in them so that's incredibly important that you don't speak bad of each other that you don't make your child have to choose between them or you and that you can actually say hey this was not your choice what happened here we're going to make this a safe place for you and we're not going to make it illegal for you to love your parents so so good and then the last thing i'm gonna add on that is just okay one more thing it's just that they're as a stepchild you have to go above and beyond what you would do for your other kids to uh reinforce their identity because the enemy's gonna try to get in there and tell them lies about who they are and why they're in this situation so you have to go above and beyond affirm who they are your love for them their place in this family all that stuff that's so good i'm reminded in deuteronomy 31 8 where it talks about in the lord he is the one who goes before you he will not forsake you he will not leave you do not fear or be dismayed and as a single mother let me tell you because i was a single mother for a period of time there's this weight that shifts on to you when you uh become a single parent you feel like you have to do it all um you feel like it's up to me and so uh there was this shift and i remember it very distinctly when i went and it was a time of prayer i was having where god said stop saying i have to do it all and shift the weight to me as your god and so um in my season of singleness i had to build my faith i'll be honest when my relationship fell apart it broke my faith it broke it and the foundation that i thought i was on shattered and that was honestly a good thing because i had this thought that i'm serving in church i'm quote doing all the right things i'm checking on the boxes god why would you let this happen to me why would you allow me to go through this i feel ashamed i feel embarrassed all of these things and i just remember the lord saying it's not about how you feel it's about where i'm taking you and so when i rebuilt my faith it was on that rock that you were talking about earlier angel and so right part of what i had to do and we all have to do this if you've had a loss in your life you have to mourn the loss of the dreams and visions that you thought were going to come to pass and you have to step into this understanding that you may be operating in a victim mentality i know i was a poverty mentality or a scarcity mentality and it's the idea that we have to step out of those mentalities and start understanding the identity of who god has called us to be and when we do that what happens is we shift into a place of faith we shift into a place of of trusting god for for your daily bread honestly i can remember times where i was praying to the lord i went from two incomes as you know to one and i didn't know how the ends were going to meet i had all the debt i had the credit card debt the car payment i had the house payment i had it all and i remember just crying out to the lord and saying father i will cut these credit cards up i will make a covenant with you if you help me not to ever be in this situation like that again and i did and i prayed this bold prayer father will you replace the lost income and i remember i was sitting at my desk a recruiter called and they said um hey we want to interview you for this position i'm like how did you find me ended up going through the whole process and they offered me the job and it was a literal replacement of what i was praying for love it yeah so so be in unity with god um you know you may be listening and saying that's not my situation i don't have anybody else to be in unity with yes you do we want to be in unity with the lord we want to be in unity with what he's saying and it starts with psalms 55 22 which says give your burdens to the lord and he will take care of you he will not permit the godly to slip and fall so remind him of that even if you're in a in a single-parent situation continue to remind god of his word that's so good be in unity with god that's huge thank you so much guys so um we all know what the word says probably one of the most famous scriptures quoted about parenting our children is you train a child in the way they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it and uh so we take that scripture and what do we do is as parents and spiritual leaders we instill we pour into our students and our young people and we we pray over them and we lay hands on them uh but at the end of the day we still got to drop them off at school okay at the end of the day we still got to drop them off at practice and these extracurricular activities and events where they're exposed to god knows what and the reality is this man that these kids cannot be around us 24 7. i don't even know if we want him around us 24 7. don't tell him i said that but here's the deal man it is our job as parents it is our job to steward the time that we do have with our children and to drive them towards the purposes that god is calling them to and so for that to happen it's imperative that we teach our children how to hear from god for themselves it's important that we're teaching them how to rightfully divide the word of god how to hear from god and how to discern what is good and pleasing to him and that's challenging it's very very challenging so um so matt and angel do you guys want to share a little bit about how you navigate that in your own household with your kids so our almost 16 year old um if you know judah he's going to be 16 on wednesday so go say happy birthday to him yeah don't let him don't let him slip by you got to say happy birthday to him bombard him no i'm just kidding um when he was four years old he actually heard the voice of god for the first time and we knew that he had heard the voice of god because it was just everything lined up and we were like oh my gosh he heard the voice of god and even driving in this morning he actually said to us hey yeah god spoke to me about something last night and so it's just evident that the lord speaks to him he's had seasons i'll say it like that there's been seasons where he might not have heard the voice of god as loudly and um and everything but um but i went to judah and i actually asked him like what did dad and i do to teach you how to hear the voice of god and of course typical teenage answer i don't know you know facts and uh but then he stopped and he went a little deeper and he goes well i guess you guys just taught me how to pray and i he goes i i don't know i guess you just it's just it's what we do we just love jesus and you guys have just taught me how to love jesus because that's what we do and so i stepped back and i thought hmm really it's a lifestyle it's a lifestyle that we have lived it really is it's it's there's not like methods to this it is a lifestyle it's what we do and i think about deuteronomy 6 6 and 8 and it says this these commandments that i give you today are to be on your hearts impress them on your children talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you get up tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads and for us you know we aren't just praying when we eat or when we put our kids to bed or when there's a crisis going on in our lives prayer is an everyday part of our life seeking god's an everyday part of our life as a family and so this is what we do with one another and so in that we teach our children hey there are different ways that god speaks to you you know he doesn't just speak to you through your heart but he also speaks through his word and through other people and things like that and so in that we encourage our kids to do soap to and they do so with us at times by themselves and with their with their friends and so they're in the word of god seeking to hear hear the lord and there's an interesting correlation between john the baptist and us as parents i know it sounds a little funny right but it's true just study the life of john the baptist what was his purpose here on earth his purpose was to prepare the way of the lord he came to set the stage for jesus and that's our job as parents is to set the stage for jesus but something else that john the baptist said is i need to get become less so that jesus can become greater and that's our job as parents as well and i i remember i met with a mentor one time and um and i said to her i said my goal is that my children will serve jesus for the rest of their lives and she looked at me and she goes that cannot be your goal i know right i was like excuse me and um like i thought that was a pretty godly goal right because that can't be your goal that has to be their goal she said your job as a parent is there's god there's you and there's your child and what happens is you foster and you nurture when they're younger right you teach them who jesus is you i guess like we're talking you make it your lifestyle but then as they get older hopefully they are coming into a place where they're in relationship with jesus and they're falling in love with jesus themselves and so we kind of come out of that place and then god and that child come closer together and they're touching and they fall in love with jesus so good so good you know as parents if we want our children to hear the voice of god we have to be hearing the voice of god oh you better say that you know and it's through our own experiences of hearing god's voice and sharing those experiences with our children that it it sparks something inside of them you know to tell them hey this is what the lord told me and look what happened isn't god so good and to have those moments that we share with them and it stirs something in their spirit and uh i love the quote it says that you teach what you know but you reproduce who you are and that's how it is with our kids we can try to teach them all the things that we know but we're going to reproduce who we are in them and that's what we're doing and so our our heart and our hope is to train our kids to hear god's voice but not just that that they can hear god's voice but that god hears them as well and we had a and we had a really cool experience with this just a couple months ago with our 12 year old son i was on our way to taking him to the basketball game and he said he said dad it would be so cool if i hit a buzzer beater i thought dude that would be awesome that would be really really cool i said well hey let's just pray and let's just ask the lord and so my prayer was father i ask that micah would have such an amazing experience in this basketball game today that he would share with his children and with his children's children we got to the game and i got a quick video of what happened hey let's go he will never forget that he knows that god loves him come on he knows that god hears his prayers that's right and he draws closer to the lord so we are praying for our kids we pray for our kids every day and we pray and that they are hearing the voice of god and that they are being obedient to the voice of god and that they're doers of the words not just yours that's right and what's so dope is that like you you created that moment you made that space you know to allow god to show up and show off and do his thing and and i think we all should do that we should be looking for those opportunities in our day in our routine to find moments to just point to god and let him do his thing and you know so speaking so something that my wife and i have recently uh began implementing is soap and you mentioned it not like soap like take a bath but like it's that that too yeah that too that's helpful teenagers they stink um but uh so it's an acronym it's an acronym right is that yeah s stands for scripture o is for observation a is for application p is for prayer all right so here at victory church in our staff meetings every staff meeting we do so before we before we talk any business and so every morning before we take our middle uh school a middle schooler i don't know why i called her a middle schooler that's weird she's my child before we take our childhood our daughter our daughter yeah before we take our daughter to school we do soap with her we sit down we read a whole chapter we five verses five verses five verses then we observe what is god saying how does this apply to you baby girl in your life and where you're at we take turns and we pray over each other that is a very simple discipleship tool that we want to encourage you to utilize husband and wife homie and your other homie with your kids like it is a very simple tool that is really helping our daughter to understand how to read the word and how to apply it to her own life yeah exactly it's been a game changer for us because the goal is we want our children to know how to read the word interpret it and to apply it on their own not just depending on us to do it because let's be honest there are lots of things that are fighting for the attention and the affection of our children we can personally identify with this because we're pastoring teenagers while raising one so pray for us please jesus um but there is a topic that comes up in our house all the time it's the conversation about devices social media and digital exposure and it seems like this conversation is never ending yeah can we talk about that real quick y'all let's talk about it so uh again we're not parenting gurus up here okay so what we're not gonna do is say you know giving your kid a device that's wrong it's right you should you shouldn't that's not our place to do that what we are challenging you to do as parents however is to be like the men of issachar so in the book of chronicles the first uh book of chronicles these men are noted the bible says this that the men of issachar were men who understood the signs of the times they understood what was going on and they knew the best course for israel to take can i tell you something my friends we've got to be aware of what society is feeding our children and then at that point once we're aware uh and our thumb is on the pulse of what's happening it is our job as as parents and as spiritual leaders to draw up those boundaries separating the sacred from the secular right listen it's not up to youtubers or bloggers it's not up to anyone in this anti-god society to draw those boundaries it is our responsibility to draw those boundaries and listen and let me say this and what i'm not saying we should do as parents is to create this bubble that we succumb our children to and and don't give them any freedom to move outside of that bubble there's a very very stark difference between protecting our children and sheltering our children now here's protecting your child protecting your child is saying hey that is a road there are vehicles that go down this road at high speeds stay away from the road if you go don't do that don't go there that's protecting your child sheltering your child is acting as if the road doesn't exist and so often we treat our children as if they're not going to be exposed to what sex is or like they're not going to be exposed to the anti-god society that we live in listen they're going to hear about it from us or they're going to hear about it in first period so it's up to us to draw those boundaries right we got to have those conversations yep yeah that's so good so after you've talked about things you've prayed about it and you've set the standard in your home you have to stick to it i don't care what the world is saying i don't care what society is saying is right or wrong but you have to do what you know is right to do like joshua said y'all can do what you want but for me and my house we will serve the lord that's it you know personally so we brought up the topic of devices our daughter is dying for a cell phone she thinks that she just has to have one and we just do not feel that she's ready but since she started middle school this year it's been a very challenging thing because all of her friends have devices they all have cell phones they're always on them and even at school now everything is dependent upon a phone scanning a qr code so it's been a challenge in in our house and a pressure that we feel is coming at her from every angle so the next thing i'd love to discuss with you guys is how do you handle um this digital world that we live in devices and exposure to all of these things in your home yeah i'd say the first thing is we know there's a lot of pressure i mean you kind of leaned right into that and talked about it and so you know just because everybody else is doing it does not mean that our kids have to do it and so we have to cut a different road as parents but we know that there are long-term impacts when a kid gets a device in their hand at a very early age as a matter of fact there's a stat out there right now that says the average age that a child sees pornography is age eight and i'm like whoa that's that's two that's too ridiculous it's too young but you know i even think about back when i was growing up we didn't have cell phones um but i was at my grandparents house and i remember seeing something on tv that i shouldn't have seen for an eight-year-old and my parents said we need you to turn that off or we're going to have to leave my grandfather said this is my house you can go and we did so we promptly left and so even that moment and seeing what they they did it set something in me of like you get up and remove yourself from the situation when you're seeing something that you don't want to see and so you know for our children we can't say don't look at this don't look at that without sharing with them the why and so just the don't by itself is not meaningful the why behind it is so important and they're they're seeking that from you well why why not why is that bad so i think about first corinthians 6 19 and 20 where it says do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy spirit within you whom you have from god you are not your own you you each of you were bought with a price so glorify god in your body and so we sit down and we talk about that and there's actually this book and i would love for you guys to order it on amazon it's called good pictures bad pictures and that's something that me and my kids we sit down and we talk about this book but there's something in there that says turn run tell so we teach our children to turn away we teach them to get away and then we teach them to come and tell us and so i'm so proud of my kids when we're walking through the mall and they see like you know something over in the department sure they shouldn't see and their heads just turn and i'm like let me reinforce that real quick good job yes that's what we want you to do and so but when you tell you're actually helping them process what they've seen so when i was eight nobody knew to process with me that i saw something i shouldn't have seen so the shame of seeing that set in and and that like something's wrong with me because i saw that now i feel a certain way about it so we need to sit down with our kids and say have you ever seen something you shouldn't have seen i know i have let me tell you what happened to me when i was eight now have you and then you share your story let them share theirs and you guys have a conversation because it's in these conversations that you're going to be able to bring healing to the things they've seen that they should never have seen as children it's so so good so good let you matt yeah uh you know something i started with our kids when they were really young probably four or five years old i um i told my boys i said hey if you ever see anything on tv that is inappropriate maybe it's a cheerleader on tv or a commercial that comes up that's inappropriate i told them hey just look at your dad just look at me because i don't need to look at that either and let's keep each other accountable and so from a very young age i was trying to teach my children to guard their eyes the eyes are the gateway into the soul and so i wanted them to begin to learn how to do that and do that properly and so that's something that that we brought in very early on and it's so beautiful because what should we be doing just as human beings we should be looking to god our father right when sin is coming around us when sin is surrounding us when sin is crouching at the door we should be gazing at the eyes of god like we should be gazing on his beauty so something else that we do with our boys is we say we will put blocks on those devices um but we want you to be the biggest block and that's been our hearts cry is that that we will again you know make that lifestyle flourish that relation their their relationship with god will flourish to a point where they want to be the block where they want to say no to that and i think going back to what natalie said i think sharing your own stories your own experiences your own challenges and failures and temptations and how you got victory over that and that they can get victory as well in their life yeah that's so huge and i think um you know i love that you i can't remember who it was but one of you all spoke about um giving them the why behind the what because i know like the old school way of raising kids i remember so many times my mama would tell me to do something but mom why because i said so [Laughter] some of y'all be saying it still come on we got to do better because i said so that's why don't make me ask again but the reality is man um i think that it's important to to for our students or our young people our children to understand why because we want to live lives that honor god because we have a heavenly father man that we want to please he's pleased with us and he's blessed us and we want to live lives that make him famous and beautiful to the world around i think that's important that our students understand the why behind the what so here we have just a few more minutes y'all but before we wrap up um i did want to take just a minute um to speak to single parenting because that's a completely different dynamic in fact can we just make some noise for every single mama come on every single father hold it down come on boo boo you making it happen yes i want to take a minute and so natalie you you mentioned just a few moments ago that you know for season you you lived that life you know you're holding it down just making the ends meet you know by the grace of god so um talk to us about that there may be single parents i know that there are single parents in this room watching online what would you say to them yeah so as as kerwin said god bless you if you are a single mom or dad in this room and and you are living that single life i know it can be it can be very very tough um we talked earlier about shifting that weight from i have to do it all to god i want you to take this and help me and so i think about psalm 68 5 and 6 where it says god is a father to the fatherless defender of the widows this is god whose dwelling is holy god places the lonely in families and i can only speak from my own personal experience but i had that moment of like i'm alone now what um maybe you've had that experience too and you're kind of living that out right now and a lot of times you know and i'll have to just throw out a quick pet peeve let's say you guys are married and your husband goes out of town you are not single parenting for the week don't tell me oh i'm a single parent this week no you're not because there's a weight that single parents have and they can't pass that weight on to anyone else right or so we think but we have to stop and say when i'm when i'm feeling the weight of being a single parent i have to lift that weight and shift it to god and so you know as a single parent if you've gone through a breakup or divorce you may be dealing with all that emotional trauma the sadness of dreams that have died you may be dealing with a structure of you know change in your support system or your provision all these things are real and we have to stop and just mourn those losses because those are real losses that we feel we can't skirt by them we have to deal with them otherwise they're going to come up in other ways but sometimes there's not this i need 15 minutes can you take the kids because there's not that person there and what i found in my season was getting in community was so critical for me because i could take that mask off and say i'm not doing great today i feel like i'm failing and i need help i have people that could pray for me i could be had people that could help me with my child from time to time my parents stepped in and helped in a big way in that season and so i had to just open the doors and just say hey i can't do it all i had to put on my oxygen mask first if i was going to help anybody else and so there's something you know that i think that god does in these seasons where that season took me so deep into prayer that i had to get a different vision for what my life needed to look like in this season i had to ask god to heal me to restore me to renew my mind from from even just feeling like god why'd you let this happen like why did you allow this and so there was so much conversation i had to have with him as i kind of shifted my mentality and and went through that healing journey and so you know many times people will say well i don't have time to pray or i don't have time to get in a small group i would argue you don't have time not to um it's those things that really become powerful for you in a season where you um have shifted who's you know who's around you who's who's in your crew so to speak and so putting those people uh alongside of you just becomes so impactful i remember one day i was praying and the lord just told me this he said you can either be pitiful or powerful but it's really your choice [Applause] so i had to step back and say no you're right i've been pitiful long enough it's time to start standing on the word of god and so i would just encourage you if you're having that pitiful season it's okay get to the other side of it it's time for you to be powerful it's time for you to stand on god's word that is so good so good aaron do you have any thoughts my friend to share yeah you know um when natalie and i got together i can attest to the fact that it was it was after divorce and you were powerful you were not a damsel in distress waiting for a night to come right again you had already found your night and he was providing for you and and so when we got together there was a wholeness i mean not that you didn't have hurts but there was a wholeness because you were established in him at that moment and i was there to come alongside you and not have to you know we weren't struggling through it was walking into a new season in health so that was good um i want to speak a moment as a men's pastor this church i hear a lot of mothers call me a lot of men call me struggling with i'm a single parent or i don't know how to raise my son or daughter this way a lot of moms saying you know is there anyone that can pour into my kid how do i do that and then one first of all i want to say you know again i was my mom raised us by herself during our teenage years and that was a you know a very pivotal time in our life but what god did was he made up for that loss of my father not being around in that time i had a royal rangers leader if you ever heard royal rangers i got to grow up in that for a little bit he invested in me helped me kind of step into manhood in that time i had three godly youth pastors of different seasons during my teenage years that really invested in me poured into me modeled what manhood is just by living it and then i had two godly football coaches so my point of saying all that is it took a whole village it took a community of people to help me get there but god will step in and replace what was lost and so what we have to do is we have to give what we didn't get at times we have to give what's lacking and we have to be intentional about going to find that so you have to ask yourself well what community is around me what resources are around me um you know one this church is very much our family like i can tell you i call people in this church before i call my own family this is my spiritual family and so there are grandparents there are uncles there are ants so if you're saying here well this message doesn't apply to me i don't have any kids i'm not married yes it does because we're a family here and so you need to ask yourself how can i step in to be an uncle or an aunt or a grandparent or a cousin to this family over here and if you're going to bed at night and you still have a little gas left in the tank then you didn't spend your day right right i'm especially speaking to the men in the room because listen guys it's not enough just for us to provide for our families we if we have anything left god gave us strength power and influence to be a blessing to others and so you're asking well how can i do that well there's a lot of different things one for the moms and the families in the room you can go to victoryatl.com i actually go to connect to victory.com and find a way to get connected to a small group and plug in and that can become family to you and for the for the men especially i'm calling out i'm calling out men to invest in the next generation go to connect to victory.com serve and you can sign up to serve in children's ministry youth ministry because listen when you're in the room it changes the entire atmosphere men you guys can attest this right absolutely absolutely absolutely hey we put your hands together for our panelists this morning so so good so good and you know what you just said you know pastor aaron every week my wife and i we get those phone calls hey i'm a single mom raising two boys i need help and so which i love that that picture you painted of the fact the reality is that we are a spiritual family and we need spiritual mothers and fathers now more than ever before and um so again i want to echo what pastor aaron just shared man if you do not serve on a team kids ministry is phenomenal middle school high school ministry is phenomenal they're phenomenal opportunities to help make a difference in the lives of young people and also for every parent we're very very big here at victory on resourcing our people and if you go to victoryatl.com click on the youth and young adult tab we have a parent page that we've created with podcasts there's articles book recommendations and tons of resources to help you as you navigate these crazy wild torrential waters of raising teenagers amen so as we wrap this time up together um i'm just reminded of of my teenage years you know and the times where i had my door taken off the hinges and um the reality is this every single one of us we all have a story and i'm just reminded of the years i spent as a young person just running from god i wasn't always on fire for god in fact there was a season in my life where i ran as hard and as fast as i could away from god and i was raised in church my whole life like every time the church doors were open every sunday morning every sunday night every wednesday night every prayer meeting every camp i my behind was in a church pew all right and um but the reality though is that as a young person i'm talking to every young person here for a moment you reach an age and you reach a moment where you have to decide whether you're going to continue serving god because it's what you've simply been taught to do or whether you're going to serve him because it's what you desire to do all right listen i heard someone say this one time it was good it was kind of like that pitiful or powerful quote you said i heard someone say this one time god doesn't have grandchildren come on your mama's faith and your daddy's faith in your grandma's faith is not enough to make you right with god we have a decision to make and parents we have to foster them to that moment where that decision is made right so here's the deal man when i was like 12 years old 12 years old i decided that i wanted to do what i wanted to do i'd heard all the gospel saying all the songs and man i began smoking weed popping prescription pills fast forward by the time i was 17 and a half i was sitting in jail facing 10 years in prison for armed robbery second-degree kidnapping i was a junkie i was a cocaine addict an ecstasy addict you name it i did it i was a broken young man i weighed 110 pounds and um and i'll never forget so many nights when i would come home and uh and i would sneak back in the house and i would lay i would be wasted out of my mind just plastered and i would lay down in my bed listen i remember some nights where i'd be in the middle of the night knocked out and i remember my mama coming in with a hand full of crisco oil and she would lay hands on me bro kobabo shot touch him lord straight up in the middle of the night no games [Applause] listen there's power in the oil y'all better stop playing with me but check this out but even more than those nights the nights that i remember even more than those were the nights i would be laying on my bed the room would be spinning and in the next room over i could hear my mom on her knees crying out to god lord if you don't touch this boy i know what you promised whenever he was in my womb lord you said that you have set him apart and you have appointed him as a prophet to the nations lord i need you to arrest his heart and i would hear my mom weeping and travailing and crying out for me can i tell you something every prayer we pray for our children for our grandchildren for our nieces and nephews they don't fall on the deaf ears of a distant god hears every prayer and guess what here's what's crazy that child you love so much god loves them even more and god desires to be found by your child god desires to be found by this generation we just have to do our part right we have to do our part so hey with every head bowed every eye closed i want to take just a few moments here before we release you guys and let you go forward to change the world and raise these world changers here's the deal earlier whenever we had communion you had an opportunity to say yes to salvation to say yes to the gospel of jesus and some of you responded in that moment and some of you maybe did not but i would not i would not be doing my due diligence as a pastor as a leader to walk off the stage without giving that opportunity one more time for someone who may be far from god to say yes to salvation the bible says that all of us are born with the sin sickness that separates us from god all right on our very best day on our very best behavior the bible says that that our our righteousness our own righteousness is like filthy rags it's a stench to the nostrils of a holy god that's the that's that's the truth that's the reality we deserve to be separated from god for eternity my friend but the beauty of the gospel is that god so loved a broken world full of broken jacked up people like you and like me that god sent his son jesus to earth he lived a sinless blameless life and he died a brutal death in our place why so that those of us who are once slaves to our sin and enemies of the cross in an instant can be transformed into sons and daughters of a beautiful king my friend how will you respond today i'm not going to ask you to raise your hand i'm not going to ask you to stand up or even come forward but i do want to lead you in a prayer and right where you're at right right where you're at here in this room or even online i want you to pray this prayer from the depths of a sincere heart and i know that according to the word of god as you pray the bible says that if we believe in our heart and confess with our mouths that we shall be saved so that's what we're going to do right now we're going to call on god and if you're here in this room and you know you need god i want you to pray this prayer with me it may sound something like this god it's me you know who i am i've made mistakes i'm not perfect in fact i've broken your heart and i've broken your law but today i realize and i believe that my life can change so jesus i thank you for dying in my place for raising from the dead and i know god that that you have the power to change me so jesus i accept your sacrifice from my sin lord i ask you into my life forgive me change my heart and change my mind holy spirit will you empower me from this day forward to live a life that brings honor and glory to your name i don't want to live the way i used to live i want to live a life that is different so god right now according to your word and by faith i believe i believe and i know today that i am saved lord thank you so much for loving me when i was unlovable and i will live the rest of my life bringing honor and glory to your name in the mighty matchless name of jesus we pray amen and amen come on can we give god a shout in this place [Music] amen now here's what i want to do i got just a quick minute here's what i want to do if you're in this room i feel the spirit of god's kind of impressing this so i mean if you're here and if you're a parent or even if you're not a parent but if you know of a child or a young person or a teenager it's just on your heart you've been thinking about that kid this whole message that they need to touch from god maybe they're running from god maybe they're confused about things if that's you i want you just to stand up on your feet uh just in the gap for them come on if you're a parent if you're raising a teenager you're raising a child or maybe you're a grandmama or an aunt or an uncle and we're going to pray right now for god to be faithful to his word because the bible says in the book of job that god will call forth our sons and daughters from the east from the west and from the north and south so can we just pray together right now on behalf of these young people come on let's pray together lord god we thank you for your promises lord we thank you lord that that that you and you created the institution of family and lord these young people these students these sons and daughters that we love so much god you love them even more so god right now we just pray lord god that you would convict and arrest their hearts for every wayward son for every wayward daughter that is running from you god i pray that in the same way you knocked saul off of that a horse or god on the road to damascus god i pray that you would do the same for every young person lord i pray god for every mother for every grandmother that has been crying in the midnight hour god i pray that their hearts lord god will be filled with peace knowing the truth lord god that you are already moving on behalf of that young person god lord we come against every lie of the enemy we come against every dysfunctional relationship we come against every distraction anything that would rob our children lord from walking in the imago day from walking in the fullness of the truth lord god that is in your word god we come against it right now lord we ask god that you would send the right people across their paths lord i pray lord that they would uh that every one of us would take advantage of the opportunities that we offer here at victory church joining small groups lord god serving on teams lord i pray lord that as we provide these resources god and as we take advantage of these resources lord we believe by faith lord god that the blind eyes of this generation will be open to see the marvelous deeds of a heavenly father lord god that dead things will come to life lord god that destiny would be reawakened in the hearts of our children lord lord we say let it be in the mighty miraculous name of jesus we pray amen and amen come on if you love him shout to the lord amen

Channel: VictoryATL

Views: 2,528

Rating: 4.8857141 out of 5

Keywords: Victory Church, Matt and Angel Rigsby, Natalie and Aaron Born, Curvine and Candace Brewington, what does the Bible say about family, how to raise children, biblical parenting, how to raise children to know God

Id: 4hFt3XY6Fyc

Length: 54min 46sec (3286 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021