This is a recording of a teaching on Choices and Consequences from Genesis 9:18-29. Here is the basic outline:
1. Doing what is right brings good and doing what is wrong brings trouble.
2. Our choices affect others.
3. Our choices affect our freedom.
Here is a recording of a teaching I gave at Highland Christian Fellowship last Sunday, Jan 3, 2016, on Genesis 12:10-20. Abram decided to hatch his own plan for avoiding trouble instead of trusting God. Not a good idea.
A couple of years ago Spotify entered my children’s lives. Until then they basically only had access to my own music collection. Spotify opened the door to ANY kind of music, no filters. As they followed their friend’s playlists and explored on their own, they have listened to plenty of music that I believe is not contributing positively to their spiritual health.
So, what should I do? A quick and common answer is, “Don’t let them listen to non-Christian music.” Let me explain why I don’t think this is the best answer.
Our goal as parents is to help our children live a life of faith in Christ. Faith is a personal choice that must be made by each individual. We cannot make it for them. I believe my children will encounter worldly music, as well as many other worldly realities, no matter how hard I try to keep them from it. So a much more realistic and helpful strategy is to teach my children how to make wise choices.
“But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
If I shield my children from all evil, how will they be “trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil?”
Faith requires freedom. But the goal is faith, not freedom. Our culture defines freedom as the ability to do whatever one wants. It is true that freedom includes our ability to choose between right and wrong. However, the freedom to make this choice does not legitimize the wrong choice. True freedom, the freedom Jesus Christ gives us, is the freedom to say no to sin and yes to righteousness. I have seen plenty of Christians escape legalism only to fall into immorality. Parents cannot teach and give their children freedom without teaching them how to make right choices.
So, I did not shut down Spotify. Instead, I sat down with my three teenagers and had a talk. First we read Col 2:8 and 2 Cor 10:3-5. I explained that the location of the spiritual battle is primarily in the mind and the essence of the battle is in ideas. We are in danger of captivity and deception from the philosophy of the world, arguments and ideas that are contrary to God. We commonly misunderstand the spiritual battle to be one of power. The spiritual battle is primarily a battle of truth. Satan’s strategy is to deceive us. Once we have the truth, by faith we have all the power we need!
I then asked my children to consider how much more powerful words and ideas are when they are set to music! I encouraged them to fast temporarily from any music that wasn’t explicitly God honoring, in order to raise their awareness and observe how this choice affects them. I taught them that it is their responsibility to ruthlessly analyze the presuppositions, claims, and imperatives they hear in any music they listen to. To do this, it is usually necessary to read the lyrics. If they have done this and still want to listen to a song that does not explicitly honor the Lord, then I have asked them to submit that song to me for evaluation and discussion. This will provide many opportunities to teach them biblical, critical thinking. These are opportunities to train their powers of discernment.
At some point, they will demonstrate their ability to do this on their own. This is the goal! We do not want to release individuals who are trained by rules and seclusion. Neither do we want to release adults who have freedom but no discernment. We want to release them with passionate, wise hearts for Christ. While I do have some carefully selected non-Christian music in my personal library, I believe that as our love for the Lord grows, our hunger for music that draws us to him will also grow.
“When you said, ‘Seek my face.”
My heart said to you, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.””
Would you say that you have an intimate relationship with God? It is amazing to consider that this is what God wants with us!
Please listen to this recording of a message about how to have intimacy with God from Psalm 27:4, 8-9, given at Highland Christian Fellowship on Dec 20, 2015.
God call us to have intimate fellowship with him.
1. We can enjoy intimacy with God through singular focus.
2. We can enjoy intimacy with God by having a pure of heart.
The challenge of memorizing Scripture is not just memorizing it the first time, but remembering it after that. I have spent much time memorizing large portions of Scripture that I did not review and therefore could not remember months later. To remedy this, I use a Scripture Memory Review System.
“I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You.”
Memorizing Scripture is challenging. It is often challenging because, as a culture, we are not in the habit of memorizing. However, the more you do it (and the earlier you teach your children to learn it), the more accustomed our minds will become to it. Don’t quit because it is hard at first; keep training your memory muscle and it will become stronger.
Memorizing Scripture and using a review system also takes time. Is it worth it?
Here is David’s conclusion about the words of the Lord,
“More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned; In keeping them there is great reward!”
Psalm 19:10-11
I have written out in detail how I memorize Scripture and the system and charts I use for reviewing what I've memorized, if you would like to use it.
This is an interesting warning from Paul to Timothy:
"Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers." (1 Tim 4:16)
Most of us are pretty confident that we know how to be saved. Let us be watchful and make sure that we have a biblical understanding of how God offers us salvation from judgment.
Genesis 6:8-7:5 conveys the story of how Noah and his family were saved from the judgment of the flood. Today God offers salvation from judgment through Jesus Christ! How does God offer salvation from judgment? In this passage there are four descriptions of the coming of salvation from judgment.
Before I began this teaching, I showed a brief video of Ken Ham discussing Noah and the ark. You can view it here.
I had a gigantic pile of stuff on the couch in my office earlier this week. Where did it come from? I unloaded all the stuff in my office into one place. I emptied every drawer, cabinet, cubby hole, closet, and shelf (except for all my books)! I was following the advice of David Allen in his book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Allen claims that being a productive person means being an organized person. One important step to being organized is to collect and process all the clutter and loose ends in your life.
The collection step is just as I've stated, just dump everything you've got into one place. Don't organize anything yet (unless you already know it is trash), just collect into one location. Then you enter process mode. Allen provides a processing workflow diagram to help you decide what you are going to do with each item. His diagram is especially suited for ideas, paper, and tasks. But even objects need to be trashed or organized and placed in an effective location.
Of course, even after you have collected and processed all your loose ends, if you do not have an effective system for processing all future "stuff" (and work it!), you will end up right back where you started. I recommend you read the book to find out how to do it.
Did God really destroy ALL the people on the earth except Noah and his family?! Would a loving God do that? Did they deserve it? Listen to this teaching on Gen 6:1-7 to discover how to understand God's heart for his creation, our purpose and freedom, and his judgment.
