Not as Easy as You Think!

C – CONFESS

Finishing up with the ABC’s let’s think about the confession Paul wrote about in the book of Romans. The verse inspiring the letter C in the well known “ABC’s” of becoming a Christian is Romans 10:9. This verse reads, “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in you heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (NASB). The requirement of confession in Romans 10:9 seems simple enough, really doesn’t appear to us to be anything terribly taxing. That is because for me and you it is no big deal to confess with our mouth, or acknowledge with our mouth, that Jesus Christ is Lord. Maybe you just read Matthew 16:24-25, “Then Jesus said to His disciples, if anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (NASB). And maybe those two verses got your stomach in a bit of a knot. That seems like a lot to ask; basically Jesus told the disciples they must give up everything to follow Him. Wow, can you do that? Do you want to do that? Now someone has popped in your life with a tract that says becoming a Christian is as easy as ABC. Admit-Believe-Confess, since I addressed Admit and Believe in earlier post, think about your reaction to Confess. Well you want to go to Heaven, but you’re not sure about the whole “deny” yourself thing. But "saying" something you can do. Yeah sure you’ll say it, there is no harm in that and it’s easy. Now granted you may get a few funny looks if you stood in the middle of the mall and yelled, “Jesus is Lord!” But funny looks never really hurt anyone.

But think about this for a moment, who was Paul writing to when he wrote this verse? Paul wrote the letter to the Romans in the year 58 AD. Paul was writing to the believers in Rome, many of whom may have seen or at least had firsthand knowledge of the torture inflicted by the Roman Government upon the Man they chose to follow. And this was a group of people who would very soon face major persecution ordered by Emperor Nero in 64 AD.  Early believers in Rome were executed because they confessed Jesus as their only Lord. Many of the people Paul was writing to would soon be executed by the Roman Government for their confession of Jesus Christ as their only Lord. Let that sink in and all of a sudden Romans 10:9 brings about that same knot in your stomach that Matthew 16:24-25 does. Wow, can you do that? Do you want to do that?

Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, Jesus

BELIEVE

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (NASB)

Children learn a lot. Children learn that two plus two is four, four plus four is eight and so on. Children learn that the color blue is blue and green is green. Children learn to capitalize the first letter in a sentence and to capitalize the first letter in someone’s name. They learn the difference between a mammal and an amphibian. And the majority of time these lessons are taught by just a handful of adults that are a part of a child’s life. So children begin to trust these adults for the most part (and by the way this is a huge responsibility). So when one of the significant adults in a child’s life tells them they need to “believe” in Jesus, that He is the Son of God, this is easy for them to accept. After all the significant adult was right about two plus two equaling four, so they must be right about Jesus being the Son of God.

So we simply ask a child to “believe” in Jesus, and when that child says they “believe” in Jesus then celebration breaks out and we declare another in the Kingdom. This is another reason our churches are full of adults who remember a time in their life they started “believing” in Jesus as a child, maybe shortly after they stopped “believing” in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. And these adults are lost, because an acknowledgement of Jesus does not necessarily result in salvation. What does result in salvation is when you trust Jesus.

Children cannot fully grasp the meaning of John 3:16 without careful explanation of what it means to believe. The Greek word that we have translated as believe is pisteuo, which in the NASB translation is used 93 times in the Gospel of John. Most recognized is the occurrence in John 3:16. Many people claiming to be a follower of Christ are making their claim based on hearing this one verse and maybe even intellectually acknowledging the truth that Jesus is the Son of God. However it means more than just intellectual assent to a fact; pisteuo means entrust. According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, pisteuo means to believe and entrust. Entrust as defined by Webster’s is “to turn over for safe keeping”. Now that sounds more like Biblical Salvation, turning your life over to Jesus Christ for safekeeping. Not always easy and not always what we see as safe, but in His hands we are safe even though we are among powers that are against us. Read Psalm 3.

   

So try this; read the entire Gospel of John and each time you see believe, read it as trust. “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever trusts in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life”. We will follow Jesus when we trust Jesus. So why not tell our children to trust Jesus? Don’t think we can “slide” them in the Kingdom with some quick “yes I believe”. Their belief in Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy was short lived, and without trust their belief in Jesus may be short lived.

ABCs - A

A

One of the most popular teaching methods used in Children’s Ministry today for presenting the Gospel to kids is the ABC’s of becoming a Christian. It associates the Gospel with the alphabet, Admit, Believe and Confess, seams simple enough! While there is truth in this, each step must be properly explained. Quickly and carelessly leading a kid through the ABCs of Becoming a Christian will produce nothing more than another confused lost child.

Admit you’re a sinner. To help a child understand that they have sinned we tell them to admit they have messed up. Which is not hard to do at all, as a matter of fact it is really easy to get a kid to admit they have messed up. They get moved from the green light to the yellow light school, or they pull a clothespin, or any other visual teaching tools that teachers use as part of their discipline procedures. At home they may have had their favorite toy taken away. Regardless of the consequence and regardless of the consistency, all children realize they mess up. They may not agree that their behavior is out of line, but they do realize their behavior does not always meet the expectation of an authority figure.

And have you noticed what entertains our society today? Boys today play video games that glorify a thief! The point of the game is to steal a car and drive it around, the character even looks cool. Our society puts athletes high on a pedestal, and when they mess up, they seem to only elevate higher. Have you ever heard the phrase, “bad publicity is still publicity”? An athlete messes up, says he’s sorry and continues to make millions. Girls look up to teenage stars that wear next to nothing, just turn the TV on tonight. Channels that play music videos I would be embarrassed to watch if my mother was in the room during the commercial break of a cartoon intended for a 6 year old.

That is what we are facing as Children’s Ministry Leaders and as Parents. Kids ask, “What’s so bad about being bad?” They see immorality glorified all throughout society. Again, just turn the TV on tonight. Go to iTunes and see what music is popular. It’s cool to be a sinner!

So our goal cannot be to get a child to Admit they are a sinner, they know. We have to get our children to realize what their sin does to them. They have to become Aware that their sin keeps them from having a special and intimate relationship with God. Teach them Genesis 3! 

3 Questions

There are three questions that you ask yourself every day, multiple times a day, over and over again. Question number one, where am I? Question number two, where do I need to be? Question number three, how do I get there?

Where are you? You woke up this morning and you immediately realized where you were. Well hopefully you immediately realized that, if not you need to address some things! But more than likely you woke up opened your eyes and you were in your bedroom. Call it an awareness of your location.

Where do you need to be? Take a typical weekday for example. If you’re like most you work during the week. So you wake up, become aware of your location and at some point your mind then switches to the awareness of where you need to be, at work. You do whatever you do to get ready for work, because you have an awareness of your need to be at work.

How do you get there? So you woke up, realized where you were and you have realized where you need to be. So now you are faced with the third question, how do you get there? Or you may ask yourself what is going to get you there?  You need to get from point A to point B. Most of the people I know, including myself, use a car. Some may use a bus or a cab and a few might walk. But most of us will rely on getting in something to get us to where we need to be.

This is a concept we can all get our minds around. Where are we? Where do we need to be? How do we get there? Even young children can understand this. School is getting ready to start back soon. My kids are going to wake up and realize where they are. With my help by the way, “wake up get out of bed”! They are going to realize where they need to be. With my help by the way, “get ready you have to go to school”! They are going to realize how to get there. With my help by the way, “let’s go, get IN the car”! If you have kids they may ride the bus and you say, “come on you have to catch the bus”! For the kids that ride a bus to school, they have an understanding that they must get IN the bus in order for it to take them to school.

The Gospel. Where are we? We are separated from an intimate and personal relationship with God because of our sin. Where do we need to be? We need to be in an intimate and personal relationship with God. How do we get there? We get there by getting IN Jesus Christ our Savior; 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made Him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him (Jesus) we might become the righteousness of God” NIV.

Repeat After Me

A lot of the experiences that are shaping my life right now have come from, and are coming from the time I spend serving Senior Adults. It is a Mission Field that truly has a part of my heart. I was doing a “ride along” with a Pastor last year; we were visiting some home-bound members of the church. As we sat and visited with a church member we also were visiting with a daytime care-giver who was sitting with her that day. The care-giver was sharing with us her testimony. At the age of nine she went forward at the invitation of a Sunday Morning Service. She felt the need to go to the Pastor as he gave the invitation for anyone who was not certain of their salvation to come forward. So she stepped out and walked down the aisle. The Pastor greeted her and asked her if she wanted to be saved. She said yes. So the Pastor instructed her to say a prayer, and to say a specific prayer, just as he said it. It was simple, “repeat after me” he said to her. So she did, word for word just like he said it. She didn’t share with us the exact words. He sat her down on the front pew, more than likely her parents had come down by this time. After the invitation was over, the Pastor proudly introduced to the church a new Sister in Christ.  Everyone rejoiced. She said she got a lot of hugs that morning. She paused for a bit, obviously troubled by something. Then she said, “I was saved by the grace of God three years ago”. She was sixty-five when she shared this with us. She had lived with doubt and confusion almost her entire life, from nine to sixty-two. Many times she would try to convince herself she was saved. The Pastor had told her she was saved, surely she was saved she told herself. At the age of sixty-two she finally admitted to herself that she had only repeated words that Sunday Morning, she had not experienced salvation.

Today churches across America are filled with lost people who said a prayer when they were a kid. Now I’m NOT saying that everyone who was lead in a prayer as a kid is lost, THAT IS NOT WHAT I AM SAYING. What I am saying is this; our goal cannot be to get a child to repeat a prayer! It is my fear that many people leading children in America’s churches today have put too much focus on getting a child to repeat a prayer. And by doing this they don’t put their focus on teaching kids the truth of the Bible. It must be our goal to teach children all we can about God, who He is and what He requires from us. It must be our goal to teach children who Jesus Christ is and why we need Him. As desperately as we want to see all the children in our Ministries saved, we can’t take God out of the equation!

Introduction

On November 9, 2008 I went before my local church making public that I had answered God’s call for my life to be in full-time Gospel Ministry. I was thirty-three years old. Immediately I began to throw myself full throttle into this journey, wanting to get started a quickly as I could. For some reason I completely lost all my patience. Understand, I am my worst critic and I immediately started to think I had to “catch-up”. I began to compare myself to others I know already in Ministry, many of whom had answered God’s call on their lives at a much earlier age. I was overcome with an urgency to make up for what I saw as wasted years.

I began an official internship in August 2009 at Chilhowee Hills Baptist Church. Within my urgency I was constantly analyzing every aspect of my time as an intern. I was trying to understand EXACTLY what God’s plan for me was, I had to know now so I wouldn't waste any more of my life. I jumped at every opportunity before me; looking for clues that would show me what I was suppose to do. I spent time working with Children, especially during VBS and I loved it! I also spent a lot of time with Young Adult Singles as their Bible Fellowship Teacher and I loved it! And in addition to these two areas I spent a lot of time experiencing ministry with Senior Adults. Oh yeah, and I loved that too! All this was going on at the same time, so understandably I was a little confused as to which path I was being led down. However as my internship was getting closer to the one year mark I get a phone call that cleared everything right up; well almost everything.

The phone call came from my Supervising Pastor at Chilhowee Hills. He called to ask me to come by his office so we could discuss the possibility of me taking the position of Children’s Pastor at Chilhowee Hills. All of a sudden it was like pieces of a puzzle began to fall into place. And here I am now; currently the Children’s Pastor at Chilhowee Hills Baptist Church and this is my blog. I will shed light as I go along as to what some of the “puzzle pieces” are and how God has developed and is developing some core values of my ministry. I still have feelings of urgency, just a different kind of urgency. I feel an urgency to address how the Gospel is presented to kids. I feel an urgency in how we disciple kids who have responded to the Gospel. So as God directs and leads I will share with you some of my journey in this blog, Kidz Move.

Kidz Move because it is ultimately the Kid’s move to make.