Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

This is the second message in a series called Letters to Brock. In this series, I’m writing letters to our new son, Brock. I’m writing them as open letters so I can share them with you and then spend some time exploring the truth behind the letters that I’ve written.

Last week, we talked about parental instruction and discipline. We explored how you have to have both discipline and instruction. If you have one and not the other, you’re in for some big-time problems. If you missed that message, you need to check it out on our website, ameliachurchofchrist.com, because we explored some critical truths that all parents need to understand.

We also talked about the importance of parental presence in the lives of the kids. More and more children are growing up without one or both of their parents. Nothing replaces your presence and our kids need to know that we will never leave them. Parents, did you do something this week to tell your kids that you are never leaving them? If not, what are you waiting for?

Parents have to be present in the lives of their children if they’re teaching is going to take hold. But what exactly are we supposed to be teaching? Today in my second letter to Brock, we’ll explore the foundational teaching that every Christ-following parent needs to be passing along to their children.

Let’s pray and then I’ll read letter #2.

Dear Brock,

You’re now three weeks old as I write this letter. You’re three weeks old and you’ve already experienced two different calendar years. 2007 came to a close this week and 2008 has now begun.

Your life has begun at a fascinating time in human history. For example, I grew up in a house without a computer. I didn’t even know what the Internet was until I was in college. By comparison, your brother, Ryan, is already quite good at manipulating a computer mouse at 3 years old. I was in my 20’s before I knew that a mouse wasn’t just an animal you caught in a cheese-baited trap. It fascinates me to know that you will never know life without these things.

It is also a troubling time in history. We are a nation at war. There are terrorists who want to worship their god by killing us. You will never know life pre-9-11. It breaks my heart to think that you may always live under the threat of terrorism and war.

There is also a more subtle threat that you will have to contend with in your life. It is a threat that is not going to go away. In fact, it is a threat that Christ-followers have always had to deal with, no matter what day, or year, or century it was. That threat is the attack on truth.

There is a great move in our culture toward relativism. Truth is whatever you want truth to be. It is not absolute. Rather, it is based upon how you feel about something. You get to decide what is true for you. It is something that you will be taught in school, you will see on TV, and you will hear in day-to-day conversation.

This thinking stands in direct opposition to God’s Word, which clearly teaches that truth is found in God and in his principles. Your job as a disciple of Jesus is to be engaged in this cultural conversation. Your job is not to run and hide, as some Christians do. It is not to constantly argue and fight, as other Christians do. Your job is to be an influencer instead of being influenced.

Do not buy the lie of relativism. Build your life and your faith on the rock solid, never changing truth of God. It may cost you dearly. It may cost you relationships. It may bring you unwarranted criticism and persecution. But whatever the cost, the truth is worth it.

Love,

Dad

The central verse for this series is Proverbs 22:6. “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” (NIV)

As I told you last week, the priority of my life is discipling my sons. I am determined not to fail my two boys. I am committed to putting in the time, the effort, and the work to train them in the way they should go. My dream is for them to cultivate a faith that will last a lifetime. If that is not the dream of every Christian parent, then something has gone very wrong somewhere along the line.

For us to realize this dream in our kids, we’ve got to hit on this idea of truth again, and again, and again. They are getting bombarded with lessons from our culture that truth doesn’t exist. Truth is a very personal thing where they get to decide what is right and wrong, what is true and untrue.

The foundation of our faith is the existence of absolute truth. It is found in God and in his Word. If that foundation of our faith is removed, everything else becomes nothing more than a house of cards. We will see our children’s faith crumble right around them.

I don’t know any Christian parent who wants to see this happen in their children’s lives. But the problem is that there are too many parents who take a very hands-off approach to talking about faith issues with their kids. Maybe they rely on the church to teach their kids everything they need to know about faith. Parents, do you realize that you’re relying on an hour or two a week to combat what your kids are bombarded with everyday? Do the math. It’s simply not going to work. It is not the church’s job to be the primary teacher and discipler your kids. It is your job. As their dad and as their mom, it is your responsibility to be your child’s primary spiritual leader. And if you’re going to get into the game on this, then you’re going to have to constantly teach your children on this issue of truth.

Our focus text today comes from Galatians 1. This book was written by the Apostle Paul to the church in Galatia. In every other New Testament letter that Paul wrote, he opens up with thanksgiving. In every other letter, he tells the churches that he is thankful for them and for their faith. That is not how he opens his letter to the Galatians. Instead, listen to what Paul has to say to them right out of the gate.

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!

Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:6-10, NIV)

There is no thanksgiving love here like in the opening of Paul’s other letters. Instead, Paul just immediately blurts out, “I am astonished…” (Galatians 1:6a, NIV)

Most scholars believe that Paul had been in Galatia teaching and preaching just a few months earlier. In just a few months, the Galatian believers had left his teaching in favor of the teaching of another group called the Judaizers.

The Judaizers were teaching that Jesus’ death and resurrection aren’t enough to save someone. Instead, they need to become Jews, observing circumcision, special feasts and festivals, and all the other Old Testament Jewish laws.

Paul simply preached the truth: that Jesus is enough. We are saved only because he died for our sins and not because of anything we can do, like being circumcised, only eating certain foods, or anything else. We cannot earn our salvation. It comes only through the grace of God.

In possibly a matter of months, the Galatians had left this truth and started to believe that they needed to earn their salvation. And Paul looks at them like a grieving parent would look at a wayward child. He’s astonished at their rejection of the truth. The Galatians had left the truth of God in order to follow the direction of their culture.

If we don’t want to see our children do the same thing, then we need to listen to Paul’s words in Galatians 1 and pass these lessons on to our kids.

The first thing that Paul wants us to understand is that truth matters. In a culture that belittles the importance of truth and belies the existence of truth, we’ve got to communicate clearly to our kids that truth not only exists, but that truth matters more than you can imagine.

Look at what Paul wrote to the Galatians. “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all.” (Galatians 1:6-7a, NIV)

The Galatians had left the gospel, or the good news, of Jesus and had turned to another gospel. But here’s the deal…what they turned to was actually “no gospel at all.”

Truth matters because when we leave the truth, we inevitably wind up in the same place…nowhere.

When I was a youth minister, I had a girl in my youth group that we’ll call Sarah. Sarah was a highly intelligent girl. She was easily valedictorian material. Not only was she intelligent, she was also incredibly artistic. She painted incredible backdrops that we used in our student ministry. A lot of people would kill for her giftedness, academically and artistically.

But Sarah had a secret. She used to cut herself. She finally opened up and shared this with our youth group at a Christ In Youth conference. There were a lot of tears and pain that came out as she talked, but it also seemed to be a healing experience for her. She listened as I told her that she was a princess of God. She was worth far more than she could ever fathom. She not only heard that truth…she believed it. Someone who is worth as much as a princess is would never have to resort to cutting herself. She said so herself.

A couple of years later, Sarah’s small group leader started noticing that Sarah was wearing nothing but long-sleeve shirts and long pants, even in the middle of summer. Not only that, but Sarah’s demeanor had changed. The smile was gone. Her attendance in our student ministry started wavering. She was backpedaling into her reclusive lifestyle.

A little investigation revealed why…Sarah had started cutting herself again. We talked with her. Prayed with her. No change. The situation finally ended up in my office. It was Sarah, her small group leader, and me. We told Sarah that we couldn’t stand by and do nothing. Either she was going to have to tell her parents or we were going to do it for her. Sarah protested loud and long. Finally, she left my office and I sat and watched her small group leader place a very emotional phone call to Sarah’s mom, who did not realize what her daughter was doing.

It was a heart-wrenching experience, start to finish. But when you peel back all the layers and you get at the core of why it happened, you can sum it up in one sentence: Sarah left the truth for a lie.

Paul said that the Galatians had left the truth for another gospel which was no gospel at all. When we leave the truth in favor of whatever lie our culture is selling, we wind up in the same place with the same thing: we wind up nowhere with nothing.

Sarah quit believing the truth that she was significant. She mattered to God. She was a princess of the King. Instead, she believed our culture’s lies, which told her that she wasn’t thin enough, pretty enough, popular enough, etc. And the result is that she felt worthless, and those feelings of worthlessness led her to go back to the razor blade that she kept hidden in her bedroom.

Think about the lies that our culture is primed and ready to sell to our kids.

If you don’t look a certain way, you’re worthless.

Intelligent people believe in science; fools believe in God.

To say that one faith is superior to another is bigoted and intolerant.

No one has any right to tell you that you’re wrong. If it’s right for you, then it’s right…period.

The only thing that matters is your pleasure. If it feels good, it can’t be wrong.

Money, fame, prestige…those are the things that matter. If you achieve those things, life is going to be sweet. Yep, just look at Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, Britney Spears, and Michael Vick. They’ve achieved money and fame and their lives are really coming together, aren’t they?

These cultural lies come in such shiny, glittery packages that it can be tough for our children to see through them. That’s where solid, consistent parental teaching comes into play. Studies have proven time and again that the most influential people in a child’s life are still their parents. Even in the midst of peer pressure, even in a culture that is completely saturated by media, parents are still the heavyweights when it comes to teaching and influencing children. You are on the frontlines of the battle for your children’s life and soul. Are you teaching them by what you say and how you live that truth really does matter?

And then, Paul gives us a second lesson that we have to pass on to our kids. Truth matters, but truth will cost you. If you live your life believing that truth matters, it will cost you something. It’s inevitable.

Look at what Paul said in our passage. He has just confronted the Galatian people about how quickly they had left the truth for a lie. But his bold stand for God’s truth came with a price tag.

Paul wrote in verse 10, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10, NIV)

Paul sets up a choice that we all have to make. Will I please men or will I please God? Leaving the truth and taking our cues from our culture will win us the approval of people. It’ll make us popular. We’ll be well-liked. Everyone will want to be our friend. It can be a pretty attractive offer.

Taking a stand for the truth in opposition to cultural pressure can have a vastly different effect. Paul says clearly that serving Christ will upset people. Taking a stand for the truth will offend people. Sometimes that rejection will come from people outside the church. Sometimes it will, unfortunately, come from people inside the church. Taking a stand for what is true is not often a popular thing to do, inside or outside of the church.

But the point remains the same. Sometimes you have to make a decision between pleasing people or pleasing God. Here is the message that I will teach my boys as they grow up. When you have to make a decision between pleasing people or pleasing God, choose God every single time. But understand that this choice will cost you.

In the book of Philippians, Paul wrote, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.” (Philippians 3:8, NIV)

Taking a stand for truth meant that Paul lost everything. He lost his social position, his financial security, his comfort, his safety, his physical well-being, and ultimately his life. He lost it all because he stood for the truth.

When you hold firmly to the truth, it will cost you. Which is exactly why so many people leave the truth behind. They see the cost as just too high.

If you’ve been following Jesus for any length of time, then you should be able to do a little life-inventory and see some things that your faith has cost you. A faith that costs us nothing is really never pictured in the Bible. The Bible consistently reminds us that following Jesus comes with a cost.

I’ve seen Jesus cost people relationships. I’ve even seen Jesus divide families. In fact, Jesus promised that he would do this.

Jesus said, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.' (Matthew 10:32-36, NIV)

That’s not usually the way we think of Jesus. We like to believe that Jesus is a guy that just brings people together. But in actuality, it often works in the exact opposite way. The truth of Jesus divides. With apologies to Al Gore, this is the real “inconvenient truth.” The plain fact is that it can cost a lot to follow Christ.

It’s crazy what I’ve seen Jesus take away from people in their lives. I’ve seen Jesus cost people jobs. (In fact, that actually happened to me.) I’ve even seen Jesus cost a bride the maid-of-honor at her wedding. You think I’m lying. That’s no joke.

I’ve seen Jesus take away people’s security, comfort, and convenience. He takes away people’s plans and replaces them with his own plans. He takes away people’s dreams, replacing them with his own dreams. All because that person decided to stand for the truth and then endure the cost of that decision.

What has Jesus cost you? As parents, we’ve got to arm our kids with the knowledge that truly living for Jesus will cost them dearly. But that’s impossible to do if we’ve never experienced it for ourselves. If we’re living with such a namby-pamby, wishy-washy faith that it’s never cost us anything at all, we’re not even close to living out the faith that God has called us to. If there hasn’t been a point where Jesus has ruined your life, it calls into question how much you’ve really allowed him to be a part of your life.

We often like to see our faith as something that serves us. The church exists to please us. To cater to our every want and whim. If the preacher says something that upsets me, then he is automatically wrong. The leadership makes a decision I disapprove of, they are unquestionably off base. Why? Because it’s all about me. My comfort, my convenience, that’s what I’m after.

But wait a minute…when you see the faith picture that God paints for us in his word, it’s not something that is convenient, but costly. It isn’t about satisfaction; it’s about sacrifice.

If we want to raise our kids to have a faith with some serious staying power, then we’ve got to teach them that truth matters, but at the very same time, truth will cost them.

But ultimately, truth is worth it. Living for Jesus may cost us dearly, but even so, the cost of living apart from the truth is far greater.

Let’s go back to verse 7 of our text from Galatians. “Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.” (Galatians 1:7, NIV)

Paul tells us the result of leaving the truth of God for a cultural lie. The result is confusion. It is chaos. Because when you remove truth from the equation, you take away the very foundation that our lives are built upon.

Jesus said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.

But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matthew 7:24-27, NIV)

Whatever following Jesus costs you, the cost of not following him is far great. The result of leaving the truth is confusion. It leads to a life that is chaotic, like living in a house with a sand foundation in the midst of a hurricane. Sooner or later, it will all come crashing down because you took away the foundation that it was built upon.

We all want our kids to have a solid foundation in their lives. It comes from carefully teaching them that truth matters. Even though truth may cost you relationships, security, or even more, it is a price worth paying. Truth is worth the cost because it is the only thing that will endure during the strongest storms in life.

Romans 1:25 simply says, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie…” (NIV) Everyday our kids are targeted with this goal. They are bombarded with lies, in hopes that they will leave the truth of God in exchange for the lies. As parents, we can’t afford to allow our culture to disciple our children. Our homes have to be centered on truth. Truth must be taught. Truth must be lived out. The stakes are too high to do anything else.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: Letters to Brock, parenting, relativism, tolerance, truth