Matt Chandler - Time

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those. We’re going to be in Deuteronomy chapter 6. So while you’re turning there, let me speak to our first through fifth graders. If you are one of our first through fifth graders, here’s what I would love for you to do: will you stand up so I can see you? In fact, because of the lights, if you’re on the floor, stand up in your chair. I don’t know if Mom and Dad usually go for that, but I want to give you permission just for a moment before I turn you back over to their authority. If you’re bummed out that you sat in the bleachers and you want to stand on the chair, and your parents will brace you (and we will not be liable for you falling), then you can stand in your chair. I just don’t want your first memory of church to be a broken clavicle. So I am thinking of you. Hey, guys, welcome to Big Church! All right, we love that you are here! All right, go ahead and have a seat.

Mom and Dad, let’s chat for a second. I know they are in here, and what I mean by that is I am well aware that this will be a more wiggly service than normal. I am sure that we will hear things that we don’t hear every weekend, and I want you to parent lights out, but I also don’t want you to feel any pressure that your kids' behavior over the next 35 minutes is somehow an indictment on your character. Okay, so breathe, and let’s enjoy the Word of God together as a family. Kids, you bring something to us, both as moms and dads as well as the church, that we desperately need. You’re not going to understand this quote, but your parents will. It’s one of my favorite quotes ever. It’s from a man named G.K. Chesterton, and here’s what he wrote in his book *Orthodoxy*: «Because children have abounding vitality, and all the parents said, 'Because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, 'Do it again, ' and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exalt in monotony, but perhaps God is strong enough to exalt in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again, ' to the sun, and every evening, 'Do it again, ' to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy, for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.» Isn’t that a great quote? It frames God in a way that we don’t tend to frame Him. It frames God as being joyful, exuberant, and happy-hearted, and if we’re honest, most of us adults think that He’s disappointed, a bit grumpy, and somewhat frustrated with us, but He is really hopeful that one day we will be different. And yet, Chesterton writes, «No, no, no! What if wonderment belongs to the Lord, and the wonderment of our children is there to remind us that God is a God of wonderment Himself?» I love that quote!

We’ve been talking about family discipleship. In fact, last week out of Deuteronomy 6, we kind of did what’s called the exegetical work of those verses where we went line by line through it and explained it. Then I said what we were going to do moving forward is frame family discipleship like this: we’re going to talk about time, moments, and milestones—and that was going to be the grid by which we talked about making disciples within the family unit. We said a quick word to singles: you’re a part of the household of faith, and we need you at The Village Church. We need you to engage and interact with the family unit and with our kids. Personally, I love the single men and women who are woven into the fabric of the Chandler family. They love our kids, speak life into our kids, and point our kids to Jesus. Our kids are convinced that they are cooler than we are. Now, we know they are not, but our kids, for whatever reason, think that they are, and so praise God for that! Let them also point our children to Jesus.

So we are going to spend our time today talking about family discipleship and time. Let me define time. When I say time, let me just define it for you: when we talk about family discipleship time, we’re talking about creating intentional time built into the rhythm of the family’s life for the purpose of thinking about, talking about, and living out the gospel. That’s what we’re talking about—intentionality around the rhythms that already exist. Last week, we read what’s called the Shema; it was how the Jews, or God’s people in the Old Testament, understood how God educated. Here’s what it says if you have your Bible: Deuteronomy 6, starting in verse 4. «Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and…