Raising a Modern Day Joseph

Luke chapter 15 verse 11, Jesus says, a man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me. So he divided his wealth between them, and not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living. Now when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished, so he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him. But when he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread? But I am dying here with hunger. I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men. So he got up and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said to his slaves quickly, Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet, and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and has been found, and they began to celebrate. Well, we are extremely happy to have in our service, this morning, Larry and Diane, Fowler.

And he's going to be opening up God's word to us. this morning, Larry serves as the executive director of global training for the Ministry of Iana. which is an international organization that is committed to raising up a generation of young people that are committed to knowing and loving and And serving Jesus Christ with with their lives. We have our own little Awana ministry here at Cornerstone, and I think we do well to remember that this ministry is a, it's a big ministry that has a global scope.

I believe over 20,000 churches across the planet are having an Ina program and over 1.5 million children. every week are participating in the Ina program, just learning Bible verses and being taught, the word of God. And, Larry is instrumental in the spread of this ministry, on a global scale beyond, this country. In fact, a number of years ago, my understanding is Larry was involved in getting, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, getting Ina into, what we now know as modern day Russia, and there's over 100 churches now that, that are using the, Ana program.

So you'll be hearing a little bit from Larry this morning, just how God is using this ministry and, and expanding the, the reach of this biblical, ministry. but I, before he comes up, I wanna just give you a few interesting facts about Larry, OK? You interested? OK.

he's authored two books, Raising Rock Soid Kids and more recently, Raising a Modern Day Joseph, a book that, we, would assume that many will be interested in after, this morning, and we're going to order those and have those in our information booth, next week. He's really committed to, helping parents. to raise their children to know and to love Jesus. Also, you'll be interested to know that, Larry used to serve as a youth pastor at, at the church just across the street from here.

It's the Reformed Baptist Church, but it used to be Riverside Bible Church, and he served as a youth pastor there for about 5 years. And during that time, he had one young person, well, he had a number of young people in his group, but one of the young people that he had in his group. was a kid named Paul Kumamoto. our own youth, pastor, and Larry was telling me that, Kumi was the first young person saved, under his ministry.

So, what a thrill and so anyone that's been blessed by Kumi's, ministry directly or indirectly have been impacted through the ministry of our brother Larry Fowler. Also, Cornerstone. used to support, Larry and Diane Fowler when they served as Hawana missionaries in the Los Angeles area and then in 1996, the Lord called them. to Chicago where he took on the role that he is presently serving in, now, but we're gonna fix that even though they do not need our financial support.

the elders have already decided that we want to put their names back on the list of missionaries that we are supporting and, and praying for so that we can keep, his ministry before our people. also, one other interesting fact about Larry is he is married to Diane. married her in 1973 and Diane is the daughter of our very own Ed and Leah Lindsay. So, a lot of connections, here, and Larry is, and Diane are in town this weekend and he's going to be speaking at a conference in Santa Clarita, over the next few days, but they are in our service this morning and I cannot think of anyone better to speak to us.

this weekend than our brother Larry Fowler. So let's all give him a warm cornerstone welcome. Well, yes, it is like coming home to be to be here. Diane and I were married just across the street in that little church as well, so we have so many, so many connections here.

Pastor Milton asked me to share a little bit just about Iwaoscope around the world, and let me do that in just a minute or two, and then we're going to get right to the subject at hand. I really want to share with you this morning. Ina is celebrating this next year's 60th anniversary, and Diane and I have had the privilege of being a part of Iwana for 30 years, half of that time, but Ina is 60 years old as an organization, and when an organization gets that old, many times it begins to struggle with who are we and where are we going, but God has greatly blessed, and the last two years have been the two greatest years of growth ever in the history of Iana.

And God is opening up doors, especially internationally, but growth is still happening here in the United States as well.

In fact, We have gone from 200 churches. We measure churches using the Awana ministry. We're really about reaching kids, but our way of measurement is churches. We had 200 churches in India just about 2.5 years ago and just, just a couple weeks ago we passed the 2000 mark.

We've gone from 200 to 2000 in just a little over two years. In Nepal we've gone from 50 to 700. In the same period of time, there's similar growth in Africa. I was just down in Brazil and in Ecuador two weeks ago, and especially in the city of Guayaquil in Ecuador we have 20 churches using the Iguana ministry, but we went down there and did one presentation and 26 more signed up immediately to start and I heard a great story and I'll tell you this story, and then this will be my Ijuana report for this morning, but There was one of the one of the people that is like the Awana commander.

You have an Awana commander here and Iwana commander there was telling about his club and what God had been doing. His church is on an island just off the coast, a small island, and he said that a pastor had wanted to plant a church on that island and wanted to use children's ministry as a means of planning a church. So that's what they did. said the kids were so out of control that the parents didn't want to send their kids to the Iana program because they thought that they would mess it up since they didn't, they were so undisciplined, but eventually they got the kids to come.

And to make a long story short, the kids became better behaved, and they listened and they heard the gospel and they trusted Christ and they were saved and their lives were changed and the parents noticed the change and the parents became saved and the parents began to join the church and the church began to grow and then the funny little twist to the end of this story was that on this island there had really never been an opportunity for the for parents or for people to get married.

And all of these parents of these Iwana kids had never been married, so the church performed a mass wedding ceremony and married 22 couples all at once in order to, in order to be obedient to that to that commitment. So God just continues to bless and grow. Now what I want to share with you this morning, I want to share to parents.

I'm going to speak this morning to parents. If you're not a parent, I ask that you don't turn me out, tune me out, but I ask that you think about it from the perspective of either you will be, or you're an aunt or an uncle, or you're a grandparent, or you're a kid of a parent, whoever you are, is in some way you're related to a parent. And what I want to share with you this morning though has to do specifically with Christian parents. And so I'd like to ask once again, let's just pray before we start, and we're going to talk about that.

Heavenly Father. I pray that as we talk about such an important issue that's facing the churches in America that Father, you might just open up the hearts of each one here. We pray that you minister to me and through me this morning we pray that we can honor you by what we talk about and by the things that we think, and I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

I want to begin with a question. What do you think is the most difficult moment of parenting? I don't mean season. moment, the single most difficult moment of parenting.

Some of you that are parents can think about that. What's been your most difficult moment? Well, let me tell you what I think it is. I think it's when you release control with all 10 fingers.

what when you have a little baby. And, and, and a newborn, you have complete control of it. You have to. And so you feed it, you change it, and you do everything.

You put it to sleep and you have complete control. And then comes the time where you begin to let go with a finger or two, like the first time they go off to school or the first time you leave them in the church nursery and then maybe you only have control with like 9 fingers because they're a little bit out of your control. Now some of you parents maybe remember the time when your when your child turned 16 and your child took the car and drove out of the driveway for the first time.

Now let me tell you, the kid was excited, but mom and dad were nervous and scared because here, here goes son or daughter out to drive, and now you've let go of some more of control.

But then there comes a time where control ends. Now throughout life you continue to have influence as a parent, but there comes a time where control ends. For many parents it's a drive back home from the college dormitory or from the military bus depot, or it's a time where they finally move that last little bit of clothing out of their bedroom and the bedroom will never be the same again. Those are difficult moments.

I remember when we left our son. We were living in Chicago and we left our son out here to attend college in Simi Valley and I made the drive from Simi Valley to LA airport and I cried all the way because I knew that a chapter of life was done and it would never return again. Let me tell you, that's a difficult moment. There are two dads in the Bible that had that most difficult moment.

I'm going to do a lot of looking at Scripture, but I'm going to put it up on the screen and let you just stay with me by looking there. But here's one dad that had the most difficult moment. It was the father of the Old Testament, Joseph, Jacob. And here's what we read about his most difficult moment.

Then Jacob tore his clothes, and he put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. No, he said, in mourning will I go down to the grave to my son. So his father wept for him.

I think if you had asked Jacob later on in life what was your most difficult moment, he would have pointed to this one. He would have said that was it. Now we know that the brothers had given a false report to their dad, that they had actually sold Joseph into slavery, but they had lied and they told their dad that Joseph was killed by a wild animal. And, and for Joseph, for Jacob, I believe that that news that Joseph had been killed was his most difficult moment.

Some parents have a difficult moment like that. I think of Diane and I's good friends Bob and Lee who lived down in Buena Park. Bob and Lee, after an Easter Sunday morning, went to a family gathering, and Bob arrived late. Lee and Lee is a lady, Leah and the 3 boys had gotten to the family home early.

The adults had started hiding Easter eggs out in the front yard. The kids were playing in the house, and Bob arrived late and he went through the front yard through the house and went to the backyard and sat by a pool because everybody else was busy. And as Bob was sitting by the pool in the backyard, he didn't notice because he was reading the newspaper that his little 3 year old son came in the backyard to play, and it was spring. The pool cover was still on the pool, and he didn't notice that.

His son lost the matchbox car and it slipped underneath the pool cover and he didn't notice his son reach for the matchbox car and he didn't notice his son fall into the pool. And Bob's little boy, little 3-year-old boy, drowned about 20 ft away while he was sitting right beside the pool, and Bob didn't know it. I'll tell you, when Bob got the news or when he understood what had happened to his son, that was Bob's most difficult moment. And if you ask him today, and I have, he would say that was life's most difficult moment.

If you and your family have had a child hurt in a deep way, or you lost a child, of course, that's your most difficult moment. But for most parents, they didn't have that experience. It's more like the father of the prodigal, and we've already read this story, but look at it with me again. Jesus continued.

There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, Father, give me my share of the estate. So he divided the property between them. Not long after that, the youngest son got together all that he had and set off for a distant.

Country and I want you to stop there and put yourself in that moment and imagine what it would have been like to be that dad at that moment in time. Here's your son. You probably have some idea that he's not being very responsible. Then he comes to you and asks you for half the inheritance, and I don't know why the dad gave it to him, but he did.

It's a story that Jesus is telling anyway, but so the father sees this irresponsible son. Get half the family's inheritance and come and announce I'm going to go away to a foreign country. Now the son leaving was difficult enough. I think for the father to stand and watch his son walk down the road getting smaller and smaller on the horizon had to be a pretty difficult thing to just watch because it's always difficult to watch your kids leave home.

But it had to be doubly difficult. Because he wasn't really sure what decisions that son was going to make. And let me tell you, as parents, if you have a child, and they get to that point of 19 or 20, and they're ready to leave home, and, and you're not really sure what decisions they're going to make when they join the military or when they go to college or whatever they do to begin to get on their own. Let me tell you that moment becomes so much more difficult.

And it really begs the question, so how are young people doing today? 01 other part to cover first as we look at the story of Joseph, there's an amazing contrast between these two stories. Just look at some of these things with me. Joseph and the anti-Joseph.

Joseph is a story about his father and his sons. So is The Prodigal, the story about the father and his sons. The parallels between these two stories are uncanny. The focus in both stories is on the younger son.

In both the stories, the son goes away to a far country. In both of the stories, the father thought that the son had died when he was in fact alive. Isn't that amazing that that's true in both stories? In both stories, there's a famine in the country.

In both of the stories, the father gives the son a robe. In both of the stories, the older brothers were jealous because of the robe. In both of the stories, the son was tempted with sexual sin. In both of the stories, the brothers were not happy to see him again.

Both of the stories end with a joyful reunion with the Father. Amazing, this Old Testament story of Joseph and the New Testament story of the prodigal. They are so parallel. But then when we look, there are also some real differences between the two stories.

Joseph started off in the foreign land with nothing. The prodigal son started off on the foreign land with half his father's fortune. Joseph, Joseph ended with wealth. The prodigal ended with nothing.

Joseph began as a slave in that country. The prodigal ended like a slave in the country. Joseph refused to commit adultery. The prodigal partied with prostitutes.

Joseph with honor, brought his father to him at the end. The prodigal, in humiliation, returned to his father. And to summarize the two stories, Joseph exemplified godly wisdom at its best. But the prodigal exemplified human foolishness at its worst.

And so now it brings me to the question that I wanted to ask, and that is, so how are our kids doing today when they leave home? Are Christian kids more like the prodigal or they're more like the Joseph? Are they, are they more like that Old Testament Joseph that went off into another country and stood for God, or are they more like the prodigal, giving them everything and then they go off and they waste it. Well, it's been a subject of a lot of research over the last years and the research is not very good.

There's been research done by Gallup, by Baylor University, by George Barnett, a Christian. A researcher by the National Pew Research Council, by LifeWay, the big Southern Baptist publisher, by Josh McDowell, by many others, and let me tell you that the most positive of all of the research is that 1 out of every 2 of our Christian young people are walking away from God when they are 19 or 20 or they go out into the world. 1 of every 2. Southern Baptists say that it's over 2/3.

Assemblies of God say that it's over 3/4. Other denominations are saying over 80%. If they measure it, they are saying that the majority of Christian young people are walking away from God upon leaving the youth group and upon leaving church, and that's what the statistics are telling us. If you're a businessman, and you have that results in your business, you say, my business is failing.

And at some point, we need to look at our churches and say, what's happening in our churches? How is it that in our churches, we have so many of our young people that are choosing not to follow God upon leaving the church and upon going away from home. That's one of the things that is telling us that there's declining commitment, but there are other things that are telling us, it's also telling us that there are unbiblical worldviews in our Christian young people. Now, what a worldview is?

It's, it's the heart. It's, it's not what you think. It's not if you not that the Bible facts. It's deeper than that.

It's, it's the seat for where you make decisions. It it's, it's the basis of your of your emotions, the basis of your decision making processes, that's worldview. It it's how you see the world. And according to the research that has been done, only 10 to 15% of Christian young people have a truly biblical worldview.

Now, in case that you young people feel picked on at this point, I want to make it clear that those of us that are adults that are adults are not very far behind. Our statistics are almost mirror theirs in the fact that we know the biblical facts, but we don't make decisions according to what God's word has to say. Not very good in regard to biblical worldview, but then the first word of biblical worldview is biblical, and there's been other studies done on how well do our young people today even know the Bible.

A few years ago, a friend of mine who was the dean at Grace University in Omaha made a comment to me.

He shared with me these statistics. He said at that Christian university, they give a test on Bible knowledge to the incoming freshmen. And the incoming freshmen are measured so that they can tell how much they learned during the time they're at the college. However, in the mid 90s, the average score of the incoming freshmen on this Bible knowledge entrance test was 60%.

In other words, the young person failed it. It didn't matter to the college because they were going to try to teach them and of course improve that score. But the interesting thing was between the middle 1990s and the mid 2000s, the scores declined from 60% to 41% and then 39%, and I haven't heard from the college since then, but those are the statistics that they shared. In other words, a 50% decline in one decade, not one generation, one decade, the scores declined.

It perked our interest. We have a research department at Ijuana and so we asked other colleges and universities. We contacted 100 of them and said two things. Do you measure the incoming Bible knowledge of the Bible knowledge of incoming freshmen, and if you do, what do you see?

They all reported back this. They said things like this. Briarcrest College and Seminary said general Bible knowledge has been steadily declining over the past 10 years based on the Bible. Content entrance test.

Tekoa Falls College said the general consensus of the Bible and theology faculty is that there has been a marked decrease in the level of Bible knowledge in recent years. Puget Sound Christian College said this the level of Bible knowledge for for incoming students has decreased so dramatically over the last 20 years that the assumption now is that incoming freshmen know nothing about the Bible and that we must, we must start at the most basic of levels. My friends, I'd never say that it's the cream of the crop of churches that goes to Bible colleges.

But it's part of the cream of the crop.

It's part, it doesn't mean that a student that doesn't go to a Bible college isn't isn't part of the cream of crop or churches, but these are of them. And if the cream of the crop of our churches in America are declining this dramatically in their Bible knowledge, where are the Bible scholars to come from in years to come? Where are the pastors who are the real students of Scripture? Where are they going to all come from in the years that are ahead?

And so here's the picture that research is painting for us. One half or more of our Christian young people are walking away from their faith. They don't know God's word very well, and what they do know, they don't necessarily make decisions based upon it. My friends, I want to tell you that I believe that this is the greatest crisis facing churches in America.

If it's true here, I believe that there's no greater crisis facing this church. If you were to know that the children that are growing up in your families, and attending your children's ministries and your, your youth ministries, when they walk out of here, if they are abandoning their faith and walking away, then you ought to see that as the greatest crisis facing this church. Some people have not liked the term crisis, but I believe that's what it is. Do you think it's misnamed?

If 2/3 of our Christian young people in some denominations are abandoned in their faith, isn't that a crisis? If 4 out of 8, 10 out of 20 of our Christian young people are walking away, isn't that a crisis? Let me, let me just make it a little bit more personal for you here. I want to ask just, I'm I'm not going to count everybody, but if I can, I want to come down here and just the people on this side, would you raise fingers for the number of children you have still at home?

If you have children still at home, raise fingers and just 1 per couple. OK, 1123456789, 1011, 1213. Now that's just a few of you that are parents. Do you understand that if you're the typical normal parents, Christian parents in America, you're not bad parents.

You're just normal typical Christian parents. Of the 13 children that are here represented, 20 years from now, probably 9 to 10 of those Christian young people will have walked away from God. 9 to 10 of the 13. Maybe it's only 7.

Do you want that? Do you want that for your church? I don't know how many kids you have in the Ina ministry in your church. I think it's pretty good numbers.

But take the number and cut it in half and understand that that if your church is typical, that at least half of those children, have the children that are in children's church right now, half of those kids are going to walk away from their faith when they get to be adults. Is that what you want? Of course not. And I think it's a crisis facing America and yet we don't talk about it very much.

Milton and I just talked on Friday and he changed the plans just real quickly for Sunday to allow me to share with you because I believe that Pastor Milton sees that this is a crisis. But, we don't talk about it a whole lot in churches and most of the places that I go, I find that it's not discussed. And I think there are 3 reasons why. First of all, because it's unintended.

Everybody has the best of intentions. I know something of every couple that's here, that's a parent, or a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle, every one of you intends that your kids follow God. There's not a one of you that says, Yeah, I'm planning on my son walking away. Nobody says that we have the best of intentions.

I know your church has the best of intentions. And because we're nice people, we don't like to offend people when they have good intentions. So we don't say anything and we don't talk about it. Second thing is because it's unmeasured.

We really don't measure it in our churches. In this church, do? Have you ever measured? Have you ever taken Sunday school rolls from 10 years ago and, and looked at the names on the roll and then looked at them today and say, how many of those kids are still following God?

The first time that I taught this was down in Orlando, Florida, and then I went back home to Diane Ny's home Church where I taught I teach an adult Sunday school class when I can and I walked into the Sunday school class and was talking through this, and I got to this point we're talking about we didn't measure it and suddenly one of my friends, a man about 50 in the class, raised his hand. And his voice began to break and his chin was quivering and he said, I just, he says, my kids grew up in this church.

I'm 1 for 3. He was saying that one of his, only 1 of his 3 kids was following God and the other 2 had walked away.

One of the men sat right beside him, put his hand on his shoulder, and he said, Don't you worry, don't feel bad. He said, I'm 0 for 2. And another dad shared and he said, Well, we're 2 for 6. And another one, and I didn't realize it was my church.

It was true in my church. I've been talking about the nation, but it was true in my church, in my Sunday school class of 40-somethings and fifty-somethings where their kids had walked away and abandoned their faith. And the numbers were true there. You see, what we tend to do is we tend to blame everybody else.

We think it's somebody else, but we're not really sure it's us. But my friends, it could be this church. Are you special? I know you are.

But, but are you different than the national average? Is there something going on here that makes you so different from them that you're going to get a different results with your kids? Well, there's another reason I think it's underappreciated. A lot of people just don't like the idea that this is a crisis.

Or they'll they'll blame somebody else. It's got to be all those liberals in the Northeast that are causing this, or it's a cultural Christians down in the South, or, or it's old traditional churches, or it's, or it's the new, new, churches that do all these crazy things, we get, we get those two, we're always blaming somebody else, or we blame the other denomination down the street. It's those people that do it. And we never stopped to really look at is it us?

there's a great lesson to be learned from September 11th. Do you remember what happened on September 11? Do you remember what happened on September 11th? Yes or no?

Yes, of course. Well, of course you remember what happened in the morning. Do you remember what happened in the evening? There was a miracle that took place in the evening.

Do you remember what it was in the Capitol building. In Washington DC in a rotunda, a miracle took place. Do you remember? Democrats and Republicans together, prayed for our country in a public building, in a government building, no less people prayed for our country.

The politicians prayed, not just the pastors, the politicians prayed. 24 hours earlier on the evening of September 10th, they have been fighting and bickering in their normal finger pointing cells, and in 24 hours they go from that, they go to locking arms and praying together for our country. What in the world happened in 24 hours that made such a change in the way that they responded? Here's what happened.

The enemy became real and the enemy became close. My friends, you will never do something about this. Until you see the enemy as both real and close. If you see that it is real, that maybe your young people are walking away from from God in ways that makes you unhappy, you see, it's happening here.

And if you see that it's close, that it's this church that is these families that's happening here, let me tell you, you won't do anything, unless you see it that way. If you think it's what's happening in the cultural South, that's causing the statistics to be they are, you won't do anything. You will only do something if you see it as real and close. I want to ask a 3rd question, a 4th question, so what are we missing?

What is causing this to happen in America? I want to share with you 3 things that I think that are voids that need to be filled. First of all, there is still no revolution. Things have changed a lot in churches in America in the last 5 years, especially because of some research that George Barnett did and it especially changed in children's ministry.

Diane and I just came from San Diego where I was speaking at the Children's Pastors Conference. It's a national conference. 5 years ago there would have been one or two little organizations at this conference for children's ministries, the leading children's ministry conference in America, and every major children's ministry is represented there. But 5 years ago there would have been 1 or 2 little ones talking about family ministry.

This last Monday and Tuesday when we were there, let me tell you, family ministry was everywhere. People were talking about it. There were probably 20 or 30 workshops about it. Everybody was talking about we've got to get parents involved in the spiritual training of kids.

You see, Scripture is really clear. It is parents that are responsible for the spiritual training of kids, not the local church. The local church is responsible too, but not first responsible. The parents are the ones who are first responsible, and my generation and the generations of the forty-somethings and the thirty-somethings have delegated to the local church what is first their responsibility.

My generation thought that if you take a kid to church, and you're faithful and having them in the pew every week, you've done your job, and we delegated to the church, the spiritual training of our kids when Scripture is clear, it is first the responsibility of the parents to train the children spiritually. And that's beginning to be talked about a lot, but while it's being talked about by ministry leaders in the local church, it isn't being talked about and it hasn't happened yet.

I often speak to conferences and teach workshops where there are many churches represented. A sample of that was last spring.

I was at one in North Carolina sharing this, and I asked the people who are from about 100 different churches. In the North Carolina area, how many of you believe that the statistics that we shared are connected to the fact that Christian parents are not teaching their children in their homes and virtually every hand in the place went up. And then I said, OK, if that's true, in your churches, how many of you have had this addressed in some way in your churches? And out of 800 people, 100 churches, all the hands went down except for about 30 hands.

And then I said, of those of you that still have your hands in the air, how many of you have seen a difference in the parenting styles of people in your church? And most of those hands went down, and out of 800 people, when I asked that question, I had about 3 or 4 hands in the air. My friends, that's not a revolution. And until we get back to doing things the way that the Bible says, that it is fathers who are to bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, then we will continue to see the results the way that they are.

A second thing that we really need to do is that we need to have a target. You see, Christian parents are really hopeful of what they want to have their kids do, but they really have no clear picture of what they want their kids to turn out to be spiritually. I want to tell you a story. I was flying on an airplane from San Jose, California back to Chicago, where Diane and I live.

As I was writing the manuscript for my Raising of Modern Day Joseph book. I had a young man sitting next to me on the plane, and we struck up a conversation. He's a real nice guy, about 30-ish, and I asked him, So what were you doing out in San Jose? He said, Well, my company just got bought out by Yahoo.

And, and so I was out there meeting my new bosses. I said, So what's your job? He said, My job is to is to help other companies develop an internet commerce presence. And I said, Well, do you like your job?

And he says, Oh, he says, I love my job. I said, Well, what do you do exactly? He said, Well, I help strategize and put the plans together. And he said, my mind just works that way.

I just love strategizing and planning and everything. And, and he's telling me all about his work and he said, So what do you do? And I said, Well, I work with a Christian Children's ministry and I do that and see if people bite and ask any more questions. He didn't bite.

And we talked a little bit about that and then the conversation lulled and after a minute or a few minutes, I wanted to start the conversation again, so I turned to him and I said, Would you mind if I ask you a couple questions? And he said, Yeah, that'd be OK. I said, Do you have kids? He said, Yeah, I've got a 1 year old and a 4 year old.

I said, OK, here's my question for you. What do you want to be able to say about your child when they're 30, your two kids? What do you want to be able to say about them when they're 30? And this long range planner, this long range strategic planner at work literally said this, wow, I've never thought about that.

And then he began to make a list. Well, graduate from college. Got a good career, probably bought a home, happily married. And he started making lists like that.

And he wasn't going where I wanted him to go, so I said, well, let me ask you a second question. What would cause you to grieve if you had to say it about your kids when they're 30? And this young man, the very first thing that he said was, oh, if they were lost. And it was the first indication I had, I was talking to a Christian dad.

I, I learned more of that later, but when I asked the Christian dad the first question, he gave me a secular list of responses. Now they're not bad. They're just not best. Amen.

They're not bad, they're just not the best. And those are such important questions to think about. Do what do you really want for your kids when they grow up? It's amazing to me how many Christian parents will work so hard to make sure their kids finish high school for sure.

And college, really like them to do that, maybe even graduate school, and they have a clear target for the education of their children. But Christian parents have no clear target for the spiritual development of your kids. I want to talk to you as as a grandfather, as somebody who has had kids that are raised, I want to talk to you that are still have kids in your home. You will never grieve at night.

If your kids get B's in college instead of A's. You'll never grieve at night if your kid drops out of college after a couple of years, and decides to do something else. But let them fall into sin. And let them begin to live a lifestyle that is contrary to God's word.

And I'll tell you what'll happen. You'll be laying awake at night, crying and crying and grieving over your child. But during the time when they're little, we put all of our eggs into the first basket, and we have no target for the spiritual training of our kids at all. And we wonder why they go a different direction.

Let me say that there's a 3rd 1, and that is that there is no plan. while we're really intentional about the children's spiritual children's education, we're only hopeful about them growing up to follow God. Those of you who are parents, do you have an intentional plan for your child to follow God? Or are you only hopeful?

You hope they will, you want them to. You you hope the church will help, you hope that if you bring them to Sunday school and I, oh, yes, bring them to Iana, put them in a water that'll fix them. That'll do the job. Is that your plan?

You're so intentional about their, their training. In fact, let me tell you what will happen. Tomorrow night, many of you in your houses, your children will have homework. And you will absolutely insist that your child does their homework.

You will make sure that they get it done. You won't allow them to go to bed until it's done. Because you want to make sure that they do their homework so they pass the test on Friday, so they don't fail the year so they meet the educational targets that you have for them. But they will be so busy doing homework, that you will not spend time in spiritual training with your children.

Why? Because there's no clear target. It's not because you don't want them to follow God. It's because you have no target driving you.

You have an educational target driving you, but no spiritual target driving you. So I want to encourage you to have a target and have a plan. And let me suggest a target, have a modern day Joseph as your target. Let me just share with you why Joseph is such a good target.

First of all, when Joseph was 17, that was when he went off into a far country. Do that he is the only older teenager mentioned in the Bible, except for one king who wasn't said anything about what happened when he was that age. Now Daniel and David were probably older teenagers, but, but Joseph is the only one whose age is given. And at age 17, he goes into a pagan culture.

He has no spiritual support. He's away from his family. He's tempted daily with sexual sin, and he's treated unfairly because of his faith. Doesn't that sound like going to a secular university today?

And yet in all of that, Joseph stood for God. Now all of you who are parents, wouldn't you like your child to be that kid? Wouldn't you like your child to grow up and you could send them away to a secular university, to Harvard or Yale or somewhere or place not so prestigious, but where there is just ungodliness and secularism on every hand, and you would have confidence your young person is going to stand for God. Well that's a modern day Joseph.

Have that as a target and then have a plan and in the few minutes that I have left, I want to take you through just an idea of what a plan looks like to build a plan. Just real fast, I want you to see that in the story of Joseph, there are 6 times where Joseph mentions God in his comments. In the story, in the last part of Genesis, the 6 times reveal 5 principles, and they are from bottom to top, respect, wisdom, grace, destiny, and perspective. Parents, here's a plan that you can use to focus to help your child grow up to be a modern day Joseph.

First of all, work on developing respect. When Joseph first mentions God, it's in the story of him and Mrs. Potiphar, and here's what it says. Joseph was well built and handsome.

That means he was hot. Ladies, and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, Come to bed with me, but he refused. With me in charge, he told her, my master does not concern himself with anything in this house. Everything he has owned, he has entrusted to my care.

In other words, he's telling Mrs. Potiphar, I'm not going to play because I respect the authority that has been granted to me. But then he goes on and says this, No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from you because you are his wife.

So Joseph is saying a second reason I'm not going to play with you, Mrs. Potiphar, because I respect what? What's the next thing he says? Because you're his wife, he respects what?

Marriage. He respects marriage. I'm not going to play. I respect Mary's.

Then he says, 3, how could I do such a wicked thing? And he calls playing with Mrs. Potiphar wicked. One thing that pastors have shared with me that have been pastors for a lot of years, they said that things have really changed in their premarital counseling.

It used to be. That kids would come in for premarital counseling, getting ready to be married, to talk to a pastor, and quite often, it's been true for decades, we all know that those of us that are older, that kids would have sex before marriage. The pastors have told me, what has changed? It's not that that young people are coming and they used to not do that and now they do.

What's changed is they used to do it, but they knew it was wrong and they felt guilty about it. Now young people come for counseling and they say nothing is wrong with it. You see, Joseph had a different point of view. He saw this as violating God's standards.

He had respect for God's standards, so he called it a wicked thing. And then he ends by saying, how could I do such a wicked thing and sin against Potiphar? No. How could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?

You see, his ultimate reason was respect for God's authority in his life. He saw playing with Mrs. Potiphar as an offense against God, not just as an offense against Potiphar. And so he had respect for God's authority.

Parents, I want to tell you, the most important thing you can teach little children is respect for God's authority. Why do I say that? Because remember what the Psalms and Proverbs says, the blank of God is the beginning of wisdom. What goes in the blank.

The fear of God. What does that mean? Awesome respect. You want your kids to follow God.

Step number 1 in your plan, parents, teach your children to have an awesome respect for God and His authority. That's number 1. Number 2, another one is this Joseph gets thrown into prison because Mrs. Potiphar falsely accuses him, and in prison is the 2nd time Joseph mentions God.

We both had dreams, he answered, but there is no one to interpret them. Now who's speaking? Two prison mates of Joseph that are in there as well, and no one to interpret them. And Joseph said to him, Don't interpretations belong to God?

Tell me your dreams. Now, when Joseph answers, he says, first of all, don't interpretations belong to God. What is he saying? He's saying this, I believe that God is the source of wisdom.

You see, when the when the two others in prison, they would have been Egyptian. We're looking for somebody to interpret their dreams. They said there's nobody. Well, who would they have been looking for?

Probably a sorcerer, an astrologer, somebody that was perceived as wise in their culture. And in their culture, there weren't any wise people close by. And so they're frustrated. They were the wise people, they're not here.

And Joseph says, no, no, no, you're thinking about it wrong. Don't interpretations belong to God. You see, what is he saying? God is the source of wisdom.

And that is such an important thing. Parents, when your kids get to the university, young people that are here, when you get to a university, there will be no greater challenge to your faith than around the issue of where does wisdom come from? Does it come from the Bible and from God or not? And you will be hearing from everybody at that level.

And you're already hearing it today. The wisdom comes from every other source. And it will trip you up in your faith if you don't believe strongly that the Bible is a source of wisdom. And so an important thing for parents to focus on second is to really develop in their children a foundation of wisdom in their lives and what they do.

Let me do one more and then we'll stop and I'll let you think about the I'll go through the last two just very quickly, but let's let's just talk about one more. Joseph, after he gets out of prison and is released and becomes a ruler in Egypt, Joseph then names his two sons, and he says this, it's because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household that he named the first born Manasseh. I don't know about you. But I think that's an amazing statement.

How do you forget that your brothers sell you into slavery? How do you forget that? that's about as dirty a trick as any brothers could possibly play. And Joseph makes this amazing statement.

He doesn't just say, God made me forgive. But he made me forget. Some of you in this audience, I'm sure. have had a deep hurt done to your family.

Maybe you've had a deep hurt done to a child. Maybe as a child you were hurt deeply. Maybe you were abused, and the battle that goes on on the inside to forgive, how it's just so hard to forgive and sometimes you think you've forgiven. Then the feelings come back and you have to forgive over and over again.

I think a good practice is to try to remember to forgive every morning. If something like that's happened to you. But it seems like no matter how hard you forgive, it's so hard. It's even more difficult to forget.

what I'm saying? When something is deeply injured you, you can forgive, but forget how do I do that? It's the amazing thing about our God that when our sins are nailed to the cross, he forgives, and he forgets. And Joseph says here, God made me forget what my brothers did to me.

How can a man do that? How can you forget a dirty trick like that? Only by the grace of God. Amen.

Only by the grace of God. And then he goes on to say about his second son, named Amiphraim because of all the good things that God has given him. You see, Joseph saw bad things and good things is all coming from the grace of God. Number 3 target for you as Christian parents to teach your kids is grace.

I believe it's the most important social skill there is, that their middle elementary years are the time for children to receive the grace of God. But it's also a time for them to begin to exhibit grace. If you have middle elementary kids in your house, how often do you hear this in your home? That's not fair.

I, he got a bigger piece of cake than I did. And you hear all the time about that's not fair. what the opposite of that's not fair is? Grace.

The opposite of grace, grace is selflessness. It's the most important social skill. Well, I hope I've given you a taste for these. Let me just share the last two and then we'll be done.

Number 4 is destiny, helping young people determine their destiny, not in terms of a career. Isn't it amazing that when we as Christian parents talk to children, we say to them, What do you want to be when you grow up? We expect a career answer. I want to be a doctor.

I want to be a fireman. I want to be something. Why in the world aren't we training our kids to say, What do you want to be when you grow up? Well, I want to be a godly grandfather.

I want to be a good dad that that really teaches my kids to follow God. The career choice makes no difference whatsoever. Amen. It doesn't mean that it's totally pointless.

But the real thing that makes a difference is that they find their destiny as Joseph did in doing the will of God and then being in God's plan. That's what really makes a difference. The last point of a plan is perspective, that we see kids, we see everything that happens in life, as from the good hand of God. At the end of the story, Joseph, is confronted or realizes his father's death.

Jacob dies and the brothers are really concerned that Joseph was going to want to get even with him, and Joseph says, Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good. when our teenage young people have a friend die, or they began to question some of the deeper issues of faith.

Oh, how important it is that they learn the perspective that God is sovereign in everything. This is a plan that can guide parents. If you as a parent, are beginning to raise your child and in early elementary ages can focus on developing them a respect for God. In early elementary, just pour in scriptural truth so they'll have a foundation for wisdom.

Middle elementary, talk about grace and all the things that are there and treating everyone as God treats us. And then in middle school or junior high, really begin to focus on finding their destiny and doing the will of God and finally focusing on perspective in high school. You see, this gives parents a plan. Do you have a plan?

We'll just end with this thought and then we're done. I want to ask you to do something. When I ask you to start to revolt. I don't mean revolt against the government.

I don't even mean revolt against our culture. revolt against the common practices of Christian families in America, revolt against being too busy. Revolt revolt against The good replacing the best. Revolt against wrong targets.

Revolt against Monday night being so full of homework that there's no time to talk about God. Revolt against the things that would cause your family, your children to walk away from their faith. Revolt against those things and you do it. You do it in your home.

You do it with your friends. You do it in this church. And my prayer is that this church will be different than all those other churches in America that are seeing their kids walk away. And in this church, the vast majority of your children, you're going to watch them follow God and live for God all of their life.

I want to end with one comment, and that is this. You also know that even in the most godly of homes, even in the most godly, children still choose their own path. Because we believe that salvation is an individual choice. Amen.

And so, even in the best of homes, there will be prodigals. There will be prodigals, but 50%, 75%, 2/3, that's not acceptable. Will you help us to change what is happening in America? My friends, if we don't do this, we're going to lose our country.

If we don't raise up our children to follow God, we are going to lose, and it starts not with Washington DC. It starts here in your home and in your church.