Mark Clark [00:00:00]:
Hey, everyone. Hopefully you are doing well. Welcome to the Mark Clark Podcast. In today's episode, this is a fun one. We're talking about six rules for raising kids. So we're doing the masterclass on life right out of First Corinthians. All the things the apostle Paul teaches on life. And in this section he talks about baptism not as an empty symbol, but as a powerful marker of following Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:00:18]:
We talk about what a whole household actually means to disciple. A whole household of people coming to know and love and treasure Jesus. Six ways to disciple your kids and why it matters to make faith such an important part of everyday life. And then we're going to to see how Paul shifts to the cross and how what looks like weakness and failure for Jesus is actually the power of God to save and what that has to do with your life practically. This one is practical, it's deep, it's encouraging. I think it's inspiring. Hopefully, let me know. Also share this podcast with people that you know and love.
Mark Clark [00:00:49]:
Let's get into this six ways to raise kids. This is awesome. Masterclass on life. Glad you're listening. So if we start at verse 14. Paul says, I thank God that I baptize none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that, that you were baptized in my name. And he's kind of talking about, hey, stop elevating me as a pastor or a leader. Stop kind of creating tribes and leaders that you pay attention to versus other leaders.
Mark Clark [00:01:14]:
He says, Verse 16. I did baptize also the household of Stephanus. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptize anyone else. I like that. Because the apostle Paul can't remember all your names either. So it gives me encouragement. So the reality, he's like, I baptized the people.
Mark Clark [00:01:29]:
I don't even know anymore who I baptize or whatever.
Mark Clark [00:01:32]:
And his point is, they were elevating, like, who baptized me? Who's your leader? I follow this guy. Follow Paulus. I follow this guy. And Paul's going, man, we gotta get some things straight. So the first thing he hits is baptism. And of course, baptism is this thing that Jesus, the New Testament sets up as the thing that we're supposed to go out and do to the world as the symbol that somebody has become a believer, has given their life to Jesus, comes from the Old Testament. The idea of kind of a new exodus. You come through the waters, you leave the city slavery of your old life, and you come through the waters not of the Red Sea like Israel did, but the waters of Baptism.
Mark Clark [00:02:08]:
And you come out into freedom. And a lot of you, you haven't taken that step yet. And you gotta understand that there was no such thing in the New Testament as a unbaptized Christian in the first century. That was what it meant to be a Christian. It was like, okay, I've given my life to Jesus. This is what I do. I publicly profess my faith in Jesus by getting baptized, by going under the water, coming out clean. And over the last eight years, we've seen 1400 people get baptized at Village Church, which is crazy.
Mark Clark [00:02:37]:
It's amazing. Yeah, praise God for that. It's incredible. I know a lot of pastors that go their whole ministry, and they won't even see any part of that. And so that's a movement of God. It's something that the New Testament lays on us. Just even at church in the park this past summer, I got to baptize my oldest daughter, sienna, and she's 12. And we've always seen it as something we wanna make sure our kids actually know what they're doing.
Mark Clark [00:03:02]:
And so baptism for us as a church, it's not something that we do with infants because we want people to actually know, hey, I've believed in Jesus, and now this is what I'm doing with my life. And so that's why we wait until people know what they're doing. They can profess faith in Jesus. They understand doctrinally what they're doing. They understand what Jesus has done for them and what the symbol means. It's not just like, sometimes we'll go down and do baptisms, and then my kids, and they'll, like, jump in the bathtub and they'll start playing baptism.
Mark Clark [00:03:29]:
And it's like, this doesn't count, kids.
Mark Clark [00:03:30]:
This is evil. And so what you gotta understand is it actually means something when the church gets together and we do that. So that's really what he's talking about. And some of you haven't done that line in the sand yet. You haven't been baptized. You haven't said, partly because you're afraid. Right? There's cowardice in your hearts and minds. Because you're actually like Israel who went through the waters of the Red Sea and then got out.
Mark Clark [00:03:55]:
And then they got some struggles, and they said, bring us back, Moses. We wanna go back to Egypt where at least we got food. And some of you are like, you're afraid to get baptized. Cause you're like, I wanna go back to comfort. I wanna go back to what I know. I wanna go back to the things. And you're afraid of what it actually might mean for you. But our challenge to you over and over again as Paul founded this church in Corinth, was these people would believe they'd come out of these messed up lifestyles.
Mark Clark [00:04:17]:
They were sexually perverse, as we're gonna see in chapter four or five. There was so much sexual perversion, so much disaster in their culture that they were a part of. Then they became Christians and came out of it. And they were kind of afraid because if you publicly get baptized, it's very interesting in the Western world, baptism is such a safe thing. But you travel around the world, you go to China, you go to the Middle east. Baptism, you could get killed for that, Right? That's the reality. You go public with your faith in Jesus and get baptized. Forget, you know, 500 people standing on a pier watching you get baptized in the ocean.
Mark Clark [00:04:55]:
You gotta kinda go away with two or three and do it secretly. Because symbols are extremely powerful things. And people say, oh, baptism's only a symbol. No, baptism is a symbol. A symbol's extremely powerful. With everything about our life. If we walk. Oh, these are just symbols.
Mark Clark [00:05:13]:
Symbols are extremely powerful things. If I, you know, walked around and someone said to you, mara, don't worry about it.
Mark Clark [00:05:18]:
It's just a ring. It's just a symbol.
Mark Clark [00:05:19]:
What are you doing later? That's not how it works. You gotta understand, symbols are massively powerful, and that's why Jesus gave them to us. And then you have this phrase that I wanna spend most of the rest of our time on. It says, I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. And here's what we gotta understand.
Mark Clark [00:05:37]:
We gotta stop and hit that.
Mark Clark [00:05:38]:
The whole household think about that for a second. And what I wanna talk about is our dream for your life. And your dream for your life is that your whole household should actually come to believe and follow Jesus. That's the reality. Not just. See, here's what we've got ourself into in Western individualistic, democratic society is we think, well, my life is about my personal relationship with Jesus. And once I've got that squared away, I've got everything figured out. But the New Testament has this concern.
Mark Clark [00:06:07]:
And what Paul says is, I actually came and I baptized the household of Stephanus. I actually. His kids, his wife, his grandparents, his family. And what you've gotta start to understand is your responsibility in this life is your whole household, not just you. And so we begin to understand how do you actually, we all want our families to love and follow Jesus. We're living in a crazy time where right now, when it comes, and if you don't have kids here, you may have kids when you get married and go on, or you might have grandkids now and your kids are raised. For the next few minutes, this is relevant to you because the question is, how do you have a household? How do you actually raise kids that love and follow Jesus? And the reality is we're living in a time right now when in regard to identity and education and politics and faith and media and education, entertainment, it seems like everyone around us is actually trying is out to try to counter disciple the kids that we're trying to tell about Jesus, the families that we're trying to raise, that we're actually everything around us is, we're called the disciple people. And every media outlet, everything that we listen to, every show we watch, everything seems to be kind of geared on.
Mark Clark [00:07:21]:
Let me actually counter disciple your kids. Let me redefine everything for them. Let me redefine what they do with their bodies. Let me redefine what they do with their money. Let me redefine what success looks like. Let me redefine education. Let me redefine formation. All of it is actually built so that our job, which is actually true in the Bible, actually Ephesians 2 talks about the fact that there's the prince of the power of the air.
Mark Clark [00:07:45]:
That's what it calls the devil, actually, Prince of the power of the air, Ephesians 2, which means most of these spheres of society are inundated with a counter disciple, counter Jesus message. And it's trying to constantly form us into the image of the empires that we live in. Because the reality is goodness and love and kindness is amazing, but it's actually less interesting than the things of the world that actually kind of gear to our passions, our desires. If I think about like what's more interesting to watch a movie about Batman or a movie about the Joker, I'm thinking about. We love villains, right? Because not doing things the way that Jesus asked us to is far more interesting at times to watch and to look at and to live out than it feels like to. Okay, be kind and be. These things aren't like invigorating to the soul. I was driving in my car Yesterday and my 10 year old was talking to my 7 year old about a fight that the 7 year old and her friend had.
Mark Clark [00:08:48]:
And she's like, my seven year old Bella, she's like, well, she talked down to me, she's like, yeah, but you're supposed to when she says something mean to you, you're supposed to say something nice to her. And she's like yeah, but she made me feel bad. And if I said something nice to her, that wouldn't make her feel bad the way I felt bad, that would just do nothing. And so I wanted to make her feel how I felt. And so when she looked at me and she said, yeah, you know why your mom doesn't, you know. Then I said this, yeah, well your mom doesn't even like you. And she's like hehe, it made me feel good. And I'm like oh my gosh.
Mark Clark [00:09:17]:
And my kids, because the reality was it's like to do things the way Jesus is sometimes less interesting. Because like how many of us would have watched Braveheart if it was like oh my goodness, the English came in, raped his wife, killed her. And Braveheart's response was he prayed for his enemy, right? And two hours of prayer we'd be like, eh, loser. We want Braveheart to put the paint on, we can ride in the horse and take the thing and smush the guy's face and cut his head off and rip his arms. That's what we want. And so the reality is we're constantly in the mode of how do I be a kingdom person in the world that I'm in, How do we actually counter disciple our kids minds hearts in the ways of the kingdom? And the reality is we have to show our kids that the world's not all bad. We tend to focus on it, we tend to hate the kids.
Mark Clark [00:10:12]:
You know, the world has beautiful things in it. I was driving the whole family and.
Mark Clark [00:10:18]:
My wife, we had been to Sea.
Mark Clark [00:10:19]:
World like two, three days ago and my wife watched the dolphin show and.
Mark Clark [00:10:25]:
Just started, she left. I'm like, so how's the show? She's like it's the dolphins and she's crying at dolphins at Sea World.
Mark Clark [00:10:32]:
I'm like what is your deal?
Mark Clark [00:10:33]:
Right? They're throwing the fish and they're like wag wah. I'm like, she's like, it's just so beautiful. My wife has like a thing in her soul when, like when things do things in unison, like when they're all together and they all move together, whatever. She's just like oh my goodness, look, they would have got together, they would have practiced it. My gosh, the world is beautiful. Like what? Like she could do that when she watches like the Thriller dance though, right?
Mark Clark [00:10:56]:
Like, like Michael Jackson, you know, and.
Mark Clark [00:10:59]:
It'S like oh my goodness, look at zombies. They're so beautiful. The reality is there's these beautiful things in the world. And what we have to be careful of is to go too negative where we think, okay, the prince of the power of the air. We've destroyed education, we've destroyed media, we've destroyed. The reality is there's such beauty in the world that we need to stop. And we need my dedication line for my book.
Mark Clark [00:11:23]:
The Problem of God is to my kids.
Mark Clark [00:11:24]:
And it talks about the fact that.
Mark Clark [00:11:25]:
I hope that as they grow up, they actually learn to follow Jesus in.
Mark Clark [00:11:28]:
Both the beauty and the teeth of the world. And I think that we do ourselves a disservice with our kids if we just constantly live in a state of fear and we don't go, open your eyes, kids, Dolphins. There's beauty. There's things that God is doing among us. The world is not our enemy in that sense. We're supposed to understand that we are in the world, but not of the world. But we're to recognize this as God's good creation. And there's this reality as we start to think through how do we actually disciple our kids? So let me give you six points on how I think we need to disciple our kids and disciple our households.
Mark Clark [00:12:01]:
Deuteronomy 11 says this. You shall teach them to your children. Talking about the things of God, the ways of God. Talking of them when you're sitting in your house and when you're walking, by the way, when you lie down and when you rise. So that's Deuteronomy's kind of version for you as parents or grandparents or people who are gonna have kids, whatever it's saying, how are you gonna actually have a household that loves and follows Jesus? You shall teach them to your children. Talking of them when you're sitting in your house, when you're walking, by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise. So here's the six things I think we gotta do. First, you gotta teach them.
Mark Clark [00:12:36]:
You actually have to teach your kids doctrine. Teach them about Jesus. Don't let your kids just derive theology from absolutely nothing. You have to teach them how to pray. You have to teach them who God is. You have to teach them what salvation is. You don't wanna just go, well, I hope the youth group teaches them. Let's make sure we drop them off there and move on.
Mark Clark [00:12:55]:
Deuteronomy says it's your job when you're sitting and eating, when you're walking along the beach. Now what? I'm not. I'm not talking about being like that. Dad. All right? Where it's like. Like, literally, we were on the beach in San Diego for a couple hours this past week. And my kids brought me Chick fil A. All right? They had run out and got it, and they ran it down to me at the beach, and they handed it to me.
Mark Clark [00:13:15]:
It's not like at that moment, I'm like, okay, hold on, everyone, let's stop. Remember, Jesus ate on the beach in John 21. They'd be like, dad, let us go. Hair. Chick fil A. Bam. All right, don't be that guy. The reality is.
Mark Clark [00:13:29]:
But you gotta teach your kids. You gotta teach them doctrine. You gotta teach them who God is. You gotta help them understand. Here's how salvation is. Here's how. This is how salvation works. This is who Jesus is.
Mark Clark [00:13:38]:
This is who you are. And so we gotta understand. And if we don't do that, then here's what happens culturally. There was a guy named Christian Smith, who's a sociologist, years ago, did a study on what most people in the Western world's version of God is even people who believe in God. And he came up with a phrase that, as he did his data, he realized most people's view of God is what he called moralistic, therapeutic deism, which is basically, most people out there believe that if you're a good person and it's good for yourself and God is distant. So if you're a good person, God will save you. Therapeutic, meaning it's good for you, it makes you feel good. So if something makes you feel good and it's moralistically okay, then you need to do those things, believe those things.
Mark Clark [00:14:22]:
And deistic, meaning God is very far away. All right? He's the Bette Midler version of God. He's very far. He's not involved in creation, not involved in our life at all. And that's what most people out on the street, even who say they believe in God, even people in our churches, the way that you're raising your kids tends to be that at the end of the day, if you were to sit down and say, hey, what do you actually believe about God? They're moralistic, therapeutic Dias. And the reality is you have to fight that every day by actually teaching them proper ideas of who God is. You gotta work against their own inclinations as kids, because their own inclinations, you know this. That you cannot be a slave to your own desires.
Mark Clark [00:15:00]:
Right. I was talking about this down at. When I was at Bayside. The idea that. Why weddings are sometimes difficult for me because I Get together with these kids who've known each other for 18 months. And the idea that, hey, they've all, you know, and they're up there and they're like, we love each other. And we're like, really? That's blowing all our minds right now that you two love each other. We've all put on our nice suits, we've come here, we bought you a nice wedding gift, and you're blowing our minds by saying you love each other.
Mark Clark [00:15:26]:
And they're like, hey, pastor, can I.
Mark Clark [00:15:28]:
Do my own vows? I'm like, oh, my gosh, here we go.
Mark Clark [00:15:31]:
All right. And so they get up and they do their vows. Tracy.
Mark Clark [00:15:36]:
I wrote you a poem.
Mark Clark [00:15:39]:
T.
Mark Clark [00:15:42]:
Trustworthy are irresponsible. All right?
Mark Clark [00:15:51]:
And you're just like, oh, my gosh.
Mark Clark [00:15:52]:
What is going on right now? All right, this is brutal.
Mark Clark [00:15:56]:
And the reality is you just want to fast Forward the clock 12 years after all their struggles and all their.
Mark Clark [00:16:02]:
Tensions and all their kids, and then watch them go out and get the nice look from the ladies.
Mark Clark [00:16:10]:
And how you feel inside is now she's making you feel how your wife didn't make you feel.
Mark Clark [00:16:15]:
Be very careful to follow how you feel. It can derail your life.
Mark Clark [00:16:19]:
And the reality is we have to shape our kids. Inclinations away from. Tend to be away from what they actually want. We gotta teach them to desire the things that Jesus desires for their life. Not change what they do. That's moralistic. Change what they want to do. Change the things they take pleasure in.
Mark Clark [00:16:39]:
So you're teaching them how to pray. You gotta teach kids how to actually pray. This is what it means to have a household. They're gonna watch you and you gotta. I remember I was discipling a guy and I was like trying to teach him how to pray. Have you ever listened to your kids prayers? Think through their theology? Sometimes they're bad. This 20 year old kid I was discipling, we were praying in this car and I'm like, father, you know that? And he's like, yeah, Lord, thanks for making Satan your beep. And he swore.
Mark Clark [00:17:04]:
I'm like, oh, okay, we gotta reign that in a little bit. I'm like, all right, so because you gotta teach your kids how to pray. If I listen to your kids pray, do they even understand what they're doing, what they're saying, who they're praying to? You gotta study the Bible with your kids, right? Don't assume that your kids are gonna actually understand the Bible. And I understand the tension. They tend to read it and they're sometimes bored. I have Jesus storybook Bibles. I sit with my kids. I'm like, okay, here's Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:17:30]:
They're like, oh, man, Jesus is boring. I want John the Baptist again, all right? He's weird. And I'm like, did you. Jesus is boring.
Mark Clark [00:17:37]:
This is a problem for a pastor's kid.
Mark Clark [00:17:39]:
Why? Oh, he's just so good. He's always helping everybody. I want the bad guys, right? And I'm like, ah. So you gotta teach your kids to love the hero, right? And understand why they gotta love the hero. I understand you're scared. Cause you sit down with your kids, you start teaching the Bible and they say weird things and you don't necessarily know what to do. All right? You gotta teach them how to pray. You gotta teach them to go after affections that are the affections of God, not the affections of themself.
Mark Clark [00:18:04]:
You gotta teach them how to study the Bible. You have to ask them about the questions that they have, all right? At any age and stage. William Lane Craig said this years ago as he watched kids go to high school and go to college and lose their faith. He said this in high school and college. Christian teenagers are intellectually assaulted with every manner of non Christian worldview coupled with an overwhelming relativism. If parents are not intellectually engaged with their faith and do not have sound arguments for Christian theism and good answers to their children's questions, then we are in real danger of losing our youth. It's no longer enough to teach our children simple Bible stories. They need doctrine and apologetics, which is defense of the faith.
Mark Clark [00:18:44]:
It's hard to understand how people today can risk parenthood without having studied a defense of the faith. Unfortunately, our churches have also largely dropped the ball in this area. It's insufficient for youth groups and Sunday school classes to focus on entertainment and simpering devotional thoughts. We've got to train our kids for war. We dare not send them out to the public school and university armed with rubber swords and plastic armor. The time for playing games has passed. And I believe that that's why right from youth all the way up to what we do here, week in and week out, we're constantly preaching and teaching you not just what to think, but how to think. I don't wanna feed you the answers, man.
Mark Clark [00:19:24]:
I want you to become good arguers and defenders of the faith. I want you to understand that Christianity is the best idea in the marketplace of ideas. How to think rationally and philosophically about your. Why do you think I do that every week it's not to entertain myself. I wrote a book on it. I know it all. I do it for you. So you can learn how to think and then teach your kids how to think and be like, kid, there's actually rational understanding to this.
Mark Clark [00:19:54]:
Go to school and let them give you this. Fine, do that. Listen, the reality is you gotta teach your kids. And we wanna do that. Oh, we focus on that. From youth all the way up to here every single week. We're constantly, whenever the text allows us to talk about how Christianity is actually an understatement, philosophically, historically, literally the best idea in the marketplace of ideas. That's what we want and that's what we train you and your kids to do.
Mark Clark [00:20:17]:
And you gotta do that. Okay? Secondly, actually make your faith part of your life. Right? When we were leaving this great house that our friends gave us for a week to stay in San Diego, as we packed up in the midst of trying to get to the airport, and the busyness and the craziness, you know what we did? We got all the stuff in the car and we went back in the house and we just stood in a circle and we prayed. Now, when you got a seven year old sitting there, you know she just wants to go. And a 10 year old distracted by this, and a 12 year old, you know, you're sitting there and you're like, hey, we gotta go, we gotta hit the airport. We stopped and we prayed for five minutes. To do what? To thank God after our trip for what happened during our trip. To thank him for the blessings of his life.
Mark Clark [00:20:56]:
They see that even though they don't wanna necessarily do it in the moment, they are gonna do what you do. Right? They're gonna do what you do, not what you say. I was sitting at lunch with my family yesterday and one of the kids looked at the other one and she goes, hey, don't touch my napkin. She's like, I'll napkin your face. And I'm like, whoa, we do not talk like that. And all of them in unison looked at me and they went, we got that from you. I'm like, what? I've never talked like that in my life. What are you talking about? And no joke, my 12 year old pulls her little ipod out, goes, yes, you did.
Mark Clark [00:21:34]:
Boom. And it's audio recording of me at a weak moment saying to one of them, yeah, I'll do that to your face as a joke. And now they go, well, if daddy can say it, I can say it. These kids are recording you, by the way. Now it's nuts. I was in the car the other day, and my one daughter said, hey, do that Valley girl thing that you do. And so I do this voice whenever they go to sleep, and I do this big spiel about, hey, it's the 80s. And someone called me up and I don't know, I want to go to.
Mark Clark [00:22:06]:
The mall, and so I don't want to go to the mall.
Mark Clark [00:22:08]:
You want to go to the mall?
Mark Clark [00:22:08]:
So I pick up the phone and, like, who's calling me? Oh, it's Brittany.
Mark Clark [00:22:11]:
Hi, Brittany. So I do this thing. So I do it for them every time they go to. And anyway, she goes, do that thing that you do. So I do this five minute spiel and go to the movies with Brittany and Kristen, you know, anyways, and unbeknownst to me, her friend is recording the whole thing on her phone and goes home and shows it to her father and goes, this is how Pastor Mark talks. Boom. All right. Father's like, you're not even allowed over there anymore.
Mark Clark [00:22:38]:
All right? That's what these kids are doing these days anyways. They're gonna actually do what they see you do. Your kids are gonna spend money on what you spend money on in life, man. On what you do, not what you tell them to do, on how you lived your life. One of the realities was we were.
Mark Clark [00:22:59]:
Supposed to come home Friday, and my best bud's father had a stroke a.
Mark Clark [00:23:04]:
Few days before we left.
Mark Clark [00:23:05]:
And we had the plane set and everything.
Mark Clark [00:23:07]:
We were ready to go.
Mark Clark [00:23:08]:
And Friday came along, and I just. Aaron and I started the sense that we needed to go see him. And so we called the airline, said, hey, we gotta, you know, we're gonna change our flight. They said, you can't.
Mark Clark [00:23:19]:
It's too late.
Mark Clark [00:23:20]:
Your flight leaves in three hours. You should have thought of this. And I'm like, okay. And so we had to buy all new airline tickets for the to leave the next day. And we got changed rental cars at the airport and drove three and a half hours from San Diego into Palm Springs so that we could go visit who has basically become a grandfather to my kids. They call him Papa. And he had a stroke and he's in this hospital. So we went in yesterday and, you know, Sienna got her ukulele out and played him, you know, a concert sitting there, and he's, you know, barely talk in the left side of his.
Mark Clark [00:23:55]:
And just had this, like, hour with him to pray and to hug him and whatever. And our kids understood that we spent that money and spent that time doing that, because this was family. And we wanted to go and shepherd and love on someone that has loved on us in his life. And that's a priority for us. Yes. We will not come home that day.
Mark Clark [00:24:21]:
And we will go and spend the next five hours trying to figure out.
Mark Clark [00:24:24]:
A plane thing and get rental cars and drive into the. Because we wanna show someone love.
Mark Clark [00:24:30]:
Because we are here to actually sacrifice.
Mark Clark [00:24:32]:
Our own pleasures and delights for the sake of the glory of God.
Mark Clark [00:24:36]:
That's what life is. And my kids see that now. I could tell them that all day, right? I could say. But it was when they saw it.
Mark Clark [00:24:47]:
That's what's gonna shape their life. And it's the same with your kids. Number three, make spiritual space in your home.
Mark Clark [00:24:54]:
If all you do with all you and your buddies is talk about secular stuff, then that's all that's gonna matter to your kids. Your kids will never have a spiritual filter if all you talk about is just whatever, hey, my house this, the lawn that, the car that. I listened to my wife over the last couple weeks, as we've had sleepovers at my house, there was a bag of money that was sitting there that.
Mark Clark [00:25:15]:
We'D collected for a thing that we needed to drop off.
Mark Clark [00:25:18]:
And.
Mark Clark [00:25:21]:
Some of it went missing. And there were a bunch of girls in our house. And so if it was me, because I'm a really good parent, I would.
Mark Clark [00:25:33]:
Have sat them all down and just said, no one is leaving, eating or.
Mark Clark [00:25:35]:
Going to sleep until someone confesses. All right? That's how I would have rolled, right?
Mark Clark [00:25:40]:
And they would have sat there like.
Mark Clark [00:25:42]:
A Survivor game, you know, for four hours. And then someone just cracks and confesses just cause they wanna go to sleep. But my wife didn't do that. She talked about, you know, if the money ends up there, you never even have to confess. Just put it back and talked about generosity and Jesus and what we're gonna, you know, kind of. And then a couple days later, had another sleepover and all these girls were over and they wanted to start talking about sex. And so my wife gives. I hear her up there giving them like the sex talk as a.
Mark Clark [00:26:13]:
And I'm like, man, these are spiritual moments that she's able to have with these girls that are.
Mark Clark [00:26:19]:
You need to create space for spiritual conversations in your life, not just secularized.
Mark Clark [00:26:24]:
Nonsense where all you do is talk about the weather and the stuff of the world constantly. Or else your kids are never gonna understand what is actually meaningful to you, right? You have to shape them. That's the point of your life. You're gonna influence you know, they say.
Mark Clark [00:26:39]:
The biggest influence in your kids lives. Top three.
Mark Clark [00:26:41]:
The first one is parents. The second one is what? Peers, Right? So the way that you're gonna actually influence your kids is helping select their peers. And the third one's grandparents. Right? And I saw that, you know, even yesterday as papa sat and sang them, you know, and held my daughter's hand and said, you're beautiful, and this is what Jesus is gonna do in your life. And he's sitting there in pain himself and my daughter's crying as he's blessing her. I mean, it's just this beautiful reality of a family together doing those things.
Mark Clark [00:27:13]:
Okay, Fourthly, train your kids with this thought continually before your eyes that the soul of your child is the first.
Mark Clark [00:27:21]:
Thing to be considered.
Mark Clark [00:27:22]:
The soul of your child, meaning more important than having good manners and reading and arithmetic and being polite and getting on the cheerleading squad and having fun. 14 extracurricular things or being successful in life is the state of your kid's soul. That's the most important thing. So what are your kids? How do they actually function? Have you asked those deeper questions? Or are you just worried about, I gotta make sure they're in the best schools and that they have a good, you know, whatever. James K. Smith, who's a philosopher, he said this. What is education for? It's not primarily about the absorption of ideas and information, but the transformation of. And education is a constellation of practices, rituals and routines that inculcates a particular vision by means of material, embodied practices of education as primarily formation, then that means education is happening all over the place.
Mark Clark [00:28:11]:
Education as formation isn't the sort of thing that stays neatly within the walls of a school or college or university. It's about formation, and it needs to be attentive to all the formative work that is happening in your kid's life at every moment. That's what Deuteronomy's talking about. You need to have spiritual conversations and actually look at the state of your kid's soul versus the state of just their life and whatever. The fifth one is very connected to that. And it's. You need to prioritize the community called the church, actually in your kid's life and what I mean by that. I heard a preacher a few years ago say this and always stuck with me that you can sit here and come and complain to me at the front that your young adult kid has gone off the rails and they don't love Jesus anymore and they don't come to church anymore.
Mark Clark [00:28:54]:
But my question to you is Gonna be, what have you done for the last five or six years? Because here's what I see over and over. He said. He said, I see parents who simply drop into church and leave because they gotta get the baseball practice, they gotta get the soccer practice. And he said, in that moment, here's what you've shown your kid, that kicking around a stupid soccer ball is more important than the God of the universe. That's on you. That's collateral damage for your sin, not mine. And so your kid has no idea what community is, has no idea what accountability is, has no idea what leadership is. And you're gonna blame the church for that.
Mark Clark [00:29:32]:
It's your job to raise your kid in the ways of Jesus and form them. Our job is to do our best to love them, build community with them, partner with you. And that's what we're committed to. But we can't do that if your priority is not the community called the church. You come in late, you leave early, your kid sees that. And what they say is, this life is not a priority. This life over here is all the stuff. We actually spend money and time and energy on this church thing, man, we're checking a box off community doesn't matter.
Mark Clark [00:30:11]:
And so you need to make sure the community becomes an essential part of your life over and over and over again. And in fact, that your job is to. And you and your kids job is to serve the people called the church, not to just have the church serve you right over and over again. As I develop leaders, I was talking to Chris Brown about this pastor down in San Diego. He said, one of the problems is I'll be hiring someone as a pastor, and they'll be get through there and go get through all these stages. And all of a sudden they'll say to me, when do I get to get on the stage and preach on a weekend? And he looks at me and says, steve lost it. And Judge Wilhite, the other guy I was talking about, has a church of 20,000 people in Vegas. We're speaking at this conference together.
Mark Clark [00:30:45]:
He said what he does is he brings all these young guys out on the stage and he says, you see all these seats? Just picture it. Everyone's hanging on every word. Everyone's laughing at every joke. People are excited. People love your teaching. People are sending you emails. Picture it now. Picture it.
Mark Clark [00:31:02]:
Do you see it? There's just 40 guys up there foaming. Yeah. He's like, none of you are ever gonna get it. Here's what your job is. You learn to serve Those people first and maybe they will give you the right to teach them. Your job's to wash their feet. If your family understands your posture is not to take from the church, but to be the church and to serve one another in the church, that will change their life. Because all of a sudden there'll be Philippians two type people who say I look at the other people as more important than myself.
Mark Clark [00:31:39]:
And then lastly, put Jesus first in your life. Over and over and over again, put Jesus first in your life. Cause they see that now here's the other thing, the last thing I'll say from this text.
Mark Clark [00:31:53]:
I'll pray for you. I did baptize also the household of Stephanus.
Mark Clark [00:31:58]:
That's the dream.
Mark Clark [00:31:59]:
Beyond that I did not know whether I baptized anyone else. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest.
Mark Clark [00:32:07]:
The cross of Christ be emptied of its power. You know, it's fascinating what he's about to shift into is there's two kinds of roads you can take in your life. You can take the way of human wisdom and philosophy and what looks really smart to people. Or he says you can take the way that looks really dumb to everybody, which is the way he's gonna explain the way of the cross. He says in verse 18. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing in verse 21. For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who who believe. Verse 27.
Mark Clark [00:32:48]:
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. Here's the reality. Your moments of weakness is when God is going to show up and do something amazing. Your moments of brokenness is when God is going to show up and do something amazing in your life.
Mark Clark [00:33:08]:
And you should want him to show.
Mark Clark [00:33:10]:
Up because here's the thing, he is.
Mark Clark [00:33:11]:
Better then the reason we sin is because we don't really believe that God is better than the things of the world. I wanna take the worldly philosophy, I wanna take the ideas of the world, those temples, I wanna attach myself to those versus the idea of the cross, which doesn't look like power at all, it looks like failure, it looks odd, it looks upside down. And that's Paul's whole point is the wisdom of the world would tell you that something like the cross, God dying is actually a. But the beauty of it is, is here's how powerful God is. This is how good he is, is that he did the cross to save you. And so we're supposed to go, my goodness, it's upside down. It's backwards. But I wanna get.
Mark Clark [00:33:50]:
See, here's how powerful he is. Remember a couple weeks ago when I shared that story about sweet baby Jesus, right? And I talked about the idea that God would take a golf game and take the terrible golfer. And that ball got lost many times and that. And it was just people thinking, so, sweet baby Jesus story. And I was talking about the idea of this guy, Ethan. And we met him in Phoenix and we played golf with him. A girl walked up to me last.
Mark Clark [00:34:12]:
Week and she said, hey, I was.
Mark Clark [00:34:15]:
Hanging out in this place, and this guy had flown in from New York, and we were all chilling at this pub or whatever, and he said he was here on business. And he looked at me and he said. We started talking about Jesus. And I started talking to him about my faith.
Mark Clark [00:34:27]:
And I said to him, hey, do you know? He's like, no, I don't believe in any of that. I don't believe in anything.
Mark Clark [00:34:33]:
And she's like, well, you should, you know, hey, you should listen to some.
Mark Clark [00:34:36]:
Sermons that my pastor, he's like, yeah, whatever. If you send me one, fine.
Mark Clark [00:34:39]:
He goes back to New York. She sends him. She just randomly goes on the website.
Mark Clark [00:34:42]:
And selects a random sermon, sends it.
Mark Clark [00:34:44]:
To him, doesn't hear anything back. Two days later, gets a text from her.
Mark Clark [00:34:48]:
He goes, oh, my goodness, this is crazy. He's like, three months ago, I flew to Phoenix and I was playing golf at a golf course. I just listened to this sermon that your pastor preached about going to Phoenix and playing golf with this guy Ethan. And the sweet baby Jesus ball. He goes, I stopped the sermon right there. Three months ago, I flew to Phoenix for one day. Cause I was with some friends, and we played golf at this golf course, and they put us together with a guy named Ethan Castle, and we played golf with him.
Mark Clark [00:35:26]:
Three months later, you send me a.
Mark Clark [00:35:28]:
Random sermon, and your pastor's preaching a sermon about playing golf with Ethan Castle. What in the world is going on right now?
Mark Clark [00:35:37]:
He's hunting you down. That's what's going on, fool. Right? That's how powerful he is. It's crazy.
Mark Clark [00:35:45]:
Anyway, listen, let me end this way. Here you have an image of the cross. Here you have an image of our moments of weakness is when God looks really strong. I grew up in Ontario.
Mark Clark [00:36:00]:
You guys have heard of Avril Lavigne.
Mark Clark [00:36:02]:
Before most of you so Avril Lavigne grew up in a place called Napanee, which is near where I grew up. And my best friend ended up being her drummer. So before anybody knew who she was, my. My best friend Matt called me up one day. He's like, hey, there's this girl, Avril. She's got this album coming out, and I'm gonna be her drummer. And so we went out. I remember going to the lake, and he showed me the album, and I listened to it.
Mark Clark [00:36:26]:
I'm like, yeah, it's not gonna go anywhere, you know, Anyway.
Mark Clark [00:36:31]:
And so anyway, she went to stardom.
Mark Clark [00:36:34]:
And became Avril Lavigne for all those years and lived an amazing life, rock star life. She married one of my other really good friends, Derek, for a while. They got divorced and she married again.
Mark Clark [00:36:45]:
And anyway, lived this kind. Now, she grew up in the church.
Mark Clark [00:36:48]:
She learned how to sing growing up in the church. Her family, Christians, and she had this faith. But then she went to stardom and had life and lived this crazy existence. And my buddy was there, got to meet her. And anyway, about four or five years ago, she got Lyme disease and she got sick and she almost died. She was on the brink of death. And out of that she wrote a song, and it's just been released, and it's number one kind of everywhere. But it's a song that drew her back to God.
Mark Clark [00:37:23]:
What did it? Fame? Nope. Distracted her. Pain, Weakness. Drew her to the brink where she thought she was going to die. She almost died. And in the midst of that, she wrote a song going, you're all I got. And so I've asked Shiloh to do it for you.
Mark Clark [00:38:02]:
I've gotta keep the calm before the star. I don't want less, I don't want more. Must bar the windows and the doors to keep me safe to keep me.
Mark Clark [00:38:24]:
Warm.
Mark Clark [00:38:28]:
Yeah, my life is what I'm fighting for can part the sea can reach the shore and my voice becomes the driving force I won't let this pull me overboard God, keep my head above water don't let me drown it gets harder I'll meet you there at the altar As I fall down to my knees don't let me drown Drown, drown Don't let me, don't let me drown so pull me up from down below. Cause I'm underneath the undertone Come dry me off and hold me close I need you now I need you most God, keep my head above water don't let me drown it gets harder I'll meet you there at the altar As I fall down to my knees don't let me drown Drown, drown Don't let me don't let me drown don't let me drown Drown, drown Don't let me don't let me down and I can't see through this stormy weather and I can't seem to keep it all together and I I can't swim the ocean like this forever and I can't breathe Breath God keep my head above water I lose my breath at the bottom Come rescue me I'll be waiting I'm too young to fall asleep God, keep my head above water I keep me drown it gets harder I'll meet you there at the altar As I fall down to my knees don't let me drown don't let me don't let me drown don't let me drown don't let me don't let me drown don't let me drown don't let me don't let me drown Let me drown don't let me don't let me drown.
Mark Clark [00:41:49]:
The cries.
Mark Clark [00:41:50]:
That we all have in moments of pain and weakness is where God gets our attention at times. And that's where Paul's about to shift into for the next section. The power of the cross, as ridiculous as it looks, is the thing we all get to reach out to in our moments of humility and weakness. And then God's going to take you and do something crazy.
Mark Clark [00:42:13]:
I don't know.
Mark Clark [00:42:14]:
I've just been moved hearing the lyrics of that song and understanding a bit of her story. Action. Talk to Matt and going to reach out to her as a pastor and just see if she needs direction, discipleship. But this is. This is the story of all of our lives in some way, shape or form. And so the question is, do you try to do it on your own or do you reach out to the power of the cross, as foolish as it seems? Father, our prayer is that you would change not only what we do, but what we want to do. Because the power of the cross, as foolish as it looks, you take the weakness and that's where you are very strong. That's where lives can pivot and change on the spot.
Mark Clark [00:43:08]:
In this room, in the rooms that.
Mark Clark [00:43:10]:
Are watching this, people are at the.
Mark Clark [00:43:16]:
End of themselves in many ways. Emotionally, physically, spiritually. And I pray they'd have the courage to actually cry out, don't let this end me. This is like Jonah and the Whale, the same poem he basically gives. Don't let me die don't let me drown Keep my head above water and I pray that the power of the cross is what each and every person who can hear my voice right now would actually hold on to. Versus themselves and the nonsense this world has to offer them, which looks really smart, but which in the end is folly. I pray that you do that. Among us, in Jesus good name we pray.
Mark Clark [00:44:03]:
Amen.