How many young boys imagination are swept away by heroes. How many boys play at Superman, Batman, and Spiderman and even Han Solo or Luke Skywalker?
I remember wanting to be Spiderman and Captain America. Last night Josiah received a great thrill when we finally busted out his Batman bed sheets. He would have been fine if Jesus came back this morning because I believe that he has experienced all his little heart has experienced all he needs of this old world now.
Many men come to me to share their struggles with fatherhood. They believe they are not heroic. They do not think they can match up to their sons idols. Or they excuse themselves from stepping up to the plate and leading the family because they say they are not heroic.
Men, let me just pause here today and tell you that by default, especially those of you who are fathers by the birth and those of you who have stepped into fathers roles, you are by default heroes to your kids and the kids you influence. How do I know that? For one thing, when Josiah wants to play Batman, he does not call Commissioner Gordon, or put up the Bat signal, or dial the red phone. No, he comes to dad. He wants to play heroes with ME!
And I have seen many heroic men in our church. How do I know they are heroes? My kids talk about them. Abbey and Emma talk about the Bible stories they learned and how the teacher told the story. They talk about the games they played. And my kids talk about the ultimate hero.
Some of you expect to have a story told like a comic book concerning your heroics, that after every lesson, you will see the fruit. But, I can tell you that I had the pleasure of seeing one of our teachers meet a visitor in church one day. The visitor said, “You may not recognize me, but you taught me when I was in Sunday school. I have graduated college now and am grown up, but I remember you and the stories told….” Remember I told you that less than 1 out ten teenagers go to church now and we lose 1 out ten who go to church when they go to college. Well that hero helped keep that child in the Kingdom of God.
I salute you men who have offered to teach. Some have even taken off for a week at VBS to teach kids. Listen men, you are a hero when you come home every night and love on your wife and kids you are a hero. 40 percent of children in America will go to bed tonight with no father figure in the home. More than half the children growing up today will spend a significant amount of time without a dad in the home. Men when you love your wife and stand against the Devils temptation to abdicate your leadership, home and children, you are a hero.
Today’s sermon comes from the heroic stands Moses made against the temptation to compromise. It comes from a Peter Marshall sermon. It encourages me; I hope it encourages you heroes. Maybe someone here today says, “I have not been doing that, but I would sure like to try.” Well God will get you there, I promise. Let’s turn to God’s Word.
Flies
25 And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. 26 And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the LORD our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us? 27 We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the LORD our God, as he shall command us. 28 And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the LORD your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away: intreat for me. Worship in the Land.
1. You can Worship, but do not go too far. (Exodus 8:25-28)
We hear this today in statements that sound like this: kick prayer out of school, keep the 10 Commandments off of public property; Corporate commands that employees say, “Happy Holidays,” ACLU lawsuits over Nativity Displays. You can act different for a day or two, but don’t really change the rest of the week. Keep your faith private. Again, folks, faith is personal, but true faith is never private.
The hardest Bible translation for people to read in America is the one that translates Sunday into Monday through Saturday. How many people go to church on Sunday only to apply the message to everyone else, except themselves? My friend Will O’Neil, a pastor down in Louisiana, talked with Ed Stetzer and asked why the church is seeing tremendous growth in the world, but America seems so stagnant in evangelism. The professor answered, “Because in other countries, they do church outside the 4 walls of the building,” and people catch it.
Your kids will learn more by what is caught from you than what it taught on Sunday! If you do not apply Sunday’s message to your life, your son, your daughter will catch the drift that God is just someone we talk about without really serving.
There are two formations of the Church: 1. The church gathered on Sunday Morning. 2. The church scattered throughout the week.
7 And Pharaoh’s servants said to him, "How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God. Do you not realize that Egypt is destroyed?"
8 So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, "Go, serve the LORD your God! Who are the ones that are going?"
9 And Moses said, "We shall go with our young and our old; with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds we will go, for we must hold a feast to the LORD."
2. Serve God, but leave your kids with us! (Exodus 10:7-10)
Study that the more one is involved in church, he or she is more likely to live morally like the Bible teaches. The more one watches TV the more morally lax and culturally confused he or she tends to be. The QUESTION THIS BEGS is who is raising your child? The TV, school, government, or God’s family?
Do you want Paris Hilton raising your kids? She certainly thinks she is. She recently said that she wants to be an example for all the kids who look up to her. I am not one for seeing people drug through the mud, but this is an exception because she has put herself in the lime light. She and the media have made a spectacle of her morally repugnant, self-centered, in-your-face life style. They have glamorized sin and decadence. Hollywood and the Devil would have our children and teenagers believe the lie that sin is just plain ole’ fun and no one gets hurt.
I want see Paris straighten up and find God (What a story that would be. But if she became really became a believer and started spouting the Bible and Christ as blessings rather than obscenities, I bet you would see the media drop her like a rock!). I also hope that we see the country follow our God and savior, Jesus Christ, rather than our children and youth captured by the Cult of Personality that the Media and Hollywood want to feed us! (It is all fueled by the Devil).
After the Darkness
24 Then Pharaoh called to Moses, and said, "Go, serve the LORD; only let your flocks and your herds be detained. Even your little ones may go with you."
25 But Moses said, "You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice them to the LORD our God.
26 "Therefore, our livestock, too, will go with us; not a hoof will be left behind, for we shall take some of them to serve the LORD our God. And until we arrive there, we ourselves do not know with what we shall serve the LORD."
3. You can go worship, but leave your resources in the world. (Exodus 10:24-26)
When I was not a Christian, I used to hear and believe, “All that they want is your money.” “Oh, they are going to pass the plate again.” When you are lost in your sin, you do not see the hypocrisy of that statement. You do not see how ludicrous that statement is! Why?
When is the last time someone entered a movie theater without paying? And who would go to a movie theater that said, “Sorry, we don’t have the money to provide air conditioning.” I remember when Sarah and I lived in Seminary housing in Louisville. There was a heat wave like this one and we lived on the top floor of the apartments. There was no air conditioning. It was so hot one day, everything stuck to us. The candles we got from our wedding were no longer standing tall and proud, they had wilted just like a dying flower. We new it was hot. But, we remembered that the Dollar Movie Theater in town had air conditioning. We gathered up all the money we could and sat through every non R rated movie we could just to get cool paying $2 for every 2 hours we were there. We did not consider that too much of an expense for the benefit.
Well, what will you pay for your soul? Only the church holds or conserves the doctrine of Christ and His salvation. You will not find the Bible in Hollywood or Evan Almighty! You will find distortions. And, I have see the power of God transform drug addicts, couples headed for divorce, and bring people back from the edge of despair.
When I was in Pascagoula, I was stopped several times as we worked as houses as a mission project. And I was told over an over again, “thank you. We do not know what we would do without you.” They would tell us, “You were here before FEMA and Red Cross. And when Fema and the Red Cross pulled out, you guys stayed.”
God doesn’t need your money, but He will use your money and your service to transform lives
Remember it is God who gives you the ability to earn those resources, you have to be faithful with what He gives you are He can take away. Job said, “He gives and takes away!”
Don’t give to Second Rate Causes and expect a First Rate Family!
