Stories Told & Memories Made

For 400 years, oral tradition is all we had. Some things written down, some things passed down. The first five books of the Bible told the stories, but families would continue to tell.

They would sit down, and the children were guided to ask questions and the parents would respond with the story of what took place and how we know that this is true. Then Jesus arrived, and he changed everything.

To this very day, we tell the stories of Jesus and his goodness and his faithfulness and his righteousness and his holiness, and how he is the answer to everything that the world was groaning for.

I want to just set this up to help us understand that families are the primary unit of society. Family values are transmitted through stories and living life together. Remember, communities don't raise kids, families do.

That's why it's so incredibly important that we help set root of God's faithfulness and his truth and what true faith looks like for generations to come in the places that we call home, where the stories are told and the memories are made. 

Throughout history, stories been the key element for passing things down. I've mentioned that, but I'll just tell you, if you were to enter a Jewish home, you would hear stories of Noah and his family messed up as they were.

You can read some of that. After the flood, things got a little scandy. I'm just going to tell you that. Guess what? There's no perfect family in the Bible. I've mentioned this. If you go and say, "I want to be like them," there's no real good expressions of family in the Bible because everybody, Noah, Abraham, even Abraham's down-the-line grandson, Jacob, had a problem.

They had problems. They had infighting. They had messes. Just go back to the original family. What happened with Cain and Abel? Brothers killed each other. You go to Jacob, who is further down the line, Jacob's sons hated each other. Jacob stole his brother Esau's birthright. Everything he was supposed to get. Swindlers, tricksters, robbers, thieves. That's all the stuff in there.

I thought I was just describing my family lying to you, but no. That's what it looks like. God says, "I need you to see all of this."

Here is one thing that I see in our culture that we have to stand up for. One is we need parents and caring adults who will take the lead on becoming the storytellers. We need parents and caring adults who are willing to say, "I will lead the way. I will learn the stories. I will tell the stories. I will bring hope through the word of my testimony."

Not just the hope of, like, "Everything was awesome at the end of the day." No. Tell us the story about crazy Uncle Frank. I had a bunch of them. Tell us those stories. Tell us about those places where we were broken as well.

When we read that Psalm, that's what he says. They need to know the full story so that they know where to go and where not to go. Proverbs 22:6 says this again, the book of wisdom says, "Direct your children onto the right path, and when they're older, they will not leave it. Direct your children on the right path and when they're older, they will not leave it."

People want to know, where do we get wisdom from? Well, I made a little formula. These are word formulas. Because in school I wasn't great at math, so I make formulas out of words nowadays.

Here is the formula for wisdom. Wisdom looks like this: Experience plus knowledge plus good judgment equals wisdom. 

I've seen these commercials lately.  One of the commercials is a little girl doing her homework, and she says, "Alexa, how big is the ocean?"

You see the dad, he is on the phone. He is on a business call or something. He says, "Hey, I'm going to have to call you back. I got to go." He hangs up his phone, and he goes, and he says, "Hey, girl, I'm going to take you somewhere. Let's go."

They jump in the car, and they drive, and they drive, and they drive. Then they get to the seashore, and she is running and playing, and she is looking over the ocean with her dad, and she finally understands how big the ocean is. See, family is where we begin to grow in knowledge.

But if it's just about knowledge, then take me and Siri, who will talk to me now, and Alexa or anybody else, they can get ChatGPT can tell you all kinds of things. If it's just about knowledge, we've got all kinds of AI that can make it work, but sometimes we need knowledge that comes with experience as well to be able to see, touch, taste, feel, experience some things appropriately in life, and then learn to pair those with good judgment. That's how you raise a family that's built on wisdom and truth.

I love this. It says, "Generations will pass down the wisdom." I don't know if you know this, but wisdom in the Bible is signified by having gray hair. Can I get an amen?

Proverbs 16:31 says, "This gray hair is a crown of glory. It is gained by living a godly life.

We've got to tell our story too. I'm going to give you a quick understanding for how to tell your story. It's this, you have to learn how to tell your story, and there's three building blocks to your story.

One is the mood, the second is the moment, and the third is the mission.

You got to set the pace. What was the mood? People are like, "What's the mood of the room? I want to know?" The mood of the room is, this is where I was before Christ. My mood, my situation. The moment then arrives. This is the moment that I met Christ. This is the moment everything changed.

What is your mission? What was the mood? What was the setting? What was it looking like before you met Christ? Then when you met him in that moment, what did that look like and feel like, and how did that go, and now what has God put you on a path to do? That's what God has called us to.

Let me just give you this last thought. Leadership in your home, leadership in your family, it's a privilege, but it also is a responsibility.

Y'all, I don't feel qualified to do most of what I do. Much less.

I've told Cindy, how do I have three beautiful, amazing children? People are like, "Pastor Jeff." I'm like, "Every once in a while--" Somebody calls me Pastor Jeff, comes with a thing, and I'm like, "Man, if you only knew, I don't feel qualified." I understand that the place God has put me as both a dad and a pastor in this community is not only a privilege, but it carries a great responsibility.

Why? Because technically, I'm the leader of a couple big families. Because when you begin to look at it and understand it, I'm the one who has to carry a lot of the stories. I bring you stories on an every week basis to help you understand the goodness of God and his faithfulness and what's going on. Additionally, that's my job as a dad in my own home to do that. My encouragement to us as a church today is to recognize both the privilege and the responsibility of leadership in our homes.

Then, once we begin to get ahold of that, also understand the privilege and the responsibility of leadership as the church of Jesus Christ, who may only be the good example for the rest of the world of what a family and what hope should look like.

Are there good families out there who are not believers? Absolutely, but do they carry with them the hope of salvation? They do not. While I would like to think that good behavior is the end goal and the joy of everything, it is not.

The joy of life is choosing God and choosing to be covered in his son and make a declaration of your faith before a church community and a body of believers and say, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."