In Ephesians Paul calls the church to walk in wisdom by the power of the Spirit. This includes children. And in this week’s sermon, we saw how children in the Lord (believing children) are motivated to obey and honor their parents.

Indeed, in only three verses (Ephesians 6:1–3) there are a lot of things to consider, especially with the way Paul uses Exodus 20:12 to motivate children to obey their parents. Take time to listen to the sermon online, as it considers how the promise of inheritance in Exodus 20:12 is applied to believing children. You can read the sermon notes here. Discussion questions and further resources can be found below. Continue reading →

True Religion Defends Life Against Abortion (James 1:19–27)

January 21, 2018January 23, 2018 / davidsschrock

True Religion Defends Life Against Abortion (James 1:19–27)

Since 1973 60 million babies have been killed through the legal practice of abortion. Tragically, the legal nature of abortion doesn’t change its lethal nature, nor does it change the fact that abortion unfairly targets minorities in our country. In other words, abortion is not unjust, in general; abortion’s injustice specifically targets black and Hispanic babies.

Since 2010 I have preached a sanctity of human life message every January. This year, my sermon considered the historic racist aims of abortion and the deadly influence of Margaret Sanger, the found of Planned Parenthood, on our country. Sanger’s reputation has been whitewashed through the years, but her lethal ideology shows its true colors when we learn more of her history.

In this years Sanctity of Human Life sermon, I trace some of her history and explain why it pleases God, protects the image of God, and produces Christlikeness to stand for life. Please take time to listen to this important message. You can find the sermon notes here. Discussion questions and additional resources are below. Continue reading →

Playing (and Not Playing) Sports to the Glory of God

March 11, 2016 / davidsschrock

Norman Dale: You know, most people would kill to be treated like a god, just for a few moments.
Barbara Fleener: Gods come pretty cheap nowadays, don’t they? You become one by putting a leather ball in an iron hoop. I hate to tell you this, but it’s only a game.

Growing up, Hoosiers was one of, if not my absolute, favorite movie. Its story about the improbably state championship of a small town basketball team fueled countless hours of basketball drills and hardwood dreams. It also fed my idolatry with basketball, that persisted until the Lord saved me from my sins and my selfish dreams.

In reflecting on sports, I wouldn’t say everyone who dreams of playing college (or professional) sports is sinning. I wouldn’t paint others with the same idolatry I had, but I would say that as my children are just now beginning to come to an age where sports is an option, I’m thinking about sports entirely differently than I did when I was 12 years old. As much as I would enjoy watching my children succeed in sports, I am much more concerned with savoring Christ and serving him as Lord.

I doubt I’m alone. I know many who love Jesus and sports. Indeed, I believe Paul himself had a positive view of athletics. But what Paul says about sports in 1 Timothy 4:7–8 bears repeating today: disciplining ones body for sports was and is secondary to cultivating godliness. Christians who play sports should think and play and participate differently. But how?

If you are wrestling with the role sports should play in your children’s lives, here are some helpful resources. Be prepared, like your ball coach’s end-of-practice wind sprints, they are sure to produce some discomfort. But, as they say, “No Pain, No Gain.” Continue reading →

Where Do Infants Go When They Die?

September 2, 2014September 2, 2014 / davidsschrock / 5 Comments

Daniel Akin has rewritten the article that he and Albert Mohler wrote on where infants go when they die (HT: Denny Burk). It’s entitled,”Why I Believe Children Who Die Go to Heaven.” In his brief essay, he gives six biblical reasons why we can know that infants and those who die before the “age of accountability” die in the Lord. Here they are:

The grace, goodness and mercy of God would support the position that God saves all infants who die. (Matthew 18:14; 1 Timothy 2:4; 1 John 4:8)
When the baby boy who was born to David and Bathsheba died, David spoke as one who trusted that he would see this child again in the presence of God. (2 Samuel 12:15-18)
Those who know sin and choose to do it are held accountable; those who do not know the difference are not. At the judgment seat, it is our sins done in the body that will be judged. (Deuteronomy 1:39; Isaiah 7:16; James 4:17; Revelation 20:11–15)
When Jesus speaks of the kingdom, he seems to indicate the presence of children in heaven. (Luke 18:15–17)
Scripture affirms that the number of saved souls is very great. This points to the fact that those who die as children will be received into heaven. (Revelation 7:9)
Some in Scripture are said to be chosen or sanctified from the womb. (1 Samuel 1:8-2:21; Jeremiah 1:5; Luke 1:15)

Interestingly, just days before I came across President Akin’s update, I wrote my own essay for our church. Some of my arguments stem from his earlier essay; some come from N. D. Wilson’s Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl. Altogether, I pray they may encourage and assist you (or someone you love) as you grieve the loss of a child who has been called home by King Jesus.

Where Do Infants Go When They Die?

Continue reading →

Keeping In Step with the Spirit by Following in the Footsteps of J.R.R. Tolkien

March 14, 2014March 14, 2014 / davidsschrock / 1 Comment

Last week, Albert Mohler republished one of his essays, “From Father to Son—J.R.R. Tolkien on Sex.” It deserves to be read by fathers and sons and everyone else. It is taken from Mohler’s book Desire and Deceit: The Real Cost of the New Sexual Tolerance, and the essay is about J.R.R. Tolkien’s views on sex, captured in a host of letters to his three sons (see The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien).

Mohler’s article is well worth the read as it sets out the ways in which Christian Scripture informed Tolkien’s sexual ethic and the way that the architect of Middle Earth stood against the prevailing notions of sex half-a-century-ago. Here are some of the best lines from Tolkien’s letters, which Mohler included in his essay.

The dislocation of sex-instinct is one of the chief symptoms of the Fall.
The devil is endlessly ingenious, and sex is his favorite subject,
Monogamy (although it has long been fundamental to our inherited ideas) is for us men a piece of ‘revealed’ ethic, according to faith and not to the flesh.
Faithfulness in Christian marriage entails that: great mortification. For a Christian man there is no escape. Marriage may help to sanctify and direct to its proper object his sexual desires; its grace may help him in the struggle; but the struggle remains.
No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial.
Christian marriage is not a prohibition of sexual intercourse, but the correct way of sexual temperance–in fact probably the best way of getting the most satisfying sexual pleasure . . . .

As is evident, Tolkien conceived of sex in a way that is lost on inhabitants of the twenty-first century, and that is foreign to many Christians too. His perspective needs to be heard, and fatherly model of speaking candidly to his children about sex needs to be imitated too. Let me close with Mohler’s reflections:

From the vantage point of the 21st century, Tolkien will appear to many to be both out of step and out of tune with the sexual mores of our times. Tolkien would no doubt take this as a sincere, if unintended, compliment. He knew he was out of step, and he steadfastly refused to update his morality in order to pass the muster of the moderns.

When it comes to sex, may we keep in step with the Spirit, by following in the footsteps of someone who did not succumb to the spirit of the age.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

How Sheep Can Shepherd Their Shepherd’s Lambs

March 13, 2014 / davidsschrock

I am thankful to be at a church that loves our children and encourages me to spend time with them. I have members who ask about the time I am spending with them and have never received a complaint for the time I take with them or the times I bring them with me to ministry activities.

On that subject, the need for churches to care well for their pastor’s children, Chap Bettis has provided seven important exhortations for the way churches can shepherd their pastor’s children. Let me share them with you:

Give grace to the pastor’s children on Sunday.
If you have a concern, talk to your pastor about behavior that characterizes the children. But do so with an attitude of loving acceptance.
Be generous in your praise.
Limit church criticism and complaint to private conversations among adults.
Be brave and rebuke the critics. Unfortunately, not everyone in the congregation will follow this suggestion. When grumbling and faultfinding spill over in front of you, speak up.
Give your pastors room to deal with their children’s hearts. Older children will go through some spiritual ups and downs. How will you think about those bumps? With care and affection? Or self-righteous judgment?
Give your pastors margin to minister to their families. Children need their father. . . . Even as a church member, you can encourage your pastors to care for their families.

These seven guidelines and the explanations Chap provide come from twenty-five years of ministry with, by God’s grace, children who are not embittered towards the church.

May God multiply Chap’s testimony, and give pastors church families that shepherd their children well, even as they shepherd their church.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

[photo credit: ThomRainer.com]

What do you want for your children?

August 7, 2010 / davidsschrock

In preparation for the new Young Married class we are starting at our church (Calvary BC), I started reading The Gospel-Centred Family by Tim Chester and Ed Moll. Though, I am only two chapters in, I already have a great appreciation for the book, and am excited about wading into the content with some of the young families in our church.

In their second chapter, “Gospel-Centred Hopes,” Tim and Ed address a common problem among American evangelicals–namely, placing primary importance on things other than Christ and the gospel. Yes, Jesus is good for Sunday, but real life starts on Monday and finishes Saturday night.

In a biblical exhortation to parents, they challenge parents to rethink the hopes they have for their children. In short, they call families to live for Christ by re-orienting their lives around Christ Monday-Sunday. They point us Jesus’s call to pick up our cross and follow him, and in so doing, they make their case that Gospel-centred families must eschew the venerable idols of education, success, and respectable living. They write,

I’ve often heard people say they would consider living in the city, but they’re concerned about their children’s influences and education. But that begs the question: what do you want for your children? If you want them to be middle-class, prosperous and respectable, then live in a leafy suburb, send to a good school, and keep them away from messed-up people. But if you want them to serve Christ in a radical, whole-hearted way, then model that for them in the way you live. That won’t necessarily mean moving to the inner city. But it does mean exposing them to costly ministry. Teach them that following Jesus, denying yourself and taking up the cross is what matter (Mark 8:34)…

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with education, career, marriage or prosperity. But when we make these things more important than knowing and serving God, then they’ve become idols. The problem is they are respectable idols! It can easily become okay, even in churches, to make an idol of education or career or respectability.

May our minds be renewed by this counter-cultural word (cf Mark 8:34). May the Spirit of God show us the innumerable ways we crave these vain idols. And may we commit ourselves, by God’s grace, to lead our families to put Christ and his cross at the center of our lives, so that our children will live for more than what they can taste, touch, feel, or get in this world. After all, that is what Scripture instructs us to want for our children.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss