The most important thing in reaching your teen for Christ, and for giving them the best chance at life is Your Marriage.  I do not know how else to say this, it is just simply your marriage.  I know there are single mom’s and dad’s here, and broken families, and I understand that spouses have left you and sinned against you, and for that I am deeply sorry, and there is hope and redemption in Jesus Christ.  But for now I want to bring some truth to those of us who are still married.

There is nothing more damaging to your child than divorce, and there is nothing more that screams hypocrisy to your children than a marriage relationship that is un-Christ-like and not “for real”.  Your children see right through you.

If Jesus is not the centre of your life, marriage, and the fountain of love and strength displayed in love, grace and forgiveness to your spouse, you have little chance of convincing your child to be a Christ follower or even a good, disciplined child who makes wise choices.  Many of you may be dealing with rebellious teenagers that have discipline issues, the first thing I encourage you to do is examine your own marriage.

Jesus gives us a little instruction on judging things.  In Matthew 7:4-5, part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus has addressed things such as adultery, murder, divorce, loving your enemies, he tells us, 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

This is what most of us try to do, plank in eye we say, “hey son you got some dust in your eye.”  “Hey son, stop lying to us.”  “Hey daughter, stop being promiscuous.”  “Hey son stop, looking at pornography.”  “Hey kids, treat your mom with love and respect.”  “Hey kids, treat your dad with love and respect.”  “Hey kids, have devotionals and love Jesus with your lips and your life.”  Your children may hear your words, but they see your plank!  Another truth, “People do what people see.” –Dr. Tim Elmore, Generation iY.  So in Jesus “lingo”, Your children will live your plank.

1 Thessalonians 1:4-8, “… You know how we lived among you for your sake. 6You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.  7And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia…”

So, in parenting your children: first examine your marriage to get the plank out of your own eye.  And then in examining your marriage take the plank out of your own eye before getting the speck of dust out of your spouse’s eye.  I cannot stress enough how much your marriage affects your children!  I see it in their lives as I watch them.  I see it in their eyes and I hear it in their voices when they come in here and tell me.

But the thing is I do not want your children to be the only reason you examine your marriage.  Before that I want you to remember the promise you made to love and be faithful to your spouse, to share with them in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, to forgive and strengthen them, so long as we both shall live.  Can you do me a favour?  Take the two fingers on your right hand, place them on your left wrist and check your pulse.  Is it still beating?  Yup, so you are still alive.  So let’s start being men and woman of our word.

But before even that, I want you to examine your marriage because of the love Jesus has for you.  Note I didn’t say, out of your love for Jesus, but out of His love for you.  This is how Jesus describes His love for you.  Ephesians 5:22-28 and 32, “Wives, submit to your husbands as unto the Lord.  23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Saviour.  24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”  “25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy cleansing her by washing with water through the Word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife, loves himself…32This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

The love that Christ has for you is a mystery.  It is unfathomable!  We did not deserve to be saved.  And we do not deserve to be sanctified, and used by God for His Kingdom.  But out of His sheer grace He saved us, sanctifies us, and will present us Holy and Blameless before God, because He is love, not because we are anything.  Remember all this while keeping in mind your role as a husband or wife.

I know that marriage can be hard, I am married.  I love being married, but at times it can be very hard.  Natalia and I had a very difficult first year of marriage.  But nothing in the Christian life is really designed to be easy.

Obtaining our salvation was not easy.  God had to become a man, get whipped until His back was strips of flesh, He had to have a crown of thorns pressed into His head, nails hammered through His hands and feet, His beard ripped out of His face.  He had to be ridiculed, spat upon, and then suffocate to death to pay for our sin.  It was not easy, but it was worth it, and He endured it, because of the joy set before Him, which was: us with Him forever.

I know marriage is hard.  But in the brief time I have been married there are two things I have learned: first, are six very important words; “I am sorry, please forgive me.”

The second is simpler, and harder, it is three words, “I forgive you.”  The second set of words are not easy sometimes…but I have to remind myself, neither was my salvation and that on the cross in obtaining my salvation Jesus said, “‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’  And they divided up His clothes by casting lots.”

Yes, sometimes marriage hurts, and forgiving is hard, but the amazing truth is not just that Jesus is my example, but that Jesus lives in me and Philippians 4:13 says “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.”  If we would just trust our God, submit ourselves to our Lord, and respond to His love, our marriages could be saved, and our children too.

So if you are married, stay married, and do it well.  Not just for the kids, but long after they have gone.  For some of you it may only be for the kids right now, but you need to come to the point where you’ve submitted to Christ, practiced forgiveness, and are living it for real.  Some of you can help your spouse in their forgiveness by practicing true repentance!  I would encourage you to dig a little into Romans 6 and 1 John 1 for homework.

If you are divorced or separated, my encouragement to you is that as far as it is possible for you, try and be reconciled to your husband or wife.

If you are divorced and have tried to be reconciled, or you are widowed, trust in Jesus.  Live forgiveness if you have been sinned against, and then do allow Christ to be your lover, friend, and Father to your children.  Also use the body of Christ, rely on us, ask us for help, ask mature men/women in Christ, or couples in Christ to hang out with you and your children, make deep friendships with married couples and families that love Jesus.

If you are happily married, you have a wonderful ministry opportunity to welcome single moms and dads and their children into your homes and lives.  As well as the opportunity to invite into your home Christian children and youth that do not have Christian parent’s.  I have these types of teens often tell me how amazing it is to see Christian parents and households and the love that they have.  Praise God!

Why “Burn Out“?  Because we will go 4hours straight of Bible teaching and apologetics, so we’ll basically go until we “Burn Out”…AND the focus of the sessions will also be that we take what we have learned and go and Burn Out-wards to our communities, schools, families and friends as effective witnesses of Jesus Christ.

The details:

What:  The Bible
Where:  Calvary Chapel Sarasota
When:  Feb. 24th 6:30pm-11:00pm
Cost:  $5 – $10 for dinner (Waiting to hear back from Chic Fil a)
Who:  Middle and High School students and your friends

We plan to have four sessions, which will be a mix of teaching, worship and prayer.  Click Burn Out to see our video.

1.  Winter Jam 2012

When: Saturday 14th.  Where: St. Pete Times Forum.  Meet: At The Block Calvary Chapel Sarasota at 1:45pm to get there at 3pm, for open doors at 5pm for the show at 6pm to be home at The Block by 11pm.  Cost: $10 cash or check for concert (No credit or debit cards according to Winter Jam).  AND $10 cash for dinner.  Plus any extra for your own snacks or merchandise purchases.

Winter Jam only sells tickets at the door and so we have to get there early to stand in line.  So students should bring some snacks and liquid for the two hour wait as well as for the whole night.  For dinner we will send someone to buy food for everyone while we are standing in line so students need at least $10 for dinner.  Please send them with at least two $10 bills, not just one twenty.

2.  The commUnity

The Unifyer is shutting down and we are switching to ‘the commUnity‘.  At the end of January the Unifyer will be completely shutdown so please click here to register or log in, at that point you will receive an email with instructions how to proceed. Once logged in to ‘the commUnity’ we encourage you to update your profile, adjust your availability to serve, set your communication preferences and privacy settings.  Then request to join the “Zero Gravity Youth Family” group whether you are a student or parent. Extensive help is available in by clicking on Help Forums and Videos or by contacting the church office. We are eager to serve you and appreciate your patience as we move along together to impact ‘the commUnity’!

Thanks

Pastor Sean

It is our passion to disciple the Young Church of today To walk  with the Lord Jesus.  To know Him.  To have an intimate relationship with Him.  To abide in his Word.  To preach Jesus with their lives and their lips.  To be conformed to His likeness.

We’d love for you to join us this Wednesday night at 6:30pm in “The Block” at Calvary Chapel Sarasota.

Now before you think I’m about to start the first chapter of my self help book, let me bring it back to Jesus.  I think that taking the opportunity of the new year to set goals and make changes is a great idea, but I think that an even better idea is to take the time to reflect on Jesus and all He has done.  He has done quite a bit!

One of the things He has done is saved you.  When you are saved, you don’t primarily get new goals, or a realigned vision, YOU DIE!  You are D-E-A-D dead!  You are then reborn and given a whole new life!  Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3 “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless He is born again…I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”

Your old life is over, your new life has started, and the primary focus of your new life is NOT having Christian goals, talking Christianese or building a ministry.  Your primary focus and joy is KNOWING GOD through JESUS.  Jesus says through Paul in Romans 6:11, “…count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” The context of the passage is that sin should no longer be reigning in our lives because in Christ we are dead to sin, and alive to God.  Our old life is DEAD and we are ALIVE to God.  But I think many of us think we are “dead to sin and alive to not sin.” Many of us have been trying very hard to act Christian and not sin, when in fact we should be focusing on being “alive to God.” The reason so many of us still struggle with the same old sin is that we don’t know God!  We have been trying so hard not to sin, that our focus is on our sin and not on the fact that we are now alive to God and can actually know Him.

We have no joy because we don’t know God.  We have been caught up in religious exercises of not doing this and not doing that and staying away from this and staying away from that.  We have become experts at setting boundaries!  The problem is that is exactly what the religious leaders of Jesus’ day did and Jesus didn’t have very nice things to say about them.

Now I am not saying that there is not wisdom in doing some of these things, but that is not our focus.  Our new life is founded, focused, and built on the truth that we now have access to God through Jesus and we can know God.  We are born again into a life of knowing God.

I watched a short video that Greg Laurie made for new believers, and there were four things he told them they needed to do to grow spiritually.  The first three were read the Bible, pray, and join a church.  Why did he tell them to do that, so that they can KNOW GOD.  Growing spiritually means growing closer to God.  The fourth thing he told them to do was to tell others, why?  To obey God who you know and so others can know God too.

Many of us want to be more like Jesus, or be more godly.  In life you become like the people you hang out with, therefore hang out with Jesus if you want to be like Jesus.  Hang out with God if you want to be godly!  You can, you are saved!  Jesus said in John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in Him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Many of us look at our lives and see that there is no spiritual fruit, so we try and make fruit, instead of get connected to Jesus.  Apart from Jesus YOU CAN DO NOTHING!

Many of us need to change, many of us need to be more godly Christians.  So yes, 2011 is dead and 2012 is alive.  But more importantly you are dead, and now you are alive to God.  You are dead to not knowing God and alive to knowing Him.  In 2012 explore the joy of knowing God!

Pastor Sean