Valley Church Clinton
Family Worship Sunday
  • Here I Am To Worship
  • Jesus Paid It All
  • Church, this is our future.
    This is the next generation of believers. Of Christ followers.
    For those of you new to Valley Church, we do this rhythm every 5th Sunday where we pause the kids areas, not only to provide our gracious and wonderful volunteers a break…
    But also to highlight the importance of our children, and of the family unit.
    There’s a reason that we have this normal cadence - it’s to keep our priorities and mission in front of us.
    And one of those priorities, among a few here at Valley Church Clinton, is to invest in our kids and our families.
    Not because they are more important, or because having a great and flashy children’s program will bring in more tithers,
    No, it’s because Jesus cared about kids.
    Even though they were loud, and they misbehaved, and culturally were burdens until they were of working age.
    Jesus Himself still stopped and cared for little children.
    And if we don’t pause and really get down on our kids level,
    I think we’ll miss out on so many good things they have to offer.
    Because the fact of the matter is, and I hate to say this…
    Is our society, the world out there, they don’t really love kids.
    They don’t, in fact, kids are often hated.
    We abandon them, we neglect them, we get annoyed by them, and somehow western society has accepted that abortion should be celebrated.
    Our kids are treated as a nusiance.
    I know you’ve felt this if you’ve ever taken a child to a grocery store, you say no when they ask for a sucker at the cash register,
    And the meltdown begins.
    You try your hardest to get through the check out line as quickly as possible, but you feel the looks around you, the judgement, you start questioning if you’re even fit to be a parent…
    See, we expect kids to have it all together. To act like adults. To be quiet. To do everything right like we do, right?
    We show very little patience, graciousness, mercy -
    Our kids become a burden in our minds rather than an incredible gift from God.
    This is why we must continue to remind ourselves that our kids are the greatest asset of the church.
    As Psalm 127:3 says…
    Psalm 127:3 CSB
    3 Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord, offspring, a reward.
    They are not in the way, or too loud, or too rambunctious,
    They are gifts from God.
    You know, I feel like I’m a pretty strict dad. I expect a lot out of my kids, they’ll probably say the same thing.
    And here recently, I’ve gotten on them a lot about keeping up with cleaning the house and the yard…
    I’m getting real tired of shoes and socks being left out on the trampoline, bikes right behind my car where I can’t see them,
    Messy rooms, somehow there’s always a sticky doorknob that I find,
    Over and over and over I tell them.
    And eventually I started to realize….
    I wonder how many times God looks down at me, and says “hey buddy, I’ve told you already, put that away”
    How many times I’ve received grace when I should have gotten punished.
    How many times our shepherd has had to scoop me up after straying away, only for me to leave the herd again while he chases after me again and again,
    And that’s why family is so important.
    That’s why all of us, whether you’re a family here today, whether you’re a couple with no kids, whether you’re single, whether you’re an empty nester,
    Whatever your life situation is,
    You are meant to belong in family.
    Because we are all God’s children who have gone astray, who have wondered off, we are all people who need rescue.
    Galatians 4:6 CSB
    6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”
    Our innermost being is yearning for a father.
    And he is a wonderful Father who listen to us, and I mean really listens.
    He stops whatever he’s doing and not only listens, but comes to our aid, and sits in our problems with us, even when most of our problems were caused by us.
    And that means us, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we are the family.
    The church body, we are meant to be family.
    This is where we’re rooted.
    When one of us is hurting, all of us are.
    When one of us rejoices, all of us do,
    When someone needs defending, we’ve got your back.
    When someone needs help, we start pitching in.
    We are all meant to experience, in the church, what it means to be a family unit.
    And it’s our mission, here at Valley Church Clinton, to make this place feel like family.
    Yes, family members can hurt one another.
    Yes, family members can get annoying.
    But family never runs out, or quits on you, and it’s not something that you can just walk away from.
    They say blood is thicker than water, but how much thicker is our bond as a family as we are being connected by the pure blood of Jesus Christ?
    In regards to our family, then, we are called to train up the next generation.
    So, the first thing I think we need to do, in the context of this specific church, is to

    Invest in the Next Generation

    Children are an asset that will never depreciate, whatever we invest in them will only yield fruit.
    So, as a church in Clinton, a large part of our resources and efforts will be geared toward our children.
    There’s a great book of the Bible called Deuteronomy, and the man Moses is preparing his people to enter the promised land, he has this goal in mind as well, especially since none of the adults that escaped form Egypt would end up making it to Israel.
    This is what he says:
    Deuteronomy 6:6–7 CSB
    6 These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. 7 Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
    We must be teaching our kids the way of Jesus.
    Not watered down fun stories, although story time can be fun,
    It’s not over the top activities, or programming,
    It’s training our little ones to love Jesus, and to follow in his footsteps.
    We need to train them to automatically think “how would Jesus handle this”
    And this doesn’t primarily come from Sunday school hour at church…
    No, its when you sit at your house.
    It’s when you walk down the road, when you go to bed, when they wake up…
    So it’s not only about directly teaching our kids while they’re in the building,
    It’s equipping our families, it’s supporting our parents, it’s making sure our families can go out and implement Christ into their children’s everyday lives.
    And it’s not only equipping parents and kids, it’s encouraging all of our church family to equip one another out of love.
    We are to be constant examples to anyone, at anytime, any age, looking up to us.
    Titus 2:1–2 CSB
    1 But you are to proclaim things consistent with sound teaching. 2 Older men are to be self-controlled, worthy of respect, sensible, and sound in faith, love, and endurance.
    Titus 2:3–5 CSB
    3 In the same way, older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not slaves to excessive drinking. They are to teach what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, workers at home, kind, and in submission to their husbands, so that God’s word will not be slandered.
    Titus 2:6–8 CSB
    6 In the same way, encourage the young men to be self-controlled 7 in everything. Make yourself an example of good works with integrity and dignity in your teaching. 8 Your message is to be sound beyond reproach, so that any opponent will be ashamed, because he doesn’t have anything bad to say about us.
    This is the mission of the church - a multigenerational family.
    Let us not get siloed into only thinking about ourselves or the people like us.
    Let’s invest in one another as a family.
    The second thing we can actively do, aside from instructing and invest in our kids, is to

    Learn From Our Kids

    We need to learn from our kids, because let me tell you, just watching your kids for a little while will teach you what we should be like.
    Mark 10:13–16 CSB
    13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me. Don’t stop them, because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 After taking them in his arms, he laid his hands on them and blessed them.
    See, what happens as we get older is we lose our sense of who God is.
    We lose our amazement and replace it with skepticism,
    We lose our sense of wonder and replace it with jadedness.
    Our dependence on God is replaced with self-reliance,
    Our lack of anxiety is given up for crammed schedules and worry.
    Our relationship with God should look like a child’s, not an adults.
    Not fraught with transactional prayers, anxious attachments, and doubt.
    But from a place of complete dependence, and faith, and trust.
    And the more we try to acts like adults in the face of God, the more we actually try to do it ourselves and take control,
    The more we start to try to take God’s place.
    And that shouldn’t be,
    Because we are in our place, and God is in his place, for a reason.
    Look at our kids. They have complete an utter reliance on their parents.
    To wake them, feed them, to clothe them, to bring them places,
    Children simply could not live without their parents.
    So is our relationship with God.
    Our Father in heaven wants to take care of us.
    He wants to give us good things, and make our lives holy and fruitful.
    Matthew 7:9–11 CSB
    9 Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him.
    Our Father in heaven wants the best things for us, and when we ask for good things, he will give it to us.
    Our relationship with God should look more like child’s than and adult’s.
    So, church, I urge you.
    Grow in the faith, grow in your maturity, grow in discipleship and the knowledge of Christ, grow into Christlikeness.
    But never grow up.
    Continue to help us train up our children in the way of Christ,
    And continue striving toward child-like faith.
    Proverbs 22:6 CSB
    6 Start a youth out on his way; even when he grows old he will not depart from it.
    Don’t depart from the faith you originally found.

      • Psalm 127:3CSB

      • Galatians 4:6CSB

      • Deuteronomy 6:6–7CSB

      • Titus 2:1–2CSB

      • Titus 2:3–5CSB

      • Titus 2:6–8CSB

  • Here I Am To Worship

      • Mark 10:13–16CSB

      • Matthew 7:9–11CSB

      • Proverbs 22:6CSB

  • The Stand
  • Clean
Valley Church Clinton
3 members