Theology Matters for Kids Too

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Well good morning everyone, well I guess it's afternoon now.
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I did this course back at our annual convention.
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We have an annual convention every year.
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It's later this year we'll be doing it again and it's called Theology Matters and I'm not going to do the whole thing today because of time but also because you guys are elementary parents and really the Theology Matters lesson that I taught was focusing on kids going into high school or rather not going from high school to college and I'm not going to make an assumption that everyone here is a Christian.
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I wouldn't assume that in a room of two people, much less a room of ten.
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But I am going to be coming from this from a Christian perspective because I'm a minister at a Christian Church, Sovereign Grace Family Church, where I've served for the last 11 years as the senior pastor and before that I was a minister, associate pastor, and before that I was a youth minister.
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Been in the same church for going on 15 years and I have seen young people who began in Christian families, who grew up in the church, and who as a result of turning into later adolescent young adults depart from the church, depart from their faith, and become at odds with the family that they that they came out of.
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And now there's a great divide and people don't seem to realize how big that divide can be.
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But when when you're a believer and you have unbelieving children and they're adults and they're raising their children, it can be a real, it can be a real difficult thing.
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And obviously none of you have the capacity to save your children.
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Salvation is the work of the Lord.
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It's not something that you can do.
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But there is something that we as parents can do and that is teach our children properly the things of the Lord.
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I want you to look back here.
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When I first came in I wrote some numbers on the board and I wasn't just doing, you know, basic math.
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I was trying to show something.
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On the top number you'll see it says 30,000 and then there's a long hyphen there in the number 30.
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What that number represents is back in the mid 70s when the crusade-style evangelism really was in its heyday.
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When, you know, people like Billy Graham and others were were just making thousands and sometimes millions of people come to their events and they were seeing people turn over.
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There was a event in Texas, I believe it was in Austin, but it was in Texas and they secured 30,000 decisions for Christ.
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The follow-up committee, the group that was responsible to sort of keep up with those 30,000 people, did a survey after the end of 12 months trying to find those 30,000 people.
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And of the 30,000 people that made commitments to Christ, filled out the card, gave it in to the group, they had only found 30 who were actively participating in a church who were actively pursuing Christ and actively living out the faith that all 30,000 of them had, Austin, you know, in a sense made a commitment to.
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Your homeschool parents, your geniuses, what's 30 of 30,000? What's the percentage there? It's not 10% certainly and it's not even 1%.
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It's less than 1%.
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It's a one-tenth of 1% of 30,000 is how many people were continuing in their faith after only a year.
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The next number now you'll see is 25%.
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25% is actually from an interview.
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Dr.
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Billy Graham was interviewed in the mid-90s and he was asked, well Dr.
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Graham, do you think that everyone who comes down forward at your conventions is saved? And he said no.
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So even he's not convinced that everyone who comes forward is coming forward for the right reasons.
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And they said, well what do you think? And he said, oh maybe 25%.
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So that's Billy Graham's potential.
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Maybe 25% of the people who raise their hand and come forward are being saved.
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The last number is 6%.
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6% after a very long and detailed study, and this is a recent, more recent study since the year 2000 I believe, there was a more recent study on crusade style evangelism and the actual results of crusade style evangelism.
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How many people are still continuing actively in their local churches, actively pursuing their faith in Christ, and they said they believe the number to be around 6%.
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So you'll see there are 200 million.
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What does 200 million represent? That represents the cumulative number of people that came forward during the lifetime of Billy Graham's.
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And I'm not here to pick on Billy Graham.
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Please know that I'm not here to love Billy Graham.
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I'm not here to beat up on Billy.
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I'm here to simply use him because he's the most prolific example of this style of evangelism.
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200 million people came forward in his lifetime.
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So we'll say that that number of 6%, if it's correct, man, he reached 12 million people who actually got saved.
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That's huge.
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I'll never reach 12 million people.
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So, but here's the issue I have.
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I have the issue with the 188 million, and I think my math's right.
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That one I did.
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Yeah, yeah, I did it on the phone.
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188 million people have entered into a verbal consenting relationship with some type of faith in Jesus Christ and yet are not actively in any real way pursuing that faith.
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And what we would be, what we would call, at least when I say we I speak for myself and I guess my church but we would call people false converts.
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The Bible talks about false conversion.
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The Bible says in Matthew chapter 7 that there will be people who come to the Lord and those people will say Lord we're here and he'll say depart from me and they'll say but didn't we cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name and do miracles in your name and he'll say depart from me I'm what he said depart from me I I never knew you that's the key to that passage is he doesn't say I I knew you but you just didn't take it or I knew you for a while and you just didn't make it or you didn't quite live up to all my expectations so we never met not in a salvific way and that person's like but yeah I used your name and yeah I did miracles and I saw people healed and I saw people delivered and yet I was lost why does that happen why does that happen it happens because we have we have bought into this crusade mentality even in the church most I went seminary and in seminary I was taught this and I don't know what churches you guys go to and I hope I don't step on your toes too heavily but when I was in seminary I was taught that in a 30-minute sermon which is I preach longer than that but they say you know 30-minute sermon the last 10 minutes should be all invitation so your first 20 minutes should be leading up to the invitation and the last 10 minutes should be 48 verses of just as I am while we push and push and push people to come forward and I don't know if you've ever seen this but I've seen people go forward just to shut the pastor up I've seen people go forward just to get the lady with the organ to calm it down a little or the guy with the guitar just quit playing that sappy music you know what happens in my my warning to parents and this is like I said I have a longer more expressive study of this but for this short time I have with you today my warning for parents is be careful how you lead your children to faith because if we lead our children to faith on a false premise of all you have to do is repeat after me all you have to do is go and be immersed or be sprinkled or whatever your particular tradition is all you have to do is this and there is no change that accompanies our salvation there is no real life giving that accompanies our salvation then we are telling our children something that is just not true Jesus said the one who comes after me must take up his cross and follow me and we don't tell our children that because we're so desperate to see them get saved that we're willing to see them be falsely saved and that's the danger we're so desperate to see a confession that we're willing to manufacture the confession there are churches that I am where well aware of that have baptist trees that are built like fire trucks because when the children go into the baptistry all the lights go off what five-year-old would not want to get in the firetruck pool there are churches that have pirate ship baptist trees and when the children are immersed confetti cannons and everyone applauds beloved my friends we are manufacturing conversions and then when our children are exposed to a world which hates Christ when our children are exposed to a world which hates the gospel they do not have a foundation upon which to stand I think about the the story that Jesus told about the sower who went out to sow his seed and he said in some seed fell among the path and the seed that fell among the path was eaten up by the birds very quickly and and it just sort of went away and I sort of think about that as like people when I share the gospel and they're just like I don't want to hear no that's the seed hitting that that hard rocky soil they don't want to talk about I don't want to hear it but he said in some of the seed fell among the shallow soil and it sprung up for a time but it withered away because of it had no root that is what I see in so many of our young people a faith without a root it springs up because the people around them are doing it and it's exciting that the echo chamber of the youth group or the church our church doesn't exercise we don't have a youth group we do family ministry which means we minister to the children through the parents it's a unique way of doing church but it's how we do it we don't have a youth minister we just don't and so there's no youth group echo chamber but there is a church echo chamber in fact I put that out on Facebook last week right before church as I was as I was getting ready I just put a little note out I said I said if you're only exposed to people who agree with you all the time you're living in an echo chamber if you're never being challenged about what you believe or what you think then and you're never challenging your children about what they believe in what they think one day someone will one day a charismatic professor or a charismatic boss or a charismatic friend co-worker is going to come along and if you have not prepared your children for that if you've not taught them those things that are they're going to face it will be very and they have no root it's going to be very easy for them to wither away so I wanted to just share one verse of scripture with you I'm sure you're I'm sure you as a homeschool parent have heard this but it is the the writings of Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 6 Deuteronomy 6 4 says the what is called the shema shema is the the prayer of Israel here O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one that was the confession of faith of Israel we have one Lord Yahweh and then it goes on to say in verse 5 you shall love the Lord with all your excuse me shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your might and then verse 6 this is what most homeschoolers have heard this maybe not know where it's from and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates this was Moses's admonition to the people of Israel you parents have a responsibility to teach your children the faith and you have a responsibility to make that faith a part of your daily life not just something you do on Sunday and not just something you do on Wednesday night or at co-op but you have a responsibility to teach your children the faith we have a phrase at our church and I'll admit it we didn't come up with it we borrowed it from Alpha Omega Ministries but the phrase is theology matters what is theology theology is the study of God theology is given way if you go to university they used to have theological studies departments they have theology departments it's given away now it's called the religious studies theology is a science the study of God the study of understanding who God is it is as as scientific and as important as any of the other sciences in fact there was a time in history prior to the Enlightenment where theology was called the queen of all sciences because to study God was to study the most profound truth in the universe but what do we do now with our kids we paint pictures of Noah's Ark with two big heads of the giraffes sticking out and the ducks flying around we tell them about Jesus but we don't tell them about the atonement we tell them about Moses but we don't give them the law the Bible says the law is what leads us to our knowledge of sin and sin is what leads us to a knowledge of the need for Christ and so theology matters teaching your children the scripture matters because if they do not have that root they will wither and they will fall away you cannot save your children but you can ensure that they are properly educated and I tell my parents of my church this because I'm the pastor I say it is not my responsibility to ensure that your children have a proper biblical education it is your responsibility we will provide you like I teach men we have something called dads and dudes this is the best name we could come up with dads and dudes once a month on Tuesday night the first Tuesday night of the month I take the men in our church and I teach theology to them so that they can teach their wives and they can teach their families and I tell them I say what's the role of the man in the house when his wife has a question she's supposed to ask him the question the man should know so we make it his responsibility now not discounting the role of mothers is obviously very valuable you should know too but what does the Bible say when a woman has a question she should be able to ask her husband because her husband should be leading the family he should be teaching the family and so the father has a role you are the primary theologian in the home mothers you're the nurturing teacher of the home as well so you are a theologian also how many of you ever heard of Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul okay he has a book called everyone's a theologian it's very very very good easy to read book and yet it deals with some of the most profound areas of theology atonement things like adoption redemption election all the the difficult things that we that we study and again you may be I don't know what denominations are represented here it really doesn't matter but at the same time perhaps there's someone in your denomination if you're a different denomination Dr.
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Sproul's Presbyterian I'm not I'm a Baptist reformed Baptist so I would be a little different than him but his theology is very sound so Dr.
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Sproul's books are good but that one particular because he makes a point says everyone's a theologian and he means everyone I met a guy just a week ago I was sitting at lunch with some friends who just lost their daughter she was 14 years old and she got cancer a year ago just died a few weeks ago we're sitting at lunch with this family and the father has tremendous passion for his faith and that is really what has gotten him through this difficult time we're sitting there talking and we're being loud because I'm loud and he's loud and so we're talking about God like this not trying to but it's just we just sort of verbose and that's you know he's a big guy he used to be on the power team so he's big in a different way than me he's like this but we're both big guys and we're talking loud and this cat comes up to this fellow I'm sorry this cat this is like I'm from the 70s now this this guy comes up to our table and he's wearing a Judas Priest t-shirt in long hair look like a rocker guy and he said he said I could hear you talking and I'm an atheist tell me why you believe in God and I was like man I mean every day the fish jumped in the boat that was a good day so I said well sit down his name is Kyle and we talked and we talked for a good ten minutes until his girlfriend wasn't having it anymore she pulled him away which was okay but but in the midst of all that the point I was trying to make is he's a theologian too everyone's a theologian because Kyle had a theology too his theology was that God didn't exist but that's still a theology.
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Theology matters.
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Theology is the difference between building a hospital and bombing a hospital.
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Think about that because it's the theology of Muslims that tell them to blow stuff up.
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Theology matters.
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Even in elementary school theology matters.
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Teach your children the foundations of the faith and they will be better for it.
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Okay that's about my time so thank you guys for coming and thank you for being here.
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God bless y'all.
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Yes, no please, please, yes.
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Well I'll give you another book because everyone's a theologian is a good book but there's a book called Concise Theology by J.I.
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Packer.
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It is considered by many, it's almost every shelf I've ever seen in a pastor's shelf.
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Concise Theology is only about a page to a page and a half on so many subjects.
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The book's this thick but it's it's like 50 chapters because each each two or three pages is a new chapter on a new subject so like your question about faith you know James tells us in James chapter 2 that faith without works is dead but we know that faith alone is what is what saves not our works.
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Paul tells us that in Ephesians 2 we say by grace through faith not of works.
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So how do those things work out? When a child comes to me and says, well my child you know comes to me and says dad I believe in Jesus that's wonderful and I want to cultivate that faith and I want to see fruit of the Spirit come before I would take them before the church and baptize them as a believer.
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A lot of times as soon as somebody says I believe in Jesus we immediately baptize them.
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That happened to me.
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I was baptized when I was eight.
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I think it saved I was 19.
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So I look back at that and I was I was rebaptized after I was genuinely saved but I tell people I say you know when I was eight years old my most my biggest concern was not being saved.
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My biggest concern was being a part of the group because that was what that was what we did to be part of the group was be baptized.
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So I'm really careful how we in how we encourage baptism and I tell my children you know I want to see from you genuine repentance and a faith that is that is living in you before we'll move forward with baptism.
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That's our conviction in our home though.
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Some not everybody's going to share that.
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Some people if your if your children are baptized as babies that doesn't become an issue because in like a Presbyterian church they're baptized as an infant.
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Baptism isn't the confirming thing and not the baptism confirms but what I'm saying is for a Baptist like myself baptism is what we do after we're saved.
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So when you baptize a child it's a it's a picture of their they're having confessed faith in Christ and it's something that they have to know about it.
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That's what I like about it.
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You know that what you described with regards to that church that has the fire truck.
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What kid is not going to want to get hit by a fire truck.
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We're the ones that are causing that challenge in our kids lives and you know my 13 year old.
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My 13 year old wanted to get baptized with me and I pulled her aside and I asked her why.
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So then I started explaining to her why I wanted to be baptized because I had I was saved.
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I received Christ in my heart in 2000.
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I was baptized right then and there.
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There was a very long process of learning what baptism really is before I just go dunk myself in the water.
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So I explained to her my daughter saw me go through a baptism four years ago.
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So she wanted it.
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So I pulled her aside and I said I don't want to know why you want to be baptized.
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I just want you to hear why out and she put it off.
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She says I think there's still more that I need to learn and my wife has and I have as well.
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We're teachers but that's the one thing I want her to do.
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That's a conviction, a self conviction that she will have and then she'll be ready and that's a good word too.
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Looking for conviction in our children.
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Looking for them to see their sin for what it is.
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It's an offense to God and the need to call out to God for repentance.
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We should not necessarily have to lead our children in a prayer.
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I mean they may want to know what to say but you know having them recite a prayer is very robotic and very puppet like.
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But if we say what is it that you're feeling? I feel like I've offended God and I want to be forgiven.
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Okay say that.
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Say God I'm sorry and I'm calling out to Christ for forgiveness.
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And so I don't believe in a quote unquote sinner's prayer that people recite because I think the sinner who is broken will know at that moment that he's calling out to God and even if his words aren't a perfectly written sinner's prayer God knows the heart and God you know does that.
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It's one of the things that above all guard your hearts because from it flows everything.
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So I hope that was helpful.
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Thank you very much that's great.