Perfect Kids | PERFCT | Menlo Church Live Stream

We see a headline that confirms what we already want to believe, usually something that makes us angry at those people, and we believe it instantly. We don't check the source. We don't look for context. We don't ask if it's true. We just ask if it makes us feel righteous. And honestly, if it makes us mad, we hit share and we click forward. I've had some folks do that to me this week. We have, confused outrage with insight. We we think like, I'm angry, therefore, I must be right. And that isn't wisdom. [00:30:42] (30 seconds)  #AngerIsntInsight

Why is wisdom so rare in the information age? Well, it's because you can't download it. It's not transactional. It's not immediately available through a device in your hand. You can't ask a chatbot for wisdom. Wisdom requires human relationships. You only get wisdom by walking slowly with someone who has lived longer, seen more, and failed more than you have. [00:31:35] (22 seconds)  #WisdomNotDownloadable

But the spiritual principle of honor is actually less about somebody else. It's more about what God's doing in me. It's it's less about just being polite. It's actually about access. When you honor the generation that came before you or when you honor your spiritual fathers and mothers, you are granting yourself access to their wisdom. You are admitting that you do not have it all figured out. [00:32:49] (23 seconds)  #HonorUnlocksWisdom

Of all the 10 commandments, kind of the greatest hits that we often think about even if you're not a person of faith. Think about do not murder, do not steal, do not commit adultery. This is the only commandment that comes with a built in specific incentive for adhering to it. Honor your father and mother that it may go well with you. God is saying that there is a unique spiritual weight, a connection to the favor of God in your life based on how we treat the generation that came before us. [00:34:18] (32 seconds)  #HonorBringsFavor

So let's clear let's be clear on what honor is and what it isn't. Honor doesn't mean endorsing sin. It doesn't mean tolerating or obeying abuse. The Hebrew word that we translate honor is actually the word Chabad, and it means to be heavy, weighty, or important. To honor someone is to give them weight in your life, substance. It means that you treat the relationship with them with significance uniquely. You don't treat them lightly or dismissively. [00:35:23] (29 seconds)  #HonorIsWeighty

Their applied truthful knowledge, you don't have it even if you think you do. And the more you think you have it, the less you do and the more you need it. When you obey, even when you disagree, you are building a spiritual muscle to acknowledge that you don't know everything and that you remain teachable. You are reminding yourself that you are not the center of the universe. And if that's new information for you, I'm so sorry to be the one to break that to you. You need the same muscle, by the way, following God for the rest of your life. [00:36:55] (33 seconds)  #StayTeachable

Honor evolves from obedience to respect. It means that you don't badmouth your parents or assume their generosity. Young adults, let me say that again very quickly. What it means to respect your parents as a young adult is it means that you don't badmouth them with your friends, and you don't just assume or feel entitled to their, notice whose it is, their money. [00:37:39] (20 seconds)  #RespectYourParents

In the first century, as a matter of fact, they had a saying. They would say, the construction of the young is destruction. You don't even know what that phrase means and you already agree with it. Right? Meaning that if you try to build your life for a society without the blueprint and the wisdom of the generation before us, you aren't building. You're just making a very expensive pile of rubble. We have the bricks. We have the information like we've never had before, but the generation before us will always carry the blueprint of wisdom that helps us stack them in the right direction. [00:38:27] (32 seconds)  #WisdomBlueprint

Pitying creates distance. It looks at the decline of someone and says, man, that's sad, but it's not my problem. What's the minimum that I can do to get away with it and be viewed as caring? Pity assumes that because someone becomes outdated, they must become irrelevant. But see, too often in our fast paced culture, when someone loses their utility, they lose their community too. It's not the way it's supposed to work. [00:39:34] (25 seconds)  #ValueBeyondUtility

Compassion remembers that the voice that's quiet now is the same one that taught you to speak in the first place, the same voice you could pick out of a crowd and return to for safety. Compassion, it doesn't just see the struggle of today. It sees the love of each day along the way, and it remembers that that's who the person is. [00:40:17] (17 seconds)  #CompassionRemembers

It it's the opposite of honor. If honor is heavy and weighted, to despise your mother or father when they get old is to treat them as weightless, to treat them as irrelevant, which is oftentimes the greatest fear of the generation before us. It's to treat her as a burden to be managed rather than a treasure to be cherished. It's to assume that because she has lost her usefulness, she has lost her significance. [00:41:11] (22 seconds)  #CherishTheElderly

But the good news of Jesus, the gospel calls us to see people the way that God sees them. God does not value us for our utility. He does not love us for our efficiency. And when we offer compassion to the generation before us, we are reminding the world that human worth is not a fluctuating stock price. It's the image of God in which you have been made. [00:41:34] (26 seconds)  #PeopleNotProduct

See, if we try to only honor the people that are worth it, we'll miss out on a whole bunch of what God has for us. On the flip side, if you try to honor people that you think don't deserve it or you try to honor people that feel really difficult and you do it out of your own strength because it's the right thing to do, you're going to burn out. We have a term for it. It's called compassion fatigue. We will run out of compassion. And so we need a power source greater than our own willpower. [00:43:03] (26 seconds)  #PoweredByGrace

This is the Venmo mindset. It treats prayer like an invoice. It says, God, I let my nets down for you. I followed you. I sent the payment. Now where is my product? The Venmo kid works for God's stuff. And if we're honest, we've all been there, with our earthly parents probably and definitely with God. [00:46:52] (22 seconds)  #PrayerNotPayment

The second type of kid is the report card kid. This is the one that connects back to the toddler playing hide and seek. The report card kid is obsessed with their spiritual report card. They are constantly checking to see if they're making the right grade. Did I volunteer enough? Did I read my Bible enough? Did I avoid avoid enough sin? The report card kid works for status. They're terrified that if they get a c minus in morality, that God will revoke their acceptance letter to heaven. [00:47:14] (32 seconds)  #FaithIsNotGrades

You lose your temper. You click on that website again, and suddenly, the report card drops to a d. And because your identity is tied to the grave, the entire sense of self and identity that you had, that you constructed by your own behavior collapses. And you will spend your whole life on that treadmill running just to stay in the same place, terrified that if you stop running, God will stop loving you. [00:49:23] (25 seconds)  #IdentityNotPerformance

Because the Venmo kid works for the wallet. The report card kid works for the status. But the fridge art kid the fridge art kid can walk in security, can walk in safety. They aren't trying to earn the father's love. They know they already have it. They create, they serve, they live their lives as a response to the love that they are increasingly aware of and that will never change. [00:50:53] (23 seconds)  #LovedNotEarned

But the truth is, as great as her friend's art was, it was never up on our fridge. Maisie's was. Her friend's a great kid, but she's not my daughter. That's the difference. The fridge is not a fancy gallery for the talented. It's a family gallery for the beloved. [00:52:10] (23 seconds)  #FridgeIsFamily

Some of you, you're sitting here today holding the broken pieces of your life. You have broken relationships with your parents. You have broken pieces of your own integrity. You are exhausted from trying to hide all of it just like the report card kid. You're exhausted from trying to pay for them like the Venmo kid, and the father is saying, stop running away. Stop hiding. Just bring the pieces to me. [00:53:54] (28 seconds)  #BringThePieces

Because this really is the love that's available. We are all God's children and that we are created in his image with infinite dignity, value, and worth. But to be in his family, you've gotta be adopted. The invitation papers are in front of you. The payment has been made, and he's just waiting for you to run to him. [00:55:37] (23 seconds)  #AdoptedByGod