From Generation to Generation

praise the lord good morning happy mother's day to all of our mothers so i'm going to be speaking on from generation to generation and i think it goes without saying that mothers play a pivotal role in the development of faith in the lives of their children there's no greater joy as a mother than seeing your child carry on the mantle of faith that you have established in your life and will continue from generation to generation now there are many examples of a lineage of faith in the old testament god himself called himself the god of abraham isaac and jacob which represents three generations of faith in the new testament there is another example of three generations of faith that were seen in the lives of lois eunice and their son timothy now timothy was the young assistant to the apostle paul and later he actually started pastoring the church in ephesus and so paul kind of took him under his wing and started mentoring him and paul wrote a letter to him in second timothy chapter 1 verse 5 he said this to him he said i remember your genuine faith for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother lois and your mother eunice and i know that same faith continues strong in you now it is impossible to pass down faith to the next generation without the word of god in romans 10 17 tells us so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of god thank you so the word of god is kind of important to pass down faith this is exactly what timothy's mother eunice and grandmother lois did they taught him from a young boy the scriptures in that same letter paul told timothy in verses 14 through 17 he says but you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught you know that they are true for you know the god for you know you can trust those who taught you aka his mother and grandmother you have been taught the holy scriptures from childhood and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in christ jesus all scripture is inspired by god and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives it corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right god uses the scriptures to prepare and equip his people to do every good work now here we see two things that are eternal the word of god and the next generation both are eternal and really in the grand scheme of things the temporal things of this world really don't matter because on judgment day my clean house won't matter my job won't matter my child's piano lessons won't matter not even the school will matter what is going to matter most on judgment day is that i got the eternal word of god into the eternal soul of my daughter so that she can live in an eternal heaven much like the old and new testament i have my own three generations of faith that has recently become four generations this past summer when my daughter michaela repented of her sins and was baptized in jesus name and received the holy ghost i'm so thankful for that i'm sorry but that beautiful experience of faith from ikea however did not start that past summer much like timothy it started long before that generations before that my grandmother my mom's mother had eight kids that she raised mostly as a single parent and despite many of the challenges she faced my grandmother had a desire to instill faith in her kids now when she was compelled to stop attending the assemblies of god church because they no longer preached oneness or holiness she got an elder in the lord and started having church services in her home she had a desire to continue instilling the word of god and her kids and one of those kids grew up to be my mother sherry padgett she's interpreting mother if you want to wave your hand for everybody this is my mother and she has been very influential in my life so much so that i have replicated much of what she has taught me in my own life and in the life of my daughter she has influenced me in some pretty amazing areas one of them is education growing up my mom homeschooled all four of us kids and i had such a positive experience that i am now homeschooling my own daughter and experiencing the joys of taking an active role in her education another area that my mother influenced me in is ministry my mom was a leader in deaf ministry and taught me sign language as a young person now i am a deaf and deaf ministry leader and teaching my daughter sign language here at our church and she's learning to communicate with our deaf members that come now while these are two very important areas perhaps she may not have realized her crowning achievement was passing down her faith by giving me experiences in the word of god now my mom is a super mom she had many hats that she wore she was the church secretary she was the church daycare director she was an interpreter she was the deaf ministry coordinator many hats but one thing despite how busy she was she always made sure that i was involved in bible cuisine and for any of you who don't know what bible cuisine is it's a program here in our organization that teaches young people to memorize scriptures every year and um then they compete at tournaments once a month um i was involved in bible quizzing for about six years growing up and i've estimated i've calculated i think i've memorized over 2000 bible verses in that six year time which has greatly impacted my adult life now bible cuisine is where i met my husband michael and he is now the bible quiz coordinator here at our church and we currently have our daughter michaia involved in bible cuisine and this is her second year her and her teammate [name redacted] have learned so far about 160 verses this year now last year was a different story though and i want to share this experience with you because it's impacted me as a mom last year we struggled to have her even learn 30 verses in the entire year and um she was six years old at the time and she had a teammate [name redacted] [name redacted] and um the two of them it was they were both six at the time and they were both very young and kim and i her mother were very pulling our hair out we're like this is impossible to have these young kids learn 200 bible verses it's impossible so um it was midway through the season actually and i i was actually pretty discouraged we had decided just let's just go ahead and pick out all the short verses let's make our life easier let's just pick all the short verses and call it good so that's kind of what we did and you know what 30 verses is 30 verses but i was pretty discouraged because i wondered if it was worth the battle every day and every mom who's ever home uh homeschooled but bible quiz with your kid you understand the frustration it is a battle not only just the physical flesh or battling of this discipline every day of having to memorize something but we didn't know we were battling things in the spirit realm as well and one night the lord gave me a dream that i know was from him and i want to share it with you real quick in my dream i saw michaela and [name redacted] at the time i never dreamed about [name redacted] so random but it was god definitely was god showing me an important lesson the two of them in this dream my daughter and [name redacted] were running around the yard and i noticed they had these holsters strapped up here on their chest over their heart and i in my dream i thought that is a really weird place for a holster to be normally they're down on your waist and so i called the girls over to me and i said what what are you what are you guys playing with and i opened up the holster and i pulled out a very sharp knife and in fact in my dream i put my finger on the tip of it it was so sharp and i thought oh my goodness you girls are not running around playing with these knives this is dangerous and then i woke up and immediately the lord brought this scripture to my mind hebrews 4 12 for the word of god is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even through the divining asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints in marrow and is a discerner and thoughts of the instance of the heart and i immediately thought the word of god is a sword it's a sword and in my dream this knife was a short sword just the size to fit their little hands and it was significant because kim and i had chosen all the short verses that year and i know that was just ironic that godhead was speaking directly to me and the significance of the placement of those holsters was over their heart so god was showing me that we were doing the right thing in the midst of the struggle every day those short little verses we were putting into their hearts and um it showed me in the spirit realm we are equipping them with what seems like a little like knife now eventually as they grow and mature is going to grow into a sword of the spirit and it is a weapon that they are using to fight the enemy now we as moms don't like to think of our kids as warriors but they are they are and the reason i can tell you that is because the enemy is attacking them they have no choice but to be a warrior they're going to be in the fight whether they want it or not it's coming to them and so we as moms need to equip our children with the tools to fight the enemy so they will be prepared now a while back mako was really struggling with uh fear and it had been it would have been easy for me just to minimize it and brush it off and say well you know because i'm not afraid of what she's afraid of and i could have just there's nothing to be afraid of mckay it's okay i could have if i had not been in tune with what was going on finally it dawned on me she's being attacked by a spirit of fear and what i needed to do was to equip her with the tools to fight that spirit so moms don't minimize the importance of even just one verse that you get into your kids because it is a weapon that you are giving them you are placing the sword of the spirit in their hands so that they can fight teach them to use those verses i had to tell mike i said mccain the enemy is afraid of these verses when you say this first he has to leave so all of this experience that i've shared with you just now has really inspired this drama for this song that we're going to do for you now and i just pray it encourages you moms to continue putting verses in the word of god into your child as much as you can because it is the sword of the spirit for the next generation