Make the Most of Summer

jeremiah 8 and 20. the harvest has passed the summer has ended and we are not saved i want to speak to you about making the most of summer for the next little while you may be seated god bless you jeremiah 8 and 20 is a sobering scripture but for now i want you to think about one aspect of that verse that summer is a season it starts and it stops summer does not last forever right you need to make the most of summer and of every season of life amen so making the most of summer has been on my mind for the last several days summer is that long anticipated short-lived season that we love and sometimes loathe when it seems to get too hot and things are not as good in early june we southerners say it's finally warm and by late june we usually say it is so hot that's what we do down south and then we have the dog days of summer and according to the old farmer's almanac they start a 40-day period that begins about july 3rd and ends on august 11 and soon after the summer solstice in late june and it indicates the worst heat of summer will begin in june parents and students celebrate that school is out for summer in august parents shout hallelujah school has started the start of summer a lot of families go out of town for a few days and scattered to the four winds hopefully you're catching your breath in the summer changing your pace wisely recharging your emotionally emotional batteries and cherishing the season of summer and i realized tonight that you know i know our congregation fairly well after almost 27 years that not all of our children attend public school some homeschool and they don't take long summer breaks that i'm looking at a congregation not all of you are parents of school aged children but we all are in seasons of life different seasons and i want to address that in a general way but specifically uh to parents of children both of chips age children in the power zone crossover and crowd age parents and those of us who are grandparents we have influence in the lives of our families or at least sometimes we try to assert that right in georgia we enjoy four seasons farther north the farther north you go those four seasons seem to be more pronounced than they are here where i grew up in miami florida the seasons were extremely mild sometimes indistinguishable not pronounced much at all the grass never turned brown all year long and the winds would change and there was a rainy and dry season there and the bible there is no there is a reference to summer and winter but interestingly in that part of the world there's no reference in the bible to spring or fall only summer and winter in that area of the world summer was the dry season and it extended from april to october when usually there was no rain or little rain at all for them summer was a season of harvesting and threshing gathering in the grain because you had to get it done before summer ended and the winter rains began to fall proverbs 10 and 5 said he who gathers in summer is a wise son he who sleeps in harvest he sees summer and harvests simultaneous terms the same period of time if you sleep in harvest you're his son who causes shame in our family raising our boys summer was pretty special for us they grew up going to go to christian school and uh with our ministry commitments and the youth division years office and then weekends preaching out a lot summer was really important we traveled a lot to youth camps to preach youth camps in the summer and i tried to take my family with me as much as possible sometimes there were missions trips when my wife's mom or my parents would watch our boys while we had to be out of the country with students that we took on those trips we had vacations but back in those days most of our vacations were to go home to see our parents for two reasons one we wanted to see our parents two it was cheap no hotel bills eat mom's cooking and you could actually afford to take off for a few days growing up in our family when i was a kid four kids my dad was a carpenter you've heard some of this before we didn't take a lot of real vacations we've talked about this there were very few you know weeks out of town i don't think there was enough money but it wasn't talked about very much but we always had time in the summer we might go to the lake on a monday evening and we tried to follow that practice with our boys with daylight saving time was in and summertime but we would do that we'd go on short camping trips and boating you know south florida you could do that most times of the year for our boys i mentioned going we used to go to lake alatina a lot when they were younger and my wife was really good and is always good at making things joyful and fun and special she's the party person that makes people laugh i'm that hardcore guy that makes everybody work like i just did a while ago right you know but my wife always made it fun and whether you like this or not made it a little more laid back summer youth camps in georgia was really big for our boys more joel and justin than ryan he said he went to enough camps when i preached them that he had already gotten his fill of youth camp so he didn't care about going to camp too much but we grew up going to summer camps and it was a big part of our summer and some of the most significant turning points in my life came at youth camps especially when i was 16 years old so i advocate you having your children involved in united pentecostal church junior camp teen camp senior camp or if they're older in the hyphen retreat it's very important for them to be connected to a local church and also to the larger body of christ well i got interested the other day actually last friday i was thinking about this and i emailed sister jackie and brother joel and i asked them to send an email to several parents we couldn't send it to everybody to just ask what parents did over the summer for so for the next little while i want to just share some ideas with you that come from parents of children and teenagers in our church and i appreciate the respondents and i appreciate sister jackie and brother joel for helping me i won't share the names there's nothing evil or bad here but just so it's a little more generic one family they would try to go to a grandfather's house it was on a lake for the summer and spin there another family they like to go camping a few times over the summer even if they don't have a family vacation planned until october another family is actually on vacation right now they responded from vacation enjoying the sunshine hopefully in florida and they said the key to vacationing with kids is to bring grandparents with them another family said we're planning to go to the beach for a week in june i'm going to take the kid to kids the bible quizzing nationals in august last year they went to hilton head rented bikes for the week they had a lot of fun this time trying to go to florida i asked about attending youth camps i had several questions that i had sister jackie and brother joel sim sent to them so one of the children is too young in their family just one child others if they're camps that are appropriate they're going to go but parents were a little concerned about who was chaperoning and whether it be people from our church that they knew who would be there so i'll let you know that every worker at children's camp in our youth teen and senior camps have background checks just like we do in our local church in fact for junior camp sister jackie marin who serves on our staff executes those not the children but the background checks for the workers who are going to junior camp this is a very controlled environment closed campus there's always security guards when i was district superintendent we end an agreement and we have a security company that helps us to make sure that the georgia district campgrounds located a little over an hour south of here is a very safe place for our children to go i asked about summer activities and maybe day trips and so there's several answers from family yes we want to have fun days activities and outings maybe once a week like the park or hiking or the zoo a couple of camp outs something that's affordable for our child this summer another family said we'd love to go on day trips to chattanooga tennessee to that aquarium it's our favorite thing to do hiking fishing kayaking sweetwater has yurts these places that you can rent for a night or two this family likes to go to the library to check out books about twice a month to keep their kids engaged in learning activities that are not as rigorous as school work they find local activities try to spend time as a family in the summer and other families saying we try to do several things a week another family gave some more specific examples of what they do that crossed over several of my questions budget friendly things that they like to like to do because their family is larger swimming at a pool of a family member if they can't do that get the sprinklers out make a slip and slide buy a small blow up pool go to a splash pad at a local state park camp out in the backyard with a fire and s'mores or go on a real camping trip blueberry picking in june or july play dates with friends meet up at a local park splash pad at someone's house amusement parks 4th of july parades playing baseball in the summer soccer camp library again for this family and last summer they said we went to a petting zoo painted an art canvas and day trips like you've already heard to the zoo chia mountain in alabama and chattanooga the telus museum and other museums day trips to helen georgia the cabbage patch land miniature golfing bowling bike riding fishing baking activities for girls i guess guys can do that too especially if you get to eat cookies wild animal safari at pine mountain georgia stone mountain trips for ice cream to a local place or pelicans snow cones sleepovers with cousins cookouts with extended family restaurant meetups with friends urban air and i've learned that it doesn't have to be extravagant but it needs to take be time you know there was a myth that was kind of put out years ago that it's not quantity time it's quality time you know there's a book called the one minute manager and i understand the power of a moment but you can't raise a family with a minute here in a minute there quantity time and quality time need to go together you need to spend lots of time it's like investing money you need to start early and invest as much as you can because it pays big dividends if you invest along the way instead of hoping for the best at the end when you didn't do it soon enough i'm talking about making the most of summer and of every season of your life knowing that all seasons start and all seasons stop and you need to know what season you're in i asked about the spiritual climate in homes during summer as well as all year long and the families and this kind of it's encouraging let me just throw this out there you know as a pastor was sharing this with someone this week you you teach and preach but you don't always hear feedback in ministry you do ministry as well you deal in a lot of intangibles you know not things that are seen you don't build something and then look at it and say that's what i built last sunday during church or on wednesday night teach and preach i know the word of god is quick and powerful sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and joints marrows the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart and i'm amazed that when you teach and preach the bible that god does amazing things in the lives of people but very often you don't see it and that's why in ministry lots of people get discouraged because they don't have faith in the power of prayer and worship and ministry you have to see the long call that it pays off and you usually know the problems and you hear the bad stories so that can discourage people in ministry and i've been in ministry a long time and i thank god for the understanding and perspective that comes over time so this was very encouraging to me to hear how families operate we try to keep christ first every day we pray before meals we read the bible each night and pray before bed we play christian music in the car and around the home we don't allow technology of any kind on sundays we try to be better about intentional about family prayer time during the summer when you know it's more on mornings are more flexible less structured is what i was trying to say we read the action bible do a daily devotion we pray daily with our kids these are different families not all the same family one family said our son reads his bible out loud and we discuss what he read their most recent fascination is with the strongest man in the world and also david and goliath one child loves to listen to worship music we prayed and tell god what we're thankful for in our family and we pray for the people who are most on our hearts another family said daily bible stories church bedtime prayers excuse me they attend church on a regular basis bedtime prayer weekly scripture memorization the kids memorize scriptures for bible quizzing sometimes i'll include a devotional from bible quizzing with their schoolwork they used to do one particular curriculum but because of doctrine that is not apostolic they shied away from that they found a devotion i thought was really good to share this is on youtube it's entitled bible class with sister darla some parents of young children may want to write this down bible class with sister darla she's an apostolic and her study usually follows the upci bible quizzing curriculum this year she did devotions on proverbs now you know i like proverbs a lot every monday through wednesday the lessons follow the school year so this year this parent told me there were 90 lessons that sister darla taught on youtube one student watched all the lessons during the year then some other children in the family have started watch them this parent mentioned to me that they really like the devotion they're short and geared towards school age kids i'm talking about making the most of summer this parent said we have family prayer or we make sure that during the school year we pray at home her husband prays with the kids consistently at night the two of us parents read our bibles and pray consistently and our children see us praying and reading our bibles which we believe is very important we attend church consistently all year long and have the kids involved in whatever events are going on i can pause right here to tell you brother joel our youth pastor and i have talked about this as long as other pastoral leaders you know it's not rocket surgery my favorite mixed metaphor it's not rocket science it's not brain surgery it's kind of like obey the bible be in reality what you appear to be live for god you're not perfect when you mess up fess up make it right live your life with the church in the middle god in the center of your life don't be a maverick never works go ahead and mavericks really i don't find mavericks in heaven i find them with the chief maverick the devil that's your mantra that you go against the grain you better think about what grain you're going against because the way of the transgressor is hard the bible says i asked him do you change your media guidelines for content or time in the summer and pairs told us we limit media in the house but we do usually allow more time in the summer on media another parent typically or the same parent i think they use a particular thing in the summer when there's no school that's educational i think it's abc mouse perhaps an app and uh a set amount of time was a common thing and when they allow time making sure parents involved and making sure that the content is good and these parents amazingly are not naive the ones that responded to these inquiries and i didn't pick the parents and if you didn't get selected you can share this on our church family facebook page what you do at home and we have a page for chips and if you'd like to do that you can share your ideas with other pairs we encourage outdoor play as much as possible all year long in other words versus just being on a device watching something on media so we also put a small above ground pool to keep our keep our kids outside most of the time we give them an extra hour of media that require them to read before they watch we also make sure they get plenty of outside time try to keep them busy and healthy activities rather than plop them down in front of the tube one parent said try to limit media all year long but there's time like when it rains all week long that parents kind of fudge on that because they don't want their children to drive them crazy now that's my interpretation the parent did not say that but i might have been a parent i asked about making summer special and a lot of that was kind of covered already but reading goals you know over the summer time trips to the library playing outside and some of the things that i've already mentioned but the best memories made during the summer are when they get together as a family and with other family members like cousins and friends and celebrating birthdays and trips and treats so i asked these parents what do you do to keep your kids from being bored in the summer because i've learned that it only takes about 22 tenths of a second for a child to get bored so i thought these answers were pretty wise while we try to encourage activities and fun we do not plan out every moment of the day and again this comes from multiple parents i'm kind of putting these together personally this parent said i feel it is good for our son to be bored occasionally and have to find ways to entertain himself as a means of problem solving this is a young child we're okay with a little boredom typically kids don't stay bored long in other words this parent doesn't feel obligated to solve boredom like they've got to jump out and fix it all the time for their child i believe boredom breeds creativity this is another parent my kids always find some way to entertain themselves we have a closet full of paint marbles board games kinetic sand play-doh etc it's always available to the kids if they want some hands-on activities we have experimented with kiwi crates too as fun activities we can do together our kids are obsessed with insects worms frogs snakes my wife always said no snakes anything but snakes collecting creatures in the backyard and again this parent said boredom this one is difficult but thankfully it's one of the blessings of having several children that they can kind of get their other siblings on board keeping each other entertained and then one parent talked about how they turned their yard into a place to play to help these children learn outside activities um another parent said a similar thing about boredom and i thought it was good i wanted to share it as well i don't plan something for the kids every day i think it is good for them to have down time to entertain themselves i encourage reading and playing outside a lot we have ten chickens three rabbits and a dog so they have lots of things to do they also have each other to play with and that's this parent said you know we just really believe that it's not a parent's responsibility to make sure you have something going on every second of every day that boredom is a part of life and you learn to deal with that and then find things to do that are creative and you know profitable or whatever i asked one last question i think it's my last question what do you do to guard the environment your children are in when they are not at home now this is a really big thing for parents right and their answers are really good we carefully limit who our child is with when they're not at home we realize we can't protect from everything but we want to protect his innocence as long as possible we want to feel confident in his relationship with god another parent said our kids are too young to be away from home unless it's with a family member especially grandparents we talk to them about their behaviors and try to teach them right what is appropriate and inappropriate and if something inappropriate has happened that that child should talk about that to their parent not feel shame i'm adding this not feel shame and not keep it a secret things like lying and cheating and immodesty are other things that they would say and they said we only allow our children to go with trusted adults they've had conversations about what is acceptable behavior and what is not and teaching their children you know to have open lines of communication with their parents this basically this theme was with throughout all of these parents that responded that they try to make sure they're very careful about who their children are with now among our teenagers many of these answers were similar there are some differences so i want to just share a couple things a few things from the teams and then i'll move on in my message and we're not really going to be super long tonight in case you're worried about me going through the entire book of jeremiah most families do take some type of a vacation most of the families that responded do encourage their children to go to one of the youth camps teen or senior youth camp again these are teenagers summer activities southern belle farm pelicans you heard that earlier they had a pool put in their home and they enjoyed grilling out and swimming camps swimming day activities like hiking biking fishing and shopping about media in the summer maybe a little more time the content allowance they said never changes parental limitations set on all devices all doors remain open when media is on media is limited to afternoon evening they have to ask before getting involved or getting on media not allowed to search the internet without a parent at home has to be done in the living room this is very wise parenting you may think it's a little over cautious but you know when you just try to see a news thing on the internet on the phone whatever what can pop up christian music is played in our home theater throughout the day it's either from or practicing or might be spotify apple music we limit media year round including the summer break have a consistent framework of media throughout the year for boredom they have things activities like bikes and scooters and skateboards and swimming drawing painting journaling sewing creating practice singing and playing instruments playing outside with neighbor friends throughout the day facetiming friends and family members was an activity in one family of teenagers and then being at trusted friends in the church and family members and all of these kids this parent told me have daily chores and if they get bored you can always add a chore and that's probably a cure to boredom this family does day trips and outings and things like that to try to make sure their kids have plenty to do another parent mention activities like swimming and ice cream trips and watermelon and going out on a kayak or a petal boat or finding hobbies like coin collecting using a telescope don't you wish you had one a couple sunday nights ago for the blood moon keyboard drums yard work building team work and a lot of the good things just happen in normal times with family the families when i asked questions about protecting your children from from danger every parent said their boundaries about who our kids hang out with are not allowed to be in a room by themselves with a person of the opposite gender their friends parents have similar rules and parents talk about it before they allow their kids to get together so parents are on the same page and their values are not different when they let their kids go hang out these are teenagers i'm talking about now so they're pretty careful about these things and it doesn't mean that these parents are distrusting of everyone but we live in a world where you know it's better to check twice and be sorry once right choices that kids would make and surrounding them with godly friends and mentors and godly family members having open conversations i didn't ask these parents about how do they approach conversations that need to have when children are growing up we have a lot of children in here tonight so i'll leave that in a generic form i think you know what i'm talking about the parents need to be involved with their children as they transition from childhood to adolescence and into adulthood to make sure they're prepared for the things that will happen to them and now with what happens in public education and just general exposure to our world completely parents need to be involved engaged educated aware amen because we have a lot to try to keep our children protected from when families said there's no social media until 16 years of age we pray over them before they leave the house every day every family mentioned that prayer is important and they make sure that they have family devotions and reading one family said two chapters a day and i think without exception every family said consistent church attendance we begin every day with prayer pretty encouraging if you're a pastor amen so summer is a season right it's a season and my message tonight you know for this last part of my message has been directed toward parents a few weeks years ago i wrote a an article called vacation from god about when you go on vacation you may be taking a vacation from work or home but you never take a vacation from god people that find an acceptable escapes from godliness the dabble in things that are sinful it never ends up being a true escape it ends up becoming an addiction because sin like the grave always asks for more right lust always asks for more so in the summer season it's important to be guarded against what may be a laziness of spirit to make sure that we don't allow any down time whenever it falls in the course of a year to catch you by surprise i have a message i i'm not sure i've taught it here maybe i have i usually teach it to leaders that the real battle is after the victory you have to take heed when you think you stand lest you fall that's what the bible said paul said that so summer is a season and you should make the most of summer and of every season in life you should be intentional about the season that you are in right now know your season of life and be in that season i made up my mind before i reach midlife to not have a crisis by understanding what causes a midlife crisis i think it's the same insecurity that it causes crisis at other ages of life and i don't want to get into all that tonight so know what season you're in and be in that season and then do what you should do in that season now the bible gives an amazing scripture in proverbs 30 25 and i love the way the wise man talks about ants the ants are a people proverbs 30 25 the ants are a people did you have know that an ant was a people solomon said the ants are a people not strong yet they prepare or store up their meat in the summer now i don't know if you've ever done an iq test on an ant if you have don't raise your hand smarter than the rest of us but ants aren't that smart but the bible says that they know that summer is a season and they know in some areas of the world that winter is coming and even an aunt knows that you need to make the most of summer for example if you're going to start saving for retirement when you turn 65 you've missed your season if you're going to create a will when you're terminally ill you've probably waited too late and missed a season of rational thought and doing what is right then you leave your final arrangements to an emotionally distraught family to fight over all ten dollars that you've left behind or whatever millions it's all the same and it happens living in denial of the season you're in as well as trying to live in another season is unwise the bible talks about the season in ecclesiastes of old age when life is probably not nearly as fun as it used to be but it's still a season of life my wife and i have discussed this many times that life is never normal there's no such thing as normal i know new normal but life does have seasons and you should adapt and adjust and be in the season and you're in and do what you should do in that season of life amen if you're not in the season of your life or you have children either you're younger you're you don't have to show a teenage children then don't be asleep at the wheel and feel that life is over for you you have relationships and influence and you can encourage and shape someone else's life by being present and by speaking words of encouragement and by being a help to someone else parents if you're planning to spend more time with your children when they get older or when you have more money or when you have more time you are deceiving yourself you may one day have more money and you may have more time but you may also miss a window of opportunity of investing in your children so that you don't have to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to fix them and you should have been building them so if you think there's going to be a better tomorrow if tomorrow's going to be better than today i'll just tell you that you're wrong i'm going to tell you something that i learned not part of my notes but you know i was a youth pastor i taught youth ministries in a bible college i was the youth ministries expert in the united pentecostal church before i was a father of teenagers right but it's amazing what you learn when you're actually a parent of the people that you've helped everybody else raise and i do think it helped me a lot but there's something i learned that when our boys were little you know when you walk in the door daddy's home whoa when they're teenagers dad's home but you know i learned that when they're little they're kind of on your time but when they hit those teenage years you need to be on their time when they're ready to talk want to talk and create opportunities for casual conversation every conversation doesn't have to be about a do or a don't or fix this or do that it can be talking about things that build relationships that engage that child as they're growing up so you have a friendship i told you many times my dad did not have a good dad but i really commend my dad for becoming an amazing father and when i was an older teenager i remember my dad coming sitting on the end of my bed three boys we stayed in the same room my brothers were probably asleep and my dad would just talk to me he wouldn't give me advice he would just talk to me and i treasure those times when i learned a lot about my dad about his upbringing about what made him tick and it helped me learn about myself as well summer like all seasons is transitory it's fleeting and you need to make the most of summer and every season of life as well now let me just get to jeremiah for just a few minutes this has been an unusual bible study because i've given you shared a lot of things that i heard from you jeremiah 8 and 30. let's read it again the harvest is past the summer is ended and we are not saved it stands as one of the most pressing verses in the bible basically jeremiah is saying of the people of judah we have run out of time that's what he's saying we have run out of time jeremiah is addressing judah at the end of a space of grace for them to turn to the lord the city was under siege deportation and captivity in babylon was looming jeremiah is speaking for his nation of opportunities lost the end of mercy the end of a season he describes it as summer and this exclamation sounds so desperate the harvest has passed the summer has ended and we are not saved summer in their day as i mentioned earlier was a season to reap the harvest summer was a a window of opportunity that opened with the end of winter rains and initiated the growing season for israel seeds germinated seeds that had been planted germinated sprouted grew mature and needed to be harvested in summer that long season from april to october in their part of the world was this long summer remember no spring or fall mentioned in the bible from the context of that part of the world this natural example that jeremiah gave us was the reality of how grave their situation was judah was the southern kingdom of what we would call israel during the the years of the divided kingdom israel to the north and judah to the south and their foolish imagination not as wise as the ants are they deluded themselves into believing that the summer of god's mercy would go on and on and on but stretch out forever but spiritually the summer of opportunity would close and the winter reigns of god's judgment would fall on them and jeremiah said it with gravity the harvest has passed the summer has ended and we are not saved so how can we apply this truth to our lives well i think we can live with the end in mind the end of a season the end of life years ago i share with you a quote that i heard from brother g.a mangan and he said i live for two days i live for this day because this is the day which the lord hath made but he said i also live for that day paul wrote henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day he spoke of a day of reward a finality of the end of life when he would enter into his heavenly rewards and whatever he was on that day he would be forever not just saved or lost but what he had done for christ that mattered for eternity the gold silver and precious stone of things that shaped his eternal reward that crown the righteous judge will give me of that day brother mangan said i live for two days i live for this day and i live for that day i dare say that no one of us can say that we have no regrets in life we've all said things we wish we could reel back in we've all made decisions that we wish we could change we've all sown seeds of deeds we wish we had not sown but instead of living with the faulty assumption the time is on our side we need to realize that summer the clock of summer is ticking and that we need to make course corrections now we need to live a repentant life in a right relationship with god we need to live conscientiously in the light of eternity we need to realize that summer is a season that will soon end and we should make the most of summer and of every opportunity to make eternity count but you bow your heads and we're going to pray lord god we we get so accustomed to a world that seems to go on and on one generation passes away and another comes the lord your word is so clear that there will be a last generation after the budding of the fig tree that you described prophetically that the end of all things would come the bible clearly states that time will be no more and we will depart time and enter eternity life as we know it will end seasons will close and our opportunities god of what we can do to make a difference in this life will elapse and i pray in jesus name that you will help me make the most of this coming summer and of every finite season of life to be who i should be in that season and to do what i should do in that season help every one of us lord realize that like the ant we have a window of opportunity to store for the future to store for eternity what we do we must do now i pray god that you would help us live in the light of eternity and make the most of this summer season in jesus name i pray amen