Occasionally during our teaching time on sunday morning we do an interactive Q and A that allows us to ask hard questions and examine real issues that pertain to our lives.  These are in your face, uncensored sessions of Pastor Ahsh interacting with the people of Grassroots and the visitors who join us.  If you have any questions that you would like to hear answers to, post a comment and we will try to get them answered either on this blog site or during the next Real Answers to Real Questions…

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John Piper has a great new article on nudity.  This is relevant for us in how we should think about our local nude beach, Kahena.

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In this teaching from the book of Colossians, Pastor Ahsh teaches on the biblical vision for parenting and the training of children.

He ends the message with:
10 ways that fathers embitter their children.

1. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Eph. 6:1-2
2. Starting with no rules or not enforcing the rule you have and then when the child is old enough to kill people then you impose the rules. Some of you had parents do this. The goal is to teach discipline when they are young so that when they are old enough they can be self-governing. Freedom comes from discipline. We experience this in learning a musical instrument. When you discipline yourself through practice and fundamentals, then you can have the freedom to play skillfully as you get better.
3. Hypocrisy in the parents. Saying one thing and doing another. Kids will see if we are fake and if we expect them to not disrespect their parents, but then mom disrespects dad, they won’t respect you. You’re training them to disrespect you. They will most often do what you do and not what you say.
4. Father’s who don’t admit that they are wrong. We need to teach them how to confess and repent from sin through our example to them and to our spouse.
5. Giving only rules and law but not teaching them how to receive grace and the gospel. If when you discipline we need to teach how sin separates us, and how God is loving to pursue us to bring reconciliation. We need to teach that God’s discipline is always loving and that when there is genuine confession and repentance, their sin is forgiven and never used against them.

6. Manipulating your kids through bribes. (e.g) They may like this for awhile, but what they are learning is that they should be governed by their lusts and not their conscience. They learn to do the right thing because it gets them candy, rather than doing the right thing because they love God and believe his promises. This stems from the selfishness of the parents to get the child to do what they want but it does not shepherd a child’s heart or teach him to trust and obey God for who he is.
7. Time out. This does not reconcile the relationship but rather continues to remove the child from relationship. It becomes emotional manipulation. Often it also just ends up being a vacation.
8. Grounding makes an issue last too long. Also the child who is home is not happy and becomes a curse to everyone who is there. Discipline should be swift and then reconciles the relationship.
9. Requiring obedience simply because of convenience or pride. They are being embarrassed in public or their kids are making them late for an important meeting. Who cares about the meeting. Who cares what people think about you. Are you going to raise a fool, or a child who walks in wisdom. Are you going to obey God and teach your child to obey, or is convenience your god? What is going to get more discipline, breaking a valuable vase playing ball in the house or disrespecting mom at the dinner table? Mom’s word needs to be more valuable than that vase, or you are teaching your kids that they are being given rules to protect your assets rather than to train them to walk in wisdom with Jesus.
10. Unholy Anger. Dads often think their anger is righteous because they are right and angry. Why are you angry? Is it because God has been disobeyed or because your will has been crossed? A child who receives discipline from an angry parent will not receive it as a loving, but will see it as abuse. If you are angry dads, confess that sin to your kids and cool off before you discipline your kids or have your wife do it until you learn to control your anger.

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For too long the church has ignored our responsibility to care for the environment. Pastor Ahsh gives 7 reasons for why Christ-followers should love and honor our Creator through caring for His creation.

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In Ecclesiastes, Solomon looks back over his life and he shares with us the most important lessons in life.

Lesson #1
If hedonism doesn’t work for you, try religion, the only real difference is the kind of bumper stickers that you put on your car.

Lesson #2
No matter how smart or successful or spiritual you become, you’re still the same sinner who in 2nd grade thought is was funny when little Johnny peed his pants while he was trying to write his name on the blackboard.


Lesson #3
If Life makes sense to you, you’re probably just playing the board game.

Lesson #4
Women: When one isn’t enough for you… don’t think a thousand of them will do you any better.

Lesson #5
We just can’t do this on our own.

Ray Fowler has a great post about cohabitation before marriage. It never ceises to amaze me how obedience to the scriptures (especially when it comes to family life) really does lead to the healthiest and most fulfilled life possible. Check out the statistics for cohabitation here.

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Ecclesiastes 7:1-14

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“The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is intellectually credible and experientially satisfying.”

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Ecclesiastes 6:1-12 Solomon is going to continue railing on money just like he did in our text last week. The problem that we saw last week was that money will always fail to satisfy us. Not only that, but if we love it and make it our god, then it will destroy us. Then we ended last week with the secret to experiencing joy in life. And this secret was to receive all that we have as a gift from the hand of God, giving thanks knowing that all that he gives us is from his mercy and love.But Solomon will never leave us in that place of joy for long.   He is like the guy that can’t stop complaining about things and seeing the problem in everything… including God. In fact in places of this book, though its clear that Solomon knows that God is real, sometimes he doubts if he is good. There are time where he just waves his fist in the air and cries out to God, “God, I don’t like what you are doing. God, this doesn’t make any sense to me.”He is looking back on his life and asking the hard questions, “God, are you really there?” “God, do you really keep your promises?” “God, can I trust you?”

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Ecclesiastes 5:8-20