My Son’s First Sermon Series

I received an amazing gift from my eight year old son, Jackson, on Wednesday night as we were heading home from church. My message that night was on marriage and he wasn’t very much interested in it, so he wrote his own.

I share this with you to honor our children’s ministry. Cindy Starr and all of the volunteers in the children’s ministry at Living Hope have done an amazing job in equipping my son with the truth of God’s Word. Carrie and I pray with our children each morning and evening and make sure they do their daily Bible reading, but believe it or not I don’t wander around our house babbling about penal substitutiary atonement, sanctification, ecclesiology or eschatology. And yet, my son has a firm grasp of these concepts and I honor our ministers, Cindy Starr and all those who have taught my son, by sharing with you his first sermon series.

The title of the series is “Ladder to Heaven” – not to be confused with “Stairway to Heaven.” It has nine messages that build on each others.

The metaphor of the series, Jackson says, "is a ladder and each message is a rung of the ladder. Each Sunday a new rung would be added."

The first rung and message is “Mercy.” Mercy, according to Jackson, is not getting what you deserve. He says that Jesus died on the cross in our place so that we would not have to. He got what we should have gotten – death and separation from God.

The second rung and message is “Faith.” It is by believing in what Christ did by faith that a person is saved.

The third rung and message is “Grace.” It is by grace through faith that we are saved. Grace, according to Jackson, is getting what you don’t deserve. And when we have faith in Jesus, we get to know God and have Him live in and through us.

The fourth rung and message is “Connection.” After a person is saved and baptized, they join a church and get together regularly with other people who believe in Jesus. Christians serve each other and guests at church.

The fifth rung and message is “Savior.” Christians need to tell non-Christians that Jesus is the savior so they can believe too.

The sixth rung and message is “Love.” When we know Jesus, we love Him and we love other people.

The seventh rung and message is “Praise.” Because of who Jesus is and what He has done, we worship Him all of the time. We sing to Him at church on Sunday, but we praise Him all week long too.

The eighth rung and message is “Follow.” Jesus is our leader and it’s our job to follow Him so we can do His plan and not ours.

The ninth and final rung and message is “Obey.” The Christian life comes down to either obeying God or yourself. Jesus has bought us, so He is in charge and we are to obey Him.

I am so thankful that he understands this. I know you might think that it is because he is being raised in a pastor’s home and I cannot deny that he hasn’t heard, seen developed, and been around a ton of sermons. But I can tell you for sure that he has been in church every Sunday of his life, except when sick, and it is showing.