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We didn't have room for our suitcase to pack for all the theme nights. At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to is kind of cool though. You have weird walking Willie. Did you get here this morning for that? It's pretty awesome. And and big boot Billy. I mean I don't know how that guy, he ran down the aisle wearing those things. I feel so much better and so much more comfortable here now I have size 16ft so you know to know that I am fabulous feet Philly. This week I am repping the theme so I feel so much better about that. Definitely. My name's Phil. It's great to be here. Ellen, will you stand up please? This is my wonderful wife Ellen. 45 years this past December 20th our kids who I promised to not make stand up. And they say I can't tell any stories about them this week. So my messages are nine minutes long each day. You're going to love that. It really, really messes me up. And five grandkids there and some of our daughter in law's extended family. This is what family camp is supposed to be. This is just pretty awesome. Rooted. What is this series? Well, it's part of a growing group of resources from Walk through the Bible, the ministry I've been a part of since 1988, been president the last wow 19 years I guess 07. We develop curriculum for church small groups here in the US but this same resource by probably this coming, I don't know, by next March let's say this will probably be in 30 languages and will be taught like all over the place. We're launching it in the Philippines which will cover all of Southeast Asia Pacific as then they take it and run with it to Thailand and Indonesia and Australia and other countries and then we'll launch it in January in India. We've got about 30 full time trainers there and then they spend the year teaching it to pastors. It goes into 12 languages just in India because those are the 12 official legal languages plus all the other ones that we don't even hear about those translations. But you are one of the earliest US groups who gets to hear this. So this is kind of fun. We'd had a different name, I don't know what we called it, I can't remember, it wasn't clarify but it was something like that and it just fell flat. And I was teaching this in New Jersey at America's Keswick and I thought let's try the title Rooted. And at the end of the first session the whole Group starts going, rooted, rooted. And Rudy happens to be one of my two favorite sports movies of all time, along with Hoosiers. And I'm like, rooted it is. Turns out Rooted is also a great title for it. If you open up to your intro to page seven, you'll notice in this workbook there are fill in the blanks. Your goal is not just to fill in all the blanks. Okay? Just because we gave you that doesn't mean don't take other notes. Take notes. Write down things. If God whispers something in your ear, write it down. If you think, oh, man, someday I'm going to teach this to some people in my Bible study. I got a better story about this than Phil just shared. Write that down. Capture all this stuff. Need to talk to husband about this later. Write that in your own workbook. Let the Holy Spirit do his own work this week. But this is why we use Fill in the Blanks, because we train people who train people who train other people, right? And it's like when you make a copy of a copy of a copy, we want it to be customized to each unique culture, each unique environment. But. But we don't want the central message of it just to be here. Let me talk to you about Rooted, and then close the workbook, close the Bible and talk about whatever you want. I don't care where you are in the world. If you leave a blank empty, your crowd will mutiny on you. Some of you have already lost your workbook. I understand that may not be your learning style. Others of you, if we leave here Friday morning with an empty blank, that will rob you of your joy in Christ for 90 days and you will email me to death. So. So don't be insulted by the fill in the blanks. It's not in any way to oversimplify and talk down to you. It's just to keep us focused. And keep me focused, by the way, because I like to tell stories. And it's like, oh, time for another blank. Get back on point, Phil. So here we go. Why is this series called Rooted? Subtitled Growing Strong by Growing Deep? I believe it's more important to be rooted and more difficult to be rooted now maybe than at any other time in our history. Some of that is because of just the rapid change that exists in our world. I mean, I don't think anybody here was probably alive in 1903, but you think about it. In 1903, there was a young boy named Eugene. And Eugene liked dreaming of crazy ideas. And he imagined someday that he might even fly and some things like that. Well, in 1903, he heard that in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wright brothers had actually managed to do that. Ellen and I got to go there. She grew up in North Carolina but had never been out on the outer Banks. We got to go there a few years ago. I had no idea how short their first flights were. Not even near here to the dining hall. I mean, a matter of feet, a matter of seconds. Eugene grew up. Most people called him Gene. He had a son who 66 years later. So Eugene or Gene is now 73. And he watched on television as his son Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. All that in one lifetime. If you think the rate of technological breakthroughs has slowed since then, you are not keeping up. And you need to pull out your eight track in your car and it's time to upgrade. Technology is moving so quickly. I mean, it was the first mobile phone, came out in 1946. That's a long time ago. Bell Labs, it wasn't popular. It weighed about nine pounds. You know, you could very mobile. It'll fill up half your trunk. In 1983, Motorola came up with one just a pound and a half. And people marveled at the sudden convenience. Can you imagine that? You know, then we get the iPhone hits the first text message wasn't sent until 1992. That's hard to believe. Hard to believe. Now there are 5.8 billion unique cell phone users. There's more cell phones than people in the world. But unique users is 5.8 billion, which is pretty amazing. Out of 8 billion people. Everything we're creating at Walk thru the Bible, we're creating as much for distribution by cell phone as any other means. Because there are. I've met people in Africa, met some from one tribe and they go, yeah, we went directly from drums to give signals from village to village to village to the smartphone. I saw a cartoon recently. Two iPhones were at a museum. And they're looking and there's this phone hanging on the wall and it says, that's right, son. Our ancestors actually had tails. It is changing so rapidly. Things are obsolete practically before we get them out of the package. And that's just fine with Apple. They love it that way. In the 1800, the population of the Earth race reached 1 billion. In 1800, took a long time to get to the first billion. It only took from 1800 to 1928 to double to 2 billion in 1976, the year I graduated from high school. Our bicentennial year, the normal community fighting Ironman I am from Normal, Illinois, and it is true that a woman from our town married a man from another little town down the road. And I have the clipping from the paper that says, normal woman marries oblong man. That is a true story. It even made the Tonight Show. I'm not making this stuff up, but since that year, there have been 34 new countries birthed in the world. It's rapid change. Not only that, we hit 4 billion in 76. Now, as of 2022, we're at 8 billion. Change, change, change. There's a lot of advantages to that. I mean, I remember growing up, we had three channels. How many? Remember those days? Do you remember those days? Some of you are looking around like, seriously, didn't the dinosaurs. Did they eat your cable? What happened? You know, and we had a remote. It was me, my dad was switch it to cbs, and I jump up and I was the remote. Sometimes that meant going behind the set, moving the rabbit ears around. We had tin foil because we were cheap and would not ever replace our. This big tv. Now, you think about it. On this phone right here, I'm able to stream, if I wanted to, 2.5 million movies on this phone. Our problem is not access to information. It's filtering that information, isn't it? Now, I love the access to information. Our kids are like, dad, back when you lived, when you wanted to know something, what did you do? I'm like, you looked it up in the encyclopedia. They're like, how old was the encyclopedia? And I go, well, if you really want to know, you wrote it down. And next time you were at the library, you asked the librarian, and they're like, you didn't just Google it? No, we didn't just Google it. Of course we didn't just Google it. There's a lot of blessings that come with that. The world is smaller. It's an opportunity for the gospel. But there's no filters on any of that. I mean, I remember during COVID there were people I'd gone to school with who were, you know, like, the guy was a physical education major, and suddenly now he's an expert on, you know, infectious diseases. I'm like, where did you pick that up? He's got the answers for everybody else in Covid now. He's switched. Now he's this geopolitical genius who knows how to resolve every conflict in the world. And if he's good enough and can accumulate enough followers, then he's an expert. And his stuff gets shared and nobody even knows what the source of it is. It's crazy. If there's ever been a time we need to be rooted, especially as Christ followers, it's right now. We live in a pluralistic society and I'm glad we do. I. I am not a fan of Christian nationalism. I'm not a fan of radical Hinduism controlling now more and more of India. I'm not a fan of Islam and Sharia law every place I've seen in the world. Religious nationalism doesn't end well. Even if things are done in the name of Jesus Christ places. It doesn't work very well to wrap this book in whatever the flag of our nation happens to be. That was free and extra credit and not even a fill in the blank about that. Rooted here are some synonyms. Firmly implanted. Established, stable, resilient. Look around this afternoon at the huge trees that are here. We see the upward growth of a tree and that's what concerns us because we see the same thing. The corn you grew by the corn looked good driving down here, by the way. I grew up at the corner of soy and corn. But we look at what we can see because that's where the fruit comes. But it's the unseen growth in the root that ultimately determines the fruit. So your very presence here at Gull Lake is an investment in becoming more rooted. This concept is in the Scriptures. Jeremiah 17, 7, 8. How about you read these verses with me? It's on a couple of slides. Read it out loud with me. Here we go. But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. Keep going. It does not fear when heat comes. Its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. In the New Testament, you actually read the word rooted. This was a word picture that the Apostle Paul looked a lot. Read Colossians 2 these verses to me. Here we go. So then, just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness elsewhere. He talks about the same thing in Ephesians. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit, in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. It's a biblical word. It's a great name for this series. I believe there's no character in scripture that better shows us, especially as younger adults. And I'm still deceiving myself enough to think that I'm in that half of the category. Eventually I will grow up and be middle aged, but I'm not eager to get there yet. I'm only 68, after all. But I think there's no better character than, especially if you are young, if you're in your active parenting years. I just don't think there's a better character than Timothy to teach us about being rooted. You know, this concept is really important in scriptures. Look at this quote in the Bible. Being rooted generally signifies a deep, stable and foundational connection with God, especially through faith in Jesus Christ. It implies a state of being firmly planted and established, making one resilient to trials and temptations. This rootedness is often described as a source of strength, growth, and spiritual nourishment, drawing from the wellspring of God's love and word. AI had a good day that day. You know something? When you post Christian content, not the kind that splits churches and starts wars with your neighbors, okay. But encouraging things that are real close to the central Bible message, the more you post that, the more it gets picked up. When AI, I simply said, what does rooted mean? This was the answer that AI gave me. I'm not sad about that at all. Benefits of being rooted, just three of them. First of all, increased stability. There are different kinds of trees that show us this. There's the Scots pine. You've probably seen some of those. They grow about 7ft tall. Did you know their taproot goes 11ft deep? You want a crazier example than that? The wild fig tree, which I'm not sure if I would recognize one of those if it walked up to me at lunch today. But the wild fig tree grows to 130ft tall. Its taproot goes 400ft down, like three times as tall as the tree goes. It's amazing. Increased stability, accelerated growth, and clarified purpose. Being rooted helps us know what to say yes to and what to say no to. Timothy not only shows us what it looks like to be rooted, the cool thing about his life is we actually see five ways that we can become rooted. And the first one of those we're going to talk about this morning. First of all, let's talk about being rooted by family. How cool is this? At a family camp? This just works out great. Rooted by family is the first topic we're going to take on this morning. You know, Paul and Timothy hung out for a long time. I mean, like not years, but decades. They were very close. We'll talk about that. In the session tonight, I kind of assumed that meant Paul probably led Timothy to Christ. A lot of people assume that. That's actually not true. I was wrong. Look at Acts 16, verse 1. Paul, this is the start of his second missionary journey, came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. How is Timothy described in there? What's the modifier of him? Timothy was a what? What's a disciple? Follower of Jesus. You had the original 12 who were like the disciples. But then it means to be a Christ follower, a loyal learner, an understudy, and Timothy before Paul even meets him. Timothy became a disciple of Jesus before he met Paul. There's your fill in the blank right there. Don't miss it. It's not my fault. I showed you that. 1, verse 2. The believers at Lystra, which is in modern day Turkey, Lystra and Iconium, spoke well of him. Timothy had matured and is well respected by other believers. Oh, Paul, you met Timothy. He's a good guy, man. He's young, but the kid is sharp. We don't know how old he was. Is he late teens? Is he, Is he in his 20s? I mean, when I watch the counselors here at Gull Lake, most of the time you read anything online about, I mean, the millennials I thought would be the most maligned generation in history. Those of you who are millennials, I mean, the trash you had to endure, and yet our kids and their friends, I'm going, hey, I see a heart for God there. They're more cause oriented, many of them than any generation I've seen. Gen Z comes along and now Gen Z's taking. If the leadership of the church is entrusted to the guys and girls who are working with our kids this week, I think the church isn't going to go extinct in America anytime soon. Timothy had matures, well respected. How did he come to faith? It was before he met Paul. Well, Paul fills this in in a letter that he writes to second Timothy 2. Timothy 1:15 says this. Here we go. I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice. And I am persuaded, now lives in you also. So how did Timothy learn about Jesus? Family. Family. Specifically his mother and his grandmother. I went to walk through full time in 92. I'd been an instructor since 88. And the reason we moved to Atlanta in 90 and we left our church in Illinois was because there was an unprecedented opportunity Communism was crumbling, the Iron Curtain was going down. And a group of ministries came together to form something called Commission. It started with Walk through the Bible. Campus Crusade for Christ, or CRU as we know it now. Association of Christian Schools International started with those three core ministries, eventually expanded to 80 ministries. That said, after World War II, there were opportunities, opportunities in Japan, other countries. We did nothing about it basically as a church, we did some things, but it wasn't unified. What if. Just, what if we could all leave our Logos and our egos at the door as Christian leaders and work together and try to maximize that? Suddenly you had this entire people group, huge people groups from Slavic backgrounds open to the Gospel. I loved it and Walked through the Bible needed help and we moved to Atlanta to be a part of that. So my first overseas ministry trips happened with Commission, and mostly they happened to Ukraine. In Ukraine. I love the Ukrainian people. I've probably been there 10 times in my life. I'm. I'm so eager to go there now. Our board won't let me go. Now. They're like, not yet, not yet, not yet. And even our director goes, just wait a little while longer. But as hard as the war has been, we're now in the fifth year of the conflict there. Now suddenly the public schools are open to the ministry of Walk through the Bible. It's just incredible. All the good things that you'll never hear about. Whether you watch CNN or Fox or anything in between, you're not hearing what God is doing in that country. But I love. I love Ukraine. I thought when I made my first trip there in like 93, 94, I thought, we're going to take the gospel someplace that's never been heard before. Wrong. We were doing these one week long convocations. We were hosted by the Department of Education. They said our whole nation could fall down into giant sinkholes. There's nothing holding up our society. We've got to rebuild. We've got to put God back in. And we got to begin with our schools. Wow. And we were teaching a curriculum called Christian Morals and Ethics, the foundation for Society. There were like worldview talks with really smart people. But the Walk through the Bible instructors did more teacher training events. We were not missionaries. We were told, don't close your eyes and pray. Don't be singing praise songs walking down the hall. We're educators. We're not tourists. We're not missionaries. We're invited in by the government. We're in pioneer palaces, which were the buildings built by the communists to train the next generation. And I'm like, this is just beyond awesome that we're getting to do this. At one point, you know, the Soviets had destroyed all the history books of Ukraine. They just burned them all. And so one of the concerns was, how are we to teach now that we're free again as Ukrainians, how are we to teach the story of our people? And so we said, well, one thing you can do without books, you can use hand signs. We do it with the Bible, for instance. Let me just show you this. Here's Creation. Then came the Fall. God sent the flood, and he confused languages to send the world out into nations. Do those four with me. Ready? Here we go. Creation, Fall, Flood, Nations. If you can't remember that, you got a huge beach ball. You push it down, it doesn't stay down. It flies up and your hands fly off. You just learned the first four main events of the whole Bible in Genesis. And so we're teaching this and we put together some Old Testament and then got in the New Testament and we got to the part where Jesus was crucified. Rozpiecha. It is in Ukrainian. This is. That's all I know is like the steps of the storyline. And I walked off, and the curtain was here. And as I walked off, I said, it's so sad that such a great man would die such a terrible death. And I just disappeared. There were 400 educators there, many of them still with their communist medals on their suit coats. And I just stayed there. And then I hear, like, murmuring. And then pretty soon somebody goes, nyet, nyet. Talk, nyet. Ukrainian, Russian. No, no, no. I said, I'm sorry. This is where the story ends. I said, you're dismissed. And I walked off. They didn't move yet. And finally I stick my head and I go, what? And they go, roz PI aicha vos krisinya. Resurrection Soviets made two big mistakes. They should have changed the name for Sunday, because once every seven days in Russian, Voskrisinia. Resurrection Day. They should have edited that one out, baby. The other thing they do, they did, is they underestimated the power of grandmas. They mock them. Nobody listens to a babushka. That's what they called them. That's the things the older women wear on their heads. And so they call them by their headwear. They call them babushkas. It's not a nice term. Nobody listens to the babushkas. Let them worship. You know what? 70 years on your communism, that was long enough that even if their kids had to sell out to The Communist Party. The grandmas spoke into the lives of their grandchildren. And when I came out, I went, oh, ros piacha voskrisinha. They break out into this song, oh, maybe 18 verses or so. It wasn't a hymn. It was the history of Ukraine. But it had the gospel message in it. And somebody's translated it into my headset for me, and I'm just standing there crying. Some of you are of an age where you're like, man, I don't have the energy that I used to have. I mean, I'm targeted. Kids want me to jump on the Blob and send them into outer space. I find that profiling quite offensive, actually. I don't think that's a good idea for either one of us at this point in my life. I have a brand new shiny left hip. I'm not sure I want to take on the Blob with me. You may feel, man, it's hard even keeping up around here. Let me tell you something. Some of your most powerful ministry comes in the last years of your life because you have time to pray. You know what to pray about. Some of your extended families are here because you have made it possible to come. I don't know of a better investment that you could make in your families than that. My kids don't get any idea. You earn plenty of money. You don't need our help. You should just come on your own. Let's talk about the great faith transfer. Because at any point in time, the Christian faith is only one generation away from extinction. Ultimately, Jesus doesn't have kids and grandkids and great grandkids. If you have a heritage of faith that goes back generations, be thankful for it. But don't put the development of your kids on autopilot, because that's not the way it works. Second Timothy two, one, two. You. Then my son Paul writes to Timothy, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. Where is this best accomplished? Do not look at your workbook. Do not go ahead on the screen yet. Go get that off of there. No, go ahead. Put it on the screen. Go on. Okay, let's vote. How many of you say that happens best at church? Raise your hand. Are you guys a bunch of pagans here? This is Plan A of God. Okay, so that's worth some hands. How many say, no, it happens best at school. Maybe a Christian school, maybe homeschooling. Maybe, you know, I vote for school. You understand the question. This is how we vote. Okay. How many say camp? This is what you've all been waiting for. Hard to argue with that. And there is a present tense bias in that. How many say it's friendships. This is ultimately life on life. Lot of hands. Good. How about Parachurch Ministries? Walk through the Bible crew Navigators. Yep. Young life. Yep. Answer is F. None of the above. I believe. And some of you peaked, which is why you wouldn't play the game and vote as you were supposed to. I believe God's answer is, without a doubt, home. Before there were governments, schools, camps, churches or synagogues, there was the family. The family is the basic building block of every society on earth. Moms and dads, Deuteronomy 6. You may know these verses. If you don't, you need to commit them probably to memory if you can. It's called the Shema Yisra'. El. In other words, listen, Israel, let's read these out loud together, shall we? Here we go. It's two slides worth. Here we go. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Stop right there. So it starts with your relationship with God. Right? Now we pass it on, beginning in verse six. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and gates. The word impress. Some translations. Your translation may say, teach them. That's usually more formal, structured teaching. That's what I'm doing this week. Right, but then there's that other word, talk of them. That's what the counselors are doing. You know, values are most time. Not really. We learn content in rows, but we learn values in circles. That's where things take place. God is free even in our lives as adults. Your highlight spiritually this week may have nothing to do with one of my talks. It may be a random conversation you have sitting next to another mom on a playground or I can't believe it. We sat down at lunch and exactly what we're struggling with in our marriage. There's a couple a few years down the road who struggle with the same thing. How weird is that coincidence? Because it's not a coincidence. I really believe that our Kids, they heard me teach plenty. I really believe they acquired more of their values from riding around with Ellen in the minivan. I really believe that. I call it minivan theology. I think it's just a powerful thing now, you know, in the Tuttle household. For years we only had one car, which was terribly difficult in Atlanta, and it was a minivan. And then we were able, from what I won on Wheel of Fortune, to get a second beater car. And that really was great. But I missed out on a lot of the minivan theology. Then Ellen came home one time and she goes, I cannot believe how much I was in the stupid van today. I mean, taking Emily to ballet, then taking Philip to baseball, then we had to go there, then we had after school stuff all over the place. She goes, I pulled into the garage, she goes, I had to pry my fingers off the steering wheel. Anybody ever feel like that? I said, that's an actual medical condition, hun. She goes, oh please. I said, no, it is. It's called carpool Tuttle syndrome. And I was like so proud of that. I thought, I'll never ever be able to use that again. So I tell people about the one time I got to use it. These verses in Deuteronomy 6 remind us it is wise for parents to partner with other ministries. Church youth ministries. Go lake partner with other ministries. But we must never delegate our God given mission to anyone. If I have one thing that is a serious regret and I wish I had done a lot better at it is really pouring into our kids at home. We had a blast. We were good parents. We were fully engaged in their lives and their activities. I missed some really good teaching opportunities in the very walls of our own house. Along the way I got a survey and this one. Please participate in this. Better than you did the last one. At what age did you come to know Jesus as savior? If you're a Christ follower? If you're not, we're voting in stages. Nobody will call you out and go, you never stood up. What is wrong with you? Today is your day. I think some people will meet Christ as savior this week. I don't think it'll meet by me nailing them publicly and embarrassing them. I'll never do that. If you came to know Jesus Christ as savior at age 6 or under, will you please stand up? Look around the room. That's a lot of people. I mean seriously, look around the room. Some people say, oh, that doesn't work. That doesn't stick. Apparently based on this sample, sometimes it does. You may Be seated. How many of you it was age 7 to 11. Stand up. This is where I'd stand. I was riding home from school one day on the bus. Buddy of mine, Johnny Uhler, goes, hey, why don't you go get off at my stop tonight? I go, because it's like a mile from my house. And he goes, no, there's this club. Come to this club with me. Then you can walk home. And I said, what kind of club? He goes, a Bible club. I'm like, no, gracias. I mean, we did church for an hour a week. It bored me out of my mind. He said, there's cookies and Kool Aid, which still is dangerously close to my love language. So I went and this lady had the gift of flannelgraph. If you don't know what that is, it blows PowerPoint out of the water. Same dude can be Joshua this week and Thaddeus the next week. Got four backgrounds. You can tell every Bible story. And this lady, Jenny Walsman, used the wordless book and explained how I could have my sins forgiven. I've made some dumb decisions along the way since then. I sure hope I understand it better. But there's no doubt in my mind. At the age of 10, I met Jesus as my savior. Have a seat. My wife was a little slower. Girls usually mature faster, but this time I was ahead. Ellen and her brother met Christ at a Billy Graham crusade in Madison Square Gardens. They in fact, got lost on their way to getting saved. And most of the counselors had left. But somebody opened the word of God and shared the gospel with them. So those who say mass evangelism and kids work don't stick. We are the poster couple that you are out of your mind if you believe that. Anybody here come to know Christ as a teenager, say age 12 to 19, you stand up. Wow, strong representation here. You think the ministry in High Tide is important this week? Huge. Pray for them. Have a seat. Anybody say 20 to 29? 20 somethings? Look at. This is the most even spread I've ever seen when I've done this. Have a seat. Anybody age 30 or after? Praise God. I've led people to faith in Christ in the hospital, on their deathbed. Never give up on people. It's never too late. But look at the numbers. A lot smaller group than the other ones. 47% come to faith before age 12 and 84% come to faith by age 20. You know, we'll take an offering for Gull Lake this week. We'll probably take another one. We took one Yesterday you can do an offering like that, and it's like, oh, great, what do I have in my pocket? Ooh, let me go back. Oh, here. There you are, George. Okay, we can give that kind of offering. But as you think about estate planning and things even long term like that, as you think about your monthly giving beyond your local church, there's not a better place than right here in terms of bang for the buck. Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. Paul wanted to take him along on the journey. That's the second missionary journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. Despite his great heritage of faith, Timothy's family was. Was far from perfect. You can come to a place like this and go, man, every family here has it totally together except us. My brother gave me a shirt one time that said Tuttles. Put the fun in dysfunctional. I go, where am I supposed to wear that? He goes, family camp. I'm like, yeah, I'll be doing that. Despite his great heritage of faith, Timothy's family was far from perfect. Kind of like mine, kind of like yours. You look at his family tree. I mean, let's start at the bottom. Timothy, his mom was Eunice. His dad was a Greek, or we would call him a Gentile. His grandparents, his grandma was Lois. We don't know anything about his grandpa. Certainly on his father's side, there was no Christian or even Jewish background there. Timothy's father did not share the faith of the mother and grandmother. They're what we call a mixed family. They're what we would call a divided home in that way. Like each of us, Timothy's family was a mix of blessings and challenges. Every family's got a weird Uncle Harold. My family had a lot of them. There are relatives that my mother would not let my wife meet until at least our 10th anniversary. We got her family. Ellen's family has the first missionary to Native Americans, Thomas Mayhew on Martha's Vineyard. She's a direct descendant of them. We've done a lot of genealogical work on the Tuttle side, too. There are more mission fields on the Tuttle side. Then there had to be something for Ellen's family to do, and we provided that opportunity for them to have gainful employment. Bottom line, this morning, our roots grow deeper by learning from and prioritizing our families. Two questions I'd love for you to discuss. Probably hard to do at lunch if you got a bunch of little ones all over you. But if you're here with your spouse or you're here with your adult kids, what is one great thing that you inherited from your parents? What's something they did well and you want to reproduce it and pass it on? But then look at the flip side of that because no family is perfect. Even if you have 48 of your descendants here this week, what's one thing that you wish were different and you want to extinguish going forward? I'm only giving one because otherwise my kids would be sawing down trees to make extra paper to fill in the answer that so you can only do one of each. One thing you'd love to reproduce and pass on, and one thing that you go, you know what? Mom was a little controlling. Dad was a little OCD about time, especially about keeping the rules. He always cheered for the umpires at our ball games because he wanted to teach us about authority. Just wince. I wished he had sided with us. This OCD thing is real. It in fact bothers me that ocd, those letters are not alphabetical. So maybe you share that with me. We'll talk as we're arranging our silverware neatly at the tables over lunch. But have that conversation and realize everything else we're going to build on today builds on the fact that the number one place where the faith is passed on from generation to generation is by family. Some of you are like, why didn't I hear this message 30 years ago? That's all right. Grandkids are the ultimate mulligans, aren't they? You get a second shot. Maybe that's why God brought you here this weekend. Dear Father, thank you for this series Rooted that you've birthed. That's going to a lot of places. But Lord, we very much need it here. And so, Father, help us as we contemplate our own families, what's good that needs to be reproduced, what was not good that needs to go into extinction in the next generation. Lord, thank you for how clearly you speak to us through your word, that you don't make it over complicated, that you make it so we can not just learn it and hear it, but we can do it. Help us to be doers of the word. This week, in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you, my friends.