Are you new to the Celebration of God? Click here for your first steps.Episode Notes
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TranscriptIntroduction
I love that The Celebration of God is so incredibly easy to personalize.
Observing the various holidays in the Celebration of God is not a legalistic requirement in order to please God. In fact, I believe it’s possible for you to not observe all of the holidays on the calendar and still please the Lord. The key to glorifying God is that — if you truly are a born again child of God — you will praise and extol and worship and exalt God for His character and deeds at some point in some way. You will thank Him for creating you and sustaining you and coming to earth, living a perfect life, dying, raising from the dead, and ascending in victory over sin and death. But you don’t specifically have to do those things on Creation Week, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas time, and Easter. The nice thing about The Celebration of God is that we offer you a discipleship experience that facilitates your discipleship in two glorious ways:
God has made it very clear that we humans are forgetful and distracted. Memorials and corporate feast days keep us accountable and remind us to participate with each other in our worship of God. But they’re simply tools to a much more glorious end. That end is giving God the preeminence that He deserves. So, I hope that everything we do here on The Celebration of God draws you closer to the Lord and not a system. We encourage you to observe these holidays to God’s honor and glory, not your own. Now, let me explain why I started today’s show with these reminders. Today I’m going to talk about Daughter’s Day and Son’s Day. I’m going to discuss how we can prepare for these minor holidays, how we can celebrate God during these minor holidays, and how we can disciple our brothers and sisters in Christ on these minor holidays, but . . . my family may or may not observe Daughter’s and Son’s Day. “Why not?” you ask? My wife and I haven’t decided yet if it will be more beneficial to observe the individual days versus Children’s Day in June. Maybe all three are valuable for different reasons? Maybe — for my family — none of them are a good choice at this time. I’m saying this because I want to encourage you to really know why you do what you do. Don’t observe Son’s Day and Daughter’s Day just because I explained how you could. Make sure the Lord will be truly glorified by your participation in these days. Of course, don’t forget — even if you don’t observe these two days — as a child of God you will praise the Lord for His gift of children at some point, and you will love and serve your kids as you seek to please the Lord with your life. These two minor holidays are simply fantastic ways to remind us of God’s goodness and grace in our lives. But — before we get too much farther — did you know that you can shop Amazon and make money for TLP? That’s right. If you go to TruthLoveParent.com/Amazon and click on our Amazon affiliate link, all eligible purchases will earn a commission for TLP. It won’t affect your shopping experience at all, and you won’t have to spend any additional money. Amazon will simply give us some of their money for sending you to them. All you have to do is click on any of the Amazon banners at TruthLoveParent.com or CelebrationOfGod.com to be redirected. Thanks for checking it out! And, lastly, don’t forget that you can download free episode notes and find a ton of holiday-specific resources at CelebrationOfGod.com. Now, let’s talk about Son’s and Daughter’s Day. Topic
The world created these holidays for many different reasons, and — honestly — the history of the days isn’t going to help us appreciate them any more.
The reality is that they already exist and that many Christians already observe them. The key, though, is to learn to celebrate God on those days. Daughter’s Day takes place on the 4th Sunday in September, and Son’s Day always lands on September 28th. Why? I don’t know, but that’s when the world observes it, so I believe the best way to help the world see the awesomeness of our Lord is to celebrate God on those days. Instead of simply piling more attention and praise and gifts on our kids, let’s make sure that God is the focus. May that include praise and gifts? Possibly, but we’ll get to that momentarily. The point I’m trying to make is the Christian observation of these special days should be different from the worlds. So, to that end, we need to . . . 1. Prepare We humans are naturally self-centered. Praise God, He gives us His Spirit which convicts us and draws our minds back to truth, but that doesn’t mean we never approach life selfishly. In fact, we’re predisposed to worship ourselves instead of God. Therefore, it’s very wise for us to enter into times of focused-celebration with the intentional purpose of getting our hearts ready to dethrone self. To that end, we have a Bible Reading just for Daughter’s Day and Son’s Day. You will find that it’s nearly identical to the Children’s Day Bible Reading because many of you didn’t have access to that last year. The Bible Reading focuses on five major categories regarding children. It starts with “The God of Children,” and then continues with “God’s Expectations for Children,” “The Value of Children,” “What We Can Learn from Children,” and “How to Minister to Children.” As you read through those passage in preparation for Daughter’s Day and Son’s Day, take time to meditate on the truths you’re learning about God, but also take time to talk to God about it. Maybe you’ll be drawn to praise Him for the gift of children or the wisdom He offers in order to lead them well. Perhaps you’ll even be convicted about your attitude toward your children. In that case, take time to confess your sin and ask God to forgive. And all of this is being done to correctly tune our hearts to sing God’s praise. After reading all of those passages that will help us better appreciate our kids in light of Who God is, it will be much easier to enter the holidays already looking upward to God. And don’t forget that the Preparation for these two minor holidays can also include posting verses on your Celebration Wall. If you don’t know what a Celebration Wall is, be sure to listen to episode 16. It’s also very important that you help your children prepare their hearts as well. Children have foolishness knotted up in their minds, so it’s incredibly easy for them to take a day like Son’s Day or Daughter’s Day and see it as an opportunity to have as much fun as possible with no thought given to God at all. This is your chance to get them excited about their special day, but also to help them see it in light of their Creator. Engage them in the Bible Reading and have some discussions about how you can observe their unique holiday in a way that will please the Lord. And that leads us to point . . . 2. Celebrate Again, The Celebration of God is not a rule book for how God demands that we celebrate these days. We merely want to offer suggestions and get your own creativity flowing so that you can tailor it to your unique situation. That means that if your culture observes a Son’s Day or a Daughter’s Day or a Children’s Day on a different day from Americans — by all means — observe it on that day. Make it make sense within your context, just as long as a biblical, Christ-honoring form of worship is the focal-point. But here are some ideas. First, if you have more than one son or daughter, I would recommend explaining to them that this day is about all of them. Both of the girls need to recognize it’s not all about her. All five of the boys should strive to make the day just as enjoyable for the other brothers as they would like it to be for them. This will involve compromise and service, and what better way could there be to help our kids take this temptation to self-exaltation and make it about serving the Lord?! You could have your kids choose a family activity or project for the day. If you have more than one child in either category, maybe one could choose the activity and the other chooses the meal. Whatever you do, though, I believe it’s very important that intentional time is set aside to focus on God. Whether you read some of the Bible Reading, thank the Lord for the kids, and/or discuss with them some of the implications of what the Scriptures say about children . . . we need to make God the focal point. It’s really about His gift of our children more than it is about our kids. We can celebrate our kids only as it’s a part of our celebration of God. But even if only part of our day is set aside to talk intentionally about God, let’s not forget about the impact of point . . . 3. Disciple Discipleship isn’t a program or curriculum. Discipleship is an ongoing conversation about God’s truth and our response to it. Let’s say that my daughter who chose the day’s activity is complaining about the other daughter’s breakfast choice. Do I ignore the complaining until it’s time to talk about God later that day? Do I address it only when and if it gets on my nerves? No! Discipleship is guiding our children through the High Days and Low Moments. It’s speaking truth in that moment and inviting our disciplee to know, understand, and submit to that truth. As II Timothy 3:16 tells us, discipleship involves using God’s Word to teach and reprove and correct and train. That can happen all day long as needed. In fact, I would argue that intentional, cumulative God-honoring discipleship will have a much greater impact on our children than the annual Easter sunrise service. The service is only truly meaningful to those who already love God, and it’s the consistent focus on Him in our homes that will teach them (over time) how important God needs to be in our lives. Conclusion
Those are just a few ways you can celebrate God on Daughter’s Day and Son’s Day. As the years go by we hope to add more and more resources to help you celebrate God even better on those days . . . if you choose observe them.
But even if you don’t observe these minor holidays, I hope you’ll join us next time as we discuss some ways you can better know, understand, and love God in October. Lord willing, this month-long opportunity to exalt God will include a discussion about how even the unfortunate reality of death can be used to worship God as well as how we can celebration God with our recreation. I’ll see you then!
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The Year Long Celebration of God is a dynamic, holistic resource that utilizes the Bible, our holiday calendars, and even the most average moments of the most normal days to equip Christians to worship God all year long
and disciple others to do the same. AMBrewster is the creator and host of the Celebration of God. He originally designed the COG to be a discipleship tool for Christian parents to train their children to know and love God, but he quickly realized how valuable it is for all Christians. Whether it's a small group, church, classroom, one-on-one, or community relationship, this resource is guaranteed to draw people closer together as they draw closer to God. Aaron is the President of Truth.Love.Parent. and host of its podcast. Archives
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