Our call to worship this evening are these verses from Psalm 145.
I will exalt you, my God, the King.
I will praise your name forever and ever.
Every day I'll praise you and extol your name forever and ever.
Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise, His greatness no one can fathom.
One generation commends your work to another.
They tell of your mighty acts.
They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty and I will meditate on your wonderful
works.
Thanks be to God.
For all the great,Sergeant think the good Canadian, Sergeant Like the greatmail, and it's
good Canadian it's Christ-parents great things,
Welcome all, one and all, to our evening service at the grave, Avenue Christian Reform Church.
It's so good to see you all here tonight.
Welcome to members.
Welcome to all visitors in our midst.
God is here, present with us, and His Holy Spirit is moving.
May we be blessed by our time together as we meditate on His Word, and we offer Him our
praise.
In the meditation on His Word tonight, I will be at the very end of the book of Ephesians.
So I thought I would start for my reading at the beginning of the book of Ephesians.
This is one of the most positive and frankly breathless parts of Paul's writing, the beginning
of Ephesians.
There are at least three sort of overwhelming proclamations He makes in the verses that
I'm about to read.
I'm going to read 3 through 10 and 15 through 21.
The first of the proclamations is the fact that we have been chosen before the foundations
of the earth to belong to God.
Listen, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in
the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His
sight.
In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance
to His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace which He has freely given
us in the one He loves.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins and accordance with
the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding He
made known to us the mystery of His will according to the good pleasure which He purposed in
Christ.
To be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment, this is the second great
proclamation, God's plan is to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under
Christ, the most reformed statement you could possibly have.
And then going to verse 15, for this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the
Lord Jesus and your love for all God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you.
Remembering you in my prayers.
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the
spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know Him better.
And I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened or that you may know the hope
to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people,
and His incomparably great power for us who believe.
And this is a third great proclamation, the power that Jesus already has right now.
That power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the
dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule, authority,
power, and dominion, and every name that is invoked not only in the present age, but
also in the age to come.
Thanks be to God.
I just read Ephesians 3, which is one of the most robust statements of God's sovereign
grace for us and His sovereign rule over our life.
Another robust statement is found in our world belongs to God, the three paragraphs
that we're going to read tonight.
Let's rise and say them together.
Our world belongs to God, not to us or earthly powers, not to demons, fate, or chance.
The earth is the Lord's.
In the beginning, God, our earth is the Spirit, all this world is being, our time, and it is
shaped and ordered.
Even now as history unfolds and ways we know only in part, we are assured that God is with
us in our world, holding all things in tender and base and bending them to His purpose.
The confidence that the Lord is faithful gives meaning to our age and both to our years.
The new journey is together, where our world belongs to God.
The new journey is together, 
where our life is on God.
And the spirit of the world

Our prayer tonight will end
With singing of the three
Standsors from the hymn that
Is printed in your liturgies.
Please join me as we gather
Our hearts in our evening
Prayer. Let's pray.
We are your children.
And as your children.
We come to you again this
Evening so that we can share
Our lives with you.
As our father, we know that
There's nothing we can tell
You tonight that you don't
Already know.
But it is still so good for
Us children to come and
Be a little bit more
And I'm glad to be here.
And I'm glad to be here.
But it is still so good for
Us children to come and open our
Hearts to you and to know that
You hear us.
So father bless us now as we
Open our hearts again and
Reveal some of the things that
We need and some of the praises
That we have.
Father, because you call
Yourself father and because we
Know ourselves as your children
We pray for the children of the
World and the young people of the
Gift of youth and the gift of new
Life.
What a miracle it is when a new
Child comes into this world
Fully formed.
We praise you that we are
Fearfully and wonderfully made.
We thank you for the way that
You knit children together in
Mother's wounds and give the
Gift of life.
May we always value and
Protect that gift of life at all
It stages.
Father, I pray for the children of
The world who are in vulnerable
Places.
Some children live in
Places of extreme poverty where
They're not sure where their next
Meal will come from.
They live with hunger and
Uncertainty.
You have created a world of
Abundance.
There are so many of us who
Have so much.
Help us to see the needs of these
Children of the world.
I pray for children who are
In places of conflict and war
There are thousands and
Thousands of children who live
In places where they're caught up
In violence and the ambition of
The powerful.
Protect these children.
Give sustenance to refugees of
War and end these wars we
Pray.
We pray for children who live in
This world who are starving not
For food but for love
Who are living with neglect and
Abuse.
There are thousands of those
Two.
Help us to see these children
And help us to do what we can to
Make them feel heard and loved
And seen.
Plus our ministries to children
In this church.
I pray for our kids hope program.
Thank you for this program that
Reaches out to children who
Need a mentor who need
Expressions of love small and large.
Plus Lisa and Elizabeth as they
Lead that program.
Thank you for all our other
Youth programs at church.
We're so thankful for each and
Every child you give us in this
Church family.
Help us to be attentive to them as
Individuals and to get to know
Them as individuals.
May they feel known and loved in
This church family.
Plus Rachel as she leads our
Children in youth ministry.
May each one of our children
Learn your name and your stories.
May they learn to pray to you.
May they learn to live within
The circumference of your love
And may they desire to serve you in
Your kingdom.
And finally we pray for the
Needs of some of the children of
This congregation who are
Dealing with sickness and
We lift up Renee Kuiper
Steve Palazzolo
Pray for Shard Jouscha
Mary Close Tra
Peter Gordon
Pray for Oliver Davies and Edna Vin
Let
We lift up to you children who
Are in hospice right now
Pray for Sylvia
Bev
Dorothy Cecil and George
In your time and in your
Mercy and with gentleness
Let's bring these children home.
And I pray for your children
Who are dealing with grief,
Lord, I pray that for the
Strow and Glover families as they
Said goodbye to bill this week, but
For all of us who still feel
The sting of a loss even though
That loss was long ago.
Lord, these are our
Prayers. Please hear our
Patitions and help us in our
Need. Father, we children know
That you watch over us and that's
To know because we need your help
All day long.
In Jesus' name we pray these
Things. Amen.

Our Scripture reading tonight read earlier from the beginning of Ephesians.
Now we go to the end of Ephesians.
Ephesians 6 verses 10 through 20.
6 verses 10 through 20.
Listen to these words from Paul.
Finally says Paul,
"...be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.
Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.
Frost struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities,
against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes,
you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand.
Stand firm them with a belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breast plate of
righteousness in place, with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish the flaming
arrows of the evil one, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,
and pray in the Spirit on all occasions and with all kinds of prayers and requests.
With this in mind be alert and always keep on praying for the Lord's people.
And pray also for me that whenever I speak words may be given to me so that I will
fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I
may declare it fearlessly as I should. This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
In this passage Paul paints a picture of a spiritual struggle, a spiritual battle,
spiritual warfare if you will, and he paints it very vividly. On the one side you have the evil one
and his powers, the powers of this dark world and the forces of evil in the spiritual realms,
these forces which shoot flaming arrows, a very intimidating sounding force.
And on the other side, well you have us. You have God's army, ordinary people wearing the armor of God,
the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the sword of the Spirit, the helmet of salvation,
all of the things. I think you know this metaphor. I think you've heard the metaphor of this struggle
before from this passage, but I want to reflect a little bit of what this struggle feels like,
what this battle feels like on the ground level, what it feels like in ordinary life to be
in this spiritual war that Paul talks about. And to do that I want to just reflect on one part of
the battle, a part where we kind of know there's a significant struggle right now, and that's the
battle to pass faith on to the next generation, to get the next generation, our children,
to follow our footsteps in faith. When this battle is talked about today, when we study this battle
today, the battle is often measured in statistics. Demographers tell the story of how that battle is
going, and I think most of you know that over the last few years those statistics have not been
great. It doesn't sound like the battle is going all that great. Maybe you know the name Ryan Burch,
I don't know if you know that name, he's one of the leading demographers of Christian religion right
now. He used to be a pastor, but now he teaches at Washington University in St. Louis. And I know
I dissed social media this morning, but if you want a good follow on Facebook, he's a good follow
because he's constantly giving really interesting statistics about what religion looks like in modern
life, very solid and very consistent. And here are some of the data he's shared over the last few
months, and this is talking specifically about the nuns. Now I know you've heard about that,
the nuns, people, the percentage of people who say they have no religious affiliation whatsoever,
right? They just, they say I have no religious affiliation. They're not saying whether or not they
believe in God, just they're not attached to any religion. 1972, 5% of American adults identify
themselves as nuns. 1972, 1991, that went up to 6% of American adults identified themselves as
nuns. There's only 1% growth over about 20 years. It's more than a million people. It's only 1%
growth, not too much. From 1991 to now, you know what today's number is? 30%. 30% of American adults
say they have no religious affiliation whatsoever. What is that in real numbers? 1991, 6% of American
adults, that was about 11 million people said they were nuns. Today, it is 84 million American
adults with no religious affiliation, no attachment to the rituals, to the words of faith.
It's worse with the kids. Gen Z, the percentage of those who say they're nuns, 45%, almost half
who've completely removed themselves from any sort of religious tradition, any sort of religious
instruction. And all this data is troubling and understandably people put warnings out. They
warn of crisis. They warn of collapse. They say we have a reckoning in the church. What are we going
to do? And all these warnings and all this talk of crisis fits pretty well with the language that
we just heard from Paul, I think. Paul is definitely speaking the language of warning at the end
of Ephesians. You are in a struggle, he says to the Ephesians. A struggle against the powers of
darkness in the heavenly realms. And you walk out the door in the morning, he says to the Ephesians
to get your latte, to go to your doctor's appointment, to visit with your grandkids. When you walk out
in the sunshine of a summer morning, don't be fooled. Be vigilant. Put on the armor. There is
a struggle out there. There are forces working against you. And our struggle, when we have this
struggle, those forces are not flesh and blood. They're the principalities and powers in the
heavenly realms. When you have this fight, it's not against that foul-mouthed neighbor who drinks
too much and swears, lives in the backyard across from you. It's not against the anti-religious adult
who posts on your Facebook page. It's not against the neighbor kid with all the piercings and tattoos
and the foul-mouth. It is against principalities and powers and the forces of the evil one.
Who are those principalities and powers? How do these forces manifest themselves?
Well, of course, ultimately we're talking about the devil. We're talking about Satan. We're talking
about these spiritual forces that really exist and work against us. But I think this passage is
not just speaking about the evil one, but it's speaking about a specific way that the evil one
works in our life and exerts his influence. Often we start talking about the spiritual realm. We
think of things like oppression and demon possession, which are real. But in this case, I think Paul is
talking about something different. He's talking about powers and authorities. He's talking about
ways the evil one rallies people into systems and structures that make evil into a culture.
What's an example of that? Well, the evil one might take, say, the personal individual
sin like racism, right? An individual person can be racist. Say you're a person who believes that
you're racist, superior to the other races, you look down on other races. I think that's a sin.
That's non-controversial. What the evil one sometimes does with that is take that individual sin and
work it into a structure, into a social sin. So a whole bunch of races get together and they form
clubs. They encourage each other. They encourage the next generation. And then you have segregated
schools and signs on lunch counters and jokes told at dinner parties and you have discriminatory
housing laws and you have discriminatory lending laws, right? All of a sudden you have a culture,
you have a system. The evil has become a principality and a power that sweeps people along and traps
people. You aren't a battle against those things, says Paul. How does that show up when it comes to
bringing faith to the next generation? A recent book, not so recent, 2011, but still relevant
book that talks about faith in the next generation is written by Christian Smith, who's one of the
leading sociologists of faith. It's called Lost in Transition. And in that book, Smith notes all
the negative demographic trends that I talked about already. And then he gives five reasons why the
youngest people, the next generation, is being swept up and being carried along. Five powers
that are coming against people. Moral relativism, right? In our society, young people are taught
that one person's values are no better than another person's values. There's no ultimate right or
wrong. And who are you to tell someone else what's true? Rampant consumerism. Children are nurtured
in a market society, in a consumerist society, where it's always about getting the next cool thing.
Something Smith calls intoxication, which can be drugs and alcohol, but can also be just
experiences that take them outside of life, right? Could be video games. Something that lifts them
outside makes them forget. Sexual confusion. Just a crazy melange of messages about what our sexual
life is for and what is real that confuses them and leaves them unmoored. And finally,
radical individualism, this belief that you have the right to create yourself and make yourself
however you want. So, it says those five things, those five forces are just endemic in our society,
and they're part of the water that kids breathe, and that's they end up believing these things just
because they're a part of Western culture. Smith doesn't use this word, but he could have
all five of those things are principalities and powers. Those are the forces we face. Those are
the forces that we're against. Here's another thing to see though. While all these things are
serious and dangerous and endemic, and there's a real struggle out there, we need to keep Paul's
warnings in context. Paul certainly reminds us that we're in a struggle, but when Paul reminds
us in a struggle, is he panicky? Is he fearful? Is he worried? I think sometimes we read Ephesians 6
with the principalities and the powers and the flaming arrows, and it sounds overwhelming, and
we read it out of context, and we think, oh my, we are overmatched in this fight. But in the context
of Ephesians, remember the words I read earlier. His Paul on his back heals when he thinks about
these principalities and powers. Is Paul in the slightest bit nervous about these principalities
and powers? Absolutely not. You've been chosen before the creation of the world to be holy and
blameless in his sight. Nothing can take you from his hand. God has a mysterious plan to bring
everything in heaven and on earth under Christ. Nothing's going to stop that plan.
And Christ is already, says in chapter 1, quoting now, far above all rule and authority and power
and dominion, above every name that is invoked, not only in the present age or but also in the age
to come. Yeah, we're in this battle against powers and authorities and dark forces, but the victory
has already been won and the outcome is nothing but certain. And if you think about Paul and how
he carried himself when he did his ministry, was he hesitating? Was he fearful? Was he confronted
powers and authorities? No. Think of him in Athens, standing before the Ariapagos. Think of him in
Ephesians. Remember there was a riot in Ephesus and Paul wanted to go and talk to all the people?
He wasn't at least intimidated. When Paul did his mission in the world against these powers and
authority, he did it with confidence knowing that the victory belonged to God.
C.S. Lewis once says that there are two dangers that you can make with the evil one. You can give
them not enough credit or you can give them too much credit. So you can give them not enough credit.
A lot of modern people pretending it doesn't exist. That's obviously not enough credit.
It's terrible. You forget to put your armor on or you can give them too much credit. You can
walk around fearful, hesitating. You can shudder yourself in. I think those two dangers apply to
the way we approach our children and passing face on to the next generation. We could care
too little and not be vigilant, which would obviously be terrible. But just as dangerous,
we could shelter our children. We could hold them up. We could be fearful of the world
instead of confident that Christ owns this world and every inch belongs to him.
Do we need to be vigilant? Do we need to be concerned? Yes, absolutely. But our children
belong to the Lord and He has defeated every power and He has seated an authority above all things.
Paul does have a suggestion, a specific suggestion of how we might approach
these powers and authorities and passing on faith. He says two things. You need to put on the armor
and you need to stand. Here's how you stand, says Paul. You put on the belt of truth. You're
truthful with one another. You learn the stories of faith. You tell them to your children. You make
sure they understand the ways of God. You put on the breastplate of righteousness. You follow God's
rules and you follow God's laws even when they don't fit in with the rest of the culture. You
do justice. You do righteousness. You take care of the poor. The breastplate of righteousness.
You put on the shoes of the gospel of peace. You're not a culture warrior. You're not an angry
culture warrior. You go out there with the gospel of peace. You're bringing peace to the world.
You take up the shield of faith. Life is going to bring you hard things.
But you keep your eyes on Jesus and you pray for each other and together you keep going. You
keep moving forward. You put on the helmet of salvation. You remind one another that nothing
can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, your Lord. And you take up the
sword of the word because the word helps you discern the spirits and test which ones are from
God and which ones aren't. There's nothing new fangled here, right? This is prayer. This is worship.
This is teaching. There's no radical changing of what we're doing with our young people. It's just
sort of faithfully being with people, standing with people, teaching them the Lord's ways.
Years ago, the director of the Fuller Youth Institute, chap Clark, visited Calvin and gave a talk
about passing on faith to the next generation. It was right after his book, Sticky Faith, came out.
Maybe some of you have heard of it. And he went through all the stratistics and he talked about
what are the best things, statistically, what is the best thing from passing out faith to the next
generation? And you know what it was? Just loving and getting to know a kid and praying for them.
He said, if a child knows five other adults in the congregation, and that child knows that
those five adults care for him or her and pray for him or her, that is the leading predictor
of whether or not faith will pass to the next generation. It's no big secret you put your armor on.
You pray. You love. You speak the truth. You are with the next generation. You're present to them.
Don't get too worried about the numbers. Besides, there's some sign that maybe the numbers are
changing. Maybe you've heard there's some recent, especially about young men, trends towards young
men coming back to church. And in fact, in the last few months, I've had two young men who have
not grown up in the church at all, who've expressed interest in faith and have had the privilege of
sitting down with and discipling and hopefully leading towards baptism. It's just one story, but
it's pretty cool. It's pretty encouraging. And of course, just yesterday, this church said goodbye to
almost 50 young people who came here for serve. On Thursday, I went to Rachel who looked exhausted
and I said, Rachel, how's it going? Is it going well? And she said, oh, it's going so well. The
Holy Spirit is moving. These kids are singing. They're holding on to each other. They're praying
for each other. I know for many of you, this passing on a faith to the next generation is
deeply personal and that there are people in your life, children in your life, for whom that is not
happening the way you would like. Don't be afraid. Keep praying. Keep loving. Put on your armor
and stand. Amen.
Thank you, Lord, for the reassuring word that Paul gave us tonight.
Father, you know that there are times when we feel overmatched by the powers against us.
Thank you for this glimpse behind the curtain where we can see again that your power is supreme
and your power is sovereign. May that give us confidence as we live in the world. And Father,
we lift up to you, our children. We thank you for those who are walking in your way. And we lift up
those children who are wandering or who aren't naming you as Lord. Help us to stay faithful in
our love for them and our prayers for them. And Lord, in your sovereign power, we pray
that you would bring them back. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen.
Go from this place and out into another week with the blessing of your Lord.
May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord lift up his face to shine upon you and be
gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face towards you, smile upon you, and fill you with his peace,
both now and forevermore. Amen.