Saturating Your Children with God's Word, Part 2

sermon transcript

Review of Last Week

As I look at my life, I can say easily, the greatest gift that I have ever received, the gift of greatest value that I have is eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. The fact that my soul is pure in the sight of God, despite the fact that I sin daily, I'm standing under a shower of grace. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from every sin, and someday I will take my place at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. That's the greatest gift that's ever been given me. The greatest ministry that has ever been given me is a family, a Christian wife and five children. They are on my mind everyday, they're on my mind every hour, they have been entrusted to my care. And the second greatest joy I could have would be to see each one of those six people with me at their places in the feast, in the kingdom of heaven. And toward that end, I labor daily. To that end, I teach and I preach Christ, and I shepherd my family imperfectly, but that is my yearning and my desire.

Sometime ago, as I was looking at the Scripture that said, “What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”, it gave me a sense of the value of that first gift I was just mentioning, the value of my soul. And that Jesus shed his blood for my soul is the greatest gift, and if you're a Christian, the same is true of you. You can't have a greater gift than that, Jesus said so. But as I was meditating on that and I'm thinking about my ministry here as pastor and I'm thinking about my life, it came to my conclusion, What would it profit a pastor to have the most fruitful ministry, a church that's flourishing and growing in many ways, and lose his family? What would the advantage and the benefit be for that? And so it has come pressing into me, and especially more as my children grow and as time goes so quickly, how vital it is that I preach Christ and exemplify Christ, and I evangelize my children and disciple them everyday? And that's what I wanna help you do today, that's what we were seeking to do last week in Deuteronomy 6. This is the second week of looking at this, and the focus of these two weeks has been saturating the minds and hearts of your children with the Word of God. The text is Deuteronomy 6.

Now, last week, I shared a disturbing statistic with you from T. C.  Pinkney that 70% of youth involved in youth groups at evangelical churches, 70%, within two years of graduating high school do not attend church. Josh McDowell supplemented that, saying that less than one-third of today's youth even attend church at all. If you put the two together and just do some estimation, you might think that less than 10% of just youth in general will be attending church once they're done with high school and on. And that is very troubling. I shared with you also how my friend, Scott Brown, said the central reason for that within the church is that the church, and specifically Christian parents, and even more specifically Christian fathers, have turned away from the biblically-ordained patterns and roles of youth ministry and just ministry of the family in general. That fathers are satisfied with just bringing their children to church and having a good youth minister and a good youth ministry to evangelize and disciple their own children, and we find this to be greatly inadequate, Andy Winn and I, as we've talked about it.

And so, it was our desire here at the beginning of 2006, to lay a challenge before the families, to the parents especially, and especially the fathers, to lead their families in godliness in ways they never have before, to evangelize and disciple your own children with the Word of God, and I wanna start there because I believe that the Word of God, a saturation with the Word of God primes the pump for everything else. It's understanding God from his Word, understanding his commandments, understanding what he expects from us. It is that that starts everything, all the rest flows from that, and so I have called on us to evangelize and disciple our children in new and more powerful ways. I hope it's been a good week for you, if you have children growing at home and you've seen some changes. I already have some encouraging stories from some folks that are stepping out in new directions in terms of family devotions. I wanted you to have a multigenerational view of spiritual prosperity and protection. We talked about that so that you, your children, their children, after there's a multigenerational vision. I came across a great testimony concerning Jonathan Edwards, who saturated his household with the Word of God and with his helpmeet, his wife, Sarah, they saturated their children with Christ. She was an incredible woman.

But among their descendants, their direct descendants, were 13 college presidents. Now stop and think about that. Thirteen presidents of colleges or universities, 65 professors, 100 lawyers, 100 missionaries. Wouldn't you love to have 100 missionaries among your descendants? Thirty judges, 60 physicians, 60 authors, 80 holders of public office, including three US senators, among Jonathan Edwards' descendants, three are senators, three governors, a vice president, a controller of the US Treasury, and many business owners and directors. And all of this flowing from the saturation of the Word of God, the power of the Holy Spirit in that household. Don't you yearn for a spiritual legacy that will last through eternity? These things are just earthly offices, but how much more significant is the fruit, the spiritual fruit in their lives that cannot really be measured until judgment day? Parental teaching and example have an incalculable influence on the lives of children, on succeeding generations. Children of divorce often get divorced themselves, children of alcoholics frequently succumb to temptation in that same area, and children of godly parents develop godly habits that can last a lifetime.

All of this is in Deuteronomy 5:9-10, there the Lord said, “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” That's incredible. And therefore, I thought Deuteronomy 6 is the best place to begin to talk about that, and the centerpiece of all of it, in verse 4 and 5 is loving God with all you are. “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.” That's the centerpiece of it all. And frankly, that's the goal. That's where you're heading as you evangelize and disciple your children. “The goal of our instruction,” says Paul, “is love from a pure heart and a good conscience,” that they would love God, not just that they would outwardly conform legalistically, like some Pharisees, to some religious lifestyle, but that they would love God from their hearts. That's the goal. That's the desire.

Now, therefore, we said, parents, these commandments that God gives us first must be upon your hearts. You must saturate your own heart in the Word of God. I don't really think you can lead your family spiritually, family devotions and all that, if you're not having a daily quiet time. Your children need to see you daily meeting with the Lord, getting up in the morning, opening the Bible, just for yourselves. Praying for them and for yourself and for whatever is going on in your life, having a daily quiet time, that's the foundation. And finally, by way of review, I talked about fathers and I urged you to lead. I said that the Hebrew here focuses specifically on sons, not because God doesn't care about mothers or daughters, not at all, and we talked about that how in the overall teaching in the Scripture, it is very clear that fathers and mothers are to teach sons and daughters. But for some reason, God saw fit to say so that you, your son, and their sons after them, etcetera, and the reason I think is that God was establishing and upholding that pattern from the very creation of fathers leading their families spiritually. And so as you're training your sons, say, "Son, someday you're going to lead your own family, get ready. Get ready for that." And so I especially laid the burden and the challenge before fathers to lead their families. All right, that's all review. That's what we talked about last time.

Deuteronomy 6’s Practical Advice

Now, what I'd like to do is to give some practical advice right from Deuteronomy 6 on how to do it. Many of you have asked questions, "I don't know how to have a family devotion time, I don't know what to do, I don't know how to answer all the questions, and what practical advice do Scripture give us toward this?" And I wanna draw some things right out of Deuteronomy 6 that I think will help you and then just make some more practical hints along the way. The first thing is that we are to teach by talking about the Word of God. There just needs to be talk about Scripture. God has given to humanity the gift of speech. We are able to put abstract and even physical concepts into words so that as we're sitting in a room, we can't imagine and think about snowcapped mountains, or deep blue oceans, or a spiritual being called God. We can talk about these things in words.

And so it says in verse 6, “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.” And then it says in verse 7, “Impress them on your children, talk about them. Talk about them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” You've got to talk to your children about the Word of God. You're to unpack the words of Scripture to your children. You're to look carefully at each section of Scripture. You're to impress the very words of Scripture into their minds and hearts. Now, we have a lot of things that people have come up with, a lot of publishers, a lot of AV folks, media that are doing things all the time, doing video DVDs, all kinds of fancy things that didn't exist a number of years ago. All of that may be helpful and valuable, but nothing takes the place of simply talking to your children about the Scripture. Talk to them about the words. What are the nouns and verbs, and adjectives? What does this paragraph mean? What is the book saying? What is the book of Galatians saying? What is the book of 1 Kings saying? Let's talk about Scripture. Talk about these things.

Now, I know that there are things called learning styles, visual learners learn best by seeing we're told, auditory learners learn best by hearing, tactile learners learn best by touching. Well, I think that God knew all that and then he created an incredible creation surrounding us by sights and sounds and smells, gave us five senses, and that kind of thing is gonna go on all the time. But for some reason, he has elevated the concept of hearing. He said in Romans 10:17, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” And so we are to talk about God's Word because concepts come in through the ears. And so, therefore, talk about the commandments of God. Start with the Ten Commandments. I have to confess to you today, I was a missionary on the field in Japan before I could recite the Ten Commandments. I knew where to find them, and if anyone ever asked me, I said, "Just a minute," and I'd open up the Bible and be able to tell them where the Ten Commandments were. But it wasn't until I was going through a little catechism with my children and memorized a simple list of the... Not all of the verses, but basically each concept that I had it memorized. And frankly, since that time, I've used it again and again in evangelism, the Ten Commandments.

I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make any idols. You shall not worship any idols. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. Do all your work in six days and rest on the seventh, for God made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the Sabbath. Honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. These are the commandments of God. Now, as you talk to your children about these commandments, they're getting not only the message of these commandments, but a greater message that there is a King of kings, there is a God who sits on a throne and has a right to talk to us like that. He has the right to command us what to do and what not to do. And that is vital. It's foundational. And at some point along the way, they're gonna start saying, especially when you come in and take Jesus's commentary on the Ten Commandments from the Sermon on the Mount, it's not enough not to murder, you have to not be angry with your brother or sister, oh, boy, that's tough. I didn't murder him. No, but you got angry. And Jesus said, anger is the root of murder. Let's talk about that.

Little by little, you know what's gonna happen? Then they say, "I need a savior, I can't live up to the Ten Commandments." What does it mean, you shall not covet? It means don't yearn for, don't want for something that's not given to you. Do little children do that? Oh, yes, they do. They have little covetous hearts. We have big covetous hearts. And they need to be brought to the commandments, and little by little what's gonna happen is they're gonna say, "I can't do this, daddy." And you're gonna say, "Yes, but Jesus did it for you. He came to be your righteousness. But the law, these commandments are to be upon your hearts," and you're to talk about them. Talk also about the Scripture in the New Testament. We have so much more than the Jews in the days of Deuteronomy had. So much more. They just have the law of Moses up to that point, perhaps the first four books of the Bible and the fifth was Deuteronomy, which was going on at that moment. That's all they had. We have everything else. Look at the riches. We have the Sermon on the Mount, we have the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”

Give them the Word of God, saturate them with the words of Christ. Saturate them also with the gospel of Christ, with what Jesus accomplished at the cross, with the things he said he was coming to do. John 5:24, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my Word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He's crossed over from death to life.” Make it come alive for your children. What does it mean to cross over? Maybe when you're going across a river. Recently, we crossed the Mississippi River, they were crossing over the river. That might be a good time to talk about John 5:24. You've gone from one side to the other, from death to life. How do I do that? By believing in Jesus, hearing his Word and believing in him who sent Christ. So saturate them with the words of Christ, talk about them, fill in other words of Scripture, like Hebrews 12:29 says, “Our God is a consuming fire.” Maybe you're camping, you're watching a fire and you're saying, "Why do you think God wants us to think, at least in part in one way, that he's a consuming fire? Why does he want that idea in our minds?" And get them to talk about it. What is there about God that's like a consuming fire? Just saturate them. Talk with them.

Or this one, 1 Corinthians 15:20, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” That's talking about resurrection. Now, he's not gonna be the only one raised, He has a resurrection body. Someday, we will have resurrection bodies, too, if we believe in Christ. You're just talking about the Scriptures, word by word.

Secondly, we teach by constant repetition. First we teach by talking, just talk about the words. Secondly, we teach by constant repetition. Look at verse 7, it says, Impress them upon your children, that's the NIV. Other translations give us, “Teach them diligently to your children.” That's clearly what it's getting at, but the Hebrew word behind it is literally, “sharpen.” Sharpen them into your children, sharpen. In the Bible, the word is used for swords. Swords can be sharpened, same word. Arrowheads can be sharpened. It just has to do with taking, let's say, a wet stone and taking the edge of the sword and just rubbing it along the wet stone in a certain pattern with some oil and all that, and little by little, the edge is honed to a razor edge. It’s ready for use.

Why did the author, why did God, why did Moses use this idea of the word, sharpen? Sharpen these commandments into your children. I just think it has to do with teaching by repetition. Constant repetition. There's the old joke about the husband saying to the wife, "I told you the day we got married that I loved you, and if anything changes, I'll let you know." That does not work. Does it, men? It does not work. Well, neither does it work to say, "I am about to tell you the Ten Commandments. You're gonna hear it once from me and that's it. I'll let you know if they're ever repealed. As long as I've been alive they've never been repealed. They're still good. So here you go, you're ready? This is your one and only time hearing it from daddy, and then off you go." Is that enough? No, we've got to constantly sharpen them into our children, bring it alive. Repetition. The image I get here is of an engraver, the photo on the cover of your bulletin is of a metal engraver, and nowadays, we have machines that do all of these things. It used to be done by skilled craftsmen who knew what they were doing, but now we just have these machines that do them.

But think about how it was back in Moses's day. In Exodus 28:36, he commands the artisan, he said, Make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it the words, “Holy to the Lord.” Well, what the artisan would have to do is take a stylus and just begin the engraving. He'd take the letters and just start to write the letters that made up the words, “Holy to the Lord.” And one mark across the gold plate was not enough, there had to be kind of like a digging of a trough into the metal plate. Repetition. The stylus has to be harder than the soft metal you're engraving or else the stylus is gonna smush and not the plate. Nothing is more unyielding than the Word of God. It has not changed in thousands of years, 3500 on this book, 2000 years on the New Testament, has not changed and it won't. As a matter of fact, heaven and earth will pass away, but Christ's words will never pass away. Not the smallest letter or least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything's fulfilled. It's not going anywhere. It is a stylus that can write on their hearts, it's not changing, and so therefore you take that stylus of the Word of God and you impress the letters holy to the Lord into their hearts. They are holy to the Lord, they are his. But not just once, again and again, you constantly repeat these things.

I think the words can also use...it basically has to do with opening, it can refer to kind of a piercing motion, and so the Word of God has meant sometimes to pierce their hard hearts. We all have some hardness in our hearts, and sometimes it's gotta do with an opening or a piercing. I like the image that Lou Priolo gives in the book, Teach them Diligently. It's a very good book, and there's a number of them out at the book table out there. I would urge you to take a few extra minutes at the end of worship and go and look. There's a number of great resources over there. Talk to you more about them in a minute, but Lou Priolo's book is there, we bought 20 of them. They're on sale for $10, and just pick one up. He takes Deuteronomy 6 and just unfolds it in a very practical way and helps you to know how to teach the Word of God diligently to your children. But this is what he says. He says, "I sometimes liken the heart of my child to a smooth, non-porous surface, such as a table top. My goal as a teacher is to have the child absorb as much of what I'm teaching as possible. If I were to pour the water of the Word on to that smooth surface, most of it would run off. But if I drilled hundreds of tiny holes in that surface so that by the time I finished drilling, it would be as porous as a sponge, then the water would be thoroughly absorbed into the table.”

Teaching, in the flow of life, by showing how these Scriptures relate to the issues of actual life circumstances is tantamount to drilling those tiny holes. It makes it easier for your child to absorb the Word of God." So, what you want is you wanna take the Word of God and just bore it into their hearts so that they're open up and they're absorbing it, they're pulling it in. Now, he says, you do that by teaching in the midst of life situations, we'll get to that in a minute, but right now, what I wanna say is that the Word of God is meant to open up the hard human heart, and it alone has the power to do that. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2.” The Word of God alone has transformational power in the life, the heart of your child.

I remember one time thinking about the difference between a rock that I found, I was in the woods of New Hampshire, and a rock that I found in the woods compared to a rock that I found out of the river. The rock out there in New Hampshire, the Granite State, the rock was probably granite, it had all these jagged kind of crystalline edges, very sharp, covered with dirt 'cause I got it off the forest floor. I went over to the river and I swished it in the cold, clear mountain stream, just swished it until all the dirt was gone, and then I got, reached down into the cold water and I pulled out and got a river rock of about the same size. Both of them are clean of dirt, but there was a big difference between the two, one of them was very jagged to the touch, the other one very smooth to the touch. Now, my question to you is, How do you transform a forest rock into a river rock? What's the answer? You put it in the river. There you go, it's that simple. Just put it in the river, right? Go eat lunch and come back and out it comes, it is a full-blown river rock, right? No, it's just a wet forest rock, maybe completely clean now, but just wet, okay?

And so it is in the Christian life.  There are sins and dirty patterns and all that immediately get cleaned up for people that come to Christ later in life, but that doesn't mean they're in every way conformed. Well, frankly, the same is true of children as well, they are descendants of Adam and they have their own sins to work through, and it's only the constant and gentle kind of flow of the sand over the jagged edges of the rock that over 100 years transforms that rock into a smooth river rock. It takes a long time. It's a picture of saturation, it's a picture of immersion into the Word of God and a stream of Scripture flowing through their little minds all the time. It transforms them, it will transform them into disciples of Jesus Christ.

The third practical lesson from Deuteronomy 6 is teaching everyday life as situations. It says, “Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, and when you lie down and when you get up.” God's desire is that you take the every day mundane things of this world and make them come alive, connected to Scripture. Actually turn it around and, say, make it obvious to your children that Scripture speaks to every area of life. There is nothing in your life that Scripture does not address.

It's your job as a teacher of your children to show that to them, that a simple command of Scripture then applies to this and that and the other situation. Lou Priolo takes this example of Philippians 2:14, “Do everything without complaining or arguing.” Okay? So you've got a handful of kids, you may need that verse, you just might need that verse, okay? No, you will need that verse and you need it for yourself as well, but it says, “Do everything without complaining or arguing.” What Lou Priolo says is that, apply it to real situations in everyday life. For example, you may not argue or complain when you don't like your breakfast. You may not argue or complain when you have to stop playing and clean up your room. You may not argue or complain when you are told to go to bed. You may not argue or complain when you're told to do your homework. You may not argue or complain when your brother or sister takes the last cookie off the plate. In general, you may not argue or complain in any life situation that conflicts wherein which your will conflicts with the will of the Lord. Everyday life situations. And it also says, teach them in every situation. Basically, every situation is a time to weave Scripture in, while driving in the car, we spend a lot of time driving in the car.

And as I'd mentioned before a number of times on Sunday morning, when we drive to church on Sunday morning, we read a psalm. We've been doing this for years, one psalm a week. We're at Psalm 118. Now, my kids told me last week that Psalm 117 is the shortest chapter in the Bible, we had no problem knocking off Psalm 117 in our 25-minute commute. No problem. It's two verses. Alright? So we talked about it, etcetera. This one this morning is more average, it's 29 verses. In verse 22, for example, it said, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done this and is marvelous in our eyes.” So we had a chance to talk about Christ and how He is the stone the builders rejected. We talked about later in Psalm 118, how it says, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” and we said that some day the Jews will say that, and Jesus said they wouldn't see him again until they said, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Psalm 118. Next week, I don't know what we're gonna do.

Because 117, I was told, is the shortest chapter in the Bible, and 119 is the longest, 176 verses. We're gonna have to talk really quickly, we have to get through it really fast, just to read it. No, we're not. We're just gonna go until the time's up when we're here at church and that's it, and then we'll just keep going. But Psalm 119 is so beautiful, about the weaving together of Scripture and prayer, and it's an incredible thing, we're gonna have a great time. But make the most of your drive times with your kids, make the most of them. Or while shopping, food shopping. I was amazed, blown away when I came back from my first mission trip in Kenya, and we had plenty of food there, the Kenyans were very gracious to us, it was an incredible time, but it's a simpler life, especially eating. It's just a simpler life. I got back to a supermarket in America and I saw something like 60 different kinds of bread. I'd never seen them before, though they'd been there. But now that I was overseas, I came back, I said, “This is unbelievable.” We have been lavished upon by God.

Deuteronomy 8 then speaks of warning, “Be careful when you enter the Promised Land, and when you eat from harvest and vineyards you didn't plant and you live in houses you didn't build. Be careful that your heart doesn't become proud and you forget the Lord your God.” Is that not a teachable moment? Stand there in front of the bread and say, “Look at all this. Do we need 60 different kinds of bread?” All right, but God's given them and they all have different flavors and different things and different prices and all that. God's given it to us, we shouldn't despise it, but understand there's a danger that our hearts may become proud and we'll forget God. It's a teachable moment. Or while cooking dinner, you can just remind them that the Lord provides food for every living creature. Psalm 104 says, “He opens up his hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing.” And so this food was given to mommy to make. She's making the dinner and she is turning it into something delicious and wonderful, but it was God that provided the food. Or even remind them of the time that Jesus, after his resurrection, cooked breakfast for his disciples, and how God the Father is planning to spread a wedding banquet for his Son.

I don't know that God's gonna do the actual cooking. I actually don't know that we're even gonna eat. I imagine we are, I don't know. Jesus ate after his resurrection, but just every moment is a chance to bring in Scripture. I told this one to Eric, he thought it was a little hokey, but I'm gonna go ahead and share it. While folding laundry, remind them of the time that Jesus took off the cloth off his head in the tomb and folded it up as an evidence of his own resurrection. With his own hands, he folded up the grave cloth that was around his head. Everything is a teachable moment. Everything. While tucking them into bed, say, “Remember the time that Jacob went to sleep with his head on a rock, sort of a soft pillow like you have? And God filled his mind with unextinguishable light, a vision of the glory of God and of heaven, and of a staircase going up to heaven and angels ascending and descending.” And then say, "Jesus said in John 1, He is the staircase. They're ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Good night. Have a good sleep."

Every moment, a teachable moment with the Word of God. A couple days ago, I was laying on a hammock with Carolyn, two of us laying side by side, and I was reading a book to her and then she was reading to me and we had a wonderful time. And then we just lay and we looked up at the trees as they're going up to the... I mean, they're just so tall, and I just wondered, how do they get that tall and how do they know when to stop, and all that. It's just an amazing thing. They just go up and up. We started talking about God's good gifts, and I said, "Well, let's play a game. Let's think of all the Bible verses we can in which it says that God's given us something, like the word gift or gave or given, something like that." We start out with John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." And Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.”

Or what Jesus said to the woman at the well, Samaritan woman, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is who speaks to you, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." It's in there a couple of times. Jesus is the gift of God, but he's also going to give living water. And concerning that, in Acts 1, in verse 4, now Jesus said, “Wait in Jerusalem for the gift my father promised to you. For John baptized with water, but in a few days, you'll receive [or you'll be baptized with] the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is a gift. And then the Spirit himself gives gifts, spiritual gifts. If your gift is serving, you should serve. If it's teaching... We just went on like this for a long time. Gift, gift, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly shadows. That doesn't change like shifting shadows. He is giving us gifts one after the other, and when we got done, we had an incredible sense of gratitude to God for all these gifts and a deeper sense of how much the Scripture has to say that we really didn't think that it had to say until we put it together. Saturate the Word of God into everyday life.

Now, I believe there's two kinds of learning that God brings us through, there's book learning and there's life learning, and I believe that the two of them are indispensable for our discipleship, evangelism and discipleship. They go together. The book learning is right here in this book, the Bible. It speaks truth, it speaks words to us. Life learning is around us, it's in physical creation and it's in the flow of history, world history and your history. God speaks to us and teaches us by both book learning and life learning. John Calvin called physical creation “the theater of God's glory.” Isn't that beautiful? So we're sitting in the theater looking at God's glory all the time, and so also is the flow of history, even their own history, things that happen to them at school. They're not accidental. Things have come to teach them the Word of God. Now, the two of them go together. You can't just have book learning, you can't just have the life learning. Book learning alone apart from life would mean literally nothing, they wouldn't understand. The Bible says, “Be completely humble and gentle.” “Be patient, bearing with one another in love.”

Okay, if they haven't seen anything like that ever lived in front of them, they will not know what that verse means. They have to see you being patient. They have to see you being humble. They have to see you covering over each other's sins or being gracious. That's life learning. But book learning takes priority, ultimately because it interprets the lives that we live. Now Lou Priolo cites the example of Helen Keller, who from infancy was blind, deaf, and mute. And Helen Keller, in later years, talked about how she came to understand words. Words. Now, she had an incredible teacher named Anne Sullivan, and they had already taught her the alphabet by writing letters on her hand, but they didn't mean anything to her, the feelings on her hand didn't mean anything until this one day. And these are Helen Keller's own words: “We walked down the path to the well house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water from the well, and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand, she spelled out into the other hand the word, “water,” first slowly and then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly, I felt a misty consciousness, as of something forgotten, a thrill of returning thought.

And somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that W-A-T-E-R meant the wonderful, cool something that was flowing over my hand, that living word awakened my soul; gave it light, hope, joy, set it free. I left the well house eager to learn. Isn't that beautiful? You've got the written word and you've got life, and the two of them go together and you've got to have both, you can't just have the one or the other, they go perfectly together. But ultimately, the Bible stands prophetically over our lives and explains to us what God thinks about the things that are happening to us, and so God wants us to do that. And so, they're physical reminders. Look at verse 8 and 9, “Tie them as symbols on your hands, and bind them on your foreheads, write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.” Now, Orthodox Jews, as you know, have taken these verses literally. They have small leather boxes tied to their upper left arm and their foreheads, the box for the forehead contains four little compartments, the one on the arm just has one, but inside each of these compartments are little bits of parchment with the words of Scripture, the Pentateuch, from the Pentateuch written on them and rolled up and put in the little compartments.

They also have little metal containers called mezuzahs in which they put the same thing, rolled-up little piece of Scripture and they nail it to the door frames of their houses. Some Christians, for their part, have cross-stitched Scriptures up on the wall, or maybe painted with the words of Scripture there, or maybe just simply they take a 3 x 5 card and write out a Scripture verse and they put it up on the mirror or some place in the kitchen. A lot of times you go into a house and you see Joshua 24:4, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” It's written right there. But the Word of God is around all the time. And in these Jewish houses, basically when you walked in, you're saying, “This house is saturated by the Word of God, we're going to follow, we're gonna obey it.” It’s written on the doorframes of the house. It’s everywhere. Saturation of the Word of God. Now, that is Deuteronomy 6. It's speaking practically to us.

Practical Words to FBC

Let me give some more practical applications for you folks. First of all, concerning family devotions. Keep it simple. I found a website, actually, my wife did, an email. Don Whitney, who's preached here before, has written a number of books on spiritual disciplines. He talks about the discipline, the weekly, daily discipline of family devotions.

And he said, it's basically three components. It's read, pray, and sing. That's it. Read the Scriptures and pray and sing. Now obviously, he means more than just read, he means talk about them, etcetera, but the focus is on the reading and the understanding of the Word of God. At a recent deacon meeting, we were talking about family devotions, and we're talking about the need to keep it simple, to teach at a level that each child can understand, so we wanna keep it simple in that way as well. They're not to be complex what we do, you don't have to have an order of service, like we have here on Sunday mornings. But also you should keep in mind to teach at a level appropriate for the whole family, that's a challenge to do if you have as we do, a wide range of children age-wise, but still it's important. And the chairman of our deacons, I cleared this story with him, I never mentioned to anyone unless asking first, except myself, I can talk all kinds of stories about myself, but Daniel Johnson had a great example and patterns set for him by his father. For years, his father would just sit down and open up the King James Bible and just teach their family, and it was so normative in his life that that's what he expected, and he was excited, that's what he thought all families did.

And when he had his own family, he was eager to try it and couldn't wait. And finally, when Nathan was 3-years-old, he sat down, got open the King James Bible and just started to teach. Well, it wasn't long before Nathan was crying. And Lucinda said, Do you think it might be a little over his head? You might wanna teach it a little simpler. Well, Daniel told me this morning, he said, after that, in subsequent years, Nathan came to yearn for those times in delight. And Daniel adjusted his teaching. I was saying to Daniel this morning, I have to constantly make adjustments, we're going through 1 Corinthians now with my family, and I just need to be sure they're understanding what I'm saying that I don't shoot too high. Make it simple, teach it at a level appropriate for each child so they understand what is going on, and use available resources. Daniel gave me, for example, this book. This is a great book, this is the MacArthur Daily Bible. And some of you try to read through the Bible in a year, what this has done is, you're not just going Genesis right through Revelation, but he has, in a very intelligent way, organized a whole year's worth the pattern of reading. And this would be very helpful. There's a number of these for sale on the book table over there.

And also Lou Priolo's book, which I have here, Teach Them Diligently. Like I said, there's 20 of them over there. Plus, there's a bunch of resources that are not for sale. The people who are at the book table will tell you which is which, please note the difference. Some have just volunteered their materials, look at them and say, "This would be good for us. I'd like this." There are some things that talk about just ethical life situations, sticky situations, for example, and it just helps your young people who are going through ethical situations to know how to apply the Word of God in those situations.

Now, as I said last week, fathers more than anyone, I wanna urge you to commit yourself to study the Bible, to learn how to teach the Bible. 2 Timothy 2:15 says, “Study to show yourselves approved unto God, workmen who do not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” You may study the stock market or real estate to know how best to invest your money, you might study some technical journals in your profession to learn how to stay up-to-date in the way you earn a living, you might study a hobby, how to do wood-working better, or how to put in a new kitchen or something like that. You might study those things, you might study how to improve your golf swing. Well, all of these things may be of some benefit to you, but friends, there is no better study than to learn how to teach your children the Scripture. Study it, work at it.

And then I mentioned last time the need to set and keep goals for each child. I would urge you to meet with each child. We do it on the children's birthdays, once they reach age 10, we meet with them on their birthdays and we set up goals and we pray through them and challenge them to keep those goals, goals concerning Scripture memorization, prayer, reading, character goals. If they're struggling with some character issues, we try to get some Scriptures that would address each of those situations. We talk also about disciplining with Scripture and with love. We don't just discipline them, we try to bring the Scripture to bear on the situation, try to show them what the Word of God says in each of these situations, and we try to saturate life with thankfulness and worship. When the sun comes up, Psalm 118 says, “This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.” We read that this morning on the way to church. It's a new day, God gave it to us, let's think about that. Or you're going through a trial, maybe a friend has really hurt you, your heart is broken, you're hurting right now, going through something tough. James says, “Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds.” Give them the Scriptures so that they know how to address life.

A Role For Everyone

Now, as I think about you folks, I know that not every one of you, in fact, probably many of you do not have young children growing up or even all the way up to teen years, so I thought about different categories. There are some of you that do, and I've been speaking to you this morning. But then there are others who had that before but your children are grown or haven't, but it's not likely that in the future you'll have this for yourself. That doesn't mean these words aren't for you. You can still be an example and an encouragement to others who are going through that. We're in the body of Christ. We should care whether other people's families are well-ordered and are growing though. We can pray for each other. We can give other people books or things that we've found helpful. Don't say, “I have nothing to do with this 'cause it's not likely I'll ever have growing children in my family again.”

Or, in other categories, you may never have this because you're young, you're not married yet, you're a college student or even a young person, a youth. Still, prepare your heart for the day when God will bring a godly spouse into your life, and then the two of you may be blessed with children, and you'll have the opportunity to raise the children up in the fear and the nurture of the Lord. This is for everyone.

Words of Comfort and Exhortation

Now, I just wanna say, finally, a word of comfort and then one of exhortation. I think there are a few topics in life that can make people feel as guilty as the issue of how you raised your children. I noticed this, and I was talking to somebody recently about the analogy. Imagine you're wearing an interesting kind of Christmas sweater, aqua color and all that, and you find a piece of velcro or something like that, and it's got these awkward threads all over it. Well, you know where those threads came from, they came from your sweater. Well, how much more convicting is it to see certain specific sin patterns in your kids' lives? It is very convicting, very tough.

Secondly, we feel as parents, time goes faster and faster, doesn't it? It's not long before it's gone, they're out of the home, and we wanna make the most of the time, but it's flying by and life is so busy. Friends, there are few subjects that can make us feel as guilty as this one. Can I urge you not to look back except for one thing? With the guidance of the Spirit, to learn what he wants you to do for the future. Let the Lord cover any transgressions in the past and say, "From here on out, Lord, what do you want me to do? How am I to live my life to glorify you in this area?" Don't give in to depression or discouragement. Begin today and say, "Okay, where am I in my life? What can I do in this area? How can I grow?" Your kids may be almost out of the house, they may be fully grown, but you have grandkids, they're starting to grow, etcetera. Is there something you can do? Don't give in to discouragement, rather say, "Lord, this is the day you've made, I'm gonna rejoice and be glad in it, I'm gonna make the most of what you've called me to do."

I wanna finish with a quote I found from J. C. Ryle that really convicted me and encouraged me, and I wanna share with you. Ryle wrote, and he wrote in the 19th century, this is what he wrote, "I charge you fathers, take every pain to train your children in the way they should go. I charge you not merely for the sake of your children's souls. I charge you for the sake of your own future comfort and peace. Truly your own happiness in great measure depends upon it. Children have caused the saddest tears that man has ever had to shed. Such sorrows are heavy enough when fathers have faithfully discharged their duty, yet still live with a prodigal son or daughter, but who can bear the reproach of a stinging conscience that condemns us because we never brought them up in the fear of the Lord? How much better if we can say, 'Son, we taught you God's word, we wrestled for your soul in prayer, we lived a God-fearing example before you, you didn't see in us a sinless piety, but a genuine faith. You know that we sought first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Your conscience will bear witness that Christ is the center of this home.

We sang together, prayed together, and talked together. If you turn away from this light and these privileges and insist on going your own way, we can only pray that all your Bible study, praying and singing will not rise up against you in the Judgment Day, and that you will come to your senses before it's too late. We must so live and conduct family worship that our children will not be able to say, 'I am being bound hand and foot and being cast away into everlasting darkness because of your parental carelessness, your hypocrisy, your complacency about the things of God. Father and Mother, why weren't you faithful to me?" Close with me in prayer.