Sunday, May 10th
Parenting for Jesus

Welcome to The Journey Church. I'm Pastor Brannen Neumeister.​

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When Pastor Paris first asked me to preach on parenting, I was in a panic to gain some personal experience. I was borrowing as many children as I could, watching as many YouTube videos on parenting quick tips as I could find and then I got some bad news: apparently it takes more than one week to become an expert in parenting. But then I realized something, there is more than one way to speak with authority on parenting, with the authority of the Word of God (phew). 

We all want children to prosper but there are different ideas of what prosperity means. To some the vision of their children prospering is graduating from college and becoming a doctor or lawyer. To another it’s getting married and having a bunch of grandchildren. But biblically speaking the greatest sign of prosperity for future generations has nothing to do with their career, social status or number of descendants but that these future generations continue to be in covenant relationship with God.

A covenant is a formal, binding and solemn agreement or contract between two or more parties and in the Bible it most commonly refers to the bond between God and his people. The passage we will be looking at today is in the book of Deuteronomy (Deut. 6). You may not know that the book of Deuteronomy is actually a covenant document. And in this document there is what is known as the Shema, which contains what Jesus called the greatest commandment:

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (ESV): “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

God had delivered His people from Egypt in love and had shown Himself to be their God, now he asked them to reciprocate that love with the totality of who they are. One Bible scholar has stated that the rest of Deuteronomy could truly be said to be a commentary on this one command. But while the command is well known, not as many people are acquainted with the direction that follows it:

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (ESV): “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

The place God begins when showing His people how to practically live out the greatest commandment is by teaching their children to know and follow the Lord! From the very start of God’s forming a people for Himself, the instruction of children was an integral piece of that plan:

Genesis 18:18-19 (ESV): “Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.

It is the command of God Almighty for all who choose to follow Him to instruct their children how to do the same. I believe in the value of children’s ministry. It is my hope for the future that the Journey Church will have a flourishing youth ministry where children are taught about God. But children’s ministry is a supplement not a substitute for instruction within the home. You should be able to rely on your brothers and sisters to come alongside you and help you accomplish what God called you to do.

 But you cannot rely on someone else to do what God commanded you to do! 

And to do this it takes diligence (put up Deut. 6:6-7 again)! We are told to speak of God and His commands when we're sitting, when we’re walking, when we go to sleep and when we wake up. In other words, we should be talking about these things all the time. Are your words, especially around your children or grandchildren, seasoned with God and His word? 

As we're thinking through these ideas, don’t overlook what we just saw in v.6: “these words that I command you today shall be on YOUR heart.” If you are going to be ready to influence your kids and grandkids toward God, you’ve got to start with growing your own relationship with Him.

Luke 6:45 (ESV): “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

To diligently teach children in the way of the Lord can sound overwhelming, just keeping them fed, clothed and all their limbs attached is enough of a task on its own, but this isn’t necessarily about adding more tasks. Instruction in following the Lord should be the natural outflow of our hearts, weaving discipleship into our everyday activities. The dinner table, the car, or the grocery store can all serve as classrooms of instruction. 

Speak godly wisdom into your child’s fears, hurts and sorrows, as well as into their hopes, desires and joy. Find opportunities to share the excitement of what God has been doing in your life and teaching you. The more these things are deeply treasured in your own heart the easier it becomes to share with others. But as we know, talk is cheap, so it needs to show in our actions as well.

Deuteronomy 6:8-9 (ESV): “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

We can’t say for certain if these commands were intended in their original context to be taken literally but many Jews did. They made little boxes, put a copy of the Shema in them, and bound them to their hands, their foreheads, on their homes and gates. But regardless of whether it was intended to be literal or not, this command shows that among the people of God, we as individuals, our families, and our communities (as much as we can influence them) should be marked by the characteristic of love and obedience toward God. 

How do you prove that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might? It’s not by binding scriptures to your body, it's by living those scriptures out! If you tell your children that God’s word is important but you never read it, how much value do you think they’ll place in it? If you say that God is good and trustworthy and our provider but any time circumstances get tough you are observably anxious or driven to despair, will your kids develop the faith to trust God with their own challenges? If you tell your son or daughter that the most important thing they can do is devote their life to Christ but you are more invested and celebratory over their academic, relational, sports, or career accomplishments than you are in their spiritual growth, what do you think they will find their identity in and pursue? 

God’s word is powerful. He can make gospel seeds take root even in rough soil but if you aren’t living out what you're teaching, you're undermining your testimony rather than upholding it.

So we are called by God to instruct future generations in both word and action, but it's even bigger than that. This is ultimately about where your children find their identity.

Deuteronomy 6:20-24 (ESV): “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ 21 then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. 23 And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. 24 And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day.”

Kids ask questions, it's what they do. Why do we have to go to church every Sunday? Why do we do devotions? Why do we pray before every meal? Why can’t I do what all my friends are doing? The direction of Moses isn’t to say because I said so or because God said so but to ground these instructions in our identity as the people of God. Imagine the conversations these parents had with the next generation: We were slaves in Egypt, we worked long hours in the sun and our Masters had no care for our well-being. When we failed to meet our quotas, they beat us and only increased their demands. We thought God had abandoned us. But then God sent a man to tell us about our coming salvation. He called down plagues upon the land of Egypt and directed us to put the blood of a lamb on our doorposts so that we’d be delivered from the coming judgement. And God did deliver us from the hands of the Egyptians as he promised. 

Even when we reached the red sea, where we were blocked in with nowhere to go, with the armies of Egypt advancing on us and we thought we were as good as dead, God did the unthinkable. You should have seen it, the sea itself parted before us and we walked through walls of water on either side.  We thought we were destined to live and die in Egypt serving harsh masters, we never thought we’d see the land promised to our forefathers. But God made a way. He loved us, He delivered us, He became our master and adopted us as His children, and He provided the land that you and I live on. That’s why we follow Him, and obey Him and love Him, because He first loved us and He is the reason we are here today. 

Church, do we not also have a story of deliverance to share with our future generations? Maybe it was from the darkness of addiction, past trauma, self righteousness, bitterness, pride, the hopelessness of depression and despair but no matter the specifics: 

Colossians 1:13-14, 21-22 (ESV): “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins…And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.”

Jesus died for us so we could likewise be freed from our slavery to sin, a harsh taskmaster that provides no fulfillment or redemption.  And even when we were at the end of our rope, there were waters of hopelessness before us and the devil was nipping at our heels plotting our destruction, God made a way of deliverance and He adopted us as children of God. And now we look forward to the hope He has promised: that He is preparing a place for us in His heavenly kingdom. And for that reason:

1 John 4:19 (ESV): “We love [Him] because he first loved us.”

We ought to have the same passion as Moses in declaring to future generations the story of God’s deliverance and our calling as the children of God.

Deut. 11:1-2,7 (ESV): “You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. 2And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm…7 For your eyes have seen all the great work of the Lord that he did.”

God gave Parents His commands because they knew Him, they saw His great works and they knew their identity as the people of God because of it. But the next generation doesn’t know God just because you know Him, or because they heard some sermons. They need to be taught how to seek God and come to know Him for themselves. 

Kids often dream of being something big: a sports star, a famous musician, a Youtuber or influencer. But they’ve already been set apart for something far greater than any of those things: to be a child of the Living God, to battle in the army against the forces of evil and to play a part in God’s plan of bringing salvation to the end of the world. Would a king and queen not instill in their son or daughter what it means for them to be prince or princess? That they were born with a great purpose and future in place, that they are to reign and serve their country just as their father and mother have. It reminds me of Paul’s words to the Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 6:2-3 (ESV): “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!” 

The Corinthians were infighting and suing each other over trivial matters, so he reminds them of who they are. That they are children of the King of the Universe and are made to reign and judge alongside him. How much weight does it add to commands and rules for children to know that obedience is not just a matter of doing something because someone said so but as a fulfillment of who they are made to be. 

But if they don’t know that this is who they are, they will seek elsewhere to figure out who they are. And you don’t have to look far today to see that we have a crisis of children lacking identity. So it is the responsibility of parents with the help of the church to not only teach their children in word and action but also to instill in them their God-given identity. 

Many of you are past the daily work of raising children, and some of us don’t have physical children, but we all have influence on the next generation and must speak Jesus, demonstrate Jesus, and help them find their identity in Jesus.

For some of you this may be a raw subject because your children or grandchildren aren’t following the Lord. Maybe you came to faith later in life and so you didn’t have a faith yet to pass on. Maybe you have regrets over things you did or things you left undone. God didn’t expect you to be a perfect parent when He gave you authority over your children. He hasn’t found the perfect parent yet. Even some of the great parents who taught in word and action and instilled that identity of belonging to Jesus into their children have seen them go astray. Neither does God call you to continually dwell on the past but to entrust Him with what you’ve got today.

Later in life your role as a parent may look a little different than earlier on and that’s for the best. If Dorothy ever gets up on this stage and starts spanking Pastor Paris, I’m going to be very disturbed. But even if you are past the stage of direct commands and discipline, you still can influence your children and grandchildren. Every interaction is an opportunity as a light for Jesus to point them in the direction of what God has called them to be. Even if they are hostile toward you and your faith in God, don’t return their hostility to them but instead respond with the grace and love of the gospel that has the power to change hard hearts:

2 Timothy 2:24-26 (ESV): “And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”

What about if your children have cut you out of their life completely? What if you aren’t allowed to have interactions with them or your grandchildren? Obviously in that case you don’t have any influence as a parent, right? Wrong! Jesus opened the way so you could enter into the throne room of God and make appeals to your heavenly Father. If you have a hearing with the One in charge of all things, of course you have influence!

In fact, one of the most important things you can do as a parent is regularly praying for your children, because no matter what you do: teaching, leading, training; you cannot save them, only God can!

Romans 9:16 (ESV): “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”

Since it is Mother’s Day let me end with an example of the influence of a godly mother. There was a pious woman named Monica who raised her son to know the Lord but he went astray. He got caught up in the wrong crowds, lived immorally and got involved in false teaching. She pleaded with him, sought guidance from spiritual leaders, but more than anything else she prayed. She cried out every day to God in tears over the state of her son’s soul with no change to show for it. Then after two decades of praying, one day, her son reached a breaking point. He had been dealing with the struggle of inner turmoil and doubt and that day his mom’s tears became his own as he wept over the state of his soul. That man was Augustine, who became the most influential Christian theologian of the western world. 

Satan loves to discourage us, to convince us to give up because our loved ones appear to be beyond hope. It’s easy to give in because we have been trained by our culture to expect immediate results, but if there is anything worth fighting for it's our children. Monica knew the importance of her son's spiritual state, that’s why she wept over his lost soul as if he were dead in a coffin until God raised him to new life in Christ. Remember the truth of:

Proverbs 22:6 (ESV): “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Many parents have had to wait years to see the fruit of that verse.  Don’t give up! Trust that the discipling of your children that you did in obedience to God was not done in vain. 

Report cards, careers and sports teams fade, but our souls are forever.  If you are a parent then God has given you a role of influence over your children' s souls and though the way that role looks changes over time, Satan can never take it away because it is God’s assignment for you.  So teach them, lead them, point them to their identity in Jesus and entrust them to the God who cares for them. 

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Closing Thought: 

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As I said earlier, Deuteronomy is a covenant document between God and the people of Israel. In Jeremiah 32:37-41(ESV) it describes another covenant: the new covenant. The covenant that God has with us today: “Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. 38 And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. 40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. 41 I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.”

When we entrust our kids to God while loving Him with all our heart, soul and might, He responds by doing them good with all His heart, soul, and might.

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Next week Pastor Brannen preaches on the beauty and honor of sacrifice.

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Message Questions

1. How does our culture’s definition of success compare to the biblical picture of prosperity?

2. Much of the book of Deuteronomy is a practical application of the Shema (Deut. 6:4-5).  Why does that application start with the command to train next generations?

3. How does grounding your child’s identity in belonging to God (part of His people, His mission, His promises) change the way we think about rules and obedience? 

4. How can you influence your children or grandchildren toward Jesus, even if they are resistant, hostile, or distant?

5. What are some ways you can weave discipleship of future generations into everyday life?