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

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For Mother’s day I preached a message on parenting for Jesus. We looked at Deuteronomy 6 where you find what Jesus called “the greatest commandment”: 

 

Deuteronomy 6:5 (ESV): “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” 

 

And what we found was that the initial command that God gives for living out that greatest commandment is by instilling your faith in your children: by teaching them, demonstrating righteous living in front of them, and instilling in them their God given identity as children of God.

 

As a preemptive message to Father’s Day, we are going to hone in on that last aspect of instilling in children their identity as children of God. I believe a big aspect of this is dedicating our children to the Lord. It has been a joy to see a number of baby dedications over the last year or so: Ivy, Eleanor, Scottie.  And the Lord’s message for us today is that this act of dedication is not a one time declaration made on this stage but a lifelong commitment. Parents have the choice to continually dedicate their children to the Lord or abdicate that responsibility to someone else, and that decision has a huge impact on the trajectory of our future generations. 

 

Let’s look to the example of Joshua, a great example of a biblical figure who dedicated future generations to the Lord.

 

Joshua 24:1 (ESV): “Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel. And they presented themselves before God.”

 

Joshua calls a meeting of all of Israel and their leaders and he presents them before God, so everyone knew that something big was happening. Joshua is going to call Israel to rededicate themselves to the Lord and he begins his appeal by reminding them of God’s role in their past: v.2-3:

 

Joshua 24:2-3 (ESV): “And Joshua said to all the people, 'Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, "Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many.”

 

God reminds them through His prophet Joshua that he called their forefather Abraham out of a world of idolatry and adopted his descendants as His people.  Joshua then continues on to remind them of the history of God’s provision for them in v.3-12. He delivered them out of slavery in Egypt, through the red sea where Pharaoh’s army who sought to destroy them was drowned. When the king of Moab, Balak, sought to curse Israel, God turned that intended curse into a blessing. And when the Israelites entered Canaan and faced armies of the Amorities, the Hittites, Perizzites and all the other “ites”, God drove them out before them and gave them victory. Joshua ends his summary in:

 

Joshua 24:13 (ESV): "I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant."

 

In other words, everything they have: their food, their land, their sustenance, their past, their present, and future provision is all from the hand of the Lord. How well would we do to remind ourselves of the same: every step we’ve made, every breath we taken, everything we have is from the grace of God. Every past deliverance and the provision to get through the trials of today is only because of God!

 

But Joshua isn’t just giving them a history lesson. He’s reminding them of God’s faithfulness so that they will make the commitment today to return that faithfulness:

 

Joshua 24:14: "Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD." 

 

I mentioned that this meeting was in Shechem, which was a spiritually significant place for Israel because that is the location where God first promised Abraham to provide his descendants with that land. It is also the location where Jacob commanded his family to renounce any other God’s and bury their idols. Where better then for Israel to put away their idols and serve the Lord.

 

And that they even needed to make this recommitment is strange to us, isn’t it? Why does Israel struggle so much to remain faithful to the God they had seen deliver them?  But in the Ancient Near East, people had a very territorial view of spirituality. When you entered a new land it meant not only assimilating to a new culture but worshiping the God of that land. And these other gods were seen as being in control of things critical to their livelihood.

 

Baal, for example, was known supremely as a weather God but also was believed to have an impact over fertility, safety at sea and even over the realm of death. So in the cultural water that Israel was swimming in, to enter a land where Baal was thought to have authority and not worship him was to risk whether you had crops to feed your family, whether you were able to have children, whether you came back from that fishing outing alive or whether you recover from that debilitating disease. 

 

This is the idolatry Joshua is fighting back against, making the argument that they can trust the God who delivered them from the Egyptians and drove out their enemies with their idols to prepare the land before them because not only did he display authority over all lands and gods but he showed them a faithfulness and love that no other “god” could. This is the context in which Joshua makes this resounding declaration of faith that you likely have heard before:

 

Joshua 24:15 (ESV): "And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

 

I want you to notice a couple of things here. Firstly, Joshua provides no room for neutrality. You can either serve these other gods or you serve the Lord alone. Those are the choices. No fence riding, no compromise. And just because we don’t bow down to wood statues doesn’t mean we are exempted from this decision. Our culture has plenty of other idols they worship: money, sex, drugs, popularity, vanity and comfort.

 

 Does that mean you have to sell everything you own, live on the street and wear a potato sack, probably not. But it does mean there will come times where God will call you to sacrifice potential idols to serve him instead. If following the Lord puts at risk your financial security which god would you follow? Fellow people pleasers, if following God put at risk whether friends, coworkers, or family still like you, which god would you serve? Are you putting to death the desires of the flesh contrary to the Lord so that you can serve Him? Now you see the difficulty of the decision, but we all regularly have times, where we must choose this day whom we will serve.

 

Secondly, I want you to notice that Joshua starts with his devotion to the Lord. “But as for me.” If you don’t have a close relationship with God yourself, how can you possibly pass it on to future generations. We need to be in the word of God. We need to talk regularly to our heavenly Father in prayer, not just the times that we need something from Him. We need to see deliverance in our lives by the power of God, just like the Israelites saw in their lives, so that future generations can witness it for themselves through us.

 

Lastly, notice that Joshua doesn’t say “I will serve the Lord but I’ll have to discuss with my household first what they think and then we’ll come to a vote and I’ll let you know, where everyone else in the family lands.” No, he says “But as for me and my household, WE will serve the Lord.” Parents, grandparents, to whatever extent you can influence whether your children and grandchildren have exposure to the word of God and follow Him it is critical that you use it, especially when they are under your own household. 

 

We love seeing children and grandchildren at Sunday service, and we the Church need to make it known to them that they aren’t just tagging along with their parents and grandparents. They are part of the body of Christ! We have an important piece missing when they aren’t here listening and worshiping our God. And how tragic when we let children dictate what they will do, whether they’ll come to church or not or listen to devotions or not. They don’t have authority over you! You have the God given authority and responsibility over them and their souls! 

 

You can’t save them, they do need to decide to believe in Christ for themselves, but God gave you the opportunity to influence them for a purpose. Did you know that the Bible says that:

 

1 Corinthians 7:14 (ESV): " [an] unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy." 

 

So even if your spouse isn’t on board, God can use your faith to influence your family. They are set apart as holy because of your presence. You can dedicate your household to the Lord. And it is of most importance that we do so, because there will come a day when like the Israelites, they enter a different land where everyone around them is serving other gods. How many of their college friends or coworkers will be choosing daily to serve the Lord? So if they don’t have ingrained in them their identity as a child of the living God, set apart to know God and accomplish great things by His power, what’s going to happen as soon as they enter another environment. They’ll see that if they want to get ahead in this new environment, they’re going to have to serve the gods everyone else is serving. If their identity isn’t found in Christ they’ll seek for it in something else.

 

This is why child dedication is not a one time thing, it's a continual activity. Seeking every opportunity to pour into, train and ingrain in future generations their God given identity because we are swimming in a sea of media and culture telling us to trust in and live for something other than God. 

 

This continual act of dedication is what Joshua did so well. When he instructed the people of God he made sure the children were there to hear it:

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Joshua 8:35 (ESV): "There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them."

 

I love that! Joshua says forget societal views about whether women and children should be taught or not, everyone needs to know God’s plan and what role they play in it. Did the children understand everything they heard? Absolutely not. I don’t even understand everything in Leviticus. But it gave parents an opportunity to discuss it with their children. When you bring your children or grandchildren along on Sunday, ask them what they took away, what they were confused by and use it as an opportunity to teach them. The sermon notes are always posted on our website if you want to review key points of the message with them. 

 

Another thing that Joshua would do is leave stone memorials to commemorate the places and times that God had worked in power on behalf of His people:

 

Joshua 4:5-7 (ESV): “And Joshua said to them, 'Pass on before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, 6that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, "What do those stones mean to you?" 7then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.'"

 

These stones weren’t just meant to remind the parents of what God had done for them but to also provide opportunities to discuss the grace, love and faithfulness of God with their children and children’s children. Now, I don’t recommend you make a pile of rocks on the highway where God delivered you from a potential crash, lest you create one of your own but there are more modern ways to do this.

 

One great way to remind yourself of God’s hand on your life is by keeping a journal, but that’s usually more of an individual activity. I’ve also heard of families writing down every answer to prayer and placing them in a jar to be read at the end of the year. I know we have a multitude of musicians and artists among us, why not make a song or artwork to commemorate a move of God in your life. People are intrigued by the motivation behind pieces of art and when you have a story to share it draws them in and they remember it. When Rob shares a story behind a song he wrote, he’s not just reminding himself, he’s stacking stones for future generations.

 

What about holidays? Israel didn’t create holidays just to have a day off, they had traditions that reminded future generations of the act of God that served as the reason for the season. We need to make sure the youth know the “why” behind our celebration. You can even have your own personal holiday to commemorate an act of God among your own family, what a fun way to remember that. But no matter what method you choose, don’t underestimate the power of what God can do with faithful dedication of children to God. One of the final verses of the book of Joshua show the value of his actions:

 

Joshua 24:31 (ESV): "Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the LORD did for Israel."

 

What a legacy Joshua left behind, they all knew the work the Lord had done and served the Lord all the days of their lives. May we endeavor to have that kind of legacy, but unfortunately the end of the story isn’t great. Turn a few pages into book of Judges we read these tragic words:

 

Judges 2:10 (ESV): "And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel." 

 

The generation that had benefited so much from the groundwork that Joshua laid failed to recognize that God had called them to follow in his footsteps. Instead of dedicating their children they abdicated their responsibility. They resigned, relinquished, abandoned their God given leadership role in guiding their children to God and the result was a generation that: 

 

Judges 2:11-12 (ESV): "did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. 12 And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger.”

 

And: Judges 17:6 (ESV): “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

 

How things can completely change in one generation. And my concern is that in the U.S. we see a lot of abdicating our training of future generations going on rather than dedicating. We see it in a multitude of ways. Growing up I remember hearing the bemoaning over the removal of bible reading and prayer in schools as if that were the source of the downfall of society. 

 

I don’t like the hostility we see in many school districts against faith, we want to see students able to openly practice their faith in schools. And in part that is made possible by the church showing our school district leadership the value that churches and faith provide to our community. But if we’re relying on teachers that may not even know God to lead our children in biblical instruction we’re asking for disaster. I’m with the preacher Leonard Ravenhill who said, “I’m not too concerned with getting the bible back in school, I’d like to see the Bible back in the home.” (paraphrased)

 

That goes for Christian schools, Sunday school, and youth groups as well. As I’ve said before, with all my heart I believe in the value of these things and I trust that God in His timing will provide among us those with a calling to provide teaching for our Journey youth. But while these are all great supplements to instruction in the home, none of them are adequate substitutes.

 

We may be tempted even to rely on Christian media to instruct our kids in the word. I get it, who doesn’t want to listen to vegetables talking about Jesus. But again these are supplementary and a lot of this material does a subpar job, treating the Bible, especially the Old Testament, as if it were a collection of moral lessons, rather than the story of who God is, what he has done and how he is calling us to live in relationship to Him. That’s why we need to know the word and discuss these programs with children to fill in where these programs are lacking.  We aren’t called by God to instruct kids to be good, we were called by him to teach them how to know God and be like Him, good behavior is just an expected after effect of that.

 

One of the greatest examples of abdication we see is in men failing to step up as godly fathers. We have a societal crisis of children growing up without a father figure in the home, it’s a reality 1 in 4 kids face. And even if a father is physically present that doesn’t mean he is spiritually present. I have heard of and witnessed, plenty of examples of dads abdicating the responsibility of training their children in the faith to their wives as if that were her role alone. Parenting is a shared responsibility, there are certain things each partner will do better than the other but training, encouraging, and leading children in the faith is a God given responsibility to both parents not one.

 

It was hard to find exact numbers on this but from the best data I could find a child that witnesses their father regularly practicing their faith is 800% more likely to regularly practice it as well. There is no reasoning that can be provided to excuse throwing away the opportunity to have that kind of influence on your children and grandchildren’s future. 

 

This isn’t meant to detract from the influence that a Godly mother can have, I spoke to that on Mother’s Day. But God gave fathers a particular influence over their children in that they are the only parent who can portray to their kids what God is like as a Father and the studies overwhelmingly show the kind of impact this portrayal has on the faith of children. There are some in this room who rejoiced in coming to know God their Father because they witnessed the godly example of their own Father. And there are others in this room who have struggled for years understanding what it means for God to be their Father because their image of Fatherhood was so warped by their Dad. 

 

Men, if God has given us this kind of influence let’s use it and use it for good. For parents this influence changes in different seasons, but you will always retain some level of influence because your role is God-given. Even if your children have gone no contact and don’t want a relationship, you have the authority to boldly enter the throne room in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ and make an appeal on behalf of your children. “God you know the blood, sweat and tears I have invested in leading my children in the faith, I have dedicated them to you and I hold tightly to your word:

 

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.”

 

Or maybe your prayer sounds more like: “Father I know how badly I’ve messed up, I abdicated my responsibility as a spiritual leader, but I want to use the influence you’ve given me today to make a difference for Christ. I dedicate my family to Christ today, I long to see their salvation and I ask that you use me as your tool to be a light that leads them to you.” 

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I have heard testimonies of individuals who were delivered from patterns of sin that bridged across several generations. The sins of long-gone relatives with effects that ripple into the lives of their great great grandchildren today and I can’t help but think if those who give in to the devil’s desire can have such influence across so many generations, how much more can a godly mom or dad impact their future bloodlines for good. Satan’s influence is no match for the power of God.

 

Let’s remind future generations of the faithfulness of God, continually instruct them in how to follow Him and make it known to them that they have been dedicated to the Lord. They are deeply loved by God and were made to know and loveHim. Because if we choose to abdicate that role there is a roaring lion who would love to swoop in and devour. 

 

Next week Pastor Paris preaches on Spirit Soul and Body.

 

For those of you watching online please feel invited to give us a shout by checking out our website, connecting with us will help us to see you as a known person rather than a Facebook data statistic.

 

Thanks For Joining Us

Connect with us at www.thejourneyhastings.church

 

Message Questions

1. What did Joshua do to dedicate the next generation to the Lord that was so successful?

2. What can we take away from the firm statements in Joshua 24:14-15?

3. How could a generation that was doing so well spiritually be followed up by a generation that went off the rails as described in Judges?

4. The Israelites used memorial stones and holidays to spur conversations with future generations, what methods have you used to provide opportunity for these types of conversations?

5. How have you witnessed the example of earthly fathers impact your or someone else’s view of their heavenly father whether positively or negatively?