Raising Children

Introduction

Well, good morning. Turn, if you will, to Ephesians chapter six. And you might mark that passage and then turn over to Deuteronomy chapter six. So Ephesians chapter six and Deuteronomy six. We’ll start in Deuteronomy six in just a moment. It’s wonderful to have everyone here. Great to have our visitors who are here with us. So encouraging to praise God and worship together with everyone here. In Deuteronomy chapter six, beginning in verse four. Moses said, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words which I command you today shall be on your heart. 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 up, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Now over to Ephesians six, and let’s listen to what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus. Beginning in verse one children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. And another version says, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. These two passages form the basis for today’s lesson on raising children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The home is the nucleus for the spiritual training of children.

The father and the mother. They play that central role in doing this spiritual training of children. That central role is not to be turned over to anyone or anything else. And so this is an extremely important topic. You see, there’s a problem going on today in many churches. According to the book, uh, The Good News and the Bad News, a realistic assessment of churches of Christ in the United States by Flavil Yeekly, churches of Christ in general, are losing about 40% of our young people after they graduate high school. So they just stop attending services, or if they are Christians, they just leave the Lord. Now, to be fair, his book does say that many of those do come back later after they’ve married and had children.

But this is a pretty shocking statistic that in many churches, I don’t know if it’s true, and that that has been the record here, but in many churches, we are losing almost half of our young people after they graduate high school. And in some places it may be far worse of a statistic than that. And so there there is sort of an age gap in many churches. As concerning as this statistic is, I think when you combine it with this next statistic, it’s perhaps even more concerning. America’s fertility rate is 1.88. The fertility rate means the number of children that a woman is expected to have. So on average, women are having 1.88 children. Not that any one woman has 1.88 children, but less, a little less than two is the average in America.

Now you compare that to the 1950s, and it’s about half of what it was then. Women were having about twice the number of children on average then as they are now. It’s a shifting attitude, really, in our culture towards children. But anyway, you put these two numbers together, if they are true. If we are losing about half of our young people after they graduate high school, and if women on average are having about two children, then that means it currently takes one entire Christian household to get one single Christian into the next generation. What those numbers would indicate is that we’re basically being cut in half from one generation to the next.

You might say, well, but isn’t a lot of evangelism being done? Well, not a lot. We really have, in a large way, given up on being fishers of men and have become keepers of the aquarium. We just don’t do enough evangelism, brethren. And those who do, you know, it’s just not as effective in our culture as it used to be. It’s very hard to find people who are interested. That’s not an excuse. But what we’re doing, if you put all this together, amounts to little more than filling up a bucket that’s got a hole in the bottom. And that hole in the bottom of the bucket is a lot larger than the tool that we’re using to fill the bucket. And it’s a pretty dire picture.

1. The Wrong Solution Is Youth Ministries

So what’s the answer? Well, I’ll tell you what the answer isn’t. The wrong solution is youth ministries. Now that’s the effort that has been made in churches across the land. We’re losing young people. The churches are shrinking. What do we do? Well, we bring in young people with these youth ministries. And though the effort is a good one, and I’m sure the intent is a good one, what it really amounts to is it is an effort to evangelize and to equip teenagers to go and evangelize other teenagers, which is exactly what parents ought to be doing. Essentially, what these youth ministries are communicating, whether they mean to or not, is we’re trained professionals, don’t try this at home. And so it really is not, it’s not working even, but it’s not a biblical model at that.

And it has created a social well, a spiritual welfare system, where people have come to rely upon these youth ministries, and that’s the first question parents will often ask when they’re looking for a church is do you have a good youth ministry? Because my children, they really need that. Well, what do the children really need? You see, the church’s role, the church’s responsibility, part of the church’s responsibility, is to equip parents to train their own children. Not to do that training for the parents alone, not to try to replace the parents. In Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 11, we see a general principle I think we can apply to the specific application. And so if you have Ephesians marked in Ephesians 6, just kind of flip back to Ephesians chapter 4.

In verse 11, it says, and he that is Jesus gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers. Now, what are those? Those are roles of leadership and of teaching in the church. Now, today we don’t have apostles, we don’t have prophets, but we do have evangelists. We do have pastors, which are our elders, and we do have teachers. What are they there for? Well, verse 12 goes on to say, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service. Unto the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

2. The Home Is the Solution

So what the leadership is there for is to equip the saints to do the work of service, not to do the work for them. It’s not the preacher’s job, you know, to do all the evangelism. It’s not the Bible teacher’s job to do the spiritual training of your children alone. And so you see, the answer, the solution to this problem that we’re losing young people, is not some church program or some superficial thing. It’s the home. It’s that simple. It goes back to the father and to the mother. Oh, yes, the church provides a needed supplement. Just like you might feel that taking vitamins is essential to your health. So, you know, the Bible class is a needed supplement. But suppose that parents, you decided you weren’t going to feed your children food anymore.

You’re just going to feed them vitamins. They’ll survive on vitamins. Really? How long will that last? They’ll be starving before long. And so, if we as parents decide that all my children need is the Bible class, one or two hours a week, that supplement will be enough. We’re kidding ourselves. Our children are spiritually going to be starving. They need the meat of the instruction in the home. The home is the nucleus for the spiritual training of children. We saw in Deuteronomy 6, where Moses said, in these words which I command you today shall be on your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your children. That’s what Moses said. And we see in Ephesians 6 and verse 4, where Paul says, fathers. He says, Fathers. That’s our responsibility.

3. The First Commandment With a Promise

To not provoke our children to wrath, which is what maybe us fathers might have a tendency to do. But bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Now that doesn’t mean mothers are off the hook. They’re not off the hook. This is this is involves the whole family. But that one verse simply emphasizes fathers. The home is the solution. Now I want to hone in on Ephesians 6, verses 2 and 3. On Paul’s use of the fifth commandment. Because this is not only interesting, I think this is very powerful for making this point of the home. And God’s plan for generational faithfulness. Ephesians 6 and verse 2 says, Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise. Now let’s just kind of pause there.

What does that mean? First commandment with a promise. Well, it means it’s the first of the ten commandments that’s got a promise that is attached to it. And I want to go back now to Deuteronomy. And look in Deuteronomy chapter 5. Now, this is where Moses is repeating the law to the Israelites. He’s repeating here the Ten Commandments that originally were given in Exodus chapter 20. But in verse 7, you have the first commandment.

Well, God, can we get a promise with that one? No, just do what I said. Second commandment, verse 8. You should not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving kindness to the thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments. So don’t make any idols. Well, God, can we get a promise with that one? No, just do what I said, because I am who I am.

Verse 11, third commandment. You should not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished. He takes his name in vain. Well, God, can we get a promise with that one? No, just do what I said. Verse 12, observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Well, God, can we get a promise with that one? No, just do what I said. Then we get to verse 16. The fifth commandment. Honor your father and mother as the Lord your God has commanded you. God, can we get a promise with that one? Yes. With this one, you get a promise. That your days may be prolonged and that it may go well with you on the land which the Lord your God gives you.

You see, this is the first commandment that has a promise. You think of how really emphatic that is. The first four commandments are pretty important, wouldn’t you say? And the first four are the vertical commandments. They have to do with man and his relationship with God. And none of the first four commandments, as vital and as important as they are, have a positive promise attached to them. But when you get to the fifth commandment, honor your father and mother. That is the first of the horizontal commandments, the commandments having to do with man and his relationship with his fellow man, that one has a promise attached to it. So Paul emphasizes that to say, we should see how important that particular command is. And let’s focus now on that promise, that your days may be prolonged and that it may go well with you on the land which the Lord your God gives you.

Well, what land was that? Well, that was the land of Canaan. Back there, the Moses was preaching to these Israelites who were about to cross over and enter and into Canaan. And so God’s guarantee was by children honoring their father and their mother, that the community of faith, known as Israel, would perpetuate in this culture of opposition known as Canaan. And the same is true today. Now, Paul words this promise a little differently, adapting it to the gospel age when he says, so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. Why did he say the earth? Well, because we don’t inherit Canaan anymore. But the promise has the same emphasis, I believe. That by children obeying and honoring your parents who are raising you in the Lord, that is God’s guarantee that this community of faith, known as the church, known as the Israel of God, will perpetuate in this culture of opposition around us, known as the earth.

That’s God’s plan for generational faithfulness. There’s so much more depth to this passage than just, well, if children, if you obey your father and mother, you’ll live to be a hundred years old. It’s so much more than that. If you connect it back here with the Old Testament. This is God’s plan for generational faithfulness. And it’s as simple as that. Now, at this point, you may be saying, Well, I agree, preacher, but how do I do this? So let’s put some skin on this. Let’s get exceedingly practical for the remainder of the lesson. We’re going to look at three phases of training children. These are discipline, doctrine, and discipleship. Now, you’ve got to do these really in order. You’ve got to build one on the next, and you can’t leave any of these out.

4. Discipline: First Time, Every Time

If you want to effectively train your children. And so let’s have a look, first of all, at discipline. This is train your children to do what they are told to do the first time every time. Amen. And you know, this is the goal. It doesn’t always work out that way. But it’s the goal. And we used to have a song. We would sing around my house. I would play my guitar, and I would teach my kids by this song. First time every time. Bow wow, chickabow wow. That’s how the song went. But I was trying to drive it into their mind. This is what I want out of my children. And that’s my goal. And we as parents need to have this goal before us that we’re not going to accept disobedience and dishonor and disrespect without repercussion.

That our goal is first time, every time, and yes, even with a smile on your face. I know you children love it when your parents tell you, do what I tell you to do, and do it with a smile on your face. But that’s really what you should do, children. That’s involved in this attitude of honor as you do it with the right attitude. Now, this training of discipline can only be done by the parents. I had a young man in a Bible class one time, maybe around teenage years, close to it anyway. This is in a different church. And he was kicked back in his chair, leaned back like he was about to fall asleep with his head in his hand, and he kicked his shoes off.

He was barefooted. You can’t teach a child like that, because that child has not been taught discipline at home. So that’s got to be done, really, it has to be done by the parents. Now, a father or a mother who does not enforce discipline and is willing to accept his or her child talking back or disobeying without any repercussion, is also willing for his or her child to become a picture of Romans chapter 1. I want to invite you, please, to turn, if you will, to Romans 1. In Romans 1, beginning in verse 18, the Apostle Paul is going to describe a culture that has utterly turned its back on God, a society that has totally turned away from God. And he is here talking about the Gentile world.

And he says in verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness. And then he goes on from there to describe various sins, beginning with the sin of idolatry. Then he talks about the sin of homosexuality. And then beginning in verse 28, I want to read, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil. Now look at the next one. Disobedient to parents.

Without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. And although they know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. It is perhaps shocking to us to see that in this litany of sins that contain such horrific sins, such heinous acts as idolatry and immorality and yes, even murder. We have another heinous sin, disobedience to parents. You know, children, young people, listen. It is no small matter when you roll your eyes at your mom and dad. When you talk back to them, when you argue, when you don’t accept what they say because it doesn’t make sense to you and you want to do it your way. When you just outright disobey them, that is no small matter.

5. Doctrine: What to Believe and Why

And parents, it’s no small matter when we allow our children to do that, and we don’t follow up. We don’t, we don’t discipline. We’re willing for our children to become a picture of this that we just read. And we are also unwittingly hampering the perpetuation of the community of faith, because if we’re not disciplining our children, then the rest of this will be ineffective. So it starts with discipline. And then, secondly, the second phase of training our children is doctrine. This is teaching your children what to believe and why to believe it. You’re not just giving them superficial facts, but you are giving them the substance. You are giving them the background. You are making an effort to really teach your children the word of God.

And this has to be done diligently. Now in Deuteronomy 6 and verse 7, I want to focus and hone in there. We’re going to camp out in this verse for a little while. You shall teach them that is God’s words 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 up. Now that description means it’s not just maybe at Bible devotional hour or something like that, but it’s just a normal course of life throughout the day, whether you’re sitting or walking, or whether you’re lying down or rising up. I think that those two that has the idea of whether it’s evening or morning, at any time of the day, whatever you’re doing, that this spiritual discussion and teaching needs to happen frequently and commonly.

You know my favorite time to talk to my children about spiritual things? When we’re in the car. You know why? Because they’re strapped in. They can’t go anywhere. And so we turn off the radio. We ask the kids, you know, kids to stop trying to kill each other, and we talk about spiritual things. We, you know, we drill Bible questions in the car. I will think about what they are learning in their Bible classes and ask them specific questions about that particular thing that they’re learning at that time. Or we’ll sing Bible songs, or we’ll drill memory verses. And the children love it. It might be at the dinner table. That you just bring it bring up the topic of. How about let’s all think of some wonderful thing about Jesus?

June, do you have something wonderful about to say about Jesus? What do you have to say, Stone? Ty, what do you think? And then Holly and I will have our turn. And you better believe that’ll generate all kinds of conversation. That’s the kind of thing we need to be doing, parents. This verse is interesting to me because when it says you shall teach them diligently to your children, the words teach diligently are translated from a particular Hebrew word that does not mean teach, nor does it mean diligently. What the word actually literally means is sharpen. So literally what this says is you shall sharpen them, that is God’s words, to your children. Yet it is translated across the board, teach them diligently. Why? Well, let’s think for a moment about what sharpening entails.

You take a blade that is dull and you grind it down with a file, perhaps, and then you use the sharpening stone, and then maybe you buff down the blade. Then you use the blade and it gets dull, and what do you have to do again? You’ve got to take the file to it, perhaps. You’ve got to definitely take the sharpening stone to it, and then perhaps you’re going to buff it. Then after you use it for a while, it gets dull, and what do you have to do again? Over and over. What does it take? Diligence. It takes diligence. And think of who Moses was saying this to. This was the generation of the Israelites that came out of the wilderness. And you know what they were?

They were soldiers. And here they are encamped on the east side of the Jordan River in the plains of Moab while Moses is giving them the speeches in the book of Deuteronomy. They have already at this time defeated Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan in Numbers chapter 21. These are warriors. They know what it means to wield the sword. They know what it means to whet the sword, to sharpen the sword. And so when Moses says to this generation of Israelites, sharpen God’s words to your children, they know that that means teach our children diligently. And I’d like to suggest to you that there’s a deeper aspect, even than that. Because a sharp blade is an effective blade. Years ago I preached a gospel meeting in Athens, Alabama, and I talked about this point, and that I had this pathetic set of kitchen knives that were so dull you could, you know, you could barely cut a tomato.

And uh, and I just kind of said, you know, it would be nice to have an effective set, sharp set of kitchen knives. I didn’t know how to sharpen, I didn’t have anything to sharpen them with. And so I just kind of said, My birthday’s coming up, if anybody wants to, you know, send me a set of kitchen knives. And wouldn’t you know? I just said that jokingly, but on my birthday, we received a brand new set of kitchen knives. And then a few days later, a second set.

And I still use both of those sets. We’ve got more knives than we know what to do with to this day. And I’ll tell you, it makes a difference when you have a sharp blade. And now after speaking with Lindy Baker, I really, I really sharpen my knives. And that makes all the difference. A sharp blade is an effective blade. Now you may be reminded of Hebrews 4 12, for the word of the Lord is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. That passage is related to Deuteronomy 6 and verse 7. But that passage in Hebrews 4 is making the point that God’s word is effective. This passage is saying, use God’s words effectively. Sharpen God’s words to your children. So although it is translated, teach them diligently, it perhaps could just as well be translated, teach incisively.

Teach penetratingly. Because what we as parents want is we want God’s word to enter the hearts and souls of our children so that the word of God will richly dwell within them. Sometimes we just don’t really make much of an effort, parents. We make we make a half-hearted effort. We’ve got to do better than that. We’ve got to try to be effective and penetrate their hearts with this and be diligent in that matter. And by the way, as stubborn as our children might be sometimes to not want to learn, we have got to be more stubborn to see to it that they will learn the words of God. So doctrine is key. Of course, I believe we need to start early in our children’s life. So that all these things they’re learning will add up and build up and be strengthened all the more.

6. Discipleship: Showing Your Children How to Apply

Well, the third and final phase of training our children spiritually is discipleship. Now, this is showing your children how to apply what they have been taught. This is where it gets practical. And a lot of this is your example. Your kids ultimately will do what you do. They may not do what you say, but they will do what you do. Now, if you have not first established discipline and then doctrine, then you’re not going to be effective in discipleship. Because if they haven’t learned doctrine, which is what to believe and why to believe it, and you’re trying to tell them how to live, all that they are hearing are a set of rules. A set, just a set of moralisms. And as soon as they turn 18 and graduate high school, they’re going to get out from under your roof and your authority, and they’ll go and start doing what they think is the right thing to do.

But if we do all three of these, brethren, once discipline, doctrine, and discipleship are all firmly in place, then you will have a much greater chance of your children remaining faithful and being faithful. The chances of that will be multiplied exponentially. Now you cannot ultimately control what your children will choose to do. They will have a mind of their own and they will do what they choose to do. But if you do these things and you do it diligently, you’ll have a much better shot at your children remaining faithful to the Lord. Proverbs 22, 6, train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. I don’t say that to make any of you feel guilty whose children have left the Lord.

Maybe you did what you could. And ultimately they just made up their mind to turn away from the Lord. You don’t need to blame yourself in that case. But in the case of us who have young children and maybe who are going to have children one day, we need to set our minds now that this is what we’re going to do with our children. And pray, pray, pray that your children will remain faithful and that they will marry faithful people one day. And that they will have children who are faithful, who have children who are faithful. And think of all the people that could be saved through your efforts of evangelizing your own children. The home is the nucleus for the spiritual training of children. The centrality is the home.

Conclusion

And if we really take this charge and run with it, and we raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and we do it joyfully and passionately and consistently, then you know what will happen? We will not only plug the hole, we’ll fill the bucket. And that will help to ensure the future of the church. And God’s plan for generational faithfulness will be fulfilled by parents doing the job that God has given us to do. I hope and pray that we can all do that job. Would you bow your head with me in a word of prayer? Our God and Father, we praise you. We love you. We treasure your word. We want it to dwell in our hearts richly. We’re sorry wherein we have failed and wherein we have been complacent to serve you and complacent to teach our children and doubtful, and so we’ve given up and not tried hard.

Forgive us. Set us on the right path. Help us to see the seriousness and the urgency of this matter of bringing up our children in the nurture and admonition, Father, of you. Give us strength and grace as we strive to do better. Through your Son, we pray. Amen. Thank you so much for your kind attention this morning. If you’re not a Christian, then you can become one today. And there’s no need to delay.

Doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed another hour. So instead of just enjoying the moment and putting off your salvation, realize the Lord could come back at any moment. And decide to put on the Lord today in baptism, having believed in Him and repented of your sins and confessed His name and putting that old man in the grave when you go down into that watery grave of baptism, coming up to walk in newness of life and to continue to obey the gospel until the day you die, if you do that, you will be saved by the grace and mercy of our God and by the washing and regeneration of the Holy Spirit. If you’d like to become a Christian today, or if you need our prayers at this time, we’d love to assist you if you’d please come to the front as we stand and sing the song of invitation.