SPEAKER_00: Welcome and thanks for joining us at First Conyers.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever you're watching or listening from, we're so glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message encourages your heart and strengthens your walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If you would like to know more about the mission and activities at First Conyers, please visit our website at firstconiers.com.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to ask you to take your Bibles and open them to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 6, this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I told a couple of people this morning that I think this may be the most important sermon that I will be teaching in this whole year.
SPEAKER_01: Because it speaks of what we've seen represented this morning, and that is the act of passing our faith along to the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: The fact is, is that we all have an appointment with God.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And we all are going to be gone at some point, but the challenge and the commission that He has given to us is that we raise the next generation, teaching them and demonstrating them to them our faith and our love for Christ and our obedience to him, that they have that infused into them as they're growing up.
SPEAKER_01: So this morning the message is directed to those who had dedicated their babies this morning, those who maybe have some that are older in the home, still raising your kids.
SPEAKER_01: It's addressed to those of us who are grandparents, who, if we messed up the first time around, praise God, he's given us a second chance.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: It's speaking to all of those that will be having children someday into the future.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to ask you to read along with me as I read in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 4 to 9, and we're going to break this down a little bit this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Moses is writing, and he says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_01: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
SPEAKER_01: And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
SPEAKER_01: You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk to them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
SPEAKER_01: You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we pray that, God, by the Holy Spirit, Lord, we would have understanding, and God, not only understanding, but the Holy Spirit will be working in our hearts, God, to move us to more focus on doing what the Word of God tells us to do with our children, the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we ask this in Jesus' name and for His sake.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I may be right in this statement.
SPEAKER_01: Generally, I think every parent or grandparent has something they want to pass on to the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: A legacy that they would want that next generation to receive from them, their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, that maybe they can build on what the parent or grandparent has established and take it even further.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we call that a legacy, sometimes we call that an inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: My kids know not to expect that.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes we want to pass on an item of value.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's a passion that we have, or maybe it's a hobby.
SPEAKER_01: I keep telling my grandkids, of which I have six of them, that the one who begins to play the banjo will receive my two precious banjos.
SPEAKER_01: Thus far, none of them have taken up that challenge.
SPEAKER_01: Something to pass along to the coming generation.
SPEAKER_01: Can I tell you this?
SPEAKER_01: As Christ's followers, those who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, we have something more precious than any material item, passion, hobby, anything more precious and more valuable in all of the world to pass on to our children, that there's nothing that could offer, we could offer that would even compare to that.
SPEAKER_01: And that thing that we have is for them to know God the way that we know God, to experience that personal relationship with God and to enjoy the freedom that we have in Christ as we've been saved and cleansed from our sins, that they might know him and know him through his word as he has revealed himself to us and then personally as they walk with him and trust him.
SPEAKER_01: The setting for the book of Deuteronomy is as the children of Israel had come out of 400 years of captivity in Egypt and God had released them, had emancipated them from slavery and bondage in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: We know the story that they wandered around in the desert for 40 years.
SPEAKER_01: And most of that generation that came out of Egypt never inherited what God had promised to the nation of Israel, and that was the promised land in Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses is standing there at the river's edge, if you will.
SPEAKER_01: He's there in the valley, and he's writing this, the Valley of Moab.
SPEAKER_01: It's right where the Jordan River meets the Dead Sea.
SPEAKER_01: Forty years of following, and Moses himself is not going to be able to enter into the promised land because he had disobeyed God.
SPEAKER_01: Moses is about to pass on this leadership.
SPEAKER_01: He's passing the mantle on to the next generation of leadership that would be Joshua, that would lead the nation of Israel into the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: And Deuteronomy, in a sense, is Moses' last words.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of his last command.
SPEAKER_01: He's repeating the law that had been given to him on Mount Sinai to that generation that's about to enter into Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: And he's exhorting them as they go into what would be considered a polytheistic nation where there were many gods that the people of Canaan worshiped, Bel, Moab, and others.
SPEAKER_01: Detestable acts of worship as they were worshiping these false gods.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's passing on to them in Deuteronomy a reminder that God is to be the forefront and the center, and they're to know his word and obey his word, live by his word and pass his word on to the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, they'll become like all of the other nations.
SPEAKER_01: And we see throughout Israel's history that they didn't always, or many times, most of the time, they didn't adhere to what Moses had told them to follow in the law.
SPEAKER_01: Deuteronomy chapter 6 kind of stands at the heart of Israel's covenant life with God.
SPEAKER_01: Moses calls the people there to, in this passage that we just read, to wholehearted devotion to the Lord and to a deliberate pattern of teaching his truth in the home to that next generation.
SPEAKER_01: The passage moves as we look at it, it moves from initially from knowing God to loving God.
SPEAKER_01: From loving God to treasuring his word that he's given to us, to teaching his word and displaying his word in every area of their life.
SPEAKER_01: So it's not just a knowing of God, it's not just a knowledge of God, it's not just a passing on information about God, but it's living this life out in relationship, covenant relationship with God before that next generation.
SPEAKER_01: As we look at this passage, the first two verses, verses four and five, it speaks of knowing the God that you worship.
SPEAKER_01: I'm struck by so many times we may act as though we're worshiping, but many times we have no clue of this God in whom we worship, who claims to be the true and only God.
SPEAKER_01: Again, he says in verse 4, he says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_01: Before Moses begins to speak anything about the home or raising the children in that heritage of the faith, he first begins with speaking about God, the one true God.
SPEAKER_01: You see, faithful worship, to worship God, because that word worship means to worship.
SPEAKER_01: He is worth our worship.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: And our worship is not limited to just what we do on Sunday mornings, but it is an everyday act 724 in our lives that we're called to worship God because He alone is worth our worship.
SPEAKER_01: But this faithful worship begins with knowing this God and knowing who he is as is contained in the scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Again, Israel was going into the land of Canaan, and they were going to be among these nations that worship these false gods.
SPEAKER_01: Just as in our nation today, in our culture, there are many who worship false gods.
SPEAKER_01: They may not consider them like Moab or Baal, but every human being worships a God.
SPEAKER_01: We worship something.
SPEAKER_01: There's something that we give worth to and value to.
SPEAKER_01: But God calls us to worship Him first and foremost priority.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible describes God, or God self-describes Himself in Scripture as a God who is sovereign, meaning that he's in absolute control of everything that happens in the world, much of which we may not understand, but we have the comfort of knowing that God is sovereign.
SPEAKER_01: There's absolutely nothing that happens in our world that escapes the view and the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_01: That he's self-existent.
SPEAKER_01: He wasn't created in the image of some mind and carved into some idol to worship, but he is self-existent.
SPEAKER_01: He had no beginning.
SPEAKER_01: He always has been, and he's an eternal God.
SPEAKER_01: He describes him as.
SPEAKER_01: God is spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We know that from John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: We know that God is eternal.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we can have the hope of eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is raised from the dead and he is eternal.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore, if we are in Christ and we die in Christ, we too have the hope of eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: The other thing we find out about God in Scripture is that while God is all of this all-powerful being, he's also very personal.
SPEAKER_01: He's transcendent, but yet he is imminent in our lives, and he's active and working not only in the world, but in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that God possesses all knowledge, that he has all power, he's present in all places.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the one thing I love about the nature and character of God is that he is unchangeable.
SPEAKER_01: If I can trust him today, that means I can trust him tomorrow and the next day because he never changes.
SPEAKER_01: There are many false gods.
SPEAKER_01: I traveled to India many, many times, and in the nation of India, they worship some 350 million different gods.
SPEAKER_01: As you travel throughout India, they're polytheistic, they believe in reincarnation.
SPEAKER_01: And as you travel through from one region to the other, it may be a cow that they worship here, and it may be a monkey that they worship there.
SPEAKER_01: And I won't forget the one time driving up a mountain road and I see trucks ahead of me, and in the back of these dump trucks were thousands of bananas.
SPEAKER_01: And as the truck was going up the road, they're throwing bananas out on the road, and there are just hundreds, if not thousands, of monkeys that are coming down to eat these bananas.
SPEAKER_01: First time I'd ever seen that in my life.
SPEAKER_01: They worship the monkey.
SPEAKER_01: And they have a hope in these gods that are everything that the real God, or the real God is everything that they are not.
SPEAKER_01: This God that is described in Scripture is a God who exists in tri-unity, meaning the doctrine of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: We speak of God being one God in three persons, and these three persons having the same essence, but they're one God.
SPEAKER_01: And my mind cannot comprehend that.
SPEAKER_01: But that's what the Bible teaches us.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible does not teach us that God is a God that morphs from one form to another, God the Father here, God the Son there, and God the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We call that modalism.
SPEAKER_01: That's a heresy.
SPEAKER_01: But God is one God in three persons and far beyond our capacity to understand.
SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of illustrations that many have used to try to describe that.
SPEAKER_01: But in all of those illustrations, they break down.
SPEAKER_01: I like to say it like this: God is infinite, and I am finite.
SPEAKER_01: If I were infinite and could fully understand the nature of God, then I myself would be what?
SPEAKER_01: Infinite.
SPEAKER_01: The heresy doctrine that goes around now of the little gods, that we're little gods.
SPEAKER_01: We're not.
SPEAKER_01: We're human beings created in the image of God to reflect his nature and his character.
SPEAKER_01: 1 John chapter 2, verse 23, who John writes and he says, No one denies the Son, no one who denies the Son has the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.
SPEAKER_01: God self-describes himself to the nation of Israel there on Mount Sinai in Exodus chapter 34, where Moses had cried out, God, I want to see you, I want to see your glory.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Lord passes by him and he says, The Lord the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generation.
SPEAKER_01: This is a God he self-explains, self-reveals himself in this way.
SPEAKER_01: So as we worship God and we think of worshiping God, not only in the context of corporate worship, but in the context of our daily life, can I say this that I believe the Bible teaches very clearly that biblical faith leaves no room for divided worship?
SPEAKER_01: Biblical faith leaves no room for divided worship.
SPEAKER_01: Notice in verse 5 what he calls him to, he says, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
SPEAKER_01: The heart is that seed of our affections.
SPEAKER_01: We're to love him with all of our heart, with all of our soul, which would relate to the whole of life, and we're to worship him with all of our might.
SPEAKER_01: That's the strength and all of our resources that we have.
SPEAKER_01: Notice this.
SPEAKER_01: I love this.
SPEAKER_01: That the emphasis on be on obedience to God should flow from a love for and of God rather than out of mere fear.
SPEAKER_01: He starts by saying this, you shall what?
SPEAKER_01: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your soul.
SPEAKER_01: You see, it's that love for God that causes us to worship him and in a life of obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said in John chapter 14, 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_01: He says again in verse 21 of that same chapter, whoever has my commandments and keep them, he it is who loves me.
SPEAKER_01: And he who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.
SPEAKER_01: John 14, 23, that same passage.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus answered them and said, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and he will come to him and make our home with him.
SPEAKER_01: Bottom line, to all three of those verses and other verses that I could quote, that a demonstration of a love for God is what?
SPEAKER_01: Y'all weren't listening to me.
SPEAKER_01: You want me to repeat those three verses?
SPEAKER_01: A demonstration of loving God is to be what?
SPEAKER_01: Obedient to God.
SPEAKER_01: He says, if you love me, you'll obey me.
SPEAKER_01: And so as we examine our lives, are we living in obedience to God?
SPEAKER_01: Or would I say it this way?
SPEAKER_01: Are we striving to live in obedience to God?
SPEAKER_01: Or are we desiring to live in obedience to God?
SPEAKER_01: Because not one of us in the room is in absolute obedience, 724.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: But the desire is there.
SPEAKER_01: God does not merely want a slice of pie in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: You've probably seen this illustration of a pie sliced.
SPEAKER_01: He demands and requires and deserves the whole of our life.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 12, 1 says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies, that's your whole being, as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
SPEAKER_01: He makes the declaration that he is Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Lord means he's overall.
SPEAKER_01: Lord means is he's the big kahuna.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: He is it.
SPEAKER_01: So often in our lives we want to accept him as our Savior, but not yield to him as Lord in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: That's why in Romans chapter 10, verse 9, that we know this verse that it says, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
SPEAKER_01: A prerequisition to being saved is to acknowledge, to yield to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and to say, Jesus, as I trust you right now, I'm saying you are Lord of my life.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us this morning may have, we've traveled along the Christian life, have allowed other things to settle in that have become Lord of our life.
SPEAKER_01: And today could be a day that you say, God, I'm putting you first and foremost again in my life.
SPEAKER_01: And thank God if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just and forgive us of all our sins.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So as parents, let me say this.
SPEAKER_01: Before we ask the question, are my children following God?
SPEAKER_01: I first need to ask the question, do my children see that I genuinely love God?
SPEAKER_01: Before asking the question, are my children serving God, following God?
SPEAKER_01: I need to ask, do my children see me genuinely loving God?
SPEAKER_01: Let me put a little caveat in here.
SPEAKER_01: While these first things that I'm going to mention are very important, and we're encouraged to these, it's not just outward acts that demonstrate our love and our obedience to God.
SPEAKER_01: You see, it's not just getting engaged in church activity.
SPEAKER_01: Those are good.
SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't mean that I genuinely love God.
SPEAKER_01: The Lions Club gets actively involved, and I'm not slamming the Lions Club, please believe me.
SPEAKER_01: Don't get offended.
SPEAKER_01: The Rotary Club, all these different things.
SPEAKER_01: They do good acts, but that doesn't indicate that they have a love for God.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the unregenerate person can do many good things.
SPEAKER_01: But that itself doesn't demonstrate that they have a love for God.
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you what our children need to see and examine, that would be a good measuring rod, is how am I treating my wife in the home?
SPEAKER_01: How am I treating my husband in the home?
SPEAKER_01: Oh me or oh my.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the children pick up on that far more than what they ever hear in church, as we are professing believers.
SPEAKER_01: How do my kids see me treating my Samaritan neighbor?
SPEAKER_01: You know the story of the good Samaritan.
SPEAKER_01: There was a hate for the Samaritans among the Jews, there was racial discourse there, there was prejudice there, and it cut both ways.
SPEAKER_01: My kids witness that.
SPEAKER_01: How am I displaying the fruit of the Spirit in my home?
SPEAKER_01: And of course, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
SPEAKER_01: How am I displaying that?
SPEAKER_01: But not only am I to be teaching the Word of God, I'm supposed to keep the Word of God in my heart.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: He says, and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Before God's word can be taught through us to our children, it must be working in us first.
SPEAKER_01: Are y'all lively this morning?
SPEAKER_01: Are you I need some amens here?
SPEAKER_01: There should be some agreement with this.
SPEAKER_01: Before I can teach my children, it's got to be working in me also because a kid will pick up on that in a nanosecond.
SPEAKER_01: It implies this knowing and treasuring the living word of God.
SPEAKER_01: You see, I can't faithfully pass on the knowledge of the Word of God until I know the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Until I spend time in it to know this God of the world.
SPEAKER_01: Moses doesn't merely say that we're to keep these words in our mind.
SPEAKER_01: He says, but on our heart.
SPEAKER_01: You see, Scripture is not just simply an information, a set of information, a set of incantations or or or things to say.
SPEAKER_01: It's far more than that.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just information to master, but it's truth that should shape our life, our convictions, our desires, our decisions, and our lives.
SPEAKER_01: So I tell people all the time, man, you've got to settle whether or not this book is the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Because if it's not the word of God to you, then you're going to pick and choose what you want to adhere to and what you don't.
SPEAKER_01: You see, this is the word of God, every bit of it.
SPEAKER_01: Kids again recognize the difference between a faith that's merely discussed and a faith that's genuinely lived out in the home.
SPEAKER_01: Parents, can I say this to you?
SPEAKER_01: And this applies to grandparents as well.
SPEAKER_01: Your job's not over.
SPEAKER_01: I told my wife several years ago as our kids began to reach adulthood that adulthood never, parenthood never stops.
SPEAKER_01: But being a parent never stops.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, now mine think they can parent me rather than me parenting them.
SPEAKER_01: It's reminded me every now and then, listen, I brought you in this world, I can take you out of this world.
SPEAKER_01: The greatest spiritual influence in your children and your grandchildren is in your home.
SPEAKER_01: You see, they may not hear, they may not grasp what they hear, but they will certainly grasp what's genuinely lived out in the home.
SPEAKER_01: I had the incredible privilege of being raised by parents who demonstrated this, in particular my father.
SPEAKER_01: Those of you who knew my dad know that he was a godly man, very simple man.
SPEAKER_01: We called him, we said he lived his life in the key of G.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a musician, you understand what that means.
SPEAKER_01: Just a simple guy.
SPEAKER_01: But for our family, he prioritized corporate worship.
SPEAKER_01: I always like to say I cut my teeth in the nursery, and I did.
SPEAKER_01: But it was a priority in our household that gathering together with the saints was going to be a regular habit in our home.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't an option that if Georgia Bulldogs played late on Saturday night, we slept in on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: You see, he was demonstrating to this.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'll be honest with you.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I hated it.
SPEAKER_01: I did.
SPEAKER_01: I hated it.
SPEAKER_01: And your kids are gonna hate it too.
SPEAKER_01: But I did not dictate in our house when and we did not go to church.
SPEAKER_01: Can I say that again?
SPEAKER_01: My parents did.
SPEAKER_01: He demonstrated his love for Christ while giving as the scriptures command us to give.
SPEAKER_01: I can remember in the early 70s, mid-70s, when there wasn't a hardly a lick of construction going on in the state of Georgia.
SPEAKER_01: And my dad was unemployed for about 13 months as an electrician.
SPEAKER_01: And I can remember at that time the Converse All-Stars came out.
SPEAKER_01: Remember those?
SPEAKER_01: You were cool with a pair of Converse All-Stars, white, and Levi 501s.
SPEAKER_01: I wish I could still get into Levi 501s.
SPEAKER_01: Remember the button-up fly?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, those things rolled up, and I wanted a pair of Converse All-Star tennis shoes.
SPEAKER_01: No way.
SPEAKER_01: They were about 12 bucks in.
SPEAKER_01: I think, how many of you parents are brave enough to admit that you probably spend 80, 85 bucks on a pair of Converse All-Stars?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
SPEAKER_01: It's high.
SPEAKER_01: They're not that expensive.
SPEAKER_01: They're more than$10, I can tell you that.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember that Saturday, seeing my dad sitting at the kitchen table, and he was writing a check to Macedonia Baptist Church in the amount of$25.
SPEAKER_01: And I made the smart aleck comment.
SPEAKER_01: I was a teenager, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Young teenager.
SPEAKER_01: You can write a check to the church, but you can't buy me tennis shoes.
SPEAKER_01: My dad looked up at me and said, son, I'm not going to miss out on the blessings of God for 10 cents on the dollar.
SPEAKER_01: He wasn't talking about material blessing.
SPEAKER_01: It was talking about faithfulness and obedience.
SPEAKER_01: I can remember watching my mom serve in so many different ways.
SPEAKER_01: We had a lady down the road who was in an abusive home.
SPEAKER_01: Her name was Louise.
SPEAKER_01: Mother was instrumental in leading Louise to Christ, and every single Sunday morning, Louise's husband would not allow her to drive.
SPEAKER_01: Every Sunday morning, my mother went and picked her up and would take her back home after church.
SPEAKER_01: I can remember that, plain as day, serving.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not talking just roles in the church, but serving others.
SPEAKER_01: I'll go on loving the law, so this is being hospitable, sharing Christ with others.
SPEAKER_01: Are we the same at home as we are at church?
SPEAKER_01: It's a huge question.
SPEAKER_01: Am I the same at home as I am at church?
SPEAKER_01: Because I can be at church and go, hey brother, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: This and that and the other.
SPEAKER_01: And I get in the car and I am just a jerk to my wife and to my kids.
SPEAKER_01: Not me.
SPEAKER_01: My wife would beat me up if I was a jerk to her.
SPEAKER_01: But you get what I'm saying, right?
SPEAKER_01: Are my children witnessing, are my grandchildren witnessing me the same person at home as I am in church?
SPEAKER_01: You see, it carries out in all of life.
SPEAKER_01: It should.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 7, that we're to teach the word to our children.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what he says.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk to them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise.
SPEAKER_01: You see, this word diligently carries the idea of sharpening through repeated instruction.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you understand that a kid doesn't get it when you say one time?
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Husbands don't get it when their wives say it one time either.
SPEAKER_01: Parents, biblical discipleship of your children, which by the way, it's your primary responsibility as a parent to disciple your children.
SPEAKER_01: The church is there to help, and there's a very important role, and we invest a lot into that.
SPEAKER_01: We invest a lot of time, we invest a lot of resources.
SPEAKER_01: We want to do the best we can with your children.
SPEAKER_01: But the primary area is to the parent.
SPEAKER_01: And it's got to be intentional, it's got to be persistent, and it's got to be repetitive.
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about what we've got coming up in September.
SPEAKER_01: As Pastor Abiolier and his writing team is writing curriculum to go along with the teaching through the Gospel of John on Sunday mornings.
SPEAKER_01: I'll be doing that expositionally, and we have topics.
SPEAKER_01: I think 77 topics.
SPEAKER_01: Is that right, Pastor?
SPEAKER_01: 82 topics.
SPEAKER_01: 88.
SPEAKER_01: We'll be in the good book of John for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited because the curriculum for the children and our students is being adapted to their age as the adults are learning the topics of the different topics that are hit in the book of John, so that you as a parent, when you go home with your kid or on the way home, you can talk to them about those things that we learned together in our small groups.
SPEAKER_01: That's exciting to me.
SPEAKER_01: Parents, you need to get in a small group.
SPEAKER_01: Spiritual formation rarely happens accidentally or by osmosis.
SPEAKER_01: Parents must deliberately teach biblical truth.
SPEAKER_01: Don't take the position, I'm gonna just let my kid figure it out.
SPEAKER_01: Because typically, an unregenerate, which they are, and you we were too, we were all born into sin, typically it's not gonna lead to a higher understanding if you just leave it up to them.
SPEAKER_01: Especially don't leave it up to TikTok.
SPEAKER_01: You see, teaching happens every day.
SPEAKER_01: He says when you sit in your house, it just means ordinary moments, when you're in your house together.
SPEAKER_01: Speak of the truths of the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Find ways to use illustrations to say, you know, isn't God, yeah, God's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01: Look how He created that butterfly.
SPEAKER_01: There are ways that we talk this when we talk, when we walk by the way.
SPEAKER_01: This just means life along the way as we go.
SPEAKER_01: It could be on the soccer field where somebody trips your kid up and you're like, next time you go out there, kick him hard.
SPEAKER_01: No, not really.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it just learn to teach him good sportsmanship, to forgive.
SPEAKER_01: When you lie down, that means at the end of the day, when you rise, the beginning of the day, in everything, all of our house.
SPEAKER_01: Can I tell you that though everything else is influencing your kids that you usually have no control of?
SPEAKER_01: Parents, it's your responsibility to govern that.
SPEAKER_01: There's TV, there's social media, there's friends, there's school.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you with kids have looked at their TikTok views lately?
SPEAKER_01: You ought to.
SPEAKER_01: Much of what you see on many of these social media platforms is almost X-rated pornography.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not just railing against it, but but they are being they are being taught by a generation that has no idea of God or an honoring of God, and that stuff is being continually poured to them.
SPEAKER_01: Don't feel bad if you're a parent and your 12-year-old says, I want a smartphone and I want to get connected to TikTok, and you say no.
SPEAKER_01: And they say, Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because I love you and I want to protect you from the influence that's out there so that it does not infect your life.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna start preaching in a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we think we have to put a thousand, twelve hundred dollar device in our kid, in our kids' hands that is just perpetuating their mind with this garbage?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm sounding like an independent Baptist preacher this morning, aren't I?
SPEAKER_01: Sweating like one too.
SPEAKER_01: Parents, let me encourage you, have conversations with the kids.
SPEAKER_01: We don't just tell them, although sometimes it's really only when we can tell them, because I said so.
SPEAKER_01: But it's why have I placed these boundaries in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Number one, because I love you.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't want them to impact you in a negative way.
SPEAKER_01: Why am I instructing you to forgive your brother or sister when they have hurt you?
SPEAKER_01: Well, because God forgives us.
SPEAKER_01: Why am I teaching you to say I'm sorry, even though you go, I'm sorry?
SPEAKER_01: Because God wants us to confess our sins to Him.
SPEAKER_01: You see, there are ways to teach the truths of the Word of God without ever having to open a verse.
SPEAKER_01: Faith should not be confined on Sunday mornings.
SPEAKER_01: Make the word visible in your life, verses eight and nine.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You shall bind them that is the word of God as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as four frontals between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this later turned into a thing among Jews, particularly the Pharisees, where they would walk around and Jesus condemned this.
SPEAKER_01: They would take a little leather box that they would make and they'd strap it to their forehead or to their wrist, and Jesus said, Hey man, you wear all these big factories everywhere, but you're nothing more than a brood of vipers.
SPEAKER_01: You want to do it for the outside, but there's nothing inside.
SPEAKER_01: But but the intention of that when he said that you're to bind these as a sign on your head, was that our actions should be shaped on your hand, our actions should be shaped by scripture.
SPEAKER_01: What we do with this body should be shaped by scripture.
SPEAKER_01: How we live that out, how we serve has to be shaped by scripture.
SPEAKER_01: More things are caught than they are taught in the home.
SPEAKER_01: We observe our parents, our grandparents.
SPEAKER_01: He says they shall be frontals between your eyes.
SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes these Jews would, if you go to Israel today, you'll see them wearing these on their foreheads.
SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes it was a scroll of Deuteronomy chapter 6 that they would put in a little thing between their forehead.
SPEAKER_01: And what did that distinguish?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've seen pictures of it.
SPEAKER_01: What it has there to do is that our worldview, every way that we view the world, that we view life, that we view God, should be, has to be shaped by scripture.
SPEAKER_01: If we're not careful, our worldview will be more shaped by culture than it is by scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And there's always that contention.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: We live in it 724 hours.
SPEAKER_01: Let the word govern your home.
SPEAKER_01: Write them on the post of your house and on your gates.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the home should clearly belong to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It should be an atmosphere in our homes that it's a Christ-centered place.
SPEAKER_01: That there's love there, that there's genuinely a love and a desire for God.
SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't just mean putting pictures of scripture on the wall.
SPEAKER_01: We can have all the scriptures on the wall we want and live a life like hell within the home.
SPEAKER_01: You see, it's a heart thing.
SPEAKER_01: It's whether conditions should be set.
SPEAKER_01: But can I tell you this, parents, that that'll never happen if we're not first placing Jesus as Lord of our lives and being committed to follow him.
SPEAKER_01: See, to kind of conclude this message as he gives this to the nation of Israel, you might put it in this kind of secession as he goes through the chapter.
SPEAKER_01: That you're to know God, the true God, that we're to love God, that we're to treasure his word, we're to live by his word, and we're to teach our word, his word to that next generation.
SPEAKER_01: Parents, I have such a passion for this.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's because I'm getting old now, older.
SPEAKER_01: Just got my Medicare number.
SPEAKER_01: But I look at the next generation of parents, some that dedicated their children this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And my greatest desire for you, God's greatest, I think I have God's heart on this, that you follow him, that you walk with him, that you know him, that you grow in him, and that you pour into those kids, that next generation, a love for God as I see you demonstrate.
SPEAKER_01: Not a heavy-handed kind of thing, but a genuine walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this does not guarantee that your children are going to walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Because salvation is of the Lord, and every person has to make that commitment to trust him, to follow him.
SPEAKER_01: But as a parent, as a family, as a marriage, man, there's so many things that are coming against you in particular as a Christian family.
SPEAKER_01: That my desire is that you know him and your kids know him and your grandkids know him, and for the grandparents, invest into those grandchildren.
SPEAKER_01: As aunts and uncles, invest in those nieces and nephews.
SPEAKER_01: If we do not, we will stand before him, I think, with our heads hung in shame.
SPEAKER_01: That we didn't do everything we could to pour into that next generation so that they may love Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as a church body, sometimes that constitutes that we've changed some things and we may continue to change some things.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because we want to meet that next generation so that they love God, they desire to come together as a body of Christ, to have fellowship and community in the body of Christ, and then be witnesses as we send them out to make other disciples of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I want to thank.
SPEAKER_01: I guess I'm classified in this now.
SPEAKER_01: I want to thank our older generation for loving that next generation.
SPEAKER_01: That next generation, can you give our older generation a thank?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01: Harold, I saw you clapping.
SPEAKER_01: You're part of the older generation, buddy.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: An older generation?
SPEAKER_01: While many of the children are back there, can you can you just give a clap thanks of encouragement to our younger generation to continue on?
SPEAKER_01: You see, this passage ultimately in Deuteronomy exposes our need for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Because I know I'm first in line in this, and everybody else too.
SPEAKER_01: That I don't always fully love God with all my heart, with all my mind, and all my soul.
SPEAKER_01: Are you with me on that?
SPEAKER_01: None of us always do that.
SPEAKER_01: But thank God for the blood of Jesus Christ, who has cleansed us from our sins and he's raised to new life so we might have new life in him.
SPEAKER_01: Thank God that he doesn't reject us when we fall short in that, but he gives grace and mercy in our time of need.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we thank you so much for this next generation that's coming along.
SPEAKER_01: God, we thank you for the previous generation that has and continue to pour into them.
SPEAKER_01: God, I pray, God, I pray.
SPEAKER_01: Let me pause.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a parent here this morning of a child, high school and under, I want to ask you to stand where you are.
SPEAKER_01: Go ahead, stand where you are.
SPEAKER_01: All over the room in the balcony.
SPEAKER_01: Would you pray with me as we pray for these families?
SPEAKER_01: That we instill hope into them and that we come alongside of them in this journey of parenting.
SPEAKER_01: Parenting is not for sissies.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we pray for these young parents, God.
SPEAKER_01: God, we ask you again to give them wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we pray that as the precious of the world are around them constantly, God, that, Lord, by your grace you call them to yourself every day, God, to renew them and refresh them in the faith.
SPEAKER_01: And God, I pray that you give them the strength, God, that they need in today with all the demands and all the decisions that they are having to make as to what's right for their family and their kids, God.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you direct them, God.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you would help them to carve out the time to be in your word and to be in fellowship with you, to strengthen them.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we bless them and we thank you for them.
SPEAKER_01: It's in Christ's name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.