Discussion Questions:

1. Marc’s opening story reveals a conflict between a good personal ambition and an unexpected calling. When have you experienced something similar? What did it reveal about your priorities?

2. The sermon says, “You will love your children best when you do not love them most.” What does that mean? How might looking to children—or another relationship—for our identity affect the way we love them?

3. What would those closest to you say you treasure most, based on how you spend your time, respond to difficulty, and make decisions? What would you want them to learn from your example?

4. Deuteronomy describes teaching God’s Word throughout ordinary daily life. What opportunities do you already have for these conversations? What makes them difficult, and what could make them more natural?

It was the end of April, 2016 in North Platte, Nebraska. I had graduated from Moody Bible Institute in December of the previous year and was beginning to look at seminaries that I could attend.

I remember this clearly, because on Tuesday, April 19th, we drove to Omaha and saw Mumford and Sons in concert (which was awesome). And then, that following weekend, we flew to Louisville, KY and attended the preview day at Southern Seminary, and I loved it. But I knew that this decision would be costly and difficult, especially for my wife. We flew home and I decided to take a day off of work to pray about whether or not the Lord would have us leave Nebraska and move to Louisville that Fall to begin school. I prayed and thought about the challenges that Hillary and I would face: moving to a new city, just the two of us, not knowing anyone, starting a demanding program, trying to find jobs, finding a new church, finding new friends, figuring out how to survive the sweaty gym sock of humidity that is Kentucky, etc.

And after the day of praying and journaling and thinking, I thought: Yes, let’s do it. I can still see this with crystal clarity: I was sitting in our 100 year old house’s sun porch when I heard Hillary walk in through the back door. I walked out, feeling the butterflies of the moment build, wondering the best way to explain this*.* But I didn’t get to say anything because as soon as I greeted her she completely ignored me and went immediately into the bathroom. Weird. Not what I was expecting. She came out and I (again) tried to get her attention, *Hillary, I need to tell you something…*But she again interrupted the importance of the moment: “No, Marc, I have something I need to tell you!”

It was a surreal kind of big news standoff. Well, what I have to share is kind of a big deal. “No, what I have to share is a bigger deal.” You can probably see where this is going. But at the time I did not. We had talked about trying for a bit, but decided that now was not the time. Now, if you know anything about me, you know that I think the arrival of a child is one of the most momentous, incredible moments in human life. I have always loved children and wanted to be a dad about five minutes into being married—I know many dads are pretty freaked out by the news of an impending pregnancy, but not me. I always imagined that the moment that Hillary told me she was pregnant I might burn the house down out of sheer excitement.

So, it was a strange, very strange experience to find that rather than the elation I expected…I felt a sinking weight in my gut. My poor wife saw the panic and total confusion in my face and then said, “What’s wrong? What’s your big news?”

Our children are our most precious calling and our most wonderful gift. But our world doesn’t always agree. Though the Bible only ever speaks about children as a blessing, though our Lord Himself loved children, though the inaugural command given to Adam and Eve was to be fruitful and multiply—our world can disciple us more than we realize where we begin to subtly believe that the ennobling call of becoming a parent, with all its weighty consequence…is really something that impinges on our life, gets in the way of our real purpose. I had no idea I had that idea in my mind till that moment where my dream of school came head to head with the entrance of my first child into the world. I thought this would make life so much harder (and it did). But I had no idea what expensive joys were awaiting me. But, there it was.

We have been considering the mission statement of our church: creating a covenant community who worships Christ above all. And we have been looking specifically at how God’s Word shapes that mission…in our worship, in our mutual discipleship of one another, and in our evangelism and outreach. Last week, Aaron taught about the need to share the gospel with those who have not heard it: faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ, so we must go and tell them about it. So, we must have missionaries who go to unreached people groups, church planters who plant new churches, and ordinary Christians who share the gospel with their neighbors and coworkers who do not know Christ.

But have you considered that one of the most effective, fruitful, and consistent arenas of Christian evangelism comes from…your children. Of all the non-Christians in your life that you will have an opportunity to shape and influence for the cause of Christ, there are none who are more ready to receive from your hand the words of Christ, than your children. The largest demographic of non-Christians our church consistently has in attendance on a Sunday morning are our children. If you are passionate about reaching the lost, than you should care about our children.

So, as we consider what our church must do to create a covenant who community who worships Christ above all, we must give attention to what will pass on our faith to the next generation. So, today we are considering the role of mom and dad. Next Sunday, we are going to consider the role of our entire church. I have spent the last few months reading different books by sociologists who study the most important factors that contribute to the successful transfer of faith from one generation to the next. And they all more or less boil down to two factors: (1) mom and dad and (2) the church

[Page 151]

4 “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. 6 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. 8 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.

• Deut 6:4-9

Love Sincerely, Teach Diligently

Love Sincerely

4 “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. - Deut 6:4-5

The Old Testament is a big book that can be somewhat intimidating to understand, especially the many different laws. There are 613 different laws scattered throughout the Old Testament. Fortunately, Jesus tells us that the most important of them all is this one: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. The second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. If you keep both of these, you keep the whole law. But the first commandment (Love God) is the first and the greatest, because it is what creates the second. To love God completely means that you will love your neighbor (see 1 John 4:21).

But consider the implications of this Law. The one law that summarizes the whole of the minutia of the rest of the laws—from the intricacies of the kind of garments priests were to wear, to the ten commandments, to the feasts and festivals of the old covenant—all of it was to flow from a love of God. Meaning: God did not desire rote obedience, without your heart. Nor did He envision you being able to give Him your heart, and it not produce obedience. The legalist who worships God with his mouth and actions, but whose heart is far from Him AND the free spirit who thinks that he can love God with his heart while his mouth and actions are far from Him both alike have failed to understand this Law.

We are to love God totally. With all our heart, all our soul, all our strength—everything we have. I love watching conductors of symphonies orchestrate music, because they just become possessed by the song. The best conductors are those who are streaming sweat by the end of the performance, because their whole body becomes involved, you can see it on their face, every point of attention is transfixed on the music. They are pouring their heart and soul into the performance. You would never imagine them conducting a symphony with a yawn or checking their phone.

That is what God desires. There is to be no area of our life that we are permitted to keep God out of. What you do with your mind, your body, your desires, your imagination, your time, your money, your career, and your family.

What is the nature of God that His Law is love? If God’s Law can be summarized by love, then that tells you that His deepest desire is to be in a relationship with you. God is your King and Lord, your Master and Creator who demands obedience. We are familiar with people who want things from us, who demand things from us, so they use us but don’t care about us. Yet, what is the obedience that our God requires? Love.

Did ever any prince make a law that his subjects should love him? Yet such is the condescension of the divine grace…that we love him, and that we perform all other parts of our duty to him from a principle of love. - Matthew Henry

God cares about you. God desires you. God wants to be in communion, relationship with you. God does not come to us and say, “Look, you have a service I need, so I am pressuring you to give it.” God, as a matter of fact, needs nothing from us. And what He requires from us is…to love Him. Why would He command that? Because He loves us and longs to be in communion with us. And, wonder of wonders, our God is so scandalously committed to this love of us, that He loves us even when we did not love Him in return.

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. - 1 John 4:10

None of us were born into this world loving God. Paul actually states that we are born into this world inheriting a sin nature from Adam, and are by nature, haters of God. There is an energy at work within us that lashes out at authority, distrusts it, and longs to throw off restraint and be our own Lord and our own God. But God, in wondrous love, came to rebels like us, and still extended the nail scarred hands of love.

Here is the super power of Christianity: the load bearing beam of our entire ethical program hinges on our love of God. Not on our own raw willpower, not on our genius and intellect, not on our shrewd decision making, not on our spiritual intuition—but love of God. And how can we grow in our love of God? Where do we see it revealed most clearly?

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. - 1 John 4:9

How does this affect our parenting of our children?

First, God is the only person you are to love with your whole heart and soul. You will love your children best when you do not love them most. If you love your children with all your heart and soul, you will find that you will actually hurt your children. You will be putting a weight on them that they cannot bear. You will begun to rely on them for your comfort, your hope, your joy, your peace—and will either require a level of extreme obedience from them that you will just crush them (because they must be perfect, because they reflect on you; they are your functional saviors) or you will be so terrified of ever disappointing them that you will never tell them no, never ground them, never spank them, never let them fail so that they may learn how to fail with grace. The mega-driven, type-A, tiger parent who pushes their kid to join the varsity tennis team when they are 6 years old and master the violin and do SAT prep looks very different than **the gentle parent who buys their kid a second ice cream after they threw the first one on the ground in a temper tantrum…but both alike think that they are loving their children well, but both are actually failing to love them as they ought to. Both have elevated their children to the point of devotion that should be reserved for God.

1. He that is our all must have our all, and none but he. - Matthew Henry
2. You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first. - Lewis

Second, we cannot give our children what we do not have. These words, Moses taught, are to be on our hearts.

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children. - Deut 6:6-7a

When we teach our children God’s word diligently, the assumption is that they are coming from our very hearts. We are sharing with our children what is most precious to us. From the deepest core of who we are, we pass down God’s Words.

So, first, before we sit down to teach our children the Bible, we must ask ourselves: do I take these Words seriously? Are they on my heart? I remember hearing Ray Ortlund talk about what it was like to receive the gift of a new Bible when he was 16 years old from his mom and dad. Inside his dad wrote to to him this note:

“Bud, Nothing could be greater than to have a son—a son who loves the Lord and walks with Him. Your mother and I have found this Book our dearest treasure. We give it to you, and doing so can give nothing greater. Be a student of the Bible and your life will be full of blessing. We love you. Dad”

When Ray read those words, he knew that his father meant every word. He knew that to his father, there was nothing more precious than the Bible, because the Bible was the word of God—it was his father’s dearest treasure.

Alright moms and dads, here is a hard question: would your children say the same thing about you? Would they say that the most important guide for your life is God’s Word? Children sniff out performance like a blood hound. If you hand your child a Bible and say, “This book is my dearest treasure,” and it is not, they will know. If it is not, then what would you say it is?

What hard, risky, and costly obedience to God have your children witnessed? What persevering hope and clarifying wisdom have you gleaned from Scripture? How have they watched you weather the storms of suffering and the waves of conflicting emotions and confusion while you cling tight to the promises of God?

Teach Diligently

How did Timothy, the protege of Paul, come to hear the gospel?

I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well…continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. - 2 Tim 1:15, 3:14-15

It was his mom! Who learned it from her own mother. From generation to generation, the faith is passed down primarily from parents.

There is nothing more significant in the spiritual formation of children than mom and dad—the sociologist of Notre Dame, Christian Smith, reported that the practiced faith of the parents was more significant than involvement in a youth group, private school, mission trips, friendship influence, or anything else in the life of a kid. That truth can be empowering…or terrifying. But the reality is that at the end of the day mom and dad are the most important discipleship factor in their childrens’ lives.

In fact, the Bible commands us parents to do this. Next week, we will look at the role that all of us can play in reaching the next generation, but Parents: make no mistake, your responsibility

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. 8 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. - Deut 6:7-9

Formal and Informal teaching

Formal

• Church
  • Why do we want our children involved in our worship services?
    • Because Paul assumes they will be when he address them in his letters.
    • Because children who regularly attend church (not youth services) are more likely to feel like they are a part of the church and less likely to “graduate” out of church.
    • Most importantly: God is worthy of worship! The mouth of babes can praise Him! The promise of salvation is not just for grown ups, but for our children.
• Quinault kids
• Family worship

  • What we do: Marty Machowski’s Long Story Short, read the Bible, ask some questions, pray. We use to sing as well, and do some catechism questions.

    • My aim: to connect God’s Word to the life of my children, and help them see that God desires to know them, and they can have a relationship with Him.

  • The example of John Paton’s father:

    Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, were blotted from my understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, and shut itself up once again in that Sanctuary Closet, and, hearing still the echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all doubt with the victorious appeal, “He walked with God, why may not I?” (Autobiography, p. 8)

Informal

As you go, along the way, talk talk talk

A second trait of parents who successfully pass on religious faith and practice to their children is that, as a normal part of family life during the week, they talk with their children about religious things—what they believe and practice, what it means and implies, and why it matters to them. In such families, religion is part of the warp and woof of everyday life. It comes and goes in talk easily. It is not compartmentalized in certain slots of the week, nor is it an unusual or awkward topic. It is part of “who we are and what we care about.” - Smith

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. - Col 3:16-17

Here, God’s Word seems to bubble up from the heart of God’s people, but then expresses itself through song! Meaning, it isn’t just expressed through didactic prose, but imaginative praise—it expresses itself through the emotional expressiveness of song.

Right after this, Paul goes on to describe the family: husbands, wives, and children (Col 3:18-21)

What is the “music” of your home? What do you “sing” about? Use your imagination to help make conversation about God an ordinary part of life.

Use gratitude! Do everything in the name of the Lord! Follow the sunbeam back up to the sun and delight in God in family pizza night, and video games together, and the sound of birds singing in the morning.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good.” - Ps 34:8