Prayer @ Home - Keeping Your Priorities in Line with God
Romans: Unashamed - Building the Church through the Gospel • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Introduction
Statistics from Kirby state of theology
Statistics from Ken Ham
Intro Deuteronomy....
Main Idea: Dad’s and Mom’s - You Cannot Be Passive About the Faith With Your Children!
Interrogative: What Should I do?
Transition: There are three powerful actions that Parents must do to impress the true faith lovingly into their children!
You Must to Model the Faith by Obeying God’s Commands (vs. 1-3)
1 “Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
Moses is preaching his swan song sermon. The word Deuteronomy means second law. Not that there are two laws, but this is his second presentation of the Law to the people of Isreal before they enter into the Promised Land. Remember, Moses will not enter the land with them because his sinned against the Lord by putting himself on the same level as the Lord when he struck the rock in anger and declared that he would give them the water thus putting himself on the same level as God.
51 because you broke faith with me in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, and because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel. 52 For you shall see the land before you, but you shall not go there, into the land that I am giving to the people of Israel.”
Not a great plan and he paid the price. Certainly he did not lose his salvation giving by the Lord, but he did lose his privilege to enter the Promised Land with the People he had led for 40 years.
So, he is not going with them into the Land, but he wants them to know how to function as God’s holy and chosen people within the land.
And you and I, while not the Jewish nation, must see the parallel between them and us, the New Testament followers of Christ.
Peter did...
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
And the first thing Moses tells them is they are to fear the Lord.
Fearing the Lord is a huge concept in the Scriptures.
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.
28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Friends, we are not to have a caviler and flippant attitude with our Creator. We must be reverent, even as His children we dare not trample on His longsuffering and kindness.
God is not some benevolent grandfather in the sky who turns a blind eye to our participation in sin and ignoring of His. commands.
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
And according to verse two, Moses’ expectation is that fathers in particular pass this fear, reverence, and respect for God down to their children.
It’s not the church’s primary responsibility to accomplish this in the life of your child, it is yours.
And, verse two says there is benefit with this activity.
2 so that you and your son and your grandson might fear Yahweh your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I am commanding you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.
Here is the point. Living according to God’s way is wise. Living a wise life means making wise choices. Making wise choices tends to lead to a prolonged life. Moses means this as a blessing upon his people.
Verse 3 reiterates so well the admonition from Moses about the
Argumentation - argue why the point is biblical and comes from the text
“Train up a child in the way he should go—but be sure you go that way yourself.” - Spurgeon
Apply - Dads and moms, you are given an amazing opportunity to model obedience to the Lord in front of your children.
Ways to obey the Lord in front of your children...
Review - Dad’s and Mom’s - You Cannot Be Passive About the Faith With Your Children!
You Must to Model the Faith by Obeying God’s Commands
You Must Know the Commands to Make Your Faith Clear (vs. 4-5)
Moses makes a clear statement of what the Law truly is. For Christians, verses 4-5 sounds familiar...
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.
Verse 4 is known as the Great Shema - Which is a declaration that the God of Isreal is one.
Why is the Shema so important? Because of the culture of the Israelites.
The Egyptians, for example, had many gods.
During this time, ancient Egyptian religion was polytheistic, meaning that Egyptians worshipped a variety of gods and goddesses, each governing different aspects of life and the cosmos. Here are some of the principal gods and goddesses that would have been worshipped during that period:
Amun/Amun-Ra - Initially a minor deity, Amun rose to prominence and was often combined with the sun god Ra to form Amun-Ra, the king of the gods.
Ra - The god of the sun and creation, often depicted as a falcon-headed man holding an ankh and a scepter.
Isis - A goddess associated with motherhood, magic, and healing. She was the wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus.
Osiris - The god of the afterlife, death, and resurrection. He was typically depicted as a green-skinned man wrapped like a mummy.
Horus - The god of the sky, war, and hunting, often depicted as a falcon or as a man with a falcon's head.
Anubis - The god of mummification and the afterlife. He had the head of a jackal and was responsible for guiding souls to the afterlife.
Seth - The god of chaos, storms, and disorder. He was often depicted as an unidentified animal resembling a donkey or aardvark.
Thoth - The god of wisdom, writing, and magic, usually depicted as an ibis-headed man or as a baboon.
Hathor - Goddess of love, music, and fertility, often represented as a cow or as a woman with cow-like ears.
Ma'at - The goddess of justice, order, and truth, often depicted with an ostrich feather on her head.
Geb - The god of the earth.
Nut - The goddess of the sky, depicted as a woman arching over the earth god Geb.
But the God of the Israelites is one God! He is THE God. He is the all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere present God.
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
And in order to know and obey the commands of the one true God, you must know HIM! Before you can love Him, you must have an understanding about him.
Parents, there is something here for you. If you hope and expect your kids to know and love your God, you must show them who He is.
And I would submit to you, a huge portion of people who profess Christ don’t really know their God.
Show stats from Kirby State of Theology...
Parents, if you don’t know the God of Bible, how in the world do you think your kids will know the God of the Bible. especially because they are inundated with false god’s each and every day of their lives. Whether it is through the school system, Netfix, Youtube, just being in the world. If they don’t have you to help them navigate through the superabundance of god’s out there and understand why your God is the one true God and superior to all other Gods, what do you think the inevitable response of the next generation will be?
Parents - and Church, we can not afford to take a hands off approach to discipling our children in the ways of God.
Whether we care to admit it or not, our children are being indoctrinated. So, we must indoctrinated as well with holy, pure, Godly doctrine!
And when they, by God’s amazing grace taste and see the God of the bible through a proper interpretive lens, they will love him.
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
So, parents, do you love the LORD your God with all of your heart? With all of your soul? With all of your strength?
All is a big word and Moses uses it three time. There is an encompassing nature to this command. One’s heart, soul, and strength represent the whole person. Emotional, spiritual, and physical.
This is the command, that we LOVE GOD with everything we have.
Do our children see this in our lives?
Is our love for God total and complete or are their other, lesser loves crowding in for attention.
If you name the name of Christ you must not be cavelier, or worse yet, passive when it comes to your love for God. Are you lukewarm regarding your love for God?
Remember the harsh words Jesus had for the church in Revelation?
14 “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation. 15 “ ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. 21 The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ ”
Church - Is this us? Is this our testimony?
There is a battle raging for the souls of our children and what are we doing about it? As a church, how are we helping our families win this seemingly impossible battle? As parents what steps are we taking to obey the command to love God with our whole being?
Frankly, the mantra I hear from people is how busy we are. And I believe we are very busy. We are busy working many hours to help maintain a certain lifestyle. We are busy running our kids to this sporting event and that practice, this music lesson, and that play date. I get it! We also need to carefully catalog our every move for our social media to put off the air that we’ve got it all together. We are a busy people.
I would ask the question however, are we busy about the right things?
I will tell you this - we find time for the things we love.
If you were to ask your family, based on what you are involved in, what is your highest love, what would that say?
As you evaluate your own life in light of this command of Moses (which Jesus repeats in the New Testament), what do you honestly believe your first love is?
Our opportunity with our Children, in large part, has passed. The cement has set, if you will. We made our good choices and we made our poor choices. I, for one, have many regrets. Regrets where my first love (God himself) was crowded out by lesser loves.
God has been amazingly gracious to us. But I do wish if I were given the opportunity, that I could spend more time cultivating my love for God in front of my children. That they would not see a legalistic adherence to God’s revealed word, but instead a heart of love from their father to the Heavenly Father. That they would see an unyielding zeal and love for God.
How do you know if you know the command that Moses lays forth in verse 5?
How do you even know if you are God’s to begin with?
Certainly through the gospel.
But also, as Jonathan Edwards puts it - through your affections. Do you love God?
“True gratitude or thankfulness to God for his kindness to us, arises from a foundation laid before, of love to God for what he is in himself; whereas a natural gratitude has no such antecedent foundation. The gracious stirrings of grateful affection to God, for kindness received, always are from a stock of love already in the heart, established in the first place on other grounds, viz. God's own excellency.”
― Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections
Review - Dad’s and Mom’s - You Cannot Be Passive About the Faith With Your Children!
You Must to Model the Faith by Obeying God’s Commands
You Must Know the Commands to Make Your Faith Clear
You Must Teach the Commands Though Your Life! (vs. 6-9)
Parents, who is the most influential people in the lives of your children? One article I read said this...
Parents are the #1 influence in their children’s lives. Parents don’t always believe this – in a Parents Empowered survey, parents placed themselves last in the line-up of influences on their children – after friends, teachers and media. But when the youth answered the same question, they placed their parents first – before family, friends, teachers, and activities/clubs. https://www.upliftfamilies.org/parents_1_influence#:~:text=March%2012%2C%202014-,Parents%20are%20the%20%231%20influence%20in%20their%20children%27s%20lives.,after%20friends%2C%20teachers%20and%20media.
So God knew what he was doing when He providentially put you in the lives of your children.
And I want you to see How a parent is to influence their children toward the things of God.
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.
Moses, under the influence of the Spirit of God was so wise in counsel and challenge to the Nation of Isreal.
God’s Word is to be on the hearts of parents - If you lack wisdom, please know that the Lord has given us his Word for guidance.
11 I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
This verse isn’t just for children, it is for adults. The faith, once handed down from the saints is ours to hand down to our children.
And men of ABC - God calls you specifically to this task!
2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
But friends, you can’t pass down what you don’t possess.
What is your process to hide God’s word in your heart? What steps are you taking to meditate and memorize the word of God?
Give ideas...
Now listen, some of you know ever stat from your favorite sports team. Some of you can name every gun known to man, some of you know the intricacies of any car engine. Why? Because these are things that you love.
But do you love God? If you love God you will hunger to know and love His word. Admittedly, getting in the bible can be difficult, but if you do, you will grow to hunger and thirst after it.
And when you know it, you are to share what you know with you family. Men in particular, this is on you!
Do you see what Moses says?
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.
You are to do this diligently!
“with care,” “scrupulously,” “earnestly.” Sometimes it means “early,” “with haste” (Job 8:5; Prov 8:17). It may mean “industrious,” “exacting” (Prov 10:4; 12:27; 22:29).
Men, is this you? Church, is this us?
The teaching of the Scriptures must permeate our conversations with our children.
Moses says we are to take the lead in talking about them. He gives six principles for families to live by...
When you sit in your house - hard to do when dinner times have gone the way of the dodo. We sit in the same room together each on our own phone or computer consuming our individual media sources. We don’t talk well to one another anymore. Let’s change that!
When you walk by the way - intentional time together
When you lie down - Ending the day with your children reading the Scriptures to them. Praying with and for them.
When you rise - When that little one wakes in the morning, hug them and let them know how much they are valued. Then take the time to pray a blessing over them. When I take Elliot to school, I pray with him.
John MacArthur says - “The commandments were to be the subject of conversation, both inside and outside the from the beginning of the day to its end.” MSB
You shall have God’s Word in your hand and in front of your eyes - When we have a problem, where do we tend to go? We “Google it.” The Lord would have us to seek the Scriptures for it. I heard it said that if you had the opportunity to sit down with the Lord Jesus and ask Him for help in various areas of life, He would respond, “That is a wonderful question, I covered that issue in this chapter in my Word.”
This is Peter’s point in his second letter...
3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
You shall write them out - Do you know what Moses commanded the future Kings of Isreal to do regarding the Word of God? Look at Deuteronomy 17:18
18 “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests.
Isn’t that something? Why would God have a King write out a copy of the Scriptures for Himself? So he knew it well.
Moses tells parents to write out the Scriptures as well. And I am certain this wasn’t simply to be some plaque with the Word of God plastered on it. The point was to write out God’s Word to have it in front of their family at all times.
What do we have in front of families at all times? Phones, TV, YouTube, Sports, etc. These are before us and we are being discipled by them. And so are our Children.
Let me be frank with you parents.
Coming to church a couple times a month and sitting under the preaching of the word whether it be in here or in the Children’s classes is not sufficient to stem the onslaught of counter discipleship our families are being inundated with.
The Church cannot be the sole disciple-maker in your child’s life. Especially if your attendance is hit and miss.
Spurgeon said...
“Let no Christian parents fall into the delusion that Sunday School is intended to ease them of their personal duties.” - Spurgeon
My fear is for you, parents that you will refuse to heed the advice of Moses. The Church, in one sense is only one generation from extinction.
That you will look back over you life of raising your children when the raising is done and wonder what happened. Wonder why your kids love their sports more than they love Jesus. Wonder why they love their comfort or happiness more than they love Jesus. Wonder why the Word of God has little impact on them. There should be no wonder if the the Word of God has made little impact on you.
I and the elders of this church have a biblical charge to speak the truth in love to you. We see deconstruction and young people walking away from the faith in droves. Our own kids who once seemed to love Jesus have now walked away.
How do we change this?
First we recognized that God is sovereign and He saves and builds His Church - we can rest in this.
Second, we are responsible to work and to work hard for those things that are important. Discipling our children intentionally and over the long haul is crucial.
Thirdly, to the children - be open and receptive. Your parents and your church are bringing you the words of life.
20 My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching. 21 Bind them on your heart always; tie them around your neck.
“In matters of doctrine you will find orthodox congregations frequently change to heterodoxy in the course of thirty or forty years and that is because too often there has been no catechizing of the children in the essential doctrines of the Gospel.” - Spurgeon
Review - Dad’s and Mom’s - You Cannot Be Passive About the Faith With Your Children!
You Must to Model the Faith by Obeying God’s Commands
You Must Know the Commands to Make Your Faith Clear
You Must Teach the Commands Though Your Life!
Conclusion
Application - Apply this to prayer...
How will the children of this church learn how to pray? Is this the sole responsibility of the leadership of the church to teach prayer or is the the responsibility of the Parents. Specifically the father to step up and teach their children how to pray?
Now, to be clear, it is the responsibility of the church, of this church to help you in this area - hence this message and hence our push for DFH.
But ultimately, as this passage in Deuteronomy reveals, it is up to the parents to lead the charge.
I was a youth pastor for 10 years. And many parents had the attitude that I’ll drop my kids off to you, Pastor Mark, and you fix them, you make them spiritual.
How could I fix your kids with one or two hours a week? I did my best to influence them for Christ, but my job was to supplement what the parents should have been pursuing all week long.
And so, that is what I, the elders, and the leadership of this church want to do. We want to do two things.
We challenge you to step up and teach your children how to pray.
We challenge ourselves to come along side you and encourage you with words, resources, and our personal time to help you disciple your children. We believe this is our responsibility. Again, not to do it for you, but to equip you and help you in this pursuit.
Prayer Brochure - Review it with the congregation
Prayer Grow Conference - Sam Polson
Drive Faith Home Resource Center unveiling tonight (there will be cake)
Prayer Memory Verse - The Kids are working on this in the Kids Equipping Hour
7-5-2
Pray for your family 7 days per week
Pray with your family 5 days per week
Pray with your spouse 2 days per week
“Prayer should not be regarded as a duty which must be performed, but rather as a privilege to be enjoyed, a rare delight that is always revealing some new beauty.” – E.M. Bounds
Connection Group Reflection Questions
The Importance of Obedience: Verse 1 begins with Moses instructing the Israelites to observe the commandments and decrees. Why do you think obedience to God's laws is emphasized so heavily at the beginning of this chapter?
The Significance of the Shema: Verse 4 contains the Shema, which is considered the central declaration of faith in Judaism. What significance does this hold for Christians today, and how does the idea of monotheism shape our relationship with God?
The Centrality of Love: Verse 5 instructs us to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength. What does it look like in practical terms to love God in this comprehensive way, and how can we strive to do so daily?
Teaching the Next Generation: Verses 7-9 emphasize the importance of teaching these commandments to your children and discussing them in various settings—while sitting at home, walking on the road, and so on. How can families today effectively integrate the teaching of God's Word into everyday life?
Teaching the Next Generation about prayer: What are ways you can help the next generation to learn to pray?
Who are you praying for daily?
Who are you engaging with weekly?
Who are you sharing the gospel with monthly?