Godly Legacy Building

This morning we have gathered to worship the Lord in multiple facets. In one way, today is like any other Sunday where we gather to glorify God for everything he has done in our lives. But today is Father’s Day, where we also give thanks to God for the men in our church, for the role fathers play in bringing up children, while also acknowledging that the traits found in godly fathers are present in men who have yet to become fathers. But one does not become a father without having children, and as we have observed this morning, we have celebrated parenthood and the gift of children through child dedication, which is a ceremony in which we commit our children back to the Lord. He has given us the gift of children, but we express through ceremony and commitment that our children ultimately belong to him.

As I prepared for today, I wanted to delay our sermon series on the book of Genesis by one week so I could present to you something the Lord has been showing me for a few years and now fits into our overall ministry mindset.

At the beginning of this year, we changed over to a new curriculum for all Sunday and Wednesday night classes. It is simply called D6, which was taken from Deuteronomy 6. It is the backbone of the ministry philosophy for the organization that produces the material and it is a philosophy I have come to adopt.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 says:

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 NASB95

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is 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 am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. “You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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.

These verses provide the basis for why we do what we do on Sunday mornings and how we want to equip parents to live out their calling.

One question every parent needs to consider is this: By the time your child turns 18, what will be the most important thing you desire for your child to have? If you are a parent of children under the age of 18 right now, what would be your answer to that question? Here is mine. If I woke up tomorrow and wasn’t a pastor, my answer as a father would be this: My greatest desire for my children by the time they turn 18 is that they have cultivated a love for Jesus that has led them to become lifelong learners and laborers for his kingdom. I echo the words of John in 3 John 4,

3 John 4 NASB95

I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.

It is my desire to call us to embrace our highest calling as parents to teach our children what it means to love God and seek his glory above all else. We are going to discuss this philosophy of ministry by addressing three aspects to building a godly legacy.

A healthy love of God is a parent’s first priority.

If we go back to our text this morning, verse five is a command for the audience Moses is speaking to, to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, and might. Simply speaking, the first priority for any person, but also parents, is to love God wholeheartedly. That is to love him with everything you have. This is not automatic. Love for another takes intentionality. Love is not passive. If we as parents desire that our children love God, we too must have a healthy love for God in our own lives.

The fact of the matter is that children rarely adopt a level of faith that exceeds that of their parents. Richard Ross, a veteran youth ministry worker, who has been working with teenagers and their families for decades, wrote, “For the most part, teenagers do not reject the faith of parents and important adults in their lives. Instead, they almost perfectly mirror that faith.” He goes on to say, “For good or ill, teenagers closely resemble the spiritual lives of their parents, youth pastor, leaders, and congregation. If most believing teenagers have an inadequate view of Christ, perhaps some of the key adults in their lives also need to be reintroduced to the real Jesus for all He is.”

The intent is not to be mean or cruel, but to bring awareness to the fact that a teenager’s spiritual depth will often be determined by the spiritual depth of those who influence him. Parents will automatically be the top influencers of their children. The idea here is that if you desire that your children would grow up to know Christ and serve Christ, you also should be invested in knowing and serving Christ.

A healthy love of God is a parent’s first priority. It will be from the overflow of that relationship that produces the well our children will drink from.

Discipling children is a parent’s responsibility.

Verse seven commands parents in the audience to teach the commands of God diligently to their children. That’s the doing part. The rest of the verse is the how and the when. Sitting in your house, walking by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise can be summed up as anywhere you are. Whether you are at home or out and about, you teach your children the ways of God. In the morning when you wake up, start the day with the Lord. When you go to bed, end the day with the Lord. We as parents are tasked with using all of life’s opportunities to instill biblical principles into our children.

Verses eight and nine talk about binding them on your hand or as frontlets on your forehead, or writing them on the doorposts of your home and on your gates. It is important to note that you don’t literally have to do this. There were Jews who did, and still do to this day. They will have these little boxes that have small pieces of paper rolled up with scriptures written in them and they would wear them like a headband on their forehead. The focus is not in the mechanics as much as the philosophy behind it.

The idea is to create multiple touch points with biblical truth throughout the rhythms of your life. It could be morning and evening devotions. It might include a scripture memory verse for the week. It might include leading your children in nighttime prayers. It should include Sunday and Wednesday classes where they can interact with their peers. We use a tool called RightNow Media to provide biblical video content on smart devices. We want to create multiple touch points where our children have repeated exposure to biblical truth and then trained to walk in that truth.

Our curriculum has every class regardless of age group learning the same overall lesson. The goal is that you as a family have one lesson to focus on each week. Everything centers around that lesson. Today’s lesson was on Psalm 23. The key truths in that lesson were that the Lord is our provider, protector, and our peace. Every lesson comes with a Parent Page that provides a summary of the key points of the lesson that week along with some suggested questions to discuss at home and some activity you can do at home to reinforce the lesson. The desire is that all these things are used to fulfill the call to create multiple touch points daily. Research data suggests that it takes five to seven points of exposure to transfer something from short-term to long-term memory. If we can create multiple points of exposure to a singular message throughout the week, the chances of remembering sharply increase. Since we can’t be in your house all the time, parents, it is primarily your responsibility to disciple your children.

While it is primarily a parent’s responsibility to disciple their children, they are not called to do it alone.

Parents and the church covenant together to raise godly children.

One of the greatest hurdles of living in America is our individualism. We love autonomy and personal freedoms. We have trained generations on self reliance. We don’t need anybody. We can do it ourselves. There is some truth to that, but it has created less of an interdependence on one another that I believe is unhealthy. I have lost count of the times someone has told me they had some sort of difficulty. I would ask them why they didn’t call me. They didn’t want to bother me. I’m busy. You know what’s ironic? I do the same thing. I love being self reliant. I want to learn to do things myself. The root of that is pride. We are too proud to ask for help.

I have learned if I will get over myself, I can get help. The opposite of self reliance is over-dependence on others. We are not called to depend completely on others either. We begin by taking care of the things we are called to handle ourselves, then lean on others for everything else. Choosing not to disciple your children is outsourcing it to someone else. Discipling children at home and at the church is partnership.

We are brothers and sisters. How many of you were raised in part by an aunt or an uncle? Many of us. As a child is born in our midst, born to a brother or sister, are we not aunts and uncles of sorts to the child? If we care about the good of those around us, then we commit to the good of their children as well.

Because we are in it together, the church has a great opportunity to join parents in discipling children, and I want to share with you what is called the Legacy Path.

The Legacy Path

The Legacy Path was developed by Brian Haynes, Pastor of Bay Area Church in League City. I was introduced to his book a few years ago and have been leaning toward figuring out how to adopt this in our own context. The Legacy Path outlines key milestones that occur in a child’s life. The church has the opportunity to train parents to be prepared for and celebrate these milestones in their child’s life. It is an opportunity to nurture children toward Christlikeness at every stage of development in life. I want to outline them for you.

Parent/Child Dedication - Parents vow before their spiritual community to steward the life of their child in a godly way.

Salvation & Baptism - A child comes to an age where they are able to make a personal decision about their faith in Christ.

Preparing for Adolescence - Between ages 9 and 12, parents intentionally equip children for teenage years.

Commitment to Purity - Parents intentionally equip their teens to address issues of identity in Christ, healthy relationships, and understanding biblical sexuality

Rite of Passage - Parents lead their children into biblical manhood/womanhood.

High School Graduation - Parents prepare their children for life outside the nest.

Life in Christ - Parents have modeled their life in Christ for others, and their children are beginning to do the same.

Every milestone is important to us and the life of your child. Every milestone is worth celebrating. Every milestone is worth preparing for. We have a choice to make. We can be like Steve Martin’s character in Father of the Bride who was never ready to see his daughter for who she had become and was never really ready to let go, or we can step into the role God has called us to fill and shepherd the hearts of our young people, to help them become everything God wants them to be.

Here is what I want you to think about. Where are you on the path? Are you walking the path? Life in Christ is not automatic and it is not passive. Every once in a while we fall off the path. When that happens, do you turn to Jesus to get back on the path, or do you try to change the landscape so the path follows you? If you are here today and you have not made Jesus Lord of your life, that’s the first step to walking the path. Becoming a Christian is all about recognizing God has a design for our lives, but we have rejected that design, resulting in brokenness. When we accept Jesus’ sacrifice for us and put him in charge, he moves in and helps us recover and pursue his design for our lives. Do you need to choose to follow him today?

If you are a parent raising children and what you have heard today resonates with you, you can always get on the path by accepting your responsibility to disciple your children and begin living intentionally toward the next milestone in your child’s life. If you are interested in intentionally preparing your children for the next milestone, please let me know. We will walk through the process together as is our commitment to one another.