God’s Plan for the Family

Deut. 4:1-10

Welcome to Mountain View Baptist Church! This is our second Sunday of 2026 and I trust you are getting a good start for this new year. If you are first time guest, thank you for attending today. We would be honored to connect with you after the service today in our welcome center.

Our theme is Fortify the Family. The challenge is to Fortify our Family against the attacks that are happening before our eyes. Fortify means to reinforce.

It is best we fortify ourselves individually which in turn will fortify our families.

Our theme verse gives us the ammunition to fight against the attacks. God gives us the resources to resist these attacks by fortifying the family.

Have you ever wondered who planned the family? What is the family plan? When you build a physical home, the first step is to have a written plan. A standard blueprint sketched out on paper. Without a plan, it is destined to fail. God does not want our families to fail. Therefore, He gives us a plan for the family here in this passage.

The family plan begins with God. He is the designer and architect of the family. What are his plans? I feel bad for those who marry without understanding God’s plan. It is no wonder marriages are struggling, kids are doing their own thing, and don’t know or follow God’ s plan.

If you are to build any type of structure, there must be plans. Where are the plans for the home? We learned last week if you go to the world to fortify your family, the advice or model will weaken your family. James tells us the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. Foolishness starts with man.

The word Deuteronomy means second law. This is book is a reminder, a document given to us by God to live our lives by. The first 17 chapters, Moses is giving to the nation of Israel the plan God has for them. It is the way God expects us to live. This will be the normal way the Christian family is to live and conduct itself. The verses are intensely practical and lays out for us what God’s plans are for our families.

Several years ago research was done prime time television programming. The conclusion was prime time TV reflects the modern lifestyle of the American family. What is so alarming is the absence of God in the American family on TV. There is no Bible reading, there is no prayer, and there is no fear of God in modern TV sitcoms. I know there used to be, but these have been removed for the most part.

Rather than looking at modern TV sitcoms or social media or talk show hosts on how we are to live family life, we are given the book of Deuteronomy what God’s plans are for your family.

There are three decisions God wants us to make in our home. These decisions will be life changing.

Decision 1. . .

Obey God’s Word

Hearken means to listen with the intent to obey. There are times when all of us listen out of consideration but not with the intention to obey. God is calling on the families of the nation to not just listen but obey. Are you hearkening to God?

The command of obeying God’s Word is loud and strong throughout the Bible. As Joshua was to lead Israel into the Promised Land after Moses died, God gave Him instructions on obeying the Word of God. Joshua 1:7 “Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.” To obey God Word means we must trust God.

God is saying to us today that if we are to understand God’s plan, it begins with our obedience to God’s Word. The more we obey God’s Word, the more God illuminates our understanding of His Word. Obedience will bring illumination so we can comprehend what God wants for our families.

In verse 2 God is speaking to them about changing His Word to suit them. You are not to add to it or take away from it. It seems God’s Word has been altered to suit many families lifestyle.

To add to or subtract from God’s words would be to prevent God’s people from obeying him fully, for commands that were subtracted would not be known to the people, and words that were added might require extra things of the people which God had not commanded.

Wayne Grudem

I knew of one family who brought their kids to our church. Their kids were in our Christian school but soon those kids starting having problems. I brought them into my office and asked them what was causing them to have problems. The response was: My mom and dad said I don’t have to do what the Bible says. What do you mean? Well, we only obey the parts of the Bible we like or agree with.

I heard of one church that was altering God’s Word. One of the wiser members of the church began cutting out all the parts of the Bible that the pastor was correcting or changing. At the end of the year, there was a testimony time where everyone was permitted to speak about what they had learned this year. This lady stood to say that she did not realize how much of the Bible was not true and she cut out those parts the preacher had preached were not true. She came to the front and put on the altar a Bible with so many cut out pages that it looked like only half a Bible. She said, “Pastor, what part of the Bible am I to obey?”

The Bible says we are sinners and the only way we can go to heaven is through the Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so we can go to heaven.

God gave us 66 books that we are responsible to obey. The only way any of us can obey is through the Lord Jesus Christ. Believers are empowered by Jesus to live out the Christian life.

“Its not all the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that bothers me, it is the things in the Bible I do understand”

Mark Twain

Moses was giving God’s plan to the 2 million Israelites wandering in the wilderness to obey God’s Word.

Have you ever noticed that when we don’t obey God’s Word, how many problems we have. Since families begin with God, He also has a plan for us that works. The authority of that plan is to obey God’s Word for salvation, for Christian living, and for daily decisions.

We are not to survive life but we are to thrive in life. Thriving comes when we obey His Word. God gives us daily victories vv. 3-4. Your family will have opposition when you live for God. There will be entertainment, social media, and peer pressure on you to give up your beliefs in the Lord, going to church, and living for God. There might even be family members that will oppose you when you live for God.

God may ask you to do something that doesn’t make sense, but God is always right and we are to obey God.

Decision 2. . .

Cleave unto the Lord

Cleave means to stick, to stick with, follow closely.

God does not want us to cleave unto Him when we are just a child, but to always stick with Him even when we are adults. It seems an unusual pattern that when we are children we go to church and follow the Lord, but when we get older we stop. Or when parents have children, they follow the Lord but when their children are grown, they stop. God is saying: always follow Him closely.

Cleaving to God means that God has first place in every decision in our lives. This means we wake up with God on our minds and our hearts. We ask God for the wisdom as it is mentioned in v. 6. The word wisdom in our theme verse means to apply knowledge to practical use. We recognize every decision we make affects our relationship to God.

This word is used in Proverbs 18:24 “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: And there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Sticketh has the same idea of cleave.

The word cleave is used also in regards to Genesis 2:24 “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

Moses is teaching Israel the importance of making God all of your life not just a part of your life. Deuteronomy 30:20 “That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

A family who recognizes God is not just some of our life, He is our life. When you cleave to something, it is wielded to us. God is so much a part of our family that He is our life.

This is wisdom is found in Prov. 24:3-which is wisdom that is stored in the heart over time and it is foundational to cleaving to God. God gives more wisdom the more we are obedient to Him.

When you cleave unto Him, you will gain wisdom and understanding which is insight to discern properly the situations and circumstances that come in our life.

One day a member approached me about a possible job offer. He told me he would almost double his salary. However, it would mean many trips away from home and he would have to resign his church ministries because of his irregular church attendance. He said Pastor, what do you think I should do? My reply is what does God want you to do? He said say no. He did say no but the person who took the offer after him, had nothing but family problems. One of his children went to juvenile hall and eventually his wife left him. He later came back to say, “I am so glad I chose to stay with the Lord or that could’ve been me.

Cleaving to the Lord begins when you meet Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. One man said it best, “when he accepted Christ as his Savior, he got a yank to heaven that he has never gotten over.

It is one thing to love the ways of the Lord when all is fair, and quite another to cleave to them under all discouragements and difficulties. The kiss of outward profession is very cheap and easy, but the practical cleaving to the Lord, which must show itself in holy decision for truth and holiness, is not so small a matter.

Charles Spurgeon

The Bible recounts the story of Jacob wrestling with God all night long. He clung to the Lord, refusing to let go until he received a blessing. This tenacious spirit of cleaving unto God in desperation is what we all need! In those moments of struggle, we must remember that holding on to God brings transformation and renewal. Like Jacob, let us not shy away from the struggle, for it is there we experience a profound encounter with God.

Decision 3. . .

Teach truth to your children

In verse 9 Moses is instructing them to teach Godly truths to their children. They are to teach what they have seen with their eyes. They have seen God use Moses in the wilderness, how they crossed the Red Sea and how God gave them daily provision. They saw victories over the enemies, they saw God’s presence in every circumstance.

God does not run out with their generation but they are to know that God will do for them what He has done for us. This is what Paul was saying in 2 Timothy 2:2 “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”

God’s people are responsible to pass down to the next generation what God has done in our hearts. Loving them, teaching them, and encouraging them is what God wants us to do for our children. They learn as much by what you do as you say. They will learn answers to prayers as you pray. This is why family prayer time is critical. As you pray over needs and over struggles, you will teach your children by example who God is and how big God is.

Starting next Thursday we will begin a study on Principles of Child Rearing. These studies are intended to guide through Biblical truths to undergird you as a parent and develop Godly practices in rearing your children.

Whether we teach young Christians truth or not, the devil will be sure to teach them error. Come Ye Children, Page 9

Charles Spurgeon

Be sure, whatever you leave out, that you teach the children the three R’s,—Ruin, Redemption, and Regeneration. Come Ye Children, Page 90

Charles Spurgeon

Teaching children to count is not as important as teaching them what counts.

Unknown

The blueprint of God’s plan which is laid out in Scripture still works today. The most powerful way to make an impact on this world is to follow God’s plan for our families.

Maybe you are here today and have not received Jesus as your Savior. What a great way to start off a new year. Let me encourage you to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior.

If you are a Christian, how is your family doing? These truths of obeying God’s Word, cleaving to the Lord, and teaching truth to our children are a Christian parent or parent’s responsibility. God’s plan is clearly outlined here in the Scripture and this is how we Fortify Our Family.