Train Up Your Children: Hear O Israel (Deuteronomy 6:1-10)

How to train your children up for success

I have been a parent now for four months. Yes, I am still young in my parenting history and have a lot of ways to go. While I do not know everything about parenting yet, I do know that I can personally testify of what my parents taught me. I want to come from the perspective a child to a parent this morning, as we look at an important passage from the book of Deuteronomy.

Covenant. (vv. 1-3)

Confession. (vv. 4-5)

Communication. (vv. 6-10)

Covenant. (vv. 1-3)

The children of Israel had left from Egypt and now were supposed to be going to the Promise Land. God was going to continue to fulfill the promise He made with Abraham; to bless him and make him a great nation. Here is the risk you run into with a nation coming out of bondage, there has to be law and order. Without the law and order, the people would do whatever they wanted. Could you imagine? Some theologians believe there were probably somewhere between 2 to 3 million people now that Moses was dealing with. Could you imagine 2-3 million people having an opinion on law and order? We don’t have to look far today to see how much divisiveness that causes. God would establish the Law with the people. In fact, Moses begins the chapter by saying the Law is what the children of Israel must obey. He says, “This is the command—the statues and ordinances—the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, so that you may follow them in the land you are about to enter and possess.” Moses was referring back to chapter 5:6-21, the Ten Commandments. The children of Israel were to follow the Ten Commandments to the best of their ability. Obviously, we are all going to sin and fall short of the glory of God, but this is why God would set up the Day of Atonement. Even today, we are taught to keep the commandments of God. However, Moses shares that we do this so that they would learn to fear God. One of the biggest problems we have today, people don’t fear God like they used to. When I was growing up, my family was taught to fear the Lord. Starting with my grandmothers, they taught us to fear and love God, go to church, and live in a godly manner. This was passed down to the next generations with my parents and relatives. My parents raised my sister and I to be at church no mater what, to love God, and to obey the Lord. The risk with Israel, if they didn’t keep the Law, they would fall back into bondage.

There was two covenants that God made with His people here in verses 2 and 3. First, the promise of long life. There was a promise here that if you keep and honor the Law of the Lord all of your days, you will have a long life. Now, what does that mean? Some people may say, “well that person loved God and did what God told them to do all of their life, and they still died at a relatively young age.” Keep in mind this is not just earthly life; people who follow Christ, will have eternal life.

Now, Paul adds to this in Ephesians 6:1-2. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.” From what Paul says, these are people who are born again believers. Our lives now as followers of Christ should be more obedient to the Lord, not less. Once again, the promise for children to obey their parents, they will live long. As Christians, this is a guarantee to have eternal life. So, we are called to be obedient to our parents. Why? Because parents should be teaching their children in the ways of the Christ. When parents don’t train children up in the way of the Lord, they will be enticed away by the ways of the world. There are times when people do the right things and their children run astray (no doubt about it), but your job as a parent is to lead your children in the ways of the Lord and leave the consequences up to God. There is also one more thing I would like to point out from Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Similar to what Moses told the children of Israel, Paul repeats in the New Testament. There is a difference between training a child in the way of the Lord in discipline and instruction, and training a child up under strictness. Here is where we need to be cautious; you are not called to be your child’s best friend, but you are also not called to be Hitler like in your household. As parents, the best training you can do is the life that you live in Christ. My parents were strict on my sister and I to be at church, to listen to their rules, and there were consequences to us breaking the rules, but we knew they did it out of love.

The second covenant we can understand, where God was taking the children of Israel to the Promised Land. There are important characteristics about this that Moses points out:

You will prosper

You will multiply

You will inherit a land flowing with milk and honey

There is no doubt that obedience in the Lord, ascribes blessings upon the people. We want blessings to rain down on us all the time, but we fail to do the first part, obey the commands of God. While God’s love for us is unconditional, their are consequences to the actions that we have. You may not see the immediate blessings of God in your life (keep in mind that God made the covenant with Abraham, spoke this to Moses, and a whole generation passed away before the children of Israel were able to go to the Promised Land), but God is always faithful with His promises. When Christians obey Christ in their lives, you cannot help but see the blessings of God in your life.

2. Confession. (vv. 4-5)

“Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One.” This is known as the “SHEMA”. Why? The word “shema” literally means to give ear to. God was given strict instruction here to the children of Israel. Now, understand what God was saying. There are two important facts that the Israelites would have understood by this statement. First, that God was unique. This goes right in line with the first two commandments of God. (Do not have any gods before me; do not make graven images) There is only one God, and His name is Jesus Christ. There is no other god, but Jesus, and He is the only salvation that we have. When Israel declared this statement, they claimed that Jesus was the one and only true God. I love in India, when a person is baptized, they show to the public that in a land full of 330 million gods, there is only one God and His name is Jesus. You can try to look and find salvation and blessings in other gods and things, but you will never find the true life.