Seeing your children through new lenses.

Children 1

Big Idea - Spiritual vision leads to spiritual training.

Deut 6:4-9

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.

Opener - Goals, Elon Musk

Whatever you think about Elon Musk (& he is increasingly divisive), he is a person of vision.

Musk has implemented Starlink

One of the things Starlink is doing is placing thousands of small satellites in orbit over our globe, so that people, even in remote areas can be connected to the internet.

Starlink has brought internet access to places where there will never be physical land lines.

Can you imagine a world where - wherever you go - you have access to the internet.

-If you are in remote areas the communication, especially in emergency will be great.

This vision is literally changing our world.

Transition - As great as vision is for New Technology, God desires you to have a vision for something much more personal, much more eternal.

That is your children.

What we see in the scripture is that ...

God gives me spiritual vision for my children.

1.God gives me spiritual vision for my children.

Q - What is the spiritual vision for you child - teenager?

What is your spiritual goals for your child?

-When he or she is 21 years old, what do you want your child to look like spiritually?

Rolland says, I’m in Middle School, I don’t have kids. - One day, as a dad, you will need this vision.

Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts - One of the best gifts you can give other parents in your life is supporting and encouraging a spiritual vision for other children in your family.

The good news is that as you read your Bible daily, God will show you the spiritual vision you are to have for your children.

-And this does not stop when your children turn 18. I still have spiritual goals for my 24 year old.

-My parents still have spiritual goals and expectations for me.

Transition - But first, lets look at what Spiritual Vision is not.

-What Spiritual Vision is not.

Moral behaviorism

-God’s spiritual goals and vision is not for your children to just be good.

-Yes, God desires obedience, but God desires the obedience that is the fruit of heart transformation.

Following the American Dream - The American dream is based on hard work and having success in a land of opportunity. Rags to riches.

-Most people who live the American dream end up in hell. The American dream is not about Jesus.

Spiritual Vision is not

Being successful in education, or in ball, or in a career.

These are nice cultural values, but they don’t give any kind of spiritual success.

-Be reminded what Jesus says about these things -

Mark 8:34-36 “34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”

illustration

2 boys, playing in snow, challenge to straight line, headed for a tree, one kept looking back, One kept His eye on the tree.

You know, Jesus died on a tree and made a payment for sin.

https://ministry127.com/resources/illustration/making-a-straight-path-in-the-snow

It is Jesus VISION that our children keep their eyes on Him, learn to pick up their cross and follow Him.

Where their lives are so impacted by Jesus, that when suffering comes, that they willing to suffer and follow Jesus because He is so worth it.

God desires you to have spiritual vision for your children and to teach them to have a spiritual vision for themselves.

Transition - What we see in our passage today is that...

Spiritual vision leads to spiritual training.

We see this in our focal passage Deuteronomy 6.

Teaching - Deut 6:4-5 (Read)

Why does a passage about training your children start with an odd sounding theological statement?

Explain the passage.

Remember that a very short time before this was written, that the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt for over 400 years.

Egyptian Worship there was not 1 God, but 39 gods. The Egyptians thought they had to keep all 39 gods happy.

That’s like a teenage guy trying to keep 39 girlfriends happy. It doesn’t work.

BUT - To the Hebrew who enslaved in Egypt for generations...

-There would have been temptation as slaves in Egypt to worship the Hebrew god’s.

-It would have seemed that the Egyptians had more power and were more wealthy because their 39 gods blessed them.

-It would appear to some that … The Hebrew God could not overpower the 39 Egyptian God’s to free the Hebrews from slavery.

-If you were a Hebrew slave in Moses day, it would have been tempting to turn to the false god’s the demons of the Egyptians and worship them.

God, through Old Boy Moses - obliterates the people and land of Egypt with 10 plagues. God set His people free.

God proves that the 39 Egyptians gods are of no match for the 1 true God.

So, God reminds His people ...”God is one”.

vs. 5, This one God “Yaweh” you are to give all of yourself to.

There is nothing and no one who is to have your affection, your passion, and your commitment as much as this 1 God.

And God gave very precise instructions to His people on how they were to live and worship, including the 10 commandments.

“In Application” - TODAY, As we look around our country there is hate thrown at those who believe the Bible.

It would be easy for your children to come to the conclusion …

“The God of the Bible is not giving me wealth or popularity or success. I will choose to follow the many god’s of this unbelieving culture.”

God tells us that He is one.

-The many little gods of our culture will never be as strong, life changing, or eternal as the one true God.

-The many false little gods want to hold you in perpetual slavery to sin and destruction.

-The One and true God gives life, salvation, and freedom from sin.

-He is powerful to save you from the most terrible of sins that you have committed.

This is the vision that you as parents, grandparents must have. This is the vision that you must teach to your children.

What we will find is that …

Spiritual vision leads to spiritual training.

Transition - That leads us to the second point of our message. That ...

2. God has given me spiritual goals for my children, vs. 5-6

Illustration of goals -

-You have goals for your children.

-Keep their room clean, do a few chores, and make good grades.

-In 7th grade I frustrated my parents goals for me.

-7th grade was a year of struggle for me.

-In the 3rd quarter on my report card, I made 2 A’s, 1B, 1 C, 1 D, and 1 F.

-Up to that point in my life my dad’s hair had been slowly thinning.

-That year my mom’s hair began to thin as well.

Transition - I struggled for a short time getting focused on my academic goals.

Question ...

Well what kind of spiritual goals should I have for my children?

Let me suggest a some spiritual goals for parents and grandparents.

Trusts in Jesus - Salvation, Faith

Knows God’s Word and His greatness, Mind

Love with all my heart - Heart

Love & serve neighbor - Obedience

Share Jesus - Reproduction

Help other believers grow, Discipleship

Transition - We are not only too have goals, but ...

3.God has called me to train my children, vs. 7-9

Read vs. 7-9

According to our passage where does the spiritual training take place?

The church right?

-Kids get their spiritual training at the church right? Sunday school, children’s church, Children’s Choir, Youth Group

No. (YELL)

THE HOME - THE PARENTS Train in the home.

God’s design is for discipleship to happen in the home.

Transition - How did this work for the 1st generation that tried this with?

Answer -They were willing to be spiritual warriors for God.

Illustration - In Moses day, after the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, and after the parents had all died off,

-These trained, now adult children took God seriously.

-So seriously that they risked their lives.

-Remember, God gave Moses the 10 Commandments and all of the Law on Mt. Sinai after they were freed from Egyptian slavery.

-Then the older generation sinned and wandered in the desert for 40 years until they died.

-It was the children who grew up in the desert and learned God’s commands who took the Promised Land.

-They risked their lives in spiritual battle to take the promise land

-Why were they able to do it?

They had been trained in their spiritual purpose and spiritual identity.

They were serious about God and spiritual things.

They knew who God was and they knew how they fit in God’s plan.

-These children had been made ready to meet the spiritual challenges that God had placed before them.

-They had not gone to Moses special Bible College.

-They were trained in their homes.

-Children who are spiritually trained by their parents have the potential to grow up and be spiritual leaders. (X2)

Spiritual vision leads to spiritual training.

Transition -

How does a parent train their child spiritually?

Is there a curriculum? There are many tools, but look at what God started with. vs. 7

-You should train your children when you...

vs. 7. -sit, walk, & lie down (Every opportunity you can get.)

-Almost every time their is a relationship conflict, you can talk to your child about how sin and selfishness ruin people and relationships.

And how God has extended lover, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.

-Any time your child is caught doing wrong you can talk about sin, guilt, and how spiritual forgiveness is found in Jesus.

-Anything good in nature is a chance to talk about how creative and powerful God is.

Transition - How else do you train children

vs. 8-9. -Set reminders about your identity

(orthodox Jews - Little boxes with parchment with verses from O.T. tied on them.)

-Example, W.W.J.D. wrist band.

-Serves as reminder.

vs. 9. Same type boxes nailed on their doorframes of their homes.

-Maybe you’ve seen in someone’s great room a sign that says, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

It serves as a reminder.

-You can constantly point your kids to the reminder that we belong to God.

Transition - The Final and most powerful training is the...

Parents Example

***The Parents Example*** vs. 5-7

Reread verse 5-7 and place your name in the place of the pronoun “You”.

Can I share with you something. I’ve worked with adolescents for over 25 years.

-There is a marked difference in the life of a young person between a parent who plays spiritual games and a parent who is actively growing spiritually.

-When spiritual things are a game. When the Bible, prayer and church is just something you do because its a nice idea, or it helps you be a good person, or is a tradition the child understands that God is not to be taken seriously.

-BUT, When a young person knows that their parents take the Bible and God deadly serious… that their parents lives are being transformed by Jesus… That decisions in the home are made on the basis of what is important to God … the child usually takes spiritual things to heart.

Will that child have times of rebellion? Possibly.

When they are in rebellion to God they have the truth of God’s Word and Spirit that is an anchor.

When they turn back to God, there is a foundation to stand on.

I’ve seen it in hundreds of cases of this. Even in my own life and my families life.

Illustration My Dad Evangelism -

Last visit with my parents in Tallahassee -

Dad comes back from a walk. He engaged with an older man who does yards in his neighborhood, named Jimmy.

Jimmy wanted to talk politics and how messed up our country is.

My dad told him the root of the problem was sin, that Jesus died on the cross to forgive sin and the only remedy was Jesus payment on the cross.

-He came home and told his story.

I thought, “After all these years, He us still an example to me. God is still using Him to inspire me.”

The training of our children never ends.

The greatest training comes from a parents personal example.

Spiritual vision leads to spiritual training.

Close

For many in this room, there is a younger family member (even extended family member) that needs you to have a spiritual vision for them.

God has placed you in their life to help train them, to encourage them, and help them take spiritual steps.

Who has God called you to effect?

How is God calling you to effect their lives?