Learning the Family Business
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Learning the Family Business
Learning the Family Business
It’s become less and less common that a child learns their life trade from their parents. In past history, the majority of people in the world would learn what would become their career, or life’s work, at home and from their parents. A child raised on the farm would learn to run a farm. A child of a shopkeeper learned to be a shopkeeper. And so on.
Of course, there are so many more available occupations today than there were even a hundred years ago, and you only need to go back a few hundred years or so to find a time when most children growing up was confined to learn the trade of their parents, or the trade of someone else in their local village.
Not only did children learn about their trades at home, they learned how to see the world. They learned about conversation. They learned about life. They learned about their family history. And most importantly, they learned about God. Today we continue a look at Deuteronomy 6, and this lesson may come down hard on some of us. I don’t apologize for that. We need to take seriously all of the Word of God, and if we say we love our children, we owe it to them to teach them about the things of God.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord 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.
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
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 shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Our focus this morning and next week will be verses 6-9.
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
When Moses said these words to Israel, it would have been important that they understood this sentence. These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. There are 3 basic understandings of what this means. Which Words? These words. Well, what are these words? Over time, there have been three basic understandings of what Moses meant by these words.
Option 1: The Shema: Deut6.4-5
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord 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.
Option 2: Everything Moses has said up until now in this speech in Deuteronomy. This would include the Shema but also the Ten Commandments, and the historic content where Moses reminded the people of God’s faithfulness.
Option 3: Everything Moses says in the book of Deuteronomy.
I think all three options have their supporters, but I lean towards the 3rd option personally, and I will tell you why. Option One is that Moses wanted the people to have on their heart the Shema, which includes what Jesus called the Greatest Commandment. Certainly if Jesus said this was the greatest commandment, then it was, and therefore it makes sense that this would be something to keep on our hearts.
But also option 2 makes a lot of sense, since it includes the ten commandments as well as the recounting of God’s faithfulness. Certainly we should find much benefit in knowing the history of God’s faithfulness, not only in the biblical text, but also we should be reminding ourselves often of God’s faithfulness in our own lives. And we should share these stories of faithfulness with our children. Both Jenelle and I remember stories of God’s faithfulness that our parents and grandparents shared with us, and we try to share stories of His faithfulness in our own lives.
And of course, the Ten Commandments set the basis for all the more specific laws Moses would later give. So Option 2 makes sense.
But option 3 includes all of it, and I believe that to be really what Moses was saying. It is important to know the basic and most important things and drive them home in repetition to ourselves and our families, but at the same time as we should always repeat the basics and know them well, we also must continue advancing.
I’m not athletic myself, but let me try a sports analogy here. As a student begins to learn their sport, there are basics. For basketball, it is dribbling, free throws, the basics of offense and defense. The very best professional players continue to practice these basics again and again. But they also build on these basics. They learn more advanced moves and strategies.
Or take a musician. How many of us tortured our families with endless repetition of “Three Blind Mice”, squawked out on some wind instrument? And the endless practice of scales? Over time, we improved, but those who did very well with their instrument never stopped playing scales.
I could go on with similar illustrations from various occupations and skills, but you get the idea. Most people who want to succeed in life don’t stick with the basics. They advance by building upon those basics. We hear the phrase “back to the basics” all the time. Not many of us would be satisfied in any skill we have if we never moved beyond the basics we learned early on.
So why is it, then, that so many Christians are satisfied to stay exactly where they are, exactly where they began in the faith, not ever moving beyond the basics of the faith? Why are so many Christians uninterested in going deeper? Why do so many among us willingly choose to not grow in the faith?
Maybe they would have preferred option 1. I know the Shema, that’s enough for me!
Or maybe they think the ten commandments are important too, but that is enough, thank you very much!
If I were a betting man, I would bet that the vast majority of professed Christians in the US would not want to be convinced that Moses meant option 3. That the basics were to be built on, added to, by going far beyond the elementary principles.
They may even chide me, and say, “Pastor Jason, get out of the Old Testament! You need to focus on the new Testament. We are not under the law, but under grace! We just need Jesus! Just give us the gospel!”
Well, I can answer that. First of all, what some people think is the gospel is a weak version of it. They just want you to say Jesus loves you and forgives you and leave it there. But the gospel includes the understanding that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. The gospel includes seeing that the law of the Old Testament shows us our sinfulness and hopelessness outside of a Savior. And when we grasp that, then the gospel is more beautiful, more vibrant, more exciting than ever. But if you were to insist on the New Testament, We could go to Heb6.1-2
Hebrews 6:1–2 (ESV)
Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity...
And the writer to the Hebrews chides them that they have not matured, they ought to be teachers, but they need to be taught again the basics:
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,
And Paul chides the Corinthian church in a similar way, saying they have not been maturing in the faith. 1Cor3.1-3
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
And now, being challenged by Paul and the writer to the Hebrews, maybe someone would want to narrow my preaching even further, saying “just focus on the words of Jesus”.
OK then, Jesus also grew frustrated about those who were slow to grow in understanding. Matth15.16
And he said, “Are you also still without understanding?
And again
Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?
You see, there is no where in Scripture that we can point and say, Jesus only wants us to know a little bit. In fact all of scripture leads us towards understanding more about God, more about his plan of salvation, to go deeper and beyond the basics, to move from spiritual milk to spiritual meat. No one who really loves God should be satisfied to not learn to know him better.
And yet, so many will say in churches today, stop focusing on the rules and all of that. Focus on the love of Christ and how he cares for everyone. Focus on ministries of compassion. Focus on accepting everyone for who they are. Focus on equality. and on and on. But whatever you do, don’t try and make us go beyond what our feelings are craving.
They say they want to show the love of Jesus, they may even use the words Great Commission. And yet, when we look at the great commission, it is not only about telling people Jesus loves them, it is about teaching them to follow His commands. You see, they usually just want this part of the Great Commission Matt28.18-19
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
But they forget about the next line: Matt28.20
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
John Piper has an excellent book called “What Jesus Demands of the World”, and in it he writes about all of the commands of Jesus found in scripture. And I can tell you, that if you said out loud much what Piper writes in that book, you would be driven out of many churches today. How dare you focus on what Jesus requires of us? Of course, no one would say it that way, but that is really what people are getting at when they want salvation with no change of heart, and no change of behavior. Yet real salvation is accompanied by a change of heart and a change of behavior that results in the new believer wanting to know God better, and wanting to learn his commands so that we can show our love for him through obedience to those commands.
I remember hearing someone say once, I’m not sure but it may have been RC Sproul, that one of the evidences of regeneration, which is the work of the Holy Spirit to awaken and enliven the heart to receive the truth and believe upon Jesus, one of the evidences of regeneration is a fervent desire to know God better. And I have found this to be true.
I remember a lady who I had the privilege to baptize, and she would come every Sunday with new questions for me. She was reading her bible, and having now basics she grew up with, the entire thing was foreign to her. So her questions were very different than the questions I usually get from someone who has been inside the church their whole life.
And while sometimes the questions caught me off guard, and sometimes I didn’t get to talk to anyone else after the service because she would want to ask these things, I was delighted to see this evidence that her conversion was real.
And Jenelle could tell you, how some of my happiest times in ministry have been coming home from a bible study or men’s group where the participants were really engaging with the Word of God. I would be sailing! I love that! This is indeed one of the evidences of a sincere faith, a deep desire to know God better and learn His Word.
These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. Moses of course wants the basics to be remembered, but what he really wants the people to do is to develop a fear of God, a holy and reverent fear. And Moses wants others to experience the closeness to God that He had.
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 shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
This portion is going to spill into next week, and the week after we kick off our D6 Everyday discipleship program. The leadership team here at Oasis church is unanimously agreed that we want to make obeying this command a top priority and this includes helping parents and grandparents to obey this.
And this is one of the things that as someone called into ministry I am to do. You see, there is a lot of wrong thinking in churches about what is everyone’s responsibility. We are all responsible for keeping the commands of Deuteronomy 6. The job of the church is not to do this for you. The job of those in ministry is to equip you to do it yourself.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Paul reminds us that the saints (that is, all of the people who have found salvation in Christ) are to do the work of the ministry, but those who are apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds, or pastors, and teachers have a special responsibility to equip the saints for that ministry. This is a heavy charge. I want to be obedient to it. The elders of your church, Kevin, Brandon, and Ron, want to be obedient to it. Our other governing board members, Susie, Melissa, and Wyatt want to be obedient to it.
There is something very important to remember here, and that is that the job of teaching children about the faith is primarily the parents responsibility, not the church. But the church should be equipping parents to do this. And that is exactly what we intend to do, for all those parents and grandparents willing to be equipped to train their children in the faith, we are ready and willing to help you every step of the way, and that is why we have invested heavily in the D6 program.
I have a friend who is a Lutheran Pastor, Missouri Synod. You may have come from a Lutheran or Catholic background, and they have confirmation classes for kids. These classes teach the kids a basic systematic theology. And while I have a concern that in the Lutheran Church, there are some people who think they are saved because they went to confirmation class, I would not say the class itself is not valuable. In fact, many evangelical churches have kids that could not tell you much about what the Trinity is, or atonement, or justification, or sanctification.
One day my friend told me that when he begins the confirmation class, he requires the fathers to come to the first class. And in front of their own kids, he tells the fathers that it is their job to teach these things, not the church. But since they won’t do it, they have confirmation class. Pretty bold. I said “For real? You say that?” and he does it. Now, we could argue about the tact of saying that in that way, but my friend is telling the truth. In the teaching of children in the faith, it isn’t the church with primary responsibility, it is the parents.
Yet in most cases, parents view it as the church’s responsibility to make sure their children know all they need to know. They send them to Sunday School or youth group or AWANA, which are all great by the way, they bring them to the Sunday worship service at least half the time, or maybe at least once a month, but they don’t teach them diligently, they don’t talk about the Bible when they sit down and when they walk (or drive), when they lie down, when they get up. But they drop them off to the kid’s programs at the church, and then they wonder, when that child turns into an adult, why they don’t serve the Lord.
So whose fault is it if a child in a Christian home can not articulate the basics of the faith? Is it the fault of the church or the fault of the parents? Who do you think’s to blame? The mother and the father. Oompa Loompa doompity do!
So how did we get to the point where most evangelical Christians feel the primary responsibility of teaching their children about the faith falls with the church primarily? Well, a quick history lesson, and we will talk more about this next week. I read a very interesting account of the history of church architecture, and that tells us a little about how the church has evolved the way it has. Most of us may not have lived long enough to witness this trend first-hand, but we can see it if we visit older churches and see something that has happened.
The interesting thing about what I read was that church architecture in the past century, or a little more than a century, has evolved. And it seems like the pattern has followed the pattern of public school buildings. If you were to visit my hometown of Minot, ND, and fo to the fairgrounds there, you would find a pioneer village. And there you would see two very similar buildings. A church and a school. Now, when I was in the fourth grade, our class got to go and have a day of class in that one room school house.
And it was very special to me because that one room schoolhouse was the same schoolhouse my dad and my aunts and uncles went to. It had been the prairie school near a tiny town called Norwich, ND, and had been moved to the state fairgrounds. And since the school had become a museum, there were some old photos and other items that had some of my family history on it. There were initials carved in some desks that belonged to my uncles. Old black and white photos that included my uncles and aunts and my dad as a boy. And one one wall, I was pleased to see that my dad had earned a gold star for hygiene!
But here is my point about the school house and the church that were there. The structures are very similar. In fact, if it were not for the cross, you may not know right away which building was the school house and which was the church. In those days, the school was built like the church. Today, the church looks like the public schools.
Then, in one single room, children of all ages learned together. One teacher for all my uncles and aunts and my dad and some others. (My dad had 10 brothers and sisters, so at times they were the majority of the class). Many lessons were taught to the whole class, other lessons were more private, the student standing at the teacher’s desk, while the others quietly worked at their desks.
And the church, likewise, had all the ages together, learning in one large room. All hearing the same sermon, singing the same songs. And after church, the family would go home together, in a wagon or walking. Maybe they taught as they walked along the way.
Over time, public schools changed from being one room schools to what we see today. Some architects call it the egg crate design we are all so familiar with. A hallway with classrooms on the sides, like an egg carton. Children were divided first into age groups and eventually to individual grades. The public schools, for better or worse, evolved and even as the children for older, in many schools, they were not even with the same classmates all day. This is because the schools were offering more and more specialized classes, to help children prepare for college or their career.
The history of church architecture in America has followed the pattern of the public school. And it is fair to question whether this was the right way to go. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t have children’s or youth programs, we do and there is reason to do that. I want to consider, though, why it is that so many parents trust the church to teach their kids about the faith, rather than taking that responsibility on themselves, and I believe it is because we have been conditioned, slowly but surely over time, to delegate more and more of our parental authority to others to raise our kids.
To put it another way, we have bought into the idea that outsourcing is the way to go. We trust other experts in many areas to do what used to be done by each person for themselves. My mom shared with me years ago the requirements to graduate 8th grade, I think in 1880 or something like that. Most of those 8th graders would put many High School seniors today to shame, and probably a lot of the rest of us. They had to demonstrate they could balance a ledger, like a checkbook. They had to know algebra, they had to be able to spell difficult words, they had to know their American History. They had to be able to describe how the three branches of government worked.
So if you ever talk to an old timer who tells you they only had an 8th grade education, keep in mind they may be more educated than some of us! And remember, that education happened for countless people in a one room school house, with all the distractions of kids of different ages learning together, something in our own heads we seem to think is impossible today.
I say all of this so that if you are a parent or grandparent, and at this point have heard my sermon and are feeling bad that you haven’t been doing what you ought to, I want you to understand that you have been conditioned to think that other experts are better at teaching your children about the faith than you. That you haven’t been to bible college or seminary so you are not qualified to teach your child about the faith.
And I also want to encourage you, if you feel you have fallen short in this area. It is never too late to repent and obey God’s Word. You would be amazed at how many testimonies are out there of parents who missed the mark, and only started to take this seriously when their kids were already teenagers, or even were already adults. And many who have truly repented have found that God is gracious. He can restore, he can make up for the time you lost. That time can be redeemed. One of the most powerful evidences of God’s grace a child will ever witness is a repentant parent.
So if you have failed in keeping Deuteronomy 6, repent and believe, and repent means to make a uturn. I never made as many uturns in my whole life as I have made since coming to South Florida on the roads. Here, a uturn is part of the route very often. But making a uturn can set you on the right path.
And after you repent and believe, come to church every Sunday early to be part of D6. We are going to show you how to do this. We are going to teach you how to have a conversation with your kids about what we are all learning together. We are providing this opportunity to you. We have some very excellent teachers who will be teaching your children, but what will impact your children even more is if you choose to participate at home and take charge as the God-ordained teacher of your children about the faith.
I started out by talking about how children used to learn their occupation from their parent. What greater occupation can we have than learning to love God, and obey Him?
Moses said “These words that I command you today shall be on your heart” So we as parents and grandparents and leaders must make sure we do this part well, so that we can do the next part as well, and teach our children.
I want to close by addressing those adults in the congregation who do not currently have children at home. Whether you are single, or married and haven’t had children, or your children have moved out, you need to understand that there is a very important role for you as well.
Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.
God is father to the fatherless, and he has given it to many blessed people in the church to fill in for children without parents. We may also consider this as spiritually fatherless children. We will have opportunities to raise up spiritual children that need a loving adult to guide them in life and in the faith.
Some people say that a sign of a healthy church is that there are kids there. I would add to that and say a healthy church not only has kids, but older folks as well, and a really healthy church is one where those kids have a relationship with those older people as well. You older people in the church have a wonderful opportunity to encourage our kids, and I know many of you already do this. Do not think for a minute that D6 is just for the young families. I want to see all of you participate. What better way to start a conversation with one of our kids than to ask them about what they are learning in D6, since you will be learning about the same thing?
Let’s all make a commitment to take that effort to get up early on Sunday to participate in this effort. There is nothing you will ever do on earth that will be more important than you getting to know God better and learning to teach it to others.