I’d like to begin this morning with a story about my lawn. In the two years we’ve lived in Westlake, we’ve noticed that most of the lawns look very nice. And of course, that’s the suburban ideal, isn’t it? Getting away from the city, with all of its concrete, and asphalt, and buildings stacked one right next to another; getting out into the suburbs, where you have trees, and open spaces, and rolling lawns full of thick, lush, well-trimmed Bermuda grass. Just like a garden of Eden, with Starbucks. Now, it’s a fundamental principle of mission work that if you’re trying to reach a group of people with the gospel, you adapt to their way of life. You conform to the prevailing culture, so that there won’t be any impediments to people hearing the message. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." And when in Westlake, do what Westlakers do. So I have decided that I ought to have a nice lawn too. It’s the least I could do, since the steering committee has so far refused to buy me a Lexus.
There are two ways I could go about this. The first way, we could call "benign neglect". Why water the lawn, or fertilize it, or spread weedkiller? Why go to all that work mowing, and edging, and spreading mulch? After all, grass grows naturally in meadows and fields all over the world. The rain waters it, and the sun warms it, and it thrives without any help from mankind. So I could just let nature take its course. And what would be the result? Well, I might have some grass. I’d also have a lot of weeds. Because weeds are a part of nature, too. So along with my Bermuda, and fescue, and Kentucky Bluegrass, I’d also have dandelions, and thistles and crabgrass. I’d probably have lots of dead, brown patches from insects and fungus. Instead of looking like one of the fairways at Lakewood Country Club, my yard would look more like an overgrown vacant lot. And the Perkins residence would most definitely not be included in the Westlake spring home and garden tour.
What’s the problem? The problem is that I don’t want what’s natural. I don’t want a field or meadow.
I want an attractive lawn. With no weeds, and no brown spots. Just thick, green grass. And that takes work. Cultivation. Maintenance. Constant attention. I have to either pay a lawn service, or I have to do it myself. Drive to Sears hardware and lug home 50-pound bags of Scott’s Turfbuilder. Dump it in the spreader and push it around the yard. Sit on my back porch waiting for a dandelion to pop up, then run out and squirt it with weed killer. Water the lawn. Mow the lawn. Fire up the weed-eater and the edger. And repeat, over and over again. It’s a never-ending cycle. When you decide to have a nice lawn, you’re committing yourself to a lifetime of lawn care.
Now, what’s the point of my little story? Children are like lawns. We can’t treat them with an attitude of benign neglect, and expect them to flourish. What if we say, "Well, after all, it’s a natural thing for children to grow up. Children grow up all the time, all over the world. As long as we provide food and clothing, and love, we can just let nature take its course. They’ll pick up what they need to know. They’ll learn how to get along in society. We don’t have to trouble ourselves with monitoring what they’re hearing, and seeing, and learning. They’ll turn out OK." What will happen if we take that approach? We’ll get weeds. We may get some good, healthy growth by accident, but we’ll also get a lot of weeds. A lot of foolish ideas. A lot of confusion. A lot of bad choices. Because those things come naturally, too.
Here’s what I’m trying to say: If we want our children to grow into strong, wise, confident, capable, intelligent, mature Christian adults, we can’t just leave their spiritual and moral development to chance. We can’t assume that they’ll get what they need from their environment. We can’t just turn them over to be shaped and molded by the culture. Especially these days, when American culture is becomingly increasingly hostile to Christian values, when the television shows, and movies, and popular music that are marketed to kids are increasingly promoting violence, and immorality, and hatred, and contempt for religious faith. We have to take seriously our God-given responsibility to teach our children. We have to work constantly to keep the weeds from taking over, we have to work constantly to nurture and strengthen what’s good and right. Listen to what God says to parents:
"Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth."
– Deuteronomy 11:18-21 (NIV)
Now what strikes me most about this passage is how different this approach is to how we usually think of educating our children. When we think of "Christian Education," we think of a class or a program. Sunday School. Children’s Church. AWANA. TeamKid. Something that happens at a set date and place, and which lasts for a predetermined length of time. Something that has a trained teacher, and a curriculum. And there’s certainly a place for that. I’m thankful for the high-quality children’s program we have here at WestShore, and my children have been blessed by it. But those programs are offered as a help, an aid to parents. They’re not the main course. The primary way that God intends for our children to be taught and instructed in the faith is "constantly". All the time, everywhere, at every opportunity, throughout the normal course of life. And this has to be done by the parents, because they are the ones who are around the children when most of life happens.
Parents, God wants you to teach His word to your children. When does he want you to do it? All the time. "When you sit at home." So, for example, when you’re sitting at home watching television and some character does something or says something contrary to God’s word, you don’t just let it go. You push the mute button (maybe you wait for the commercial), and you ask your son, "What did you think of that? What does God’s Word say about that? If someone did that in real life, what would happen?" Or let’s take "walking along the road" and substitute "driving in the car". You’re talking with your daughter about her day at school, and you see an opportunity to bring God’s Word to bear, to think through with her what’s true and what’s false. Or a song comes on the car radio, and you discuss the lyrics together. How about "when you lie down"? If your children are small, you can read to them before bed, from the Bible or from a Bible story book. Ask them questions; see if they understood what they heard. With older children, you could have them read, and then rephrase it in their own words. And "when you get up". Pray with them before they leave for school. Read a short devotional. Choose a memory verse for the day.
When our children were very small, we used to have a game. When we were out driving, we’d point to something, like a tree or a house, and we’d ask, "who made that?" And they’d answer either "God made that" (in the case of a tree), or "man made that". It got them thinking about God as the Creator. It doesn’t really matter what you do, or how you do it. The point is that the transmission of truth from one generation to the next, through father and mother to son and daughter, is something that cannot be done effectively in a class for one or two hours a week. It has to be a normal part of daily life, a part of our everyday activities as families. Parents should be talking about God and His Word with their children all the time, in every kind of situation. His word should be so much a part of our lives that it’s as if we literally wrote them on the backs of our hands and on our foreheads.
Why is that? Why isn’t a class once or twice a week sufficient to teach our children wisdom, to teach them to live life in the light of God’s Word? For two reasons. First, because a class can’t catch your son or daughter at that "teachable moment" when their heart and mind are open to hearing what God’s Word has to say. A class can’t be there when something happens that makes them think, and makes them ask questions. A class can’t be there to strike when the iron is hot. And second, because we need to teach them that the truth of God’s Word isn’t just a truth for Sundays or Wednesday evenings. It’s not just for special "religious" times of the week. God’s truth is for all of life. And not only does he want our children to learn that, but he wants us to remember it too. And so the process of teaching blesses both parent and child.
Now let me pause to deal with an objection that may be percolating up in some of your minds. Perhaps as I’ve been talking you’ve put yourself in the place of the child, maybe a teenager, and from their perspective, the parent I’ve described sounds to you like a real pain, always spouting off Bible verses, always ready with some kind of moral lesson, offering a quick, easy answer for every situation. "Well, honey, you know what the Bible says about that. . . . ". Or, when the child tries to tell them about a problem, interrupting with, "Well, you just need to have faith that God will work it all out for the best," before they’ve really even listened. Or just telling them what to do, wagging the finger and bossing them around with the Bible. And that is definitely not what I’m talking about. That’s glib, and artificial. It treats the child as nothing more than a receptacle for you to pour knowledge into. And It doesn’t work. Parents who try to instruct their children like this shouldn’t be surprised if they get tuned out completely. Not that there’s anything wrong with a little lecture every once and a while. But what I’m talking about is much harder than quoting Bible verses. It involves listening to your children, and trying to understand them. It involves waiting for opportunities, instead of just barging in prematurely with "the answer". It requires sensitivity, tact, respect, patience, perseverance, and most of all, humility. Sometimes the best thing to do is not teach, but just ask questions and draw them out. Sometimes we need to admit that we don’t know the answer. But we have to be real. Or they’ll know. And one more thing. We have to be living what we teach. Or they’ll hear what our lives say and ignore what our words say.
Part of what makes this all so challenging, is that effective teaching requires much more than just having a mental rolodex of "Bible verses for every occasion." "Let’s see, you’re worried? Philippians 4:6-7 [quote]." Effective teaching requires not only that you be able to quote verses, but that you understand them. It means that you yourself must possess wisdom, that you yourself must be living according to a Biblical worldview. Because you can’t pass on what you don’t have. Let me give you an example. I spent three years in seminary, basically doing forty hours a week of Bible study for 3 straight years. I studied every book of the Bible. I studied Greek and Hebrews. I studied soteriology, ecclesiology, Christology, pneumatology, and about a dozen other "ologies". I’ve been a student of the Bible and theology for about twenty years now. And yet, I still study a minimum of 8 hours a week just to remain competent as your pastor. Because I can’t teach what I don’t understand myself.
And just as I can teach you only what I know and have experienced, so also you can teach your children only what you know and have experienced. There’s the rub. In order for you to transmit the truth of God’s Word, you have to possess that truth. In order to be a teacher, you have to be a student ("disciple"). In order to train your children in godliness and wisdom, you have to be godly and wise yourself. It’s one thing to prepare a lesson. It’s quite another to seek after God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, so that your ministry to your children is an outflow of your own relationship with God. But that is what God calls every parent to do. He calls us to be the kind of people who can impart to our children wisdom and truth because we have first found them ourselves.
Now, you might be tempted at this point to just throw up your hands and give the whole thing over to the professionals. It seems too overwhelming. Let the pastor teach the kids. But even though God knows how difficult it is, He still says that teaching children is primarily the parent’s job. Listen to the book of Proverbs:
"My son, keep your father’s commands and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Bind them upon your heart forever; fasten them around your neck. When you walk, they will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you. For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life." – Proverbs 6:20-23 (NIV)
"Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." – Ephesians 6:4 (NIV)
Those verses don’t say anything about pastors. They talk about mothers and fathers teaching their children, giving them the kind of knowledge and wisdom that will guide them, and protect them, and instruct them throughout their life. That is the awesome responsibility and the glorious privilege of parenthood. Are we adequate for it? No. But by God’s grace, He can make us adequate in Christ.
"But he said to me, ’My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me." – 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)
None of us are adequate, of ourselves, to the task of teaching and instructing our children in God’s Word. But the grace and power of Christ are sufficient to make us adequate for the task.
Let me make just three more brief points and then we’ll be done. You may be familiar with Proverbs 22:6, which says, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Some people have taken this as a promise; a guarantee from God that if they are good parents, then their children will turn out well. If they pray, and teach their children the Bible, and take them to church, and model the Christian life with integrity, then their children will all become Christians. And conversely, if their children don’t turn out so well, then the parents must have done something wrong. But that’s just not the case. Proverbs is "wisdom literature," not contract law. It’s a book of wise sayings about the way things usually work, not a book of promises. Yes, children who are raised in homes where Christ is honored and obeyed do tend to become Christians themselves. People tend to make choices in life consistent with what they were taught in childhood. But in the end, everyone has to choose for themselves, and God is still sovereign in salvation. And so sometimes, no matter how godly the parents, the children turn out to be anything but. And sometimes, even though we don’t do such a great job, God is gracious and the kids turn out great. The general rule still holds true, but there are exceptions. All we can do is be faithful to do what God has called us to do as parents, but we can’t absolutely guarantee the result. That’s in God’s hands.
And what about those here this morning who are not parents? Your task is to help and assist the parents in carrying out their responsibilities, just as you promised to do last week during the baby dedication. It may not take a village to raise a child, but it does take a family. The parents of this church need the help of you, their church family to train up their children in the Lord.
Finally, let me make clear what this "wisdom" and "truth" is that we are supposed to be passing on to our children. It is Jesus Christ. By that, I don’t mean that everything we teach is explicitly about His life and works. What I do mean is that all truth is God’s truth, and that all true wisdom points to Christ and leads to Christ. Because Jesus Christ is the answer to all of life’s fundamental questions. When we truly understand, for instance, what people are like, and how even the best of us are subject to sin and temptation, then we’ll realize that our only hope for peace with God is to receive it is a gift. True wisdom teaches us that we can never be good enough, and that we must receive a righteousness from outside ourselves if we are to be acceptable to God. And true wisdom tells us that Jesus Christ is the only one who can be the kind of Savior we need, at once both God and man, who gave his life in payment for our sin.
And so the goal of all our instruction is not merely to guide our children to become strong, wise, confident, capable, intelligent, mature adults. The ultimate goal is to impart what Paul calls "wisdom unto salvation."
"From infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." – 2 Timothy 3:15 (NIV)
The ultimate goal is to lead our children to faith in Christ, which is the ultimate form of human wisdom. May God grant us the privilege of doing so. Amen.
(For an .rtf file of this and other sermons, see www.journeychurchonline.org/messages.htm)
