OPEN: A man once wrote about the fact that when he was a teenager, he had a drug problem.
I was “drug” to Church on Sunday Morning.
I was “drug” to Church on Sunday night.
I was “drug” to Church on Wednesday night.
I was “drug” to Sunday School every week.
I was “drug” to Vacation Bible School.
I was “drug” to the family altar to read the Bible and pray.
I was also “drug” to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect or spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher.
Those ”drugs” are still in my veins, and they affect my behavior in every thing I do and say, and think.
APPLY: There is a lie going around.
Actually, there were people believing this lie way back when I was a boy… and perhaps for years before that. The lie? That dragging our kids to church turns them off to church. There are people who won’t “force” their kids to go church with them because they fear that result …and so the kids never, or they rarely go. And most of the time they end up without a spiritual foundation for their lives.
These same parents will force their kids to go to school.
They’ll force their kids to go the Doctor
They’ll force their kids to do their Dentist
BUT they won’t force their kids to go to church under the mistaken impression that this will somehow be better for their child.
Now let’s be honest… that’s just plain spiritual laziness.
God said: "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)
Again God says: "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)
Many avoid obeying God in this matter because they are afraid of failure. They’ve heard repeated protests that “forcing” our children to go to church, SS , and so on makes the kids embittered and angry and opposed to ever going to church ever again.
These parents are afraid of failure, and so they just don’t do it. They forget that God doesn’t command us to be successful… He commands us to be faithful.
ILLUS: But even then, the fears of these parents are mostly unfounded…
According to a report by the Evangelical Press News Service this year the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill just completed a survey that lasted for over 4 years. They surveyed a national sampling of 12th graders and found that: "Contrary to widespread stereotypes, most American teenagers are NOT alienated from organized religion, and as many as 2/3’s closely agree with the religious beliefs of their parents."
67% said their religious beliefs were mostly similar to those of their parents. While only 21% said their beliefs were mostly different or very different from their parents.
Now, what does that tell us? It tells us that at least some of those parents were faithful in training up their children and they didn’t drive their children away from the faith. In fact, most of them were highly successful in teaching their kids how to love God.
How do people do that????
Well… Psalm 78 gives us a clue (REREAD 78:1-8)
I. The first thing this text says to me, is “why”
Why should we teach our kids about God?
In Psalms 78:8, the Psalmist says the reason God’s people were told to teach their children was partly so that: "They would not be like their forefathers— a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him."
Ever since the sin in the Garden of Eden, the recurring difficulty for parents has been: How do you deal with kids who are:
· stubborn
· rebellious
· and untrustworthy
It’s been like that for centuries.
An Assyrian table written about 4700 years ago lamented: "children no longer obey their parents."
In 425 B.C. Socrates was more elaborate: “Our youth today love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect for older people. Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.”
Children who are stubborn, rebellious and untrustworthy are nothing new. In fact, God tells us “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child…” (Proverbs 22:15)
What Psalm 78 is trying to tell us is that we have a way to counterbalance these destructive tendencies. We have a way to inoculate our children against stubbornness, rebelliousness and untrustworthiness.
II. How can we do that? How can we inoculate our children against these harmful & destructive tendencies?
1st we make teaching God’s Word a priority in our homes
You can almost hear the psalmist here in Psalm 78 shout: "HEAR my teaching; LISTEN to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old — what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us. WE WILL NOT HIDE them from their children” (Psalm 78:1-4)
Now, when we think of having our children taught about God, where do we commonly think that this should be done??? (Church).
And… THAT IS part of the reason a church exists. We’re here to help you teach your children about Jesus, and faith, and righteousness… We have things like our midweek youth group (J.A.M.) for the grade schoolers. Sunday School. Senior High Youth Group. VBS. The church is here to help your children know more about God….
BUT make no mistake… THERE’S NO SUBSTITUTE (repeat a couple of times) for us teaching our OWN kids
In fact, when God commands us to teach our children, He doesn’t tell us to take them someplace where someone else can teach them.
Consider Deuteronomy 11:19 which tells us “Teach (God’s commands) 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.”
As much value as Sunday School teachers, and JAM teachers, and youth ministers and preachers can be… there is no substitute for YOU teaching your own children.
Christian families do this in various ways. Most take their children to church with them and discuss what they’ve learned in their classes and in the sermon. Some have a devotional time together each day. Some seek for a teachable moment.
ILLUS: Dean and Grace Merrill in their book Together at Home tell that…
One night at a pizza parlor, we decided to use the minutes waiting for our food as a teaching time. We passed out an index card and pencil to each child and had them write down a new memory verse: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men." (Col. 3:23).
Then we said, "Let’s watch this waitress and see what kind of worker she is. Do you think she is working with all her heart."
The kids never took their eyes off her. Their half whispered comments continued in a steady stream. "She was sure nice about bringing extra napkins." "She has to stand up all the time, and she’s not crabby."
The waitress never knew she was being scrutinized. By the end of the meal, the children not only had the Scripture nailed down, but also had done an on site study of its meaning.
Now, the reason this “hands on” approach is so vital is because our kids need to see that OUR faith is real. It’s hard for our kids to believe in what they hear at church if they sense that we (ourselves) are not all that committed to our faith at home
That’s (part of the reason) why God stresses that WE teach our children about God at every opportunity.
III. Now there is one – even more powerful – thing we need to teach our children.
The writer of Psalm 78 tells us: "We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done." (Psalms 78:4)
Did you catch that? We don’t want to get tied up with just teaching a bunch of rules and regulations - a list of “dos’ and don’ts” that they must memorize and obey. We need to communicate to our children what a privilege it is to serve a LIVING God. A God who does things:
Praise worthy deeds
Marvelous wonders
Displays of power and might.
A God that cares so much for us that He actually does mighty things.
We need to read to them the powerful stories of how God worked mightily in the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. In the lives of all the great men and women in Scripture who sometimes stood alone against terrible odds and who saw and felt the power of God.
We need to tell our kids about how God has done mighty things in our own lives. How God has interceded in miraculous ways to make our lives better and more focused.
And, we need to share the stories of how God has interceded in the lives of other people.
ILLUS: A couple of years ago, I read some stories to my son Jonathan out of a “Chicken Soup For the Soul’ book. He was so impressed that he kept asking me to repeatedly read the same stories over and over to him.
Jonathan just recently went on a long bus trip with his 4th grade class. He was all prepared with various books and pencils to occupy his time on the bus. I was intrigued to find that he had couple of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books with him. He said he’d already read most of the stories in the books but he wanted to read some of them again.
Why did these stories impress Jonathan? Because they talked of a powerful God. A God of might and mercy. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God of Daniel; and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
This isn’t so much a God to be feared… as it a God who deserves reverence and respect.
This is a God who doesn’t so much DEMAND your obedience… as He is a God who so fills you with awe that you want to obey.
This is a God you want on your side!!!
CLOSE: 8 year old Danny Dutton, from Chula Vista, California, obviously had been taught by his parents about God… For his third grade homework assignment to "Explain God" He wrote the following:
"One of God’s main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn’t make grown-ups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way, He doesn’t have to take up His valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to mothers and fathers.
God’s second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times besides bedtime. God doesn’t have time to listen to the radio or TV because of this.
Because He hears everything there must be a terrible lot of noise in His ears, unless He has thought of a way to turn it off. God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere, which keeps Him pretty busy. So you shouldn’t go wasting His time by going over your mom and dad’s head asking for something they said you couldn’t have.
Atheists are people who don’t believe in God. I don’t think there are any in Chula Vista. At least there aren’t any who come to our church.
Jesus is God’s Son. He used to do all the hard work like walking on water and performing miracles and trying to teach the people who didn’t want to learn about God. They finally got tired of Him preaching to them and they crucified Him. But He was good and kind like His Father and He told His Father that they didn’t know what they were doing and to forgive them and God said OK.
His Dad (God) appreciated everything that He had done and all His hard work on earth so He told Him He didn’t have to go out on the road anymore, He could stay in heaven. So He did. And now He helps His Dad out by listening to prayers and seeing things which are important for God to take care of and which ones He can take care of Himself without having to bother God. Like a secretary only more important.
You can pray anytime you want and they are sure to hear you because they got it worked out so one of them is on duty all the times. You should always go to Church on Sunday because it makes God happy, and if there’s anybody you want to make happy, it’s God. Don’t skip church to do something you think will be more fun like going to the beach. This is wrong! And, besides, the sun doesn’t come out at the beach until noon anyway.
If you don’t believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely, because your parents can’t go everywhere with you, like to camp, but God can. It is good to know He’s around you when you’re scared in the dark or when you can’t swim very good and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids. But you shouldn’t just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and He can take me back anytime He pleases. And that’s why I believe in God."
FINAL COMMENTS: This boy’s comments weren’t exactly theologically accurate… but there is no question about the fact that his parents had taught him that God wasn’t just a being to be feared and obeyed. The God they had told him about cared for Him… was there for him when he was lonely and in danger. This was a God who was on HIS side.
Now, most of us realize how imperfect we are. But God has trusted us with a powerful gift. The gift of being able to teach our children, or grandchildren, or our nieces and nephews about God and His majesty and love.
Some of us may be tempted to grieve over opportunities lost and over a past that has been wasted. But we must remember that we serve a merciful and compassionate God, who heals our past and restructures our future so that we can teach our children in ways we never thought possible. But, in order for us to fulfill this potential in our lives, we must first humble ourselves in the presence of this almighty and loving God. We, as the influencers of our children’s lives, must first belong to Him. That’s why we give an invitation at the end of every service for you to place your life in His hands….
