We're continuing our Suggested Topics sermon series, where we receive suggested sermon topics, and we're at number 40 now. So this is our sixth sermon, I believe, in the category of Christian Living in the Home. And the topic here is children and the first table of the law. So the question is, how do we cultivate obedience? to the first four commandments in our children especially? Do we discipline them for infractions when it comes to those commandments? And how do we teach our children to interact with other believers who have divergent practices so that we are firm but at the same time charitable? You know, like, a lot of people don't understand the Second Commandment the same way. And, you know, we would say that people are often in error about that today. So how do we navigate that? How do we work with people that are of a different mind on those things that nevertheless seem to be also Christians? So for our scripture reading, I've chosen Deuteronomy 5, where we have the Ten Commandments, and the first nine verses of Deuteronomy 6. where we have God's call to teach our children to do this very thing, to keep the first table of the law, you could say, because that first table talks about loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And Deuteronomy 6, 1-9 talks about loving God in all of our ways and teaching our children, expressly it says, teaching our children to do that. So these commandments do pertain to us and to our children. Sometimes people think those ones that have to do with God and His worship only apply to adults, but no, they apply to all. So listen now as I read this to you, beginning in Deuteronomy 5, verse 1. And Moses called all Israel and said to them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak, and you are hearing today, that you may learn them and be careful to observe them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive. The Lord talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire. I stood between the Lord and you at that time to declare to you the word of the Lord, for you are afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up to the mountain. He said, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant. nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be long and that it may be well with you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear a false witness against your neighbor, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. These words, the Lord spoke to all your assembly in the mountain, from the midst of the fire, the cloud and the thick darkness with a loud voice. And he added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. So it was, when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness while the mountain was burning with fire, that you came near to Me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders, and you said, Surely the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen this day that God speaks with man, yet He still lives. Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore, then we shall die. For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we have and lived? You go near and hear all that the Lord our God may say and tell us all that the Lord our God says to you, and we will hear and do it. Then the Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and always keep my commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever. Go and say to them, return to your tents. But as for you, stand here by me and I will speak to you all the commandments, the statutes and the judgments which you shall teach them, that they may observe them in the land which I am giving them to possess. Therefore, you shall be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess. Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. Therefore, hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you, a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 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." That is the Word of God that we have heard. So, see in our text how much God wants us to walk with Him. That's really what's going on with these commandments. God is telling us to walk with him. Our Lord Jesus Christ is saying, follow me. I did this. Follow me. He came to us to to make a covenant in which he showed us how to walk in his ways. This is a marvelous thing that God did for His people, because all people were cut off from God, and we weren't obeying Him, we weren't walking with Him. And when He redeemed a people to Himself, He came to them in His kindness, and He said, here's some instructions for you now that you have been redeemed and you desire to walk with Me. Here's guidance for you, to show you how I want you to live. God's commandments are a very gracious thing. Look at what it says in Deuteronomy 5, 1-5 again, that Moses called all Israel and said, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your hearing today. Listen, that you may learn them and be careful to observe them. We don't always think of God's law in such a friendly way as it is. He's giving us help. He's guiding us. Says the Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive. So this is something that God did in redemptive history at a certain point in that history that had not been done before. Just like when Jesus came, that had not happened until that time in history. They were looking forward to that, they were anticipating that, but it was a wonderful thing when it happened for the people that were, the people in the church at that time and those thereafter. He says, those who are here today, all of us who are alive, the Lord talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire. I stood between the Lord and you at that time to declare to you the word of the Lord, for you were afraid because of the fire and you did not go up the mountain. Now, because we come short, He reminds us right from the beginning as He gives us these commandments, He begins by reminding us that He has redeemed us. You know that He has come to us to rescue us out of bondage to sin, out of the clutches of, at that time it was Pharaoh in particular that was, of course, over them, representing Satan as well. So, Deuteronomy 5, 6, the preface to the Ten Commandments, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Why did He do that? He brought them out of bondage so that they could serve Him instead of Pharaoh, so that they could serve God. They could live according to His precepts in the land as a whole nation, as a whole people. You know, that's something we should pray for, too. Yeah, we can serve God as individuals, but we think too often only individually. It's important to think individually. If you don't do that, you're wrong. But you also need to think corporately. And we need to pray that our nation would serve and obey God, that we would be freed from bondage with leaders that are not honoring God. So we've been set free by God that we may live for Him now. He gives us his law in two tables. So that's what he's talking about, the first table and the second table. The first table is the four commandments showing us how to love God, and the second table is the six commandments showing us how to love our neighbor. Now some people have said that at that time they would often have a copy where they would have two copies that had all Ten Commandments, in other words, on each tablet. And, you know, we don't know for sure, the text doesn't tell us that, but historically it's often been referred to, and it is in our catechisms and stuff, as the first table and the second table, and it's a very good way to speak of it, and it certainly makes sense that it would be done that way. But in any case, we will refer to it in that way. So, Deuteronomy 5.22 tells us, "...these words the Lord spoke to all your assembly in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud and the thick darkness, with a loud voice. And he added, No more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me," Moses says. So, he expresses his great pleasure when God, in giving these commandments, He expresses His great pleasure to see us understand His standard, and He yearns for us to maintain that fear of Him from generation to generation, so that we all are living before the face of God and living obediently unto Him. He's delighted when we see how short we come so that we might look to His provision for us to be and do all that He wants. If we ignore his commandments, then we don't realize the depth of our need of Christ. And we go about living in kind of a fluffy way that's not really a serious walk with him. But when we see what he has called us to be and we realize, I don't love like that. I don't love my neighbor like that. I don't love God like that. Then it moves us, it pushes us, it drives us. to Christ. And so God is not displeased when they say, oh, who can come near to you? He says, yeah, this is good. He's delighted when we realize, verse 23, so it was when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness while the mountain was burning with fire that you came near to me, Moses is talking here, all the heads of your tribes and your elders, so they sent their elders to him. And you said, surely the Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire. So they were excited about that in a way. We have seen this day that God speaks with man, yet he still lives. They're marveling at his grace. When they saw the glory of God, they said, we're not fit to live. We deserve to die. And they were impressed with that. You need to be impressed with that. Verse 25. Now, therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us if we hear the voice of the Lord, our God, anymore than we shall die. For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we have and lived? So he says, you then they tell Moses, you go near and hear all that the Lord our God may say and tell us all that the Lord our God says to you and we will hear and do it. Don't worry, we'll obey. That's what they say. Then the Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me and the Lord said to me, I've heard the voice of the words of this people which have spoken to you. They are right. And all that they have spoken. God's pleased in any and then he expresses a yearning. The yearning of our dear Heavenly Father for us, His people. What does He say? Oh, that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and always keep My commandments, that it may be well with them and with their children forever. It won't go well for you if you don't fear God and keep His commandments. He yearns for us to do so. It's a beautiful expression of our Heavenly Father's grace toward us. Paul talks about pleading with us to be reconciled to God in the name of Christ, in Christ's behalf. As an apostle, an ambassador, he's properly echoing Christ's passion when he goes forward pleading and beseeching that we would come to the Lord. Notice that he wants, and this is key to what the topic is, He wants both us and our children to walk in His ways. Notice that last verse again, the bit we read, 29. Oh, that they might have such a heart in them that they would fear me and always keep my commandments that it may be well with them and with their children forever. Let's take a closer look now. at the first table of the law, which is the one that is specifically in view in the topic that we have. So in Deuteronomy 6, he emphasizes the main thing, that we love him, that we love the Lord our God. The standard is to love God with all of our being. That's not so complicated, is it? But it's not so easy to do. To love God, that whatever we do, that we love God. That's what it's talking about. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. It's not a whole bunch of different gods that you love this one one day and that one the next day. You kind of pick which one you want to love that day. like a guy with a bunch of wives or something, you know, Solomon, which one of the thousand am I going to go and see today? No, there's one God. You shall love the Lord your God then with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, Now sometimes it just says heart, soul, and mind, or sometimes it says heart, soul, mind, and strength. That's not the big issue. We can go through and look at those different things. We've done that before. But the real thing here is all of you, everything about you, you love God, your mind, your will, your affections, all of it. Notice how he emphasizes teaching this to our children again, Deuteronomy 7. You shall teach them diligently to your children. The first table. Specifically about loving God. I wonder how often as parents do we actually consciously do that? You know, we think about, oh, you know, you didn't put your shoes away. You need to obey your parents. Well, that's true. Parents said put your shoes away and you didn't put your shoes on. That's true. But what's the issue? You didn't love God. You need to love God. That's what we're always to be directing them to. It's not just the world's values, right? Which only is on this level, not this level. The world's values is just like show respect to your neighbor, you know, that kind of stuff. It comes out different ways, you know, but sometimes the world's values are not even that that good. But it doesn't have anything to do with the most high God, because they don't fear God. They don't know God. So we're to love him in all of our activities. Look at six, seven is it continues and shall talk of them Talk of them to your children. When you sit in your house. Okay, sometimes we're sitting around the house, right? When you walk by the way. Sometimes you're going somewhere. You might say when you're driving in the car. They walked, we drive. Same kind of idea, you're going here and there. When you lie down. So it's night time. Everybody's settling down. Evening time. Hey, you know, how did it go with God today? Let's give thanks to Him. Lie down when you rise up. Get up in the morning. God has given us a day. We're here to honor Him. We look to see, how can I love God today? What does He call me to do today? How can I please Him today? And to love Him is what we do. with our hands. Our hands are the thing that are busy doing things. We write, we hand people things, we carry things about, we do all kinds of things. He says, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand. So, your activities. And the way that you look at everything. With what lens do you look at everything? with a lens of loving God, of rejoicing. You look at a beautiful sunset and you give thanks to your father? Or do you just see the sunset? You know, everything that you look at, how do you look at problems in life? Is it, how can I honor God? Or is it, oh, this problem, oh, this keeps happening to me all the time. And you're not even, God's not even in view at all. How do you look at stuff? She'll be as frontlets between your eyes. The Jews foolishly took this into a literal way and put little boxes with passages. That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about our life is about loving God. All that we do. And how you use your property. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. My property is for God. I use my property to love God. And that can mean using it to bring pleasure and happiness to my children. Even to me, you know, we glorify God when we have like Proverbs talks about, you have beautiful things in your house that you cherish, but you just have the beautiful things in your house that you cherish or do you cherish them as God's good gifts is an expression of his kindness and of something of that represents his beauty as beautiful things do is God in the picture. That's that's what this is talking about. This is what we want for us and for our children. This is what God wants. And he says, if you don't if you don't go here, then it's not going to go well for you. You need to see that God is in the picture. Remember what we saw with faith? Faith sees things that are not visible. The world doesn't see God. Now, they kind of do. They can't avoid Him. They bump into Him everywhere. But they don't pay attention. Like I was talking about before, they look at problems and it's just like, oh, it's another problem. They're not thinking about that they're before God. We need to do that. Let's take a look at the commandments that explain how this love is exhibited. Okay, the first table. The first commandment, have no other gods but Him. Love Him only. You shall have no other gods before me. There's nothing else to be put in the place of God. As redeemed people, you and your children are able to worship and serve the true God as God, and to live for Him. Don't treat anything else as God. Jesus told us that you're to hate your father and mother, and your own life, and your wife or husband. What he meant by that is not, of course, he wasn't telling us that the commandment love your neighbor. That was not true. He wasn't saying that he was saying when it comes to choosing between God and them. You love God. You know, you hate them in the sense of you don't do what they want. You do what God wants. Do nothing that displeases him. Put neither yourself nor anyone else or anything else in the place that belongs to God alone. He's the only God. If you make something else to be God, then you've made an idol, a first commandment breaking idol. He is God and you are restored to him. So you have him now as your God. Second commandment, worship him and approach him the way he wants. Deuteronomy 5, 8 through 10. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. That was the most common way that people perverted what God has revealed. They would make, in that time especially, they would make visible images of God, and then they would worship those, and the images would show different attributes of God, and they would try to use that, and they said, oh, this is really helpful for me. Well, no, it's not helpful, because God says that's not the way I want to be made known. That's not the way I want to be revealed. I want to be revealed the way that I have revealed myself, and it's not in that way. So don't do that. And you see, people can come up with all kinds of different innovations about how they can connect better with God. No, the way we connect best with God is the way that he's revealed himself. And, you know, largely it's through the Word, His Word He has put above all His name, it says in the scripture. God's name is how He makes Himself known. He uses especially Word revelation to us. Of course, Jesus came down and dwelt among us, but how do we learn about Jesus? We were given epistles and gospels that reveal Him in the Word of God. So God says, he goes on, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God. So you're making these images, and they're not really like me, because you don't know me, what I'm like, and you pervert and twist things and make distortions of me that I don't approve of you saying I'm like that silly idol that you made. Because I'm not really like that. So don't do that. He says that he visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of the third and fourth generation of those that hate me. Interesting, why does he say hate me? Because people that do that show that they don't like God. I'm gonna represent God the way I think is better than the way he represented himself, because I don't really like him the way he represented, and who's that gonna affect more than anybody? It's gonna affect your children. because they'll look at those representations and that's how they'll think of God. Maybe it's more comfortable for our particular mindset that we have today to look at God this way or that way, so we shave off things about God and we add other things that we think are better. We'll make him enhanced a little bit more, make him more appealing, more attractive, and we present it to our children. They're gonna embrace that. Like when you have idolatry, they're gonna embrace the idols. John Calvin said our heart is an idol factory. So he says, visiting the iniquity of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those that hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. God says to us, it's important how you approach me. Don't approach me based on the traditions of men. What did he say happens when you approach him? What did Jesus say happens when you approach God on the basis of the traditions of men? He said that you make the commandments, the actual things that God says about him, you make them null, you make them ineffective because you are representing him in another way. Understand, the second commandment is different than the first commandment. The first commandment kind of idolatry is when you make a different God, like maybe you make a God out of your wealth or out of your spouse or something like that, and you treat those things as God. You have another God instead of God. Maybe it's just another God that, you know, like a demon or something like that, that you worship instead. And Paul says that when the Gentiles offer sacrifices to their God that they are serving demons that are happy to occupy that place. And second commandment idolatry is different because second commandment idolatry is where you're still, it's still God But you're misrepresenting him in a way you could say it's not God. I mean, when it goes far enough, it becomes another God. But initially it's like you're tweaking how God has revealed himself. You're revealing himself in the way you want. You're changing the worship of God into what you think is is good. And so so we we alter these things. We distort God because we say that. He is to be worshiped and approached in a way that he has not given us to worship him and approach him. What has he told us that we're to use? We're to preach the word. We're to read the word. We're to sing the praises that he has given us with simplicity. We're to approach him in prayer in the name of Christ. And we're to, in the New Testament times, engage in the sacraments that he has given us. When we change these things, when we add to them, then we're breaking the second commandment. So throughout the history of the world, this has been a constant temptation for God's people, more than anything, to modify His worship. Read the Old Testament. What does God say? Faithful people otherwise, but they keep worshiping at the high places. Why do they worship at the high places all the time? It was kind of hard because there was only one place where sacrifices were supposed to be offered. Where was that? At the central sanctuary, wherever God put his name. It was at Jerusalem, of course, after they were settled in the land. And so people would scratch their heads and say, well, we want to do sacrifices nearby, so we can do them regularly. And there's this mountain here, that would be a good place to put an altar, and we can do a sacrifice there. And everybody's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do that. And they were always going and worshiping at the high places. And that was the second commandment in idolatry, when they worshiped God there. But then, of course, sometimes they would worship other gods, like Baal. That would be the first commandment kind of idolatry, when they did that. But we must teach our children how the true God wants us to approach Him. And we're told, Deuteronomy 12, for example, don't add to it, and don't take away from it. Just do what He's told us to do in the time in which we live. It's different in the New Testament than the Old Testament. How we're to approach him, because now Jesus has come. We have a gospel good news about what he did to preach, rather than ceremonies that represent his coming that we engage in. The third commandment, we revere him. We love him by respecting him as our holy God. Deuteronomy 511 says, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Okay, so we must teach our children to show reverence for God. To have respect for His name. Not ever using His name or the things that He has revealed in a careless kind of a way. Because they're holy things. Not taking it upon ourselves to flippantly curse or bless something using his name is if we have control of that. We can't pronounce damnation on something that God has not cursed. We cannot pronounce blessing on something that God has not blessed. So we don't go around just throwing out blessings and curses all over the place, as if we had authority to make God conform to whatever we want to bless, whatever we want to curse. Kind of saw something of that in a way with the passage we looked at this morning with Isaac. even showing respect for his word in the way that we speak about it, too. Our children need to learn from the start that God is holy and is to be regarded as holy. When we worship him, we need to be reverent. We need to be both joyful and reverent. In the fourth commandment, keep his day, love to be with him the time that he appointed, every Lord's Day. Exodus stresses remembering God as creator on that day. But did you notice Deuteronomy emphasizes something else? Remembering Him as Redeemer on that day. So we do both. It was initially, Sabbath was initially established to remember God as Creator, but then after He redeemed His people out of Egypt, then of course on the day that they come together to be with God, they're going to remember Him as Redeemer. Probably even more than they remember Him as Creator. They're going to do both. And when Jesus came, Then we remember him as the one who redeemed us through his son, Jesus Christ. And that was such a huge thing that the very day was changed to the day that he rose from the dead from the day that God rested after he made the world. So that was a that was a huge thing. So after the people came out of Egypt, then their primary focus was was on God, their Redeemer, their special in the world by that. And now it has become Christ, our Redeemer. So we teach our children to gather for worship on that day. We teach them to consider God, to walk with him, to learn of him, to spend their day, you know, really in the presence of God, serving him, being with his people, praying to him. Okay, so how do we, being sinners, teach our children, also sinners, to do these things? Well, we show them the standard. We teach them what is required, and we talk to them about how good and lovely it is. We say, this is the way that God wants us to show our love to Him. We have Him as our God, whom we love and trust. We approach Him in worship in the way that He has established. We remember, we reverence him as holy and the one who blesses and curses. And we remember his day when we gather for worship and receive his blessing through his ordinances. We lead them to the one who perfectly kept these commandments. That's the next thing to do. So we show them the standard. And then we lead them to the one who perfectly kept this standard, the Lord Jesus Christ. We speak of his example as it is seen in the Gospels. We talk of him as he is revealed to us page after page in the Psalms, the righteous man. He is that righteous man that God delights in, the righteous man in Psalm 1, who doesn't walk in the counsel of the ungodly, who doesn't turn aside. He's a lovely one. We show how he put God first so much that in obedience to the Father, he went to the cross. God's servants and worshipers and spirit and truth, you know, that we might become God's servants and God's worshipers and spirit and truth. how beautiful His life, how beautiful was His love, is His love for the Father and His Father's love for Him. So that's the second thing we do. We teach them the standard, we show them the standard keeper, delight in Him, and then we correct them when they don't do this, and we show them their sin. We should often speak not only of their failure to love other people, but also that they have not loved God. But putting other things by putting other things in his place to serve and honor more than him or instead of him by careless worship. To come before him without reverence. We taught our children that, you know, there's different activities, different, different ways that are appropriate for different times. You come to God to worship him, you act one way. When you come to, when you go to the playground, you act another way. And life has a lot of variety. There's different things that you do. And then to, that they should not forget to regard his special day as a day of worship and feasting. we lead them to our gracious triune Redeemer. Okay, so the first thing there, the big first thing is showing them the standard. It has those three things under it. Okay, teaching them what is required and showing them the one that perfectly kept it and correcting them when they go wrong. Now, what else do we do? The next big thing, we lead them to our gracious triune Redeemer. To the Father who calls us and yearns for us, as we saw, he yearns for us. Oh, that they might have a heart to fear me, to do and to live in this beautiful way that he has given us to live. He said, you know, oh, that they might have a heart in them to keep my commandments. We bring them to the sun. who came that we might be pardoned and justified. So not only setting Him forth as the model and the standard, but also the one that came to secure our pardon. We teach them to come to Him when they have sinned, and to ask for mercy through His cross. And we teach them not to boast in their own goodness, but to rest in His righteousness, because you're not like Jesus, are you? Do you love God the way Jesus did? Do you love your neighbor the way Jesus did? No. Well, let's look to Him and rest in His righteousness. He did that for us. He represents us. That's what we need to be, and in Him what we are as we go forward before God. Yes, Jesus has done the righteous living for us, and He has suffered sin for us, for our sins, so that we can come to God Knowing that everything's taken care of, we're cleansed, our children must see that they come short, but that even though they do, Jesus never does. And we can come to God with him to represent us and atone for our sins and be fully accepted by God. We have more reason to think that we're accepted than the people who offered the blood of bulls and goats because they can't really take away sin. We know what takes away our sin. He's come. He's been revealed. We preach the good news. If your children don't know the good news, they're not going to be able to love God. There's no way. And then we bring them to the Holy Spirit who enables us to live for God by Him. The Holy Spirit's work is not to pardon or to represent us as righteous before God. That's what Jesus does. But the Spirit's role is to strengthen us and enable us to be able to understand what God wants, to convict us of our sin and help us to see how we need to change, and then to enable us to actually make that change, to go from what we are to what we're called to be. So when our children see their sin and how they come short in loving God, we want them to look to God's Spirit to change them. We don't want to leave them with a hopeless task. How can they change themselves? They can't. Look to God. He'll change you. Okay, so next thing we want to look at is how do we teach our children to deal with those who are ignorant of the first table? This is a difficult problem. Children who are taught to observe the first table will, of course, encounter other children and encounter adults who are ignorant of God's will. They will see friends and relatives worshiping in ways that God has not appointed. Maybe they are even in a church or something, but they're worshiping in ways that God has not appointed. Maybe they're ignoring the Sabbath. Maybe they don't even regard it at all. They will see his name used irreverently. And sometimes seeing these sins will cause our children to go around with pride, you know, pointing out and calling the failures, calling out the failures of others. You can help them. to learn how to minister to others in a more helpful way than that, and to put away self-righteousness and pride. How? Well, we must show them that even though they may know the truth, they still come short, as we, their parents, do. Therefore, we have no grounds to be proud. How can you be proud when you know God's standard? If you really know God's standard, you're like the people were when, don't let God come near us because we'll be destroyed. Without a Redeemer, right? Without a Redeemer, we'd be destroyed. In Romans 2, Paul rebukes the Jews for supposing that they were superior to other people because they knew God's law. He says, so you're boasting because you know God's law, but you don't keep it. And you're saying, well, we know what God wants. And those Gentiles over there, they don't know what God wants. He's saying, yeah, big deal. You know it, but you don't do it. So if you know it and don't do it, how are you better than they are? You're worse. Knowing it and not doing it is worse than not even knowing it. So we talk to our children about how we struggle With these commandments that we know, we embrace other gods. We put other things in the place of God. We don't perfectly observe God's appointed worship. We do not treat him and his ordinances as holy and revere him the way we should, his name. We don't keep the Sabbath as we should. We don't have that devotion for God. We can't even sustain a day with him. That's why we need Jesus and his spirit to help us. We tell our children that. That's why we need Christ. That's why we need the Holy Spirit. That's why he gave us these things. We must instruct them that the church as a whole is in very low times. And that many people are ignorant and confused about the first table. That our goal is to lead the lost to God through Jesus, our Savior. And that we want to teach our children to lead others to Jesus. To talk of him to them and to bring them to church. That our goal is to help other believers who are ignorant come to a knowledge of God's ways that includes not only thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and so on, but also have no other gods before me, and remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. So we begin with a humble example that recognizes our own struggles And when we're in that position, that posture, then we're able to go to others in a gracious way as one sinner coming to another sinner, a sinner who is redeemed, maybe coming to a sinner who is not redeemed, but one who knows that the only reason that he's any different is because he's been redeemed, coming to them and appealing to them about what we're trusting in and looking to in order to walk with God and have communion with Him. It's a whole different attitude than that judgmental, why are they doing it? Look at them, look at those people over there, what are they doing? That kind of a thing. Yeah, we can lament and we can see the sin and how it's expressions that go so strong sometimes and so, in such blatant ways, but we come and we realize, that's me too. If I was judged on the basis of how I keep any of these commandments, I wouldn't be able to stand. That's what the people saw, isn't it? That's what we read about in Deuteronomy five. And God said it's good that they see it this way because that's the way it really is. And then they fear me and they know that they need me as a redeemer. That's how it works. Then we can come in the right way. The overall goal. is to be like Christ and that that through Christ they might love the Lord, their God. With all their heart, soul, mind and strength, that that's what this table, this first table, the law is all about. And so we need God's grace to give us wisdom as parents is it's a difficult thing for us and for them. but God will help us and we'll be able more and more to live in the way that his people ought to live. So please stand and let's call on the name of the Lord. Lord God, we have looked at your word this afternoon and we've seen what it calls us to do. It calls us to love you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, us and our children. And Father, we know that we do come short of that, but we thank you that there is a Redeemer, Jesus, our Savior, who has done that. And not only has he done it, he's done it for us as our representative. So when we come to you, we come under his representation. Say, yeah, he represents me. And not only does he represent us in that way, he also represents us because we did incur a great penalty for sinning against you. And we thank you that he has borne that penalty for all of his people as well. And so we come to you, Lord, humbly in his name. We don't come as proud people who we're the commandment keepers and those are the commandment breakers, but we come as fellow commandment breakers, but who are redeemed. And we come, Lord, wanting to more and more grow up into the grace of obedience. And we pray that you would help us to do that and that we would be able to teach our children to do that and to do it with the right attitude. Father, please, please, please help us to teach our children Lord, I pray for some of the parents that are not here among us this afternoon. There are many that are not here. And I yearn for those parents in our church, Father. I pray that they would be able to hear the words that have been preached, that You would use them in their lives. And help us, Lord, who are here, to encourage those that are not. Father, we need Your Word. We need You. Father, deliver us that we may rejoice before You. For, Lord, You have shown us such great things about yourself. And you've shown us our savior, your son. And it's in his name that we come near to you and that we have all of our hope. Pour out your spirit on your people. Transform your people. Give your people a heart for you. Whether we sit down. Whether we lie down. We rise up. When we walk by the way. Lord, we look to you that we may love you. Every single thing that we do, every single thing that we think, the way we look at things with our eyes, what we do with our hands, where our feet go, everything about us. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. So receive now the blessing of your Lord. The Lord bless you out of Zion and may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. Yes, may you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel.