Tonight we're going to be talking about the topic of parenting. Parenting 101. And I know you're probably looking at me and thinking this guy is not even 30, and you're right. And he's willing to talk to me about parenting. I do have a son, so at least I'm a parent, so that's about where I start right there. But I want us to look at the Word of God tonight, because that has the eternal truths in it. And that's where we can gain the knowledge from the Word of God on how to be the parents that God wants us to be. And I understand tonight that we have more than just parents in here. We have grandparents in here. We have brothers, sisters, college age, just people who are single. And so we want to look and try to try to generalize some of these principles here from one of the most well-known passages of the Old Testament. Deuteronomy, chapter six, verse four, is where we'll begin reading tonight. The word of God says here, O Israel. The Lord, our God, is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest down, when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and on thy gates. So I want to look very quickly tonight at just three points that we can glean from this passage. And when we're talking about parenting, these points, the first two are the foundation points of which the third point will then grow out of. And you'll see what I mean in just a second. But point number one tonight, I want to look at from verses four and five is very simply love God with all your heart. Love God with all your heart. The verse begins in verse four. It says here, oh, Israel prophet here was talking to all of Israel wasn't just parents. And that's a very important part when we look at raising children. It's the entire job of this whole church in here to help raise the next generation as Sunday school teachers, as just being the kind of example of a godly man, of a godly woman, of being a parent. It's on all of us. It's not just on the youth pastor, the youth worker, and the parents. It's on our church as a whole to pray for, to come alongside, to help. And so as the verse begins, hear, O Israel, everyone, listen up, the Lord our Lord The Lord our God is one Lord. This phrase here was basically you could call it the creed of the Jews. This is what they said. It said that we only have one God amongst all the people of the time, of the land of that time that had multiple gods. They worshiped many gods. They were polytheists. So it meant that we only have one God and our God is one, the Trinity, the three in one. And so that was their creed that they hung on to, that we embrace the same exact thing today. And that's the very foundation of what we're supposed to believe about the word of God. And I look at this in verse five, it says, And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. Jesus. In the New Testament, quoted this same phrase, and he called it the Great Commandment in Matthew 22, 37, Jesus said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. Now, if you're going to teach something, you need to know what you're supposed to teach. And it begins right here. It begins with the character of the teacher. You see, when we come to the Word of God, and especially as we come as parents, as people who are trying to train the next generation, we have to, first of all, have a love for God in our own lives. I know that seems very fundamental, very just basic. And it's just like, yeah, I understand that. But does your life show, mom? Does your life show, dad, that you have a love for God? What are your priorities? You know, if you were to sit your children down and say, kids, do you really think that I have a love for God? What would they say? And if you were to say, kids, give some examples of some way that you think daddy or you think mommy loves God. How do we show that to you from our lives that we have a love for God and listen to their answers, listen to what they would say? Because it's foundational right here that a parent, first of all, know God and salvation and that they have the single focus of their life that is one that pursues after God wholeheartedly. I've been reading a book by youth pastors, a youth pastor for over 20 years, and he made this comment. He said all too often in youth ministry, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of challenging teens to pursue a God that their parents are not pursuing. To love a God supremely with whom their parents love only casually, or perhaps trying to lead a teenager to a life of full commitment to Christ when at home they're being taught more of a nonchalant commitment. You see, broadly speaking, Strong, biblical, Christ-honoring teenagers come from homes where there are parents that are Christ-honoring parents, parents that are growing, parents that have a love for God. It didn't work when you were a kid, and it still doesn't work today when you hear the phrase, do as I say, not as I do. We have to, of our own lives, we have to model love for God. And that's the foundation of where this passage begins. It says thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all their might, with everything that you have. The Bible wanted to be clear. Everything that's inside of you. Love God. Parents, do you love God, or do you see church as just a place that you get a tie, a coat on, a dress on, whatever the case is. You show up, and you come, and you mingle with friends, and then you go home. That isn't church. We come to church so we can worship. And if you're a believer here today, you have a spiritual gift, and you come so you can use that gift, so that you can edify the other believers of Christ, you can encourage other people, and by doing so, you can build the body of Christ. We need to be parents. We need to be a generation overall, broadly speaking, that is hoping the next generation grow in their love for God. And that begins with our lives. How are you growing in your love for God is the question we need to be asking ourselves. I'm going to spend a lot of time on point number three. So let's move on to point number two tonight. We're supposed to love God with all your heart. Number two is know God's word and live it. know God's Word and live it. As I was going through this passage and just kept pouring over and over through it, I wanted to make the points just as clear as they can be, just so basic so that we can remember them. Verse six says this, and these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. I took this passage and I put it all in blue and I took the words that were thy or thine or my all the pronouns that were possessives that talked about ownership and I put those in black. I wanted to see for these first three verses specifically how many times before it ever talks about in verse seven about teaching them diligently. It's so many times talks about what the parents, what the current generation is supposed to do and their own lives towards God before they even try to do what's in verse seven, which is talking about teaching them diligently. And it comes back down to first of all, we're supposed to love God and we're supposed to know God's word. The Bible says in the last part of verse six that these words talking about the words of God shall be in your heart. You know, a lesson that comes from the mind is received from the mind, it's been said, but one that comes from somebody's life receives and it impacts that life that receives it. It's the idea of life on life. You know something, as we read God's Word, and especially as parents, we need to be in it every single day. You can't let a day go by that you're not hearing the Word of God, because this tells us how to train, how to raise the next generation. It tells us the responsibilities that we have. And you know something that's interesting, as your kids come to you and they say, Mom, Dad, or Sunday school teacher, I'm struggling with this particular sin. Can you help me? Well, as I've been preaching through Galatians and Ephesians and the book of Proverbs and James and reading through those books a whole lot lately, those same sins that we see in the lives of our teenagers are the exact same sins that are in our lives. We struggle with the sin of lying when it comes to not telling the complete truth. Not necessarily saying something that's not true, but just withholding part of the truth. Because in doing so, it makes us look better. We don't get embarrassed. We struggle with the sin of lying. We struggle with the sin of gossiping. We struggle with the sin of lust. We struggle with the sin of anger, of getting mad in an unbiblical way, with bitterness. These same sins that when you go to youth camp in the summertime with the wilds, that they preach on a whole lot that we try to preach in our pulpits are the same sins that we as adults struggle with. Not much changes. The devil knows what gets people. He knows what bait to put out there that we're going to go after every single time. And there's still going to be a hook in there to hook us with it. Let me encourage you to do this. When you are struggling with something, go to the Word of God. Even open up the back of your Bible, look up the word, if you're thinking of the word anger and you've got a problem with it, look up the word anger and try to find the verses that talk about anger. See how the Word of God deals with it. Get a book that'll help you, a spiritual book that'll help you go through and deal with the sin of anger. Because you've got somebody that's younger than you, maybe not shorter than you. A lot of times teenagers grow so fast nowadays and so tall. But somebody is younger than you that are looking up to you and they want to come to you and be able to say, mom, dad, whoever, can you help me with this particular sin of my life? And when you can say, you know what? I have struggled with this sin. Let me tell you from God's word. Let me show you some verses that I've been memorizing. Let me show you humbly how God has dealt with this in my life, how He has helped me. Let me show you some tips from the Word of God, some practical things that I have done that's really helped me as I've tried to live in obedience each day about this sin in my life. The Bible says that these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. Mom, dad, adult, Whoever here that is older than the teenagers here, even the other children that are here tonight, you are an example. Whether it's a good example or a bad example, you are still an example. Is your life word-filled? Colossians 3, it says that let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. We need to be able to know God's Word so that it can change our lives. So that we will have a greater love for God. Because we can't do what point number 3 talks about. Until we have those two foundational truths locked down in our hearts, that first of all, we only have one love and that is God and that we want to know God's word and live it out. You know, kids can see through lies they can see through hypocrisy. They can see right through that we want to have lives that are sincere, that are genuine, not just because we don't want people to call us a hypocrite, but because we should we should have that because of our love for God. And because we want to get to know his word better. Point number three tonight, we're going to camp out here the rest of the night. It's found in verses seven through nine. And it says this, And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Verse seven here, it talks about teaching Thou shalt teach them diligently unto your children." Those things, those two principles of loving God and knowing God's Word, having it in your heart, those are the two things that you take that are in your life that should, from the overflow of your life, be what you teach. You have a love for God. Are you teaching that to your children? Are you cultivating in them a taste for the things of God? Does your life show that you are in God's Word, that you love God's Word? Parents and adults in here, people should be able to walk in your house and sit on the coffee table or on the end tables by your couches. Spiritual books, they should see your Bible there, hopefully, a piece of paper and a pen with things you've been writing down that you are learning from God so that you won't forget about those things. You should walk into people's house, maybe it might be in their office in their study, But you should find the Word of God in there open or with notes beside it where there's been some homework going on. Homework because our lives need work. And our children should be able to walk up to us and say, wow, you know, my mom, my dad, my Sunday school teacher doesn't think that they've arrived at all. I know that they're my authority. I'm supposed to honor them, but they're on this same journey that I'm on of trying to look more like Jesus Christ. And they've got a lot more years on them than I do. Maybe I can ask some wisdom from them. They should be able to come to you and say, you know what? I see my parents in the word of God. When I come to them and I ask them a question, I hope that they won't just give me their opinion, but that they can open up God's word and say, here's how you can deal with this sin. Here's how you can deal with this difficult situation at school. Let me show you an illustration of scripture where somebody like Daniel had to take a stand and you can just open up your Bible. And I'm not saying all of you should be pastors. All of you should just be this great master theologian. No, but what does the Bible tell us to do? It says that we should know God's Word. It should be in our hearts, lived out in our lives, so that when we go to teach them, we just won't say, you know, this is just what pastor said, which is good. But we need to be able to say in my life, from what I see in God's Word, here's something how we can get together, how we can pray about this decision together, how we can seek God's wisdom for this. The Word diligently. Here, it means to sharpen, to wet, to repeat, to wet in the idea of sharpening something. I remember when I was younger, my dad, he had this whetstone in the kitchen just about this big and maybe about an inch and a half thick. We put some water on it. We take out our pocket knives and we would just take that blade and run it across that whetstone time and time and time again, just on one side. until you saw a little edge of metal begin to curl up on the blade. Then you know it was time to flip it over to the other side. And then you bring it back over and over and over. Teach them diligently. It's like you're sharpening a knife. You don't pull a knife out of your pocket, open it up and go, and think you're done. That knife is still dull. It takes time and time and time. It takes saying no and no. And I've told you no. And we've got a 13 month at home at home right now. Sometimes no just doesn't get it. It's just like we tried some right now. Don't touch our fan because he wants to go up to this big fan and pull it over. It's going to hurt himself. And so as he wants to touch it with his right hand, we pull his right hand back and say no. He goes with his left hand. We pulled his left hand back and about a month ago, Rebecca pulled both arms back and he reaches out with his foot, 13 months old. And I'm not exaggerating. When she pulled his foot back, he leaned forward with his head. This is a strong willed child and we're just trying to work with him on this. But it's repeated. It's over and over and over again. Wouldn't it be great if we could just tell somebody one thing one time and say, OK, I'm done. It's over with. I mean, you could have your teenagers, you could have your kids train about a week and you'd be done. You could just sit back like, OK, you know, I can retire from this job at this point. It's not what the Bible says. It says, teach them diligently over and over. Take that knife and sharpen it and sharpen it. Once it's used, it gets dull. You have to bring it back, sharpen it again and again and again. It's repeated action. And you know what? That can get on your nerves at times when you're tired. We have to be patient. But think about our relationship with our Heavenly Father and how many times He convicts our hearts about the same sin over and over and over again. And he's patient. And he says, I'm not giving up on you. I'm not finished yet. We need to go again another time and another time on this side, because it's not done yet. And once Christ finishes working our heart on that specific area, flips over to the other side and comes back with another thing that the Lord is trying to teach us in our lives. That is the Christian walk. It's from the day we die, it's becoming more like Jesus Christ. We're supposed to teach them diligently. Whose responsibility is this? It says, and thou capitalize, you can throw it out there real big and bold and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. The first responsibility it lays to is the parents. It's not the youth pastor's job to become in place of the parents. That's not my job to take the parents' place. I'm here to try to uphold what godly parents are trying to do, to try to support their arms as they're holding up what the Word of God is. I'm coming alongside them, Lord willing, hopefully saying the same message that they're trying to say, because we're coming from the same book, the Word of God. So my job is not to replace them, it's to support them, and to support the pastor here and what he is saying. So we're supposed to teach and teach them diligently over and over repeatedly. How do we do this? How are we supposed to teach our kids? One way that we do this is let me let me follow up one thing here. One thing you can ask your kids is when you're teaching your kids and you're trying to teach them the truth and the word of God. Maybe just start with one verse. Have your family memorize that verse together and go through all the words of it. I mean, really dissect this thing. Get a good study Bible, maybe a commentary off the shelf. There's a lot of free ones online, like a program called Esort. You can get some very basic commentaries and you can be able to understand God's Word. You can open it up and you can memorize that verse together. Maybe in your home, the tongue is a problem. And you can take Ephesians 429. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of thy mouth. You can just start with memorizing just that one phrase if you've got young kids to begin with. And they'll work throughout the rest of that verse. And memorize that verse as a family together. Verses 7 through 8 tell us the how. How are we supposed to teach them? It says, And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them. You're supposed to talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way. The phrase here, by the way, is something that really captured my attention. It just basically means any old time. You know, there were so many times that lessons that I learned about life were taught while I was with my dad and my brother. And there were three bobbers floating in the water beside a lake that we were just sitting on the bank with some Coke cans sitting there. We're drinking Coke and chewing bubble gum. Our joke was whoever caught the first fish got the extra two pieces of bubble gum. They came in packs of five back then. There was three of us. So you kind of got those extra two pieces. That was the incentive. But it was just one of those down times, where my dad didn't sit us down and put us in front of two chairs right in front of him in his office and say, okay, sons, now I'm going to teach you. No, he said, let's go out, let's have a good time. And on the car right there, and the car on the way back, while we're there, there was an opportunity for teaching. When questions just come out of the blue, And parents, we have to be ready for those kind of questions. We need to be in the Word. Again, I keep emphasizing that, but you cannot be in the Word enough. For when those questions come, you'll have answers. And don't be afraid to say, I don't know, but I will get back to you on that one. And go home, get in the Word of God, maybe call a pastor, maybe call up a godly counselor that you have and say, my son, my daughter's asking me this question. Can you help with some advice on that? Go to your godly counselors, get that advice, and then get back to them. It would be a great thing if your kids would consider you as their parents, you as their Sunday school teacher, the godly counselors in their lives, that when they have the questions that just are just wracking their soul, wracking their minds and trying to figure out what am I supposed to do here, that they feel the freedom that they can come to you, mom, that they can come to you, dad, and that they can get an answer and they're not just going to get pushed off. And those questions usually come when it's not the most convenient time. My dad is somebody who likes to be in bed by about 10 o'clock, sometimes 9.45 depending on the day. There was times as a teenager I knew that I needed to ask my dad something. And just because a basketball game is getting home late, the first time I could see him would be about 9.45. I knew that wasn't the greatest time to ask my dad questions, but sometimes I'd come in, I'd just sit on his bed and I'd just be like, Dad, you asleep? Not anymore. OK, can I ask you a question since we're both here now in the dark and that you're trying to sleep? And did he really want to carry on a 30 minute conversation? No. But just about every single time, he'd kind of sit up in bed and say, what's on your mind, son? And I felt that freedom that I could go to my dad and I could talk to him and I could just have that godly counselor there. And that parents, that ought to be your goal, that your kids feel that kind of an openness with you, that those times that are by the way, whether it's a boring time, whether you're stuck in traffic, Whether you're cleaning a house together, whatever the case is, that you're ready and that your ears are open, that they're in tune for those kind of questions. A good way is not to just have your kids come home from school, sit them down and say, OK, how was school today? How are your friends? Are your friends godly friends? What are your friends like? What are their Facebook pages look like? And you start on this whole list and say, OK, now we're done. Now you can go outside and play. Getting to know your children, being able to teach them is by thinking of creative ways to kind of ask them some of these questions to say, hey, you know, maybe bounce it off of them. We've been talking about friends the last two Sundays in Sunday school. Ask them, you know, son, daughter, what do you think makes a godly friend? What are some of the characteristics? You're going to get some answers. And the answers that they get are probably the same qualities that they look for in their friends. You need to tell your kids how the Bible applies to their lives right now. We need to create that hunger in the next generation that whenever they have a problem, that they know where the answer is. And the only way that they can be confident that the answers are right in here is when they come to parents, when they come to Sunday school teachers, that we can be able to open up the Word of God and show them where the answers are. We can't just say, yeah, the Word of God is every answer, you know, go find it. We need to teach them how to use this tool of the word of God, how to love God more. And parents, a couple of practical things here. You need to tell your kids what your expectations are for them. You need to tell them what your expectations are. There's been times even in the short six months here that I wonder if the teenagers and if their parents have the same expectations that the teens put on themselves and that they think the parents are putting on them. I wonder at times you need to sit down and go through your kids and say, you know, here's some here's some godly expectations from the word of God. You know, it might be that your son or your daughter isn't meant to just to be this great athlete. Maybe they're good at it. Maybe they're good at sports, but that might not be the one passion of their heart. You know, dad, be careful. Don't shove that down their throats if they don't want to do it. The Bible doesn't say they have to be this great star in whatever sport, soccer or something like that. You need to put the expectations up there, out there saying, do you want to be a godly young man? You want to be a godly young woman? And by your life, you need to be able to say, follow my steps, because I'm trying to be that godly man, that godly young woman. If you follow me as I'm following God's word, you're going to be on the right path because I'm on the right path. Three things here as we close out to just some practical points. First of all, guard your teams, guard your teams from the world, from ungodly friends and influence and from sin. I want to borrow illustration from Dr. Yusra that he gave just a couple of months ago in the school, and I thought it was great for parenting. When talking about raising children, he compared it to building a ship. You don't take a ship and try to build it out in the middle of the ocean where all the waves are, when the wind is coming up and beating against it and you're trying to put boards together, you're trying to raise the mast, you're trying to connect sails to all the parts of the ship and get it sea ready. You build a ship in the harbor where it's safe, where it's protected, where it's protected from the major storms of nature. That way you can take your time. You can put the boards in place. You don't have to rush this idea of parenting that, you know what, they need to be in the world because they're going to they need to realize what the real life is like. We know what they're going to experience, what real life is like one day. But at this time in life, even as teenagers, even up through some of the college years, we need to protect them as much as we can. I don't mean put them in a bubble, but we need to keep certain things, certain temptations way out of their reach, make it hard for them to sin. For some of you, it might be you need to clean up some of the things that you watch on TV. Because as you're trying to build that ship, as you're trying to build it godly, it's like these waves are coming in, crashing against it. You need to keep that safe harbor. It should be your home, really, that you have that's a protected zone, that when your family comes to it, they can say, you know what, here, I don't have to worry about all the stuff I have to worry about when I'm at school, or I'm at public school, and just the different temptations that are there, or even when they're out with their friends on their sports teams, and it's the language that's used, the jokes that are told. The home ought to be that harbor. where the ship is being built, where questions can be asked, where they can be answered from the Word of God. Guard your teams. Second thing is guide your teams to follow God's will. Guide your teams to follow God's will. And that, again, comes back from you, first of all, following God's will. It's that example factor. You need to be able to let them ask questions, just as Sarah was praying about, you know, where should I go for college? What should I do? The opportunity came up to travel with National Hoops. And she prayed through that with her parents. She was able to go through those steps together. She asked me, she asked other people who are godly counselors to give her advice about that. Those are great teaching times. Don't just brush them off. And the last thing here is give them a godly example to follow. Turn with me to 1 Timothy 4.12. 1 Timothy 4.12, it says this, Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word and conversation and charity and spirit and faith and purity. I preached this verse just a couple of weeks ago, actually about two months ago now. That word where it says, be thou an example, it literally means to be a pattern, to be something that you can copy it. You can take this mold and make other things out of it. If you've ever done any concrete work before, I did a little bit of that when I was in college. Whenever you wanted to make a sidewalk or a small wall or whatever the case was and you're dealing with concrete, you can't just mix it up in a bucket or a wheelbarrow and then throw it over and then kind of mold it up with your hands and expect it to stay. It's just going to slope and just look like a big pile of wet concrete that's going to harden into a huge mess that you're going to have a fun time cleaning that one up. You have to take boards and you have to build forms in the shape that you want them to be. You make a mold. Parents, your life ought to be that mold, ought to be that example of the Word of God that you could take your children and say, if you mold yourself to the way that my life is, that it will please God, not because you're perfect, but because they can have that example, that type to follow. Because you are, first of all, loving God with all your heart. Second of all, you're reading God's word and you're living God's word. And then as you teach it to them, you can show them the way how they can please God, how they can glorify God. You know, something in reading parenting books that they say, and it's really in a way scary, but I've seen it come come to fruition in my own life and Rebecca's life. They say your kids will parent the way you parent. And even though I've only been a parent for just over a year now, there's been certain phrases I've already used that I've been like, wow, that's what my mom said a lot or that's what my dad said a lot. And I'm just like, hmm, but that was a good one. Or that was just like, no, that's too many memories. I've got to change that phrase and try to bring something else on. But your kids, they're going to parent the way you parent. The way you parent right now doesn't just affect your kids. It's going to affect your grandkids, the next generation. We've got such a great responsibility as parents, as adults, as examples in this church to everybody who is younger than us, to be the kind of example of the believer that will give God glory in all these areas of life. Let me close with just a couple of questions. Mom and dad and adult in here, do you really love God or is God just more religion to you? Something that just you do on Sundays? You pick up your Bible once a week. Or are there concrete elements in your life that show that you have a love for God? Are you in God's Word? Are you meditating on it? Thinking about it? Maybe you're writing verses out, sticking them in your car as you're driving, you can think back over that verse, you're trying to memorize it, and your kids see that your life isn't perfect, but that it is focused on God. And last of all, what are you teaching today? You are teaching something. Is it what God's word has to say, or is it just giving your kids, you know, just half-hearted answers when they ask you a question because you're tired because it's been a long day at work? Or are you sitting down with them and taking the time to teach them who God is? Remember, the Jews took this phrase, the Lord, our God is one is one Lord. And that was their creed. They all grew up memorizing that they would even take that phrase. They put it on the right hand of their doors. They'd roll it up into like a little wooden container or whatever kind of thing that they could make. They put it beside their door. They touch it as they went in, as they went out, because they wanted to think about that thought all the time. You know, as parents, as adults in here, we need to have our lives such a way that when we are with our kids, when kids are around us, whether it be here at church and you're teaching them or your kids in your home. that when they're with you, the Bible was brought up all the time. Bible truths, Bible principles are laid to bear on the problems of life or just the questions. You know, they might just come to you and say, I've got a question about friends. Can you help me? You should be able to say, here's what you should look for in a friend. Show them a great example. Show them a bad example in scriptures of what friends shouldn't be. You should be able to take this book here because it's already in your heart. What's already in your heart, if you can take that and live out those truths before them and help them have those answers. Let's close with a word of prayer tonight.