Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Special Services

Baby Dedication 2008

Message: Desperate Households

Text: Deuteronomy 6:4-7

 

 

Introduction: It’s amazing how children can change us. Let me give you a few examples.

 

A mother’s wardrobe

·       1st Baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your doctor confirms your pregnancy.

·       2nd Baby: You wear your regular clothes as long as possible.

·       3rd Baby: Your maternity clothes are your regular clothes.

 

A mom preparing for birth

·       1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.

·       2nd baby: You don’t bother practicing because you remember that last time, breathing didn’t do a thing.

·       3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your 8th month.

 

 

 

The Pacifier

·       1st Baby: When the pacifier falls on the floor, you put it away until you can go home to wash and boil it.

·       2nd baby: When the pacifier falls on the floor, you squirt it with some juice from the baby’s bottle.

·       3rd baby: When the pacifier falls on the floor, you wipe it on your shirt and pop it back in.

 

Come on…be honest!

 

Baby sitter

·       1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter you call home 5 times.

·       2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached.

·       3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if there’s blood.

 

Life changes so fast…and your children begin to grow up. If you only had dirty pacifiers and baby sitters to worry about.

 

 

There’s a TV show I’ve watched a few times called ‘Desperate Housewives.’ It’s about a group of families who live on fictional and dysfunctional Wisteria Lane.

 

It’s amazing that everything that could go wrong in a family…does go wrong…in someone’s family on this street. But there’s some truth to the lives of the families living there.

 

The truth is, much of what happens on that show…also happens in real life. Perhaps not to the degree that it happens on Wisteria Lane…but it’s not that far off. Let me explain.

 

·       Over the past few months, there have been news reports of kids having sex in school: sex in the classroom, in the school bathrooms, even on the school bus. It has been reported that 1 in 5 jr-sr high school students have witnessed someone having sex on school property.

·       Each year, almost 750,000 teenage girls ages 15–19 become pregnant.

 

 

 

·       There were over 132,000 suicide attempts by children ages 15 to 19 last year, making it the third leading cause of death for those in that age range.

·       Over a 1000 teenage girls every day get abortions.

·       Over 4000 teens a day catch a sexually transmitted disease.

 

Like the parents on Desperate Housewives, we worry that our children are growing up in desperate times. We fear that our children will soon be making decisions, living lives and paying the consequences of a value system they picked up from the world around them:

 

·       one that rejects the authority of the Bible,

·       that mocks biblical morality,

·       that glorifies sex, and violence

·       and is not bothered by getting drunk and high.

 

The sad truth is, some of us here today…live in Desperate Households…But if your children are real young…the time will fly by and you’ll find that Wisteria Lane is a lot closer than you’d like.

 

·       One day you’re giving your baby a bottle, the next day the keys to the car.

·       They go from being cute…. to being teenagers

 

…need I say more? 

 

But…I’m here to tell you we have a fighting chance to pass on biblical value, morality and truth to our children…but it will be a fight.

 

Transition: I have a very simple message for you this morning. One that I’m sure you have heard before but is well worth repeating. It serves as a reminder of some of the fundamental truths about living in a Christian family.

 

Open your Bibles to Deuteronomy 6:4 (pg. 136 in the Bibles under the chair in front of you.) For it’s there that we’ll find hope… for Desperate Households.

 

Background

Read: Deuteronomy 6:4-7

 

 

 

Before I examine the text, please allow me a few moments to offer some background information concerning the occasion for the commands that are given in Deuteronomy 6:4-7.

 

·       There’s a sense of urgency in Moses’ voice as he’s about to pass the baton of leadership to Joshua as the Israelites enter the Land of Canaan.

·       Moses’ primary concern is for the people’s spiritual welfare. He knows that the quality of their spiritual and physical well being is directly related to their obedience to God.

·       The Land of Canaan was inhabited by people who worshiped false gods, who lived life in rebellion to and rejection of the one True and Ever Living God. They were immoral and ungodly….sound relevant?

 

Moses, with a heightened sense of urgency, spoke God’s Word to the people, challenging them to fight against the urge to ‘follow the crowd’ as they more ever closer to Canaan. Because he wanted them to have the chance to live the life God desired for them. But would they listen?

 

Today I come to you with that same sense of urgency…especially as we look at the world our children are inheriting. I speak of urgency because of the fear that our children will become assimilated into the Canaan of their day. We not only fear that we will lose them…but that they’ll lose God. Will you listen?

 

Transition: So what does Moses say to calm the fears of the parents and to set their children on the path that leads to life, to move them and us from Desperate Households to Healthy Households.

 

I. Build a relationship Deuteronomy 6:7

Read: Deuteronomy 6:7b

 

Passing our biblical values and morality on to our children requires building a healthy relationship with them.

 

Moses’ urgent words to our fast paced culture, beg the questions ‘How can we expect to teach these things to our children when we don’t spend any time with them?’ ‘How can we expect to pass biblical values and morality on to our children if we’re not around?’ Often, we live in desperate households, just because we’re not home?

According to our text, we are to teach our children God’s truths

 

·       when we sit at home with our children,

·       when we walk with them outside the home

·       and when we go to bed at night.

 

In other words, God wants us to pass on biblical values and morality through relationship with our children.

 

You want it straight? It’s not about quality time spent with your children. It’s about quantity time!

 

The world wants to feel good about their obsession with upward mobility and forget that they are neglecting their children in the process. So they came up with the phrase ‘It not quantity but quality of time spent with your children that counts.’ It’s a lie. Don’t buy into it.

 

To develop any relationship you need to spend time, a lot of time. Aren’t your children worth it?

 

 

 

 

How?

·       Talk to your children about God at meals. That means you need to eat…TOGETHER! REGULARLY! WITHOUT THE TV ON and around a table so there are no distractions.

·       Talk to you children about God outside the home. Take walks with them. Not only is it good for your physical health, it’s good for your relational health.

·       Talk to your children about God before they go to sleep and when they get up. Show them the importance of starting and ending their day honoring God.

 

You can never start too early. Matthew 19:13- 15 reminds us that Jesus had a very special place in his heart for young children.

 

You can never start too late. There’s coming a time and perhaps you’re already experiencing it, when your children will say ‘I don’t want to go to church today. Can’t I stay home?... You don’t go all the time?’ Ouch! The pattern has been set. How will you respond? Can I offer a suggestion?

 

 

Look them in the eye and in love tell them ‘In this family we believe in Jesus. Going to church to worship God is something we do as a family. And we’re leaving in 30 minutes.

 

Do this early and often and when the pimples and proms come, you’ll  have built a healthy relationship and will speak from a much stronger position.

 

One last thing. Building a healthy relationship doesn’t mean being your children’s best friend. I realize some of you may have bought in to the ‘be friends with your children. Don’t punish the negative, just reward the positive’ philosophy . That too is a lie.

 

Read: Proverbs 22:15 ‘Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.’

 

Read: Proverbs 29:15 ‘The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.’

 

Permissive parenting only brings disgrace and disobedience.

Transition: Moving from Desperate Households to Healthy Households requires spending the time to develop healthy relationships with your children. It also requires being an example to them.

 

II. Be an example       Deuteronomy 6:4-5

Read: Deuteronomy 6:5-7a

 

ILL: A father and his son were climbing into the mountains, when the father hesitated for a moment. He had come to a place where he had to choose between two paths, and there was some danger. As he stood there, trying to determine the best path, his son reminded him of his great responsibility when he said ‘Go ahead dad, I’m right behind you.’ (Rich Grimes)

 

Whether you realize it or not, you’re being watched. And the things you say and do, by design or by accident, are powerfully communicating your convictions about right and wrong, about morality and immorality to your children.

 

 

 

If you want to pass on biblical values and morality to your children, you must first model them in your own lives. God’s Word must reach your heart and transform you before you can ever hope to impress God’s Word upon the hearts of your children.

 

Practically speaking, this means

 

·       If you want your children to obey the law…get rid of your radar detector.

·       If you want your children to flee sexual immoralty…make wise choices about the channels you pay for on TV.

·       If you want your children to worship God regularly…let them see you worship God..in church, regularly.

·       If you want your children to have loving, healthy marriages…then nurture, strengthen, fight for your marriage…now.

 

Look, children don’t need to see perfection in you…just consistency. Let them see that while occasionally you fall short, your desire is to walk with God and obey His Word.

 

 

Transition: We move from Desperate Households to Healthy Households by building healthy relationships with and being an example to our children. But Moses gives us one more command.

 

III. Share the truth               Deuteronomy 6:7

Read: Deuteronomy 6:4-7

 

Passing on biblical values and morality to our children includes instruction…we must share the truth with our children if we expect them to obey God’s Truth.

 

It used to be that families spent a lot of time together…

·       before computers and video games,

·       before TV dinners and microwave ovens,

·       before excessive commutes to work,

·       before the onslaught of extra-curricula activities

 

Now there’s baseball and other sport practices, art classes, piano lessons, cheerleading tryouts and all kinds of other things that intervene and intrude in our daily lives.

 

So passing on Biblical truth often finds itself on the bottom of the list of things to do, and to be honest, rarely gets done.

 

So how and when can we teach our children the truth of biblical values and morality if we are always on the go?

 

First, do less. That’s right…do less..cut out some activities. If you want to learn more about this come to my Adult Sunday School Class beginning in April. It’s titled ‘Time Warped’ and it about godly stewardship of time.

 

Second, take advantage of what you find yourself doing!

 

·       Use shopping trips to reinforce the biblical value of honesty and not stealing.

·       Watch movies or tv shows with your kids to discuss God’s Truth concerning sex, love, marriage, violence, money.

 

Use the opportunities you have to teach your children about God’s Truth. Because the alternative is they begin to seek truth in other places.

Then they begin to measure right and wrong by their own standards rather than God’s Standard…His Word.

 

Use ever opportunity to teach your children that the basis for everything we call moral, the source of everything we consider good, is found in the Bible, God’s Living and Holy Word.  

 

·       The reason love is the highest quality and hatred is to be despised is because God is love.

·       The reason honesty is right and lying is wrong is because God is truth.

·       The reason not having sex outside of marriage is moral and promiscuity is immoral is because God is pure.

 

We must build healthy relationships with and set the example for our children….but that’s just not enough. We must teach them with words, the truth about living in God’s family.

Conclusion

You might be thinking ‘That’s a awful lot about God pastor.’ My response ‘Good, you can’t have too much God in your life…or in your children’s life.’

Moving from Desperate Households to Healthy Households is no accident. It takes intentional thought and action.

 

Adam, Kelly, Scott and Kim have decided they want to be intentional about raising Luke and Tanner; as well as MacKenzie Jack and Ashley. This message today was for them…but for all of us as well.

·       Because whether you have children,

·       they are grown

·       or you don’t have children,

 

here at CBC and in your circle of friends and family, there are children that see you and will learn from you.

 

I truly believe

·       We can pass on biblical values and morality to our children.

·       We can equip them to live godly lives in the midst of an ungodly world.

 

While we can’t turn back the clock, while we can’t start over, we can begin today to pass on biblical values and morality to our children

·       by building healthy relationships with them

·       by being an example to them

·       and by teaching them the truths of God’s Word.

 

By God’s grace, through the knowledge of God’s Word and by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, we can turn Desperate Households into Healthy Households.