How Will The Next Generation Know?
Good Morning Friends,
Today we study the Shema from Deuteronomy and some related text. The Shema is the Jewish creed that opens synagogue worship. It is said twice a day and translates as “hear”. It is a reminder that we are to teach our children through the words of scripture but also through the actions of our lives. The message is that our home is to be a place where righteous lives are lived… a place where the Lord is loved…. a place where right lessons are learned. It is to be a place that honors a commitment to a lifelong relationship with family members and God….a legacy…a legacy that can be lost unless we take seriously the command to teach our children. And so we ask… How Will The Next Generation Know?
Scripture: Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (NRSV)
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” —this is the first commandment with a promise: “so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:1-4 (NRSV)
Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.
Malachi 4:5-6 (NRSV)
but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”
Matthew 19:14 (NRSV)
Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray.
Proverbs 22:6 (NRSV)
When Joshua dismissed the people, the Israelites all went to their own inheritances to take possession of the land. The people worshiped the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred ten years. So they buried him within the bounds of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. Moreover, that whole generation was gathered to their ancestors, and another generation grew up after them, who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and worshiped the Baals; and they abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they followed other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were all around them, and bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord, and worshipped Baal and the Astartes. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them, and he sold them into the power of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies.
Judges 2:6–14 (NRSV)
Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
Joel 1:3 (NRSV)
Message: As I look back in our role as parents to our two children…children now in having completed college… my wife and I have made a continuing effort to point them both in a direction so that when they are old, really old; they will not be lost to a faith in Christ. We have provided, protected and instructed them so that they do not deny the faith. The objective of our parenting has been to engage them in the work of advancing the Kingdom as disciples that honor God into the next generation. They both think somewhat like us but also very differently. So far they have honored us and still sing in the church choir with us. But providing them knowledge and opportunity only goes so far. Knowledge is no guarantee that children will make good choices…knowledge that they are more than random events in a chaotic world…knowledge that they have intrinsic and inherent value in this world and the next. But this is certain; a caring adult in the life of a child does make a difference, an adult to offer a loving example of the Christian life and its disciplined affirmation takes time but that time turns into trust and that trust into influence. And as I look forward I see that God will ultimately be more important than we are in their lives and that what children need, what each of us needs throughout all our life are people with loving hearts, kind looks and genuine hugs. We need to love and be loved. There will be a time when we are not here for them. As has been said, the ceiling which we build will be the floor on which they will stand. In so many ways the victory is not ours but for those who follow. So we need to learn that praying for our children is a lifelong privilege and listening to our children a lifelong opportunity and that experiencing with them our relationship with a loving God can be a wonderful gift in which we all grow into the Kingdom of God.
Pray we raise children of hope in the triumph of God. Pray we live in Christian communities that maintain a memory and experience of a devotion to God. Pray we revere and honor God. Pray we realize that wherever the knowledge of God is preserved there will be obedience and prosperity. Pray we realize that it is the solemn responsibility of parents to instruct children. Pray that the love of the Lord is on our hearts and on the hearts of our children. Pray we realize that the preservation of Christian culture is best sustained by the family. Pray we as parents teach our children about Jesus. Pray we realize that silence about Christ is false dogma. Pray we encourage questions and have good answers for our children. Pray we have confidence in what is true about our beliefs. Pray we realize that it is unloving and cruel not to teach a child in the way they should go. Pray we not feel inadequate. Pray we realize it is never too late to teach as we learn. Pray we show humility in those things we do not know. Pray we learn to learn with our children. Pray God fill our families with the joy of knowing Jesus.
Pray that we realize that when the whole family believes in God, they will be filled with joy. Pray that we pass on the truth with great patience and proper instruction. Pray that our households be places of love…that we show the next generation how victories are won…pray that we show forth zeal and courage for the Redeemer’s cause.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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