RAISING GODLY GRANDCHILDREN - fcfonline.org

1 Pastor Steven J. ColeFlagstaff Christian Fellowship123 S. Beaver , AZ GODLY GRANDCHILDREND euteronomy 6:1-25 BySteven J. ColeMarch 5, 1995 Copyright, 19951 March 5, 1995 Christian Family Living (9) RAISING GODLY GrandchildrenDeuteronomy 6:1-25 Marla and I used to enjoy the TV series, Little House on thePrairie. One of my favorite episodes was when Charles and Caro-lyn (the father and mother) left their little farm to travel to Milwau-kee for a 25-year high school class reunion. They discovered thatmost of their old friends had become wealthy and simple Charles and Carolyn just didn t fit in with the high-society, well-to-do crowd.

2 But while their friends had it made fi-nancially and appeared successful, it also was apparent that theyhad unhappy marriages and empty lives. At the end of the program,Charles and Carolyn got off thestage coach back in front of theirhumble little farm house. As their children bounded out of thehouse, delighted to welcome them home with hugs, Charles re-marked to Carolyn, Now if that s not success, I don t know whatis! Amen! In America, we wrongly view success in terms ofmoney, fame, or career success. But God views success in terms ofgodly, loving family relationships.

3 I want to talk about how to raisegodly GRANDCHILDREN . I saygrandchildren, rather than justchildren be-cause the real test of child rearing is the third generation, not justthe second. Of course God wants us to raise GODLY children. Butthe true test of the process is whether or not our children raisegodly children. If the parents are spiritually lukewarm, the childrenoften will be stone cold. The GRANDCHILDREN will be completely how can we, as Christian parents, raise up GODLY genera-tions? Deuteronomy 6 has some answers (6:2, grandsons ). Mosespreached this to Israel as they prepared to enter the land of Ca-naan.

4 They would face many temptations in the wouldbe surrounded by pagans. He saysthat ..Toraise up GODLY GRANDCHILDREN you must love God fervently,teach your children diligently, and live in the world result is that it will be well with you (6:3) under God s up GODLY GRANDCHILDREN , you must love God fer-vently (6:4-6).The most important requirement for RAISING GODLY childrenand GRANDCHILDREN is for you to havepersonal reality with God. Youcommunicate what you are. You cannot pass on to your childrenwhat you do not possess. And, you will note, at the heart of per-sonal reality with God issolid theology.

5 Verse 4 is called the Shema (from the Hebrew, Hear ). The call to hear implies that the fol-lowing words have extreme significance and that we must grapplewith applying them personally. What we are to hear is, Yahweh isour God; Yahweh is one. It can also be rendered, Yahweh is ourGod; Yahweh alone. It means that Yahweh and only Yahweh isthe true and living God, and He alone is to be the object of ourworship. As the Lord proclaims through Isaiah, I am the Lord,and there is no other; besides Me there is no God (Isa. 45:5). Heis one God, not three gods, although He exists in three persons, asrevealed several places in the Old Testament, and made explicit inthe only way we come to know this only true God is by Hisrevelation to us of Himself through His Word.

6 In other words, theliving and true God is not a composite of the speculations of thegreat religious thinkers down through the ages. Rather,He is! Hehas existed from eternity, unchangeable in His attributes, perfect inall His ways. He has been gracious to reveal Himself to chapter reveals a number of things about God: His unity andexclusivity (6:4, 13-14); His personality (we can have a love rela-tionship with Him, 6:5); His grace to His chosen people, as seen inkeeping His covenant (6:10-11); the reverence and worship due toHim (6:13); His jealousy and anger (6:15); His sovereignty overtrials (6:16); His absolute authority (He commands us how to live,6:17); His redemption of His people, as seen in the exodus (6:20-23); and, His goodness (6:10-11, 24).

7 What I m getting atis that to rear GODLY offspring, we mustlove God fervently. But to love God is more than having wonder-ful feelings about some vague being who is partly the projection ofour imagination. One well-known TV preacher says that he followsJesus because Jesus is such a positive person. That s not the Jesusof the Bible! That s a Jesus of that man s imagination! To love3 God, we must know Him as He has revealed Himself in His at the root of RAISING GODLY generationsis being people whoare theologically grounded because we love God s Word and aresteeped in m seeking to counter the strong anti-doctrinal bias that per-meates current American Christianity.

8 We cannotraise up godlychildren unless we know God ourselves. We are deceived to thinkthat we know God if we just sit around singing songs that make usfeel good about God as we conceive Him to be, but if we aren tgrounded in Scripture. Our kids need to see in our daily lives a lovefor God s Word which reveals God to with and built upon solid theology is afervent, heartlove for the Lord. The idea of heart, soul, and might (Jesus adds mind --Matt. 22:37) is a total-person love for God. Every area ofour being must be consumed with and subservient to this greatquest of loving God.

9 The love of God is not some ethereal, mysti-cal thing. Nor is it just having warm feelings about God. As Jesusand the apostle John make clear, if you love God, you keep Hiscommandments (John 14:21, 23; 15:10, 14; 1 John 5:3). And so thegreat goal of knowing God through His Word is a life of obediencemotivated by God s great love for us as seen in His plan of re-demption at the soon as you mention obedience, many modern Christiansthink legalism. Obedience can become legalistic when people doit outwardly to look good before others, but their hearts are farfrom devotion to God.

10 Some of the Jews, for example, obeyedverses 8 and 9 quite literally. They wore these verses in little boxesstrapped to their hands and foreheads, and they put them in a littlebox by their doors and on their gateposts. But they missed thesense of the passage, which is that the Word of God is to permeateevery area of life. The results were ultimately disastrous, because itwas the religious Pharisees, who outwardly kept the law to the let-ter, who rejected the Messiah who preached the need for are Pharisees in the church today, who lay down rulesthat are not in the Bible in an attempt to get their kids to look likegood Christians to the rest of the church.