Collierville First Baptist Church

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Take your Bibles today and turn to Deuteronomy, the fourth book, excuse me, the fifth book of the Old Testament.

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Next Sunday, September the 14th, we're hosting a marriage conference.

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Steve and Debbie Wilson are leading this effort to strengthen your marriage.

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Here's the schedule.

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At 9.15 we have session number one.

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At 10.45 we have a worship service just like we're having right now. But I'm going to be preaching a sermon on marriage and the family.

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And then at 3 p.m. we have session number two of the marriage conference.

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And then at 4.15 we have session number three.

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Here's some topics that will be covered.

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The six progressive levels of communication.

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Now most men in this room are about at level two.

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Most women are about level six.

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We're going to talk about how to identify and heal wounds from the past.

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And also how to deal with marital conflict in a healthy way. So whether your marriage is on life support or it just needs to be strengthened, it's a golden opportunity for you to draw near to God

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and to allow Him to breathe life into your relationship.

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Now leading up to this special emphasis,

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I've been preaching a series of sermons entitled Family Talk.

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Last week the sermon's focus was Harmony in the Home.

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And the title of the previous week's sermon was Marriage and the Family.

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Today I want you to look at Deuteronomy chapter six.

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And we're going to turn our attention today to discipling your children.

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In his book, Revolutionary Parenting,

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Mr. Barna says there are three dominant approaches to parenting.

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The first approach is parenting by default.

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Now Barna turns that the path of least resistance.

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This approach is influenced by cultural norms and traditions.

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The objective in this first type of parenting is to keep everybody happy.

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Happy, happy, happy.

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And if we can keep everybody in the home happy, surely we're doing the right thing, not necessarily.

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Then the second kind of parenting is trial and error parenting.

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This is based on the notion that every parent is an amateur. Hey, hey, parents, do you agree that you're an amateur?

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I know that Darlene and I were amateurs when we had our kids.

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And we learned a lot as parents.

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But in this type of parenting, there's the idea that there's no absolute guidelines. You just sort of wing in it.

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I want you to know that that's not true.

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There are some absolute truths and some wonderful guidelines in the Bible that will help you be the parent that the Lord wants you to be.

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But then Barna said there's one more type of parenting.

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He said it's a revolutionary approach to parenting.

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And it's the least common by far.

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Revolutionary parenting takes God's word on life and family at face value and seeks to apply God's truth to how the family operates.

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Barna explained, I quote, "Those who engage in revolutionary parenting define success

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as intentionally facilitating faith-based transformation in the lives of their children rather than simply accepting the aging and survival of the child as a satisfactory result." It's not just about your child growing up and not doing anything to damage themselves and to make it to old age. That's not the purpose of parenting.

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The purpose of parenting is to see your child have a spiritual transformation

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like an ugly caterpillar becoming a beautiful butterfly.

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Now God called Jewish parents to be revolutionary in their approach to parenting.

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Now the context of our text today, Deuteronomy chapter 6,

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the Jewish people were making their way out of Egyptian bondage. They were making their way to the land that God had promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

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So they're going through the wilderness. It's not easy. Every step they took, they had to depend on God for their survival.

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Soon they would be living in a land whose culture and lifestyle were decidedly pagan and idolatrous.

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The question that every Jewish parent must have been asking at that time was simply this.

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How can we raise godly kids in an ungodly culture?

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Boy, does that resonate today?

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If you're in this room today and you've got kids still in the home, you've got to be asking that question.

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How can I raise my kids to be godly when we're living in such an idolatrous, chaotic, sinful world?

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How can we do it?

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Look at Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 1 to 3. Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments,

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which the Lord your God has commanded me, this is Moses, sharing with the people of Israel.

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The Lord has commanded me to teach you these commandments, statutes, and judgments,

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that you might do them in the land where you're going over to possess it. Now I want you to understand that Moses makes it clear on the front end that the goal was not to have them memorize these passages of scripture, but the goal was to have them to know them, memorize them, and do them once they got into the land of promise.

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Verse 2, "So that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I commend you, all the days of your life, so that your days may be prolonged."

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You see, a long life depended on obedience to God and his word. Verse 3, "Oh, Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it." Do you see the emphasis over and over and over again about obedience to God and his word?

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Hey, can I tell you, things have not changed.

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If you really want to have the favor of God in your life, if you really want to have the favor of God in your family,

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then you've got to learn the importance of knowing the word of God and obeying the word of God.

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"Oh, Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey." Let me tell you, the land that God had promised them was an amazing land.

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The Bible says it was a land flowing with milk and honey.

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That means it was very fruitful. It was a very beautiful land.

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How many of you parents and grandparents would love for the Lord to bless your family

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and to transform the hearts of your children and your grandchildren?

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Every time I preach, I spend an amazing amount of time studying the Bible.

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And I want to come every Sunday and I want to share with you a single truth that captures the essence of the text I've been studying all week.

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And that truth today is a very simple one, but a very profound one.

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And here it is.

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"Discipling your children is your most important job as a parent."

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Let me repeat that.

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"Discipling your children is your most important job as a parent."

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It's more important than making sure that your son increases his batting average.

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It's more important than making sure that your daughter gets her back handspring.

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It's more important than making sure that your son makes straight A's.

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Nothing can compare to the importance of parents discipling their own children. You say, "Pastor, that's what we pay you to do. That's what we pay our staff to do." Now, I want you to think about that for just a moment.

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How much time do we have your children as opposed to the time you have with your children?

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Ah, you see, don't you? You've got them a lot more than we do. Our job is to equip you as a parent to knock it out of the park so you can properly nurture your children spiritually

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so that they can understand the Word of God and live under the beautiful favor of God in their lives.

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So before we get into the actual message itself, this is a prelude. Let me pray.

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Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for the Word of God.

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I thank you that in this text today, Lord, you're going to reveal to everybody in this room, everybody watching live stream, three strategies by which every parent can make sure that they properly disciple their own children.

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Lord, I ask you to fill me and anoint me and help me to preach this truth with power and clarity and anointing. And I pray, Lord, that you would be honored and glorified. And I pray that our families would be strengthened as a result. In Jesus' name. Amen. So we're going to start with the basics, okay? Just the basics today.

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So God revealed to Moses three strategies that he wanted Moses to reveal to the people of Israel.

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Here's the first one, first strategy. Love your Lord fervently. Love your Lord fervently. Look at verses four and five of Deuteronomy six. Here, oh, Israel, the Lord is our God.

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The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

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Now, Jewish people call that the Shema.

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The Shema. It's a central text of Judaism because it reveals the essence of God's person and his ultimate purpose for our lives.

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The first word in the Shema is here, here.

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And the Hebrew mindset, this verb here is a command. It's not a suggestion. It is a command.

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And it means to hear, hearken, listen, but it also means to obey.

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Can you imagine the irony of hearing God's word and choosing not to obey it?

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How foolish would that be?

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So here, oh, Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one.

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Now, the primary assertion here is that there's only one God. Now, remember that the nation of Israel was moving into the Promised Land.

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And the Promised Land at that time was populated by a very sinful group of people, a polytheistic group of people, people who worship many gods.

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Some of their gods, idol gods, in their mind demanded child sacrifice.

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So they would take their children and they would throw their children in a fire to appease their false gods.

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That's the kind of place the nation of Israel was moving into.

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And what God wanted the people of Israel to understand and what he wants you to understand is there's only one God.

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There's just one God.

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We believe in one God who has eternally existed in three persons, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son, and they are all co-equal, one God in three persons. That's what we believe.

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And that's what God wanted the nation of Israel to understand. There's only one God.

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To really obey God means that we are to love Him.

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How can you obey Him and not love Him? How can you love Him and not obey Him?

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Jesus was asked one time, "Teacher, what's the greatest commandment of the law?"

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Now we're talking about the New Testament.

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Here's what Jesus said in Matthew 22, verses 37 to 40.

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He said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." So what did Jesus do? He quoted part of the Shema.

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This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

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On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophecy. The whole Bible holds together on these two commandments, loving God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself.

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In John 14, 23, Jesus said, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him."

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So Jesus magnified the Shema and related it to New Testament believers also.

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You, if you're in this room, if you're watching live stream, and if you have repented of your sin and placed your faith in Jesus, you are a New Testament believer.

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And this applies to you and your family.

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Parents, the Lord demands that you and your children put your whole heart into your relationship with him.

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The command here is not to go to church. It's not.

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The command here is not to tithe. The command here is not to pray.

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The command here is not to read your Bible.

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The command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart. Now, listen, if you love the Lord your God with all your heart, you will tithe.

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You will read your Bible. You will pray. You will come to church if you love the Lord your God with all your heart, but you can't get the horse before the cart before the horse. Okay. You can't do that. You got to love him first.

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Rabbis, Jewish rabbis taught that this love means that you would rather die than betray God. That's how important loving God is. Let me ask you a question.

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Do you love the Lord your God like this?

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Do you love him with everything you have?

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Look at verse six.

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These words, which I'm commanding you today, shall be where? Where shall they be? On your heart.

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On your heart.

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The reference to being on your heart means to be in one's constant conscious reflection. I love what A.W. Tozer said.

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He said, we are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God.

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I like that.

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Are you preoccupied with God?

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Are you preoccupied with your career?

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Or are you preoccupied with sports?

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Or are you preoccupied with money and stuff?

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I love A.W. Tozer now. He said we should be preoccupied with God.

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And I hope and pray that you are today. Let me say this to you as parents.

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If your love for God is not strongly anchored in your heart,

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you cannot pass the love of God that you have down to your kids.

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Can't do it.

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To pass it down to them, it's got to be real in you.

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I believe kids have x-ray vision.

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They can read through a hypocritical parent just like that.

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They can't. So as your kids look at you, the way you conduct yourself, the way, sir, you treat your wife,

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the way, ma'am, that you treat your husband, respect and submit to your husband,

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the way you handle finances in the home,

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your love for the church.

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When your kid sees all that, they're doing some mental addition. Is it real in mom and dad?

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If it's real in mom and dad,

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there's a good chance that you can pass it down to your kids.

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Disciples your children is your number one job as a parent.

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The first strategy that Moses delivered to the children of Israel is love your Lord fervently.

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In other words, when you get into the promised land and you're surrounded by a chaotic, sinful culture, love the Lord your God fervently.

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That'll help you be a good parent. And number two, here's the second one. Second strategy, teach your children diligently.

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Teach your children diligently. Look at verse seven.

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"You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up."

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The spiritual instruction of children is first and foremost the responsibility of parents.

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The church is here to come alongside and to help in the spiritual and nurturing process. I'm going to ask Al to come here a minute. Al is our young family's pastor and Al is responsible for our children's ministry. Al, I'm holding something in my hand. Tell us what this is. Well, life away, we're going through a study called together. It's called, well, anyway, this thing is called family worship experience. And it goes along with our students, our children's curriculum that we're teaching on Sunday morning. On Sunday mornings, we do something that's called the Gospel Project.

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It's a three year teach your child through the Bible, Bible study. And what is great about this, a lot of times parents go home with their kid on Sunday and have no idea what they learned. Today was a story of Rea Boheme and Jera Boheme. So you can imagine your kids relating that to you, right? Probably not. Okay. But what this does, this family guide, it lays out what they've learned on Sunday morning. So that throughout the week as a family, you can talk about that story. You can reinforce that story with some helps they give you. There's extra stories in there that relate that story to present day time. They give the key verse that we go over that entire month that you as a family can work to memorize that verse together. They actually have video resources that are available to where you can sit down as a family and watch a video of the story of Rea Boheme and Jera Boheme from maybe the younger kids. And it helps them understand it a little bit more. But all that's available to families if you're interested in doing that. So the church is saying this to you as parents.

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We want to come along beside you and we want to equip you and give you the resources you need to do your most important job.

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And that is to disciple your own children. Now, Al, what do families have to do to get this? We're going to make the written copy available to you. We're going to have copies of it available next Sunday when you drop your kid off. For Sunday school, for connect groups, that sort of thing. But there is also a video resource that's hosted by ministry platform, ministry grid actually, that we use for other things within the church. We can send you a link to that. And it has all of this in a digital version with the videos and the songs and things like that if you're a family that prefers to do it that way. So we'll have a written copy of it or you can get to it digitally with a link that we can give you of how to resource that on a weekly basis. So it's up to you.

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You have to decide, am I going to take advantage of this?

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Am I going to take seriously my number one job?

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And that is to disciple my kids.

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And we're making this available. I encourage all every parent of a child to contact Al and his team and get this in your hands and use it every single week. All right. Thank you. God bless you.

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Now, I want you to look at this verse one more time. Verse seven, you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. Now that word diligently in the Hebrew comes from a verb meaning to sharpen, to sharpen. Eugene Merrill in the new American commentary gave us insight into the richness of this word.

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I quote his commentary. He said, the image is that of the engraver of a monument who takes hammer and chisel in hand and with painstaking care, etches a text into the face of a solid slab of granite.

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The sheer labor of such a task is daunting indeed, but once done, the message is there to stay.

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That's what this word diligently, that's the richness of this word. Now, let me say this.

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Repetition is a great key to discipling your kids.

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Listen, any football team, we've got Aiden Glover here. He's the quarterback for Northwest Junior College, Community College. And Aiden would tell you, if you went up and asked Aiden, do you guys do a lot of repetition in your game planning? I can tell you, he'll tell you absolutely.

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As a quarterback, he has to know everything everybody's doing, everything.

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And so repetition is so important for you as parents to get these truths etched into the hearts of your kids.

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Now, notice where the teaching is to take place.

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The Bible doesn't say here the teaching is to take place in the great feast in the temple. It's to take place in the normal flow of a family's life.

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Now, obviously, there was teaching that took place in the temple.

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There was teaching that took place in the synagogue.

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But what God wanted the people of Judaism to understand is in order for this to really get into the hearts of your kids, you've got to do this all the time. It's not just when you go to church.

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It's in the regular flow of life. You can instruct your kids when you're at the restaurant, when you're at home eating a family meal at a ballgame during vacation, when you see a news flash come up that it's really terrible news. You can use even those moments to teach your kids spiritual truths.

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God's truth is so important that it must be a priority for families.

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Gary and Anne-Marie Esso wrote this in a great statement.

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Most parents tend to teach a moral lesson in periods of conflict when they tell their children what not to do,

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rather than in moments of non-conflict when they can direct their children in what to do. Think about it. It is easier to teach a child to be kind than it is to teach a child not to be unkind.

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You see what we're saying there?

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Disciples your children is without a doubt your most important job as a parent.

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Now, so far we've looked at two strategies, two very simple strategies.

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Love your Lord fervently and teach your children diligently. There's a third and final strategy.

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Display your faith prominently.

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Look at verses eight and nine.

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"You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.

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You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

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In other words, make your home a home where the Word of God is featured prominently.

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Now, God knew the faith of His chosen people would be severely challenged when they went into the land of promise.

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Therefore He challenged them to openly and boldly and courageously demonstrate their commitment to the one true God and to His Word.

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Now, phylacteries, you've heard that term before. Little boxes, square boxes. You know what the really observant Jews, the Pharisees would do? They would take parts of the Shema and they would write it very little and they would put it in that little square box and they would wear it on the forehead.

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And God's saying, "I want it to be everywhere. I want it to be so prominent in your life and in your home."

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And then even observant Jews today place a Shema and some other verses from the Torah in a metal receptacle called a "Mesuza."

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And it's there at their homes.

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If you go into an observant Jews home, you might notice a little metal box.

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And in that little metal box is going to be part of the Shema and part of the Torah.

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It's them trying to display their faith prominently.

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Now, this attention to detail points to the importance of Christian parents making sure that the Word of God is a prominent part of your home and family.

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I heard about a pastor who went into a children's Sunday school class or connect group.

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Sometimes I go old school.

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And during the visit, the preacher looked into their faces and asked this question,

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"Why do you love God?"

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And little boys and girls, they began looking at each other.

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There was an awkward silence.

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And then finally, from the back of the room, a little boy said, "I guess it just runs in the family."

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Oh, I pray it runs in your family.

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What a statement.

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You know what he's saying?

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My daddy loved Jesus.

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My mama loved Jesus.

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The Word of God is important in my family.

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So how do you build this kind of conviction, character into the hearts of children?

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You may be here today, you say, "Pastor, I'm going to let my kid make their own minds up about God and the Bible."

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Well, I promise you this, that's insane.

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I said it's insane. You know why?

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Because the world is not going to sit back and take the same approach. The world is going to try to stuff a bunch of garbage into the minds and hearts of your little boys and girls so that they will not believe the truths of the Word of God, the truth of the gospel.

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So I tell you what you better do. You only have them for a short period of time.

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I'm 71 years old. I cannot believe that my kids are grown and I've got grandkids and I've got a 20-year-old grandkid and an 18-year-old grandkid. It's hard to believe.

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Hard to believe.

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And then I got a little caboose.

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Eight years old.

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Boy, time flies.

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Hey, Mom and Dad, let me tell you something.

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You better take advantage of the time you have with your kids

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and do your number one job.

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Disciples.

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Teach them to love their Lord fervently. Teach them the truths of God's Word diligently and display your faith prominently.

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I'm going to ask our worship team to come, our staff to come. Here's what I want us to do today.

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I want you to understand this.

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If you're not a believer in Christ, maybe you're a dad or your mom, your grandparent,

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but you have never repented of your sin and placed your faith in Jesus,

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what kind of message is that sending to your kids?

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Today, I want to invite you to receive Jesus as your Savior and your Lord and commit your life to Him.

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I want to invite you to take this challenge that we see in Deuteronomy 6

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and make it work in your home.

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Now, if you would like to receive Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you come to one of our staff members and we'll help you with that decision.

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Or maybe you're here today and your heart is so burdened

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because you've got a son or daughter that's in the far country of sin.

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They're prodigals.

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You love them. You want them to love Jesus.

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Go to this altar and pray for them. Lift up their names before the throne of grace and ask God to do an amazing work in their lives.

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And then you may be here today and you and your family are looking for a church home.

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I want to invite you to come to one of our staff members and just talk to them about being a part of Collierville First Baptist Church.

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I'm so glad you're here today. I'm so glad you heard the Word of God today.

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Now, here's the $64,000 question.

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What are you going to do with it? What are you going to do with it?

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Let's pray. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray that you move powerfully in our hearts.

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Lord Jesus, I thank you that you love this sinful world so much that you left the glory of heaven

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and you were incarnated as a human being.

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And I praise you, Lord, that you offered your body and your blood on the cross as payment for our sins so that we could be forgiven and cleansed and have new life in you.

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And Lord, I pray that you would work powerfully in the hearts of men, women, boys and girls. Maybe there's a boy or girl here today who needs to be saved.

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Lord, I pray that your spirit would work powerfully and draw them to Jesus and save them.

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Lord, we love you and bless you. Have your way in our hearts in Christ's name.

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Amen. Let's stand and worship and you come as God leads you.

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