DISCIPLING OUR KIDS: To Know & Love God When we are going on a trip we have to know at least two things: the destination and the road to take us there. Without either of these we might as well stay home. The same is true of our spiritual lives: we want to end up with God and we need to know how to get there. Jesus gave us both of these in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except by Me.” Through faith in the Gospel of Christ we are reconciled to God and will spend eternity with Him. Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again that we might know God (Jn.17:3). If we are going to disciple anybody, and that includes our kids, we need to know where we are taking them and how we are going to get them there. I. The GOAL, Deuteronomy 6:5 Where do we want those we are discipling to end up? What’s the goal, the destination, the end and target we are aiming for? God tells us in Deut. 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” We are to lead them to love God above all others and others as He has loved us. How did He love us? He laid down His life for us. “God demonstrated His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rm.5:8) And we are to love from the heart: “with all your heart.” Well, how do you love the Lord with all your heart? The heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things (Jere.17:9-10). By keeping His commandments, obeying His voice. The “these words” of Dt.6:6 indicate more than love. That’s just one word! Jesus helps us out here by telling us in John 14:15 and 21, “If you love Me, keep My commandments. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me.” Then in 1 John 2:4 the Spirit writes, “He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments is a liar…” Lest you think this is Old Testament stuff, I remind you that Jesus said these things in the New Testament. And He stated it in the Great Commission itself, “Make disciples, teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you.” (Mt.28:19-20) That’s the goal. Disciples of Jesus do what He says. The sum of all moral behavior (all the commandments of God) is love. Love is the liberating force of all moral behavior. The commandments simply provide practical knowledge of the character and nature of God, and how to live in relationship to Him. The goal of discipleship is to get them to love God and others from the heart. Love is the fulfillment of all the commandments. Jesus said so in Mt.22:36-40, where He quotes Dt.6:5. II. The ROAD, Deut. 6:4 The means to the end of observing all the commandments of Jesus is quite interesting. If all you do is lay commandments of those you are discipling (your kids) without doing it the proper way, without the road God has designated to get there, you will turn out one of two things: 1. Arrogant, self-righteous, hard-hearted hypocrites (much like the Pharisees), or 2. Rebels when they get away from you. To teach the commandments without the Gospel of the grace of God, or to teach them to “love” God, is to treat the death and resurrection of Christ as irrelevant. Everybody loves God. If you don’t believe it just ask them. We must go beyond teaching them to “do”; we must introduce them to the God who is love, and do it consistently, day in and day out. The proper way (road) to get them to the designated destination is to - get them to KNOW God. This is why Dt.6:4 is before Dt.6:5. Nobody can love Him if they don’t know Him, and to know Him is to love Him. The more you know God the more you will love Him (because He is love), and doing all His commandments comes out of that love relationship. For example, check out Dt.5:6-8. Notice that first in speaking to the Israelites about the Ten Commandments, He lays the groundwork by stating, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” He states who He is to them and what He has done for them. We should be talking the Bible to our kids. Tell them the stories that tell us what God can do and what He is like. The Bible is the inspired record of the revelation of God in history. Speak of this revelation to them. And keep it up, because faith comes from hearing, not having heard. Keep the God of the Bible ever before them. How can we get our kids to know Him? To love Him they must get to know Him. The commandments do no good without this. This is where Dt.6:7-9 comes in. It boils down to this. We only know God by faith, and faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Rm.10:17). That’s why God tells us, “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, (talk of them) when you walk by the way, (talk of them) when you lie down, and (talk of them) when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets before your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Read the Word to them. Have them read it out loud. Post it on the walls, refrigerator, mirrors in the bathroom. Tattoo them with it! In this way, through prayer and the ministry of the Word, the New Covenant is established. God writes His law on their hearts. Hebrews 8:10 says, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their minds and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people.” God works from the inside, putting His perfect law of liberty in our hearts. Romans 5:5 puts it this way, “The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Galatians 5:14 says, “All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Then Gal.5:22-25 says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love…” The Spirit of God comes in and gives us the ability to love and that is the fulfillment of all the law. It is out of a heart of love that we observe all the things Jesus has commanded us. The Holy Spirit always works in conjunction with the Gospel of Christ. God has made Siamese twins of these two so that you never have one in you without the other. When we are talking about the God of the Bible (from the Bible) we must not overlook the greatest thing God has ever or will ever do. He sent His Son to save us from our sins by taking the punishment for our sins on the cross. Talk about this, observe communion with them, ask them about it, and never stop talking about the Gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe with their hearts. In conclusion, the destination of discipleship is loving God with all our hearts by doing all the things He has commanded us. The road to that destination is the knowledge of God written on our heart in the New Covenant. By faith in Christ God puts His love in our hearts. “We love Him because He first loved us. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation (sacrifice) for our sins. (1Jn.4:19; 3:16; 4:10) We love Him because He first loved us. Love begets love. Let us show and teach the love that Christ had for us in the Gospel and His love will fill their hearts and they will observe all things that He has commanded us. Then we have disciples of Christ. This is the goal and this is the road to it.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 12:31:09 +0000
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