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Message By Fred Siebert

Deuteronomy chapter 6, beginning at verse 1.
Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the ordinances which the Lord your God commanded me to teach you,
that you may do them in the land to which you are going over to possess it,
that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son,
by keeping all his statutes and his commandments which I command you,
all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.
Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you,
and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord the God of your fathers has promised you,
in a land flowing with milk and honey.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,
and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart,
and you shall teach them diligently to your children,
and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way,
and when you lie down, and when you rise.
And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes,
and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
And when the Lord your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers,
to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you with great and goodly cities which you did not build,
and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and cisterns, who now which you did not fool,
and vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant.
And when you eat and are full, then take heed lest you forget the Lord
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
You shall fear the Lord your God, you shall serve him and swear by his name.
You shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the peoples who are round about you,
for the Lord your God is in the midst of you, in the midst of you is a jealous God.
Lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.
You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.
You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies,
and his statutes which he has commanded you.
And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you,
and that you may go in and take possession of the good land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers,
by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised.
When your son asks you in time to come, what is the meaning of the testimonies
and the statutes and the ordinances which the Lord our God has commanded you?
Then you shall say to your son, we were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt,
and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and the Lord showed signs and wonders,
great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh, and all his household before our eyes.
And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land which he swore to give to our fathers.
And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always,
that he might preserve us alive, as at this day.
And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God,
as he has commanded us. Amen.
The New Testament passage of Scripture comes from Paul's letter to the Ephesians,
this time from chapter 4, Ephesians chapter 4, and we're going to read the first 16 verses.
Ephesians chapter 4, after Paul has spent considerable time emphasising to the church of Ephesus,
and the individual members of it, their place in the purposes of God,
he now draws some conclusions, since they have this wonderful position in God's purposes, in God's plan,
what he has provided for them in Christ, raising them to sit with him in heavenly places.
He goes on in chapter 4,
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.
But grace was given to each of us, according to the measure of Christ's gift.
Therefore it is said, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.
In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?
He who descended is he who also ascended, far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.
And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,
for the equipment of the saints, for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood,
to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro,
and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness and deceitful wiles,
rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way unto him who is the head into Christ,
from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied,
when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and up builds itself in love.
Let us pray.
Our God and our Father, when we come to sit and meditate, our minds are so easily taken over by many things.
We are in danger of imitating Martha and being concerned about many things.
Lead us this morning, Lord, to discover something of the experience of Mary who came to sit at your feet to learn
who in her single-mindedness put aside all other things in order to listen what you had to say.
We pray that you would lead us into that experience, for we know that this is your will.
We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
This morning I would like to share with you, right at the beginning, the words of a popular song,
not that I'm aware that it ever made number one on any Top 40 chart,
but popular in the sense that it was written by a modern writer, 1974,
concerning the relationship of father and son.
And here are the words.
My child arrived just the other day. He came to the world in the usual way,
but there were planes to catch and bills to pay.
He learned to walk while I was away, and he was talking before I knew it.
And as he grew, he'd say, I'm going to be like you, Dad. You know I'm going to be like you.
And the chorus, and the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in the moon.
When you're coming home, Dad, I don't know when, but we'll get together then.
You know we'll have a good time then.
My son turned 10 just the other day. He said, thanks for the ball, Dad. Come on, let's play.
Can you teach me to throw? I said, not today. I got a lot to do. He said, that's okay.
And he walked away, but his smile never dimmed. It said, I'm going to be like him.
Yeah, you know I'm going to be like him.
Well, he came from college just the other day, so much like a man, I just had to say,
Son, I'm proud of you. Can you sit for a while? He shook his head and he said with a smile,
what I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys. See you later. Can I have them, please?
I've long since retired. My son's moved away. I called him up just the other day.
I said, I'd like to see you, if you don't mind. He said, I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time.
You see, my new job's a hassle and the kids have the flu and it's sure been nice talking to you, Dad.
It's been sure nice talking to you. And as I hung up, the phone had occurred to me.
He'd grown up just like me. My boy was just like me. And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon,
little boy blue and the man in the moon. When you're coming home, Son? I don't know when,
but we'll get together then, Dad. We're going to have a good time then.
And not one of us who is a parent and knows something about the pressure of making time for our children
wouldn't be touched by those words because each of us has this gnawing,
nagging feeling that we're not giving as much time to our family as we ought to.
And yet here is a person who doesn't profess to be a Christian in any way,
highlighting a problem that we are confronted with.
And whenever we hear someone put those words or those thoughts into words,
that there ought to be more time spent with children, with our children, with our family,
we sort of re-echo and we say, yes, that's right.
What we do not become aware of often is that in fact the problem can go two ways.
And what is often not so well publicised as the lack of time that is spent with the family
is that there are situations in which children are actually idolised
and there is too much time and too much attention given to them, out of proportion.
And I have known more than one family where the parents have lived for nothing else except the children.
And the end result is just as tragic as the result of the song that we have just shared the words of,
where there wasn't enough time spent.
You see, we're in a dilemma if we look at the question of how to train and nurture the children
and how to divide our time rightly with them and the other interests in our lives.
We're in a dilemma because it seems to be almost between whether our children are to live for our sakes
to fit in with our plans or whether we are to live for the children
for their sakes to fit in with their needs and requirements.
In the case of the man who wrote the song, in practice he communicated the fact that his child
had to fit in with his particular plans and time schedule.
In the case of those people who idolised their children, they made it clear through their practice
that they will fit everything around them and everything else is not as important as to provide for them.
With the time that we have already spent in laying some of the foundation from the Bible,
we ought to at least be able to draw the conclusion that neither of those is in fact getting in touch with reality.
That it is not a case of whether we live for the children or the children live for us,
whether parents are given for the children for the children's sake
or whether children are given to the parents for the parents' sake.
Neither one is reality.
Both are distortions because parents and children are to live their lives for God's sake.
That's where the beginning has to come and that's where the only point of balance can be found.
To see that it is not a case of tossing up one against the other
but making both line up with the purposes and the plans of God.
Not one of us, whether children or parents, are to live to ourselves or to each other but to God.
The last three sessions we have had in this current series have tended to be perhaps a little bit abstract,
a little bit theoretical but hopefully it has made us each think.
And today I want to bring it down a little bit more to earth
and yet to show from the pattern of the Word of God
again a direction which ought to make us re-examine our whole understanding of training and educating.
Let me revise just a little bit again of what we have covered in the last three sessions.
We began to ask some disturbing questions about our concept of God's plan concerning the Church and the family.
We moved on to speak about the importance of realising that God appointed the Christian community
and that that Christian community is to be governed by two principles,
neither of which can be put aside without arriving at a distorted approach.
The two principles were love and truth or the orthodoxy in community and the orthodoxy in doctrine.
The two aspects that you cannot have true love without true truth.
The love of God must be based on the Word of God.
It must be expressed in God's way as he has revealed.
So we have moved from the point of stressing that everything must begin with God and everything hinges on God
to point out that it was God who brought into being his special community, the Christian community.
And it was God who revealed that that community was to function on the basis of God's love which was based on God's truth.
Now we want to take it just a step further this morning and see this in relationship to the family, in relationship to the family.
If you have your Bible still open at the passage we read from Ephesians chapter 4,
then you should be able to arrive at chapter 6 by just turning the page,
which is what we want to look at just the first couple of verses, three or four verses actually, in chapter 6 of Ephesians.
Ephesians chapter 6.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Honour your father and mother.
This is the first commandment with a promise, that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
There are two verses here that I want to particularly draw your attention to, verse 1 and verse 4.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord.
And then verse 4.
Fathers, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
And that's what we've just been speaking about.
The framework of seeing how the family ought to work is in the framework of the Lord.
Being very conscious that we are responsible and living to God.
Now, how then does what we have been speaking about so far tie in with the clear instruction here
and the indication of the responsibility of the family toward the children?
And particularly here, the fathers.
It ties in in this way.
The way in which the Bible reveals God's plan for his people
is for the adults to become instructed in the law and the revelation of God.
And then for those who have children, those adults, to be responsible that that instruction is passed on to those children.
Now, that may seem very and very obvious statement.
And yet, as we come to explore it a little more, I think some of the implications of it will make us rethink
some of the approaches that we have accepted as being godly.
Because the implication of this, which comes through very clearly back in the Old Testament and in the New Testament,
the two passages, one which I read from Deuteronomy chapter 6 and the repetition of much the same thought
a little later in Deuteronomy chapter 11, underline the importance of the people of Israel
saturating themselves with the laws of God, familiarizing themselves with them,
becoming so soaked up in the ways of God that they would walk and live in accordance with what he has revealed.
Now, then, having absorbed the laws of God, it is the family situation, it is in the home,
that the children are to learn from their parents these laws, this revelation of God.
Now, in the same way in the New Testament, in Ephesians chapter 4, which I read from,
you will find the emphasis here of adults as adults, members of the body functioning together in the church,
for one purpose. We touched on this already.
And the central verse of this chapter 4, particularly this passage we looked at, is verse 13.
But before we get to verse 13, let's note verse 7.
Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.
God himself has a portion to each one of us, his grace and his gifts,
and that's underlined again in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
God in his sovereign decision has a portion to each one according to his own decision,
so that there will always be a difference in our gifts.
But then, all of these differences join together, each one playing his part,
as we are reminded again in verse 16 of this passage, that when every part works together,
then there is growth, then there is a maturing process.
All of this is toward the end of verse 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
The function of the gathered people is in order that the gifts that God has given them
are to be brought together to minister to each other toward the end of individual maturity,
of individual growth to the stature of the fullness of Christ.
And that again, it is only when that is attained in the individuals as they work together,
so the whole body is built up, so the whole body grows and continues to grow.
Now that's the provision and that's the context of the Christian church.
That's the setting in which we practice true love based on true truth.
That is the context in which those who are adults function.
And here I want to give you the disturbing thought on the one hand and yet a challenge on the other.
You look in vain for children having a part in that ministering process in the body.
There is no provision for the body as the body to minister to children.
Because what happens here is the process that we find as we go through the book of Ephesians
and we come from chapter 4 and go on concerning the role and the place of husband and wife and so on
and come to chapter 6.
And it's in the context of the parents being instructed and built up
that the children then are to obey their parents in the Lord
and the fathers have the responsibility as representing the household
of bringing them up in the discipline and in the instruction of the Lord.
What does that mean?
It means this.
God has placed us as parents in a position where it is not an option as to whether we educate our children
or whether we get someone else to educate our children.
God has not given us the option when he has said
do the best you can with your children through whatever means you find.
In the same way as he has revealed that the Christian community is to be governed by the principles of love and truth
so he has revealed that the education of children is to be the responsibility of parents.
Now we have neatly divided up education into two departments
and we failed miserably in both.
We say yes.
Here we are told to give the children discipline and instruction of the Lord
as though it was something to be added to the education and the instruction that they received elsewhere in our schools.
And yet the Bible knows nothing about the division of truth as secular and as religious.
There is no such thing as whether it is true in the secular world or true in the religious world.
It is either true or it is not.
It is either truth or it is error.
So we have first divided up the two and we try not to mix up the two too much.
And we have put into a compartment the instruction of the Lord
and we have failed miserably in what we call the secular instruction
and that we assume that this is all neutral instruction.
That children are just being fed facts.
And if some of us became a little more familiar with our educational system which our children are part of
you would be horrified to discover how much the opinions of men enter into the education of our children
and how little true facts are actually imparted with how much of the misguided opinions of men
based on the misguided philosophies of the educators
and the misguided presuppositions of so many of the ungodly teachers.
So we have failed miserably in thinking that the secular education is neutral.
Then we have failed even more miserably in thinking that to instruct and discipline our children in the Lord
can be met by providing an hour or so every Sunday for them to meet in Sunday school.
Now I am speaking in general terms.
I know that there are concerned parents who are taking a lot more trouble with the education of their children than simply that.
But it is also true to say that there are a lot of parents who do no more
and yet consider themselves to be Christian parents. Christian parents.
Proverbs tells us train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.
And some people would say well I guess that works in most cases.
But there are exceptions to that.
After all did I not raise my children the Christian way?
And look they are out in the world.
Did I not take them to Sunday school regularly? Did I not take them to church every Sunday?
And look they have grown up and they will have nothing to do with those things.
God is more reliable than the understanding of man.
When God says train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.
If those children are not where we think they ought to be it is not so much a reflection on God not knowing what happens to children in response to their training.
But it is much more a reflection on our misunderstanding of training.
You and I are to a large measure the product of our parents training.
And the approach that we have taken concerning the division of the secular and the religious is to a large measure also the responsibility of the way our parents trained us.
Now we are to honour, pardon me, respect and obey our parents.
And time or age is not a very relevant factor in this.
So let us beware of trying to blame our parents for things that are not right in our life.
And yet at the same time let us be aware of the factors that have influenced our lives in order that we might be truly Christian parents.
One of the phrases that keeps turning over in my mind is the phrase to be able to think Christianly, to be able to think Christianly.
The problem that we have been confronted with as families and as a church is that we haven't really come to grips with the fact that God is completely in control of all things.
And that there is no single atom of truth which does not derive from God.
We haven't really come to grips with the fact that there are no different compartments of life but that everything is to be seen through the perspective of God.
Whether it be out in the world or back in the church, in the family setting or outside of the home, no matter what happens there is a way we ought to be thinking about it Christianly, in Christian terms.
And one of the great failures of the church, and I'm thinking here more specifically of the individual adults who make up the church, one of our greatest failures is that we have not trained our children to think Christianly.
And if there are any failures to be looked at, even in those who educated us, our parents, it would be also that.
In so many respects they have failed to teach us how to think Christianly.
Some of us are asking the question, how can we be a truly Christian family, how can we best bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, or in this translation the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
How can we best be truly Christian parents?
And I believe that in doing that we're already beginning at the wrong end, because I believe that the primary question is how can we be truly Christian, thinking Christianly.
Because only then can we begin to train and instruct our children in the Lord.
We have to come to grips with the fact of bringing together everything that we know in this world to see it through Christian eyes, to see it with God's perspective, to stop dividing things into secular and religious.
To begin to know that there is nothing that confronts us, that God hasn't permitted, and to begin to see that there is a Christian perspective on that particular matter.
And then, as will happen, as did happen, as we read in Deuteronomy chapter 6, when your son asks you concerning these ordinances and these things that you are doing and these things that are happening, then you shall tell them the background, what goes on behind this.
What happens now when our children ask, Dad, why don't we do things the way that they do it next door? What's the answer?
So often we're rushed, and so often we simply say, well, each family does things their own way, we do it this way, and they do it that way, right? That's it.
And it's not always just because it's time. It's quite often because of the fact that we ourselves have never really thought about it Christianly.
And we ourselves are not really able to communicate and to explain to our own children how this fits in to the whole revelation of God, to all that God has revealed concerning this world.
Next week, God willing, I want to explore some of the major differences which distinguish Christian thinking from that of the thinking of the world so that we may begin to get to grips with perhaps even a starting point
of being challenged ourselves to see whether we are actually shaping our lives in the light of the word of God or whether in practice we're actually trying to slot in as many of the good things in here as we can with a life that is really being shaped by the philosophy of the world.
I cannot avoid constantly becoming aware of the fact that it's the latter which is much more common.
That is the fact that we are stuck in a certain approach to living, some of it directly coming from the influence of the people we work with, the people we live with, from the influences that have come back from as far as when we were brought up in our own homes.
And even the influences of the pattern of church life that we're used to. These things I would suggest in most cases have a much greater influence than the shaping principles of what God has revealed concerning the purpose for man and for people living in this world.
We need to get right back to scratch and see what things God places as priorities, what things God wants us to face up to, because then we begin to share true truth.
And then as we build each other up and as we begin to understand what it means to be Christian in this day, 1977, getting very close to 1978,
then when we begin to really come to grips with that and we're able to communicate it to each other and build each other up, only then will we be able to communicate in a way that God intended to our children.
But so many of us have abdicated. We've given up. We haven't tried to come to grips with what God is teaching us concerning life here. We've taken our instructions from so many other people and we've even handed over our children,
both for the secular education and for the religious education. And then we wonder, we wonder when the outcome is that our children, when they are old, will continue in the way in which they have been trained,
unable to reconcile the things of God with everyday living, because they never learned in the home how to think Christianly, because the parents never knew how to really, truly think Christianly,
because the priority in the church was never to learn to think Christianly, because the preoccupation was to try and drag in as many people as possible to bring them to a point of decision and then go and find more and more and more,
when the emphasis of the word of God is to come together as his body in order that we might all attain the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
We do not have to be afraid that when we go, emphasise it in that direction that there will be no evangelism because what will happen will be, it will be God's evangelism and what will be communicated will be God's truth.
And the effect on the world will be that the world will be arrested not by great campaigns but by the display of true love based on true truth.
And they will have such an impact that has been proved in so many parts of the world that people will almost come to break down the doors because it's such a phenomena that has been so rarely seen in our own experience.
We close for this morning with a hidden number 375.