Psalm 78:1-7 [NLTse] – A psalm of Asaph.
1 O my people, listen to my instructions. Open your ears to what I am saying, 2 for I will speak to you in a parable. I will teach you hidden lessons from our past—3 stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us. 4 We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about His power and His mighty wonders. 5 For He issued His Laws to Jacob; He gave His instructions to Israel. He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children, 6 so the next generation might know them—even the children not yet born—and they in turn will teach their own children. 7 So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting His glorious miracles and obeying His commands.
If you could only choose one or the other, which of these two would you pick: That your child be healthy and wealthy, or that your child go to Heaven?
…
There are 613 Laws across the first five books of the Old Testament. (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are called “The Five Books of the Law”, or sometimes just “The Law”.) One of those 613 Laws is God’s command that the Israelites teach all the Laws to their children and their children’s children after them. This command is given several different times in several different ways across “The Five Books of the Law”, but Deuteronomy 6:4-9 summarizes them all well:
“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, 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. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.[] You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
I have always loved this command! And yet it’s so strange, too, especially the way some Jewish groups have come to practice it so literally (even in the Lord Jesus’ day): Wearing phylacteries – the little Scripture boxes on their foreheads and forearms – and fastening mezuzot to their doorframes…
Did you know that Exodus 13 says the Passover ritual was also to serve as “a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead, so that the training of the Lord may be on your lips” (v. 9)? And later in chapter 13 it says the act of consecrating their firstborn sons to God was to be “a sign on your hand and as an emblem on your forehead that by strength of hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt” (v. 16).
On account of our faith and trust in Christ, you and I have been grafted into the remnant of Israel, and called and commanded with all God’s people to have God’s Word on our hearts, and to teach those words to our children – talking of the Lord when we are sitting at home and when we’re walking along our way; talking of God’s Word when we’re lying down, when we’re getting up… We are called and commanded to celebrate our holidays in such a way that they teach of God’s wonders to us and across history, and perform our rituals and celebrations in such a way that God’s wonders are acknowledged and proclaimed…
And yet our loving Father never calls us to something, He never commands us to do this or not to do that unless it’s good for us, important to us. In Genesis 18 we see something of what good and loving purpose there is for us in teaching our children and our children’s children about Him…
The Lord and two angels have visited Abraham on their way to punish the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In verses 17 and 18 the Lord determines to reveal to Abraham what He’s about to do, saying in v. 19, “For I [the LORD] have chosen [Abraham], so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” You see, prior to this, the Lord spoke to Abraham – promised him, assured him – that the Lord would give Abraham so many descendants that they would become a great nation. And He assured Abraham that this great-nation-of-descendants would cause Abraham’s name to become famous across history. And God would bless Abraham’s great-nation-of-descendants, and would make them a blessing, and all the nations of the Earth would be blessed in Abraham. (See Genesis 12:1-3.)
Of course, the great-nation-of-descendants the Lord is talking about are the Jewish nations of Israel and Judah; and the great blessing that bless-ed people brought to the whole world was their Messiah – the Savior of the world! – Jesus Christ.
But notice the Lord’s words “For I [the LORD] have chosen [Abraham], so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” So, the good and loving reason the Lord calls and commands us to pass on His good news and His Way of Life to our children (and to following generations) is so that we can be assured – because the Lord God wants us to have assurance – that He’ll keep every promise He’s made to us. (What a great! what a good God!)
So the Lord isn’t merely commanding us to include Him in all our conversations, and to make all of our holidays and celebrations about Him for the sake of bossing us around. He’s given us such direction because He desires for us to know, to be assured that He will be faithful to us (and to our children) forever and always. He’s telling us that is what teaching does…
This call and command to share the Gospel and teach God’s ways to our children and grandchildren is repeated in the New Testament. Ephesians 6:4 states, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” A parallel passage from Colossians reads, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart” (3:21).
Look at the logic of these passages. They say, (understanding that God Almighty is ultimately the Creator of our children, and that He has made all things, including our children, for Himself) these passages say that when parents don’t bring up our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, the result for our children is anger/exasperation! Do you see that?
Our kids were made to know Jesus Christ; they were made to know Him. So when we make our kids education our priority, or their sports, or when we make their clothing or their possessions or their friends our priority for them instead of God, one way or another we’re going to be leaving them angry and exasperated. (And if that doesn’t describe what we’re seeing around us, kids who have more things and opportunities than any other generation before them, and yet a generation that’s frustrated, annoyed, angry… exasperated! I don’t know what does.) When we don’t teach out kids about Christ, whether we realize it or not, we exasperate them.
To shake things up a little bit:
Let’s work to talk about God all the time; to some way or another make Him a part of every conversation we have.
Let’s not exasperate our kids; let’s not have us be what tempts them to frustration and anger because we’ve kept the Lord to ourselves, or decided we should let the church teach them about that.
Let’s be assured of His promises, His assurances, the way He’s promised to assure us when we teach and pass His Gospel and Way of Life on to others.
Let’s make every celebration – birthdays, retirements, baby showers, you-name-it… an opportunity to declare His mighty works and the good things He’s done.
And let’s make every holiday – holy-day – boldly and unashamedly His: Not about trees or elves, but about His birth; not about eggs or bunnies, but about His death and resurrection; not about witches and goblins and darkness, but about men and women and boys and girls who’ve been brought from death to life in Christ; all our holy days for His glory!
Let’s obey the command of the Lord and teach our children well.