The Legacy of Family

Gary has announced just before, a lot of our ministries are starting up again for the year. Things surrounding sort of the school calendar, Sunday school, catechism classes, our youth program is kicking off again. A lot of these ministries surrounding our kids. And the reason we have these ministries is because family and our children is a very core part of our theology. The reformed doctrines of reformed faith has a very strong focus on the covenant community.

Believers teaching other believers to follow God, to love Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. And so this idea is very much the core of even a small church with, you know, a handful of kids to encourage and to make it a priority to teach our kids. We have wonderful teachers and sometimes they're teaching a single kid, a single child, two kids on a Sunday morning. Why? Because it is important.

It is important. And so we're going to be thinking about the importance of that and why it's important to us and how we as individuals and families live out that priority and why it is a priority for us in the first place. And needless to say, I'm going to tell you this morning, it's because God's word says it is a priority. God's word says it is important for us. In his book called A Spiritual Clinic, the long time director of OMF, which is the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, a missionary himself, J. Oswald Sanders.

And you may have read some of his stuff or at least heard of his name. In that book that he wrote, A Spiritual Clinic, he referenced two interesting studies that were done on two family trees, two lines of families existing more or less in the same era and in the same part of the US. Two families from the state of New York in America were studied very carefully. One of the families, the patriarch of that family line was called Max Jukes, which is a pseudonym. It's not really his name.

He was a Dutch settler pioneer in the early seventeen hundreds. The other family are the descendants of Jonathan Edwards, who some of you may recognize, the great pastor and theologian of that time as well. They more or less existed at the same time. Now Max Jukes was a non-Christian who married a non-Christian woman. At the same time, they grew up poor and uneducated.

Now among the known descendants, and this was the study, of Max Jukes, over 1,200 were studied. 1,200 descendants of this one man. Of these descendants, they discovered seven convicted murderers, 60 thieves, 190 prostitutes, 150 convicted and jailed for minor offences, 310 homeless, and 440 were known to have been alcoholics. Of the 1,200 descendants that were studied, 300, which is a quarter, died prematurely. They died early.

The study was carried out by the New York Prisons Board in the late eighteen hundreds, and they discovered that the Max Jukes family had cost the state of New York 1,250,000 US dollars to either imprison or to have on social welfare. Now in today's money, that would be a lot more. On the other hand, Oswald Sanders holds up the Jonathan Edwards lineage there. He says this great philosopher had a legacy as well. Edwards was a strong believer who married a woman of similar faith.

The study showed the following results concerning the Edwards descendants. 300 became pastors. Over 100 became university professors. Another 100 became lawyers. 30 of those lawyers became judges.

60 of these descendants became doctors. Over 60 became published authors. 14 became presidents of universities. Three became United States congressmen, and one became the vice president of the United States. Legacy.

The idea that what we do with our life now can have an impact far beyond us, far beyond our lifetime even. Legacy. Is that something that you think of? Is that something that you consider? What legacy will you leave behind?

Perhaps you're a grandparent with grandkids. And you've been around a while, long enough to notice a few trends of your legacy already. Perhaps you're a young family with kids still very much growing and learning. Perhaps you are a young person looking for that special someone. Have you considered what your legacy may be?

How do we create good legacies? How do we create a family with a good legacy? How do we maintain healthy families? How do we avoid breakdowns of traditions and habits that just spill over like this poor family of the Max Jukes clan? How does a dad show leadership, spiritual leadership in the family?

How does a mom raise her kids to be well-rounded, healthy individuals? Well, this morning, we're going to look at a passage that gives us, I think, some very practical lessons on how to do this. We're going to read from Deuteronomy chapter 6. Like I said, we already have read the context in chapter 5, which was the 10 commandments. And now we come to chapter 6, verse 1.

God says, "Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that the Lord your God commanded me, Moses, 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 long. 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, 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. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children 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. 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. And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob to give you with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant. And when you eat and are full, then take care, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve, and by His name you shall swear.

You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the people who are around you. For the Lord your God in your midst 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." So far our reading. Well, when we read this part in Deuteronomy, we have to remember the context.

Moses is speaking here in his final sermon before he will send the people of Israel over the Jordan into the Promised Land. This newly formed nation of Israel had been wandering for forty years in the deserts of Egypt and of modern day Jordan. They were now at the brink of entering new territory, the territory that had been promised to them and to their forefathers many, many years before. But God wanted to cement what they had been learning for forty years.

God wanted to make sure that they knew what the deal was before they entered that land. God wanted them to remember that He was their God and that they were His people living in response to the great salvation that He had given them in their rescue from Egypt. They had to remember the great covenant promise that God had made to them, to be their God and for them to be His people. And then we come to Deuteronomy 6, and we find one of the key Old Testament passages of the entire Old Testament canon, and I dare say one of the most repeated passages, I believe, in the whole Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6. Jewish believers to this day repeat Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 and 5, every time they pray.

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your strength, with all your heart, with all your mind." Now the passage we're going to look at this morning is given to Israel, however, to form this legacy, to form a pattern, a lifestyle by which all of God's messaging and teaching over forty years will be cemented into the hearts and the minds of His people. And do you notice how God says or where God says it starts? It starts in the family.

In chapter 5, Moses has explained God's will for His people: the 10 commandments, the supreme list summarising how society is to live in harmony with one another, but also with God. Then in chapter 6, verses 1 and 2, Moses says that these laws are given so that your legacy may be a good one. Have a look at verse 2: "That you may fear the Lord, you and" not only you, "but your son, and" not only your son, "but your son's son, by keeping all His statutes and His commandments, that your days may be long."

Now verse 5 then gives the summary statement of the motive for why we would choose to keep the law, and that is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. This is the essence. The motive for keeping God's commandments is love. If you love God with everything you have, you love His word, you will love His will for your life, and you will live in obedience. But how will God make sure that His people, who have learnt all these lessons the hard way in forty years in the wilderness, will continue to live in this relationship with Him? And this is where He says it is about the sharing of this faith with one another in every situation of life.

This is what verses 6 to 9 tell us: "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You 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. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." I hear this all the time, but parents, especially Christian parents today, are increasingly nervous about the negative influence that an increasingly non-Christian society is having on their kids or maybe having on their kids and then in their home as well. I can sympathise with that because it feels like we're living in a very complicated world, an aggressively non-Christian world. Friends, we have to remember this. The home is still the number one influence in the life of your family.

Your home is still the number one influence on your child. Think about the percentage of time you have available together compared to all the other locations of influence. The average church ministry will have your child 1 to 2 per cent of the week, 2 per cent max, three hours in a week. 25 to 30 per cent of your child's time is spent at school.

And then the other 70 to 75 per cent of your child's waking time, 70 to 75 per cent of the time, the child is with the family. That hasn't changed. By far, the greatest portion of a child's life is spent around the family. And study after study shows that it's what happens in and around that family environment, the legacy of that family, that determines the outcome of their future. I think it's worthwhile to think about this.

I mean, you can crunch the numbers and they can be 5 per cent here or there. But that's more or less the ratio with which we work. So we shouldn't fall into the trap that many people are falling into by thinking, well, we don't have time with our kids. We just hope that the schools and the churches can do the right thing. As parents, as older brothers or sisters, or even younger brothers and sisters, we have to make sure that our family grows and prospers by our influence on them.

We are to worry less about what is happening in the world and focus more on what is happening in our family. Deuteronomy gives us several things to consider this morning when it comes to exactly that. Firstly, we see that the word of God in this family situation is to be taken to heart. Verse 6: "The words that I command you today shall be on your heart."

What this means is that you can, I guess, know God? You can know about God. You can know what has been said about God, but there is a major shift when the words about God are internalised so that they become a part of me. It means at the very least that the Bible impacts the way I live. Hypocrisy is the greatest killer of godly influence and legacy.

And boy, oh boy, how quickly do our family members pick up on hypocrisy? There's no place to hide. A mum or a dad who says, "Son, daughter, love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and strength," but then lives a life very far removed from that statement, those words, that bit of teaching carries no weight. But a parent, an older brother or a sister, a grandparent who prioritises time with the Lord, who gets the practical things right, who meets with other Christians, and we just heard again Gary's heart for that, who studies God's words together, who prays with their children regularly, who prioritises church attendance and worship above the thousands of distractions that are there on the weekend. These very basic things are visibly showing that God's word has been taken to the heart.

It doesn't help. It doesn't help if we can quote the perfect verse. In order for us to leave a good legacy, we must be changed by those words. We must be renewed by the ever renewing words of life, first and foremost. So firstly, the word of God, God says Himself, must be taken to heart.

Then secondly, these words of instruction that God has given His people are not just to be taught. He says they are to be taught diligently. Verse 7: "You shall teach them diligently to your children." Now this, again, I think is an area that is increasingly weak in our church, but in the church in Australia, perhaps even across the world generally. We think that the pastor or the Sunday school teachers or the catechism teachers will sort out my family's knowledge of God.

Like the rest of society, we've been indoctrinated to believe that we hand things over to the professionals. We let them take care of it. We call the plumber in to fix the pipes, get the pastor to correct our theology. And certainly there is a huge importance for churches to have good preachers and good teachers. But pastors and teachers and Sunday school teachers can't teach diligently.

2 per cent of the time is not diligent teaching. The word diligently means continuously, consistently. Not in fits and starts, not in half-hearted New Year's resolutions, but diligently. It means that we discipline ourselves both in growing in our walk with the Lord by reading good books, by listening to sermons, by discussing deeply with other Christians, but then also to teach what we have learned. To take up regularly those opportunities to talk with our kids about the big things in life, the deep things in life. To talk with our kids about understanding how God fits into their daily lives by seeing how their hardship, whatever they're going through in school, their lives can be taken to God in prayer. By equipping our family members with techniques on how to live in a post-Christian culture.

So God's word is to be taught diligently, continuously, consistently within the family unit. The third is that God's word is to permeate all of life's activities. Do you notice that in the second half of verse 7? I just love how it's written here: "You shall teach them diligently these words, and you shall talk of them when you sit in the house.

When you walk by the way, when you're walking beside the road, when you lie down to sleep, or when you wake up in the morning." They are to be for when you sit in the car on the way to soccer practice. In other words, they are to saturate the life of the family in such a way that they are the last thing on a person's mind when they go to bed and the first thing on a person's mind when they wake up in the morning. The question again is, are you able to bring your conversations to reflect on the bigger things in life? Believe it or not, every little bit of conversation that we have reflects some part of theology, of our theology.

Every little thing, whether it's "I like green Skittles" or "I barrack for my football team," every bit can be drawn back. If you dig deep enough, peel a few layers back, to an understanding of why the world is what it is, what the purpose of the world is, how the world is in such a mess, and how we fix it. Are you able to seize opportunities even in the most mundane routines of life? In a school run, those fifteen minutes every morning, or at a family barbecue, or when you're sitting around the kitchen table having tea. The words of instruction are to permeate all of life's activities. Fourth, the words of God are to be tied to the hands and to the head.

Now even today, if you have Jewish friends, you will see that Orthodox Jews, traditional and conservative Jews, when they pray, they will bind pieces of scripture to their hand and have a headband with it on their forehead as well. They've taken these words literally when they pray. Now, this is probably not what God is saying here. We, as Christians, we don't believe in magic relics and all that sort of stuff. That is superstition.

What is being said here is that God's word has to be part of your hand in what you do and your head in what you think. The word of God will be tied to our thoughts and our actions. So how we act in a particular situation should be weighed up against scripture. Is this something that we do or should do as Christians? You may take it a little bit wider than individual scripture references.

You may think in terms of theological truths. What concept about God or of humanity or of salvation is relevant here? God's word should be tied to what we do as a family and how we think about things as a family. And then finally, just like the words are to be on the heads and the hands of believers in the household, the words are to be written on the doorposts of the house and on the front fence, the gates of the house. Now once again, this doesn't mean we're going to get our chisels out and start putting, you know, Hebrew calligraphy on our doors and stuff like that.

It's a testimony to every visitor that comes into your house. Believe it or not, this is stretching that family thing and their witness to one another and turning the focus from inside, sort of an inclusive focus, to an exclusive focus, a focus outside. Now this is perhaps where that family unit begins witnessing to the power and the effectiveness of God's word, of God's will, and how it can influence and change us. And so the question we have to ask here is, are we living a transparent Christian life to onlookers?

Are our conversations and our actions with family and friends seasoned with the influence of God's will, of God's word? Have a look at that. That is incredibly practical. Can you see the wisdom from these words to God's people as they are about to enter a situation very much like ours? They were a faithful few entering into a completely unchurched, un-Christian area.

We think that it was easier back in those days, friends. It was not. It is very much like us. Where does the protection happen? They don't look to governments.

They don't look to churches. They look to the family unit. That's where it starts. We get the image of dads taking ownership of their spiritual leadership here. Of mums taking time to stop and have those deep conversations when it's needed. Stopping and praying with kids, reflecting on life and the bigger issues that surround it.

Now there's a 101 practical tips to do this and I don't know your context. I don't know how your family situation looks. You would do well to go to Koorong and to these Christian bookstores if you wanted to, and I'm sure there would be examples of how to make it work. How to take these principles and make it work. But the question this morning that we are challenged with is, will we do it? Will we do this?

Will this be a priority that we will go to the Koorongs for? That we will change our weekly schedules for? A while back, I was challenged by something that Mark Driscoll wrote. Now he's a guy that's not so popular anymore these days, having been dismissed from his church because, well, he's a very blunt guy and it was overbearing. But in his bluntness, he had some really good points to make.

And I want to share this with you. I read it many, many years ago, but it stuck with me to this day. He said, people are always happy to give tips on how to influence your kids and how to influence your grandkids in a Christian way. There's lots of resources out there to do that. But he said he thought he'd give us some tips on how not to raise them.

He said the first thing to do to make sure your kids are influenced poorly is to never talk about Jesus. You can talk about Jesus at church. You can talk about Jesus perhaps at the Bible study in the week, but go home and it sounds as though you are a non-believer. You never talk about your faith. You never talk about how Jesus has changed you.

You never talk about how Jesus can change people's lives. So number one on how to make sure your kids are influenced poorly is to never talk about Jesus. Secondly, is to think that church is the place where kids learn about faith. To have this idea that belief or faith is caught rather than taught. In other words, your children or your family members will somehow pick up on your Christian vibes.

To use the castle language there. Just the vibe. They'll just get it. That is not how the Christian faith is communicated. That is not how God's word is communicated through vibes and feelings.

The third thing on how to make sure that your kids or your family are influenced poorly is to live hypocritically. To sing wonderful praise songs to God and of God's patience and grace towards you on a Sunday morning, then swear at someone in the church car park while you're trying to rush home to watch the cricket. Number four, to be unenthusiastic about worshipping God. That is to make worship a chore, a church attendance chore. To complain about how Christian activities take up too much time in your life. To never prioritise family prayer. And to avoid Bible studies like the plague. To be unenthusiastic about worshipping God is a great way to make sure your kids are influenced poorly.

And then fifth and finally, to never take an interest in their lives. To think that if you get them to their sporting events or their music recitals, you have done your job as parent, as grandparent. To get so absorbed with work that you do because you think it will feed them and clothe them and put a roof over their heads, but you forget that love is experienced in time, through time, through concern, through mutual reflection on life. So, finally, we may hear these words and we think, "Right. Now I'm going to do all these things and I'm going to shove it down my kid's throats and they're going to be, you know, super kids next week."

It's probably not going to happen. The trick is to avoid making them bitter. Ephesians 6, in fact, I'll pull it up if I had the exact verse. I'm just paraphrasing here. But Paul writes to fathers, Christian heads of the families, and says, "You are to love them gently so that they do not become bitter."

You know, there's something in dads that can be like, "This is how you will do it or else. You will love God or else." And they become bitter. The trick is to lead by influence rather than by manipulation. And it starts by making God a part of your everyday, of your everyday, so that you will never forget Him, so that those watching on will never miss the sense that this person has lived a godly life.

That they may never miss that. When God is simply a part of our everyday, then by extension, we will talk about Him. When we go to bed, when we wake up in the mornings, when we sit in the home, or when we walk by the road. And so I hope that we see the magnificent privilege but the massive responsibility that we have as a church, that we have as parents, grandparents, family members. We've talked a lot about mums and dads, but brothers and sisters, on you siblings.

A steady consistent life marked by obedience to God leaves a good legacy. And who knows what can come of it? I don't think Jonathan Edwards would have ever assumed 300 pastors and missionaries and Bible college professors would have come from him. On the other hand, some of us may realise this morning that we've had it wrong for much of our family life. And that may be because our parents had it wrong.

Some of us have only become Christians when we're the first Christian in a long list of non-believers. I want to tell you that nothing is impossible for God to change, however. And this is the amazing thing about God and scripture itself. That we can throw ourselves on the mercy of God. We can throw ourselves on a God who has shown Himself to be faithful in the past.

What a blessing it is in scripture to have those long lists of genealogies. You know those genealogies that we just sort of skip through? If you focus on them, you see God's faithfulness through the legacy of people. And so often, those legacies were horrible. King David, the man after God's own heart, had a terrible family.

Sons, daughters who walked away from the faith. And God said to him, "I will uphold my promises to you. From you will come the great king. Despite your rebellion, despite your rejection, despite the horrible legacy that you are leaving, David, Jesus will come." Nothing is impossible for the God who is known as Redeemer.

And so when we have failed to direct the eyes of our young ones to fix their vision on Christ, I want to tell you today, I want you to know that we serve a God who has a better vision for your family than even you do. We have a gracious heavenly God who is known as Father and who can redeem even the most broken things. So friends, let's make a commitment because every second is a second chance. Let's make the commitment to align our families with gentle, consistent influence towards obedience to God and God's word, and then we pray and pray and pray that the goodness of God's perfect will filters down into all areas of our family life. Talk about the goodness of God when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you rise up, and when you go to bed.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that you are Father. We thank you that you are the God who blesses a thousand generations of those who love you and keep your commandments. And though the consequences of our sin can be part of the curse of this world, although the consequences of our sin, perhaps committed before we knew you, is part of the wrath that you pour out on all ungodliness.

We know that you are the God who is faithful, who is long-suffering, who is known by His mercy. Father, I pray for our daughters and our sons that have walked away from you. I pray for our husbands, pray for our wives that have done the same. Oh God, show us where our responsibility was in that.

Help us to weigh that up. Help us to see that clearly. Help us to repent of that. Father then, help us with the strength, with the patience, with the determination to live a life pleasing to you and to hold out and to teach diligently through word and through action the ways that give life.

The way of the Lord. Father, forgive our sons and our daughters. Bring them back, Lord. And, Father, help us as a church with busy schedules, with Sunday school teachers that are struggling to find commitment and the time to do these things. A small church with ministry leaders operating in massive, massive roles.

We pray that you will give us determination, perseverance, commitment, a vision for the next generation that must come after us. Help us in our youth ministry. Help us in our example to those younger than us, both in age and in spiritual maturity. And, Father, give us the grace and the strength to do these things that your church may be built, that we may live in the land that you have given us, long and prosperous lives, that we may have legacies that we will one day see in heaven of children and grandchildren who lived lives to your glory. We ask all of this in Jesus' name. Amen.