"YOURE NOT ALONE!"

10.30am Easter Sunday 20 April 2003

Rev Des Botting

Reading: Deuteronomy 6:1-9

(This message is the first in a series of messages on Modern Day idolatries. Much of the material for this series is gleaned from the second part of Marva Dawns book, Is It A Lost Cause? Having the Heart of God of the Churchs Children (Grand Rapid, MI: Eerdmans, 1997).

Last Thursday, Garth George, in his weekly article for Perspectives in the New Zealand Herald, shared a daily reading by C. Knott based on Matthew 16:18. This verse says, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." Knott wrote: The Lord Jesus left us in no doubt about what he is doing during this age he is building his Church. He is not improving society. He is not reforming through politics. He is saving people and calling them out of the world and into his Church. Listen to that last sentence again. He is saving people and calling them out of the world and into his Church. This is a very appropriate statement to consider on this Easter day, because

I. The resurrection of Jesus gave birth to a NEW COMMUNITY, a new society, which would be quite different to the world around it. It was a community that was brought into being by the Spirit of God, and continues to be sustained by the Spirit of God. It would be a community in which there would be no distinctions due to race, social status or gender. This new society, which Jesus calls His Church, is a unique and special group of people. The Authorised Version of the Bible uses the word peculiar to describe it, peculiar in the sense of being different from any other group on earth.

This morning were going to take a different approach to Easter, and instead of looking specifically at the event of the resurrection itself, we will look at the consequence of that event, the birth of the Christian Church, what it means to be part of this new community that God has called into being, this alternate community, and what makes it special, unique, peculiar? And as this is a Family Service in which we have shared in an Act of Thanksgiving for the birth of Hannah Marie, much of what is shared will have particular relevance to parents, and grandparents, too.

At root, every human being is driven by a profound, unquenchable yearning. This burning longing, in its essence, is a longing for God, and is part of what it means to be created in Gods image. Augustine described it this way; Oh Lord, you have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You. C.S. Lewis uses the German term, Sehnsucht, to describe this pressing, restless longing for fulfillment that nothing can satisfy more than temporarily.

People try various ways to deal with it. C.S. Lewis shares

Three Ways People handle this hunger. The first he calls

1. The FOOLS way. These people imagine, that if they can reach a particular goal, they will be fulfilled. And so they dedicate themselves to achieving it and focus all their energies and resources to that end. When they reach their goal, however, they discover that it doesnt bring lasting satisfaction. After a while, a new goal must be set and achieved, but that fulfillment, too, is discovered to be fleeting. And so life becomes a series of jumps from one inadequate goal to another.

Nicky Gumbel referred to this in his talk at the Alpha Dinner last weekend. He shared how when he was at high school he couldnt wait to be made a prefect, but that when he did become one it was great for about three weeks, and then he found it didnt really bring inner peace. So he thought if he had a girl friend he would be happy, and he was, but after three weeks the novelty had worn off. Then he thought he would be happy when he got married, and he was for about three weeks. And he realized there must be more to life than this. It is the same for all of us.

The second method people use for dealing with this inner longing Lewis names as

2. The SENSIBLE persons way. These people recognize that the yearning cannot be stilled, and so they try to push it under, often in unhelpful ways, which can be quite destructive. Lewiss term sensible is probably no longer appropriate, since many in our culture never let the Sehnsucht penetrate their consciousness because they are already, as one person has put it, amusing themselves to death. This approach can never be successful either, for the persistent longing always threatens to surface, and so ones attempts to repress it must be constantly renewed.

Marva Dawn, in her book Is It A Lost Cause? Having the Heart of God of the Churchs Children, provides help for the church and for parents in fulfilling this task. I can only touch on some of the points she makes in the time we have this morning. However, over the next few weeks we will explore some of the issues that parents are facing in raising Christian children. Parents cannot do this alone. We, as Gods resurrection community, must help. Parents, you are not alone.

Some of the Searching Questions asked in this book are,

• Why does the Christian Community have children? Our cultures attitude towards having children has shifted dramatically away from the biblical perspective with the development of effective birth control methods. A radical reversal has occurred in peoples thinking about the parenting of children now that human beings have learned how to control whether children are conceived. Before it was possible to choose whether or not to have children, children were more often received as a gift, and life was devoted to raising them; now parents, or even individuals, decide whether having them is an inconvenience or of benefit to themselves.

Marva Dawn points out that this shift in perspective is enormously significant. It changes the question from How shall we raise children? to Do I want children? or even How can I avoid having children and still enjoy sexual pleasure? For the most part, our society has lost the sense that the nurturing of our offspring is a full-time task for both parents. This is highlighted in the response of one person to the question, Is your husband babysitting the kids? when she replied, No, he is parenting. Do we honour the calling of parenting as the major vocation of both mother and father?

Consider the reasons why some people choose not to have children theyre too expensive, they hamper ones lifestyle too much, the world is too dangerous a place to bring up children. While there are some good reasons for choosing not to have children, if a couples reason for having or not having children comes from a fundamentally self-centred concern for their own well-being, what kind of character will they nurture in their children?

Marva Dawn says that members of the Christian Community must renounce the selfishness demonstrated by most reasons for our cultures positive or negative choices about producing and caring for children. Instead, she says, the Churchs primary question always is,

• What kind of people are we, or are we becoming?

The church as the Body of Christ offers a quite astonishing alternative to the world in this matter. We admit that having children IS a great burden, but one that God gives us; therefore, we gladly respond to the gift for the sake of the kingdom of God. Stanley Hauerwas, in his book, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic, reminds us that the main role of the family in former societies was to reproduce and rear children for the future. To them belongs the primary, but not sole, responsibility for passing on the values of Gods people. As an alternate society, we who are members of the Christian community have behaviours, lifestyles, and beliefs worth passing on to our children. We know that what we proclaim is the One who is the Truth, who is worthy of our childrens acceptance. And, in spite of the state of the world, by bringing children into the world we declare that there is hope, that God is indeed sovereignly good, and that he is able to use us as agents in his care for all his children.

• Where do we begin? By having THE HEART OF GOD. If we start with the assumption that children are a treasure, that they are precious, and that they are entrusted to us (that is, to both parents and to the Christian community) in order that we will raise them to be members of the Body of Christ, then we will recognize that the most important part of being a parent is to have a heart that is, a will formed by God. Marva Dawn would say that the churchs and the pastors primary task concerning Parents, is to help them keep God first in their lives.

The book of Deuteronomy is filled with instructions to Israel for living out their relationship with the LORD, and chapter 6 gives the best guidelines for parenting. This chapter sets forth the most important elements for raising children in the faith. The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible puts it this way:

Gods goal for our children and grandchildren is for them to "fear" the LORD all the days of their lives. This doesnt mean to be afraid or terrorized, but the Hebrew word means more than awe and respect. To fear in the biblical sense is to constantly recognize that we deserve Gods punishment for our sin, while at the same time having the awareness that His love and compassion have removed our sin and guilt and have set us free to enjoy the gifts of home and family that God provides. It means that we will never take for granted that God allows us to know him and live in his presence. Then Moses says to the people,

Note that the LORD calls the entire community to listen carefully and thus reminds parents that they are not in this nurturing job alone. Furthermore, Gods people know that the LORD always keeps his promises and therefore we can trust him as we seek to serve him by raising our children in the faith.

Loving God is not a feeling, but is an act of the will. Parents will model by their lives what it means to live in faith if they themselves keep God as the center of their attitudes and intentions and decisions (heart), of their use of their gifts, talents and personality (soul), of their every expenditure of energy, time and resources (might).

Parents will be equipped more thoroughly for this remembering if they are faithful participants in regular worship, if they engage in Bible study both personally and corporately, if they have daily devotional times of study, meditation, and prayer. That is, they allow their lives to be shaped by Scripture.

Here God is urging parents to talk about the Word of God continually with their children. The NIV expresses what is meant here better when it says, "impress them on your children." By talking about Gods purposes and instructions both when we are home and when we are away (which really means all the time as we are always either at one of the other), we will really establish the Bibles values and principles in the lives of our children. By talking about them when we lie down and when we rise means that we will begin and end our day in the light of Gods Word. It may well mean something even more specific, like morning and evening devotions. Hebrew literature often groups things in sets of four to stress their universal application. These four phrases are meant to emphasise that parents are to do it all the time with their children. This doesnt mean in an obnoxious or dogmatic way. It can be as simple as saying, Look at this beautiful day God created, or as thorough as explaining to a preteen Gods design for human sexuality.

"Bind them on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead."

The hand and the head signify our actions and our thinking. Thus this verse urges parents to keep God in all of their conduct and thoughts. The values of Gods kingdom should be firmly inscribed and established in our minds and wills, our behaviour and deeds.

"And write them on the doorposts of your house, and on your gates."

Just as verse 7 gave us four times in which we speak to our children about God, thus meaning all times, verses 8 and 9 give us four places that we can put symbols to help ourselves remember Gods instructions in all of life. The Jews fulfill this verse literally. Would anyone entering your home know from what they see around them, and by your words and actions that you are a Christian. Christianity is caught, rather than taught by our children.

This passage in Deuteronomy goes on to speak of other things, such as that we need to remember that everything we possess is a gift, and that we dare not let our belongings or prosperity cause us to forget the LORD; that we need to remember that God is a jealous God and has the right to our obedience, because He created and redeemed us. Just as it was for Israel, so it is with us. We wreak havoc for our children when we turn to other gods, when we set out hearts on and put first in our lives other things than God. God has promised to bless those families who live according to His design, where mothers and fathers fulfill their parenting role first of all by loving the LORD their God with all their heart and soul and might, and then by passing that love on to their children.

• What tools does God provide for this task?

There are many different tools that can be part of the craft of parents in raising their children, but the most important is TIME. Most parents think they spend more time with their children that what they actually do. For the children of our Christian community to be what God intends, it will take a great investment of time to counteract all the influences of the secular culture in which we live.

One great gift of time that both Jews and Christians offer together to the world is Gods design for keeping the Sabbath one day of the week in which we cease from working and take special care to nurture our own spiritual growth and that of our children. We were not made to work seven days a week. One cannot emphasise enough the positive changes that come into our hectic lives when we faithfully reserve an entire Sabbath day to deepen our relationship with God and family and learn more of what He desires for us and for our children. It is good to establish the patterns when our children are young and before they get involved in so many school activities. Passing on stories from the familys faith heritage, and singing the songs and hymns associated with this in the presence of our children is very important. These are the things that can counteract the influences in society that pull our children away from God.

I gave this message the title, Youre not alone! We can look at that today in two senses. Firstly, that Jesus is with us, because He lives. But also in the sense that because He rose, we can be part of that community that came into being through encountering the risen Christ. And so I say to parents, you are not alone in the spiritual care of your children. You have the support of the Christian community in your demanding role.

Two insights from the Apostle Paul are crucially important for our sense of hope in the tasks of parenting.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, "if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!." It is not just we who are different if we are in Christ. Everything is new. We live in a different realm, one that is parallel to the physical one in which we live, but entirely different, because we become part of his Body, this new community. One of the things that parents can do is to discuss the questions raised in this series with other members of the congregation or Christian friends.

Secondly, the apostle Paul reminds us that "nothing can separate us from Gods love not life or death, not angels or spirits, not the present or the future, and not the powers above or powers below. Nothing in all creation can separate us from Gods love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord." All the forces that seek the destruction of godly families have already been conquered. This gives us hope for the battle we will fight against them. We are in a battle, but when Christ rose victorious over death, he signaled the defeat of all that is evil. We do not fight alone. We contend with all the saints on our side and God Himself in our midst. Remembering that fact will give us all the hope we need to persevere.

Some Questions to leave with you in closing.

1. Am I satisfied with the amount of time and the quality of care I invest in my children. What changes would I like to make in my life?
2. What verses from Deuteronomy were particularly helpful for me to understand my role as a Christian parent?
3. What verses especially rebuked me for my failings as a Christian parent? What would I like to change?
4. What practices do we follow for keeping the Sabbath day holy?
5. With whom can I partner for support in the task of Christian parenting?