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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) *Was used on an occasion of a baptism, but you can easily edit out those remarks or apply them to parents in general. Read: Proverbs 22: 6; Deuteronomy 6: 4-9; 20-25 Sing from TPH: 119B 78 (1-4) 550 191 |
Read: Proverbs 22: 6; Deuteronomy 6: 4-9; 20-25
Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible teaches us that there are only two ways we can go in life, only two paths we can travel. There is God’s way -- which is the pathway of righteousness, or what the writer of Proverbs calls wisdom. Then there’s the devil’s way -- which is the pathway of evil, or what the writer of Proverbs calls folly or foolishness.
Jesus taught this truth in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7: 13-14 Jesus said, Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
One of those pathways leads to a true and living hope, to everlasting life. The other pathway leads to brokenness, despair, and eternal damnation. That raises an important question for all of us today: which path are you on? Which way are you headed?
And notice, the Bible doesn’t speak of a middle ground. There’s no neutral territory. There’s no third path for those who don’t like these terms, or for those who claim that they’re not religious. Likewise, there are no exceptions for those who are offended or have hurt feelings about such exclusive claims. The Bible doesn’t really care how we feel about the truth. The Bible simply reveals the truth and calls us to believe it –for our own good, and for our own salvation.
The genius and the beauty of the book of Proverbs is that it sets these two paths side by side, and in ways that even a child can understand, it shows us that one of these pathways is good, and one of these paths is evil. One of these paths is the way that we (and all mankind) SHOULD go and the other path is the way that we should NOT go -- and only a fool would choose that pathway.
In this particular proverb that we read, we’re reminded that as Christian parents, the single greatest duty and responsibility we have towards our children (besides feeding them and caring for them as infants) is showing them the way they should go. It is leading them down the pathway of righteousness. Likewise, one of the greatest joys of a Christian parent and grandparent is seeing our children respond in faith and walking in the ways of God.
One of the passages that is often preached on Mother’s Day is 2 Timothy 1, where the Apostle Paul mentions the sincere faith of Timothy, and he writes that this sincere faith first dwelt in your grandmother Lois, and in your mother Eunice, and now I am sure, also dwells in you.
That kind of ‘generational faith’ is rare, people of God, and it is not passed down through genetics. Rather, it is passed down by faithful teaching, by consistent example, by patient and loving admonition and discipline. It is passed down by doing exactly what Proverbs 22:6 says – by training up our children in the way they should go.
Our theme: God calls us to Train Up Our Children to Follow Him. My approach this morning is to walk through the meaning of Proverbs 22:6, drawing on Deuteronomy 6 as a lesson, or an example of what it means to train up a child.
- We are to Evangelize our Children.
- We are to Teach them Daily and Diligently.
1. We are to Evangelize our Children
The word that is translated as “train-up” in Proverbs 22:6 can also mean to teach or instruct. And Deuteronomy 6 goes into detail, showing us what this looks like. The context of Deuteronomy 6 is also very crucial to our understanding of this passage. Here, Moses is preparing this generation of Israelites to enter the land of Canaan, the Land of Promise.
But do you recall what happened to the previous generation? They perished in the wilderness. Why? Because they rebelled against God. Because they did not put their faith and trust in God -- the same God who delivered them from their bondage in Egypt by performing miraculous signs and wonders. The same God who destroyed Pharoah and his whole army in the Red Sea. The same God who fed them with manna in the wilderness and gave them water from the rock – this same God promised to deliver the armies of Canaan into their hands!
But (as the book of Numbers 13-14 explains) God’s people were too afraid of so called “giants” (the sons of Anak) who lived in Canaan. So, they refused to go up and take the land. As punishment for their refusal, that entire generation (all those 40 years of age and over) died in the wilderness – all except Caleb and Joshua.
Now, forty 40 years later, Moses prepares the next generation of Israelites to enter the Promised Land. But before they go in, he reminds them of the importance of following the ways of God. So, he has these words of instruction and wisdom. We can both see and hear his loving concern for the people of God – not just for the adults, but for the children as well.
Moses understands that if the lessons learned by God’s people in the past, if the story of their salvation, if the story of God’s great power and deliverance is not passed down from father to son, then there will be no future, no hope, no blessing for God’s people in the land of Canaan.
So, there is a sense of urgency to what Moses says. Verses 1-2 of Deuteronomy 6: “Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that 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, (then notice): 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.
Moses is concerned about future generations. And what is the secret, what is the key to securing the generational safety and welfare of God’s people living in Canaan? Is it building high walls? Is it amassing a great army? Or having great military generals or ten thousand horses and chariots? No. It’s teaching your children the ways of God.
It’s teaching the next generation who God is and what He has done for them. It’s teaching them who they are, as God’s children. It’s teaching them to trust in God, to have faith in God come what may, and to believe in his precious promises. It’s teaching the children how they are to live and walk before the face of God in righteousness and holiness.
Look also at vv.20-22. “In the future, when your son asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?” 21 tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 Before our eyes the Lord sent signs and wonders—great and terrible—on Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household.”
You know what that says? Do you know what that means? Moses is commanding these parents to tell their children, to tell future generations, the story of their redemption. He says – evangelize your children. Tell them the story of their salvation. Preach the Gospel to your children!
Don’t raise a generation of Pharisees and legalists who blindly follow the law; rather raise a generation of believers who know their God, who love the God of their salvation! That will make all the difference! That will not only secure their future in the land of Canaan, but also in the heavenly Canaan.
Today we parents are to teach our children the story of their salvation. Parents, we must evangelize our children so that they may know that the Christian life is centered on Jesus Christ, the Savior who came and shed his blood for us on the cross of Calvary, to forgive our sins. Jesus died and rose again so that that we might live in Him and live for Him. We want our children to know Jesus, to trust in Him with all their heart, and to follow Him all the days of their lives.
2. We are to Teach them Daily & Diligently
Then Moses goes on in verses 6-7 to say this: “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, and 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”
Notice two things: first: the teaching and instruction in the ways of God was to be an ongoing activity that pervaded every aspect of everyday life. As parents, and this goes for all of us as God’s people, there is no such thing as compartmentalizing our Christian faith such that we give God a half-an-hour of our time each day, and then the rest of the day we have to ourselves.
As believers (and this would have been true for God’s people in that day as well), our entire life is lived before the face of God. For example, when we sit at the breakfast table, we teach our children to bow their heads and pray – to thank the Lord for the food and blessings that He has given to us. That’s a life lesson about trusting and relying on God for our daily bread.
Before they go off to school or before you start school in your home, we pause to pray for safety, for their ability to learn, to be respectful, to share, to show love, to be kind. We teach our children that we and they need God’s help, God’s protection, God’s blessing.
We give our children chores to do – and if you haven’t done this, you ought to be consider it – whereby we can teach them and train them to have a Godly work ethic, and show Godly responsibility -- to do the job they are given with a happy heart, and not moaning and complaining.
And when we have time for exercise, when we take a walk, or ride a bike, or maybe when we drive to school or church, we can use that time to talk to our children about anything that is on their heart or draw their attention to the beauty of God’s creation.
All of life, every waking moment of every day is teaching time, and all of life, all of our activities, at home, on a road trip, on vacation, doing chores on the farm or clearing the supper table and loading the dishwasher -- it is all classroom, all the time. It should be part of our everyday conversation.
Granted, for our generation, this is profoundly difficult. That’s because of our generation’s unlimited, often unfiltered and unsupervised exposure to social media, to entertainment and music -- by way of laptops and tablets and cell phones and earbuds.
I say this also to my own shame and failure as a parent, because I have been as guilty of this as anyone -- if we leave our children to themselves, they will be perfectly happy to find their own form of entertainment, their own friends, their own ‘family’ on social media or whatever platform it may be. If we tune out our children, they’ll tune in to something or someone else.
So, I strongly urge you parents to consider or reconsider the access your children and young people have to screens and phones and music and gaming – not just in free time, but at mealtime, and perhaps especially at bedtime.
Don’t be afraid to set specific and strict rules and safeguards – and maybe you have to abide by those rules yourself as a parent. Maybe you have to lead by example. Sometimes the problem isn’t always the children. Sometimes we parents can’t put down the cell phone. Or we can’t turn off the TV or the laptop. Our children see that. Again, they know when we’re tuning them out!
So where does Deuteronomy 6 fits into this? How do you think this is going to end for your children and family? And realize this: someone is going to teach our children. If we’re not doing it, if we’re not diligently teaching our children, and talking to them about the ways of God, impressing upon them the truths of the Christian faith, helping them to form a Christian world and life view – then who is teaching them?
Parents, the years that we have to teach and train-up our children are so precious and few. They fly by so quickly. Don’t waste them. And if you’re a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, a good friend of the family, then maybe we can come alongside busy parents (who are often tired and overwhelmed) and we can help. We can also teach and train as we have opportunity.
The second point I want to highlight about these verses is what it says right at the beginning of verse 6. It says, “These words that I say to you today shall be upon your heart.” The heart is the key to everything. I find it fascinating that orthodox Jews would take these words of Moses quite literally, and they would wear the phylacteries on their heads and arms – they were small leather boxes that they would tie to their foreheads and to their left forearm, and in those little boxes they would have the words of Scripture passages written upon them.
The visual image this conveyed was very powerful. One look at an orthodox Jew and you would see someone who’s (at least outwardly) serious about the Word of God and the ways of God.
But that’s why this verse is so important – for where are we to keep this Word? Where are we to hide this Word? Where are we to show that we are truly people of God, who truly love God, who truly desire to follow the ways of God?
It is in the heart! That’s the seat of religion; that’s the core of our being. As Paul writes in Romans 10: 10 For it is with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. But belief, faith, trust, love for God – it must begin, it must take root in the heart.
Just look at how wonderfully, how powerfully these words and images go together: Moses says: these words that I say to you today shall be upon your heart then he says: diligently teach them to your children. The Hebrew word for diligently teach literally means to sharpen, to pierce.
The teachings of God’s Word, the Gospel message of salvation -- that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Lord – those words aren’t meant to be something we print on a T-shirt we wear or have the words tattooed on our chest. No, those words are to be written on our own hearts, etched on our hearts and on the hearts of our children.
Just as God carved the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone and gave them to His people, so we parents, pastors, grandparents, teachers, are to teach God’s Word to our children in such a way that the teachings of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is indelibly engraved on their hearts.
And remember, this was the very promise of the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:33): For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God and they shall be my people. Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Beloved, let us pray for our children and grandchildren, and if you do not have children, then pray for the children of your relatives and friends and church family. Pray that God’s Holy Spirit would work in the heats of the children, softening their hearts, making them open and receptive to the teaching and preaching of the Gospel; so that they might know and love and follow their God – Father Son and Holy Spirit – all the days of their lives.
And finally, I want to close with a few words about the second half of this Proverb. “Train-Up your child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart form it.” This is not a blanket guarantee or promise from God. Only the Lord knows the heart. And the heartbreaking reality is that in almost every Christian home there are covenant children who grow up and do not remain in the faith, but they depart from it. How do we explain that? As parents, we cannot.
But we can console ourselves with this: while it may be true that we failed pretty badly as parents, or perhaps you look back and you think that you did everything or most things well. Here’s what we do know: the fact that some or even ANY of our children are saved, the fact that some or even ANY of our children walk the pathway of righteousness is all of God’s grace.
Yes, parents have a huge part to play in all of this – but we are not the sole reason that our children walk with the Lord, nor are we the sole reason that some of our children abandon the faith. In the end, all of our children must answer for themselves before the judgment seat of God.
And for those of us who have adult children who still do not know Jesus as Lord – remember, that they are not outside the reach of God’s grace. So, pray for them relentlessly. Love them as a parent should. And never stop trying to impress upon their hearts the Good News of the Gospel of grace. Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Pastor Keith Davis, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
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(c) Copyright 2026, Pastor Keith Davis
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