From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Your children, they need three things. They need structure, they need nurture, and they need affirmation. Your child, your son, your daughter needs to hear from dad, "I love you. I'm proud of you." They need to hear that, especially from dad, because dad is the leader of the home. Dad is the man in the house. And when dad says, "I love you, I'm proud of you, you're good," it validates that son and that daughter.

Larry Nobles: God gives us instructions in His Word as to how to be good parents because He knows that parenting is so critical. And the book of Deuteronomy chapter six is especially important because its focus is specifically on parenting. This is from his heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve.

Thank you for joining us today as Pastor Jeff will reveal a special instruction from Scripture about how to be the parent that God wants you to be, created you to be, and how to let Him direct your path through the minefield of parenting. This message is entitled "Preparing Children for Life," and it's from Pastor Jeff's seven-lesson series, "We Are Family."

We'll hear part two today. If you missed part one from last time, you can listen again online at FromHisHeart.org; just click the listen link. Now, though, open your Bible to the sixth chapter of the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy as Pastor Jeff offers part two of the lesson, "Preparing Our Children for Life."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: I want to share with you three encouragements on this subject of parenting, preparing children for life. Encouragement number one: parenting starts in your own heart. Now, you can't pass on what you don't possess. If I'm running in a relay race and I'm the first leg and I don't have a baton, there's nothing for me to give the next guy. And so I have to have a genuine faith and a genuine relationship with Jesus so I can pass that on to my kids.

So if you want to be a good parent, you jot this down: a good parent is a good disciple. That's how you know you're growing in the Christian life. A good parent is a good disciple. Secondly, a good parent is a good example. I mean, your kids are watching you, mom and dad. They're watching to see, are you a good disciple? Because if you're a good disciple, then you're a good example. But if you're not walking with the Lord, then they're not going to see you as an example.

Do you have that genuine relationship? First encouragement: parenting starts in your own heart. Second encouragement: parenting needs to firmly establish a godly foundation. A godly foundation so I can pass along the baton of faith. And I need as a parent to not only be a good disciple and to be a good example, but I need to pass on to my children what it means to know the Lord and walk with the Lord.

Look at verse six again: "And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and daughters too, not just sons alone, 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 teach them to your kids all the time.

So I first have to work on me, but then I have to do the job of diligently teaching my children. Number one: you diligently teach your children who the Lord is so there's no mistake, so that they know the truth. Jesus said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." What does the Scripture say who He is? He is God alone.

As the Scripture talks about the Lord here, "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!" It means He's the one. He's the only. He's united. He is alone. There is no other God. And in the book of Isaiah, we read that. The Lord says, "I am the Lord, and there is no other." The Lord, He is God alone. And secondly, He is good, and He is mighty, and He is faithful. We sing that song, "Faithful God, You reign forever."

Look what it says in verse 20: "When your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which the Lord commanded you?' Then you shall say to your son, 'We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand. Moreover, the Lord showed great and distressing signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt, Pharaoh and all his household; and He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which He had sworn to our fathers.'"

He brought us out of the house of slavery and into the land of promise. Now they spent 40 years in the wilderness; that wasn't God's plan. God wanted them to come out of the land of slavery. He wanted them to come to Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments and then go into the land of promise.

But if you remember in the Scripture, in the book of Numbers, they didn't go in when they were supposed to. They said, "There are giants in the land. We can't go in. Let's go back to Egypt. We'd rather be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt than to face the giants in the Promised Land." And God was frustrated with them.

But see, here's the faithfulness of God. He took them out of Egypt, and He wanted to bring them into the Promised Land so that they'd experience the land flowing with milk and honey, all the blessings of the Lord. God is God alone. He is good and mighty and faithful and He is worthy, worthy, worthy. He's worthy of all your life.

Mom and dad and grandma and grandpa, teach your sons and your daughters and your grandsons and your granddaughters who the Lord is. So when they go off to college, they don't believe all the lies that they're told by professors and the liberals in the universities that God is a bad God, God is someone you can't trust. Those people believe lies about God. And the job of a parent is to teach your children who the Lord is.

And then not only teach them who the Lord is, diligently teach your children how to respond to the Lord. Who the Lord is and His track record and how God is faithful and true and trustworthy, and God is love and God is good. And then I teach them, so what does that mean? How do you respond to the Lord?

Well, God wants us in this chapter, we see first of all, He wants us to fear Him. He says that three times in Deuteronomy chapter six. He says it in verse two: "So that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God." He says it in verse 13: "You shall fear only the Lord your God, and you shall worship Him and swear by His name. You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you, for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth."

Now you say, "Jealousy, isn't that a bad thing?" God is a jealous God, but He's not jealous like you and I get jealous. You see, we get jealous of people. You have more than I do, you're doing better than I am, you have a better job than I do, you have more athletic ability than I do, you're better looking than I am, you have more hair than I do. That one's okay to be jealous about. God's never jealous of anyone.

He's jealous for people because He knows, "I am what you need. I created you. I created you with a God-shaped vacuum in your heart. I am what you need. And when you go after other things, you're walking away from love and joy and peace and satisfaction." So He's jealous for us, and He says, "You need to fear Me because I'm the God who can wipe you off the face of the earth."

And He says in verse 24: "So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always and for our survival as it is this day." Fear. That's the first thing He mentions. It comes before love because the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It's the beginning of wisdom. It's the beginning point of everything, to understand that God is God and you're not God, and life is not about you; it's about Him.

And we talk about the love of God, and God does love us. But remember this: God doesn't love you because you're valuable; you're valuable because God loves you. It's all about God. And we are to fear God. "Do not let your heart envy sinners, but live in the fear of the Lord always." To always fear Him. "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth, I hate."

When I fear the Lord, then I obey the Lord because I understand that God is a consuming fire. Some people say, "Well, does God want us to be scared to death of Him?" No. He wants us to recognize who He is. He wants us to have tremendous respect and reverence for God because you understand that God is in charge of everything. And you're not flippant in the presence of the Lord. I mean, people who were flippant in the presence of the Lord, they would die. God is holy, holy, holy. He's no respecter of persons.

So how do we respond to the Lord? We fear Him because He is God. We love Him. God wants us to love Him. That's why verse five is the greatest commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." And see, when I fear the Lord, those who fear the Lord most love Him the best.

I love how Adrian Rogers described the fear of the Lord. He said the fear of the Lord is love on its knees. To say, "God, You're God, and I stand in awe of You, and I kneel in awe of You, and I love You." Why? Because You first loved me. God wants us to fear Him, He wants us to love Him, and He wants us to trust and obey Him.

And we teach our children how to trust God, how to obey God, how to walk in His ways. Now, if you read the whole chapter, Deuteronomy chapter six, you'll find out that three times He talks about fearing the Lord. One time, verse five talks about loving the Lord, but we could say it's kind of like three times because you love Him with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Six times He talks about obeying the Lord. Obeying His commandments, keeping His commandments, doing what He said, diligently following what He says. It's really important.

Larry Nobles: More on this message today called "Preparing Children for Life" in just a moment. But first, "From His Heart" is an international nonprofit broadcast ministry that is reaching the world with God's truth and His Holy Word, started by Pastor Jeff over 21 years ago. Dr. Jeff Schreve is a volunteer for this ministry, receives no income from it. And in a world filled with confusion and compromise, your support ensures that the real truth of God's Word continues to be proclaimed boldly in an efficient and a frugal financial way.

With your support, lives are being changed, hearts are being healed, and people are discovering the hope that can only be found in Jesus. This is the last month in our fiscal year-end, and we have a substantial gap that we need to fill this month to end the year with great confidence that we can continue to expand more next year.

For your gift to "From His Heart" this month, we'll say thank you for joining this ministry effort by sending you Pastor Jeff's new series, "Love and Marriage: Doing Family Life God's Way," and the companion booklet, "I Still Do," written by Pastor Jeff and his wife Debbie. To get yours, simply call 866-40-BIBLE and make that gift. That's 866-402-4253, or it's easy to go online for a secure gift when you go to FromHisHeart.org. And when you make that gift, request the special resources this month. We are deeply grateful for your partnership, bringing real hope to a world that desperately needs it. Now to the conclusion to the lesson, "Preparing Our Children for Life." Here's Pastor Jeff.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Listen, mom and dad, it says in verse seven: "You shall teach them diligently to your sons and talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up." All the time you teach your kids. You look for teachable moments. That's why mealtime is an important time for families. And in the busy world in which we live in, mealtime gets squeezed out, and we're eating fast food on the run, and we're not really having table time around the dinner table together where we can talk through things.

And when we are around the dinner table, a lot of time people are on their phone, so they're kind of checked out. Mealtime is important because that's time to find out what's going on in their lives. It's a good time to talk to them about spiritual things and put a spiritual slant on problems and difficulties. How does God fit into this? What does God want you to do? How can you trust God in this problem, in this situation?

You know what else is a great time? Homework time. Homework time is a good time, especially when you've got younger kids. Debbie was so good about the kids would come home from school, and she would do it: "We're immediately going to do homework." Because Debbie's idea is fun is later; right now we're doing homework. My idea was homework can wait; let's have fun. So we were a good team. She was bad cop; I was good cop. And I was okay with that.

And so she's just providing structure. And so the kids respond well to structure. They don't respond well to there are no boundaries. You can't play football if there's no out-of-bounds. It just becomes a free-for-all, this is a zoo. Kids like structure. And so Debbie would provide structure. And homework time could be a great teaching time about who the Lord is and how do you respond to Him.

And then I think the best time is bedtime. Bedtime for little kids. Now that was my time. Debbie and I, that's how we worked it out. So Debbie had them all day; she was a stay-at-home mom. And we had talked about that before we got married. And I said, "Debbie, I don't care if we have to live in a little apartment somewhere; I want you home with our kids." Because I just think that's so critical, so important when the kids are young especially, that you stay home with them. Now that was our conviction; that might not be your conviction, but it was my conviction and God blessed that for us.

But then when I would come home, sometimes Debbie would meet me at the door and she would be having a bad day, and she would say, "They're alive. I did my job." I'd be like, "Okay. Well, I guess I'll take over from here." But at night, I would brush their teeth and I'd put the girls to bed. And I'd read them Bible stories and I would pray with them and I would teach them Bible verses.

They heard dad praying over them. And you know, there's a different kind of connection, dads and daughters, moms and sons. It's an opposite-sex thing, and there's a different connection. And those of you who have boys and girls, you know what I'm talking about. The moms and the sons have a different relationship than moms and daughters. Dads and daughters, different relationship than dads and sons. And so I would just pour into my kids at night.

And dad, I want to encourage you, you do that. You put your kids to bed. You let them hear your voice as you pray over them and as you read Bible stories. It makes all the difference in the world. All the time there are opportunities to teach our kids.

And then encouragement number three: parenting is not a perfect science with perfect results. Parenting's kind of like the book of Proverbs. You know, the Lord tells us things to do, but that's not a guarantee. The book of Proverbs gives us nuggets of wisdom that this works most of the time in life. This is how life is set up, and hard work does pay off.

But we can all come up with some story, some illustration, some outlier here or there that says, "Well, but it didn't work here." So in general, this is how it works: you teach your children, you are the example, and you spend the time with your kids. Nobody does it perfectly, but you teach your children, train them up in the way that they should go, and when they're old they don't depart from it. But just remember parenting is not a perfect science with perfect results.

You can do lots of things right and not see great results. That's just true. It may not be good news, but it's true. And how do I know it's true? Because the Scripture says this about Samuel. Samuel, who had a great mother, Hannah, who prayed for him and God answered her prayer. Samuel means asked of the Lord. Samuel was the judge in Israel. I mean, nothing came to Israel that didn't go through Samuel. Samuel was God's man. God speaks to Samuel; Samuel speaks to the people.

And it says, "And it came about when Samuel was old, that he appointed his sons judges over Israel. His sons, however, did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after dishonest gain and took bribes and perverted justice." And the people said to Samuel, "We can't have your sons as judges. They're not like you. Give us a king so we're like the other nations." But God was their king.

The Lord said to Samuel, "Don't grieve; they haven't rejected you from being king; they've rejected Me." But it was because Samuel's sons weren't like Samuel. And I remember James Dobson, he quoted that verse and he said, "When my kids were little," he said, "that verse came to my heart and I said, 'There are no guarantees in parenting. Oh God, save my son, save my daughter. I want to see them come to faith in Christ.'"

And that was his prayer and the driving force in his life. You can do lots of things right and not see great results; there are no guarantees. And secondly, you must not torture yourself over parenting failures. Lots of people do that. I mean, they've messed up and they torture themselves with guilt and shame. God doesn't want you to live in guilt and shame. Maybe you've messed up big time in your parenting. Okay. I mean, you did. You can try and deny it, but you did.

But God doesn't want you to live in guilt and shame. Sometimes, you know, when you scramble the eggs, you can't unscramble them. I mean, not sometimes, all the time. Only God can make lemonade out of lemons and can make a message out of our messes. But I know He told the woman in Luke seven, the prostitute who had sinned terribly, "Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace." Not go in shame, not go in guilt, not go in consternation; go in peace.

So don't torture yourself over parenting failures. And then lastly, you can continue to pray for God to work on your children. You say, "Well, my kids are they've been shot from the bow. Now they're out. They're in college, they're out of college, they're in their thirties, forties, fifties, whatever it is. They're not walking with God, and I've messed up with them. What do I do?" You pray.

You can still pray. God is the God who can do anything. He's the God of might and miracle. He's the God who specializes in impossible situations. So you get on your face and you pray and you ask God, "In the midst of my failure, all the things I did wrong, Lord, God, restore my relationship with my son or daughter. God, bring my son, my daughter to faith in Christ. God, I want to somehow pass along the baton of faith and I wasn't able to do that because of whatever reason when they were young, when they were in my hand, when they were the arrows in the hand of a warrior. I had them there, but I squandered that time."

So what do you do? You pray and you seek God's face. And listen, dads, let me talk to you. Dads, let me talk to you. Your children, they need three things. They need structure, they need nurture, and they need affirmation. Now, in our home, Debbie provided structure because she's very disciplined; I just love that about her. She provided a lot of the nurture. We did that together, but she was very nurturing.

But dads provide the validation, the affirmation. Your child, your son, your daughter needs to hear from dad, "I love you. I'm proud of you." They need to hear that, especially from dad, because dad is the leader of the home. Dad is the man in the house. And when dad says, "I love you, I'm proud of you, you're good," it validates that son and that daughter. Moms can do that, and you single moms, you do that. But listen, it can't take the place of dad.

So what do you do in parenting? You do it God's way. You trust the Lord and you pray.

Larry Nobles: As we've surely learned today, being a parent is the most important job on the planet. It is also the most challenging. God calls us to raise godly children who are prepared to face the world. He provides us with guidance and instruction in His Word, some of which we've aired today on the message, "Preparing Our Children for Life."

It's from Pastor Jeff's four-message series, "Love and Marriage: Doing Family Life God's Way." And that series is our gift of thanks to you in the format of your choice, and you will help us financially this fiscal year-end month. All you give goes to help us reach the lost and hurting world with the good news of Christ. And the "Love and Marriage" series will help prepare you for the days ahead.

To make your important and timely gift today, call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-402-4253, or simply go online to FromHisHeart.org and request it when you make your fiscal year-end gift today. God bless you. Well, that's all the time we have for today. I am Larry Nobles. A big thank you from all of us at "From His Heart" for joining us today. And we hope that you'll be with us for the next several broadcasts for powerful messages that will strengthen your family, your marriage, and your children.

So be with us on Wednesday for the lesson, "God's Blueprint for the Family." Join us then when Pastor Jeff Schreve will open up God's Word and share real truth in real love and real hope from God's heart. Here on "From His Heart."