I have to tell you another sad announcement that this afternoon, your future associate pastor or assistant pastor, he seems like a nice guy. He isn't. He beat me in ping pong today. Yeah, look, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. See, and the sad... See, what's so sad, I have absolutely nothing I can think of as an excuse, and that's what's so bad, because I had the best equipment. The Reagans gave me this snazzy Korean paddle that had a cover. I unzipped it in front of him. Like, you are in such trouble. I made him play four games of basketball so he was worn down, had no energy. He couldn't bend over to pick up the ping pong. I had to pick up all the balls off the floor. And he's sitting there doing his little fancy little serve, you know. And I can't get it back on the table and he's just smiling like, that was almost a good shot. That's what was so pitiful. I mean, you know, he seems to be so nice and he's killing you. He's just killing you. Oh, man. But I was really, you know, I'm glad that the better guy won. I'm really happy about it. He tore me to pieces. It was embarrassing. It was terrible. Great, great game. All right. All right. Now, Deuteronomy 6 tonight. Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which Yahweh your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you're crossing over to possess, that you may fear Yahweh your God and to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. Therefore, hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as Yahweh, God of your fathers, has promised you, a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one. You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you today shall be in 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, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 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 doorpost of your house and on your gates. That's the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Our Father, we give you thanks again for giving us your word and the promise of your spirit to help us to understand it. And we pray, most of all, that not only will we understand it, but that actually we will be transformed by it and made more like Jesus, our Savior. Work in us, work in our families, work in our congregations, and help us in every way to glorify you. For Jesus' sake, amen. Well, the topic assigned for tonight is preparing our children for marriage. And when, you know, you begin to think, I begin to think of this and think, well, what do our children, what must be true of our children if they're to be happily married and they're to have joy in their marriage? And of course the answers to that are not hard to find. Biblically, they need to be mature, faithful, covenant-keeping people. They need to be those who rejoice in the great privilege of worship and service to the living God. They have to be those who glory in doing what is right and keeping God's word and following it and fulfilling their God-given responsibilities faithfully and joyfully and fully. And if they're that, well, they're all ready for marriage. They're ready to go. And of course, you say, well, how do we get there? Well, you get there by teaching them, bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, which means teaching them, disciplining them, chastening them, making faithful use of the means that God has ordained to cultivate faithfulness in them. Loving them, equipping them for their particular callings under God, and particularly teaching them those things they'll need to know as husbands, and wives, and mothers, and fathers. Now, that's pretty much it. There's not a whole lot to add to that. If you're going to say, how do you rear your children and prepare them for marriage? Well, that's pretty much it. fleshes that out in every place. What I wanted to do is not really go over those things so much, but rather to talk about the one thing that makes all of those things powerful, transforming, glorifying, sanctifying things. And it's something that really is being pointed to when God speaks to Israel here in Deuteronomy 6. when he says to them, hear, O Israel, Yahweh, our God, Yahweh is one, Moses, of course, speaking, and you shall love Yahweh, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and these words which I command you today shall be in your heart, and 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, when you lie down, and when you rise up, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand. They shall be as frontlets between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. Now what is interesting about this is that this command is impossible to follow literally, right? Did God actually expect Israel to copy all of his commandments on their doorposts and gates and then to bind a copy of all of his commandments on their hands and between their eyes And the answer is no. You've got an entire book of the law that even the Book of the Covenant would be impossible to do that for. I mean, what is called the Book of the Covenant, chapters 20 through 23 of Exodus. You couldn't copy all that on your doorpost. You probably couldn't carry it around in a copy on your hand. You know how the Jews do it now. They have these little boxes with little letters in them and they signify that. But you can't literally follow this command. The point of this is not so much to spend time learning to write small, you know. But actually, to have the word so pervasive in your life and in your home that when you go out, it's guiding you and leading you. When you stay in, that's the thing that frames and flavors everything in the room, whatever you think, whatever you do, wherever you go. You're to be living for the glory of God and there must be an environment of righteousness so that your children will learn that this is life. It's not just the philosophy we follow, which is unfortunately the way many Christians present the faith to their children. This is the system of ethics that we follow. The world has this system of ethics, we have this system of ethics, and we think this is better, because it is. So we become little superior philosophers because we've got the best philosophy. Or we've got the best theology. Or we've got the best rules of life. Well, that is all true. We do have the best philosophy. We do have the best theology. We do have the best rules, no doubt about it. But that's not life. We're talking about life. We're talking about living day to day Face to face, in all the situations that face us, dealing with all the ups and downs and ins and outs and joys and sorrow of life and being able to be fruitful and joyful and multiplying and showing mercy to our neighbors and seeing the grace of God flow throughout the world, renewing the world. That's what the faith is. That's what Christianity is. It's a life. Yeah, it's a life that we hold certain beliefs, we hold certain theologies, we hold certain doctrines, and we follow God's commandments. But it is a life that we're after, and that's the thing that God is after with Israel. His word is to govern everything they do with their hands, everything they think in their heads, everywhere they go, whatever they do, they're to be so saturated by the love of God that they seek to do everything that pleases Him and avoid everything that displeases Him every day in everything they do so that they never forget Him and seek to do it all to His glory and have all their children follow them in that. Now when you're living like that, that's the goal that God sets forth, your children grow up learning how to live. They learn how to walk by faith. They learn how to follow, as disciples, the Lord Jesus. And that's what God is concerned about. And that's what I want us to think about. is how it is, what is it that characterizes a home that's suffused with the oxygen, with this, I don't know what, the odor of righteousness, however you want to put it, so that our children grow up breathing that sweet air. so that it's normal for them every day to grow breathing in the sweet air of righteousness throughout their days while they're in the home. How do we create such an environment? What are the characteristics of that kind of environment? That's really the question I want to address. And by addressing that, say, these are the things we have to have to prepare our children truly. effectively for marriage. All right, here are just a few things, and this is not, obviously, it's not a comprehensive list, so don't pretend it to be, but the things that I think are important, and I think the Bible shows us are important. First, our homes must be places where our children are certain of who they are under God. Now, I know I've said that again and again and again, but I say it again, one more time, because this is so important. for our children's well-being. They must be clear about their fundamental identity. And this, of course, again, is founded upon baptism. It is confirmed in the Lord's Supper. Our children must understand, by virtue of their baptisms, that they belong to Jesus and they are privileged to be the recipients of all his promises. All of those things belong to them and they are happily obligated now to keep his commandments, to carry on that burden of his that is light, his burden is easy, and to carry and follow him in the way that he outlines. This is who they are. And because of this, they realize that they have this holy obligation, this joyful obligation to respond in gratitude to God for his love, for his mercy, and live in faithfulness to him. Paul pretty much says this in a different way in Romans chapter 6 when he addresses the church at Rome. He says, don't you know that as many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? He said, you understand how baptism works, right? It means you're united to Jesus in all of his work, his death. And then he says, therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord." That's it. And Paul says, that's who you are. You've got to understand it. Never forget the significance of baptism. You were translated out of one kingdom into another, out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, out of the death of Adam into the life of the second Adam. You were brought out of the curse into blessing. And you have to now respond to this great work of God by actually living this way. Don't ever think of yourself now as belonging to sin or as under obligation to sin. You're not. You're not obligated to do anything that is evil. You don't have to do it at all. You can say no to it all. Say no to every temptation. Say no to Satan. You don't belong to him anymore. He's not yours. He's not your father. You belong to the living God, the living Son who was resurrected and now you must walk in newness of life. And so our children have to understand that they are no longer subject to sin. And that gives, rightly understood, that gives a boldness and a confidence that the church by and large has lost What do we act like many times? We act like that if we get around sin, why, why? I'll just get this incurable spiritual AIDS and I'll die. I'll be corrupted forever. Rather than going out as salt and light. You are the salt of the world. You are the light of the world, Jesus says. And that means that our children, we and our children, belong to the one people whom God uses to restore life and light to the world. You say, well, I thought Jesus was the light of the world. Yeah, he is. That's right. And he says to his people, his body, now you, I'm going to work through you to scatter the darkness. I'm going to work through you to oppose corruption and the advance of decay of sin and to give spice to life. I'm going to make you salt so that everybody you come in contact with will thirst for living water. Salt makes you thirsty. And I want you to live in such a way that everybody who comes around you and lives around you will want to say, you know what, I need something, I need a drink from you. I need to drink with you. What are you drinking, by the way? What are you drinking? You see? And they want to come over to your house to drink. You say, you're welcome, bring your children too, they can drink. They can drink with me. Because we're drinking Jesus. And the way we live is to make the world thirsty for him because they're going to see, here is someone who really cares about other people. They're not pretending to care. They don't care about me because of what I can do for them. They're interested in me. They actually care about how I'm doing. And they're honest. And they keep their word. And look at their children. Their children love them. And they love the children. I wish my children loved me. Your neighbors are going to start saying. And one day they're going to come over and say, you know what? Apparently, I don't have any water at my house. I need some of yours. That's the way salt works in the world. That's the way light works in the world. Light is not afraid of darkness, is it? If your electricity's on, your light bulb is working, I've never turned on the light bulb, and the light bulb comes on and goes, ah, darkness, no, no, no, and goes back dark. The light's not afraid of the dark. What is it afraid of the light? The darkness runs. The darkness always flees. Should you be afraid of Satan? James says, no, no, because you belong to the righteous one. You resist the devil and he'll flee from you. Why? Because he's darkness. He's the king of darkness. He can't stand against you. And we've got to tell our children and have our children understand this is who you are. Your job is to go into all the dark places and shine light. Don't be afraid of evil. Don't be afraid. And you see, and that means you're not merely to denounce evil or criticize evil. Anybody can do that. Everybody does that. Everybody's an expert at critique. But you see, God says, I want you not just to critique evil. I don't want you to just to denounce it. Sure, you can do that. But here's the deal. I want you to overcome evil with good. I want you to put it down. I want you to defeat it. Anybody can stand off to the side and denounce it and go, that is so bad. That is so bad. Do you realize how bad that is? Anybody can do that. Who cares? We don't need more people doing that. We need people overcoming that with good. You see? You're not called to sit around and point and go, ooh. That is so bad. That's not your job. That's not what light does. Light scatters darkness. Salt attacks corruption. And our children have to be reared in such a way that they understand that's their job. It's not, you see, my goal is not merely to avoid compromise with evil, it is that, but to expose it. It's not merely to condemn the darkness, but to scatter it. And our children must learn that they are here in the world. They've been brought into this world in covenant with God as a child of promise to us and then baptized, brought in, marked with God's name and made a part of his communion. And you're doing that so that you can be for the life of the world. And your whole life is devoted now to bringing life to the world in Jesus' name by the power of the Spirit. You've got to care about the world. I don't want you running from the world and retreating from the world and hiding from the world and being afraid of the world. I want you to go out there and tell them, hey guys, I don't know what you think you're doing, but buddy boy, it's not working out. We've got to change it. Be friendly, be normal, be human, be bold, be confident, not arrogant, not brash, but confident. Are you right or not? Yeah, you're right. Is this the way that people become human or not? Yeah, this is true humanity. Do I need to apologize for it? No. Do I need to act like that I'm just holding one particular religious philosophy among many that are all equally legitimate and you've got your opinion, I've got my opinion? No, you know what? I can be a friendly, loving guy and say, man, what you believe is so crazy, isn't it? I mean, I know it must drive you insane, doesn't it? I mean, don't you just want to scream in the night when you turn the light off? I would. I hate to think of you living like you're living and causing such harm and pain. How can you do that to yourself and your children? Because they know they're wrong. God says they know it. And we're to go out and show compassion, not just denouncing them, not just arrogantly implying we are so much better than you and you make me feel dirty when I'm around. No, we go out there and say, you know what? You need something. You need water. And you need some light. And isn't God good to let me get to know you? Isn't it good that we're neighbors? Isn't it good that, you know, we can talk about these things? This is good. It's a good thing. I really am interested in what's going on with you. How are your children? What's going on at work? and being salt and light in a very normal human way. That's what I want my children to be. That's what I've tried to tell them. This is what you got to do. So yeah, are you going to go into the neighborhood, the community theater? Sure. Go on in there. It's fine. You don't have to be afraid of those people. Now, are they all Christians? No. Do they have really crazy ideas? Are some of them really wicked and devoted to evil? Yeah. Are they around them? Yeah. Do they have to work with them? Yeah, sure. You've got to do it. If you're going to be in there, you've got to do it. But you don't compromise. You don't have to compromise. And you can show your love and concern without doing what they do or proving what they do or acting like what they do is indifferent. It isn't. Because we are salt and light. We've got an important job. And that's why it's important how we act, how we talk, how we dress, what we do, and what we refuse to do. This is why it's important. that we really do stay away from all evil and not compromise with it. We don't belong to the world. We don't belong to the world of despair and death and cynicism and meaninglessness and really cruel humor, which is about all that's left among those guys. We like to laugh more than they do because we know that the world history is a comedy. They don't know that. They think it's a tragedy. And we go, no, no, no. You know the story. You know the story. The beautiful princess is taken away by the dragon and taken off into a dungeon. And then the great prince, the son of the king, comes and delivers her and kills the dragon and takes her off and they live happily ever after. There it is. That's the story. It's hilarious. It's the funniest, most glorious story of all. It's a comedy. And we need to show them that that's exactly it. Now it's a comedy for us. And I want them to be a part of the comedy, not the tragedy. that will come to those who oppose. And we want our children to know they belong to the kingdom of life and joy and gladness. They belong to the realm of meaning and purpose. They are the saints and children of light and have to live like that. It's a big responsibility, but it's the greatest honor you ever had. No award you ever get will be greater than being called the son or daughter of God. And so I hope you get lots of awards, because then I can say, I know that person. I get to share in your fame. So I like to name drop. So I hope you get a lot of awards. I hope you get very famous, and everybody loves you, and all that. But you see, what you need to be clear is that no award you get, no honor you ever receive in life will be greater than the honor you got at baptism. Nothing's better than that. And our children need to know that, but you've got to know that yourself. They're not going to catch it from you unless they see you really believe that, don't you? And that's why when people say things about you, or when they do things about you, or when you face injustice, you can go right on. You can go right on. I mean, not that it's insignificant. You can be frustrated with it, and you might get righteously angry at certain things. That's all right. But it doesn't overthrow you. You don't fall into despair, because you know that's no big deal, man. Take, if I lose everything I had. All right, we start all over. We just do it again. Let's just keep serving and rejoicing, knowing that God's going to take care of us. And the most important thing we have is being in his family, not our bank account, not our reputation, not this, not that, being in his family. That's the great thing. Our children have to know that. All right, here's the second thing, and it's connected in a way. Our children must be a place, our homes must be a place where our children learn to shun evil and recognize it. I guess I should say recognize it and shun it. Our homes, we do need to protect our homes from evil. I don't mean to say, you know, open all the windows and doors and let every reptile in. No, that would be dumb. We are to protect from there are things that we cannot allow in our house. Pornography, just as one very obvious example. No, it doesn't have a place in our house. And so no, we're not going to have it. And we're going to talk about that because, you see, it gets in in various ways. Not only TV, not only movies, but of course now the internet. So we've got to talk about it and talk to the guys. of the boys in the house and say, hey, I happen to know there's a lot of opportunity for evil on the internet, and you need to realize that. And there's some very interesting pictures. Amazing. I mean, look at them. They're just astonishing. But you know what? You can't watch that stuff, because we're not to commune with that. Don't do that. That kind of, that's like, you know, drinking poison every day is not good for you. And so they've got to understand that. They know that. You see, but this doesn't mean that I'm able to protect them from all evil. And I feel like sometimes some of our brothers and sisters try to protect their children from all evil because they're afraid that if they ever get confronted by evil, they're going to fall. Well, if we've done our job properly, that's not going to happen because I can't protect them from all evil. I can't keep all evil away from them. That is impossible. What it means is I must help them to recognize evil when they see it and to oppose it for the right reasons. It's not evil to be exposed to evil. It's evil to love evil, and it's evil to condone evil. But it's not evil to be exposed to it. I get exposed to it, you get exposed to it all the time, and our children get exposed to it. I mean, unless we lock them in a closet, What are you going to do about that? And then if you lock them in a closet, they'll be imagining all these, you know, naked ladies or something. You can't get away from evil. They've got to learn how to deal with that properly. They must learn to deal with evil. They must learn to recognize its effects in them and repent. They must learn to say no to evil by saying yes to their calling in the kingdom. And they have to understand how things work, like music, like movies, and music, and theater, and all these powerful arts. I've been amazed. You don't think about it all the time, but how many people can be moved to tears by an actor on a screen saying words that never happened to him, pretending, going through actions that never actually ever occurred. And all of us are sitting there just, oh, oh, this is such a good movie. And we're crying our eyes out, you know. Well, it just shows you those are powerful things. Music is a powerful tool. Now, I used to grow up, and I grew up in the time when there was really good music. Okay, there's a few questions for you. No, I mean, I used to say what you say, hey, it doesn't affect me, come on, it doesn't bother me, I listen to all that stuff and it doesn't bother me. Well, the fact is, music is a very powerful thing and it is because it comes from the spirit. That's why it's so powerful. That's why it's so glorious. That's why images are so powerful. They come from the spirit. All this is God-given. That's why it so powerfully moves us and molds us. But music is especially powerful, isn't it? When you get through with finals, there were certain songs I wanted to listen to as I drove down the highway with my window down. And that made me feel like I am done for another year, and I'm so happy. It can encourage you, it can lift your spirits, and it can also depress you, right? Because sometimes you put on some songs just because you feel like, I just want to feel sorry for myself. And so I turn on that song and you will. It can delight you or bring you despair, it can disturb you or comfort you. I told the guys, well, and the girl too, that if I see you moody and surly and have this cynical spirit, I know you haven't been listening to Bach. And so guess what time it is? It's Bach time. I mean, you got to listen to Bach. And I want to hear some, you know, here's the CDs, here's the song. You're going to listen to all these symphonies for a while. Get happy again. And sure enough, music is revolutionary. It can, well, I should say it can bring revolution or reformation. We want it to bring holy, godly reformation. So yeah, they've got to learn all of that and be wise to it. And you've got to help them see how this works, how these things work. Here's the third thing. Our homes must be places which cultivate an appreciation of beauty. It's not enough to guard against evil. We have to replace evil with good. We've got to overcome evil with good. So parents must ensure that their home is an environment that encourages and cultivates love of truth, beauty, and holiness. Paul exhorts the Philippians to set their minds on particular things. Listen to this again. You've heard this before. Philippians 4, 8. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there's any virtue, if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. These are things that we want, filling our homes and our hearts and our minds. And we want to be surrounded by these things of beauty, righteousness, and peace. So there does need to be in your home, it needs to be filled with quality music. And I'm not just talking about classical music, because I think you ought to listen to something other than the Beatles. and James Taylor, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and those great, great musicians and composers. Have some variety. Go ahead and listen to Mozart. He's okay. He's all right. Listen to Handel. Listen to some others. Listen to contemporary musicians as well. Try to gain an appreciation for the various forms of music and art. We need to broaden our taste. You say, I'll just like country. All right. But, you know, you need to get out of the truck sometime. And listen to something else. Listen to something else and develop that. Listen to ancient music. Listen to modern music. Listen to classical as well as contemporary. And develop an appreciation for great composers. There's a story about this old Jewish lady walking down the street and this guy sitting there, homeless guy, and he says, lady, can you help me? I haven't eaten anything for weeks. And she said, force yourself. I shouldn't tell that joke, it's so funny it makes me laugh. Force yourself. All right, so you say, I don't like classical music. Force yourself. Oh, I can't stand to listen to that. Force yourself. Just listen. I don't know what, but let me suggest Handel's Messiah. Listen to it every day for two weeks and watch what happens to you. And I'm just pulling that out of the air. There's a lot of other great things. Mark can help us. He knows a lot more than I do about this. But we've got to get this appreciation. There has to be that kind of thing. And let me also say this should be singing. And not just singing in the shower. But singing as a family. I'm really convinced that you learn to sing by singing. Now that doesn't mean that voice teachers can't help you. Of course they can. But you have been given the gift of song by the Spirit. And we are to sing. Now you say, well I'm just never, I can't sing. Well you probably haven't sung very much or you haven't sung enough. Keep singing. Keep doing it. The singing here has been just It's really great. Keep it up. Sing at home. Sing all the time. Sing as a family and enjoy yourself doing that. That's part. There ought to be the singing of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs in our homes. There has to be an appreciation of art. And I don't mean that anything that's not Rembrandt ought to be denounced. I think there's some wonderful modern art that ought to be appreciated. There has to be some kind of basic understanding of art and what is good and what is not. Some ability to discern good from bad. You say, well, you got me there. I don't know. Well, you know what? I got myself because I'm not sure either how to make that, but there are those who can help us to make those kinds of distinctions. We can learn, and we need to learn. We must be able to distinguish what is ennobling from what is simply childish in art. We have to be able to discern between what is truly beautiful and what is cheesy and worthless. And we need to grow an appreciation for great literature and let me encourage you to read together as a family. That was one of the happiest things we ever did was just to read through books and all kinds of books of all kinds of links and we read everything together and it was fun to do so. I learned and they learned and we had a great time. You see, It used to be fairly common in families. In fact, you hear about couples, I think immediately, Stonewall Jackson and his wife, he would read to her every night from something. And General Lee would read to his wife. But they were not unusual. That was done. Husbands would read to wives, and sometimes wives would read to husbands. And then when they had children, they just read together. Someone would read out loud, usually dad, but sometimes mom, and they would just read out loud. Read the great classics as well as contemporary literature. Read good fiction as well as histories and biographies. Read the old fairy tales and the great poets. It's one of the great ways to cultivate in your children an appreciation of great literature. Don't give them great expectations. Goodness, it will break their back to pick it up. Don't give them that. Read it to them. See? Don't give them the Count of Monte Cristo. Read it to them. You know, read those things, and then all of a sudden they go, man, that's a great story. Yeah, and look how big it is. It's about this big. You not only get the effect of reading great literature, it works your biceps really well. Read good books. Far better than giving them a good book and saying, give me a report on that in a month. No, read it together. Don't give me books, read them to me. That's the best way. And of course, worship together. I won't say much there, but obviously our homes ought never to be strangers to prayer and praise. The only thing I would say, and I'm sure it's been said, I didn't get to the breakout session, but I know I'm almost absolutely positive it was said. And if by some incredibly unusual thing it wasn't said, I know they wanted to say this. And that is that family devotions ought to be brief and simple. Read the Bible, pray, and sing, and be done. No hour-long family devotions. I mean, unless you have older children, everybody's getting into it, we're talking, and we're just going on and on, fine. But usually with young children, make it brief, make it fun, and that's what you want. No, I don't want anybody dreading devotion time. That would be bad, worship time. All right, fourthly, our homes must be places of love, joy, and holy celebration. We must emphasize the importance of having meals together and having special times of celebration. I'm always shocked to see how many young people in our day do not eat with their families. And I realize that it's impossible when your children get older, it's impossible, of course, to have everybody present because they're often gone sometimes or they have their own families or whatever. But even the ones you have home, when they're older, it's hard to get this practice and that going and everything, and it's hard to eat. We've always tried to have at least one meal together every day. We haven't always succeeded, especially as they've gotten older, but we want to eat together. Food is one of the great blessings of God and His covenant, because you can't live without it, for one thing. But God has ordained food to communicate life to us. Jesus is identified as the food of life. We say the bread of life. Yeah, but the word bread means food. It symbolizes all food. He's the food of life. And this is why communion with God is signified by eating food in his presence. That becomes the high point. The climax of our worship is eating with him. And when man enters into covenant with God, he's privileged to eat with him. And the same is true between men. You see in the Bible, when they enter into an agreement, they eat a meal together. Eating a common meal together joins us together with one another. And eating with God joins us with the Lord himself. So eating together is significant, just as significant as the refusal to eat together. That's pretty significant, right? If you say, I don't want to eat with that guy. I don't want you to ask him over. That's a pretty significant judgment. When I refuse to eat with you, we got big problems. So eating with you is a big thing. That's good. That's a really great blessing. And this is not only true, you see, in the church. It has to be true also in the home. So eat together. Use it as your time of worship and talk. Reading together there's great great blessing in this and of course this points us to the importance of celebrations and feasting for the redeemed man Feasting is a symbol of blessing and great victory the righteous feast and celebration of their blessings and of the mighty acts of God in their behalf throughout the Old Testament, you know, God has set up this These annual feasts, Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, and then there were New Moon festivals, and monthly, of course, Sabbath festivals, Jubilee, and every Sabbath year, the Sabbatical year, and then every seventh day, the Sabbath. that every year was filled with feasting. And now, under the new heavens and new earth, the church has devised another calendar based around the son of God. You see, the old calendar was around the sun and moon. Now we have the risen son of righteousness, and we base our new calendar around him, so we have our feasting. We have seasons that we feast in, Christmas and Epiphany and Lent and Easter and Pentecost, and close the year with Advent. That's the way we work and in addition to these things under the old covenant there were all other kinds of celebrations. There were celebrations of great deliverances like Hanukkah and Purim and there were things like other regional festivals like occurred every year in Shiloh. and family celebrations at birthdays and circumcisions and weanings and special family milestones. In these ways we mark the blessings of God, we make things, we mark the significance, we don't give significance to it, we amplify the significance that's there. What happens in our lives and in the lives of our children needs to be underscored and celebrated when God works and enables them to accomplish these things. These are all important in creating an environment of righteousness. Our children need to understand that Proverbs 15, 15 is true. All the days of the afflicted are evil, but he who is of a merry heart has a continual feast. And they need to grow in confidence. And you see feasting is that which shows and promotes this kind of confidence. Listen to Psalm 23 again. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. And you anoint my head with oil and my cup runs over. Now you see the significance of that is, David says, when my enemies are all around me and they're all beating their shields and they're all making faces and insulting, shouting insults about how they're going to cut me, how many pieces they're going to cut me into, what you do is you set this table before me and I'm sitting down there ready to eat. I don't lose my appetite when things are going wrong. It doesn't you know, they're out there ready. They're gnashing their teeth and I'm going excuse me one moment. We're gonna eat here Thank you. We're just gonna have a good time while y'all are out there acting like nuts So we're gonna do this and you show to the world. We're not intimidated by you You can't cause us to lose our appetite because we have we have a Lord that does not change and he has given us a future that cannot be taken away from us and we're gonna eat and every day and celebrate even when the enemies are knocking at the windows. It doesn't matter. This is time to celebrate day by day. The man who can eat in the presence of his enemies is a confident man. And if you want to see influence, look at what happens to the enemies of that guy. They won't be able to stand against him. The Lord is on my side, the psalmist says, I will not fear. What can man do to me? Those are the kinds of things that we gotta get in our hearts and heads and put them in our children's hearts and heads. That's why the writer of Ecclesiastes, the refrain of eat, drink, and be merry, that's not the motto of the party animal, that's the motto of the Christian. eat, drink, and be merry because God has ordained that everything is going to work out for good. Feasting is a sign of great blessing. And then, fifthly, we must work to cultivate intimacy with our children. What does this involve? Well, of course, it involves spending time with them. And I'm not speaking of quality time. Quality time is, I'm afraid, a modern fiction designed to relieve the guilt of modern parents for not caring about their children. They don't care about them, don't care about spending time with them, so they feel like it's important to spend 15 minutes before they fall asleep at night. And they call that, oh, I keep quality time with my children. Okay, no, that's not quality time. Quality time is living with them, playing with them, singing, laughing, rejoicing, and sorrowing with them, so that you can show your sympathy and your delight in them. You want to rejoice with them in their successes, sorrow with them in their disappointments. And this is what we are commanded to do in the body of Christ. We learn how to do it there, we learn how to do it, and we can do it at home. It must not be forgotten in our families. This is vital if our counsels and our exhortations and our rebukes are going to be heard seriously and taken and received. I can't rebuke my son if he doesn't understand I'm just as hurt over his disappointment as he is. And I'm sorry he didn't get that or do or accomplish what he was seeking to do. Yeah, he's got to know that I'm there with him in his disappointments as well as in his joys and sorrows. We have to talk together. And especially when they get older as teenagers and they have all these pressures and all these crazy questions are coming up. And you know what it's like. Don't act like they're not going through it. Sit them down and say, hey, what crazy things are happening with you? Tell me the crazy stuff. This is the time to follow the example of the father in Proverbs. Let me just read you, I can't let the time run out without reading you some of Robert Capon's book. Do you know Robert Capon? The book Bed and Board is absolutely, if not the best book ever written on marriage, it's up there with the top ones. But he has some really wonderful counsel about building relationships with your children. Let me just read some things here. You'll like it. Fathers, he says, what are you to do? He says, be their teacher. Expect a lot from them. Avoid, of course, the mistake of demanding they learn things you don't give a hang about. But if you honestly are wild about math or letters or music or shop work, give them both barrels and make them sit still for it. They aren't going to see that many people who care. It would be nice if their father was one of them. It would be something to hold in their hands all their lives. But dad, he really loved this. He loved it. And he imparted that love to me. Be their lover, he says. Give yourself your humor, your small talk, and the minor affections of your hands and eyes. Don't keep it all. The solemn now lets you and daddy talk about your report card vein. Give them the best of your offhand style. Let your sons grow up learning what a man who acts out his caring looks like. Let your daughters learn what it's like to have a man around who works at quickening their response. It might just pay off in a decent son-in-law. Be a just judge, she says. Children can stand vast amounts of sternness. They rather expect to be wrong and they are quite used to being punished. It's injustice and inequity and inconsistency that kills them. It's precisely the sight of injustice that triggers anger, and it is precisely the helpless rage of inferiors that takes the heart out of them and produces most of the cynics, skeptics, and smart-alecks in the world. delight in them openly, speak your praise to them, look at them with the widest eyes you can imagine, and don't be ashamed to be seen to wonder. You will not see their like again. What a shame if they should leave ever knowing that they had been, without ever knowing, they had been beheld and offered up by an astonished heart." Capon goes on to say, we should say yes as often as possible. Isn't that an interesting point? Children should be encouraged, he says, to develop their youthful sense of wonder and adventure. Foolishness has to be driven out, but Jesus obviously thought some aspects of childhood should be permanent features of the Christian life. Saying yes as often as you can is a way of doing that. That was very helpful to me. My middle name is No, you know. Dad, can I? No. Well, you hadn't heard me. I don't care. No. That's what I said. This was helpful because, yeah, I want to be able to say yes as much as possible. Can't say yes to everything. And listen to the counsel for mothers. To be a mother is to be the sacrament, the effective symbol of place. Mothers do not make homes, they are our home. In the simple sense that we begin our days by a long sojourn within the body of a woman. In the extended sense that she remains our center of gravity throughout the years. She is the very diagram of belonging. The wear in whose vicinity we are fed and watered and have our wounds bound up and our noses wiped. She is geography incarnate. The mother is the geographical center of the family, the body out of whom their diversity springs, the neighborhood in which that diversity begins ever so awkwardly to dance its way back to the true body, which is the mother of us all. Her role is then precisely to be there for them, not necessarily over there, but there, thereness itself, if you will. Not necessarily in her place, but place itself to them. Not necessarily at home, but home itself. But remember, you're a landmark. You are and remain the bodily link with our origin. You're not only a link with something, you are the thing itself. You are the sacrament, the instrument by which we learn to love the things that are. Your body is the first object any child or man ever wanted. Therefore, dispose yourself to be loved, to be wanted, to be available, to be there for them with a vengeance. Be a gracious, bending woman. Incline your ear, your heart, your hands to them. Be found warm and comfortable and disposed to affection. And then he closes with these words that Wendy really loves. Children love fat mothers. They like them because while any mother is a diagram of place, a picture of home, a fat one is a clearer diagram and a greater sacrament. She is more there. I can think of no better wish to all the slender swans of this present age than to propose to them a toast. May your husbands find you as slim as they like, but may your children always remember you were fat. Of course, understand what he means there. I mean, he's not saying you need to weigh 400 pounds. He's saying, look, he's using the word fat biblically, which means generosity, fullness, blessedness. Most women are far too lean. when it comes to that. They're too self-centered to be fat. So, yeah, stay in shape, but get fat. Get fat to your children. Amen, amen to these things. That is incredible counsel, words of the wise. So take them. These are the indispensable ingredients to create an environment of covenant faithfulness. We want our children to be ready for marriage. Make a home like this. And you don't have to worry about making them listen to these seminars or making them read that stack of books. Just live like this. And yeah, if you've got a good book, read it to them. If you've got some lectures, well, OK, listen to them together. That's all fine. But live. Live like this. And when you live like this, the children learn how to be wise, they learn how to be faithful, and if somebody took them aside and said, now I want to know, what did your parents do for you? They'll just sit there and go, well, hmm, that's a good question. I'm not sure what they did. And everybody will think you're a terrible parent, but that's all right. Because what you did was you lived. with them and for them. And they learned how to live by living with you. We gotta live. And when you're there in your neighborhood, live. Just live. Just be normal. Live, enjoy your days. And when you see your neighbors, talk to them and greet them. Ask them how things are going. Live. And things, amazing things, come out of it. So our children will grow up secure in who they are. They'll be, they'll understand how bad poison is and stay away from it, but they'll care about the world and they'll want to get in there with it and seek to glorify it by the power of Christ and the blessing of the spirit. They'll want to cultivate a beautiful, the beautiful and the true. If your home is a place of celebration, they're going to be hospitable too. You be faithful to love and nurture and they will grow up as lovers of the world. Lovers in the proper way, caring about the world and seeing it transform. Let us be done with the unfruitful works of darkness as Paul exhorts us. And let us build, learn to live in this environment so that our children can be trees of life for the world. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we beg you to hear us and help us. Father, we need wisdom and strength. We need to repent sometimes and we need to have better ideas about what we need to change. Help us to see how to change our homes and to alter them in ways that would be more pleasing to you and more helpful to our children and more helpful to our neighbors and our neighborhood and our town. and the congregations in which we live. Help us, oh Lord, to be fountains of life, trees of life, wells of living water to those around us so that we can see your kingdom advance and your will being done throughout all our days. For Jesus' sake, amen.