Category: Family

Training Our Children in the Lord | Part 4

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Family, PracticalLeave a comment

Dominic

Today we had the joy of dedicating several babies and families at Sycamore Baptist Church, my family included. Here is what I shared with them regarding the “How To” of training your child in the Lord (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

(5) Be there for them

Moses’ commandments in Deuteronomy 7 assumes parents are there for their children. You can’t teach, train, counsel, or guide your children if you are gone all the time. We have to carve out time in our schedules for our kids. If we don’t, we will not accomplish God’s desire for our family. That’s because training our children involves time.

The money that you make, the fun you have, or the freedom you experience while away from your children is not more important than training your children in the Lord.

So we have to be there for our children in order to teach them. God’s desire that for your life and their life. God desire is not for you to be rich, for you to be successful, for you to get the corner office. God’s desire is for you to teach your children His word, which takes time.

(6) We have to pray and trust Jesus

I have only been at this for 5 months, but two of the most important things I have learned so far is that (1) I need to pray and (2) I need to trust Jesus.

As Camden gets older and your kids get older, I would only think that will become more and more important. So if we want to accomplish the task before us, we have to pray and trust Jesus to help us.

Questions for Reflection

  1. Do you set aside time during the week for your kids?
  2. Do you pray and trust Jesus to help you in the training process?

Resources

Post adapted from my sermon Training Our Children in the Lord 

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Training Our Children in the Lord | Part 3

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Family, PracticalLeave a comment

Dominic

Today we had the joy of dedicating several babies and families at Sycamore Baptist Church, my family included. Here is what I shared with them regarding the “How To” of training your child in the Lord (Part 1, Part 2).

(3) Keep God’s Word before our family

In Deuteronomy 6:8-9 Moses writes,

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. 

Moses doesn’t mean we are to literally bind God’s Word to our hands or head, or write them on our doors. Instead, he desires we continually keep God’s Word before ourselves and our family.

God’s Word can’t be some dusty old book in the corner we never pick up.

We can practically keep God’s Word before our families by reading it together, talking about it throughout the day, and making decisions based on God’s Word.

It is necessary we make the effort. In order to combat the cultural noise and win the battle for our kids hearts, we must constantly keep God’s Word before them.

(4) Teach them all our provisions come from God

Again Moses writes,

And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 

Moses tells them not to forget God when they go into the land, to remember everything they have is from the hand of God.

We need to remember and teach our kids that God is our Provider as well. They shouldn’t grow up with the idea that everything they have is by their hands because it’s not. Everything we have is given by the hand of God. We must use every opportunity to teach our children this truth.

Think about how often we would talk about God with our kids if we thanked Him for the things we have. Conversations could be sparked at dinner, when it rains, when we pay our bills, go to work, go fishing, lie down in our beds. It’s important we take those opportunities, so that we don’t forget why we have what we have.

Questions for Reflection

  1. How do you keep God’s Word before your family?
  2. How do you remind yourself and your family everything you have is from God?

Resources

Post adapted from my sermon Training Our Children in the Lord 

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Training Our Children in the Lord | Part 2

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Family, Practical2 Comments

Dominic

Today we had the joy of dedicating several babies and families at Sycamore Baptist Church, my family included. Here is what I shared with them regarding the “How To” of training your child in the Lord (Part 1).

(1) We have to be diligent and deliberate

In Deuteronomy 6:6-7 Moses writes,

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.

The image behind the word teach is that of an engraver carving an image in stone, which is a great image when it comes to parenting.

Masterpieces aren’t produced willy nilly. They start with a plan. An understanding of the final product. The positioning of the image on the stone. The tools and resources needed to complete the work. These things need to be in place first before the engraving process can begin.

Once started, the engraver must deliberately follow their plan and be diligent about their work. Engraving an image in stone doesn’t happen over night, it takes weeks, months, or even years.

Parents must do the same. They must have a plan. Know the endgame. Gather the necessary resources, and be deliberate and diligent in teaching their children.

Parents must take great care in working their plan out over the years.

(2) We have to see everything we do as an opportunity to teach our children

Parents must see everything they do as a teaching opportunity. Sitting down with our children a couple days a week to read through God’s Word is important and necessary, but that can’t be all we do.

Think about the engraver. What if he took a whack or two at the stone every couple of days? Do you think he would finish his project? It’s unlikely he would finish. What does he have to do to finish? He has to be at it all day.

Parents must do the same.

If they want to engrave God’s word on their children’s hearts, they must look for and take every opportunity to teach their children God’s Word.

In order to be at it all day, teaching times can’t always be planned. They must take place on the fly. As they are sitting around the house, walking by the way, lying down and rising up, parents must be ready to teach their children.

Questions for Reflection

  1. Do you have a plan to train your children?
  2. What resources are you using?
  3. Have you stuck to your plan over the years?
  4. What fruit have you seen from being deliberate and diligent?
  5. How do you take advantage of day to day activities to teach your children?

Resources

Post adapted from my sermon Training Our Children in the Lord 

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Training Our Children in the Lord | Part 1

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Family, Practical5 Comments

Dominic

Today we had the joy of dedicating several babies and families at Sycamore Baptist Church, my family included. Here is what I shared with them regarding the “How To” of training your child in the Lord.

It Starts With You

Training our children to know and obey God is an extension of our relationship with, obedience to, and knowledge of God. If we aren’t following God or obeying God, we have no hope of teaching our children to follow and obey God, which means it starts with us.

There are a few things we must do:

(1) We have to have a relationship with the One True God

In Deuteronomy 6:4 Moses writes,

The Lord our God, the Lord is One.

Essentially, Moses tells us the God of Israel is the One True God. There are no other gods. Everything else out there is a counterfeit god.

Before we can train our children, we have to know the One true God ourselves. We have to have a relationship with the God of the Bible. That’s because training our children is an extension of our relationship with God.

(2) We have to serve God with our whole being 

Moses tells us that in Deuteronomy 6:5. He writes,

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Moses means our entire lives, our whole being should be subject to God. We don’t hold anything back. God gets all of us. He directs everything we do. He directs the way we work. He directs our leisure activities. He determines our desires and what we want out of life. He determines everything we do, which means we must give Him more than just an hour on Sunday. We have to give Him our whole lives.

If we want to train our children, we have to be serving God with our whole being first. That’s because training our children is an extension of our obedience to God.

(3) We have to know God’s Word

If our whole life is to be directed by God’s Word, we have to know it. Moses makes that clear when he says,

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

To say God’s Word must be on our heart, is just another way of saying it should be on our minds constantly, or at the forefront of our mind. That is only possible if we are reading, meditating on, memorizing, and prioritizing God’s Word in our lives.

If we want God’s word to inform everything we do, if we want to have a biblical worldview, then we have to know it. But more than that, it has to be the grid we run everything through.

So we learn that in order to live by and teach our children God’s commandments, we have to know them. That’s because training our children is an extension of our knowledge of God and His Word.

Conclusion

These things have to be in our lives first, because training our children is an extension of our own relationship with, obedience to, and knowledge of God. It starts with us. If we are not doing these things, we can’t raise our children in the Lord.

Questions for Reflection

  1. How are you doing?
  2. Do you have a relationship with God?
  3. Do you live according to God’s commandments?
  4. Are you actively working toward learning more about God’s Word?

Resources

Post adapted from my sermon Training Our Children in the Lord 

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How I Plan To Train My Child

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Family, Leadership, Practical16 Comments

Casey and Camden

Introducing the newest addition to our family of two. Camden James was born April 20th at 9:16 pm. He weighted 7lbs 2oz. and was 19 1/4in. We have had a few sleepless nights, but I think we are getting the hang of it.

Train Him

Now that I have a son, the scriptural commands to train him in the Word is even more of a reality. Reading Proverbs and Deuteronomy you come across the following verses:

Proverbs 22:6 

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Deuteronomy 6:5-9

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, 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.

What’s the Plan?

I have given the “how of training” a bit of thought over the last nine months and even more so now that he is here. My wife and I have been collecting a few resources to assist us. While these do not encompass my entire plan, they are the part I want to share with you.

Resources

Over the last nine months we have had time to review these resources and we have found them all to be excellent. If you are looking for something to help you, check one of these out.

Question for Reflection

  1. What resources would you recommend?

Prepare Your Children for Attacks on their Faith

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Family, Practical3 Comments

Questionnaire

What is the best way for parents to prepare their children for the attacks on their faith they may face in college?

This question was posed to D.A. Carson in his latest interview with Table Talk Magazine. He provides several answers, but two in particular caught my attention.

He says first, 

The home should encourage vigorous Christian understanding. The most dangerous seedbed for intellectual rebellion is a home where faith is sentimental and even anti-intellectual, and where opponents are painted as ignorant knaves, because eventually our children discover that there are some really nice people who are atheists and agnostics, and they can present arguments in sophisticated, gentle, and persuasive fashion.

How do we work this out on a daily basis? 

We have to understand that our homes, not the church, is the first place our children should be exposed to studying Scripture. Yes, children need the church, just like we need the church to help us in our theological development. The church, however, should only act as a supplement for what our children are getting at home.

Families should be actively training their children. On a regular basis, they should talk through Scripture with their children, answering their questions, and even raising questions they may face at school, college, or in the work place.

Of course, this means parents must be informed and studying Scripture themselves, in order to facilitate these discussions. While that may take some extra work, it is worth it if we want to see our children’s faith and knowledge deepened, as well as if we want to obey God’s command in Deuteronomy 6:7.

The second of Carson’s answers that caught my attention is the following:

At the same time, both the home and the church should be living out a Christian faith that is more than intellectually rigorous. It should be striving for biblically-faithful authenticity across the board: genuine love for God and neighbor, living with eternity in view, quickness to confess sin and seek reconciliation, a concern for the lost and the broken, faithfulness in praise and intercessory prayer, a transparent delight in holiness, and a contagious joy in God. Even if our children are sucked into intellectual nihilism for a while, over the long haul it is important that they remember what biblically-faithful Christianity looks like in the home and in the church.

Our faith, then, cannot remain solely in the intellectual. Instead, our faith must impact our daily life, affecting our emotions, prayers, confessions, outlook, and even how we interact with others. Intellectual rigor doesn’t have to mean cold dead orthodoxy. On the contrary, intellectual rigor should produce a vibrant, living, and acting faith (James 2:14-26).

When our children see our faith lived out in our homes on a daily basis, they will understand our beliefs have an impact on our lives. As Carson points out, this doesn’t mean they will not question their faith, but it does mean they have a concrete example of what faith produces in the life of a real believer to look to in those times of questioning. Hopefully, the example we set will prove Christianity is genuine.

Questions for Reflection

  1. Do you see the church or the home as the primary vehicle to train your children?
  2. Do you allow your faith to impact your life?
  3. Would someone know their was something different about you by the way you live?

Resources

Christ and the Academy: An Interview with D.A. Carson

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