The Key to Raising Faithful Children | Part 1
Reflecting on Joshua 24:15, which calls for a commitment to serve the Lord within the family unit, parents are reminded of the responsibility to cultivate an environment where faith can flourish. This episode examines the essential practice of family worship, highlighting its critical role in passing on a robust faith to future generations. Practical guidance is shared to help parents understand how to engage in both intentional and casual worship practices.
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Transcript
Welcome to the Fortifying youg Family podcast.
Host:It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.
Host:Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.
Host:And now, here's this week's teaching from Sam Wood.
Sam Wood:Well, I want to read a scripture this morning that along with John 3:16, is one of the most, we might say, one of the most popular or most famous verses in the Bible.
Sam Wood:I see it framed on many homes, on the walls of many homes.
Sam Wood:It adorns the doors of many homes.
Sam Wood:It adorns over the door of many homes.
Sam Wood:And you might be able to guess what verse I'm talking about this morning.
Sam Wood:And that verse is Joshua, chapter 24 and verse 15.
Sam Wood:So I want you to turn there with me this morning, if you would, to Joshua, chapter 24 and verse 15.
Sam Wood:And as you're turning there, I just want to remind you of the context or the setting of this verse.
Sam Wood:We see in the beginning of chapter 24 that Joshua has gathered all the tribes of Israel together and called all the elders of Israel together to present themselves before God.
Sam Wood:And through this chapter, he reminds them of some things.
Sam Wood:And the things that he reminds them of is how God has saved them.
Sam Wood:That's a wonderful thing to be reminded of.
Sam Wood:And how God has saved us.
Sam Wood:He reminds them of how God has miraculously saved them.
Sam Wood:He reminds them of how God has sustained them.
Sam Wood:And praise God that God did sustain them.
Sam Wood:And God is the one who sustains us.
Sam Wood:Every breath we take, every bite of food we have.
Sam Wood:We need not forget that God is the one who sustains us.
Sam Wood:So Joshua reminds all the tribes of Israel, God is the one who saved you.
Sam Wood:God is the one who sustains you.
Sam Wood:And then he says, God, because of that, has called you and sanctified you.
Sam Wood:He has set you apart to be holy unto him, and certainly as a church.
Sam Wood:He has saved us, he sustains us, and he has sanctified us.
Sam Wood:He has called us to be set apart unto Himself.
Sam Wood:And then we get down to this very, very famous passage of Scripture where Joshua is calling for a commitment, a commitment to God.
Sam Wood:And we see this in verse 15.
Sam Wood:And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.
Sam Wood:But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Sam Wood:George Bonner surveyed over a thousand couples who had raised young adults who had a robust faith and were actively committed to local churches.
Sam Wood:And when I read that first line, it got my attention.
Sam Wood:A thousand couples who had raised children that had left their home, that was still serving God in churches and had a robust faith in the local churches where they were serving, he says.
Sam Wood:What was their secret?
Sam Wood:Although Barna notes that fewer than 1 in 10 Christian families read the Bible together at least once a week, fewer than 1 in 10 these successful parents had routinely conducted family devotions, discussed how to apply the Bible to life's problems, and had formal times of worship and Bible study.
Sam Wood:He concludes with this sentence, formal family Bible study was a crucial key to their success.
Sam Wood:And I would have to say in my experience in family ministry now, this year, 25 years, I agree wholeheartedly with the findings of George Bona in this survey.
Sam Wood:I believe that the essential key to passing on a robust faith to your children for generations to come is to have formal family Bible study and formal worship Family worship in your home.
Sam Wood: t many people who have Joshua: Sam Wood:But actually, I believe it is.
Sam Wood:And at the end of this verse, the popular part of this verse, when Joshua says, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Sam Wood:The Hebrew word serve is a broad word that includes special and particular acts of worship, such as sacrifices, but it also very importantly, included daily reading of the word of God in their families and in their homes.
Sam Wood:And notice, he says, but as for me, and then he adds, and my house, he is saying that the practice of daily worship is not just for me, but it's also for my house or for my family and for every family in Israel.
Sam Wood:Joshua was convinced that if he had regular family worship in his home, that God would honor that for generations to come.
Sam Wood:And if you're still there in Joshua 24 and you look down at verse 31, we see that God did honor Israel's commitment to serve the Lord by practicing daily family worship in their homes.
Sam Wood:It says in verse 31 and Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua and which had known all the works of the Lord that he had done for Israel.
Sam Wood:The reason that Israel continued to serve the Lord in the generations that followed Joshua is because they knew the works.
Sam Wood:It says in verse 31 they knew the works of the Lord.
Sam Wood:But the question is, how do they know the works of the Lord?
Sam Wood:I believe they knew the works.
Sam Wood:And if you study this.
Sam Wood:They were intentionally passed on to them through congregational worship, certainly through worship in the as a congregation in Israel, but also and very importantly, through family worship, daily family worship in their homes.
Sam Wood:They were practicing what Asaph wrote in Psalm 78.
Sam Wood:Turn there with me for just a moment, Psalm 78, and look at verse one.
Sam Wood:They were practicing what it says here.
Sam Wood:He says in Psalm 78 and verse 1.
Sam Wood:Give ear, O my people, to my law.
Sam Wood:Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
Sam Wood:I will open my mouth in a parable.
Sam Wood:I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known.
Sam Wood:And our fathers have told us we will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done.
Sam Wood:For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children, that the generations to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children, that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments and might not be, as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright and whose spirit was not steadfast with God.
Sam Wood:I believe we see in Psalm 78 that God commanded fathers to show or tell the coming generation the praises of the Lord so that they would not follow the example of previous rebellious generations.
Sam Wood:Why?
Sam Wood:So that they would set their hope in God and they would not forget the works of God.
Sam Wood:So when would the fathers teach their children the praises we might ask and the glorious works of the Lord that he's talking about there?
Sam Wood:The passage speaks of a very intimate time when fathers would share these truths with their children in their homes.
Sam Wood:It speaks not only of congregational worship, but a time when fathers would have family worship within their own homes.
Sam Wood:Listen.
Sam Wood:The Bible gives clear evidence for the practice and importance of family worship as far back as Abraham.
Sam Wood:In fact, the Lord spoke to Abraham in Genesis chapter 18 and verse 17 and he said, shall I hide from Abraham the thing which I should do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.
Sam Wood:Then in verse 19 he says this very importantly, for I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken of him.
Sam Wood:God said, I'm not going to Hide from Abraham what I'm about to do in Sodom and Gomorrah.
Sam Wood:Because he knew that Abraham would command his children in his household after him, that they would keep the way of the Lord.
Sam Wood:Listen.
Sam Wood:The only way that Abraham could have commanded his children to keep the way of the Lord was to teach his children the things of God in his home or in his tent, we might say.
Sam Wood:In that day and time, in fact, Abraham had obviously taught Isaac and the rest of his family how to worship God and what it meant to worship God.
Sam Wood:Because when Abraham.
Sam Wood:You remember the familiar story when Abraham.
Sam Wood:Listen.
Sam Wood:When he took him to the mountain for the sacrifice and he took him up on the mountain, what did Isaac ask his?
Sam Wood:Dad, what did Isaac ask Abraham?
Sam Wood:It says in Genesis chapter 22 and verse 7 that he asked, behold the fire and the wood.
Sam Wood:Dad, I see the fire.
Sam Wood:Dad, I see the wood.
Sam Wood:You've got wood, you've got fire.
Sam Wood:But where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
Sam Wood:Where's the lamb at?
Sam Wood:Dad, think about this.
Sam Wood:How did Isaac know that they didn't have everything they needed for sacrifice to God?
Sam Wood:How did he know that Isaac knew these things?
Sam Wood:Because his father Abraham had taught him in his home what an acceptable sacrifice to God looked like.
Sam Wood:Either Isaac would have never asked that question.
Sam Wood:Abraham had taken time in family worship what it looked like in that day and time to teach his children the things of God.
Sam Wood:He taught Isaac what a sacrifice that was acceptable to God looked like.
Sam Wood:So Isaac says dat.
Sam Wood:Where's the Lamb?
Sam Wood:Isaac knew these things because Abraham had led his family and family worship.
Sam Wood:Listen, folks, what I'm trying to impress upon your hearts this morning is that family worship is crucial to passing on your faith to future generations in your family.
Sam Wood:The great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon passionately spoke about family worship with these words.
Sam Wood:Brethren, I wish it were more common.
Sam Wood:I wish it were more universal.
Sam Wood:We sometimes hear of children of Christian parents who do not grow up in the fear of God.
Sam Wood:And we're asked how it is that they turn out so badly.
Sam Wood:In many, very many cases.
Sam Wood:I fear there is such a neglect of family worship that it's not probable that the children are at all impressed by any piety or godliness supposedly to be possessed by their parents.
Sam Wood:He said, the reason I feel, Charles Spurgeon, great preacher of the Word of God, I feel so many children in Christian homes gone astray, have gone out in the world is because they are so unimpressed of the godliness of their parents because of their lack of having even family worship in their homes.
Sam Wood:Donald Whitney further states, I am persuaded from my own ministry experience in hundreds of churches that so little family worship, existing Christian homes today that even in most of our best churches, most of our best men do not even pray with their wives and children if they have them, much less lead them in 10 minutes or so of worship.
Sam Wood:As a family.
Sam Wood:It's vitally important to have your family in a Christ centered, in a gospel preaching, gospel centered church that worships God through singing and the preaching of the word of God.
Sam Wood:That's vitally crucial.
Sam Wood:But let me say here this morning, that is not enough.
Sam Wood:That's not enough.
Sam Wood:I believe that family worship, listen.
Sam Wood:Is a key element that has been missing in our homes for many decades in America.
Sam Wood:And I believe it's one of the key reasons that we're experiencing the problems and the mess that we're seeing in families.
Sam Wood:We're seeing in our churches.
Sam Wood:Listen.
Sam Wood:And we're seeing in our nation today.
Sam Wood:Now, listen, some of you are saying, okay, I'm convinced it sounds like that we should be having family worship.
Sam Wood:But I've never seen that happen.
Sam Wood:I don't even know what that looks like.
Sam Wood:Well, I'm proving my point here this morning.
Sam Wood:I grew up in a home, and I may have said this before.
Sam Wood:I'm the youngest of eight children.
Sam Wood:I wish, I really wish with all my heart that I could have seen my dad pull out a Bible and read the word of God with us as children and let each one of us read the word of God with them and to have a time of prayer together, to have family worship in our home.
Sam Wood:I wish I knew what that looked like because I saw it in my home when I grew up.
Sam Wood:But I did not see that.
Sam Wood:And probably the majority of you did not see that in your homes either.
Sam Wood:And so we might say, well, you're asking me to do something I don't know how to do.
Sam Wood:You're asking me to do something I've never seen practiced in my home.
Sam Wood:What does family worship then look like?
Sam Wood:Or how do I get started in having family worship in our homes?
Sam Wood:Well, God doesn't leave us guessing about that because he gives us some very insightful instruction about what family worship should look like in our homes.
Sam Wood:In Deuteronomy chapter 6, I want you to return there with me.
Sam Wood:Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 7, very familiar verse.
Sam Wood:But I want to take a few minutes and expound on it here this morning on this very, very important subject and crucial subject of family worship.
Sam Wood:Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 7, and here God is speaking to parents and talking about and reminding parents how to pass on their faith to their children and their children's children.
Sam Wood:And he says this in verse seven.
Sam Wood:And thou shalt teach them diligently speaking to parents unto thy children, and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Sam Wood:Now, again, I remind you that God is talking to parents about how to pass on their faith to their children.
Sam Wood:He is instructing parents to have family worship with their children in two very important ways.
Sam Wood:As I look and see that this verse we might call the first way, and I like to call the first way formal family worship or intentional family worship.
Sam Wood:And the second way we might call casual family worship.
Sam Wood:So I want to take a few minutes and look at these here this morning.
Sam Wood:So let's look firstly at intentional or formal family worship.
Sam Wood:We see that in the first part of verse seven.
Sam Wood:And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children.
Sam Wood:Now, them there is talking about the principle and the precepts of the Word of God, the truths of the word of God, what God has done, and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house.
Sam Wood:Now, as I said earlier, most of us have never seen what it says in this verse that it's commanding us to do in our homes or practice in our homes.
Sam Wood:However, intentional family worship was practiced.
Sam Wood:Listen.
Sam Wood:It was practiced in most Christian homes up to about 100 years ago, even in America.
Sam Wood:For example, Matthew Henry says, turn your families into little churches.
Sam Wood:If, therefore, our houses be houses of the Lord, we shall for that reason love home reckoning, our daily devotion, the sweetest of our daily delights, and our family worship, the most valuable of our family comforts.
Sam Wood:A church in the house will be a good legacy.
Sam Wood:Nay, it will be a good inheritance to be left to your children after you.
Sam Wood:And he adds here, the reformation, the spiritual reformation begins.
Sam Wood:Charles Spurgeon again adds to this.
Sam Wood:He says, if we want to bring up a godly family, who shall be a seed to serve God when our heads are under the clods of the valley, let us seek to train them up in the fear of the Lord by meeting together as a family in worship.
Sam Wood:And I could go on for another 30 minutes and I could give you quote after quote after quote about great men of God, men that you've heard of, that exhort us continually about the importance of family worship and having family worship in our homes.
Sam Wood:But we might ask the Question again, what does that look like?
Sam Wood:What are the elements that were practiced that we should practice to have this formal or intentional family worship?
Sam Wood:Lyman Coleman, a scholar of early church history, writes about the family worship practices of the Christians in the decades immediately following the New Testament times.
Sam Wood:He says this at an early hour in the morning, the family was assembled and a portion of Scripture was read from the Old Testament, which was followed by a hymn and a prayer.
Sam Wood:In the evening before retiring to rest, the family again assembled and the same form of worship was observed was observed in the morning.
Sam Wood:So he is saying that the earliest record of Christian family worship describes a pattern of reading Scripture, praying together, and singing praises to God in your home.
Sam Wood:Or we might say the elements of intentional family worship are scripture supplication, singing that simple scripture supplication and singing.
Sam Wood:So I just want to take a minute and look at each one of these.
Sam Wood:First one is scripture.
Sam Wood:Deuteronomy 6:7 says, Teach them diligently.
Sam Wood:Parents, teach your children diligently.
Sam Wood:The word diligently means to engrave upon or to impress upon their heart.
Sam Wood:What are we to engrave upon or impress upon our children's heart?
Sam Wood:We're to engrave and impress upon their children's heart the Word of God, the truths of the Word of God.
Sam Wood:This isn't talking about just a brief mention of Scripture or brief talk about Scripture, but it speaks of purposeful or intentional instruction that flows from the passionate heart of a parent that yearns to have their children understand the truths of the word of God.
Sam Wood:And folks, listen, what this looks like in your home would depend upon the age of your children.
Sam Wood:Obviously, what this looks like will depend on how old your child is.
Sam Wood:In fact, for example, if you have a very small child, maybe 3, 4, 5 years old, then you might get something like the Jesus storybook Bible and read from that, where it has pictures and it has Scripture, and you read from that because they can relate to that.
Sam Wood:It's a good start for them.
Sam Wood:But as they get older, then you might start going through literally verses in the Bible and reading as a family, chapters and verses in the Bible, making it a goal that eventually you have read the whole Bible with your children and gone through every verse in the Bible with your children.
Sam Wood:That's if you say that's my goal from the time my child starts reading up to the time they're 18 years old, that's a reasonable goal.
Sam Wood:That's a lot of years to take time to do that and instruct them, certainly in the word of God.
Sam Wood:And parents Remember, the Bible is a living word, so we should read it.
Sam Wood:How enthusiastically we shouldn't read the Bible.
Sam Wood:Like we read a phone directory, that it's boring or something.
Sam Wood:We read it with enthusiasm.
Sam Wood:Realizing this is a life giving book, realizing that the greatest need of your child is a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Sam Wood:That's the absolute greatest need of every one of your children.
Sam Wood:It's absolute greatest need of every one of our grandchildren is that they have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Sam Wood:And we need to explain when we come upon words they don't understand what those words mean.
Sam Wood:We come upon verses they don't understand.
Sam Wood:We need to explain what those verses mean to them.
Sam Wood:And really the Hebrew, if you go back to the teaching and how the Jewish fathers did this, the Hebrew fathers did this, they did it through something called catechizing.
Sam Wood:The word catechize means to echo back.
Sam Wood:You've probably heard that term before.
Sam Wood:It involved the father reading the word of God to his children and then asking his children questions about what he just read and explained to them.
Sam Wood:The children would then echo back the answer to their father until they got it correct.
Sam Wood:This is how the Hebrew father would teach his children.
Sam Wood:He asked them questions, we teach them, ask them questions about what he taught.
Sam Wood:And he would continue to do that until they continue to echo back the right answers to those teachings.
Sam Wood:And I think about this little yellow book that we have sometimes on our book table, my first book of questions.
Sam Wood:And it's very simple questions.
Sam Wood:Who is God?
Sam Wood:You know, you know.
Sam Wood:And all these different questions that are very basic doctrinal questions that parents can take and ask their children.
Sam Wood:Let them echo back the answer so they learn at a young age the doctrine of God and what a wonderful thing that is.
Sam Wood:Now, if you don't, if you got, you say, I got a particular situation, my child's a certain age and you want advice on this, see Debbie or myself.
Sam Wood:After which we'd be glad to help you with that.
Sam Wood:So the first area is scripture.
Sam Wood:The second area is supplication.
Host:You have listened to the first part of a two part message by evangelist Sam Wood.
Host:Thank you for joining the Fortifying youg Family podcast.
Host:And if you feel encouraged by today's teaching, give us a follow so we can invite you back and share us on your socials so more marriages and families can be strengthened and fortified through the truths of God's word.
Host:Remember, fortifying your family starts with a strong belief in God's Word.
